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The Christian, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Book 3. The Devil's Acre - Chapter 13 |
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_ THIRD BOOK. THE DEVIL'S ACRE CHAPTER XIII A week passed. Breakfast was over at Victoria Square, and John Storm was glancing at the pages of a weekly paper. "Listen!" he cried, and then read aloud in a light tone of mock bravery which broke down at length into a husky gurgle: "'The sympathy which has lately been evoked by the announcement that a proprietary church in Soho has been sold for secular uses, is creditable to public sentiment----'" "Think of that, now!" interrupted Mrs. Callender. "'----and no doubt the whole community will agree to hope that Father Storm will recover from the irritation natural to his eviction----'" "Aye, we can all get over another body's disappointment, laddie." "'But there is a danger that in this instance the altruism of the time may develop a sentimentality not entirely good for public morals----'" "When the ox is down there are lots of butchers, ye ken!" "'With the uses to which the fabric is to be converted, it is no part of our purpose to deal, further than to warn the public not to lend an ear to the all too prurient purity of the amateur moralist; but considering the character of the work now carried on in Soho, no doubt with the best intentions----'" "Aye, aye, it's easy to steal the goose and give the giblets in alms." "'----it behooves us to consider if the community is not to be congratulated on its speedy and effectual ending. Father Storm is a young man of some talents and social position, but without any special experience or knowledge of the world--in fact a weak, oversanguine, and rather foolish fanatic----'" "Oh, aye, he's down; down with him!" "'----and therefore it is monstrous that he should be allowed to subvert the order of social life or disturb the broad grounds of the reasonable and the practical----'" "Never mind. High winds only blaw on high hills, laddie!" "'----As for the "fallen sister" whom he has taken under his special care, we confess to a feeling that too much sympathy has been wasted on her already. Her feet take hold of hell, her house is the way of the grave, going down to the chamber of death----'" Mrs. Callender leaped to her feet. "That's the 'deacon-man; I ken the cloven hoof!" John Storm had flung the paper away. "What a cowardly world it is!" he said. "But God wins in the end, and by God he shall!" "Tut, man! don't tak' on like that. You can't climb the Alps on roller-skates, you see! But as for the Archdeacon, pooh! I'm no windy aboot your 'Sisters' and 'Settlements' and sic like, but if there had been society papers in the Lord's time, Simon the Pharisee would have been a namby-pamby critic compared to some of them." A moment afterward she was looking out of the window and holding up both hands. "My gracious! It's himsel'! It's the Prime Minister!" A gaunt old gentleman with a meagre mustache, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and unfashionable black clothes, was stepping up to the door. "Yes, it's my uncle!" said John, and the old lady fled out of the room to change her cap. "I have heard what has happened, John, so I have come to see you," said the Prime Minister. Was he thinking of the money? John felt uneasy and ashamed. "I'm sorry, my boy, very sorry!" "Thank you, uncle." "But it all comes, you see, of the ridiculous idea that we are a Christian nation! Such a thing couldn't have occurred at the shrine of a pagan god!" "It was only a proprietary church, uncle. I was much to blame." "I do not deny that you have acted unwisely, but what difference does that make, my boy? To sell a church seems like the climax of irreverence; but they are doing as bad every day. If you want to see what times the Church has fallen on, look at the advertisements in your religious papers--your Benefice and Church Patronage Gazette, and so forth. A traffic, John, a slave traffic, worse than anything in Africa, where they sell bodies, not souls!" "It is a crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven," said John; "but it is the Establishment that is to blame, not the Church, uncle." "We are a nation of money-lenders, my boy, and the Church is the worst usurer of them all, with its learned divines in scarlet hoods, who hold shares in music halls, and its Fathers in God living at ease and leasing out public-houses. _You_ have been lending money on usury too, and on a bad security. What are you going to do now?" "Go on with my work, uncle, and do two hours where I did one before." "And get yourself kicked where you got yourself kicked before!" "Why not? If God puts ten pounds on a man, he gives him strength to bear twenty." "John, John, I am feeling rather sore, and I can't bear much more of it. I'm growing old, and my life is rather lonely too. Except your father, you are my only kinsman now, and it seems as if our old family must die with you. But come, my boy, come, throw up all this sorry masquerade. Isn't there a woman in the world who can help me to persuade you? I don't care who she is, or what, or where she comes from." John had coloured to the eyes, and was stammering something about the true priest cut off from earthly marriage, therefore free to commit himself completely to his work, when Mrs. Callender came back, spruce and smart, with many smiles and curtsies. The Prime Minister greeted her with the same old-fashioned courtesy, and they cooed away like two old doves, until a splendid equipage drove up to the door, and the plain old gentleman drove away in it. "Wasn't he nice with me? wasn't he, now?" the old lady kept saying, and John being silent--"Tut! you young men are just puir loblollyboys