Hyacinth Part 22

He had chosen. Could he be sure that he had chosen right, that he knew the good side from the bad?

'You have chosen, and I have no more to say. Only, before it becomes impossible for you and me to kneel together, I ask you to let me pray with you once more. You can do this because you still believe He hears us, although you have decided to walk no more with Him.'

They knelt together, and Hyacinth, numbly indifferent, felt his hand grasped and held.

'O Christ,' said Canon Beecher, 'this child of Thine has chosen to live by hatred rather than by love. Do Thou therefore remove love from him, lest it prove a hindrance to him on the way on which he goes. Let the memory of the cross be blotted out from his mind, so that he may do successfully that which he desires.'

Hyacinth wrenched his hand free from the grasp which held it, and flung himself forward across the table at which they knelt. Except for his sobs and his choking efforts to subdue them, there was silence in the room. Canon Beecher rose from his knees and stood watching him, his lips moving with unspoken supplication. At last Hyacinth also rose and stood, calm suddenly.

'You have conquered me,' he said.

'My son, my son, this is joy indeed! All along I knew He could not fail you. But I have not conquered you. The Lord Jesus has saved you.'

'I do not know,' said Hyacinth slowly, 'whether I have been saved or lost. I am not sure even now that I know the good side from the bad.

But I do know that I cannot live without the hope of being loved by Him.

Whether it is the better part to which I resign myself I cannot tell.

No doubt He knows. As for me, if I have been forced to make a great betrayal, if I am to live hereafter very basely--and I think I am--at least I have not cut myself off from the opportunity of loving Him.'

CHAPTER XXI

Canon Beecher took no notice of Hyacinth's last speech. He had returned with amazing swiftness and ease from the region of high emotion to the commonplace. Excursions to the shining peaks of mystical experience are for most men so rare that the glory leaves them with dazzled eyes, and they walk stumblingly for a while along the dull roads of the world.

But Canon Beecher, in the course of his pleading with Hyacinth, had been only in places very well known to him. The presence chamber of the King was to him also the room of a familiar friend. It was no breathless descent from the green hill of the cross to the thoroughfare of common life.

'Now, my dear boy,' he said, 'we really must go and talk to my wife and Marion. Besides, I must tell you the plan I have made for you--the plan I was just going to speak about when you put it out of my head with the news of your love-making.'

For Hyacinth a great effort was necessary before he could get back to his normal state. His hands were trembling violently. His forehead and hair were damp with sweat. His whole body was intensely cold. His mind was confused, and he listened to what was said to him with only the vaguest apprehension of its meaning. The Canon laid a firm hand upon his arm, and led him away from the study. In the pa.s.sage he stopped, and asked Hyacinth to go back and blow out the candle which still burned on the study table.

'And just put some turf on the fire,' he added; 'I don't want it to go out.'

The pause enabled Hyacinth to regain his self-command, and the performance of the perfectly ordinary acts required of him helped to bring him back again to common life.

When they entered the drawing-room it was evident that Mrs. Beecher had already heard the news, and was, in fact, discussing the matter eagerly with Marion. She sprang up, and hastened across the room to meet them.

'I am so glad,' she said--'so delighted! I am sure you and Marion will be happy together.'

She took Hyacinth's hands in hers, and held them while she spoke, then drew nearer to him and looked up in his face expectantly. A fearful suspicion seized him that on an occasion of the kind she might consider it right to kiss him. It was with the greatest difficulty that he suppressed a wholly unreasonable impulse to laugh aloud. Apparently the need of such affectionate stimulant was strong in Mrs. Beecher. When Hyacinth hung back, she left him for her husband, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him heartily on both cheeks.

'Isn't it fortunate,' she said, 'that you saw Dr. Henry last week while you were in Dublin? You little thought how important that talk with him was going to turn out--I mean, of course, important for us. It always was important for Mr.--I mean for Hyacinth.'

The Canon seemed a little embarra.s.sed. He cleared his throat somewhat unnecessarily, and then said:

'I haven't mentioned that matter yet.'

'Not mentioned Dr. Henry's offer! Then, what have you been talking about all this time?'

It did not seem necessary to tell Mrs. Beecher all that had been said, or to repeat the scene in the study for her benefit. The Canon cleared his throat again.

'I was in Dublin last week attending a meeting of the Scriptural Schools Society, and I met Dr. Henry. We were talking about the Quinns. I told you that Mr. Quinn is to be the new secretary of the society, didn't I?

Dr. Henry knows Mr. Quinn slightly, and was greatly interested in him.

Your name naturally was mentioned. Dr. Henry seems to have taken a warm interest in you when you were in college, and to have a very high opinion of your abilities. He did not know what had become of you, and was very pleased to hear that you were a friend of ours.'

Hyacinth knew at once what was coming--knew what Canon Beecher's plan for his future was, and why he was pleased with it; understood how Mrs.

Beecher came to describe this conversation with Dr. Henry as fortunate.

He waited for the rest of the recital, vaguely surprised at his own want of feeling.

