Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Darell chafed visibly.

  “The church where you are announced to preach to-morrow is very ‘High’;” — he said— “So ‘High’ indeed that it might almost be Roman Catholic. But it is none the worse for that.”

  “And none the better!” replied Everton, with perfect good-nature— “But I have nothing to do with its ritualistic ‘toilette’; I figure there merely as the preacher of an occasion — and my business will be simply to move hearts powerfully enough to cause a kind of reflex action whereby pockets may be moved also! Come, come, my dear Darell, don’t let us ‘gird,’ as the Scotch say, at one another! The quarrels of the clergy are the ruin of the Church. Each man must do as he sees best in the carrying out of his ministry — but for me the Divine will always be the simple, — and the simple the Divine.”

  They dropped into conventionalities after this, and very soon Darell took his departure, leaving Everton in the shabby reading-room alone with the one man who still sat in the arm-chair by the fire with a newspaper over his face.

  As soon as Darell had gone, however, this personage stirred, and putting his newspaper down slowly, yawned, stretched out his arms, sighed comfortably, and finally pulled himself upright, thereby showing a very open, pleasant countenance, made somewhat fascinating by a pair of dark hazel eyes in which there sparkled a fund of dormant humor. He shot a friendly and inquisitive glance in Everton’s direction, — then in a half-drawling accent which was undoubtedly American, though so suave and musical as to have nothing of a ‘twang’ about it, he said —

  “I guess, sir, you know what’s the matter with the Church! It’s been sick a long time, and there’s such a mighty lot of doctors feeling its pulse and looking at its tongue that it’s like to die before it gets a proper dose of medicine!”

  Everton looked at him a moment before speaking.

  “It is possible you may be right,” — he then answered, “But I am, in a certain sense, an optimist — a disciple of the Obvious. That is to say, I believe in such old derided maxims as ‘The darkest hour’s before the dawn’ — and ‘It’s a long lane that has no turning.’ I think the time is very near for a grand renewal of religious life — a time when everything in the world, — its wealth, its commerce, its progress, — shall seem of less account than the worth of a nation’s united prayer. For we are in the ‘darkest hour,’ — therefore the dawn is close at hand.”

  The stranger got out of his chair and stood up with his back to the fireplace, showing himself to be a man of good figure and stature, with an easy grace about his whole manner that expressed long familiarity with the freedom of an open-air life.

  “Well,” he said— “if that be so you may make up your mind that it will be a red dawn — the reddest dawn that ever broke over this world since France sent her royal rulers to the guillotine! France was then just one country with the dry rot in it, — but to-day we have several countries down with the same disease, and when they all start trying to get rid of the trouble there’ll be ructions. I’m an American, — and of course over here there are a good many folks who judge everything from America as a fraud or a ‘bit o’ bunkum,’ except a ten-million-dollar heiress. Yet, to speak quite honestly and meaning no offense, in comparing your nation with mine I don’t know which is the more rotten of the two!”

  “Severe!” commented Everton, with a smile— “And perhaps not altogether just.”

  The stranger smiled also, quite affably.

  “Perhaps not! I’m willing to be corrected. But I’m compelled to form my judgment on the result of my experience. Now see! My name’s Howard, — Clarence Howard — no relation to the Duke of Norfolk!” — here he laughed— “and I don’t think any of my ancestors went over the ocean in the Mayflower. I’ve made my pile, as they say; and as I don’t need to work any more, I’m not working — at least not in the way that’s usually meant by work. I don’t marry, because I like my liberty better than I like women. I’m just a rover, — studying, thinking and learning. I’ve been all over the world pretty well. And I find the same thing everywhere — dry rot! And the crumbling process is going on as fast as if the whole fabric of law and morals were being eaten away by a swarm of white ants! And what is the reason of it? I know the reason; but when I say it out, I’m told I’m a ‘religious humbug,’ and that’s the very last thing I am or desire to be.”

  Everton surveyed him with increasing interest.