with a leddy when the auld ones come." Going to Soho that day John Storm felt a sudden thrill at seeing on the street in front of him, walking in the same direction, an elderly figure in cassock and cord. It was the Father Superior of the Brotherhood. John overtook him and greeted him. "Ah, I was on my way to see you, my son." "Then you have heard what has happened?" "Yes, Satan's shafts fly fast." Then taking John's arm as they walked, "Earthly blows are but reminders of Him, my son, like the hair shirt of the monk, and this trouble of yours is God's reminder of your broken obedience. What did I tell you when you left us--that you would come back within a year? And you will! Leave the world, my son. It treats you badly. The human spirit reigns over it, and even the Church is a Christian society out of the sphere and guidance of the Divine Spirit. Leave it and return to your unfinished vows." John shook his head and took the Father into the clergy-house, where the girls were gathering for the evening. "How can I leave the world, Father, when there's work like this to do? Society presents to a large proportion of these bright creatures the alternative, 'Sell yourself or starve.' But God says, 'Live, work, and love.' Therefore society is doomed, and that dead man's sepulchre, the Establishment, is doomed, but the Church will live, and become the corner-stone of the new order, and stand between woman and the world, as it stood of old between the poor and the rich." The Father preached for John that night, taking for his text "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." And on parting from him at the door of the sacristy he said: "Religious work can only be good, my son, if it concerns itself first of all with the salvation of souls. Now what if it pleased God to remove you from all this--to call you to a work of intercession--say, to the mission field?" John's face turned pale. "There can be no need to fly," he said, with a frightened look. "Surely London is a mission field wide enough for any man." "Yet who knows? Perhaps for your own soul's sake, lest vanity should take hold of you, or the love of fame, or--or any of the snares of Satan! But good-bye, and God be with you!" When John Storm reached home he found a letter awaiting him. It was from Glory: "Are you dead and buried? If so, send me word, that I may compose your epitaph. 'Here lies--_Lies_ is good, for though you didn't promise to come back you ought to have done so; therefore it comes to the same thing in the end. You must not think too ill of Mr. Drake. I call him the milk of human kindness, and his friend Lord Robert the oil thereof--I mean the oil of vitriol. But his temper is like the Caspian Sea, having neither ebb nor flow, while yours is like the Bay of Biscay--oh, so I can't expect you to agree. As for poor me, I may be guilty of all the seven deadly sins, but I can't see why I should be boycotted on that account. There is something I didn't know when you were here, and I want to explain about it. Therefore come 'right away' (Lord Bob, Americanized). Being slow to anger and plenteous in mercy, I will forgive you if you come soon. If you don't, I'll--I'll go on the bike--feminine equivalent to the drink. To tell you the truth, I've done so already, having been careering round the gardens of the Inn during the early hours of morning, clad in Rosa's 'bloomers,' in which I make a picture and a sensation at the same time, she being several sizes larger round the hips, and fearfully and wonderfully made. If that doesn't fetch you I'll go in for boxing next, and in a pair of four-ounce gloves I'll cut a _striking_ figure, I can tell you. "But, John Storm, have you cast me off entirely? Do you intend to abandon me? Do you think there is no salvation left for me? And are you going to let me sink in all this mire without stretching out a hand to help me? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I don't know what has come over the silly old world since I came back to London. Think it must be teething, judging by the sharpness of its bite, and feel as if I should like to give it a dose of syrup of squills." As John read the letter his eyelids quivered and his mouth relaxed. Then he glanced at it again, and his face clouded. "I can not leave her entirely to the mercy of men like these," he thought. This innocent daring, this babelike ripping up of serviceable conventions--God knows what advantage such men might take of it. He must see her once again, to warn, to counsel her. It was his duty--he must not shrink from it. * * * * * It had been a day of painful impressions to Glory. Early in the morning Lord Robert had called to take her to the "reading" of the new play. It took place in the saloon of an unoccupied Strand theatre, of which the stage also had been engaged for rehearsal. The company were gathered there, and, being more or less experienced actors and actresses, they received her with looks of courteous indulgence, as one whose leading place must be due to other things than talent. This stung her; she felt her position to be a false one, and was vexed that she had permitted Lord Robert to call for her. But her humiliation had yet hardly begun. While they stood waiting for the manager, who was late, a gorgeous person with a waxed mustache and in a fur-lined coat, redolent of the mixed odour of perfume and stale tobacco, forced his way up to her and offered his card. She knew the man in a moment. "I'm Josephs," he said in a confidential undertone, "and if there's anything I can do for you--acting management--anything--it vill give me pleesure." Glory flushed up and said, "But you don't seem to remember, sir, that we have met before." The man smiled blandly. "Oh, yes. I've kept track of you ever since and know all about