“Death! I care nothing for that! I want to die!” and Hadley’s features hardened, so that the pallid skin of his face looked like an ivory mask carved into a frown of reckless despair— “Death is the end of all things, and I want all things to end! I want to get out of the ruck for good and all! It’s life that matters! Jacynth’s alive!” His eyes protruded in a kind of fury — he struggled for breath. Everton supported him in his arms, and he fought inch by inch for the power of speech.
“She’s alive! — she’s all soft flesh and blood, and lovely to touch and to look at — and I’ve prayed for her — prayed — prayed — prayed! — and the tyrant you call God is deaf and blind and impotent! He has done nothing — He has looked on and laughed while she went to her damnation!” His weak voice rose to a kind of scream. “And you say God is good! That He loves us? It’s a lie! No good God would have left Jacynth alone — He would have saved her! — He would have saved her — from—”
His voice stopped, — his whole frame was shaken by an agonized convulsion. He mastered the paroxysm by an almost superhuman effort, and went on talking, or rather muttering in fitful gasps —
“A world — a world!” he said— “A world to live in like this where men are made to feel! — to feel their hearts cry out for love — love — love! — and then — then — you come along — you and your kind, — preaching Christ, — and telling us that our passions are sins! Sins! Why then, the beasts and the birds are better off than we are, — no one curses them for mating — and the God you talk about seems to care for them even more than He cares for us, for they’re ever so much freer and happier. Love, I say! — love! — it’s what the Lord Christ never knew — it’s what He missed — love for a woman! — and there He fails to be our brother in sorrow!”
Everton tried to speak, but Hadley’s desperate struggle with his own rapidly increasing weakness was so terrible to witness that he was held silent despite himself.
“Don’t preach, but listen!” — went on the thin, wild voice— “You’ll have years of talking yet — I’ve only got minutes. Jacynth — she came to see me — last night — I touched her hair — her face — I held her in my arms — that’s all the Heaven I want — and I’m willing to go to Hell for it! But she — she’s lost — lost! — try if you can do anything — save her from herself — from the shame—”
Writhing out of Everton’s arms he fell back on his pillows, and a strange awed stare froze within his eyeballs and turned his features to the semblance of gray marble. Moved by a speechless pain and sorrow, the Vicar once more dropped upon his knees.
“O merciful Father!” he cried aloud— “Let Thy light shine upon this passing soul that it may see the glory beyond the gloom, and know Thee as Thou art in all They love and wisdom! Say unto this storm of life: ‘Peace, be still!’ and let there be a great calm!”
The stony face upon the bed seemed to fix him with a last entreating look — the ashen lips moved.
“Save Jacynth!” — and the words came feebly like a breath upon the air— “Give her — give her — my love!”
A tense stillness followed, — and Everton, burying his face in his hands, prayed long and earnestly. When he rose, he knew he was alone with a dead man. Reverently closing the glazing eyes of the corpse, he went out of the room and gently told the weeping mother that her son was ‘at rest.’ His lips trembled as he uttered the words, for in his own heart he felt they were scarcely true. Young Hadley had passed from life to death in a condition of mind which religion itself had no chance to improve or sustain — and Everton was too honest with himself to disguise the fact. Every grain of faith and resignation and hope had been swept away like dust before the wind by — what? Merely the beauty of a woman! The loveliness of smiling flesh and blood, which the dying man had coveted to the last moment of his conscious existence — and there was no sort of ‘heaven’ in the craving — only a very real and positive hell.
“I did wrong,” — thought Everton, miserably— “I did a very wrong and foolish thing in persuading Jacynth to go and visit the poor unhappy fellow — I ought to have known better; the mere sight of her completely unsettled his mind.”
Unable to bear his own reflections, and distressed beyond measure by the hysterical breakdown of Mrs. Hadley, who, like the woman in the Testament, was a widow, and her dead boy ‘the only son of his mother,’ he soon left the cottage, and resolved to take a brisk walk of a mile or two before returning home to show a more or less grieved countenance to his wife who could not patiently endure even the shadow of trouble. He had scarcely gone a few yards beyond the village, however, before he was met and confronted by the very person who, despite himself, was uppermost in his thoughts, — Jacynth Miller. She was a little breathless, as though she had been running, and her cheeks were beautifully flushed with the delicate pink of an opening rose.
