Thorne Guy
A Lost Cause

But the four people had learned the lessons their life-long environment had taught. Their faces were masks, their talk was trivial.

When at length Lucy rose to go, declining to drive home with Lady Lelant, they all came into the big, quiet courtyard of the hotel, "to help her choose her hansom." Every unit of the little party felt her departure would be a relief, she felt it herself. The two girls did not know what had happened and were eager to know. James wanted to be alone, to go through the interview step by step in his brain, reconstructing it for the better surveyal of his chances, and to plan an epistolary campaign, or bombardment rather.

Lucy felt the desire, a great and pressing desire, for home and rest. She arrived at the vicarage an hour or so after. As the cab had turned into the familiar, sordid streets she had felt glad! She smiled at her own sensations, but they were very real. This place, this "unutterable North London slum," as she used to call it, was more like home than Park Lane had ever been.

How tired she felt as she went up-stairs to her room! Her face was pale, dark circles had come out under her eyes, she bore every evidence of having passed through some mental strain.

After a bath she felt better, more herself, after these experiences of the afternoon. And to change every article of clothing was in itself a restorative and a tonic. It was an old trick of hers, and she had always found it answer. When she went down-stairs again she was still pale, but had that freshness and dainty completeness that have such enormous charm, that she always had, and that her poorer sisters are so unable to achieve in the va et vient of a hard, work-a-day life.

She wanted to see Bernard, she hungered for her brother. With a pang of self-reproach, she remembered, as she came down-stairs, that this had been the afternoon of the public debate with Hamlyn's people. It was an important event in the parish. And from her start from the clergy-house to her arrival back at its doors, she had quite forgotten the whole thing! In the absorption with her own affairs, it had passed completely from her brain and she was sorry. Of late, she had identified herself so greatly with the affairs and hopes of the little St. Elwyn's community, that she felt selfish and ashamed as she knocked at the door of the study. She waited for a moment to hear the invitation to enter. It was never safe to go into Bernard's room without that precaution. Some tragic history might be in the very article of relation, some weary soul might be there seeking ghostly guidance in its abyss of sorrow and despair.

Some one bade her enter. She did so. The room was dark, filled with the evening shadows. For a moment or two, she could distinguish nothing.

"Are you here, Ber?" she said.

"The vicar is up-stairs, Miss Blantyre," came the answer in King's voice, as he rose from his seat. "I'm here with Stephens."

"Well, let me sit down for a little while and talk," Lucy said. "May I? – please go on smoking. I can stand Bob's pipe, so I can certainly stand yours. I want to hear all about the meeting in the Victoria Hall."

They found a chair for her; she refused to have lights brought, saying that she preferred this soft gloom that enveloped them.

Her question about the meeting was not immediately responded to. The men seemed collecting their thoughts. By this time, she was really upon something that resembled a true sisterly footing with these two. Both were well-bred men, incapable of any slackening of the cords of courtesy, but there was a mutual understanding between them and her which allowed deliberation in talk, which, in fact, dispensed with the necessity of conventional chatter.

King spoke at length. "Go on, young 'un," he said to Stephens, waving his pipe at him, as Lucy could see by the red glow in the bowl. "You tell her."

"No, you tell her, old chap."

Lucy wanted to laugh at the odd pair with whom she was in such sympathy. They were just like two boys.

King sighed. Conversation of any sort, unless it was actually in the course of his priestly ministrations, was always painful to him. He was a man who thought. But he could be eloquent and incisive enough when he chose.

"Well, look here, Miss Blantyre," he said, "to begin with, the whole thing has been an unqualified success for the other side! That is to say that the people in the hall – and it was crammed – have gone away in the firm conviction and belief that the Luther Lecturers have got the best of the priests, that, in short, the Protestants have won all along the line."

"Good gracious! Mr. King, do you really mean to say that one of these vulgar, half-educated men was able to beat Bernard in argument, to enlist the sympathies of the audience against Bernard?"

"That's exactly what has happened," King answered. "The vicar is up-stairs now, utterly dejected and worn out, trying to get some sleep."

