XX
IN WAY OF TASTE
Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3.
The two deacons were together again in the Clergy House. Maurice frankly confessed to himself that he did not like it, and he wondered if Philip were also dissatisfied. It was a question too delicate to ask, however; and he contented himself with watching his friend to discover, if possible, whether the stay outside had affected Ashe as it had him. They returned late in the afternoon, and their greeting was of the warmest.
"Dear old boy," Maurice cried, "you don't know how glad I am to get at you again. Where in the world have you kept yourself?"
"Just at the last," Philip responded, "I've been down to Montfield."
"Down home? Have you really? How is everybody? I hope your mother is well."
"She is very well, and I do not remember anybody that we know who isn't. I went down to see Mr. Wentworth, and found that he is already pledged to Mr. Strathmore."
"Is he really? How did that happen?"
"It seems that he is a cousin of that Mrs. Gore where we heard that heathen, and she is greatly interested in Mr. Strathmore's election. Mr. Wentworth promised her his vote. How people are carried away by that man. Mr. Wentworth told me that he looked upon him as the greatest man in the church to-day."
"It is strange," Maurice assented absently; "but he is a man of great personal fascination."
"To me," Philip retorted, "he is a whited sepulchre. His doctrine of mental reservation amounts to nothing less than that a priest is at liberty to believe anything he pleases if he will only conform outwardly."
Maurice was secretly much of the same opinion, but they came now to the dinner table, where silence was the rule. Wynne had a feeling of dishonesty from the fact that he concealed from his friend that he had sought an interview with Strathmore, yet he felt that he could not confess the visit. While they sat at table a brother read aloud, and the reading chanced to be to-night from the book of Job. The words of the splendid poem mingled in the mind of Maurice with the most incongruous and unpriestly thoughts. He chafed at the routine into which he had fallen as into a pit from which he had once escaped; the meagre repast seemed to him pitifully poor; and most of all he was angry with himself that he could not feel joy at his return to the house which was the symbol of the consecrated work to which he had given his life. After dinner came an hour and a half of recreation, and in this he was called to the study of the Father Superior.
"You returned so late in the day," the Father said with a smile, "that you will not mind giving up recreation to-night. I wish to speak with you on a matter of importance."
Maurice took the seat toward which the other waved his hand. He felt alien and strange. He recalled the attitude of submission and reverence with which he had once been accustomed to enter this room, the respect with which he had heard every word of the Father; and he blamed himself bitterly that he now took rather a defensive mood, and felt an instinctive desire to escape. He reflected that he had been poisoned by the world; yet he could not wholly shut out the consciousness that he had no genuine desire to be freed from the sweet madness which had seized him. He tried to put all thought of these matters by, however, and to give his whole attention to what the priest might say to him.
"I think that you have met Mrs. Frostwinch," the Father said.
"I went to her house once," Maurice answered, surprised at the remark, and feeling his pulse quicken at the remembrance of his first sight of Berenice.
"I remember that you mentioned it in confession," was the grave reply.
"Satan sets his snares in the most unlikely places."
The words seemed almost a reply to Wynne's secret thought. His first impulse was to resent this open allusion to a sacred confidence whispered in the confessional. It was like a stab in the back, or a trick to take unfair advantage; and the matter was made worse by this allusion to a snare of Satan, which could mean nothing else but Berenice herself. Maurice flushed hotly, but habit was strong in him, and he cast down his eyes without reply.
"Have you heard that Mrs. Frostwinch is on her way home?" Father
Frontford went on.
"No."
"It is said that her faith-healing superstition has failed her, and she is coming home to die."
"To die?" echoed Maurice.
He recalled Mrs. Frostwinch as he had seen her, gracious, high-bred, apparently brilliantly well; and it appeared monstrously impossible that death should be near her. She had seemed a woman who would defy death, and live on simply by her own splendid will.
"So it is said," the Father assured him. "Do you know how important it is to us to have her influence in the election?"
"I know that there are certain votes that she may influence, and that she is in"—he almost said "your," but he caught himself in time—"our interests."
