"Would you not pray at all then?" asked Bonpre.
"Yes—for others, not for ourselves! And then not as the Church prays.Her form of service is direct disobedience!"
"In what way?"
"Monseigneur, I always preface my remarks on these subjects with the words 'IF we believe in Christ.' I say IF we believe, we must accept His commands; and they are plain enough. 'WHEN YE PRAY, USE NOT VAIN REPETITIONS AS THE HEATHEN DO, FOR THEY THINK THEY SHALL BE HEARD FOR THEIR MUCH SPEAKING. BE NOT YE THEREFORE LIKE UNTO THEM, FOR YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF BEFORE YE ASK HIM.' Now if this is to be understood as the command of Christ, the Messenger of God, do we not deliberately act against it in all directions? Vain repetitions! The Church is full of them,—choked with them! The priests who order us to say ten or twenty 'Paternosters' by way of penance, are telling us to do exactly what Christ commanded us not to do! The terrible Litany of the Protestant Church, with its everlasting 'Good Lord deliver us,' is another example of vain repetition. Again—think of these words—'When thou prayest, thou shalt NOT BE AS THE HYPOCRITES ARE, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and at the corners of the streets THAT THEY MAY BE SEEN OF MEN.' Is not all our churchgoing that we may be seen of men?"
"Then, my son, it seems that you would do away with the Church altogether in the extremity of your zeal!" said the Cardinal gently, "There must surely be some outward seeming—some city set on a hill whose light cannot be hid—some visible sign of Christ among us—"
"True, Monseigneur, but such a sign must be of so brilliant and pure a nature,—so grand an uplifted Cross of unsullied light that it shall be as the sun rising out of darkness! Oh, I would have churches built gloriously, with every possible line of beauty and curve of perfect architecture in their fabrication;—but I would have no idolatrous emblems,—no superstitious ceremonies within them,—no tawdry reliquaries of gems—no boast of the world's wealth at all; but great Art,—the result of man's great Thought rendered and given with pure simplicity! I would have great music,—and more than all I would have thanksgiving always! And if valuables were brought to the altar for gifts, the gifts should be given out again to those in need-not kept,—not left untouched like a miser's useless hoard, while one poor soul was starving!"
"My son, such a scheme of purification as yours will take centuries to accomplish," murmured Bonpre slowly, "Almost it would need Christ to come again!"
"And who shall say He will not come!" exclaimed Cyrillon fervently, "Who shall swear He is not even now among us! Has he not told us all to 'watch,' because we know not the hour at which He cometh? No, Monseigneur!—centuries are not needed for Truth to make itself manifest nowadays! We hold Science by the hand,—she is becoming our familiar friend and companion, and through her guidance we have learned that the Laws of the Universe are Truth,—Truth which cannot be contradicted; and that only the things which move and work in harmony with those laws can last. All else must perish! 'WHOSOEVER IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME'—or in other words, whosoever opposes himself to Eternal Laws must be against the whole system of the Universe. and is therefore a discord which is bound to be silenced. Monseigneur, Christ was a Divine Preacher of Truth;—and I, in my humble man's way endeavour to follow Truth. And if I ever fail now, after to-day's attempted crime, to honour the commands of Christ, and obey them as closely as I can, then pass your condemnation upon me, but not till then! Meanwhile, give me a good man's blessing!"
Deeply interested as he was, the Cardinal nevertheless still hesitated. To him, though the sayings and opinions of the famous "Gys Grandit" were not exactly new, there was something terrible in hearing him utter them with such bold and trenchant meaning. He sighed, and appeared lost in thought; till Manuel touched him gently on the arm.
"Dear friend, are you afraid to bless this man who loves our Father?"
"Afraid? My child, I am afraid of nothing—but there is grave trouble in my heart—"
"Nay, trouble should never enter there!" said Manuel softly, "Stretch out your hand!—let no human soul wait for a benediction!"
Profoundly moved, the Cardinal obeyed, and laid his white trembling hand on Cyrillon's bent head.
"May God forgive thee the intention of thy sin today!" he said, in a low and solemn tone—"May Christ guide thee out of all evil, and lead thee through the wildness of the world to Heaven's own peace, which passeth understanding!"
So gentle, so brave, so sweet and tender were the accents in which he spoke these few simple works, that the tears filled Angela's eyes, and Abbe Vergniaud, resting his head on one hand, felt a strange contraction in his throat, and began to think of possible happy days yet to be passed perchance in seclusion with this long-denied son of his, who had sprung out of the secret ways of love, first to slay and then to redeem him. Could there be a more plain and exact measuring out of law? If he had not confessed his sin he would have probably died in it suddenly without a chance of amendment or repentance—but lo!—on confession, his life had been saved as if by a miracle, and the very result of evil had been transformed into consolation! So he sat absorbed, wondering—musing—and while the Cardinal spoke his blessing with closed eyes, all heads were bent, and faces hidden. And in the reverent silence that followed, the gentle prelate gave a sign of kind dismissal and farewell to all, which they, understanding, accepted, and at once made their brief adieuxthe Abbe Vergniaud only lingering a moment longer than the rest, to bend humbly down and kiss his Apostolic ring. Then they left him, alone with Manual.
On their way out of the house, through Angela's studio, the PrincesseD'Agramont paused for a few minutes to say further kind words to theAbbe respecting the invitation she had given him to her Chateau—, andwhile she was thus engaged, Angela turned hurriedly to Cyrillon.
"As 'Gys Grandit' you receive many letters from strangers, do you not?"
The young man regarded her earnestly, with unconcealed admiration glowing in his fine eyes.
"Assuredly, Mademoiselle! And some of these letters are very dear to me, because they make me aware of friends I might otherwise never have known."
"You have one correspondent who is deeply interested in your theories, and who sympathises keenly in all your religious views—" she went on, lowering her eyes—"a certain Madame Angele—"
He uttered a quick exclamation of pleasure.
"You know her?"
She looked up,—her eyes sparkled—and she laid a finger on her lips.
"Keep my secret!" she said—"I am so glad to meet you personally at last!"
He stared, bewildered.
"You—you . . . !"
"Yes. I!" and she smiled—"The mysterious and Christian-Democratic 'Angele' is Angela Sovrani. So you see we have been unconscious friends for some time!"
His face grew radiant, and he made a quick movement towards her.
"Then I owe you a great debt of gratitude!" he said—"For encouragement—for sympathy—for help in dark hours!—and how unworthy I have proved of your goodness . . . what must you think of me—you—so beautiful—so good—"
She moved back a little with a warning gesture—and his words were interrupted by the Abbe, who glancing from one to the other in a little surprise, said, as he bent reverently over her hand and kissed it,—
"We must be going, Cyrillon!"
Another few moments and Angela was left alone to think over, and try to realise the strange and rapidly-occurring events of the day. Whatever her thoughts were they seemed for a long time to be of a somewhat April-like character, for her eyes brimmed over with tears even while she smiled.