"But I don't understand how it could be so."

"It is difficult to understand for a moment, Miss Blantyre. But it's easily explained. One good thing has happened: Every priest in the kingdom will have his warning now – "

"Of what?"

"Never to engage in public controversy with any man of the type sent out to advertise the Luther League. I'll try and explain. You'll know what I mean. The controversy upon any sacred and religious subjects, subjects that are very dear to and deeply felt by their defender, is only possible if their attacker pursues legitimate methods. What happened to day is this:

"The audience was mostly Protestant, with a strong sprinkling of people who cared nothing one way or the other, but had come to be amused, or in the expectation of a row. And even if the meeting wasn't 'packed,' – and I've my doubts of that, – you see Catholics don't like to come much to anything of the sort. It is so terribly painful to a man or woman whose whole life is bound up in the Sacraments, who draws his or her 'grace of going on' and hope of heaven from them, to sit and hear them mocked and derided by the coarse, the vulgar, the irreligious. It's an ordeal one can hardly expect any one to go through without a burning indignation and a holy wrath, which may, in its turn, give place to action and words that our Lord has expressly forbidden. One remembers Peter, who cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, and how he was rebuked. That's why there were not many Catholics present, and besides, the chief had asked many of the congregation to stay away. He wouldn't let Dr. Hibbert go; he knew that he'd lose his temper and that there would be a row."

Lucy listened eagerly. "And what did happen?" she cried.

"Tell Miss Blantyre, Stephens," King answered. "I'm not lazy, but Stephens has got colour in his descriptions! It's like his sermons, all poetry and fervour and no sound discipline! And besides, he's got the 'varsity slang of the day. It's nasty, but it's expressive. When I was up, we talked English – go on, young 'un."

His voice sank, his pipe glowed in the gloom. Stephens took up the parable. "Well, I can't go into all the details," he said. "But the first thing that happened was that the lecturer stood upon the platform, shut his eyes, and prayed that Hornham might be delivered from the curse of priesthood and the blasphemy of the Mass! – this while the vicar was on the platform. The man was going to begin right away, after this, when Mr. Carr stopped him and said that he wished to offer up a prayer also. The fellow frowned, but he dare not stop him. So Carr prayed for a quiet and temperate conduct of the meeting! Then the man began. It was the usual thing, mocking blasphemy delivered in the voice of a cheap-jack, with a flavour of the clown.

"The man had two sacramental wafers and he kept producing them out of a Bible, like a conjuring trick! They were of different sizes, and he said: 'Now, here you see what the Ritualists worship, a biscuit god! And you'll notice there's a little one for the people and a big one for the priest – priests always want the biggest share!' Roars of laughter from every one, of course. Then the fellow went on to speak of the fasting communion. 'For my part,' he said, with a great grin, 'I like to have my breakfast comfortable in the morning before I go to church, and I honestly pity the poor priests who have to starve themselves till mid-day. I shouldn't wonder if the Reverend Blantyre' – with a wink towards the vicar – 'often has visions of a nice bit of fried bacon or an 'addock, say, about eleven o'clock in the morning.'"

Lucy gasped. "How utterly revolting," she said, "and people really take that sort of thing seriously?"

"Oh, yes, the sort of people to whom these Luther Leaguers appeal. You see it's their only weapon. They can't argue properly, because they are utterly without education, and they only supplement the parrot lectures they've been taught with their own native low comedy. Our friend this afternoon wound up his oration by inviting the vicar to ask questions – he didn't want him to speak at length, of course. 'Now,' he said, 'I call upon the Reverend Blantyre to ask me any questions he chooses. And I'll just ask him one myself – if God had meant him to wear petticoats, wouldn't He have made him a woman?' This was rather too much, and there were some hisses. The vicar was in his cassock. But the vicar laughed himself, and so every one else did. It seemed to restore the good humour of the meeting, which was just what the lecturer didn't want.

