Complete works of hall c.., p.290
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 290
VI.
It was at least some comfort to be out of the proximity of Brother Paul. The sounds of the lay brother in the neighbouring cell had brought back recollections of Glory, and he had more than he could do to conquer his thoughts of her. Since he had taken his vows and had ceased to mention her in his prayers she had been always with him, and his fears for her fate had been pricked and goaded by the constant presence of Brother Paul’s anxieties.
On the other hand, it was some loss that he could not go to the church, and he remembered with a pang how happy he had been after a night of terrors when he had gone into God’s house in the morning and cast his burden on him with one yearning cry of “God bless all women and young children!”
It was now the Christmas season, and his heart tingled and thrilled as the brothers passed through the door at midday and talked of the women who attended the Christmas services. Were they really so calm as they seemed to be, and had they conquered their natural affections?
Sometimes during the midday service he would slide back the grating and listen for the women’s voices. He heard one voice in all of them, but he knew it was only a dream. Then he would watch the snow falling from the little patch of dun-coloured sky crossed by bars, and tell himself that that was all he was to see of the world henceforth.
The sky emptied itself at last, and Brother Paul came again to shovel away the snow. He was weaker than ever, for the wax was melting away. When he began to work, his chest was oppressed and his face was feverish. John snatched the spade out of his hand and fell to doing his work instead of him.
“I can’t bear to see it, and I won’t!” he said.
“But the Father —— ?”
“I don’t care — you can tell him if you like. You are killing yourself by inches, and you are a failing man any way.”
“Am I really dying?” said Brother Paul, and he staggered away like one who had heard his sentence.
John looked after, him and thought: “Now what should I do if I were in that man’s place? If the case were Glory’s, and I fixed here as in a vice?”
He was ashamed when he thought of Glory like that, and he dismissed the idea, but it came back with mechanical obstinacy and he was compelled to consider it. His vows? Yes, it would be death to his soul to break them. But if she were lost who had no one but him to look to — if she went down to wreck and ruin, then the fires of hell would be as nothing to his despair!
Brother Paul came to him next day and sat on the form by his side and said:
“If I’m really dying, what am I to do?”
“What would you like to do, Brother Paul?”
“I should like to go out and find her.”
“What good would there be in that?”
“I could say something that would stop her and put an end to everything.”
“Are you sure of it?”
A wild light came into his eyes and he answered, “Quite sure.”
John played the hypocrite and began to counsel patience.
“But a man can’t live without hope and not go mad,” said Brother Paul.
“We must trust and pray,” said John.
“But God never answers us. If it were your own case what would you do? If some one outside were lost — —”
“I should go to the Father and say, ‘Let me go in search of her.’”
“I’ll do it,” said Brother Paul.
“Why not? The Father is kind and tender and he loves his children.”
“Yes, I will do it,” said Paul, and he made for the Father’s room.
He got to the door of the cell and then came back again. “I can’t,” he said. “There’s something you don’t know. I can’t look in his face and ask.”
“Stay here and I’ll ask for you,” said John.
“God bless you!” said Paul.
John made three hasty strides and then stopped.
“But if he will not — —”
“Then — God’s will be done!”
It was morning, and the Superior was reading in his room.
“Come in, my son,” he said, and he laid his book on his lap. “This is a book you must read some day — the Inner Life of Pére Lacordaire. Most fascinating! An inner life of intolerable horror until he had conquered his natural affections.”
“Father,” said John, “one of our lay brothers has a little sister in the world and she has fallen into trouble. She has gone from the place where he left her, and God only knows where she is now! Let him go out and find her.”
“Who is it, my son?”
“Brother Paul — and she is all he has, and he can not help but think of her.”
“This is a temptation of the evil one, my son. Brother Paul has newly taken the vows and so have you. The vows are a challenge to the powers of evil, and it is only to be expected that he who takes them will be tested to the uttermost.”
“But, Father, she is young and thoughtless. Let him go out and find her and save her, and he will come back and praise God a thousand times the more.”
“The temptations of Satan are very subtle; they come in the guise of duty. Satan is tempting our brother through love, and you, also, through pity. Let us turn our backs on him.”
“Then it is impossible?”
“Quite impossible.”
When John returned to the door Brother Paul was standing by the alcove gazing with wet eyes on the text hanging above the bed. He saw his answer in John’s face, and they sat down on the form without speaking.
The bell rang for service and the religious began to pass through the hall. As the Father was crossing the threshold Brother Paul flung himself down at his feet and clutched his cassock and made a frantic appeal for pity.
“Father, have pity upon me and let me go!”
The Father’s eyes became moist but his will remained unshaken. “As a man I ought to have pity,” he said, “and as the Father of all of you I should be kind to my children; but it is not I who refuse you, it is God, and I should be guilty of a sin if I let you go.”
Then Paul burst into mad laughter and the religious gathered round and looked at him in astonishment. There was foam on his lips and fire in his eyes, and he threw up his hands and fell back fainting.
