The Puritans by Arlo Bates

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In the study hour which followed breakfast Wynne went boldly to the
room of Father Frontford, and knocked at the door. When he heard the
voice of the Father Superior bidding him enter he was for the first
time seized with an unpleasant doubt. The long habit of obedience half
asserted itself, so that for an instant he was almost minded to turn
back. With a smile of self-scorn he shook off the feeling, and opened
the door.

The Father looked up in evident surprise at sight of the deacon who
came unsummoned at such an hour. He was alone, a fact which Maurice
noted with satisfaction.

"Good morning, Wynne," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"

"Yes, sir," Maurice answered, closing the door, and standing before it.
"I came to tell you that I have decided to leave the Clergy House."

The abruptness of the communication evidently startled the Superior.
Wynne watched him as he laid down his pen, the lines about his thin
lips growing tense.

"Sit down," he said gravely.

Maurice obeyed unwillingly. He would have been glad to retreat at once,
his errand being done; but he knew this to be of course impossible. He
sat down facing the other, meeting with steadfast eyes the searching
look fastened upon him.

"Since when," Father Frontford asked, "have you held this
determination?"

"Since last night."

"Is it founded upon any especial circumstance connected with your going
with Mrs. Wilson to midnight service?"

Maurice looked down for a moment in thought, then he met the eyes of
the other frankly.

"Father," he said, "I don't think that I could tell you all that has
led to this decision if I would; and I do not see that it would be wise
for us to go into the matter in any case. It seems to me that the fact
that I have decided, and decided absolutely, is enough."

The face before him grew a shade sterner.

"You seem to forget that you are speaking to your Superior."

"Perhaps," the young man returned with calmness, "it is you who forget
that I have ended that relation."

Father Frontford's face darkened.

"I do not recognize that you have authority to end it."

Maurice tried to repress the irritation which he could not but feel;
and forced himself to speak as civilly as before.

"Will you pardon me," he said; "I do not wish that our last talk should
be bitter. I owe you much, and I shall never cease to respect the
unselfishness with which you have tried to help me. That I cannot
follow your path does not blind me to the fact that you have worked so
untiringly to make the way plain and attractive to me."

He was not without a secret feeling that he was speaking with some
magnanimity, yet he was entirely sincere. He realized with thorough
respect, even at the moment of breaking away, how complete was the
devotion of the Father. There was in his mind, too, some satisfaction
at the tone he had unconsciously adopted. It flattered him to find that
he should be almost patronizing his Superior.

Father Frontford regarded Maurice with a look in which were mingled
surprise, disapprobation, and regret. As the two sat holding each
other's eyes, the face of the older man changed and softened. Into it
came a smile of high and spiritual beauty, of nobility and
unworldliness, of tenderness most touching. All that was most winning
in the character of the man was embodied in the look which he fixed
upon his recreant disciple, a look pleading and wistful, yet full of
dignity and strength. He leaned forward, laying the tips of his thin
fingers almost caressingly on the arm of the other.

"My son," he said, "it is not what I have done that you remember; it is
what I represent. The truth and sweetness of religion is what has
touched you. I am only the representative; and no one knows better how
unworthy I am to be so looked on. If the grace of divine love seems to
you good shining through me, think what it is in itself. Oh, my son,"
he went on, the tears coming into his eyes, "I have loved you, and I
love you more now that I see you tempted and bewildered. Turn back to
the bosom of the church before it is too late."

Maurice sat silent with look downcast. His firmness was not shaken; he
had no inclination to reconsider his decision, but he was deeply moved
by the emotion of the other. He could not bear to meet pleading so
affectionate with a cold negative.

"It is for yourself that I appeal to you," the priest went on. "It is
for the good of your own soul, and for your happiness in this world and
the world to come. Think of your mission. Think how men need you; of
the sin and the error that cry out to Heaven, and of how few there are
to do the Lord's work. You have been confused by the temptations of the
world, and in all of us there is a selfish spirit that may lead us to
do in a moment of madness what we shall repent with tears of blood all
our lives."