"Well, to cut a long story short, every question the vicar put was the question of a cultured man, that is to say, it assumed some knowledge of the point at issue. Each time he was answered with buffooneries and a blatant ignorance that gave the whole thing away at once to any one that knew. But there was hardly any one there that did, that was the point. The whole audience imagined that we were being scored off tremendously. They got noisy, cheered every apish witticism of the lecturer – oh! it was a disgusting scene. I'll give you an instance of what was said towards the end. The vicar was appealing to the actual words of the Gospel in one instance. 'The Greek text says,' he was beginning, when the man jumps up – 'Greek!' he shouted, 'will Greek save a man's soul? Do you suppose Jesus of Nazareth understood foreign tongues?'

"There was a tremendous roar of applause from the people at this. They thought the lecturer had made a great point! They actually did! Well, of course, there was hardly any answer to that. In the face of such black depths of ignorance, what could any one do? It would be as easy to explain the theory of gravity to a hog as to explain the Faith to a grinning, hostile mob like that. The vicar sat down. The clown always has the last word in argument before an audience of fools or children. It must be so."

"How did it all end up?"

"Oh, the lecturer got upon his hind legs again and made a speech in which he claimed to have triumphantly refuted the sophistry of the vicar and to have shown what Ritualism really was. Then, encouraged by the general applause, he was beginning to be very personal and rude, when there was a startling interruption. Bob got up from the back of the hall – we didn't know he was there – and began to push his way towards the platform, with a loudly expressed intention of wringing the lecturer's neck there and then. I got hold of him, but he shook me off like a fly. 'Let me be, sir!' he said, 'let me get at the varmin, I'll give him a thick ear, I will!' Then King saw what was going on and rushed up. Bob remembered what King gave him last year and he tried to dodge. By this time, the whole place was in an uproar, sticks were flying about, people were struggling, shouting, swearing, and it looked like being as nasty a little riot as one could wish to see."

"How horrible!" Lucy said with a shudder. "I wish Bernard had never been near the place."

"Well, then, all of a sudden," the curate continued, "a mighty voice was heard from the platform. It was Carr! I never heard a man with such a big, arresting voice. He was in a white rage, his eyes flashed, he looked most impressive. He frightened every one, he really did, and in a minute or two he got every one to leave the hall quietly and in order."

"How splendid!" Lucy said. She thought that she could see the whole scene, the squalid struggle, the strong man dominating it all. Her hands were clenched in sympathy. Her teeth were locked.

"He's a big man," the young fellow replied, "a bigger man than any one knows. He'll be round here this evening, I expect. You must get him to tell you all about it, Miss Blantyre."

A few minutes afterwards every one went to church. It was a choral evensong that night, and sung somewhat later than the usual service was. Blantyre did not appear. Lucy would not have him wakened. She knew that sleep was the best thing for over-tired nerves, that he would view the futile occurrences of the afternoon less unhappily after sleep.

It was after nine o'clock when the vicar eventually made his appearance. He was worn and sad in face, his smile had lost its merriment. Lucy had made them all come into her room for music. They wanted playing out of their depression, and in ministering to them she forgot her own quandary and perplexities. At last the light, melodious numbers of Faust and Carmen had some influence with them, and about ten the three men were visibly brighter. They were in the habit of taking a cup of tea before going to bed; to-night Lucy made them have soup instead.

It was a few minutes after the hour, when the bell rang; in a moment or two, Bob – extremely anxious to efface himself as much as possible after the event of the afternoon – showed Mr. Carr into the drawing-room.

His face was very white and set. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to call on you so late, but have you seen the evening papers, any of you?" No one had seen them.

"I'm afraid there is something that will give you great pain, a great shock. It has grieved me deeply, it must be worse for you, my friend – thinking as you do of the Eucharist."

"What is it?" Father Blantyre said.

Carr held out an evening paper. "Briefly," he said, "while we were at the meeting down here, Hamlyn, Senior, had a special gathering of extreme Protestants in Exeter Hall. He produced a consecrated wafer and exhibited it, stating that he had purloined it from the Holy Communion service the day before. This was corroborated by two men who went with him and were witnesses of the act."

Every vestige of colour left the faces of the three priests of St. Elwyn's. Suddenly Blantyre gave a little moan and fainted, sinking on to a couch behind him.

