Wood and Stone (51 page)

“Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded Luke; “I’m sure you know well enough how much I admire our Nevilton beauty.”

Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had never in his life loathed anything so much as he loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew on his forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms of his hands. He would like to have seized that crop of hair and beaten the man’s head against the pavement.

“I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing of Miss Traffio to marry Goring. For a very little, I’d write to the bishop about it and refuse to marry them.”

The causes that led to this unexpected and
irrelevant
outburst were of profound subtlety. Clavering forgot, in his desire to make his rival responsible for every tragedy in the place, that he had himself resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the dark rumours he had heard. The blind anger which plunged him into this particular outcry, sprang, in reality, from the bitterness of his own
conscience-stricken
misgivings.

“I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering his voice to a whisper, though the uproar about them rendered such a precaution quite unnecessary. “It is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the whole thing is an invention of Romer’s enemies, probably of this fellow Wone.”

“She’s told me the same story,” burst out the priest, “but how am I to believe her?”

A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine
convolutions
of the human mind would have been
staggered
at hearing the infatuated slave thus betray his suspicion of his enchantress, and to his own rival; but the man’s long-troubled conscience, driven by blind anger, rendered him almost beside
himself
.

“To tell you the truth,” said Luke, “I think neither you nor I have anything to do with this affair. You might as well agitate yourself about Miss Romer’s marriage with Dangelis! Girls must manage these little problems for themselves. After all, it doesn’t really matter much, one way or the other. What they want, is to be married. The person they choose is quite a secondary thing. We have to learn to regard all these little incidents as of but small importance, my good sir, as our world sweeps round the sun!”

“The sun—the sun!” cried Clavering, with
difficulty
restraining himself. “What has the sun to do with it? You are too fond of bringing in your suns and your planets, Andersen. This trick of yours of shelving the difficulties of life, by pretending you’re somehow superior to them all, is a habit I advise you to give up! It’s cheap. It’s vulgar. It grows tiresome after a time.”

Luke’s only reply to this was a sweet smile; and the two were wedged so closely together that the priest was compelled to notice the abnormal
whiteness
and regularity of the young man’s teeth.

“I confess to you,” continued Luke, with an air of unruffled detachment, as if they had been
discussing
the tint of a flower or the marks upon a butterfly’s wing, “I have often wondered what the
relations really are between Mr. Romer and Miss Traffio; but that is the sort of question which, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, lends itself to a wide solution.”

“Romer and Prosperity!” “Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing factions.

“Our pretty Gladys’ dear parent,” continued the incorrigible youth, completely disregarding the fact that his companion, speechless with indignation, was desperately endeavouring to extricate himself from the press, ‘seems born under a particularly lucky star. I notice that every attempt which people make to thwart him comes to nothing. That’s what I admire about him: he seems to move forward to his end like an inexorable fate.”

“Rubbish!” ejaculated the priest, turning his angry face once more towards his provoking rival. “Fiddlesticks and rubbish! The man is a man, like the rest of us. I only pray Heaven he’s going to lose this election!”

“Under a lucky star,” reiterated the stone-carver. “I wish I knew,” he added pensively, “what his star is. Probably Jupiter!”

“Wone and Liberty!” “Wone and the Rights of the People!” roared the crowd.

“Wone and God’s Vengeance!” answered, in an indescribably bitter tone, a new and different voice. Luke pressed his companion’s arm.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered eagerly. “That’s Philip. Who would have thought he’d have been here? He’s an anarchist, you know.”

Clavering, who was taller than his companion, caught sight of the candidate’s son. Philip’s
countenance
was livid with excitement, and his arms were raised as if actually invoking the Heavens.

“Silly fool! muttered Luke.” He talks of God as glibly as any of his father’s idiotic friends. But perhaps he was mocking! I thought I detected a tang of irony in his tone.”

“Most of you unbelievers cry upon God when the real crisis comes,” remarked the priest. “But I like Philip Wone. I respect him. He, at least, takes his convictions seriously.”

