Wood and Stone

by John Cowper Powys

  He began a hurried incoherent history of his passion, of its growth, its subtleties, its intensity. He tried to make her realize what she had become for him, how she filled every hour of every day with her image. He explained to her how clearly and fully he understood the difficulty, the impossibility, of his ever bringing her to care for him as he cared for her.

  He even went so far as to allude to Mr. Quincunx, and implored her to believe that he would be well content if she would let him earn money enough to support both her and Maurice, either in Nevilton or elsewhere, if it would cut the tragic knot of her fate to join her destiny to that of the forlorn recluse.

  It almost seemed as though this final stroke of self-abnegation excited more eloquence in him than all the rest. He begged and conjured her to cut boldly loose from the Romer bonds, and marry her queer friend, if he, rather than any other, were the choice she made. His language became so vehement, his tone so impassioned and exalted, that the girl began to look apprehensively at him. Even this apprehension, however, was a thing strangely removed from reality. His reckless words rose and fell upon the air and mixed with the rising wind as if they were words remembered from some previous existence. The man’s whole figure, his gaunt frame, his stooping shoulders, his long arms and lean fingers, seemed to her like something only half-tangible, something felt and seen through a dim medium of obscuring mist.

  Lacrima felt vaguely as though all this were happening to someone else, to someone she had read about in a book, or had known in remote childhood. The over-hanging clouds, the damp grass, the distant ash-tree with the forms of their friends beneath it, all these things seemed to group themselves in her mind, as if answering to some strange dramatic story, which was not the story of her life at all, but of some other harassed and troubled spirit.

  In the depths of her mind she shrank away half-frightened and half-indifferent from this man’s impassioned pleading and heroic proposals. The humorously cynical image of the hermit of Dead Man’s Lane crossed her mental vision as a sort of wavering Pharos light in the dreamy twilight of her consciousness. How well she knew with what goblin-like quiver of his nostrils, with what sardonic gleam of his eyes, he would have listened to his rival’s exalted rhetoric.

  In some strange way she felt amost angry with this bolder, less cautious lover, for being what her poor nervous Maurice never could be. She caught herself shuddering at the thought of the drastic effort, the stern focussing of will-power which the acceptance of any one of his daring suggestions would imply. Perhaps, who can say, there had come to be a sort of voluptuous pleasure in thus lying back upon her destiny and letting herself be carried forward, at the caprice of other wills than her own.

  Mingled with these other complex reactions, there was borne in upon her, as she listened to him, a queer sense of the absolute unimportance of the whole matter. The long strain upon her nerves, of her sojourn in Nevilton House, had left her physically so weary that she lacked the life-energy to supply the life-illusion. The ardour and passion of Andersen’s suggestions seemed, for all their dramatic pathos, to belong to a world she had left—a world from which she had risen or sunk so completely, that all return was impossible. Her nature was so hopelessly the true Pariah-nature, that the idea of the effort implied in any struggle to escape her doom, seemed worse than the doom itself.

  This inhibition of any movement of effective resistance in the Pariah-type is the thing that normal temperaments find most difficult of all to understand. It would seem almost incredible to a healthy minded person that Lacrima should deliberately let herself be driven into such a fate without some last desperate struggle. Those who find it so, however, under-estimate that curious passion of submission from which these victims of circumstance suffer, a passion of submission which is. itself, in a profoundly subtle way, a sort of narcotic or drug to the wretchedness they pass through.

  “I cannot do it,” she repeated in a low tired voice, “though I think it’s generous, beyond description, what you want to do for me. But I cannot do it. It’s difficult somehow to tell you why, James dear; there are certain things that are hard to say, even to people that we love as much as I love you. For I do love you, in spite of everything. I hope you realize that. And I know that you have a deep noble heart.”

  She looked at him with wistful and appealing tenderness, and let her little fingers slip into his feverish hand.

  When she said the words, “I do love you,” a shivering ecstasy shot through the stone-carver’s veins, followed by a ghastly chilliness, like the hand of death, as he grasped their complete meaning. The most devastating tone, perhaps, of all, for an impassioned lover to hear, is that particular tone of calm tender affection. It has the power of closing up vistas of hope more effectively than the expression of the most vigorous repulsion. There was a ring of weary finality in her voice that echoed through his mind, like the tread of coffin-bearers through a darkened passage. Things had reached their hopeless point, and the two were standing mute and silent, in the attitude of persons taking a final farewell of one another, when a noisy group of village maids, on their dilatory road to the glove-factory, made their voices audible from the further side of the nearest hedge.

  They both turned instantaneously to see how this danger of discovery affected their friends, and neither of them was surprised to note that the younger Andersen had left his companion and was strolling casually in the direction of the voices. As soon as he saw that they had observed this manœuvre he began beckoning to James.

  “We’d better separate, my friend,” whispered Lacrima hastily. “I’ll go back to Gladys. She and I must take the lane way and you and Luke the path by the barn. We’ll meet again before—before anything happens.”

  They separated accordingly and as the two girls passed through the gate that led into the Nevilton road, they could distinctly hear, across the fields, the ringing laughter of the high-spirited glove-makers as they chaffed and rallied the two stone-carvers through the thick bramble hedge which intervened between them.

