A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Read online

  II.

  He found that it had its origin in a building standing alone in a field;and though the evening was not yet dark without, lights shone from thewindows. In a few moments Somerset stood before the edifice. Being justthen en rapport with ecclesiasticism by reason of his recent occupation,he could not help murmuring, 'Shade of Pugin, what a monstrosity!'

  Perhaps this exclamation (rather out of date since the discovery thatPugin himself often nodded amazingly) would not have been indulged inby Somerset but for his new architectural resolves, which causedprofessional opinions to advance themselves officiously to hislips whenever occasion offered. The building was, in short, arecently-erected chapel of red brick, with pseudo-classic ornamentation,and the white regular joints of mortar could be seen streaking itssurface in geometrical oppressiveness from top to bottom. The roof wasof blue slate, clean as a table, and unbroken from gable to gable;the windows were glazed with sheets of plate glass, a temporary ironstovepipe passing out near one of these, and running up to the height ofthe ridge, where it was finished by a covering like a parachute. Walkinground to the end, he perceived an oblong white stone let into the walljust above the plinth, on which was inscribed in deep letters:--

  Erected 187-,

  AT THE SOLE EXPENSE OF

  JOHN POWER, ESQ., M.P.

  The 'New Sabbath' still proceeded line by line, with all the emotionalswells and cadences that had of old characterized the tune: and the bodyof vocal harmony that it evoked implied a large congregation within, towhom it was plainly as familiar as it had been to church-goers of a pastgeneration. With a whimsical sense of regret at the secession of hisonce favourite air Somerset moved away, and would have quite withdrawnfrom the field had he not at that moment observed two young men withpitchers of water coming up from a stream hard by, and hastening withtheir burdens into the chapel vestry by a side door. Almost as soon asthey had entered they emerged again with empty pitchers, and proceededto the stream to fill them as before, an operation which they repeatedseveral times. Somerset went forward to the stream, and waited till theyoung men came out again.

  'You are carrying in a great deal of water,' he said, as each dipped hispitcher.

  One of the young men modestly replied, 'Yes: we filled the cistern thismorning; but it leaks, and requires a few pitcherfuls more.'

  'Why do you do it?'

  'There is to be a baptism, sir.'

  Somerset was not sufficiently interested to develop a furtherconversation, and observing them in silence till they had again vanishedinto the building, he went on his way. Reaching the brow of the hill hestopped and looked back. The chapel was still in view, and the shadesof night having deepened, the lights shone from the windows yet morebrightly than before. A few steps further would hide them and theedifice, and all that belonged to it from his sight, possibly for ever.There was something in the thought which led him to linger. The chapelhad neither beauty, quaintness, nor congeniality to recommend it: thedissimilitude between the new utilitarianism of the place and the scenesof venerable Gothic art which had occupied his daylight hours could notwell be exceeded. But Somerset, as has been said, was an instrumentof no narrow gamut: he had a key for other touches than the purelyaesthetic, even on such an excursion as this. His mind was arrested bythe intense and busy energy which must needs belong to an assembly thatrequired such a glare of light to do its religion by; in the heaving ofthat tune there was an earnestness which made him thoughtful, and theshine of those windows he had characterized as ugly reminded him of theshining of the good deed in a naughty world. The chapel and its shabbyplot of ground, from which the herbage was all trodden away by busyfeet, had a living human interest that the numerous minsters andchurches knee-deep in fresh green grass, visited by him during theforegoing week, had often lacked. Moreover, there was going to be abaptism: that meant the immersion of a grown-up person; and he hadbeen told that Baptists were serious people and that the scene was mostimpressive. What manner of man would it be who on an ordinary ploddingand bustling evening of the nineteenth century could single himself outas one different from the rest of the inhabitants, banish all shyness,and come forward to undergo such a trying ceremony? Who was he thathad pondered, gone into solitudes, wrestled with himself, worked up hiscourage and said, I will do this, though few else will, for I believe itto be my duty?

  Whether on account of these thoughts, or from the circumstance thathe had been alone amongst the tombs all day without communion with hiskind, he could not tell in after years (when he had good reason to thinkof the subject); but so it was that Somerset went back, and again stoodunder the chapel-wall.

  Instead of entering he passed round to where the stove-chimney camethrough the bricks, and holding on to the iron stay he put his toes onthe plinth and looked in at the window. The building was quite full ofpeople belonging to that vast majority of society who are denied theart of articulating their higher emotions, and crave dumbly for afugleman--respectably dressed working people, whose faces and forms wereworn and contorted by years of dreary toil. On a platform at the endof the chapel a haggard man of more than middle age, with grey whiskersascetically cut back from the fore part of his face so far as to bealmost banished from the countenance, stood reading a chapter. Betweenthe minister and the congregation was an open space, and in the floor ofthis was sunk a tank full of water, which just made its surface visibleabove the blackness of its depths by reflecting the lights overhead.

