Читать книгу Green Light - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 6

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IT is presumable that among the more thoughtful of those who sought the counsel of Dean Harcourt, some were impressed by the fact that, although he was a unique personality, not too easily evaluable, his mind and mood were essentially the product of the Cathedral.

For more than three-quarters of a century, Trinity Cathedral had been one of the most highly respected institutions of the entire Middle West. This distinction may have been due partly to her imposing architecture, a stately Gothic strongly reminiscent of York Minster. It may have been accounted for also by her commanding location, for the Cathedral close was bounded by four spacious streets, one of them Lake Boulevard, the most prominent avenue in the city. Moreover, the great edifice faced beautiful Madison Park, to the considerable advantage of her massive towers and old-worldish buttresses.

But Trinity's influential position rested upon something more consequential than these fortunate external phenomena. There had grown up a general public sentiment to the effect that you always knew where to find her. She was not subject to the sudden chills and fevers which wobbled the erratic pulse of many another institution displaying similar symbols in the windows. Trinity had been singularly immune to widespread emotional epidemics. Sometimes neighbouring churches of clamorous importance were exasperated over her reluctance or downright refusal to participate in their tempestuous crusades of reform, and many an ardent front-paged apostle of despair had eloquently rated her for cold-blooded indifference to society's imminent collapse. A devastating crisis was on, shouted the gloomsters, and Trinity merely sat there and mumbled: "In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity, Good Lord, deliver us."

She had even kept her poise throughout the war, remaining discreetly neutral until the Government had officially declared itself otherwise, a difficult position which had drawn the fire of several prophets who were eager to be early on the field of battle and hotly impatient of these lackadaisical delays.

Then she had loyally advocated patriotic sacrifice, but without the prevalent hysteria, which had been interpreted by many as another proof of her habitual unconcern. One zealot preached a widely quoted sermon on the Laodiceans, who were neither hot nor cold, and pointed in the direction of the well-known Yorkish towers as a deplorable case of such apathy.

But Trinity did not allow herself to be disconcerted. When most of the other churches were hanging the Kaiser, Sunday after Sunday, she continued to intone, with a dispassionateness that infuriated the swashbucklers, "Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies." That was all you could expect, rasped the militants, of prayers that had to be read from a book! They had no capacity to arouse moral indignation!

When peace arrived and it was again prudent for Christian pacifism to put forth foliage and blossoms, Trinity's neighbours had given themselves to an orgy of increasingly bold resolutions that they would never, under any circumstance whatsoever, take up arms in an aggressive movement. Heartened by response to this endeavour, they took the next step fearlessly, declaring that they would never fight even in the defence of their country. Trinity did not go on record with convictions on this subject, and when heavily pressed for a declaration, announced that so far as she was concerned all such matters would have to be dealt with on their own merits when and if they called for a decision. The younger fry among the clergy pointed a disapproving finger toward her, asserting that Trinity was dead on her feet and didn't realize that she was stricken of a disease that would presently carry her off. But she continued to carry on as if quite unaware of the supposed lethal nature of the infirmity.

In the north-east tower a carillon of great value and wide repute played on week-days, from four to five, the historic hymns of the Anglican faith, and it was traditional that this daily programme always began and ended with O God Our Help in Ages Past, which seemed to be Trinity's theme song. On certain occasions of national grief or gratification, when the emotional tide ran high, these serenely confident measures may have stirred many people who ordinarily did not think much about their own spiritual reliances, and it is not inconceivable that some of the more discriminating, who had been bullied and badgered from one extreme opinion to another by institutions given to noisy tantrums of ecstasy or woe, were at least momentarily stabilized.

A high wrought-iron fence enveloped on three sides the Cathedral close. This gave the whole establishment an air of sequestration from the raucous hurly-burly of secular affairs, a redundant precaution, perhaps, for it was hardly necessary that Trinity should thus emphasize her insular aloofness from the contemporary fret.

At the back of the main edifice and facing on to Marlborough, were the Bishop's Mansion, the Parish House, and the residence of the Dean.

It was rumoured that there were telephones, typewriters, an adding machine, a few clerks, and the inevitable paraphernalia of business covertly tucked away in a remote corner of the Parish House, but the casual visitor who had occasion to call there was not assaulted at the front door by the metallic racket of modern machinery.

