The Puritans by Arlo Bates

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The other smiled sadly.

"What does that mean in plainer words?" asked he. "It means that you do
not wish to do wrong because whatever you desire will seem to you
right."

"You are unjust!" Maurice retorted, flushing.

The face of the Father grew stern. "Since when did the rule of the
order allow you to use such language to your superiors? If you are not
thinking of evading your vows, you do evade them daily; and the
throwing them off can be nothing but an affair of time."

Maurice felt that he could not endure this longer without breaking out
into words which he should afterward repent. He rose at once.

"Will you permit me to retire?" he said. "I shall be glad of your
answer to my request for leave of absence, but I cannot go on with this
conversation."

The other stretched out his hand with a gesture infinitely tender.

"My son!" he entreated. "Do not stray into the wilderness!"

Maurice looked at the outstretched hand. His eyes moistened, but he
could not yield. He felt tenderness for Father Frontford, but he was
more and more at war with the Father Superior. For an instant they
remained thus, and then the thin hand dropped.

"You are then still resolute in asking leave?" the Father said, in his
coldest voice.

"It seems to me my duty to see that if possible the last wishes of my
aunt be carried out."

"Is that your only motive?"

Maurice flushed hotly, but he looked the other boldly in the face.

"I must allow you to impute to me any motive you please. The point is
whether I am to have your permission."

"Under the circumstances I do not feel justified in granting it. We
will speak of the matter again, when you have examined your heart more
carefully."

Maurice bowed and left the room in silence, his spirit hot within him.
That he should be denied had not entered his mind. He was now confused
by the conflict in his thoughts. To disobey would be equivalent to
nothing less than a defiance of the authority of the Father Superior.
To assert his right to decide this matter could only mean a resolve to
break away from the brotherhood altogether. He was hardly prepared for
a step so extreme; yet he could not but ask himself whether he were
willing to accept the conditions involved in remaining. He realized for
the first time what the vow of obedience meant. He had received the
slight sacrifices involved thus far in his novitiate as right and
proper; simple things which had marked his willingness to yield to the
authority which by his own choice was above him. Now he said to himself
that to continue this life was to become a mere puppet; to give up
independence and manhood itself.

On the other hand, he had not been bred in theological subtilties
without having come to see that the act cannot be judged without the
motive, and he had been more nearly touched by the words of Father
Frontford than he would have been willing to confess. He knew that he
had been hiding from his confessor the extent to which a longing for
the world had taken possession of him; that there was in this wish to
secure the will and through it the property an eagerness to be
independent of control and to take his place in the world as a man
among men. The thought that the money was now in the hands of the
church to which he had pledged himself tormented him. There came into
his mind the question what he would do with the wealth if he obtained
it. He had vowed himself to poverty, at least in his intention. If he
had this fortune and became a priest, he would be pledged to endow the
church with all his worldly goods.

He faced his inner self with sudden defiance, as if he had thrown off a
disguise cunningly but weakly worn. He confessed with frankness that he
had secretly desired this money that he might be in a position to gain
Berenice. He pleaded with himself that he did not mean to abandon the
priesthood; that he had simply discovered that he had not a vocation
for the existence he had contemplated. He tried to see some way in
which he might gain the end he desired without giving up the faith he
professed; and in the end he succeeded only in getting his mind into a
confusion so great that it seemed impossible to think of anything
clearly.

He had an errand at Mrs. Wilson's on Shrove Tuesday, and she invited
him to accompany her to midnight service at the Church of the Nativity.
When he repeated the request to Father Frontford, he was given
permission to go.

"It is an unusual, and even an extraordinary request," the Superior
said; "but Mrs. Wilson is so deeply interested in the welfare of the
brotherhood that it is better to make a concession. What time are you
to meet her?"

"She is to send her carriage for me at half past eleven. She was so
sure that you would not object that she told me not to send any word."

"It is not well to have her treat so great a departure from rules as a
matter of course," the Father answered gravely. "I will send her a note
which will show her this. You have permission not to retire at the
usual hour."

The carnival season was celebrated at the Clergy House with a meal
better than usual, and with some gayety on the part of the young
deacons. The light-hearted Southerner improved to the full the
permission to talk at dinner, and chatted away with a volubility which
seemed to Maurice to indicate a nature too buoyant or too shallow to be
deeply stirred. Father Frontford was absent, and there was nothing to
throw a shadow of restraint over the feast, the other priests being
almost as boyish as the deacons.

