CHAPTER VIII
GREATER THAN OUR HEARTS
The world is weary of new tracks of thought That lead to nought-- Sick of quack remedies prescribed in vain For mortal pain, Yet still above them all one Figure stands With outstretched Hands.
"Cousin Maria, do you like Alan Tremaine?" asked Elisabeth, not longafter her return from Yorkshire.
"Like him, my dear? I neither like nor dislike persons with whom I haveas little in common as I have with Mr. Tremaine. But he strikes me as ayoung man of parts, and his manners are admirable."
"I wasn't thinking about his manners, I was thinking about his views,"said the girl, walking across the room and looking through the window atthe valley smiling in the light of the summer morning; "don't you thinkthey are very broad and enlightened?"
"I daresay they are. Young persons of superior intelligence arefrequently dazzled by their own brilliance at first, and consider thatthey were sent into the world specially to confute the law and theprophets. As they grow older they learn better."
Elisabeth began playing with the blind-cord. "I think he is awfullyclever," she remarked.
"My dear, how often must I beg you not to use that word _awfully_,except in its correct sense? Remember that we hold the English tongue intrust--it belongs to the nation and not to us--and we have no more rightto profane England's language by the introduction of coined words andslang expressions than we have to disendow her institutions or topollute her rivers."
"All right; I'll try not to forget again. But you really do think Alanis clever, don't you?"
"He is undoubtedly intelligent, and possesses the knack of appearingeven more intelligent than he is; but at present he has not learned hisown limitations."
"You mean that he isn't clever enough to know that he isn't cleverer,"suggested Elisabeth.
"Well, my dear, I should never have put it in that way, but thatapproximately expresses my ideas about our young friend."
"And he is aw--I mean frightfully well off."
Miss Farringdon looked sternly at the speaker. "Never again let me hearyou refer to the income of persons about whom you are speaking,Elisabeth; it is a form of ill-breeding which I can not for a momenttolerate in my house. That money is a convenience to the possessor ofit, I do not attempt to deny; but that the presence or the absence of itshould be counted as a matter of any moment (except to the man himself),presupposes a standpoint of such vulgarity that it is impossible for meto discuss it. And even the man himself should never talk about it; heshould merely silently recognise the fact, and regulate his plan of lifeaccordingly."
"Still, I have heard quite nice people sometimes say that they can notafford things," argued Elisabeth.
"I do not deny that; even quite nice people make mistakes sometimes, andwell-mannered persons are not invariably well-mannered. Your quite nicepeople would have been still nicer had they realized that to talk aboutone's poverty--though not so bad as talking about one's wealth--is onlyone degree better; and that perfect gentle-people would refer neither tothe one nor to the other."
"I see." Elisabeth's tone was subdued.
"I once knew a woman," continued Miss Farringdon, "who, by that accidentof wealth, which is of no interest to anybody but the possessor, wasenabled to keep a butler and two footmen; but in speaking of herhousehold to a friend, who was less richly endowed with worldly goodsthan herself, she referred to these three functionaries as 'myparlourmaid,' for fear of appearing to be conscious of her ownsuperiority in this respect. Now this woman, though kind-hearted, wasdistinctly vulgar."
"But you have always taught me that it is good manners to keep out ofsight any point on which you have the advantage over the people you aretalking to," Elisabeth persisted. "You have told me hundreds of timesthat I must never show off my knowledge after other people havedisplayed their ignorance; and that I must not even be obtrusivelypolite after they have been obviously rude. Those are your very words,Cousin Maria: you see I can give chapter and verse."
"And I meant what I said, my dear. Wider knowledge and higher breedingare signs of actual superiority, and therefore should never be flaunted.The vulgarity in the woman I am speaking about lay in imagining thatthere is any superiority in having more money than another person: thereis not. To hide the difference proved that she thought there was adifference, and this proved that her standpoint was an essentiallyplebeian one. There was no difference at all, save one of convenience;the same sort of difference there is between people who have hot waterlaid on all over their houses and those who have to carry it upstairs.And who would be so trivial and commonplace as to talk about that?"
