In the deep ditch which they now had to cross, the artist caught sight of a solitary half-faded primrose, the very last, perhaps, of its delicate tribe. He showed it to Gladys, gently smoothing away, as he did so, the heavy leaves which seemed to be overshadowing its last days of life.
The girl pushed him aside impetuously, and plucking the faded flower deliberately thrust it into her mouth.
“I love eating them,” she cried, “I used to do it when I was ever so little and I do it still when I am alone. You’ve no idea how nice they taste!”
At that moment they heard the sound of the church clock striking six.
“Quick!” cried Gladys. “Mr. Clavering will be waiting. He’ll be cross if I’m too dreadfully late.”
They emerged from the wood and followed the grass-grown lane, round by the small mill-pond. Crossing the park once more, they entered the village by the Yeoborough road.
“What a girl!” said Dangelis to himself, in a voice of unmitigated admiration, as he held open for her, at last, the little gate of the old vicarage garden, and waved his good-bye.
“What a girl! Heaven help that unfortunate Mr. Clavering! If he’s as susceptible as most of these young Englishmen, she’ll make havoc of his poor heart. Will he read the ‘Imitation’ with her, I wonder?”
He strolled slowly back, the way they had come, the personality of the insidious Gladys pressing less and less heavily upon him as his thought reverted to his painting. He resolved that he would throw all these recent impressions together in some large and sumptuous picture, that should give to these modern human figures something of the ample suggestion and noble aplomb, the secret of which seemed to have been lost to the world with the old Flemish and Venetian masters.
What in his soul he vaguely imaged as his task, was an attempt to eliminate all mystic and symbolic attitudes from his work, and to catch, in their place, if the inspiration came to him, something of the lavish prodigality, superbly material, and yet possessed of ineffable vistas, of the large careless evocations of nature herself.
His imaginative purpose, as it defined itself more and more clearly in his mind, during his solitary return through the evening light, seemed to imply an attempted reproduction of those aspects of the human drama, in such a place as this, which carried upon their surface the air of things that could not happen otherwise, and which, in their large inevitableness, over-brimmed and over-flowed all traditional distinctions. He would have liked to have given, in this way, to the figures of Gladys and her mother, something of the superb non-moral “insouciance,” springing, like the movements of animals and the fragrance of plants, out of the bosom of an earth innocent of both introspection and renunciation, which one observes in the forms of Attic sculpture, or in the creations of Venetian colourists. Below the high ornamental wall of Nevilton garden he paused a moment before entering the little postern-gate, to admire the indescribable greenness and luxuriousness of the heavy grass devoted in this place, not to hay-makers but to cattle. There was a sort of poetry, he humorously told himself, even about the great black heaps of cow-dung which alternated here with the golden clumps of drowsy buttercups. They also,—why not?—might be brought into the kind of picture he visioned, just as Veronese brought his mongrels and curs to the very feet of the Saviour!
Dangelis lifted his eyes, to where, through a gap in the leafy uplands, the more distant hills were visible. He could make out clearly, in the rich purple light, the long curving lines of the Corton downs, as they melted, little by little, in a floating lake of aerial blue-grey vapour, the exhalation of the great valley’s day-long breathing.
He could even mark, at the end of the Corton range—and the sight of it gave him a thrilling sense of the invincible continuity of life in these regions—the famous tree-crested circle of Cadbury Camp, the authentic site of the Arthurian Camelot.
What a lodging this Nevilton was, to pass one’s days in, to work in, and to love and dream! What enchantments were all around him! What memories! What dumb voices!
CHAPTER VIII
THE MYTHOLOGY OF SACRIFICE
JUNE, in Nevilton, that summer, seemed debarred by some strange interdiction from regaining its normal dampness and rainy discomfort.
It continued unnaturally hot and dry—so dry, that though the hay-harvest was still in full session, the farmers were growing seriously anxious and impatient for the long-delayed showers. It had been, as we have already noted, an unusual season. Not only were there so many blue-bells lingering in the shadowy places in the woods, but among the later flowers there were curious over-lappings.
