The Puritans by Arlo Bates

A >> Arlo Bates >> The Puritans

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

"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!"

XXI

THIS "WOULD" CHANGES
Hamlet, iv. 7.

Maurice woke next morning to a deep sadness, as if some bitter calamity
had befallen. In a moment the conversation of the previous evening
rushed to his mind, and his gloom rather deepened than grew less. The
rising-bell had rung, and he rose languidly in the cold, gray twilight.
So long had he tossed restlessly in the night unsleeping that he felt
worn out and miserable, and after the hours which he had necessarily
kept at the house of his cousin half past five seemed hardly to be day.
He shivered with a discouraged disgust as he made his toilet,
endeavoring to forget.

The routine of the morning followed: meditation, lauds and prayers;
mass; breakfast; prime; then the study hours before luncheon; and so on
to nones. All this time the rule of the house protected him from
speech, but now that the hour for recreation came he was in the midst
of questioning fellow-deacons. They had all so much to tell, however,
of the manner in which they had passed their time during their absence
from the Clergy House that Maurice was able for the most part to listen
instead of speaking. He watched with curiosity to see that they
appeared glad to return to seclusion. They had been troubled by the
sensation of finding themselves out of their accustomed groove, and had
found the world confusing. Most often they seemed to him to have been
oppressed by the need of deciding what they should do, and how they
should meet trifling unforeseen emergencies.

"It is impossible to be spiritually calm except in seclusion," one of
them said.

Involuntarily Maurice looked at the speaker, feeling that this must be
mere cant. It struck him as nonsense, yet one glance at the serene,
honest face of the deacon who spoke, with its tender, candid eyes, like
those of a pure girl, was enough to convince him of the entire
sincerity of the words. He sighed, and turned away; as he did so he
caught the eye of Philip, who was watching him with solicitous
attention. Maurice put his hand on the arm of his friend, and led him
away.

"Why did you look at me that way, Phil?" he asked. "Does it seem to you
that spiritual calm is the best thing in life?"

Ashe was silent a moment. Maurice noted that he looked thinner than of
old, and reproached himself that he had seen so little of his friend
during their absence from the Clergy House.

"I was thinking," Philip replied at length, hesitating and dropping his
voice, "that I feared both you and I had discovered that something more
than seclusion is needed to give it, however good it may be."

Maurice laid his hand on the back of Philip's, grasping it tightly.

"You too?" was his response.

They stood in silence for some moments, looking out of a window over
the dingy back yards which formed the prospect from the rear of the
house. Wynne was wondering how it was that for the first time in his
life it was impossible to be frankly confidential with Philip, and how
far it was probable that his friend would be in sympathy with him in
his trouble. He longed for counsel, and the force of old habit pressed
him to tell everything.

"Phil," he said, "will you go out with me for a walk this afternoon?"

"Of course," Ashe answered. "Don't we always go together?"

Wynne laughed, turning to look at his companion as if from afar.

"I doubt," he observed, "if anything I could tell you directly would
give you so good an idea of how upset I am, and how completely out of
the routine of our life, as the fact that I seem to have forgotten that
there ever were any walks before."

"I am afraid that I am a good deal out of touch with the life here,"
Ashe responded seriously. "I have been troubled, and tempted, and--Oh,
Maurice," he broke off suddenly, "Maynard is right: no spiritual calm
is possible in the world outside!"

"Even if that were true," returned Maurice, "I don't know that I am
prepared to agree that calm is the best thing in life."

"It is the highest thing."

"I don't believe it. It isn't growth."

The bell for study sounded, and ended their talk. Maurice went to his
work uneasy, perhaps a little irritated. He was disquieted that Philip
should be so monastically out of sympathy, and he was annoyed with
himself for being out of key with his friend. He felt as if he had
returned to his old place in the body without being here at all in the
spirit. He had while at Mrs. Staggchase's looked into many books which
in the Clergy House would never have come in his way; he had more than
once been startled to encounter thoughts which had been in his own
mind, but which he had felt it wrong to entertain. Here they were
stated coolly, dispassionately, with no consciousness, apparently, that
they should not be considered with frankness. He had heard opinions and
ideas which from the standpoint of the religious ascetic were not only
heretical but little short of blasphemous, yet they were evidently the
ordinary current thought of the time. It was impossible that these
things should not affect him; and to-day as he sat in lecture he found
himself trying all that was said by a new standard and involuntarily
taking the position of an objector. He was able to see nothing but
flaws in the logic, faults in the deduction, breaks in the argument.

"I am come to that state of mind when I should see a seam in the
seamless robe," he groaned in spirit.

