When It Was Dark Part 2

"No, dear," he said. "I don't think you need be afraid. I know the sort of visions you have. The sort of thing in _Pendennis_, isn't it? The boy sent out for beer to the nearest public-house, and breakfast at twelve in the morning, cooked in the sitting-room. You don't know Harold. He is quite _bourgeois_ in his habits, despite his intellect, hates a muddle, always dresses extremely well, and goes to church like any married man.

He was a great friend of the Pusey House people at Oxford."

"The days when you couldn't be a genius without being dirty are gone,"

said the vicar. "I am glad of it. I was staying at St. Ives last summer, where there is quite an artistic settlement. All the painters carried golf-clubs and looked like professional athletes. They drink Bohea in Bohemia now."

Gortre talked a little about his plans for the future. He had a sympathetic audience. During the four years of his curacy at Walktown he had become very dear to Mr. Byars. He had arrived in the North from Oxford, after a year at Litchfield Theological College, just about the time that Mrs. Byars had died. His help and sympathy at such a time had begun a friends.h.i.+p with his vicar that had been firmly cemented as the time went on, and had finally culminated in his engagement to Helena. He had been the vicar's sole intellectual companion all this time, and his loss would be irreparable. But both men felt that his departure was inevitable. The younger man's powers were stifled and confined in the atmosphere of the place. He had private means of his own, and belonged to an old West-country family, and, try as he would he failed to identify himself socially with the Walktown people. His engagement to Helena Byars had increased his unpopularity. He would be far happier at St. Mary's in London, at the famous High Church, where he would find all those exterior accompaniments of religion to which he had been accustomed, and which, though he did not exalt the shadow into the substance, always made him happier when he was surrounded by them.

He was to wait a year and then he would be married. There were no money obstacles in the way and no reason for further delay. Only the vicar looked forward with a sort of horror to his future loneliness, and tried to put the thought from him whenever it came.

After dinner Helena left the two men to smoke alone in the study. There was a concert in the Town Hall to which she was going with Mrs. Pryde, the solicitor's wife, a neighbour. Her friend's carriage called for her about eight, and Gortre settled down for a long talk with the vicar on parochial affairs.

They sat on each side of the dancing fire, with coffee on a table between them, quietly enjoying the after-dinner pipe, the best and finest of the five cardinal pipes of the day. It was a comfortable scene. The room was lighted only by a single electric reading-lamp with a green shade, and the firelight flickered and played over the dull gold and crimson of the books on the shelves, and threw red lights on the s.h.i.+ning ivory of the sculptured Christ.

"I daresay this North-country man will do all right," said the vicar.

"He will be more popular than you, Basil."

The young man sighed. "G.o.d knows I have tried hard enough to win their confidence," he said sadly, "but it was not to be. I _can't_ get in touch with them, vicar. They dislike my manners, my way of speaking--everything about me. Even the landlady of my rooms distrusts me because I decline to take tea with my evening chop, and charges me three s.h.i.+llings a week extra because I have what she calls 'late dinner'!"

The vicar laughed. "At any rate," he said, "you have got hold of Leef, your landlord; he comes to church regularly now."

"Oh, Leef ill.u.s.trates more than any one else how impossible it is, for me, at any rate, to do much good. Last week he said to me, 'It's a fine thing, religion, when you've got it at last, Mr. Gortre. When I look back at my unregenerate years I wonder at myself. Religion tells me to give up certain things. It only 'armonises with the experience of any sensible man of my age. I don't want to drink too much, for instance. My health is capital, and I'm not such a fool as to spoil it. To think that all those years I never knew that religion was as easy as winking, and with a certainty of everlasting glory afterwards. I'll always back you up, Mr. Gortre, in saying that religion's the finest thing out.'"

"Well, dear boy, you will be in another environment altogether soon.