"Here's Wynne," the Southerner said laughing, "is as glum as if he were
Lent incarnate, come six hours too soon. You must have a good deal on
your conscience to be so solemn."

Maurice smiled, trying to shake off his depression.

"It isn't always what is on one's conscience," he retorted, "so much as
how tender the conscience is."

"Good! He has you there, Ballentyne," one of the deacons cried.

"Oh, not at all. If a conscience is tender, it must be because it is
harrowed up. Now Wynne has probably vexed his so that it is habitually
sore."

Maurice was out of the mood of the company, but he tried to answer with
a light word. The jesting seemed to him trifling; and his companions,
compared to the men he had seen during his stay with Mrs. Staggchase,
appeared like boys chattering at boarding-school. He wondered where
they had been for their absence; then he remembered that they had all
told him, and that he had forgotten. He had had no real interest in
them after all, he reflected; and at the thought he reproached himself
with egotism and a lack of brotherliness. He glanced at Ashe, and was
struck by the paleness of his friend. His look was perhaps followed by
Ballentyne, for the latter commented on the downcast aspect of Philip.

"Ashe," the young man said, "looks ten times more doleful than Wynne.
What have you fellows been doing? One would think that you had been
eating the bitterest of all the apples of Sodom."

"They have been in the gay world," another rejoined.

"Then they might be set up as a warning against it," was the retort.

Laughter that one cannot share is more nauseous than sweets to the
sick; and this harmless trifling was intolerable to Maurice. He got
away from it as soon as it was possible, and passed the heavy hours in
his chamber, waiting for the coming of the carriage. He tried at first
to read and then to pray; but in the end he abandoned himself to bitter
reverie.

He did not attempt to reason, he merely gave way to gloomy retrospect,
without sequence or order. Seen in the light of his experiences during
the past weeks, his life looked poor, and dull, and misdirected. It was
little comfort to assert that he had at least been true to ideals high,
no matter how mistaken.

"It is not what one does," he thought, "but the intention with which he
does it. Only that does not excuse one for being stupid, and raw, and
ignorant. When a man is a weakling and a fool, he always takes refuge
in the excuse that he is at least fine in his intentions. Bah! No
wonder she laughed at me! I have shut myself up with ideas as mouldy as
a mediaeval skeleton, and when I come to daylight all that I can say is
that I meant well. I suppose an idiot means well from his point of
view!"

He looked about for something which should divert him from thoughts so
tormenting. His eye fell upon his Bible, and he took it up half
mechanically. On the title page was written the name of his aunt, to
whom it had once belonged. The name brought back the interview with
Father Frontford, and the refusal of his request for leave of absence.

"Nothing belongs to me," he said to himself. "I am a thing, a sort of
thing like a numbered prisoner. How could she care for a chattel, a
creature without even identity! I will go down to Montfield. I am not
yet so completely out of the world that I can't have a word in the
disposition of my own property."

He threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep, but sleep was
impossible. He only thought the more hotly and wildly. The hours
stretched on and on interminably before he heard the bell ring, and
knew that the carriage had come. Rising hastily, he adjusted his
cassock and his tumbled hair, and went down.

"Perhaps I may find peace at the mass," he sighed with a great
wistfulness.

The fresh, cool air of night was grateful, and as he was driven along
the quiet streets, a new hopefulness came to him. He had supposed that
he was to be taken to Mrs. Wilson's, and when the carriage stopped was
surprised to find himself before a large building which he did not
recognize.

"But I was to meet Mrs. Wilson," he said doubtfully to the footman who
opened the carriage door.

"Mrs. Wilson is here, sir," was the answer. "She said to carry you
here. James is inside to tell you what to do."

A footman was indeed within, waiting for him.

"Mrs. Wilson says will you please come to her, sir," the man said, and
led the way upstairs.

The sound of gay music, growing louder as he advanced, filled Wynne's
ears. He began to feel disquieted, and once half halted.

"Are you sure there is no mistake?" he asked.

"Oh, no mistake at all, sir," his guide answered. "Mrs. Wilson has
arranged everything. Leave your hat and cloak here, sir, if you
please."