“I believe you fancy in your heart that some miracle is going to be worked, to punish my worthy employer,” observed Luke. “But I assure you, you’re mistaken. In this world the only way our Mr. Romers are brought low is by being out-matched on their own ground. He has a lucky star; but other people”—this was added in a low, significant tone—“other people may possibly have stars still more lucky.”

At this moment the cheering and shouting became deafening. Some new and important event had
evidently
occurred. Both men turned and glanced up at the stucco-fronted edifice that served Yeoborough as a city-hall. The balcony had become so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish individual figures; but there was a general movement there, and people were talking and gesticulating eagerly. Presently all these excited persons fell simultaneously into silence, and an attitude of intense expectation. The crowd below caught the thrill of their expectancy, and with upturned faces and eager eyes, waited the event. There was a most formidable hush over the whole sea of human heads; and even the detached Luke
felt his heart beating in tune to the general
tension
.

In the midst of this impressive silence the burly figure of the sheriff of the parliamentary district made his way slowly to the front of the balcony. With him came the two candidates, each
accompanied
by a lady, and grouped themselves on either side of him. The sheriff standing erect, with a sheet of paper in his hand, saluted the assembled people, and proceeded to announce, in simple stentorian words, the result of the poll.

Clavering had been stricken dumb with amazement to observe that the lady by Mr. Romer’s side was not Mrs. Romer, as he had thoughtlessly assumed it would be, but Gladys herself, exquisitely dressed, and looking, in her high spirits and excitement, more lovely than he had ever seen her.

Her fair hair, drawn back from her head beneath a shady Gainsborough hat, shone like gold in the
sunshine
. Her cheeks were flushed, and their delicate rose-bloom threw into beautiful relief the pallor of her brow and neck. Her tall girlish figure looked soft and arresting amid the black-coated politicians who surrounded her. Her eyes were brilliant.

Contrasted with this splendid apparition at Mr. Romer’s side, the faded primness of the good spouse of the Christian Candidate seemed pathetic and
grotesque
. Mrs. Wone, in her stiff black dress and old-fashioned hat, looked as though she were
attending
a funeral. Nor was the appearance of her
husband
much more impressive or imposing.

Mr. Romer, with his beautiful daughter’s hand upon his arm, looked as noble a specimen of sage
authority and massive triumph, as any of that
assembled
crowd were likely to see in a life-time. A spasmodic burst of cheering was interrupted by vigorous hisses and cries of “Hush! hush! Let the gentleman speak!”

Lifting his hand with an appropriate air of grave solemnity, the sheriff proceeded to read: “Result of the Election in this Parliamentary Division—Mr. George Wone, seven thousand one hundred and fifty nine! Mr. Mortimer Romer, nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-one! I therefore declare Mr. Mortimer Romer duly elected.”

A burst of incredible cheering followed this
proclamation
, in the midst of which the groans and hisses of the defeated section were completely drowned. The cheering was so tremendous and the noisy
reaction
after the hours of expectancy so immense, that it was difficult to catch a word of what either the successful or the unsuccessful candidate said, as they made their accustomed valedictory speeches.

Clavering and Luke were swept far apart from one another in the mad confusion; and it was well for them both, perhaps, that they were; for before the speeches were over, or the persons on the balcony had disappeared into the building, a very strange and disconcerting event took place.

The unfortunate young Philip, who had received the announcement of his father’s defeat as a man might receive a death-sentence, burst into a piercing and resounding cry, which was clearly audible, not only to those immediately about him, but to every one of the ladies and gentlemen assembled on the balcony. There is no need to repeat in this place
the words which the unhappy young man hurled at Mr. Romer and his daughter. Suffice it to say that they were astounding in their brutality and grossness.

As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down upon the ground, in the miserable convulsions of some species of epileptic fit. The tragic anxiety of poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, but seen his collapse, broke up the balcony party in disorder.

Such is human nature, that though not one of the aristocratic personages there assembled, believed for a moment that Philip was anything but a madman; still, the mere weight of such ominous words, though flung at random and by one out of his senses, had an appreciable effect upon them. It was noticed that one after another they drew away from the two persons thus challenged; and this, combined with the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, soon left the father and daughter, the girl clinging to her parent’s arm, completely isolated.

Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer turned a calm and apparently unruffled face upon the scene below. Luke, who, it may be well believed, had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable serenity that he caught himself on the point of raising an admiring and congratulatory shout. He stopped himself in time, however; and in place of acclaiming the father, did all he could to catch the eye of the daughter.

In this he was unsuccessful; for the attention of Gladys, during the brief moment in which she
followed
Mr. Romer’s glance over the heads of the
people, was fixed upon the group of persons who surrounded the prostrate Philip. Among these persons Luke now recognized, and doubtless the girl had recognized too, the figure of the vicar of Nevilton.

Luke apostrophized his rival with an ejaculation of mild contempt. “A good man, that poor priest,” he muttered, “but a most unmitigated fool! As to Romer, I commend him! But I think I’ve put a spoke in the wheel of his good fortune, all the same, in spite of the planet Jupiter!”

M
R. ROMER'S victory in the election was attended by a complete lull in the political world of Nevilton. Nothing but an
unavoidable
and drastic crisis, among the ruling circles of the country, could have precipitated this
formidable
struggle in the middle of the holiday-time; and as soon as the contest was over, the general
relaxation
of the season made itself doubly felt.

This lull in the political arena seemed to extend itself into the sphere of private and individual emotion, in so far as the persons of our drama were concerned. The triumphant quarry-owner rested from his labors under the pleasant warmth of the drowsy August skies; and as, in the old Homeric Olympus, a relapse into lethargy of the wielder of thunder-bolts was attended by a cessation of earthly strife, so in the Nevilton world, the
elements
of discord and opposition fell, during this siesta of the master of Leo's Hill, into a state of quiescent inertia.

But though the gods might sleep, and the people might relax and play, the watchful unwearied fates spun on, steadily and in silence, their ineluctable threads.

The long process of “carrying the corn” was over at last, and night by night the magic-burdened
moon grew larger and redder above the misty
stubble-fields
.

The time drew near for the reception of the
successful
candidate's daughter into the historic church of the country over which he was now one of the accredited rulers. A few more drowsy
sunshine-drugged
days remained to pass, and the baptism of Gladys—followed, a week later, by the formal imposition of episcopal hands—would be the signal for the departure of August and the beginning of the fall of the leaves.

The end of the second week in September had been selected for the double marriage, partly because it synchronized with the annual parish feast-day, and partly because it supplied Ralph Dangelis with an excuse for carrying off his bride incontinently to New York by one of his favourite boats.

Under the quiet surface of this steadily flowing flood of destiny, which seemed, just then, to be casting a drowning narcotic spell upon all concerned, certain deep and terrible misgivings troubled not a few hearts.

It may be frequently noticed by those whose
interest
it is to watch the strange occult harmonies
between
the smallest human dramas and their elemental accomplices, that at these peculiar seasons when Nature seems to pause and draw in her breath, men and women find it hard to use or assert their normal powers of resistance. The planetary influences seem nearer earth than usual;-—nearer, with the apparent nearness of the full tide-drawing moon and the heavy scorching sun;—and for those more sensitive souls, whose nerves are easily played upon, there
is produced a certain curious sense of lying back upon fate, with arms helplessly outspread, and wills benumbed and passive.

But though some such condition as this had narcotized all overt resistance to the destiny in store for her in the heart of Lacrima, it cannot be said that the Italian's mind was free from an appalling shadow. Whether by reason of a remote spark of humanity in him, or out of subtle fear lest by any false move he should lose his prey, or because of some diplomatic and sagacious advice received from his brother-in-law, Mr. John Goring had, so far,
conducted
himself extremely wisely towards his
prospective
wife, leaving her entirely untroubled by any molestations, and never even seeing her except in the presence of other people. How far this unwonted restraint was agreeable to the nature of the farmer, was a secret concealed from all, except perhaps from his idiot protégé, the only human being in Nevilton to whom the unattractive man ever confided his thoughts.