Latterly there had been a fad, originated by city churches and amusingly imitated by the less busy elsewhere, to give the impression that the operation of "The Kingdom" should be pursued by up-to-date techniques consonant with the methods of great factories engaged in the fabrication and distribution of commercial commodities. In such enterprising strongholds the prophet's desk was cluttered with telephones dangling from adjustable brackets. A row of buttons served his urgency in buzzing the various members of his staff into his presence to report on the success of last night's 'banquet' of the Carpenter's Apprentices, to present printer's proofs of the weekly bulletin and the newspaper advertising for Sunday, the programme for the Advance Club, and what had been ascertained about the leak in the roof. His stenographer sat with her pad on her knee, licking the point of her pencil, poised for action. The Millennium was about to be delivered, F.O.B., as per yours of the thirteenth which, if you have further occasion to advert to it in future negotiations, should be keyed MBX13579.

Trinity had never railed at this nonsense, considering it none of her business, but she had not gone in for it herself. The people who entered her quiet precincts were asked the nature of their errands by unflustered employees trained to understand that the less professional they were, the more ably they would discharge their duties.

George Harcourt was a product of Trinity Cathedral. Her mind and his were in complete accord. Perhaps they may have influenced one another somewhat during the twenty years of his deanship. His serenity had become so potent that persons of every conceivable type came to him for advice, consolation, and encouragement. It was a heavy load to carry, but he never complained of it.

Every week-day but Saturday a procession of men tarried in the reception-room of his residence, taking turns in conference with him, keeping him at his desk from ten to one. In the afternoon, from three to six, women of all ages and ranks appeared there for the same purpose. He never referred to it or thought of it as a 'clinic'. He compiled no statistics, posted no records, permitted no clerical fussiness in the handling of this strange business. An unassuming volunteer for the day welcomed the callers and seated them. In due time they would have their turn.

Every morning at eight two young curates placed strong hands under the Dean's elbows and led him—for he was a cripple—into the dimly lighted chancel of the Cathedral, where, whatever storms might be blowing outside, whatever tumultuous issues might be agitating the city or the nation or the world, his resonant voice intoned a petition "for all sorts and conditions of men; that Thou wouldst be pleased to make Thy ways known unto them."

When the early morning service was ended, the curates would assist the Dean to a chair placed for him in the centre of the chancel, facing the high altar, and leave him alone for a half-hour.

And thus it was that when broken people came to Dean Harcourt for reconditioning, most of them, it was said, went out of his presence with the feeling that they had been very close to Headquarters.

She entered the Dean's office-library and crossed it with the agile, elastic, assured stride of complete physical fitness under superb control, seated herself gracefully in the chair he indicated, directly facing him, laid an expensive handbag on the spacious mahogany desk which separated them, and loosened the collar of an exquisite Persian-lamb coat.

"Sonia Duquesne," she said, in response to his low-voiced query.

The interview did not proceed any further than that for a long moment.

Bearing most of his weight on the broad arms of his tall-backed churchly chair, the Dean leaned forward, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and took friendly stock of her. The rather hard, sophisticated smile she had brought along was gradually replaced by an almost entreating expression of self-defence, of meekness, of tenderness too, for it was now apparent to her that his deep-lined face bore unmistakable evidence of suffering.

They studied each other silently, with candid concern, Sonia so impressed and stilled by the spiritual majesty of the man that she accepted his scrutiny of her without the slightest sensation of self-consciousness.

It was a singularly interesting face. The upper lip was extraordinarily long, giving the firm but generous mouth an appearance of being securely locked. Perhaps, reflected Sonia, it was his mouth that encouraged strangers to confide in him. A friend had told her that people found it easy to tell him all about themselves without embarrassment or restraint. Doubtless it was the mouth that made them confident. It seemed to have been built especially for the safe keeping of secrets. And there was something uncannily prescient in his eyes. They were dark, almost cavernous. A veritable sunburst of crow's-feet at the outer corners gave the effect of a residual smile of compassion, which softened the penetrating search and interpreted it as a comradely quest. His thick white hair shone silver in the single light suspended above his head, a light that intensified, by strong shadows, the ruggedness of his face.

"That is your real name?" asked the Dean.

"Yes. I know it is a bit fantastic. But it is mine. My father's people were of French descent and my mother thought Sonia a pretty name. She saw it in a story."

"It is a pretty name, and I had not thought it incongruous, but you do not look foreign. When was it and where—that your mother read the story?"

"In 1901—Cedar Rapids."

"You are unmarried?"

"Yes," replied Sonia, her eyes occupied with the gloves which she had unbuttoned and was tugging off, finger by finger. Glancing up, she met his gaze, and added, "No—I was never married."

"Am I right in surmising that you are engaged in something theatrical?"

"Again I must answer—yes and no—"

The Dean acknowledged her honest candour with a slight inclination of the head. Sonia saw that she had said the right thing.

"I am the proprietor of a little shop, dealing in gowns. My clients—my customers prefer to think I am Parisian. I make no effort to counteract that belief. The place does have a foreign atmosphere. Perhaps I am theatrical—to the extent of playing a part in the course of my daily business."

