VII
As the main path from the monastery to the guest-house was broad and open, Miss Kaye-Templeman declined Antonio's protection. The glance and tone, however, which softened her words of refusal suggested to the monk that he was forgiven.
"You can't endure my escort," he said, with a ghost of a smile, "because you still hate me."
"I don't hate you," she retorted. "I never did hate you—not you in particular. For the moment I simply hated every thing and every place and every body. It's over now. Pray believe I don't make such an exhibition of myself often. And please forget, if you can, that I was so weak and silly. Good-bye. I will tell my father you are still at the abbey."
Antonio returned to the chapel. Young Crowberry was kneeling on the lowest step of the altar, facing the empty tabernacle. He rose in confusion and came to meet the monk.
"I thought you had taken her up to the guest-house," he said, as they walked out into the cloisters. "I heard you both go outside. I suppose you wasted your breath. Isabel Kaye-Templeman will never forgive you."
"The Senhorita has forgiven me already," said Antonio. "Or, to be exact, my explanation is accepted."
"Then you've some magic power over her," declared young Crowberry. "I thought so yesterday, at dinner. Now, I am sure of it. With everybody else she's as hard as nails."
"I imagine that bitter experiences have made her suspicious and reserved," said Antonio. "For that I don't blame her. But one thing pains me, beyond words. I can understand Miss Kaye-Templeman having prejudices against the Catholic Church; but she seems equally contemptuous of all religion."
"At Sir Percy's house," explained young Crowberry, "or more strictly speaking, at Sir Percy's innumerable houses and lodgings, you can depend on meeting, any Sunday night, half a dozen second-rate men of science. They're all anti-Christians and most of them are blank atheists. I've heard them talk two or three times. Their position seems to be that we know more than our grandfathers did about the way the world is made; and, therefore, the world made itself. They can't argue; or, if they can, they don't. They coolly take it for granted that everybody who still clings to Christianity is an antiquated fool."
"You think clearly, Edward, and you talk sensibly. In a minute I'm going to ask you about yourself," said Antonio. "But tell me. How far has this poor Miss Isabel been perverted by what she has heard?"
"When she consented to come and live here," Edward replied, "I heard somebody ask her how she would get on without an English church. Isabel simply answered: 'If I've given up church-going, in England, why should I begin it again in Portugal?'"
They emerged from the building and looked up the paths; but Sir Percy was not in sight. Antonio led his companion back to the spiral stairway; and when they were seated on the roof of the cloister he drew forth the truth concerning young Crowberry's state of mind and soul.
From his English journals and reviews the monk had gathered some imperfect notions of the new ecclesiastical movement which a scholar of Cambridge had set going at Oxford. He knew the names of Pusey and of Newman, and was conversant with the main argument of the notorious "Tract Ninety," although it had issued from the press only a few months before. But it was from the lips of Edward Crowberry that he received his first connected account of the matter. The young man, as Antonio had said, thought clearly and talked sensibly. Unlike the leaders of the movement he was unembarrassed by the need to reconcile his new findings with his old utterances; and therefore he saw further than much wiser men into the movement's future. Perhaps some of his more striking sentences had adhered to his mind after the perusal of books and articles; but he understood what he had read, and he had made it his own.
"Our English skeptics," he said, "have thought to take away from us our Christianity. Our Christianity remains; and we are also regaining the Church. In England the very idea of the Church had almost passed away. Our bishops had almost ceased to rule and to teach. Our sacraments had become mere commemorations—like birthdays and anniversaries. But the Church is emerging from the mists. I believe that in a hundred years from now hardly any Christianity will be professed save in communion with the Church. On the one side we shall have the ancient Church, boldly affirming supernatural religion, proclaiming the deposit of faith, cherishing her holy mysteries; and, on the other, we shall have a great band of thinkers and teachers for whom this world is all. The nondescript waverers, betwixt and between, will disappear. There will be only Isabel Kaye-Templemans and..."
"And Edward Crowberrys," said Antonio, coming to the relief of his modesty. "You prophesy boldly. But please make one point still plainer. What will this Church be? I have read something about a Via Media. Many of your writers seem to think there will be three Churches, the Eastern, the Western, and the English—Constantinople, Rome, and Canterbury. They seem to believe that the Church of England can purge herself of heresy while persisting in schism. Am I right?"
"You are right," said young Crowberry. "That is their hope. But do not judge them harshly. There is much in our national Church for us Englishmen to be proud of. And there is much in our history, much in our temperament, which will make our return to the Roman obedience a bitter pill to swallow. I know little of the Eastern Church. There are hardly any English books about it. But what has the East to do with England? On the point which divided West and East, England believes with the West. No. The only Church to which we can return is the Church from which we broke away."
