Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  A sudden flash of wicked malice lit up her eyes, and Everton saw it. As in a defective mirror which reflects only the ugly distortion of a face, he obtained for one instant the view of her whole nature, and realized that the object she had in using her influence for him and creating a public interest in his name and work was not, as she had professed, to do him good, but only to serve her own ends, — that she might assume to show to the world a new kind of conquest, — a protégé whom as a preacher she might claim to patronize, and in whose possible success she would assuredly assert her own social share. And, as he mentally got a grasp of the situation, he rose to it with cool resolution and nerve.

  “So, though you tell me that I make no allowance for you, Jacynth, and that I fail in charity towards you,” he said; “you yourself have no pity for others who are victimized and fooled by the very same evil that has been your destruction! And yet you would help me in my work! Impossible! I could not travel along your lines! I should feel compelled to make public protest against your husband’s trapping of drugged and poisoned men! I should judge both your husband and you as ten times worse than they!”

  Her face crimsoned, — she lifted her beautiful head with a haughty movement of indignation. He held up his hand.

  “Hear me for one moment, Jacynth! Remember that to me you are nothing but the Shadbrook village girl, — that all your wealth makes you no whit better or higher in my eyes, because, if anything, your social position has not improved your character so much as it has hardened it. You speak of the vulgarities and indecencies of that section of upper-class society in which, most strangely, you are now elected to move! I believe such vulgarities and indecencies do exist, — but why? Because money, — money in millions, such as your husband possesses, buys an entrance into society for women like you! Women, selfish, cruel and vain! — to whom the heart of an honest man is no more than a clod of clay to trample on, — for whom love is a delusion, and God Himself a fraud!”

  He spoke with heat and passion, — his voice trembled. She looked at him intently, — there was a faint smile on her lips.

  “You talk of my work,” — he went on— “and of your wish to be useful to me. Why, you have cut the very ground from under my feet by telling me that the praise of the press is your doing! — the mere ‘boom’ of your husband’s syndicated newspapers! Who, that is sane, cares for any praise in the press if it is only the result of an individual influence?”

  “It never is more than that nowadays,” she murmured, with ironical meekness; “Both praise and blame are administered similarly, but the blame is more easily secured, and costs less than the praise!”

  A shadow of stern pain darkened his face.

  “Jacynth,” — he said, and his grave blue eyes expressed a mingled sorrow and entreaty— “Wayward girl whom I would have saved from ruin had it been possible! — I never thought I should have to ask a favor at your hands, but you have thrust this hard position on me! And so I ask you to dismiss me altogether from your thoughts, and never to speak of me to any ‘persons of influence’ as you consider them, or attempt to help me, through the press or by any other means whatsoever! Let me go my own way unaided; let me sink back into the obscurity of Shadbrook, from whence I should never have emerged!”

  She was silent. Some small jewels sewn among the delicate places of her gown sparkled restlessly with the quick heaving of her bosom.

  I am content, he went on, slowly— “to persuade and encourage the few rather than the many. Mine has always been the very limited area of labor—”

  “I have widened it,” she said, insistently— “You know I have! And you cannot undo what I have done! You will always owe something to me!”

  He sighed heavily. A sense of unreality had come upon him like the first vague feeling of ‘wandering’ which affects those who sicken for fever.

  “I shall try to discharge the debt,” he answered, “by causing myself to be forgotten as quickly as possible.”

  A faint color flushed her face; then ebbed away, leaving her very pale.

  “How unjust you are!” she murmured— “Yes, — how unjust, — how unkind! You would make others suffer for what to you is a personal matter of annoyance! — you would deprive the social world of your inspiration and eloquence, simply because I — poor Jacynth! — have the means and influence to make that world listen to you—”

  He made a movement of impatience.

  “It would never listen,” — he said— “it never listens. You know that as well as I do. It never listened to Christ Himself. He preached to the People; not to the ‘social world.’ The social world battens on lies; without such provender it would starve. Truth is its specter of famine, and any preacher of truth — any preacher who disregards personal considerations and conventionalities is excluded from its centers. The very Bishops and Archbishops lend their aid to silence him effectually! Do I not know this? Do you not know it? You do! You are as conscious as I am that I could never preach to your ‘social’ set without becoming a firebrand of offense. For to ‘an evil and adulterous generation’ I should be bound to give the ‘sign’ of their coming doom.”