  CHAPTER XVII

  SAGITTARIUS

  THE summer of the year whose events, in so far as they affected a certain little group of Nevilton people we are attempting to describe, seemed, to all concerned, to pass more and more rapidly, as the days began again to shorten. July gave place to August, and Mr. Goring’s men were already at work upon the wheat-harvest. In the hedges appeared all those peculiar signals of the culmination of the season’s glory, which are, by one of nature’s most emphatic ironies, the signals also of its imminent decline.

  Old-man’s-beard, for instance, hung its feathery clusters on every bush; and, in shadier places, white and black briony twined their decorative leaves and delicate flowers. The blossom of the blackberry bushes was already giving place to unripe fruit, and the berries of traveller’s-joy were beginning to turn red. Hips and haws still remained in that vague colourless state which renders them indistinguishable to all eyes save those of the birds, but the juicy clusters of the common night-shade—“green grapes of Proserpine”—greeted the wanderer with their poisonous Circe-like attraction, from their thrones of dog-wood and maple, and whispered of the autumn’s approach. In dry deserted places the scarlet splendour of poppies was rapidly yielding ground to all those queer herbal plants, purplish or whitish in hue—the wild hyssop, or marjoram, being the most noticeable of them—which more than anything else denote the coming on of the equinox. From dusty heaps of rubbish the aromatic daisy-like camomile gave forth its pungent fragrance, and in damper spots the tall purple heads of hemp-agrimony flouted the dying valerian.

  An appropriate date at the end of the month had been fixed for the episcopal visit to Nevilton; and the candidates for confirmation were already beginning, according to their various natures and temperaments, to experience that excited anticipation, which, even in the dullest intelligence, such an event arouses.

  The interesting ceremony of Gladys Romer’s baptism had been fixed for a week earlier than this, a fanciful sent
iment in the agitated mind of Mr. Clavering having led to the selection of this particular day on the strange ground of its exact coincidence with the anniversary of a certain famous saint.

  The marriage of Gladys with Dangelis, and of Lacrima with John Goring, was to take place early in September, Mrs. Homer having stipulated for reasons of domestic economy that the two events should be simultaneous.

  Another project of some importance to at least three persons in Nevilton, was now, as one might say, in the air; though this was by no means a matter of public knowledge. I refer to Vennie Seldom’s fixed resolution to be received into the Catholic Church and to become a nun.

  Ever since her encounter in the village street with the loquacious Mr. Wone, Vennie had been oppressed by an invincible distaste for the things and people that surrounded her. Her longing to give the world the slip and devote herself completely to the religious life had been incalculably deepened by her disgust at what she considered the blasphemous introduction of the Holy Name into the Christian Candidate’s political canvassing. The arguments of Mr. Taxater and the conventional anglicanism of her mother, were, compared with this, only mild incentives to the step she meditated. The whole fabric of her piety and her taste had been shocked to their foundations by the unctuous complacency of Mr. Romer’s evangelical rival.

  Vennie felt, as she stood aside, in her retired routine, and watched the political struggle sway to and fro in the village, as though the champions of both causes were odiously and repulsively in the wrong. The sly conservatism of the quarry-owner becoming, since the settlement of the strike, almost fulsome in its flattery of the working classes, struck her as the most unscrupulous bid for power that she had ever encountered; and when, combined with his new pose as the ideal employer and landlord, Mr. Romer introduced the imperial note, and talked lavishly of the economic benefits of the Empire, Vennie felt as though all that was beautiful and sacred in her feeling for the country of her birth, was blighted and poisoned at the root.

  But Mr. Wone’s attitude of mind struck her as even more revolting. The quarry-owner was at least frankly and flagrantly cynical. He made no attempt—unless Gladys’ confirmation was to be regarded as such—to conciliate religious sentiment. He never went to church, and in private conversation he expressed his atheistic opinions with humorous and careless shamelessness. But Mr. Wone’s intermingling of Protestant unction with political chicanery struck the passionate soul of the young girl as something very nearly approaching the “unpardonable sin.” Her incisive intelligence, fortified of late by conversations with Mr. Taxater, revolted, too, against the vague ethical verbiage and loose democratic sentiment with which Mr. Wone garnished his lightest talk. Since Philip’s release from prison and his reappearance in the village, she had taken the opportunity of having several interviews with the Christian Candidate’s son, and these interviews, though they saddened and perplexed her, increased her respect for the young man in proportion as they diminished it for his father. With true feminine instinct Vennie found the anarchist more attractive than the socialist, and the atheist less repugnant than the missionary.

  One afternoon, towards the end of the first week in August, Vennie persuaded Mr. Taxater to accompany her on a long walk. They made their way through the wood which separates the fields around Nevilton Mount from the fields around Leo’s Hill. Issuing from this wood, along the path followed by every visitor to the hill who wishes to avoid its steeper slopes, they strolled leisurely between the patches of high bracken-fern and looked down upon the little church of Athelston.

