Everton shook his head.
“Does any one comprehend?” he asked wistfully— “Would you swear that any one has ever comprehended the Glory of the Unseen? That Glory which all our Churches feebly try to symbolize? — a Glory you and I feel, but cannot put into words?”
He spoke with emotion. Douay looked at him sympathetically.
“You should have been a monk, my excellent friend!” he said, with a genial smile— “You should have lived long ago, in the ages of faith, in one of the quiet gray monasteries where the beautiful sculptured cloisters permit the sunlight and moonlight to scatter through their arches bright glimpses of heaven — you should have had visions, and dreamed dreams like St. Anthony of Padua — and you would have embraced the Divine Infant and seen the Holy Grail! Yes — you should have been a monk — or another Galahad!”
A pale flush crept up to the Vicar’s brows.
“No — I have nothing of a Galahad in me,” — he said— “I am quite a commonplace man — just an ordinary country parson, — there are hundreds of us living our lives in little out-of-the-way moss-grown English villages, like tortoises in old gardens. We crawl along in accustomed grooves and sleep in the warm sun, — while out in the dusty high-roads of the world our Divine Master is being tried, condemned, and crucified in shame a second time! And we do nothing — nothing!”
His voice shook — his hand trembled; he was profoundly moved.
“My good Richard,” said Douay gently— “I believe you are truly a faithful lover of Our Lord! I believe you would sacrifice your very life for Him — even in these days!”
“Even in these days I would,” — Everton answered— “But I am not found worthy.”
Many a time they reverted to this kind of intimate and serious conversation, and found in the exchange of each other’s thoughts and ideals a singularly comforting sympathy. Everton soon learned that the good little priest’s devotion to his Church was neither narrow nor bigoted, but broadly simple and loyally obedient. His views were, that as by far the greater majority of humankind are ignorant, materialistic, selfish and superstitious, it was well that there should be a Church, made mystic and powerful by the claims of ancient history and accumulated legend, that should hold that greater majority in its grip, and move them to salutary fear by its judgments.
“If all men were philosophers, astronomers and scientists,” he said one day— “it would be a different matter. If every human being were so deeply cultured and thoughtful as to be able to follow and study the intricate workings of nature, and the magnificent order, physical, material and spiritual of the Universe, there would be no need for any church at all. God would be made manifest in His Creation, — Christ’s mission would be fulfilled, and the ‘Kingdom’ for which we pray ‘Come’ — would have arrived. But no! — this will never be. And why? Because it is not intended to be. The big mass of ignorance must always be there. Without it there would be no stimulus for wise men. And for this great mass, my Church with its pretty legends, and its worship of womanhood in the person of the Virgin Mary — and its admiration of ideal virtues as in the honor paid to Saints, is a picturesque means of raising the brutish mind to a leetle higher than the brute. That is all I say.”
Everton did not contest these points with his friend, for he felt there was some sense in the arguments propounded. Lack of ‘ideals’ — lack of all devout feeling or enthusiasm for the service of Christ was plainly evinced among the rustic people whom it was his task to spiritually control, — and he had found that the conventional setting forth of the orthodox doctrines of Original Sin and the Divine Atonement was to them what they called ‘muddlesome’ — and if it brought them, out of habit, to church on Sundays, it certainly did not keep them away from the public-house on week-days. But he plodded on patiently in his round of duty, — resigned, yet hopeful that perhaps a time would come when the Power that had called him into being and placed him in his particular position, would show him what use his life could be in a world already too full of preachers and teachers whose efforts, for the most part, seem to be in vain.