Maurice mechanically did as requested, but as he threw off his outer
garment the opening of a door let in a burst of music which seemed so
close at hand that he was startled. He was in what was evidently a
coat-room, the attendant of which regarded him with open curiosity; and
he realized suddenly that he must be near a ball-room.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

"It's the ball, sir, that they has to end the season before Lent. It's
Lent to-morrow, sir, as I thought you'd know."

Maurice stared at him in amazement and anger.

"There is a mistake," he said. "Give me my cloak."

"Indeed, sir," the man said, holding back the garment he had taken,
"Mrs. Wilson said, sir, that I was to say that she particular wanted
you to come fetch her in the ball-room, sir; and I was to bring you
without fail."

"You may send her word that I am here."

"Please, sir," the man returned, in a voice which struck Maurice as
absurdly pleading, "she was very particular, and it's no hurt to go in,
sir. She'll blame me, sir."

Maurice looked at him, and laughed at the solemnity of the man's homely
face. A spirit of recklessness leaped up within him. He said to himself
that at least Mrs. Wilson should not think that he dared not come.

"Very well," he said. "Show me the way."

"Thank you, sir," the servant said, as if he had received a great
favor. "It's not easy to bear blame that don't belong to you."

He opened a door into an anteroom thronged with people laughing and
chatting. The sound of the music was clear and loud, with the voices
striking through its cadences. Across this he led Wynne, to the wide
door of a ball-room flooded with light and full of moving figures.

XXVI

O WICKED WIT AND GIFT
Hamlet, i. 5.

The brilliant glare of lights, the strident sound of dance-music, the
enlivening sense of a living, vivaciously stirring company of gayly
dressed merrymakers, assailed Maurice as he followed his guide across
the anteroom. At the door of the ball-room he was for a moment hindered
by a group of men who were lounging and chatting there. All his senses
were keenly alert, and he perhaps unconsciously listened to hear if
there were any comment on his appearance in such a place. He had not
realized what he was coming into, and now that it was too late for him
to withdraw without sacrificing his pride, he saw how incongruous his
presence really was. Almost instantly he caught a name.

"By Jove!" one of the men said. "Isn't the Wilson in great form to-
night! That diamond on her toe must be worth a fortune."

"She saves the price in the materials of her gowns," another responded
lightly. "I never saw her with quite so little on."

"No material is allowed to go to waist there," put in a third.

"She has two straps and a rosebud," yet another voice laughed; "and
nothing else above the belt but diamonds."

"Her very smile is decollete" some one commented. "This is one of her
nights. When I see Mrs. Wilson with that expression, I am prepared for
anything."

Maurice felt his cheeks burn at this light talk. It seemed to him
ribald, and he was outraged that the name of a woman should be bandied
about so carelessly. He raised his head and set his square jaw
defiantly; then began to push his way through the group, keenly
conscious of the stare which greeted him.

"Hallo! What the devil's that?" he heard behind him.

"The skeleton at the feast," responded one voice.

"Oh, it's some devilish trick of Mrs. Wilson's, of course," put in
another.

All this Maurice heard with an outraged sense that there was no attempt
to prevent him from hearing. He might have been a servant or a piece of
furniture for any restraint these men put upon their speech. He was
troubled with the fear of what absurdity Mrs. Wilson might intend. Now
that he was here, however, he would go on. The natural obstinacy of his
temper asserted itself, and if there was little pious meekness in his
spirit at that moment, there was plenty of grit.

The ball-room was garlanded with wreaths of laurel stuck thickly with
red roses; women in white and in bright-hued gowns, with fair shoulders
and arms, were floating about in the embraces of men; the music set
everything to a rhythmic pulse, and gaily quickened the blood in the
veins of the young deacon as he looked. The throbbing of the violins
made him quiver with an excitement joyous and bewildering. He was
dazzled by the bright, moving figures, the shining colors, the
sparkling of gems, the lovely faces, the alluring creamy necks and
arms; a sweet intoxication began to creep over him, despite the
defiance of his feelings toward the men he had passed in the doorway.
Half blinded by the glare, dazed and fascinated by the sights, the
sounds, the perfumes, he followed the footman down the hall.

He was obliged to skirt the room, even then hardly evading the dancers.
His progress was necessarily slow. The footman so continually paused to
apologize for having brushed against some lady in his anxiety to avoid
a whirling pair of dancers, that it began to seem to Maurice that they
should never reach Mrs. Wilson. He cast his eyes to the floor,
resolved not to look at the worldly sights around him. Country bred and
trained in the asceticism of the Clergy House, he could not see these
women without blushing; and more than ever he wondered that he had been
so blindly obedient as to allow himself to be brought to such a place.

