Paul Faber, Surgeon Part 15

"That is much to say for any man," returned the curate.

"If any man is, then," adjected Juliet.

"That is a great _If_," rejoined Wingfold."--Are _you_ honest, Helen?"

he added, turning to his wife.

"No," she answered; "but I am honester than I was a year ago."

"So am I," said her husband; "and I hope to be honester yet before another is over. It's a big thing to say, _I am honest_."

Juliet was silent, and Helen, who was much interested with her, turned to see how she was taking it. Her lips were as white as her face. Helen attributed the change to anger, and was silent also. The same moment the rector moved toward the place where the luncheon-tables were, and they all accompanied him, Helen still walking, in a little anxiety, by Juliet's side. It was some minutes before the color came back to her lips; but when Helen next addressed her, she answered as gently and sweetly as if the silence had been nothing but an ordinary one.

"You will stay and lunch with us, Mr. Faber?" said the rector. "There can be no hypocrisy in that--eh?"

"Thank you," returned the doctor heartily; "but my work is waiting me, and we all agree that _must_ be done, whatever our opinions as to the ground of the obligation."

"And no man can say you don't do it," rejoined the curate kindly.

"That's one thing we do agree in, as you say: let us hold by it, Faber, and keep as good friends as we can, till we grow better ones."

Faber could not quite match the curate in plain speaking: the pupil was not up with his master yet.

"Thank you, Wingfold," he returned, and his voice was not free of emotion, though Juliet alone felt the tremble of the one vibrating thread in it. "--Miss Meredith," he went on, turning to her, "I have heard of something that perhaps may suit you: will you allow me to call in the evening, and talk it over with you?"

"Please do," responded Juliet eagerly. "Come before post-time if you can. It may be necessary to write."

"I will. Good morning."

He made a general bow to the company and walked away, cutting off the heads of the dandelions with his whip as he went. All followed with their eyes his firm, graceful figure, as he strode over the gra.s.s in his riding-boots and spurs.

"He's a fine fellow that!" said the rector. "--But, bless me!" he added, turning to his curate, "how things change! If you had told me a year ago, the day would come when I should call an atheist a fine fellow, I should almost have thought you must be one yourself! Yet here I am saying it--and never in my life so much in earnest to be a Christian!

How is it, Wingfold, my boy?"

"He who has the spirit of his Master, will speak the truth even of his Master's enemies," answered the curate. "To this he is driven if he does not go willingly, for he knows his Master loves his enemies. If you see Faber a fine fellow, you say so, just as the Lord would, and try the more to save him. A man who loves and serves his neighbor, let him speak ever so many words against the Son of Man, is not sinning against the Holy Ghost. He is still open to the sacred influence--the virtue which is ever going forth from G.o.d to heal. It is the man who in the name of religion opposes that which he sees to be good, who is in danger of eternal sin."

"Come, come, Wingfold! whatever you do, don't mis-quote," said the rector.

"I don't say it is the right reading," returned the curate, "but I can hardly be convicted of misquoting, so long as it is that of the two oldest ma.n.u.scripts we have."

"You always have the better of me," answered the rector. "But tell me--are not the atheists of the present day a better sort of fellows than those we used to hear of when we were young?"

"I do think so. But, as one who believes with his whole soul, and strives with his whole will, I attribute their betterness to the growing influences of G.o.d upon the race through them that have believed. And I am certain of this, that, whatever they are, it needs but time and continued unbelief to bring them down to any level from whatever height.

They will either repent, or fall back into the worst things, believing no more in their fellow-man and the duty they owe him--of which they now rightly make so much, and yet not half enough--than they do in G.o.d and His Christ. But I do not believe half the bad things Christians have said and written of atheists. Indeed I do not believe the greater number of those they have called such, were atheists at all. I suspect that worse dishonesty, and greater injustice, are to be found among the champions, lay and cleric, of religious Opinion, than in any other cla.s.s. If G.o.d were such a One as many of those who would fancy themselves His apostles, the universe would be but a huge h.e.l.l. Look at certain of the so-called religious newspapers, for instance. Religious!

Their tongue is set on fire of h.e.l.l. It may be said that they are mere money-speculations; but what makes them pay? Who buys them? To please whom do they write? Do not many buy them who are now and then themselves disgusted with them? Why do they not refuse to touch the unclean things?

Instead of keeping the commandment, 'that he who loveth G.o.d love his brother also,' these, the prime channels of Satanic influence in the Church, powerfully teach, that He that loveth G.o.d must abuse his brother--or he shall be himself abused."

"I fancy," said the rector, "they would withhold the name of brother from those they abuse."

"No; not always."

"They would from an unbeliever."

"Yes. But let them then call him an enemy, and behave to him as such--that is, love him, or at least try to give him the fair play to which the most wicked of devils has the same right as the holiest of saints. It is the vile falsehood and miserable unreality of Christians, their faithlessness to their Master, their love of their own wretched sects, their worldliness and unchristianity, their talking and not doing, that has to answer, I suspect, for the greater part of our present atheism."

"I have seen a good deal of Mr. Faber of late," Juliet said, with a slight tremor in her voice, "and he seems to me incapable of falling into those vile conditions I used to hear attributed to atheists."

"The atheism of some men," said the curate, "is a n.o.bler thing than the Christianity of some of the foremost of so-called and so-believed Christians, and I may not doubt they will fare better at the last."

The rector looked a little blank at this, but said nothing. He had so often found, upon reflection, that what seemed extravagance in his curate was yet the spirit of Scripture, that he had learned to suspend judgment.