"You are young and sanguine," returned Antonio. "You will want more than a hundred years before the English schism is ended. But I believe that, before you are middle-aged, you will see thousands of individuals returning home one by one. You have told me that these earnest men in Oxford claim to be fighting the battle of the Apostolical Succession. Those men will soon learn that they are already well advanced on the road to re-union with the Apostolic See. The Church in England was destroyed by monarchs' commands and by lawyers' pens; but it cannot be restored, bodily, by similar means. It will be rebuilt out of individual converts, like the Churches founded by the apostles. It will not be a wholesale, sudden, man-made event like the conversion of the Franks after the baptism of Clovis."
They sat silent, looking across the sea towards England, the hidden and beloved isle. At length Antonio asked:
"Does your father know which way your thoughts are running?"
"My father drinks and swears," young Crowberry answered. "But according to his lights he is a Christian. It is his teachers' fault, not his own, that he believes the Pope to be Anti-Christ, or the Man of Sin, or the Scarlet Woman. He ceased to read and think so long ago that his ideas cannot be changed. What would you have me do? I say nothing. I go my own way. The same with my friends. They think I'm a mere rattle like a few dry peas in a box. Let them. I prefer it."
"But, sooner or later, you must take the great step and you must declare it. What will your father say then?"
"He will say what he always says when I cross him—that I shan't have a penny of his money. If he were still rich I could stand up and simply say, 'Sir, keep the money; only pray let me call my soul my own.' But I know, and he knows, and each of us knows the other knows, that there won't be a penny to leave. In his old age I must support my father, and I shall be proud to do it. But, meanwhile, I can only hold my tongue."
After another long pause the monk said:
"One more question. This young lady Isabel. You were so eager to know my opinion of her. Why? Is there anything between you?"
Young Crowberry laughed aloud; and only when his laughter had subsided through many guffaws and chucklings could he speak.
"Is there anything between me and Isabel?" he echoed. "Yes. There is. By Jove, there's a good deal. There's an iron door. There's a brick wall. No, a stone wall—stone-cold, like a wall of ice. Anything between us? There's the whole world; also the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, not to mention a few comets and the Milky Way." And he chuckled again.
"Yet you're greatly interested in her," objected Antonio.
"No doubt," admitted young Crowberry. "I'm inquisitive. I'm mightily curious to know what there is behind the iron door, what there is over the brick wall. Not that it is reciprocal. Isabel thinks of me as a mere infant. Or, rather, Isabel doesn't think of me at all. She can't remember my existence; and I can't forget hers. She rubs up my quills the wrong way; but I can't even prick her fingers."
"You know her ten times better than I do," said Antonio. "Yet, after our two meetings, I suspect that you misjudge her. Any hardness—and I haven't found her so hard, after all—may be her misfortune, rather than her fault, like her irreligion. To tell the truth, Edward, I thought you wanted to marry her."
"Marry Isabel?" whistled the young man. "I might as well propose to marry Helen or Cleopatra. By the way, I don't believe that either Helen or Cleopatra was half so good-looking as Isabel. She's younger than either of 'em; but the point is that she's three years older than poor little Edward. No. Fortunately I don't want Isabel. If I did, it would be a sad case of unrequited affection."
He fixed his eyes once more on the far-spread waters. When he spoke again, it was with a solemnity in strange contrast with his interlude of jesting.
"Senhor da Rocha," he said. "I shall never marry. For months this has been growing clearer and clearer to my mind. For the present I shall stick to my engineering. I shall make more in ten years out of tunnels and embankments than my father has made in thirty out of barrels and bottles. And afterwards? I don't know. But something is in store for me which forbids me to marry."
His words moved Antonio deeply. Sixteen years before, his own vocation had proclaimed itself to his soul in this very way. He turned reverent eyes upon his companion; for had not God chosen this strange youth to be a priest and perhaps a monk? In repose Edward Crowberry's face was not without nobility. For the first time Antonio thoroughly understood him. He perceived that Edward's quickness to seize the humors of life connoted a deep sense of its pathos. Under the glittering spray of his jests and sarcasms was an unending undertone of world-woe. Young Crowberry saw, better than others, the sharp outlines of Time's successive moments because their infinitely varying curves and angles cut brilliant patterns in the near background of Eternity.
An inward voice spoke to Antonio. It was as clear as any of the commands which had guided him in the great crises of his history; and he obeyed it without parleying.
"Let us go down," he said.
They went down. Sir Percy had not arrived. The monk walked out and scanned the path. Nobody was in sight.
"You believe," he said to young Crowberry, as he re-entered the chapel, "that some work, some sacred work, is reserved for you in the future? Are you willing to do a good work this very night?"
"You mean," said the youth, "am I willing to sit up with you and to disprove that monstrous tale about a monk's ghost? I am willing. I told you so yesterday."
"No and Yes," Antonio answered. "We will disprove the midnight ghost. But I mean something else. Will you work with me against Sir Percy to save these azulejos?"
Young Crowberry started.