They brought him round without much trouble, and King helped him up-stairs to bed, refusing to let him go into the church as he wished. Lucy saw that tears were falling silently over the grim, heavy face of King.

When the vicar was safely bestowed in his room, Stephens and King, saying nothing to each other, but acting with a common impulse, went into the church. In the side chapel, where the dim red glow of the sanctuary-lamp was the only light, they remained on their knees all night, praying before the Blessed Sacrament.

CHAPTER XII
THE REPARATION OF JANE PRITCHETT, EX-PROTESTANT

On the following morning, Blantyre went away. He was absent from Hornham for two days, and it was understood that he had gone to visit Lord Huddersfield. Hamlyn and his doings were not in any way mentioned by the two other clergy.

The days of his absence were a time of great unrest and mental debate for Lucy.

She was at a crisis in her life. She had definitely come to a moment when she must choose between one thing or another. It is a commonplace of some preachers to say that this moment of definite choice comes to every one at least once in their lives. But the truth of the assertion is at least doubtful. Many people are spared the pain of what is more or less an instantaneous decision. They merge themselves gradually, in this or that direction, the right or the wrong. And they are the more fortunate.

For Lucy, however, the tide was at the flood. She must push out upon it and hoist her sail, but whether she should go east or west, run before the wind or beat up into the heart of it – that she must now decide.

She had no illusions about her position. To marry James Poyntz meant one thing, to refuse him meant another. In the first place, she wanted to be married. Physically, socially, mentally, she was perfectly aware that she would be happier. Her nature needed the complement of a husband. She was pure, but not virginal, in temperament. She put it to herself that – as she believed – she had a talent for wifehood.

Here was a young man who satisfied all her instincts of what was fitting in a man she could marry. She did not love him, but she admired, liked, and respected him. Something of the not unhealthy cynicism – the sane cynicism – of a woman of the world had entered into her. She wasn't a sentimentalist, she didn't think that the "love" of the poet and story-teller was the only thing in the relation of a wife to a husband. She had seen many marriages, she had watched the firm, strong affection that came after marriage, and she saw that it was a good, worthy, and constant thing.

She had been much in France. Lady Linquest had friends and relatives among the stately families of the Faubourg St. Germain. Those weddings in France that were decorously arranged by papa and mamma, how did they turn out? On the whole well enough, happily enough. It was only the ignorant lower middle-class of England that thought France was a mighty lupanar and adultery a joke.

And in marrying Poyntz she would marry a man whom she was worthy of intellectually. He would satisfy every instinct she possessed —every instinct but one.

And here, she knew, here lay the root of the whole question.

The very strongest influence that can direct and urge any soul towards a holy life is the society and companionship, even the distant contemplation, of a saintly man or woman.

The force of example acts as a lens. It focuses all the impulses towards good and concentrates them. In making clear the beauty of holiness, it shows that it is not a vague beauty, but an ideal which may be realised by the observer.

Lucy had been living with saintly folk. Bernard was saintly – if ever a man was; the bulldog, King, was a saint and walked with God. Stephens was a schoolboy, full of slang and enthusiasm, blunders and love of humanity, but he was saintly too. Miss Cass, the housekeeper with the face of a horse, who called "day" "dy" and the Mass "Mess," she was a holy woman. Before the ugly, unlettered spinster, the society girl, with all her power and charm, had learned to bow in her mind.

That was Lucy's great virtue. She was frank with herself. She glossed over nothing, she pretended nothing. It is the person who postures and poses before himself who is in the chiefest danger. And Carr, well, Carr was a saintly man also. He hadn't got the more picturesque trimmings that the others had. His spiritual life was not so vividly expressed in, and witnessed to, by his clothes and daily habit of life. But he was a saintly man. As she thought of him Lucy thought of him as man and saint.

All these people lived for one thing, had one aim, believed one thing.

They lived to serve our Lord, to do His work, to adore Him.

Why, even Bob, the navvy, whom Father King had knocked down as a beery blackguard and set up again as a butler, even Bob was feeling a slow and ponderous way towards sainthood! He could not boast a first-rate intelligence, but, he loved our Lord.

