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

by Marie Corelli

  “But if he claims the insurance?” said Everton.

  “That is the insurance company’s affair, not mine,” — answered Douay, with a little shrug of his shoulders— “Let their solicitors make inquiry of his solicitors, and let both sides run up long bills for asking questions and answering them! It is the way for the obtaining of justice. And it will be a long time before Mistaire Minchin gets his ‘claim’ attended to, and still longer before he gets any money paid, if at all. As for me — I shall be far away!” Everton was startled by these last words, and more so by the sorrowful look which accompanied them.

  “Far away?” he echoed— “You are not going—”

  “Alas, yes, my dear friend! I am going — and you and I must part for a time — perhaps a long time! — I do not know! I have had a letter from one who is my ecclesiastical Superior, — a letter that is not pleasant. He tells me I have failed in my mission. I have been four years and a little longer in this neighborhood, and I have not made sufficient converts to fill a church. Well! That is true! I confess it. It is your fault, my Richard! For it is not poss-eeble to make converts anywhere in the sphere of your influence!”

  Everton was silent. His eyes were grave and wistful. “You understand!” went on Douay, gently— “It is to your praise — not to your blame — that I have failed. I, the failure, rejoice in your strength! That I am called elsewhere is perhaps best. I shall be sent where there are the weak, and not the strong. For see! It is this way — if every minister of what you call your Church Protestant were like you, there would be no other sect poss-eeble — no Methodist, Baptist, Wesleyan, or any other! — no! — because where all is simple and true there is no need for differences. Why are there quarrels in religion? Because one half of the ministers are not sure of Christ! The illness of unbelief is catching. If the shepherds do not know into which fields to lead their flocks, the flocks copy the wandering habit. Now, you desire to follow Christ like a child — and your sincerity is so great that you are bound to suffer for it. But you will keep many souls safe for Heaven!”

  Everton stretched out a hand and laid it affectionately on his shoulder.

  “Must you really go? Could nothing persuade you?”

  “To disobey my Church?” queried Douay, smiling a little, “Nothing! Once a priest, always a priest, mon ami!

  I shall miss you —— — “A slight tremor interrupted his voice and he paused a moment. Then he resumed— “Yes, I shall miss you, Richard! — more than any man I ever knew! I shall miss the boy — it will be taking myself away from a home like the one I left in France — where I had learned to love many things! But what would you? Life is but change! — I must move like a leaf in the wind! And perhaps I shall not be sent out of England — we may meet often. But here it is true I can do nothing — I bow to my Superior’s decision! You are master of the situation!”

  “I cannot bear you to put it in that way,” — said Everton, warmly— “It is almost as if I were the cause of banishing my best friend.”

  “Ah bah!” exclaimed Douay, good-humoredly— “Think not at all of it so! It is true you are an opponent of the Church Catholique — and speaking between ourselves, it is right you should be so, if you are a patriot and desire to keep your country free, — but you are no bigot, — you are an honest opponent, and if there were many Church of England ministers like you it would be bad for the Holy Father’s British revenues! But there is no fear! — you are only one in ten or twenty thousand! And with all your troubles — your great bereavement — your broken heart — see how the road is cleared for your future labors! No more brewery! — the power of the Drink is lessened, — the village is given into your hands. And it is such a stupid village! What will you do with it?”

  Everton thought for a moment. Then he answered slowly: —

  “I will do my best with it. My best is not much — but it will be all my life!”

  “All your life!” and Douay sighed— “My friend, it is a martyrdom!”

  Everton smiled, — a very tender and hopeful smile.

  “No!” he answered, quietly— “My martyrdom is over.”

  And the kindling light of a deep feeling illumined his face, as he went on: —

  “You call it a stupid village. It is. There are thousands of villages like it in dullness and stupidity all over the British Isles! And why? The people are only given just enough ‘education,’ as it is called, to make them restless and discontented. And in outlying country places this education is imparted to them by teachers who are only a shade less ignorant than themselves. Teachers in rural schools are frequently selected for their posts through ‘local’ influence and private wire-working, despite assertions to the contrary; and very often these inadequate persons are so ill-fitted for their responsibilities that they have to learn all they will ever know, out of the very school-books from which they are required to teach the children. Of practical training, such as shall serve to fit out the youths and maidens for life — such as shall show them how to manage farms, till the soil, and appreciate the bounteous prodigality of nature who so openly invites her offspring to draw from her resources all that they need — of this they get nothing. Nor are they taught any home ‘craft’ or ‘hobby’ by which they might feed their minds in vacant hours and find entertainment for themselves in the long winter evenings. The waste of brain and eye and hand, — the waste of power and intellectual capacity of the noble working-classes of Great Britain is enormous, cruel, and lamentable! For it is not their fault. It is the fault of our governing methods, which leave them without the right encouragement for their labors, or the right entertainment for their minds. Now here — in Shadbrook — I am quietly working along on both those lines —

  “Hélas! I fear you will not succeed!” said Douay, shaking his head vigorously.

