Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 28

"My dear, with your excellent taste you did much better; but I thought Leonard was a favorite of yours."

"I like him, but I detest his creed."

"You don't suppose he believes it?"

"He says he does, which is of more consequence."

"How can any human being believe the Westminster Confession?"

"I don't suppose any human being does. It's a question of obstinacy, pride; a question of being caught in a trap."

The doctor laughed.

"You, my dear," continued the lady, "lack religious sentiment. You don't care. _I_ cannot help being indignant when I see religion desecrated by religionists. It may be from the same feeling that I am sorry for a woman who adores her husband, and who must eventually find him out."

"Find him out! My dear----"

"I mean find out that he's not all that she has pictured. Leonard is a very ordinary mortal."

"But, on the whole, a very good fellow."

"Undoubtedly, but--a theologian of Hampton. I don't think you appreciate all that that may chance to mean to a woman you are pleased to call a religious enthusiast--meaning, I suppose, a woman who really craves religion."

"You must not take a word too seriously. The fact is that Mrs. Leonard has what may be termed an exalted temperament. One day I found her in tears and with traces of great agitation. She had been reading a book of ecstatic character. I hinted to Leonard that just now that sort of thing wouldn't do----"

"You were quite right. I remember that I suffered----"

"I don't mean to say that the lady had been suffering; on the contrary, I think she'd been having a good time. The book, by the way, was the life of some Roman saint--but good times of that sort are not to be indulged in by a lady about to have a baby."

"What did Leonard say?"

"Oh, he was amenable--more so than I expected. Of course, I said nothing about the Catholic book. Leonard is like prospective fathers, easily scared. They are much more tractable than prospective mothers; so I scared him."

The more easily that Leonard had been willing to be scared.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MUSIC OF THE CHORUS OF THE ANGUISH OF THE d.a.m.nED.

"Socrates," observed Miss Achsah, "is d.a.m.ned."

"If _you_ say so, he must be," was the sarcastic rejoinder of Tabitha Cone.

Miss Claghorn, with a stern gaze at her companion, opened Hodge's Commentary on The Confession of Faith and read: "'The heathen in ma.s.s, with no single, definite and unquestioned example on record, are evidently strangers to G.o.d and going down to death in an unsaved condition.' That," she said, "settles Socrates."

It did not settle Tabitha, whose question touched the weak spot in Hodge's a.s.sertion. "Where'd he see the record?" she asked.

"Tabitha," remonstrated Miss Achsah with evident sincerity, "sometimes I doubt your election. The audacity of setting up _your_ opinion----"

Tabitha was human and venerated print. She was a little frightened at her own temerity, and Miss Claghorn's seriousness did not tend to rea.s.sure her. "There's Brigston," she said weakly.

"Yes; and there's 'Greenland's Icy Mountains,' and 'India's Coral Strand,'" answered the lady pertinently, and closing the book and the discussion.

But, if closed at the White House, it raged furiously in the theological world. Until recently the permanent abode of Socrates had been as well known as that of Satan. No decree, whether of Roman or Protestant Pope, had been needed to establish a fact settled to the satisfaction of all (except, perhaps, to that of the Athenian sage) by the Eternal Decree of Omnipotence. It was reserved for a deluded doctor of the rival Seminary of Brigston to promulgate doubts of a self-evident truth. Such an affront to Westminster and the immutable justice of G.o.d was not to be borne in silence by Hampton.

A storm of unexampled fury burst from theological clouds, and Leonard, sniffing the odor of battle, joyously saw that his day had dawned. Into the fray he plunged, a gallant knight armed with the sword of orthodoxy, battling in the name of G.o.d and by the lurid light of h.e.l.l, in order that the music of the chorus of the anguish of the d.a.m.ned might still arise, a dulcet melody, to heaven.

And while the din of the holy war filled the air, Natalie welcomed a little babe, the light of whose clear blue eyes melted her soul in tenderness. To look into their celestial purity was to see heaven's glory reflected in the azure depths. The deeper springs of tenderness, closed to the rude touch of Leonard's pa.s.sion, were opened, and love undefiled gushed forth in a stream of unspeakable gladness. Her health remained delicate, and she was long confined to the house, but, aside from a pleasant languor, being physically at ease, she found in the care of the infant sufficient occupation. She was glad that she could be much alone with the boy, and held many and sweet communings with that soul she had discovered in his eyes. She never wearied of reading the mystery of those clear depths and, always connecting the child with heaven, in her simple belief, imagining the newcomer as lately from that blissful region, she built upon her fancies a system of theology which would have startled and confounded the Hampton Matrons. And, as before, in sight of the grandeur of G.o.d upon the waters, Leonard's lower self had been humbled, so now, the beauty of a pure soul, all its glory set forth in motherhood, chastened his earthly nature, and he bowed with the reverence of simple souls to saints.