  Athleston was a long, rambling village, encircling the northern end of the Leonian promontory and offering shelter, in many small cottages all heavily built of the same material, to those of the workmen in the quarries who were not domiciled in Nevilton.

  “It would be rather nice,” said Vennie to the theologian, “if it wouldn’t spoil our walk, to go and look at that carving in the porch, down there. They say it has been cleaned lately, and the figures show up more clearly.”

  The papal champion gravely surveyed the outline of the little cruciform church, as it shimmered, warm and mellow, in the misty sunshine at their feet.

  “Yes, I know,” he remarked. “I met our friend Andersen there the other day. He told me he had been doing the work quite alone. He said it was one of the most interesting things he had ever done. By the way, I am confident that that rumour we heard, of his getting unsettled in his mind, is absolutely untrue. I have never found him more sensible—you know how silent he is as a rule? When I met him he was quite eloquent on the subject of mediæval carving.”

  Vennie looked down and smiled—a sad little smile. “I’m afraid,” she said; “that his talking so freely is not quite a good sign. But do let’s go. I have never looked at those queer figures with anyone but my mother; and you know the way she has of making everything seem as if it were an ornament on her own mantelpiece.”

  They began descending the hill, Mr. Taxater displaying more agility than might have been expected of him, as they scrambled down between furze-bushes, rabbit-holes, and beds of yellow trefoil.

  “How dreadfully I shall miss you, dear child,” he said. “No one could accuse me of selfishness in furthering your wish for the religious life. Half the pleasant discoveries I’ve made in this charming country have been due to you.”

  The young girl turned and regarded him affectionately. “You have been more than a father to me,” she murmured.

  “Ah, Vennie, Vennie! he protested,” you mustn’t talk like that. After all, the greatest discovery we have made, is the discovery of your calling for religion. I have much to be thankful for. It is not often that I have been permitted such a privilege. If we had not been thrown together, who knows but that the influence of our good Clavering——”

  Vennie blushed scarlet at the mention of the priest’s name, and to hide her confusion, buried her head in a great clump of rag-wort, pressing its yellow clusters vehemently against her cheeks, with agitated trembling hands.

  When she lifted up her face, the fair hair under her hat was sprinkled with dewy moisture. “The turn of the year has come,” she said. “There’s mist on everything today.” She smiled, with a quick embarrassed glance at her companion.

  “The turn of the year has come,” repeated the champion of the papacy.

  They descended the slope of yet another field, and then paused again, leaning upon a gate.

  “Have you ever thought how strange it is,” remarked the girl, as they turned to survey the scene around them, “that those two hills should still, in a way, represent the struggle between good and evil? I always wish that my ancestors had built a chapel on Nevilton Mount instead of that silly little tower.”

  The theologian fixed his eyes on the two eminences which, from the point where they stood, showed so emphatically against the smouldering August sky.

  “Why do you call Leo’s Hill evil?” he asked.

  Vennie frowned. “I always have felt like that about it,” she answered. “It’s an odd fancy I’ve got. I can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s because I know something of the hard life of the quarry-men. Perhaps it’s because of Mr. Romer. I really can’t tell you. But that’s the feeling I have!”

  “Our worthy Mr. Wone would thank you, if you lent him your idea for use in his speeches,” remarked the theologian with a chuckle.

  “That’s just it!” cried Vennie. “It teases me, more than I can say, that the cause of the poor should be in his hands. I can’t associate him with anything good or sacred. His being the one to oppose Mr. Romer makes me feel as though God had left us completely, left us at the mercy of the false prophets!”

  “Child, child!” expostulated Mr. Taxater—“Custodit Dominus animas sanctorum suorum; de manu peccatoris liberabit eos.”

  “But it is so strange,” continued Vennie. “It is one of the things I cannot understand. Why should God have to use other means than those His church offers to defeat the designs of wicked people? I wish mi
racles happened more often! Sometimes I dream of them happening. I dreamt the other night that an angel, with a great silver sword, stood on the top of Nevilton Mount, and cried aloud to all the dead in the churchyard. Why can’t God send real angels to fight His battles, instead of using wolves in sheep’s clothing like that wretched Mr. Wone?”

  The champion of the papacy smiled. “You are too hard on our poor Candidate, Vennie. There’s more of the sheep than the wolf about our worthy Wone, after all. But you touch upon a large question, my dear; a large question. That great circle, whose centre is everywhere and its circumference nowhere, as St. Thomas says, must needs include many ways to the fulfilment of His ends, which are mysterious to us. God is sometimes pleased to use the machinations of the most evil men, even their sensual passions, and their abominable vices, to bring about the fulfilment of His will. And we, dear child,” he added after a pause, “must follow God’s methods. That is why the church has always condemned as a dangerous heresy that Tolstoyan doctrine of submission to evil. We must never submit to evil! Our duty is to use against it every weapon the world offers. Weapons that in themselves are unholy, become holy—nay! even sacred—when used in the cause of God and His church.”

  Vennie remained puzzled and silent. She felt a vague, remote dissatisfaction with her friend’s argument; but she found it difficult to answer. She glanced sadly up at the cone-shaped mount above them, and wished that in place of that heathen-looking tower, she could see her angel with the silver sword.