"Do you attend the services of the Cathedral?" asked the Dean, still smiling a little over her frank confession.

"No, sir; I have no religion."

"Very well, then. Let us begin. Tell me all about it. What brought you here?—and remember that the more directly you come to it, the more time we will have to talk—profitably. What has he done to you?"

She sat for a while with a perplexed expression, her lips parted, slightly baring pretty teeth, tensely locked.

"No—I am not a mind-reader," explained the Dean gently, "but I have had much experience in listening."

"I believe that," said Sonia. "Well—he has decided to go back to his wife. She is not very well, and thinks she wants him. She has treated him very shabbily. It was her fault that he lost interest in their home. Now she begs him to return. I urged him to go. And I intend never to see him again.... That was yesterday." Sonia finished pulling off her gloves, and laid them on the desk beside the handbag with a little gesture of finality. Her hands were white and well cared for.

"So—I really did not come to you for advice," she continued. "For there is nothing to decide. They told me you were able to help people who had trouble. That's why I came. I'm glad I did... this is a very restful place. You will not scold me. I've had all the punishment I can take."

"You love him—I think."

"Devotedly! And he loves me. He needs me, too, for he has been very unfortunate recently—since the crash."

"Did he contribute to your support?"

"Never! It wasn't on that basis, at all. In fact, for the past few weeks—"

Dean Harcourt's lips tightened, and he slowly raised a hand.

"Don't you want me to tell you?" asked Sonia, wide-eyed, shaking her head girlishly.

"Not that.... I think you will feel better afterwards if you do not confide that part of it."

Sonia looked puzzled; then nodded approval.

"I take it that you bear his wife no ill-will?"

"Oh, no, not at all," she replied quickly. "In fact, lately, since he has been so hard-pressed, and I knew she was ill, I have—"

"Don't!" commanded the Dean, so sternly that she winced under his unexpected rebuke. "You mustn't tell that to anybody—not even to me!" His voice grew gentle. "And may I add that I consider you a very fortunate woman to be possessed of such a soul.... If you were my daughter I would be proud of you."

Her lips trembled as she replied, "Soul? I hardly knew I had one."

"Yes," sighed the Dean, running his long fingers through the shaggy hair at his temples. "Yes—that's the trouble. People collide with circumstances that push them off the commonly accepted moral reservation—and then they assume that they have lost their souls.... See here! Do you know anything about football?"

"A little. I often go. I did—last Saturday."

"Very good. You will have noticed then that a player sometimes runs out of bounds. Often it's his own fault, though frequently he is forced over the chalk-line. But, however it may have happened, he isn't sent home in disgrace. The game officials mark the spot where he went out, and carry the ball back into the field from that point."

"And then," said Sonia, "he loses his right to it."

"Only temporarily," corrected the Dean, pleased with this feature of his allegory. "He may quickly regain his right to pick up the ball. There is no telling but the next time he lays hands on it, he will go through for a touchdown."

"You don't think I've lost my soul, then?"

"I should be more disposed to think," declared the Dean warmly, "that you have just now come to the place in your life where the essential fineness of you is about to have its great chance."

"What would you have me do?" asked Sonia sincerely.

"You must find somebody or something to absorb your love—a child, perhaps, or a worthy charity in which you may invest yourself personally. Your case is not so difficult as you think. You came to grief through love. It is the people who get into trouble through hate—they're the ones I worry over. Sometimes it is very hard to help them. Love is a gift—abused, overlooked, misdirected, quite frequently—but a gift, nevertheless. Hate is a disease. And you, obviously, are not a hater.

"This encourages me to believe that you may be able to understand to what an extent the happiness of the world depends upon the clear vision of people who have a natural talent for love—to neutralize the bad influence of the people who are diseased by hate. Let me show you what I mean...."

The Dean edged himself far forward in his chair, rested his elbows on the desk, and looked Sonia steadily in the eyes, urging her earnest concentration.

"You see—not many people take time to consider how they are related to the Long Parade. They snatch their little pleasures; they bemoan their little disappointments; they smile and smirk and sigh and sulk, reacting variously to events affecting them as individuals. But they do not think of themselves as component parts of an era. They fail to understand that we are all trudging along, elbow to elbow, in an endless, tightly integrated procession, in which our most important interests are held in common.

"Sometimes they sense it a little when some large catastrophe has frightened them into a huddle. It is often reported of groups that they have felt it keenly in time of shipwreck, battle, or some mass tragedy. Then they live, for an hour, in a previously unexperienced state of nobility, discovering themselves to be brave, and suddenly impressed by the fact that human beings are all related.