Father Frontford lectured that afternoon on church history. Sometimes
in the long hour Maurice studied the priest, wondering at him, trying
to comprehend the working of his mind. Sometimes he would ask himself
whether it were possible that this man were wholly sincere, whether it
were possible that an intellect so acute could really believe the
things which were the foundation of the teaching of the day; but he
came back always to faith in the complete conviction of the Father.
Maurice, indeed, said to himself that Frontford was quite capable of
taking his spiritual self by the throat and compelling it to believe;
and then the young doubter asked himself if this were the secret of the
faith which showed in every word and look of the speaker. He told
himself that Father Frontford was his Superior, and as such to be
followed, not criticised; he resolved not to think, but endeavored to
give his whole attention to the lecture. Here however he did little
better. The glories of the church upon which the speaker dwelt seemed
to Wynne in his present mood poor and paltry triumphs of dogmatism,--or
even, why not of superstition indeed? He was startled by the sin of his
questioning, yet it seemed impossible to silence the mocking inner
voice.

"This is one of the incidents," he at last became aware that the Father
was saying to close, "which strikingly illustrate the need of implicit
obedience. If the church were a simple organization of man, if it were
for the accomplishment of worldly ends, if its object were the
aggrandizement of individuals, nothing could be more dangerous than the
establishment in it of what seems like arbitrary power. As it is
directed from above; as its aim is nothing less than the spiritual
uplifting of the race; as, indeed, upon it rests the salvation, under
God, of mankind, the case is different. It is necessary that no energy
be lost; that all the power of the church be used to the best
advantage; that the hand assist the head and the head have complete
control of the hand. Obedience is of all the lessons which you have to
learn perhaps the hardest. It is no less one of the most essential. In
an age which is lacking not only in obedience but even in that
reverence upon which obedience must rest, it is for the true priest to
be an example of reverence and obedience alike. Revere and obey, and
you have done noble service."

The deacons buzzed together as they left the lecture-room. They were
but boys after all, and some of them light-hearted enough. Maurice
heard one or two of them commenting upon the lecture or upon
indifferent things. A curly-haired young deacon, a Southerner with the
face of a cherub, was laughing lightly to himself. He was the youngest
of them all, and Maurice had for him that liking which one might have
for a pretty kitten.

"I say, Wynne," he remarked, looking up into the face of the other with
a twinkling eye, "the Dominie gave us a good preachment to-day in
support of his authority. It almost made me resolve to rebel the next
time I was told to do anything."

"Then I suppose that you don't agree with him," Maurice responded
rather absently.

"Oh, it isn't that. I do agree with him. I mean to be a bishop myself
some day, and then the doctrine will come in all right. I'll work it.
Down South we understand that sort of thing better than you do up
here."

"Then what did you object to in the lecture?"

"I didn't object to anything; only when anybody proves that you ought
not to do a thing isn't it human nature to want to do it, just for the
fun of it?"

Maurice felt how far from serious was the temper of the boy, and that
it would be utterly unreasonable to expect from him anything like
reverence. "Then how do you expect anybody to hold to the doctrine of
implicit obedience?" he questioned, smiling.

"Oh, everybody expects to wield the authority sometime," was the light
answer. "Nobody'd hold to it otherwise."

Maurice instinctively glanced at Ashe. In Philip's pale, enrapt face
was an expression of self-surrender which made Wynne feel how
completely the teaching to which they had just listened must appeal to
the temperament of his friend.

"To obey for the sake of obeying is precisely what Phil would delight
in," he thought. "How entirely different we are! Yet if it hadn't been
for him I should never have come here. Haven't I strength enough to
follow my own convictions?"

The hour for walking was four, and a few minutes after the clocks had
struck, Maurice and Philip started out. It was a dull and lowering
afternoon, and the narrow, street was already gloomy with shadows. Half
unconsciously Wynne found himself casting about in his mind for topics
of conversation which should be free from the personal element. Now
that the time for confidences had come, he shrank from words. He
reproached himself, and then half peevishly thought: "I seem nowadays
to do nothing but to find fault with myself for things that I can't
help feeling!"

"I am glad Father Frontford said what he did today," Ashe remarked
after they had walked in silence for a little. "It was just what I
needed. I've got so in the habit of following my own will since we have
been out in the world that I needed to be reminded that there is
something better."

Maurice felt a faint irritation that the talk was begun in precisely
the key he would most gladly have avoided, but honesty would not let
him be silent.

"I am afraid, Phil," he said, "that I'm not entirely in sympathy with
you. I didn't like the lecture. Since we are given will and reason, I
believe that it was intended that we should use them."

"Of course. If I had no reason, how could I bring myself to give up my
own will to one that I know to be higher?"

Maurice smiled unhappily.

