The Christian Part 31

It was ten days overdue. That night, in her little bedroom, with its low ceiling and sloping floor, Glory wrote her answer:

"But it isn't nonsense, my dear grandfather, and I really have left the hospital. I don't know if it was the holiday and the liberty or what, but I felt like that young hawk at Glenfaba--do you remember it?--the one that was partly snared and came dragging the trap on to the lawn by a string caught round its leg. I had to cut it away, I had to, I had to! But you mustn't feel one single moment's uneasiness about me. An able-bodied woman like Glory Quayle doesn't starve in a place like London. Besides, I am provided for already, so you see my bow abides in strength. The first morning after my arrival Mrs. Jupe told me that if I cared to take to myself the style and t.i.tle of teacheress to her little Slyboots I had only to say the word and I should be as welcome as the flowers in May. It isn't exactly first fiddling, you know, and it doesn't bring an amba.s.sador's salary, but it may serve for the present, and give me time to look about. You mustn't pay too much attention to my lamentations about being compelled by Nature to wear a petticoat. Things being so arranged in this world I'll make them do. But it does make one's head swim and one's wings droop to see how hard Nature is on a woman compared to a man. Unless she is a genius or a jelly-fish there seems to be only one career open to her, and that is a lottery, with marriage for the prizes, and for the blanks--oh dear, oh dear! Not that I have anything to complain of, and I hate to be so sensitive. Life is wonderfully interesting, and the world is such an amusing place that I've no patience with people who run away from it, and if I were a man--but wait, only wait, good people!"

V.

John Storm had made one other friend at Bishopsgate Street--the dog of the monastery. It was a half-bred bloodhound, and n.o.body seemed to know whence he came and why he was there. He was a huge, ungainly, and most forbidding creature, and partly for that reason, but chiefly because it was against rule to fix the affections on earthly things, the brothers rarely caressed him. Unnoticed and unheeded, he slept in the house by day and prowled through the court by night, and had hardly ever been known to go out into the streets. He was the strictest monk in the monastery, for he eyed every stranger as if he had been Satan himself, and howled at all music except the singing in the church.

On seeing John for the first time, he broadened his big flews and stiffened his thick stern, according to his wont with all intruders, but in this instance the intruder was not afraid. John patted him on the peaked head and rubbed him on the broad nose, then opened his mouth and examined his teeth, and finally turned him on his back and tickled his chest, and they were fast friends and comrades forever after.

Some weeks after the dedication they were in the courtyard together, and the dog was pitching and plunging and uttering deep bays which echoed between the walls like thunder at play. It was the hour of morning recreation, between Terce and s.e.xt, and the religious were lolling about and talking, and one lay brother was sweeping up the leaves that had fallen from the tree, for the winter had come and the branches were bare. The lay brother was Brother Paul, and he made sidelong looks at John, but kept his head down and went on with his work without speaking.

One by one the brothers went back to the house, and John made ready to follow them, but Paul put himself in his way. He was thinner than before, and his eyes were red and his respiration difficult.

Nevertheless, he smiled in a childlike way, and began to talk of the dog. What life there was in the old creature still! and n.o.body had known, there was so much play in it.

"You are not feeling so well, are you?" said John.

"Not quite so well," he answered.

"The day is cold, and this penance is too much for you."

"No, it's not that. I asked for it, you know, and I like it. It's something else. To tell you the truth, I'm very foolish in some ways.

When I've got anything on my mind I'm always thinking. Day and night it's the same with me, and even work----"

His breathing was audible, but he tried to laugh.

"Do you know what it is this time? It's what you said on the roof on the night of the vows, you remember. What you didn't say, I mean--and that's just the trouble. It was wrong to talk of the world without great necessity, but if you had been able to say 'Yes' when I asked if everybody was well you would have done it, wouldn't you?"

"We'll not talk of that now," said John.