  “I think I shall,” — rejoined Everton— “The great obstacle to all sane, healthy and happy living is the Drink, of course. And this was my trouble with my parishioners — but it has been growing less and less — and now — with the sudden destruction of Minchin’s brewery, it may die ‘out altogether. Is it not strange that in the first sermon I preached here after my darling’s death I should have said these words:—’ I shall pray God daily and nightly that He may see fit, in His wonder-working wisdom, to remove the temptations to sin that abound in this neighborhood’? And I also said:—’ For you only I will ask — that God may give you to me! That God may show me how to make you happy in your labors and your lives — that He may help me to teach your children the sweet unspeakable content that is found in clean, simple and temperate ways; and that the tears I have shed and the despair I have known may be acceptable to Him as a poor sacrifice of love on my part.’ A poor sacrifice of love! That is — that will be my life in Shadbrook!”

  Douay’s eyes grew dim.

  “You are a good man, my Richard!” he said, softly— “I think the angels love you!”

  “I hope one angel does!” Richard answered, with a musing tenderness— “One that is always near!” He paused a moment — then continued— “Yes! — it is as you say a stupid village. Nevertheless, my dear Douay, there is heart in it! I never thought there was so much, till my wife was taken from me. They — the villagers — misunderstood her, poor little soul! — she was too pretty and merry and thoughtless — but they are sorry now. And they show me how sorry they are. They try to please me in all the ways they can — they fight against the drink — and in this they are greatly helped by their love for my boy. Douay, it is an odd thing, perhaps, — but do you know I don’t believe there’s a man in or near Shadbrook who would be seen drunk by my little lad!”

  “He is your oriflamme,” — said Douay, tenderly— “The sign of your Holy Orders!”

  “Such a little fellow!” went on Everton— “And yet his influence is extraordinary! He makes it a habit to run down into the village every day and talk to everybody — he has no fixed time for this, and the consequence is every cottage is kept clean and tidy at al
l hours ‘in case Master Laurence looks in.’ He told the women they should keep flowers in the windows, — well! — all the boys went to work and knocked up window boxes, and flowers were planted in them, so that the village looks florally decorated now — —”

  “I have noticed that,” said Douay— “I thought it was your persuasion—”

  “Oh no! ‘Master Laurence likes it so.’ He suggested to the grocer that the donkey that drew the wood-cart was getting too old to work and ‘Neddy ought to have a good time now like Mr. Mortar Pike’ — that was the way he put it. Neddy is therefore turned out to grass ‘to please Master Laurence.’” And Everton laughed. “The child is more active in doing good than a curate!”

  Douay looked at him thoughtfully.

  “Your way of work is a wise way, Richard,” — he said— “You reach your people through the heart — through the sentiment. It is the right way — the only way! You give yourself to them — yourself, with your home, your child, your hopes, your plans, your strength, your weakness—”

  “Ah! — do not forget my weakness!” interrupted Everton— “For that is great! But it helps me to be one with my weakest parishioners — and to sympathize with the ‘stupid village’ as I could never sympathize with stupider London!”

  “Stupider London!” exclaimed Douay— “My friend, think! Stupid! The world’s metropolis!”

  “That is just it — the world’s metropolis!” — and moved by a sudden thrill of passionate indignation, Everton sprang up from his chair and confronted his friend with the eager air of an orator aroused to denounce some national wrong— “The core of civilization, in which there breeds ‘the worm that dieth not’! The world’s metropolis, where the bulk of the inhabitants find nothing better, higher or nobler to do than scramble for money at the risk of everything else, — honor, principle, feeling, love, duty, faith! The world’s metropolis! — whose wealthier classes spend all their time in feeding and frivolity; — when they are not eating, they are sleeping — and when they are neither sleeping nor eating, they are busy with intrigues against the peace and prosperity of their neighbors; — or else they are breeding the same silk-worm type of human beings as themselves, drone-men and drone-women, who expect to live on the fruit and foliage of luxury provided by the drudging toil of the despised Working Million! Babylon over again! — one can read the writing of doom upon the wall! That is why I say ‘stupid’ London, — for a city that will not take warning from past history — a city that has all the advantages of progress, the graces of culture, the accomplishments of art, the discoveries of science, and yet that cannot ‘lead’ in anything but immorality and indecency, is ‘stupid’ beyond the utmost bounds of stupidity! It knows, or it should know, that if it allows itself to be swarmed over by Jews and undesirable aliens, like the body of a shot bird swarmed over by vermin, it has nothing to expect but corruption! It knows, or it should know, that if it condones immorality in the family life, indecency on the stage and in literature, and laxity of principle in the authorities of the State, it is making of itself nothing but a gunpowder magazine which is bound to explode for the disaster of the nation, at the first spark of Revolution! Stupid London? Yes, I say stupid, densely stupid London, which allows itself to be led astray and fooled, by a corrupt society and a corruptible press!”

  He spoke with heat and fervor — and Douay stared at him astonished. After a minute’s pause, he threw back his head with a careless gesture and laughed.