In the middle of this particularly warm and dazzling month the little Laurence celebrated his fifth birthday. He was growing so fast, and at the same time mastering the baby imperfections of his speech so quickly that he was more like a boy of seven or eight than a child of five. He had begun to read, and could write in a very clear large round hand, and he showed an eager rapacity for books of all kinds — books with and without pictures — books full of long words which he could not spell, and books full of short words which he learned with marvelous ease and quickness. People said he was ‘precocious,’ because he was of a thoughtful and serious disposition, though he could be merry enough when he chose. But often when his father and mother were talking together, they would find him listening to them earnestly, with a line of close attention furrowed on his brow, and his eyes full of a wistful wonder. He seemed to be always puzzling over things beyond his comprehension — as indeed he was. Once he asked quite suddenly —
“Mummy, how did I corned here?”
She laughed.
“Darling, what do you mean?”
“I mean, how was I hom’d?”
She lifted the fair inquiring face between her two hands and kissed it.
“An angel brought you to me straight from Heaven!” she said.
“Where’s the angel now?” he pursued.
“Gone back to Heaven,” — she answered.
“Where’s Heaven?”
She folded her arms closely round him.
“It’s a beautiful world,” — she said— “Where God lives. We shall all go there some day.”
“Will you go?”
“I hope so!”
“Soon?”
She was a little startled.
“Well — not quite soon — perhaps,’’ — she murmured— “I don’t want to leave you and Dad—”
“Couldn’t we go with you?”
She was silent. There was a coldness at her heart, — she was thinking how hard it was, how cruelly hard, that she — that her husband — and that her beautiful boy — should all have to die! Why live at all, why love at all — if only to end thus!
“Couldn’t we?” persisted Laurence— “Let’s all go to God, Mummy! He must be such a nice man!”
Poor Azalea felt very uncomfortable, and her cheeks reddened.
“Darling, He’s not a man!” she said nervously.
“Isn’t He? What is He?”
I — I can’t explain— “stammered Azalea, desperately.
“Can’t I love Him?”
“Yes,” — and she caught at this eagerly— “Yes, indeed, dear, — you can love Him — you must love Him!”
“Can I kiss Him?”
“I — I — don’t know — oh, Laurence, you mustn’t ask me so many questions!”
Laurence looked, as he felt, bewildered.
“Well, if God lives in a beautiful world where we’re all going, and is nice and kind, I shall kiss Him!” he said firmly, “Just as I kiss Dad. He would like me to.”
Azalea here terminated the conversation abruptly. It was becoming too great a strain on her mind.
One afternoon, after many hours spent in superintending the planting and arranging of fresh beds of flowers with the gardener, an old man who took considerable delight in ‘wasting his time with the missus’ as he termed his labors under Azalea’s direction, the pretty little woman ran into her husband’s study like a vision from fairyland, clad in diaphanous white, a becoming big straw hat tied under her chin with a blue ribbon, and a picturesque brown rush basket swinging on her arm.
“I suppose you’re too busy to come out primrosing with me?” she said.
He laid down his pen, rose from his desk, and surveyed her with admiring tenderness.
“How lovely you look!” he exclaimed— “What a pretty frock! And that hat! Why, Azalea, you are positively bewitching to-day!”
She laughed with plea
sure.
“It’s only cheap muslin,” — she said, with a condescending downward glance at the dainty frills and flounces of her dress, “But I had it made as though it were quite expensive — as though it had come from Paris! That’s the art of it, Dick! — pure trickiness! And I trimmed the hat myself.”
“And you’re going primrosing?” he queried, fondly drawing her into his arms— “With Laurence?”
“No, Laurence has been playing about all day, and he’s just going to have his tea. I thought you might perhaps like to come out with me?”
“I’ll come with pleasure if you wish it, darling,” — he answered— “But — if you didn’t mind — I rather wanted to finish what I’m about—”
“Sunday’s sermon?” she queried, with a playful arching of her brows.
He nodded, smiling.
“Sunday’s sermon! I think I’ve got one or two good suggestions in it.”
“Good suggestions! And do you think the Shadbrook people will care for them?”
“That’s nothing to do with it,” he answered— “I want to give comfort if I can.”
She took a rosebud out of a bunch she wore pinned at her bosom and slipped it into his buttonhole.
