The Christian Part 48

"And now you want to know how I come to be here. You are to learn then that Mr. Koenig happened to be one of my patients in the hospital, he having gone there for a slight operation, and I having helped to nurse him through what he calls his 'operatic cure.' In the course of that ordeal he had music of a less excruciating kind sometimes, it seems, and after his return home he searched for me all over London on account of my voice, and finding me unexpectedly at last he sent his wife to Mrs.

Jupe's to fetch me, and--and here I am in a dainty little dimity room, whose walls are covered with portraits of well-known singers, violinists, pianists, and composers, with their affectionate inscriptions underneath.

"But you want to learn why I am here. Well, you must know that Mr.

Koenig (although a foreign musician) is organist of All Saints', Belgravia, where they sing a solo anthem at nearly every Sunday morning service; and having had various disappointments at the hands of vocal soloists from the Opera, whose 'professional engagements suddenly intervened,' he conceived the audacious idea of 'intervening' a woman to do their duty permanently. So this is my position in the church at which John Storm used to be curate, and once a week I pipe that his old enemy the canon may play. But as that good man is of St. Paul's opinion about women holding their tongues in the synagogue, and is blest with just enough ear to know a contralto from a corn-crake, I have to be hidden away behind a screen in order that his reverence may have all the fun to himself of believing me to be a boy.

"So you see, my dearies, you needn't be anxious about me, 'at all at all', seeing that I am living in this atmosphere of art and the odour of sanct.i.ty, and that I have kept only one tiny little thing back, and I am going to tell you that now. You were afraid that I might go too often to the theatre, Aunt Anna. Never mind, auntie, I shall not be going so very often now, and in proof thereof permit me to introduce myself in my future style and character--Miss Glory Quayle, the eminent social entertainer! You don't know what that is, dear people? It is quite simple and innocent, nevertheless. I am to go to the houses of smart people when they give their grand parties and sing and recite, and so forth. Nothing wrong, you see--only what I used to do at Glenfaba.

"You must know that, just as in the country the men go to the smithy when they have nothing more pressing on hand than to settle the affairs of the universe, and the women to the mangle-house when they have to mangle other things besides clothes, so in the towns the poor rich people have their own particular diversion, which they call their 'At Homes.' Mr. Drake used to tell me they were terrible Tower-of-Babel concerns, at which everybody talked at once, and all the tongues in the place went 'click-clack, world without end.' But they must be perfectly charming for all that; and when I think of the dresses and the diamonds and the t.i.tles as long as your breath--oh, dear! oh, dear!

"I shall see it all soon, I suppose, for to supply the place of the hammer and the anvil the smart folks always add musical accompaniment to the confusion of tongues, and Mr. Koenig, who has a choral company, goes to the cream of the cream of such gatherings, and sings and plays from Grieg and Schumann, and Liszt and Wagner, and Chopin and Paderewski, and the place intended for me in this grand organization would appear to be that of jester to my lords and ladies. '_Ach Gott!_' says Mr. Koenig, who 'speaks ver' bad de Englisch,' 'your great people vant de last new ting. One lady she say to me, "Dear Mr. Koenig, I tink I shall not ask you dis season. I hear you everyvheres I go to, and I get so tired of peoples." But vhen I takes anoder wis me I am a new beesness. You shall sing and recite your leetle funny tings. Your great people tink dey loof music, but dey loof better to laugh. "For mercy's sake make dem laugh, Mr. Koenig"--dat's vhat a great man say to me. But, my gootness, how can I? I am a musician, I am a composer, I am an arteeste!'

"For this high and n.o.ble office I have been going through a purgatory of preparation in which I have sometimes hardly known whether I was a hurdy-gurdy or an explosion of cats, and the future female jester has even been known to lie down on the floor and cry in her dumps of despair or some such devilry. However, Mr. Koenig begins to believe that I am pa.s.sable, and my first appearance is to be made immediately after Lent, at the house of the Home Secretary, where it is not improbable, dear Aunt Rachel, that I may meet Mr. Drake, although that is no part of my programme.