"Well," was his answer, "when you begin with a paradox like that it is
evident that I couldn't go on without getting into a discussion darker
than the darkness of Egypt. I'd rather just talk about common everyday
things. Where shall we go?"

"I want to go to the North End. There is an old woman there that I
thought of visiting. I had trouble with her husband the other day; he
threw her down and hurt her."

"What sort of trouble?"

"He struck me, and we had a sort of struggle. He wasn't sober."

"Were you on the street?"

"No; in his room. I--I broke in."

"Broke in?"

"Yes." Ashe hesitated, and then added: "Mrs. Fenton was there, and he
tried to rob her."

"Mrs. Fenton? Why didn't you tell me about it? When was it?"

"The day before I went down home. You weren't here, you know. There was
not much to tell."

Maurice questioned eagerly, and his friend related briefly what had
happened.

"Why, Phil, you're a hero!" Wynne exclaimed. "You've quite taken the
wind out of my sails. I counted for something of an adventurer simply
by having been in a smash-up; but you rushed in and had a real
adventure. I never thought of you as a defender of dames."

The other turned toward him a face contracted with a look of pain.

"Don't, Maurice," he protested. "I can't joke about it. It was not
anything to be proud of; and nobody knows better than I how far I am
from being a hero."

"Oh, you're modest, of course. That's like you; but I call it stunning.
Mrs. Fenton must have admired you tremendously."

"Do you suppose she did?" Philip demanded impetuously. Then his voice
altered. "Oh, she knows me too well!" he added.

The intense bitterness of his tone gave Maurice a shock.

"Phil!" cried he.

His companion apparently understood the thought which lay behind the
exclamation. He dropped his head, and for a little distance they walked
in silence.

"I may as well tell you," Ashe said in a moment. "It is true, what you
guess. I--I have been thinking of her more than was right. That is one
reason why I am glad to get back to the Clergy House."

"To give her up?"

"She was not mine to give up."

"But do you mean not to try to--Oh, Phil, doesn't it ever come to you
that all this monkish business is a mistake? We were a couple of
foolish boys that didn't know what we were about when we went into it;
and"--

Ashe turned and looked at him with eyes full of reproach, and of almost
despairing determination.

"Is that the way you help me?" he asked.

Maurice drew a long, deep breath, and set his strong jaw with a resolve
not to abandon so easily the endeavor to bring his friend out of his
trouble. It hardly occurred to him for the moment that it was his own
cause that he was defending.

"Phil," he persisted, "isn't it possible that after all we may be wrong
in making ourselves wiser than the church by taking vows that are not
required?"

"Do you suppose that the devil has forgotten to say that to me over and
over again?" was the response.

"Meaning that I am the old gentleman?" Maurice retorted, trying to be
lightsome.

"Oh, don't joke. I can't stand it. I've been through so much, and this
is so terrible a thing to bear anyway."

Wynne seized his rosary with one hand, and struck it across the other
so hard that the corner of the crucifix wounded his finger.

"Phil, old fellow," he said gravely, "I never felt less like joking. It
cuts me to the quick to see you suffer; and I know how hard you will
take this. I know what it is, for I'm going through the same thing
myself, and I've about made up my mind that we are wrong. I begin to
think that celibacy is only a device that the early church somehow got
into when it was necessary to hold complete authority over the priest,
or when men thought that it was. It belongs to the Middle Ages; not to
the nineteenth century."

"Then you don't see how marriage would be sure to interfere with a
man's zeal for his work?"

"But it would certainly bring him into closer sympathy with humanity."

Ashe shook his head.

"You don't seem to realize," he said with a certain doggedness which
Wynne had seldom seen in him, "how it must absorb a man, and take
possession of his very reason. Why, see me. I know it is a sin to think
of her, and yet"--He broke off and choked. "Besides," he resumed
presently, "you say yourself that you feel as I do, and that means that
you are not looking at the thing fairly. You are trying to make your
conscience come round to the side of your desires."

They walked on up the dingy street into which they had come, and for
some time nothing more was said. Maurice recognized that it was idle to
attempt to reply to the charge of his companion. He had made it to
himself and succumbed to it; but now that another stated it, he
instinctively found himself refusing to yield. He repeated to himself
that he was not trying to befool his conscience, but merely acting with
human sanity.

Presently they came into a dusky court, and crossing it, found
themselves at the door of an ill-smelling tenement house. Here Ashe
turned suddenly, and faced his friend, his face full of strange
excitement.

"Do you suppose," he said, in a voice which, though low, was full of
feeling, "that I do not know how absorbing a thing it is to give up
life to a woman? Here I am, when she is nothing to me, when I do not
mean ever to see her again, going into this place simply because here
she was half a minute in my arms, because here for two minutes she
looked at me as her preserver. It is sin, and I know it; but it is too
strong for me."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26