Under St Paul's: A Romance

'Tell me when you can give me an hour or two. I want to have a quiet chat with you in the open air somewhere.

George.'

She took up a pencil and wrote back, -

'I can keep any appointment you make.

Marie.'

He rejoined: -

'Come at once.'

She rose, and said, -

'O'Connor, give me a waterproof; I am going out.'

'Going out, miss! I'm glad of that. I hope it will make you feel better.'

'Nothing can make me feel worse,' thought Marie.

CHAPTER VII.

LOVE AND FAITH

When Marie got downstairs she found George restlessly pacing the hall. He stopped when he saw her, looked at her sadly, and held out his hand. She cast one rapid glance at him, and then, fixing her eyes on the floor, silently held out her hand to him. He stooped, kissed her glove, and then, having opened the door for her, she passed out, followed by him. 'Only my glove!' she thought. 'Only my glove!' As they turned out of Peter's Row he offered her his arm, and said, – 'I want to have a quiet talk with you, Marie.' She said nothing. She looked down, counting the divisions in the flags as she passed. 'Only my glove,' she thought drearily; 'only my glove he kissed. More than a glove has come between his hand and mine-between his lips and mine. If he had put his arms round me in the hall and kissed me and said-"My own Marie!" I should have forgotten everything but that I was his. Now I do not know what to forget. In the old time I belonged to myself; of late I have belonged to him. Now he seems not to want me, and I do not want myself only for his sake. God help me, God help me! I am poorer than the worst-used wife in England. I would rather be used badly by him than that he should pass me by. If I cannot be happy with him there is but one thing else I could endure, and that is to be unhappy with him. God give me guidance and strength! If Thou wilt, give me my George's love back again!' They turned into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Not a word had been spoken the whole way from Peter's Row. As soon as they were out of the turmoil of Holborn, she said, without raising her eyes or her head, – 'Have I annoyed you, George?' 'Hush, girl, no. Let me speak. I have asked you to give me a few minutes here, because I want you to grant me a great favour.' 'A favour!' she said to herself, with a joyous cry. 'A favour! George wants a favour of me! This lord of my life wants a favour of me! Oh, monstrous happiness, that he should want anything I can give! It must be my life he wants. It cannot be less than my life he wants; he could think of nothing else as a great favour. My life, or-or-yes, it may be that. It may be he is tired of me, and wants my ring back for another's finger! That would be more than my life, but nothing worth his taking. How incalculably rich love makes one! A month ago I had nothing more precious than my life; now I have love, a thousand times more precious than life. Of course I will give up my sweetheart for my love's sake. I will give him up as freely as I gave him my love. It will then be a dark and dreary world for me; but there will be one bright spot-the place where he dwells in happiness; one memory of intoxicating pain and sacrificial joy, that of the time when I gave him up to secure his happiness.' She raised her head and her left hand. Looking into his eyes for the first time, she said, in a tone of tender firmness, – 'George, I know what it is. You have been hasty. You now find out you have been hasty. You are terribly distressed, because you think what you are going to ask will pain me. Is not what I say true?' 'There is something in it, Marie. But how could you have guessed?' he asked, in amazement. For a moment her lips moved, but no words came. Suddenly she turned deadly pale, her head dropped forward, and she tottered. He seized her round the waist, and whispered frantically, – 'Marie, Marie, you are faint. Let me get you something. Cab, cab!' She raised her head slowly, and looked into his face with a sweet dim smile, saying feebly, – 'No, George, please do not. I am all right. I only grew giddy for a moment. Don't call a cab. I am all right now.' 'But, Marie, what happened to you? You are looking wretched now. Do let me get a cab and take you home.' 'No, no, I am quite well now. It was only a passing giddiness. I feel all right. It will be better for me to walk and keep in the air.' She had divined truly. It was for his happiness she should never see him again. All the light had gone out of the world at once. All the days would be clouded for ever; all the months of the year would be Octobers. She resumed speaking, – 'I was saying something a moment ago. I cannot recollect what it was about.' 'Marie, Marie, do not look in that way. Do not speak in that tone. My God, what have I done to this girl!' 