In one of the few remaining streets of Rome which the vandal hand of the modern builder and restorer has not meddled with, stands the "Casa D'Angeli", a sixteenth-century building fronted with wonderfully carved and widely projecting balconies—each balcony more or less different in design, yet forming altogether in their entirety the effect of complete sculptural harmony. The central one looks more like a cathedral shrine than the embrasure of a window, for above it angels' heads look out from the enfolding curves of their own tall wings, and a huge shield which might serve as a copy of that which Elaine kept bright for Lancelot, is poised between, bearing a lily, a cross, and a heart engraven in its quarterings. Here, leaning far forward to watch the intense gold of the Roman moon strike brightness and shadow out of the dark uplifted pinions of her winged stone guardians, stood Sylvie Hermenstein, who, in her delicate white attire, with the moonbeams resting like a halo on her soft hair, might have easily passed for some favoured saint whom the sculptured angels were protecting. And yet she was only one whom the world called "a frivolous woman of society, who lived on the admiration of men". So little did they know her,—so little indeed does the world know about any of us. It was true that Sylvie, rich, lovely, independent, and therefore indifferent to opinions, lived her own life very much according to her own ideas,—but then those ideas were far more simple and unworldly than anybody gave her credit for. She to whom all the courts of Europe were open, preferred to wander in the woods alone, reading some favourite book, to almost any other pleasure,—and as for the admiration which she won by a look or turn of her head wherever she went, nothing in all the world so utterly bored her as this influence of her own charm. For she had tried men and found them wanting. With all the pent-up passion of her woman's soul she longed to be loved,—but what she understood by love was a much purer and more exalted emotion than is common among men and women. She was suffering just now from an intense and overpowering ennui. Rome was beautiful, she averred, but dull. Stretching her fair white arms out over the impervious stone-angels she said this, and more than this, to someone within the room, who answered her in one of the most delightfully toned voices in the world—a voice that charmed the ear by its first cadences, and left the listener fascinated into believing that its music was the expression of a perfectly harmonious mind.
"You seem very discontented," said the voice, speaking in English, "But really your pathway is one of roses!"
"You think so?" and Sylvie turned her head quickly round and looked at her companion, a handsome little man of some thirty-five years of age, who stretching himself lazily full length in an arm-chair was toying with the silky ears of an exceedingly minute Japanese spaniel, Sylvie's great pet and constant companion. "Oh, mon Dieu! You, artist and idealist though you are—or shall I say as you are supposed to be," and she laughed a little, "you are like all the rest of your sex! Just because you see a woman able to smile and make herself agreeable to her friends, and wear pretty clothes, and exchange all the bon mots of badinage and every-day flirtation, you imagine it impossible for her to have any sorrow!"
"There is only one sorrow possible to a woman," replied the gentleman, who was no other than Florian Varillo, the ideal of Angela Sovrani's life, smiling as he spoke with a look in his eyes which conveyed an almost amorous meaning.
Sylvie left the balcony abruptly, and swept back into the room, looking a charming figure of sylph-like slenderness and elegance in her clinging gown of soft white satin showered over with lace and pearls.
"Only one sorrow!" she echoed, "And that is—?"
"Inability to win love, or to awaken desire!" replied Varillo, still smiling.
The pretty Comtesse raised her golden head a little more proudly, with the air of a lily lifting itself to the light on its stem—her deep blue eyes flashed.
"I certainly cannot complain on that score!" she said, with a touch of malice as well as coldness—"But the fact that men lose their heads about me does not make me in the least happy."
"It should do so!" and Varillo set the little Japanese dog carefully down on the floor, whereupon it ran straight to its mistress, uttering tiny cries of joy, "There is no sweeter triumph for a woman than to see men subjugated by her smile, and intimidated by her frown;—to watch them burning themselves like moths in her clear flame, and dying at her feet for love of her! The woman who can do these things is gifted with the charm which makes or ruins life,—few can resist her,—she draws sensitive souls as a magnet draws the needle,—and the odd part of it all is that she need not have any heart herself—she need not feel one pulse of the passion with which she inspires others—indeed it is better that she should not. The less she is moved herself, the greater is her fascination. Love clamours far more incessantly and passionately at a closed gate than an open one!"
Sylvie was silent for a minute or two looking at him with something of doubt and disdain. The room they were in was one of those wide and lofty apartments which in old days might have been used for a prince's audience chamber, or a dining hall for the revelry of the golden youth of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life—and on the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and comfortless to a degree,—but the Comtesse Sylvie's wealth, combined with her good taste, had filled it with things that made it homelike as well as beautiful. The thickest velvet pile carpets laid over the thickest of folded mattings, covered the marble floors, and deprived them of their usual chill,—great logs of wood burned cheerfully in the wide chimney, and flowers, in every sort of quaint vase or bowl, made bright with colour and blossom all dark and gloomy corners, and softened every touch of melancholy away. A grand piano stood open,—a mandoline tied with bright ribbons, lay on a little table near a cluster of roses and violets,—books, music, drawings, bits of old drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all sharp corners and forbidding angles,—and where the frescoes on the wall were too damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine old Flemish tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the exquisite clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was the brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,—and Florian Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised underglance of admiration which is a trick common to Italians, and which some women accept as a compliment and others resent as an insult.
"Do you not agree with me?" he said persuasively, with a smile which showed his fine and even teeth to perfection, "When the chase is over the hunters go home tired! What a man cannot have, that very thing is what he tries most to obtain!"
"You speak from experience, I suppose," said Sylvie, moving slowly across the room towards the fire, and caressing her little dog which she held nestled under her rounded chin like a ball of silk, "And yet you, more than most men, have everything you can want in this world—but I suppose you are not satisfied—not even with Angela!"
"Angela is a dear little woman!" said Florian, with an air of emotional condescension, "The dearest little woman in the world! And she is really clever."
"Clever!" echoed Sylvie, "Is that all?"
"Cara Contessa, is not that enough?"
"Angela is a genius," averred Sylvie, with warmth and energy, "a true genius!—a great,—a sublime artist!"
"Che Che!" and Varillo smiled, "How delightful it is to hear one woman praise another! Women are so often like cats spitting and hissing at each other, tearing at each other's clothes and reputations,—clothes even more than reputations,—that it is really quite beautiful to me to hear you admire my Angela! It is very generous of you!"
"Generous of me!" and the Comtesse Hermenstein looked him full in the eyes, "Why I think it an honour to know her—a privilege to touch her hand! All Europe admires her—she is one of the world's greatest artists."
"She paints wonderfully well,—for a woman," said Varillo lazily, "But there is so much in that phrase, cara Contessa, 'for a woman'. Your charming sex often succeeds in doing very clever and pretty things; but in a man they would not be considered surprising. You fairy creatures are not made for fame—but for love!"
The Comtesse glanced him up and down for a moment, then laughed musically.
"And for desertion, and neglect as well!" she said, "And sometimes for bestowing upon YOUR charming sex every fortune and every good blessing, and getting kicked for our pains! And sometimes it happens that we are permitted the amazing honour of toiling to keep you in food and clothing, while you jest at your clubs about the uselessness of woman's work in the world! Yes, I know! Have you seen Angela's great picture?"
Again Florian smiled.
