Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

"And what belief did you come to care about?" he asked, feeling interested.

"Well, father seems to think that the most dignified attitude of our ignorance is a respectful silence; but, as you have asked which belief I care about, I can answer frankly that I like best going to church and saying my prayers. It is so much more pleasant and comfortable to try to think our prayers are heard, for, as mother says, reason and logic are poor outlets for emotion when the lawsuit goes wrong. With our information as it is, our conclusions seem to depend on whether we have or have not in us the spirit of research. They tell me in the churches that, being unregenerate, my heart is desperately wicked, and, as I have nothing but a little bad temper now and then to reproach myself with, I do not agree with them. On the contrary, I always feel that my life rather tends to lead me toward believing – or, at any rate, does not make me prejudiced. I like to believe that God watches over and cares for us. There being no proof or disproof of the matter, I would find it as difficult, by way of reasoning, to altogether disbelieve as to altogether believe."

"Then you make evolution a part of your religion?" asked Geoffrey.

Margaret had been brought up in an advanced latter-day school. All the unrecognized passion within her had gone out in quest of knowledge, which her father had taught her to regard as a source of quiet happiness, or at least as comforting to the soul during the maturer years as an intricate knowledge of crochet and quilt work. When she took to her bosom the so-called dry-as-dust facts of science she clothed them in a sort of spirituality. Even slipper-working for a married curate has been known to stir the pulses, and, though she knew that when the objects of our enthusiasm seem to glow it is unsafe to say whether the glow is not merely the reflection of our own fervor, she regarded the lately dug-up facts of science somewhat as if they were mines of long-hidden coal, capable of use and possessed of intrinsic warmth. Her face brightened with all the enthusiasm of a devotee as she answered Geoffrey's question.

"Indeed, yes. The new knowledge seems like the backbone of my religion. I often sit in church and think what a blessed privilege it is to be permitted to know even as little as we do about God's plan of creation."

She joined her hands before her quickly as she walked along, forgetful of all but the idea that enchained her. Her face showed the devotion seen in some old pictures of early saints, but it was too capable and animated to be the production of any of the old masters.

"Oh, it is grand to know even a little!" she exclaimed; "to think that this is God's plan, and that bit by bit we are allowed to unravel it! Is it not true that we acquire knowledge as we are able to receive it? Did not the ruder people receive the simple laws which Moses learned in Egypt? and did not Christianity expand those laws by teaching the religion of sympathy? These are historical facts. Why, then, should we not regard evolution as an advanced gospel, the gospel of the knowledge of God's works, to bind us more closely to him from our admiration of the excellence of his handiwork – as a father might show his growing son how his business is carried on, and how beautiful things are made? Of course, one may reply that all the discoveries do not show that there is a God. Perhaps they don't; but I try to think they do. I never have been able to find that verbal creeds do much toward making us what we are. The gloomy distort Christ's life to prove the necessity for sorrow; the joyous do just the opposite. The naturally cruel practice their cruelty in the name of religion. Though all start with perhaps the same words on their lips, each individual in reality makes his religion for himself according to his nature. Look at the difference between Guiteau and Florence Nightingale. They both had the same creeds."

Hampstead was silent.

"I know that my religion might not suffice for others, because it has no terrors, but to me it is compelling. When I turn it all over more minutely, the beauty of the thoughts seems to carry me away. Let those whose brittle creeds are broken grope about in their gloom, if they will. To me it is glorious first to try to understand things, and then to praise God for his marvelous works."

Margaret grew more intense in her utterance as her subject grew upon her. They had turned off on a quiet street some time before, so there was nothing to interrupt her. As her earnestness gave weight to her voice, the words came out more fervently and more melodiously. Both her hands were raised, in an unconscious gesture, while the words welled forth with a depth and force impossible to describe.

Geoffrey walked on in silence.

