Complete works of hall c.., p.295
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 295
The Father had risen to his feet, and he spoke the last words with uplifted hand.
“Now you know why I refused that poor boy’s petition. I loved him as a son, but neither the disease of his body nor the weakness of his mind could break the firmness of the rule by which I held him. I knew that Satan was dragging him away from me, and I would not give him up to the sufferings and dangers which the Evil One was preparing for him in the world. But how subtle are the temptations of the devil! He found the weak place in my armour at last. He found you, my son — you; and he tempted you by all your love, by all your pity, by all your tenderness, and you fell, and this is the consequence.”
The Father clasped his hands at his breast and walked to and fro in the little room.
“The bitterness of the world against religious houses is great already; but if anything should happen now, if a crime should be committed, if our poor brother, clad in the habit of our Order — —”
He stopped and crossed himself and lifted His eyes, and said in a tremulous whisper: “O God, whom have I in heaven but thee? My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
John had staggered to his feet like a drunken man. “Father,” he said, “send me away from you. I am not fit to live by your side.”
The Father laid both hands on his shoulders. “And shall I lower my flag to the enemy like that? There is only one way to defeat the devil, and that is to defy him. No, no, my son, you shall remain with me to the last.”
“Punish me, then. Give me penance. Let me be the lowest of the low and the meanest of the mean. Only tell me what I am to do and I will do it.”
“Go back to the door and resume your duty as doorkeeper.”
John looked at the Father with an expression of bewilderment.
“I thought you had done with it, my son, but Heaven knew better. And promise that when you are there you will pray for our wandering brother, that he may not be allowed to fulfil the errand on which you sent him out; pray that he may never find his sister, or anybody who knows her and can tell him where she is and what has become of her; pray that she may never cross his path to the last hour of life and the first of death’s sundering; promise to pray for this, my son, night and day, morning and evening, with all your soul and strength, as you would pray for God’s mercy and your soul’s salvation.”
John did not answer; he was like a man in a stupor. “Is it possible?” he said. “Are you sending me back to the door? Can you trust me again?”
The Father stepped to the side of the bed and took the key of the gate from its place under the shelf. “Take this key with you, too, because for the future you are to be the keeper of the gate as well.”
John had taken the key mechanically, hardly hearing what was being said.
“Is it true, then — have you got faith in me still?”
The Father put both hands on his shoulders again and looked into his face. “God has faith in you, my child, and who am I that I should despair?”
When John Storm returned to the door his mind was in a state of stupefaction. Many hours passed during which he was only partly conscious of what was taking place about him. Sometimes he was aware that certain of the brothers had gathered around, with a tingling, electrical atmosphere among them, and that they were asking questions about the escape, and whispering together as if it had been something courageous and almost commendable, and had set their hearts beating. Again, sometimes he was aware that big Brother Andrew was sitting by his side on the form, stroking his arm from time to time, and talking in his low voice and aimless way about his mother and the last he saw of her. “She followed me down the street crying,” he said, “and I have often thought of it since and been tempted to run away.” Also he was aware that the dog was with him always, licking the backs of his stiff hands and poking up a cold snout into his downcast face.
All this time he was doing his duties automatically and apparently without help from his consciousness, opening and closing the door as the brothers passed in and out on their errands to the dead and dying, and saying, “Praise be to God!” when a stranger knocked. It may be that his body was merely answering to the habits of its intellect, and that his soul, which had sustained a terrible blow, was lying stunned and swooning within.
When it revived and he began to know and to feel once more, there was no one with him, for the brothers were asleep in their beds and the dog was in the courtyard, and the house was very quiet, for it was the middle of the night. And then it came back to him, like a dream remembered in the morning, that the Father had asked him to pray for Brother Paul that he might fail in the errand on which he had sent him out into the world, and though with his lips he had not promised, yet in his heart he had undertaken to do so.
And being quite alone now, with no one but God for company, he went down on his knees in his place by the door and clasped his hands together.
“O God,” he prayed, “have pity on Paul, and on me, and on all of us! Keep him from all danger and suffering and from the snares and assaults of the Evil One! Grant that he may never find his sister — or anybody who knows her — or anybody who can tell him where she is and what has become of her — —”
But having got so far he could get no farther, for suddenly it occurred to him that this was a prayer which concerned Glory and himself as well. It was only then that he realized the magnitude and awfulness of the task he had undertaken. He had undertaken to ask God that Paul might not find Glory either, and therefore that he on his part might never hear of her again. When he put it to himself like that, the sweat started from his forehead and he was transfixed with fear.
