Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Thus she talked to herself for a while, with an almost perfect equanimity. She felt confident that since the balloon had come in contact with trees, she was traveling over inhabited country where, with the daylight, she would be seen by those who would immediately use all possible effort for her rescue. How such a rescue could take place, seeing that she was totally ignorant of the management of the balloon, she did not stop to think. But presently her heart began to trouble her with the quick violence of its pulsations, and she again experienced difficulty in breathing. This rather took away her nerve, and she began to look around her with renewed qualms of terror. The balloon, though she knew it not, was at an altitude of nearly fourteen thousand feet. Owing to the terrific speed with which it had ascended after the loss of such ‘ballast’ as the corpse of Claude Ferrers had provided for it, it had escaped a threatening storm area, and was now floating at a tolerably even pace above what seemed to be a continent, but was merely a mass of black clouds. Below the clouds lay Ireland asleep — all its childish frets and jars and tears hushed in slumber, like an ailing babe rocked to rest on the bosom of Mother Nature. Moments deepened into hours and still the ‘Shooting Star’ glided on, moving slowly with the slow movement of the upper reaches of the air, — there was not a star visible, and Jacynth, as she watched the profound and stirless darkness into which she was plunged, felt her brief courage fast ebbing away. It was horrible! — this thick gloom! — this tense silence! Her head swam, — her pulses beat like quick hammers, and her heart seemed to rise in her bosom with a sense of threatening suffocation. She gave a sobbing cry.

  “If only the light would come!” she wailed— “O God, send the day!”

  Scarcely had the words left her lips when a rush of thought, like a burning flood, filled every nook and cranny of her brain. God! Why had she appealed to what she considered non-existent? ‘O God, send the day!’ What should either the Day or the Night have to do with God? In this deep and awful obscurity, — this shadow of the grave, — was it of any avail to call or to pray to the vast Unknown Creative Force which by the human part of its creation is daily blasphemed?

  She wrung her hands, drawing little tearful breaths of agony. And all at once she heard, or fancied she heard, as though it were speaking from a long distance, a sad and gentle voice saying:— ‘Jacynth, is it possible you have no faith? Is there nothing in your better self which tells you that death is not all? That there is a Life Beyond?’ And again— ‘As surely as we two stand here, the moment will come when there will be nothing in life or death for you but this — Yourself and God! No friend or lover will then be near to counsel or command, — you will be alone, Jacynth! — alone with the Almighty Power whom your very thoughts blaspheme!’

  Clearly and with grave emphasis these words rang in her ears, — with such insistence that all at once she lost her self-control and cried wildly to the darkness —

  “Parson Everton! Parson Everton! Don’t look at me like that! Don’t be hard upon me!”

  And she dropped feebly on her knees, sobbing, laughing, screaming and moaning:

  “Listen, listen! Parson Everton, listen! Look at me! You know how beautiful I am — yes, you know, — you see! There was never a lovelier face than mine — everybody says so — and Dan — Dan — he went mad for me! Ah yes! — he went mad for me, and you would have gone mad for me too — yes, for you’re only a man — if it had not been for your God! And what has your God done for you? Nothing — nothing! And yet you believe in Him! You talked about Him in Sunday school as if He were Everything! You believe in Him! God! Where is He?”

  Here her hysterical passion checked itself abruptly as though spent — and with a shuddering sigh she raised herself half-way up from her knees, staring ahead — surely the darkness was breaking? Surely that was a gleam of light? Had the day dawned? There was a coppery red tinge in the cloud-blackness towards the north-east — here and there it broke into dull green, and to the south a soft fine pearly gray began to spread itself in veil-like films across the sky. She looked and looked — and smiled.

  “A doom is coming!” she whispered— “A doom!” Another moment, and her voice shrilled out to a shriek — she sprang up and leaned over the edge of the car— “Do you hear what Parson Everton says? A doom is coming! For me, poor Jacynth, with only a face for a fortune! A doom is coming! Do you hear it, you clouds? Parson Everton’s God is angry with a girl for her sins!” and she laughed deliriously— “Angry! If there were a God who knew and saw everything, He could never be angry! He could only be sorry!”

