Wood and Stone (32 page)

James Andersen looked frowningly at the window.

The curtains were not drawn; and a dark ash-branch stretched itself across the casement like an extended threatening arm. Its form was made visible by a gap in the surrounding trees, through which a little cluster of stars faintly twinkled. The cloud veil had melted.

“What a world this is!” the stone-carver thought to himself. His tone when he spoke was irritable and aggrieved.

“How silly you are, Ninsy—with your fancies! A man can’t be civil to a poor lonesome foreign wench, without your girding at him as if he had done something wrong! Of course I speak to Miss Traffio and walk with her too. What else do you expect when the poor thing is left lonesome on my hands, with Luke and Miss Gladys amusing themselves? But you needn’t worry,” he added, with a certain unrestrained bitterness. “It’s only when Luke and his young lady are together that she and I ever meet, and I don’t think they’ll often be together now.”

Ninsy looked at him with questioning eyes.

“He and she have quarrelled,” he said curtly.

“Over the American?” asked the girl.

“Over the American.”

“And you won’t be walking with that foreigner any more?”

“I shan’t be walking with her any more.”

Ninsy sank back on her pillow with a sigh of
ineffable
relief. Had she been a Catholic she would have crossed herself devoutly. As it was she turned her head smilingly towards him and extended her arms. “Kiss me,” she pleaded. He bent down, and she embraced him with passionate warmth.

“Then we belong to each other again, just the same as before,” she said.

“Just the same as before.”

“Oh, I wish that cruel doctor hadn’t told me I mustn’t marry. He told father it would kill me, and the other one who came said the same thing. But wouldn’t it be lovely if you and I, Jim—”

She stopped suddenly, catching a glimpse of his face. Her happiness was gone in a moment.

“You don’t love me. Oh, you don’t love me! I know it. I have known it for many weeks! That girl has poisoned you against me—the wicked, wicked thing! It’s no use denying it. I know it. I feel it,—oh, how can I bear it! How can I bear it!”

She shut her eyes once more and lay miserable and silent. The wood-carver looked gloomily out of the window. The cluster of stars now assumed a shape well-known to him. It was Orion’s Belt. His thoughts swept sadly over the field of destiny.

“What a world it is!” he said to himself. “There is that boy Philip gone with a tragic heart because
his girl loves me. And I—I have to wait and wait in helplessness, and see the other—the one I care for—driven into madness. And she cares not a straw for me, who could help her, and only cares for that poor fool who cannot lift a finger. And meanwhile, Orion’s Belt looks contemptuously down upon us all! Ninsy is pretty well right. The lucky people are the people who are safe out of it—the people that Orion’s Belt cannot vex any more!”

He rose to his feet. “Well, child,” he said, “I think I’ll be going. It’s no use our plaguing one another any further tonight. Things will right
themselves
, little one. Things will right themselves! Its a crazy world—but the story isn’t finished yet.

“Don’t you worry about it,” he added gently, bending over her and pushing the hair back from her forehead. “Your old James hasn’t deserted you yet. He loves you better than you think—better than he knows himself perhaps!”

The girl seized the hand that caressed her and pressed it against her lips. Her breast rose and fell in quick troubled breathing.

“Come again soon,” she said, and then, with a wan smile, “if you care to.”

Their eyes met in a long perplexed clinging
farewell
. He was the first to break the tension.

“Good-night, child,” he said, and turning away, left the room without looking back.

While these events were occurring at Wild Pine, in the diplomatist’s study at the Gables Mr. Wone was expounding to Mr. Taxater the objects and
purposes
of his political campaign.

Mrs. Wotnot, leaner and more taciturn than ever,
had just produced for the refreshment of the visitor a bottle of moderately good burgundy. Mr. Taxater had demanded “a little wine,” in the large general manner which his housekeeper always interpreted as a request for something short of the very best. It was clear that for the treasures of innermost
wine-cellars
Mr. Wone was not among the privileged.