He rose from his knees and sat on the form, and for a long hour he laboured in the thought of a thousand possibilities, telling himself of the many things which might befall a beautiful girl in a cruel and wicked city. But then again he thought of Paul and of his former crime and present temptation, and remembered the shadow that hung over the Brotherhood.
“O God, help me,” he cried; “strengthen me, support me, guide me!”
He tried to frame another prayer, but the words would not come; he tried to kneel as before, but his knees would not bend. How could he pray that Glory also might be lost — that something might have happened to her — that somewhere and in some way unknown to him ——
No, no, a thousand times no! The prayer was impossible. Let come what would, let the danger to Paul and to the Brotherhood be what it might, let Satan and all his legions fall on him, yet he could not and would not utter it.
XIII.
The stars were paling, but the day had not yet dawned, when there came a knock at the door. John started and listened. After an interval the knock was repeated. It was a timid, hesitating tap, as if made with the tips of the fingers low down on the door.
“Praise be to God!” said John, and he drew the slide of the grating. He had expected to see a face outside, but there was nothing there.
“Who is it?” he asked, and there came no answer.
He took up the lamp that was kept burning in the hall and looked out through the bars. There was nothing in the darkness but an icy mist, which appeared to be rising from the ground.
“Only another of my dreams,” he thought, and he laid his hand on the slide to close it.
Then he heard a sigh that seemed to rise out of the ground, and at the same moment the dog uttered a deep bay. He laid hold of the door and pulled it quickly open. At his feet the figure of a man was kneeling, bent double and huddled up.
“Paul!” he cried in an excited whisper.
Brother Paul raised his head. His face was frightfully changed. It was gray and wasted. His eyes wandered, his lips trembled, and he looked like a man who had been flogged.
“Good Lord, what a wreck!” thought John. He helped him to rise and enter. The poor creature’s limbs were stiff with cold, and he stumbled from weakness as he crossed the threshold.
“But, thank God, you are back and no harm done!” said John. “How anxious we’ve been! You must never go out again — never! There, brother, sit there.”
The wandering eyes looked up with a supplicating expression. “Forgive me. Brother Storm — —”
But John would not listen. “Hush, brother! what have I to forgive? How cold you are! Your hands are like ice. What can I do? There’s no fire in the house at this time of night — even in the kitchen it will be out now. But wait, I can rub you with my hands. See, I’m warm and strong. There’s a deal of blood in me yet. That’s better, isn’t it? Tingling, eh? That’s right — that’s good! Now for your feet — your feet will be colder still.”
“No, brother, no. I ought to be kissing the feet of everybody in the house and asking the prayers of the community, and yet you — —”
“Tut! what nonsense! Let me take off this shoe. Dear me, how it sticks! Why, you’ve worn it through and through. Look! What a mercy the snow was hard! If there had been thaw, now! How far you must have walked!”
“Yes, I’ve wandered a long way, brother.”
“You shall tell me all about it. I want to hear everything — every single thing.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I’ve failed in my errand — that’s all.”
John, who was on his knees, drew back and looked up. “Do you mean, then — Have you not seen your sister?”
“No, she’s gone, and nobody knows anything about her.”
“Well, perhaps it’s for the best, brother. God’s will be done, you know. If you had found her — who knows? — you might have been tempted — But tell me everything.”
“I can not do that, I’m so weak, and it’s not worth while.”
“But I want to hear all that happened. See, your feet are all right now — I’ve rubbed them warm again. Though I fast so much and look so thin I’ve a deal of life in me. And I’ve been pouring it all into you, haven’t I? That’s because I want you to revive and be strong and tell me everything. Hush! Speak low; don’t waken anybody! Did you find the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Then Nurse Quayle sees nothing of your sister now? That’s the pity of the life she is leading, poor girl! No friends, no future — —”
“It wasn’ that, brother.”
“What then?”
“The nurse was not there.”
A silence followed, and then John said in another voice: “I suppose she was on a holiday. It was very stupid of me; I didn’t think of that. Twice a year a hospital nurse is entitled to a week’s holiday, and no doubt — —”
“But she was gone.”
“Gone? You mean left the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” in a husky voice, “that isn’t to be wondered at either. A high-spirited girl finds it hard to be bound down to rule and regulation. But the porter — he is an intelligent man — he would tell you where she had gone to.”
“I asked him; he didn’t know. All he could say was that she left the hospital on the morning of Lord Mayor’s Show-day.”
“That would be the 9th of November — the day we took our vows.”
There was another pause; the big dark eyes were wandering vacantly.
“After all, he is only a porter; you asked for the matron, didn’t you?”
“Yes; I thought she might know what had become of my sister. But she didn’t. As for Nurse Quayle, she had been dismissed also, and nobody knew anything about her.”
