Читать книгу Into the Highways and Hedges - F. F. Montresor - Страница 10

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So Margaret Deane was numbered amongst Barnabas Thorpe's converts; and of all the inexplicable miracles that the man was said to work, society counted that the most extraordinary.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was not a popular woman, and she was too proud to elicit much sympathy; but, on the whole, public opinion sided with her, rather than with her niece.

Barnabas Thorpe was essentially the people's preacher; and even his greatest admirers felt that it was unbecoming of him "to try and convert the gentry".

As a matter of fact he was less presumptuous than they fancied; and, far from being triumphant, experienced at times a most unusual qualm of pain at this unexpected result of his teaching.

Years ago in the days of his boyhood, long before he had, to use his own phrase, "been taken by religion," he had once plunged his hand into a spider's web with intent to save a butterfly that got entangled. He had broken the creature's wing in trying to free it, and the mishap had stuck in his memory, because both as child and man he had been unusually pitiful to physical suffering. That bygone episode was fantastically associated in his mind with Miss Deane.

There was no doubt to him that but one answer was possible to the "What shall I do to be saved?" of man or woman cursed by riches. "Leave all that thou hast" seemed the inevitable prelude to "Follow me".

He had quoted that reply on the Downs to a group in the midst of which stood Margaret, in the soft grey dress which was the most quakerish garment she possessed.

He had seen her wince at the words as if they startled or hurt her; and had had a quick feeling of compunction, such as he had experienced when he had found the butterfly's purple and gold down staining his over-strong and clumsy fingers.

No one in after days would have believed it, but it was none the less true, that Meg's evident sensitiveness rather deterred than encouraged him in his dealings with her, till an incident, grotesque enough in itself, changed his attitude, and he felt himself suddenly challenged by the world through the mouth of a worldly woman. The combative instinct was thoroughly roused then, and his doubts fled. It was a very small link in the chain that was to bind his life and Margaret's, but nevertheless it was a link.

Barnabas was one day sitting by the roadside carving, when Mrs. Russelthorpe, coming through the great gates of Ravenshill, saw, and made up her mind to deliver her opinion to this impertinent preacher.

Barnabas was chiselling a little chalk head with his pocket knife; he was intent on his occupation, his hair and beard were powdered with white dust, and he looked up only now and then to speak to a child who was eagerly watching him, and for whose benefit the image was being fashioned.

Mrs. Russelthorpe deliberately paused in front of him, and studied him through her gold eyeglass. Meg had never thought about the man, she had seen only the preacher, but the elder woman recognised that this was no weak opponent or hysterical babbler.

She lifted her silk skirt—she was never hurried or awkward in her movements—and drew out of the pocket that hung round her waist a sovereign, which she held out to him.

"We are in your debt," she said, "for the trouble you had in returning my niece's locket. It was exceedingly honest of you. You had better take the money, my good fellow;" for the preacher had raised his head with an expression of utter amazement, which would have confused a less intrepid woman. "I am sure"—a little patronisingly—"that you quite deserve it."

"No—thanks," said Barnabas shortly. "In the part I come from we don't fancy it 'exceedingly honest' not to steal, nor look to be paid for not being rascals." And he went on with his work.

"Tut, tut!" said Mrs. Russelthorpe. "You cannot afford to fling away gold, I am sure." And she dropped the sovereign on to the man's hand.

The preacher started up as if the coin falling on his brown fingers had burnt them.

"Here, ma'am. Please take it back. I thought I'd made it clear, I'll ha' none o' et," he cried; and there was a ring in his voice, which sounded as if the "Old Adam" were not quite dead yet.

"I shall certainly not take it. I do not approve of unpaid services," said Mrs. Russelthorpe. And Barnabas with a quick movement drew back his arm, and pitched the sovereign over her head, far away into the park.

It span through the air like a flash of light, and Mrs. Russelthorpe's lips compressed as she saw it.

"That was a most insolent exhibition of temper for one who preaches to others," she said coldly; but the answer surprised her.

"Ay, an' that's true; so it was," he said, reddening.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was not generous enough to take no advantage of her adversary's slip.

"Your rudeness to me can only injure yourself," she went on, "and is certainly not worth remark; but I am glad to have this opportunity of saying that I believe you to be doing great harm by your preaching. Religious excitement is always bad, and I have had to remonstrate seriously with my niece, who is very young and foolish, about the ideas your unwise words have put into her head. She sees her mistake now," added Mrs. Russelthorpe, rather prematurely. "But had I not been at hand to guide her, you might have done an infinity of evil in attempting to dictate to her about the duties of a position which you cannot in the least be expected to understand."

An anxious look came over the preacher's face; his own pride was forgotten on the instant.

"Tell me," he said eagerly, "she is surely not turning back?"

