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Mrs. Wilfrid Ward - Great Possessions

M >> Mrs. Wilfrid Ward >> Great Possessions




The letter was short, but very earnest, and had all the ring of truth in
it. She could not but think that any mother would respond to it, and,
for herself, after sending it there could be no looking back. Once the
letter was posted to the lawyer to be forwarded to Madame Danterre, a
huge weight seemed to be lifted from Molly's mind. That night she met
Edmund Grosse at dinner. He had never seen her so bright and
good-looking, and he found he had many questions to ask as to the summer
abroad.


For several weeks Molly received no answer from Florence, but during
that time she did not repent her hasty action. And during those weeks
her interest in religion grew stronger. Just as she had been unable to
work with philanthropists, she was ready now to take her religion alone.
She felt kinder to the world at large, but she did not at first feel any
need of human help or human company. She went sometimes to a service at
Westminster Abbey, sometimes to St. Paul's, sometimes to the Oratory,
and two or three times to the church in West Kensington in which Father
Molyneux was assistant parish priest. On the whole she liked this last
much the best. Indeed, she was so much attracted by his sermons that she
went to call upon him late one afternoon.

The visitor was shown into a rather bare parlour, and Father Molyneux
soon came in. He was a good deal interested in seeing her there. He had
never been more snubbed in his life than by this lady on their first
meeting, and he had been much surprised at seeing her in the church soon
afterwards. She was plainly dressed, though at an expense he would never
have imagined to be possible, and she appeared a little softer than when
he had seen her last. She looked at him rather hard, not with the look
that puzzled Rose Bright; it was a look of sympathy and of inquiry.

"I have had curious experiences since we met," she said, "and I want to
understand them better. Have you--has anybody been praying for me?"

"I have said Mass for you twice since poor Moloney died," he said.

"I thought there was some sort of influence," she murmured. "That night
I was tired and excited and worried, and foolishly prejudiced. Somehow
the prayers you read for Pat Moloney, the whole attitude of your Church
in those prayers, caught my breath. I imagine it was something like the
effect of a revivalist preacher on a Welsh miner." She paused. Father
Molyneux was full of interest, and did not conceal it.

"I can't tell," he said. "Of course, it may have been----"

"Nerves," interrupted Molly so decidedly that he laughed; it was not in
the least what he had meant to say.

"But," she went on, with an air of impartial diagnosis, "it has lasted.
I have been very happy. I understand now what is meant by religion. I
understand what you felt about that man's soul. I understand, when you
are preaching, that intense sense of worth-whileness. I understand the
religious sense, the religious attitude. It makes everything worth
while because of love. It does not explain all the puzzles. It does not
answer questions, it swallows them up alive. It makes everything so big,
and at the same time so small, because there are infinite things too.
Then it insists on reality; I see now it must insist on dogma for fear
of unreality. Renan was quite wrong in that great sentence of his: 'Il
ne faut rien dire de limitee en face de l'infini.' The infinite is a fog
to us if there are no outlines in our conception of it. Don't you think
so?"

There was a light in her face no one had ever seen there before.

"And the only outlines that can satisfy us are the outlines of a
Personality. As a rule I have always disliked individuals. I know you
are surprised. Of course, you are just the other way; you have a touch
of genius, a gift for being conscious of personalities, of being
attracted to them. Now I have never liked people; in fact, I've hated
most of them. But since this religious experience I have known"--her
voice dropped; it had been a little loud--"I have known that I want a
friend, and can have one."

The priest was astonished by Molly. He had never met any one like her
before. Her self-confidence was curious, and her eloquence was so sudden
and abounding that his own words seemed to leave him. She was in a
moment as silent as she had been talkative, her eyes cast down on the
floor. Then she looked at him with an almost imperious questioning in
her eyes.

"You have said so much that I expected to say myself," he said, with a
faint sense of humour, "and you have not asked me a single question."

Molly laughed "Tell me," she said, "I am right; it is all true? I _do_
understand religious experience, the religious sense at last, don't I?"

"Shall I tell you what I miss in it?" he said, suppressing any further
comment on her amazing assertion. "I mean in all you have said. And,
oddly enough, the Welsh miner would have had it. I mean that, seeing Our
Lord as the One Friend of your life, you should also see that you have
resisted and betrayed and offended Him during that life which He gave
you."

