The clock in a neighboring church tower was just striking five on a warm afternoon in June. The pillar box stood at the corner of Guilford Square nearest the church, and on this particular afternoon there chanced to be several people running at the last moment to post their letters. Among others were Brian and Erica. Brian, with a great bundle of parish notices, had just reached the box when running down the other side of the square at full speed he saw his Undine carrying a bagful of letters.
He had not met her for some weeks, for it happened to have been a busy time with him, and though she had been very good in coming to read to old Mrs. Osmond, he had always just missed her.
"This is a funny meeting place," she exclaimed, rather breathlessly. "It never struck me before what a truly national inst.i.tution the post office is--a place where people of all creeds and opinions can meet together, and are actually treated alike!"
Brian smiled.
"You have been very busy," he said, glancing at the innumerable envelopes, which she was dropping as fast as might be into the narrow receptacle. He could see that they were directed in her small, clear, delicate handwriting.
"And you, too," she said, looking at his diminished bundle. "Mine are secularist circulars, and yours, I suppose, are the other kind of thing, but you see the same pillar eats them up quite contentedly. The post office is beautifully national, it sets a good example."
She spoke lightly, but there was a peculiar tone in her voice which betrayed great weariness. It made Brian look at her more attentively than he had yet done--less from a lover"s point of view, more from a doctor"s. She was very pale. Though the running had brought a faint color to her cheeks, her lips were white, her forehead almost deathly.
He knew that she had never really been well since her mother"s death, but the change wrought within the last three weeks dismayed him; she was the mere shadow of her former self.
"This hot weather is trying you," he said.
"Something is," she replied. "Work, or weather, or worry, or the three combined."
"Come in and see my father," said Brian, "and be idle for a little time; you will be writing more circulars if you go home."
"No, they are all done, and my examination is over, and there is nothing special going on just now; I think that is why I feel so like breaking down."
After a little more persuasion, she consented to go in and see Mr.
Osmond. The house always had a peculiarly restful feeling, and the mere thought of rest was a relief to her; she would have liked the wheels of life to stop for a little while, and there was rest in the mere change of atmosphere. On the doorstep Brian encountered a patient, much to his vexation; so he could only take Erica into the study, and go in search of his father. He lingered however, just to tell him of his fears.
"She looks perfectly worn out; you must find out what is wrong, father, and make her promise to see some one."
His tone betrayed such anxiety that his father would not smile although he was secretly amused at the task deputed to him. However, clergyman as he was, he had a good deal of the doctor about him, and he had seen so much of sickness and disease during his long years of hard work among the poor that he was after all about as ready an observer and as good a judge as Brian could have selected.
Erica, leaning back in the great easy chair, which had been moved into summer quarters beside the window, heard the slow soft step she had learned to know so well, and before she had time to get up, found her hand in Charles Osmond"s strong clasp.
"How comfortable your chair is," she said, smiling; "I believe I was nearly asleep."
He looked at her attentively, but without appearing to study her face in any way. She was very pale and there was an indefinable look of pain in her eyes.
"Any news of the examination?" he asked, sitting down opposite her.
"No, it is too soon yet," she replied. "I thought I should have felt so anxious about it, but do you know, now that it is over, I can"t make myself care a bit. If I have failed altogether, I don"t believe I shall mind very much."
"Too tired to care for anything?"
"Yes, I seem to have come to the end. I wish I were a watch, and could run down and rest for a few days and be wound up again."
He smiled. "What have you been doing with yourself to get so tired?"
"Oh, nothing particular; it has been rather a long day. Let me see! In the morning there were two delegates from Rilchester who had to be kept in a good temper till my father was ready for them; then there was father"s bag to be packed, and a rush to get him off in time for the morning express to Longstaff. Then I went to a lecture at South Kensington, and then by train to Aldersgate Street to see Hazeldine"s wife, who is unconscionable enough to live at the top of one of the model lodging houses. Then she told me of another of our people whose child is ill, and they lived in another row of Compton buildings up a hundred more steps, which left my back nearly broken. And the poor little child was fearfully ill, and it is so dreadful to see pain you can do nothing for; it has made me feel wretched ever since. Then--let me think--oh, I got home and found Aunt Jean with a heap of circulars to get off, and there was a great rush to get them ready by post time."
She paused; Charles Osmond withdrew his eyes from the careful scrutiny of her face, and noticed the position she had taken up in his chair.
She was leaning back with her arms resting on the arms of the chair; not merely stretched out upon them, but rather as if she used them for support. His eyes wandered back again to her face. After a short silence, he spoke.
"You have been feeling very tired lately; you have had unaccountable pains flying about all over you, but specially your back has felt, as you just said, somewhat "broken." You have generally noticed this when you have been walking, or bending over your desk writing for the "Idol-Breaker.""
She laughed.
"Now please don"t turn into a clairvoyant; I shall begin to think you uncanny; and, besides, it would be an argument for Tom when we quarrel about you."
"Then my surmises are true?"
"Subst.i.tute first person singular for second plural, and it might have come from my own lips," said Erica, smiling. "But please stop; I"m afraid you will try to turn prophet next, and I"m sure you will prophesy something horrid."
"It would need no very clear-sighted prophet to prophesy that you will have to let your wheels run down for a little while."