"People with an extraordinary talent for love should be able to understand this in the ordinary process of living, and get the same thrill out of uneventful daily life that the shipwrecked experience when tugged together by sudden misfortune.

"Now—this brings us up to your case—your love has been so urgent that it has led you to defy the social canons. You would like to atone for it, or at least try to justify your possession of a love so reckless. Very well—I say!—you can do it! You must do it! Try to begin your thinking about this by believing that the successful onward push of the human procession is the important thing, after all; far more important than any of the trifling ups and downs of the individuals.... Sometimes I like to think of civilization as a ship. That ship, my friend, is more important than any member of the crew! If you want to pay for the privilege of your love—and the mistakes of your love—believe that!"

They sat for a little while in silence. The Dean had made a platitude sound vital, dynamic. Sonia distinctly felt the strong tug of it. Her eyes were contemplative.

"That's all," said the Dean, rousing from the reverie into which he had momentarily drifted. "I shall be thinking of you. We will try to find something specific for you to do. Are you agreed?"

She rose to go, apparently reluctant to leave.

"I hope I can hold this feeling when I am outside again—in the street," she said meditatively. "There is something about this place—and you—that has made my worries seem very small.... Forgive my asking—if this isn't the thing to say—but shouldn't I pay somebody for this interview—pay it to the Cathedral, maybe?"

"Yes," replied the Dean, "I was just coming to that. You are to go through that door at the right. You will find a small dressing-room. Take off your hat and coat, and return to me."

She stood for a moment, mystified; then smiled, and obeyed. Presently she was back, waiting orders, her face full of inquiry.

"Now I want you to go out to the reception-room where you waited when you came here, and inquire who is next. You will take that woman, whoever she is, into the small adjacent room: you know the one I mean."

"Where your secretary took me," said Sonia. "Really—she was the sweetest person I ever met, Dean Harcourt. She was so tender—and understanding."

"I am glad you found her so.... Well—you take your lady into that little room and let her tell you all she wants to about her reasons for coming here, asking her the same general questions you were asked. And then you come back and tell me. After that, you may bring her to my door. Then you will be free to recover your belongings and go your way. There is another exit from the dressing-room, leading into the hall."

Sonia hesitated.

"But, Dean Harcourt"—she protested—"it seems such a pity to ask me to do this when I have had no experience—and there is your secretary, outside, who knows exactly what to say to people. I never met anyone so—so thoroughly fitted to deal with a person in trouble."

The Dean smiled enigmatically.

"That woman is not my secretary," he said quietly. "She was my last caller—just before you came."

Sonia's amazement parted her lips and narrowed her eyes.

"Do you always make them do that?" she asked.

"No—just the ones I think I can trust to do it well."

"I'll try," she said.

She was gone for about five minutes and returned with a distressed face. It was quite evident that she had been crying.

"Well?"

"Oh—Dean Harcourt—it's about her little girl. The doctors told her this morning that the little thing isn't ever going to be right, mentally; a brain tumour, or something. She's simply heart-broken.... And there wasn't a thing I could say that would have been of any comfort to her.... I just held her—and couldn't talk. I'm afraid you made a mistake in sending me out there."

"It was very well done, I think," said the Dean. "Now go and bring her in. And then you go round to the dressing-room and powder your nose—and run along. It has been a good day's work."

Sonia impulsively clasped his hand.

"I think you're wonderful!" she exclaimed, smiling pensively through her tears.

"No, Sonia," he replied, measuring his words slowly, "I'm not wonderful.... But you have made connexion with something, this afternoon, that is wonderful—wonderful!" Drawing himself out of the introspective mood in which he seemed to have been speaking more to himself than to her, he added: "When you leave the dressing-room, if you turn to the right the hallway will lead you directly into the nave of the Cathedral.... Go out that way. And when you are there, tarry a moment, sit down, face the altar, and say a little prayer for me.... I am not very strong, you know, and I need the co-operation of people like you."

The clock in the great bell-tower was striking four. Trinity's theme-song vibrated in the air.

Sonia sank to her knees beside the Dean's chair and murmured, brokenly, "People like me!... Oh, my God!"

He laid a firm hand on her quivering shoulder.

"Come," he said gently, "your friend is waiting."

She rose to her feet and walked unsteadily to the door, stood for a moment with her hand on the knob, wiping her eyes and striving valiantly to regain her self-control. Then she glanced back at the Dean, who sat with his elbows on the desk, his seamed face cupped in his hand, and a rapt expression in his eyes, listening to the bells.

Sonia smiled bravely, and turned the knob.

"I think I'll be all right now," she said.

"Yes—child," replied the Dean, as one answering from a dream, "you'll be—all right—now."