"But that"s not the worst that"s said of you."
"Oh, no! I know that."
Perhaps if Canon Nicholls could have seen the strained look on the young face he could have understood. As it was, he believed him to be taking the matter too lightly.
"When I was young," he said, "I thought it my own fault if I made enemies, and you know where there is a great deal of smoke there has generally been some fire."
"Then you mean to say," answered Mark, in a voice that was hard from the effort at self-control, "that you think it is my fault that lies are told against me, although you _do_ call them lies?"
"Frankly, I think you must have been careless," said the old man, leaning forward and grasping the arm of his chair. "I think you must have had too much disregard for appearances."
He paused, and there was a silence of several moments, while the ticking of the clock was quite loud in the little room.
"Unless this is the doing of an enemy," said Canon Nicholls.
"I do not know that it is an enemy," said Mark, "but I know there is some one who is excessively angry and excessively afraid because I know a secret of great importance."
"And that person is a woman, I suppose?"
"I cannot answer that," said Mark. He was standing now with one elbow on the end of the chimney-piece, and his head resting on his right hand, looking down at the worn rug at his feet.
"Will you tell me exactly what it is they do say?" said Mark, still speaking with an effort at cheerfulness that aggravated the nervous state of Canon Nicholls.
And there followed another silence, during which Father Molyneux realised to himself with fear and almost horror that he was nearly having a quarrel with the friend he loved so much, and on whose kindness he had always counted, and whose wisdom had so often been his guide. He was suffering already almost more than he owned to himself, and he had come into the room of the holy, blind old man as to a place of refuge.
It gave him a sick feeling of misery and helplessness that there seemed in the midst of his other troubles the possibility of a quarrel with Canon Nicholls. This at least he must prevent; and so, leaning forward, he said very gently:
"Do tell me a little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a definite story against me. I wish you would call a spade a spade quite openly."
"They have got hold of a story that you are tired of poverty and the priesthood, and so on, and that you will give it all up if you can persuade a certain very rich woman to marry you."
"That is definite enough." Mark was struggling to speak without bitterness. "And, for a moment, you thought----?" he could not finish the sentence.
"Good G.o.d! not for a fraction of a second. How can you?"
"Oh! forgive me, forgive me; I didn"t mean it."
Mark knelt down by the chair, tears were flowing from the blind eyes.
Canon Nicholls belonged to a generation whose emotions were kept under stern control; the tears would have come more naturally from Mark. There was a strange contrast between the academic figure of the old man in its reserved and negative bearing, seriously annoyed with himself for betraying the suffering he was enduring, and yet unable to check the flow of tears, and the eager, unreserved, sympathetic att.i.tude of the younger man. After a few moments of silence Mark rose and began to speak in low, quick accents----
"It is a secret which is doing infinite harm to a soul made for good things, and yet it is a secret which I can tell no one, not even you--at least, so I am convinced. But it is a secret by which people are suffering. The result is that I cannot deal with this calumny as I should deal with it if I were free; and I believe that I have not got to the worst of it yet. I see what it must lead to."
He looked down wistfully for a moment, and then went on:
"Last year I had a dream that was full of joy and peace, and that seemed to me G.o.d"s Will; but, through you, I came to see that I must give it up, and I threw myself into the life here with all my heart. And now, just when I had begun to feel that I was really doing a little good, now that I have got friends among the poor whom I love to see and help, I shall be sent away more or less under a cloud. I shall lose friends whom I love, and whom it had seemed to me that I was called to help even at the risk of my own soul. However, there it is. If I am not to be a Carthusian, if I am not to work for sinners in London, I suppose some other sphere of action will be found for me. I must leave it to Him Who knows best."
Canon Nicholls bent forward, and held out his long, white hands with an eager gesture, as though he were wrestling with his infirmity in his great longing to gain an outlook which would enable him to read a little further into the souls of men.
"I cannot explain more definitely. It is a case of fighting for a soul, or rather fighting with a soul against the devil in a terrible crisis.
I don"t know what to compare it to. Perhaps it is like performing a surgical operation while the patient is scratching your eyes out. If I can leave my own point of view out of sight for the present I can be of use, but I must let the scratching out of my eyes go on."
Mark went to the church early that evening, as it was his turn to be in the confessional. One or two people came to confession, and then the church seemed to be empty. He knelt down to his prayers and soon became absorbed. To-night he was oppressed in a new way by the sins, the temptations, and the unutterable weakness of man; his failures; his uselessness. Nothing else in Art had ever impressed him so much as the figure of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That beautiful figure, with all the freshness of its primal grace, stretching out its arms from a new-born world towards the infinite Creator, had expressed, with extraordinary pathos, the weakness, the failure, almost the non-existence of what is finite. "I Am Who Am" thundered Almighty Power, and how little, how helpless, was man!