"I do not understand your expression," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; "but Miss Deane will shortly accompany me to London, and take her part in society as usual. I am glad to say she recognises the folly of your teaching."

That last assertion was unfounded; but then, "If it is not true yet, it shall be," thought Mrs. Russelthorpe, and she couldn't resist a triumph.

She departed after that, with the last word and the best of the encounter, well pleased; but if she had known the preacher better she would not have told him that his disciple was "giving in".

"She is doing the devil's work, an' the poor maid is over weak," he reflected, "an' hard beset; an' what shall I do?"

He took his worn Bible from his pocket and laid it open on the road; the wind stirred the pages gently, and the man shut his eyes with a prayer for enlightenment. Then he opened them and picked the book up. He read in the bright glancing sunlight one sentence: "And He saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow Me".

Mrs. Russelthorpe and Meg were sitting together in the drawing-room.

The girl looked ill and nervous. The constant strain of a conflict with a stronger willed antagonist told on her. She had slept little of late, she had suffered a veritable martyrdom in the carrying out of Barnabas Thorpe's principles.

All at once the blood rushed to her white face.

"I hear footsteps in the hall," she said.

"You are going crazy about 'footsteps'!" cried her aunt impatiently, and then lifted her eyebrows in some surprise. "Some one is coming upstairs. Who can be calling at this hour?"

"It is the preacher. They are his footsteps that I've heard coming nearer all the week," said Meg quietly, and before Mrs. Russelthorpe could say a word of reproof to this extraordinary statement, Barnabas Thorpe stood in the doorway.

"I ask pardon for interrupting you, but I ha' a message for this maid," he said. "I ha' been told that havin' put your hand to th' plough ye are in danger o' turning back. Is it true?"

"The man is mad!" cried Mrs. Russelthorpe, "or he is drunk!"

She stood upright, putting her frame aside without haste or flurry. She had never felt fear in her life, though her indignation was strong.

"Go at once, sir!" she said.

"Is it true?" said the preacher.

His eyes were fixed on Meg. He was too eager to be self-conscious. In the intensity of his effort to arrest and turn again a wavering soul, he did not even hear Mrs. Russelthorpe; and for a moment his absorption, his utter imperviousness to all that was "outside" his mission, impressed even her.

The preacher was as "one-ideaed" as a sleuth hound in pursuit of his quarry. The simile is not a pretty one, but it flashed across her mind, when her command fell futile and powerless.

"Is it true?" Then, while Meg, who had been sitting with dilated eyes staring at him, covered her face with her hands, his voice melted into entreaty.

"Perhaps it is so," he said. "But the Master is full of pity. Still He says 'Come'. He knows our backslidings. He bears wi' us again and again, as a mother wi' a bairn who stumbles running to her. His feet bear the bruises o' the stones by the way," cried Barnabas. And again, as on the beach, his blue eyes had the expression of eyes that see that of which they speak. "An' ye shall not be afeard o' th' path they trod! His hands are marked wi' th' nails o' Calvary, an' by those marks they shall lead us men, who are feeble and sore discouraged. Behold, I know"—and his voice rang through the room, making Meg wonder whimsically in the midst of her excitement whether the very chairs and tables were not startled in their spindle-legged propriety—"Behold, I know that it is sweeter to walk wi' Him through th' valley o' death, than to walk wi'out Him through th' sunshine o' the World."

"My good man," said Mrs. Russelthorpe, "whatever may be the case in 'the valley of death,' you are very much out of place in my drawing-room. We have had enough."

She pointed to the door while she spoke.

Outside in the road the man had had the worst of it when he had crossed swords with her; here, strangely enough, she had no more effect on him than a child's breath against a boat in full sail.

He was acting under authority now. He believed himself as much bound to testify as ever Moses before the Egyptian king.

"My Master has called this maid," he said; "who is it bids you hinder? Promise," and he turned again to Meg, "that ye will follow Him to the giving up of all He disallows. Promise! an' I will go my way in peace."

Meg let her hands drop on her lap, and looked at him with the saddest smile he had ever seen. The pathos of it touched the man as well as the apostle, though he wasn't himself aware of that fact; and his innermost thought of her was free from any taint of self-consciousness.

"I will promise nothing," she said; "I should only fail."

Her low voice sounded weary and dispirited, the very antithesis of his. This time she said to herself she would not let herself go.

His enthusiasm might carry her a little way by its own strength, but she knew what the end would be. This narrowly strong preacher, with his northern burr, his gesticulations, his intense conviction, came, after all, from another world. She envied his assurance, she admired his courage, but he could not "help her".

"I may be miserable, and know I am wrong, and yet give way at last, unless something happens," said Meg. The "something" meant support from her father. Then she was ashamed of her own words.

"I will try—but I won't promise," she said wistfully.