"Great? No! I know that the dear little girl has fixed an enormous canvas up in her studio, and that she actually gets on a ladder to paint something upon it;—but it is always covered,—she does not wish me to see it till it is finished. She is like a child in some things, and I always humour her. I have not the least desire to look at her work till she herself is willing to show it to me. But in myself I am convinced she is trying to do too much—it is altogether too large an attempt."
"What are YOU doing?" asked Sylvie abruptly.
"Merely delicate trifles,—little mosaics of art!" said Varillo with languid satisfaction, "They may possibly please a connoisseur,—but they are quite small studies."
"You have the same model you had last year?" queried Sylvie.
Their eyes met, and Varillo shifted uneasily in his chair.
"The same," he replied curtly.
Again Sylvie laughed.
"Immaculate creature!" she murmured, "The noblest of her sex, of course! Men always call the women who pander to their vices 'noble'."
Varillo flushed an angry red.
"You are pleased to be sarcastic, fair lady." he said carelessly, "I do not understand—"
"No? You are not usually so dense with me, though to those who do not know you as well as I do, you sometimes appear to be the very stupidest of men! Now be frank!—tell me, is not Pon-Pon one of the 'noble' women?"
"She is a very good creature," averred Varillo gently, and with an air that was almost pious,—"She supports her family entirely on her earnings."
"How charming of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing to do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,—she 'supports' her family; but respectably! And just think!—if ever your right hand loses its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able to 'support' YOU!"
"Always Angela!" muttered Varillo, beginning to sulk, "Cannot you talk of something else?"
"No,—not for the moment! She is an interesting subject,—to ME! She will arrive in Rome to-morrow night, and her uncle Cardinal Bonpre, will be with her, and they will all stay at the Sovrani Palace, which seems to me like a bit of the Vatican and an old torture-chamber rolled into one! And, talking of this same excellent Cardinal, they have almost canonized him at the Vatican,—almost, but not quite."
"For what reason?"
"Oh, have you not heard? It appears he performed a miracle in Rouen, curing a child who had been a cripple ever since babyhood, and making him run about as well and strong as possible. One prayer did it, so it is said,—the news reached the Vatican some days ago; our charming Monsignor Gherardi told me of it. The secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen brought the news personally to the Holy Father."
"I do not believe it," said Varillo indifferently, "The days of miracles are past. And from what I know, and from what Angela has told me of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre, he would never lend himself to such nonsense."
"Well, I only tell you what is just now the talk at the Vatican," said Sylvie, "Your worthy uncle-in-law that is to be, may be Pope yet! Have you heard from Angela?"
"Every day. But she has said nothing about this miracle."
"Perhaps she does not know,"—and Sylvie began to yawn, and stretch her white arms above her head lazily, "Oh, DIO MIO! How terribly dull is Rome!"
"How long have you been here, Contessa?"
"Nearly a week! If I am not more amused I shall go away home toBudapest."
"But how is one to amuse you?" asked Varillo, sitting down beside her and endeavouring to take her hand. She drew it quickly from him.
"Not in that way!" she said scornfully, "Is it possible that you can be so conceited! A woman says she is dull and bored, and straightway the nearest man imagines his uncouth caresses will amuse her! TIENS TIENS! When will you understand that all women are not like Pon-Pon?"
Varillo drew back, chafed and sullen. His AMOUR PROPRE was wounded, and he began to feel exceedingly cross. The pretty laugh of Sylvie rang out like a little peal of bells.
"Suppose Angela knew that you wished to 'amuse' me in that particularly unamusing way?" she went on, "You—who, to her, are CHEVALIER SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE!"
"Angela is different to all other women," said Varillo quickly, with a kind of nervous irritation in his manner as he spoke, "and she has to be humoured accordingly. She is extremely fantastic—full of strange ideas and unnatural conceptions of life. Her temperament is studious and dreamy—self-absorbed too at times—and she is absolutely passionless. That is why she will make a model wife."
The Comtesse drew her breath quickly,—her blood began to tingle and her heart to beat—but she repressed these feelings and said,
"You mean that her passionless nature will be her safety in all temptation?"
"Exactly!" and Varillo, smiling, became good natured again—"For Angela to be untrue would be a grotesque impossibility! She has no idea of the stronger sentiment of love which strikes the heart like a lightning flash and consumes it. Her powers of affection are intellectually and evenly balanced,—and she could not be otherwise than faithful because her whole nature is opposed to infidelity. But it is not a nature which, being tempted, overcomes—inasmuch as there is no temptation which is attractive to her!"
"You think so?" and a sparkle of satire danced in Sylvie's bright eyes, "Really? And because she is self-respecting and proud, you would almost make her out to be sexless?—not a woman at all,—without heart?—without passion? Then you do not love her!"
"She is the dearest creature to me in all the world!" declared Florian, with emotional ardour, "There is no one at all like her! Even her beauty, which comes and goes with her mood, is to an artist's eye like mine, exquisite,—and more dazzling to the senses than the stereotyped calm of admitted perfection in form and feature. But, CARA CONTESSA, I am something of an analyst in character—and I know that the delicacy of Angela's charm lies in that extraordinary tranquillity of soul, which, (YOU suggested the word!) may indeed be almost termed sexless. She is purer than snow—and very much colder."
"You are fortunate to be the only man selected to melt that coldness," said Sylvie with a touch of disdain, "Myself, I think you make a great mistake in calling Angela passionless. She is all passion—and ardour—but it is kept down,—held firmly within bounds, and devoutly consecrated to you. Pardon me, if I say that you should be more grateful for the love and trust she gives you. You are not without rivals in the field."
Florian Varillo raised his eyebrows smilingly.
"Rivals? VERAMENTE! I am not aware of them!"
"No, I should say you had too good an opinion of yourself to imagine any rival possible!" said the Comtesse, "But such a person may exist!"
Varillo yawned, and flicked a grain of dust off his waistcoat with a fastidious thumb and finger.
"Impossible! No one could possibly fall in love with Angela now! She is an icicle,—no man save myself has the ghost of a chance with her!"
"Of course not," said Sylvie impatiently, "Because she is betrothed to you. But if things were not as they are—"
"It would make no difference, I assure you," laughed Varillo gaily, "Angela does not like men as a rule. She is fondest of romance—of dreams—of visions, out of which come the ideas for her pictures—"
"And she is quite passionless with all this, you think?" said Sylvie, "The 'stronger sentiment which strikes the heart like a flash of lightning, and consumes it', as you so poetically describe it—could never possibly disturb her peace?"
"I think not," replied Varillo, with a meditative air, "Angela and I glided into love like two children wandering by chance into a meadow full of flowers,—no storm struck us—no sudden danger signal flashed from our eyes—no trembling hurry of the blood bade us rush into each other's arms and cling!—nothing of this marvel touched us!—we loved with all the calm—but without the glory!"
