Part 35 (1/2)
On the night of his arrival he had behaved well at family prayers, as also on the following morning; his father read about David's dying injunctions to Solomon in the matter of s.h.i.+mei, but he did not mind it.
In the course of the day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the second night after his arrival. He knelt next Charlotte and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she should know for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and when he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious he emphasised the ”truly.” I do not know whether Charlotte noticed anything, but she knelt at some distance from him during the rest of his stay. He a.s.sures me that this was the only spiteful thing he did during the whole time he was at Battersby.
When he went up to his bedroom, in which, to do them justice, they had given him a fire, he noticed what indeed he had noticed as soon as he was shown into it on his arrival, that there was an illuminated card framed and glazed over his bed with the words, ”Be the day weary or be the day long, at last it ringeth to evensong.” He wondered to himself how such people could leave such a card in a room in which their visitors would have to spend the last hours of their evening, but he let it alone.
”There's not enough difference between 'weary' and 'long' to warrant an 'or,'” he said, ”but I suppose it is all right.” I believe Christina had bought the card at a bazaar in aid of the restoration of a neighbouring church, and having been bought it had got to be used--besides, the sentiment was so touching and the illumination was really lovely. Anyhow, no irony could be more complete than leaving it in my hero's bedroom, though a.s.suredly no irony had been intended.
On the third day after Ernest's arrival Christina relapsed again. For the last two days she had been in no pain and had slept a good deal; her son's presence still seemed to cheer her, and she often said how thankful she was to be surrounded on her death-bed by a family so happy, so G.o.d- fearing, so united, but now she began to wander, and, being more sensible of the approach of death, seemed also more alarmed at the thoughts of the Day of Judgment.
She ventured more than once or twice to return to the subject of her sins, and implored Theobald to make quite sure that they were forgiven her. She hinted that she considered his professional reputation was at stake; it would never do for his own wife to fail in securing at any rate a pa.s.s. This was touching Theobald on a tender spot; he winced and rejoined with an impatient toss of the head, ”But, Christina, they _are_ forgiven you”; and then he entrenched himself in a firm but dignified manner behind the Lord's prayer. When he rose he left the room, but called Ernest out to say that he could not wish it prolonged.
Joey was no more use in quieting his mother's anxiety than Theobald had been--indeed he was only Theobald and water; at last Ernest, who had not liked interfering, took the matter in hand, and, sitting beside her, let her pour out her grief to him without let or hindrance.
She said she knew she had not given up all for Christ's sake; it was this that weighed upon her. She had given up much, and had always tried to give up more year by year, still she knew very well that she had not been so spiritually minded as she ought to have been. If she had, she should probably have been favoured with some direct vision or communication; whereas, though G.o.d had vouchsafed such direct and visible angelic visits to one of her dear children, yet she had had none such herself--nor even had Theobald.
She was talking rather to herself than to Ernest as she said these words, but they made him open his ears. He wanted to know whether the angel had appeared to Joey or to Charlotte. He asked his mother, but she seemed surprised, as though she expected him to know all about it, then, as if she remembered, she checked herself and said, ”Ah! yes--you know nothing of all this, and perhaps it is as well.” Ernest could not of course press the subject, so he never found out which of his near relations it was who had had direct communication with an immortal. The others never said anything to him about it, though whether this was because they were ashamed, or because they feared he would not believe the story and thus increase his own d.a.m.nation, he could not determine.
Ernest has often thought about this since. He tried to get the facts out of Susan, who he was sure would know, but Charlotte had been beforehand with him. ”No, Master Ernest,” said Susan, when he began to question her, ”your ma has sent a message to me by Miss Charlotte as I am not to say nothing at all about it, and I never will.” Of course no further questioning was possible. It had more than once occurred to Ernest that Charlotte did not in reality believe more than he did himself, and this incident went far to strengthen his surmises, but he wavered when he remembered how she had misdirected the letter asking for the prayers of the congregation. ”I suppose,” he said to himself gloomily, ”she does believe in it after all.”