you. You hadn't made your appearance then, and naturally I couldn't do much. But now--_now_ if you vill give me de pleesure----" "Then an agent is one who can do nothing for you when you want help, but when you don't want it----" The man laughed to carry off his audacity. "Veil, you know vhat they say of us--agent from _agere_,'to do,' and we're always 'doing.' Ha, ha! But if you are villing to let bygones be bygones, I am, and velcome." Glory's face was crimson. "Will somebody go for the stage doorkeeper?" she said, and one of the company went out on that errand. Then, raising her voice so that everybody listened, she said: "Mr. Josephs, when I was quite unknown, and trying to get on, and finding it very hard, as we all do, you played me the cruellest trick a man ever played on a woman. I don't owe you any grudge, but, for the sake of every poor girl who is struggling to live in London, I am going to turn you out of the house." "Eh? Vhat?" The stage doorkeeper had entered. "Porter, do you see this gentleman? He is never to come into this theatre again as long as we are here, and if he tries to force his way in you are to call a policeman and have him bundled back into the street!" "Daddle doo," and the waxed mustache over the grinning mouth seemed to cut the face across. When Josephs had gone Glory could see that the looks of indulgence on the faces of the company had gone also. "She'll do!" said one. "She's got the stuff in her!" said another, but Glory herself was now quaking with fear, and her troubles were not yet ended. A little stout gentleman entered hurriedly with a roll of papers in his hand. He stepped up to Lord Robert, apologized for being late, and mopped his bald crown and red face. It was Sefton. "This is to be our manager," said Lord Robert, and Mr. Sefton bobbed his head, winked with both eyes, and said, "Charmed, I'm sure--charmed!" Glory could have sunk into the earth for shame, but in a moment she had realized the crushing truth that when a woman has been insulted in the deepest place--in her honour--the best she can do is to say nothing about it. The company seated themselves around the saloon, and the reading began. First came the list of characters, with the names of the cast. Glory's name and character came last, and her nerves throbbed with sudden pain when the manager read, "and _Gloria_--Miss Glory Quayle." There was a confused murmur, and then the company composed themselves to listen. It was Gloria's play. She was rather scandalous. After the first act Glory thought it was going to be the story of Nell Gwynne in modern life; after the second, of Lady Hamilton; and after the third, in which the woman wrecks and ruins the first man in the country, she knew it was only another version of the Harlot's Progress, and must end as that had ended. The actors were watching their own parts, and pointing and punctuating with significant looks the places where the chances came, but Glory was overwhelmed with confusion. How was she to play this evil woman? The poison went to the bone, and to get into the skin of such a creature a good woman would have to dispossess herself of her very soul. The reading ended, every member of the company congratulated some other member on the other's opportunities, and Sefton came up to Glory to ask if she did not find the play strong and the part magnificent. "Yes," she said; "but only a bad woman could play that part properly." "_You'll_ do it, my dear, you'll do it on your own!" he answered gaily, and she went home perplexed, depressed, beaten down, and ashamed. A newspaper had been left at the door. It was a second-rate theatrical journal, still damp from the press. The handwriting on the wrapper was that of Josephs, and there was a paragraph marked in blue pencil. It pretended to be a record of her short career, and everything was in it--the programme selling, the dressing, the foreign clubs--all the refuse of her former existence, set in a sinister light and leaving the impression of an abject up-bringing, as of one who had been _in_ the streets if not on them. Well, she had chosen her life and must take it at its own price. But, oh, the cruelty of the world to a woman, when her very success could be her shame! She felt that the past had gripped her again--the pitiless past--she could never drag herself out of the mire. That night she wrote to John Storm, and next morning before Rosa had risen--her duties kept her up late--she heard a voice downstairs. Her dog also heard it and began to bark. At the next moment John was in the room and she was laughing up into his splendid black eyes, for he had caught her down at the sofa holding the pug's nose and trying to listen. "Is it you? It's so good of you to come early! But this, dog"--breaking into the Manx dialect--"she's ter'ble, just ter'ble!" Then rising and looking serious: "I wished to tell you that I knew nothing about the church, nothing whatever. If I'd had the least idea... but they told me nothing--it was very wrong--nothing. And the first thing I knew was when I saw it in all the newspapers." He was leaning on the end of the mantelpiece. "If they deceived you like that, how can you go on with them?" "You mean" (she was leaning on the other end, and speaking falteringly), "you mean that I ought to give it all up. But it's too late for that now. It was too late when I came to know. Besides, it would do no good; you would be in the same position still, and as for me--well, somebody else would have the theatre, so where's the use?" "I was thinking of the future, Glory, not the past. People who deceive us once are capable of doing so again." "True--that's true--only--only----" She was breaking down, and he turned his eyes away from her, saying, "Well, it's all over now, and there's no help for