"Of course, I shall have to look charming in any case, and I am already busy with my dress. It is a black silk gown with a tight-fitting bodice.

The bodice has windbag sleeves, formed of shawl pieces of guipure lace, and some lilies of the valley on the breast, finished with a waistband of heliotrope velvet, and I am going to wear long black gloves all the way up my arms, which are growing round and plump, and lovely enough for anything. The skirt is my old one, and I got the lace for three-and-six, so I am not ruining myself, you see; and though my hair is getting redder than ever, red is the fas.h.i.+onable colour in London now, therefore I sha'n't waste much money on dyes.

"But for all this brave exterior, when the time comes I know that down in my heart I shall be terrified. It will be like the first dive of the year. 'One plunge, Glory, my child,' and then over I'll go! I partly realize already what it will be like by my experiences on Sunday evenings when the celebrities come here after church, and Mr. Koenig exhibits me to admiring friends and tells them how I brought him 'goot look,' and I overhear them say, 'That girl will show them all something yet.' Oh, this London is adorable, my dears, with its wit and fas.h.i.+on, and gaiety and luxury! and I have concluded that to live in the world is the best thing one can do, after all. Some people say hard things about it, and want to reform it, or even to leave it altogether; but I love it! I love it! and think it just charming!

"And now spring is here, and the world is lovely in its yellow and green. It must be _urroma.s.sy_ nice over yandher in the 'oilan' too, with the primroses and the violets and the gorse in the glen. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can smell it all three hundred miles away! The lilacs will be out at Glenfaba now, and Aunt Anna will be collecting her Easter eggs.

Well--wait a whilley, and I'll come to thee, my dears!

"Not a word from John Storm, of course. No doubt he is fighting with shadows while other people are struggling with realities. They tell me these Brotherhoods are common in the Church now, though most of them are secret societies; but the more I think of that kind of religion the more it looks like setting tasks to try faith, as if G.o.d were a coquettish woman. That reminds me that Mr. Worldly-Wealthy-Wiseman is no longer a canon, having got himself made archdeacon, and as such he looks more than ever like a black Spanish c.o.c.k, being clad, of course, in those funny clothes, like the bishops, which always make one think their lords.h.i.+ps must be in doubt on getting up in the morning whether they ought to wear a schoolboy's knickerbockers or a ballet-girl's skirt, so they settle the difficulty by putting on both. For this reason I try to avoid him when on duty at the church, lest I should be suddenly possessed of a devil and behave badly to his face. But this being Lent, and there being special preachers every day, it chanced on Sunday morning that I came upon three of him all in a row, and oh, my gracious, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these!

"It is too bad, though, to think that men like John Storm can't find room in the Church for the sole of their foot, while this archdemon is flouris.h.i.+ng in it like a green bay tree. Forgive me, grandfather; I can't help it. But then the Church in the country doesn't seem the same as in town. _There_ you are somehow made to feel that man does a little and G.o.d does all the rest, while _here_ we reverse that order of things, with the result that this seed of the Amalekite--but never mind!

"I went to the Zoo this morning. There was a lion shut up in a cage all by himself. Such a solemn, splendid, silent fellow; I could have cried.

"But it is the witching hour of night, my daughter, and you must put yourself to bed. 'Goot look!'

"Glory."

XVII.

In the middle of the night of Good Friday, John Storm was wakened by noises in the adjoining cell. There seemed to be the voices of two men in angry and violent altercation, the one threatening and denouncing, the other protesting and supplicating.

"The girl is dead--isn't that proof enough?" said one voice. "It's a lie! It's a false accusation!" said the other voice. "Paul, what are you going to do?" "Put this bullet in your brain." "But I'm innocent--I take the Almighty to witness that I'm innocent. Put the pistol down. Help!

help!" "No use calling--there's n.o.body in the house." "Mercy! mercy!