Lacrima had one small and incidental consolation in feeling that she had been instrumental in sending to a home for the feeble-minded, the unfortunate child of the gamekeeper of Auber Lake. In this single particular, Gladys had behaved exceptionally well, and the news that came of the girl's steady progress in the direction of sanity and happiness afforded some fitful gleam of light in the obscurity that surrounded the Pariah's soul.

The nature of this intermittent gleam, its deep mysterious strength drawn from spiritual sources, helped to throw a certain sad and pallid twilight
over her ordained sacrifice. This also she felt was undertaken, like her visit to Auber Lake, for the sake of an imprisoned and fettered spirit. If by means of such self-immolation her friend of Dead Man's Lane would be liberated from his servitude and set
permanently
upon his feet, her submission would not be in vain.

She had come once more to feel as though the
impending
event were, as far as she was concerned, a sort of final death-sentence. The passing fantasy, that in a momentary distortion of her mind had swept over her of the new life it might mean to have children of her own, even though born of this
unnatural
union, had not approached again the troubled margin of her spirit.

Even the idea of escaping the Romers was only vaguely present. She would escape more than the Romers; she would escape the whole miserable coil of this wretched existence, if the death she anticipated fell upon her; for death, and nothing less than death, seemed the inevitable circumference of the iron circle that was narrowing in upon her.

Had those two strange phantoms that we have seen hovering over Nevilton churchyard, representing in their opposite ways the spiritual powers of the place, been able to survey—as who could deny they might be able?—the fatal stream which was now bearing the Pariah forward to the precipice, they would have been, in their divers tempers, struck with delight and consternation at the spectacle
presented
to them. There was more in this spectacle, it must be admitted, to bring joy into the heart of a goblin than into that of an angel. Coincidence,
casualty, destiny—all seemed working together to effect the unfortunate girl's destruction.

The fact that, by the recovery of his brother, the astute Luke Andersen, the only one of all the
Nevilton
circle capable of striking an effective blow in her defence, had been deprived of all but a very shadowy interest in what befell, seemed an especially sinister accident. Equally unfortunate was the
luckless
chance that at this critical movement had led the diplomatic Mr. Taxater to see fit to prolong his stay in London. Mr. Quincunx was characteristically helpless. James Andersen seemed, since the recovery of his normal mind, to have subsided like a person under some restraining vow. Lacrima was a little surprised that he made no attempt to see her or to communicate with her. She could only suppose she had indelibly hurt him, by her rejection of his quixotic offers, on their way back from Hullaway.

Thus to any ordinary glance, cast upon the field of events as they were now arranging themselves, it would have looked as though the Italian's escape from the fate hanging over her were as improbable as it would be for a miracle to intervene to save her.

In spite of the wild threat flung out by Mr.
Clavering
in his sudden anger as he waited with Luke in the Yeoborough street, the vicar of Nevilton made no attempt to interfere. Whether he really managed to persuade his conscience that all was well, or whether he came to the conclusion that without some initiative from the Italian it would be useless to meddle, not the most subtle psychologist could say. The fact remained that the only step he took in the matter was to assure himself that the girl's nominal
Catholicism
had so far lapsed into indifference, that she was likely to raise no objection to a ceremony according to Anglican ritual.

The whole pitiful situation, indeed, offered only one more terrible and branding indictment, against the supine passivity of average human nature in the presence of unspeakable wrongs. The power and authority of the domestic system, according to which the real battle-field of wills takes place out of sight of the public eye, renders it possible for this inertia of the ordinary human crowd to cloak itself under a moral dread of scandal, and under the fear of any drastic breach of the uniformity of social usage.

A visitor from Mars or Saturn might have
supposed
, that in circumstances of this kind, every decent-thinking person in the village would have rushed headlong to the episcopal throne, and called loudly for spiritual mandates to stop the outrage. Where was the delegated Power of God—so the
forlorn
shadows of the long-evicted Cistercians might be imagined crying—whose absolute authority could be appealed to in face of every worldly force? What was the tender-souled St. Catharine doing, in her Paradisiac rest, that she could remain so passively
indifferent
to such monstrous and sacrilegious use of her sacred building? Was it that such transactions as this, should be carried through, under its very shelter, that the gentle spirits who guarded the Holy Rood had made of Nevilton Mount their sacred resting-place? Must the whole fair tradition of the spot remain dull, dormant, dumb, while the devotees of tyranny worked their arbitrary will—“and nothing said”?