Elisabeth, seeing that her cousin was in the right, wisely changed thesubject. "The Bishop of Merchester is preaching at St. Peter's Church,in Silverhampton, on St. Peter's Day, and I have asked Alan Tremaine todrive me over in his dog-cart to hear him." Although she had strayedfrom the old paths of dogma and doctrine, Elisabeth could not eradicatethe inborn Methodist nature which hungers and thirsts afterrighteousness as set forth in sermons.
"I should like to hear him too, my dear," said Miss Farringdon, who alsohad been born a Methodist.
"Then will you come? In that case we can have our own carriage, and Ineedn't bother Alan," said Elisabeth, with disappointment written incapital letters all over her expressive face.
"On which day is it, and at what hour?"
"To-morrow evening at half-past six," replied the girl, knowing thatthis was the hour of the evening sacrifice at East Lane Chapel, andtrusting to the power of habit and early association to avert theaddition of that third which would render two no longer any company foreach other.
Her trust was not misplaced. "It is our weekevening service, my dear,with the prayer-meeting after. Did you forget?"
Elisabeth endeavoured to simulate the sudden awakening of a dormantmemory. "So it is!"
"I see no reason why you should not go into Silverhampton to hear theBishop," said Miss Farringdon kindly. "I like young people to learn thefaith once delivered to the saints, from all sorts and conditions ofteachers; but I shall feel it my duty to be in my accustomed place."
So it came to pass, one never-to-be-forgotten summer afternoon, thatAlan Tremaine drove Elisabeth Farringdon into Silverhampton to hear theBishop of Merchester preach.
As soon as she was safely tucked up in the dog-cart, with no way ofescape, Elisabeth saw a look in Alan's eyes which told her that he meantto make love to her; so with that old, old feminine instinct, which madethe prehistoric woman take to her heels when the prehistoric man beganto run after her, this daughter of the nineteenth century took refuge inan armour of flippancy, which is the best shield yet invented forresisting Cupid's darts.
It was a glorious afternoon--one of those afternoons which advertise toall the world how excellent was the lotus-eaters' method of dividingtime; and although the woods had exchanged the fresh variety of springfor the dark green sameness of summer, the fields were gay withhaymakers, and the world still seemed full of joyous and abundant life.
"Let's go the country way," Elisabeth had said at starting; "and then wecan come back by the town." So the two drove by Badgering Woods, andacross the wide common; and as they went they saw and felt that theworld was very good. Elisabeth was highly sensitive to the influencesof nature, and, left to herself, would have leaned toward sentiment onsuch an afternoon as this; but she had seen that look in Alan's eyes,and that was enough for her.
"Do you know," began Tremaine, getting to work, "that I have been doingnothing lately but thinking about you? And I have come to the conclusionthat what appeals so much to me is your strength. The sweetness whichattracts some men has no charm for me; I am one of the men who above allthings admire and reverence a strong woman, though I know that the sweetand clinging woman is to some the ideal of feminine perfection. Butdifferent men, of course, admire different types."
"Exactly; there is a Latin proverb, something about tots and sentences,which embodi
es that idea," suggested Elisabeth, with a nervous, girlishlaugh.
Alan did not smile; he made it a rule never to encourage flippancy inwomen.
"It is hardly kind of you to laugh at me when I am speaking seriously,"he said, "and it would serve you right if I turned my horse's head roundand refused to let you hear your Bishop. But I will not punish you thistime; I will heap coals of fire on your head by driving on."
"Oh! don't begin heaping coals of fire on people's head, Mr. Tremaine;it is a dangerous habit, and those who indulge in it always get theirfingers burned in the end--just as they do when they play with edgedtools, or do something (I forget what) with their own petard."
There was a moment's silence, and then Alan said--
"It makes me very unhappy when you are in a mood like this; I do notunderstand it, and it seems to raise up an impassable barrier betweenus."
"Please don't be unhappy about a little thing like that; wait till youbreak a front tooth, or lose your collar-stud, or have some other realtrouble to cry over. But now you are making a trouble out of nothing,and I have no patience with people who make troubles out of nothing; itseems to me like getting one's boots spoiled by a watering-cart when itis dry weather; and that is a thing which makes me most frightfullyangry."
"Do many things make you angry, I wonder?"
"Some things and some people."
"Tell me what sort of people make a woman of your type angry."