  “Whatever your theory, I shall hear it with attention,” — he said, “and I at least shall not call you a ‘religious humbug.’ I’m often called one myself, — but that is very much the way in which the clergy are regarded by the modern world. Perhaps, however, in a great measure this is the fault of the clergy themselves.”

  “Why there you speak honestly,” — said Mr. Howard— “And I like you for it! It is the fault of the clergy. And the reason of the universal ‘dry rot’ in our civilization is that the world is losing its grip on God. It is slipping away from its faith in Divine Law and Order — and wherever and whenever that has happened, a downfall is imminent. I know you agree with me — because I know who you are. I heard the gentleman who has just left you, call you Richard Everton — and I consider I’m in luck’s way to have come across you. I’ve read the reports of several of the sermons you have preached in your church in Shadbrook on the Cotswolds; — and as a matter of fact I’m going to hear you preach to-morrow. You’ve said some very brave, bold things, sir! — and I should like to shake hands with you!”

  The friendly greeting was at once exchanged, and, sitting down near each other, the two men fell into conversation as readily as if they had known each other for years.

  “You’ve been fighting the biggest devil of the age,” went on Howard, “The devil of Drink. And I say, go on fighting it — and go strong! It’s the curse of the civilized world, — it’s the cause of all the fuddled brains that make statesmanship a farce! Now, you appeal for the most part to your own country parishioners to try and quash the evil among themselves — and your appeal certainly reaches more places than you know of; — but you should appeal to London and Birmingham and Leeds and Manchester — to New York and Chicago! And not only should you appeal to the poor and degraded, — but to the middle and upper classes who call themselves ‘educated,’ and yet who in their passion for liquor shame the very beasts by their bestiality. They are the worst sinners, for they are responsible in giving a ‘lead,’ and showing an example. I, as a fairly wealthy man, go to a good many so-called ‘smart’ houses, — for the British upper class female having resigned her former renown for modesty and virtue, is always on the lookout for an American millionaire, and takes me to be one — so that my invitations are numerous. And I tell you, on my word of honor, that I have never stayed at a country-house party yet without seeing half the men and most of the women fuddled with some kind of drink long before sunset. If I were more of a foreigner than I am, and had to take a hasty glance over the British Isles, with their principal cities, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin, considered superficially and, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, I should say that the chief delight, aim and end of the communities at large, was whisky-soda; — and more often whisky without the soda!”

  “Not quite so bad as that, I hope,” — said Everton, with rather a troubled look; “But I’m afraid I must admit a certain substratum of truth in your argument. Government, however, is going strenuously to work to minimize if not to wholly remedy the evil; and we may hope that, perhaps, in a few years’ time, when its plans are formulated, there will be fewer public-houses—”

  “And fewer brewers and distillers?” interposed Howard quickly;— “Will your Government make it illegal to concoct poison for the national consumption? Will it insist on the making of wholesome stuff, and inflict not only heavy money fines, but prison punishment, on the rascals who sell beer which is not beer, and spirit which is a deadly mixture of chemicals? And what of the grocers?”

  “The grocers?” — echoed Everton— “You m
ean—”

  “I mean that the grocers are every whit as much in the drink business as the publicans. It was W. E. Gladstone, I believe, and his Liberal party that gave wine and spirit licenses to the grocers — licenses which, if the growing mania for drink among women is to be checked, ought to be at once suppressed. Who shall count the number of women that order intoxicating liquors from the grocers and have the cost put down on the monthly account as so many pounds of tea or coffee, while perhaps the fathers of the families concerned, knowing their wives’ habits, take every pains to prevent them getting at the vile stuff which maddens their brains and degrades their lives, and cannot understand how it is that, despite all effort, they still manage to procure it! Talk of ‘blighted homes’ and ‘deserted hearths’! The grocers’ licenses have as much to do with the evil state of things as the publicans’ licenses, — and if ever the time comes to deal with the Drink question in honest earnest, — no two-mouthed tomfoolery, mind! — by which I mean no playing to the gallery with one mouth and whispering to the Trade with the other, — why the grocers’ licenses should be the first to be done away with altogether.”