There was a tense silence. "I have a message for ye, an' I canna understand it," said Barnabas at last, "but the Lord will make it clear. Listen, these are the words, And the angel said unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow Me."

"The man is raving!" exclaimed Mrs. Russelthorpe. And she put her hand on the bell; but he had already turned to go.

He would add no words of his own to the inspired "mandate"; and he walked out of the room and out of the house unmolested, as he had come.

Mrs. Russelthorpe drew a deep breath, that was not so much of relief as of utter astonishment.

"I do not know why I allowed him to go on so long. He is the most extraordinary person I have ever set eyes on! Upon my word, I believe he has walked straight out of Bedlam; but, mad or sane, this is beyond a joke. Margaret! if you so much as look at him again, I'll wash my hands of you. I'll make an end to this."

"Will you?" said Meg dreamily. She did not speak in defiance, only doubtfully, with a vague sense that Barnabas Thorpe's especial Providence might be too strong even for Aunt Russelthorpe. Had he not said his say in spite of her?

"Will you, Aunt Russelthorpe? But I don't think one has really much to do with what happens."

"I've something to do with it," said Aunt Russelthorpe grimly; "and so he will find." And so indeed he did find—though not in the way she meant.

Another and widely different acquaintance was at least as deeply interested in the change in her. Mr. Sauls was the very last person whom any one would have expected to champion an impracticable enthusiasm; yet he certainly stood up for Margaret at this time, to her immense surprise and rather perplexed gratitude.

This slip of a girl, who shrank from the least touch of love-making, but yet loved and hated so vehemently, who was more innocent than any other woman he had ever known, and who yet did such terribly rash things, who was full of shy dignity and sudden indiscreet revelations, was the first person who had inspired him with any awe of womanhood.

He laughed at himself a good deal, but thought of her, whom most people sneered at, with a sort of half-amused reverence. If in the first place he had been in love with Meg's good name and prospective fortune, his love for Meg's self was striking deeper roots than he should consistently have allowed; but we all of us fail to stick to our principles at times.

When the first faint rumour of a scandal reached him, Mr. Sauls went straight to Ravenshill to call.

He met Mr. Russelthorpe in the hall, and stopped to speak to him, being on very friendly terms with the old man, whose society he had cultivated of late.

"It is so long since I have met your niece anywhere, that I have come to inquire after her health," he said boldly.

"Hm! she has 'repented' and taken to religion, as I have no doubt you have heard," said the other; he held on to the banisters with one shrivelled hand, and peered up into George Sauls' strong dark face to see how his announcement was taken.

"Repented! but she was always a little saint!" cried Mr. Sauls.

"Ah! that's it," responded Meg's uncle. "It is the saints who repent; the sinners have other things to do."

Mr. Sauls stood twisting the cord of his eyeglass rapidly round his finger: he had a trick of apparently absorbing himself in some physical detail of the sort when he was more than usually interested.

"I want to be converted," he remarked. "Do you think that she would undertake me?"

Mr. Russelthorpe chuckled. This young Jew, with his keen eye to the main chance, always entertained him.

"There's no knowing. Young women are very hopeful," he said. "Go on—go on and try."

Mr. Sauls went on into the drawing-room.

A buzz of conversation greeted him. Mrs. Russelthorpe was entertaining about twenty ladies; Meg was standing apart in the bow window.

Mr. Sauls joined in the talk at once; he made smart speeches to his hostess, and conversed with every one: he was never in the least shy.

Presently some one mentioned the ball that was to be given at the Heights. "You are going, of course?" she said.

The question sounded innocent enough, but it sent a thrill through the atmosphere.

Mrs. Russelthorpe made a distinct pause, and then said, in clear decisive tones: "My niece sets all her elders to rights on that subject. You had better explain why we are not to go, Margaret; for your views are beyond me."

Mr. Sauls glanced at the girl's white face, and swore under his breath. "I'd like to duck Mrs. Russelthorpe," he said to himself; and then he threw down his glove, to the general astonishment.

"If Miss Deane does not choose to give us the pleasure of her company, it is so much the worse for us," he said. "But society would become unbearable if it were allowed to demand explanations each time any one stayed away from an entertainment. I can't see why we should bother Miss Deane with impertinent questions, and I protest against them on principle. They encroach on the sacred rights of the individual."

He had diverted attention from Meg anyhow. What did it matter what rhodomontade he was talking? It was curious how that little nervous shudder of hers affected him; it had seemed to run like fire through his veins. How durst they distress her? prying closely into the secrets of her sensitive conscience, frightening her (for he could see that she was frightened) by their irreverent curiosity. Reverence was not a quality that any one had suspected in him heretofore, but Meg had awakened it.