Elisabeth fell into the trap; she could never resist the opportunity ofdiscussing herself from an outside point of view. If Alan had said_you_, she would have snubbed him at once; but the well-chosen words, _awoman of your type_, completely carried her away. She was not anegotist; she was only intensely interested in herself as the singlespecimen of humanity which she was able to study exhaustively.
"I think the people who make me angry are the unresponsive people," shereplied thoughtfully; "the people who do not put their minds into thesame key as mine when I am talking to them. Don't you know the sort?When you discuss a thing from one standpoint they persist in discussingit from another; and as soon as you try to see it from their point ofview, they fly off to a third. It isn't so much that they differ fromyou--that you would not mind; there is a certain harmony in differencewhich is more effective than its unison of perfect agreement--but theysing the same tune in another key, and the discords are excruciating.Then the people who argue make me angry; those who argue about trifles,I mean."
"Ah! All you women are alike in that; you love discussion, and hateargument. The cause of which is that you decide things by instinctrather than by reason, and that therefore--although you know you areright--you can not possibly prove it."
"Then," Elisabeth continued, "I get very angry with the people who willbother about non-essentials; who, when you have got hold of the vitalcentre of a question, stray off to side issues. They are first-cousinsof the people who talk in different keys."
"I should have said they were the same."
"Well, perhaps they are; I believe you are right. Christopher Thornleyis one of that sort; when you are discussing one side of a thing withhim, you'll find him playing bo-peep with you round the other; and younever can get him into the right mood at the right time. He makes mesimply furious sometimes. Do you know, I think if I were a dog I shouldoften bite Christopher? He makes me angry in a biting kind of way."
Alan smiled faintly at this; jokes at Christopher's expense werenaturally more humorous than jokes at his own. "And what other sorts ofpeople make you angry?" he asked.
"I'm afraid the people who make me angriest of all are the people whowon't do what I tell them. They really madden me." And Elisabeth beganto laugh. "I've got a horribly strong will, you see, and if people goagainst it, I want them to be sent to the dentist's every morning, andto the photographer's every afternoon, for the rest of their lives. NowChristopher is one of the worst of those; I can't make him do what Iwant just because I want it; he always wishes to know why I want it,and that is so silly and tiresome of him, because nine times out of tenI don't know myself."
"Very trying!"
"Christopher certainly has the knack of making me angrier than anybodyelse I ever met," said Elisabeth thoughtfully. "I wonder why it is? Isuppose it must be because I have known him for so long. I can't see anyother reason. I am generally such an easy-going, good-tempered girl; butwhen Christopher begins to argue and dictate and contradict, the Furiessimply aren't in it with me."
"The excellent Thornley certainly has his limitations."
Elisabeth's eyes flashed. She did not mind finding fault withChristopher herself; in fact, she found such fault-finding absolutelynecessary to her well-being; but she resented any attempt on the part ofanother to usurp this, her peculiar prerogative. "He is very good, allthe same," she said, "and extremely clever; and he is my greatestfriend."
But Alan was bored by Christopher as a subject of conversation, so hechanged him for Elisabeth's self. "How loyal you are!" he exclaimed withadmiration; "it is indeed a patent of nobility to be counted among yourfriends."
The girl, having just been guilty of disloyalty, was naturally delightedat this compliment. "You always understand and appreciate me," she saidgratefully, unconscious of the fact that it was Alan's lack ofunderstanding and appreciation which had aroused her gratitude justthen. Perfect comprehension--untempered by perfect love--would be aterrible thing; mercifully for us poor mortals it does not exist.
Alan went on: "Because I possess this patent of nobility, I am going topresume upon my privileges and ask you to help me in my life-work; andmy life-work, as you know, is to ameliorate the condition of the poor,and to carry to some extent the burdens which they are bound to bear."
