Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “I believe that,” — said Lionel, heaving a little sigh,— “I can’t help believing it, though it’s not what I’ve been taught. My body is weak; it aches all over often. Still, I think, Mr. Dale, that souls, such as you talk about, must be exceptions, you know, Like blue eyes, for instance, — everybody hasn’t got blue eyes; well, perhaps everybody hasn’t got a soul. You see that might be how it is. My father would be very angry if you told him he had a soul. And I know he will never let me have one, not even if I could grow it somehow.”

  Reuben Dale was speechless. He gazed at the boy’s small sad face in wonder too great for words. Himself a simple-hearted God-fearing man who had lived all his life at Combmartin, working hard for his daily bread, and entirely contented with his humble lot, he had never heard of the feverish and foolish discussions held in over-populated cities, where deluded men and women shut out God from their consciences, as they shut out the blue sky by the toppling height and close crowding together of their hideous houses, — where the very press teaches blasphemy and atheism, and permits to pass into the hands of the public, with praise and recommendation, such lewd books as might move even a Rabelais to sick abhorrence. And he certainly had never deemed it possible that any form of government could exist in the world, which favoured the bringing-up and education of children without religion. He had heard of France, — but he was not aware that it had eschewed religion from its public schools, and was rapidly becoming a mere forcing-bed for the production of child-thieves, child-murderers, and child-parricides. He believed in England as he believed in God, with that complete and glorious faith in mother-country which makes the nation great, — and it would have been a shock to his steadfast, deeply religious nature, had he been told that even this beloved England of ours, misled by those who should have been her best guardians, was accepting lessons from France in open atheism, ‘Simianism,’ and general ‘free’ morality. Thus, the child that sat before him was a kind of unnatural prodigy to his sight, — the little pale face, framed in an aureole of fair curling hair, might have aptly fitted an angel, — but the elderly manner, the methodical, precise fashion in which this young thing spoke, seemed to honest Reuben ‘uncanny,’ and he ruffled his beard with one hand in dire perplexity, quite taken aback, and at a loss how to continue the conversation. For how could he give any instruction in the art of ‘growing’ a soul? Happily however, a diversion here occurred in the sudden, almost noiseless approach of a tiny girl, with the prettiest little face imaginable, that peered out like a pink rose from under a white ‘poke’ sun-bonnet and a tangle of nut-brown curls, — a little girl who appeared to Lionel’s eyes like a vision of Helen of Troy in miniature, so lovely and dainty was her aspect. He had never been allowed to read any fairy-tales, so he could not liken her to a fairy, which would have been more natural, — but he had done a lot of heavy translation-work in Homer, and he knew that all the heroes in the “Iliad” quarrelled about this Helen, and that she was very beautiful. Therefore he immediately decided that Helen of Troy when she was a little girl (she must have been a little girl once!) was exactly like the charming small person who now came towards him, carrying a wicker basket on her arm, and tripping across graves as delicately as though she were nothing but a blossom blown over them by the summer breeze.

  “Halloa!” exclaimed Reuben Dale, throwing down his spade, “Here’s my little ‘un! Well, my Jas’min flower! Bringin’ a snack for th’ old feyther?”

  At this query the little girl smiled, creating a luminous effect beneath her poke-bonnet as though a sunbeam were caught within it, — then she made a small round O of her tiny red mouth, with the evident intention to thereby convey a hint of something delicious. And finally she opened her basket, and took out a brown jug, full of hot fragrant coffee, lavishly frothed at the top with cream, and two big slices of home-made bread and butter.

  “Is that right, feyther?” she inquired, as she carefully set these delicacies on the edge of the grave within her father’s reach.

  “That’s right, my bird!” — responded Reuben, lifting her in his arms high above his head, and giving her a sounding kiss on both her rosy cheeks as he put her down again— “An’ look ’ere Jessamine, there’s a little gemmun for ye to talk to. Go an’ say how-d’y-do to ’im.”

  Thus commanded, Jessamine obeyed, strictly to the letter. She went to where Lionel sat admiringly watching her, and put out her dumpy mite of a hand.

  “How-d’y-do!” said she. And before Lionel could utter a word in reply she had shaken her curls defiantly, and run away! The boy sprang up, pained and perplexed; — Reuben Dale laughed.

