Читать книгу The Love That Prevailed - Frank Frankfort Moore - Страница 13

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Nelly Polwhele gave a little jump when Mr. Wesley had spoken. It had come at last. She had done her best to steal away from the explanation which she feared she would have to make to him. But somehow she did not now dread facing it so greatly as she had done in the Mill. She had heard that the Reverend Mr. Wesley was severe, as well as austere. She had heard his Methodism mocked by the fashionable folk at Bath, story after story being told of his daring in rebuking the frivolities of the day. She had believed him to be an unsympathetic curmudgeon of a man, whose mission it was to banish every joy from life.

But now that she had heard his voice, so full of gentleness—now that his eyes had rested upon her in kindliness and sympathy—now that she had heard him not disdain to spend an hour telling her and her friends that romance of the backwoods, thrilling them by his telling of it, her dread of being rebuked by him for her levity was certainly a good deal less than it had been. Still she looked uneasily away from him, and they had taken a good many steps in silence together before she made an attempt to answer him. And even then she did not look at him.

“'Twas a piece of folly, I am afraid, sir,” she said in a low tone. “At least you may esteem it folly, though it did not fail to amuse the good people at the Mill,” she added in an impulse of vanity not to be resisted.

“I had no doubt that it was a domestic game,” said he. “They were all roaring with laughter. Had you heard, as I did, from without, the loud laughter of the men and above it the wild, shrill shrieks, you would, I am sure, have been as amazed as I was.”

She laughed now quite without restraint.

“Bedlam—Bedlam—nothing less than Bedlam it must have seemed to you, Mr. Wesley,” she said.

“I will not contend with you as to the appropriateness of your description,” said he, smiling, still kindly.

“The truth is, sir, that I have just returned from paying my first visit to the Bath,” said she. “'Twas the greatest event in my simple life. I went to act as dresser to the Squire's young ladies, and they were so good as to allow me to see mostly all that there was to be seen, and to hear all that there was to be heard.”

“What—all? That were a perilous permission that your young ladies gave to you.”

“I know not what is meant by all, but I heard much, sir; singers and preachers and players. I was taken to the Cave of Harmony for lovely music, and to the playhouse, where I saw Mistress Woffington in one of her merry parts. I was busy telling of this when you entered the Mill. I was doing my best to shriek like Mistress Woffington.”

She spoke lightly and with a certain assurance, as though she were determined to uphold her claim to go whithersoever she pleased.

She was in a manner disappointed that he did not at once show himself to be shocked. But he heard her and remained silent himself. Some moments passed; but still he did not speak; he waited.

Of course she began to excuse herself; he knew that she would do so. The uneasily confident way in which she had talked of the playhouse had told him that she would soon be accusing herself by her excuses without the need for him to open his lips.

“You will understand, sir, I doubt not, that I was but in the position of a servant, though my ladies treated me graciously; I could not but obey them in all matters,” she said.

“Does your saying that mean that you had some reluctance in going to the playhouse?” he asked her.

“I was not quite—quite—sure,” she replied slowly. “I had heard that the playhouse was a wicked place.”

“And therefore you were interested in it—is that so?”

“But I asked myself, 'Would my young ladies go to the playhouse—would the Squire, who surely knows a good deal about wickedness, having lived for so many years in London—would the Squire and his lady allow them to go to the playhouse if there was anything evil in it?'”

“And so you went and you were delighted with the painted faces on both sides of the stage, and you have remained unsettled ever since, so that you must needs do your best to imitate an actress whose shamelessness of living is in everybody's mouth? I know that you imitated this Woffington woman to your young ladies when you returned warm and excited from the playhouse, and they laughed hugely at your skill.”

Nelly stood still, so startled was she at the divination of her companion.

“How came you to hear that?” she cried.

“Were we not alone in the bedroom? Who could have told you so much?”

“And when you returned to your home you were not many hours under its roof before you were strutting about feeling yourself to be decked out in the fine clothes which you had seen that woman wear in the playhouse?”

“You have been talking to someone—was it Jake Pullsford? But how could he have known? Oh, sir; you seem to have in yourself a power equal to that of the water-finder's wand, only surer by a good measure.”

“And you saw no evil in the playhouse?” he said gently.

“I do not want to go again, Mr. Wesley,” she said. “But indeed I dare not say that I saw any of the wickedness that I have heard of, in the theatre.”

“What, are you not in yourself an example of the evil?” said he.

“What—I, sir? Surely not, Mr. Wesley. Whatever you may have heard you could hear nothing against me,” she cried, somewhat indignantly.

Her indignation lent her boldness and she turned to him, saying:

“I affirm, sir, and I am not ashamed to do so, that I saw nothing of evil in the playhouse, and I made up my mind that instead of spending my days hidden away in a lonely village far from all the pleasures of life, I would try my fortune as an actress. I believe that I have some gift of mimicry—my ladies told me so. Why, sir, you allowed that my shrieks frightened you outside the Mill.”

“Child, your feet are on a path perilous,” said he. “You were indignant when I said that you were in yourself an example of the evil of going to the playhouse. Every word that you have spoken since has gone to prove the truth of my assertion. Do you say that the unsettling of your mind is no evil due to your visits to the playhouse—the unsettling of your mind, the discontent at your homely and virtuous surroundings, the arousing of a foolish vanity in your heart and the determination to take a step that would mean inevitable ruin to such as you—ruin and the breaking of your father's heart?”

He spoke calmly, and in his voice there was more than a suggestion of sorrow.

She had become pale; she made an attempt to face him and repel his accusations, but there was something in his face that took all the strength out of her. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed bitterly. He watched her for some moments, and then he put a soothing hand upon her arm.

“Nay, dear child, be not overcome,” said he. “Have you not said to me that you have no wish ever to enter the playhouse again? Let that be enough. Be assured that I will not upbraid you for your possession of that innocence which saved you from seeing aught that was wrong in the play or the players. Unto the pure all things are pure. Unto the innocent all things are harmless. You were born for the glory of God. If you let that be your thought day and night your feet will be kept in the narrow way.”

She caught his hand and held it in both her own hands.

“I give you my promise,” she cried, her eyes upon his face; they were shining all the more brightly through her tears.

“Nay, there is no need for you to give me any promise,” he said. “I will have confidence in your fidelity without any promise.”

“You will have to reckon with me first, you robber!”