  Somerset endeavoured to discover which one among the assemblage was tobe the subject of the ceremony. But nobody appeared there who was at allout of the region of commonplace. The people were all quiet and settled;yet he could discern on their faces something more than attention,though it was less than excitement: perhaps it was expectation. And asif to bear out his surmise he heard at that moment the noise of wheelsbehind him.

  His gaze into the lighted chapel made what had been an evening scenewhen he looked away from the landscape night itself on looking back;but he could see enough to discover that a brougham had driven up tothe side-door used by the young water-bearers, and that a lady inwhite-and-black half-mourning was in the act of alighting, followed bywhat appeared to be a waiting-woman carrying wraps. They entered thevestry-room of the chapel, and the door was shut. The service went on asbefore till at a certain moment the door between vestry and chapel wasopened, when a woman came out clothed in an ample robe of flowing white,which descended to her feet. Somerset was unfortunate in his position;he could not see her face, but her gait suggested at once that shewas the lady who had arrived just before. She was rather tall thanotherwise, and the contour of her head and shoulders denoted a girl inthe heyday of youth and activity. His imagination, stimulated by thisbeginning, set about filling in the meagre outline with most attractivedetails.

  She stood upon the brink of the pool, and the minister descended thesteps at its edge till the soles of his shoes were moistened with thewater. He turned to the young candidate, but she did not follow him:instead of doing so she remained rigid as a stone. He stretched out hishand, but she still showed reluctance, till, with some embarrassment, hewent back, and spoke softly in her ear.

  She approached the edge, looked into the water, and turned away shakingher head. Somerset could for the first time see her face. Though humanlyimperfect, as is every face we see, it was one which made him think thatthe best in woman-kind no less than the best in psalm-tunes had goneover to the Dissenters. He had certainly seen nobody so interestingin his tour hitherto; she was about twenty or twenty-one--perhapstwenty-three, for years have a way of stealing marches even uponbeauty's anointed. The total dissimilarity between the expression ofher lineaments and that of the countenances around her was not a littlesurprising, and was productive of hypotheses without measure as tohow she came there. She was, in fact, emphatically a modern type ofmaidenhood, and she looked ultra-modern by reason of her environment: apresumably sophisticated being among the simple ones--not wickedly so,but one who knew li
fe fairly well for her age. Her hair, of goodEnglish brown, neither light nor dark, was abundant--too abundant forconvenience in tying, as it seemed; and it threw off the lamp-light ina hazy lustre. And though it could not be said of her features that thisor that was flawless, the nameless charm of them altogether was onlyanother instance of how beautiful a woman can be as a whole withoutattaining in any one detail to the lines marked out as absolutelycorrect. The spirit and the life were there: and material shapes couldbe disregarded.

  Whatever moral characteristics this might be the surface of, enoughwas shown to assure Somerset that she had some experience of things farremoved from her present circumscribed horizon, and could live, and waseven at that moment living, a clandestine, stealthy inner life which hadvery little to do with her outward one. The repression of nearly everyexternal sign of that distress under which Somerset knew, by a suddenintuitive sympathy, that she was labouring, added strength to theseconvictions.

  'And you refuse?' said the astonished minister, as she still stoodimmovable on the brink of the pool. He persuasively took her sleevebetween his finger and thumb as if to draw her; but she resented this bya quick movement of displeasure, and he released her, seeing that he hadgone too far.

  'But, my dear lady,' he said, 'you promised! Consider your profession,and that you stand in the eyes of the whole church as an exemplar ofyour faith.'

  'I cannot do it!'

  'But your father's memory, miss; his last dying request!'

  'I cannot help it,' she said, turning to get away.

  'You came here with the intention to fulfil the Word?'

  'But I was mistaken.'

  'Then why did you come?'

  She tacitly implied that to be a question she did not care to answer.'Please say no more to me,' she murmured, and hastened to withdraw.

  During this unexpected dialogue (which had reached Somerset's earsthrough the open windows) that young man's feelings had flown hither andthither between minister and lady in a most capricious manner: it hadseemed at one moment a rather uncivil thing of her, charming as she was,to give the minister and the water-bearers so much trouble fornothing; the next, it seemed like reviving the ancient cruelties of theducking-stool to try to force a girl into that dark water if she had nota mind to it. But the minister was not without insight, and he had seenthat it would be useless to say more. The crestfallen old man had toturn round upon the congregation and declare officially that the baptismwas postponed.

