For, look at Alan Helbeck. He is a man who felt, who knew, himself to be an anachronism, a man who had realised so fully the genius of his religion, that he was thoroughly uncomfortable in the society of any who were alien to it. He saw none of his neighbours; once only he had been induced to attend a hunt ball. The doctrine, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, he adopted in all its rigidity. He fulfilled Newman's ideal to the very letter: he was "anxious about his soul". He never gave anything else a serious thought. To escape hell—that nameless terror which stirs the soul of man to its very depths, as Mrs. Ward very aptly quotes from Virgil on her title page—this was the purpose for which Helbeck of Bannisdale conceived he had been placed here by a beneficent God. And on the supposition that "Acheron" is a reality, Helbeck was absolutely right. If hell is indeed "open to Christians," and if the path to life be exceeding strait and narrow, our bounden duty, as men of common sense, would be to "go sell all we had and give to" orphanages, like the Squire of Bannisdale, and appease this gloomy God by a life of austerity and utter renunciation.
Why, then, do not all Christians turn Helbecks? Simply because for the very life of them they cannot believe in their own inspired eschatology. Verbally, of course, they assent to the whole code of immoralities connected with future retribution, but "a certain obstinate rationality" in them prevents their translating their faith into practice. Hence, the Catholics we meet are no more Helbecks than ourselves. They do not believe in emptying their houses for the sake of orphanages, fasting rigorously in Lent, abstaining from intercourse with their fellow-beings, or going about chanting, "Outside the Church no salvation". Quite the contrary. But the truth remains that Helbeck was true to the ideal, and because he was, it is possible to see a romance and a dignity in his life, not always observable in his modern co-religionists. Nobody has anything to say against their "version" of Christianity, because it is, to all intents and purposes, identical with the sane ideals supplied by modern thought. No French or Italian statesman would have one word to say against them, but they have a morbid dread of Helbecks. If the Helbeck ideal were multiplied indefinitely, it requires very little foresight to pronounce the gradual extinction of the commonwealth. A nation of men who were simply and seriously living so as to escape Hades would make a speedy end of the most prosperous community.
And yet this man had once lived, aye and loved. But his love was lawless, and when all was over, he is taken by a church dignitary in Belgium to witness the death of a bishop. The prelate, weak in body, but strong in faith, is vested in his pontifical robes, and makes an extraordinary impression upon the young layman by the fervour with which he makes his final profession of faith. While in the exaltation of spirit produced by this solemn scene, he is induced to attend a "retreat," or series of spiritual exercises, to be conducted by a Jesuit in a house of their Order. "Grace" had apparently not finally triumphed, because he was within measurable distance of expulsion owing to the indifference of his behaviour. However, the preacher took him seriously in hand, and after one more stirring appeal to absolute self-surrender to the Cross, or, in plain language, to turn his back on the common human life of men, Helbeck's conversion is finally effected, and from that day to the close of his life at Bannisdale, his one thought was the Cross and the safety of his soul.
He had been living this melancholy existence for a number of years, when Laura Fountain, the daughter of a Cambridge professor, and a member of the Ethical Society there (so we are told), broke in upon his life. Her father, as much for pity as for love, had married as his second wife the sister of Alan Helbeck, and during his life had apparently succeeded in teaching her something of the gospel of reason, because Augustina practically abandoned her creed. But on the death of her husband, it revived, and she experienced a longing to return to her old home. Of course, there was joy before the angels and her brother Alan at the penitent's return. Being absolutely dependent for her creature comforts on her step-daughter, there was nothing for it but for Laura to accompany the invalid, and prepare to spend some of her time in the house of a rigid professor of a religion which her father had taught her to despise.
