GRAPES AND THORNS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."
CHAPTER VII.
MOTHER CHEVREUSE AGAIN.
If one would take the trouble to search into the subject, it would, perhaps, be acknowledged that the apparently unreasonable emotion that women display on occasions when men find themselves unmoved is not, after all, entirely ridiculous. It may be annoying, it may partake of the hysterical; but, if genuine, it is the sign of a more subtile, though often vague, perception.
A woman whom the Creator has endowed so nobly with intellect as to make it a source of painful regret that the infinitely higher supernatural gifts are lacking in her has written words which may be quoted in this connection: "That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotions of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity."
Had George Eliot been gifted with faith as with reason, she could not have written that paragraph without recollecting that the saint on earth is an exception to her rule; that the soul illumined by the Holy Spirit has so keen a perception, not of natural things as such, but of natural things in their relations to God; that but for the divine strength and peace which accompany the holy presence, it could not endure that vision of eternal results hanging on apparently trivial causes. To such a soul there are but two paths, and every smallest step is in the road to heaven or the road to hell.
Look at those saints, and listen to them. They were worn and pallid; they were consumed by a fiery zeal because of this awful tragedy they saw in the perpetually recurring common events of life. They heard for ever that roar of eternity from the other side of the silence of death.
But regarding the natural, of which our author speaks, she is right. The greater number of us are "well-wadded with stupidity," though women are by nature far less so than men. Their view is often distorted and vague; they tremble at shadows, and do not know where to look for the substance which casts them; but the substance is there, nevertheless. They feel the tragedy hidden in common things, whether they can explain it or not. It must be remembered that while man was made of the slime of the earth, woman was formed of flesh; and that the material part which is the veil between her spirit and the outer world has felt twice the refining touch of the Creator's hand.
Is all this too large an à propos to the tears which women are accused of shedding whenever they see a marriage? Think a moment before deciding. Not the happiness or misery of these two alone is in question, but that of an endless line of possible descendants. There is, indeed, no kind of tragedy which may not follow on a marriage.
After this long preamble, we may venture to say that both Mme. Ferrier and Mrs. Gerald were moved to tears at the marriage of their children; the former crying openly and naturally, the latter showing her emotion with that restraint which conventional life imposes. Each understood the other, and was cordially drawn to the other for, perhaps, the first time in all their acquaintance. They stood side by side on the wharf as the steamer which bore the young couple left it, and gazed after their children, who waved handkerchiefs and kisses to them from the deck. A few hours in the steamer would carry them to the city, where they were to take the cars for Niagara. Annette wished to see the falls when the autumn foliage should form a setting for them, and Lawrence had his own reason for liking the place.
"I have the greatest sympathy and affection for waterfalls," he said; "and I would like to live near Niagara. One gets so tired of hearing of rising and aspiring that it is a real relief to see some object in creation that lets things slide, and lays all its cares on the shoulders of gravity. I like to see those green waters just go to sleep and tumble along without troubling themselves. As I remember that river, it looked like melted chrysoprase."
"It is true, my son," the mother had answered, tremulously tender and smiling. "But to let things slide, as you express it, is to go downward."
"And just as inevitably," he rejoined, kissing her, "does my pretty mother find something to moralize about in every random word her worthless son utters."
They were going, then, to Niagara. The steamer threw the waters of the Saranac backward from her prow, and left a snowy wake, like a bridal veil, trailing after her. The sun was going down, and the new moon hung, a crescent of fire, in the cloudless west.
"The new moon is over our right shoulders. Let's wish," said Lawrence. "That is one of my pet superstitions."
The bride shook her head playfully. "Then I must forbid your wishing. We are going to be very good, you know, and not commit the least sin to-day." Seeing a faint shade came over his face at her chiding, she made haste to add: "We will convert this superstition into something good. Fancy Our Lady standing on that crescent, and say an Ave. And since we are making the stars our rosary, we will look for the three magi. Spanish sailors call by that name the stars in Orion's belt. He should be in the east before long. These sailors say that he who sees the three magi is not far from the Saviour. Whenever I see them, and think of it, I make acts of faith, hope, and charity. Will you say them with me to-night?"
Lawrence Gerald looked intently and curiously at his young wife. If she had been a stranger to him, he would have been captivated by her. "Annette," he said, "I don't feel so well acquainted with you as I thought I was."
"It will take us a good many years to become well acquainted with each other," she answered quietly. "Now let's take a seat at the other side of the deck, and look for the three magi. Good-night, Crichton!"
She leaned over the rail, and looked back for one moment at the city. Whatever thoughts may have surged up, whatever fears, hopes, or regrets, they found no utterance. No one saw the look in her eyes. Then she took her husband's arm, and crossed the deck.