  She passed through the door into the vestry. During the excitingmoments of her recusancy there had been a perceptible flutter among thesensitive members of the congregation; nervous Dissenters seeming to beat one with nervous Episcopalians in this at least, that they heartilydisliked a scene during service. Calm was restored to their minds by theminister starting a rather long hymn in minims and semibreves, amid thesinging of which he ascended the pulpit. His face had a severe andeven denunciatory look as he gave out his text, and Somerset began tounderstand that this meant mischief to the young person who had causedthe hitch.

  'In the third chapter of Revelation and the fifteenth and followingverses, you will find these words:--

  '"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thouwert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither coldnor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.... Thou sayest, I am rich,and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not thatthou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."'

  The sermon straightway began, and it was soon apparent that thecommentary was to be no less forcible than the text. It was alsoapparent that the words were, virtually, not directed forward inthe line in which they were uttered, but through the chink of thevestry-door, that had stood slightly ajar since the exit of the younglady. The listeners appeared to feel this no less than Somerset did, fortheir eyes, one and all, became fixed upon that vestry door as if theywould almost push it open by the force of their gazing. The preacher'sheart was full and bitter; no book or note was wanted by him; neverwas spontaneity more absolute than here. It was no timid reproof ofthe ornamental kind, but a direct denunciation, all the more vigorousperhaps from the limitation of mind and language under which the speakerlaboured. Yet, fool that he had been made by the candidate, there wasnothing acrid in his attack. Genuine flashes of rhetorical firewere occasionally struck by that plain and simple man, who knew whatstraightforward conduct was, and who did not know the illimitablecaprice of a woman's mind.

  At this moment there was not in the whole chapel a person whoseimagination was not centred on what was invisibly taking place withinthe vestry. The thunder of the minister's eloquence echoed, of course,through the weak sister's cavern of retreat no less than round thepublic assembly. What she was doing inside there--whether listeningcontritely, or haughtily hastening to put on her things and get awayfrom the chapel and all it contained--was obviously the thought of eachmember. What changes were tracing themselves upon that lovely face: didit rise to phases of Raffaelesque resignation or sink so low as to flushand frown? was Somerset's inquiry; and a half-explanation occurred when,during the discourse, the door which had been ajar was gently pushed to.

  Looking on as a stranger it seemed to him more than probable that thisyoung woman's power of persistence in her unexpected repugnance to therite was strengthened by wealth and position of some sort, and wasnot the unassisted gift of nature. The manner of her arrival, and herdignified bearing before the assembly, strengthened the belief. A womanwho did not feel something extraneous to her mental self to fall backupon would be so far overawed by the people and the crisis as not toretain sufficient resolution for a change of mind.

  The sermon ended, the minister wiped his steaming face and turned downhis cuffs, and nods and sagacious glances went round. Yet many, even ofthose who had presumably passed the same ordeal with credit, exhibitedgentler judgment than the preacher's on a tergiversation of which theyhad probably recognized some germ in their own bosoms when in the lady'ssituation.

  For Somerset there was but one scene: the imagined scene of the girlherself as she sat alone in the vestry. The fervent congregation roseto sing again, and then Somerset heard a slight noise on his left handwhich caused him to turn his head. The brougham, which had retiredinto the field to wait, was back again at the door: the subject of hisrumination came out from the chapel--not in her mystic robe of white,but dressed in ordinary fashionable costume--followed as before by theattendant with other articles of clothing on her arm, including thewhite gown. Somerset fancied that the younger woman was drying her eyeswith her handkerchief, but there was not much time to see: they quicklyentered the carriage, and it moved on. Then a cat suddenly mewed, andhe saw a white Persian standing forlorn where the carriage had been. Thedoor was opened, the cat taken in, and the carriage drove away.

  The stranger's girlish form stamped itself deeply on Somerset's soul. Hestrolled on his way quite oblivious to the fact that the moon had justrisen, and that the landscape was one for him to linger over, especiallyif there were any Gothic architecture in the line of the lunar rays. Theinference was that though this girl must be of a serious turn of mind,wilfulness was not foreign to her composition: and it was probable thather daily doings evinced without much abatement by religion the unbrokenspirit and pride of life natural to her age.

