Then, very gently, Father Robert led him through those last steps; up from the Illuminative to the Unitive; from the Incarnate Life with its warm human interests to that Ineffable Light that seems so chill and unreal to those who only see it through the clouds of earth, into that keen icy stillness, where only favoured and long-trained souls can breathe, up the piercing air of the slopes that lead to the Throne, and there in the listening silence of heaven, where the voice of adoration itself is silent through sheer intensity, where all colours return to whiteness and all sounds to stillness, all forms to essence and all creation to the Creator, there he let him fall in self-forgetting love and wonder, breathe out his soul in one ardent all-containing act, and make his choice.
CHAPTER XIV
EASTER DAY
Holy Week pa.s.sed for Anthony like one of those strange dreams in which the sleeper awakes to find tears on his face, and does not know whether they are for joy or sorrow. At the end of the Retreat that closed on Palm Sunday evening, Anthony had made his choice, and told Father Robert.
It was not the Exercises themselves that were the direct agent, any more than were the books he had read: the books had cleared away intellectual difficulties, and the Retreat moral obstacles, and left his soul desiring the highest, keen to see it, and free to embrace it. The thought that he would have to tell Isabel appeared to him of course painful and difficult; but it was swallowed up in the joy of his conversion. He made an arrangement with Father Robert to be received at Cuckfield on Easter Eve; so that he might have an opportunity of telling Isabel before he took the actual step. The priest told him he would give him a letter to Mr. Barnes, so that he might be received immediately upon his arrival.
Holy Week, then, was occupied for Anthony in receiving instruction each morning in the little oak parlour from Father Robert; and in attending the devotions in the evening with the rest of the household. He also heard ma.s.s each day.
It was impossible, of course, to carry out the special devotions of the season with the splendour and elaboration that belonged to them; but Anthony was greatly impressed by what he saw. The tender reverence with which the Catholics loved to linger over the details of the Pa.s.sion, and to set them like precious jewels in magnificent liturgical settings, and then to perform these stately heart-broken approaches to G.o.d with all the dignity and solemnity possible, appealed to him in strong contrast to the cold and loveless services, as he now thought them, of the Established Church that he had left.
On the Good Friday evening he was long in the parlour with Father Robert.
"I am deeply thankful, my son," he said kindly, "that you have been able to come to a decision. Of course I could have wished you to enter the Society; but G.o.d has not given you a vocation to that apparently.
However, you can do great work for Him as a seminary priest; and I am exceedingly glad that you will be going to Douai so soon."
"I must just put my affairs in order at home," he said, "and see what arrangements my sister will wish to make; and by Midsummer at the latest I shall hope to be gone."
"I must be off early to-morrow," said the priest. "I have to be far from here by to-morrow night, in a house where I shall hope to stay until I, too, go abroad again. Possibly we may meet at Douai in the autumn. Well, my son, pray for me."
Anthony knelt for his blessing, and the priest was gone.
Presently Mr. Buxton came in and sat down. He was full of delight at the result of his scheme; and said so again and again.
"Who could have predicted it?" he cried. "To think that you were visiting me in prison fifteen months ago; and now this has come about in my house!
Truly the Gospel blessing on your action has not been long on the way!
And that you will be a priest, too! You must come and be my chaplain some day; if we are both alive and escape the gallows so long. Old Mr. Blake is sore displeased with me. I am a trial to him, I know. He will hardly speak to me in my own house; I declare I tremble when I meet him in the gallery; for fear he will rate me before my servants. I forget what his last grievance is; but I think it is something to do with a saint that he wishes me to be devout to; and I do not like her. Of course I do not doubt her sanct.i.ty; but Mr. Blake always confuses veneration and liking.
I yield to none in my veneration for Saint What"s-her-name; but I do not like her; and that is an end of the matter."
After a little more talk, Mr. Buxton looked at Anthony curiously a moment or two; and then said:
"I wonder you have not guessed yet who Father Robert is; for I am sure you know that that cannot be his real name."