Leonard's creed was, as is the case with creeds, a matter apart from his life; wherefore there was nothing strange in the fact that he could leave the presence of the two pure creatures, and retiring to his study, d.a.m.n countless souls to h.e.l.l in essays of exceeding force and brilliancy. Young as he was, all Hampton gloried in these labors whereby Brigston was smitten and abashed. There were champions more learned, being older; but, being older, their pens were enc.u.mbered with caution and hampered by the knowledge that pitfalls and traps lurk in the dark thickets of theological controversy. But Leonard had the daring of youth. Logic was logic, and truth not for a day, but eternal. Truth led to the Westminster Confession, which d.a.m.ns the great majority, Socrates included. To quibble with the plain meaning of plain words would be to follow the heretical Brigstonian, to deny the inspiration of Scripture, to be a traitor to his party and his creed. If the same decree which d.a.m.ned Socrates consigned the great majority of his own friends and acquaintances to the same everlasting misery, it couldn't be helped.

And, in fact, there was no reason why Leonard should shrink from that which thousands of men and women profess to believe, yet marry and bring forth children doomed, the while eating dinner in content.

Echoes of the merry war reached Natalie, but her curiosity was but faintly stirred. She saw that Leonard avoided the topic when alone with her, and was now content to learn nothing from her husband; seeing in her child her best teacher in heavenly lore. Her exhibition of maternal love extorted some disapproving comment; Mrs. Joe called it "uncanny,"

Tabitha said she was a queer mother, Miss Claghorn disapprovingly likened her adoration to Romanism--"Idolatry," she said to Tabitha.

"Yet," replied Tabitha, "she hardly ever hugs or kisses him. She just looks at him, and if you catch her at it she pa.s.ses it off."

"Just as you or I might if the cook were to come in while we were saying our prayers."

"Something 'ill happen to the child," said Tabitha ominously.

Miss Claghorn did not dispute it; the two were so perfectly in accord as to their sentiment in this matter that there was no chance for dispute.

Thus, in a strange, secret relation, mother and child lived more than a year together, and then Tabitha Cone's oracular prophecy was fulfilled.

Something happened to the child, which something was death; and Natalie was stricken as by a thunderbolt.

The most alarming phase of her illness was of short duration; she had been long unconscious, and during that period they who watched her had noticed, with something akin to awe, the heavenly peacefulness and sweet smile of her face. From her mutterings they gathered that she roamed in celestial regions with her boy. Dr. Stanley was evidently not favorably impressed with these supposed visions, and as soon as it was feasible ordered her removal to Stormpoint, where the sun shone brighter than in the old house, and where there would be fewer reminders of her loss.

Leonard, who had been severely stricken by the death of the child and worn with anxiety on his wife's account, acquiesced. The complete change of scene which the physician desired involved his absence from her side.

"Of course you'll visit her daily, if you choose," said the doctor, "but if you are constantly together she will inevitably talk of the child and of heaven, and we must keep her away from heaven." Natalie remonstrated, but rather feebly. Since the birth of the child Mrs. Joe had seen less cause to complain of undue absorption in the husband by the wife. Thus, to keep Natalie from contemplation of heaven, Leonard returned to contemplation of h.e.l.l; for the war still raged, though with some slackness. Leonard girded up his loins and prepared to inject the spirit which had somewhat diminished during his own absence from the lines of battle.

The mistress of Stormpoint watched her new inmate keenly. "It's natural that she should love her child, even though he's dead," she said to Paula, "but she talks with him. I heard her."

"Her faith is perfect," exclaimed Paula with solemn enthusiasm. "She knows he lives forever."

"That's all very well; but he don't live at Stormpoint."

"She feels his presence, though she cannot see him."

"She says she does. Of course, it's fiddlesticks; but the doctor ought to know."

And the doctor, being informed, agreed with Mrs. Joe that conversation with angels was not to be encouraged. "A very little roast beef and a great deal of fresh air," was his prescription, "A trip somewhere when she is stronger. Meanwhile, keep bores away--Father Cameril and Leonard."

"I can't lock Leonard out."