Then Christina returned to the subject of her own want of spiritual-mindedness, she even harped upon the old grievance of her having eaten black puddings--true, she had given them up years ago, but for how many years had she not persevered in eating them after she had had misgivings about their having been forbidden! Then there was something that weighed on her mind that had taken place before her marriage, and she should like--
Ernest interrupted: ”My dear mother,” he said, ”you are ill and your mind is unstrung; others can now judge better about you than you can; I a.s.sure you that to me you seem to have been the most devotedly unselfish wife and mother that ever lived. Even if you have not literally given up all for Christ's sake, you have done so practically as far as it was in your power, and more than this is not required of anyone. I believe you will not only be a saint, but a very distinguished one.”
At these words Christina brightened. ”You give me hope, you give me hope,” she cried, and dried her eyes. She made him a.s.sure her over and over again that this was his solemn conviction; she did not care about being a distinguished saint now; she would be quite content to be among the meanest who actually got into heaven, provided she could make sure of escaping that awful h.e.l.l. The fear of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite of all Ernest could say he did not quite dispel it. She was rather ungrateful, I must confess, for after more than an hour's consolation from Ernest she prayed for him that he might have every blessing in this world, inasmuch as she always feared that he was the only one of her children whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then wandering, and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind in fact was reverting to states in which it had been before her illness.
On Sunday Ernest went to church as a matter of course, and noted that the ever receding tide of Evangelicalism had ebbed many a stage lower, even during the few years of his absence. His father used to walk to the church through the Rectory garden, and across a small intervening field.
He had been used to walk in a tall hat, his Master's gown, and wearing a pair of Geneva bands. Ernest noticed that the bands were worn no longer, and lo! greater marvel still, Theobald did not preach in his Master's gown, but in a surplice. The whole character of the service was changed; you could not say it was high even now, for high-church Theobald could never under any circ.u.mstances become, but the old easy-going slovenliness, if I may say so, was gone for ever. The orchestral accompaniments to the hymns had disappeared while my hero was yet a boy, but there had been no chanting for some years after the harmonium had been introduced. While Ernest was at Cambridge, Charlotte and Christina had prevailed on Theobald to allow the canticles to be sung; and sung they were to old-fas.h.i.+oned double chants by Lord Mornington and Dr Dupuis and others. Theobald did not like it, but he did it, or allowed it to be done.
Then Christina said: ”My dear, do you know, I really think” (Christina always ”really” thought) ”that the people like the chanting very much, and that it will be a means of bringing many to church who have stayed away hitherto. I was talking about it to Mrs Goodhew and to old Miss Wright only yesterday, and they _quite_ agreed with me, but they all said that we ought to chant the 'Glory be to the Father' at the end of each of the psalms instead of saying it.”
Theobald looked black--he felt the waters of chanting rising higher and higher upon him inch by inch; but he felt also, he knew not why, that he had better yield than fight. So he ordered the ”Glory be to the Father”
to be chanted in future, but he did not like it.
”Really, mamma dear,” said Charlotte, when the battle was won, ”you should not call it the 'Glory be to the Father' you should say 'Gloria.'”
”Of course, my dear,” said Christina, and she said ”Gloria” for ever after. Then she thought what a wonderfully clever girl Charlotte was, and how she ought to marry no one lower than a bishop. By-and-by when Theobald went away for an unusually long holiday one summer, he could find no one but a rather high-church clergyman to take his duty. This gentleman was a man of weight in the neighbourhood, having considerable private means, but without preferment. In the summer he would often help his brother clergymen, and it was through his being willing to take the duty at Battersby for a few Sundays that Theobald had been able to get away for so long. On his return, however, he found that the whole psalms were being chanted as well as the Glorias. The influential clergyman, Christina, and Charlotte took the bull by the horns as soon as Theobald returned, and laughed it all off; and the clergyman laughed and bounced, and Christina laughed and coaxed, and Charlotte uttered unexceptionable sentiments, and the thing was done now, and could not be undone, and it was no use grieving over spilt milk; so henceforth the psalms were to be chanted, but Theobald grisled over it in his heart, and he did not like it.
During this same absence what had Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wright taken to doing but turning towards the east while repeating the Belief?