Anthony looked at him wonderingly.
"Well, he is in bed now; and will be off early to-morrow; and I have his leave to tell you. He is Father Persons, of whom you may have heard."
Anthony stared.
"Yes," said his host, "the companion of Campion. All the world supposes him to be in Rome; and I think that not half-a-dozen persons besides ourselves know where he is; but at this moment, I a.s.sure you, Father Robert Persons, of the Society of Jesus, is asleep (or awake, as the case may be) in the little tapestry chamber overhead."
"Now," went on Mr. Buxton, "that you are one of us, I will tell you quite plainly that Father Robert, as we will continue to call him, is in my opinion one of the most devout priests that ever said ma.s.s; and also one of the most shrewd men that ever drew breath; but I cannot follow him everywhere. You will find, Mr. Anthony, that the Catholics in England are of two kinds: those who seem to have as their motto the text I quoted to you in Lambeth prison; and who count their duty to Caesar as scarcely less important than their direct duty to G.o.d. I am one of these: I sincerely desire above all things to serve her Grace, and I would not, for all the world, join in any confederacy to dethrone her, for I hold she is my lawful and true Prince. Then there is another party who would not hesitate for a moment to take part against their Prince, though I do not say to the slaying of her, if thereby the Catholic Religion could be established again in these realms. It is an exceedingly difficult point; and I understand well how honest and good men can hold that view: for they say, and rightly, that the Kingdom of G.o.d is the first thing in the world, and while they may not commit sin of course to further it, yet in things indifferent they must sacrifice all for it; and, they add, it is indifferent as to who sits on the throne of England; therefore one Prince may be pushed off it, so long as no crime is committed in the doing of it, and another seated there; if thereby the Religion may be so established again. You see the point, Mr. Anthony, no doubt; and how fine and delicate it is. Well, Father Robert is, I think, of that party; and so are many of the authorities abroad. Now I tell you all this, and on this sacred day too, because I may have no other opportunity; and I do not wish you to be startled or offended after you have become a Catholic.
And I entreat you to be warm and kindly to those who take other views than your own; for I fear that many troubles lie in front of us of our own causing: for there are divisions amongst us already: although not at all of course (for which I thank G.o.d) on any of the saving truths of the Faith."
Anthony"s excitement on hearing Father Robert"s real name was very great.
As he lay in bed that night the thought of it all would hardly let him sleep. He turned to and fro, trying to realise that there, within a dozen yards of him, lay the famous Jesuit for whose blood all Protestant England was clamouring. The name of Persons was still sinister and terrible even to this convert; and he could scarcely a.s.sociate in his thoughts all its suggestiveness with that kindly fervent lover of Jesus Christ who had led him with such skill and tenderness along the way of the Gospel. Others in England were similarly astonished in later years to learn that a famous Puritan book of devotions was scarcely other than a reprint of Father Persons" "Christian Directory."
The following day about noon, after an affectionate good-bye to his host and Mr. Blake, Anthony rode out of the iron-wrought gates and down the village street in the direction of Great Keynes.
It was a perfect spring-day. Overhead there was a soft blue sky with translucent clouds floating in it; underfoot and on all sides the mystery of life was beginning to stir and manifest itself. The last touch of bitterness had pa.s.sed from the breeze, and all living growth was making haste out into the air. The hedges were green with open buds, and bubbling with the laughter and ecstasy of the birds; the high sloping overhung Suss.e.x lanes were sweet with violets and primroses; and here and there under the boughs Anthony saw the blue carpet of bell-flowers spread. Rabbits whisked in and out of the roots, superintending and provisioning the crowded nurseries underground; and as Anthony came out, now and again on the higher and open s.p.a.ces larks vanished up their airy spirals of song into the illimitable blue; or hung, visible musical specks against a fleecy cloud, pouring down their thin cataract of melody. And as he rode, for every note of music and every glimpse of colour round him, his own heart poured out pulse after pulse of that spiritual essence that lies beneath all beauty, and from which all beauty is formed, to the Maker of all this and the Saviour of himself. There were set wide before him now the gates of a kingdom, compared to which this realm of material life round about was but a cramped and wintry prison after all.
