For the Cause

"Not even the Canon? Oh, I am sure Canon Vrater does. – Now, don't you?"

For the Canon, too, was in the little drawing-room. Small as the house was, our impoverished fashionables had not furnished all of it; but this room was a triumph of taste, in a quiet and inexpensive way. A man and a maid whom they brought to Gleicester with them made up the household. So there was an empty room or two.

"No, Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby," he said; "if I danced I should be tripping indeed, in Gleicester opinion."

"You don't! well, I am surprised. Now confess, Canon, when did you dance last? So long ago that you have forgotten the steps? Years and years ago?" The old gentleman reddened, and fidgeted a little. "Canon, did you ever" – the little woman glanced roguishly round the room, and brought out the last word with a tragic accent positively fascinating, "did you ever-waltz?"

"Well," he answered guardedly, with an eye to his friend Mrs. Anson, who was mightily amused, "I have waltzed."

"Something like this, was it not?" She went to the piano and played a few bars of a dreamy, old-fashioned German dance; played it as it should be played. The Canon's wholesome pink face grew pinker, and he began to sway a little as he sat.

She turned swiftly round upon the music-stool. "Don't you feel at times a desire to do something naughty, Canon-just because it is naughty?"

He nodded.

"And don't you think," continued the fair casuist, with a delicious air of wisdom, "that when it is not very naughty, only a little bad, you know, you should sometimes indulge yourself, as a sort of safety-valve?"

He smiled, of course, a gentle dissent. But at the same time he muttered something which sounded like "desipere in loco."

"Mrs. Anson, you play a waltz, I know?"

She acknowledged the impeachment with none of the Canon's modesty.

"You are so kind, I am sure you will oblige me for five minutes. The Canon is going to try his steps with me in the next room. How lucky it is empty, and quite a good floor, I declare. – Now, Canon Vrater, you are far too gallant to refuse?"

He laughed, but Mrs. Anson entered thoroughly into the fun, took off her gloves, and sitting down at the piano played the same dreamy air. In vain the old gentleman pleasantly protested; he was swept away, so to speak, by the little woman's vivacity. How it came about, whether there was some magic in the air, or in Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's eyes, the Canon was never able to make quite clear to himself, and far less to Mrs. Vrater, but in two minutes he was revolving round the room in stately measure, an expression of anxious enjoyment on his handsome old face as he carefully counted his steps, such as would have diverted the eye of the charmed bystander even from the arch mischief that rippled over his fair partner's features. Had there been any bystander to witness the scene, that is.

"Hem!"

It was very loud and full of meaning, and came from the open window. The Canon's arm fell from the lady's waist as if she had suddenly turned into the spiky maiden of Nuremberg. Mrs. Dean stopped playing with equal suddenness, and an exclamation of annoyance. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, thus deserted in the middle of the room, dropped the prettiest of "cheeses," and broke into a merry peal of unaffected laughter. It was the Dean. Coming up the oyster-shell path, there was no choice for him but to witness the dénouement through the green-shuttered window. He was shocked; perhaps of the four he was the most embarrassed, though the Canon looked, for him, very foolish. But nothing could stand against Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's gayety. She laughed so long, so innocently, and with such pure enjoyment of the situation, that one by one they joined her. The Dean attempted to be a little sarcastic, but the laugh took all sting from his satire; and the Canon, when he had once recovered his presence of mind, and his breath, parried the raillery with his usual polished ease.

So Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's freak ended in no more serious result than her own conversion into the staunchest of Epicureans, a very goddess of pleasure; and in familiarizing the Dean's mind with the idea of the Terpischorean innovation, until the proposition of a dance at the Deanery-yes, at the Deanery itself-was mooted to his decanal ears. Of course he rejected it, but still he survived the shock, and the project had been brought within the range of practical politics. Its novelty faded from his mind, and its impropriety ceased to strike him. He had never told Mrs. Vrater of her husband's afternoon waltz, and this reticence divided them. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby exerted all her wiles; she gave him no peace. The plan was mooted again and again; he wavered, remonstrated, argued, and finally (thanks chiefly to No. 13), in a moment of good-natured weakness, when the fear of Mrs. Vrater was not before his eyes, succumbed. Be sure his wife and her allies left him no locos pœnitentice. Never was triumph greater. Within the week the minor canons had their invitations stuck in their mirrors, and rejoiced in their liberty. And Mrs. Vrater made a certain call upon Mrs. Anson, of which the reader knows.