"There come the Pleiades, like a little cluster of golden grapes, and there is Aldebaran; and now, Orion, buckle on your belt, and come forth."
"By the way," said Lawrence, struck by a sudden thought, "you are Mrs. Gerald; did you know it?"
"Are you sorry for it?" she asked, and tried to make the question sound playful, but with ill success.
"I am rather astonished," he replied; and seemed really to find the thought a new one.
Annette could not restrain a momentary outburst, though she blushed with mortification for it as soon as the words were spoken. "O Lawrence! cannot you speak one word of kindness to me?" As though that could be kindness which waits till asked for.
He took the appeal jestingly. "You shall dictate. Only tell me what you would be pleased to have me say, and I will repeat it, like an obedient husband."
Then, seeing her blush, and that she shrank from him with a look that was almost aversion, he spoke seriously.
"I do not mean to be unkind to you, Annette. Have patience with me. You have made a bad bargain, but I am, perhaps, more grateful than I appear; and I like you better every day."
She made no reply, but leaned back and looked at the stars coming out, one by one. There was no delight in her heart, but a greater peace and sweetness than she had even hoped for. "I like you better every day." How softly the words echoed in her ears!
When the steamer had disappeared around a curve of the river, Mrs. Ferrier turned her tear-drenched face to Mrs. Gerald, and sobbed out, "They are gone! They are not our children any more."
Mrs. Gerald did not trust herself to speak; but she laid a kind hand on the mother's arm, and tried to smile.
"Do come home with me!" Mrs. Ferrier begged. "It is so lonesome there I can't bear to go into the house. Come and stay to tea, you and Honora."
But Mrs. Gerald had promised to drive out with Mrs. Macon to see the Sisters, and the bright little lady was waiting impatiently for her; so to Honora was left the task of comforting Annette's mother.
On their way home, Mrs. Ferrier started up suddenly, and ordered the coachman to stop. "I don't care if he is a Jew," she said, having caught sight of Mr. Schöninger. "He's good enough to be a Christian; and I'm going to ask him to supper." And before Honora could prevent it, even if she had desired to, the gentleman had been beckoned to the carriage, and the invitation given and accepted.
"I'm not what people call a lady," Mrs. Ferrier said, as they drove on again, "but I believe I know a gentleman when I see him; and if there ever was a true gentleman, he is one. How he does it I don't know; but he some way makes me respect myself. He doesn't flatter me; I am sure he doesn't care for my money, and that he knows I am no scholar; but it seems to me as if he thinks there is something respectable in being an honest woman, no matter how ignorant you are; and I'm just as sure that that man never laughs at me, and is mad when other people do it, as I am that I sit here. In my house, when some of those little upstarts have been talking to me, and trying to make me say things—I knew all the time what they were up to!—I've seen him come marching across the room to me like a king, and scatter them as if they were mice, with just one glance of his eyes. I'm not a fool, and I know my friends."
Honora's visit was a short one; and after an hour of pleasant talk, she started for home, accompanied by Mr. Schöninger. They had been speaking of the Moonlight Sonata; and, since the hour was early, the gentleman asked permission to go in and play it on Miss Pembroke's piano.
"I was about to ask you to," she said cordially. "It has been on my mind that I never heard you play that; and I fancy that my piano is just the instrument for it, the tone is so soft and rich."
Mrs. Gerald had not yet returned. The night was very warm, and the doors and windows all stood open, the parlor being lighted only from the next room. Honora seated herself by an open window, and listened with a perfect enjoyment to which nothing was wanting. She was in the mood to hear music, the composition and the rendering were both excellent, and the half-light in-doors and out not only veiled all defects in their surroundings, but invested them with a soft and dreamy grace.
Her mood was so happy that, when the sonata was ended, she did not feel obliged to praise it, nor to speak at all; and they were silent a little while, Mr. Schöninger touching octaves with his right hand so exquisitely that they faltered out as the stars come—faint at first, yet ending brightly.
"I like to look on the whole of creation as a symphony," he said presently. "The morning stars sang together. What a song it must be to the ears that can hear it! Fancy them setting out on that race, their hearts on fire, their orbits ringing as they rolled, their sides blooming, light just kindled! The stars, then, being tuneful, everything on their surfaces and beneath them must have been harmonious. How complex and wonderful—large and small, from the song of the sun to the song of the pine-needles! The ocean had its tune, and the rivers, and there was music in the clouds that rose from them. How ethereal it must have been! Yes, nature was born singing, and everything was musically ordered. The days were grouped in octaves. They climbed from Sabbath to Sabbath."
He had spoken slowly, as if to himself, or to some sweeter self, and let a note drop here and there into pauses. He paused a moment now, then added: "What is music? It is harmonious action; and in action the mystical number is seven."