And then, as Mark, weary with the misery of human life, almost repined at the littleness of it all, he felt rebuked. Could anything be little that was so loved of G.o.d? If the primal truth, if Purity Itself and Love Itself could make so amazing a courtship of the human soul, how dared anyone despise what was so honoured of the King? No, under all the self-seeking, the impure motives, the horrid cruelties of life, he must never lose sight of the delicate loveliness, the pathetic aspiration, the exquisite powers of love that are never completely extinguished. He must see with G.o.d"s eyes, if he were to do G.o.d"s work. And in the thought that it was, after all, G.o.d"s work and not his own, Mark found comfort. He had come into the church feeling the burden on his shoulders very hard to bear, and now he made the discovery that it was not he who was carrying it at all; he only appeared to have it laid upon him while Another bore it for him.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
THE CONDEMNATION OF MARK
Two excellent and cheerful old persons were engaged in conversation on the subject of Father Molyneux. The Vicar-General of the diocese, a Monsignor of the higher, or pontifical rank, had called to see the Rector of Mark"s church, and had already rapidly discussed other matters of varying importance when he said, leaning back in an old and faded leather chair:
"What"s all this about young Molyneux?"
Both men were fairly advanced in years and old for their age, for they had both worked hard and constantly for many years on the mission. They had to be up early and to bed late, with the short night frequently interrupted by sick calls, and on a Sunday morning they had always fasted till one o"clock, and usually preached two or even three times on the same day. They had never known for very many years what it was to be without serious anxiety on the matter of finance. Their lives had been models of amazing regularity and self-control. Their recreations consisted chiefly in dining with each other at mid-day on Mondays, and spending the afternoon with whist and music. Probably, too, they had dined with a leading parishioner once or twice in the week.
In politics they were mildly Liberal, more warmly Home Rulers, but they put above all the interests of the Church. They were, too, fierce partisans on the controversies about Church music, and had a zeal for the beauty and order of their respective churches that was admirable in its minuteness and its perseverance. They both had a large circle of friends with whom they rejoiced at annual festivities at their Colleges, and with whom they habitually and freely censured their immediate authorities. Those who were warmest in their devotion to the Vatican were often the most inclined to make a scapegoat of a mere bishop. But now one of these two old friends had been made Vicar-General of the diocese, and it was likely that the Rector would speak to him with less than his usual freedom. Lastly, both men had that air of complete knowledge of life which comes with the habits of a circle of people who know each other intimately. And neither of them realised in the least that the minds of the educated laity were a shut book to them.
"Well," said the Rector, and after puffing at his pipe he went on, "we can hardly get into the church for the crowd, and I am going to put up a notice to ask ladies to wear small hats--toques; isn"t that what they call them?"
"I heard him once," said the Vicar-General, "and, to tell the truth, it didn"t seem up to much."
"Words," said the Rector; "it"s Oxford all over. There must be a new word for everything. Why, he preached on Our Lady the other day, and I declare I don"t think there were three sentences I"d ever heard before!
And on Our Lady, too! A man must be gone on novelty who wants to find anything new to say about Our Lady."
"It doesn"t warm me up a bit, that sort of thing," said the Vicar-General. "I like to hear the things I"ve heard all my life."
"Of course," responded the other, "but you won"t get that from our popular preachers, I can tell you," and he laughed with some sarcasm.
"Is he making converts?"
"Too many, far too many; that"s just what I complain of. We shall have a nice name for relapses here if it goes on like this."
Both men paused.
"You"ve nothing more to complain of?" asked the Monsignor.
"No--no--" The second "no" was drawn out to its full length. "Of course, he"s unpunctual, and he"s often late for dinner. I don"t know where he gets his dinner at all sometimes. And there are always ladies coming to see him. If there are two in the parlour and another in the dining-room, and a young man on the stairs, it"s for ever Father Molyneux they are asking for. And, of course, he has too much money given him for the poor, and we have double the beggars we had last year."
"But," said the other, "you know there"s more being said than all that.
There"s an unpleasant story, and it"s about that I want to ask you.
Well--the same sort of thing as poor n.o.bbs; you"ll remember n.o.bbs?"
"Remember n.o.bbs! Why, I was curate with him when I first left the seminary. Now, there was a preacher, if you like! But it turned his head completely. Poor, wretched n.o.bbs! It"s a dangerous thing to preach too well, I"m certain of that."
"Well, it"s a danger you and I have been spared," said the Monsignor, and they both laughed heartily.