  By this time the clouds were rapidly dispersing — and the most miraculously brilliant colors began to burn on all sides of the heavens. The dawn was declaring its approach — and an exquisite pale flush of pink glowed in the east, uncurling like the petal of a rose. It was about four in the morning. As the light grew stronger, Jacynth became calmer, and steadying herself against one of the suspension ropes of the balloon as before, waited expectantly to see what land would appear when the clouds were gone, and whether she was near enough to the earth to attract attention. Breathlessly she watched, as layer after layer of fleecy gray unrolled itself in lengths of soft vapor tinged with the rainbow hues of coming morning — and presently, after what seemed an interminable time of suspense, the first beam of the sun shot upwards like an arrow of gold. Above the balloon the sky showed glimpses of blue, — below, all was yet mysteriously veiled. Conscious now of no other feeling than the longing to know where she was, and already busy in her mind with plans and possibilities of attracting some means of attention and rescue, Jacynth dried the tears from her eyes, bound up her hair and arranged her apparel almost as if she expected to alight in a few moments among a crowd of applauding and congratulatory friends, — as for Claude Ferrers, she had almost forgotten that he ever lived. Her interest in herself was so unbounded and absorbing that she could see nothing outside the potency of her own beauty, nor did she care to remember anything that seemed to associate that beauty with an unpleasant incident. Her perilous journey was nearly over, she thought — she must keep her head and not lose her nerve. So between fear and hope she hovered in mid-air — keeping her eyes fixed intently on the moving panorama of clouds below, — when all suddenly, as though at a word of command, they rolled away in great masses, disclosing what seemed to be a vast white mist, stretching out endlessly from north to south, from east to west. The balloon was now traveling so slowly as to be almost stationary, and Jacynth gazed as from a balcony in heaven upon that great mysterious whiteness which spread itself out underneath her aerial car like a carpet of woven pearl. Slowly, very slowly, it rose in thin, straight lines that shredded themselves away into webs as fine and shimmering as floss silk, — webs and loose threads that twisted and twined and interlaced themselves one with another till, finally lifting and disappearing altogether, they left bare the treasure they had guarded, — the heaving wonder of the ocean! The broad Atlantic! — the illimitable expanse of mighty waters — and not a glimpse of land in sight! Only a few miles away was the coast of Connemara, but it was wrapped in a thick curtain of fog, and the balloon was drifting steadily out to sea. Moreover, it was traveling at a less rate of speed and at a gradually lower level.

  One glance around her and Jacynth understood. This was the thing called Death, which fashionable folk made so light of when it came to other people than themselves. This was the great Silence into which Dan Kiernan had passed, with his victim, the poor little ‘dolly wife’ of Parson Everton — this was the black chasm of cold Nothingness into which she, too, with all her youth and beauty, was about to fall!

  “I can’t believe it!” she muttered, feebly— “I am not going to die! No — no! I cannot die yet! I haven’t lived my life!”

  She looked around her on all sides. Everywhere the waves rolled and leaped and murmured — there was a solemn and perpetual rush and roar among them like the sound of a great organ. The vast expanse of rough water stretching to the horizon seemed nearer, — was the ballo
on sinking! Suddenly she looked up. There was a vacant stare in her eyes — a wild smile on her mouth. She stretched out her hands.

  “Parson Everton!” she called, as if he were in hearing— “Parson Everton, where shall I find your God?”

  At that moment, like a fire springing from the sea, the sun rose. Its beams, till now pale and piercing in golden shafts through rising veils of vapor, flared aloft in a splendid coronal of triumph above the last vanishing cloud left from the night, and in a rosy depth of sky so warm and intense in color as to crimson the waves below with the clearness of cut rubies, it shed forth the glory of the day upon the world. Between it and surrounding space the sinking balloon with its one frail voyager to the Unknown, hovered tremblingly, — and, leaning from its car, Jacynth still smiled and waved her hands as though in farewell to a friend. Bending down she listened, attentively to the increasing noise of the tumultuous waters as she sank lower and lower, and talked to herself with all the happy unconsciousness of a distraught brain.

  “There go the bells of Shadbrook Church!” she murmured— “Make haste, Dan! I want you to see me there in my best frock. Don’t be late! We must pretend to be good, you know! It’s so easy to deceive Parson Everton! Come, come! It’s Communion Sunday!”

  Here suddenly drawing herself up to her full height, she flashed her brilliant jewel eyes in the golden face of the sun.

  “Yes, Parson Everton,” — she said, in gentle accents— “I know my lesson! ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth!’”

  With that she folded her hands together, and resting them on the edge of the car looked placidly on at the growing splendor of the day.