  Her eyebrows went up quizzically.

  “How solemn!” she exclaimed, laughingly— “Do you really think a ‘doom’ is coming? For them? For me?” He lifted his eyes. There was a deep stillness of thought in them, — a look that he himself was unaware of, — a look that checked the laughter on her lips, and sent a faint tremor through her veins as of sudden cold.

  “A doom is coming!” he said, slowly— “A doom is coming on the modern world, because a doom is bound to come! Not because of this or that form of creed or preaching; not because of the things of prophecy or the progress of time, but because of the Law. The eternal and Obvious Law! — so much the Obvious that it is passed over as a thing unknown and Unseen! The Law which steadily makes for good, and as steadily discards evil, — the Law which evolves Right and destroys Wrong, — it is always at work, Jacynth! — and it will work upon you, as upon all, in due season. For even if there were not a God, there is, — without doubt or denial — the inevitable Law!”

  He broke off, — something seemed to affect him with a sudden sense of foreboding. “Jacynth,” —— —— —— — and he moved a step towards her— “I wish I could hope good things for you—”

  “Repentance counts for nothing, I suppose?” she queried, lightly.

  “Repentance! You do not repent! You never will!”

  “Why should I? If I have offended God or the Law, the result of my offenses is very satisfactory!”

  He stood still, looking at her.

  “The result is not yet,” — he said.

  She smiled.

  “And when my ‘doom ‘comes, it will be because I am base-born but beautiful enough to make men fall in love with me, and because I got drunk in my girlhood!” she ejaculated; “What a good, kind God it must be that punishes a poor human creature for no heavier faults than these! One might as well murder a child for being pretty and for eating too many sweets. I would not be so unkind! — why should the God you preach of be worse than I?”

  He was silent. The audacious remark of Mrs. Moddley’s hopeful son recurred to him— “Please, sir, mother says she don’t see ‘ow God can bear to live watchin’ all the poor folks die what He’s made Hisself!” There was something not without point in the suggestion. Human error, human folly, human happiness or misery seem such slight matters in comparison with the tremendous forces of the Universe, rolling their great wheels eternally through endless space, — and yet we cannot escape from the fact that humanity itself is part of the mystic plan, — so much so that even the thoughts of one human brain may revolutionize a nation, or, as in the teaching of Christ, a world.

  “You argue as an animal or an insect might argue if it could speak,” he said, presently— “Not as a woman, to whom God has given an immortal soul! What you have done — what you are doing with that soul is between yourself and God. Between yourself and
God! Remember! For as surely as we two stand here the moment will come when there will be nothing in life or death for you but this: Yourself and God! No friend or lover will then be near to counsel or command, — you will be alone, Jacynth, — alone with the Almighty Power whom your very thoughts blaspheme!”

  She smiled proudly at him.

  “So be it!” she said— “I shall not care! For if He is All Mighty, surely He made me what I am!”

  She drew herself up with an air of defiance — her beauty seemed to glow and burn with a kind of inward radiance. He gazed at her for a moment, fascinated, — then a faint shuddering sense of repugnance stole over him, and he instinctively recoiled from her as though he had seen some brilliant colored snake lift its head from a thicket ready to sting. She saw the movement, and bit her rosy under-lip vexedly.

  “How you hate me!” she murmured— “Not all the good I have tried to do for you would ever move you to a kind thought of me! Do you think you are quite just? Or even quite Christian? But there! I will not worry you any more. You shall go your own way. You shall keep to your narrow round of work in Shadbrook, — miserable, mean little Shadbrook! — I promise you that you shall be forgotten, — even by me, — after to-day!”

  He bent his head.

  “So it will be best,” he answered.

  Suddenly she went straight up to him and laid a hand on his arm. She raised her face, — that lovely pure oval of perfect pearl and rose, with the large eyes lighting it up like stars, — till it was close to his own.