Elisabeth looked up at him, her face full of interest; no appeal to herpity was ever made in vain. If people expected her to admire them, theywere frequently disappointed; if they wished her to fear them, theirwish was absolutely denied; but if they only wanted her to be sorry forthem, they were abundantly satisfied, sympathy being the keynote of hercharacter. She was too fastidious often to admire; she was too strongever to fear; but her tenderness was unfailing toward those who had onceappealed to her pity, and whose weakness had for once allowed itself torest upon her strength. Therefore Alan's desire to help the poor, and tomake them happier, struck the dominant chord in her nature; butunfortunately when she raised her eyes, full of sympathetic sympathy, tohis, she encountered that look in the latter which had frightened her atthe beginning of the excursion; so she again clothed herself in hergarment of flippancy, and hardened her heart as the nether millstone. Inblissful unconsciousness Alan continued--
"Society is just now passing through a transition stage. The interestsof capital and labour are at war with each other; the rich and the poorare as two armies made ready for battle, and the question is, What canwe do to bridge over the gulf between the classes, and to induce themeach to work for, instead of against, the other? It is these transitionstages which have proved the most difficult epochs in the world'shistory."
"I hate transition stages and revolutions, they are so unsettling. Itseems to me they are just like the day when your room is cleaned; andthat is the most uncomfortable day in the whole week. Don't you know it?You go upstairs in the accustomed way, fearing nothing; but when youopen the door you find the air dark with dust and the floor withtea-leaves, and nothing looking as it ought to look. Prone on its faceon the bed, covered with a winding-sheet, lies your overthrownlooking-glass; and underneath it, in a shapeless mass, are huddledtogether all the things that you hold dearest upon earth. You thrust inyour hand to get something that you want, and it is a pure chancewhether your Bible or your button-hook rises to the surface. And itseems to me that transition periods are just like that."
"How volatile you are! One minute you are so serious and the next sofrivolous that I fail to follow you. I often think that you must havesome foreign blood in your veins, you are so utterly different from thetypical, stolid, shy, self-conscious English-woman.
"
"I hope you don't think I was made in Germany, like cheap china andimitation Astrakhan."
"Heaven forbid! The Germans are more stolid and serious than theEnglish. But you must have a Celtic ancestor in you somewhere. Haven'tyou?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, my great-grandmother was a Manxwoman; butwe are ashamed to talk much about her, because it sounds as if she'd hadno tail."
"Then you must have inherited your temperament from her. But now I wantto talk to you seriously about doing something for the men who work inthe coal-pits, and who--more even than the rest of their class--are shutout from the joy and beauty of the world. Their lives not only are madehideous, but are also shortened, by the nature of their toil. Do youknow what the average life of a miner is?"
"Of course I do: twenty-one years."
Alan frowned; he disapproved of jokes even more than of creeds, andunderstood them equally. "Miss Farringdon, you are not behaving fairlyto me. You know what I mean well enough, but you wilfully misunderstandmy words for the sake of laughing at them. But I will make you listen,all the same. I want to know if you will help me in my work by becomingmy wife; and I think that even you can not help answering that questionseriously."
The laughter vanished from Elisabeth's face, as if it had been wiped outwith a sponge. "Oh! I--I don't know," she murmured lamely.
"Then you must find out. To me it seems that you are the one woman inall the world who was made for me. Your personality attracted me thefirst moment that I met you; and our subsequent companionship has provedthat our minds habitually run in the same grooves, and that we naturallylook at things from the same standpoint. That is so, is it not?"
"Yes."
"The only serious difference between us seemed to be the difference offaith. You had been trained in the doctrines of one of the strictestsects, while I had outgrown all dogmas and thrown aside all recognisedforms of religion. So strong were my feelings on this point, that Iwould not have married any woman who still clung to the worn-out and (byme) disused traditions; but I fancy that I have succeeded in convertingyou to my views, and that our ideas upon religion are now practicallyidentical. Is not that so?"
Elisabeth thought for a moment. "Yes," she answered slowly; "you havetaught me that Christianity, like all the other old religions, has hadits day; and that the world is now ready for a new dispensation."
"Exactly; and for a dispensation which shall unite the pure ethics ofthe Christian to the joyous vitality of the Greek, eliminating alike themelancholy of the one and the sensualism of the other. You agree with mein this, do you not?"
"You know that I do."
"I am glad, because--as I said before--I could not bear to marry anywoman who did not see eye to eye with me on these vital matters. I loveyou very dearly, Elisabeth, and it would be a great grief to me if anyquestion of opinion or conviction came between us; yet I do not believethat two people could possibly be happy together--however much theymight love each other--if they were not one with each other on subjectssuch as these."
