Wild Grows the Heather in Devon

by Michael Phillips

  Alas, our need of a Savior is greater than our cries for deliverance. We battle the world’s ills, not recognizing that those ills can never be cured until the great evil is cured.

  Charles Rutherford perceived at last the mortifying truth to which all must one day come, the truth that within himself—within even what he had considered the goodness inherent in his social standing and his seemingly forward-looking ideas—dwelt selfishness, self-satisfaction, hypocrisy. Within him dwelt sin.

  And he detested it. He felt its horror. His own being had become the beast of his nightmare.

  He was ready at length to say, though he yet knew not who might be capable of answering . . . Heal me of this wickedness I find within myself!

  ————

  Jocelyn Rutherford’s first indication that something more serious was plaguing her husband came about an hour later. She opened her eyes and rolled over in bed, only to realize that the room was dark and that once again she was alone. How late was it? The light from the windows gave her no clue, for the gaslights on the street outside shone far into the night. Once more she rose and tiptoed into the adjacent room.

  There sat her husband. He stared into the candle he had lit and placed on the table beside him as if its flickering yellow movement might be able to console him. On his face was an expression such as Jocelyn had never seen before. Had she been asked to describe it, against all reason she would have said he looked like a lost child who did not know where to turn.

  At first she was terrified, thinking perhaps he had suffered an attack of some kind. Charles observed her approach, glanced up, and forced a smile. Though it contained pain, at the same time his look reassured her.

  “Is there something . . . wrong, Charles?” she asked hesitantly.

  Again he smiled thinly.

  “Yes, Jocie,” he said, “I’m afraid there is.”

  “Something you want to tell me about?”

  “I don’t know,” he sighed.

  “Did something happen at the reception I do not know about?” she asked.

  “No—nothing there,” he said, smiling ironically. The word contained worlds of meaning she could not fathom.

  Jocelyn sat down beside him. A brief silence followed.

  “It’s funny,” said Charles after a moment. “One anticipates something for so long, but then it invariably turns out differently than expected. I thought yesterday’s celebration would be the high point of my whole life. Yet a few hours later, all I can think about is the incident that happened on the way.”

  “With the crowd . . . when you were hurt?” asked his wife.

  He nodded.

  “I’m afraid I behaved badly, Jocie,” he said with a sigh. “I lost my temper. I was quite beastly to some people. I said some things I had no right to say.”

  She slipped her arm around him and laid her head on his shoulder. Charles proceeded to tell her in more detail about yesterday’s incident and its unpleasant and unpredictable effect on him.

  24

  A Morning Walk

  It was the second time in as many days that Charles Rutherford found himself approaching Jermyn Street. Today, however, he was alone and on foot. It was a little before ten o’clock in the morning. Jocelyn and the children had remained at the hotel.

  They were scheduled to return to Devonshire today, but he had delayed the trip home. He did not know why exactly. Something told him he could not leave the city quite yet.

  While Jocelyn still slept he had dressed in simple street clothes and gone out without waiting for breakfast. That had been about six-thirty in the morning. He had been walking ever since.

  He had slept but little following his unsettling dream. He and Jocelyn had talked, and she had finally returned to bed. He sat awhile longer and eventually followed her, but only to doze off intermittently.

  Once away from the hotel he felt a little better. It was good to be out, to breathe in the fresh, crisp morning air, to be doing something after the long and unnerving night.

  The early morning air held a chill, although the bright rays of rising sun promised later warmth. Charles made his way first to the Mall and into St. James’s Park, walking its length toward Buckingham Palace, then into Green Park, across Knightsbridge, and into Hyde Park. The greenery and flowers all spoke more noticeably to him today than before. Something in his mind seemed to be slowing down. He was acutely aware of his surroundings. The voices of trees and grasses and hedges and flowers and birds spoke in an unfamiliar language of feelings, not words, and on this day, for the first time in his life, he found himself beginning to understand their subtle meanings. They drew his heart. Eventually he had effected a great circle through the park all the way to Oxford Street.

  The city by now bustled all around him. Oxford Street was at the height of its morning commerce. People and markets and peddlers and carts filled the broad boulevard. Charles found himself detached and therefore more tolerant of the busyness than before. Everything he saw reminded him both of the dream and yesterday’s ride to the palace. The vague urgency of the nightmare was not present. He was in no hurry now. He had no definite destination in mind. As he walked, the sunlight and city atmosphere, and even the crowded streets, ministered encouragement to his troubled soul. He found his eyes more than usually observant of what was taking place around him. He looked into the faces of those he passed with heightened sympathy and compassion.

  As he made his way along, absorbed in thought, he saw not far in front of him a raggedly dressed girl of about five. She held a bouquet of flowers she was hopeful of selling. Glancing about, she bumped carelessly into a hurrying pedestrian. The girl stumbled and fell. The flowers flew from her hand and scattered about. Several wound up in the street, where they fell under the hooves and wheels of a passing carriage.

  Charles hurried forward. He stooped as the girl struggled back to her feet, and reached down to her. She glanced into his face, eyes full of tears. Tentatively she reached up and took his hand. It felt so small and soft in his, so much like his own daughter’s. He closed his palm around the tiny thing and drew the youngster to her feet.