Theobald disliked this even worse than chanting. When he said something about it in a timid way at dinner after service, Charlotte said, ”Really, papa dear, you _must_ take to calling it the 'Creed' and not the 'Belief'”; and Theobald winced impatiently and snorted meek defiance, but the spirit of her aunts Jane and Eliza was strong in Charlotte, and the thing was too small to fight about, and he turned it off with a laugh.
”As for Charlotte,” thought Christina, ”I believe she knows _everything_.” So Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wright continued to turn to the east during the time the Creed was said, and by-and-by others followed their example, and ere long the few who had stood out yielded and turned eastward too; and then Theobald made as though he had thought it all very right and proper from the first, but like it he did not. By- and-by Charlotte tried to make him say ”Alleluia” instead of ”Hallelujah,” but this was going too far, and Theobald turned, and she got frightened and ran away.
And they changed the double chants for single ones, and altered them psalm by psalm, and in the middle of psalms, just where a cursory reader would see no reason why they should do so, they changed from major to minor and from minor back to major; and then they got ”Hymns Ancient and Modern,” and, as I have said, they robbed him of his beloved bands, and they made him preach in a surplice, and he must have celebration of the Holy Communion once a month instead of only five times in the year as heretofore, and he struggled in vain against the unseen influence which he felt to be working in season and out of season against all that he had been accustomed to consider most distinctive of his party. Where it was, or what it was, he knew not, nor exactly what it would do next, but he knew exceedingly well that go where he would it was undermining him; that it was too persistent for him; that Christina and Charlotte liked it a great deal better than he did, and that it could end in nothing but Rome.
Easter decorations indeed! Christmas decorations--in reason--were proper enough, but Easter decorations! well, it might last his time.
This was the course things had taken in the Church of England during the last forty years. The set has been steadily in one direction. A few men who knew what they wanted made cats' paws of the Christmas and the Charlottes, and the Christmas and the Charlottes made cats' paws of the Mrs Goodhews and the old Miss Wrights, and Mrs Goodhews and old Miss Wrights told the Mr Goodhews and young Miss Wrights what they should do, and when the Mr Goodhews and the young Miss Wrights did it the little Goodhews and the rest of the spiritual flock did as they did, and the Theobalds went for nothing; step by step, day by day, year by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how it was done. And yet the Church of England looks with no friendly eyes upon the theory of Evolution or Descent with Modification.
My hero thought over these things, and remembered many a _ruse_ on the part of Christina and Charlotte, and many a detail of the struggle which I cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he remembered his father's favourite retort that it could only end in Rome. When he was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now as he thought of another alternative clear enough to himself, but so horrible that it had not even occurred to Theobald--I mean the toppling over of the whole system. At that time he welcomed the hope that the absurdities and unrealities of the Church would end in her downfall. Since then he has come to think very differently, not as believing in the cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, or more, probably, than nine-tenths of the clergy themselves--who know as well as he does that their outward and visible symbols are out of date--but because he knows the baffling complexity of the problem when it comes to deciding what is actually to be done. Also, now that he has seen them more closely, he knows better the nature of those wolves in sheep's clothing, who are thirsting for the blood of their victim, and exulting so clamorously over its antic.i.p.ated early fall into their clutches. The spirit behind the Church is true, though her letter--true once--is now true no longer. The spirit behind the High Priests of Science is as lying as its letter. The Theobalds, who do what they do because it seems to be the correct thing, but who in their hearts neither like it nor believe in it, are in reality the least dangerous of all cla.s.ses to the peace and liberties of mankind. The man to fear is he who goes at things with the c.o.c.ksureness of pus.h.i.+ng vulgarity and self-conceit. These are not vices which can be justly laid to the charge of the English clergy.
Many of the farmers came up to Ernest when service was over, and shook hands with him. He found every one knew of his having come into a fortune. The fact was that Theobald had immediately told two or three of the greatest gossips in the village, and the story was not long in spreading. ”It simplified matters,” he had said to himself, ”a good deal.” Ernest was civil to Mrs Goodhew for her husband's sake, but he gave Miss Wright the cut direct, for he knew that she was only Charlotte in disguise.