Still Maurice could not answer; and the Father, bending still nearer,
taking one of the young man's hands in both his own, still pleaded.

"You have said that you felt my interest in you. Do not give me the
bitterness of feeling that I am a careless shepherd who has lost a lamb
to the wolves. If you have gone astray it must be in part my fault; it
must be my negligence. Oh, my son, don't force me to stand guilty
before God to answer for your lost soul."

It seemed to Maurice that he was being swept away by the simple power
of the emotion of Frontford. He felt the tears in his eyes, and almost
without his volition his hand responded to the pressure of the hand
that clasped it. He made a strong effort to call back his will.

"Father," he responded, "we must each stand or fall alone. It is not
your fault that I can't see things as you do, or that I can't any
longer remain here. I am changed. If I stayed, it would be against my
convictions."

"Ah," was the eager reply, "but you could submit your convictions to
the church."

Maurice drew back.

"I am a man, to think for myself. I must be honest with my reason. The
church cannot take for me the place of honesty and conviction."

The Father Superior dropped the hand he held.

"Then you insist on putting your own will and your own wisdom above
that of the church?"

"I must do the thing that seems to me right."

The priest's face hardened. It was as if over the surface of a pool a
film of ice formed. He sank back in his chair, and when he spoke again
it was in a voice so hard and cold that the young man started.

"When do you leave?" the Father Superior asked.

"I meant to wait until after nones so as to say good-by to Philip."

"I prefer that you should go at once."

"You mean that you prefer that I should not see him?" Maurice demanded
quickly.

"I merely said that I prefer that you should go at once," was the cold
reply.

Maurice rose briskly. His impulse was to retort sharply, but he held
himself in check.

"Very well," he answered. "I shall take it as a favor if you will let
Philip know that I did not willingly leave him without a word. It would
hurt him to think that."

"The wounds of earth," the Father Superior said gravely, "are the joys
of heaven."

Maurice stood an instant with a keen desire to reply, to break down
this icy statue of religion; then he drew back.

"I will not trouble you longer," he said. "Good-by."

"Good-by, Mr. Wynne," the other responded with the manner of one
addressing a stranger.

Maurice went to his chamber thoroughly aroused and excited. The
restraint which he had put on himself during the talk with Father
Frontford brought now its reaction. He rehearsed in his mind the
telling and caustic things which he might have said, then laughed at
himself for his unnecessary fervor. He packed his belongings, and,
leaving them to be called for, set out for the house of his cousin. To
go out from the Clergy House seemed to him like the ending of a life.

Mrs. Staggchase was fortunately at home. It seemed to Maurice that her
keen eyes took in the whole story from his secular dress. He blushed as
she gave him her hand.

"Well, my dear boy," she observed, "you have come to luncheon, I
suppose, because the fare at the Clergy House is so poor in Lent. Sit
down, and give me an account of your doings last night. I trust that
you saw Mrs. Wilson safe home."

"I left her in the church."

"Ah! And what did you do then?"

"I went home and fought it out with myself. You were right in saying
that things were not concluded when I became a deacon. I have given up
the whole thing."

"What do you mean by the whole thing?"

"I mean," he returned earnestly, "that I found out that I was acting a
part. That I didn't believe even the first principles of the religion I
was getting ready to teach. I have broken down in the temptation,
Cousin Diana."

She looked at him closely. The buoyancy of his morning mood was gone,
and it was hard for him to endure her searching look. It came over him
that he was an apostate; one who had abandoned all that he had vowed to
uphold; his vanity smarted at the thought that she must think him weak
and unstable as water.

"I am only what I was," he went on. "The difference is that I have
discovered what you probably saw all the time, that I don't believe the
things I have been taught. I am as free from the old creeds as you are.
I don't even pretend to know that there is a God."

"My dear boy," she responded, shrugging her shoulders, "you run into
extremes like a schoolgirl. I beg you won't talk as if I could be so
vulgar as not to believe in a deity. Don't rank me with the crowd of
common folk that try to increase their own importance by insisting that
there's nothing above them. Really, an atheist seems to me as bad as a
man who eats with his knife."

