XV
HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT
Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. I
Instead of returning to Boston next morning, Maurice remained at Brookfield for ten days. Mrs. Morison decided the matter, and it is not to be supposed that he was entirely unwilling to be constrained.
He naturally saw much of Berenice, and he passed hours in brooding over thoughts of her. He was convinced that she was not engaged. She had spoken of Stanford's visit, and it had seemed to Wynne that she had conveyed the impression that her relations to the visitor were less intimate than might at first sight appear. If she were free—the thought made his heart beat, and he wondered if, had the circumstances been different, he might himself have won her. He tormented himself with all her ways and words; the smiles she gave him, the trifling attentions which were addressed to the guest, but which seemed to have a touch of something deeper, that might be due to her thinking of him as her preserver, but which might even go beyond that. There was a delicious torture in all this reverie, in these continual self-reproaches which involved the thought of her, the remembrance of how she had looked, how she had spoken, how she had moved. He became every day more hopelessly her slave, yet every day insisting more strongly to himself that he felt nothing more than warm friend. Once for a moment he tried to believe that his feeling was merely a desire for her spiritual good, that his attitude was that which it was proper for a priest to feel toward a beautiful and frivolous worldling; but the pretense was too ghastly, and he abandoned it with a shudder of disgust. He had moments, too, when he said to himself frankly, in defiance or in sorrow as the mood might be, that he loved her; but for the most part he tried to keep the assumption of simple friendship between him and bitter thought.
He found great pleasure in Mrs. Morison. She was to him a revelation of possibilities of which he had never dreamed. It was a continual surprise to him to find himself so impressed by the wit, the wisdom, and the sanity of this fine old lady. He not only felt himself an ignorant and inexperienced boy beside her, but found himself shrinking from comparing with her the men whom he had followed as leaders. The ease of her manner, the completeness of her self-poise, her frank simplicity, high-bred and winning, delighted him, while the extent of her mental resources filled him with amazement.
Mrs. Morison opened to Wynne a new world in her conversation. At first she gave herself up chiefly to entertaining him, telling him delightful stories of famous folk she had known, of her life abroad and in Washington. She was full of charming little tales which she had the art of relating as if she were not thinking of how she was telling them, but as if they came to her mind and bubbled into talk spontaneously. She had a way, too, of putting in unobtrusive observations on character and events which impressed Maurice. The art of saying things trenchantly he had found in Mrs. Staggchase, but his cousin had the air of being aware of her cleverness, while Mrs. Morison said these things as if they were of the natural and habitual current of her thoughts. Mrs. Morison said clever things as if she thought them; Mrs. Staggchase as if she thought of them.
It did not take the young man long to discover that Mrs. Morison was not in sympathy with his creed. She was too well-bred to bring the matter forward, but he could not resist the temptation now and then to touch upon it. She was of principles at once so broad and so deep that he found himself as often surprised by her devoutness as he felt it his duty to be shocked by her liberality. One day when Maurice had made some allusion to a discussion over the doctrine of predestination which was agitating the English church, Mrs. Morison said:—
"It always seems to me a pity that those who believe in that dreadful doctrine do not remember that if one were not one of the elect, he could at least carry through eternity the realization that he was lost through no fault of his own. God could not take from him that consolation."
He was silent in mingled amazement and disapproval; yet he found his mind following out with obstinate persistence the train of thought which her words suggested. In this or in many another remark it could hardly be said that her words convinced him, but they awoke a swarm of doubts in his mind. He found himself following speculations that were lawless, wild, dangerous, and intoxicating. However convinced he might be that the reasoning of Mrs. Morison was fallacious, he did not find it easy to tell just wherein the fallacy lay. He felt that as a priest he should be able to refute her, and he was filled with dismay to discover that he was rather himself falling into the attitude of a doubter.
One subject which was constantly in his mind he did not touch upon until the day before he left Brookfield. He longed to sound Mrs. Morison on the subject of a celibate priesthood. He was well enough aware that she would not approve of it, and he was irritated by the knowledge that he secretly felt that her decision would be founded on strong common sense. He tried to assure himself that it was her dangerous laxity of principle that blinded her to the nobility and sanctity of asceticism; but it was impossible to feel that such was the case. He was teased by a wish which he would not acknowledge that she might advance arguments which he could not controvert; though to himself he said that she would be his temptation in tangible form, and that he would struggle against it with his whole soul.
His opportunity came while they were discussing the election of the bishop. Mrs. Morison was not immediately concerned in the matter, not being a churchwoman, but she had an intelligent interest in all questions of the day.
"I find it hard to understand," Mrs. Morison observed, "how any churchman can be so blind to the importance of conciliating public thought and the general feeling as for a moment to think of any other candidate than Mr. Strathmore. He is so completely in sympathy with the broadening tendencies of the time."
"But that means ultimately the destruction of creeds," Maurice objected, answering rather the implication than her words.
"I think that perhaps the highest courage men are called upon to show," she answered, "is that of giving up a theory which has served its use. The race forces us to do it sooner or later, but the men who are really great are those who are able to say frankly that their creeds have done their work, and that the new day must have new ones. You might almost say that the extent to which a man prefers truth to himself is to be judged by his willingness to give up a dogma that is outworn."
"But you leave no stability to truth."
"The truth is stable without effort or will of mine," she returned, smiling; "but surely you would have human appreciation of it advance."
He felt that there must be an answer to this, but he was not able to see just what it was, and he shifted the question.
"But Mr. Strathmore," he said hesitatingly, "is married."
"Yes," she assented. "'The husband of one wife.'"