The little milk-wort blossoms, for instance, on Leo’s Hill, were overtaken, before they perished, by premature out-croppings of yellow trefoil and purple thyme.
The walnut-trees had still something left of their spring freshness, while in the hedges along the roads, covered, all of them, with a soft coating of thin white dust, the wild-roses and the feathery grasses suggested the heart of the year’s prime.
It was about eight o’clock, in the evening of a day towards the end of the second week in this unusual month, that Mr. Hugh Clavering emerged from the entrance of the Old Vicarage with a concentrated and brooding expression. His heart was indeed rent and torn within him by opposite and contrary emotions. With one portion of his sensitive nature he was craving desperately for the next day’s interview with Gladys; with the other portion he was making firm and drastic resolutions to avoid it and escape from it. She was due to come to his house in the afternoon—less than twenty-four hours time from this actual moment! But the more rigorous half of his being had formed the austere plan of sending her a note in the morning begging her to appear, along with the other candidates, at a later hour. He had written the note and it still remained, propped up against the little Arundel print of the Transfiguration, on the mantelpiece of his room.
He went up the street with bowed, absorbed head, hardly noticing the salutations of the easy loiterers gathered outside the door of the Goat and Boy,—the one of Nevilton’s two taverns which just at present attracted the most custom. Passing between the tavern and the churchyard wall, he pushed open the gate leading into the priory farmyard, and striding hurriedly through it began the ascent of the grassy slope at the base of Nevilton Mount.
The wind had sunk with the sinking of the sun, and an immense quietness lay like a catafalque of sacred interposition on the fields and roofs and orchards of the valley. A delicious smell of new-mown grass blent itself with the heavy perfume of the great white blossoms of the elder bushes—held out, like so many consecrated chalices to catch the last drops of soft-lingering light, before it faded away.
Hugh Clavering went over the impending situation again and again; first from one point of view, then from another. The devil whispered to him—if it were the devil—that he had no right to sacrifice his spiritual influence over this disconcerting pupil, out of a mere personal embarrassment. If he gave her her lesson along with the rest, all that special effort he had bestowed upon her thought, her reading, her understanding, might so easily be thrown away! She was different, obviously different, from the simple village maids, and to put her now, at this late hour, with the confirmation only a few weeks off, into the common class, would be to undo the work of several months. He could not alter his method with the others for her sake, and she would be forced to listen to teaching which to her would be elementary and platitudinous. He would be throwing her back in her spiritual development. He would be forcing her to return to the mere alphabet of theology at the moment when she had just begun to grow interested in its subtle and beautiful literature. She would no doubt be both bored and teased. Her nerves would be ruffled, her interest diminished, her curiosity dulled. She would be angry, too, at being treated exactly as were these rustic maidens—and anger was not a desirable attribute in a gentle catechumen.
Besides, her case was different from theirs on quite technical grounds. She was preparing for baptism as well as confirmation, and he, as her priest, was bound to make
this, the most essential of all Christian sacraments, the head and front of his instruction. It was hardly to the point to say that the other girls knew quite as little of the importance of this sacred rite as she did. His explanations of it to them, his emphasis upon the blessing it had already been to them, would be necessarily too simple and childish for her quicker, maturer understanding.
As he reached the actual beginning of the woody eminence and turned for a moment to inhale the magical softness of the invading twilight, it occurred to him that from a logically ecclesiastical standpoint it was a monstrous thing that he should be serenely and coldly debating the cutting off of his spiritual assistance from this poor thirsty flower of the heathen desert. She was unbaptized—and to be unbaptized, according to true doctrine, meant, with all our Christian opportunities, a definite peril, a grave and assured peril, to her immortal soul. Who was he that he should play with such a formidable risk—such a risk to such a lamb of the Great Shepherd? It was quite probable—he knew it was probable—that, angry with him for deserting her so causelessly and unreasonably, she would refuse to go further in the sacred business. She would say, and say justly, that since the affair seemed of so little importance to him she would make it of little importance to herself. Suppose he were to call in some colleague from Yeoborough, and make over this too exciting neophyte to some other pastor of souls—would she agree to such a casual transference? He knew well enough that she would not.
