Part 38 (1/2)

Charles answered that he was deeply sensible how much he owed in temporal matters to Providence, and that it was only at His bidding that he was giving them up.

”We all looked up to you, Charles; perhaps we made too much of you; well, G.o.d be with you; you have taken your line.”

Poor Charles said that no one could conceive what it cost him to give up what was so very dear to him, what was part of himself; there was nothing on earth which he prized like his home.

”Then why do you leave us?” she said quickly; ”you must have your way; you do it, I suppose, because you like it.”

”Oh really, my dear mother,” cried he, ”if you saw my heart! You know in Scripture how people were obliged in the Apostles' times to give up all for Christ.”

”We are heathens, then,” she replied; ”thank you, Charles, I am obliged to you for this;” and she dashed away a tear from her eye.

Charles was almost beside himself; he did not know what to say; he stood up, and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, supporting his head on his hand.

”Well, Charles,” she continued, still going on with her work, ”perhaps the day will come” ... her voice faltered; ”your dear father” ... she put down her work.

”It is useless misery,” said Charles; ”why should I stay? good-bye for the present, my dearest mother. I leave you in good hands, not kinder, but better than mine; you lose me, you gain another. Farewell for the present; we will meet when you will, when you call; it will be a happy meeting.”

He threw himself on his knees, and laid his cheek on her lap; she could no longer resist him; she hung over him, and began to smooth down his hair as she had done when he was a child. At length scalding tears began to fall heavily upon his face and neck; he bore them for a while, then started up, kissed her cheek impetuously, and rushed out of the room. In a few seconds he had seen and had torn himself from his sisters, and was in his gig again by the side of his phlegmatic driver, dancing slowly up and down on his way to Collumpton.

CHAPTER II.

The reader may ask whither Charles is going, and, though it would not be quite true to answer that he did not know better than the said reader himself, yet he had most certainly very indistinct notions what was becoming of him even locally, and, like the Patriarch, ”went out, not knowing whither he went.” He had never seen a Catholic priest, to know him, in his life; never, except once as a boy, been inside a Catholic church; he only knew one Catholic in the world, and where he was he did not know. But he knew that the Pa.s.sionists had a Convent in London; and it was not unnatural that, without knowing whether young Father Aloysius was there or not, he should direct his course to San Michaele.

Yet, in kindness to Mary and all of them, he did not profess to be leaving direct for London; but he proposed to betake himself to Carlton, who still resided in Oxford, and to ask his advice what was to be done under his circ.u.mstances. It seemed, too, to be interposing what they would consider a last chance of averting what to them was so dismal a calamity.

To Oxford, then, he directed his course; and, having some accidental business at Bath, he stopped there for the night, intending to continue his journey next morning. Among other jobs, he had to get a ”Garden of the Soul,” and two or three similar books which might help him in the great preparation which awaited his arrival in London. He went into a religious publisher's in Danvers Street with that object, and while engaged in a back part of the shop in looking over a pile of Catholic works, which, to the religious public, had inferior attractions to the glittering volumes, Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic, which had possession of the windows and princ.i.p.al table, he heard the shop-door open, and, on looking round, saw a familiar face. It was that of a young clergyman, with a very pretty girl on his arm, whom her dress p.r.o.nounced to be a bride. Love was in their eyes, joy in their voice, and affluence in their gait and bearing. Charles had a faintish feeling come over him; somewhat such as might beset a man on hearing a call for pork-chops when he was sea-sick. He retreated behind a pile of ledgers and other stationery, but they could not save him from the low, dulcet tones which from time to time pa.s.sed from one to the other.

”Have you got some of the last Oxford reprints of standard works?” said the bridegroom to the shopman.

”Yes, sir; but which set did you mean? 'Selections from Old Divines,'

or, 'New Catholic Adaptations'?”

”Oh, not the Adaptations,” answered he, ”they are extremely dangerous; I mean real Church-of-England divinity--Bull, Patrick, Hooker, and the rest of them.”

The shopman went to look them out.

”I think it was those Adaptations, dearest,” said the lady, ”that the Bishop warned us against.”

”Not the Bishop, Louisa; it was his daughter.”

”Oh, Miss Primrose, so it was,” said she; ”and there was one book she recommended, what was it?”

”Not a book, it was a speech,” said White; ”Mr. O'Ballaway's at Exeter Hall; but I think we should not quite like it.”

”No, no, Henry, it _was_ a book, dear; I can't recall the name.”

”You mean Dr. Crow's 'New Refutation of Popery,' perhaps; but the _Bishop_ recommended _that_.”