  And when noon came, both sun and sky were clear of anything more strange than the sea-birds flying across the roughening waves, and diving like winged sunbeams among the rising and falling crests of foam.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  YEARS passed swiftly away, — and once again Richard Everton stood in a London pulpit, looking down upon one of the largest congregations that had ever filled the great spaces of St. Paul’s Cathedral. That vast interior was packed with human beings, and every head was upturned, every eye fixed upon one who had attained the reputation of being not only the finest but also the most daring preacher of the day, — so daring, indeed, that he was constantly being offered ‘preferment’ in an attempt to remove him from his own immediate sphere of influence and thus minimize the peril into which his bold and fearless utterances brought less honest men of his calling. All such offers, however, he steadily refused, electing still to remain Vicar of Shadbrook. As Vicar of Shadbrook, he had become a power in the land; and as Vicar of Shadbrook he stood now under the dome of St. Paul’s, waiting while the last verses of the hymn before the sermon were being sung, to address a congregation drawn from all quarters of the metropolis — a congregation profoundly interested in the character and personality of the man they were about to hear, — a character and personality which his work in Shadbrook alone had made famous. Shadbrook, limited as it was, had proved sufficient for him; and Shadbrook had steadily risen to the call his patient love and care had made upon it. It had grown and prospered exceedingly; the number of its houses and thatched cottages had increased, and art and careful architecture alike had combined, not to destroy but to enhance the beauty of its natural surroundings; even its running stream was now kept so bright and clear that it had become a rippling joy under the old stone bridge, instead of a source of trouble and infection. Its people were gradually becoming renowned throughout the country as skillful workers in many branches of trade and agriculture, for where Minchin’s brewery once stood was now a nobly built and finely proportioned School of Trades, endowed and supported by the munificence of an American millionaire and philanthropist, no other than Everton’s chance acquaintance, Clarence Howard. The School of Trades was an entirely novel enterprise. Much money had to be sunk in it before it showed any signs of success, — but it had now ‘caught on’ as the saying is, and had attracted so many students and workers from all parts of Britain that it promised to be of real national service as a pioneer of practical education in the needful knowledge of life and business. Erected on the beautiful architectural lines of a grand old Tudor manor, with gabled roof and wide latticed windows, it was surrounded by a glorious garden, — it had its reading and recreation rooms, its dining-hall, its library, its theater which served for lectures and concerts, and its workshops where every trade was taught and practically mastered, each student receiving diplomas and awards as in other educational systems. Everton was the life and soul of this great organization, which though not actually situated in his own parish, was still near enough to exert a beneficial influence upon his parishioners, drawing them away from idle lounging and gossiping, teaching them the happiness of intelligent craftsmanship, and arousing in them that creative spirit of unhasting but unresting ambition, which impels a man or woman to do whatever has to be done so truly well that his or her labor shall be honestly worth its price. There was never a case of drunkenness to be reported anywhere in the neighborhood, and yet drink of a pure and wholesome kind was not withheld. When the men and women workers at the School of Trades met together, as they all did, Sundays included, in their lofty dining-hall, for their mid-day meal, they could have anything they liked to drink in moderation, except raw spirit. Beer, brewed on the premises by some of the workers themselves, according to plain old-fashioned methods and wholly unadulterated, could be had on demand, — the theory of this procedure being the same which was formerly practiced by many English landowners, who, while firmly refusing to allow any brewery, distillery or public-house on their ground, yet permitted their tenants to brew such beer as they required for themselves in their own houses, just in the same way of freedom as they made their own ginger or elder wines. The result of this plan was that while there was no intemperance, there were equally no complaints of ‘teetotal tyranny,’ and every one was sober and satisfied. It is a plan that might be followed with safety and advantage in many a rural community if those persons who possess manorial rights would enforce such a simple method of persuasion to temperance. The School of Trades prospered so greatly, and its members were all so happy and healthy and diligently occupied with well-remunerated labor, that young Laurence Everton, now a brilliant scholar, and the pride of his college in Cambridge, used oftentimes to declare that the training there was quite as good as any to be obtained at either of the universities— “and” — he would add, with a toss of his handsome head, and a mischievous flash of his bright eyes, “ever so much more useful! The Classics are all very well in their way — splendid literature and all that, — but they can’t help a fellow much to earn an honest living.” And when at home for his holidays he always worked in the School himself, “learning a bit of all the trades in turn!” he would say, laughingly, and the Shadbrook people, who adored the very sight of him, were wont to remark proudly:— “There was nothing Mr. Laurence couldn’t do, bless him! He could shoe a horse, or build a house — either was as easy to him as t’other!”

  And the Vicar had his hands full. His life, which he had thought no more than a broken reed, had been raised up by divine ordainment to a stem of prolific blossom. He was not only the spiritual but the material guardian of the whole growing community about him, — he was their friend, their adviser, their helper, — beloved beyond all words, and honored to the utmost point of reverence. With the onward flow of time he had altered little, — his hair had grown gray, but his face had retained its firm intellectual outline, and the dark blue eyes so deeply set under the shelving brows had a great tenderness in their quiet depths, — the reflection of a heart’s constant sympathy with all sorrow. Since Jacynth’s tragic end he had never visited London. In many other parts of the kingdom he had preached; never there. But now, certain phases in the social aspect of the world had moved him to strong protest; — he heard, or thought he heard, the mystic ‘Orders’ he had waited for— “This do in remembrance of Me”
— and with his well-earned fame, won by no fictitious ‘boom,’ but by his own sincerity, power and eloquence, he had easily secured an opportunity of addressing himself to a congregation which he had resolved should be aroused, if he could possibly arouse it, to a sense of the peril which, according to his mind, threatened the nation.