  “My flo’ers,” she whimpered.

  “I’ll help you, missy,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll gather them together.”

  He let go her hand, then set about picking up what he could salvage from the street. The girl meanwhile scrambled about the sidewalk. Presently between them they retrieved most out of the dirt, though several now had broken stems.

  “Here you are, missy,” said Charles, handing her those he had gathered.

  “Thank ’e, sir,” she said, drawing a dirty sleeve across her tear-splotched cheeks. She forced a thin smile.

  “How much do you want for them?”

  “Ha’penny fer two flo’ers, sir.”

  “And for the whole bouquet?”

  “Sixpence the lot, sir,” replied the girl, the pitch of her voice rising several degrees in hopeful anticipation.

  “Well, my little lady, here’s half a crown,” said Charles, as he brought a coin from his pocket. He knelt to one knee, and handed it to her.

  “Thank ’e, sir!” she exclaimed, eyes wide as she clutched the enormous sum. The little hand had never before possessed such wealth.

  Charles took the flowers. He stood, smiled again, then continued on his way.

  As he went, unconsciously he drew the clump—he did not even know what variety of flowers they were—to his nose. With the recent memory of the girl’s face in his thoughts, he drew in a deep breath.

  His heart smote him.

  Something in the young girl’s expression, working now in combination with the sweet pungency from her flowers, filled him with an indescribable longing, though he knew not for what. There was only one possible response. And now tears welled up in Charles Rutherford’s eyes.

  He paused, sniffing and dabbing at both eyes and nose, then turned momentarily into a side alley. He had to be alone until the sensation passed.

  He had nev
er wept in his adult life. What was becoming of him? he wondered. What had caused this inexplicable and baffling assault of tears? Here he was, a Member of Parliament and a Knight Grand Commander, leaning alongside a stone building in a deserted alley off Oxford Street and weeping from the scent of a handful of dirty flowers!

  Yet he did nothing to stop the flow. Even as he blinked his eyelids and wiped at them with the back of his hand, he felt no shame. He did not at that moment recall Bobby McFee’s words to him from years before, nor realize how faithfully Bobby and Maggie McFee had prayed for him since. But nevertheless, the flowers and their prayers were accomplishing their work.

  A few minutes later, Charles Rutherford resumed his trek along Oxford to New Bond Street, refreshed in some strange way, as if the tears, like a spring rain, had carried out some soul-cleansing work. A lump remained in his throat, however, perhaps as a reminder that tears would never hereafter be quite so far from his eyes.

  Charles now turned to begin making his way back toward the center of the city.

  In the distance again he heard music. It was similar to yesterday’s. He continued on. It grew louder. Another salvation band came into view. They were everywhere these days, it seemed. He approached, glancing hopefully over the ten or a dozen participants. He recognized no one. They wore uniforms and were clearly not associated with yesterday’s group. A middle-aged woman stood in front of the others, singing and directing the small choir and band.

  Charles watched a moment. Seized by a sudden impulse, he walked briskly forward, straight toward the conductress. Her mouth paused in midnote, half-open, though her arm continued its rhythmic motion.

  “I just wanted to tell you thank you for the enjoyable music,” he said, handing her the bouquet of flowers.

  Momentarily speechless, the poor woman’s mouth now broke into a gradual smile of pleased bewilderment. She clutched the strangely delivered bouquet as if it were some priceless fortune. But she could utter nothing in reply.

  Already her anonymous benefactor was disappearing down the street!

  25

  Jermyn Street Again

  Smiling as he went, Sir Charles rounded another corner, the memory of the lady’s pleased expression lightening his heart considerably.

  He had not exactly planned Jermyn Street as his next destination. In the midst of his morning wanderings, however, it was no doubt inevitable that he would unconsciously find his way there in the end. He was curious whether he might discover any landmarks from his strange dream. Perhaps he hoped to resolve something in his mind.

  He drew near St. James Lecture Hall, the scene of yesterday’s incident.

  The street was still now, nearly deserted. It was such a contrast from yesterday, and from the busy parts of the city through which he had recently come. He glanced at the signboard. Nothing was scheduled for the hall. The street was a quiet one. A few pedestrians passed by, but there were no bands, no peddlers, no girls with flowers.

  Charles found himself reliving yesterday’s altercation. In his mind’s eye he envisioned getting out of the cab, then walking forward into the crowd, exchanging blows with the ruffian, and then—

  He closed his eyes at the painful memory. The lump in his throat struggled to rise.

  He saw himself angrily lashing out at the frail preacher and innocent young woman.

  What manner of beast dwelt inside that could cause him to do such a thing? Was he indeed the beast of his dream? If he had been capable of this, without provocation . . . what might he—Sir Charles Rutherford—what might he be capable of if he were seriously provoked?

  As Charles walked about, gradually came the further question—was this the sort of man he wanted to be, a man whose anger could erupt without warning, a man in whom cruelty and rudeness lay dormant? The words he had spoken to his daughter about good people becoming greedy and bad and selfish continued to haunt him.