He heard a man clap his hands. He looked up to see a flock of dancers
hurrying to the upper end of the room. Among them, with a shock so
violent that his heart seemed to stand still, he recognized Berenice
Morison. He saw her go to a table and pick up something; then she and
her companions turned and came glancing and gleaming down the hall like
a flock of pigeons which fly and shine in the sun. Fair, flushed
softly, more beautiful than all the rest in his eyes, Berenice came on,
her hair curling about her forehead, her eyes shining with laughter and
pleasure. She was dressed in white, and at one shoulder, crushed
against her bare, creamy neck, was a bunch of crimson roses. Maurice
trembled at the sight of her beauty; he reddened at the consciousness
of her dress; over him came some inexplicable sense of fear.

Suddenly he perceived that she had caught sight of him. He could see
the look of amazement rise in her face, give place to one of amusement,
then change instantly into sparkling mischievousness. He moved on
toward her, abashed, bewildered, feeling as if he were running a
gauntlet. He could not withdraw his gaze from her, as she came quickly
onward, dimpling, smiling, her face overflowing with saucy fun, her
glance holding his.

"Good-evening, Mr. Wynne," she said lightly, coming up to him. "This is
an unexpected pleasure."

"Good-evening," Maurice responded, hardly able to drag the words out of
his parched throat.

"Of course you came for the german," Miss Morison went on, more
mockingly than before. "I am so glad that I happen to have a favor for
you."

She leaned forward, swaying toward him her white shoulders, dazzling
him with the hint of the swell of her bosom, bewildering him with the
perfume of her dark hair, the alluring feminine presence which brought
the hot blood to his face. Before he guessed her intention, she had
pinned to his cassock a grotesque little dangling mask which swung from
a bright ribbon.

"There," she commented, drawing back as if critically to observe. "The
effect is novel, but striking."

A burst of amusement, light and blinding as the spray from a whirlpool,
went up from the women around. The music, the voices, the laughter,
seemed to Maurice so many insults flung at him in idle contempt. He
looked around him with a bitter anger which could almost have smitten
these laughing women on their red mouths. Then he turned back to
Berenice. He saw that she shrank before the wrath of his look; he felt
with a thrill that he had at least power to make her fear him. He bent
toward her full of rage made the wilder by the impulse to catch her in
his arms and cover her beautiful neck with kisses.

"Shameless!" he hissed into her ear.

He saw her turn pale and then flush burning red; but he hastened on
after the footman without waiting for more. Presently he reached the
head of the hall, where Mrs. Wilson stood laughing and talking with
several men. Her dress was of alternate stripes of crimson silk and
tissue of gold, and since it had excited comment from the loungers at
the door, it is small wonder that to the unsophisticated deacon, almost
convent bred, it appeared no less than horribly indecent. He cast down
his eyes; but his glance fell upon the foot which just then she thrust
laughingly forward, evidently in answer to some remark from Stanford,
who stood at her right hand. Upon the toe of her exquisite little shoe
sparkled a great diamond like a fountain of flame.

"It gives light to my steps," she laughed.

"The service is worthy of it," Stanford returned with a half-mocking
bow.

"Thank you," Mrs. Wilson retorted, sweeping him a satirical courtesy.
"If you say such nice things to me, what must you say to Berenice!"

It seemed to Maurice that the devil was exerting all his infernal
ingenuity that night to have him tormented at every turn. He came
forward hastily, eager to stop the talk.

"Ah," cried Mrs. Wilson, "have you come, ghostly father?"

The men stared at him in careless surprise and open amusement. Maurice
could not trust himself to speak, but only bowed in silence.

"I am called, you see," Mrs. Wilson said gayly. "Now I must go to
penance and confession."

"Surely you will need so little time for confession," one of the men
said, "that there's no necessity of going so early."

"You must have been more wicked this winter than I ever suspected,
Elsie," put in the even voice of Mrs. Staggchase. "Or is it that you
only mean to be?"

Maurice turned quickly, and found that his cousin was sitting behind
the table near which he stood. In front of her were heaps of trinkets
of all sorts of fantastic devices.