It's no use being discouraged. _Tot homines, quot sententiae_! We can't alter these things. The Essenes used to speak disrespectfully enough of 'Ye men of Galilee,' no doubt. Sometimes I think I would rather have these stubborn people than those of the South, men as easy and _commode_ as an old glove, and worth about as much. Have you seen the _Guardian_ to-day?"

"No, I haven't. I've been at the schools all the morning, visiting in Timperley Street till Evensong, home for a wash, and then here."

"I see Schuabe is going to address a great meeting in the Free Trade Hall on the Education Bill."

"Then he is at Mount Prospect?"

"He arrived from London yesterday."

The two men looked at each other in silence. Mr. Byars seemed ill at ease. His foot tapped the bra.s.s rail of the fender. Then, a sure sign of disturbance with him, he put down his pipe, which was nearly smoked away, and took a cigarette from a box on the table and smoked in short, quick puffs.

Gortre's face became dark and gloomy. The light died out of it, the kindliness of expression, which was habitual, left his eyes.

"We have never really told each other what we think of Schuabe and how we think of him, vicar," he said. "Let us have it out here and now while we are thinking of him and while we have the opportunity."

"In a question of this sort," said Mr. Byars, "confidences are extremely dangerous as a rule, but between you and me it is different. It will clear our brains mutually. G.o.d forbid that you and I, in our profession as Christ's priests and our socio-political position as clerks in Holy Orders, should bear rancour against any one. But we are but human.

Possibly our mutual confidence may help us both."

There was a curious eagerness in his manner which was reflected by that of the other. Both were conscious of feelings ill in accord with their usual open and kindly att.i.tude towards the world. Each was anxious to know if the other coincided with himself.

Men are weak, and there is comfort in community.

"From envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness--" said Gortre.

"Good Lord deliver us," replied the vicar gravely.

There was a tense silence for a time, only broken by the dropping of the coals in the grate. The vicar was the first to break it.

"I'll sum up my personal impression of the man for and against," he said.

Gortre nodded.

"There can be no doubt whatever," said Mr. Byars, "that among all the great North-country millionaires--men of power and influence, I mean--Schuabe stands first and pre-eminent. His wealth is enormous to begin with. Then he is young--can hardly be forty yet, I should say. He belongs to the new generation. In Walktown he stands entirely alone.

Then his brilliancy, his tremendous intellectual powers, are equalled by few men in England. His career at Oxford was marvellous, his political life, only just beginning as it is, seems to promise the very highest success. His private life, as far as we know--and everything about the man seems to point to an ascetic temperament and a refined habit--is without grossness or vice of any kind. In appearance he is one of the ten most striking-looking men in England. His manners are fascinating."

Gortre laughed shortly, a mirthless, bitter laugh.

"So far," he said, "you have drawn a picture which approaches the ideal of what a strong man should be. And I grant you every detail of it. But let me complete it. You will agree with me that mine also is true."

His voice trembled a little. Half unconsciously his eyes wandered to the crucifix on the writing-table. In the red glow of the fire, which had now ceased to crackle and flame, the drooping figure on the cross showed distinct and clear in all its tremendous appeal to the hearts of mankind. Tears came into the young man's eyes, his face became drawn and pained. When he spoke, his voice was full of purpose and earnestness.

"Yes," he said, with an unusual gesture of the hand, "Schuabe is all that you say. In a hard, G.o.dless, and material age he is an epitome of it. The curse of indifferentism is over the land. Men have forgotten that this world is but an inn, a sojourning place for a few hours. O fools and blind! The terror of death is always with them. But this man is far more than this--far, far more. To him has been given the eye to see, the heart to understand. _He, of all men living in England to-day, is the mailed, armed enemy of Our Lord._ No loud-mouthed atheist, sincere and blatant in his ignorance, no honest searcher after truth.

