“We are so easily deceived,” she mused, “or, rather, we so easily deceive ourselves! We are so ready to love something or someone; we are made in that pitiful way! And yet we did not make ourselves — we did not ask to be born into this world so ill prepared for all its disillusions. Even Baby — one day it will be her turn to suffer — oh, if I could only save her from it! — if I could only keep her as she is now in all her sweetness and innocence! But there’s a long time yet! — thank God! — a long time before she ceases to be a happy child!”
And again her reflections turned to the prospect of her husband’s “leave” with a sense of foreboding and discomfort. So many things would have to be done. Baby would have to be kept out of the way a good deal — her almost wordless chatter irritated her father. Then the cooking would be a source of argument— “he” was particular; she was not. She liked simple and clean food well cooked — but “he” liked hot and savoury delicacies, though perhaps now, after ten months in the army, he might not be so difficult to satisfy. Anyhow, there would be trouble of some sort — petty trouble which merely aggravated the temper without leading to anything. Her thoughts moved her to sighing; she stopped her busy needle and looked up at the exquisite blue of the heavens; a laburnum tree just coming into bloom flashed its yellow against the soft azure, and a thrush, perching on one of its swaying boughs, sang a delicious madrigal of pure joy. Daisies were thick as snowflakes on the lawn, and “Baby,” sitting among them, looked only like a larger daisy herself. Then suddenly the garden-gate clicked open sharply — a post-office messenger entered with a telegram in her hand, looking curiously, as she came, at both mother and child. A glance sufficed to read its contents — she who a moment ago had been a wife was now a widow. Her eyes ran over the brief message — she could hardly distinguish the words. They seemed to detach themselves and stand out, each one apart— “Deeply regret... inform you... killed.”
Killed! Who was killed? She looked up from the paper — she saw the telegraph girl standing there.
“No answer,” she stammered, then vaguely repeated, “No answer — there is nothing to say!”
“Bad news, I’m afraid!” said the girl, kindly. “I’m sorry!”
“Thank you!” she murmured. “Thank you!... Yes... it is sudden... my husband is killed.... I cannot quite realize it... not yet.... But of course there are so many—”
She broke off, with a strange look, and the telegraph messenger withdrew, thinking it wisest to leave her alone.
She stood, so left, with the telegram in her hand. She was so motionless, so absorbed, that “Baby” suddenly conceived it to be necessary that she should make her existence known, and came toddling up with daisies in her wee, chubby hands, her hat fallen off, and her mop of fair curls shining like spun gold in the warm sunshine. She pulled at her mother’s gown.
“Mummy!”
The mother stooped and caught her up. A great joy, an immense relief filled her eyes, as she pressed her lips tenderly on the soft little cheek drawn close to her own.
“I am glad!” she said, half aloud. “O God, forgive me! You know why I am glad! I can think of him now without fear or hatred! I can try to remember him as he was when I first knew him — when I thought he loved me! I can forget the evil and treasure the good! I can forgive — yes! I must do my best to forgive, and I will! I will do my best! But I am glad! It seems wicked, horrible to feel like this — but I cannot help it! I am thankful! I will not be a hypocrite — I tell the truth to God and to myself — I am glad — and God will pardon me, for He knows why I am glad!”
And that night when the sun had sunk, and peace with utter silence reigned over the quiet little home and fragrant garden, she, watching her child asleep, thought somewhat in this fashion:
“Had he lived — why — then — in the years to come, we should have hated each other. Home would have been no home to either of us, and the child would have seen our discordant lives, and her own life would have become embittered and unhappy. He would have grown harsher and more intolerant — I, more utterly contemptuous. As it is now — who knows? — we may still love each other as in the old first days — he, in a world of which we only dream — I, doing my best for the child he gave me. And perhaps he will understand, and perhaps I, too, will forget his many cruelties, and see him only as I once saw him, the lover for whom I was ready to give my life! Now he has given his life ‘for King and Country!’ — may they be grateful! — though they cannot be so grateful as I would have been for a loving word! King and Country! — wife and child! Which should be the dearest to a man? I think I know! But ‘King and Country’ wanted him, and they have taken him! I am glad!”
And when she said her prayers, she emphasized the words:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that have trespassed against us!”
THE SCULPTOR’S ANGEL
THE STORY OF A LOVE-MIRACLE
YOU are a great artist, my son,” said the Abbot, with a favouring smile, “and, what is far better, you are noble and pure-hearted. And to you we entrust the high task of filling the vacant niche in our church with an Angel of Peace and Blessing. We will give you all possible freedom and leisure for the work, so that you may complete it before Christmas. On the Feast of the Nativity of our Blessed Lord we shall hope, God willing, to see your Angel in the chancel.”