  “Parson Everton,” she said, in a half whisper, “I believe you are afraid of me!”

  He met her bewitching glance with a sad steadfastness. He knew his own strength and weakness, and made no hypocritical pretense to himself of being ‘not as other men are.’

  “You are right,” he replied, in cold, quiet tones— “I am afraid of you. I am not such a coward as to refuse to admit it.”

  A smile trembled on the sweet mouth.

  “You might — even you! — might love me a little some day!” she murmured.

  His eyes looked down into hers unflinchingly.

  “If I were made drunk, — as you were when you gave yourself to Dan Kiernan,” he said, with stern and deliberate emphasis— “I might love you as other men do, — for the moment! And that moment would be my soul’s damnation!”

  She drew herself away from him with a gesture of anger and offense. Her bosom heaved quickly.

  “Oh, you are cruel — you are brutal!” she said; “You are not a true Christian!”

  He caught at the words with a sudden passion of feeling.

  “True Christian! What is that? Do you know? Is it to be a man whose broadness of so-called ‘Christianity’ degenerates into license? Is it to be like some of the ‘true Christian’ clergy who are so anxious for the ‘social purity’ of the nation that they will crowd music-halls to applaud and approve a half-nude dancer who dares to make indecent mockery of New Testament history itself? Is it to dabble secretly in unnamable vice and yet present an external front of sham virtue to the world? Is it to tolerate without reproach, women like you, — men like your husband, — who pay large sums of money to Church charities in order that their careers of social vice may be covered and condoned by the support of such members of the ‘Christian’ ministry whose consciences can be bought for so much cash down? Jacynth, the word ‘Christian’ has been made to stand for many a wicked deed since the hour in which Judas betrayed his Master!”

  She stood apart, gazing at him in a kind of whimsical surprise. Then she appeared to gather a sort of stage dignity about her — an air such as that assumed by some tinsel queen of the footlights in an impressive rôle.

  “You are too emotional, Mr. Everton,” — she said, with quite a superior air, “You take the sins of society too seriously. And you are rather hard on your own clerical brethren. They have a very difficult part to play, you know! They have to preach a religion which very few educated people believe in; — and then, of course, society doesn’t like to be preached at and told disagreeable truths unless it’s done in a sort of theatrical way, when they think it’s rather fun — a Sunday morning ‘variety entertainment.’ But really a clergyman needs to have plenty of tact to avoid unpleasantness. Take Royal people, for example! — suppose a parson were to dare to tell them the truth of themselves! Why, he would never be asked to preach before Royalty again! Think what a disgrace that would be for him! Now” — and she nodded at him patronizingly, “If you had only let me go on helping you, I would have had you preach before the King! I could easily have arranged it.”

  He smiled coldly at her complete effrontery.

  “You would have chosen a most unsuitable preacher,” — he said.

  “Not at all! I could have told you exactly what to say,” and she laughed like an amused child— “Pretty and pleasant things, — about peace and universal harmony — things he wouldn’t mind hearing just for ten minutes; how kings are always the Lord’s Anointed, and get their places in heaven before any one else has a chance, — and how their very faults only arise from the ‘difficulties of their position’! That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t offend. Why, with a little diplomacy and push I would have made you a Bishop in a few years! Yet you prefer the obscurity of Shadbrook!”

  “As one may prefer heaven to hell, I prefer the obscurity of Shadbrook,” — he answered.

  “And you shall have it!” she said, with a sudden burst. of impatience— “You shall never again come out of it! Be quite sure of that! But to-day — just for to-day — be kind to me!”

  He looked at her. Her eyes filled with tears. They welled up and fell down her fair cheeks. He hesitated — then went up to her gently and took her hand.

  “Jacynth,” — he said— “I cannot be kind — to you. I know you too well! I doubt you too much! You asked me to come and see you to-day, and I came, simply as your former Vicar. And in coming, I intended to point out to you what I feel to be the truth — that if it had not been for your cruelty and heartlessness, and the secret wickedness of your relations with Dan Kiernan, — my wife,” he paused, and a shuddering sigh broke from him— “my poor little wife would not have been murdered. I have imagined, — at times, — that her death lies quite as much with you, as with your brutal lover!”

