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The Christian, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Book 3. The Devil's Acre - Chapter 18 |
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_ THIRD BOOK. THE DEVIL'S ACRE CHAPTER XVIII John Storm went back to Victoria Square with a bright and joyful face and found Mrs. Callender waiting for him, grim as a judge. He could see that her eyes were large and red with weeping, but she fell on him instantly with withering scorn. "So you're here at last, are ye? A pretty senseless thing this is, to be sure! What are you dreaming about? Are you bewitched or what? Do you suppose things can be broken off in this way? You to go to the leper islands indeed!" "I'm called, auntie, and when God calls a man, what can he do but answer with Samuel----" "Tut! Don't talk sic nonsense. Besides, Samuel had some sense. He waited to be called three times, and I havena heard this is your third time of calling." John Storm laughed, and that provoked her to towering indignation. "Good God, what are you thinking of, man? There's that puir lassie--you're running away from her, too, aren't you? It's shameful, it's disgraceful, it's unprincipled, and _you_ to do it too!" "You needn't trouble about that, auntie," said John; "she is going with me." "What?" cried Mrs. Callender, and her face expressed boundless astonishment. "Yes," said John, "you women are brimful of courage, God bless you! and she's the bravest of you all." "But you'll no have the assurance to tak' that puir bit lassie to yonder God-forsaken spot?" "She wants to go--at least she wants to leave London." "What does she? Weel, weel! But didn't I say she was nought but one of your Sisters or sic-like?--And you're going to let a slip of a girl tak' you away frae your ain work and your ain duty--and you call yourself a man!" He began to coax and appease her, and before long the grim old face was struggling between smiles and tears. "Tut! get along wi' ye! I've a great mind, though--I'd be liking fine to see her anyway. Now, where does she bide in London?" "Why do you want to know that, auntie?" "What's it to you, laddie? Can't a body call to say 'Good-bye' to a lassie, and tak' her a wee present before going away, without asking a man's permission?" "I shouldn't do it, though, if I were you." "And why not, pray?" "Because she's as bright as a star and as quick as a diamond, and she'd see through you in a twinkling. Besides, I shouldn't advise----" "Keep your advice like your salt till you're asked for it, my man--and to think of any reasonable body giving up his work in London for that--that----" "Good men have gone out to the mission field, auntie." "Mission fiddlesticks! Just a barber's chair, fit for every comer." "And then this isn't the mission field exactly either." "Mair's the pity, and then you wouldna be running bull-neck on your death before your time." "None of us can do that, auntie, for heaven is over all." "High words off an empty stomach, my man, so you can just keep them to cool your parridge. But oh, dear--oh, dear! You'll forget your puir auld Jane Callender, anyway."
"Tut! don't tell me!" "Never!" "It's the last I'm to see of you, laddie. I'm knowing that fine--and me that fond of you too, and looking on you as my ain son." "Come, auntie, come; you mustn't take it so seriously." "And to think a bit thing like that can make all this botherment!" "Nay, it's my own doing--absolutely mine." "Aye, aye, man's the head, but woman turns it." They dined together and then got into the carriage for Soho. John talked continually, with an impetuous rush of enthusiasm; but the old lady sat in gloomy silence, broken only by a sigh. At the corner of Downing Street he got out to call on the Prime Minister, and sent the carriage on to the clergy-house. A newsboy going down Whitehall was calling an evening paper. John bought a copy, and the first thing his eye fell upon was the mention of his own name: "The announcement in another column that Father Storm of Soho intends to take up the work which the heroic Father Damien has just laid down will be received by the public with mingled joy and regret--joy at the splendid heroism which prompts so noble a resolve, regret at the loss which the Church in London will sustain by the removal of a clergyman of so much courage, devotion, independence, and self-sacrifice.... That the son of a peer and heir to an earldom should voluntarily take up a life of poverty in Soho, one of the most crowded, criminal, and neglected corners of Christendom, was a fact of so much significance----" John Storm crushed the paper in his hand and threw it into the street; but a few minutes afterward he saw another copy of it in the hands of the Prime