The Puritans Part 59

x.x.xVI

THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT Measure for Measure, iv. I

The mind of Philip Ashe had not become more quiet as time went on, and the day of the consecration found him hesitating between his old life and a new one. Ever since the chance encounter with the Irish priest he had been going almost every afternoon to talk with this new friend, and one by one he had found his doubts about the supremacy of the Roman church fading away. Ashe was of a nature which must rely upon another, and since he was shut off from the companionship of Wynne it was inevitable that he should lean upon this great, hearty, healthy man, who with the possibility of adding a son to the church received him so warmly. Philip's nature, moreover, inclined him strongly toward a church which exercised absolute authority, and in doctrinal points he found himself surprisingly at one with his teacher. Nothing held him back but the force of habit and a natural hesitancy to break away from the faith which he had professed. Undoubtedly his feeling for Father Frontford counted for much; but the fact, that in the months which had preceded the election the Father Superior had been so much absorbed that intimacy between him and his deacons was impossible, had greatly lessened Philip's sense of loyalty to him. Very tenderly and wisely the priest led Ashe on, until he was in very truth a Catholic in all but name.

To his ardent, mystical mind, deeply responsive to the ritual of the older church, the ceremonies of the consecration seemed poor and thin.

He craved symbolism and richly suggestive rites. He had been more than once in these latter days to the services of the Catholics, and his imagination came more and more to demand the embodiment in form of the aspirations of his soul. He tried to stifle the disappointment which a.s.sailed him as the function proceeded, but it was impossible for him not to realize that the ceremonial of his own faith left him cold and unsatisfied. He missed the warm emotional excitement of the music, the incense, the sonorous Latin, the sumptuous robes, and the romantic a.s.sociations of the ma.s.s.

He felt keenly, moreover, that the man who was being to-day installed as the head of the diocese was of tendencies distinctly opposed to his desires. He mingled with disappointment that Father Frontford had not been chosen a genuine conviction that Strathmore would use his influence to carry church forms toward a worship ever simpler and more bare. He could not wholly smother an almost personal resentment against Strathmore, and a consciousness that it would be always impossible for him to regard the newly consecrated bishop with that respect and veneration due to one holding the office. He reflected that the church must itself be tending toward a dangerous liberalism if it were possible for this thing to have come about. He listened dully and confusedly to the service until the time came when the bishop elect made his vows. He heard the strong voice of Strathmore, vibrant, deliberate, penetrating, repeat with slow solemnity the promise of conformity and obedience to the doctrine and worship of the church. The words tingled through the mind of Ashe like an electric shock. To his excited feeling Strathmore was perjuring himself in the name of G.o.d, since it was impossible to feel that the new bishop followed or intended to follow either. He experienced a wild impulse to spring to his feet and protest; he wondered if he only of all the persons in this crowded church recognized the shocking irreligion of that vow. He reflected that in the Catholic communion it would have been impossible for popular suffrage to raise to the bishopric a man like this, a heretic and a perjurer.

The service went on, and Philip sat in a sort of dull stupor. He could not think clearly; he was only dreamily conscious of what was going on about him. The music, the prayers, the solemn words were to him so remote from his true self that he seemed to hear them through a veil of distance. He had ceased to have part in this rite; he ceased even to heed it.

Like one who is lost in idle musing, one who concerns himself with trifling thoughts lest he realize too poignantly a bitter actuality, Philip sat in his place, now and then glancing about the great church.

Changing his position a little, he saw the face of Mrs. Fenton. He dwelt on it with mingled grief and pain. More and more he became absorbed in gazing, while love and anguish swelled in his heart. He forgot where he was; he saw her only; he felt only her presence in all the throng. His pa.s.sion seemed to him greater than ever. He did not for an instant think of her as of one who could or would requite his affection; or even as one who belonged to his future life. He was filled with a sense of the completeness of his devotion to her; he felt that he had loved her more than Heaven itself; but he felt also that he was bidding her good-by. He had not definitely said to himself that a change was before him; yet looking at her he felt it. The shadow of an eternal farewell seemed to be over him. He was benumbed with suffering; he drank in her face greedily; he seemed to himself to be imprinting for the last time upon his memory that which was dearer to him than life, yet which he was to see no more.

The service ended at last, and once more the long procession of which he was a part slowly made its way out of the church. Philip found himself in the vestry in the midst of a crowd of ecclesiastics from which he extricated himself with all possible speed; and got once more into the open air. He threaded his way among the groups standing on the sidewalks chatting and hindering him. Suddenly a man turned close to him, and Maurice stood before his face.

"Phil!" he heard the joyful voice of his friend cry. "My dear old Phil, how glad I am to see you!"

The sound was like a charm which breaks a spell. For the instant all else was forgotten in the pleasure of being again with his heart-fellow. He could have flung his arms about the other's neck and kissed him, so keen was his delight. The doubts and distractions which a moment earlier had bewildered and tortured him vanished before Wynne's greeting as a mist before a brisk and wholesome wind. He seized the hand held out to him, and clasped it almost convulsively.

"Maurice!" was all that he could say.

"I really ought not to recognize you," Maurice said, in a great hearty voice which sounded to Philip strangely unfamiliar. "Why in the world have you refused to see me? I a.s.sure you I'm not contagious."

They were close to a group waiting on the sidewalk, and with instinctive shrinking Ashe led the way down the street. Soon they were walking in much the old fashion, and Philip left his friend's question unanswered until they had gone some distance. Then he turned with a smile not a little wistful.

"Certainly it was not because I did not long to see you," he said.

Maurice smiled, but Philip sensitively felt a veiled impatience in his tone as he replied:--

"Oh, Phil, if I could only get the ascetic nonsense out of you!"