He thought of the passage, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," and he wondered whether Christ would have thought that such as Margaret stood in need of any further faith. The shrine of Understanding was the only one she worshiped at, arguing, as she did, that from a proper understanding and true wisdom followed all the goodness of the Christ-life. He became conscious of a vague regret within him that he had, as he thought, passed those impressionable periods when a man's beliefs may be molded again. There was a distinct longing to participate in the assurance and joy which any kind of fixed faith is capable of producing. The Byronic temperament was not absent from him. He was keenly susceptible to anything – either moral or immoral – which called upon his ideality; and these ideas of Margaret's, although he had thought of them before, seemed new to him.

"It seems strange," he said musingly, "to hear of some of the most learned men of the day erecting an altar similar to that which Paul found at Athens 'to the unknown God,' and to find them impelled to worship something which they speak of as unknown and unknowable."

"And yet," she answered, "it is the work of some of these very men, and their predecessors, that gives the light and life to the religion which I, for one, find productive of comfort and enthusiasm. One can understand the practicability of a heaven where a gradual acquisition of the fullness of knowledge could be a joyful and everlasting occupation; and I think a religion to fit us for such a heaven should, like the Buddhist's, strive to increase our knowledge instead of endeavoring to stifle it. What is there definitely held out as reward by religions to make men improve? As far as I can see, there is nothing definite promised, except in Buddhism perhaps, which men with active minds would care to accept. But knowledge! knowledge! This is what may bring an eternity of active happiness. Here is a vista as delightful as it is boundless. Surely in this century, we have less cause to call God altogether 'unknown' than had the men of Athens. In the light of omniscience the difference may be slight indeed, but to us it is great. I do hope," she added, "that what I have said does not offend any of your own religious convictions."

"I have none," said Geoffrey simply; "and it is very good of you to tell me so much about yourself. I have been wanting something of the kind. You know Bulwer says, 'No moral can be more impressive than that which shows how a man may become entangled in his own sophisms.' He says it is better than a volume of homilies; and it is difficult sometimes, after a course of reading mixed up with one's own vagaries, to judge as to one's self or others from a sufficiently stable standpoint. You always seem to give me an intuitive knowledge of what good really is, and to tell me where I am in any moral fog."

They walked on together for some little distance further when Margaret stopped and began to look up and down the street.

"Why, where are we?" she said. "What street is this?"

"I can not help you with the name of the street. I supposed we were approaching the domicile of Sarah. We are now in St. John's Ward, I think, and unless Sarah happens to be a colored person you are not likely to find her in this neighborhood."

"Dear me," said Margaret, as she descended from considering the possible occupations of the heavenly host to those usual in St. John's Ward, "I have not an idea where we are. We must have come a long distance out of our way. It is your fault for doing all the talking."

"On the contrary, Miss Margaret, I have been unable to get a word in edgewise."

The search for Sarah was abandoned, and they wended their way toward Margaret's home, the conversation passing to other subjects and to Nina Lindon, whom they discussed in connection with the ball at the Dusenalls'.

"They certainly seem very devoted, do they not?" said Margaret, referring to Jack Cresswell also.

"Yes, their attachment for each other is quite idyllic," said Geoffrey, lapsing into his cynical speech, "which is as it should be. I did not see them much together, as I left early."

"I noticed your absence, at least I remembered afterward not having seen you late in the evening, but, as you take such an interest in your friend, you should have stayed longer, if only to see the very happy expression on his face. You know she is spoken of as being the belle, and certainly he ought to be proud of her, as the attention she attracted was so very marked. I thought her appearance was charming. They seemed to make an exception to the rule among lovers that one loves and the other submits to be loved."

"I am glad to hear you say this," said Geoffrey, as he silently reflected as to the cause of Nina's return to do her duty in a way that would tend to ease her conscience. "Jack is worthy of the best of girls. Have you ever called upon the Lindons?"

"No, not yet. But Mr. Cresswell spoke to me about Miss Lindon and said he would like me to know her. So I said we would call. I am afraid, however, that mother will complain at the length of her visiting list being increased. She will have to be coaxed into this call to please me."