"There are three and perhaps four votes which depend upon her. Three are sure to go over to the other side if she is not able to stand behind them. They are all dependent upon her for support in one way or another."
"But surely," Maurice suggested, "they would not vote unconscientiously? They wouldn't sell their convictions for her support?"
"They would not vote unconscientiously," was the dry response, "but they believe that the support which she gives to them and to their missions is of more importance than that the man they really prefer should be chosen."
"But what can be done?"
Father Frontford sat leaning back in his chair, his face in shadow, and the tips of his thin fingers pressed together in his habitual gesture.
"Perhaps nothing," he answered.
His voice had dropped into a soft, silky half-tone, insinuating and persuasive. Maurice began to have an uneasy feeling as if he were being hypnotized; yet the words of the other came to him with a quality strangely soothing and attractive.
"Perhaps," the priest went on after a pause of a second, "perhaps everything that is necessary."
It seemed to Maurice that there was something significant in the tone which the words did not reveal. He looked keenly at the shadowed face, but without being able clearly to make out its expression. He could see little but the bright eyes holding and dominating his own.
"It is for you to do this work," Father Frontford continued; "and it is wonderful how Providence brings good out of all things. Here is an opportunity for you not only to expiate your fault, but to serve the cause of the church."
Without understanding, Maurice began to tremble with inner dread lest the name of Berenice should again be brought up between himself and this pitiless priest.
"I do not see that there is anything that I can do," he said coldly.
"On the contrary. Do you chance to know anything about the Canton estate? I suppose you are not likely to."
"Nothing whatever. What is the Canton estate?"
"Mrs. Frostwinch was a Canton. Her father was a brother of old Mrs.
Morison."
Maurice could not see how all this involved him, but he became more and more uneasy.
"The estate of old Mr. Canton," the Father went on in the same smooth voice, "was, as I have just learned from Mrs. Wilson, left to his daughter for life and to her children after her. If she died childless it was to go to Miss Morison."
"And she is childless?"
"She is childless. If she is taken away now, the property will all be in the hands of Miss Morison."
There was a moment of stillness in which the thought most insistent in the mind of Maurice was that in this fortune fate had raised another wall between himself and Berenice. He spoke to escape the reflection.
"But all this is surely not my concern."
"It is your concern if it shows you a way in which the votes of those clergymen may be assured, although Mrs. Frostwinch should not recover."
"It shows me no way."
Maurice tried to speak naturally and without evidence of feeling, but his throat was parched and his heart hot. He hated this inquisition. The long reverence and admiration which had bound him to the Father melted to nothing in the twinkling of an eye. Who was this Jesuit that sat here making of Berenice and her fortune pawns in his game; involving her in a web of intrigue unworthy of his sacred office; and forcing his disciple to listen through a knowledge of facts stammeringly poured out in the confessional? Absence from the Clergy House and from town, and after that a growing reluctance, had prevented Maurice from confessing anything beyond his first attraction to Miss Morison, but he had written to the Father Superior of the accident, and had mentioned that he was thought to have been of assistance in saving her. It came to him now that he was being repaid for the accursed vanity which had led him to make this boast; and he became the more animated against his director from his anger against himself.
"Whatever Mrs. Frostwinch has done with the property," Father Frontford said, "of course Miss Morison may do if she pleases."
"I should suppose so; but I know nothing about it."
"Then if Miss Morison will promise to continue the donations of Mrs. Frostwinch, the position of the beneficiaries will be the same toward her as toward Mrs. Frostwinch."
Maurice bent forward quickly, unable longer to maintain an appearance of calm.
"Father Frontford," he exclaimed, "you certainly cannot ask this of Miss Morison! It would be sheer impertinence! I beg your pardon, but I cannot help saying it. Besides, there is something horribly cold-blooded in talking about what shall be done with the property of Mrs. Frostwinch when she is dead. Miss Morison would not listen to anything of the sort."