John had seated himself at Paul’s side and the form itself was quivering.
“Now that’s just like her,” he said hoarsely. “That matron was always a hard woman. And to think that in that great house of love and pity nobody — —”
“I’m forgetting something, brother.”
“What is it?”
“The porter told me that the nurse called for her letters from time to time. She had been there that night — not half an hour before.”
“Then you followed her, didn’t you? You asked which, way she had gone, and you hurried after her?”
“Yes; but half an hour in London is a week anywhere else. Let anybody cross the street and she is lost — more lost to sight than a ship in a storm on the ocean. And then it was New Year’s Eve, and the thoroughfares were crowded, and thousands of women were coming and going — and — what could I do?” he said helplessly.
John answered scornfully: “What could you do? Do you ask me what you could do?”
“What would you have done?”
“I should have tramped every street in London and looked into the face of every woman I met until I had found her. I should have worn my shoes to the welt and my skin to the bone before I should have come crawling home like a snail with my shell broken over my head!
“Don’t be hard on me, brother, least of all now, when I have come home like a snail, as you say, with my shell broken. I was very tired and ill and did all I could. If I had been strong like you and brave-hearted I might have struggled longer. Bid I did tramp the streets and look into the women’s faces. She must have been among them, if she’s living the life you speak of; but God would not let me find her. Why was it that my search was fruitless? Perhaps there was evil in my heart at first — I don’t mind telling you that now — but I swear to you by Him who died for us that at last I only wanted to find my sister that I might save her. But I am such a helpless creature, and — —”
John put his arm about Paul’s shoulders.
“Forgive me, brother. I was mad to talk to you like that — I who sent you out on that cruel night and staid at home myself. You did what you could — —”
“You think that — really?”
“Yes, only at the moment it seemed as if we had changed places somehow, and it was I who had lost a sister and been out to find her, and given up the search too soon, and come home empty and useless and broken-spirited, and — —”
Paul was looking up at him with a face full of astonishment.
“Do you really think I did all I could to find her — the nurse, I mean?”
But John had turned his own face away, and there was no answer. Paul tried to say something, but he could not find the words. At last in a choked voice he murmured: “We must keep close together, brother; we are in the same boat now.”
And feeling for John’s hand, he took it and held it, and they sat for some minutes with bowed heads, as if a ghost were going by.
“There’s nothing but prayer and penance and fasting left to us, is there?”
Still John made no reply, and the broken creature began to comfort him.
“We have peace here at all events, and you wouldn’t, think what temptations come to you in the world when you’ve lost somebody, and there seems to be nothing left to live for. Shall I tell you what I did? It was in the early morning and I was standing in a doorway in Piccadilly. The cabs and the crowds were gone, and only the nightmen were there swilling up the dirt of the pavements with their hose-pipes and water. ‘My poor girl is lost,’ I thought, ‘We shall never see one another again. This wicked city has ruined her, and our mother, who was so holy, was fond of her when she was a little child.’ And then my heart seemed to freeze up within me... and I did it. You’ll think I was mad — I went to the police station and told them I had committed a crime. Yes, indeed, I accused myself of murder, and began to give particulars. It was only when they noticed my habit that I remembered the Father, and then I refused to answer any more questions. They put me in a cell, and that was where I spent the night, and next morning I denied everything, and they let me go.”
Then, dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper, he said: “That wasn’t what brought me back, though. It was the vow. You can’t think what a thing the vow is until you’ve broken it. It’s like a hot iron searing your very soul, and if you were dying and at the farthest ends of the earth, and you had to crawl on your hands and knees, you would come back — —”
He would have said more, but an attack of coughing silenced him, and when it was over there was a sound of some one moving in the house.
“What is that?”
“It is the Father,” said John. “Our voices have wakened him.”
Paul struggled to his feet.
“It’s only a life of penance and suffering you’ve come back to, my poor lad.”
“That’s nothing — nothing at all — But are you sure you think I did everything?”
“You did what you could. Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes, to the Father.”
“God bless you, my lad!”
“And God bless you too, brother!”
Half an hour later, by the order of the Superior, John Storm, with the help of Brother Andrew and the Father Minister, carried Brother Paul to his cell. The bell had been rung for Lauds, and going up the stairs they passed the brothers coming down to service. News of Paul’s return had gone through the house like a cutting wind, and certain of the brothers who had gathered in groups on the landings were whispering together, as if the coming back had been a shameful thing which cast discredit on all of them. It wasn’t love of rule that had brought the man home again, but broken health and the want of a bed to die upon! Thus they talked under their breath, unconscious of the secret operation of their own hearts. In a monastery, as elsewhere, failure is the worst disgrace.