He changed countenance, but her words left him speechless. He could not
hear her speak in this way without being shocked. He might be without
creed, but his temper was still devout.

"If you've thrown overboard all your old dogmas," she went on with
unruffled face, "you'd better go to work to get a new set. I've just
heard of some sort of a society got up by women out in Cambridge, where
they deduce the ethnic sources of prophetic inspiration--whatever that
means!--from the 'Arabian Nights' and 'Mother Goose.' You might find
something there to suit you."

He could not answer her; he could only wonder whether she disapproved
of what he had done, or if she were vexed with him for coming to her.

"It's possible," she went on mercilessly, a fresh note of mockery in
her voice, "that Berenice might help you. Very often a woman wins
converts where a priest fails. After last night"--

He came to his feet with a spring.

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "I can't stand any more. Do you think that it's
been easy for me to find out the truth about myself; to have to own
that I've been a cheating fool, without honesty enough to know my own
mind? As for Miss Morison"--

His voice failed him. He was unnerved; the reaction from his long
vigil, from his interview with Father Frontford, overcame him. The
simple mention of the name of Berenice made him choke, and he stood
there speechless. His cousin rose and came to him softly. Before he
knew what she was doing, she bent forward and kissed his forehead.

"You poor boy," she said in a voice half laughing, yet so gentle that
he hardly recognized it, "don't take my teasing so much to heart. You
are only finding out like the rest of us that it is impossible not to
be human."

He could answer only by grasping her hand, ashamed of the weakness
which had betrayed him, and touched deeply by her kindness.

"Come," Mrs. Staggchase said, moving to the bell, and speaking in her
natural tone. "I have helped you to break your life into bits; I must
try to help you to put the pieces together into something better. You
must stay here for a while, and we'll consider what is to be done next.
Will you tell Patrick how to get your things from the Clergy House?
Take your old room. I'll see you at luncheon."

And as the servant appeared at one door she withdrew by another.

XXX

PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP
Othello, ii. 1.

Berenice had abundant leisure to reflect upon her attitude toward her
lovers, for Mrs. Frostwinch was soon so seriously ill that it was
evident to all that the end was at hand. Berenice devoted herself to
the invalid, although there was little that she could do. The sick
woman did not suffer; she seemed merely to be fading out of life; to
have lost her hold upon something which was slipping from her loosened
grasp.

"The fact is, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said one day, "that the doctors say
I'm dead. I'm beginning to believe it myself, and when I'm fully
convinced, I suppose that that'll be the end."

"Oh, don't joke about it, Cousin Anna," cried Bee. "It is too
dreadful."

"It won't make it any less dreadful to be solemn over it," the other
answered. "However, death should be spoken of with respect; even one's
own."

Berenice longed to know what had taken place between her cousin and
Mrs. Crapps, but she hardly liked to ask. That there had been a
disagreement of some kind, and that Mrs. Frostwinch had lost faith in
the woman, she knew; but beyond this she was in the dark. One
afternoon, however, her cousin explained matters.

"It is so humiliating, Bee, that I can hardly bear to think of it, the
way things turned out. My conscience will be easier, though, if I tell
you the whole of it. It is so vulgar that it makes me creep. We were at
Jekyll's Island, and she had an ulcerated tooth."

"I thought she couldn't have such things?"

"She thought or pretended that she couldn't. I must say that she fought
against it with tremendous pluck; but the face kept swelling, and the
pain got to be more than she could bear. When she gave out she went to
pieces completely. She literally rolled on the floor and howled. I
couldn't go on believing in her after that. She'd actually made herself
ridiculous."

"But," began Berenice, "I should think"--

"If it had been something dangerous, so that I had had to think of her
life," went on her cousin, not heeding, "I could have borne it; but
that common thing! Why, her face looked like a drunken cook's! I can't
tell you the humiliation of it!"

"But if she could help you, why not herself?"

Mrs. Frostwinch smiled wanly.