"Good evening, Cousin Maurice," she greeted him. "Are you dancing? What
sort of a favor ought I to give you?"

"Mrs. Wilson's wickedness," Stanford answered Mrs. Staggchase, "is of
the sort so original that I'm sure the recording angel must always be
too surprised to put it down."

"What a premium you put on originality!" responded Mrs. Staggchase.
"That is all very well for her, but how is it for her victims?"

"Oh, the honor of being her victim is compensation enough for them."

Mrs. Wilson laughed, and shook her head, twinkling with diamonds which
dazzled the eyes of the young deacon.

"You are all worldly," she retorted. "Brother Martin and I are too
unsophisticated to understand you."

Maurice winced at the name. He felt that he must be a picture of
confusion. To stand here among these sumptuously dressed women, to
endure the glances which he knew were watching him from all parts of
the room, to be pricked with this monkish title by a woman who was
making of him and of the whole incident a sport and a spectacle, stung
him to the quick. He thought of Berenice, and he cast at Mrs.
Staggchase a look of defiance, lifting his head proudly in assertion of
his hurt dignity.

"I am at your service, Mrs. Wilson," he said with cold sternness.

"Well, we will go then. Unless, that is, you are dancing, Mr. Wynne. I
see that you have a favor."

He glanced down at the grotesque little mask, dangling by its red
ribbon. With unbroken gravity he detached and laid it upon the table in
silence. He would have given much to hide it in his pocket, since it
came from Berenice; but even as he put it down a bevy of girls swept up
for favors, and one of them bore it away.

"He has abandoned his opportunity," Mrs. Staggchase observed. "The
favor goes to Mr. Stanford."

The girl who had taken up the mask was indeed pinning it to the coat of
that gentleman, with whom she quickly danced away. Maurice felt his
heart grow hot, but he looked at his cousin with face hard and
determined.

"It was never mine," he said, "except by the chance of a
misunderstanding."

A maid now came forward with a black domino, which Mrs. Wilson slipped
into gracefully, drawing up her glittering draperies. The big diamond
on the toe of her slipper glowed fantastically, peeping from beneath
the penitential robe.

"Hallo," Dr. Wilson exclaimed, coming up at this moment, "what's in the
wind now? Is this turning into a masquerade?"

"Your wife is about to retire from the world," Mrs. Hubbard answered,
laughing.

"With a man," Mrs. Staggchase added, her eyes shining on her cousin.

Wynne stabbed her with a glance of indignation.

"No, with a priest," corrected Mrs. Wilson, adjusting her domino about
her face.

"Elsie, how devilishly fond you are of making a fool of yourself," Dr.
Wilson observed jovially. "Well, good-night."

Mrs. Wilson swept him a profound courtesy, with her hands crossed on
her bosom.

"My lord and master, good-night. Ladies, remember that it will be Lent
in ten minutes."

She took Wynne's arm, and together the black-robed figures went down
the length of the room. The music had for the moment stopped, and it
seemed to Maurice as if his presence had brought a chill to the whole
gay scene. He was inwardly raging, angry to have been used by Mrs.
Wilson as an actor in her outrageous comedy, furious with Berenice for
her part in the play, full of rage against the men who stood around
grinning and laughing at the whole performance. Most of all, he assured
himself, he was righteously indignant at the trifling with sacred
things. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, but with Mrs.
Wilson sweeping along by his side he strode toward the door.

"He looks as if he belonged to the church militant," he heard one of
the men say as he passed out.

"Even the church militant is nothing against a woman," another
replied, catching the eye of Mrs. Wilson, and laughing.

In the vestibule stood a footman bearing Maurice's cloak, and a maid
with fur over-shoes and an ermine-lined wrap for Mrs. Wilson. Maurice
said not a word except to reply in monosyllables to the questions of
his companion, and almost in silence they drove to the Church of the
Nativity.

XXVII

UPON A CHURCH BENCH
Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 3.

The music of the Church of the Nativity was most elaborate, the very
French millinery of sacred music. The selection of a new singer was
debated with a zeal which spoke volumes for the interest in the service
of the sanctuary, and the money expended in this part of the worship
would have supported two or three poorer congregations. The church,
moreover, was appointed with a richness beautiful to see. The vestments
might have moved the envy of high Roman prelates, and the altar plate
shone in gold and precious stones.

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