The wind continued to howl and sigh, and he continued to sit in apparent idleness, twisting his pen in his fingers, and wondering — wondering — not what he should preach next Sunday, but rather what he should do with his life. He could only live once — at any rate on this planet — and must he make of that ‘once’ — nothing but Shadbrook?
“Yet why not?” he argued to himself— “The people here need to be drawn to God — need to be taught and helped — just as much as the millions out in the wider world. Sometimes — yes! — sometimes I feel that they — in their simple way of accepting without question a faith which they really do not understand — are nearer the truth than I am. And yet again — I cannot but feel sure that the Creator meant us to use all our faculties in the comprehension of His sublime intentions towards us — and that a merely blind unreasoning submission is more of an affront to Him than a service.”
At this juncture the door of his study was gently pushed open, and a lovely face peered in at him.
“Are you very busy, Dick?” asked a coaxing voice, sweet as honey— “Or may I come in just one minute?”
He threw down his pen and sprang up from his chair with a quick sigh of relief.
“One minute isn’t long enough!” he declared, going to meet his wife as she entered, and taking her in his arms— “Come and stay half an hour! I want you, Azalea — I want you badly!” Here he looked down into her tender eyes. “I want a kiss, too,” — and he suited the action to the word— “I’ve had a touch of the blues.”
“Oh, poor boy!” And Azalea put up a little white hand and stroked his cheek caressingly— “You mustn’t! It’s the weather — I’m sure it’s the weather. And it’s all horrid — but, Dick, you’ll have to go out in the rain, I’m afraid! There’s been a very bad fight in the village — and that dreadful man, Kiernan, has nearly killed his wife! Isn’t it awful?”
She smiled angelically, and her eyes twinkled with a kind of sparkle — whether of tears or laughter, it would have been hard to say.
He loosened her from his clasp, and his face grew pale and stern.
“Kiernan again!” he said— “I must go at once, Azalea. He is a dangerous customer.”
She looked at him questioningly, as he hastily swept his letters and papers together.
“Were you writing your sermon, darling?” she inquired.
“No — that is, I was trying to think about it — but really, I’m afraid my brain isn’t as clear as it might be. I am not quite sure what I ought to say sometimes — and I feel anxious about it, — almost as if I were not altogether doing my duty.”
“Oh, Dick!” And Azalea looked reproachfully amazed— “How can you say such a thing! Your sermons are simply bee-autiful! Perfectly lovely! You know they are!”
He took her pretty face between his two hands and kissed it again.
“I know nothing of the sort, little wife!” he said— “I feel myself to be dull and heavy. And helpless, too, Azalea! — that’s the worst of it — helpless, for I cannot keep even Kiernan from the public-house.”
With this, he hurriedly left his study and went out into the hall. His wife followed him, and watched him rather wistfully as he put on his thickest great-coat, and looked about for his umbrella.
“After all, Dick,” she said— “how can you keep people from the public-house as long as Minchin has that ‘beer club’ where everybody who takes a ticket gets a big barrel of beer at Christmas all to themselves? It’s too much to ask of a clergyman that he should be answerable for temperance as well as religion.”
“Azalea, my dear, religion and temperance ought to go together — and there’s no getting over the fact. When men are drunkards, they have not understood the meaning of religion, or else religion has not appealed to them in the way it should do. The very Hindoo scorns to soil himself with so degrading a vice as drunkenness.”
“The Hindoo is perhaps not under the dominance of the brewer,” murmured Azalea.
“Dominance? My dear child, no reasonable man should allow himself to be ‘dominated’ by anything or any one. It’s a sign of weakness. And of course a drunkard is weak, morally and physically — only what I mean is, that religion — the religion of Christ — should be able to impress and control the weak as well as the strong. Now I’m off. Don’t wait luncheon — I may be detained.”
He pressed his hat well down over his brows as he opened the street door and faced the bitter driving wind.
“Don’t stand in the draught, Azalea,” — he called— “You’ll catch cold. Good-bye.”
‘Good-bye! Come back as quickly as you can,” she responded. And shutting the door after him with a little bang, she re-entered the house and began to sing softly to herself as she flitted here and there, giving graceful touches of her own to the various ornaments about the pretty drawing-room, — rearranging the flowers, which were scarce at this season and had to be cared for tenderly, — and generally amusing herself in her own way before going up to the nursery to superintend the dinner of the ever interesting baby, who was now promoted to the dignity of being called by his nurse, ‘Master Laurence.’ Master Laurence was so named after Azalea’s ‘father, who had been in his time a noted literary man, but who, worn out by the patient evolvement of great teachings for the benefit of an ungrateful and forgetful world, had died, more of sheer tiredness than anything else, some two years before his daughter’s marriage. Azalea had never understood him in the least, but in her pretty caressing way she had loved him, while his fond admiration of her had amounted almost to idolatry. When she laughed perplexedly over the learned books he wrote, he was more delighted than if he had received a column of carping praise from the most prominent growler in all the critical world. Sometimes his poor heart ached a little, as he realized that all his best work must forever remain a sealed book to this, his only child, who in her easy lightness of mind and disposition could not comprehend why any one should ever think about anything.