His voice,—the most fascinating quality attached to his personality,—rose and fell in this little speech with an exquisite cadence, half sad, half sweet,—and Sylvie, impressionable creature as she was, with her innate love of romance and poetry, was unconsciously moved by it to a faint sigh. There was nothing to sigh for, really,—it was just a mere melodious noise of words, in the making of which Florian Varillo was an adept. He had not an atom of serious thought in his remark, any more than in the dainty verses he was wont to append to his pictures—verses which he turned out with the lightest and swiftest ease, and which read like his spoken sentences, as if there were a meaning in them, when truly there was none. But Sylvie was just then in a curious state of mind, and slight things easily impressed her. She was in love—and yet she was not in love. The handsome face and figure of the Marquis Fontenelle, together with many of his undoubted good and even fine qualities, attracted her and held her in thrall, much more than the consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,—but—and this was a very interfering "but" indeed,—she was reluctantly compelled to admit to herself that there was no glozing over the fact that he was an incorrigibly "fast", otherwise bad man. His life was a long record of LIAISONS with women,—an exact counterpart of the life of the famous actor Miraudin. And though there is a saying that a reformed rake makes the best husband, Sylvie was scarcely sure of being willing to try this test,—besides, the Marquis had not offered himself in that capacity, but only as a lover. In Paris,—within reach of him, surrounded by his gracious and graceful courtesies everywhere, the pretty and sensitive Comtesse had sometimes felt her courage oozing out at her finger's ends,—and the longing to be loved became so strong and overwhelming in her soul that she had felt she must perforce one day yield to her persistent admirer's amorous solicitations, come what would of it in the end. Her safety had been in flight; and here in Rome, she had found herself, like a long-tossed little ship, suddenly brought up to firm anchorage. The vast peace and melancholy grandeur of the slowly dying "Mother of Nations", enveloped her as with a sheltering cloak from the tempest of her own heart and senses, and being of an exquisitely refined and dainty nature in herself, she had, while employing her time in beautifying, furnishing and arranging her apartments in the casa D'Angeli, righted her mind, so to speak, and cleared it from the mists of illusion which had begun to envelop it, so that she could now think of Fontenelle quietly and with something of a tender compassion,—she could pray for him and wish him all things good,—but she could not be quite sure that she loved him. And this was well. For we should all be very sure indeed that we do love, before we crucify ourselves to the cross of sacrifice. Inasmuch as if the love in us be truly Love, we shall not feel the nails, we shall be unconscious of the blood that flows, and the thorns that prick and sting,—we shall but see the great light of Resurrection springing glorious out of death! But if we only THINK we love,—when our feeling is the mere attraction of the senses and the lighter impulses—then our crucifixion is in vain, and our death is death indeed. Some such thoughts as these had given Sylvie a new charm of manner since her arrival in Rome—she was less mirthful, but more sympathetic—less RIANTE, but infinitely prettier and more fascinating. Florian Varillo studied her appreciatively in this regard after he had uttered his little meaningless melody of sentiment, and thought within himself—"A week or two and I could completely conquer that woman!" He was mistaken—men who think these sort of things often are. But the thought satisfied him, and gave bold lustre to his eyes and brightness to his smile when he rose to take his leave. He had been one of the guests at a small and early dinner-party given by the Comtesse that evening,—and with the privilege of an old acquaintance, he had lingered thus long after all the others had gone to their respective homes.
"I will bid you now the felicissima notte, cara e bella contessa!" he said caressingly, raising her small white hand to his lips, and kissing it with a lingering pressure of what he considered a peculiarly becoming moustache—"When Angela arrives to-morrow night I shall be often at the Palazzo Sovrani—shall I see you there?"
"Of course you will see me there," replied Sylvie, a little impatiently, "Am I not one of Angela's closest friends?"
"True! And for the sake of la mia dolcezza, you will also be a friend to me?"
"'la mia dolcezza'", repeated Sylvie, "Is that what you call her?"
"Yes—but I fear it is not original!" said Varillo smiling, "OneAriosto called his lady thus."
"Yes?" and Sylvie's eyes darkened and grew humid with a sudden tenderness of thought, "It is a pretty phrase!"
"It should be used to YOU always, by every man who has my present privilege!" said Varillo, gallantly, kissing her hand once more, "You will be my friend?"
Sylvie disengaged her hand from his.
"You must not depend upon me, Signor," she said with sudden coldness, "To be perfectly frank with you I am not sure that I like you. You are very charming and very clever—but I doubt your sincerity."
"Ah, che sono infelice!" murmured varillo softly, "you are right, bellissima madama! I am not myself with many people—but with you—you are one of the few who understand me . . . I am the very soul of candour!"
He fixed his eyes full upon her with an open and straight regard, adding, "Can you doubt me?" in a touching tone of wounded feeling.
The Comtesse laughed, and her face flushed.
"Well, I do not know!" she said, with a light gesture of her hands as though she threw something unpleasant away from her, "I shall fudge of you by the happiness—or sorrow—of Angela!"
A slight frown contracted his brows—but it passed quickly, and the candid smile illumined his mobile face once more.
"Ebben! Buona notte, bela capricciosa!" and bowing low he turned towards the door, "Thank you a thousand times for a very happy evening! Even when you are unkind to me you are still charming! Addio!"
She murmured an "addio" in response, and when he had gone, and the echo of his footfall down the great marble stairs had completely died away, she went out once more to the balcony and leaned among the sculptured angels, a dainty, slender, white figure, with her soft flower-like face turned up to the solemn sky, where the large moon marched like an Amazon through space, attended by her legions and battalions of stars. So slight, so fragile and sweet a woman!—with a precious world of love pent up in her heart . . . yet alone—quite alone on this night of splendid luminousness and majestic suggestions of infinity,—an infinity so monstrous and solitary to the one delicate creature, whose whole soul craved for a perfect love. Alas, for this "perfect love," of which all the dearest women dream! Where shall they find it?—and how shall they win it? Too often it comes when they may not have it; the cup of nectar is offered to lips that are forbidden to drink of it, because the world's convention stands between and turns the honey to gall. One of the many vague problems of a future life, offered for our consideration, is the one concerning the righteous satisfaction of love. Will not those who have been bound fast as prisoners in the bonds of matrimony without love, find those whose spirits are naturally one with theirs, but whom they have somehow missed in this life? For Byron's fine lines are eternally true,—
"Few—none—find what they love or could have loved,—Though accident, blind contact, and the strongNecessity of loving, have removedAntipathies—but to recur ere longEnvenom'd with irrevocable wrong."
And the "blind contact" is the worst of all influences brought to bear upon the mind and heart,—the most pernicious, and the most deeply weighted with responsibility. In this regard, Sylvie Hermenstein had acted wisely by removing herself from association, or "blind contact" with her would-be lover,—and yet, though she was aware that her doing so had caused a certain dispersal of the atmosphere which almost veered towards complete disillusion, she found nevertheless, that Rome as she had said, was "dull"; her heart was empty, and longing for she knew not what. And that deep longing she felt could not have been completely gratified by the brief ardours of Fontenelle. And so she sat thinking wearily,—wondering what was to become of her life. She had riches in plenty, a fine estate and castle in Hungary,—servants at her beck and call—and yet with all her wealth and beauty and brilliancy, she felt that she was only loved by two persons in the world, her old butler, and Madame Bozier, who had been her first governess, and who now lived with her, as a sort of dame d'honneur surrounded with every comfort and luxury, and who certainly served her former pupil with a faithful worship that would not have changed, even if the direst poverty instead of riches had been the portion of her beloved patroness. This elderly lady it was who entered now with a soft and hesitating step, and raising her glasses to her eyes, peered anxiously through the lighted room towards the dark balcony where Sylvie stood, like a fairy fallen out of the moon, and who presently ventured to advance and call softly,
"Sylvie!"
