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The Christian, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Book 3. The Devil's Acre - Chapter 16 |
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_ THIRD BOOK. THE DEVIL'S ACRE CHAPTER XVI Next morning Mrs. Callender heard John Storm singing to himself before he left his bedroom, and she was standing at the bottom of the stairs when he came down three steps at a time. "Bless me, laddie," she said, "to see your face shining a body would say that somebody had left ye a legacy or bought ye a benefice instead of taking your church frae ye!" "Why, yes, and better than both, and that's just what I was going to tell you." "You must be in a hurry to do it, too, coming downstairs like a cataract." "You came down like a cataract yourself once on a time, auntie; I'll lay my life on that." "Aye, did I, and not sae lang since neither. And fools and prudes cried 'Oh!' and called me a tomboy. But, hoots; I was nought but a body born a wee before her time. All the lasses are tomboys now, bless them, the bright heart-some things!" "Auntie," said John softly, seating himself at the breakfast table, "what d'ye think?" She eyed him knowingly. "Nay, I'm ower thrang working to be bothered thinking. Out with it, laddie." He looked wise. "Don't you remember saying--that work like mine wanted a woman's hand in it?" Her old eyes blinked. "Maybe I did, but what of it?" "Well, I've taken your advice, and now a woman's hand is coming into it to guide it and direct it." "It must be the right hand, though, mind that." "It _will_ be the right hand, auntie." "Weel, that's grand," with another twinkle. "I thought it might be the _left_, ye see, and ye might be putting a wedding-ring on it!" And then she burst into a peal of laughter. "However did you find it out?" he said, with looks of astonishment. "Tut, laddie, love and a cough can not be hidden. And to think a woman couldna see through you, too! But come," tapping the table with both hands, "who is she?" "Guess." "Not one of your Sisters--no?" with hesitation. "No," with emphasis. "Some other simpering thing, na doot-they're all alike these days." "But didn't you say the girls were all tomboys now?" "And if I did, d'ye want a body to be singing the same song always? But come, what like is she? When I hear of a lassie I like fine to know her colour first. What's her complexion?" "Guess again." "Is she fair? But what a daft auld dunce I am!--to be sure she's fair." "Why, how did you know that, now?" "Pooh! They say a dark man is a jewel in a fair woman's eye, and I'll warrant it's as true the other way about. But what's her name?" John's face suddenly straightened and he pretended not to hear. "What's her name?" stamping with both feet. "Dear me, auntie, what an ugly old cap you're wearing!" "Ugly?" reaching up to the glass. "Who says it's ugly?" "I do." "Tut! you're only a bit boy, born yesterday. But, man, what's all this botherment about telling a lassie's name?" "I'll bring her to see you, auntie." "I should think you will, indeed! and michty quick, too!" This was on Sunday, and by the first post on Monday John Storm received Glory's letter. It fell on him like a blast out of a cloud in the black northeast, and cut him to the heart's core. He read it again, and being alone he burst into laughter. He took it up a third time, and when he had finished there was something at his throat that seemed to choke him. His first impulse was fury. He wanted to rush off to Glory and insult her, to ask her if she was mad or believed him to be so. Because she was a coward herself, being slave-bound to the world and afraid to fight it face to face, did she wish to make a coward of him also--to see him sneak away from the London that had kicked him, like a cur with its tail between its legs? After this there came an icy chill and an awful consciousness that mightier forces were at work than any mere human weakness. It was the world itself, the great pitiless world, that was dividing them again as it had divided them before, but irrevocably now-not as a playful nurse that puts petted children apart, but as a torrent that tears the cliffs asunder. "Leave the world, my son, and return to your unfinished vows." Could it be true that this was only another reminder of his broken obedience? Then came pity. If Glory was slave-bound to the world, which of us was not in chains to something? And the worst slavery of all was slavery to self. But that was an abyss he dared not look into; and he began to think tenderly of Glory, to tell himself how much she had to sacrifice, to remember his anger and to be ashamed. A week passed, and he went about his work in a helpless way, like a derelict without rudder or sail and with the sea roaring about it. Every afternoon when he came home from Soho Mrs. Callender would trip into the hall wearing a new cap with a smart bow, and finding that he was alone she would say, "Not to-day, then?" "Not to-day," he would answer, and they would try to smile. But seeing the stamp of suffering on his face, she said at last, "Tut, laddie! they love too much who die for love." On the Sunday afternoon following he turned again toward Clement's Inn. He had come to a decision at last, and was calm and even content, yet his happiness was like a gourd which had grown up in a day, and the morrow's sun had withered it. Glory had been to rehearsal every day that week. Going to the theatre on Monday night she had said to herself, "There can be no harm in rehearsing--I'm not