But Mrs. Dean's pleasure was not unclouded. There were spots upon the sun. The Dean was not always so tractable, and the Deanery house was not large, and the garden positively small. True, a gateway and a descent of two or three steps led from the latter into the picturesque cloisters, which had lately been cleaned and repaired, and the sight of this suggested a brilliant idea to flighty Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby. She lost no time in communicating it to Mrs. Anson, who received it at first with some doubt. Her friend, however, painted it in such pleasant hues, and set it in so many brilliant lights, that later she too became enamored of the project, and boldly proceeded to carry it into execution.

The Dean stumbled upon this magnificent plan; in so many words, stumbled upon it, in a rather unfortunate way. He was taking his wonted morning stroll in the garden two or three days before the 24th, the date fixed for the now famous dance. His thoughts were not upon it at the moment: it was a bright sunny day, and the balmy life-inspiring air had expelled the regret which it must be confessed was the Dean's normal frame of mind as to his ill-considered acquiescence. He was not thinking of what the Bishop would say, or what the city would say, or, worst of all, what Mrs. Vrater had said. He turned a corner of the summerhouse a few yards from the steps which we have mentioned as leading to the cloisters, and as he did so with the free gait of a man walking in his own garden-bump! – he brought his right knee violently against the edge of some object, a packing-case, a half-opened packing-case which was lying there, where, so far as the Dean could see, it had no earthly business. The packing-case edge was sharp, the blow a forcible one. For a moment the Dean hopped about, moaning to himself and embracing his shin. The spring air lost all its virtue on the instant, and his regret for his moral weakness returned with added and local poignancy. For he had not a doubt that the offending box had something to do with the 24th. As he tenderly rubbed his leg he regarded the box with no friendly eyes. To schoolboys and policemen, and the tag-rag and bobtail, a sharp blow on the shin may not be much; but stout and dignified clerics above the rank of a ritualistic vicar are, to say the least of it, not accustomed to the thing at all.

"What the-ahem-what in heaven's name may this be?" he exclaimed with irritation. Resentment adding vigor to his curiosity, he gingerly removed the covering from the case, which appeared to be full of parti-colored paper globes of all shapes and sizes. They were symmetrically arranged; they might have been tiny fire-balloons. But the Dean's mind reverted to infernal machines, the smart of his shin suggesting his line of thought. He put on his glasses in some trepidation, and looking more closely made out the objects to be-Chinese lanterns.

The sound of a hasty step upon the gravel made him turn. It was Mrs. Anson, looking a little perturbed-by her hurry, perhaps. Her husband lifted one of the lanterns from the case with the end of his stick, and contemplated it with a good deal of contempt.

"My dear," he said, "what in the name of goodness are these foolish things for?"

"Well, you know the house is not very large," she began, "and the supper will occupy the dining-room and breakfast-room-it would be a pity to cramp the supper, my dear, when we have such beautiful plate, and so few chances of showing it-and conservatory we have none so-"

"Yes, yes, my dear, true," broke in the Dean impatiently; "but what of these? what of these?" He raised the poor lantern anew.

"Well, we thought it would be nice to-to light the cloisters with these lanterns, and so form a conservatory of a kind. Now that the cloisters are cleaned and restored they will look so pretty, and the people can walk there between the dances. I thought it would be an excellent arrangement, and-and save us pulling your study about."

There was an awful pause. The lantern, held at arm's length on the ferrule of the Dean's stick, shook like an aspen leaf.

"You thought-it would be nice-to light the cloisters-with Chinese lanterns! The cloisters of Gleicester Cathedral, Mrs. Anson! Good heavens!"

No mere words can express the tone of amazed disapprobation, of horror, disgust, and wrath combined, in which the Dean, whose face was purple with the same emotions, spoke these words. He dashed the lantern to the ground, and set one foot upon it in a manner not unworthy of St. George-the Chinese lantern being a natural symbol of the dragon.

