The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
Roger Ormiston unquestionably found her performance sufficiently
moving. But then the girl's frank manner, her warm, gipsy-like
colouring, and the way in which she could sit a horse, moved him also;
had done so, indeed, ever since he first saw her, as quite a child,
some eight or nine years ago, on one of his earliest visits to
Brockhurst, fighting a half-broken, Welsh pony that refused at a grip
by the roadside. The little maiden, her face pale, for once, from
concentration of purpose, had forced the pony over the grip. Then,
slipping out of the saddle, she coaxed and kissed the rough, unruly,
little beast, with tears of apology for the hard usage to which she had
been obliged to subject it. So stout, yet so tender, a heart, struck
Roger as an excellent thing in woman. And now, listening to the full,
rounded notes and thrumming of the guitar strings, in the evening quiet
under the stars, he wished, remorsefully, that he had never been guilty
of any pleasant sins, that his record was cleaner, his tastes less
expensive; that he was a better fellow all round, in short, than he
was, because, then, perhaps----
And Julius March, too, found the singing somewhat agitating, though to
him the personality of the singer was of small account. Another
personality, and a train of feeling evoked by certain new aspects of
it, had pursued him all the day long. Katherine, mindful of her
somewhat outspoken divergence of opinion from his, in the morning, had
been particularly thoughtful of his pleasure and entertainment. At
dinner she directed the conversation upon subjects interesting to him,
and had thereby made him talk more unreservedly than was his wont. Not
even the most saintly of human beings is wholly indifferent to social
success. Julius was conscious of a stirring of the blood, of a subdued
excitement. These sensations were pleasurable. But his training had
taught him to distrust pleasurable sensations as too often the
offspring of very questionable parentage. And, while Mary Cathcart's
voice still breathed upon the fragrant night air, he, standing on the
outskirts of the listening company, slipped away unperceived.
His study, a long narrow room occupying, with his bedroom, the ground
floor of the chapel wing of the house, struck chill as he entered it.
Above the range of pigeon-holes and little drawers, forming the back of
the writing-table, two candles burned on either side of a bronze
_pieta_, which Julius had brought back with him from Rome. On the broad
slab of the table below were the many quires of foolscap forming the
library catalogue, neatly numbered and lettered; while his diary lay
open upon the blotting-pad, ready for the chronicle of the past day.
Beside it was the packet of chap-books, still tied together with their
tag of rusty ribbon.
It was Julius March's habit to exchange his coat for a cassock in the
privacy of his study. He did so now, and knotted a black cord about his
waist. Let no one underrate the sustaining power of costume, whether it
take the form of ballet-skirt or monk's frock. Human nature is but a
weak thing at best, and needs outward and visible signs, not only to
support its faith in its deity, but even its faith in its own poor
self! Of persons of sensitive temperament and limited experience, such
as Julius, this is particularly true. Putting off his secular garment,
as a rule, he could put off secular thoughts as well. Beneath the
severe and scanty folds of the cassock there was small space for
remembrance of the pomp and glory of this perishing world. At least he
hoped so. To-night, importuned as he had been by scenes and emotions
quite other than ecclesiastical, Julius literally sought refuge in his
cassock. It represented "port after stormy seas"--home, after travel in
lands altogether foreign.
He took St. Augustine's _De Civitate Dei_ from its place in the book
shelves lining one side of the room. There should be peace in the soul,
surely, emancipation from questioning of transitory things in reading
of the City of God? But, alas, his attention strayed. That sense of
subdued excitement was upon him yet. He thought of the conversation at
dinner, of brilliant speeches he might have made, of the encouragement
of Katherine's smiling eyes and sympathetic speech, of the scene in the
gallery that morning, of Mary Cathcart's old-time love ditties. The
City of God was far off. All these were things very near at hand.
Notwithstanding the scanty folds of the cassock, they importuned him
still.
Pained at his own lack of poise and seriousness, Julius returned the
volume of St. Augustine to its place, and, sitting down at the
writing-table prepared to chronicle the day's events. Perhaps by
putting a statement of them on paper he could rid himself of their all
too potent influence. But his thought was tumultuous, words refused to
come in proper order and sequence; and Julius abhorred that erasures
should mar the symmetry of his pages. Impatiently he pushed the diary
from him. Clearly it, like the City of God, was destined to wait.
The guests had departed. He had heard the distant calling of voices in
friendly farewell, the rumble of departing wheels. The night was very
soft and mild. He would go out and walk the gray flags of the terrace,
till this unworthy restlessness gave place to reason and calm.