it." "No, there's no help for it." He tried to think what he had come to say, but do what he would he could not remember. The moment he looked at her the thread of his thoughts was lost, and the fragrance of her presence, so sweet, so close, made him feel as if he wanted to touch her. There was an awkward silence, and then he fidgeted with his hat and moved. "Are you going so soon?" "I'm busy, and----" "Yes, you must be busy now." "And then why--why should we prolong a painful interview, Glory?" She shot up a look under her eyebrows. His eyes had a harassed expression, but there was a gleam in them that set her heart beating. "Is it so painful? Is it?" "Glory, I meant to tell you I could not come again." "No! You're not so busy as all that, are you? Surely" (the Manx again, only she seemed to be breathless now)--"surely you're not so ter'ble busy but you can just put a sight on a girl now and again for all?" He made a gesture with his hand. "It disturbs, it distracts----" "Oh, is that all? Then," with a forced laugh, "I'll come to see you instead. Yes, I will, though." "No, you mustn't do that, Glory. It would only torment----" "Torment! Gough bless me! Why torment?" and a fugitive flame shot up at him. "Because"--he stammered, and she could see that his lips quivered; then calmly, very calmly, pronouncing the words slowly, and in a voice as cold as ice--"because I love you!" "You!" "Didn't you know that?" His voice was guttural. "Haven't you known it all along? What's the use of pretending? You've dragged it out of me. Was that only to show your power over me?" "Oh!" She had heard what her heart wanted to hear, and not for worlds would she have missed hearing it, yet she was afraid, and trembling all over. "We two are of different natures, Glory, that's the trouble between us--now, and always has been. We have nothing in common, absolutely nothing. You have chosen your path in life, and it is not my path. I have chosen mine, and it is not yours. Your friends are not my friends. We are two different beings altogether, and yet--and yet I love you! And that's why I can not come again." It was sweet, but it was terrible. So different from what she had dreamed of: "I love you!--you are my soul!--I can not live without you!" Yet he was right. She had slain his love before it was born to her--it was born dead. In an unsteady voice, which had suddenly become husky, she said: "No doubt you are right. I must leave you to judge. Perhaps you have thought it all out." "Don't suppose it will be easy for me, Glory. I've suffered a good deal, and I dare say I shall suffer more yet. If so, I'll bear it. But for the sake of my work----" "Ah!--But of course I can't expect--Naturally you love your work also----" "I _do_ love my work also, and therefore it's no use trifling. 'If thine eye offend--'" She was stung. "Well, since there's no help for it, I suppose we must shake hands and part." Not until then--not until he had pronounced his doom and she had accepted it did he realize how beautiful she seemed to him. He felt as if something in his throat wanted to cry out. "It isn't what I expected, Glory--what I dreamed of for years." "But it's best--it seems best." "I tried to make a place for you, too, but you wouldn't have it--you let it go; you preferred this other lot in life." She remembered Josephs, and Sefton, and the newspaper, and the part, and she covered her face with her hands. "How can I go on, Glory, to the peril of my--It's dangerous, even dangerous." "Yes, you are a clergyman and I am an actress. You must think of that. People are so ignorant, so cruel, and I dare say they are talking already." "Do you think I should care for that, Glory?" Her hands came down from her face. "Do you think I should care one jot if all the miserable scandal-mongering world thought----" "You'll think the best of me, then?" "I'll think of both of us as we used to be, my child, before the world came between us, before you----" She was fighting against an impulse to fling herself into his arms, but she only said in a soft voice: "You are quite right, quite justified. I have chosen my lot in life, and must make the best of it." "Well----" He was holding out his hand. But nevertheless she put her hand behind her, thinking: "No; if I shake hands with him it will be the end of everything." "Good-bye!" and with an expression of utter despair he left her. She did not cry, and when Rosa came down immediately afterward she was smiling and her eyes were very bright. "Was that your friend Mr. Storm? Yes? You must beware of him, my dear. He would stop your career and think he was doing God's service." "There's no danger of that, Rosa. He only came to say he would come no more," and then something flashed in her eyes and died away, and then flashed again. "Yes," thought Rosa, "there's an extraordinary attraction about her that makes all other women seem tame." And then Rosa remembered somebody else, and sighed. * * * * * John Storm went back to Soho by way of Clare Market, and when people saluted him in the streets with "Good-morning, Father," he did not answer because he did not see them. On going to church that night he came upon a group of Charlie's cronies betting six to one against his getting off, and a girl in gay clothes was waiting to speak to him. It was Aggie. She had come to plead for Charlie. "It's the drink, sir. 'E's a good boy when 'e's not drinking. But I ask pardon for 'im; and if you would only not prosecute----" John was ashamed of himself at sight of the girl's fidelity to her unworthy lover. "And you, my child--what about you?" "Oh, I'm all right. What's broken can't be mended." And meanwhile the church bells were ringing and the cabs were running to the theatres. _ |
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