'Oh yes, I remember now. I recollect it all, George. Dear George, you must not distress yourself about me, about any such trifle. I know, George, you do not look on a matter of this kind as a trifle. But it really is. You want me to give you this back, don't you?' She touched the third finger of her left hand, where, under the glove, lay his ring. 'No, no, no, Marie, not that! For mercy's sake, don't smile. I think my heart is breaking. I only want you to be merciful to me. I am in great difficulties and dangers which I cannot now explain to you.' 'I do not ask you to explain anything to me, George. I only ask you to tell me what I am to do. What you tell me to do I will do, for I know you are strong and wise and noble.' He looked at her for a moment with eyes of infinite tenderness. The smile which had pained him had faded from her face, and a light of enthusiastic loyalty gleamed in her eyes. What had he done, what was he doing-to win such a love and think of losing her now? She looked pale and anxious-she, his darling! Ah, it was hard on him. But there was nothing for it but to go on now. He said aloud, – 'No, I do not want you to give me that ring back. I want you to keep it for awhile, anyway.' For awhile-for awhile! What could he mean by 'For awhile'? 'I want you, Marie, to give me a little time-a little time.' 'A little time!' she repeated, in dreary perplexity. 'What do you mean by a little time? You have been too hasty in giving me this ring. Take it back, and you will have all time.' 'You do not understand.' 'I do not want to understand, George. You say you want time. How can I give you more time than by returning you this ring, which will make matters exactly as if you had never said more to me than to any other girl you know? I feel I am not worthy of you.' 'Marie, Marie, for Heaven's sake do not say such a thing! You not worthy of me! Monstrous! Such a thought could enter the head of only a fool.' 'Then, George, I am no better than a fool. For I know and feel I am not worthy of you; and you even, with all your splendid, manly generosity, cannot but have found out-have already found out-how inferior I am to you.' 'Believe me, you are utterly mistaken. Such an idea as your not being good enough for me never crossed my mind-in fact, it could not enter my mind: and now even this denial of it seems affronting the respect I have felt for you. I feel I owe myself an apology for denying I ever felt anything of the kind. If anyone but you, Marie, had suggested such a possibility, I should simply laugh at him; I should not condescend to answer him seriously. It is about myself I feel uneasy; I do not think I am worthy of you.' 'Oh, George, you cannot be in earnest!' 'In bitter earnest. I do not think I am worthy of you; and I want you to give me a little time to find out, if I can-to satisfy myself, if I can-that I am worthy of you.' 'I cannot understand you, George-I cannot understand you. You are, I know, quite incapable of saying anything you have not good reason for saying; but I cannot understand you. I am quite content with you; why are not you content with yourself?' 'Marie, whatever happens between us, there must be no misunderstanding. Misunderstandings occur between only the vain and the foolish. When first I spoke of love to you, my belief was that when people like you and me agreed to love one another on earth, it was that they simply entered into an apprenticeship of eternal love.' 'I remember every word you have said to me-I have never forgotten one; and the words you speak of were the sweetest I had ever heard.' 'Suppose I have changed since then?' 'Changed in what?' 'In my idea of the carrying of our loves out of the world. Suppose I do not think we shall carry any memory out of this world-suppose I think the grave is the end of man? What then?' 'I am still unable to understand you. Make it plainer for me, George; you know I am only a dull woman. Tell me exactly what you mean?' 'Suppose I was to say, with Tennyson's "Lotus Eaters," "Death is the end of life," would you still marry me?' 'George, what difference would that make between you and me?' 'Don't you remember what you promised me when I put the ring on your finger under St Paul's?' 'Yes.' 'And would you, remembering what you then promised, marry me, even if I told you I no longer held the faith I then professed?' 'But, George, it is not so. You have not lost your faith. You are not serious; you are only trying me-George, you are only trying me. Tell me you are not serious, and let us be happy, George, as we were before.' 'I am not trying you, Marie. I am in sad earnest. I ask you, if I told you my opinions had changed, would you still marry me, in face of the promise you made me under St Paul's?' 'I would.'