"It would be rank sacrilege; sacrilege, Mrs. Anson. Never let me hear of it again. I am shocked that you should have proposed such a thing; and I see now what I feared before, that I was very wrong in giving my consent to a frivolity unbecoming our position. You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. But I never dreamt it would come to this. Let me hear no more of it, I beg."

The Dean, as he walked away after these decisive words, felt very sore-and not only about the knee, to do him justice. He repeated over and over again to himself the proverb about touching pitch. Until the last few days, no one had cherished his position more highly. And now his very wife was so far demoralized as to have suggested things dreadful to him and subversive of it. He had given way to the Canon and that little witch at No. 13, and this was the first result. What a peck of troubles, he said to himself, this wretched dance was bringing upon him! He was sick of it, sick to death of it, he told himself. So sick, indeed, that when he was out of his wife's hearing he groaned aloud with a great sense of self-pity, and almost brought himself in his disgust to believe that Mrs. Vrater would have been a more fit and sympathetic helpmeet for him.

And Mrs. Dean was bitterly disappointed. She had set her heart upon the cloisters scheme, and in most things she had been wont to enjoy her own way. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby had depicted it in such gorgeous hues, and portrayed so movingly the guests' admiration and surprise-and envy. Oaklea Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Gleicester, with its spacious and costly conservatories and fineries, could present no more picturesque or charming scene than would be afforded by the many-arched cloisters brilliantly lighted and decorated, and filled with handsome dresses and pretty faces still aglow with the music's enthusiasm. Mrs. Anson had pictured it all. But she was a wise woman, and a comparatively old married woman, and she recognized that the matter was not one for argument. Not even to the Canon, her ally, did she confide her chagrin, being after her husband's outburst a little dubious of the light in which the project might present itself to him.

Only into Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's bosom did she pour her sorrow without reserve. That lady made a delicious moue after her fashion on hearing of the Dean's indignation, but she seemed almost as disappointed as Mrs. Anson herself. "And he actually forbade you, dear?" she asked, with her blue eyes full of pity and wondering surprise.

"Well, he told me never to let him hear of it again."

"Oh!" answered the little woman thoughtfully, and was silent for a time. When she recovered herself she changed the subject, and soon coaxed and petted her friend into a good humor.

Still this was a large spot on the sun of Mrs. Anson's triumph. And yet another, a mere speck indeed in comparison, and very endurable, appeared at the last moment, the very day before the 24th. The Dean was summoned to London; was summoned so privately, so peremptorily, and so importantly, that the thought of what might come of the journey (there was a new bishopric in act of being formed) almost reconciled his wife to his absence; and this the more when she had effectually disposed of his suggestion that the party should be indefinitely postponed. The Dean was not persistent in pushing his proposal; the harm, he felt, was already done. And besides, being himself away, he would now be freed from some personal embarrassment. It must go on; if he went up it would signify little. So he started for London very cheerfully, all Gleicester knowing of his errand, and the porters at the station spying a phantom apron at his girdle.

When the evening, marked in the minor canons' rubric with so red a letter, arrived, the excitement in the Abbot's Square rose to a great height.

Vague rumors of some surprise in store for the guests, which should surpass the novelty of the dance, were abroad. Strange workmen of reticent manners had passed in and out, and mysterious packages and bundles, as self-contained as their bearers, had been seen to enter the Deanery gates. A jealous awning, which altered the normal appearance of the garden as seen from the second-floor windows of the Square, hid the exact nature of the alteration, and served only to whet the keen curiosity of the Gleicester public. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, from No. 13, ran to and fro, smiling with a charming air of effervescent reserve, which raised Mrs. Anson's older friends to an aggravated pitch of curiosity. The Square knew not what to expect. Conjecture was-in more senses than one, as the event proved-abroad.

For no one had in the least foreseen the spectacle that met their eyes upon their arrival. Certainly not the Bishop, though he betrayed no surprise; good cheery man, he was every inch a bishop, and therefore by tradition a great-hearted, liberal-minded gentleman. Certainly not Sir Titus Wort, nor General Jones, much less the Archdeacon. No, nor even the minor canons; their anticipations, keen as long abstinence from such enjoyments could make them, had yet fallen far short of the scene presented to their gaze upon entering the Deanery garden.