"Jack cherishes an idea that Miss Lindon, he, and I will become a trio of good friends," said Geoffrey. "Now, if anything could be done to make it a quartette, if you would consent to make a fourth, Miss Margaret, I am certain the new arrangement would be more satisfactory to all parties, especially so to me considered as one of the trio. A gooseberry's part is fraught with difficulties."

"The more the merrier, no doubt, in this case. Numbers will release you from your responsibilities. I have myself two or three friends that would make excellent additions to the quartette. There's Mr. Le Fevre, of your bank, and also Mr. – "

"Ah, well!" said Geoffrey, interrupting. "Let us consider. I don't think that it was contemplated to make a universal brotherhood of this arrangement. If there are to be any more elected I should propose that the male candidates should be balloted for by the male electors only, and that additional lady members should be disposed of by their own sex only. Let me see. In the event of a tie in voting, the matter might be left to a general meeting to be convened for consultation and ice-cream, and, if the candidate be thrown out by a majority, the proposer should be obliged to pay the expenses incurred by the conclave."

"That seems a feasible method," said Margaret. "Although I tell you, if we girls do not have the right men, there will be trouble. And now we ought to name the new society. What do you say to calling it 'An Association for the Propagation of Friendly Feeling among Themselves'?"

"Limited," added Geoffrey, thinking that the membership ought to be restricted.

"Oh, limited, by all means," cried Margaret. "I should rather think so. Limited in finances, brains, and everything else. And then the rules! Politics and religion excluded, of course, as in any other club?"

"Well, I don't mind those so much as discussions of millinery and dress-making. These should be vetoed at any general meeting."

"Excuse me. These are subjects that come under the head of art, and ought to be permissible to any extent; but I do make strong objection to the use of yachting terms and sporting language generally."

"Possibly you are right," said Geoffrey. "But Jack – poor Jack! he must refer to starboard bulkheads and that sort of thing from time to time. However, we will agree to each other's objections, but we must certainly place an embargo upon saying ill-natured things about our neighbors – "

"Good heavens, man! Do you expect us to be dumb?" cried Margaret. "Very well. It shall be so. We will call it the 'Dumb Improvement Company for Learned Pantomime.'"

And thus they rattled on in their fanciful talk merrily enough – interrupting each other and laughing over their own absurdities, and sharpening their wits on each other, as only good friends can, until Margaret's home was reached.

To Geoffrey it seemed to emphasize Margaret's youth and companionability when, in following his changing moods, she could so readily make the transition from the sublime to the ridiculous.

CHAPTER VII

Rosalind. Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown more than your enemies. —As You Like It.

In the few weeks following the entertainment of the Dusenalls, Hampstead had not seen Nina. He felt he had been doing harm. The memory of that which had occurred and a twinge or two at his unfaithfulness to his friend Jack had made him avoid seeing her. But afterward, as fancy for seeing her again came to him more persistently, he gradually reverted to the old method of self-persuasion, that if she preferred Jack she might have him. He said he did not intend to show "any just cause or impediment" when Jack's marriage bans were published, and what the girl might now take it into her head to do was no subject of anxiety to him.

She, in the mean time, had lost no time in improving her acquaintance with Margaret after the calls had been exchanged. Margaret was not peculiar in finding within her an argument in favor of one who evidently sought her out, and the small amount of effusion on Nina's part was not without some of its desired effect. Nina wished to be her particular friend. She had perceived that a difference existed between them – a something that Geoffrey seemed to admire; and she had the vague impulse to form herself upon her.

Huxley explained table-turning by a simple experiment. He placed cards underneath the hands of the people forming the charmed circle round the table, and when they all "willed" that the table should move in a particular direction the cards and hands moved in that direction, while the table resisted the spirits and remained firm on its feet. In a similar way, Nina's impulse to know Margaret and frame herself upon her were all a process of unconscious self-deception which resembled the illusions of unrecognized muscular movements. She had no fixed ideas regarding Hampstead. Her actions were simply the result of his presence in her thoughts. She moved toward him, distantly and vaguely, but surely – somewhat as the card of a ship-compass, when it is spinning, seems to have no fixed destination, though its ultimate direction is certain.