Minister as he came to the door of the Cabinet room to greet him. The old man's face looked soft, and his voice had a faint tremor. "I'm afraid you are bringing me bad news, John." John laughed noisily. "Do I look like it, uncle? Bad news, indeed! No, but the best news in the world." "What is it, my boy?" "I am about to be married. You've often told me I ought to be, and now I'm going to act on your advice." The bleak old face was smiling. "Then the rumour I see in the papers isn't true, after all?" "Oh, yes, it's true enough, and my wife is to go with me." "But have you considered that carefully? Isn't it a terrible demand to make of any woman? Women are more religious than men, but they are more material also. Under the heat of religious impulse a woman is capable of sacrifices--great sacrifices--but when it has cooled----" "No fear of that, uncle," said John; and then he told the Prime Minister what he had told Mrs. Callender--that it was Glory's proposal that they should leave London, and that without this suggestion he might not have thought of his present enterprise. The bleak face kept smiling, but the Prime Minister was asking himself: "What does this mean? Has she _her own_ reasons for wishing to go away?" "Do you know, my boy, that with all this talk you've not yet told me who she is?" John told him, and then a faint and far-off rumour out of another world seemed to flit across his memory. "An actress at present, you say?" "So to speak, but ready to give up everything for this glorious mission." "Very brave, no doubt, very beautiful; but what of your present responsibilities--your responsibilities in London?" "That's just what I came to speak about," said John; and then his rapturous face straightened, and he made some effort to plunge into the practical aspect of his affairs at Soho. There was his club for girls and his home for children. They were to be turned out of the clergy-house tomorrow, and he had taken a shelter at Westminster. But the means to support them were still deficient, and if there was anything coming to him that would suffice for that purpose--if there was enough left--if his mother's money was not all gone---- The Prime Minister was looking into John's face, watching the play of his features, but hardly listening to what he said. "What does this mean?" he was asking himself, in the old habitual way of the man whose business it is to read the motives that are not revealed. "So you are willing to leave London, after all, John?" "Why not, uncle? London is nothing to me in itself, less than nothing; and if that brave girl to whom it is everything----" "And yet six months ago I gave you the opportunity of doing so, and then----" "Then my head was full of dreams, sir. Thank God, they are gone now, and I am awake at last!" "But the Church--I thought your duty and devotion to the Church----" "The Church is a chaos, uncle, a wreck of fragments without unity, principle, or life. No man can find foothold in it now without accommodating his duty and his loyalty to his chances of a livelihood. It is a career, not a crusade. Once I imagined that a man might live as a protest against all this, but it was a dream, a vain and presumptuous dream." "And then your woman movement----" "Another dream, uncle! A whole standing army marshalled and equipped to do battle against the world's sins toward woman could never hope for victory. Why? Because the enemy is ourselves, and only God can contend against a foe like that. He will, too! For the wrongs inflicted on woman by this wicked and immoral London God will visit it with his vengeance yet. I see it coming, it is not far off, and God help those----" "But surely, my boy, surely it is not necessary to fly away from the world in order to escape from your dreams? Just when it is going to be good to you, too. It was kicking and cuffing and laughing at you only yesterday----" "And to-morrow it would kick and cuff and laugh at me again. Oh, it is a cowardly and contemptible world, uncle, and happy is the man who wants nothing of it! He is its master, its absolute master, and everybody else is its wretched slave. Think of the people who are scrambling for fame and titles and decorations and invitations to court! They'll all be in their six feet by two feet some-day. And then think of the rich men who hire detectives to watch over their children lest they should be stolen for sake of a ransom, while they themselves, like human mill-horses, go tramping round and round the safes which contain their securities! Oh, miserable delusion, to think that because a nation is rich it is therefore great! Once I thought the Church was a refuge from this worst of the spiritual dangers of the age, and so it would have been if it had been