  “After her, my lad! Run! — the run’ll do ye good! She’s just like that at first, — fur all the world like a kitten, fond o’ fun! Ye’ll find ‘er a-hidin’ round the corner!”

  Thus encouraged, Lionel ran, — actually ran, — a thing he very seldom did. He became almost a hero, like the big men of the ‘Iliad’! His ‘Helen’ was ‘a-hidin’ round the corner,’ — he was valiantly determined to find her, — and after dodging the little white sun-bonnet round trees and over tombs till he was well-nigh breathless, she, like all feminine things, condescended to be caught at last, and to look shyly in the face of her youthful captor.

  “What boy be you?” she asked, biting the string of her sun-bonnet with an air of demure coquetry— “You be prutty, — all th’ boys roond ’ere be oogly.”

  Oh, what an accent for a baby ‘Helen of Troy’! — and yet how charming it was to hear her say ‘oogly,’ because she made another of those little round O’s of her mouth that suggested deliciousness; — even the deliciousness of kissing. Lionel thought he would like to kiss her, and coloured hotly at the very idea. Meanwhile his ‘Helen of Troy’ continued her observation of him.

  “Would ‘ee like an aaple?” she demanded, producing a small, very rosy one from the depths of a miniature pocket,— “I’ll gi’ ye this, if s’be ye’se let me bite th’ red bit oot.”

  If ever a young lady looked ‘fetching,’ as the slang phrase expresses it, Miss Jessamine Dale did so at that moment. What with the mischievous light in her dark blue eyes, and the smile on her little mouth as she suggested that she should ‘bite the red bit,’ and the altogether winsome, provocative, innocent allurement of her manner, Lionel quite lost his head for the moment, and forgot everything but the natural facts that he was a little boy, and she was a little girl. He laughed merrily, — such a laugh as he had not enjoyed for many a weary day, — and taking the apple from her hand, held it to her lips while she carefully closed her tiny teeth on the ‘red bit’ and secured it, the juice dropping all over her dimpled chin.

  “I’m to have the rest, am I?” said Lionel then, venturing to hold her by the arm and assist her over a very large and very ancient grave, wherein reposed, as the half-broken tombstone said, “Ye Bodie of Martha Dumphy, Aged Ninety-seven Yeeres.” Long, long ago lived Martha Dumphy, — long, long ago she died, — but could anything of her have still been conscious, she would have felt no offence or sacrilege in the tread of those innocent young feet that sprang so lightly over her last resting-place.

  “Yes, you’re to ‘ave the rest,” — replied Jessamine benevolently, — then with an infinite slyness and humour she added— “I’ve got ‘nuther i’ my poacket!”

  How they laughed, to be sure! Forgetful of ‘Ye Bodie of Martha Dumphy,’ they sat down on the grass that covered her old bones, and enjoyed their apples to the full, Miss Jessamine generously bestowing the ‘red bit’ of the second apple on Lionel, who, though he was not really hungry, found something curiously appetising in these stray morsels of juicy fruit lately plucked from the tree.

  “Coom into th’ church,” — then said Jessamine, “Feyther’s left the door open. Coom an’ see th’ big lilies on th’ Lord’s table.”

  Lionel looked into her lovely little face, feeling singularly embarrassed by this invitation. He knew what she meant of course, — he had been duly instructed in the form of the Christi
an ‘myth,’ as a myth only, in company with all the other creeds known to history. They had been bracketed together for his study and consideration in a group of twelve, thus: —

  1. Of Phta, and the Egyptian mythology.

  2. Of Brahma, Vishnu and the Hindoo Cults.

  3. Of the Chaldean and Phœnician creeds.

  4. Of the Greek and Roman gods.

  5. Of Buddha and Buddhism.

  6. Of Confucius and the Chinese sects.

  7. Of the Mexican mythology.

  8. Of Odin and the Norse beliefs.

  9. Of Mohammedanism and the Koran.

  10. Of the Talmud, and Jewish tradition.

  11. Of Christ, and the gradual founding of the Christian myth on the relics of Greek and Roman Paganism.

  12. Of the Advance of Positivism and Pure Reason, in which all these creeds are proved to be without foundation, and merely serving as obstacles to the Intellectual Progress of Man.