  “I quite agree with you!” — said Everton— “In fact, I think it’s likely more drink is sold to the people from the grocery stores than from the public-houses. It’s curious we don’t realize this more generally and forcibly.”

  “People are slow to realize any straight fact nowadays,” — rejoined Howard— “The modern brain is like a bad egg — addled. Every one is more or less fevered with the mania of money-making, — and when the money is made they have neither the education nor the intelligence to spend it properly. But there! — no one can reform the bad or better the good. It’s been tried over and over again — before Christ, and after Him — and it’s no use. The wheel of civilization revolves a certain number of times and then it stops! Then follows a great cleaning of the clock and a putting in of new works by the Almighty — and presently, after considerable trouble and delay, on it goes again! But the world has a bad half-hour while the renovating business is in progress!”

  “Do you think civilization has reached the high-water mark in your country?” asked Everton.

  “No, sir, I do not. I consider my country and my countrymen in the adolescent or ‘gawk’ condition of dry rot — that is to say, the raw material is crumbling out of shape in order to re-form. America is like a half-grown boy who is all collar and tie and is proud of his pants. His pockets are full of string and marbles, and he thinks them valuable property. He pulls them out every few minutes and looks at them with pride. He shows them to you, and chortles over them, saying: ‘See what I’ve got!’ He thinks you ought to put down everything of your own, and stand admiring his pocket-knife with eight blades. He considers you a fool if you don’t attach any importance to his opinion. He’s all Self-consciousness and Brag. But remember! — he’s only a Boy. When he’s a Man,” — here he paused, and his fine eyes sparkled with animation— “Yes! — when he’s a Man, he’s as likely as not to be the finest Creature in the world!”

  “You really are of that opinion?”

  “I really am. You see Americans are a mixed race — every kind of blood is mingled in their veins, bad and good, and it takes time for the good to work uppermost, — but it’s bound to rise! Then we have plenty of ‘grit’ and ‘dash’

  — and we’re not afraid of ourselves or of anybody else.

  Of course we’ve set up our house in a hurry, and we’ve got a good deal of rubbish in it, because, being young, we wanted to furnish all at once; and we bought too much and crammed too many things in — but we shall clear by degrees, sir! — we shall clear! We shall get over the String-and-Marble age, — and we shall find that dollars are not everything. And with maturity we shall develop idealism, nobility of character and exalted aims, — but you must give us a little more time to grow!”

  He laughed pleasantly, and then fell to talking about London and its violent contrasting effects of vast wealth and abject poverty, and again the national curse of drink came uppermost for discussion.

  “If you’ve nothing more pressing to do this evening, it might warm you up for to-morrow’s sermon if you would take a stroll with me through some of the drink centers,” — he said, “I have made a study of them, and I know much of what goes on in them. I can show you places where women with babies in arms drink till the babies drop on the floor and lie there like little bundles of rags, quite disregarded. Some of the proprietors of these infernal dens advertise ‘Storage for Perambulators,’ as an encouragement to the mothers of infants to come in. Looking away back down the past-years, it seems there were times when a drunken mother was so rarely seen that such an one was bound to be ashamed of herself as a disgraceful exception; — now there are thousands of drunken mothers. They do not mind spending whole mornings in the public-house. They neglect their duties just as much as the fashionable lady of to-day neglects hers. There is no strong wave of opinion that sweeps through the land to cleanse it of this great abomination. Now in the Southern States of America there is a great revulsion against the drink, because of the frequency of outrages on women by negroes. Drink has been proved to be generally at the bottom of these revolting crimes, and the citizens of Georgia have voted out the drink altogether. Don’t forget that the Governor who signed that Bill signed away a large personal income of his own derived from the selling of liquor! I think his name will be found in the Book of Life somewhere!”

  “No doubt of that!” — said Everton, his thoughts reverting to Shadbrook, Minchin’s Brewery, and Minchin himself— “I don’t think I could name a single British brewer or spirit distiller who would do as much!”

  Howard smiled.

