CHAPTER II.
I TAKE A WALK AND HEAR A SERMON IN THE COMPANY OF LORD BOLINGBROKE.
That history I take to have begun on the 28th day of March at Paris inthe year 1715. I was sitting in my room at the Jesuit College in theRue St Antoine, with the "De Imitatione" at one elbow, and MarcoPolo's travels at the other; and, alas! I fear that I gave moreattention to the adventurer than I did to the theologian. But, intruth, neither author occupied the chief place in my thoughts. For thespring sparkled in the air, its music was noisy among the buddingtrees, and something of its music, too, seemed to be singing in myblood. From my window I looked down across the roof-tops to the IleSt. Louis, and I could see a strip of the Seine flashing in thesunlight like a riband of steel. It was on the current of the riverthat my thoughts floated, yet they travelled faster than the current,seeing that while I still looked they had reached the bar where theriver clashes with the sea. I had the tumble of its waters in my earswhen the door was opened, and one of the lay coadjutors entered with amessage that the rector wished to speak with me.
I followed him down the stairs, not without a guilty apprehension asto the nature of the interview in store for me, and found the rectorpacing backwards and forwards across one end of the hall, with hishands folded behind his back. As I made my reverence, he stopped andeyed me for a moment thoughtfully.
"Twelve months since," said he, "you received from the Duke of Ormondin England the offer of a cornetcy in the Horse Guards."
"Yes, Father," I replied, taken aback by his unexpected commencement;and I replied hastily, "I refused it."
"You refused it!" he repeated very deliberately; and then, suddenlybending his eyebrows, "And without reluctance?"
I felt my face flush as he asked the question. "Father," I stammered,"I refused it;" and so came to a stop.
He nodded his head once or twice, but pressed me no further upon thepoint. Instead--
"You know at whose instance the commission was offered to you?" heasked.
"I have no certain knowledge," I replied, with considerable relief;"but I can think of but one person in the world with the power andinclination to do me that service."
"Ah," broke in the rector, sharply, "you count it a service, then?"
"He would count it a service," I answered, with a clumsy effort toretrieve the mistake. "For my part, Father, I refused it."
"Precisely," said he. "He would count it a service he was doing you.There are no fine feathers in our army, and there is no leisure toparade them were there any. Yes, Lord Bolingbroke would count it aservice he was doing you."
Now, although the relationship between Lord Bolingbroke and myself wasthe merest thread--my father having married a niece of Lady Joanna St.John--I was well enough acquainted with his diligence to know that thesneer was unjust; and I was preparing to make some rejoinder in aproper spirit of humility when the rector continued--
"It is of Lord Bolingbroke that I wish to speak to you. He is inParis."
"In Paris, Father!" I exclaimed incredulously.
"In Paris. He came last night, and asks permission of me this morningthat you should wait on him."
"Father," I cried, "you will give that permission?"
He shook his head over my eagerness and resumed his walk.
"Very well," he said at length, and he gave me Lord Bolingbroke'saddress. "You can go now," he added.
I waited no longer than sufficed to utter a brief word of thanks, andhurried towards the door.
"My son."
I turned back towards the rector, with a doleful thought that he wouldrevoke his permission. But as I approached him reluctantly enough, Isaw something of a smile brighten upon his rigorous face.
"My son," he said, without a trace of his former severity, "you havetaken no vows as yet, and will not for eight months to come. Think,and think humbly, during those months! Our Order, thank God, is not sopoor in service that we need to reckon obstinacy as devotion."
I stood abashed and shamefaced at his words. "Father," I said, "I havechosen."
"But it is for us to ratify the choice," he answered, with a cast backto his former sternness, "or to annul it as unworthy." With that hedismissed me; but this time, being somewhat stung by his warning, Iretired with a more decorous step. Once in the street, however, I madeup for the delay. For, in truth, I was at some trouble to account formy kinsman's sudden arrival in France; for, although Walpole hadpublicly declared his intention of bringing both Bolingbroke and theEarl of Oxford to trial for their work in compassing the Peace ofUtrecht, it was common rumour that Bolingbroke and his colleagueawaited the impeachment in all confidence as to its issue. This hastydeparture, however, bore to my thinking all the appearance of adesperate flight, and I hurried to his lodging in no small anxiety ofspirit. My Lord Bolingbroke makes but a slight figure in this story ofmy picture, compared with that he made upon the wider field of anation's chronicle; and it is very well for me that this is so. For,indeed, I never understood him; although I held him in a great likingand esteem, and considered him to have confronted more adversity andmischance than commonly falls to any one, I never understood him. Hewas compacted of so many contradictions, and in all of them was soseemingly sincere that a plain man like Lawrence Clavering wascompletely at a loss to discover the inward truth of him. But as hewas a riddle to my speculations, so was he a cherished object to myaffections. For even during those last years of Queen Anne's rule,when his life was at its busiest and his fortunes at their climax, hestill found time to show kindness to one whose insignificance was onlyrivalled by his poverty. He was "Harry St. John" to me as to hisequals and my betters, and in spite of the difference of our years;and when I found myself in company with Dr. Swift and Mr. Congreve andMr. Prior and the little crook-back poet whose "Windsor Castle" hadbrought him into a sudden reputation, he was ever at pains todistinguish me in his conversation, so that I might suffer no shamefrom my inferiority. Doubtless it was to the natural courtesy of theman rather than to any special inclination that his behaviour was due,but I was none the less grateful to him on that account.
