The Altar Steps Part 34

"Have you found happiness in the religious life?"

"I have found myself. The Reverend Mother wanted me to leave the community and enter a contemplative order. She did not think I should be able to help poor girls."

"Esther, what a stupid woman! Why surely you would be wonderful with them?"

"I think she is a wise woman," said Esther. "I think since we came picking St. John's wort I understand how wise she is."

"Esther, dear dear Esther, you make me feel more than ever ashamed of myself. I entreat you not to believe what the Reverend Mother says."

"You have only a fortnight to convince me," said Esther.

"And I will convince you."

"Mark, do you remember when you made me pray for his soul telling me that in that brief second he had time to repent?"

Mark nodded grimly.

"You still do think that, don't you?"

"Of course I do. He must have repented."

She thanked him with her eyes; and Mark looking into their depths of hope unfathomable put away from him the thought that the d.a.m.ned soul of Will Starling was abroad to-night with power of evil. Yes, he put this thought behind him; but carrying an armful of St. John's wort to hang in sprays above the doors of the church he could not rid himself of the fancy that his arms were filled with Esther's auburn hair.

CHAPTER XXIII

MALFORD ABBEY

Mark left Wych-on-the-Wold next day; although he did not announce that he should be absent from home so long, he intended not to return until Esther had gone back to Sh.o.r.editch. He hoped that he was not being cowardly in thus running away; but after having a.s.sured Esther that she could count on his behaving normally for the rest of her visit, he found his sleep that night so profoundly disturbed by feverish visions that when morning came he dreaded his inability to behave as both he would wish himself and she would wish him to behave. Flight seemed the only way to find peace. He was shocked not so much by being in love with Esther, but by the suddenness with which his desires had overwhelmed him, desires which had never been roused since he was born. If in an instant he could be turned upside down like that, could he be sure that upon the next occasion, supposing that he fell in love with somebody more suitable, he should be able to escape so easily? His father must have married his mother out of some such violent impulse as had seized himself yesterday afternoon, and resentiment about his weakness had spoilt his whole life. And those dreams! How significant now were the words of the Compline hymn, and how much it behoved a Christian soul to vanquish these ill dreams against beholding which the defence of the Creator was invoked. He had vowed celibacy; yet already, three months after his twenty-first birthday, after never once being troubled with the slightest hint that the vow he had taken might be hard to keep, his security had been threatened. How right the Rector had been about that frightening beat.i.tude.

Mark had taken the direction of Wychford, and when he reached the bridge at the bottom of the road from Wych-on-the-Wold he thought he would turn aside and visit the Greys whom he had not seen for a long time. He was conscious of a curiosity to know if the feelings aroused by Esther could be aroused by Monica or Margaret or Pauline. He found the dear family unchanged and himself, so far as they were concerned, equally unchanged and as much at his ease as he had ever been.

"And what are you going to do now?" one of them asked.

"You mean immediately?"

Mark could not bring himself to say that he did not know, because such a reply would have seemed to link him with the state of mind in which he had been thrown yesterday afternoon.

"Well, really, I was thinking of going into a monastery," he announced.

Pauline clapped her hands.

"Now I think that is just what you ought to do," she said.

Then followed questions about which Order he proposed to join; and Mark ashamed to go back on what he had said lest they should think him flippant answered that he thought of joining the Order of St. George.

"You know--Father Burrowes, who works among soldiers."

When Mark was standing by the cross-roads above Wychford and was wondering which to take, he decided that really the best thing he could do at this moment was to try to enter the Order of St. George. He might succeed in being ordained without going to a theological college, or if the Bishop insisted upon a theological course and he found that he had a vocation for the religious life, he could go to Glas...o...b..ry and rejoin the Order when he was a priest. It was true that Father Rowley disapproved of Father Burrowes; but he had never expressed more than a general disapproval, and Mark was inclined to attribute his att.i.tude to the prejudice of a man of strong personality and definite methods against another man of strong personality and definite methods working on similar lines among similar people. Mark remembered now that there had been a question at one time of Father Burrowes' opening a priory in the next parish to St. Agnes'. Probably that was the reason why Father Rowley disapproved of him. Mark had heard the monk preach on one occasion and had liked him. Outside the pulpit, however, he knew nothing more of him than what he had heard from soldiers staying in the Keppel Street Mission House, who from Aldershot had visited Malford Abbey, the mother house of the Order. The alternative to Malford was Clere Abbey on the Berkshire downs where Dom Cuthbert Manners ruled over a small community of strict Benedictines. Had Mark really been convinced that he was likely to remain a monk for the rest of his life, he would have chosen the Benedictines; but he did not feel justified in presenting himself for admission to Clere on what would seem impulse. He hoped that if he was accepted by the Order of St. George he should be given an opportunity to work at one of the priories in Aldershot or Sandgate, and that the experience he might expect to gain would help him later as a parish priest. He could not confide in the Rector his reason for wanting to subject himself to monastic discipline, and he expected a good deal of opposition. It might be better to write from whatever village he stayed in to-night and make the announcement without going back at all.