"No, it would be the same fault as before. Still----"

"How keen the air is! And your asthma is so troublesome! You must really let me speak to the Father."

"Oh, that's nothing. I'm used to it. But if you know yourself what it is to be always thinking of anybody----"

John called to the dog, and it capered about him. "Good-morning, Brother Paul." And he went into the house. The lay brother leaned on his besom and drew a long sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his chest.

John had hastened away, lest his voice should betray him.

"Awful!" he thought. "It must be awful to be always thinking of somebody, and in fear of what has happened to her. Poor little Polly!

She's not worthy of it, but what does that matter? Blood is blood and love is love, and only G.o.d is stronger."

A few days afterward the air darkened and softened, and snow began to fall. Between Vespers and Evensong John went up to the tower to see London under its mantle of white. It was like an Eastern city now under an Eastern moonlight, and he was listening to the shouts and laughter of people s...o...b..lling in the streets when he heard a laboured step on the stair behind him. It was Brother Paul coming up with a spade to shovel away the snow. His features were pinched and contracted, and his young face was looking old and worn.

"You really must not do it," said John. "To work like this is not penance, but suicide. I'll speak to the Father, and he'll----"

"Don't; for mercy's sake, don't! Have some pity, at all events! If you only knew what a good thing work is for me--how it drives away thoughts, and stifles----"

"But it's so useless, Brother Paul. Look! The snow is still falling, and there's more to come yet."

"All the same, it's good for me. When I'm very tired I can sleep sometimes. And then G.o.d is good to you if you don't spare yourself. Some day perhaps he'll tell me something."

"He'll tell us everything in his own good time, Brother Paul."

"It's easy to counsel patience. If I were like you I should be counting the days until my time was over, and that would help me to bear things.

But when you are dedicated for life----"

He stopped at his work and looked over the parapet, and seemed to be gazing into the weary days to come.

"Have you anybody of your own out there?"

"You mean any----"

"Any relative--any sister?"

"No."

"Then you don't know what it is; that's why you won't give me an answer."

"Don't ask me, Brother Paul."

"Why not?"

"It might only make you the more uneasy if I told you what----"

The lay brother let his spade fall, then slowly, very slowly, picked it up again and said:

"I understand. You needn't say any more. I shall never ask you again."

The bell rang for Evensong, and John hurried away. "If it were only some one who was deserving of it!" he thought--"some one who was worthy that a man should risk his soul to save her!"

At supper and in church he saw Brother Paul going about like a man in a waking dream, and when he went up to bed he heard him moving restlessly in the adjoining cell. The fear of betraying himself was becoming unbearable, and he leaped up and stepped out into the corridor, intending to ask the Superior to give him another room elsewhere. But he stopped and came back. "It's not brave," he thought, "it's not kind, it's not human," and, saying this again and again, as one whistles when going by a haunted house, he covered his ears and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, while it was still quite dark, he was awakened by a light on his face and the sense of some one looking down on him in his sleep. With a shudder he opened his eyes and saw Brother Paul, candle in hand, standing by the bed. His eyes were red and swollen, and when he spoke his voice was full of tears.

"I know it's a fault to come into anybody else's cell," he said, "but I would rather do my penance than endure this torture. Something has happened--I can see that quite well; but I don't know what it is, and the suspense is killing me. The certainty would be easier to bear; and I swear to you by Him who died for us that if you tell me I shall be satisfied! Is she dead?"

"Not that," said John by a sudden impulse, and then there was an awful silence.

"Not dead!" said Paul. "Then would to G.o.d that she were dead, for it must be something worse, a thousand times worse!"

John felt as if the secret had been stolen from him in his sleep; but it was gone, and he could say nothing. Brother Paul's lips trembled, his respiration quickened, and he turned away and smote his head against the wall and sobbed.

"I knew it all the time," he said. "Her sister went the same way, and I could see that she was going too, and that was why I was so anxious. Oh, my poor mother! my poor mother!"