compelled to play." Notwithstanding her nervousness, the author had complimented her on her passion and self-abandonment, and going home she had thought: "I might even go through the first performance and then give it all up. If I had a success, that would be beautiful, splendid, almost heroic--it would be thrilling to abandon everything." Not hearing from John, she told herself he must be angry, and she felt sorry for him. "He doesn't know yet how much I am going to do." Thus the other woman in her tempted and overcame her, and drew her on from day to day. Mrs. Macrae sent Lord Robert to invite her to luncheon on Sunday. "There can be no harm in going there," she thought. She went with Rosa, and was charmed with the lively, gay, and brilliant company. Clever and beautiful women, clever and handsome men, and nearly all of them of her own profession. The mistress of the mansion kept open house after church parade on Sunday, and she sat at the bottom of her table, dressed in black velvet, with the Archdeacon on her right and a famous actor on her left. Lord Robert sat at the head and talked to a lady whose remarks were heard all over the room; but Lady Robert was nowhere to be seen; there was a hush when her name was mentioned, and then a whispered rumour that she had differences with her husband, and had scandalized her mother by some act of indiscretion. Glory's face beamed, and for the first half-hour she seemed to be on the point of breaking into a rapturous "Well!" Nearly opposite to her at the table sat a lady whose sleepy look and drowsy voice and airs of languor showed that she was admired, and that she knew it. Glory found her very amusing, and broke into little trills of laughter at her weary, withering comments. This drew the attention of some of the men; they found the contrast interesting. The conversation consisted first of hints, half signs, brilliant bits of by-play, and Glory rose to it like a fish to the May-fly. Then it fell upon bicycling and the costumes ladies wore for it. The languid one commented upon the female fetich, the skirt, and condemned "bloomers," whereupon Glory declared that they were just charming, and being challenged (by a gentleman) for her reasons she said, "Because when a girl's got them on she feels as if she's an understudy for a man, and may even have a chance of playing the part itself in another and a better world." Then there was general laughter, and the gentleman said, "You're in the profession yourself now, aren't you?" "Just a stranger within your gates," she answered; and when the talk turned on a recent lawsuit, and the languid one said it was inconceivable that the woman concerned could have been such a coward in relation to the man, Glory protested that it was just as natural for a woman to be in fear of a man (if she loved him) as to be afraid of a mouse or to look under the bed. "_Ma chere_," said a dainty little lady sitting next but one (she had come to London to perform in a silent play), "they tells me you's half my countrywoman. All right. Will you not speak de French to poor me?" And when Glory did so the little one clapped her hands and declared she had never heard the English speak French before. "Say French-cum-Irish," said Glory, "or, rather, French which begat Irish, which begat Manx!" "Original, isn't she?" said somebody who was laughing. "Like a sea-gull among so many pigeons!" said somebody else, and the hothouse airs of the languid lady were lost as in a fresh gust from the salt sea. But her spirits subsided the moment she had recrossed the threshold. As they were going home in the cab, past the hospital and down Piccadilly. Rosa, who was proud and happy, said: "There! All society isn't stupid and insipid, you see; and there are members of your own profession who try to live up to the ideal of moral character attainable by a gentleman in England even yet." "Yes, no doubt... But, Rosa, there's another kind of man altogether, whose love has the reverence of a religion, and if I ever meet a man like that--one who is ready to trample all the world under his feet for me--I think--yes, I really think I shall leave everything behind and follow him." "Leave everything behind, indeed! That _would_ be pretty! When everything yields before you, too, and all the world and his wife are waiting to shout your praises!" Rosa had gone to her office, and Glory was turning over some designs for stage costumes, when Liza came in to say that the "Farver" was coming upstairs. "He has come to scold me," thought Glory, so she began to hum, to push things about, and fill the room with noise. But when she saw his drawn face and wide-open eyes she wanted to fall on his neck and cry. "You have come to tell me you can't do what I suggested?" she said. "Of course you can't." "No," he said slowly, very slowly. "I have thought it all over, and concluded that I can--that I must. Yes, I am willing to go away, Glory, and when you are ready I shall be ready too." "But where--where--?" "I don't know yet; but I am willing to wait for the unrolling of the scroll. I am willing to follow step by step, not knowing whither. I am willing to go where God wills, for life or death." "But your work in London--your great, great work----" "God will see to that, Glory. He can do without any of us. None of us can do without him. The sun will set without any assistance, you know," and the pale face made an effort to smile. "But, John, my dear, dear John, this is not what you expected, what you have been thinking of and dreaming