“It’s so stupid!” she would say, with a charming pout, “All the thinking in the world does no good! Such crowds of wise men have lived and written all sorts of books — and nobody seems a bit the better!”
However, when poor Laurence died, his daughter was as sorry as she was frightened. Her mother had passed to the better world when she was barely six months old, — so that this was her first conscious experience of the grim visitation of the King of Terrors. She hated it, — she recoiled with shuddering fear from the quiet grandeur of her father’s form, composed rigidly into that slumber from which there is no more waking in this world, — she shivered and cried at the solemn black paraphernalia of the funeral — and looked like a poor weak little snowdrop in her heavy mourning gown. It was while she was yet in the snowdrop state that Richard Everton first met her at the house of a mutual friend where she had been invited to stay for change and solace after her bereavement, — and she had comforted herself with his love, just as a small kitten might comfort itself in the arms of a kind protector. It was delightful to find another man ready to pet and make much of her as her late father had done, — it was all she wanted in life, — and of the graver duties and responsibilities of marriage she took no thought. Richard was kind and nice and not bad-looking, — Richard had just got a ‘living’ — and what was best of all, Richard was ‘perfectly devoted’ — this was her own expression — perfectly devoted to her. And gradually the effect of her father’s death wore off — she forgot him more and more completely — till, when her baby was born, a sudden rush of tender recollection flowed in upon her mind, and she said, with tears sparkling in her pretty eyes: —
“We must call him Laurence! Oh yes, Dick! We must call him Laurence, after poor dear old Dad!”
Her adoring husband made no objection, — if it had been her wish to christen the child Zedekiah, it is probable that in his doting condition of mind he would have consented. The name of ‘Laurence,’ however, seemed to suit the boy with the serious eyes and expression of angel intellectualit
y; — and sometimes Everton, who had read many of the books written by the dead Thinker whose work his daughter had laughed at, wondered whether his spirit had become reincarnated in his infant namesake, who already looked so wise beyond all earthly years. Moved by this thought, he one day expressed it to his wife, albeit remotely.
“I do believe, Azalea, that our Laurence will be as clever a man as your father was.”
She uttered a little cry of alarm.
“Oh, I hope not!” she said, with delightful earnestness— “It’s so dreadful to be clever, Dick! You don’t know how dreadful it is! Nobody likes you!”
He smiled.
“You quaint wee woman! Do you want the boy to be a fool, then?”
“He couldn’t be a fool!” declared Azalea warmly— “Of course he couldn’t. But I hope he won’t be clever! If you had known poor Dad, you would understand what I mean. A clever man is really a pitiable object! — he is, Dick! — perfectly pitiable! He always wants what he cannot get — and he sees everything going wrong and he wants to put it right, and of course he cant put it right, — not in Air way, because everybody wants to do it another way — and oh! — it’s just awful! And he writes and writes, and lectures and lectures, and gets dyspepsia and headaches and gout, and dreadful things — and never enjoys himself one ‘bit — how can he — ?”
Richard laughed aloud.
“My dear little wife, you’re talking at random!” he said indulgently— “You don’t understand the inward joys of a man who has mind and soul and imagination — —”
“Oh, don’t!” and Azalea covered her shell-pink ears with her pretty white hands— “I don’t want to hear anything about mind and soul or imagination! I want baby to be just — Baby!”
And so it was decreed. Baby — at least for the present — remained Baby — and it was only Nurse Tompkins who called him ‘Master Laurence.’ Nurse Tomkins knew him better even than his parents, and had become much impressed by his personal dignity. This he showed in various ways of his own. For example, he disliked all dirty things, and was only content with perfect cleanliness. Certain pictures in the nursery he strove to hide from his eyes with one tiny chubby hand, and as this gesture was not quite understood by his elders, he managed to clamber up on his cot, and tear them down. They were not objectionable pictures, but they were unnatural — that is to say, they were ‘nursery’ pictures, of the kind which are called by the publishers of Christmas numbers, ‘suitable for children.’ There were fat infants petting impossible lambs — and red-faced peasants carrying pale pink dogs in their arms — all of which abnormal creatures moved Master Laurence to quiet scorn. Azalea was always hearing of some curious and original deed on the part of her son, — but she paid very little attention to any of the signs and symptoms of his possible future mental development. All she thought of was that he was Her baby — her own, her very awn beautiful baby! — and her chief idea was that he must be fed well, and have his own way whenever it was possible. This was the business of the day for her — the business upon which she set all her energies — baby’s food. Baby’s brain and baby’s thoughts were — to use her own frank parlance—’ utter nonsense.’ If asked, she would have said with the most charming assumption of maternal wisdom, that a child of two has no brain worth considering, and no thoughts worth thinking. That was her opinion. Nurse Tomkins entertained quite a different view of the matter, being a trained woman whose life had been spent with children of all sorts, sickly and healthy, bright and dull, and who had studied their moods and manners with close and sympathetic attention. She was affectionately interested in her charge and said of him to her own special friends— “Master Laurence is a wonderful child! He will be a great man!”
