Wood and Stone

by John Cowper Powys

  The mood of the vicar of Nevilton during the last few weeks had been one of accumulative annoyance. Everything had gone wrong with him, and it was only by an immense effort of his will that he had succeeded in getting through his ordinary pastoral labour, without betraying the unsettled state of his mind and soul.

  He could not, do what he might, get Gladys out of his thoughts for one single hour of the day. She had been especially soft and caressing, of late, in her manner towards him. More submissive than of old to his spiritual admonitions, she had dropped her light and teasing ways, and had assumed, in her recent lessons with him, an air of pliable wistfulness, composed of long, timidly interrupted glances from her languid blue eyes, and little low-voiced murmurs of assent from her sweetly-parted lips.

  It was in vain that the poor priest struggled against this obsession. The girl was as merciless as she was subtle in the devices she employed to make sure of her hold upon him. She would lead him on, by hesitating and innocent questions, to expound some difficult matter of faith; and then, just as he was launched out upon a high, pure stream of mystical interpretation, she would bring his thoughts back to herself and her deadly beauty, by some irresistible feminine trick, which reduced all his noble speculations to so much empty air.

  Ever since that night when he had trembled so helplessly under the touch of her soft fingers beneath the cedars of the South Drive, she had sought opportunities for evoking similar situations. She would prolong the clasp of her hand when they bade one another good night, knowing well how this apparently natural and unconscious act would recur in throbs of adder’s poison through the priest’s veins, long after the sun had set behind St. Catharine’s tower.

  She loved sometimes to tantalize and trouble him by relating incidents which brought herself and her American fiancé into close association in his mind. She would wistfully confide to him, for example, how sometimes she grew weary of love-making, begging him to tell her whether, after all, she were wise in risking the adventure of marriage.

  By these arts, and others that it were tedious to enumerate, the girl gradually reduced the unfortunate clergyman to a condition of abject slavery. The worst of it was that, though his release from her constant presence was rapidly approaching—with the near date of the ceremonies for which he was preparing her—instead of being able to rejoice in this, he found himself dreading it with every nerve of his harassed senses.

  Clavering had felt himself compelled, on more than one occasion, to allude to the project of Lacrima’s marriage, but his knowledge of the Italian’s character was so slight that Gladys had little difficulty in making him believe, or at least persuade himself he believed, that no undue pressure was being put upon her.

  It was of Lacrima that he suddenly found himself thinking as, hustled and squeezed between two obstreperous factory-girls, he watched the serene and self-possessed Luke enjoying with detached amusement the vivid confusion round him. The fantastic idea came into his head, that in some sort of way Luke was responsible for those sinister rumours regarding the Italian’s position in Nevilton, which had thrust themselves upon his ears as he moved to and fro among the villagers.

  He had learnt of the elder Andersen’s recovery from Mrs. Fringe, but even that wise lady had not been able to associate this event with the serious illness of Ninsy Lintot, to whose bed-side the young clergyman had been summoned more than once during the last week.

  Clavering felt an impulse of unmitigated hatred for the equable stone-carver as he watched him bandying jests with this or the other person in the crowd, and yet so obviously holding himself apart from it all, and regarding the whole scene as if it only existed for his amusement.

  A sudden rush of some extreme partisans of the popular cause, making a furious attempt to overpower the persistent taunts of a group of young farmers who stood above them on a raised portion of the pavement, drove a wedge of struggling humanity into the midst of the crowd who surrounded the irritable priest. Clavering was pushed, in spite of his efforts to extricate himself, nearer and nearer to his detested rival, and at last, in the most grotesque and annoying manner possible, he found himself driven point-blank into the stone-carver’s very arms. Luke smiled, with what seemed to the heated and flustered priest the last limit of deliberate impertinence.

  But there was no help for it. Clavering was forced to accept his preferred hand, and return, with a measure of courtesy, his nonchalant greeting. Squeezed close together—for the crowd had concentrated itself now into an immoveable mass—the fortunate and the unfortunate lover of Gladys Romer listened, side by side, to the deafening shouts, which, first from one party and then from the other, heralded the appearance of the opposing candidates upon the balcony above.

  “I really hardly know,” said Luke, in a loud whisper, “which side you are on. I suppose on the Conservative? These radicals are all Nonconformists, and only waiting for a chance of pulling the Church down.”

  “Thank you,” retorted the priest raising his voice so as to contend against the hubbub about them. “I happen to be a radical myself. My own hope is that the Church will be pulled down. The Church I believe in cannot be touched. Its foundations are too deep.”

  “Three cheers for Romer and the Empire!” roared a voice behind them.

  “Wone and the People! Wone and the working-man!” vociferated another.

  “You’ll be holding your confirmation soon, I understand,” murmured Luke in his companion’s ear, as a swaying movement in the crowd squeezed them even more closely together.

  Hugh Clavering realized for the first time in his life what murderers feel the second before they strike their blow. He could have willingly planted his heel at that moment upon the stone-carver’s face. Surely the man was intentionally provoking him. He must know—he could not help knowing—the agitation in his nerves.