She found it easy to bring the Dusenall girls to regard Margaret as somebody worth cultivating. The family tree of the Dusenall's commenced with the grandfather of the Misses Dusenall, who had got rich "out West." On inquiry they found that Margaret's family tree dwarfed that of any purely Canadian family into a mere shrub by comparison; and on knowing her better they found her brightness and vivacity a great addition to little dinners and lunches where conversational powers are at a premium.

With plenty of money, no work, an army of servants, a large house and grounds, a stable full of horses, and a good yacht, three or four young people can with the assistance of their friends support life fairly well. Lawn-tennis was their chief resource. Nina, being rather of the Dudu type, was not wiry enough to play well, and Margaret had not learned. She was strong and could run well, but this was not of much use to her. When the ball came toward her through the air she seemed to become more or less paralyzed. Between nervous anxiety to hit the ball and inability to judge its distance, she usually ended in doing nothing, and felt as if incurring contempt when involuntarily turning her back upon it. If she did manage to make a hit, the ball generally had to be found in the flower-beds far away on either side of the courts. In cricketing parlance, she played to "cover point" or "square leg" with much impartiality.

So these two generally looked on and made up for their want of skill in dignity and in conversation among themselves and with the men too languid to play. The wonder was that the marriageable young women liked Margaret so well. With her long, symmetrical dress rustling over the lawn and her lace-covered parasol occasionally hiding her dainty bonnet and well-poised head, Margaret might have been regarded as an enemy and labeled "dangerous," but the girls trusted her with their particular young men, with a sort of knowledge that she did not want any of them, even if the men themselves should prove volatile and recreant. After all, what young girls chiefly seek "when all the world is young, lad, and all the trees are green," is to have a good time and not be interrupted in their whims. So Margaret, who was launching out into a gayer life than she had led before, got on well enough, and the wonder as to what girls who did nothing found to talk about was wearing off. If she was not much improved in circles where general advantages seemed to promise originality, it was no bad recreation sometimes to study the exact minimum of intelligence that general advantages produced, and the drives in the carriages and Nina's village-cart were agreeable. She was partial to "hen-parties." Nina had one of these exclusive feasts where perhaps the success of many a persistent climber of the social ladder has been annihilated. It was a luncheon party. Of course the Dusenall girls were there, and a number of others. Mrs. Lindon did not appear. Nina was asked where she was, but she said she did not know. As she never did seem to know, this was not considered peculiar.

On this day Margaret was evidently the particular guest, and she was made much of by several girls whom she had not met before. It was worth their while, for she was Nina's friend and Nina had such delicious things – such a "perfect love" of a boudoir, all dadoes, and that sort of thing, with high-art furniture for ornament and low-art furniture in high-art colors for comfort, articles picked up in her traveling, miniature bronzes of well-known statues, a carved tower of Pisa of course, coral from Naples, mosaics from Florence, fancy glassware from Venice – in fact a tourist could trace her whole journey on examining the articles on exhibition. A French cook supplied the table with delectable morsels which it were an insult to speak of as food. Altogether her home was a pleasant resort for her acquaintances, and there were those present who thought it not unwise to pay attention to any person whom Nina made much of.

There were some who could have been lackadaisical and admiring nothing, if the tone of the feast had been different, but Margaret was for admiring everything and enjoying everything, and having a generally noisy time and lots of fun. She was a wild thing when she got off in this way, as she said, "on a little bend," and carried the others off with her.