The defender of the papacy had placed his visitor so that the light of the lamp fell upon his perspiring brow, upon his watery blue eyes, and upon his
drooping
, sandy-coloured moustache. Mr. Taxater himself was protected by a carefully arranged screen, out of the shadow of which the Mephistophelian sanctity of his patient profile loomed forth, vague and
indistinct
.

Mr. Wone’s mission was in his own mind tending rapidly to a satisfactory conclusion. The theologian had heard him with so much attention, had asked such searching and practical questions, had shown such sympathetic interest in all the convolutions and entanglements of the political situation, that Mr. Wone began to reproach himself for not having made use of such a capable ally earlier in the day.

“It is,” he was saying, “on the general grounds of common Christian duty that I ask your help. We who recognize the importance of religion would be false to our belief if we did not join together to
defeat
so ungodly and worldly a candidate as this Romer turns out to be.”

It must be confessed that in his heart of hearts Mr. Wone regarded Roman Catholics as far more dangerous to the community than anarchists or infidels, but he prided himself upon a discretion
worthy of apostolic inspiration in thus seeking to divide and set asunder the enemies of evangelical truth. He found the papist so intelligent a listener,—that hardly one secret of his political designs remained unshared between them.

“The socialism,” he finally remarked, “which you and I are interested in, is Christian Socialism. You may be sure that in nothing I do or say there will be found the least tincture of this deplorable modern materialism. My own feeling is that the closer our efforts for the uplifting of the people are founded upon biblical doctrines the more triumphant their success will be. It is the ethical aspect of this great struggle for popular rights which I hold most near my heart. I wish to take my place in Parliament as representing not merely the intelligence of this constituency but its moral and spiritual needs—its soul, in fact, Mr. Taxater. There is no animosity in my campaign. I am scrupulous about that. I am ready, always ready, to do our opponents justice. But when they appeal to the material needs of the country, I appeal to its higher requirements—to its soul, in other words. It is for this reason that I am so glad to welcome really intelligent and highly
educated
men, like yourself. We who take this loftier view must of course make use of many less admirable methods. I do so myself. But it is for us to keep the higher, the more ethical considerations, always in sight.

“As I was saying to my son, this very evening, the grand thing for us all to remember is that it is only on the assumption of Divine Love being at the
bottom
of every confusion that we can go to work at all.
The Tory party refuse to make this assumption. They refuse to recognize the ethical substratum of the world. They treat politics as if they were a matter of merely imperial or patriotic importance. In my view politics and religion should go hand in hand. In the true democracy which I aim at
establishing
, all these secular theories—evidently due to the direct action of the Devil—such as Free Love and the destruction of the family—will not be tolerated for a moment.

“Let no one think,”—and Mr. Wone swallowed a mouthful of wine with a gurgling sound,—“that because we attack capitalism and large estates, we have any wish to interfere with the sacredness of the home. There are, I regret to say, among some of our artisans, wild and dangerous theories of this kind, but I have always firmly discountenanced them and I always will. That is why, if I may say so, I am so well adapted to represent this district. I have the support of the large number of
Liberal-minded
tradesmen who would deeply regret the
introduction
of such immoral theories into our movement. They hold, as I hold, that this unhappy tendency to atheistic speculation among our working-classes is one of the gravest dangers to the country. They hold, as I hold, that the cynical free thought of the Tory party is best encountered, not by the equally
deplorable
cynicism of certain labour-leaders, but by the high Christian standards of men like—like ourselves, Mr. Taxater.”

He paused for a moment and drew his hand, which certainly resembled the hand of an ethical-minded dispenser of sugar rather than that of an immoral
manual labourer, across his damp forehead. Then he began again.

“Another reason which seems to point to me, in quite a providential manner, as the candidate for this district, is the fact that I was born in Nevilton and that my father was born here before me.

“‘Wone’ is one of the oldest names in the church Register. There were Wones in Nevilton in the days of the Norman Conquest. I love the place—Mr. Taxater—and I believe I may say that the place loves me. I am in harmony with it, you know. I understand its people. I understand their little weaknesses. Some of these, though you may not believe it, I even may say I share.