How unfortunate it was that the peculiar constitution of his English Church made these things so difficult! The individual personality of the priest mattered so much in Anglican circles! The nobler self in him envied bitterly at that moment the stricter and yet more malleable organization of the Mother Church. How easy it would be were he a Roman priest. A word to his superior in office, and all would arrange itself! It was impossible to imagine himself speaking such a word to the Right Reverend the Bishop of Glastonbury. The mere idea of such a thing, in our England of discreet propriety, made him smile in the midst of his distress.
The thought of the Roman Church brought into his mind the plausible figure of Mr. Taxater. How that profound and subtle humanist would chuckle over his present dilemma! He would probably regard it as a proper and ironical punishment upon him for his heretical assumption of this traditional office.
Tradition! That was the thing. Tradition and organization. After all, it was only to Hugh Clavering, as a nameless impersonal priest of God, that this lovely outcast lamb came begging to be enfolded. He had no right to dally with the question at all. There was no question. As the priest of Nevilton it was his clear pastoral duty to give every possible spiritual assistance to every person in his flock. What if the pursuit of this duty did throw temptation—intolerable temptation—in his way? His business was not to try and escape from such a struggle; but to face it, to wrestle with it, to overcome it! He was like a sentinel at his post in a great war. Was he to leave his post and retreat to the rear because the shells were bursting so thickly round him?
He sat down on the grass with his back to an ancient thorn-tree and gazed upon the tower of his beloved church. Would he not be false to that Church—false to his vows of ordination—if he were now to draw back from the firing-line of the battle and give up the struggle by a cowardly retreat? Even supposing the temptation were more than he could endure—even supposing that he fell—would not God prefer his suffering such a fall with his face to the foe, sword in hand, rather than that he should be saved, his consecrated weapon dropped from his fingers, in squalid ignoble flight?
So much for the arguments whispered in his ear by the angel of darkness! But he had lately been visited by another angel—surely not of darkness—and he recalled the plausible reasonings of the great champion of the papacy, as he sat in that pleasant window sipping his wine. Why should he agitate himself so furiously over this little matter? After all, why not enjoy the pleasure of this exquisite being’s society? He was in no danger of doing her any harm—he knew Gladys at least well enough by now to know that!—and what harm could she do him? There was no harm in being attracted irresistibly to something so surpassingly attractive! Suppose he fell really in love with her? Well! There was no religious rule—certainly none in the church he belonged to—against falling in love with a lovable and desirable girl. But it was not a matter of falling in love. He knew that well enough. There was very little of the romantic or the sentimental about the feelings she aroused in him. It was just a simple, sensuous, amorous attraction to a provocative and alluring daughter of Eve. Just a simple sensuous attraction—so simple, so natural, as to be almost “innocent,” as Mr. Taxater would put it.
So he argued with himself; but the Tower of the Church opposite seemed to invade the mists of these subtle reasonings with a stern emphasis of clear-cut protest. He knew well enough that his peculiar nature was not of the kind that might be called “sensuous” or “amorous,” but of quite a different sort. The feelings that had lately been excited in him were as concentrated and passionate as his feelings for the altar he served. They were indeed a sort of temporal inversion of this sacred ardour; or, as the cynical Mr. Quincunx in his blunt manner would have expressed it, this sacred fire itself was only a form taken by the more earthly flame. But a “flame” it was,—not any gentle toying with soft sensation,—a flame, a madness, a vice, an obsession.