The pretty Comtesse turned and smiled.
"Is it you, Katrine? Will you come out here? It is not cold, and there is a lace wrap on the chair,—put it round your dear old head and come and be romantic with me!" and she laughed as the worthy Bozier obeyed her, and came cautiously out among the angels' sculptured wings. "Ah, dear Katrine! The happy days are gone when a dark-eyed Roman lover would come strolling down a street like this to strike the chords of his mandoline, and sing the dear old song,
"'Ti voglio bene assai, E tu non pensi a me!'"
Without thinking about it, she sang this refrain suddenly in her sweet mezzo-soprano, every note ringing clear on the silence of the night, and as she did so a man of slim figure and medium height, stepped out of the dark shadows and looked up. His half laughing eyes, piercing in their regard, met the dreamy soft ones of the pretty woman sitting among the angels' heads above him—and pausing a moment he hesitated—then lifted his hat. His face was excessively delicate in outline and very pale, but a half mischievous smile softened and sweetened the firm lines of his mouth and chin, and as the moonbeams played caressingly on his close curling crop of fair hair, he looked different enough to most of the men in Rome to be considered singular as well as handsome. Sylvie, hidden as she was among the shadows, blushed and drew back, a little vexed with herself,—the worthy Madame Bozier was very properly scandalised.
"My dear child!" she murmured, "Remember—we are in Rome. People judge things so strangely! What an unfortunate error!—"
But Sylvie became suddenly unmanageable. Her love of coquetry and mischief got the better of her, and she thrust out her pretty head over the balcony once more.
"Be quiet, Katrine!" she whispered, "I was longing for a romance, and here is one!" And detaching a rose from her dress she tossed it lightly to the stranger below. He caught it—then looked up once more.
"Till we meet," he said softly in English,—and moving on among the shadows, disappeared.
"Now, who do you suppose HE was?" enquired Sylvie, leaning back against the edge of the balcony, with an arch glance at her gouvernante, "It was someone unlike anyone else here, I am sure! It was somebody with very bright eyes,—laughing eyes,—audacious eyes, because they laughed at me! They sparkled at me like stars on a frosty night! Katrine, have you ever been for a sleigh-ride in America? No, I did not take you there,—I forgot! You would have had the rheumatism, poor dear! Well, when you are in America during the winter, you go for rides over the snow in a big sleigh, with tinkling bells fastened to the horses, and you see the stars flash as you pass—like the eyes of that interesting gentleman just now. His face was like a cameo—I wonder who he is! I shall find out! I must do something desperate for Rome is so terribly dull! But I feel better now! I like that man's eyes. They are SUCH a contrast to the sleepy tiger eyes of the Marquis Fontenelle!"
"My dear Sylvie!" remonstrated Madame Bozier, "How can you run on in this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp for unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!"
"Oh no, not I," said Sylvie, shaking her head with a touch of half melancholy scorn, "I am not a 'professional' beauty! The Prince of Wales does not select me for his admiration,—hence it follows that I cannot possibly be an attraction in Europe. I have not the large frame, the large hands, and the still larger feet of the beautiful English ladies, who rule royal hearts and millionaires' pockets! Men scarcely notice me till they come to know me—and then, pouf!—away go their brains!—and they grovel at my small feet instead of the large ones of the English ladies!" She laughed. "Now how is that, Katrine?"
"C'est du charme—toujurs du charme!" murmured Madame Bozier, studying with a wistful affection the dainty lines of Sylvie's slight figure, "And that is an even more fatal gift than beauty, chere petite!"
"Du charme! You think that is it? Yes?—and so the men grow stupid and wild!—some want me, and some want my fortune—and some do not know what they want!—but one thing is certain, that they all quarrel together about me, and bore me to extinction!—Even the stranger with the bright stars of an American winter for eyes, might possibly bore me if I knew him!"
She gave a short sigh of complete dissatisfaction.
"To be loved, Katrine—really loved! What a delicious thing that would be! Have you ever felt it?"
The poor lady trembled a little, and gave a somewhat mournful smile.
"No, you dear romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older than myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and to be quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of me more than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!"—this, as Sylvie's pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, "And though it sounds as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor Monsieur Bozier! He was the drawing master at the school where I was assistant governess,—and he was very lonely; he wanted someone to attend to him when the gouty paroxysms came on, and he thought I should do as well, perhaps better than anyone else. And I—I had no time to think about myself at all, or to fall in love—I was very glad to be free of the school, and to have a home of my own. So I married him, and did my best to be a good nurse to him,—but he did not live long, poor man—you see he always would eat things that did not agree with him, and if he could not get them at home he went out and bought them on the sly. There was no romance there, my dear! And of course he died. And he left me nothing at all,—even our little home was sold up to pay our debts. Then I had to work again for my living,—and it was by answering an advertisement in the Times, which applied for an English governess to go to a family in Budapest, that I first came to know you."
"And that is all your history!" said Sylvie, "Poor dear Bozier! How uneventful!"
"Yes, it is," and the worthy lady sighed also, but hers, was a sigh of placid arid philosophical comfort. "Still, my dear, I am not at all sorry to be uninteresting! I have rather a terror of lives that arrange themselves into grand dramas, with terrible love affairs as the central motives."
"Have you? I have not!" said Sylvie thoughtfully,—"With all my heart I admire a 'grande passion.' Sometimes I think it is the only thing that makes history. One does not hear nearly so much of the feuds in which Dante was concerned, as of his love for Beatrice. It is always so, only few people are capable of the strength and patience and devotion needed for this great consummation of life. Now I—"
Madame Bozier smiled, and with tender fingers arranged one of the stray knots of pearls with which Sylvie's white gown was adorned.
"You dear child! You were made for sweetness and caresses,—not suffering . . ."
"You mistake!" said Sylvie, with sudden decision, "You, in your fondness for me, and because you have seen me grow up from childhood, sometimes still view me as a child, and think that I am best amused with frivolities, and have not the soul in me that would endure disaster. But for love's sake I would do anything—yes! . . . anything!"
"My child!"
"Yes," repeated Sylvie, her eyes darkening and lightening quickly in their own fascinating way, "I would consent to shock the stupid old world!—though one can scarcely ever shock it nowadays, because it has itself become so shocking! But then the man for whom I would sacrifice myself, must love ME as ardently as I would love HIM! That is the difficulty, Katrine. For men do not love—they only desire."
She raised her face to the sky, and the moonbeams shed a golden halo round her.
"That," she said slowly, "is the reason why I have come here to avoid the Marquis Fontenelle. He does not love me!"
"He is a villain!" said Madame Bozier with asperity.