“I love this beautiful scenery, these luscious fields, these admirable woods. I love to think of them as belonging to us—to the people who live among them—I love the voice of the doves in our dear trees, Mr. Taxater. I love the cattle in the meadows. I love the vegetables in the gardens. And I love to think”—here Mr. Wone finished his glass, and drew the back of his hand across his mouth—“I love to think of these good gifts of the Heavenly Father as being the expression of His divine bounty. Yes, if anywhere in our revered country atheism and immorality are condemned by nature herself, it is in Nevilton. The fields of Nevilton are like the fields of Canaan, they are full of the goodness of the Lord!”

“Your emotions,” said the Papal Apologist at last, as his companion paused breathless, “do you credit, my dear sir. I certainly hold with you that it is important to counteract the influence of
Free-Thinkers
.”

“But the love of God, Mr. Taxater!” cried the other, leaning forward and crossing his hands over his knees. “We must not only refute, we must
construct
.” Mr. Wone had never felt in higher feather. Here was a man capable of really doing him justice. He wished his recalcitrant son were present!

“Construct—that is what I always say,” he
repeated
. “We must be creative and constructive in our movement, and fix it firmly upon the Only
Foundation
.”

He surveyed through the window the expansive heavens; and his glance encountered the same
prominent
constellation, which, at that very moment, but with different emotions, the agitated
stone-carver
was contemplating from the cottage at Wild Pine.

“You are undoubtedly correct, Mr. Wone,” said his host gravely, using a tone he might have used if his interlocutor had been recommending him to buy cheese. “You are undoubtedly correct in finding the basis of the system of things in love. It is no more than what the Saints have always taught. I am also profoundly at one with you in your objection to Free Love. Love and Free Love are contradictory categories. They might even be called antinomies. There is no synthesis which reconciles them.”

Mr. Wone had not the remotest idea what any of these words meant, but he felt flattered to the depths of his being. It was clear that he had been led to utter some profound philosophical maxim. He once more wished from his heart that his son could hear this conversation!

“Well, Mr. Taxater,” he said, “I must now leave
you. I have other distinguished gentlemen to call upon before I retire. But I thank you for your promised support.

“It would be better, perhaps”—here he lowered his voice and looked jocose and crafty—“not to refer to our little conversation. It might be
misunderstood
. There is a certain prejudice, you know—unjustifiable, of course, but unfortunately, very prevalent, which makes it wiser—but I need say no more. Good-bye, Mr. Taxater—good night, sir, good night!”

And he bowed himself off and proceeded up the street to find the next victim of his evangelical
discretion
.

As soon as he had gone, Mr. Taxater summoned his housekeeper.

“The next time that person comes,” he said, “will you explain to him, very politely, that I have been called to London? If this seems improbable, or if he has caught a glimpse of me through the window, will you please explain to him that I am engaged upon a very absorbing literary work.”

Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “I kept my eyes open
yesterday
,” the old woman remarked, in the manner of some veteran conspirator in the service of a Privy Counsellor.

“As you happened to be looking for laurel-leaves, I suppose?” said Mr. Taxater, drawing the red curtains across the window, with his expressive episcopal hand. “For laurel-leaves, Mrs. Wotnot, to flavour that excellent custard?”

The old woman nodded. “And you saw?” pursued her master.

“I saw Mr. Luke Andersen and Miss Gladys Romer.”

“Were they as happy as usual—these young people,” asked the theologian mildly, “or were they—otherwise?”

“They were very much what you are pleased to call otherwise,” answered the old lady.

“Quarrelling in fact?” suggested the diplomat, seating himself deliberately in his arm-chair.

“Miss Gladys was crying and Mr. Luke was laughing.”

The Papal Apologist waved his hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Wotnot, thank you. These things will happen, won’t they—even in Nevilton? Mr. Luke laughing, and Miss Gladys crying? Your
laurel-leaves
were very well chosen, my friend. Let me have the rest of that custard to-night! I hope you have not brought back your rheumatism, Mrs.
Wotnot
, by going so far?”