He did not quite know her, however, in spite of his sympathy: she was thin-skinned enough in all conscience; but she was something else as well. She lifted her head and faced Mrs. Russelthorpe: she was not going to take shelter behind Mr. Sauls, though she was grateful to him.

"I have explained to you over and over again," she said. "I don't go to balls because I don't think I ought. I like them so much I forget everything else when I do. I don't know about other people, I daresay that they are perfectly right to go."

Mrs. Russelthorpe laughed.

"Other people are on a lower level of sanctity evidently," she said. "Come! We are all of us waiting to be enlightened. Where does the iniquity lie? You of the young generation are wonderfully quick at seeing evil—where is it?"

George twirled his eyeglass furiously.

"Don't answer!" he cried, with assumed jocosity. "Miss Deane, your counsel advises you not to—this is a bad precedent—against all fairness."

Meg flushed painfully, there were tears in her eyes.

"In me, I suppose," she said softly, and left the room.

Mr. Sauls took up his hat.

"I think we ought all to feel pretty well ashamed of ourselves after that," he remarked; and he went out, shutting the door sharply after him.

He had burnt his boats, and he knew it. He had made an enemy, and forced his own hand; he had rebuked Mrs. Russelthorpe in her own drawing-room, and closed the Ravenshill gates against himself; and he shrugged his shoulders at his own rashness as he went downstairs. Meg was by no means won yet, and he had been bolder than he could well afford.

"I never guessed I was such a fool," he said to himself; and then he smiled in spite of his cooler after-thoughts.

"If, after all, my luck holds good, and I do get her, and I will," he reflected, "won't I make that aunt of hers feel the difference? I should like to see the woman who will bully my wife. I should like it immensely."

His sympathy for his shy lady was very genuine, but he felt a thrill of exhilaration all the same. Mrs. Russelthorpe's anger, the growing gossip, this very "religious mania," were all playing into his hands—they would drive the girl nearer to him.

He meant to be very patient; it was only once in a blue moon that his feelings got the better of him; he would wait, and watch; and when Meg's position became unbearable, he would step in and say, "Here am I! With me you shall do as you choose. Follow your very exacting conscience where you like; dip your pretty fingers into my purse, and dress in sackcloth if it pleases you." He would not bully Meg. She was none the worse for a touch of asceticism in his eyes.

Like many men who believe in little themselves, he held that the more beliefs a woman has the better—and the safer.

Let her be as saint-like as she chose; if he was of the earth (as he candidly allowed he was) his wife should be of heaven, a thing apart, set in a costly shrine which he would delight in decorating.

Her religion was a fitting ornament, a halo round her fair head! Far be it from him to wish to discrown her.

Women's pretty superstitions became them even better than their diamonds—he would grudge Meg neither.

He went to the ball at the Heights three weeks later, and found, as he had expected, that Mrs. Russelthorpe cut him, that Miss Deane was not present, and that Miss Deane's name was overmuch in people's mouths.

One little bit of innuendo, which he happened to overhear, made his blood boil, in spite of his conviction that it was unfounded.

Miss Deane in love with a canting tub-preacher! Miss Deane, who was only too fastidious! If Mr. Sauls' idea of a woman's position had just a tinge of Orientalism about it, at least his respect for Meg was true enough for him to be sure that that scandal was absurd on the face of it. But it showed how her innocence needed protection.

Poor Meg! He would have shielded her from every rough breath, yet the winds of heaven were to blow harder on her than on him; he would have lined her path with velvet, but for her the road was to be stony indeed. "Give our beloved peace and happiness," we pray—but they are given pain, and the stress of the battle. "Deliver them from evil"—but they fall.

"I will write soon, very soon," George Sauls decided, as he left the hot ball-room behind him, and walked towards the twinkling town, with the sound of the dance ringing in his ears.

He had actually rather a longing to turn up the road to Ravenshill, where Mrs. Russelthorpe's carriage was disappearing, and take a look at the shell which held his pearl; but a sense of the ridiculous withheld him, or, perhaps, the bad luck that dogged his footsteps where his love was concerned.

If he had followed his impulse, the upshot of that night's events might have been different.

If Meg had married him, he would have loved her long and well, for his was a grasp that never loosened easily; but for once in his life, George gave more than he received, and he certainly did not count the experience blessed.

The three weeks that had followed that scene in the drawing-room had been trying ones at Ravenshill. Meg's courage was of the kind that can lead a forlorn hope, but finds it very difficult to sustain a siege.

Poor child! it was hard enough that the first avowedly religious man she had met should be also a bit of a fanatic.

That our consciences have so little judgment is surely one of the oddest things in this queer world!

Martyrs go to the stake for false gods, as well as for the truth; men die heroically for mistakes, loyal to blundering leaders; and what is the end of it all, we ask? Is it a farce or a tragedy? or does the loyalty live somehow, though the error wither as chaff that has held the grain?