  She gave a half-sobbing cry. —

  “Mr. Everton!”

  “I say I have imagined it,” he continued, with a kind of pathetic weariness; “And I cannot think of her, in her innocent beauty dead — and look ‘kindly ‘upon you, living! I am sorry to be hard, — but I cannot help myself. Of course, after what you have told me, I find that I must set the chief blame on the one devil of mischief that makes havoc of all men and women’s souls — the Drink. Well! — I admit this. But now that I have seen you, — now that I know you have no need of me to help you, advise or console, — now that you show me that you have chosen ways of life in which I can have no sympathy and wish to claim no memory, it only remains for me to go from you for ever. And, Jacynth,” here he looked down at the slim white hand he held, on which the marriage ring gleamed, surmounted by a second circlet of purest diamonds, “I cannot say God bless you — for I do not think He can, or will; but I do say God save you!”

  The tears were still thick in her eyes; she withdrew her hand slowly from his clasp.

  “Thank-you!” she said, and a smile softened the momentarily vexed lines of her mouth, “You would be such a splendid man, Mr. Everton, if you were not a parson! You make so much of your religion that you cramp yourself in its fetters — like a strong, handsome bear dancing in chains! Poor bear!” The dewdrops on her lashes melted away in a swift gleam of sunny mirth which rippled into a soft laugh. “But you will never alter! You will always be the same anxious-to-be-good Church of England man!” All her gravity vanished, and she went on like a chattering schoolgirl, “Now if you want to see a real angel, — one who actually ‘ascends into heaven’ before your very eyes, come with me in my car to
Hurlingham to-day. I promise to fly most gracefully away from you!”

  He turned a questioning glance upon her.

  “I will go and change my gown,” — she continued— “And we’ll start at once — for I’m due at Hurlingham at half-past seven. It is quite a quick run, and the car can take you back to your hotel after I am gone.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Have I not told you? To Heaven! ‘Up among the clouds so high, Like a diamond in the sky!’”

  Her cheeks flushed, and the laughing light upon her face would have been the despair of a Romney.

  “You look so surprised!” she said— “I am only going up for a couple of hours in Mr. Ferrers’s wonderful balloon ‘Shooting Star.’ It’s my favorite way of seeing the world. Such a world as it looks too from the balloon! — so small a plaything! With its chequered little patterns of fields and roads, it is just as though a child had laid out a doll’s garden on a tea-tray! And as one soars higher and higher,” — here, in real or feigned enthusiasm, she clasped her hands and looked up like a glorified saint approaching the gate of paradise, “one feels far above all the stupid commonness of everyday things! — loftier than mountains! — prouder than oceans! — supreme and great and powerful! — almost good!” She let her hands fall at her sides again and laughed. “Yes, dear Parson Everton! Almost good!”

  “In the company of Mr. Claude Ferrers?” he queried, with a flash of scorn.

  A light blush flew over her face.

  “Claude Ferrers is a poet!” she answered, — then, with a sudden theatrical air, she added— “To him the clouds speak and the stars sing! To him sin is wildly delightful, and corruption ineffably delicious! He is of the new ‘cult’ —

  (and the most fashionable!) which transfers the dullness of virtue into the fervor of vice! Ah!” — and she heaved a profound melodramatic sigh; “The ‘common herd’ — the People — cannot understand these subtle shades of fine emotion! It takes culture, wealth, and an ultra-refinement of training, combined with exquisite languors of idleness, to comprehend the delicacies of ‘smart’ sensuality!” She broke into a peal of laughter and clapped her hands. “Didn’t I do that well!” she exclaimed— “I might have been on the boards! That’s a bit of Claude Ferrers. He talks in that kind of way when he’s been drinking several whisky-sodas, or several brandies and champagnes mixed. But he’s really quite a clever man. He designed his own balloon, and it is such a wonderful patent that people say he’ll make thousands of pounds with it. He can steer in any direction, even in a gale of wind. You will come and see me ascend, won’t you?”