In no ideal sense could he be said to be “in love” with Gladys. He was intoxicated with her. His senses craved for her as they might have craved for some sort of maddening drug. In his heart of hearts he knew well that the emotion he felt was closely allied to a curious kind of antagonism. He thought of her with little tenderness, with no gentle, responsible consideration. Her warm insidious charm maddened and perturbed him. It did not diffuse itself through his senses like a tender fragrance. It provoked, disturbed, and tantalized. She was no Rose of Sharon, to be worshipped forever. She was a Rose of Shiraz, to be seized, pressed against his face, and flung aside! The appeal she made to him was an appeal to what was perverse, vicious, dangerous devastating, in his nature. To call his attraction to her beauty “innocent”—in Mr. Taxater’s phrase—was a mere hypocritical white-washing of the brutal fact.
His mind, in its whirling agitation, conjured up the image of himself as married to her, as legally and absolutely possessed of her. The image was like fuel to his flame, but it brought no solution of the problem. Marriage, though permitted by his church, was as directly contrary to his own interpretation of his duty as a priest, as any mortal sin might be. To him it would have been a mortal sin—the betrayal of his profoundest ideal. In the perversity—if you will—of his ecclesiastical conscience, he felt towards such a solution the feeling a man might have if the selling of his soul were to be a thing transacted in cold blood, rather than in the tempest of the moment. To marry Gladys would be to summon the very sacraments of his church to bless with a blasphemous consecration his treachery to their appeal.
Rent and torn by all these conflicting thoughts, the poor clergyman scrambled once more to his feet, pushed his way recklessly through the intervening fence, and began ascending the steep side of the pyramidal hill. As he struggled upward, through burdocks, nettles, tall grasses, red-campion, and newly planted firs, his soul felt within him as if it were something fleeing from an invincible pursuer. The rank aromatic smell of torn elder-boughs and the pungent odour of trodden ground-ivy filled his nostrils. His clothes were sprinkled with feathery seed-dust. Closely-sticking burs clung to his legs and arms. Outstretched branches switched his face with their leaves. His feet stumbled over young fern-fronds, bent earthwards in their elaborate unsheathing.
He vaguely associated with his thoughts, as he struggled on, certain queer purple markings which he noticed on the stalks of the thickly-grown hemlocks, and the bind-weed, which entwined itself round many of the slenderer tree-stems, became a symbol of the power that assailed him. To escape—to be free! This was the burden of his soul’s crying as he plunged forward through all these
dim leafy obstructions.
Gradually, as he drew nearer the hill’s summit, there formed in his mind the only real sanctuary of refuge, the only genuine deliverance. He must obey his innate conscience; and let the result be as God willed. At all costs he must shake himself clear of this hot, sweet, luscious bind-weed, that was choking the growth of his soul. His own soul—that, after all, was his first care, his predominant concern. To keep that, pure and undefiled, and let all else go! Confused by the subtle arguments of the serpent, he would cling only the more passionately to the actual figure of the God-Man, and obey his profound command in its literal simplicity. Ecclesiastical casuistry might say what it pleased about the danger he plunged Gladys into, in thus neglecting her. The matter had gone deeper than casuistry, deeper, far deeper, than points of doctrine. It had become a direct personal struggle between his own soul and Satan; a struggle in which, as he well knew, the only victory lay in flight. On other fields he might be commanded by his celestial Captain to hold his post to the last; but in the arena of this temptation, to hold the field was to desert the field; to escape from it, to win it.
He paused breathlessly under a clump of larches, and stretching out his arms, seized—like Samson in the temple of Dagon—two of the slender-growing trunks. “Let all this insidious growth of Nature,” he thought, “all this teeming and prolific exuberance of godless life, be thrust into oblivion, as long as the great translunar Secret be kept inviolable! Exhausted by the struggle within him he sank down in the green twilight of that leafy security, and crossed his hands over his knees. Through a gap in the foliage he could perceive the valley below; he could even perceive the outline of the roof of Nevilton House. But against the magic of those carved pinnacles he had found a counter-charm. In the hushed stillness about him, he seemed conscious of the power of all these entangled growing things as a sinister heathen influence pulling him earthward.
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