Volume Ii Part 20 (1/2)
Hand in hand they descended the steep slope to that rock-seat where he had found her on the morning of Easter Sunday. The great thorn which overhung it was then in bud; now the berries which covered the tree were already reddening to winter. Before her spread the silver-river, running to lose itself in the rocky bosom of that towering scar which closed the distance, whereon, too, all the wealth of the woods on either hand converged--the woods that hid the outer country, and all that was not Bannisdale and Helbeck's.
To-day, however, Laura felt no young pa.s.sion of pleasure in the beauty at her feet. She was ill at ease, and her look fled his as he glanced up to her from the turf where he had thrown himself.
”Do you like me to read your books?” she said abruptly, her question swooping hawk-like upon his and driving it off the field.
He paused--to consider, and to smile.
”I don't know. I believe you read them perversely!”
”I know what you read this morning. Do you--do you think St. Francis Borgia was a very admirable person?”
”Well, I got a good deal of edification out of him,” said Helbeck quietly.
”Did you? Would you be like him if you could? Do you remember when his wife was very ill, and he was praying for her, he heard a voice--do you remember?”
”Go on,” said Helbeck, nodding.
”And the voice said, 'If thou wouldst have the life of the d.u.c.h.ess prolonged, it shall be granted; but it is not expedient for thee'--'_thee_,' mind--not her! When he heard this, he was penetrated by a most tender love of G.o.d, and burst into tears. Then he asked G.o.d to do as He pleased with the lives of his wife and his children and himself. He gave up--I suppose he gave up--praying for her. She became much worse and died, leaving him a widower at the age of thirty-six. Afterwards--please don't interrupt!--in the s.p.a.ce of three years, he disposed somehow of all his eight children--some of them I reckoned must be quite babies--took the vows, became a Jesuit, and went to Rome. Do you approve of all that?”
Helbeck reddened. ”It was a time of hard fighting for the Church,” he said gravely, after a pause, ”and the Jesuits were the advance guard. In such days a man may be called by G.o.d to special acts and special sacrifices.”
”So you do approve? Papa was a member of an Ethical Society at Cambridge.
They used sometimes to discuss special things--whether they were right or wrong. I wonder what they would have said to St. Francis Borgia?”
Helbeck smiled.
”Mercifully, darling, the ideals of the Catholic Church do not depend upon the votes of Ethical Societies!”
He turned his handsome head towards her. His tone was perfectly gentle, but behind it she perceived the breathing of a contempt before which she first recoiled--then sprang in revolt.
”As for me,” she said, panting a little, ”when I finished the Life this morning in your room, I felt like Ivan in Browning's poem--do you recollect?--about the mother who threw her children one by one to the wolves, to save her wretched self? I would like to have dropped the axe on St. Francis Borgia's neck--just one--little--clean cut!--while he was saying his prayers, and enjoying his burning love, and all the rest of it!”
Helbeck was silent, nor could she see his face, which was again turned from her towards the river. The eager feverish voice went on:
”Do you know that's the kind of thing you read always--always--day after day? And it's just the same now! That girl of twenty-three, Augustina was talking of, who is going into a convent, and her mother only died last year, and there are six younger brothers and sisters, and her father says it will break his heart--_she_ must have been reading about St. Francis Borgia. Perhaps she felt 'burning love' and had 'floods of tears.' But Ivan with his axe--that's the person I'd bring in, if I could!”
Still not a word from the man beside her. She hesitated a moment--felt a sob of excitement in her throat--bent forward and touched his shoulder.
”Suppose--suppose I were to be ill--dying--and the voice came, 'Let her go! She is in your way; it would be better for you she should die'--would you just let go?--see me drop, drop, drop, through all eternity, to make your soul safe?”
”Laura!” cried a strong voice. And, with a spring, Helbeck was beside her, capturing both her cold hands in one of his, a mingled tenderness and wrath flas.h.i.+ng from him before which she shrank. But though she drew away from him--her small face so white below the broad black hat!--she was not quelled. Before he could speak, she had said in sharp separate words, hardly above a whisper:
”It is that horrible egotism of religion that poisons everything! And if--if one shared it, well and good, one might make terms with it, like a wild thing one had tamed. But outside it, and at war with it, what can one do but hate--hate--_hate_--it!”
”My G.o.d!” he said in bewilderment, ”where am I to begin?”
He stared at her with a pa.s.sionate amazement. Never before had she shown such forces of personality, or been able to express herself with an utterance so mature and resonant. Her stature had grown before his eyes.
In the little frowning figure there was something newly, tragically fine.
The man for the first time felt his match. His own hidden self rose at last to the struggle with a kind of angry joy, eager at once to conquer the woman and to pierce the sceptic.