Yes! – ah, that was the most beautiful thing of all. To love Him.

"Do I love Him?" Lucy asked herself during those two days.

And the answer that came to her was a very strange one. It was this. She loved our Lord, but she could not make up her mind to give up everything earthly and material for Him. She wanted a compromise.

In fact, she was near the gates of the spiritual life, but she had not entered them.

She did not disguise one fact from herself. If she married Poyntz she would immediately be withdrawn, and withdrawn for ever, from the new influences which were beginning to permeate her, to draw her towards the state of a Christian who is vowed and militant.

She knew the influence that as her husband James would have. His ideals were noble and high, his life was pure and worthy. But it was not the life that Christ had made so plain and clear. The path the Church showed was not the path James would follow, or one which as his wife she could well follow.

She believed sincerely, as her brother himself would have told her, that a man like Poyntz was only uneducated in spiritual things, not lost to them for ever.

But she was also sure that he would make no spiritual discoveries in this world.

Marriage with him meant going back. It meant turning away from the Light.

The struggle with the training of years, the earthly ideals of nearly all her life, was acute. But hour by hour, she began to draw nearer and nearer to the inevitable solution.

Now and again, she went into the silent church. Then, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, she saw the path quite clear.

Afterwards, back in her room again, the voices of the material world were heard. But they became weaker and more weak as the hours went on.

On the day that Bernard was to return, she received a long and passionate letter from her lover.

He had the wonderful gift of prose. He understood, as hardly any of us understand, how to treat words (on certain occasions of using them) as if they were almost notes in some musical composition. His letter was beautiful.

She read it page by page, with a heart that had begun to beat with quickened interest, until she came to a passage which jarred and hurt. James had made an end of his most impassioned and intimate passages, and was making his keen satiric comment upon general affairs – quite as he had done in his letters before his actual avowal.

"I saw my father to-day in St. James, and we went to his club and lunched together. I respect him more and more, for his consistency, every time I meet him. And I wonder more and more at his childishness at the same time. It seems he had just left your brother. As you are in the thick of all the mumbo-jumbo, perhaps you will have heard of the business that seems to be agitating my poor dear sire into a fever. It seems that, a day or two ago, an opposition hero who has consecrated his life to the Protestant cause – none other than the notorious Hamlyn himself – purloined a consecrated wafer from some church and has been exhibiting it at public meetings to show that it is just as it ever was – a pinch of flour and no more. My father has made himself utterly miserable over the proceedings of this merry-andrew. As you know, I take but little interest in the squabbles of the creeds, but the spectacle of a sane and able man caught up in the centre of these phantasies makes me pause and makes my contempt sweeten into pity."

As Lucy read the letter, she thought of the scene on the night when Carr had brought the news. She thought of her own quick pain as she heard it, of how her brother was struck down as with a sword. And especially there came to her the vision of the two priests, King and Stephens, praying all night long before the Host.

She pushed the letter away from her, nor did she read it again. It seemed alien, out of tune with her life.

She went into the church to pray.

When she came away, her resolution was nearly taken.

Bernard came home about three in the afternoon. His manner was quiet. He was sad, but he seemed relieved also.

Lucy was walking in the garden with him, soon after his return, when Stephens and Dr. Hibbert came down from the house and walked quickly up to them.

"Vicar," the doctor said, "Miss Pritchett is dying."

Blantyre started. "Oh, I didn't know it was as bad as that," he said. "Is it imminent?"

"A matter of twenty hours I should say," the doctor replied; "I bring you a message from her."

Blantyre's face lighted up. Great tenderness came over it as he heard that the woman who had injured him and sought to harm the Church had sent him a message.

"Poor woman," he said; "what is it – God bless her!"

"She has asked for you and the other clergy to come to her. She wishes me to bring you and such other members of the congregation as will come. She wishes to make a profession of Faith."

"But when, how – " the vicar asked, bewildered.