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE WAY DOWN

That evening Marie did not leave her room. She did not come down to dinner, Judith O'Connor took her up some food, which Marie scarcely touched. She was not in bad spirits; she was not in bad humour. She was at a loss-at a dead standstill. She could see nothing in the future, nothing farther back in the past than the events of that day-the things he had said to her in that memorable walk round the square. What had been the meaning of his words? There was no harder riddle to read on all the earth. He loved her still, and thought her good enough for him, though she knew she was not. She had given him every faculty of her heart and soul; she could take none of those back from him; the spaces they had held were now occupied by love, and when love came to abide with her, all her possessions had left her as though she had died. Now he was asking her to give him time to let him try himself still further before he asked her to carry out the promise she had given him of becoming his wife; nay, more than that, he had asked her to withdraw for the present that promise. Why? Because of some scruple which had arisen in his mind with regard to what took place in St Paul's at their betrothal. Why should religious scruples separate people who loved one another? People of different religions married, and were happy. She had heard of an English lady who married a Mahometan, and having been twenty years his wife, declined to come back to her people. No doubt pious people were greatly shocked at a Christian woman marrying a Mahometan; but men and women of different Christian sects married, and no one made an outcry. Why should religion make any difference between two people who loved and were loyal? George-this noble George, her George-was too conscientious. He had got some ridiculous notion into his head. He loved her still; she could see that in all he did and said. He loved her as warmly as ever. She was essential to his happiness; but some over-scrupulous notion had affrighted him; and made him think that he was unworthy of her. He unworthy of her! What should she do now? Nothing. She would go on as though nothing had occurred to disturb the relations between them. He told her, before this cloud had fallen upon them, that his life would be worthless to him if she did not share it. Now he might do or say what he pleased; she would never be forced from his side. No; she was engaged to him, and in ordinary cases, when women are engaged to men, they expect the men to marry them, unless there is some excellent reason for not doing so. In this case no reason existed for his not marrying her. If he had grown tired of her; if he had relented having asked her to marry him; if he had met anyone he liked better, she would be eager to release him. But nothing of the kind entered into the present case. He loved her still, as he had loved her all along, and his life's happiness would be endangered if she allowed him to break with her now. Besides, this scruple that was upon him would not last; it would pass away. What an unlucky coincidence she should have introduced him to Parkinson! No doubt that man of science had had something-much-to do with the unfortunate change which had taken place in George. Well, that could not be helped now. She must only try and undo the harm, and how could she possibly undo it if she gave him up in this way? No; whatever might happen, she would never let him go from her, when going from her would do him harm, not good. She had no scruple about throwing that foolish promise to the winds; or rather it was not that the promise was foolish, but that it was foolish to think it applied to him. When he had extracted that pledge or promise or vow from her, she most assuredly meant to keep it, as he and she then meant it; but she had never thought such a condition could be applied to him. If at the time he had asked her if she would pledge herself to repudiate him if his religious opinions changed, she would have refused to do so. To keep that pledge to the letter would be to break it to the spirit; for the spirit was that she was so to pledge herself, in order that he and she might not be separated hereafter. That was the only inducement she recognised in making that promise. She would not have made it for all the world if she thought it could possibly come between him and her. Even taking the religious view solely, she must not think of giving him up. For as he had been first disturbed in his faith while he was friendly, in love with her, the best chance of his recovering from his folly would lie in having her near him always; for not only would this supply him with a quiet, unobtrusive advocate, but in her, and in her alone, could he have by him a woman who could not only sympathise with his conscientious struggles, but who had been near him, and in a way with him, through the wild terrors of the first onset on his faith. Plainly her duty to Heaven and to him was refusal of his request for freedom, refusal to give him up this ring. Fools would think this resolution unfeminine, unmaidenly. Let fools think as they pleased. What did she care for what fools thought? She cared for George more than for all the world, sages and fools, besides. If it were good for him, she would give him up. If it were good for him, she would cleave to him all her life. What were fools or sages to her? Not the tiniest flake of the ashes falling there into an ashpan of the grate compared to George. He was the sun in her system, and nothing on earth existed in light that did not proceed from him. But, after all, was she not trying to make up her mind on a point which had not yet arisen? He had not asked her to give him up her ring. He had not told her he wished their engagement at an end. He loved her, and she loved him, and they had had no quarrel, and there was no sensible reason for their parting, and they should not part. No; if all Europe tried to tear her away from his side, she would not go until he bade her go. And if she thought he was going to send her away she would go down on her knees and cling to him, and ask him to kill her there and then rather than send her from him. 