He had just finished dinner, and was still at the table over his wine,when his footman introduced me into his apartment.
"Ah," said he, "I expected you would come;" and he drew a chair to thetable, and filled a second glass, "It is not the welcome you have hadfrom me at Bucklersbury, but philosophers"--and he made a politeflourish of the hand to include me in the phrase--"will ever becontent with a makeshift. For my part," he continued, "I do not knowbut what the makeshift is the better. A few trustworthy friends, a fewhonest books and leisure wherein to savour their merits--it is what Ihave chiefly longed for these last five years;" and he threw up hisarms with a long breath of relief, as though he had been unexpectedlylightened of some burdensome load. I had heard him talk often enoughin this way before, and was disinclined to set great value upon hiscontentment.
"What brought you in this scurry to Paris?" I asked.
"They meant to pursue me to the scaffold," he returned. "I had sureinformation of that. No testimony would have helped me or thwartedthem. It was my blood they needed--Marlborough told me so--my bloodand Oxford's." And he flashed out into a sudden passion. "There's thepoint. Alone I would have faced them. These whimsical Tories are thefrailest of reeds, the Whigs the most factious and vindictiveopponents. Still, I would have faced them had I stood alone. But tomake common cause with Oxford! No, I abhor him to that degree, Icannot. It were worse than death. However, let's talk no more of it!"and he recovered himself with an effort, and sat for a little, silent,fingering his glass. "Oxford!" he exclaimed again with a bitter laughof contempt. "Soft words, and never a thing done! To live tillto-morrow was the ultimate of policy to him. And jealous, too! Thebubble of his own jealousy! Had he cared to act, or had he beendismissed but a few weeks earlier, I tell you, Lawrence, the Torieswould now be cemented to such a solidity of power that----" He stoppedabruptly, and leaned over to me
: "For whom are you?" he asked, "theHanoverian, or the"--and he paused for the briefest space--"theChevalier de St. George?"
"I am for King James the Third," I replied promptly.
"Oh," says he; and, rising from his chair, he took a turn across theroom. "I rather fancied," he resumed, with a queer smile, "thatdiscretion was amongst the lessons taught at the Jesuit Colleges."
"We are taught besides," I answered, "to distinguish between theoccasion for discretion and the occasion for plain speaking."
"Then," said he, "I fear me, Lawrence, the teaching is faulty, if I amto judge from the instance you have given me. I had some talk with myLord Stair this morning, and the talk was of the friendliest."
"Lord Stair?" I cried, rising in some confusion, for I knew theChevalier to possess no more redoubtable opponent than the Englishambassador.
"Yes," replied Bolingbroke. "And I leave Paris for the Dauphine--markthat, Lawrence--not for Lorraine, though I have been invited thither.But, in truth, I have had my surfeit of politics." Even while hespoke, however, a serving-man was ushered into the room with a letterto deliver.
"I was bidden, my lord, to give it into your hands," he explained.
"Very well," replied Lord Bolingbroke, something hastily; and Inoticed that he dropped his hand over the superscription of theletter. "I will send the answer;" and he added, correcting himself,"if one be needed."
The servant bowed, and went out of the room. I began to laugh, andBolingbroke turned an inquiring glance at me.
"There is some jest?"
"It is of your making, my lord. I fancy those few honest books willnot be opened yet awhile."
He flushed a little. "I don't understand," he said.
"That is because you cover so closely the hand-writing of your letterthat you have not as yet perceived from whom it comes."
"That is very true," he replied immediately; and he glanced at thecover of it. "The hand is strange to me. Perchance you recognize it;"and he frankly held it out to me.
"No," I replied; "but I recognized the servant who brought it.Marshall Berwick has sent him more than once with messages to therector of my college."
"Oh," said he, with a start of surprise, "Marshall Berwick, theChevalier's minister?" He opened the letter with a fine show ofindifference. "I think I mentioned to you that I had already beeninvited by the Chevalier to Bar. Doubtless this is to second theinvitation." He read it through carelessly, and tore it up. "Yes. ButI travel south, not east, Lawrence. I go to Dauphine, not Lorraine;"and as if to dismiss the subject, he diverted his speech from theChevalier to myself.
