A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Page 8

  VII.

  At the sound of a new voice the lady in the bower started, as he couldsee by her outline through the crevices of the wood-work and creepers.The minister looked surprised.

  'You will lend me your Bible, sir, to assist my memory?' he continued.

  The minister held out the Bible with some reluctance, but he allowedSomerset to take it from his hand. The latter, stepping upon a largemoss-covered stone which stood near, and laying his hat on a flat beechbough that rose and fell behind him, pointed to the minister to seathimself on the grass. The minister looked at the grass, and looked upagain at Somerset, but did not move.

  Somerset for the moment was not observing him. His new position hadturned out to be exactly opposite the open side of the bower, and nowfor the first time he beheld the interior. On the seat was the womanwho had stood beneath his eyes in the chapel, the 'Paula' of Miss DeStancy's enthusiastic eulogies. She wore a summer hat, beneath whichher fair curly hair formed a thicket round her forehead. It would beimpossible to describe her as she then appeared. Not sensuous enoughfor an Aphrodite, and too subdued for a Hebe, she would yet, with theadjunct of doves or nectar, have stood sufficiently well for eitherof those personages, if presented in a pink morning light, and withmythological scarcity of attire.

  Half in surprise she glanced up at him; and lowering her eyes again,as if no surprise were ever let influence her actions for more than amoment, she sat on as before, looking past Somerset's position at theview down the river, visible for a long distance before her till it waslost under the bending trees.

  Somerset turned over the leaves of the minister's Bible, and began:--

  'In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the seventh chapter and thefourteenth verse--'.

  Here the young lady raised her eyes in spite of her reserve, but itbeing, apparently, too much labour to keep them raised, allowed herglance to subside upon her jet necklace, extending it with the thumb ofher left hand.

  'Sir!' said the Baptist excitedly, 'I know that passage well--it is thelast refuge of the Paedobaptists--I foresee your argument. I have metit dozens of times, and it is not worth that snap of the fingers! Itis worth no more than the argument from circumcision, or theSuffer-little-children argument.'

  'Then turn to the sixteenth chapter of the Acts, and the thirty-third--'

  'That, too,' cried the minister, 'is answered by what I said before! Iperceive, sir, that you adopt the method of a special pleader, and notthat of an honest inquirer. Is it, or is it not, an answer to my proofsfrom the eighth chapter of the Acts, the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventhverses; the sixteenth of Mark, sixteenth verse; second of Acts,forty-first verse; the tenth and the forty-seventh verse; or theeighteenth and eighth verse?'

  'Very well, then. Let me prove the point by other reasoning--by theargument from Apostolic tradition.' He threw the minister's book uponthe grass, and proceeded with his contention, which comprised a fairlygood exposition of the earliest practice of the Church and inferencestherefrom. (When he reached this point an interest in his off-handarguments was revealed by the mobile bosom of Miss Paula Power, thoughshe still occupied herself by drawing out the necklace.) Testimony fromJustin Martyr followed; with inferences from Irenaeus in the expression,'Omnes enim venit per semetipsum salvare; omnes inquam, qui per eumrenascuntur in Deum, INFANTES et parvulos et pueros et juvenes.' (At thesound of so much seriousness Paula turned her eyes upon the speaker withattention.) He next adduced proof of the signification of 'renascor'in the writings of the Fathers, as reasoned by Wall; argumentsfrom Tertullian's advice to defer the rite; citations from Cyprian,Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Jerome; and briefly summed up the wholematter.

  Somerset looked round for the minister as he concluded. But the old man,after standing face to face with the speaker, had turned his back uponhim, and during the latter portions of the attack had moved slowly away.He now looked back; his countenance was full of commiserating reproachas he lifted his hand, twice shook his head, and said, 'In the Epistleto the Philippians, first chapter and sixteenth verse, it is writtenthat there are some who preach in contention and not sincerely. Andin the Second Epistle to Timothy, fourth chapter and fourth verse,attention is drawn to those whose ears refuse the truth, and are turnedunto fables. I wish you good afternoon, sir, and that priceless gift,SINCERITY.'