'Oh, love, I bless you! All the pains I suffer by love now I would not change for all the happiness of my former life. It is dearer to suffer through love than to be joyous without it; for to suffer through love is to share a lover's pain, and that is the highest of earthly pleasure save to rejoice in a lover's joy.' She determined to try and clear up the situation no further, but to let matters take their course. She told herself she felt no doubt whatever of the issue; George would become himself again, and he and she would be just as though no cloud had ever darkened the sky above them. She rose, and busied herself about the room, partly in packing, and partly in turning over a dozen times things she had no need to take with her. Early in the afternoon of the next day, the whole party left London for Stratford-on-Avon. Fortunately they had a compartment to themselves. At first George hoped and prayed some stranger might get in; but Nevill did all he could to prevent this. He insisted upon their making the carriage present a crowded appearance. He made Kate sit at one of the windows looking on the platform, and Marie on the other. He littered the seats with handbags, umbrellas, newspapers, rugs, and every other kind of light baggage that accompanies the person. He stood up himself, and made George stand up too, so as to prevent anyone on the platform seeing into the remoter half of the compartment; and when anyone looking like a traveller approached, he glanced over his shoulder, and shook his head regretfully at the traveller. 'Of course I might have reserved this compartment by half-a-crown to the man, or by booking in advance. But I never tip railway servants. I consider tipping railway servants a sign of weakness in a traveller. You don't find a man who has pranced over a dozen continents tipping railway servants. He would prefer to ride on the buffer. He would rather walk the distance on his head. He would rather eat hard-boiled eggs all his life for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Why should you tip a railway official? Do you tip a soldier on the battle-field when he has fired each round? And yet a soldier fires at the enemies of his country, and the railway official only facilitates your chances of being smashed in a railway accident. There is some sense in giving a cabman more than his fare, for some time or another he may have the opportunity of running over you. But why tip a railway porter? Miss Gordon, do you think a man, when he is lashed to a gun and about to be blown from it, ought suddenly to put his hand in his pocket, and sing out to the man with the fuze or trigger-line, "Hallo, Corporal Bosco, here's sixpence to drink my health when the job is done!"?' 'I don't see how he could put his hand in his pocket if he were very securely lashed.' 'I did not say "very securely" lashed. I said "lashed." But suppose I grant you the pocket, and put the thing to you in another way? By Jove, we're off at last! Ah, this solitude is delightful. Only three stops on the way down. I think you ought to pass a vote of thanks to me for securing ourselves against intrusion. Come, we'll put Osborne in the chair, and give him a casting vote. What makes you look so blue, Osborne? Only for me you never could have had this otium cum dignitate. Suppose you had undertaken to keep this compartment, you would have known no other way of doing it than of crawling up servilely to the guard, touching your hat to him, and tipping him half-a-dollar-crown, I mean. I don't see why a man of no intellect like you should be allowed to fatten on my genius. Why should you, like the gentlemen of England, sit in your compartment at ease, while I have been squandering my genius to save you from the rude shock of the world? You owe me half-a-crown, Osborne. As an honourable man you owe me half-a-crown. Come, my man, pay up. No welshing, my boy; pay up.' George made a prodigious effort to rouse himself, and replied, with a smile, – 'If you had got in anyone in whose presence you would have to be silent, I should not mind giving him or you a crown.' 'Not bad for you,' Nevill rejoined, with an exaggerated air of a connoisseur. 'Not bad for you. Well, Osborne, let us drop the sledge-hammers, and shake hands. Let us patch up a hollow truce, and await a more favourable opportunity of smashing one another. But to resume that most important subject, how to keep women out of a compartment that is not a smoking one. The best plan I know of is to leave on the seat you intend occupying a bottle of gin, and by its side a small tumbler. I admit the experiment is a bold one, but it is effective.' The train had gradually been gaining in speed, and Nevill had gradually raised his voice to overcome the growing clatter of the wheels. Here he paused for awhile, and then ran on again, – 'It is marvellous how one becomes accustomed to anything. When I was young I could drown the row of a car. Now I can talk eighteen hours end on in a carriage flying at express rate, and never hurt my throat a bit. It is a wonder Darwin took no notice of this. I think I'll suggest to him to write a chapter, and call it "The Survival of the Shrillest." A hurricane on land, or a storm at sea, is nothing to talk through. But I confess I was once hurt-deeply hurt. I was taken by a friend to see the printing of a London morning paper. When we got to the machine-room there were eight machines all going at the one time. Such a clash and row I never heard near me before. I had been talking to the friend who was with me until then. There I stopped. I tried twice to make him hear, and failed. I looked round, and saw two men leaning against one of the machines. One was telling the other a long story. Every now and then they both laughed immoderately. I felt degraded to think I could not make myself heard, when these men were talking with as much ease as I am now to you.' There was a general laugh. Even George could not resist the humour of hearing this man gravely saying he was talking with ease, while his voice was raised to a shrill cry, and the great forked vein of his forehead stood out black upon the plain of his flushed swarthy skin! He joined in the laugh himself after a moment. 