Even Canon Vrater-at home, it was rumored, in courts; he had certainly once lunched at Windsor-stood in almost speechless wonder by the garden steps.

"It is very beautiful!" he said simply, gazing with all his eyes down the arched vista formed by the tree-like pillars of the cloisters; the brilliant light of many lanterns picked out every leaf of their delicate carving and fretted broidery, and made of their fair whiteness a glittering background for the dark-hued dresses of the promenaders beneath. It was indeed more like fairy-land than a part of the cathedral precincts. Those who traversed it every day looked round and wondered where they were.

"It is very beautiful!" That was all. And he said it so gravely that Mrs. Anson's spirits, elevated by the open admiration of the bulk of her guests, would have fallen rapidly had she not at that moment met the arch glance of Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby. That lady, a very mistress of the revels, was flitting here and there and everywhere, witching the world of Gleicester with noble womanhood.

Nor was the sight less of a surprise to the Canon's wife. But Mrs. Vrater, as was to be expected, had more to say upon the subject. She had taken possession of the youngest and most timid of the minor canons, and even he was lifted a little above himself by the scene and a chance smile shot in his direction by the mistress of No. 13. Still he was not sufficiently intoxicated to venture to disagree with the resident Canon's lady.

"I never thought I should live to see this or anything like it!" she said, with a groan of grimmest disapprobation.

"No, indeed," he assented, "nor did I." But it is doubtful if he meant quite the same thing as the lady.

"This will not be the end of it, Mr. Smallgunn," said Cassandra, nodding her head in so gloomy a manner that it recalled nothing so much as a hearse-plume.

"Not a bit of it," he answered briskly. But again it is a matter of some uncertainty whether the two wits-supposing that so irreverent an expression may be applied to Mrs. Vrater's wit-jumped together. He not improbably in his mind's eye saw a succession of such evenings strewn like flowers in the minor canons' path; and this was not at all Mrs. Vrater's view. She felt that there was a lack of sympathy between them, and left him for the Archdeacon, with whom she conferred in a corner, glowering the while at the triumphant Epicureans, who strutted up and down the carpeted cloisters, and flirted their fans, and spread their feathers like peacocks in the sunshine.

And there were moments when Mrs. Dean felt as proud as a peacock; but then there were other times when she felt quite the reverse. True, she fully intended strenuously to perform, so far as in her lay, her husband's order, "never to let him hear of it again," quite heartily and sincerely; that amount of justice must be done her; she intended to obey him in this, only she doubted of her success. And being in the main a good woman, with some amount of love and reverence for her husband, there were moments in the evening when she turned quite cold with fear, and wondered who or what on earth could have induced her to do it. But her guests saw nothing of this; nor did it occur to them, whatever might be their private views, that their hostess had the smallest doubt of the propriety of her picturesque arrangement-her guests generally, that is. There was one exception-the gay, laughing, sail-with-the-wind little lady from No. 13.

But she did not form one of the group around Mrs. Anson during the last dance before supper. It was a waltz, and it had but just commenced, the rhythmical strains had but just penetrated to their nook within the cloisters, when suddenly, with some degree of abruptness, the music stopped. They, not knowing their hostess's train of thought, were surprised to see her turn pale and half rise. She paused in the middle of a sentence, and could not disguise the fact that she was listening. The others became silent also, and listened as people will. The dancing had ceased, and there was some commotion in the house, that was clear. There were loud voices, and the sound of hurrying to and fro, and of people calling and answering; and finally, while they were yet looking at one another with eyes half fearful, half assuring, there came quite a rush of people from the house in the direction of the cloisters. Mrs. Anson rose, as did the others. She alone had no doubt of what it meant. The Dean had come back-the Dean had come back! The matter could not be disguised; she was caught literally flagrante delicto, the cloisters one blaze of light from end to end. How would he take it? She peered at the approaching group to try and distinguish his burly form and mark the aspect of his face. But though it was hardly dark in the little strip of garden which separated them from the house, she could not see him; and as they came nearer she could hear several voices, if it was not her imagination playing her tricks, naming him in tones of condolence and pity. Then another and, as she was afterwards thankful to remember, a far more painful idea came into her mind, and she stepped forward with a buzzing in her ears.