  “Romer and Order! Romer and Sound Finance!” roared one portion of the mob.

  “Wone and Liberty! Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing section.

  “I love a scene like this,” whispered Luke. “Doesn’t it make you beautifully aware of the contemptible littleness of the human race?”

  “I am not only a radical,” retorted Clavering, “but I happen also to be a human being, and one who can’t take so airy a view of an occasion of this kind. The enthusiasm of these people doesn’t at all amuse me. I sympathize with it.”

  The stone-carver was not abashed by this rebuke. “A matter of taste,” he said, “a matter of taste.” Then, freeing his arm which had got uncomfortably wedged against his side, and pushing back his hat, “I love to associate these outbursts of popular feeling with the movements of the planets. Tonight, you know, one ought to be able to see—”

  Clavering could no longer contain himself. “Damn your planets!” he cried, in a tone so loud, that an old lady in their neighbourhood ejaculated, “Hush! hush!” and looked round indignantly.

  “I beg your pardon,” muttered the priest, a little ashamed. “What I mean is, I am most seriously concerned about this contest. I pray devoutly Wone will win. It’ll be a genuine triumph for the working classes if he does.”

  “Romer and the Empire!” interpolated the thunderous voice behind them.

  “I don’t care much for the man himself,” he went on, “but this thing goes beyond personalities.”

  “I’m all for Romer myself,” said Luke. “I have the best of reasons for being grateful to him, though he is my employer.”

  “What do you mean? What reasons?” cried Clavering sharply, once more beginning to feel the most unchristian hatred for this urbane youth.

  “Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded Luke; “I’m sure you know well enough how much I admire our Nevilton beauty.”

  Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had never in his life loathed anything so much as he loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew on his forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms of his hands. He would like to have seized that crop of hair and bea
ten the man’s head against the pavement.

  “I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing of Miss Traffio to marry Goring. For a very little, I’d write to the bishop about it and refuse to marry them.”

  The causes that led to this unexpected and irrelevant outburst were of profound subtlety. Clavering forgot, in his desire to make his rival responsible for every tragedy in the place, that he had himself resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the dark rumours he had heard. The blind anger which plunged him into this particular outcry, sprang, in reality, from the bitterness of his own conscience-stricken misgivings.

  “I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering his voice to a whisper, though the uproar about them rendered such a precaution quite unnecessary. “It is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the whole thing is an invention of Romer’s enemies, probably of this fellow Wone.”

  “She’s told me the same story,” burst out the priest, “but how am I to believe her?”

  A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine convolutions of the human mind would have been staggered at hearing the infatuated slave thus betray his suspicion of his enchantress, and to his own rival; but the man’s long-troubled conscience, driven by blind anger, rendered him almost beside himself.

  “To tell you the truth,” said Luke, “I think neither you nor I have anything to do with this affair. You might as well agitate yourself about Miss Romer’s marriage with Dangelis! Girls must manage these little problems for themselves. After all, it doesn’t really matter much, one way or the other. What they want, is to be married. The person they choose is quite a secondary thing. We have to learn to regard all these little incidents as of but small importance, my good sir, as our world sweeps round the sun!”

  “The sun—the sun!” cried Clavering, with difficulty restraining himself. “What has the sun to do with it? You are too fond of bringing in your suns and your planets, Andersen. This trick of yours of shelving the difficulties of life, by pretending you’re somehow superior to them all, is a habit I advise you to give up! It’s cheap. It’s vulgar. It grows tiresome after a time.”

  Luke’s only reply to this was a sweet smile; and the two were wedged so closely together that the priest was compelled to notice the abnormal whiteness and regularity of the young man’s teeth.

  “I confess to you,” continued Luke, with an air of unruffled detachment, as if they had been discussing the tint of a flower or the marks upon a butterfly’s wing, “I have often wondered what the relations really are between Mr. Romer and Miss Traffio; but that is the sort of question which, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, lends itself to a wide solution.”

  “Romer and Prosperity!” “Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing factions.

  “Our pretty Gladys’ dear parent,” continued the incorrigible youth, completely disregarding the fact that his companion, speechless with indignation, was desperately endeavouring to extricate himself from the press, ‘seems born under a particularly lucky star. I notice that every attempt which people make to thwart him comes to nothing. That’s what I admire about him: he seems to move forward to his end like an inexorable fate.”

  “Rubbish!” ejaculated the priest, turning his angry face once more towards his provoking rival. “Fiddlesticks and rubbish! The man is a man, like the rest of us. I only pray Heaven he’s going to lose this election!”

  “Under a lucky star,” reiterated the stone-carver. “I wish I knew,” he added pensively, “what his star is. Probably Jupiter!”

  “Wone and Liberty!” “Wone and the Rights of the People!” roared the crowd.

  “Wone and God’s Vengeance!” answered, in an indescribably bitter tone, a new and different voice. Luke pressed his companion’s arm.

  “Did you hear that?” he whispered eagerly. “That’s Philip. Who would have thought he’d have been here? He’s an anarchist, you know.”