Elisabeth was silent; she was too much excited to speak. Her heart wasthumping like the great hammer at the Osierfield, and she was tremblingall over. So she held her peace as they drove up the principal street ofSilverhampton and across the King's Square to the lych-gate of St.Peter's Church; but Alan, looking into the tell-tale face he knew sowell, was quite content.
Yet as she sat beside Alan in St. Peter's Church that summer evening,and thought upon what she had just done, a great sadness filledElisabeth's soul. The sun shone brightly through the western window,and wrote mystic messages upon the gray stone walls; but the lights ofthe east window shone pale and cold in the distant apse, where theFigure of the Crucified gleamed white upon a foundation of emerald. Andas she looked at the Figure, which the world has wept over andworshipped for nineteen centuries, she realized that this was the Symbolof all that she was giving up and leaving behind her--the Sign of thatreligion of love and sorrow which men call Christianity. She felt thatwisdom must be justified of her children, and not least of her,Elisabeth Farringdon; nevertheless, she mourned for the myth which hadonce made life seem fair, and death even fairer. Although she hadoutgrown her belief in it, its beauty had still power to touch herheart, if not to convince her intellect; and she sighed as she recalledall that it had once meant, and how it had appeared to be the onesatisfactory solution to the problems which weary and perplex mankind.Now she must face all the problems over again in the grim twilight ofdawning science, with no longer a Star of Bethlehem to show where theanswer might be found; and her spirit quailed at the pitiless prospect.She had never understood before how much that Symbol of eternal love andvicarious suffering had been to her, nor how puzzling would be the paththrough the wilderness if there were no Crucifix at life's cross-roadsto show the traveller which way to go; and her heart grew heavier as shetook part in the sacred office of Evensong, and thought how beautiful itall would be if only it were true. She longed to be a little childagain--a child to whom the things which are not seen are as the thingswhich are seen, and the things which are not as the things which are;and she could have cried with homesickness when she remembered howfirmly she had once believed that the shadow which hung over theOsierfield was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,to testify that God was still watching over His people, as in the daysof old. Now she knew that the pillar was only the smoke and the flame ofhuman industries; and the knowledge brought a load of sadness, as itseemed to typify that there was no longer any help for the world but initself.
When the Bishop ascended the pulpit, Elisabeth recalled her wanderingthoughts and set herself to listen. No one who possesses a drop ofNonconformist blood can ever succeed in not listening to a sermon, evenif it be a poor one; and the Bishop of Merchester was one of the finestpreachers of his day. His text was, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee"; and he endeavouredto set forth how it is only God who can teach men about God, and howflesh and blood can never show us the Christ until He chooses to revealHimself. At first Elisabeth listened only with her mind, expecting anintellectual treat and nothing more; but as he went on, and showed howthe Call comes in strange places and at strange times, and how when itcomes there is no resisting it, her heart began to burn within her; andshe recognised the preacher, not only as a man of divers gifts and greatpowers, but as the ambassador of Christ sent direct to her soul. Thenslowly her eyes were opened, and she knew that the Figure in the eastwindow was no Sign of an imaginary renunciation, no Symbol of a worn-outcreed, but the portrait of a living Person, Whose Voice was callingher, and Whose Love was constraining her, and Whose Power was enfoldingher and would not let her go. With the certainty that is too absolutefor proof, she knew in Whom she now believed; and she knew, further,that it was not her own mind nor the preacher's words that had suddenlyshown her the truth--flesh and blood had not revealed it to her, butChrist Himself.
When the service was over, Elisabeth came out into the sunlight with astrange, new, exultant feeling, such as she had never felt before. Shestood in the old churchyard, waiting for Alan to bring round thedog-cart, and watching the sun set beyond the distant hills; and she wasconscious--how she could not explain--that the sunset was different fromany other sunset that she had ever seen. She had always loved naturewith an intense love; but now there seemed a richer gold in the partingsunbeams--a sweeter mystery behind the far-off hills--because of thatFigure in the east window. It was as if she saw again a land which shehad always loved, and now learned for the first time that it belonged tosome one who was dear to her; a new sense of ownership mingled with theold delight, and gave an added interest to the smallest detail.