"And so, Lawrence," he said, "it is to be the soutane, and not thered-coat; the rosary, and not the sword."
It seemed to me that there was a hint of wonder and disappointment inhis voice; but, maybe, I was over-ready at that time to detect aslight, and I answered quickly--
"I have to thank you for the cornetcy. The offer was a-piece with therest of your kindness; but I was constrained to refuse it."
"And what constrained you? Your devotion to the priesthood?"
He glanced at me shrewdly as he spoke, and I knew that my face was hotbeneath his gaze. Then he laughed. The laugh was kindly enough; but itbantered me, and if my face was hot before, now it was a-flame.
"You come of an obstinate stock, Lawrence," he continued; "but I wasmisled to believe that you had missed the inheritance."
"It was out of my power to accept the cornetcy," I returned, "even hadI wished it For I am a Papist."
"You would not have found yourself alone," he said, with a laugh. "TheDuke of Ormond prefers Papists for his officers. He showed me a listnot so long ago of twenty-seven colonels whom he had a mind to break,and strangely enough they were all Protestants, with never a faultbesides to their names."
"Moreover," I went on, "I was too poor;" and there I think I hit thetrue and chief reason, though I would not acknowledge it as such evento myself.
"But you have an uncle in Cumberland," said Bolingbroke.
"He is a Whig and a Protestant," I replied. "He can hardly hold me inthat esteem which would give me warrant to approach him."
My kinsman nodded his head as though he approved the argument, and satfor a little silent over his wine, while my fancies went straying overimagined battle-fields. It is strange how a man will glorify thisbusiness of cutting throats, the more particularly if he be of asedentary life. Most like it is for that very reason. I have seensomething of a war's realities since then; I have seen men turned tobeasts by hunger and thirst, and the lust of carnage; I have seen thedead stripped and naked upon the hill-side of Clifton moor white likea flock of sheep. But at the time of which I write I thought only of abattlefield as of a place where life throbbed at its fullest to asound of resonant trumpets and victorious shouts; and the smoke ofcannon hid the trampled victims, even from my imaginings.
"Come!" said Lord Bolingbroke, breaking in upon my reflections of asudden; "if your afternoon is not disposed of, I would gladly take aturn with you. I have it in my mind to show you a picture."
I agreed willingly enough to the proposal, and together we went downinto the street.
"This will be our way," he said; and we walked to the monastery of theChartreux. Then he stopped.
"Perhaps you know the picture."
"No," I replied. "This is the first time that ever I came hither."
He took me forthwith to the wonderful frescoes of Le S[oe]ur, and,walking quickly along them, stopped at length before the most horridand ghastly picture that ever I set my eyes on. It was the picture ofa dead man who spoke at his burial, and painted with such cunningsuggestion and power that, gazing at it, I felt a veritable fearinvade me. It was not merely that his face expressed all the horror,the impotent rage, the pain of his damnation, but there was alsoconveyed by the subtlest skill a certain consciousness in the suffererthat he received no more than his merits. It was as though you lookedat a hypocrite, who knew that his hypocrisy was discovered.
"Well, what think you of it?" asked my companion. "It does credit tothe painter's craftsmanship;" and his voice startled me, for, in mycontemplation of the picture, I had clean forgotten his presence. Thepainting was indeed so vivid that it had raised up alert and activewithin my breast a thought which I had up till now, though not withouteffort, kept resolutely aloof from me.
"But yet more to his imagination," I replied perfunctorily, and movedaway. Lord Bolingbroke followed me, and we quitted the monastery, andwalked for some way in silence.
I had no mind for talk, and doubtless showed my disinclination, for mycompanion, though now and again he would glance at me with an air ofcuriosity, refrained from questions. To speak the truth, I wasfulfilled--nay, I overbrimmed with shame. The picture lived before myeyes, receding in front of me through the streets of Paris. It seemedto complete and illustrate the rebuke which the rector had addressedto me that morning; it pointed a scornful commentary at my musings onthe glory of arms. For the figure in the picture cried "hypocrite,"and cried the word at me; and so insistently did the recollection ofit besiege me that I came near to thinking it no finished paintinglimned upon the wall, and fixed so until such time as the coloursshould fade, but rather a living scene. I began almost to expect thatthe figures would change their order and disposition, that the deadman speaking would swerve from his attitude, and, as he spoke, andspoke "hypocrite," would reach out a bony and menacing finger towardsme. So far had my fancies carried me when my kinsman touched me on thearm.
"It is as you say, Lawrence," he said, as though there had been nointerval of silence since my last words--"it is the imagination, notthe craftsmanship, which fixes the attention. It is the idea of a deadman speaking--no matter what he speaks."
There was a certain significance in his tone which I did notcomprehend.