  The minister vanished behind the trees; Somerset and Miss Power beingleft confronting each other alone.

  Somerset stepped aside from the stone, hat in hand, at the same momentin which Miss Power rose from her seat. She hesitated for an instant,and said, with a pretty girlish stiffness, sweeping back the skirt ofher dress to free her toes in turning: 'Although you are personallyunknown to me, I cannot leave you without expressing my deep sense ofyour profound scholarship, and my admiration for the thoroughness ofyour studies in divinity.'

  'Your opinion gives me great pleasure,' said Somerset, bowing, andfairly blushing. 'But, believe me, I am no scholar, and no theologian.My knowledge of the subject arises simply from the accident that somefew years ago I looked into the question for a special reason. In thestudy of my profession I was interested in the designing of fonts andbaptisteries, and by a natural process I was led to investigate thehistory of baptism; and some of the arguments I then learnt up stillremain with me. That's the simple explanation of my erudition.'

  'If your sermons at the church only match your address to-day, I shallnot wonder at hearing that the parishioners are at last willing toattend.'

  It flashed upon Somerset's mind that she supposed him to be the newcurate, of whose arrival he had casually heard, during his sojourn atthe inn. Before he could bring himself to correct an error to which,perhaps, more than to anything else, was owing the friendliness of hermanner, she went on, as if to escape the embarrassment of silence:--

  'I need hardly say that I at least do not doubt the sincerity of yourarguments.'

  'Nevertheless, I was not altogether sincere,' he answered.

  She was silent.

  'Then why should you have delivered such a defence of me?' she askedwith simple curiosity.

  Somerset involuntarily looked in her face for his answer.

  Paula again teased the necklace. 'Would you have spoken so eloquently onthe other side if I--if occasion had served?' she inquired shyly.

  'Perhaps I would.'

  Another pause, till she said, 'I, too, was insincere.'

  'You?'

  'I was.'

  'In what way?

  'In letting him, and you, think I had been at all influenced byauthority, scriptural or patristic.'

  'May I ask, why, then, did you decline the ceremony the other evening?'

  'Ah, you, too, have heard of it!' she said quickly.

  'No.'

  'What then?'

  'I saw it.'

  She blushed and looked down the river. 'I cannot give my reasons,' shesaid.

  'Of course not,' said Somerset.

  'I would give a great deal to possess real logical dogmatism.'

  'So would I.'

  There was a moment of embarrassment: she wanted to get away, but didnot precisely know how. He would have withdrawn had she not said, as ifrather oppressed by her conscience, and evidently still thinking himthe curate: 'I cannot but feel that Mr. Woodwell's heart has beenunnecessarily wounded.'

  'The minister's?'

  'Yes. He is single-mindedness itself. He gives away nearly all he hasto the poor. He works among the sick, carrying them necessaries with hisown hands. He teaches the ignorant men and lads of the village whenhe ought to be resting at home, till he is absolutely prostrate fromexhaustion, and then he sits up at night writing encouraging lettersto those poor people who formerly belonged to his congregation in thevillage, and have now gone away. He always offends ladies, because hecan't help speaking the truth as he believes it; but he hasn't offendedme!'

  Her feelings had risen towards the end, so that she finished quitewarmly, and turned aside.

  'I was not in the least aware that
he was such a man,' murmuredSomerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... 'Whatever you mayhave done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man's heartfrom an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, last-centuryargument.'

  'Not dull,' she murmured, 'for it interested me.'

  Somerset accepted her correction willingly. 'It was ill-considered ofme, however,' he said; 'and in his distress he has forgotten his Bible.'He went and picked up the worn volume from where it lay on the grass.

  'You can easily win him to forgive you, by just following, and returningthe book to him,' she observed.

