Part 76 (1/2)
”You wish it? Then I will come!”
Manuel said nothing further, but simply turned and led the way. They pa.s.sed out of the little tenement house they inhabited into the dark cold street,--and the door closed with a loud bang behind them, shut to by the angry wind. The rain began to fall more heavily, and the small slight figure of the waif and stray he had befriended seemed to the Cardinal to look more lonely and piteous than ever in the driving fog and darkness.
”Whither would you go, my child?” he asked gently. ”You will suffer from the cold and storm--”
”And you?” said Manuel. ”Will you not also suffer? But you never think of yourself at all!--and it is because you do not think of yourself that I know you will come with me to-night!--even through a thousand storms!--through all danger and darkness and pain and trouble,--you will come with me! You have been my friend for many days--you will not leave me now?”
”Neither now nor at any time,” answered Bonpre firmly and tenderly. ”I will go with you where you will! Is it to some sad home you are taking me?--some stricken soul to whom we may give comfort?”
Manuel answered not,--but merely waved his small hand beckoningly, and pa.s.sed along up the street through the drifting rain, lightly and aerially as though he were a spirit,--and the Cardinal possessed by some strange emotion that gave swiftness to his movements and strength to his will, followed. They met scarcely a soul. One or two forlorn wayfarers crossed their path--a girl in rags,--then a man half-drunk and reeling foolishly from side to side. Manuel paused, looking at them.
”Poor sad souls!” he said. ”If we could see all the history of their lives we should pity them and not condemn!”
”Who is it that condemns?” murmured Bonpre gently.
”No one save Man!” responded Manuel. ”G.o.d condemns nothing--because in everything there is a portion of Himself. And when man presumes to condemn and persecute his fellow-men, he is guilty of likewise condemning and persecuting his Maker, and outraging that Maker in his own perverted soul!”
The boy's voice rang out solemn and clear,--and the heavy fog drifting densely through the street, seemed to the Cardinal's keenly awakened and perturbed senses as though it brightened into a golden vapour round that childish figure, and illumined it with a radiation of concealed light. But having thus spoken, Manuel turned and went on once more,--and faithfully, in a mental ravishment which to himself was inexplicable, the venerable Felix followed. And presently they came to the plain and uncomely wooden edifice where Aubrey Leigh and his bride had plighted their vows that morning. The door was open--Aubrey would always have it so, lest any poor suffering creature might need a moment's rest, and resting thankfully, might see the Cross and perchance find help in prayer.
”Do you remember,” said Manuel then, ”when you found me outside the great Cathedral, how the doors were barred against me? This door is always open!”
He entered the building, and the Cardinal followed, wondering and deeply agitated. It should have been dark within, but instead of darkness, a soft light pervaded it from end to end, a warm and delicate radiance, coloured with a rose glory as of sunset--and Bonpre seeing this stopped, seized with a sudden fear. He looked about him--on either side the huge unadorned barn-like place was empty,--he and Manuel stood alone together as it were in the cold vast void. Before them towered the Cross on its raised platform, and below that Cross was the sloping footway leading to it, where lay many of the buds and leaves and blossoms of Sylvie's bridal flowers given to her by the poor, and yet--in this empty desolate shed there was a sense of warmth and consolation, and the light that illumined it was as the light of Heaven! Trembling in every limb, the Cardinal turned to his companion--words were on his lips, but they faltered and refused to be spoken aloud. And Manuel gently touching him said--
”Follow me!”
Straight up through the centre of this place hallowed by the prayers of the poor and the broken-hearted, the light child-figure moved, the old man following,--till at the footway leading to the Cross he paused.
”Here will we pray together!” he said,--and as he spoke a smile lighted his eyes and rested on his lips--a smile which gave his fair face the aspect of a rapt angel of wisdom and beauty. ”Here will we ask the Father which is in Heaven--the Father of all worlds--whether we shall part now one from the other, or still remain--together!”
As he spoke a rush of music filled the air,--and the Cardinal sank feebly on his knees, overcome by a great wave of awe and terror which engulfed his soul--for it was the same divine, far-reaching, penetrative music which had once before enthralled his ears in the Cathedral at Rouen. Kneeling he clasped his worn hands, and in all the dizziness and confusion of his brain, raised his eyes for help to the great Cross, bare of all beauty, save for the flowers of Sylvie's strange bridal that lay at its foot. And as he looked he saw a marvellous Vision!--a Dream of Angels standing on either side of that symbol of salvation!--of angels tall and white and beautiful, whose towering pinions glowed with the radiant light of a thousand mornings!
Amazed and awe-stricken at this great sight, he uttered a faint cry and turned to his child companion.
”Manuel!”
”I am here,” answered the clear young voice. ”Be not afraid!”
And now the music of the unseen choir of sound seemed to grow deeper and fuller and grander,--and Felix Bonpre, caught up, as it were, out of all earthly surroundings, and only made conscious of the growing ascendency of Spirit over Matter, saw the bare building around him beginning to wondrously change its aspect. Slowly, as though a wind should bend straight trees into an arching round, the plain walls took on themselves a form of perfect architectural beauty,--like swaying stems of flowers or intertwisted branches, the lines formed symmetrically, and through the shadowy sculptured semblance came the gleam of ”a light that never was on sea or land,”--the dazzling light of thousands of s.h.i.+ning wings!--of thousands of l.u.s.trous watchful eyes!--of thousands of dazzling faces, that shone like stars or were fair as flowers! The Vision grew more and more beautiful--more and more full of light--and through veils of golden vapour, great branching lilies seemed to grow and blossom out, filling the air with perfume, and in their flowering beauty perfected the airy semblance of this wondrous Place of Prayer built by spiritual hands--and like a far-off echo of sweetness falling from unseen heights there came a musical whisper of the chorus sung by the poor--
”All G.o.d s angels will say, 'Well done!'
Whenever thy mortal race is run.
White and forgiven, Thou'lt enter heaven, And pa.s.s, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of G.o.d the Lord!”