He lifted his head, but not his eyes, and seemed to await a reply.
"And in being, the perfect number is three," Honora said quietly.
He did not answer for a moment, and, if he understood her meaning, did not reply to it when he spoke. "I had not thought of that; but I catch a glimpse of truth in your remark which I should like to follow out. In nature, there are the three colors for one item. In art—say, architecture—there are the three types: the rectangular Greek, rounding up into Roman, as if lifted over a head passing under, and the Gothic, shaped like a flame. Those may be the signs of the material, the intellectual, and the spiritual. Yes, I must follow that out."
The light was too dim to show how Miss Pembroke's cheeks reddened as she said, "The feasts in the church carry out this musical idea, and have their octaves; and for the Supreme Being, there is trinity."
Was it fair or wise to catch him so? She doubted, and awaited his next remark in some agitation.
"Miss Pembroke, I respect your opinions and your beliefs," he said, with a dignified emphasis which might be meant to reassure or to reprove her. In either case, it was impossible for her to pursue the subject.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, she caught at the first subject that presented itself. "You have done a great deal for music in Crichton, Mr. Schöninger," she said. "You have taught our musicians, and improved the public taste immensely. Our people are musically inclined; and I hope the time may come when we shall have great artists among us who will do something besides present the works of others. I do not profess to be a critic, or learned in the art; but it seems to me that it is not yet exhausted, and that in the way of musical declamation there is much to be done. I have often thought that words do not belong with the highest kinds of music that we have at present, with the one exception of that wonderful Miserere, which one hears in perfection only in Rome. I would like to have a chant or recitative style for sublime and beautiful thoughts, so that the words should be more prominent than the tune, yet be delivered as one might fancy they would be delivered in heaven. That is the kind of music I wish to have grow up here. It would suit us better than the other. It is more rapid and impetuous."
Mr. Schöninger half uttered a doubtful "yes!"
"But art needs a warm atmosphere and an ardent people," he added; "and the kind of music you describe, which is in form like improvisation, is a failure if without enthusiasm in the singer and the listener. Ornate music may be sung by an almost soulless performer so as to produce an impression of meaning something, because the notes tell all; but declamatory music is a dead body, into which a singer must breathe a soul."
"So much the better," she replied. "Give the notes that tell all to the instrument. But when the text has great meaning, let a human voice interpret it, without help of florid ornamentation. But you, an artist, are content to breathe this cold atmosphere!"
"I am at once contented and discontented." His voice softened. "For I behold at last what I want, yet do not possess it."
He stopped, as if for some sign or question; but Honora did not utter a word. His voice, far more than what he said, startled and silenced her.
He turned gently toward her. "Would it be possible, Miss Pembroke, that I should find favor in your eyes?"
"You are, then, a Catholic?" she said quietly.
It was not necessary for her to say any more; yet he would not yield without a struggle, vain as it was.
"You exaggerate the difference between us," he said earnestly, coming nearer. "It is one of form rather than meaning. If I choose to walk by the pure, white light, and you prefer the prismatic colors, still both are but different conditions of the same light, and what I adore is the source of all that you adore. Your Christ quoted as the greatest of all the Commandments the very one which is greatest to me. You would have perfect freedom with me. Honora, and a greater love than words can tell."
"Mr. Schöninger," she exclaimed, "can you for one instant believe that I would be the wife of a man who scorns as an impostor him whom I adore as a God?"
"I could not scorn where you adore," he replied. "The mistake is not yours, and the imposture is not his. I find him good, and noble, and sweet, and lovely almost beyond human loveliness. Do you forget that he also was a Jew? All that you see in the Son, and the saint, and the apostle I see in God. These beings you honor are but scattered rays of the great Luminary. We are not so different as we appear."
"You believe in the God who created, and loved, and preserved," she said; "but you do not believe in the God who loved even unto death. My God has suffered for me. The difference is infinite. It cannot be set aside. The memories that pierce my heart leave you unmoved. The Shepherd who went in search of his lost sheep you know nothing of. The despised and rejected One weeping over Jerusalem you care nothing for. That humility, so astounding and so touching, of a God making himself small enough for me to possess; what is it to you? Nothing but a stumbling-block. Is your God a Father in heaven?"
Mr. Schöninger was standing now, and his earnestness was fully equal to Honora's. "My God is a father, and more than a father," he said; "and he is pitiful to his children, even while he afflicts them. I see in him the beneficent Provider, who every day for his children works miracles greater far than those recorded in the New Testament. He renews the seasons, the light. Every day is a creation. He gives us the fruits of the earth. He lavishes beauty everywhere to please us. He sees men unmindful of the laws which he wrote on the tables of their hearts, and yet he pities and spares them. Oh! I am talking to the wind!"