“Mr. Everton,” — she began — and then stopped, checked by the stern gravity of his expression. A warmer crimson reddened her face and her eyes flashed a sudden challenge. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing,” — he answered coldly— “Only that I have just come from Bob Hadley’s deathbed.”
She looked puzzled for a moment. Everton found himself studying the droop of a few flowers which were carelessly pinned at the open neck of her blue bodice — a bodice too blue, so he thought, and much too open for day wear on a March afternoon. She caught his glance, and a wavering smile trembled on her lips.
“Is Bob dead?” she then asked, with sudden pitifulness— “Really dead?”
He bent his head silently.
“Did you see him die?”
Again he made a dumb affirmative sign.
“Poor Bob! I wish I had been there!” she said, and an odd expression of self-rapture illumined her features— “He was so fond of me, that I am sure he would have taken me for his guardian angel just come to fetch him to Heaven!”
She uttered these words in the most natural way in the world, and for a moment he gazed at her in mute wonderment. Then he spoke, and for once his usual sweetness of manner failed him.
“No doubt he would!” — and his voice shook, “Sick men are often the victims of delusion!”
She laughed softly.
“It’s nice to be deluded!” — she said— “It’s pleasant to be told pretty things, especially when one’s ill. I’m sure poor Bob died hard, — and I would have made his death quite easy! It seems so strange to think that he’s gone! — I was with him last night for an hour — you told me to go and see him! — and he was ever so happy, and he asked me to kiss him, and I did. He wanted to die then — just that very minute!”
Everton took a sudden grip of his own mental forces.
“I am sorry,” — he said— “very sorry, Jacynth, that I asked you to go and see him. For I think your visit was the immediate cause of his death. And when I went to him to-day, it seemed to me as if he had lost all faith in God—”
“Because he was leaving me?” queried Jacynth, with demure simplicity— “Poor Bob! He said last night he should meet me in Heaven, — but I told him no, I was not going that way.”
“Jacynth!” Everton’s accents were sharp and stern— “I cannot permit you to talk to me like this. You are a mere girl — a headstrong, foolish girl — and you should know that your words are wicked and unworthy of you as a Christian. I thought you were going to try and please me—”
He broke off, vexed to see sudden tears in her eyes.
“I can’t please you, Mr. Everton,” — she said, slowly— “It’s not in me to do it, and I’m not going to try. I shall never be good — goodness bores me. I can only be myself. See!” and with an unconsciously effective gesture she swept one hand round, expressively indicating all the landscape— “Here are trees and grass and flowers, and birds — I love them all! None of them have any churches or clergymen to teach them, — and yet they all make their own happiness their own way. They all die, — of course everything dies, — but not till they’ve
most of them had a good time. I want my good time, and I don’t care how I get it. I like to be admired — I like every man who sees me to want me more than anything else on earth — for the moment! — it is never more than for the moment, you know!” — and she shot a glance up at him from the shadow of her curling lashes. “But — it’s always a grand moment! I kept away from Bob Hadley, because he was ill, and I thought I did him harm — but when you said: ‘Go and see him’ — I went — though I knew it would be the death of him. Put yourself in his place, Mr. Everton! — suppose that you loved a woman more than God, and that death was taking you away from her altogether, — would you not curse and swear just as Bob did?”
Completely taken aback by the confident effrontery of her speech and manner, he looked at her for a moment in grave, reproachful amazement. She met his look with a smile of perfect sweetness — but he set his lips hard and faced her resolutely, as though she were a fair fiend sent to tempt his soul.
“I do not understand you, Jacynth,” — he said coldly— “You talk in a way you should not — and I think you know it. I cannot for a moment imagine myself or any man loving a woman more than God.”
She opened her dark eyes, showing him a luminous world of wonder in their depths.
“You cannot? Oh! — but — of course you cannot — you’re a clergyman. I forgot! I thought—”
She drooped her head, and it seemed to Everton that her bosom trembled with suppressed laughter.
A sense of anger burned within him; — was he, — the Vicar of the parish, — so powerless, so wavering and indulgent and weak, that he could do nothing to convince this girl of her vanity and folly, and lead her out of the error of her ways?