"If you begin to quote Scripture against me," Maurice retorted, laughing in spite of himself, "I might easily reply to St. Paul by St. Paul. But letting that pass, it is certainly true that the church has always held that marriage absorbs a man in earthly things so that he cannot give the best of his thoughts to his work."
"When the church sets itself against marriage," Mrs. Morison responded quietly, "it seems to me to be setting up to know more than the Creator of the race."
Maurice colored, although he might not have been able to tell whether his strongest feeling was horror at this bold language or joy at the emphasis with which she spoke.
"Perhaps I should beg your pardon for saying so frankly what I think," Mrs. Morison continued. "It isn't the way in which one generally talks to a clergyman; but the subject is one for which I haven't much patience, and of course I couldn't help seeing that you are in doubt yourself."
Maurice started.
"What do you mean?" he stammered. "I—I in doubt?"
"I hadn't any intention of forcing your confidence," returned she. "I am an old woman, and sometimes I find that I don't make allowance enough for the slowness of you young people in arriving at a knowledge of self."
He cast down his eyes.
"Until this moment," he said, "I have never acknowledged to myself that I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been playing with fire."
She looked at him questioningly, then turned the subject.
"Which is perhaps a hint that our fire is going down. Sit still, please. Every woman likes to tend her own fire."
"I should have learned that by this time," was his answer. "I lost an inheritance once by insisting upon fixing a fire."
"That sounds interesting. Is it proper to ask for the story?"
"Oh, there isn't much of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often pretty queer. One of them was that nobody should presume to touch the fire if she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that it was my duty to cure her of her whim. So I set to poking the fire ostentatiously until she lost her temper and ordered me out of the house. Then she burned up the will in my favor and made a new one, giving all her money to the church."
"How unjust," commented Mrs. Morison, "and how human. Did you never make peace with her?"
"Yes, but of course I was careful that she should understand that I didn't do it for the sake of her money. She told my mother that she had made a new will in my favor, but it never turned up. My aunt's death was very singular. She was found dead in her bed, and the woman who lived with her, an old nurse of mine, had disappeared. Of course there was at once suspicion of foul play, but the doctors pronounced the death natural, and there was no evidence of theft."
"Did you never discover the nurse?"
"Never. We tried, for we thought she might give a clue to the missing will. She'd been in the family so long that she was a sort of confidential servant, and knew all Aunt Morse's affairs. She was devoted to me."
"The romance may not be ended yet," Mrs. Morison suggested smilingly. "Who knows but the missing nurse will some day turn up with the missing will."
"I'm afraid that after a dozen years there's little enough chance of it."
His mind was so racked upon this wretched question of the right of a
priest to marry, that he could not rest until he had drawn from
Berenice also an expression of opinion on the subject. He made Mr.
Strathmore again the excuse for the introduction of the topic.
"I don't see," he said to her, "how you can think that it's well to have a married bishop. His wife is sure to be meddling in the affairs of the diocese."
She looked at him with a mocking glance.
"Do you wish to drag me into a discussion of the wisdom of allowing the clergy to have wives?" she asked cruelly.
He flushed with confusion, but tried to carry a bold front.
"Very likely it does come down to the general principle of the thing," he answered.
"Well then, the question of the marriage of the clergy doesn't interest me in the least."
She looked so pretty and mischievous that he began to lose his head.
"But it is of the greatest possible interest to me," he returned, with a manner which gave the words a personal application.
She flushed in her turn, and tossed her head.
"That is by no means the same thing," she retorted.
"But what interests me you might try to consider; just out of charity, of course."
"Oh, well, then, since you ask me, this celibacy of the clergy of our church isn't at all a thing that anybody can take seriously. Everybody knows that a clergyman may have his vows absolved by the bishop, so that after all he can marry if he wants to; so that the whole thing seems"—
"Well?" he demanded, as she broke off. "Seems how?"
"Pardon me. I didn't realize what I was saying."
"Seems how?" he repeated insistently.
He challenged her with his eyes, and he could see the spark which kindled defiantly in hers. She threw back her head saucily.
"Well, since you insist! I was going to say that it made the whole thing seem a little like amateur theatricals."
He became grave instantly.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "You do not seem to understand that what you are speaking of may mean the bitter sacrifice of a man's whole life. Even a clergyman is human, and may love as strongly, as completely"—
He choked with the emotion he could not control. He realized that he was telling his passion, and there came to him an overwhelming sense that he must never tell it save in this indirect manner. He hastened on lest she should interrupt him.
"Don't you suppose that a priest may know what it is to worship the very ground a woman walks on? Don't you suppose he has had his heart beat till it suffocated him just because her fingers touched his or her gown brushed him? A man is a man after all, and the dreams that come to one are much the same as come to another. The difference is that the priest has to tear his very heart out, and turn his back on all that other men may find delight in."
Berenice looked at him with shining eyes, not undimmed, he thought, by tears.
"If you really care for her so much," she said softly, "you can give only a divided heart to your work. It is better to own that to yourself, isn't it?"
"For her?" he echoed.
"Oh, there must be somebody," she returned hastily, her color coming.
"No matter about that."
"But think of giving up!" he cried, leaning toward her. "Even those who believe nothing despise a renegade priest."
"That's of less consequence than that he should ruin his life and despise himself."
He held out his uninjured hand impulsively.
"Berenice!" he whispered.
She flushed celestial red, and for an instant her eyes responded to the love in his. Then she sprang to her feet, with a laugh.
"There!" she cried. "See what dunces we are to get to discussing theology. I'll never forgive you if you try to inveigle me into another talk about such subjects. Here is Mehitabel to say that she's ready to help you with your packing."