"No: I have not thought much about that side of things" said Molly "I
have been too happy."

"You would be far happier if you did."

"But what have I done?" said Molly, almost in a tone of injured
respectability.

"Well, you have hated people--or, at least" (in a tone of apology), "you
said so just now."

"Oh! yes; it's quite true. I am a great hater and an uncertain one. I
never know who it is going to be, or when it will come."

"But you know you have been commanded to love them."

"Yes; but only as much as I love myself, and I quite particularly
dislike myself."

"You've no right to--none whatever."

"And why not?"

"Because God made you in His own image and likeness. You can't get out
of it. But, you know, I don't believe one word you say. I met you
showing love to the poor."

"No, indeed," said Molly indignantly, "I did not love Pat Moloney. I
wish you would believe what I say. I hate my mother; I hate the aunt who
brought me up; I hate crowds of people. I don't hate one man because I
want him to fall in love with me, but if he doesn't do that soon, I
shall hate him too. I feel friendly towards you now, but I don't know
how soon I may hate you. At least," she paused, and a gentle look came
into her face, "I had all these hatreds up to a few weeks ago; now they
are comparatively dormant."

Again the flood of her words seemed to check him, but he tried:

"I believe it then; I will take all you say as true. I think you are
fairly convincing. Well, then, how do you suppose you can be united to
Infinite Love, Infinite Mercy, Infinite Purity? God is not merely good,
He is Goodness. Until you feel that His Presence would burn and destroy
and annihilate your unworthiness, you have no sense of the joys of His
Friendship. You stand now looking up to Him and choosing Him as your
Friend, whereas you must lie prostrate in the dust and wait to be
chosen. When you have done that He will raise you, and the Heavens will
ring with the joy of the great spirits who never fell, and who are
almost envious of the sinner doing Penance."

Molly bent her head low. "I see," she murmured, "mine have been merely
the guesses of an amateur; it is useless--I don't understand."

"It isn't, indeed it isn't," he said quietly. "It is the introduction.
The King is sending His heralds. Some are drawn to Him by the sense of
their own sinfulness, others, as you are, by a glimpse of His beauty."

Molly was not angry, only disappointed. The very habit of a life of
reserve must have brought some sense of disappointment in the result.
She did not mind being told that she must lie in the dust; the
abnegation was not abhorrent; she knew that love in itself sometimes
demanded humiliation. But she felt sad and discouraged. She had seemed
to have conquered a kingdom. Without exactly being proud of them, she
had felt her religious experiences to be very remarkable, and now she
saw that they only pointed to a very long road, hard to walk on. She got
up quickly and was near the door before he was.

"Will you come and see me?" she said, and she gave him her card. "If you
can, send me a postcard beforehand that I may not miss you. Good-bye."

He opened the front door for her and her carriage was waiting.


"The third time you have been late for dinner this week," observed the
Father Rector. "Have some mutton?"

"Thanks," said the young man; "I wish I could learn the gentle art of
sending people away without offending them."

"They didn't include that in the curriculum at Oxford?" The tone was not
quite kind; neither was the snort with which the remark was concluded.
It was no sauce to the lumpy, greasy mutton that Mark was struggling to
eat. Suddenly he caught the eye of the second curate, Father Marny, who
had conceived a great affection for him, and he smiled merrily with a
school-boy's sense of mischief.




CHAPTER XVII

THE BLIND CANON


In a small room in a small house in a small street in Chelsea, Father
Molyneux was sitting with a friend. There were a few beautiful things in
the room, and a few well-bound books; but they had a dusty, uncared for
look about them. It teased the young priest to see a medicine bottle and
a half-washed medicine glass standing on a bracket with an exquisite
statuette of the Madonna. The present occupier of these lodgings had had
very true artistic perceptions before he had become blind.

Mark Molyneux had just been reading to him for an hour, and he now put
down the book. The old man smacked his lips with enjoyment. The author
was new to him, but he had won his admiration at the first reading.

"What people call his paradoxes," he said, "is his almost despairing
attempt at making people pay attention; he has to shout to men who are
too hurried to stop. The danger is that, as time goes on, he will only
be able to think in contrasts and to pursue contradictions."