"It is indeed useless for us to talk on this subject, Mr. Schöninger," Honora said firmly.
He stood a moment leaning against the side of the window where she sat, and looking down at her face, that showed pale even in that dim light. "You reject me only because I am a Jew?" he asked. "Pardon me!" for she had made a slight movement of displeasure. "Do not forget that I love you. Is that no claim on your kindness?"
"I do not feel any unkindness for you; but since you are not a Christian, I cannot tell how I would feel if you were one."
The reply sounded cold.
Mr. Schöninger bowed, with an immediate resumption of ceremony. "I have, then, only to ask your pardon for having intruded a disagreeable subject on you," he said. "Good-evening!"
She watched him going out, and saw that at the gate he was joined by F. Chevreuse, who was just returning home from a sick-call.
"Oh! what will F. Chevreuse say to me?" she murmured. "What would dear Mother Chevreuse have said to me? It is all my fault! I had too much confidence in my own wisdom! They were right: there should be no intimacy with unbelievers."
"And so you hate creeds?" F. Chevreuse was saying, in reply to an exclamation of Mr. Schöninger's. "And what of your own, pray?"
The Jew drew away, with a slightly impatient gesture, when the priest made a motion to take his arm. He had no desire to advance a step toward that barrier against which he had just bruised himself. The warning, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," was too fresh in his memory.
"My creed," he answered, "is not one of those inexorable ones that life dashes men against, as the sea dashes them on the rocks. It does not preach charity and practise hate. It does not set up barriers between man and man, and treat nine-tenths of the world as heathen. It does not profess the most sublime reliance on God, and then practise the most subtle worldly wisdom. It is not even the old Jewish belief in its formality. That was as the roots of a plant of which true Judaism is the blossom. We cling to the old name, and some cling to the old belief, merely because it has been hated and persecuted. If my forefathers rejected and crucified him whom you call the Christ, your church has excluded and crucified my people till they have bled at every pore. They have been mocked, and beaten, and spit upon; and yet you say that the dying prayer of your Model was, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' However it may be with individuals in your church—and I have found them noble and charitable—as a sect,
"Their life laughs through, and spits at their creed."
If they had practised the charity they professed, there would not now be an old-creed Jew in the world."
F. Chevreuse saw how vain it would be to combat the man in his present mood, and he strongly suspected what trouble lay at the bottom of it. Had he been less truly charitable, he might have persuaded himself that it was his duty to make a counter attack or a convincing argument—a mistake sometimes made by people who like to think that they are zealously indignant because God's truth is assailed, when, in reality, there may be a good deal of personal feeling because some one has spoken lightly of their belief. F. Chevreuse made neither this mistake nor that other of throwing away argument on an excited man. The end he sought was the glory of God in the conversion of souls; and if, to accomplish that, it had been necessary for him to stand, like his divine Master, "opening not his lips," while truth was reviled, he would have done it.
"I am a better Jew than you are, then," he said gently, and put his arm in Mr. Schöninger's, who, in the surprise at this unexpected tone, did not shrink from him. "I am proud of that ancient people of God. In the morning of humanity, it was the pillar of cloud which was to give place to the pillar of fire at the gloaming of the race. To me, all the glorious points in their history are literally true. Moses wears his two beams of light; the bush burns without being consumed; at the stroke of a rod, water gushes from the rock, or is piled up in a wall—it is literally true, not a figure. But the sacrifice was above all. Those poor exiles from Eden were deprived of present happiness; but they were full of knowledge, and comforted by hope. They were but just from the hand of the Creator, and were more perfect in mind and body than any since. They had spoken face to face with God. He condemned them for their sin, but promised them a Redeemer, and gave them the sacrifice as a sign. I have always thought that there was something very touching in the sacrifice which Cain and Abel offered up. They were commemorating the sin of their own parents. Then, see how wonderfully that idea of an offended God demanding a propitiatory sacrifice clung to the human mind! The universality of the belief would prove its truth, if there were no other proof. How it must have been branded on the souls of Adam and Eve to last so! The race grew, and broke into fragments that scattered far and wide. For centuries they never met, and they lost all memory of each other. Their habits and their languages changed; the faces of some grew dark; there was scarcely a sign of brotherhood between them. If they met, they were as strange to each other as the inhabitants of different planets. Some adored one God, some believed in many. In spiritual matters, there was only one point which they held in common. You have, perhaps, seen the little Agnus Dei that Catholics wear—a bit of wax with a lamb stamped on it. Well, sir, every soul that God sent into the world had the sacrificial idea stamped on it, like that lamb on the wax. The devil blurred this image, of course, till men fell into all sorts of errors, and even sacrificed each other; but he could never efface it. The hand of God graves deeply, and the inscription wears out the hand that rubs it.
