The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“You go to the cathedral?”

“Yes,” replied Roger.

“I am pretty sure you will find her there. She said as much at supper last night.”

Roger went out laughing.

The inn was not far from the cathedral. The morning was fair and bright, and the sun lighted up the dark and narrow streets. When he came to the cathedral square the bells were still booming, booming thunderously. A great flight of birds, hovering around the gold-tipped pinnacles of the cathedral, shining in the glory of the morning, added their call to prayer and thankfulness, and acknowledgment of the good God, to the majestic command of the mighty bells.

“Come and give thanks,” was the song of the bells. “Bring not into this sacred place any repinings against God, any ill-will against man. Behold here the places sacred to His saints, who bore the utmost malice of men, and yet praised God with great joy and much thanks. And leave outside all pride of rank and estate and all shame of humble condition; within these doors all are equal. Enter.”

A hump-backed boy in a ragged smock was on one side of the great open door. On the other side sat a man in a tattered uniform of a private soldier, but Roger saw in his face and bearing some ineffaceable mark of the gentleman ill-treated of fortune. He remembered having often heard beggars cursed, but he did not remember to have read any of those curses in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Roger gave liberally out of his slender purse to each of these poor suppliants, calling the boy “my lad,” and the old soldier “my comrade.” They thanked him more with their eyes than their tongues; and glancing up, Roger found Michelle close by, and bending upon him the soft splendor of her eyes. He blushed and smiled, like a boy. Without a word she joined him and they entered the great cathedral together.

Mass was beginning, and the low voice of the priest was broken by the delicious clamor of birds under the eaves. The bells having ceased their mighty music, the great golden voice of the organ in the organ-loft was lifted up and searched the arches and echoed from the vaulted roof. The interior of the cathedral was all purple and gold in the shimmering morning sunshine; the main altar glowed like fire, and the side altars and the statues of saints and martyrs were bathed in iridescent light, or else gleamed softly out of mellow shadows. The tombs with their effigies,—some of them of warriors of the Church and heroes of the State, others of women, royal or humble, their monuments telling the eternal story of love and death,—were illuminated with the rays of the morning; it was all inexpressibly lovely, solemn, and touching.

Roger Egremont kneeled on the bare stone floor by Michelle’s side. He prayed earnestly for his own forgiveness, and asked God to teach him how to forgive,—a lore in which he had but little learning. Presently, the organ, after giving its praise joyfully and majestically, became a murmur of music, like the echo of the wind among the trees, and then was stilled. The little bell tinkled, and there was the awful and solemn moment of the Sacrifice.

Roger Egremont bent his head to the ground and asked that God would be merciful to him, a sinner. And contemplating all His mercies, Roger became lost in love and adoration, and had one moment, one brief moment, in which he saw as far as man can see, into the depths of God’s perfect goodness, His tender love for all His children, His willingness to forgive, His fatherly call to repentance; and Roger Egremont humbly besought his Maker to make him a better man. Then, after the sweet silence all over the vast church, the organ pealed forth again in a shout of music and gladness, and the air about him quivered and throbbed with the anthem of praise. And looking up, he saw Michelle’s eyes fixed upon him with a look he never forgot to the longest day of his life.