The speaker paused, and then, his white fingers groped a little as if he
were feeling after something. His voice was rich and low. Then he kept
still, and waited with a curious look of acquired patience. At last,
the younger man began.

"I want to ask your advice, or rather, I want to tell you something I
have decided on."

"And you only want me to agree," laughed Canon Nicholls, and the blind
face seemed full of perception.

"Well, I think you will." The boyish voice was bright and keen. "I've
come to tell you that I want to be a monk."

"Tut, tut," said Canon Nicholls, and then they both laughed together.
"Since when?" he asked a moment later.

"It has been coming by degrees," said Mark, in a low voice. "I want to
be altogether for God."

"And why can't you be that now?"

"It's too confusing," he said; "half the day I am amused or worried or
tired. I've got next to no spiritual life."

Canon Nicholls did not help him to say more.

"I can't be regular in anything, and now there's the preaching."

"What's the matter with that?"

"Who was it who said that a popular preacher could not save his soul?
Father Rector says that it's very bad for me that I crowd up the church.
He is evidently anxious about me."

"How kind!"

"Then, since I've been preaching, such odd people come to see me."

"I know," said the Canon, "there's a fringe of the semi-insane round all
churches; they used to lie in wait for me once."

"Then I simply love society. I've been to hear such interesting people
talk at several houses lately. I go a good deal to Miss Dexter."

"Miss Molly Dexter."

"Yes."

"I wouldn't do that; she's a minx. She is the girl who stayed with that
kind little woman, Mrs. Delaport Green, who sometimes comes to see me."

"You see," Mark went on eagerly, "I'm doing no good like this. So I have
made up my mind to try and be a Carthusian."

His face lit up now with the same intense delight. "It's such a splendid
life! Fancy! No more humbug, and flattery, and insincerity. 'Vous ne
jouerez plus la comedie,' an old monk said to me. Wouldn't it be
splendid? Think of the stillness, and then the singing of the Office
while the world is asleep, like the little birds at dawn. It would be
simply and entirely to live for God!"

"I do believe in a personal devil," muttered Canon Nicholls to himself,
and Mark stared at him. "Now listen," he said. "There is a young man who
has a vocation to the priesthood, and he comes under obedience to work
in London. That is, to live in the thick of sin, of suffering, of folly
and madness. If it were acknowledged that the place was full of cholera
or smallpox it would be simple enough. But the place is thick with
disguises. The worst cases don't seem in the least ill; the stench of
the plague is a sweet smell, and the confusion is thicker because there
are angels and demons in the same clothes, living in the same houses,
doing the same actions, saying almost the same things. In every Babylon
there have been these things, but this is about the biggest. And the
most harmless of the sounds, the hum of daily work, is loud and
continuous enough to dull and wear the senses. So confused and perplexed
is the young man that he doesn't know when he has done good or done
harm; being young, compliments appeal to him very seriously; being
young, he takes too many people's opinions; and, being young, he
generalises and if, for instance, I tell him not to go often to the
house of a capricious woman of uncertain temper, he probably resolves at
once never to lunch in an agreeable house again. Meanwhile, above this
muddle, this tragicomedy, he sees the distant hills glowing with light;
so, without waiting for orders, he leaves the people crying to him for
help and turns tail and runs away! And what only the skill of a personal
devil could achieve, he thinks in his heart that he is choosing a harder
fight, a more self-denying life."

"But I could help those people more by my prayers."

"Granted, if it were God's will that you should lead the life of
contemplation, but I don't believe it is. I don't see what right you've
got to believe it is. As to not living altogether for God here, that's
His affair. Mind you, I don't undervalue the difficulties, and it's
uncommon hard to human nature. Don't think too much of other people's
opinions; I know you feel a bit out of it with the priests about you.
They are rough to young men like you--it's jealousy, if they only knew
it. Jealousy is the fault of the best men, because they never suspect
themselves of it. If they saw it, they would fight it. Face facts. You
have some gifts; you will be much humbler if you thank God for them
instead of trying to think you haven't got them. And be quite
particularly nice to the growler sort of priest; he's had a hard time
and, lived a hard life; much harder than the life of a monk. Mind you
respect his scars."

He talked on, partly to give Mark time; he saw he had given him a shock.