"But the Jews, my sublime spiritual ancestors, kept the truth. They adored the one God, Jehovah; and by their sacrifice they were perpetually reminding him of the Redeemer he had promised them. It is true, they became corrupted, and rejected him when he came; but I do not forget that he was a Jew, that his first followers were Jews, and that his Immaculate Mother was a Jewess. I tell you, I glory in the history of that people. It is you who throw contempt on them, not I. Catholicism proves and honors Judaism. If all were false, we might then be deluded; but the Jews would be the deluders. We only complain of them because they call themselves liars. Judaism, past and present, would fall with Catholicism, and fall underneath. All the truth held by the reformed Jews is a weak reflection of the light cast by the Catholic Church back on old Judaism. To deny the authority of the church is as though the moon should proclaim herself the source of day, and try to extinguish the sun. If it were possible for the attempt to succeed, the result would be an utter spiritual darkness, followed by barbarism. Christ is the light of the world; and all the light there was in the world before his coming was like the morning light before the sun touches the horizon. The patriarchs and the prophets were the planets and the moon of the spiritual system; they saw him afar off, and told of him. Strange inconsistency! Men usually laugh at prophecies till they are fulfilled, then pay them a retrospective homage; but in this, they bow to the prophecy till the instant of its fulfilment, then reject and scorn both together. If you believed in Christ, all your altars would blaze up again, making a spiral circle of fire from the creation to the redemption. He rounds the circle. 'I am the beginning and the end,' he says."
Whether he perceived or acknowledged any truth in what he heard, or not, it certainly had the effect of making Mr. Schöninger ashamed of his ill-temper.
"I have to apologize, sir," he said, "for having made a personal attack instead of using argument, and for having acted like a whipped school-boy. My only excuse is that I was smarting under punishment. I am usually just enough to judge a principle by itself, not by its upholders."
They had now reached the step of the priest's house, and paused there, Mr. Schöninger declining mutely a mute invitation to enter.
"That is a point—that relating to persons—which we will discuss some other time, when we both feel more like it," F. Chevreuse said. "But, my friend," he added, with impassioned earnestness, "let the faults of individuals, and communities, and nations go. They are irrelevant. Let God be true, though all men may be false. Ecce Agnus Dei! If a haughty conqueror should demand your submission, I could understand why you would feel like rebelling. But here there is nothing but love to resist. Here there is only infinite sweetness and humility. Did he ever persecute you? Did he ever revile you? He wept over you. 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!'"
Standing on his own threshold, the priest suddenly put his arm around the Jew's shoulder. "Love him, then hate whom you can. Love him, and do what you will," he said. "I don't ask you to listen to the church, to listen to me, to listen to any one, but only to behold the Lamb of God. Look at him, study him, listen to him. O my God! that I had the tongue of an angel! I love you! I am longing for your conversion, but I cannot say a word. Good-night! May God bless you and speak to you!"
The Jew was alone, overpowered by the sudden and tender passion of that appeal, feeling still the pressure of that more than brotherly embrace. If his mind had recognized any truth, he did not at the moment perceive or think of it, so moved was his heart at the vision of love that had been opened to him. If divine love was added to the human, he did not inquire; he only knew that the priest was sincere, and was at that moment on his knees praying for him. He would have liked to go in and beg his blessing, not, perhaps, as that of a priest, but as that of an incomparably good and loving man.
He checked the impulse, though it led him so far as to extend his hand to open the door.
Ah! if we did but yield to generous and affectionate impulses as we yield to bad ones, how much happier the world would be! How often they are checked by distrust of others or of ourselves, or by the petty fear of being unconventional, when, if followed, they might warm a little this cold human atmosphere, in which we stand so frozen that one might almost expect our fingers to rattle like icicles when we shake hands.
But though Mr. Schöninger did not go in, neither did he turn carelessly away. We wonder if any of our readers will understand how much affection was expressed in what he did. It was a trifling act, apparently. He laid his right hand, palm forward, against the door, and let it press the panel a moment. From some it might not mean much, but this man never gave his hand lightly, nor used it lightly; and it was one of those hands which seem to contain in themselves the whole person. It was a hand with a heart in it; and while it rested there, his face wore an expression more tender than a smile, as if he gave both a benediction and a caress to all within those walls for the sake of one who dwelt there. Then he turned away, and walked slowly down the street.