“Do you know, Dick, I find more comfort in this beautiful warm weather, and in the garden and the woods than in all the sermons ever preached!” she said, laughingly— “Even your sermons included! Am I not wicked?”
He patted the small white hand that hovered round the rosebud in his coat.
“No, not wicked at all!” he declared— “If I were a fanciful instead of a dull, prosaic man, I should say that all the sunbeams and blossoms were God’s own ‘sermons’ or hopeful messages to sweet women.”
“That’s pretty!” and she smiled— “But the loveliest blossoms soon wither — and so do the women! There’s not much of a ‘hopeful message’ in that fact!”
“Well, it will be a long time before you wither!” he said gayly, and he kissed the charming upturned face— “I never saw you looking better than you do to-day.”
“I’m glad you think me so fascinating!” and she gave him a demure little smile and curtsey— “But you must please understand that I haven’t dressed for you, sir! Father Douay,” — here she laughed— “I love to call him father! — is coming to dine with us.”
“Oh, is that it? All the finery is for him! And the primroses too?”
“Not exactly for him — for the table,” — she answered— “I’ve made a pretty green silk center, and I’m going to arrange primroses all round — heaps of primroses just fresh out of the woods. Don’t you see?”
“I see!” and still smiling, he held her round the waist with one arm and looked at her long and earnestly— “You are very sweet, Azalea!” he said— “And I love you more and more every day!”
“Do you?” she murmured— “Sure?”
“Sure!” he answered— “I’m not jealous of Douay!”
“You’ve no cause to be!” and she laughed merrily. “He’s only just a dear old thing!”
“Just a dear old thing, eh?” echoed Richard— “Well, that’s expressive! And what am I?”
A sudden beautiful tenderness illumined her dark blue eyes.
“You are my husband,” — she said— “My husband, my darling and my best in the whole world! That’s what you are, Dick!” And she stretched herself up on tiptoe to kiss him. “Oh dear! I often think when we’re all in church praying to God to take us to heaven, how very disagreeable it would be to have to die and leave you and Laurence! What’s the good of heaven to a wife who has left her husband on earth?”
“If she loved her husband very much, it might seem lonely— “he began to answer.
“It wouldn’t seem — it would be lonely,” — she interrupted him, with a decisive shake of her fair head— “It would be simply horrible! For instance, suppose it were me, I should want you all the time, and if I had any eyes I should cry them out for you and Laurence — I know I should! Now really, Dick,” — and she looked very serious— “you surely don’t think heaven could be a true heaven with no one in it that you love? Would you like a heaven without me?”
“I’d rather go to — the other place!” he answered promptly— “My dear child, don’t bother your little head with these ideas! Go and gather your primroses and don’t be long!”
“You won’t come?”
He considered a minute, and glanced at his watch. It was half-past four.
“Which way are you going?”
“Into the hazel copse and the little wood beyond.”
“Won’t you be trespassing?” he asked, half laughingly— “Doesn’t the little wood belong to Minchin?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” — she answered lightly— “He can’t stop the public right of way, and all the children pick primroses there.”
“Well, perhaps I’ll come and meet you on your way back,” he said— “I shall have finished work in about an hour.”
“All right! Good-by!”
“Good-by for the present!”
She turned to leave the room and he called her back again. “Azalea!”
“Yes, Dick!”
“Can you spare me another kiss?”
She laughed, and ran gayly into his arms.
“Sentimental Dick!” she said— “You are always like a lover! When will you be tired of me?”
“Never!” he answered— “Not even, ‘when the sun grows cold, and the leaves of the Judgment-book unfold’!” She shivered a little.
“Don’t talk of the sun growing cold!” she said— “It seems so cruel on such a glorious day!”
He kissed her, and let her go. At the door she looked round and waved her hand.
“Good-by!” said she.
“Good-by, darling!”