"It smacks of disloyalty to your friends, of disobedience to your father, of deceit all round," Antonio went on. "But think. We cannot serve your friends and your father better than by frustrating a sacrilege of which they will be ashamed when the gains are spent. Remember, these azulejos are not Sir Percy's. He has paid to the Government, which stole this place, hardly more than a tenth of the price, and he has no right to carry a handful of dust or a chip of stone outside the gates. Don't answer me in a hurry. Refuse if your conscience so bids you, and I shall not complain."
He walked away and sat down in his old stall. Young Crowberry moved slowly to the white marble doorpost set in the blue midst of the azulejos and leaned against it, with his head bowed. At the end of five minutes he strode boldly up to the sanctuary rails and said:
"I will help."
Footsteps resounded in the cloister, and, a few seconds later, Mr. Crowberry and Sir Percy appeared, talking loudly. They kept their hats on their heads and their cigars in their mouths. The baronet, who carried a glazed jar, was so intent on his operations that he forgot to greet the monk.
"Well?" asked Mr. Crowberry, sidling close to Antonio. "You've turned up? And you've come to your senses?"
"From your point of view, my answer is No," said the monk. "I have not come to my senses. Has Sir Percy come to his? Does he still persist in removing what isn't his own?"
"He persists," said Mr. Crowberry. "And I can't blame him. If he doesn't steal the stuff, somebody else will. Now take my advice. Don't be an ass. Ten minutes ago, up at the house, Sir Percy nearly blew his daughter's head off for suggesting that the azulejos should be left alone. They've got to come down. Give him a lift and you can make your own terms about the lease of the vineyards. Cross him, and you will lose the vineyards—and the azulejos'll come down all the same."
"Hallo, you've come!" bawled out Sir Percy to Antonio. "We've been waiting for you all day. Hurry up and look at my saw."
The monk stepped forward.
The frame of the circular saw was ingeniously secured to the face of the azulejos by means of leather suckers, such as boys play with among cobble-stones. This simple and portable device served its purpose without doing the tiles the smallest harm. The saw itself had a gear which caused it to descend in the frame as the teeth cut their way downward. Mounting the short ladder at Sir Percy's bidding, Antonio saw that a groove had been chiseled in the cement and that it was filled with an evil-smelling mixture of acids.
"First, we took off that white stone," explained Sir Percy, pointing to the marble cornice. "D'ye see? Then we cut out this channel. D'ye see? Mark the principle. The great thing is, not to try and get the azulejos off the cement, but to get the cement, azulejos, and all, off the wall. D'ye see? It doesn't matter how rough we are with the front of the wall and the back of the cement, so long as we don't crack the tile. That's the principle. D'ye see? Now, pour in a pint or so of this."
"You'll do it better yourself," said Antonio, descending the ladder. Sir Percy promptly climbed up and poured out another acid from his stone jar.
"The acids rot the cement," he went on. "That's the principle. They disintegrate it. You see? Then the saw sets to work. It goes through the cement as if it's Bath brick. We shall get down two lots of azulejos in two places. That'll give us elbow-room for cutting through the cement backs of the lot between with a mason's saw. You understand—a long saw with two handles? D'ye see? The acid and the round saw here and there; and the long saw in between. That's the principle."
The baronet stared at Antonio, waiting for his opinion.
"Well?" he demanded impatiently.
"I am quite unable," said the monk coolly, "to suggest the smallest improvement in your Excellency's invention. But the daylight is failing. If your Excellency works by candle-light or lamp-light, some azulejos will probably be broken. Let the acids work all night; and let us all meet here at eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
"Nonsense," cried Sir Percy. "We've time to get down the first lot."
"And what about dinner?" asked Crowberry père, in great alarm.
"Yes. Dinner?" echoed Crowberry fils.
"Dinner be hanged!" cried Sir Percy angrily.
"Your Excellency must give the acids all night to work," said Antonio.
"Yes, your Excellency really must," added young Crowberry. "Perhaps your Excellency has forgotten that the great Carthaginian Hannibal likewise employed an acid—namely vinegar—to make rocks friable, during his famous crossing of the Alps, as is narrated by the historian Livy in his twenty-first book. I know the passage well, having had to copy it out twenty times at school for putting pepper in the usher's pipe."
"Shut up!" snapped his indignant father. But the youth was not abashed.
"If Hannibal left his puddles of vinegar out all night," he said, "I, for one, cannot be a party to your Excellency's doing differently. I'm off."
He moved away. Antonio followed. Mr. Crowberry senior, glad of any excuse to get back punctually for dinner, hurried in their train. Sir Percy gaped after them in deep disgust. Then he flung down his chisel upon the pavement and strode out after the others.
"At eleven o'clock to-night," whispered young Crowberry in Antonio's ear.
"At eight o'clock to-morrow morning," said Antonio in a loud voice.
He went his way and they went theirs.