Part 27 (1/2)
”I know all that you mean,” he said. ”I don't agree with you in the least, but I appreciate your point of view. But let me keep myself out of the discussion for a moment. I am not what you would probably be prepared to call a professing Christian. But how about Moultrie? He sent me Lothian's poems first of all. I remember the actual evening last winter when they arrived. A contemporaneous circ.u.mstance has etched it into my memory with certainty. Moultrie is a deeply convinced Christian. He is a man of the widest culture also. Yet he savours his palate with every _nuance_, every elusive and delicate melody that the genius of Lothian gives us. How about Moultrie's att.i.tude?--it is a very general one.”
Mr. Medley laughed, half with apology, half with the grim humour which was personal to him.
”I quite admit all you say,” he replied, ”but, as I told you, I belong to another generation and I don't in the least mean to change or listen to the voice of the charmer! I am a prejudiced old fogey, in short! I am still so antiquated and foolish as to have a temperamental dislike for a French-man, for instance. I like a picture to tell a story, and I flatly refused to get into Moultrie's abominable automobile when he brought it to the Rectory the other day!”
Morton Sims was not in the least deceived by this half real, half mocking apologia. It was not merely a question of style that had roused this heat in the dry elderly man when he spoke of the things which he so greatly disliked in the poet's work. There was something behind this, and the doctor meant to find out what it was. He was in Mortland Royal, in the first instance, in order to follow up the problem of Gilbert Lothian. His choice of a country residence had been determined by the Poet's locality. Every instinct of the scientist and hunter was awake in him. He had dreadful reasons, reasons which he could never quite think of without a mental shudder, for finding out everything about the unknown and elusive genius who had given ”Surgit Amari,” to the world.
He looked his companion full in the face, and spoke in a compelling, searching voice that the other had not heard before.
”What's the real antagonism, Mr. Medley?” he said.
Then the clergyman spoke out.
”You press me,” he said, ”very well, I will tell you. I don't believe Lothian is a good man. It is a stern and terrible thing to say,--G.o.d grant I am mistaken!--but he appears to me to write of supreme things with insincerity. Not vulgarly, you'll understand. Not with his tongue in his cheek, but without the conviction that imposes conduct, and perhaps even with his heart in his mouth!”
”Conduct?”
”... I fear I am saying too much.”
”Hardly to me! Then Mr. Lothian--?”
”He drinks,” the Priest said bluntly, ”you're sure to hear of it in some indirect way since you are going to stay in the village for six months. But that's the truth of it!”
The face of Dr. Morton Sims suddenly became quite pale. His brown eyes glittered as if with an almost uncontrollable excitement.
”Ah!” he exclaimed, and there was something so curious in his voice that the clergyman was alarmed at what he had said. He knew, and could know, nothing of what was pa.s.sing in the other's mind. A scrupulously fair and honest man within his lights, he feared that he had made too harsh a statement--particularly to a man who thought that even an after-dinner gla.s.s of port was an error in hygiene!
”I don't mean to say that he gets drunk,” Medley continued hastily, ”but he really does excite himself and whip himself up to work by means of spirits.”
The clergyman hesitated. The doctor spurred him on.
”Most interesting to the scientific man--please go on.”
”Well, I don't know that there is much to say--I do hope I am not doing the man an injustice, because I am getting on for twice his age and envy the modern brilliance of his brain! But about a fortnight ago I went to see Crutwell--a poor fellow who is dying of phthisis--and found Lothian there. He was holding Crutwell's hand and talking to him about Paradise in a monotonous musical voice. He had been drinking. I saw it at once. His eyes were quite wild.”
”But the patient was made happier?”
”Yes. He was. Happier, I freely confess it, than my long ministrations have ever been able to make him. But that is certainly not the point.
It is very distressing to a parish Priest to meet with these things in his visitations. Do you know,” here Mr. Medley gave a rueful chuckle, ”I followed this alcoholic missioner the other day into the house of an old bed-ridden woman whom he helps to support. Lothian is extremely generous by the way. He would literally take off his coat and give it away--which really means, of course, that he has no conception of what money means.
”At any rate, I went into old Sarah's cottage about half an hour after Lothian had been there. The old lady in question lived a jolly, wicked life until senile paralysis intervened. She is now quite a connoisseur in religion. I found her, on the occasion of which I speak, lying back upon her pillows with a perfectly rapturous expression on her wicked and wrinkled old face. 'Oh, Mr. Lothian's been, sir!' she said, 'Oh, 'twas beautiful! He gave me five s.h.i.+llings and then he knelt down and prayed. I never heard such praying--meaning no disrespect, sir, of course. But it was beautiful. The tears were rolling down Mr. Lothian's cheeks!' 'Mr. Lothian is very kind,' I said. 'He's wonnerful,' she replied, 'for he was really as drunk as a Lord the whole time, though he didn't see as I saw it. Fancy praying so beautiful and him like that. What a brain!'”
Morton Sims burst out laughing, he could not help it. ”All the same,”
he said at length, ”it's certainly rather scandalous.”
Medley made a hurried deprecating movement of his hands. ”No, no!” he said, ”don't think that. I am over-emphasising things. Those two instances are quite isolated. In a general way Lothian is just like any one else. To speak quite frankly, Doctor, I'm not a safe guide when Gilbert Lothian is discussed.”
”Yes?”
”For this reason. I admire and reverence Mrs. Lothian as I have never reverenced any other woman. Now and then I have met saint-like people, and the more saint-like they were--I hope I am not cynical--the less of comely humanity they seemed to have. Only once have I met a saint quietly walking this world with sane and happy footsteps. And that is Mary Lothian.”