Miss Meredith's face glowed with the pleasure of hearing justice rendered the man in whom she was so much interested, and she looked the more beautiful. She went soon after luncheon was over, leaving a favorable impression behind her. Some of the ladies said she was much too fond of the doctor; but the gentlemen admired her spirit in standing up for him. Some objected to her paleness; others said it was not paleness, but fairness, for her eyes and hair were as dark as the night; but all agreed, that whatever it was to be called, her complexion was peculiar--some for that very reason judging it the more admirable, and others the contrary. Some said she was too stately, and attributed her carriage to a pride to which, in her position, she had no right, they said. Others judged that she needed such a bearing the more for self-defense, especially if she had come down in the world. Her dress, it was generally allowed, was a little too severe--some thought, in its defiance of the fashion, a.s.suming. No one disputed that she had been accustomed to good society, and none could say that she had made the slightest intrusive movement toward their circle. Still, why was it that n.o.body knew any thing about her?

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RECTORY.

The curate and his wife had a good deal of talk about Juliet as they drove home from Nestley. Much pleased with herself, they heard from their hostess what she had learned of her history, and were the more interested. They must find her a situation, they agreed, where she would feel at home; and in the meantime would let her understand that, if she took up her abode in Glaston, and were so inclined, the town was large enough to give a good hope of finding a few daily engagements.

Before they left Nestley, Helen had said to Mrs. Bevis that she would like to ask Miss Meredith to visit them for a few days.

"No one knows much about her," remarked Mrs. Bevis, feeling responsible.

"She can't be poison," returned Helen. "And if she were, she couldn't hurt us. That's the good of being husband and wife: so long as you are of one mind, you can do almost any thing."

When Faber called upon Juliet in the evening, nothing pa.s.sed between them concerning the situation at which he had hinted. When he entered she was seated as usual in the corner of the dingy little couch, under the small window looking into the garden, in the shadow. She did not rise, but held out her hand to him. He went hastily up to her, took the hand she offered, sat down beside her, and at once broke into a full declaration of his love--now voluble, now hesitating, now submissive, now persuasive, but humblest when most pa.s.sionate. Whatever the man's conceit, or his estimate of the thing he would have her accept, it was in all honesty and modesty that he offered her the surrender of the very citadel of his being--alas, too "empty, swept, and garnished!" Juliet kept her head turned from him; he felt the hand he held tremble, and every now and then make a faint struggle to escape from his; but he could not see that her emotion was such as hardly to be accounted for either by pleasure at the hearing of welcome words, or sorrow that her reply must cause pain. He ceased at length, and with eyes of longing sought a glimpse of her face, and caught one. Its wild, waste expression frightened him. It was pallid like an old sunset, and her breath came and went stormily. Three times, in a growing agony of effort, her lips failed of speech. She gave a sudden despairing cast of her head sideways, her mouth opened a little as if with mere helplessness, she threw a pitiful glance in his face, burst into a tumult of sobs, and fell back on the couch. Not a tear came to her eyes, but such was her trouble that she did not even care to lift her hand to her face to hide the movements of its rebellious muscles. Faber, bewildered, but, from the habits of his profession, master of himself, instantly prepared her something, which she took obediently; and as soon as she was quieted a little, mounted and rode away: two things were clear--one, that she could not be indifferent to him; the other, that, whatever the cause of her emotion, she would for the present be better without him. He was both too kind and too proud to persist in presenting himself.

The next morning Helen drew up her ponies at Mrs. Puckridge's door, and Wingfold got out and stood by their heads, while she went in to call on Miss Meredith.

Juliet had pa.s.sed a sleepless night, and greatly dreaded the next interview with Faber. Helen's invitation, therefore, to pay them a few days' visit, came to her like a redemption: in their house she would have protection both from Faber and from herself. Heartily, with tears in her eyes, she accepted it; and her cordial and grateful readiness placed her yet a step higher in the regard of her new friends. The acceptance of a favor may be the conferring of a greater. Quickly, hurriedly, she put up "her bag of needments," and with a sad, sweet smile of gentle apology, took the curate's place beside his wife, while he got into the seat behind.

Juliet, having been of late so much confined to the house, could not keep back the tears called forth by the pleasure of the rapid motion through the air, the constant change of scene, and that sense of human story which haunts the mind in pa.s.sing unknown houses and farms and villages. An old thatched barn works as directly on the social feeling as the ancient castle or venerable manor-seat; many a simple house will move one's heart like a poem; many a cottage like a melody. When at last she caught sight of the great church-tower, she clapped her hands with delight. There was a place in which to wander and hide! she thought--in which to find refuge and rest, and coolness and shadow! Even for Faber's own sake she would not believe that faith a mere folly which had built such a pile as that! Surely there was some way of meeting the terrible things he said--if only she could find it!

"Are you fastidious, Miss Meredith, or willing to do any thing that is honest?" the curate asked rather abruptly, leaning forward from the back seat.

"If ever I was fastidious," she answered, "I think I am pretty nearly cured. I should certainly like my work to be so far within my capacity as to be pleasant to me."

"Then there is no fear," answered the curate. "The people who don't get on, are those that pick and choose upon false principles. They generally attempt what they are unfit for, and deserve their failures.--Are you willing to teach little puds and little tongues?"

"Certainly."

"Tell me what you are able to do?"

"I would rather not. You might think differently when you came to know me. But you can ask me any questions you please. I shan't hide my knowledge, and I can't hide my ignorance."

"Thank you," said the curate, and leaned back again in his seat.