He seated himself anew at his desk, and waited a minute or two, half expecting to see her pass the study window on her way through the garden. But she did not reappear. And he settled his mind steadily to write, evolving many more thoughts as he worked than he found it expedient to set down for the benefit of the Shadbrook villagers, who cared little for anything a mere ‘parson’ might try to teach them, and understood less.
Azalea meanwhile went down through the garden and out into the village street, from thence making a short cut by the bridge over a stile and across a field into a little thicket, overgrown with shrubs and brambles and carpeted with last year’s fallen leaves, through which the yellow tips of primrose-buds were faintly showing. But though she paused here for a moment looking around her, she did not linger, because this particular copse was too near the village, and she knew that the Shadbrook children had been there before her, plucking all the finest and fairest blossoms. She walked on quickly for about half a mile, and then began to climb a slight ascent at the summit of which were extensive patches of closely growing wood, spreading upward and away for a considerable distance, and here between the network of branches, through which the warm afternoon sunlight flickered in streaks of rosy fire, thousands of primroses were out in all their fresh beauty, like ‘coins from the mintage of the Spring.’ Throwing off her hat for greater ease, and also out of a pardonably vain idea that the sun might help to brighten the already bright tints of her hair, she began to pick the flowers leisurely, putting them together in dainty bunches and singing softly in her sweet small voice as she moved from one fragrant cluster to another, and unconsciously strolling higher and higher up through the woods, and further and further from Shadbrook:
“Dere’s a breakin’ in de clouds an’ de stars am showin’,
Oh, meet me in de corn when de wind am blowin’!”
She hummed the old ‘coon’ song under her breath as she bent over the bright primroses, and then with a quantity of them in her hands, sat down among the dry brown leaves to pack them more closely in her basket, which was soon more than half full. A warm, soft breeze played among her uncovered fair locks like a caress from heaven, — the trill of an unseen skylark s
hook the air with melody — and everywhere around her the birds were calling to one another in love-notes of fresh and penetrating sweetness. She made a perfect picture sitting under the delicately budding boughs, the sunlight glinting among the withered leaves that covered the earth, turning them to hues of copper and gold at her feet; and an artist would have been glad to have painted her as a study of sweet English womanhood, the sister and fitting companion of the sweet English spring.
She was a little tired, and a vague sense of sadness oppressed her. It was all very lovely, she thought, but very dull. If Richard could have come out with her she would have enjoyed it more.
“Poor old Dick!” she sighed— “It must be horrid to have to write clever sermons for people who don’t and won’t understand them! Oh dear! I wonder if we shall have to live in Shadbrook always! Fancy the long, long years going by, and doing nothing for us except wrinkling us with age and crippling us with rheumatism! Simply dreadful! Yes, you dear things!” and she apostrophized the primroses as she tied them up in bunches with some soft twine she had brought for the purpose— “You don’t know how awful it is to live a terrible long time, trying to make yourself agreeable to people who shut their hearts against you! You just come out and bloom in the woods and look sweet, and fade away quickly, and there’s an end. So nice for you! And everybody likes you — that’s the best of it! Nobody hates you for being pretty — nobody is unkind to you, — and you have such a lot of companions that you can never be lonely. I’m lonely. Yes, I am! — even with Dick and Laurence. And when Laurence gets older and goes to school, and Dick gets more serious even than he is now, I shall be lonelier than ever. I want — oh! — I don’t know what I want!”
She laughed and blinked away two tears that had risen in her pretty eyes. And her thoughts reverted to a recent rumor, whispered guardedly among the gossips of the village, which was to the effect that Jacynth Miller had left the ‘variety’ stage, and had made a ‘grand marriage’ with a millionaire.
“I wonder if it’s true!” she mused— “And if it is, how strange and unjust it seems! Fortune seems to favor the bad and punish the good. I don’t like to ask Dick if he has heard anything about it — he seems to hate the very mention of Jacynth Miller’s name. She was certainly very beautiful.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 723