  “Well, that’s your saying, not mine! — I wouldn’t so insult the conscience of your nation,” — he said— “But I’m afraid the British Lion is getting a bit selfish — inclined to sleep in the sun and all that sort of thing, looking after his own comfort more than anything else, — however, I’m too fond of the grand old Growler to hope anything but good of him! It may be he’ll wake up with an honest roar quite suddenly, and chase away all such vested interests in the national degradation as make intemperance necessary. I use the word ‘necessary’ advisedly — because to earn any sort of profitable dividends on the capital invested in the beer and spirit trades, national drunkenness would, roughly speaking, seem imperative. In the year 1904, your most flaccid statesman, Balfour, repudiated all public responsibility for the miseries of drink, and put the whole blame on the ‘gross and criminal self-indulgence of the working-classes.’ Well, all I can say about that, is that I hope the working-classes have got his insult pretty well fixed into their heads, and that it will keep them firm against voting for him or his party. It was, I suppose, convenient for him to forget that in order to keep up the profits of the trade interests he was defending, the ‘gross criminal self-indulgence’ he talked so big about was an absolute sine qua non. And he also forgot that the statesmen who abuse the working-classes go the quickest way to cutting their own throats, for they all depend on the working-class votes. And who persuades the working-classes to drink themselves blind and silly more than the selfish fellows who want to be returned to Parliament by hook or by crook, somehow or anyhow? A drunken man’s vote counts as well as that of a sober one, and the more drunk the electors are, the more chance there is of their electing the scheming rogue who ‘treats’ them. When they get sober again they discover they’ve been ‘had,’ and that they’ve chosen a scheming rogue to represent them; but it’s too late then to remedy the mischief. ‘Gross criminal selfindulgence’ indeed! That’s pretty tall talk! I should like to know if Mr. Balfour himself has never gone in for that kind of variety entertainment, — if not in one form, perhaps in another!”

  “You must not presume to make such a suggestion,” — said Everton, smiling gravely— “There is no such thing as ‘gross criminal self-indulgence’ among the ‘upper ‘classes.

  They stand aloft on the
peaks of an inaccessible virtue. That is why they are able to cast aspersions on their ‘lower’ brothers and sisters with so much dignified acrimony!” Howard studied his face with keen and searching intentness, — then smiled responsively.

  “Exactly!” he said— “You understand the position. Shall we dine together?”

  “With pleasure. At what hour?”

  “At eight; — but not here. Come to the Savoy Restaurant. It will interest you. It shows what human beings can do in the way of pampering their stomachs while they starve their brains. And it will be rather amusing there to-night, for Claude Ferrers is giving a dinner to his ‘Aero-Club’ friends, ‘rank, beauty, fashion ‘and all the rest of it!”

  “Who is Claude Ferrers?”

  Howard laughed.

  “Ah! Your Shadbrook must be hidden well out of the world if you have never heard of him! Claude Ferrers? Why, he is a famous aeronaut; a man who spends fabulous sums of money in the construction of balloons and aeroplanes and airships. He is the owner of a gorgeous steerable balloon in which all the pretty ‘smart’ women take trips with him for ‘change of air.’ Such a change has its risks, of course; — but then, — if none of them ever came back they would never be missed! He is an atheist, a degenerate, and — one of the most popular ‘Souls ‘in decadent English society!”

  “I would rather not know him,” — said Everton quickly. “Know him! My dear sir, you wont know him! You cant know him! It’s much more easy to know the King than Claude Ferrers. For the King must know people; — but Ferrers won’t know any one unless he chooses. But come and see him! Yes, — you ought! It will bring your blood to boiling-point for to-morrow! Just to have a look at the fat, smooth-faced sensualist and voluptuary whose reputation for shameless vice makes him the pride and joy of Upper-Ten Jezebels, will help you along like a gale of wind! And a light will be flung on your inner consciousness, which, if you are going to try and help the world out of the pit it is falling into,” — here he paused, and approaching Everton laid one hand with an impressive gesture on his arm— “I say if you are going to help the world — and I think you are! — that lurid light thrown across your white mind is absolutely necessary!”