God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

who pushed past him roughly without apology, almost jostling him off the foot-path. It was Oliver Leach, who hearing himself spoken to, glanced round sullenly with a muttered oath, and stumbled on.

“That is Miss Vancourt’s dismissed agent,”—said Adderley, pausing a moment to watch his uncertain progress up the road. “What an objectionable beast!”

He walked on, and, his former train of thought being entirely disturbed, he went to the ‘Mother Huff,’ where he was a frequent visitor, his elaborate courtesies to Mrs. Buggins enabling him to hear from that lady’s pious lips all the latest news, scandal and gossip, true or untrue, concerning the whole neighbourhood.

Walden, meanwhile, finding himself once more alone in his own domain, breathed freely. The faithful Nebbie, who had passed all the hours of his master’s absence, ‘on guard’ by the window of the vacant study, came running to meet him as he set foot upon the lawn,—three or four doves that were brooding on the old tiled and gabled roof of the rectory, rose aloft in a short flight and descended again, cooing softly as though with satisfaction at his return,—and there was a soothing silence everywhere, the work of the day being done, and Bainton having left the garden trim and fair to its own sweet solitude and calm. Gently patting his dog’s rough head, as the animal sprang up to him with joyous short barks of welcome, John looked about him quietly for a moment or two with an expression in his eyes that was somewhat dreamy and pathetic.

“I have known the old place so long and loved every corner of it!”— he murmured—“And yet,—to-day it seems all strange and unfamiliar!”

The glow of the sunset struck a red flare against the walls of his house, and beat out twinkling diamond flashes from the latticed windows,—the clambering masses of honeysuckle and roses shone forth in vivid clusters as though inwardly illuminated. The warmth and ecstasy of life seemed palpitating in every flush of colour, every shaft of light,—and the wild, voluptuous singing of unseen skylarks, descending to their nests, and shaking out their songs, as it seemed, like bubbles of music breaking asunder in the clear empyrean, expressed the rapture of heaven wedded to the sensuous, living, breathing joys of earth. The glamour and radiance of the air affected Walden with a sudden unwonted sense of fatigue and pain, and pressing one hand across his eyes, he shut out the dazzle of blue sky and green grass for a moment’s respite,—then went slowly, and with bent head into his study. Here everything was very quiet,— and, as it struck him then, curiously lonely,—on his desk lay various notes and messages and accounts—the usual sort of paper litter that accumulated under his hands every day,—two or three visiting cards had been left for him during his absence,—one on the part of the local doctor, a very clever and excellent fellow named James Forsyth, who was familiarly called ‘Jimmy’ by the villagers, and who often joined Walden of an evening to play a game of chess with him,—and another bearing the neat superscription ‘Mrs. Mandeville Poreham. The Leas. At Home Thursdays,’—whereat he smiled. Mrs. Mandeville Poreham was a ‘county’ lady, wife of a gentleman-at-ease who did nothing but hunt, and who never had done anything in all his life but hunt,—she was also the mother of five marriageable daughters, and her calls on the Reverend John were marked by a polite and patient persistency that seemed altogether admirable. She lived some two miles out of St. Rest, but always attended Walden’s church regularly, driving thither with her family in a solemnly closed private omnibus of the true ‘county’ type. She professed great interest in all Church matters, on the ground that she was herself the daughter of a dead-and-gone clergyman.

“My poor father!” she was wont to say, smoothing her sleek bandeaux of grey hair on either side of her forehead with one long, pale, thin finger—“He was such a good man! Ah yes!—and he had such a lovely mind! My mother was a Beedle.”

This last announcement, generally thrown in casually, was apt to be startling to the uninitiated,—and it was not till the genealogy of the Beedle family had been duly explained to the anxious enquirer, that it was seen how important and allsufficing it was to have had a Beedle for one’s maternal parent. The Beedles were a noted ‘old stock’ in Suffolk, so it appeared,—and to be connected with a Suffolk Beedle was, to certain provincial minds of limited perception, a complete guarantee of superior birth and breeding. Walden was well accustomed to receiving a call from Mrs. Poreham about every ten days or so, and he did his utmost best to dodge her at all points. Bainton was his ready accomplice in this harmless conspiracy, and promptly gave him due warning whenever the Poreham ‘‘bus’ or landau was seen weightily bearing down upon the village, with the result that, on the arrival of the descendant of the Beedles at the rectory door she was met by Hester Rockett, the parlourmaid, with a demure smile and the statement,—‘Mr. Walden is out, mim.’ Then, when Walden, according to the laws of etiquette, had to return the lady’s visit, Bainton again assisted him by watching and waiting till he could inform him, ‘‘as ‘ow he’d seen that blessed old Poreham woman drivin’ out with ‘er fam’ly to Riversford. They won’t likely be back for a couple of hours at least.’ Whereupon Walden straightway took a swinging walk up to ‘The Leas,’ deposited his card with the footman, for the absent ‘fam’ly’ and returned again in peace to his own dwelling.