  The above ‘schedule’ had formed a very special and particular part of Lionel’s education, and he had been carefully taught that only semi-barbarians believed nowadays in anything divine or super-natural. The intellectual classes fully understood, so he was told, that there was no God, and that the First Cause of the universe was merely an Atom, productive of other atoms which moved in circles of fortuitous regularity, shaping worlds indifferently, and without any Mind-force whatever behind the visible Matter. Thus had the intellectual classes fathomed the Eternal, entirely to their own satisfaction, — and of course he, poor little Lionel, was being brought up to take his place among the intellectual classes, where his father was already a shining light of dogmatic pedantry. He was assured that only the poor, the ignorant, and the feeble-minded still appealed to God as “Our Father,” and believed in the socialist workman, Jesus of Nazareth, as a Divine Personage whose way of life and death had shown all men the road to Heaven. One of the chief faults found with Willie Montrose as a tutor, had been his implicit faith in these supernatural things, and his point-blank refusal to teach his young pupil otherwise. Hence the subject, Religion, had been removed altogether from Lionel’s ‘course of study,’ and the unswerving firmness Montrose had shown on the matter had led, among other more trifling drawbacks, to his dismissal. All this was fresh in the boy’s mind, — and now Jessamine said “Coom an’ see th’ big lilies on th’ Lord’s table!” She, then, was one of the ‘semi- barbarians,’ this pretty little girl, — and yet how happy she seemed! — what an innocent, dove-like expression of tenderness and trust shone in her eyes as she spoke! How very young she was! — and alas, how very old he felt as he looked at her! She knew so little, — he had learned so much, and though he was but four years her senior, he seemed in his own pained consciousness to be an elderly man studying the merry pranks of a child.

  “Coom!” repeated Jessamine, — her ‘coom’ sounding very like the soft note of a ring-dove, as she got up from the grassy bed of ‘Martha Dumphy’s’ everlasting sleep— “It be cool i’ th’ church, — we’ll sit i’ th’ poopit an’ y’ shall tell me a story ‘bout Heaven. Y’ know all ‘bout angels don’t ‘ee? How they cooms down all in white an kisses us when we’se in bed asleep? Did ever any of ’em kiss ‘ee?”

  Lionel’s lonely little heart beat strangely. An angel kiss him! — what a sweet fancy, — but how foolish! Yet with Jessamine’s face so near his own he could not tell her that he did not believe in angels, she looked so like a little one herself. So he answered her quaint question with a simple

  “No!”

  “I woul’ ha’ thowt they did,” — continued Jessamine encouragingly— “Ye bain’t a bad boy, be ye?”

  Lionel smiled rather plaintively.

  “Perhaps I am” — he said,— “and perhaps that’s why the angels don’t come.”

  “My mother’s an angel,” went on Jessamine, “She couldn’t abear bein’ away from God no longer, an’ so she flew to Heaven one night quite suddint, with big white wings an’ a star on her head. Feyther says she often flies doon jes’ for a minute like, an’ kisses ’im, an’ me too, when we’se asleep. Auntie Kate takes care of us since she went.”

  “Then she is dead?” queried Lionel.

  “Nowt o’ that,” — replied Jessamine peacefully, “Hasn’t I told ‘ee she’s an angel?”

  “But have you ever seen her since she went away?” persisted the boy.

  “No. I bain’t good enough,” — and a small sigh of pathetic self-reproach heaved the baby breast— “I’se very little yet, an’ bad offen. But I’ll see her some day for sure.”

  Lionel could find nothing to say to this, and in another minute they had entered the church together. The subtle sweet fragrance of the ‘big lilies on th’ Lord’s table’ came floating towards them on a cool breath of air as the heavy old oaken door swung open and closed again, and they paused in the aisle, hand in hand, looking gravely up and down, — first at the tall white flowers that filled the gilt vases on either side of the altar, mystically suggesting in their snowy stateliness, the words ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’; — then, at the patterns of blue, red and amber cast on the stone pavement by the reflections of the sun through the stained-glass windows. The ancient roof, with its crookedly planned oak mouldings of the very earliest English style of architecture, had a grave and darkening effect on the sunshine, and the solemn hush of the place, expressive of past prayer, impressed Lionel with a sweet yet unfamiliar sense of rest. Jessamine grasped his hand closer.

  “Coom into th’ poopit,” — she whispered— “There be soft cushions there an’ a big big Bible, — I’ll show ‘ee a pictur,” — here she opened her eyes very wide— “my pictur! — my own very best pictur!”