Passing along the narrow passage, he opened the door on to the
garden-hall. And there paused. The hall itself, and the inner side of
the carven arches of the arcade were in dense shadow. Beyond stretched
the terrace bathed in moonlight, which glittered on the polished leaves
of the little orange trees, on the leaded panes of the many windows,
and strangely transmuted the colours of the range of pot-flowers massed
beneath them along the base of the house. It was a fairy world upon
which Julius looked forth. Nor did it need suitable inhabitants. Pacing
slowly down the centre of the terrace came Richard and Katherine
Calmady, hand in hand. Tall, graceful, strong in the perfection of
their youth and their great devotion, amid that ethereal brightness,
they seemed as two heroic figures--immortal, fairy lovers moving
through the lovely wonder of that fairy-land. As they drew near,
Katherine stopped, leant--with a superb abandon--back against her
husband, resting her hand on his shoulder, drew his arm around her
waist for support, drew his face down to her upturned face until their
lips met, while the moonlight played upon the jewels on her bare arms
and neck and gleamed softly on the surface of her white, satin dress.
To true lovers the longest kiss is all too sadly short--a thing brief
almost in proportion to its sweetness. But to Julius March, watching
from the blackness of the doorway, it seemed a whole eternity before
Richard Calmady raised his head. Then Julius turned and fled down the
passage and back into the chill study, where the candles burned on
either side the image of the Virgin Mother cradling the dead Christ
upon her knee.
Gentle persons, breaking from the lines of self-restraint, run to a
curious violence in emotion. All day long, shrink from it, ignore it,
as he might, a moral storm had been brewing. Now it broke. Not from
those two lovers did Julius turn thus in amazement and terror; but from
just that from which it is impossible for any one to turn in actual
fact--namely from himself. He was appalled by the narrowness of his own
past outlook; appalled by the splendour of that heritage which, by his
own act, he had forfeited. The cassock ceased, indeed, to be a refuge,
the welcome livery of home and rest. It had become a prison-suit, a
badge of slavery, against which his whole being rebelled. For the
moment--happily violence is short-lived, only for a very little while
do even the gentlest persons "see red"--asceticism appeared to him as a
blasphemy against the order of nature and of nature's God. His vow of
perpetual chastity, made with so passionate an enthusiasm, for the
moment appeared to him an act of absolutely monstrous vanity and
self-conceit. In his stupid ignorance he had tried to be wiser than his
Maker, preferring the ordinances of man, to the glad and merciful
purposes of God. In so doing had he not, only too possibly, committed
the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost?
Poor Julius, his thought had indeed run almost humorously mad! Yet it
was characteristic of the man that the breaking of his self-imposed
bonds never occurred to him. Made in ignorance, unwitnessed though his
vow might be, it remained inviolable. He never, even in this most
heated hour of his trial, doubted that.
Stretching out his arms, he clenched his hands in anguish of spirit.
The sacerdotal pride, the subjective joys of self-consecration, the
mental luxury of feeling himself different from others, singled out,
set apart,--all the Pharisee, in short, in Julius March,--was sick to
death. He had supposed he was living to God--and now it appeared to him
he had lived only to himself. He had trusted God too little, had come
near reckoning the great natural laws--which, after all, must be of
God's ordering--common and unclean. Katherine was right. The eternal
purpose is joy, not sorrow; youth and health, not age and decay;
thankful acceptance, not fastidious rejection and fear. Katherine--yes,
Katherine--and there the young man's wild tirade stopped----
He flung himself down in front of the writing-table, leaning his elbows
on it, pressing his face upon his folded arms. For in good truth, what
did it all amount to? Not outraged laws of nature, not sins against the
Holy Ghost; but just simply this, that the common fate had overtaken
him. He loved a woman, and in so loving had, at last, found himself.
The most vital experiences are beyond language. When Julius looked up,
his eyes rested upon the bronze _pieta_, age-old witness to the
sanctity of motherhood and of suffering alike. His face was wet with
tears. He was faint and weak; yet a certain calm had come to him. He no
longer quarreled--though his attitude towards them was greatly
changed--either with his priestly calling or his rashly made vow. Not
as sources of pride did he now regard them; but as searching discipline
to be borne humbly and faithfully, to the honour--as he prayed--both of
earthly and heavenly love. He loved Katherine, but he loved her husband
and that with the fulness of a loyal and equal friendship. And so no
taint was upon his love, of this he felt certain. Indeed, he asked
nothing better than that things might continue as they were at
Brockhurst; and that he might continue to warm his hands a little--only
a little--in the dear sunshine of Richard and Katherine Calmady's
perfect love.
As Julius rose his knees gave under him. He rested both hands heavily
on the table, looked down, saw the unsightly packet of dirty
chap-books. Again, and almost with a cry, he prayed that things might
continue as they were at Brockhurst.
"Give peace in my time, oh Lord!" he said. Then he wrapped up the
little bundle carefully, sealed and labelled it, and locked it away in
one of the table-drawers.
Thus, kneeling before the image of the stricken Mother and the dead
Christ, did Julius March behold the Vision of the New Life. But the
page of his diary, on which surely a matter of so great importance
should have been duly chronicled, remains to this day a blank.
CHAPTER VI
ACCIDENT OR DESTINY, ACCORDING TO YOUR HUMOUR
On the 18th of October that year, St. Luke's day, a man died, and this
was the manner of his passing.
There was nothing more to be done. Dr. Knott had gone out of the red
drawing-room on the ground floor into the tapestry-hung dining-room
next door, which struck cold as the small hours drew on towards the