Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 33

"But, Father I are we bound to give up all that can possibly be sin, or even can become sin?" asked Eva, in a tone which decidedly indicated dissent.

"I should like to hear thy objection, daughter."

"Why, we should have to give up every thing nice!" said Eva, disconsolately. "There are all sorts of delightful things, which are not exactly sins, but--"

"Not quite virtues," interposed Beatrice, with an amused expression, as Eva paused.

"Well, no. Still they are not wrong--in themselves. But they make one waste one's time, or forget to say one's beads, or be cross to one's sister,--just because they are so delightful, and one does not want to give over. And being cross is sin, I suppose; and so it is when one forgets to say one's prayers: I don't know whether wasting time is exactly a sin."

"I see," said Bruno, in the same quiet tone. "Had our Lord sent thee to clear His Temple of the profane who desecrated it by traffic, thou wouldst have overthrown the tables of the money-changers, but not the seats of them that sold doves."

Beatrice and Doucebelle answered by a smile of intelligence; Eva looked rather dissatisfied.

"But it is not a sin to be happy, Father?" asked Margaret in a low voice.

"Not if G.o.d give thee the happiness."

"That is just it!" said Eva, discontentedly. "How is one to know?"

"My child," answered Bruno, ignoring the tone, "G.o.d never means His children to put any thing into the place of Himself. The moment thou dost that, that thing is sin to thee."

"But when do we do that, Father?" asked Doucebelle.

"When it makes thee forget to say thy prayers, I should think," drily observed Beatrice.

"When it comes in the way between Him and thee," said Bruno.

"And is it a sin to waste time, Father?" queried Eva.

"It is a sin to waste any thing," answered Bruno. "But if it be more a sin to waste one thing than another, surely it is to waste life itself."

He rose and went away. Eva shrugged her shoulders with a wry face.

"There never was any body so precise as Father Bruno! I would rather ask questions of Father Nicholas, ten times over."

"Well, I don't like asking questions of Father Nicholas," responded Doucebelle, "because he never answers them. He never goes down to the bottom of things."

"_Ha, chetife_!" cried Eva. "Dost thou want to get to the bottom of things? That is just why I like Father Nicholas, because he never bothers one with reasons and distinctions. It is only, 'Yes, thou mayest do so,' or 'No, do not do that,'--and then I am satisfied. Now, Father Bruno will persist in explaining why I am not to do it, and that sometimes makes me want to do it all the more. It seems to leave it in one's own hands."

Beatrice broke into a laugh. "Why, Eva, thou wouldst rather be a chair to be moved about, than a woman to be able to go at pleasure."

"I would rather have a distinct order," said Eva, a little scornfully.

"'Do,' or 'Don't,' I can understand. But, 'Saint Paul says this,' or 'Saint John says that,' and to have to make up one's own mind,--I detest it."

"And I should detest the opposite."

"I am afraid, Beatrice, thou art greatly wanting in the virtue of holy obedience. But of course one can make allowances for thine unhappy education."

Eva had occasion to leave the room at the conclusion of this unflattering speech: and Beatrice indulged in a long laugh.

"Well, what I am afraid of," she said to Margaret and Doucebelle, "is that Eva is rather wanting in the virtue of common-sense. But whether I am to lay that on her education, I do not know."

There was no answer: but the thoughts of the hearers were almost opposites. Margaret considered Beatrice rash and self-satisfied.

Doucebelle thought heartily with her, and only wished that she had as much courage to say so.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

WHAT IS LOVE?

"She only said, 'My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said: She said, 'I am aweary, weary, I would that I were dead!'"

_Tennyson_.

It was fortunate for Bruno de Malpas that he had a friend in Bishop Grosteste, whose large heart and clear brain were readily interested in his wish to return from regular to secular orders. He smoothed the path considerably, and promised him a benefice in his diocese if the dispensation could be obtained. But the last was a lengthy process, and some months pa.s.sed away before the answer could be received from Rome.

It greatly scandalised Hawise and Eva--for different reasons--to see how very little progress was made by Beatrice in that which in their eyes was the Christian religion. It was a comfort to them to reflect that she had been baptised as an infant, and therefore in the event of sudden death had a chance of going to Heaven, instead of the dreadful certainty of being shut up in Limbo,--a place of vague locality and vaguer character, being neither pleasant nor painful, but inhabited by all the hapless innocents whose heathen or careless Christian parents suffered them to die unregenerated. But both of them were sorely shocked to discover, when she had been about two months at Bury, that poor Beatrice was still ignorant of the five commandments of the Church. Nor was this all: she irreverently persisted in her old inquiry of "What is the Church?" and st.u.r.dily demanded what right the Church had to give commandments.

Hawise was quite distressed. It was not _proper_,--a phrase which, with her, was the strongest denunciation that could be uttered. n.o.body had ever asked such questions before: _ergo_, they ought never to be asked.

Every sane person knew perfectly well what the Church was (though, when gently urged by Beatrice, Hawise backed out of any definition), and no good Catholic could possibly require telling. And as to so shocking a supposition as that the Church had no right to issue her own commands,-- well, it was not proper!

Eva's objection was quite as strong, but of a different sort. She really could not understand what Beatrice wanted. If the priest--or the Church--they were very much the same thing--told her what to do, could she not rest and be thankful? It was a great deal less trouble than everlastingly thinking for one's self.

"No one of any note ever thinks for himself," chimed in Hawise.

"Then I am glad I am not of any note!" bluntly responded Beatrice.

"You a De Malpas! I am quite shocked!" said Hawise.

"G.o.d made me with a heart and a conscience," was the answer. "If He had not meant me to use them, He would not have given them to me."

At that point Beatrice left the room in answer to a call from the Countess; and Hawise, turning to her companions, remarked in a whisper that it must be that dreadful Jewish blood on the mother's side which had given her such very improper notions. They were _so_ low! "For my part," she added, "if it were proper to say so, I should remark that I cannot imagine why Father Bruno does not see that she understands something of Christianity--but of course one must not criticise a priest."

"Speak truth, my daughter," said a voice from the doorway which rather disconcerted Hawise. "Thou canst not understand my actions--in what respect?"

"I humbly crave your pardon, Father; but I am really distressed about Beatrice."

"Indeed!--how so?"

"She understands nothing about Christian duties."

"I hope that is a little more than truth. But if not,--let her understand Christ first, my child: Christian duties will come after."

"Forgive _me_, Father--without teaching?"

"Not without His teaching," said Bruno, gravely. "Without mine, it may be."

"But, Father, she does not know the five commandments of holy Church.