  The little village inn at which Somerset intended to pass the nightlay a mile further on, and retracing his way up to the stile he rambledalong the lane, now beginning to be streaked like a zebra with theshadows of some young trees that edged the road. But his attention wasattracted to the other side of the way by a hum as of a night-bee,which arose from the play of the breezes over a single wire of telegraphrunning parallel with his track on tall poles that had appeared by theroad, he hardly knew when, from a branch route, probably leading fromsome town in the neighbourhood to the village he was approaching. He didnot know the population of Sleeping-Green, as the village of his searchwas called, but the presence of this mark of civilization
seemed tosignify that its inhabitants were not quite so far in the rear of theirage as might be imagined; a glance at the still ungrassed heap of earthround the foot of each post was, however, sufficient to show that it wasat no very remote period that they had made their advance.

  Aided by this friendly wire Somerset had no difficulty in keeping hiscourse, till he reached a point in the ascent of a hill at which thetelegraph branched off from the road, passing through an opening in thehedge, to strike across an undulating down, while the road wound roundto the left. For a few moments Somerset doubted and stood still. Thewire sang on overhead with dying falls and melodious rises that invitedhim to follow; while above the wire rode the stars in their courses, thelow nocturn of the former seeming to be the voices of those stars,

  'Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.'

  Recalling himself from these reflections Somerset decided to follow thelead of the wire. It was not the first time during his present tour thathe had found his way at night by the help of these musical threads whichthe post-office authorities had erected all over the country for quiteanother purpose than to guide belated travellers. Plunging with itacross the down he came to a hedgeless road that entered a park orchase, which flourished in all its original wildness. Tufts of rushesand brakes of fern rose from the hollows, and the road was in placeshalf overgrown with green, as if it had not been tended for many years;so much so that, where shaded by trees, he found some difficulty inkeeping it. Though he had noticed the remains of a deer-fence furtherback no deer were visible, and it was scarcely possible that thereshould be any in the existing state of things: but rabbits weremultitudinous, every hillock being dotted with their seated figures tillSomerset approached and sent them limping into their burrows. The roadnext wound round a clump of underwood beside which lay heaps of faggotsfor burning, and then there appeared against the sky the walls andtowers of a castle, half ruin, half residence, standing on an eminencehard by.

  Somerset stopped to examine it. The castle was not exceptionally large,but it had all the characteristics of its most important fellows.Irregular, dilapidated, and muffled in creepers as a great portion of itwas, some part--a comparatively modern wing--was inhabited, for a lightor two steadily gleamed from some upper windows; in others a reflectionof the moon denoted that unbroken glass yet filled their casements. Overall rose the keep, a square solid tower apparently not much injured bywars or weather, and darkened with ivy on one side, wherein wings couldbe heard flapping uncertainly, as if they belonged to a bird unableto find a proper perch. Hissing noises supervened, and then a hoot,proclaiming that a brood of young owls were residing there in thecompany of older ones. In spite of the habitable and more modern wing,neglect and decay had set their mark upon the outworks of the pile,unfitting them for a more positive light than that of the present hour.

  He walked up to a modern arch spanning the ditch--now dry andgreen--over which the drawbridge once had swung. The large door underthe porter's archway was closed and locked. While standing here thesinging of the wire, which for the last few minutes he had quiteforgotten, again struck upon his ear, and retreating to a convenientplace he observed its final course: from the poles amid the treesit leaped across the moat, over the girdling wall, and thence bya tremendous stretch towards the keep where, to judge by sound, itvanished through an arrow-slit into the interior. This fossil offeudalism, then, was the journey's-end of the wire, and not the villageof Sleeping-Green.

  There was a certain unexpectedness in the fact that the hoary memorialof a stolid antagonism to the interchange of ideas, the monument of harddistinctions in blood and race, of deadly mistrust of one's neighbour inspite of the Church's teaching, and of a sublime unconsciousness ofany other force than a brute one, should be the goal of a machine whichbeyond everything may be said to symbolize cosmopolitan views and theintellectual and moral kinship of all mankind. In that light the littlebuzzing wire had a far finer significance to the student Somerset thanthe vast walls which neighboured it. But the modern fever and fret whichconsumes people before they can grow old was also signified by the wire;and this aspect of to-day did not contrast well with the fairer sideof feudalism--leisure, light-hearted generosity, intense friendships,hawks, hounds, revels, healthy complexions, freedom from care, and sucha living power in architectural art as the world may never again see.

  Somerset withdrew till neither the singing of the wire nor the hisses ofthe irritable owls could be heard any more. A clock in the castle struckten, and he recognized the strokes as those he had heard when sittingon the stile. It was indispensable that he should retrace his steps andpush on to Sleeping-Green if he wished that night to reach his lodgings,which had been secured by letter at a little inn in the straggling lineof roadside houses called by the above name, where his luggage had bythis time probably arrived. In a quarter of an hour he was again at thepoint where the wire left the road, and following the highway over ahill he saw the hamlet at his feet.