I stopped in the street.
"You were anxious to show me the picture," I said.
"Yes," he replied.
"Why?"
"Does it tell you nothing concernin
g yourself?"
I was positively startled by the question. It seemed incredible thathe could have foreseen the effect which it would produce on me.
"What do you mean?" I exclaimed.
He gave an easy laugh, and pointed across my shoulder.
"There is a church," said he, "and moult and moult people entering it.Let us go in too."
I looked at him in increased surprise, for I had not believed him veryprone to religious exercises. However, he crossed the road, with me athis heels, and went up the steps in the throng.
The church was dim, and because I came into it out of the Aprilsunshine, it struck upon my senses as dank besides.
The voices of the choir beat upwards through an air blue and heavywith incense; the tapers burning on the altar at the far end of thenave over against us shone blurred and vague as though down some mistytunnel; and from the painted windows on the right the sunshinestreamed in slanting rods of light, vari-coloured, disparting themist.
At the first, I had an impious thought, due partly may be to myunfamiliarity with the bustle of the streets, and partly no doubt tothe companionship of my kinsman, who ever brought with him, as itwere, a breath of that wide world wherein he lived and schemed, that Iwas returning to a narrow hemisphere wherein men had no manner ofbusiness. But after a little a Carmelite monk began to preach, and thefire of his discourse, as it rose and fell, now harsh with passion,now musical with tenderness, roused me to a consciousness of the holyground on which I stood. I bent forward, not so much listening aswatching those who listened. I noted how the sermon gained upon them,how their faces grew expectant. Even Lord Bolingbroke lost hisindifference; he moved a step or two nearer to the preacher. Hisattitude lost the lazy grace he was wont to affect; he stoodsatisfied, and I knew that there was no man on earth so critical inhis judgment of an orator.
I was assured then of the sway which the monk asserted over hiscongregation, and the assurance pierced to my very soul.
For I knew the cause of his power; one had not to listen long torealise that. The man was sincere. This was no pleasurable discoursewaved delicately like a scented handkerchief to tease the senses ofhis auditors. Sincerity burnt like a clear flame kindling his words,and compelled belief. Of the matter of his sermon I took no note. Onceor twice "the Eve of St. Bartholomew" came thundering at my ears, butfor the most part it seemed that he cried "hypocrite" at me, until Ifeared that the congregation would rise in their seats in that dimchurch, and a mob of white faces gibber and mow the accusation. Istood fascinated, unable to move, until at last Bolingbroke came backto me, and, taking my arm, led me out of church.
"You study late of nights?" he asked, looking into my face.
"The preacher wrought on me."
"He has eloquence," he agreed; "but it was a dead man speaking."
I stopped in the street, and stared at him.
"Yes," he continued; "he warns, he exhorts, like the figure in thepicture there, but the man himself--what of him, Lawrence? He is themere instrument of his eloquence--its servant, not its master. He isthe priest--dead to the world in which he has his being, a shadow witha voice, a dead man speaking."
"Nay," I broke in, "the words were born at his heart. He was sincere,and therefore he lives. The dead man speaking is the hypocrite."
I cried the words in a very passion of self-reproach, and withoutthought of the man I addressed them to.
"Well, well," said he, indulgently, "he has, at all events, a liveadvocate. I did not gather you were so devoted to the vocation;" andhe laughed a little to belie the words, and so we parted company.
It was in no complacent mood, as you may guess, that I returned to thecollege, and, indeed, I loitered some while before the gates or ever Icould make up my mind to enter them. The picture weighed upon myconscience, and seemed like to effect my Lord Bolingbroke's evidentpurpose, though by means of a very different argument. It was not thepriest, but myself, the hypocrite, who was the dead man speaking; andthus, strangely enough, as I had reason to think it afterwards, I cameto imagine the picture with myself as its central figure. I would seeit at nights as I lay awake in my bed, painted with fire upon the darkspaces of the room, and the face that bore the shame of hypocrisydiscovered, and with that shame the agony of punishment was mine. Or,again, a word of reproof; the mere sight of my Marco Polo wassufficient to bring it into view, and for the rest of that day itwould bear me company, hanging before my eyes when I sat down to mybooks, and moving in front of me when I walked, as it had moved infront of me through the streets of Paris on that first and onlyoccasion of my seeing it. For, though many a time I passed andrepassed the monastery of the Chartreux, I never sought admittance. Isaw the picture no more than once; but, indeed, I was in no danger offorgetting it, and within the compass of a few months events befell mewhich fixed it for ever in my memory. I have but to shut my eyes, andI see it after this long interspace of years, definite in everydetail. I have but to open them, and, sitting at this table at which Iwrite, I behold, actually painted, the second picture into which myimagination then transformed the first--the picture of myself as thedead man speaking.
Lawrence Clavering Page 2