I haven't much money about me, but you shall have it all. Take everything--everything--and if there's anything I can do to start you in life--I'm rich, Paul--I have influence--only spare me!" "Scoundrel, do you think you can buy me as you bought my sister?" "And if I did I was not the only one." "Liar! Tell that to herself when you meet her at the judgment!" "As-sa.s.sin!" "Too late--you've met her!"

John Storm listened and understood. The two voices were one voice, which was the voice of Brother Paul. The lay brother was delirious. His poor broken brain was rambling in the ways of the past. He was re-enacting the scene of his crime.

John hesitated. His impulse was to fly into Paul's room and lay hold of him, that he might prevent him from doing himself any injury. But he remembered the law of the community, that no member of it should go into the cell of another under pain of grievous penance. And then there was the rule of silence and solitude which had not yet been lifted away.

But monks are great sophists, and at the next moment John Storm had told himself that it was not Brother Paul who was in the adjoining room, but only his poor peris.h.i.+ng body, labouring through the last sloughs of the twilight land of death. Paul himself, his soul, his spirit, was far away. Hence it could be no sin to go into the cell of one whose senses were not there.

His own door was locked, but he sc.r.a.ped back the key and lit his candle, and stepped into the pa.s.sage. The voices were still loud in Paul's room, but no one seemed to hear them. Not another sound broke the silence of the sleeping house. The cell beyond Paul's was empty. It was Brother Andrew's cell, and Andrew was at the door downstairs.

When John Storm entered the dark room, candle in hand, Brother Paul was standing in the middle of the floor with one hand outstretched and a ghastly and appalling smile upon his face. He was pale as death, his eyes were ablaze, his forehead was streaming with perspiration, and he was breathing from the depths of his chest. He wiped the dews from his brow and said in a choking voice, "He has died as he lived--a liar and a scoundrel!"

John took him by the hand and drew him to the bed, and, putting him to sit there, he tried to soothe and comfort him. He was terrified at first by the sound of his own voice, but the sophism that had served to bring him, served to support him also, and he told himself it could be no breach of the rule of silence to speak to one who was not there. The delirium of the lay brother spent itself at length, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Next day, when Brother Andrew came to John's cell with the food, he began to sing as if to himself while he bustled about the room.

"Brother Paul is sinking--he is sinking rapidly--Father Jerrold has confessed him--he has taken the sacrament--and is very patient."

This, as if it had been a Gregorian chant, the great fellow had hit upon as a means of communicating with John without breaking the rule and committing sin.

John did not lock his door on the following night. On going to bed he listened for the noises he had heard before, half fearing and yet half wis.h.i.+ng that he might hear them again. But he heard nothing, and toward midnight he fell asleep. Something made him shudder, and he awoke with the sensation of moonlight on his face. The moon was indeed s.h.i.+ning, and its sepulchral light was on a figure that stood by the foot of the bed.

It was Paul, with a livid face, murmuring his name in a voice almost as faint as a breath.

John leaped up and put his arms about him.

"You are ill, brother--very ill."

"I am dying."

"Help! help!" cried John, and he made for the door.

"Hush, brother, hus.h.!.+"

"Oh, I don't care for rule. Rule is nothing in a case like this. And, besides, it is an understood thing---- Help!"

"I implore you, I conjure you!" said Paul in a voice strangled by weakness. "Let them leave us together a little longer. It was by my own wish that I was left alone. I have something to say to you--something to confess. I have to ask your pardon."

In two strides John had reached the door, but he came back without opening it.

"Why, my poor lad, what have you done to me?"

"When you let me out of the house to go in search of my sister----"

"That was long ago; we'll not talk of it now, brother."

"But I can not die in peace without telling you. You remember that I had something to say to her?"

"Yes."

"It was a threat. I was going to tell her that unless she gave up her way of life I should find the man who had been the cause of it and follow him up and kill him."

"It was only a temptation of the devil, brother, and it is past; and now----"

"Don't you see what I was going to do? I was going to bring trouble and disgrace upon you also as my comrade and accomplice. That's what a man comes to when Satan----"

"But G.o.d willed it otherwise, brother; let us say no more about it."

"You forgive me, then?"