"Helas! There are so many villains!" sighed Sylvie, still looking up at the brilliant heavens, "And sometimes if a villain really loves anybody he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself best of anyone in the world . . . and I—I do not intend to be second in anyone's affections! So . . ." she paused, "Do you see that star, Katrine? It is as bright as if it were shining on a frosty night in America. And do you not notice the resemblance to the eyes of the stranger who has my rose? I daresay he will put it under his pillow to-night, and dream!" She laughed,—"Let us go in!"
Madame Bozier followed her as she stepped back into the lighted salon, where she was suddenly met by her little Arab page, carrying a large cluster of exquisite red and white roses. A card was attached to the flowers, bearing the words, "These many unworthy blossoms in return for one beyond all worth."
The Comtesse read and passed it in silence to Madame Bozier. A smile was on her face, and a light in her eyes.
"I think Rome is not so dull after all!" she said, as she set the flowers carefully in a tall vase of Etruscan ware, "Do you know, I am beginning to find it interesting!"
Aubrey Leigh was a man who had chosen his own way of life, and, as a natural consequence of this, had made for himself an independent and original career. Born in the New World of America he had been very highly educated,—not only under the care of a strict father, and an idolising mother, but also with all the advantages one of the finest colleges in the States could give him. Always a brilliant scholar, and attaining his successes by leaps and bounds rather than by close and painstaking study, the day came,—as it comes to all finely-tempered spirits,—when an overpowering weariness or body and soul took possession of him,—when the very attainment of knowledge seemed absurd,—and all things, both in nature and art, took on a sombre colouring, and the majestic pageant of the world's progress appeared no more than a shadow too vain and futile to be worth while watching as it passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon experienced when he wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank unconsciously, and,—to do him justice,—most unwillingly. His was naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature—but he was over-sensitively organised,—his nerves did not resemble iron so much as finely-tempered steel, which could not but suffer from the damp and rust in the world's conventionalities. And some "little rift within the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances to many, so that the subtle music of his soul jarred into discord with the things of life, making harsh sounds in place of melody. There was no adequate cause for this,—neither disappointed love nor balked ambition shadowed his days;—it was something altogether indefinable—a delicate, vague discontent which, had he known it, was merely the first stirring of an embryo genius destined one day to move the world. He did not know what ailed him,—but he grew tired—tired of books—tired of music—tired of sifting the perplexing yet enchanting riddles of science—tired of even his home and his mother's anxious eyes of love that watched his moods too closely for his peace,—and one day, out of the merest boyish impulse, he joined a company of travelling actors and left America. Why he did this he could never tell, save that he was a student and lover of Shakespeare. Much to his own surprise, and somewhat to his disgust, he distinguished himself with exceptional brilliancy on the stage,—his voice, his manner, his physique and his bearing were all exceptional, and told highly in his favour,—but unfortunately his scholarly acumen and knowledge of literature went against him with his manager. This personage, who was densely ignorant, and who yet had all the ineffable conceit of ignorance, took him severely to task for knowing Shakespeare's meanings better than he did,—and high words resulted in mutual severance. Aubrey was hardly sorry when his theatrical career came thus untimely to an end. At first he had imagined it possible to become supreme in histrionic art,—one who should sway the emotions of thousands by a word, a look or a gesture,—he had meant to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day; and with his knowledge of French, which was as perfect as his knowledge of English, he had even foreseen the possibility of taking the French stage as well as the English by storm. But when he gradually came to discover the mean tricks and miserable treacheries used by his fellow-actors to keep a rising comrade down,—when he felt to the core of his soul the sordidness and uncleanness of his surroundings,—when he shudderingly repulsed the would-be attentions of the painted drabs called "ladies of the stage",—and above all, when he thought of the peace and refinement of the home he had, for a mere freak, forsaken,—the high tone of thought and feeling maintained there, the exquisite gracefulness and charm of womanhood, of which his mother had been, and was still a perfect embodiment, some new and far stronger spirit rose up within him, crying—"What is this folly? Am I to sink to the level of those whom I know and see are beneath me? With what I have of brain and heart and feeling, are these unworthy souls to drag me down? Shall I not try to feel my wings, and make one bold dash for higher liberty? And if I do so, whither shall I fly?"
He had come to England at this period,—and in the small provincial town where his final rupture with the illiterate theatrical manager had taken place, there was a curious, silent contest going on between the inhabitants and their vicar. The vicar was an extremely unpopular person,—and the people were striving against him, and fighting him at every possible point of discussion. For so small a community the struggle was grim,—and Aubrey for some time could not understand it, till one day an explanation was offered him by a man engaged in stitching leather, in a dirty evil-smelling little hole of a shop under a dark archway.
"You see, sir, it's this way," he said, "Bessie Morton,—she wor as good a girl as ever stepped—bright and buxom and kind hearted—yes, that was Bessie, till some black scoundrel got her love at a soft moment, and took the better of her. Well!—I suppose some good Christian folk would say she wor a bad 'un—but I'll warrant she worn't bad at heart, but only just soft-like—and she an orphan, with no one to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And there was a little child born—the prettiest little creature ye ever saw—Bessie's own copy—all blue eyes and chestnut hair—and it just lived a matter of fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie went nigh raving mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir? The passon refused to bury that there little child in consecrated ground, cos'twas born out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a follower of Jesus with the loving heart? What d'ye think of that?"
"Think!" said Aubrey indignantly, with an involuntary clenching of his hand, "Why, that it is abominable—disgraceful! I should like to thrash the brute!"
"So would a many," said his informant with an approving chuckle, "So would a many! But that's not all—there's more behind—and worse too—"
"Why, what can be worse?"
"Well, sir, we thinks—we ain't got proofs to go on—for Bessie keeps her own counsel—but we thinks the passon hisself is the father of that there little thing he winnot lay in a holy grave!"
"Good God!" cried Aubrey.
"Ay, ay—you may say 'Good God!' with a meaning, sir," said the leather-seller—"And that's why, as we ain't got no facts and no power with bishops, and we ain't able to get at the passon anyhow, we're just making it as unpleasant for him in our way as we can. That's all the people can do, sir, but what they does, they means!"