This afternoon he had again, as usual, missed the worthy lady, and he set aside her card, the smile with which he had glanced at it changing suddenly to a sigh of somewhat wearied impatience. Surely there was something unusually dark and solitary in the aspect of the room to which, for so many years, he had been accustomed, and where he had generally found comfort and contentment? The vivid hues of the sunset were declining rapidly, and the solemn shadow of evening was creeping up apace over the sky and outer landscape—but something heavier than the mild obscurity of approaching night seemed weighing on the air around him, which oppressed his nerves and saddened his soul. He stood absently turning over the papers on his desk, in a frame of mind which left him uncertain how to employ himself,—whether to read,—to write,—to finish a sketch of the flowering reeds on the river which he had yesterday begun,—or to combat with his own mood, fathom its meaning, and conquer its tendency? There came a light tap at his door and the maid Hester entered with a letter.

“The last post, sir. Only one for you.”

He took it up indifferently as the girl retired,—then uttered a slight exclamation of pleasure.

“From Brent,”—he said, half aloud—“Dear old fellow! I have not heard from him since New Year.”

He opened the letter, and began to read. The interested look in his eyes deepened,—and he moved nearer to the open window to avail himself as much as possible of the swiftly decreasing light.

“DEAR WALDEN,”—it ran—“The spirit moves me to write to you, not only because it occurs to me that I have failed to do so for a long time, but also because I feel a certain necessity for thought- expansion to someone, who, like yourself, is accustomed to the habit of thinking. The tendency of the majority nowadays is,—or so it appears to me,—to forget the purpose for which the brain was designed, or rather to use it for no higher object than that for which it is employed by the brute creation, namely to consider the ways and means of securing food, and then to ruminate on the self- gratification which follows the lusts of appetite. In fact, ‘to rot and rot,—and thereby hangs a tale!’ But before I enter into any particulars of my own special phase or mood, let me ask how it fares with you in your small and secluded parish? All must be well, I imagine, otherwise doubtless I should have heard. It seems only the other day that I came, at your request, to consecrate your beautiful little church of ‘The Saint’s Rest,’—yet seven years have rolled away since then, leaving indelible tracks of age on me, as probably on you also, my dear fellow!—though you have always carried old Time on your back more lightly and easily than I. To me he has ever been the Arabian Nights’ inexorable ‘Old Man of the Sea,’ whose habit is to kill unless killed. At fifty-one I feel myself either ‘rusting’ or mellowing; I wonder which you will judge the most fitting appellation for me when we next meet? Mind and memory play me strange tricks in my brief moments of solitude, and whenever I think of you, I imagine it can only be yesterday that we two college lads walked and talked together in the drowsy old streets of Oxford and made our various plans for our future lives with all the superb dominance and assertiveness of youth, which is so delightful while it lasts, despite the miserable deceptions it practises upon us. One thing, however, which I gained in the past time, and which has never deceived me, is your friendship,—and how much I owe to you no one but myself can ever tell. Good God!—how superior you always were, and are, to me! Why did you efface yourself so completely for my sake? I often ask this question, and except for the fact that it would be impossible to you to even make an attempt to override, for mere ambition, anyone for whom you had a deep affection, I cannot imagine any answer. But as matters have turned out with me I think it might have been better after all, had you been in my place and I in yours! A small ‘cure of souls’ would have put my mental fibre to less torture, than the crowding cares of my diocese, which depress me more and more as they increase. Many things seem to me hopeless,- -utterly irremediable! The shadow of a pre-ponderating, defiant, all-triumphant Evil stalks abroad everywhere—and the clergy are as much affected by it as the laymen. I feel that the world is far more Christ-less to-day after two thousand years of preaching and teaching, than it was in the time of Nero. How has this happened? Whose the fault? Walden, there is only one reply—it is the Church itself that has failed! The message of salvation,—the gospel of love,—these are as God-born and true as ever they were,—but the preachers and teachers of the Divine Creed are to blame,—the men who quarrel among themselves over forms and ceremonies instead of concentrating their energies on ministering to others,—and I confess I find myself often at a loss to dispose Church affairs in such wise as to secure at one and the same time, peace and satisfaction amongst the clergy under me, with proper devotion to the mental and physical needs of the thousands who have a right, yes a right to expect spiritual comfort and material succour from those who profess, by their vows of ordination, to be faithful and disinterested servants of Christ.

“I daresay you remember how we used to talk religious matters over when we were young and enthusiastic men, studying for the Church. You will easily recall the indignation and fervour with which we repudiated all heresies new and old, and turned our backs with mingled pity and scorn on every writer of agnostic theories, estimating such heterodox influences as weighing but lightly in the balance of belief, and making little or no effect on the minds of the majority. We did not then grasp in its full measure the meaning of