"I've tried to think that out," answered she. "It was always said of
the old witches, you know, that they couldn't help themselves. It is
faith in somebody else that is behind the wonders they do. I've grown
very wise in the last few weeks, Bee. I don't pretend that I understand
all the facts, but I do know pretty well what the facts are. I believed
in Mrs. Crapps, and that belief kept me up. When I couldn't believe in
her, that was the end of it."

There seemed to Berenice something uncanny and monstrous in this calm
acquiescence. She could not comprehend how her cousin could give up the
struggle for life in this fashion, after having succeeded so long in
holding death at bay.

"But surely," she protested, "you can't be willing to let everything
depend upon her. You've proved the possibility"--

"I've proved the possibility of depending upon somebody else; that's
all."

"Then find another woman that you can believe in."

"It is too late. I can't have the faith over again. I should always be
expecting another humiliating downfall of my prophetess."

She was silent a moment, and then continued:--

"Do you know, Bee, it seems to me after all that my experience is like
almost all religion. There are a few men and women who believe in
themselves in that self-poised way that makes it possible for them to
get on with just ethics; and there are those who can take hold of
unseen things; but for the rest of us it's necessary to have some human
being to lean on. I hope I don't shock you. I lie awake in the night a
good deal, and my mind seems clearer than it used to be. All the
religions seem to have a real, tangible human centre, a personality
that human beings can appreciate and believe in. Mrs. Crapps was so
real and so near at hand that I could have faith in her; now that that
is gone there isn't anything left for me. I can't believe in her, and
she has destroyed the Possibility of my believing in anybody else."

Berenice put out her hand in the growing dusk, caressing the thin
fingers of the sick woman.

"But--but," she hesitated, "she hasn't destroyed your faith in--in
everything, has she?"

"No, dear; she hasn't touched my belief in God; but it makes me
ashamed to see how different a thing it is to believe in what we see
and touch, from having a genuine faith in what we do not see. I have a
faith in my soul still; the other was only a faith of the body. Perhaps
it had only to do with the body, and it is not so bad to have lost it."

"Oh, Cousin Anna," Berenice murmured, tears choking her voice, "I can't
bear to see you getting farther and farther off every day, and to feel
so helpless."

"There, there, Bee," responded the other with tender cheerfulness, "you
are not to agitate yourself or to excite me. I've lived half a year
more now than the doctors allowed me, and I've enjoyed it too. Besides,
think of the blessedness of not having any pain. Do you know, the night
after Mrs. Crapps had that scene in the hotel, I was in a panic of
terror lest my old agony should come back; but it didn't. Then I said
to myself: 'Of course I couldn't suffer; I'm really dead!' You can't
think what a comfort it was."

"Oh, don't, don't!" cried Bee. "I can't bear to have you talk like
that."

"Well, then, we won't. There's something else I want to speak to you
about while I am strong enough. Do you realize that when I am gone
you'll be a rich woman?"

"I haven't thought about it. I've hated to think."

"Yes, dear, I understand; but when you are older you'll come to realize
that half of the duty of life is to think of things which one would
rather forget."

"But it could do no good to think of this."

"Perhaps not; but I want to ask you something. I know you'll forgive
me. It's about Parker Stanford."

"You may ask me anything you like, of course, Cousin Anna. As for
Parker Stanford, he's nothing more than the rest of the men I know,
only he's been more polite. We are very good friends."

"No more?"

"No more; and we never shall be."

"But he surely wished to be?" The day had darkened until the room was
lighted only by the flames of the soft coal fire which sputtered in the
grate. The cousins could hardly see each other's faces; but in the dim
light Berenice turned frankly toward Mrs. Frostwinch.

"That is all over now," responded she. "Of course to anybody else I
shouldn't own that there ever was anything; but whatever there may have
been is ended. He understands that perfectly."

For some minutes Berenice sat smoothing the invalid's hand, the
firelight glancing on her face and hair.

"How pretty you are, Bee," Mrs. Frostwinch said at length. Then without
pause she added: "Is there anybody else?"