This incident deeply impressed Aubrey Leigh, and proved to be the turning point in his career. Like a flash of light illumining some divinely written scroll of duty, he suddenly perceived a way in which to shape his own life and make it of assistance to others. He began his plan of campaign by going about among the poorer classes, working as they worked, living as they lived, and enduring what they endured. Disguised as a tramp, he wandered with tramps. He became for a time one of the "hands" in a huge Birmingham factory. After that he worked for several months at the coal pits among the lowest of the men employed there. Then he got a "job" in a dock-yard and studied the ways of shipping and humanity together. During this time of self-imposed probation, he never failed to write letters home to Canada, saying he was "doing well" in England, but how this "doing well" was brought about he never explained. And the actual motive and end of all his experiences was as yet a secret locked within his own heart. Yet when it was put into words it sounded simple enough,—it was merely to find out how much or how little the clergy, or so-called "servants of Christ", obeyed their Master. Did they comfort the comfortless? Were they "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves"? Were they long-suffering, slow to wrath, and forbearing one to the other? Did they truly "feed the sheep"? Did they sacrifice themselves, their feelings, and their ambitions to rescue what was lost? All these and sundry other questions Aubrey Leigh set himself to answer,—and by and by he found himself on an endless path of discovery, where at every step some new truth confronted him;—some amazing hypocrisy burned itself in letters of flame against the splendour of church altars;—some deed of darkness and bigotry and cruelty smirched the white robes of the "ordained to preach the Gospel". Gradually he became so intently and vitally interested in his investigations, and his sympathy for the uncomforted people who had somehow lost Christ instead of finding Him, grew so keen that he resolved to give up his entire life to the work of beginning to try and remedy the evil. He had no independent means,—he lived from hand to mouth earning just what he could by hard labour,—till one day, when the forces in his own soul said "Ready!" he betook himself to one small room which he hired in a fisherman's cottage on the coast of Cornwall, and there sat down to write a book. Half the day he wrote, and half the day he earned his bread as a common fisherman, going out with the others in storm and shine, sailing through sleet and hail and snow, battling with the waves, and playing with Death at every turn of the rocks, which, like the teeth of great monsters, jagged the stormy shore. And he grew strong, and lithe, and muscular—his outward life of hard and changeful labour, accompanied by the inward life of intelligent and creative thought, gradually worked off all depression of soul and effeminacy of body,—his experience of the stage passed away, leaving no trace on his mind but the art, the colour and the method,—particularly the method of speech. With art, colour, and method he used the pen;—with the same art, colour, and method he used his voice, and practised the powers of oratory. He would walk for miles to any lonely place where he could be sure of no interruption,—and there he would speak aloud to the roaring waves and wide stretches of desolate land, and tell them the trenchant things he meant one day to thunder into human ears. Always of a fine figure, his bearing grew more dauntless and graceful,—the dangers of the sea taught him self-control,—the swift changes of the sky gave him the far-off rapt expression and keen flash of his eyes,—the pitiful sorrows of the poor, in which, as he had elected to be one of them, he was bound to share, had deepened the sympathetic lines round his delicate mouth, and had bestowed upon his whole countenance that look which is seldom seen save in the classic marbles—the look of being one with, and yet above mankind. All the different classes of people with whom he had managed to associate had called him "gentleman", a name he had gently but firmly repudiated. "Call me a Man, and let me deserve the title!" he would say smilingly, and his "mates" hearing this would eye each other askance, and whisper among themselves "that he WAS a gentleman for all that, though no doubt he had come down in the world and had to work for his living. And no shame to him as he gave himself no airs, and could turn a hand to anything." And so the time moved on, and he remained in the Cornish fishing village till his book was finished. Then he suddenly went up to London;—and after a few days' absence came back again, and went contentedly on with the fishing once more.
A month or so later, one night when the blackness of the skies was so dense that it could almost be felt, it chanced that he and his companions were far out at sea in their little smack, which lay becalmed between two darknesses—the darkness of the rolling water, and the darkness of the still heaven. Little waves lapped heavily against the boat's side, and the only glimpse of light at all was the yellow flicker of the lamp that hung from the mast of the vessel, casting a tremulous flicker on the sombrous tide, when all at once a great noise like the crash of thunder, or the roll of cannon, echoed through the air, and a meteor more brilliant than an imperial crown of diamonds, flared through the sky from height to depth, and with a blazing coruscation of flying stars and flame, dropped hissingly down into the sea. The fishermen startled, all looked up—the heavy black nets dropped from their brown arms just as they were about to pull in.
"A sign of strife!" said one.
"Ay, ay! We shall hev a war maybe!"
Aubrey leaned far over the boat's side, and looked out into the dense blackness, made blacker than ever by the sudden coming and going of the flaming sky-phenomenon,—and half unconsciously he murmured, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,—I come not to send peace, but a sword!" And he lost himself in dreams of the past, present, and future,—till he was roused to give a hand in the dragging up of the nets, now full of glistening fish with silvery bodies and ruby eyes,—and then his thoughts took a different turn and wandered off as far back as the Sea of Galilee when the disciples, fishing thus, were called by the Divine Voice, saying "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!" And in silence he helped to row the laden boat homewards, for there was no wind to fill the sail,—and the morning gradually broke like a great rose blooming out of the east, and the sun came peering through the rose like the calyx of the flower,—and still in a dream, Aubrey walked through all that splendour of the early day home to his lodging,—there to find himself,—like Byron,—famous. His book was in everyone's hand—his name on everyone's tongue. Letters from the publisher whom his visit to London had made his friend, accompanied by a bundle of the chief newspapers of the day, informed him that he had in one bound taken his place at the very head and front of opinion,—and, finest proof of power, the critics were out like the hounds in full cry, and were already baying the noble quarry. The Church papers were up in arms—indignant articles were being added to the "weeklies" by highly respectable clergymen with a large feminine "following", and in the midst of all these written things, which in their silent print seemed literally to make a loud clamour in the quiet of his room, Aubrey, in his sea-stained fisherman's garb, with the sparkle of the salt spray still glittering on his closely curling bright hair, looked out at the clear horizon from which the sun had risen up in all its majesty, and devoutly thanked God!
"I have written part of my message," he said to himself, "And now by-and-by I shall speak!"
But he lived on yet for a time in the remote fishing village, waiting,—without knowing quite what he waited for,—while the great Gargantuan mouth of London roared his name in every imaginable key, high and low, and gradually swept it across the seas to America and Australia, and all the vast New World that is so swiftly rising up, with the eternal balance of things, to overwhelm the Old. And presently the rumour of his fame reached those whom he had left behind in the quiet little town of his birth and boyhood,—and his mother, reading the frantic eulogies, and still more frantic attacks of the different sections of press opinion, wept with excitement and tenderness and yearning; and his father, startled at the strange power and authority with which this new Apostle of Truth appeared to be invested, trembled as he read, but nevertheless held himself more erect with a pride in his own old age that he had never felt before, as he said a hundred times a day in response to eager questioners—"Yes,—Aubrey Leigh is my son!" Then mother and father both wrote to Aubrey, and poured out their affectionate hearts to him and blessed him, which blessing he received with that strange heaving of the heart and contraction of the throat, which in a strong man means tears. And still he waited on, earning his bread in the humble village which knew nothing of him, save as one of themselves,—for the inhabitants of the place were deaf and blind to the ways of the world, and read little save old and belated newspapers, so that they were ignorant of his newly celebrated personality,—till one day the Fates gave him that chance for which, though he was unconscious of it, he had been holding himself back, and counting the slow strokes of time;—time which seems to beat with such a laggard pulse when one sees some great thing needing to be done, and while feeling all the force to do it, yet has to control and keep back that force till the appointed hour strikes for action.