Such imaginary appeals, so fantastic in the
utterance
, were indeed, as that large August-moon rose night by night upon the stubble-fields, far too
remote
from Nevilton's common routine to enter the heads of any of that simple flock. The morning mists that diffused themselves, like filmy
dream-figures
, over the watchful promontory of Leo's Hill, were as capable as any of these villagers of crying aloud that wrong was being done.

The loneliness in the midst of which Lacrima moved on her way—groping, as her enemy had taunted her with doing, so helplessly with her wistful hands—was a loneliness so absolute that it
sometimes
seemed to her as if she were already literally dead and buried. Now and then, with a pallid phosphorescent glimmer like the gleam of a
corpse-light
, the mortal dissolution of all the ties that bound her to earthly interests, itself threw a fitful illumination over her consciousness.

But Mr. Romer had over-reached himself in his main purpose. The moral disintegration which he looked for, and which the cynical apathy of Mr. Quincunx encouraged, had, by extending itself to every nerve of her spirit, rounded itself off, as it were, full circle, and left her in a mental state rather beyond both good and evil, than delivered up to the latter as opposed to the former. The infernal power might be said to have triumphed; but it could scarcely be said to have triumphed over a living soul. It had rather driven her soul far off, far away from all these contests, into some mysterious translunar region, where all these distinctions lapsed and merged.

Leo's Hill itself had never crouched in more
taciturn
intentness than it did under that sweltering August sunshine, which seemed to desire, in the gradual scorching of the green slopes, to reduce even the outward skin of the monster to an approximate conformity with its tawny entrails.

Mr. Taxater's departure from the scene at this juncture was not only, little as she knew it, a loss of support to Lacrima, it was also a very serious blow to Vennie Seldom.

The priest in Yeoborough, who at her repeated request had already begun to give her surreptitious lessons in the Faith, was not in any sense fitted to be a young neophyte's spiritual adviser. He was fat. He was gross. He was lethargic. He was
indifferent
. He also absolutely refused to receive her into the Church without her mother's sanction. This refusal was especially troublesome to Vennie. She knew enough of her mother to know that while it was her nature to resist blindly and obstinately any deviation from her will, when once a revolt was an established fact she would resign herself to it with a surprising equanimity. To ask Valentia for
permission
to be received into the Church would mean a most violent and distressing scene. To announce to her that she had been so received, would mean nothing but melancholy and weary acquiesence.

She felt deeply hurt at Mr. Taxater's desertion of her at this moment of all moments. It was
incredible
that it was really necessary for him to be so long in town. As a rule he never left the Gables during the month of August. His conduct puzzled and troubled her. Did he care nothing whether she
became a Catholic or not? Were his lessons mere casual by-play, to fill up his spare hours in an
interesting
and pleasant diversion? Was he really the faithful friend he called himself? Not only had he absented himself, but he had done so without sending her a single word.

As a matter of fact it was extremely rare for Mr. Taxater to write a letter, even to his nearest friends, except under the stress of theological controversy. But Vennie knew nothing of this. She simply felt hurt and injured; as though the one human being, upon whom she had reposed her trust, had deserted and betrayed her. He had spoken so tenderly, so affectionately to her, too, during their last walk
together
, before the unfortunate encounter with James Andersen in the Athelston porch!

It is true that his attitude over that matter of Andersen's insanity, and also in the affair of Lacrima's marriage, had a little shocked and disconcerted her. He had bluntly refused to take her into his confidence, and she felt instinctively that the conversation with Luke, from which she had been so curtly dismissed, was of a kind that would have hurt and surprised her.

It seemed unworthy of him to absent himself from Nevilton, just at the moment when, as she felt certain in her heart, some grievous outrage was being
committed
. She had learned quickly enough of Andersen's recovery; but nothing she could learn either lessened her terrible apprehension about Lacrima, or gave her the least hint of a path she could follow to do
anything
on the Italian's behalf.