“You thought what?” he asked, sternly.
She glanced at him demurely.
“Only — that you were perhaps like other men,” — she said.
At this he smiled — and there was a touch of scorn in the smile.
“I hope and think I am like other men,” — he said quietly— “Other men who know that the greatest happiness on earth is to serve God faithfully, and for His sake to fight against all evil things that strive to separate our souls from Him—”
“Am I an evil thing?” she interrupted him, suddenly.
“Pray God you are not!” he said, simply.
She was silent. Two bright tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped among the flowers at her breast. He was touched, despite himself. It was well-nigh impossible not to feel a certain compassion for this wayward beautiful creature, fatherless and motherless as she was, and left to the casual protection of an aged relative who only sought to make use of her as a ‘handy’ girl to fetch and carry, — and he began to think again, as he had often thought lately, whether he could not find a means of placing her in some establishment where she could be trained to suitable employment that should occupy her mind as well as procure her a means of livelihood.
“If she were not so lovely,” — he mused— “it would be easy.”
That was just the difficulty—’ if she were not so lovely,’ And he caught himself studying every line of the ‘difficulty,’ — the hair, the eyes, the figure, the exquisite rose-leaf skin — and then, as his mind dwelt persistently on these varying charms, he pulled himself together, and decided that it was not a man’s business to manage the girl at all.
His wife, — Azalea must be called upon to take her in hand, — and yet, as this idea crossed his mind he knew how absurd it was for him to entertain it for a moment. Azalea and Jacynth! As well seek to bring the opposite poles together, or ask fire and water to mingle in unison!
“Jacynth,” — he said, at last— “I should like to have a quiet talk with you—”
She looked up quickly.
“Now?” she asked.
“No — not now, — in two or three days time — after poor Bob Hadley is buried. Come to the Vicarage—”
“What will Mrs. Everton say?” — and she smiled the question, rather than spoke it. Something in her tone annoyed him. He drew himself up a trifle stiffly.
“Mrs. Everton will say as she has always said” — he replied, “that she hopes I may persuade you to be reasonable and gentle — to be more careful of your conduct—”
Jacynth laughed lightly.
“I don’t think she hopes anything of the kind,” she said— “She knows I’m past all that. I can’t be reasonable — not in the way you mean, — reasonable people are always so dull. I hate being dull! But I won’t be a trouble to you, Mr. Everton — I promise that! I’ll make a change! See here,” and with an impetuous movement she laid one hand confidently on his arm— “You’re a good man, I’m sure, — at least I know you’re trying to be good! You’re trying to be better and wiser than the birds and the animals — I’m not. The Testament tells us that God cares for the sparrows and the lilies of the field — I don’t presume to be more valuable than a sparrow, and I’m certainly not half so nice as a lily of the field. If God looks after me as much as He does after those two things, I’m all right. I don’t mind the rest. But I swear to you” — here she spoke with extraordinary vehemence, and her great eyes glittered like stars on a wintry night— “that next time you see me I’ll be different. I will!”
Her manner startled him a little. She looked at him so straightly, and withal so defiantly that he was at loss what to reply. After a pause, he said gently —
“Is that a promise, Jacynth?”
“That’s a promise!” and with a sudden desperate gesture she flung up her arms to heaven— “Do you hear it, Almighty God? It’s a promise!”
He recoiled from her with a kind of nervous dread upon him. There was something so wild and reckless about her that he wondered — with the usual despairing sensation that always affected him when he thought of the one great curse of his parish which he was powerless to remove — whether she had been drinking? She caught his look, — and, understanding it, laughed aloud.
“I know what you think!” she said— “If one of the prophets who raved about God in the Bible were to stand here now and begin to rant and scream, you’d say he was drunk! Isaiah wouldn’t get a hearing at any price!”
“Jacynth!” And his utterance of her name was like a sharp exclamation of pain.
“Jacynth!” she echoed, half sadly, half mockingly— “Poor Jacynth! A girl with only a face for a fortune! That’s the trouble! Well, good-by, Mr. Everton! I’ve made you a promise — and you’ll see I’ll keep it! Good-by!”