Mr. Schöninger was essentially and sufficiently manly. If the long pursuit of money had been dry and distasteful to him, he had made no complaint of the necessity, even to himself. That which must be done he attempted and carried out as best he might, feeling, it may be, a certain pleasure in exercising his will; perceiving, also, a goal ahead where such sordid strife would end. It may be that even in the fascinating and delightful exercise of his art, there had still been a sense of something lacking; for the artist is, above all things, human, and this man was alone; but he made no sentimental moan. The want, if it had a voice, was never listened to. It was only now, in the moment of a sharp and bitter pain that had cleft his heart, and a soothing sweetness that had fallen on the wound like an unguent, that he realized how utterly without sympathy his life had been, and how all that had made it tolerable had been a looking forward to something better. He was like one who, wandering long in a frozen desert, sees unexpectedly the warm, red hearth-light shining toward his feet. It was not his home-light, but another's; yet it touched him so that his heart woke up with a cry, and demanded something in the present, and could no longer be satisfied with a vague expectation.
He was angry with himself that he had not refrained from speaking to Miss Pembroke, or that, having spoken, he had not been more persistent. He would not believe that he could give so much and receive no return; and it seemed to him certain that by waiting he could at least have succeeded so far as to render it impossible for her to refuse him without a regret too great for concealment. That was all he now thought attainable, and, in comparison to what he had, it appeared to him happiness. That is a cruelty without which no love can exist; it demands the power to make its object unhappy in parting, if it is denied the privilege of making it happy in union.
"I was a fool!" he muttered, tossing the hair back from his burning face and head. "I took my refusal as promptly as though I had asked for a flower. A woman who is ready with her confession of love at the first word of asking must have expected and prepared herself for the proposal. Even a profound affection may be a little hidden from her till after it is asked for, though visible to others. Besides, she sometimes draws back from timidity, or to see if a man is really in earnest. That proposal which he foresees and intends takes her by surprise, and, even when willing to advance, her instinct is to retreat at first. How inconsistent we are to expect and require that shrinking modesty in a woman, and then complain of her for it!"
He wandered on through street after street, glancing at the lighted windows of many a city home. In some houses, the curtains had been pleasantly left up, and he could see the charming tableau of a family gathered about the evening lamp. They read or sewed, raising their faces now and then to smile at each other; they conversed, or they rested, leaning back in their chairs.
Coming to a secluded little cottage in a quiet street, he leaned on the garden fence, and looked into the sitting-room. He was acquainted with the people there; they met him pleasantly in public, but it had never occurred to them, apparently, to invite him to their home. All his friends, indeed, were of that public kind.
The room was lighted by a shaded lamp that made a bright circle on the table under it. A man sat at one side sketching what a nearer view would have shown to be a Holy Family. Now and then he lifted his head and gazed at the group opposite him, the models of his Mother and Child; and the expression of his fine, spiritual face showed how his soul strove to fan that visible spark of human affection into a flaming vision of divine love.
The woman sat weaving bright wools into some fleecy shape, her slight fingers flying as the work progressed under them. Her eyes were downcast, and a faint smile shone on her happy face. One foot kept in gentle motion a cradle, wherein a babe slept, its rosy little hands curled up under its chin, like closed flowers. Now and then the mother bent above the sleeper, seemed to hover over it, like a bird over its nest, when the drapery her artist-husband had arranged on her hair would drop forward and hide her profile from him. Once, when he wanted an outline, he stretched his arm, drew her face round by the chin, and seemed playfully to chide her excessive baby-worship. But it seemed that the soft, blue fold had hidden something more than a mere loving gaze; for a tear slipped from the brown lashes as they appeared. She clasped the chiding hand in hers, and uttered a few words.
How well the looker-on outside could guess what sad thought had called up that tear! She had feared that her happiness was too great to last.
The husband's answer was, evidently, cheerful and reassuring; and soon the work and the drawing went on, and the smiles were restored.
Recollecting himself, Mr. Schöninger continued his walk. What had he to do with such scenes? He was as shut out from all intimate friendships as though he had been invisible to those about him. If he should be ill, the doctor and the hired nurse would take care of him; if he should die, strangers would bury him, without pity and without grief; and his possessions in Crichton, such little belongings as friends cherish when those they love are gone, would be tossed about and prized only at their money value.
Never had he felt more despondent. The momentary pleasure derived from the friendship of F. Chevreuse faded away like sunlight from rocks, leaving only hard and sombre facts behind. There never could be a real friendship between him and the priest. An insurmountable obstacle separated them.
This solitary walk brought to his mind one night, months past, when he had walked the streets of Crichton, as solitary and wretched as now, from evening till daybreak. "I will not think of it!" he muttered, and cast the recollection aside. "O my God! who shall pray for me, who cannot pray for myself?"
A sound of singing caught his ear. He was passing a Protestant church, where they were holding an evening meeting, and they were singing a plain chant, with only a thread of accompaniment. It sounded tuneful and earnest, and he stepped into the vestibule to listen.
They sang:
"Hear, Father, hear our prayer!