He, the renowned and well-nigh saintly Head of one of the most famous among England’s early monasteries, spoke with an authoritative dignity which gave his words, though gently uttered, the weight of a command, and the monk Anselmus whom he addressed heard him in submissive silence. They were standing together in one of the side chapels of a magnificent Abbey Church — the creation of devout and prayerful men who gave their highest thought and most fervent toil to the service and praise of their Maker, and the days were those when implicit belief in a Divine Power, strong to guard and to defend the right, was the chief saving grace of the nation. The blind and unruly passions of that age were held in salutary check by the spiritual force and sanctity of the Church — and neither priest nor layman then foresaw the coming time of terror when desecrating hands should violate and pillage the holy shrines so patiently upbuilt to the honour and glory of God, leaving of them nothing but the ruins of their grandeur — the melancholy emblems of a faith more ruined even than they.
“You will,” continued the Abbot, “have your time to yourself — that is, of course, such time as is not occupied by the holy services, and we will take good care that nothing shall disturb the flow of what must be a truly divine inspiration. Yes, my son, all labour is divine, and our best thoughts come from God alone, so that we of ourselves dare claim no merit. In the making of an Angel’s likeness, angels must surely guide the sculptor’s hand, and bring his work to ultimate perfection! Is this not so? You hear me? You understand?”
Anselmus had remained mute, but now he raised his bent head. He was not a young man — youth seemed to have passed him by in haste and left him old before his time. His face was worn and thin, and showed deep furrows of pain and sorrow — only his eyes, sunken, yet bright and almost feverish in their lustre, flashed with the smouldering fires of suppressed and dying energy.
“I hear — and I understand,” he answered, slowly. “But why not choose a better man — a better sculptor? I am not worthy.”
The Abbot laid a kindly hand upon his arm.
“Who among us is more worthy!” he said. “Have you not bestowed upon us the treasures of your genius, and do we not owe much of the greatest beauty of our Abbey Church to your designs? Good son, humility is becoming in you as in us all — each one of us is indeed unworthy so far as he himself is concerned — but your gift of art is from God, and therefore of its worthiness neither you nor I must presume to doubt! It is a gift that you are bound to use for highest purpose. Need I say more? You accept the task?”
“Father, when you command I must obey,” replied the monk. “Nevertheless, I say I am not worthy of so much as the passing d
ream of an Angel! — but to satisfy you and our brethren I will do my best.”
“That best will be sufficient for us,” said the Abbot. “And while you work, you must relax a little in the rigorous discipline to which you so constantly submit yourself by your own choice. You fast too long and sleep too lightly — take more food and rest, Anselmus! — or the spirit will chafe the flesh with so much sharpness that the end will be disaster to both brain and body. Ease and freedom are as air and light to the artist — we give you both, my son, as far as may be given without trespass against our rules. Work at your own time and pleasure, and we will make it a sacred charge to ourselves and our brethren not to break in upon the solitude of your studio — we will leave you alone with your Angel!”
He nodded, smiling graciously, and, making the sign of the cross in air, paced slowly out of the chapel into the nave, and out of the nave again into the cloisters beyond, where among the many arches his tall and stately figure in its flowing robes disappeared.
The monk Anselmus stood for a few moments gazing after him, then with a deep sigh that was almost a groan, turned back into the deeper and more shadowed seclusion of the chapel, where, with a movement of utter abandonment and despair, he threw himself on his knees before the great Crucifix which had lately been sent as a gift to the monastery from the Holy Father in Rome.
“O God, God!” he prayed, under his breath. “Have mercy upon me, Thy wicked and treacherous servant! Lift from my soul the heavy burden of its secret sin! Teach me the way to win Thy pardon and recover the peace that I have lost! Lighten my darkness, for the shadow of my crime is ever black before my eyes! Spare me, O Redeemer of souls! for my remorse is greater than I can bear!”
He covered his face with his hands, and crouched rather than knelt before the sculptured figure of the crucified Christ, shuddering with the suppressed agony which seemed to rack his body with positive physical pain. His own thoughts whipped him as with a million lashes — they drove him through every memory of the past, sparing no detail, as they had driven him remorselessly over and over again till at times he had felt himself almost on the verge of madness. He looked back to his early days of boyhood and manhood in Rome, when as a young and ardent student of art, working under one of the master sculptors of that period, he had hewn life out of senseless marble with a power and perfection which had astonished his fellows in the school; he remembered how just when the wreath of fame seemed his to win and to hold he had suddenly become possessed and inspired by an enthusiastic faith and exaltation toward the highest things — a faith and exaltation which had moved him to consecrate his life and genius to the Church — and how, convinced of his vocation, he had voluntarily severed all ties of natural affection, leaving father, mother, and home to take the monastic vows and devote himself to the service of God, and how, when this was done, he had gladly joined a band of earnest and devoted brethren who were sent from Rome to England to assist by their labours the completion and perfecting of one of the greatest abbeys ever founded in Britain. And then he recalled the almost passionate love of his work which had filled his brain and strengthened his hands when he first saw the splendid church and monastery, a vision of architectural magnificence and purity, lifting its towers heavenward in the midst of a landscape so peaceful and fair, so set about with noble trees and broad green fields and crystal streams that it seemed like an earthly realization of the dream of Paradise. And he had laboured so lovingly and patiently, and done so much to adorn and beautify the sacred shrine that he had endeared himself greatly to the Abbot, who knew that in Anselmus he had a sculptor of rare genius — one who, if he had chosen to follow a worldly career rather than embrace the religious life, would have made a name not easily forgotten. As it was, however, he seemed entirely content — he was as careful in his religious rule as in his art labours — and the wonderful chancel screen which he, alone and unaided, had wrought out of the native stone of which the monastery itself was built, was not more perfect than the discipline and obedience to which he had submitted himself for many peaceful years. Then, all suddenly, the great test presented itself — the fiery trial from which he did not come out unscathed. And thus it happened:
Among his many duties he was sent out from the monastery twice every week among the scattered villages lying about the church lands to inquire into the needs of the sick and the poor, and on one of these occasions he met the fate that befalls all men sooner or later — love. A mere glance, a touch of hands, and the whole bulwark of a life can be swept away by the storm of a sudden, irresistible passion — and so, unhappily, it chanced to the monk Anselmus. And yet it was only a very loving, foolish, trusting little maid who had in all ignorance and innocence beguiled him from his monastic vows — a little peasant, with cheeks like the wild rose and eyes blue as the summer sea, whom he had found tending, unaided, upon an aged and sick woman, her grandmother, working for her uncomplainingly, and keeping the poor cottage in which they lived clean and sweet as a lady’s bower though there was hardly any food to share between them. Touched to the heart by the sight of so young and fair a creature bearing her daily lot of hard privation with such gentle patience and content, Anselmus brought much-needed relief from the monastery — medicines and wine for the aged sufferer, and supplies of bread and new milk and eggs and fowls for the better help and sustenance of the girl, who, however, asked for no assistance, and could hardly be induced to accept it even from the bounty of Mother Church. And Anselmus saw her again and yet again — together they talked of many things, and often at the monk’s request she would walk with him from her cottage door through the long, deeply shaded avenue of thickly branched trees that led to the gates of the monastery — till at last one fateful evening, when she had accompanied him thus and was about to turn back alone, his long-suppressed man’s heart arose within him, and yielding to a reckless impulse, he caught her in his arms. Their lips met, and as he felt the tender, clinging warmth of that first kiss of love he suddenly experienced a sense of happiness he had never yet known, an ecstasy so intense that it seemed to lift him to a heaven far beyond even that of which he had dreamed in long nightly vigils of prayer.
This was the beginning of many secret meetings — meetings fraught with fear and joy. He, the ascetic monk, scholar, and rigid disciplinarian in all the duties of an exacting religious Order became an ardent, passionate, and selfish lover — while she, poor child, overcome and carried away by the burning warmth of his eager caresses and words of endearment, asked nothing better than to be loved by him, and in return loved him herself with all the strength and devotion of her fond little heart and soul. Their dream-like idyll of forbidden love was brief; Anselmus, like the rest of his sex, soon tired of what he had too easily obtained, and in order to escape from the tender tie he had so willingly fastened upon himself began, somewhat late in the day, to consider the dangers he ran by his unlawful conduct. His own safety and convenience now seemed to him of far greater importance than the peace or the happiness of the loving soul he had set himself to conquer and contaminate, and the more he dwelt upon his position the more irksome and unbearable it proved. One day, goaded beyond endurance by her gentle solicitude and wonderment at his altered manner, he harshly told her that they must meet no more.
“I have,” he said, “committed an unpardonable sin in allowing myself to be entangled by your company. I must do penance for it with many years of fasting and of prayer. You tempted me! — it was not I — you, with your appealing eyes and smile — you led me from the path of purity and honour; surely God knows it was more your fault than mine! I am sorry for you, poor child!” — here his accents were softer and almost paternal— “Forgive me for any wrong I have done you, and forget me! You are young — you will be happy yet!”
And then, having spoken as he thought reasonably and sensibly, and being too hardened to realize that his words were as death-blows dealt brutally on the tender heart of the girl who loved him, he waited for tears, reproaches, the bitter abandonment of grief
and despair. But she gave him no trouble or pain of this kind. All she did was to raise her pretty sea-blue eyes to his face with a look in them which he never forgot — a look of sorrow, pity, and pardon, then she caught his hand, kissed it, and turned away.
“Stay! Are you going?” he called. “Without one word?”
She made no reply. On she went, steadily — a little figure, glimmering whitely through the shadows of the bending trees, and without giving him so much as a backward glance, she disappeared.
He never saw her again. But that same week, when he went on his usual rounds of charity through the district, he learned that she had been found drowned among the reeds of the slowly flowing river that wound its clear ribbon of liquid light through the monastery lands. And the old grandmother she had so loyally cared for, and to whom she was more than the sunshine itself, hearing she was dead, would not believe it, and sat chattering stupidly all day about the hour when she would return to prepare the food for supper — and even when the small, frail corpse was brought into the cottage dripping with its weight of water and dinging weed, she would not look at it nor accept it as the body of her grandchild, but merely said— “No, no! It is not she — God gave her to me and He is good! — He would not rob me of her in my age — He would remember how much I need her!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 960