"The circumstances justify what otherwise would be inadmissible. It is necessary, Mrs. Wilson thinks, to be able to tell those men that their situation is not changed by the death of Mrs. Frostwinch, which is almost sure to take place before the convention. You must explain that to Miss Morison."
"I!"
"The obligation which she is under to you," the Father said, ignoring the exclamation, "will naturally incline her to listen."
"But I cannot"—
"I had thought that it was mine to decide what you could and should do."
"But, Father, this is so extraordinary, so impossible, so"—
"Miss Morison is to be in Boston in a couple of days. Mrs. Wilson will let us know when she arrives. I know how strange this looks to you, and how repugnant it must be. Do you think that it is any less hateful to me? Do you think that it is easy for me to be working for what is to be my own personal exaltation if we succeed? I give you my word, Wynne, that the severest sacrifice that any one can be called on to make in this matter is that which I make when I take these steps toward putting myself in office. I am not naturally humble, and it humiliates me to the very soul; but I do what seems to me to be for the good of the church, and try to put my personal feeling entirely out of the matter. It is for you to do the same."
It was impossible for Maurice to doubt the sincerity with which this was said. He had no answer to give.
"Go now, my son," the Father concluded, "and do not forget to thank God that the weakness of your heart may be turned into a means by which the church may be served."
Maurice retired to his room in a whirl of conflicting thoughts. He was summoned almost immediately to vespers and complines. The familiar ritual soothed him, and he was able to join in the chants in much the old way. His feeling was that he would gladly have had the service last into the night. He would have liked to go on with this half emotional, half mechanical devotion, which kept him from thinking, and which put off the dreaded hour when he must face the proposition which had been made to him.
It was the rule of the house that all the inmates should preserve unbroken silence among themselves from complines until after nones the next day. Maurice knew therefore that he was free from intrusion of human companionship, which it seemed to him he could not have borne. Even the talk of dear old Phil, to a chat with whom he had looked forward as the one pleasure in coming back to the Clergy House, would have been intolerable while this nightmarish trouble lay upon him. He went at once to his chamber, a cell-like room, and sat down to think. Could he do it? How would Berenice regard this impertinent interference with her private affairs? How could he go to her and say: "It is necessary for church politics that you assume to dispose of the property which now your cousin holds, and over which you have no rights until she is in her grave." He could see her eyes sparkle with indignation and contempt, and he grew hot in anticipation. He could not do it, he thought over and over. It was impossible that in this age of the world anybody should dream of having such a thing done. If he were almost a priest, he told himself fiercely, he had not yet ceased to be a gentleman!
The stricture which this thought seemed to cast upon the priesthood made him pause. He had not yet shaken off the dominion of old ideas and old habits. He apologized to an unseen censor for the apparent irreverence of his thought. It was not the priesthood, it was—He came again to a standstill. He was not prepared to own to himself that he disapproved of the Father Superior. He had vowed obedience, and here he sat raging against a decree because it sacrificed his personal feelings to the good of the church. The blame should be upon himself. There was nothing in all this revolt except his own selfishness and wounded vanity. He had transgressed by allowing his thoughts to be entangled in earthly affection, and this misery and wickedness followed inevitably. The fault was in him entirely; it was his own grievous fault. The familiar words of the office of confession made him beat his breast, and fall in prayer before the crucifix which seemed to waver in the flickering candlelight. He repeated petition after petition. He would not allow himself to think. It was his to obey, not to question. He would regain his old tranquillity, his old docility. He would submit passively. It was his own fault, his most grievous fault.
The ten o'clock bell rang, calling for the extinguishing of lights. He sprang from his knees, blew out the candle, threw off his clothes in the dark, and hurried into his hard and narrow bed. He was resolved not to think. He said the offices of the day; he repeated psalms; and at last, in desperate attempt to control his mind and to induce sleep, he began to multiply large numbers. All the time he was resolutely saying to himself: "It is my fault; my most grievous fault!" And all the time some inner self, unsubdued, was persistently replying: "It is not! It is not! I am right!"