How long he had lived in the cold and the dark! he thought; kept alive by the refracted light that stole down the steps to where he sat in the shadow of death; saved from freezing by the warmth of grace that managed to survive the chill about him; and all the while the Catholic Church was glowing and pulsating with grace, close to him and yet unseen; that great realm full of heavenly sunlight, that was the life of all its members--that sunlight that had poured down so steadily ever since the winter had rolled away on Calvary; and that ever since then had been elaborating and developing into a thousand intricate forms all that was capable of absorbing it. One by one the great arts had been drawn into that Kingdom, transformed and immortalised by the vital and miraculous sap of grace; philosophies, languages, sciences, all in turn were taken up and sanctified; and now this Puritan soul, thirsty for knowledge and grace, and so long starved and imprisoned, was entering at last into her heritage.
All this was of course but dimly felt in the direct perceptions of Anthony; but Father Robert had said enough to open something of the vision, and he himself had sufficient apprehension to make him feel that the old meagre life was pa.s.sing away, and a new life of unfathomed possibilities beginning. As he rode the wilderness appeared to rejoice and blossom like the rose, as the spring of nature and grace stirred about and within him; and only an hour or two"s ride away lay the very hills and streams of the Promised Land.
About half-past three he crossed the London road, and before four o"clock he rode round to the door of the Dower House, dismounted, telling the groom to keep his horse saddled.
He went straight through the hall, calling Isabel as he went, and into the garden, carrying his flat cap and whip and gloves: and as he came out beneath the holly tree, there she stood before him on the top of the old stone garden steps, that rose up between earthen flower-jars to the yew-walk on the north of the house. He went across the gra.s.s smiling, and as he came saw her face grow whiter and whiter. She was in a dark serge dress with a plain ruff, and a hood behind it, and her hair was coiled in great ma.s.ses on her head. She stood trembling, and he came up and took her in his arms tenderly and kissed her, for his news would be heavy presently.
"Why, Isabel," he said, "you look astonished to see me. But I could not well send a man, as I had only Geoffrey with me."
She tried to speak, but could not; and looked so overwhelmed and terrified that Anthony grew frightened; he saw he must be very gentle.
"Sit down," he said, drawing her to a seat beside the path at the head of the steps: "and tell me the news."
By a great effort she regained her self-control.
"I did not know when you were coming," she said tremulously. "I was startled."
He talked of his journey for a few minutes; and of the kindness of the friend with whom he had been staying, and the beauty of the house and grounds, and so on; until she seemed herself again; and the piteous startled look had died out of her eyes: and then he forced himself to approach his point; for the horse was waiting saddled; and he must get to Cuckfield and back by supper if possible.
He took her hand and played with it gently as he spoke, turning over her rings.
"Isabel," he said, "I have news to tell you. It is not bad news--at least I think not--it is the best thing that has ever come to me yet, by the grace of G.o.d, and so you need not be anxious or frightened. But I am afraid you may think it bad news. It--it is about religion, Isabel."
He glanced at her, and saw that terrified look again in her face: she was staring at him, and her hand in his began to twitch and tremble.
"Nay, nay," he said, "there is no need to look like that. I have not lost my faith in G.o.d. Rather, I have gained it. Isabel, I am going to be a Catholic."
A curious sound broke from her lips; and a look so strange came into her face that he threw his arm round her, thinking she was going to faint: and he spoke sharply.
"Isabel, Isabel, what is there to fear? Look at me!"
Then a cry broke from her white lips, and she struggled to stand up.
"No, no, no! you are mocking me. Oh! Anthony, what have I done, that you should treat me like this?"
"Mocking!" he said, "before G.o.d I am not. My horse is waiting to take me to the priest."