Bee sank backward into the shadow with a quick, instinctive movement,
dropping the hand she held.

"Who should there be?" she returned.

Her cousin laughed softly.

"You are as transparent as glass," she said. "Come, who is it?"

Berenice hesitated an instant, then threw herself forward, bending over
the hand of her companion until her face was hidden.

"There isn't really anybody; and besides I've insulted him so that he
never could help hating me. No, there isn't anybody, Cousin Anna; and
there never will be. I know I should despise him if he wasn't angry;
and besides," she added with the air of suddenly recollecting herself,
"I hate him for what he said."

"That is evident," the other assented smilingly. "I could see at once
that you hated him. But who is it?"

"Why, there isn't anybody, I tell you. Of course I thought about him
after he saved my life, but"--

"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. "Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I
thought"--

"He isn't a priest any more," Berenice struck in, replying to the
unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. "I heard yesterday
that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs.
Staggchase."

"Have you seen him lately?"

"He overtook me on the street yesterday."

Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture.

"Bee," said she tenderly, "I want you to be happy. You've been like a
daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I've thought of you
almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you
happy"--

But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.

"I can't talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me.
He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"--

The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to
get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her
anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for
Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.

Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The
high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes
were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face,
making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a
death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it
might almost have belonged to a spirit.

"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"--

"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse
than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to
you about Bee."

"About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What
about her?"

"I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know
anything about his relations to her?"

"The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer.
He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything
that could be decently called hope."

"Then he does care for her?"

"My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He
has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually
examined my husband's wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings
properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I
feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from
the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and
felt sleepy, so I gave that up."

Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the
visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of
the sick chamber.

"But Bee said he was angry with her."

"The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That's
nothing. She's been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he
resents it, so much the better for him."

"But is he"--

She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.

"He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him," the
visitor said, taking up the word. "He is well born, he is well bred, if
a little countrified. He's been shut up with monks and other mouldy
things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very
fond of him."

"Then you think"--

"I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure
that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn't much money, unless he
gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has
some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if
he behaves himself; but of course he hasn't any idea of that."

"Bee will have all the Canton money, and can do as she likes."

Mrs. Staggchase looked down at the carpet as if studying the pattern.

"Perhaps," she returned.

"What do you mean by that?"

"If I know Maurice Wynne, the fact that she has money will make him
very slow to speak. Besides, he has a silly crotchet in his head now.
He thinks that if he tried to marry her it would look as if he had
given up his religion for her."

"Did he?"

"Bless you, no. He was simply led into the Clergy House by being fond
of a friend; one of those men that young men and old women fall in love
with. Maurice never belonged there at all. I saw that the first day he
came to stay with me at the beginning of the winter. I was abroad while
he was in college, so I never knew him except most casually before."

"But if he really cares for her he'll get over those obstacles."

"If she cares for him, he must be made to."

"I am convinced that she does," Mrs. Frostwinch said. "I am so glad you
speak well of him. I do so want Bee to be happy."

There was a long silence in the chamber. The two friends sat wrapped in
thought. They had seen so much of life, they had had so many blessings
of fortune, culture, position, wealth, that there was a grim irony in
their sitting here helpless in the face of coming death. To their
reverie, moreover, the mention of love could not but give color. No
woman has ever come to speak of love entirely unmoved, though her heart
may have been deadened or crushed beyond the power of thrilling or
quickening at any other thought. These two, who had led lives so happy,
so protected, so rich, sat there silent before the possibilities which
lay in the love of a girl; until at last both sighed, whether with
regret or tenderness perhaps they could not themselves have told.
Perhaps both remembered their youthful days; remembered how one had
lost her first love by death and the other parted from hers in anger,
making a marriage which seemed more a matter of affronting the man
discarded than of affection for the man she chose. They knew each
other's history so completely that there could be no disguise between
them. Their eyes met, and for an instant there was a suspicion of
wistfulness in the glance. Then Mrs. Frostwinch shook her head, and
smiled sadly.

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