  Struggling, he sought to enlist his familiar philosophies to counter the new and discomforting thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t perfect. But he was generally a good and moral person. Besides, men were not able to determine their intrinsic nature. Darwin had proved it. They were accidents of selection. He himself had been one of the lucky ones. How could he wonder about changing himself, about becoming different than what he was? The notion went against all of his carefully constructed beliefs.

  Suddenly the implication of his question of a moment earlier probed yet deeper into the unknown. Might a man want to be someone other, someone different than he was? Might a man actually step outside Darwin’s natural selection process . . . and by an act of the will, alter who he was?

  Darwin himself would scoff at such a question. Charles’ colleagues in the Fabian Society would say such quandaries were mere illusions of the mind. The only real world was that of physical reality. No one could alter predetermined forces. Men might change the world. He had given his life to such a hope. But change themselves, their nature . . . that was not something whose implications he had considered.

  What about character? thought Charles now to himself.

  What about virtue, kindness, and human integrity? Might a man make more, or less, of himself in those areas of personal growth and individual maturity?

  What could evolution have to do with any of that?

  Might those important regions of humanity be places Darwin’s theory could never touch?

  What if a whole parallel world existed—an inner world, where such things as character and conscience and virtue dwelt—a world unseen by men like Darwin, a world with which mere physical theories never intersected?

  He had heard men talk about the physical world and the spiritual world, but he had never paid heed to such distinctions, assuming the latter to be a figment of unenlightened men’s imaginations. Now he found rising up within himself sensations for which no mere physical theory could account. What could evolution have to do with conscience? How could a sense of right and wrong evolve from a worm? What in Darwin’s natural selection theory could explain why flowers brought tears to the eyes of a sophisticated man of the world?

  There was another region of life coming awake within him—that fact could not be denied. But it was nothing covered by any chapter in the Origins!

  Was it . . . could all this be prompted by—he could hardly utter the words even in the solitude of his brain! . . .

  —by the spiritual side of his being?

  Charles Rutherford had never thought of religion in a personal way before. As a child, he had attended the village church with his family from time to time. Charles himself had continued the practice when he inherited the title, although in recent years his attendance had been limited to funerals, weddings, and other ceremonial occasions. But he had always regarded the high Anglican services in much the same way as he regarded Westminster Abbey—part of England’s history and worthy of respect as such, but in many ways a relic of past days, with little or no relevance to modern life or thought.

  The religious content of the services he had come to disregard completely. Christianity seemed to him the most impractical of creeds. But now he was beginning to wonder. Might there be more to it than he had realized?

  What could be more real than the tears which had fallen down his own cheeks onto the dirt of that alley off Oxford Street?

  Charles shook his head and drew in a deep breath and looked about, as if to rescue himself from delving too deeply into a matter he was not yet prepared to face.

  Beneath his feet, as he slowly walked, his gaze fell upon several of yesterday’s leaflets scattered about. Many lay mud smeared in the gutter. However many the small salvation band had handed out, it was clear a good many had been tossed down right here and never read.

  His eyes chanced upon a tight little wadded ball of paper. It was the leaflet he had himself angrily thrown down. He stooped and picked it up, an altogether different feeling coming over him than yesterday’s. Slowly he opened it.

  Evolution versus the Genesis Account . . . read the tit
le.

  He scanned the first few lines. He was familiar with the gist of the argument. He went no further for the moment, but gazed over the leaflet absently.

  At the end of the text he read the handwritten words: New Hope Chapel, 37 Bloomsbury Way, Holborn. The place was not many blocks away.

  Without pausing to think what might come of it, Charles turned and made for the address of the church. Glancing down again at the leaflet as he went, he now walked briskly along the sidewalk toward a new destination.

  26

  New Hope Chapel

  Timidly Sir Charles Rutherford walked up the several steps to the stone chapel on whose front stood the words, New Hope Chapel, T. Diggorsfeld, Pastor, and tentatively tried the door, expecting to find it locked.

  Instead it yielded to his touch and swung open. Slowly he entered the darkened building.

  He saw no one at first, nor heard a sound. Slowly he walked forward. Uncertain sensations filled him.

  It was a simple enough chapel, constructed like so many of its kind in a simple stone rectangle. The edifice itself inspired no sense of grandeur. Yet the silence of the high vaulted ceiling, the dim light filtering through the muted blues and reds and yellows of a single stained-glass window depicting the crucifixion of Christ, caused an atmosphere to descend upon Sir Charles Rutherford of what he could only call awe.

  But awe of what? the rationalist side of him asked. Nothing was possibly here but old stones, colored glass, and superstition. Yet his heart told him differently. Two sides battled in his brain—the physical and the spiritual, the rational and the emotive.

  Try as he might, he could not ignore the latter. He could scarcely admit it to himself . . . but he felt a presence as the solemn mood deepened.

  Slowly he walked down the center aisle, almost afraid to let his footsteps make a sound on the cold tile floor.

  A sound made him start.

  Charles glanced up. Someone stood in front of the large room, a short distance to the right of the lectern.