But Azalea thought no such thing. She thought, in fact, as little about the mental development of her small son as she did of the ‘soul’ (if he had one) of the troublesome Kiernan, whose drunken delinquencies had summoned her husband out of his peaceful study into the wind and rain on this cross and cloudy March morning. She was perfectly happy in herself — she had never wanted more than a home, a husband, and a baby; — and she had all three. Nothing further existed in the universe, so far as she was concerned. And as soon as she had finished ‘dusting the drawing-room,’ — which was one of the little duties she imposed on herself, regardless of the fact that the housemaid had always dusted it perfectly beforehand, — she tripped up to the nursery, singing as she went, full of a careless gayety, being so happily constituted as to be indifferent to any troubles in which she did not share. And, after all, it is fortunate that the greater majority of women are even as she, — and that few of them have the finer perception and power to look beyond the circle of their own comfortable surroundings into the speechless miseries of the wider world.
CHAPTER II
MEANTIME, while the pleasures of peaceful and contented domesticity reigned in his household, the Vicar himself was hurrying through the mist and rain to the village — not to the ancient stone-built part of it, but, strange to say, to the ‘model ‘portion, where the cottages were so pretty and so cosily devised with porches and little separate gardens to each, that one would have thought it impossible for any man dwelling in such comfortable quarters so far to forget himself as to come home drunk at any time of day, much less in the morning before twelve o’clock. However, such had been the case with the individual called Kiernan — a huge, hulking creature with enormous square shoulders and thick bull head, who now leaning his powerful arms folded across the bars of his cottage gate, looked up with a drowsy scowl as he saw the Vicar approaching. Two or three other men were hanging sheepishly about, and a little knot of women, with shawls over their heads, were grouped in the road, heedless of the pouring rain, talking together, their faces expressing a vague and pitiful terror. Everton walked straight up to Kiernan and addressed him at once without parley.
“What’s the matter here?” he asked in a quiet voice— “May I come in?”
The man eyed him over with a stupid leer.
“No — you mayn’t” — he replied thickly, “A ‘Glishman’s ‘ouse’s ’is castle! Go ‘way!”
Everton looked at him steadily.
“Now, Kiernan, you know you don’t mean that,” — he said gently— “What, man! — you and I are old friends, aren’t we? I heard you wanted me.”
Kiernan blinked at him suspiciously.
“Who told ye as I wanted ye?” he asked.
“My wife did,” — the clergyman answered simply— “Come now, Kiernan! — let me in — I want to speak to you privately—”
“Ye wants to preach to me, eh?” said Kiernan— “But ye woan’t do it! — no, not by a long chalk! I knows you parson lot — whinin’, no-drink, snivellin’ beggars all of ’em! Drunk? O’ course, I’m drunk? What else should I be? Drunk an’ ‘appy in it! Drunk an’ ‘appy in it! There!”
And he made a thrust with his fist into space furiously, as though he knocked down an imaginary enemy. Everton paused a moment. Looking round among the group of villagers who stood hanging back, ashamed and inert, he said in a low tone: —
“Is there anything really wrong? Has he hurt his wife?” A woman came forward and volunteered the answer.
“Yes, sir — I’m afraid so — at least as far as we can tell. There was words — an’ she ran out o’ the cottage screaming — and then ran in again, and then we heard a terrible groan, — and — and we’re afraid she’s very bad—”
“She’s in there!” said Kiernan suddenly, then, waking as if from a dull reverie— “She’s ‘ad a good ‘un this time!” He began to laugh thickly, — then with a quick change from obstinacy to maudlin mildness, he removed his arms from the gate— “Come in all of ye if ye likes! She’s all right! Come in, Mister Parson! Come in! ‘Adn’t expected so much company, but never mind — there ain’t no grudgin’ where Dan Kiernan is! He gives it fair all round! Come in!”
He fell back and reeled on one side. Everton caught him by the arm.
“You’re ill, Kiernan!” he said kindly, “With a worse illness than you know. Keep steady!”
The wretched man stared vaguely at nothing, and began to laugh again.
“I’m or’right!” he stuttered— “Or’right, Mister Jack Sniveller! Right and ‘appy as a king! You lemme alone!”
He wrenched himself free from Everton’s hold and staggering up to his own cottage fell heavily on one of the little seats in the porch. Everton left him there, and pushing open the door went into the cottage itself, — where the first thing that met his eyes was the unconscious body of a woman face downward on the ground. With an exclamation of horror and pity, he strove to raise her, but in vain — then, stepping outside the house again beckoned to some of the villagers who were hanging round the place waiting to know the worst. They came at his bidding, and pressed into the little dwelling, past Kiernan, who seemed now to be in a heavy stupor. Lifting the insensible woman between them, they laid her on her bed — and then remained in a frightened group staring at the ghastly stains of blood on her mouth, while one neighbor, more practical than the rest, fetching a sponge and a bowl of cold water, bathed the poor creature’s forehead and tried to bring her back to consciousness. Everton stood by the bedside, gazing down upon the pitiful sight with a stern sorrow graven on his own face. This was what the sacred tie of marriage meant to many of the laboring classes! — this brutality and degradation of woman, by men who, when muddled by drink, were lower in their passions than the beasts they drove to the shambles!
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 701