"What is it, James? The Dean?" with a catch in her voice.

"Well, ma'am, yes. I'm very sorry, ma'am. There's been a-"

"An accident? Speak, quick! what is it?" she cried, her hand to her side.

"No, ma'am, but a burglary; and the Dean, who has just come, says-"

"The Dean, James, will speak for himself," said her husband, who had followed the group at a more leisurely pace, taking in the aspect of affairs as he came. He had heard the latter part of her words, and been softened, perhaps, by the look upon her face. "You have plenty of light here, my dear," with a glance at the illumination, in which annoyance and contempt were finely mingled; "but I fear that will not enable our guests to eat their supper in the absence of plate. Every spoon and fork has been stolen; a feat rendered, I expect, much more easy by this injudicious plan of yours."

Which was all the public punishment she received at his hands. But his news was sufficient. Mrs. Dean remembered her magnificent silver-gilt épergne and salver to match-never more to be anything but a memory to her-and fainted.

Mrs. Vrater, too, remembered that épergne. It was the finest piece in the Dean's collection, and the Dean's plate was famous through the county. She remembered it, and felt that her triumph could hardly have been more complete; the shafts of Nemesis could hardly have been driven into a more fitting crevice in her adversary's armor. This was what had come of the clergy dancing, of the Dean's weakness, and Mrs. Anson's secular frivolity and friendships! Mrs. Vrater looked round, her with a great sense of the wisdom of Providence, and ejaculated, "This is precisely what I foresaw!"

"Then it is a pity you did not inform the police," answered her husband, tartly.

But his lady shook her head. In the triumph of the moment she could afford to leave such a gibe unanswered. The Archdeacon was condoling with the Dean in terms almost cordial, and certainly sincere; but Mrs. Vrater was made of sterner stuff, and was not one to lose the sweetness of victory by indulging a foolish sympathy for the vanquished. She would annihilate all her enemies at one blow, and looked round upon the excited group surrounding Mrs. Anson to see that no one of that lady's faction was lacking to her triumph.

What was this? Surely she was here! The prime mover, the instigator of this folly, should have been in closest attendance upon her dear friend? But no.

"Where is Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby?" Mrs. Vrater asked rather sharply, what with surprise, and what with some pardonable disappointment.

"I believe," said the Dean, turning from his wife, who was slowly reviving-"I believe that the Hon. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby is in the Mediterranean."

"In the Mediterranean? why, she was here an hour ago." The man's head was turned by the loss of his cherished plate.

"No, not Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, as I learned before I left London. Some one so calling herself was, though she too is probably far away in the up train by this time, and her plunder with her. To her and her confederates we are indebted for this loss." The Dean may be excused if he spoke a little bitterly.

"Good Lord!" cried the Canon, dropping the glass of water he was holding.

"I felt sure of it!" cried his wife, in a tone of deep conviction.

As the party entered the house, which was in huge disorder, full of guests collecting their wraps and calling for their carriages, of imperative policemen and frightened servants, the Dean drew back. He returned alone to the cloisters, and very carefully with his own hands extinguished all the lamps. As the faint moonlight regained its lost ascendency, falling in a silver sheet pale and pure upon the central grass-plot, and dimly playing round the carven pillars, the Dean closed the gate and heaved a sigh of relief.

And so ended the Dean's ball, the triumph as brief as disastrous of the Gleicester Epicureans. The dreams of the minor canons have not become facts. They may play lawn-tennis, may attend water-parties and amateur theatricals-nay, may play cards for such stakes as they can afford, but the dance is tabooed. The Dean is Dean still, and is still looking hopefully-what Dean is not? – to the immediate future to make him a bishop. And Mrs. Dean is still Mrs. Dean, but not quite the Mrs. Dean she was. As for No. 13, its day of prosperity also closed with that night. It relapsed into its old condition of modest insignificance, nor ever recalled the fact that a reverend canon had waltzed within its walls. The green shutters and oyster-shells are no longer considered an anomaly, for they adorn the residence of a master mason.