Part 46 (2/2)
She's so convinced of what she thinks herself that she considers the other view all nonsense--or, if she did hit on a particularly clever fellow who put the case too well against her, it's my firm belief that she'd have no scruple about suppressing him. Yours is much more the mind for me. We're inquirers, not dogmatists, you and I. With you, and a secretary learned in tongues, and a couple of typewriters, we shall make a hole in the work in no time.”
Winnie could not be sure that he was not building a golden bridge for her retreat. Perhaps she did not wish to risk being made quite sure. The plan sounded so attractive. What things she would read and learn! And it was certainly possible to argue that she would still be fighting the battle of liberty and progress. After all, is it not the students who really set the line of advance? They originate the ideas, which some day or other the practical men carry out. It was Moltke who won the campaign, not the generals in the field. Such was the plea which inclination offered to persuade pride.
”But, Stephen, apart from anything else, it would mean quartering myself on you practically for ever!”
”What if it did? But, as a matter of fact, Tora thought you'd like to have your own place. You remember that cottage G.o.dfrey had? He took it furnished; but it's to be let on lease unfurnished now, and if you liked it----”
”Oh, I shouldn't mind it. And Mrs. Lenoir has left me her furniture.”
”The whole thing works out beautifully,” Stephen declared. He grew a little graver. ”Come and try it, anyhow. Look here--I'll take the cottage, and sublet it to you. Then you can give it up at any moment, if you get sick of it. We shall be a jolly little colony. Old d.i.c.k Dennehy's house--you remember how we put him up to it?--is almost finished, and he'll be in it in six months. Of course he'll hate the Synopsis, and we shall have lots of fun with him.”
”Oh, my dear, you're good!” sighed Winnie--and a smile followed the sigh. For suddenly life and activity, comrades.h.i.+p and gaiety, crossed her path again. The thing was not over. It had almost seemed over--there in the lonely flat. ”How is dear old d.i.c.k Dennehy?” she asked.
”We've hardly seen him--he's only been down once. He's left me to build his house for him, and says encouragingly that he doesn't care a hang what it's like. He's been settling into his new job, I suppose. After a bit, perhaps, he'll be more amiable and accessible. You'll come and give it a trial, Winnie?” He got up and came over to her. ”You've done enough off your own bat,” he said. ”I don't quite know how to put it to you, but what I think I mean is that no single person does any good by more than one protest. Intelligent people recognize that; but if you go on, you get put down not as a Protestant, but just as an anarchist--like our poor dear old friend here, you know.”
He touched, with a true and discerning hand, on one of the great difficulties. If you were burnt at the stake for conscience' sake, it was hard to question your sincerity--though it appears that an uncalled-for and wanton quest of even the martyr's crown was not always approved by the soberer heads of and in the Churches. It was far harder to make people believe or understand that what you wanted to do might seem also what it was your duty to do--that the want made the duty. Only because the want was great--a thing which must be satisfied if a human life were not to be fruitlessly wasted--did the duty become imperative.
A doctrine true, perhaps, but perilous! Its professors should be above suspicion.
”It's awfully difficult,” Stephen went on, stroking his forehead the while. ”It's war, you see, and in any war worth arguing about both sides have a lot to say for themselves. We shall bring that out in the Synopsis.”
”Don't be too impartial, Stephen!”
”No, I've got my side--but the other fellows shall have a fair show.”
His smile grew affectionate. ”But I think you're ent.i.tled to come out of the fighting line and go into the organizing department--whatever it's called technically.”
”I'll tell you all about it some day. I'll wait a little. I seem only just to be getting a view of it.”
”You're very young. You may have a bit more practical work to deal with still. At any rate, I shall be very glad to hear all about it.” He rose and took his resplendent silk hat--that symbol of a sentimental attachment to the old order, from which he sprang, to which his sceptical mind had so many questions to put. ”Look here, Winnie, I believe you've been thinking life was finished--at any rate, not seeing any new start in it. Here's one--take it. It'll develop. The only way to put a stopper on life is to refuse to go along the open lines. Don't do that.” He smiled. ”I rather think we started you from Shaylor's Patch once. We may do it again.”
The plain truth came suddenly in a burst from her. ”I'm so tired, Stephen!”
He laid down the hat again and took her two hands in his. ”The Synopsis will be infinitely restful, Winnie. I'm going straight back to take the cottage, and begin to whitewash it. Send me word when you're ready to come. I'll tell you the truth before I go--or shan't I? Yes, I will, because, as I've told you before now, you've got pluck. You tell yourself you're facing things by staying here. You're not. You're hiding from things--and people. There are people you fear to meet, from one reason or another, in London, aren't there? Leave all that then. Come and live and work with us--and get your nerve back.”
She looked at him in a long silence, then drew her breath. ”Yes, I think you're right. I've turned afraid.” She threw out her arms in a spreading gesture. ”Here it is so big--and it takes no notice of me! On it goes--on--on!”
”You didn't expect to stop it, all on your own, did you?” asked Stephen, smiling.
”Or if it does take notice for a minute, half of it shudders, and the other half sn.i.g.g.e.rs! Is there nothing in between?”
”Oh, well, those are the two att.i.tudes of conservatism. Always have been--and, I suppose, always with a good deal of excuse. We do blunder, and we have a knack of attracting ridiculous people. It sets us back, but it can't be helped. We win in the end.” He took up his hat again.
”And the Synopsis is going to leaven the lump. Send me a wire to-morrow, Winnie, and the whitewas.h.i.+ng shall begin!”
Faith, patience, candour--these were the three great qualities; these composed the temper needed for the work. Stephen Aikenhead had them, and, even though he never put himself to the ordeal of experience, nay, even though he never finished the Synopsis (a contingency likely enough), encouragement radiated from him, and thus his existence was justified and valuable. There were bigots on both sides, and every cause counted some fools among its adherents. Probably, indeed, every individual in the world, however wise and open-minded in the sum, had his spot of bigotry and his strain of folly. After Stephen's departure Winnie did much moralizing along these and similar lines, but her moralizing was at once more cheerful and more tolerant than it had been before he came. She had a greater charity towards her enemy the world--even towards the shudders and the sn.i.g.g.e.rs. Why, the regiment would have been divided between shudders and sn.i.g.g.e.rs--exactly the att.i.tudes which Bertie Merriam had sketched--and yet she had felt, under his inspiration, both liking and respect for the regiment. Why not then for that greater regiment, the world? Liking and respect, yes--but not, therefore, a.s.sent or even acquiescence. And on her own proceedings, too, Stephen enabled her to cast new eyes--eyes more open to the humorous aspect, taking a juster view of how much she might have expected to do and could reasonably consider herself to have done. Both seemed to come to very little compared with the wear and tear of the effort. But, then, if everybody did even a very little--why, the lump would be leavened, as Stephen said.
Three days later--just after she had made up her mind for Shaylor's Patch and the Synopsis, and had given notice to the General--and to Emily--of her approaching departure, there came a short note from the obstinately absent and invisible d.i.c.k Dennehy. It was on the official notepaper of the great journal:
”I hear from Tora that you're going back to Shaylor's Patch, to settle down there quietly. Thank G.o.d for it! Perhaps I shall see you there before very long, but I'm still very busy.--Yours, R. D.”
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