"Mind," he said, "there is sometimes an acute personal temptation, but
you've not got that now. You've got a sort of perception of what it
might be. It won't be unbearable." He crossed his legs and put the long,
white fingers into each other. "But I'm old now, and it's my experience
that the mischief for all priests is to let society be their fun. It
ought to be a duty, and a very tiresome duty too. Take your amusements
in any other way, and go out to lunch in the same state of mind as you
visit a hospital. Do you think the best women, whether Protestant or
Catholic, think society their fun? They may like it or not, but it is a
serious duty to them."

Mark sprang up suddenly. "I can't stand this!" he said. "You go on
talking, and I want to be a Carthusian, and I will be one." He laughed;
his voice was troubled and the clear joy of his face was clouded.

Canon Nicholls felt in his pocket for a snuff-box, and brought it out.
"Go along, if you can't stand it. And don't come back till you've seen
through the devil's trick. I don't mind what I bet that you won't run
away."

Left alone, Canon Nicholls covered his blind eyes with his hands and
heaved a deep sigh.

The man who had just left him was the object of his keenest affection,
the apple of those blind eyes that craved to look upon his face. But his
love was not blind, and he felt the danger there lay in the seeming
perfectness of the young man. Mark's nature was gloriously sweet and
abounding in the higher gifts; his love of God had the awe of a little
child, and his love of men had the tenderness of a shepherd towards his
lost sheep. Mark had loved life and learning, had revelled in Oxford,
and would, in one sense, be an undergraduate all his days. He had known
dreams of ambition, and visions of success in working for his country.
Then gently--not with any shock--had come the vocation to the
priesthood, and so tenderly had the tendrils that attached him to a
man's life in the world been loosened, that the process hardly seemed to
have hurt any of the sensitive sympathies and interests he had always
enjoyed. Even in the matter of giving up great possessions, all had come
so gradually as to seem most natural and least strained.

Long before the Groombridges could be brought to believe that the
brilliant and favourite young cousin had rejected all that they could
leave him, it had become a matter of course to the rest of the family
and their friends that Mark Molyneux would be a priest, and give up the
property to the younger brother.

When the outer world took up the matter, Father Molyneux always made
people feel as if allusions to his renunciation of Groombridge were
simply quite out of taste, and nothing out of taste seemed in keeping
with anything connected with him. It was all so simple to Mark, and so
perfect to Canon Nicholls, that the latter almost dreaded this very
perfection as unlikely, and unbefitting the "second-rate" planet in
which it was his lot to live. And to confirm this almost superstitious
feeling of a man who had lived to know where the jolts and jars of life
cause the acutest suffering to the idealist, had come this fresh
aspiration of Mark's after a life more completely perfect in itself.
Strong instincts were entirely in accord with the older man's sober
judgment of the situation. And yet he wished it could be otherwise. He
had no opinion of the world that Mark wanted to give up. He would most
willingly have shut any cloister door between that world and his
cherished son in the spirit. It was with no light heart that he wanted
him to face all the roughness of human goodness, all the blinding
confusion of its infirmities, all the cruelty of its vices. The old
man's own service in his last years was but to stand and wait, but, even
so, he was too often oppressed by the small things that fill up empty
hours, small uncharitablenesses, small vanities, small irritations. Was
it not a comfort at such moments to believe that in another world we
should know human nature in others and in ourselves without any cause
for repugnance and without any ground for fear?




CHAPTER XVIII

MADAME DANTERRE'S ANSWER


At last there came a letter to Molly from her mother.

"CARISSIMA,--

"I thank you for your most kind intentions. I too have at times
thought of seeing you. But I am now far too ill, and I have no
attention to spare from my unceasing efforts to keep well. I can
assure you that two doctors and two nurses spend their time and
skill on the struggle. I may, they tell me, live many years yet if
I am not troubled and disturbed. I had, by nature, strong maternal
instincts; it was your father's knowledge of that side of my
character which made his conduct in taking you from me almost
criminal in its cruelty. You must have had a most tiresome
childhood with his sister, and probably you gave her a great deal
of trouble. Your letter affected me with several moments of
suffocation, and the doctors and nurses are of opinion that I must
not risk any more maternal emotions. My poor wants are now very
expensive. I am obliged to have everything that is out of season,
and one _chef_ for my vegetables alone. Have you ever turned your
attention to vegetable diet? Doctor Larrone, whom I thoroughly
confide in, sees no reason why life should not be indefinitely
prolonged if the right--absolutely the right--food is always given.
I am sending you a little brochure he has written on the subject.