'I told him,' the Canon went on, eying Hyacinth doubtfully, 'that you had lost your employment here. I hope you don't object to my having mentioned that. I am sure you wouldn't if you had heard how sympathetically he spoke of you. He a.s.sured me that he was most anxious to help you in any way in his power. He just asked one question about you.' Hyacinth started. Where had he heard those identical words before?

Oh yes, they were in Miss Goold's letter. Patrick O'Dwyer also had just asked one question about him. He smiled faintly as the Canon went on: '"Is he fit, spiritually fit, to be ordained? For it is the desire to serve G.o.d which must animate our work." I said I thought you were. I told him how you sang in our choir here, and how fond you seemed of our quiet life, and what a good fellow you are. You see, I did not know then that I was praising the man who is to be my son-in-law. He asked me to remind you of a promise he had once made, and to say that he was ready to fufil it. I understood him to mean that he would recommend you to any Bishop you like for ordination.'

Hyacinth remained silent. He felt that in surrendering his work for the _Croppy_ he surrendered also his right to make any choice. He was ready to be shepherded into any position, like a sheep into a pen. And he had no particular wish to resist. He saw a simple satisfaction in Mrs.

Beecher's face and a beautiful joy in Marion's eyes. It was impossible for him to disappoint them. He smiled a response to Mrs. Beecher's kindly triumph.

'Isn't that splendid! Now you and Marion will be able to be married quite soon, and I do dislike long engagements. Of course, you will be very poor at first, but no poorer than we were. And Marion is not afraid of being poor--are you, dear?'

'That is just what I have been saying to him,' said Marion; 'isn't it, Hyacinth? Of course I am not afraid. I have always said that if I ever married I should like to marry a clergyman, and if one does that one is sure to be poor.'

Evidently there was no doubt in either of their minds that Hyacinth would accept Dr. Henry's offer. Nor had he any doubt himself. The thing seemed too inevitable to be anything but right. Only on Canon Beecher's face there lingered a shadow of uncertainty. Hyacinth saw it, and relieved his mind at once.

'I shall write to Dr. Henry to-night and thank him. I shall ask him to try and get me a curacy as soon as possible.'

'Thank you,' said the Canon.

'I think,' added Hyacinth, 'that I should prefer getting work in England.'

'Oh, why,' said Mrs. Beecher. 'Wouldn't it be better to stay in Ireland!

and then we might have Marion somewhere within reach.'

'My dear,' said the Canon, 'we must let Hyacinth decide for himself. I am sure he knows what is wisest for him to do.'

Hyacinth was not at all sure that he knew what was wisest, and he was quite certain that he had not decided for himself in any matter of the slightest importance. He had suggested an English curacy in the vague hope that it might be easier there to forget his hopes and dreams for Ireland. It seemed to him, too, that a voluntary exile, of which he could not think without pain, might be a kind of atonement for the betrayal of his old enthusiasm.

The Canon followed him to the door when he left.

'My dear boy'--there was a break in his voice as he spoke--' my dear boy, you have made me very happy. I am sure that you will not enter upon the work of the ministry from any unworthy motive. The call will become clearer to you by degrees. I mean the inward call. The outward call, the leading of circ.u.mstance, has already made abundantly plain the way you ought to walk in. The other will come--the voice which brings a.s.surance and peace when it speaks.'

Hyacinth looked at him wistfully. There seemed very little possibility of anything like a.s.surance for him, and only such peace as might be gained by smothering the cries with which his heart a.s.sailed him. The Canon held his hand and wrung it.

'I can understand why you want to go to England. Your political opinions will interfere very little with your work there. Here, of course, it would be different. Yes, your choice is certainly wise, for nothing must be allowed to hinder your work. "Laying aside every weight," you remember, "let us run the race." Yes, I understand.'

It was perfectly clear to Hyacinth that the Canon did not understand in the least. It was not likely that anyone ever would understand.

Gradually his despondency gave way before the crowding in of thoughts of satisfaction. He was to have Marion, to live with her, to love her, and be loved by her as long as they both lived. He saw life stretching out before him, a sunlit, pleasant journey in Marion's company. It did not seem to him that any trouble could be really bad, any disappointment intolerable, any toil oppressive with her love for an atmosphere round him. He believed, too, that the work he was undertaking was a good work, perhaps the highest and n.o.blest kind of work there is to be done in the world. From this conviction also came a glow of happiness. Yet there kept recurring chill shudderings of self-reproach. Something within him kept whispering that he had bartered his soul for happiness.

'I have chosen the easier and therefore the baser way,' he said. 'I have shrunk from toil and pain. I have refused to make the sacrifice demanded of me.'

He went back again to the story of his father's vision. For a moment it seemed quite clear that he had deliberately refused the call to the great fight, that he had judged himself unworthy, being cowardly and selfish in his heart. Then he remembered that the Captain of whom his father had told him was no one else but Christ, the same Christ of whom Canon Beecher spoke, the Good Shepherd whose love he had discovered to be the greatest need of all.