And this is what in the end he decided to do.

The Sun Inn,

Ladingford.

June 24.

My dear Rector,

I expect you gathered from our talk the day before yesterday that I was feeling dissatisfied with myself, and you must know that the problem of occupying my time wisely before I am ordained has lately been on my mind. I don't feel that I could honestly take up a profession to which I had no intention of sticking, and though Father Rowley recommended me to stay at home and work with the village people I don't feel capable of doing that yet. If it was a question of helping you by taking off your shoulders work that I could do it would be another matter. But you've often said to me that you had more time on your hands than you cared for since you gave up coaching me for an Oxford scholarship, and so I don't think I'm wrong in supposing that you would find it hard to discover for me any parochial routine work. I'm not old enough yet to fish for souls, and I have no confidence in my ability to hook them.

Besides, I think it would bore you if I started "missionizing" in Wych-on-the-Wold.

I've settled therefore to try to get into the Order of St. George.

I don't think you know Father Burrowes personally, but I've always heard that he does a splendid work among soldiers, and I'm hoping that he will accept me as a novice.

Latterly, in fact since I left Chatsea, I've been feeling the need of a regular existence, and, though I cannot pretend that I have a vocation for the monastic life in the highest sense, I do feel that I have a vocation for the Order of St. George. You will wonder why I have not mentioned this to you, but the fact is--and I hope you'll appreciate my frankness--I did not think of the O.S.G. till this morning. Of course they may refuse to have me. But I shall present myself without a preliminary letter, and I hope to persuade Father Burrowes to have me on probation. If he once does that, I'm sure that I shall satisfy him. This sounds like the letter of a conceited clerk. It must be the fault of this horrible inn pen, which is like writing with a tooth-pick dipped in a puddle! I thought it was best not to stay at the Rectory, with Esther on the verge of her profession. It wouldn't be fair to her at a time like this to make my immediate future a matter of prime importance. So do forgive my going off in this fashion. I suppose it's just possible that some bishop will accept me for ordination from Malford, though no doubt it's improbable. This will be a matter to discuss with Father Burrowes later.

Do forgive what looks like a most erratic course of procedure. But I really should hate a long discussion, and if I make a mistake I shall have had a lesson. It really is essential for me to be tremendously occupied. I cannot say more than this, but I do beg you to believe that I'm not taking this apparently unpremeditated step without a very strong reason. It's a kind of compromise with my ambition to re-establish in the English Church an order of preaching friars. I haven't yet given up that idea, but I'm sure that I ought not to think about it seriously until I'm a priest.

I'm staying here to-night after a glorious day's tramp, and to-morrow morning I shall take the train and go by Reading and Basingstoke to Malford. I'll write to you as soon as I know if I'm accepted. My best love to everybody, and please tell Esther that I shall think about her on St. Mary Magdalene's Day.

Yours always affectionately,

Mark.

To Esther he wrote by the same post:

My dear Sister Esther Magdalene,

Do not be angry with me for running away, and do not despise me for trying to enter a monastery in such a mood. I'm as much the prey of religion as you are. And I am really horrified by the revelation of what I am capable of. I saw in your eyes yesterday the pa.s.sion of your soul for Divine things. The memory of them awes me. Pray for me, dear sister, that all my pa.s.sion may be turned to the service of G.o.d. Defend me to your brother, who will not understand my behaviour.

Mark.

Three days later Mark wrote again to the Rector:

The Abbey,

Malford,

Surrey.

June 27th.

My dear Rector,