The utmost skill is shown in the gradual transformation of their feeling, from one of pitiful condescension on the one side and undisguised revolt on the other, to sentiments of growing esteem and respect which ripen at length into a love which is tender and deep. The love scene which ensues on that early summer morning when Helbeck discovers the "wild pagan" girl, as he thought her, in a state bordering on exhaustion, after her long walk across country through half the night, is a very beautiful and touching one, and reveals all the mastery which the authoress commands of the language and mystery of the emotions. The image of the infidel child had stolen into the strong, stern man's heart, and, next to the master passion of his life, his sombre religion, completely dominated him. They become engaged, to the almost inexpressible scandal of the household, from the sour old housekeeper up to Father Bowles, with his "purring inanities"—a wonderful creation—and the courtly Father Leadham, a Jesuit and a Cambridge "convert". But Helbeck holds out, trusts bravely to "the intercession of saints" and the attractiveness of Catholic worship, and thus some days of unclouded sunshine enter into his dark and troublous life. Like the gentleman he is, he makes no attempt at proselytism, and gives his word that by no speech or act of others shall his future wife be molested.
They spend a few weeks at the sea, where Bannisdale and all it represents is forgotten. Laura has grown to love and lean upon this strong, resolute man. She enjoys an almost unique experience in triumphing over a life which had been believed to be inaccessible to woman's influence. But the sunshine is soon overcast. They are back again in that atmosphere of depression which Bannisdale exhales, and the agony begins. The poor girl sees the life from the inside, so to speak, and the hopelessness of it all dawns upon her like a desolation. Never could she bring herself to say and do the things she sees and hears about her; a voice she cannot still seems to rise from the depths of her being, defying her to go back on her past and forget the life and example of her father. "You dare not, you dare not," it kept saying to her. No, the system would hang like a pall of death between her and her love: she could never possess his heart. Half of it, more than half, would be given to that ideal of gloom he worshipped as the Cross, which he correctly interpreted as the essence of the Catholic teaching. When, finally, Helbeck stands by the account given of the life of the Jesuit saint, Francis Borgia, who cheerfully surrenders his wife, disposes of his eight little children and then goes off to Rome "to save his soul" by becoming a Jesuit, the cup is full. Her lover tells her the story of his own life, how he had been brought to his present ideals—a story of exceeding great pathos, which utterly overcomes the sensitive, shrinking girl by his side—but it was the end. Half-hysterically she falls into his arms, and Helbeck almost believes the great renunciation is to follow. "His heart beat with a happiness he had never known before." But he was never farther from the truth. "It would be a crime—a crime to marry him," the heart-broken girl sobbed, when she reached the privacy of her own room.
And so she turns her back on Bannisdale. But fate compels her to return. Her step-mother is dying, and Laura's presence is indispensable. Once again the old battle is renewed 'twixt love and creed, and in her anguish this child of the modern world resolves to force herself to submit that she may save her love. Father Leadham can, he must, convince her. Has he not convinced Protestant clergymen and other learned people? Why not a poor, untutored girl such as her? But it was never to be. She was afraid to lose her love, but there was something in her which conquered fear, and it reasserted itself at the last. "I told you to make me afraid," she had once said to Helbeck in one of their sweet moments of reconciliation, "but you can't! There is something in me that fears nothing, not even the breaking of both our hearts."
And so, with the awful inevitableness of a Greek tragedy, the action moves towards the closing doom. It is sad beyond words, and we are grateful for Mrs. Ward's noble reticence. "The tyrant river that she loved had received her, had taken life, and then had borne her on its swirl of waters, straight for that little creek where, once before, it had tossed a human prey upon the beach. There, beating against the gravelly bank, in a soft helplessness, her bright hair tangled among the drift of branch and leaf brought down by the storm, Helbeck found her."
He carried her home upon his breast, and at the last they laid her amongst the Westmoreland rocks and trees, in sight of the Bannisdale woods, in a sweet graveyard, high in the hills. The country folk came in great numbers, and Helbeck, more estranged than ever now, watched the mournful scene from afar.
Such is the tragedy of faith and love, which bequeathed to the already lonely and sorrowful man memories so unspeakably sad, and led this new Antigone to immolate herself in so awful a manner—"a blind witness to august things".