"Do you mean that you think I shall die?" asked Erica, languidly. "It wouldn"t be at all convenient just now; father couldn"t spare me. Do you know," and her face brightened, "he is really beginning to use me a good deal?"
"I didn"t mean that I thought your wheels would run down in that way,"
said Charles Osmond, touched by the pathos of her words. "I may even be wrong, but I think you will want a long rest, and I am quite sure you mustn"t lose a day before seeing a doctor. I should like my brother to see you; Brian is only junior partner, you know."
"What, another Mr. Osmond! How muddled we shall get between you all!"
said Erica, laughing.
"I should think that Brian might be Brian by this time," said Charles Osmond; "that will dispose of one; and perhaps you would like to follow the example of one of my servants, who, I hear, invariably speaks of me as the "dear rev.""
Erica laughed.
"No, I shall call you my "prophet," though it is true you have begun by being a prophet of evil! By the bye, you can not say again that I am not impartial. What do you think Tom and I did last week?"
"Read the New Testament backward?"
"No, we went to a Holy Scripture Society meeting at Exeter Hall."
"Hope you were edified," said Charles Osmond, with a little twinkle in his eye; but he sighed, nevertheless.
"Well," said Erica, "it was rather curious to hear everything reversed, and there was a good deal of fun altogether. They talked a great deal about the numbers of bibles, testaments, and portions which had been sent out. There was one man who spoke very broadly, and kept on speaking of the "PORTIONS," and there was another whom we called the "Great Door," because eight times in his speech he said that a great door had been opened for them in Italy and other places. Altogether, I thought them rather smug and self-satisfied, especially one man whose face shone on the slightest provocation, and who remarked, in broad Lincolnshire, that they had been "aboondantly blessed." After his speech a little short, sleek oily man got up, and talked about Providence. Apparently it had been very kind to him, and he thought the other sort of thing did best for those who got it. But there were one or two really good speakers, and I dare say they were all in earnest. Still, you know, Tom and I felt rather like fish out of water, and especially when they began to sing, "Oh, Bible, blessed Bible!" and a lady would make me share her hymn book. Then, too, there was a collection, and the man made quite a pause in front of us, and of course we couldn"t give anything.
Altogether, I felt rather horrid and hypocritical for being there at all."
"Is that your only experience of one of our meetings?"
"Oh, no, father took me with him two or three times to Westminster Abbey a good many years ago. We heard the dean; father admired him very much. I like Westminster Abbey. It seems to belong a little to us, too, because it is so national. And then it is so beautiful, and I liked hearing the music. I wonder, though, that you are not little afraid of having it so much in your worship. I remember hearing a beautiful anthem there once, which just thrilled one all through. I wonder that you don"t fear that people should mistake that for what you call spiritual fervor."
"I think, perhaps, there is a danger in any undue introduction of externals, but any one whose spirit has ever been awakened will never mistake the mere thrill of sensuous rapture for the quickening of the spirit by the Unseen."
"You are talking riddles to me now!" said Erica; "but I feel sure that some of the people who go to church regularly only like it because of that appeal to the senses. I shall never forget going one afternoon into Notre Dame with Mme. Lemercier. A flood of crimson and purple light was shining in through the south transept windows. You could see the white-robed priests and choristers--there was one boy with the most perfect voice you can conceive. I don"t know what they were singing, something very sweet and mournful, and, as that one voice rang up into the vaulted roof, I saw Mme. Lemercier fall down on her knees and pray in a sort of rapture. Even I myself felt the tears come to my eyes, just because of the loveliness, and because the blood in one"s veins seemed to bound. And then, still singing, the procession pa.s.sed into the nave, and the lovely voice grew more and more distant. It was a wonderful effect; no doubt, the congregation thought they felt devout, but, if so, then I too felt devout--quite as religious as they. Your spiritual fervor seems to me to resolve itself into artistic effect produced by an appeal to the senses and emotions."
"And I must repeat my riddle," said Charles Osmond, quietly. "No awakened spirit could ever mistake the one for the other. It is impossible! How impossible you will one day realize."
"One evil prophesy is enough for today!" said Erica laughing. "If I stay any longer, you will be prophesying my acceptance of Christianity. No, no, my father will be grieved enough if your first prediction comes true, but, if I were to turn Christian, I think it would break his heart!"
She rose to go, and Charles Osmond went with her to the door, extracting a promise that she would discuss things with her aunt, and if she approved send for Mr. Osmond at once. He watched her across the square, then turning back into his study paced to and fro in deep thought.
Erica"s words rang in his ears. "If I were to turn Christian, I think it would break his heart." How strangely this child was situated! How almost impossible it seemed that she could ever in this world come to the light! And yet the difficulty might perhaps be no hindrance to one so beautifully sincere, so ready to endure anything and everything for the sake of what she now considered truth. She had all her father"s zeal and self-devotion; surely the offering up of self, even in a mistaken cause, must sooner or later lead to the Originator of all self-sacrifice. Surely some of those who seem only to thwart G.o.d, honestly deeming Christianity a mischievous delusion, are really acting more in His spirit, unconsciously better doing His will than many who openly declare themselves on His side! Yet, as Charles Osmond mused over the past lives of Luke Raeburn and his daughter, and pictured their probable future, a great grief filled his heart. They wee both so lovable, so n.o.ble! That they should miss in a great measure the best of life seemed such a grievous pity! The chances that either of them would renounce atheism were, he could not but feel, infinitesimally small.