of, and building your hopes upon." "No," he said; "and for your sake I am sorry, very sorry. I thought of a great career for you, Glory. Not rescue work merely--others can do that. There are many good women in the world--nearly all women are good, but Jew are great--and for the salvation of England, what England wants now is a great woman.... As for me--God knows best! He has his own way of weaning us from vanity and the snares of the devil. You were only an instrument in his hands, my child, hardly knowing what you were doing. Perhaps he has a work of intercession for us somewhere--far away from here--in some foreign mission field--who can say?" A feeling akin to terror caught her breath, and she looked up at him with tearful eyes. "After all, I am glad that this has happened," he said. "It will help me to conquer self, to put self behind my back forever, to show the world, by leaving London, that self has not entered into my count at all, and that I am thinking of nothing but my work." A warm flush rose to her cheeks as he spoke, and again she wanted to fling herself on his neck and cry. But he was too calm for that, too sad and too spiritual. When he rose to go she held out her hands to him, but he only took them and carried them to his lips, and kissed them. As soon as she was alone she flung herself down and cried, "Oh, give me strength to follow this man, who mistakes his love of me for the love of God!" But even while she sat with bent head and her hands over her face the creeping sense came back as of another woman within her who was fighting for her heart. She had conquered again, but at what a cost! The foreign mission field--what associations had she with that? Only the memory of her father's lonely life and friendless death. She was feeling cold and had begun to shiver, when the door opened and Rosa entered. "So he _did_ come again?" "Yes." "I thought he would," and Rosa laughed coldly. "What do you mean?" "That when religious feelings take possession of a man he will stop at nothing to gain the end he has in view." "Rosa," said Glory, flushing crimson, "if you imply that my friend is capable of one unworthy act or thought I must ask you to withdraw your words absolutely and at once!" "Very well, dear. I was only thinking for your own good. We working women must not ruin our lives or let anybody else ruin them. 'Duty,' 'self-sacrifice'--I know the old formulas, but I don't believe in them. Obey your own heart, my dear, that is your first duty. A man like Storm would take you out of your real self, and stop your career, and----" "Oh, my career, my career! I'm tired to death of hearing of it!" "Glory!" "And who knows? I may not go on with it, after all." "If you have lost your sense of duty to yourself, have you forgotten your duty to Mr. Drake? Think what Mr. Drake has done for you!" "Mr. Drake! Mr. Drake! I'm sick of that too." "How strange you are to-night, Glory!" "Am I? So are you. It is Mr. Drake here and Mr. Drake there! Are you trying to force me into his arms?" "Is it you that says that, Glory--you? and to me, too? Don't you see that this is a different case altogether? And if I thought of my own feelings only--consulted my own heart----" "Rosa!" "Ah! Is it so very foolish? Yes, he is young and handsome, and rich and brilliant, while I--I am ridiculous." "No, no, Rosa; I don't mean that." "I do, though; and when you came in between us--young and beautiful and clever--everything that I was not, and could never hope to be--and he was so drawn to you--what was I to do? Nurse my hopeless and ridiculous love--or think of him--his happiness?" "Rosa, my poor dear Rosa, forgive me! forgive me!" An hour later, dinner being over, they had returned to the drawing-room. Rosa was writing at the table, and there was no sound in the room except the scratching of her pen, the falling of the slips of "copy," and the dull reverberation of the bell of St. Clement's Danes, which was ringing for evening service. Glory was sitting at the desk by the window, with her head on her hands, looking down into the garden. Out of the dead load at her heart she kept saying to herself: "Could I do that? Could I give up the one I loved for his own good, putting myself back, and thinking of him only?" And then a subtle hypocrisy stole over her and she thought, "Yes I could, I could!" and in a fever of nervous excitement she began to write a letter: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and so with a woman's will. I can not go abroad with you, dear, because I can not allow myself to break up your life, for it _would_ be that--it would, it would, you know it would! There are ten thousand men good enough for the foreign mission field, but there is only one man in the world for your work in London. This is one of the things hidden from the wise, and revealed to children and fools. It would be wrong of me to take you away from your great scene. I daren't do it. It would be too great a responsibility. My conscience must have been dead and buried when I suggested such a possibility! Thank God, it has had a resurrection, and it is not yet too late." But when the letter was sealed and stamped, and sent out to the post, she thought: "I must be mad, and there is no method in my madness either. What do I want--to join his life in London?" And then remembering what she had written, it seemed as if the other woman must have written it--the visionary woman, the woman she was making herself into day by day. _ |
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