Ashe could not answer. He could not reprove his friend after the separation--which to him had been so long and so sorrowful, and he had a secret feeling that they were to be more entirely divided. The pair walked in silence a moment, and then Wynne spoke.

"Well, I'll not talk on forbidden subjects; but, surely, Phil, you are not going to throw me over entirely. I wouldn't drop you, no matter what happened."

"I'm not throwing you over," Philip answered with a choking in his throat. "I would--Oh, Maurice," he broke out, interrupting himself, "it isn't for want of caring for you, but if I am ever to help you, I must keep my own faith. I have been so troubled and so--There," he broke off again, "let us talk of something else."

He felt that Maurice was studying him carefully.

"Phil, old fellow, you are hysterically incoherent. What's the matter with you? It can't be all my going off. Can't you come home with me, and talk it out?"

Ashe shook his head. The more he was touched and moved by the affection of his friend, the more he shrank from him. This tender comradeship seemed to him the most subtile of temptations. He feared, moreover, lest he might reveal to Maurice too much of what was in his heart.

"Not now," he said. "I must go home at once."

"Then I'll walk along with you," rejoined the other. "I do wish you'd let me help you. You are evidently all played out physically, and half an eye could see that you've something on your mind. Is it the bishop?"

"That has troubled me a good deal," Ashe returned, feeling a relief in being able to say this truthfully.

"Well, Phil, if you worry yourself sick over what you can't help, what strength will you have for the things that you can do? I'm glad it isn't all my going that has brought you to this, for you look positively ill. I wish you'd get sick-leave, and go off a while."

Ashe shook his head again. He felt that if Maurice went on talking to him he should lose his self-command. He must get away; yet he could not bear to hurt his friend. He turned toward Maurice and held out his hand.

"Dear Maurice," he said, "don't be hurt; but I can't talk with you. I must be alone. I am upset, and not myself. It is not that I don't trust you, you know; but there are things that a man has to fight out for himself."

The other stopped, and regarded him closely.

"All right, Phil," he said. "I understand. If you've got a fight with the devil on hand n.o.body can help you. I only wish I could."

He wrung the hand of Ashe, and added:

"Good-by. I'm always fond of you, old fellow; and you know that when there is a place that I can help there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

Ashe tried to answer, but he could not command his voice. He could only return the warm pressure of Wynne's hand, and then, miserable and hopeless, go on his way to his conflict with the arch fiend.

Once in his chamber Ashe fastened the door, drew down the shades, and lighted the gas. He laid aside his ca.s.sock, and loosened his clothing so that his breast lay bare. He took from a drawer a little crucifix of iron. This he placed across the chimney of the gas-burner, and watched it until it was heated. Then he seized it with his fingers, but the stinging pain made him drop it to the floor. He bared his breast, wildly calling aloud to heaven, and flung himself down upon the crucifix, pressing the hot iron to his naked bosom. A fierce shudder convulsed him; he extended his arms in the form of a cross, and with closed eyes lay still an instant. A horrible odor filled the room; great drops of sweat dripped from his forehead; his teeth were set in his lower lip. For a moment he remained motionless; then in uncontrollable agony he writhed over upon his back and fainted.

The return to consciousness was a terrible sensation of misery and weakness. He was heart-sick and racked in body and mind. Feebly he rose, and gathered his scattered senses. Then with trembling he got to his feet. His wound gave him bitter agony, but the bodily pain made him smile. He took from the same drawer a picture of the Madonna, and knelt before it with clasped hands. His doubts, his pa.s.sion, his self-reproaches, danced like demons before his distracted brain. The troubled, stormy thoughts of his distraught mind merged insensibly into prayers. He put aside the clothing and showed to the Virgin Mother his wounded breast, scarred and bleeding. He looked into her face with murmured words of contrition, of imploring, of faith. A gracious sense of her womanly pity, of her heavenly tenderness, stole soothingly over him. He seemed almost to feel cool hands on his hot forehead; it was as if in a moment more the heavens might open and grant to him the beatific vision. There came over him a wave of joy which was beyond words. The longing of his soul for the woman he loved was merged in the desire of his heart which yearned toward the blessed Virgin Mother. His prayers became more glowing, more ecstatic, until in a rapture of adoration, of bliss, of pa.s.sion, he fell prostrate before the divine image, crying out with all his soul:--

"Thou ever blessed one! To thee I give myself! 'O thou, to the arch of whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave,' receive me, save me!"

He had no sense of incongruity to make the phrase unseemly or ludicrous. It was to him the formal transfer of his deepest allegiance from an earthly love to a heavenly. He had at last found peace.

x.x.xVII

THIS IS NOT A BOON Oth.e.l.lo, iii. 3.

It was Mrs. Wilson who was the immediate means of bringing about an understanding between Maurice and Berenice. Mrs. Wilson was never so occupied that she was not able to attend to any new thing which might turn up, and her interest in the spring races did not prevent her from having a hand in the affairs of the lovers. While she was in town attending to the luncheon for Marion Delega.s.s she dined with Mrs.

Staggchase, and Maurice took her down.

"I understand that you are a renegade," she remarked vivaciously as soon as they were seated. "I wonder you dare look me in the face."

"Because you are the church?" he demanded.

"Certainly not now that that Strathmore is bishop," she retorted, tossing her head. "However, I always said that you were too good to be wasted in a ca.s.sock."

"Thank you. What would you say if I made such a reflection on the clergy?"

"Oh, I've no patience with the clergy!" she declared. "They bore me to death. There's that solemn-faced friend of yours, Mr. Ashe--his name ought to be Ashes!--he actually lectured me on my worldliness! _My_ worldliness, if you please, and I working myself to a shadow for the election of Father Frontford!"