  'I will,' said the young man impulsively. And, bowing to her, hehastened along the river brink after the minister. He at length saw hisfriend before him, leaning over the gate which led from the privatepath into a lane, his cheek resting on the palm of his hand with everyoutward sign of abstraction. He was not conscious of Somerset's presencetill the latter touched him on the shoulder.

  Never was a reconciliation effected more readily. When Somerset saidthat, fearing his motives might be misconstrued, he had followed toassure the minister of his goodwill and esteem, Mr. Woodwell held outhis hand, and proved his friendliness in return by preparing to havethe controversy on their religious differences over again from thebeginning, with exhaustive detail. Somerset evaded this with alacrity,and once having won his companion to other subjects he found that theaustere man had a smile as pleasant as an infant's on the rare momentswhen he indulged in it; moreover, that he was warmly attached to MissPower.

  'Though she gives me more trouble than all the rest of the Baptistchurch in this district,' he said, 'I love her as my own daughter. ButI am sadly exercised to know what she is at heart. Heaven supply me withfortitude to contest her wild opinions, and intractability! But she hassweet virtues, and her conduct at times can be most endearing.'

  'I believe it!' said Somerset, with more fervour than mere politenessrequired.

  'Sometimes I think those Stancy towers and lands will be a curse to her.The spirit of old papistical times still lingers in the nooks of thosesilent walls, like a bad odour in a still atmosphere, dulling theiconoclastic emotions of the true Puritan. It would be a pity indeedif she were to be tainted by the very situation that her father'sindomitable energy created for her.'

  'Do not be concerned about her,' said Somerset gently. 'She's not aPaedobaptist at heart, although she seems so.'

  Mr. Woodwell placed his finger on Somerset's arm, saying, 'If she'snot a Paedobaptist, or Episcopalian; if she is not vulnerable to themediaeval influences of her mansion, lands, and new acquaintance, itis because she's been vulnerable to what is worse: to doctrines besidewhich the errors of Paaedobaptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, arebut as air.'

  'How? You astonish me.'

  'Have you heard in your metropolitan experience of a curious body of NewLights, as they think themselves?' The minister whispered a name to hislistener, as if he were fearful of being overheard.

  'O no,' said Somerset, shaking his head, and smiling at the minister'shorror. 'She's not that; at least, I think not.. .. She's a woman;nothing more. Don't fear for her; all will be well.'

  The poor old man sighed. 'I love her as my own. I will say no more.'

  Somerset was now in haste to go back to the lady, to ease her apparentanxiety as to the result of his mission, and also because time seemedheavy in the loss of her discreet voice and soft, buoyant look. Everymoment of delay began to be as two. But the minister was too earnestin his converse to see his companion's haste, and it was not tillperception was forced upon him by the actual retreat of Somerset that heremembered time to be a limited commodity. He then expressed his wishto see Somerset at his house to tea any afternoon he could spare, andreceiving the other's promise to call as soon as he could, allowed theyounger man to set out for the summer-house, which he did at a smartpace. When he reached it he looked around, and found she was gone.

  Somerset was immediately struck by his own lack of social dexterity. Whydid he act so readily on the whimsical suggestion of another person, andfollow the minister, when he might have said that he would call onMr. Woodwell to-morrow, and, making himself known to Miss Power as thevisiting architect of whom she had heard from Miss De Stancy, have hadthe pleasure of attending her to the castle? 'That's what any other manwould have had wit enough to do!' he said.

  There then arose the question whether her despatching him after theminister was such an admirable act of good-nature to a good man as ithad at first seemed to be. Perhaps it was simply a manoeuvre for gettingrid of himself; and he remembered his doubt whether a certain lightin her eyes when she inquired concerning his sincerity were innocentearnestness or the reverse. As the possibility of levity crossedhis brain, his face warmed; it pained him to think that a woman sointeresting could condescend to a trick of even so mild a complexion asthat. He wanted to think her the soul of all that was tender, and noble,and kind. The pleasure of setting himself to win a minister's goodwillwas a little tarnished now.