  Somewhat curious to see this treasure, Lionel climbed with her up the pulpit-stairs, feeling that he was really having what might be called an adventure on this his stolen holiday. Jessamine was evidently quite familiar with the pulpit as a coign of vantage, for she hauled the big Bible she had spoken of out of its recess with much care and much breathless labour, and placed it on a velvet cushion on the floor. Then she curled herself down beside it and, turning over a few pages, beckoned Lionel to kneel and look also.

  “Here ’tis!” she said with a soft chuckle of rapture— “See! See this prutty boy! — you’s somethin’ a bit like, aint’y? An’ see all these oogly ole men! They’se wise people, so they thinks. An’ th’ prutty boy’s tellin’ ’em how silly they be, an’ aw’ in a muddle wi’ their books an’ larnin,’ — an’ how good God is, an’ all ‘bout Heaven, — see! An’ they’se very angry wi’m an’ ‘stonished, ‘cos He’s onny a boy, an’ they’se all ole men as cross as sticks. An’ there He is y’see, an’ He knows all about what they oogly men doan’t know, ‘cos He’s the little Jesus.”

  The subject of the picture was Christ expounding the Law to the doctors of the Temple, and Lionel studied it with an almost passionate interest. Only a boy! — and yet in His boyhood He was able to teach the would-be wise men of His day! “Though,” thought Lionel, with his usual melancholy cynicism, “perhaps they were not really wise, and that is why He found it easy.”

  Meanwhile Jessamine having gloated over her ‘own best pictur’ sufficiently, shut the book, put it religiously back in its place, and sat herself down beside her companion on the top step of the pulpit-stair.

  “Wot’s y’ name?” she demanded.

  “Lionel,” he answered.

  “Li’nel? How funny! Wot’s Li’nel? ‘Tain’t a flower?”

  “No. Your name is a flower.”

  “‘Iss! Our jess’mine tree was all over bloom the mornin’ I was born, an’ that’s why I’m called Jessamine. I likes my name better’n your’n.”

  “So do I,” said Lionel smiling— “Mine is not nearly such a pretty name. My mother calls me Lylie.”

  “I likes that, — that’s prutty, — I’se call’y Lylie too,” declared Miss Jessamine promptly, and as she spoke she slipped an arm confidingly round
his neck— “You be a nice boy Lylie! Now tell me a story!”

  CHAPTER V.

  LIONEL gazed at her in deeper perplexity than ever. What story could he tell her? He knew none that were likely to charm or interest a creature so extremely young. It was very delightful to feel her warm chubby arm round his neck, and to see her dear little face so close to his own, and he thought, as he looked, that he had never seen such beautiful blue eyes before, not even his mother’s, which he had, till now, considered beautiful enough. But Jessamine’s eyes had such heavenly sweetness in their liquid depths, and something moreover beyond mere sweetness, — the untroubled light of a spotless innocence such as sometimes makes the softly-tinted cup of a woodland flower remind one involuntarily of a child’s eyes. Only a very few flowers convey this impression, — the delicate azure circle of the hepatica, — the dark purple centre of the pansy, — the pensive blue of the harebell, — the frank smiling sky-tint of the forget-me-not, or the iris-veined heart of the Egyptian lotus. But the child-look is in such blossoms, and we often recognise it when we come suddenly upon them peering heavenwards out of the green tangles of grass and fern. Jessamine’s eyes were a mixture of grave pansy-hues and laughing forget-me-nots, and when she smiled both these flowers appeared to meet with a pretty rivalry in her shining glances. And once again Lionel thought of Helen of Troy.

  “Ain’t ‘ee got no story?” quoth she presently, after waiting a patient two minutes— “What book be that there?”

  And she put a dumpy little red finger on the copy of Homer left behind by Willie Montrose and still carried under Lionel’s arm.

  “It’s Homer,” replied the boy promptly— “My tutor went away by the first coach this morning and he forgot to take it with him. It’s his book, and a favourite copy, — I must send it to him by post.”

  “‘Iss,— ‘ee must send it to him,” echoed Jessamine approvingly— “What be ‘Omer?”

  “He was a great poet, — the first great poet that ever lived, so far as history knows, and he was an ancient Greek,” — explained Lionel— “He lived — oh, ages ago. He tells all about the Trojan wars in this book; it’s an epic.”