Wandering unknown in the land of the stranger,
Be with all trav'lers in sickness or danger,
Guard thou their path, guide their feet from the snare.
Hear, Father, hear our prayer!"
Some one was praying for him without being aware of it! There was in the world a charity which stretched out beyond the familiar, and touched the unknown sufferer.
As he was leaving the vestibule, he noticed two men, one standing at either side, on the steps without the door. Rather annoyed at being found in such a place, he passed them hastily, and went on. When he thought himself free from them, his memory went back to that prayerful strain:
"Guard thou their steps, guide their feet from the snare."
Yes, they were praying for him, these strangers, who had seemed so alien.
Presently he became aware that he was not free from the persons who had been observing him at the church door. The steps of two men were following him. He quickened his pace, and they also quickened theirs. He went into a side street, and perceived that they were still on his track. There was no escape. His feet had not been guided from the snare. A chilly sensation passed over him, which might be either anger or fear. He paused one instant, then turned and faced his pursuers.
The next morning, after Mass, Honora Pembroke went in to see F. Chevreuse, waiting in the church till she thought he had taken his breakfast.
"I did not see you at communion this morning," he said, after greeting her pleasantly. "Why was that, young woman?"
They were in the sitting-room that had belonged to Mother Chevreuse. Her son now occupied these rooms, and all the little tokens of a woman's presence had disappeared. No work-basket, with shining needles and thimble, glittered in the sunlight; no shawl nor scarf lay over any chair-back; no flower nor leaf adorned the place. All the grace had gone.
Honora perceived, by the momentary clouding of the priest's face, that he understood the glance she had cast about the room and the involuntary sigh that had followed it, and she hastily recalled her thoughts.
"I am an unfortunate sister of Proserpine," she said. "Some one sent me a pomegranate yesterday as a rarity; and this morning, while I was dressing, and thinking of my communion too, I ate two or three of the seeds."
"You are a careless girl!" F. Chevreuse exclaimed, with that pretence of playful scolding which shows so much real kindness. "But, fortunately, your banishment is not so long as that of your Greek sister was."
"I was not thinking without distraction," Honora continued. "There was something else on my mind, or I should have remembered my fast. On the whole, I am rather glad that I could not go to communion this morning, for I was not so quiet as I ought to be. I have come to tell you about it." A faint blush flitted over her face. She looked up for the encouraging nod and "Yes!" which were not wanting, and then told half her story in a sentence: "Mr. Schöninger told me last night that he thinks a great deal of me."
F. Chevreuse nodded again, and did not look quite so much astonished as she had expected him to be.
The other and most troublesome part of the story followed immediately, breathed out with a kind of terror: "And after I had refused him, and he had left the room, and walked away with you, I felt pained, not for him, but for myself. I almost wanted to call him back; though, if he had come, I should have been sorry. I do not understand it."
She looked like one who expects a severe sentence, and scarcely drew breath till the answer came.
The priest spoke quite carelessly: "Oh! it is natural that we should feel a kind of regret in refusing an offering meant to be good, though it may not be good to us. You need not accuse yourself of that. Of course, you are not going to marry a Jew, nor to wish to marry one. That is out of the question. And there is no need of searching too scrupulously into those vague and complicated emotions which are for ever troubling the human heart. It will only confuse the mind and sully the conscience. They are like mists that float over the sky. Keep your eyes steadily fixed on the Day-star, and do not fear an occasional waft of scud. As long as the star shines, all is well. When you no longer see it, then is the time to fear."
Honora looked relieved, but not altogether satisfied. "But must there not have been some fault in me, when 1 could feel even the slightest regret in rejecting one who has rejected God?" she asked.
"I have but to repeat what I have said," was the answer. "You need not disturb yourself about the matter. Dismiss it from your mind, except so far as it is necessary for you to think in order to conduct yourself properly toward him in future. I take for granted that your intercourse must be a little more reserved than it has been."
"Oh! yes," she exclaimed. "I would rather not see him any more. And there was my fault, father. I have been very presumptuous. Both Mrs. Gerald and dear Mother Chevreuse were dissatisfied to have me associate with him. I could see that, though they said nothing. But I fancied that I was more liberal than they, and that I could decide perfectly well for myself. I had almost a mind to be displeased with them for wishing to keep him at a distance, as if they were uncharitable. Now I am punished, and I know that I deserve it."
"Oh! well," the priest said gently, his face growing thoughtful and sad at the allusion to his mother. "We all make mistakes; and to persons who wish to be generous, but have not much experience, prudence seems a very cold virtue, sometimes almost a vice. But believe me, my child, it is possible for really kind and generous feelings to lead to results far worse than even an excess of prudence might have caused. Don't distress yourself! Only have a care of going too far in either way."