The Father made the sign of the cross on his breast and his lips moved in silence for a moment. Then he said to John, who had raised the lay brother in his arms:
“Leave him there. Damp his forehead and hold his hands.”
And turning to the religious he added: “I ask the prayers of the community for our poor brother. Satan is fighting for his soul. Let us wrestle in prayer that we may expel the spirit that possesses him.”
At the next moment John was alone with the unconscious man, except for the dog which was licking his forehead. And looking after the Superior, he told himself that such unlimited power over the body and soul of another the Almighty could have meant for no man. The love of God and the fear of the devil had swallowed up the love of man and stifled all human affections. Such religion must have hardened the best man ever born. As for the poor broken creature lying there so still, his vows had been made to heaven, and to heaven alone his obedience was due. The nature within him had spoken too loudly, but there were laws of Nature which it was a sin to resist. Then why should he resist them? The cry of blood was the voice of God, or God had no voice and He could speak to no man. Then, why should he not listen?
Brother Paul recovered consciousness and raised his head. The waves of memory flowed back upon him and his eyes flamed and his lips trembled.
“I will go if I have to break my vows!” he said.
“No need for that,” said John.
“Why so?”
“Because I will let you out at night and let you in again in the morning.”
“You?”
“Yes, I. Listen!”
And then these two crushed and fettered souls, bound by no iron bonds, confined by no bolts and bars, but only under the shadow of the supernatural, sat together like prisoners in a dungeon concocting schemes for their escape.
“The Father locks the outer gate himself,” said John. “Where does he keep the key?”
“In his own room on a nail above his bed,” said Paul.
“Who is the lay brother attending to him now?”
“Brother Andrew.”
“Brother Andrew will do anything for me,” said John.
“But the dog?” said Paul. “He is always in the court at night, and he barks at the sound of a step.”
“Not my step,” said John.
“I’ll do it,” said Paul.
“I will send you to some one who can find your sister. You’ll tell her you come from me and she’ll take you with her.”
They could hear the singing in the church, and they paused to listen.
“When I come back in the morning I’ll confess everything and do my penance,” said Paul.
“And I too,” said John.
The sun had come out with a sudden gleam and the thawing snow was dripping from the trees in drops like diamonds. The singing ceased, the service ended, and the brothers came back to the house. When the Father entered, Paul was clothed and in his right mind and sitting quietly on the form.
“Thank God for this answer to our prayers!” said the Father. “But you must pray without ceasing lest Satan should conquer you again. Until the end of the year say your Rosary in the church every night alone from Compline to midnight.”
Then turning to John he said with a smile: “And you shall be like the anchoret of old to this household, my son. We monks pray by day, but the anchoret prays by night. Unless we know that in the dark hours the anchoret guards the house, who shall rest on his bed in peace?”
VII.
At the end of the fourth week, after Glory had paid her fee to the agent, she called on him again. It was Saturday morning, and the vicinity of his office was a strange and surprising scene. The staircase and passages to the house, as well as the pavement of the streets far as to the public-house at the corner, were thronged with a gaudy but shabby army of music-hall artistes of both sexes. When Glory attempted to pass through them she was stopped by a cry of, “Tyke yer turn on Treasury day, my dear,” and she fell back and waited.
One by one they passed upstairs, came down again with cheerful faces, shouted their adieus and disappeared. Meanwhile they amused themselves with salutations, all more or less lively and familiar, told stories and exchanged confidences, while they danced a step or stamped about to keep away the cold. “You’ve chucked the slap [* Rouge.] on with a mop this morning, my dear,” said one of the girls. “Have I, my love? Well, I was a bit thick about the clear, so I thought it would keep me warm.” “It ain’t no use facing the doner of the casa with that,” said a man who jingled a few coins as he came downstairs, and away went two to the public-house. Sometimes a showy brougham would drive up to the door and a magnificent person in a fur-lined coat, with diamond rings on both hands, would sweep through the lines and go upstairs. When he came down again his carriage door would be opened by half a dozen “pros” who would call him “dear old cully” and tell him they were “down on their luck” and “hadn’t done a turn for a fortnight.” He would distribute shillings and half-crowns among them, cry “Ta-ta, boys,” and drive away, whereupon his pensioners would stroke their cuffs and collars of threadbare astrakhan, tip winks after the carriage, and say, “That’s better than crying cabbages in Covent Garden, ain’t it?” Then they would all laugh knowingly, and one would say, “What’s it to be, cully?” and somebody would answer, “Come along to Poverty Point then,” and a batch of the waiting troop would trip off to the corner.
One of the gorgeous kind was coming down the stairs when his eye fell on Glory as she stood in a group of girls who were decked out in rose pink and corresponding finery. He paused, turned back, reopened the office door, and said in an audible whisper, “Who’s the pretty young ginger you’ve got here, Josephs?” A moment afterward the agent had come out and called her upstairs.