What concerns us was the talk about the bank games. Some difference of opinion arose as to whether or not these were enjoyable. Not having been satisfied with attention from the right quarter at previous bank games, several showed aversion to them. Nina was looking forward with interest to the coming events, and Margaret, when she heard that Geoffrey and Jack and other friends were to compete in the contests, was keen to be a spectator. Emily Dusenall remarked that Geoffrey Hampstead was said to be a splendid runner, and that these games were the first he had taken any part in at Toronto, as he had been away during last year's. It was arranged that Nina and Margaret should go with the Dusenalls to the games after some discussion as to whose carriage should be used. Nina asserted that their carriage was brand new from England and entitled to consideration, but the Dusenalls insisted that theirs was brand new, too, and, more than that, the men had just been put into a new livery. It was left to Margaret, who decided that she could not possibly go in any carriage unless the men were in livery absolutely faultless.

Some days after this the carriage with the men of spotless livery rolled vice-regally and softly into the great lacrosse grounds where the Bank Athletic Sports were taking place. The large English carriage horses pranced gently and discreetly as they heard the patter of their feet on the springy turf, and they champed their shining bits and shook their chains and threw flakes of foam about their harness as if they also, if permitted, would willingly join in the sports. There was Margaret, sitting erect, her eyes luminous with excitement. Inwardly she was shrinking from the gaze of the spectators who were on every side, and as usual she talked "against time," which was her outlet for nervousness in public places. Mrs. Mackintosh had made her get a new dress for the occasion, which fitted her to perfection, and Nina declared she looked just like the Princess of Wales bowing from the carriage in the Row. The two Dusenalls were sitting in the front seat. Nina sat beside Margaret. Nina was looking particularly well. So beautiful they both were! And such different types! Surely, if one did not disable a critical stranger, the other would finish him.

The whole turn-out gave one a general impression of laces, French gloves, essence of flowers, flower bonnets, lace-smothered parasols, and beautiful women. There was also an air of wealth about it, which tended to keep away the more reticent of Margaret's admirers. She knew men of whose existence Society was not aware – men who were beginning – who lived as they best could, and, as yet, were better provided with brains than dress-coats. Moreover, the Dusenalls had a way of lolling back in their carriage which they took to be an attitude capable of interpreting that they were "to the manor born." There was a supercilious expression about them, totally different from their appearance at Nina's luncheon, and they had brought to perfection the art of seeing no person but the right person. Consequently, it required more than a usual amount of confidence in one's social position to approach their majesties. The wrong man would get snubbed to a dead certainty.

After passing the long grand stand the carriage drew up in an advantageous spot where they could see the termination of the mile walking match. The volunteer band had brokenly ceased to play God save the Queen on discovering that theirs was not the vice-regal carriage, and, in the field, Jack Cresswell was coming round the ring, with several others apparently abreast of him, heeling and toeing it in fine style. As they watched the contest, sympathy with Jack soon became aroused. Margaret heard somebody say that this was the home-stretch. Several young bank-clerks were standing about within earshot, and she listened to what they were saying as if all they said was oracular.

"Gad! Jack's forging ahead," said one.

"Yes, but Brownlee of Molson's is after him. Bet you the cigars Brownlee wins!"

This was too much for Margaret. She stood up in the carriage and, without knowing it, slightly waved her parasol at Jack, not because he would see her encouragement, but on general principles, because she felt like doing so, regardless of what the finer feelings of the Dusenalls might be. The walkers crossed the winning line, and it was difficult to see who won. Margaret sat down again, her face lighted with excitement, and said all in a breath:

"Was not that splendid? How they did get over the ground! What a pace they went at! Poor Jack, how tired he must be! I do hope he won, Nina," and she laid her hand on Nina's tight-sleeved soft arm with emphasis.

The Dusenalls did not think there was much interest in a stupid walking-match, and they thought standing up and waving one's parasol rather bad form, so they were not enthusiastic.

Nina said softly: "Indeed, if you take so much interest in Jack I'll get jealous."

While she said this her face began to color, and Margaret's reply was interrupted by Geoffrey Hampstead's voice which announced welcome news. He gave them all a sort of collective half-bow and shook hands with Nina in a careless, friendly way.