'Never mind,' he cried gaily; 'I haven't had an hour of it yet; and I am game to go on for fourteen hours more, I lay the odds.' No one seemed disposed to bet. By this time the noise of the wheels had become so loud, that it was impossible to talk with ease. To the mind of melancholy there is hardly anything more depressing than a railway journey, particularly in winter, through the middle of England. Leafless trees and isolated houses, with now and then a white hamlet, town, or village, are the only objects that break the vast extent of plain. A large stretch of country is under water, and above the surface of the dismal swamp protrude skeleton trees and the tops of fences. George Osborne needed no depressing influence from Nature. He had gone through more trying hours. That day he took the long walk, starting from London Bridge, and, having girt half London, ended at St Paul's, had been much more acutely trying to him; but there was a dull, dark, cold misery about this journey such as he had never felt the like of before. What was he doing? Whither was he leading her? Where was he himself going? He had not been fair to her. He had not been fair to himself. She was looking paler than of old, and when his unexpected glances found her eyes fixed on him, in those eyes there was always a look of mournful brooding and unextinguishable devotion. What would be the end of all this? the end of her? the end of him? Would to God the end of him had come before he had met this girl! Look at her now! The old sprightliness had left her face, and in its place dwelt the more subduing expression of melancholy. What man, being a man and nothing more, and knowing he was dear to that most dear of women, could forbear folding her in his arms, and pressing her to his breast? But there was more in man than humanity. Of old he used to think in addition to humanity there was divinity in man-a possible high and beautiful spirit better and stronger than the unembodied angels. Now-ah, what a blank, dreary waste now! Dreary as that waste of water out there, comfortless as that sky, barren as those ghostly trees. What had man, according to his present rudderless theory, in addition to his humanity? What? Supposing birth was the beginning and death the end of man, what was there more in man than his humanity? The question had never yet presented itself to his mind in that light. It was worth looking at the subject from this point of view before passing it by hastily, finally. Let him look at the case impartially. No. It was dreary enough within and without; he could not stand an examination in the abstract face to face with that dreary landscape, and this dreary mental interior. Let him regard the matter in the concrete. Here was Marie. Here was he. Nothing new had been imported into his humanity since he had seen Marie; nothing old had been taken away. The same code which governed his relations with his fellow-man before he had left Stratford was the code he still held. He would not wilfully injure man or woman now. All the human qualities he had previously considered admirable in man or woman he considered admirable still. Because of any change in his spiritual outlook, he would treat a dog no worse now than a year ago. He had in no way altered his general conduct, or his moral code. He loved and respected his mother as much as ever, and felt as affectionately towards his sisters. What, then, had been changed in him? Nothing but his faith. His faith had not been changed, but lost. It was as though he had possessed ten mental faculties heretofore, and now owned only nine. He had lost a mental or spiritual faculty-what then? That was his own individual personal loss. It hurt no one else; it profited no one else. It was a matter purely between Heaven and himself. It had shocked his mother, but it had not changed the relations between her and him. What! What was he coming at? What was he gradually approaching? What part of his brain had been dead, benumbed, until now? What glory and overwhelming joy lay right in his path? Let him put the matter soberly to himself. Suppose the alteration in his faith had caused no change in the relations between him and his mother, why should it cause any change between Marie and himself? Why should he give up Marie any more than his mother? There was that Promise, that Vow. But now he looked on that vow, or the object of it, as valueless. The very terms of it were now void. It was purposeless. She had made a vow to him from which he could, of course, release her, since, from his present standpoint, that vow was of no more value than the breath which uttered it. He threw up his head, and looked around. Nevill was directing Kate's attention to something in the landscape. Marie's eyes were fixed mournfully upon him. He stooped forward, caught both her hands in his, and drew her towards him, until his lips could reach her ear. Then he said, – 'Marie, Marie, forgive me, my darling! I have been a great fool! Oh, my love, will you forgive me for all my queer conduct, and all my queer words of late? Nothing of the kind ever can occur again. Never, my Marie. Will you forgive me?' She looked in his face with tears of joy in her eyes. 'Oh, thank God; thank God, George!' 'Nothing of the kind shall ever come between us again, my own love.' She replied with only a radiant smile. He touched her forehead with his lips, and then released her hands. The great cloud which had fallen upon them had lifted, and its shadow was quickly drifting away.