  The sweet music of the choristers’ voices rising above the solemn chords of the great organ which sustained the melody of the hymn they were singing, floated soothingly around him as he looked down from the pulpit on the close array of upturned faces, some intelligent, some foolish, some gentle, some proud, and the tide of memory swept him back to the day, long years ago, when Jacynth had vanished from his sight for evermore with her last call— “Good-by, Parson Everton!” Neither he nor any one else had seen her upon earth again. The body of her companion, Claude Ferrers, had been found, horribly mangled and disfigured, on the edge of a wild moor in Ireland, but the famous balloon with its one remaining passenger had totally disappeared, and its ultimate fate was unknown. The disaster had caused a nine days’ society ‘sensation’ — but it was now forgotten, even by Israel Nordstein, who had married another ‘variety’ girl. The ‘cult’ of Claude Ferrers, however, was still kept up by a certain circle of decadents, simply because it was a ‘cult’ of shameless vice; his poems, of the sensual-amatory order, were constantly thrust before the public in advertisements of extra large type, and one or two of his most revolting plays were produced by managers anxious for a ‘draw,’ because of their brazen indecency which the ‘censor’ obligingly condoned, — but so far as the million were concerned, Ferrers was no more known or thought of than Jacynth. They had been mere useless units in the great mass of humanity, unwanted and therefore unmissed. Even in Shadbrook Jacynth was almost forgotten. Those who remembered her at all had never really known what became of her, and the only association with her that remained in their minds, was her connection with Dan Kiernan, which had been the indirect cause of the murder of their Vicar’s wife. They had heard a rumor that she was married; but they did not know she was dead. Nor did the Vicar tell them. Not even to the wretched old crone, the ‘Auntie ‘whose habitual drunkenness had made her such an incapable guardian of Jacynth’s childhood, and who, when dying, clung to him and screamed out that ‘the devils were taking her and that one of them was Jacynth’ — did he reveal the story of the girl’s later history and end. That was a secret he kept to himself. Seldom indeed did he permit his thoughts to dwell upon the past except that portion of it which was endeared to him by his married life and his love for Azalea, — and it was only now — now when after a long lapse of time he found himself again in the great city which when last he had visited it had been the scene of an episode he was never likely to forget, that bitter memories rose again and swept over him like a burning wave, making his heart thrill with an old restless yearning. Two faces hovered like visions in the light before him, — one of a little fair angel with blue eyes and clustering gold curls, and sweet lips that murmured:— “You are my husband — my darling and my best in the whole world!” — the other that of a bewitchingly beautiful temptress with dark wild passionate eyes and a rose-red mouth that said:— “It is only your God that stands between us — the God of the Churches, not the God of Nature! It is your religion that makes you narrow and miserable — a religion that was not strong enough to save Dan or me. Think of that! Think that we both heard you preach of Christ every Sunday and that neither of us was a bit the better for it. Think of that when I am gone! For it wants thinking about!” Yes; it wanted thinking about. And he had thought about it all these years. All these years! He had thought about it and worked at the problem it presented. “A religion that was not strong enough to save Dan or me.” That was a hard saying, and he had pondered upon it deeply. “A religion not strong enough.” That was not true. It is not religion that is weak, but the human exponents of it. It is they who lack courage and conviction, — they who for the sake of petty conventionalism are content to be cowards. He, Richard Everton, had determined to take his own way and prove his own power, — and he had succeeded. This enormous crowd gathered under the dome of St. Paul’s to hear him preach, was an eloquent testimony to that success. And as the singing of the hymn came to an end with its long-drawn gravely-melodious ‘Amen!’ he looked over the great mass of human beings stretching away in dense ranks everywhere below the pulpit, and thought of the starved souls of them all, waiting to be fed with the bread of life, — life which is life indeed, — vigorous, healthy, hopeful, sane and sober life, — life such as God intended should be enjoyed by all His creatures, if they would but follow His laws. Looking upon them thus, he, like his Master, Christ, ‘had compassion on the multitude’; the tears and fire of a passionate pity made smoldering heat in his brain, — he, ‘the most fearless preacher of his day,’ as he was commonly called, felt that a moment had come when those who were hungering for any crumb of truth should not be sent away unsatisfied. Politicians might shuffle and play tricks with the honor of the nation, — but he, with Christ’s holy orders binding upon his conscience, would speak without fear or favor.