"I hope that your allowance is sufficient for your comfort. I
should like you to have asparagus at every meal, and I trust, my
dear child, that you will never become a _devote_. It is an
extraordinary waste of the tissues.

"As we are not likely to correspond again, I should like you to
know that I have made a will bequeathing to you the fortune which
was left me, as an act of reparation, by Sir David Bright.

"I wonder why an Englishman, Sir Edmund Grosse, has made so many
attempts at seeing me? Do you know anything of him? I risk much in
the effort to write this letter to assure you of my love.

"YOUR DEVOTED MOTHER.

"P.S.--There is no need to answer the question as to Sir Edmund
Grosse."

Molly was so intensely disgusted with the miserable old woman's letter
that her first inclination was to burn it at once. She was kneeling
before the fire with that intention when Sir Edmund Grosse was
announced. She thrust the paper into her pocket, and realised in a flash
how astonishing it was that Sir Edmund should have tried to see Madame
Danterre. The only explanation that occurred to her at the moment was
that he had tried to see her mother because of his interest in herself.
She did not know that he had not been in Florence since he had known
her. But what could have started him in the notion that Miss Dexter was
Madame Danterre's child? And did he know it for certain now? That was
what she would like to find out.

Molly had on a pale green tea-gown, which fell into a succession of
almost classic folds with each rapid characteristic movement. The charm
of her face was enormously increased by its greater softness of
expression. Although she could not help wishing to please him, even in a
moment full of other emotion, she did not know how much there was to
make her successful to-day. She did not realise her own physical and
moral development during the past months.

Edmund's manner was unconsciously caressing. He had come, he told
himself--and it was the third time he had called at the flat,--simply
because he wanted to keep in touch, to get any information he could. And
he had heard rumours from Florence that Madame Danterre was becoming
steadily weaker and more unable to make any effort.

"A man told me the other day that this was the best-furnished flat in
London, and, by Jove! I rather think he was right."

"I never believe in the man who told you things, he is far too apposite;
I think his name is Harris."

Edmund smiled at the fire.

"Who was the attractive little priest I met here the other day?" he
asked.

"Little! He is as tall as you are."

"Still, one thinks of him as _un bon petit pretre_, doesn't one? But who
is he?"

"Father Molyneux."

"Not Groombridge's cousin?"

"Yes, the same."

"I wonder if he repents of his folly now? I didn't think he looked
particularly cheerful!"

"Didn't you?" said Molly. "Well, I think he is the happiest person I
know! But we never do agree about people, do we?"

"About a few we do, but it's much more amusing to talk about ourselves,
isn't it?"

"Much more. What do you want me to tell you about myself this time?"

Edmund looked at her with sleepy eyes and perceived that something had
changed. "I should like to know what you think about me?" he said
gently.

"No, you wouldn't," said Molly, and she gave a tiny sigh. "No, for some
reason or other you want to know something which I have settled to tell
you."

Her manner alarmed and excited him. As a matter of honourable dealing he
felt that he ought to give her pause. "Are you sure you are wise?" he
said.

"I'm not sure, but that's my own affair, and it will be a relief. I
would rather you knew what you want to know, though why you want to
know"--her eyes were searching him--"I can't tell."

Sir Edmund Grosse almost told her that he did not want to know.

"You want to know for certain that my mother is living in Florence under
the name of Madame Danterre--the Madame Danterre you have tried to see
there. And further, you want to know how much I have ever seen of her."

"Oh, please!" cried Edmund, "I don't indeed wish you to tell me all
this."

"You do, and so I shall answer the questions. I have never seen her in
my life. But these last few weeks I have thought I ought to try, so I
wrote and offered to go to her, and I have this evening had the first
letter she has ever written to me. In this letter"--she drew it half out
of her pocket--"she declines to see me, and she exhorts me to a
vegetable diet."

There was a moment in which her face looked the embodiment of sarcasm,
then something gentler came athwart it. He had never come so near to
liking her before. He could no longer think of her as all the more
dangerous on account of her attractions; she was a suffering,
cruelly-treated woman. It is dangerous to see too much of one's enemies:
Edmund was growing much softer.

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