“It’s salary day, my dear — vait there,” he said, and he put her into an inner room, which was tawdrily furnished in faded red plush, with piano and coloured prints of ballet girls and boxing men, and was full of the odour of stale tobacco and bad whisky.
She waited half an hour, feeling hot and ashamed and troubled with perplexing thoughts, and listening to the jingle of money in the adjoining room, mingled with the ripple of laughter and sometimes the exchange of angry words. At length the agent came back, saying, “Vell, vat can I do for you to-day, my dear?”
He had been drinking, his tone was familiar, and he placed himself on the end of the sofa upon which Glory was seated.
Glory rose immediately. “I came to ask if you have heard of anything for me,” she said.
“Sit down, my dear.”
“No, thank you.”
“Heard anything? Not yet, my dear. You must vait — —”
“I think I’ve waited long enough, and if your promises amount to anything you’ll get me an appearance at all events.”
“So I vould, my dear. I vould get you an extra turn at the Vashington, but it’s very expensive, and you’ve got no money.”
“Then why did you take what I had if you can do nothing? Besides, I don’t want anything but what my talents can earn. Give me a letter to a manager — for mercy’s sake, do something for me!”
There was a shrug of the Ghetto as the man rose and said, “Very vell, if it’s like that, I’ll give you a letter and velcome.”
He sat at a table and wrote a short note, sealed it carefully in an envelope which was backed with advertisements, then gave it to Glory, and said, “Daddle doo. You’ll not require to come again.”
Going downstairs she looked at the letter. It was addressed to an acting manager at a theatre in the farthest west of London. The passages of the house and the pavements outside were now empty; it was nearly two o’clock, and snow was beginning to fall. She was feeling cold and a little hungry, but, making up her mind to deliver the letter at once, she hastened to the Temple station.
There was a matinée, so the acting manager was “in front.” He took the letter abruptly, opened it with an air of irritation, glanced at it, glanced at Glory, looked at the letter again, and then said in a strangely gentle voice, “Do you know what’s in this, my girl?”
“No,” said Glory.
“Of course you don’t — look,” and he gave her the letter to read. It ran:
“Dear —— : This wretched young ginger is worrying me for a shop. She isn’t worth a —— . Get rid of her, and oblige Josephs.”
Glory flushed up to the forehead and bit her lip; then a little nervous laugh broke from her throat, and two great tears came rolling from her eyes. The acting manager took the letter out of her hands and tapped her kindly on the shoulder.
“Never mind, my child. Perhaps we’ll disappoint him yet. Tell me all about it.”
She told him everything, for he had bowels of compassion. “We can’t put you on at present,” he said, “but our saloon contractor wants a young lady to give out programmes, and if that will do to begin with — —”
It was a crushing disappointment, but she was helpless. The employment was menial, but it would take her out of the tobacco shop and put her into the atmosphere of the theatre, and bring fifteen shillings a week as well. She might begin on Monday if she could find her black dress, white apron, cap, and cuffs. The dress she had already, but the apron, cap, and cuffs would take the larger part of the money she had left.
By Sunday night she had swallowed her pride with one great gulp and was writing home to Aunt Anna:
“I’m as busy as Trap’s wife these days; indeed, that goddess of industry is nothing to me now; but Christmas is coming, and I shall want to buy a present for grandfather (and perhaps for the aunties as well), so please send me a line in secret saying what he is wanting most. Snow! snow! snow! The snow it snoweth every day.”
On the Monday night she presented herself at the theatre and was handed over to another girl to be instructed in her duties. The house was one of the best in London, and Glory found pleasure in seeing the audience assemble. For the first half hour the gorgeous gowns, the beautiful faces, and the distinguished manners excited her and made her forget herself. Then little by little there came the pain of it all, and by the time the curtain had gone up her gorge was rising, and she crept out into the quiet corridor where her colleague was seated already under an electric lamp reading a penny number.
The girl was a little, tender black and white thing, looking like a dahlia. In a quarter of an hour Glory knew all about her. During the day she served in a shop in the Whitechapel Road. Her name was Agatha Jones — they called her Aggie. Her people lived in Bethnal Green, but Charlie always came to the theatre to take her home. Charlie was her young man.
In the intervals between the acts Glory assisted in the cloak-room, and there the great ladies began to be very amusing. After the tinkle of the electric bell announcing the second act she returned to the deserted corridor, and before her audience of one gave ridiculous imitations in dead silence of ladies using the puff and twiddling up their front hair.
“My! It’s you as oughter be on the styge, my dear,” said Aggie.
“Do you think so?” said Glory.
“I’m going on myself soon. Charlie’s getting me on the clubs.”
“The clubs?”
“The foreign clubs in Soho. More nor one has begun there.”
“Really?”
“The foreigners like dancing best. If you can do the splits and shoulder the leg it’s the mykings of you for life.”