There had been a terrific storm at sea, and a herring smack had gone down within sight of land, sinking eight strong men with it, all husbands and fathers. One after the other, the eight bodies were thrown back from the surging deep in the sullen grey morning on the day after the catastrophe,—one after the other they were borne reverently up from the shore to the village, there to be claimed by shrieking women and sobbing children,—women, who from more or less contented, simple-hearted, hard-working souls, were transformed into the grandly infuriated forms of Greek tragedy—their arms tossing, their hair streaming, their faces haggard with pain, and their eyes blind with tears. Throughout the heart-rending scene, Aubrey Leigh worked silently with the rest—composing the stiff limbs of the dead, and reverently closing the glared and staring eyes; gently he had lifted fainting women from the corpses to which they clung,—tenderly he had carried crying children home to their beds,—and with sorrowful eyes fixed on the still heaving and angry billows, he had inwardly prayed for ways and means to comfort these afflicted ones, and raised their thoughts from the gloom of the grave to some higher consummation of life. For they were inconsolable,—they could neither see nor understand any adequate cause for such grief being inflicted on them,—and the entire little population of the village wore a resentful attitude towards God, and God's inexorable law of death. When the funeral day came, and the bodies of the eight unfortunate victims were committed to the earth, it happened, as fate would have it, that the rector of the parish, a kindly, sympathetic, very simple old man, who really did his best for his parishoners according to the faint perception of holy things that indistinctly illumined his brain, happened to be away, and his place was taken by the assistant curate, a man of irritable and hasty temper, who had a horror of "scenes," and who always put away all suggestions of death from him whenever it was possible. It was very disagreeable to him to have to look at eight coffins,—and still more disagreeable to see eight weeping widows surrounded by forlorn and fatherless children—and he gabbled over the funeral service as quickly as he could, keeping his eyes well on the book lest he should see some sobbing child looking at him, or some woman dropping in a dead faint before he had time to finish. He was afraid of unpleasant incidents—and yet with all his brusque and nervous hurry to avoid anything of the kind, an unpleasant incident insisted on manifesting itself. Just as the fourth coffin was being lowered into the ground, a wild-haired girl rushed forward and threw herself upon it.
"Oh, my man, my man!" she wailed, "My own sweetheart!"
There was a moment's silence. Then one of the widows stepped out, and approaching the girl, laid her hand on her arm.
"Are ye making a mock of me, Mary Bell?" she said, "Or is it God's truth ye're speaking to my husband lying there?"
The distraught creature called Mary Bell looked up with a sudden passion glowing in her tear-wet eyes.
"It's God's truth!" she cried, "And ye needn't look scorn on me!—for both our hearts are broken, and no one can ever mend them. Yes! It's God's truth! He was your husband, but my sweetheart! And we'll neither of us see a finer man again!"
The curate listened, amazed and aghast. Was nothing going to be done to stop this scandalous scene? He looked protestingly from right to left, but in all the group of fisher-folk not a man moved. Were these two women going to fight over the dead? He hummed and hawed—and began in a thin piercing voice—"My friends—" when he was again interrupted by the passionate speech of Mary Bell.
"I'm sorry for ye," she said, lifting herself from the coffin to which she clung, and turning upon the widow of the drowned man, "and ye can be just as sorry for me! He loved us both, and why should we quarrel! A man is ever like that—just chancy and changeful—but he tried his honest hardest not to love me—yes, he tried hard!—it was my fault! for I never tried!—I loved him!—and I'll love him, till I go where he is gone! And we'll see who God'll give his soul to!"
This was too much for the curate.
"Woman!" he thundered, "Be silent! How dare you boast of your sin at such a time, and in such a place! Take her away from that coffin, some of you!"
So he commanded, but still not a man moved. The curate began to lose temper in earnest.
"Take her away, I tell you," and he advanced a step or two, "I cannot permit such a scandalous interruption of this service!"
"Patience, patience, measter," said one of the men standing by, "When a woman's heart's broke in two ways it ain't no use worrying her. She'll come right of herself in a minute."
But the curate, never famous for forbearance at any time, was not to be tampered with. Turning to his verger he said,
"I refuse to go on! The woman is drunk!"
But now the widow of the dead man suddenly took up the argument in a shrill voice which almost tore the air to shreds.
"She's no more drunk than you are!" she cried passionately, "Leave her alone! You're a nice sort of God's serving man to comfort we, when we're all nigh on losing our wits over this mornin' o' misery, shame on ye! Mary Bell, come here! If so be as my husband was your sweetheart, God forgive him, ye shall come home wi' me!—and we'll never have a word agin the man who is lying dead there. Come wi' me, Mary!"
With a wild cry of anguish, the girl rushed into her arms, and the two women clung together like sisters united in the same passionate grief. The curate turned a livid white.
"I cannot countenance such immorality," he said, addressing the verger, though his words were heard by all present, "Enough of the service has been said! Lower the coffins into the earth!" and turning on his heel he prepared to walk away. But Aubrey Leigh stopped him.
"You will not finish the service, sir?" he asked civilly, but with something of a warning in the flash of his eyes.
"No! The principal part of it is over. I cannot go on. These women are drunk!"
"They are not drunk, save with their own tears!" said Aubrey, his rich voice trembling with indignation. "They are not mad, except with grief! Is it not your place to be patient with them?"
"My place! My place!" echoed the curate indignantly, "Man, do you know to whom you are talking?"
"I think I do," answered Aubrey steadily, "I am talking to a professed servant of Christ,—Christ who had patience and pardon for all men! I am talking to one whose calling and vocation it is to love, to forgive, and to forbear—whose absolute protestation has been made at the altar of God that he will faithfully obey his Master. Even if these unhappy women were drunk, which they are not, their fault in conduct would not release you from the performance of your duty,—or the reverence you are bound to show towards the dead!"
Trembling with rage, the curate eyed him up and down scornfully.
"How dare you speak to me about my duty! You common lout! Mind your own business!"
"I will," said Aubrey, fixing his eyes full upon him, "And it shall be my business to see that you mind yours! Both your rector and bishop shall hear of this!"
He strode off, leaving the curate speechless with fury; and joining the little crowd of mourners who had been startled and interrupted by this unexpected scene, drew a prayer book from his pocket, and without asking anyone's permission read with exquisite gravity and pathos the concluding words of the funeral service,—and then with his own hands assisted the grave-diggers to lay the coffined dead tenderly to rest. Awestruck, and deeply impressed by his manner the fisher-folk mechanically obeyed his instructions, and followed his movements till all the sad business was over, and then they lingered about the churchyard wistfully watching him, while he in turn, standing erect and bare-headed near the open graves, looked at them with a strange pity, love and yearning.
"It'll be all right when our owld passon comes back," said one of the men addressing him, "It's just this half eddicated wastrel of a chap as doesn't know, and doesn't care for the troubles of common folk like we."
Aubrey was silent for a space. "Common folk like we!" The words were full of pathetic humility, and the man who spoke them was a hero of no mean type, who had often buffeted the winds and waves to save a human life at the risk of his own. "Common folk like we!" Aubrey laid his hand gently on his "mate's" shoulder.
"Ben, old boy, there are no common folk in God's sight," he said, "Look there!" and he pointed to the graves that were just beginning to be filled in, "Every creature lying there had as much of God in him as many a king, and perhaps more. In this majestic universe there is nothing common!"
Ben shuffled one foot before the other uneasily.
"Ay, ay, but there's few as argify the way o' life in they lines!" he said, "There's a many that think—but there's a main few that speak."