The Christian Part 50

"Brother Paul is dead--he died in the night--there was n.o.body with him--we are sorry he has left us, but glad he is at peace-G.o.d rest the soul of our poor Brother Paul!"

It was Easter Day. At midday service in the church the brothers sang the Easter hymn, and a mighty longing took hold of John Storm for his own resurrection from his living grave.

Next day there was much coming and going between the world outside and the adjoining cell, and late at night there were heavy and shambling footsteps, and even some coa.r.s.e and ribald talk.

"Bear a 'and, myte."

"Well, they won't have their backs broke as carry this one downstairs.

He ain't a Danny Lambert, anyway."

"No, they don't feed ye on Bovril in plyces syme as this. I'll lay ye odds yer own looking-gla.s.s wouldn't know ye arter three months 'ard on religion and dry tommy."

"It pawses me 'ow people tyke to it. Gimme my pint of four-half, and my own childring to follow me."

Early on the following morning a stroke rang out on the bell, then another stroke, and again another.

"It is the knell," thought John.

A group of the lay brothers came up and pa.s.sed into the room. "Now!"

said one, as if giving a signal, and then they pa.s.sed out again with the measured steps of men who bear a burden. "They are taking him away," he thought.

He listened to their retreating footsteps. "He has gone," he murmured.

The pa.s.sing bell continued to ring out minute by minute, and presently there was the sound of singing. "It is the service for the dead," he told himself.

After a while both the bell and the singing ceased, and then there was no sound anywhere except the dull rumble of the traffic in the city outside--the deep murmur of the mighty sea that flows on forever.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself. "What bolts and bars are keeping me? I am guilty of a folly. I am degrading myself."

At midday Brother Andrew came with his food. "Brother Paul is buried,"

he sang, "the coffin was beautiful--it was covered with flowers--we buried him in his ca.s.sock, with his beads and psalter--we left the cross on his breast--he loved it and died with it in his hands--the Father has come home--he said ma.s.s this morning."

John Storm could bear no more. He pushed the lay brother aside and made straight for the Superior's room.

The Father was sitting before the fire, looking sad and low and weary.

He rose to his feet with a painful smile, as John broke into his cell with blazing eyes, and cried in a choking voice:

"Father, I can not live the religious life any longer! I have tried to--with all my soul and strength I've tried to, but I can not, I can not! This life of prayer and penance and meditation is stifling me, and corrupting me, and crushing the man out of me, and I can not bear it."

"What are you saying, my son?"

"I have been deceiving you and myself and everybody."

"Deceiving me?"

"It was for my own ends and not Brother Paul's that I helped him to break obedience, and so injure his health and hasten his death."

"Your own?"

"I, too, had a sister in the world, and my heart was hungry for news of her."

"A sister?"

"Some one nearer than a sister--and all my spiritual life has been a sham."

"My son, my son!"

"Forgive me, Father. I shall love you and honour you and revere you always; but I must break my obedience and leave you, or I shall be a hypocrite and a liar and a cheat."

XVIII.

The dinner party at the Home Secretary's took place on Wednesday, in the week after Easter. It had rained during the day, but cleared up toward night. Glory and Koenig had taken an omnibus to Waterloo Place, and then walked up the wide street that ends with the wide steps going down to the park. Two lines of lofty stone houses go off to right and left, and the house they were going to was in one of them.

A footman received them with sombre but easy familiarity. The artistes?

Yes. They were shown into the library, and light refreshments were brought in to them on a tray. Three other members of the choral company were there already. Glory was seeing it all for the first time, and Koenig was describing and explaining everything in broken whispers.

A band was playing in the well of the circular staircase, and a second footman stood in an alcove behind an outwork of hats and overcoats.

The first footman reappeared. Were the artistes ready to go to the drawing-room?

They followed him upstairs. The band had stopped, and there was the distant hum of voices and the crackle of plates. Waiters were coming and going from the dining-room, and the butler stood at the door giving instructions. At one moment there was a glimpse within of ladies in gorgeous dresses, and a table laden with silver and bright with fairy-lamps. When the door opened the voices grew louder, when it closed the sounds were deadened.

The upper landing opened on to a _salon_ which had three windows down to the ground, and half of each stood open. Outside there was a wide terrace lit up by Chinese and Moorish lanterns. Beyond was the dark patch of the park, and farther still the towers of the Abbey and the clock of Westminster, but the great light was not burning to-night.

"De House naivare sits on Vednesday night," said Koenig.

They pa.s.sed into the drawing-room, which was empty. The standing lamps were subdued by coverings of yellow-silk lace. There was a piano and an organ.

"Ve'll stay here," said Koenig, opening the organ, and Glory stood by his side.

Presently there were ripples of laughter, sounds of quick, indistinguishable voices, waves of heliotrope, and the rustle of silk dresses on the stairs. Then the ladies entered. Two or three of them who were elderly leaned their right hands on the arms of younger women, and walked with ebony sticks in their left. An old lady wearing black satin and a large brooch came last. Koenig rose and bowed to her. Glory prepared to bow also, but the lady gave her a side inclination of the head as she sat in a well-cushioned chair under a lamp, and Glory's bow was abridged.

The ladies sat and talked, and Glory tried to listen. There were little nothings, punctuated by trills of feminine laughter. She thought the conversation rather silly. More than once the ladies lifted their lorgnettes and looked at her. She set her lips hard and looked back without flinching.

A footman brought tea on a tray, and then there was the tinkle of cup and saucer, and more laughter. The lady in satin looked round at Koenig, and he began to play the organ. He played superbly, but n.o.body seemed to listen. When he finished there was a pause, and everybody said: "Oh, thank you; we're all--er----" and then the talk began again. The vocal soloist sang some ballad of Schumann, and as long as it lasted an old lady with an ear-trumpet sat at the foot of the piano, and a young girl spoke into it. When it was over, everybody said, "Ah, that dear old thing!" Then there was an outbreak of deeper voices from the stairs, with l.u.s.tier laughter and heavier steps.

The gentlemen appeared, talking loudly as they entered. Koenig was back at the organ and playing as if he wished it were the 'cello and the drum and the whole bra.s.s band. Glory was watching everything; it was beginning to be very funny. Suddenly it ceased to be so. One of the gentlemen was saying, in a tired drawl: "Old Koenig again! How the old boy lasts! Seem to have been hearing--him since the Flood, don't you know."

It was Lord Robert Ure. Glory caught one glimpse of him, then looked down at her slipper and pawed at the carpet. He put his gla.s.s in his eye, screwed up the left side of his face, and looked at her.

An elderly man with a leonine head came up to the organ and said: "Got anything comic, Mr. Koenig? All had the influenza last winter, you know, and lost our taste for the cla.s.sical."

"With pleasure, sir," said Koenig, and then turning to Glory he touched her wrist. "How's de pulse? Ach Gott! beating same like a child's! Now is your turn."

Glory made a step forward, and the talk grew louder as she was observed.

She heard fragments of it. "Who is she?" "Is she a professional?"

"Oh, no--a lady." "Sing, does she, or is it whistling?" "No, she's a professional; we had her last year; she does conjuring." And then the voice she had heard before said, "By Jove, old fellow, your young friend looks like a red standard rose!" She did not flinch. There was a nervous tremor of the lip, a scarcely perceptible curl of it, and then she began.