Then she and Alan turned their backs to the sunset, and drove along thebleak high-road toward Sedgehill, where the reflection of theblast-furnaces--that weird aurora borealis of the Black Country--wasalready beginning to pulsate against the darkening sky. And here againElisabeth realized that for her the old things had passed away,
and allthings had become new. She felt that her childish dream was true, andthat the crimson light was indeed a pillar of fire showing that the Lordwas in the midst of His people; but she went further now than she hadgone in her day-dreams, and knew that all the lights and shadows of lifeare but pillars of cloud and of fire, forthtelling the same truth to allwho have seeing eyes and understanding hearts.
Suddenly the silence was broken by Alan. "I have been thinking about youduring the service, and building all sorts of castles in the air whichyou and I are going to inhabit together. But we must not let the oldfaiths hamper us, Elisabeth; if we do, our powers will be impaired byprejudices, and our usefulness will be limited by traditions."
"I have something to say to you," Elisabeth replied, and her eyes shonelike stars in the twilight; "you won't understand it, but I must say itall the same. In church to-night, for the first time in my life, I heardGod speaking to me; and I found out that religion is no string ofdogmas, but just His calling us by name."
Tremaine looked at her pityingly. "You are overtired and overwrought bythe heat, and the excitement of the sermon has been too much for you.But you will be all right again to-morrow, never fear."
"I knew you wouldn't understand, and I can't explain it to you; but ithas suddenly all become quite clear to me--all the things that I havepuzzled over since I was a little child; and I know now that religion isnot our attitude toward God, but His attitude toward us."
"Why, Elisabeth, you are saying over again all the old formulas that youand I have refuted so often."
"I know I am; but I never really believed in them till now. I can'targue with you, Alan--I'm not clever enough--and besides, the bestthings in the world can never be proved by argument. But I want you tounderstand that the Power which you call Christianity is stronger thanhuman wills, or human strength, or even human love; and now that it hasonce laid hold upon me, it will never let me go."
Alan's face grew pale with anger. "I see; your old associations havebeen too strong for you."
"It isn't my old associations, or my early training, or anythingbelonging to me. It isn't me at all. It is just His Voice calling me.Can't you understand, Alan? It is not I who am doing it all--it is He."
There was a short silence, and then Tremaine said--
"But I thought you loved me?"
"I thought so too, but perhaps I was wrong; I don't know. All I know isthat this new feeling is stronger than any feeling I ever had before;and that I can not give up my religion, whatever it may cost me."
"I will not marry a woman who believes in the old faith."
"And I will not marry a man who does not."
Alan's voice grew hard. "I don't believe you ever loved me," hecomplained.
"I don't know. I thought I did; but perhaps I knew as little about loveas you know about religion. Perhaps I shall find a real love some daywhich will be as different from my friendship for you as this newknowledge is different from the religion that Cousin Maria taught me.I'm very sorry, but I can never marry you now."
"You would have given up your religion fast enough if you had reallycared for me," sneered Tremaine.
Elisabeth pondered for a moment, with the old contraction of hereyebrows. "I don't think so, because, as I told you before, it isn'treally my doing at all. It isn't that I won't give up my religion--it ismy religion that won't give up me. Supposing that a blind man wanted tomarry me on condition that I would believe, as he did, that the world isdark: I couldn't believe it, however much I loved him. You can't notknow what you have once known, and you can't not have seen what you haveseen, however much you may wish to do so, or however much other peoplemay wish it."
"You are a regular woman, in spite of all your cleverness, and I was afool to imagine that you would prove more intelligent in the long runthan the rest of your conventional and superstitious sex."
"Please forgive me for hurting you," besought Elisabeth.
"It is not only that you have hurt me, but I am so disappointed in you;you seemed so different from other women, and now I find the differencewas merely a surface one."
"I am so sorry," Elisabeth still pleaded.
Tremaine laughed bitterly. "You are disappointed in yourself, I shouldimagine. You posed as being so broad and modern and enlightened, and yetyou have found worn-out dogmas and hackneyed creeds too strong for you."
Elisabeth smiled to herself. "No; but I have found the Christ," sheanswered softly.
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