Before he could utter a word in answer she had gone, running past him over the old stone bridge into the village with the flying fleetness of a bird. He turned to look at her as she fled, and all at once, as though a chord had been struck in his brain, he heard the frantic cry of the dead man who had loved her— “Jacynth! Jacynth! See where she goes! Will no one stop her? Running, running, running — look — look! — running straight into Hell!”
Everton shuddered as with an inward cold.
“Something must be done for that girl,” — he said— “Something must be done before it is too late!”
CHAPTER VII
TWO or three days passed, and during this interval Shadbrook took upon itself a curious aspect of bland and decent dejection, — an aspect it always assumed whenever there was a death in the village. Everybody had known for a long time that young Hadley’s illness could only have one possible termination, — and when that fatal end arrived no one was really surprised or very sorry, yet all thought it the ‘proper’ thing to affect an air of gentle resignation, as of persons who were unjustly maltreated by a cruel and untoward destiny. Blinds were drawn in the cottage windows of both ‘old’ and ‘new’ Shadbrook — and even the venerable ‘Mortar’ Pike sat obstinately in his chimney-corner, refusing to move, and apparently considering himself a more or less injured party because he was not yet ‘laid out’ as a corpse.
“For,” said he, “that there Bob Hadley worn’t three-and-twenty, an’ look at me, goin’ on for ninety-three this
August! Seems to me the Lord don’t want me nohow. I’m sort o’ left stickin’ in the furrow while the plow goes on.”
As long as this state of things lasted, Everton rather avoided the village, for experience had taught him that the rustic mind revels in the affairs of death, and that when country folk are preparing for a funeral, it is a kind of personal festivity for them in which they resent all interference. He knew, or rather he imagined, that if he were wanted, he would be sent for. He had yet to learn that under certain circumstances of difficulty occurring to what are called the ‘common’ people, the very last person they think of consulting, is the Vicar of the parish. It ought not to be so, but so it is. And the cause is not far to seek, for in nine cases out of ten the Vicar of the parish is so centered in himself and his own concerns that he has no sympathy to spare for any wandering or wounded member of his flock. “I do not wander,” — fee says, “.Why should you pursue so undesirable a course? I am not wounded — why do you bleed?”
Everton, however, was not one of the priestly egoists of whom there are so many abusing the world nowadays in the name of Christ, — and had the poorest or most erring of his parishioners sought his aid in trouble, he would have given it with all his heart and power, no matter at what cost or pain to himself. Unfortunately, his flock did not entirely grasp this fact. He had only been with them a little over three years, — and though they were all decidedly impressed in his favor, yet the memory of at least two past vicars had made it difficult for them to understand that a man may be a parson and honest at one and the same time. So they were cautious’ — not to say secretive — in their dealings with him, — or perhaps it would be better to describe their general attitude towards him as one of reticence mingled with respect. He himself was sorrowfully conscious that there was an invisible wall between his personality and their humble lives, — a wall which he had now and then looked over by chance, but which he had never been able to scale. Nevertheless, he bore his isolation very peaceably, — he was patient-minded, and hoped almost against hope that some day — a day no matter how distant, provided it should come at last, — some day they would realize that he was truly their friend, faithful in purpose, and loving in intention, seeking to live the Christ-life to the best of his human ability, — a life easy to preach of, but more difficult to practice than any ethical theory ever propounded to the world by teachers un-Divine. And in his instinctive knowledge of the fact that when one of their little community was ‘taken’ as they put it, they preferred to be left alone to manage their own peculiar ceremonies of ‘laying out’ and ‘watching’ the dead without the intrusion of one who, though the head of the parish, was more or less a stranger to their habits and customs, he kept away from them during the time that he knew they were all, like children at a fair, enjoying the lugubrious preparations for the funeral of Bob Hadley. The Kiernans made no sign, — and on the strength of the idea that no news was good news, he supposed all was well. Once or twice he felt strongly inclined to call at Dan Kiernan’s cottage and make inquiries as to the condition of that redoubtable drunkard’s ill-used but uncomplaining wife, — but remembering Dan’s fierce anger at his “busy-bodyin’” — decided to leave matters as they were for the present. Once he asked Azalea if she had heard anything about Mrs. Kiernan, and that charming little lady had given her shoulders a most expressive shrug as she replied —
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 711