built on the Gospel. But it isn't; it loves the thrones of the world and bows down to the golden calf. Poverty! Give me poverty and let me renounce everything. Jesus, our blessed Jesus, he knew well what he was doing in choosing to be poor, and even as a man he was the greatest being that ever trod upon the earth." "But this leper island mission is not poverty merely, my dear John--it is death, certain death, sooner or later, and God knows what news the next mail may bring us!" "As to that I feel I am in God's hands, sir, and he knows best what is good for us. People talk about dying before their time, but no man ever did or ever will or ever can do so, and it is blasphemy to think of it. Then which of us can prolong our lives by one day or hour or minute? But God can do everything. And what a grand inspiration to trust yourself absolutely to him, to raise the arms heavenward which the world would pinion to your side and cry, 'Do with me as thou wilt, I am ready for anything--anything.'" A tremor passed over the wrinkles about the old man's eyes, and he thought: "All this is self-deception. He doesn't believe a word of it. Poor boy! his heart alone is leading him, and he is the worst slave of us all." Then he said aloud: "Things haven't fallen out as I expected, John, and I am sorry, very sorry. The laws of life and the laws of love don't always run together--I know that quite well." John flinched, but made no protest. "I shall feel as if I were losing your mother a second time when you leave me, my boy. To tell you the truth, I've been watching you and thinking of you, though you haven't known it. And you've rather neglected the old man. I thought you might bring your wife to me some day, and that I might live to see your children. But that's all over now, and there seems to be no help for it. They say the most noble and beautiful things in the world are done in a state of fever, and perhaps this fever of yours---H'm. As for the money, it is ready for you at any time." "There can't be much left, uncle. I have gone through most of it." "No, John, no; the money you spent was my money--your own is still untouched." "You are too good, uncle, and if I had once thought you wished to see more of me----" "Ah, I know, I know. It was a wise man who said it was hard to love a woman and do anything else, even to love God himself." John dropped his head and turned to go. "But come again before you leave London--if you do leave it--and now good-bye, and God bless you!" The news of John Storm's intention to follow Father Damien had touched and thrilled the heart of London, and the streets and courts about St. Mary Magdalene's were thronged with people. In their eyes he was about to fulfil a glorious mission, and ought to be encouraged and sustained. "Good-bye, Father!" cried one. "God bless you!" cried another. A young woman with timid eyes stretched out her hand to him, and then everybody attempted to do the same. He tried to answer cheerfully, but was conscious that his throat was thick and his voice was husky. Mrs. Pincher was at the door of the clergy-house, crying openly and wiping her eyes. "Ain't there lepers enough in London, sir, without goin' to the ends of the earth for 'em?" He laughed and made an effort to answer her humorously, but for some reason both words and ideas failed him. The club-room was crowded, and among the girls and the Sisters there were several strange faces. Mrs. Callender sat at one end of the little platform, and she was glowering across at the other end, where the Father Superior stood in his black cassock, quiet and watchful, and with the sprawling, smiling face of Brother Andrew by his side. The girls were singing when John entered, and their voices swelled out as they saw him pushing his way through. When the hymn ended there was silence for a moment as if it was expected that he would speak, but he did not rise, and the lady at the harmonium began again. Some of the young mothers from the shelter above had brought down their little ones, and the thin, tuneless voices could be heard among the rest:
All at once, God knows why, he began to think of something which had happened when he was a boy. With his father he was crossing the Duddon Sands. The tide was out, far out, but it had turned, it was galloping toward them, and they could hear the champing waves on the beach behind. "Run, boy, run! Give me your hand and run!" Then he resumed the current of his former thoughts. "What was I thinking about?" he asked himself; and when he remembered, he thought, "I will give my hand to the heavenly Father and go on without fear." At the second verse he rallied, rose to his feet, and joined in the singing. It was said afterward that his deep voice rang out above all the other voices, and that he sang in rapid and irregular time, going faster and faster at every line. They had reached the last verse but one, when he saw a young girl crushing her way toward him with a letter. She was smiling, and seemed proud to render him this service. He was about to lay the letter aside when he glanced at it, and then he could not put it down. It was marked "Urgent," and the address was in Glory's handwriting. The champing waves were in his ears again. They were coming on and on. A presentiment of evil crept over him and he opened the letter and read it. Then his life fell to wreck in a moment. Its nullity, its hopelessness, its futility, its folly, the world with its elusive joys, love with its deceptions so cruel and so sweet-all, all came sweeping up on him like the sea-wrack out of a storm. In an instant the truth appeared to him, and he understood himself at last. For Glory's sake he had sacrificed everything and deceived himself before God and man. And yet she had failed him and forsaken him, and slipped out of his hands in the end. The tide had overtaken and surrounded him, and the voices of the girls and the children were like the roar of the waters in his ears. But what was this? Why had they stopped singing? All at once he became aware that everybody else was seated, and that he was standing alone on the edge of the platform with Glory's letter in his hand. "Hush! hush!" There was a strained silence, and he tried to recollect what it was that he was expected to do. Every eye was on his face. Some of the strangers opened note-books and sat ready to write. Then, coming to himself, he understood what was before him, and tried to control his voice and begin. "Girls," he said, but he was hardly able to speak or breathe. "Girls," he said again, but his strong voice shook, and he tried in vain to go on. One of the girls began to sob. Then another and another. It was said afterward that nobody could look on his drawn face, so hopeless, so full of the traces of suffering and bitter sadness, without wanting to cry aloud. But he controlled himself at length. "My good friends all, you came to-night to bid me Godspeed on a long journey and I came to bid you farewell. But there is a higher power that rules our actions, and it is little we know of our own future, or our fate or ourselves. God bids me tell you that my leper island is to be London, and that my work among you is not done yet." After saying this he stood a moment as if intending to say more, but he said nothing. The letter crinkled in his fingers, he looked at it, an expression of helplessness came into his face, and he sat down. And then the Father came up to him and sat beside him, and took his hand and comforted it as if he had been a little child. There was another attempt to sing, but the hymn made no headway this time, for some of the girls were crying, they hardly knew why, and others were whispering, and the strangers were leaving the room. Two ladies were going down the stairs. "I felt sure he wouldn't go," said one. "Why so?" said the other. "I can't tell you. I had my private reasons." It was Rosa Macquarrie. Going down the dark lane she came upon a woman who had haunted the outside of the building during the past half hour, apparently thinking at one moment of entering and at the next of going away. The woman hurriedly lowered her veil as Rosa approached her, but she was too late to avoid recognition. "Glory! Is it you?" Glory covered her face with her hands and sobbed. "Whatever are you doing here?" "Don't ask me, Rosa. Oh, I'm a lost woman! Lord forgive me, what have I done?" "My poor child!" "Take me home, Rosa. And don't leave me to-night, dear--not to-night, Rosa." And Rosa took her by the arm and led her back to Clement's Inn. Next morning before daybreak the brothers of the Society of the Holy Gethsemane had gathered in their church in Bishopsgate Street for Lauds and Prime. Only the chancel was lighted up, the rest of the church was dark, but the first gleams of dawn, were now struggling through the eastern window against the candlelight on the altar and the gaslight on the choir. John Storm was standing on the altar steps and the Father was by his side. He was wearing the cassock of the Brotherhood, and the cord with the three knots was bound about his waist. All was silent round about, the city was still asleep, the current of life had not yet awakened for the day. Lauds and Prime were over, the brothers were on their knees, and the Father was reading the last words of the dedication service. "Amen! Amen!" There was a stroke of the bell overhead, a door somewhere was loudly slammed, and then the organ began to play:
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