Their talk was here interrupted by a ring of the door-bell so unusually loud as to betoken an excited visitor.
"A sick-call," said F. Chevreuse.
They heard Jane open the door; then a light step ran through the entry, and, without any ceremony of knocking, Miss Lily Carthusen burst into the room.
"O F. Chevreuse!" she cried, "Mr. Schöninger is in jail."
The priest looked at her without comprehending, and also without speaking. When sudden and terrible news have come upon us once, casting us to the earth, as though by a thunder-stroke, any startling address awakens in us ever after something of the same terror and distress.
Jane had followed Miss Carthusen to the sitting-room door, and, the moment she heard her announcement, broke out into exclamations: "I knew it! I have known it all the time! O poor Mother Chevreuse!"
F. Chevreuse stood up, as if to take freer breath, and his face grew crimson.
"In what way does this arrest concern me particularly, Miss Carthusen?" he asked, striving to speak calmly.
"F. Chevreuse, cannot you guess?" she returned. "Many others have suspected, if you have not. I believed it almost from the first."
"I do not believe it!" he exclaimed, and began to pace the room. "I will not believe it! It is impossible!" And then, whether believing or not in this accusation, he felt anew the whole force of that terrible blow. "O mother, mother!" he cried, and burst into tears.
"I suspected him on account of the shawl," Miss Carthusen went on. "His has not been seen in the house since that day; and...."
F. Chevreuse was leaning up against the wall, with his face hidden in his arm; but he recovered his self-possession immediately, and put a stop to these revelations. "Say no more!" There was a certain severity both in his voice and gesture. "I do not wish to hear any surmises nor particulars. I should suppose that some person in authority ought to bring me this information. But I thank you for taking the trouble; and perhaps you will be so kind as to stop at Mr. Macon's door on your way home, and ask him to come to me. He cannot have gone out yet. I would like to see him at once."
The young lady had no choice. She was obliged to go.
Mr. Macon was, in fact, already on his way to the house; and soon the story received authoritative confirmation.
"He did not seem to be at all surprised, sir," said the officer who had made the arrest. "He is a very cool sort of man on the outside; though I would not have liked to go after him alone."
"Did he say anything?" demanded the priest.
"Not a word!"
"Did not he ask to see me?"
"No, sir!"
The face of F. Chevreuse darkened with perplexity and disappointment. After what had occurred between them the night before, if the man had trusted him then, and if he were innocent, surely he would have sent for him at once.
"When I have said that I love him," he thought, "how could he suffer me to rest a moment in ignorance of what had happened, or to wait for his assurance? Or does his very silence prove his trust in me and confidence in his own acquittal? Well, even if it does, I prefer a confidence that speaks."
He looked the officer steadily in the face. "Sir," he said with emphasis, "I wish every one to understand that I believe this accusation to be a mistake, and that I regret it exceedingly. I shall go to see Mr. Schöninger, if I am permitted, and say the same to him. And now, gentlemen, if there is nothing more necessary to be said, will you spare me the saying anything unnecessary on the subject?"
Jane had been trying to talk to Miss Pembroke, who put her back gently, without answering a word; and as soon as their visitors had withdrawn, she approached F. Chevreuse, and attempted to finish the story which Miss Carthusen had begun. But he stopped her even more peremptorily than he had done the other.
"That young lady is not a Catholic," he said, "but you are. Do not forget charity. You have no right to hold any person guilty till his guilt is proved, and even then you should not rejoice over his condemnation. I forbid your saying any more on this subject to me or any other person, except when you are questioned in court. I am displeased at the spirit you have shown."
Jane withdrew, convicted, and, perhaps, a little indignant.
Then F. Chevreuse looked at Honora Pembroke. She had sat perfectly pale and silent through it all. "Can you go home without assistance, child?" he asked.
She understood his wish to be alone, and rose with an effort. "I am not faint; I am horrified," she said. "It is a monstrous injustice. I wish you would come to us by-and-by." She looked at him imploringly.
"I will go to Mrs. Gerald's directly after having seen him," he promised.
When he was alone, F. Chevreuse locked the door, and began to pace the room, tears running down his cheeks. "O my sweet mother!" he said, "so it's all to be dragged up again, and your dear name associated with all that is cruel and wicked in crime!"
He opened a closet, and took down a little faded plaid shawl that his mother had used for years to throw over her shoulders in the house when the air was chilly. It hung on the nail where she had left it; and while he held it at arm's length, and looked at it, her form seemed to rise up before him. He saw the wide, motherly shoulders, the roll of thick, gray hair, the face faintly smiling and radiantly loving. And then he could see nothing; for the tears gushed forth so passionately as to wash away both vision and reality.
TO BE CONTINUED.