  Clavering, who was taller than his companion, caught sight of the candidate’s son. Philip’s countenance was livid with excitement, and his arms were raised as if actually invoking the Heavens.

  “Silly fool! muttered Luke.” He talks of God as glibly as any of his father’s idiotic friends. But perhaps he was mocking! I thought I detected a tang of irony in his tone.”

  “Most of you unbelievers cry upon God when the real crisis comes,” remarked the priest. “But I like Philip Wone. I respect him. He, at least, takes his convictions seriously.”

  “I believe you fancy in your heart that some miracle is going to be worked, to punish my worthy employer,” observed Luke. “But I assure you, you’re mistaken. In this world the only way our Mr. Romers are brought low is by being out-matched on their own ground. He has a lucky star; but other people”—this was added in a low, significant tone—“other people may possibly have stars still more lucky.”

  At this moment the cheering and shouting became deafening. Some new and important event had evidently occurred. Both men turned and glanced up at the stucco-fronted edifice that served Yeoborough as a city-hall. The balcony had become so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish individual figures; but there was a general movement there, and people were talking and gesticulating eagerly. Presently all these excited persons fell simultaneously into silence, and an attitude of intense expectation. The crowd below caught the thrill of their expectancy, and with upturned faces and eager eyes, waited the event. There was a most formidable hush over the whole sea of human heads; and even the detached Luke felt his heart beating in tune to the general tension.

  In the midst of this impressive silence the burly figure of the sheriff of the parliamentary district made his way slowly to the front of the balcony. With him came the two candidates, each accompanied by a lady, and grouped themselves on either side of him. The sheriff standing erect, with a sheet of paper in his hand, saluted the assembled people, and proceeded to announce, in simple stentorian words, the result of the poll.

  Clavering had been stricken dumb with amazement to observe that the lady by Mr. Romer’s side was not Mrs. Romer, as he had thoughtlessly assumed it would be, but Gladys herself, exquisitely dressed, and looking, in her high spirits and excitement, more lovely than he had ever seen her.

  Her fair hair, drawn back from her head beneath a shady Gainsborough hat, shone like gold in the sunshine. Her cheeks were flushed, and their delicate rose-bloom threw into beautiful relief the pallor of her brow and neck. Her tall girlish figure looked soft and arresting amid the black-coated politicians who surrounded her. Her eyes were brilliant.

  Contrasted with this splendid apparition at Mr. Romer’s side, the faded primness of the good spouse of the Christian Candidate seemed pathetic and grotesque. Mrs. Wone, in her stiff black dress and old-fashioned hat, looked as though she were attending a funeral. Nor was the appearance of her husband much more impressive or imposing.

  Mr. Romer, with his beautiful daughter’s hand upon his arm, looked as noble a specimen of sage authority and massive triumph, as any of that assembled crowd were likely to see in a life-time. A spasmodic burst of cheering was interrupted by vigorous hisses and cries of “Hush! hush! Let the gentleman speak!”

  Lifting his hand with an appropriate air of grave solemnity, the sheriff proceeded to read: “Result of the Election in this Parliamentary Division—Mr. George Wone, seven thousand one hundred and fifty nine! Mr. Mortimer Romer, nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-one! I therefore declare Mr. Mortimer Romer duly elected.”

  A burst of incredible cheering followed this proclamation, in the midst of which the groans and hisses of the defeated section were completely drowned. The cheering was so tremendous and the noisy reaction after the hours of expectancy so immense, that it was difficult to catch a word of what either the successful or the unsuccessful candidate said, as they made their accustomed valedictory speeches.

  Clavering and Luke were swept far apart from one another in the mad confusion; and it was well for them
both, perhaps, that they were; for before the speeches were over, or the persons on the balcony had disappeared into the building, a very strange and disconcerting event took place.

  The unfortunate young Philip, who had received the announcement of his father’s defeat as a man might receive a death-sentence, burst into a piercing and resounding cry, which was clearly audible, not only to those immediately about him, but to every one of the ladies and gentlemen assembled on the balcony. There is no need to repeat in this place the words which the unhappy young man hurled at Mr. Romer and his daughter. Suffice it to say that they were astounding in their brutality and grossness.

  As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down upon the ground, in the miserable convulsions of some species of epileptic fit. The tragic anxiety of poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, but seen his collapse, broke up the balcony party in disorder.

  Such is human nature, that though not one of the aristocratic personages there assembled, believed for a moment that Philip was anything but a madman; still, the mere weight of such ominous words, though flung at random and by one out of his senses, had an appreciable effect upon them. It was noticed that one after another they drew away from the two persons thus challenged; and this, combined with the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, soon left the father and daughter, the girl clinging to her parent’s arm, completely isolated.

  Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer turned a calm and apparently unruffled face upon the scene below. Luke, who, it may be well believed, had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable serenity that he caught himself on the point of raising an admiring and congratulatory shout. He stopped himself in time, however; and in place of acclaiming the father, did all he could to catch the eye of the daughter.