  “There! The fit is over!” he said— “Don’t look so surprised! I heard things in town that sickened me — I saw — what I wish to forget! Even in the Church — but I will not speak of that! When I worked as a curate in the East End of London I met with plenty of sin and misery — often patiently struggled with, heroicly endured, and sometimes overcome, — but I did not quite realize that it was to the well-fed, well-cared-for West End I should turn for the true haunt of irreclaimable criminals! Come — let us go in! I don’t want to talk about London any more.”

  “Will you never preach there again?” asked Douay, with some curiosity, as he rose and walked by his friend’s side through the garden into the house.

  “I think not. Not unless,” — he paused— “unless my Orders make it necessary.”

  “Your Orders?”

  Everton smiled gravely.

  “Yes. You take your orders from an ecclesiastical superior, do you not? He writes that you have failed in your mission here, and that you must go elsewhere to succeed. I take my orders from One who sends me no message but that which is breathed by a voice within me, saying: ‘Do this in remembrance of Me!’ If I feel thus commanded to speak to ‘the world’s metropolis’ I shall speak. Not otherwise.”

  They entered the house then, and remained for some time together, deep in conversation. Everton did not relate the story of his meeting with Jacynth, for he had resolved never to mention her again to any one. And he was too much concerned for the honor of the Church, to speak a word of the infamy attaching to the particular ruling member of it whose moral defects had created so much alarm and anxiety among his episcopal brethren — so that the talk for the most part turned on Douay’s own affairs, and certain immediate necessities required by some poor Catholics of the district he was leaving — poor, who would be for a time in temporary difficulties owing to the burning down of Minchin’s brewery, and for whose care Everton undertook all responsibility.

  It was quite late when they at last parted. Little Laurence had gone to bed and Everton was left alone. A small pile of correspondence had accumulated on his table during his absence, and he prepared to attend to this, — but before doing so he took up by haphazard the evening paper which had arrived some two hours previously. Glancing casually through the various columns of news, his eye-was suddenly caught and his attention riveted by a bold headline:

  MISSING AERONAUTS

  GRAVE ANXIETY

  Slowly, and as if he were spelling each word by itself, he read the indicated paragraph which ran as follows:

  “The famous dirigible balloon ‘Shooting Star,’ belonging to Mr. Claude Ferrers, which started from Hurlingham for a short trip yesterday evening, having in the car its owner, accompanied by Mrs. Israel Nordstein, who, it will be remembered, has made several successful ascents, has not yet returned, nor has it been anywhere heard of. When last sighted the ‘Shooting Star’ was sailing steadily in a fair wind in a westerly direction towards the Welsh coast. Considerable anxiety is felt for the safety of the passengers.”

  The paper dropped from his hands. A coldness chilled his blood as though the breath of a bitter wind were blowing over him. With a kind of nervous trembling in his limbs, he went to the open window and looked out. It was a night of stars, — a calm night in which the densely-blue sky seemed powdered with worlds as though they were gold-dust:

  “How wonderfully has the day gone by!

  If only when the stars come we could die

  And morning find us gathered to our dreams—’”

  His lips murmured the lines unconsciously — he lifted his eyes up — up — up to the vast dark fathomless dome of space — was it possible that Jacynth was there? Jacynth with her scorn of God — her mockery of good — her overweening vanity and egotism — was she lost up there? — lost in that illimitable immensity, where her beautiful person was of no more account than a midge’s wing in a flame of fire? A sense of tears was in his throat. Almost he seemed to see her face gleaming out of the misty blue, — a face exquisite, provocative, alluring, which blossomed into form and color through the darkness like a flower, — and involuntarily he stretched out his hands as though to invoke it from the deepening shadows into the light.

  “Oh, Jacynth!” he half-whispered— “God forgive you!”

  And he thought he heard a voice ring through the silence — a voice that to his startled fancy had a sob of terror in its sweetness as it called: —

  “Parson Everton, — good-by!”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  INTO
the silent depths of the air the ‘Shooting Star’ had soared swiftly to the height of some two thousand feet immediately on leaving Hurlingham. Floating among the glorious hues of rose and violet and amber, flung against the fleecy clouds by the rays of the descending sun, its easy speed seemed to part the atmosphere as the arms of a strong swimmer part the waves of the sea, — and little by little the noise of London’s traffic died away from a restless lion-like roar to a far-off buzzing like the humming of a hive of bees. This sound in its turn subsided as the balloon rose higher, till it was no more than a faint moan, like that of a creature in constant pain. Jacynth, seated tranquilly in the wicker car, looked down as she had looked down many times before, on the patterned scene below, which resembled small squares of gray and brown and green, brightly illumined here and there by gleams of the sunset, and smiled dreamily at the littleness of the world she was apparently leaving. Such a dwarfish world! — such a poor piece of patchwork! What did it matter whether one was bad or good in it, wise or foolish? And what a folly it seemed that there should actually be religious creeds in it, and men like Richard Everton who believed in God! So she thought, laughing softly to herself, as she saw the earth gradually recede from her view like a painted scene withdrawn from a stage.