All his great wealth, all his attainments, are forged into one devilish weapon. He is already, and will be in the future, the great enemy of Christianity. Oh, I have read his book! 'Even now there are many antichrists.' I have read his speeches in Parliament. I know his enormous influence over those unhappy people who call themselves 'Secularists.' Like Diocletian, like Julian, _he hates Christ_. He is no longer a Jew. Judaism is nothing to him--one can reverence a Montefiore, admire an Adler. His attacks on the faith are something quite different to those of other men. As his skill is greater, so his intention is more evil. And yet how helpless are we who know! The ma.s.s of Christians--the lax, tolerant Christians--think he is a kind of John Morley. They praise his charities, his efforts for social amelioration. They quote, 'And G.o.d fulfils Himself in many ways.' I say again, O fools and blind! They do not know, they cannot see, this man as he is at heart, accursed and antichrist!" His voice dropped, tired with its pa.s.sion and vehemence. He continued in a lower and more intimate vein:

"Do you think I am a fanatic, vicar? Am I touched with monomania when I tell you that of late I have thought much upon the prophetic indications of the coming of 'the Man of Sin,' the antichrist in Holy Writ? Can it be, I have asked myself, as I watch the comet-like brilliance of this man's career, can it be that in my own lifetime and the lifetime of those I love, the veritable enemy of our Saviour is to appear? Is this man, this Jew, he of whom it is said in Jacob's words, 'Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path'--the tribe of which _not one_ was sealed?"

"You are overwrought, Basil," said the elder man kindly. "You have let yourself dwell too much on this man and his influences. But I do not condemn you. I also have had my doubts and wonderings. The outside world would laugh at us and people who might be moved as we are at these things. But do we not live always with, and by help of, the Unseen? G.o.d alone knows the outcome of the trend of these antichristian influences, of which, I fear, Schuabe is the head. The Fathers are clear enough on the subject, and the learned men of mediaeval times also. Let me read to you."

He got up from his arm-chair, glad, it seemed, at opportunity of change and movement, and went to the book-shelves which lined the wall. His scholar's interest was aroused, his magnificent reading and knowledge of Christian history and beliefs engaged and active.

He dipped into book after book, reading extracts from them here and there.

"Listen. Marchantius says the s.h.i.+p of the Church will sink and be lost in the foam of infidelity, and be hidden in the blackness of that storm of desolation which shall arise at the coming of Antichrist. 'The sun shall be darkened and the stars shall fall from heaven.' He means, of course, the sun of faith, and that the stars, the great ecclesiastical dignitaries, shall fall into apostasy. But, he goes on to say, the Church will remain unwrecked, she will weather the storm and come forth '_beautiful as the moon, terrible as an army with banners_.'"

His voice was eager and excited, his face was all alight with the scholar's eagerness, as he took down book after book with unerring instinct to ill.u.s.trate his remarks.

"Opinions as to the nature and personality of Antichrist have been very varied," he continued. "Some of the very early Christian writers say he will be a devil in a phantom body, others that he will be an incarnate demon, true man and true devil, in fearful and diabolic parody of the Incarnation of our Lord. There is a third view also. That is that he will be merely a desperately wicked man, acting upon diabolic inspirations, just as the saints act upon Divine inspirations.

"Listen to St. John Damascene upon the subject. He is very express. 'Not as Christ a.s.sumed humanity, so will the Devil become human; but the Man will receive all the inspiration of Satan, and will suffer the Devil to take up his abode within him.'"

Gortre, who was listening with extreme attention, made a short, sharp exclamation at this last quotation.

He had risen from his seat and stood by the mantel-shelf, leaning his elbow upon it.

One of the ornaments of the mantel was a head of Christ, photographed on china, from Murillo, and held in a large silver frame like a photograph frame.

Just as the vicar had finished reading there came a sudden knock at the door. It startled Gortre, and he moved suddenly. His elbow slid along the marble of the shelf and dislodged the picture, which fell upon the floor and was broken into a hundred pieces, cras.h.i.+ng loudly upon the fender.

The housemaid, who had knocked, stood for a moment looking with dismay upon the breakage. Then she turned to the vicar.

"Mr. Schuabe from Mount Prospect to see you, sir," she said. "I've shown him into the drawing-room."