The doctor explained. "The Hamlyns are with her; she is frightened by them, but not only that, she bitterly repents what she has done. Poor soul! Blantyre, she is very penitent, she remembers the Faith. She asks – " He drew the vicar aside. Lucy could hear no more. But she saw deep sympathy come out upon her brother's face.

The three men – Stephens had remained with the doctor – came near her again.

"My motor is outside," the doctor said hurriedly.

"How long would it take?" asked the vicar.

" – if the Bishop is in – back in an hour and a half – "

The vicar took Stephens aside and spoke earnestly with him for a few moments. The young man listened gravely and then hurried away. Before the vicar and the doctor joined Lucy again – they stood in private talk a moment – she heard the "toot" of the motor-car hum on the other side of the garden wall.

Wondering what all this might mean, she was about to cross the lawn towards the two men, when she saw Father King and Mr. Carr coming out of the house. These two joined the vicar and Dr. Hibbert. The four men stood in a ring. Blantyre seemed to be explaining something to the new-comers. Now and then the doctor broke in with a burst of rapid explanation.

Lucy began to be full of wonder. She felt ignored, she tried not to feel that. Something was afoot that she did not quite understand.

In the middle of her wonder the men came towards her.

Bernard took her arm. "Mavourneen," he said, "will you come with us to poor Miss Pritchett? She's been asking if you'll come and forgive her and part good friends. She may die to-night, the doctor says. You'll come?"

"Of course I'll come, dear."

"She has repented of her hostility to the Church, and desires to make a public statement of her faith before she dies. And she has asked for the Sacrament of Unction… Stephens has gone to the Bishop of Stepney on the doctor's motor-car. In an hour we will go to Malakoff."

The doctor took King by the arm and led him away. They talked earnestly together.

Blantyre turned to Carr.

"Will ye come with us all to the poor soul's bedside?" he asked.

"Yes," Carr answered. "I don't know what you purpose exactly – and I don't care! I trust you as a brother now, Blantyre, I am learning every day. I'm a conservative, you know, new things are distasteful to me. But I am learning that there are medicines, pro salute animæ."

"New things!" Blantyre said; "ye're an old Protestant at heart still. Did they teach ye no history at Cambridge except that the Church of England began at the Reformation? Now, listen while I tell you what the service is. You remember St. James v. 14, 15?"

Carr nodded. He began to quote from memory, for his knowledge of the Scriptures was profound, a knowledge even more accurate and full than perhaps any of the three priests of St. Elwyn's could claim, though they were scholars and students one and all.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of our Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

"Well, I suppose that is fairly explicit?" Blantyre said. "Mr. Hamlyn would tell us that Unction is a conjuring trick invented by the Jesuits. And you have always thought it Popish and superstitious. Now, haven't you, Carr, be honest!"

"Yes."

"Well, you will see the service to-day. We follow the ancient order of the Church of England. Why did you object, Carr? I'd like to get at your mental attitude. What is there unscriptural, bad, or unseemly about Unction? Here's a poor woman who has strayed from the fold. She wishes to die at peace with every one, she wishes that the inward unction of the Holy Spirit may be poured into the wounds of her soul, she wants to be forgiven for the sake of our Lord's most meritorious Cross and Passion! If it is God's will, she may be cured."

He spoke with great fervour and earnestness.

Carr bowed his head and thought. "Yes," he said, "I have been very prejudiced and hard, sometimes. It is so easy to condemn what one does not know about, so hard to have sympathy with what one has not appreciated."

Blantyre caught him by the arm and they walked the lawn for a long time in fraternal intercourse.

Lucy sat down with the doctor, but her eyes often turned to the tall, grave figure, whose lengthening shadow sometimes reached to her feet and touched them.

At last they heard the panting of the returning motor-car. Stephens had arrived with the oil that the Bishop had blessed.

The whole party got into the car, which was a large one, and they set off rapidly through the streets towards Malakoff House.

How strange it was, Lucy thought, this swift career of moderns in the wonderful machine of their age, this rush to the bedside of a dying woman with the last consolation of the Church! It was full of awe, but full of sweetness also. It seemed to show – and how plainly – the divine continuity of the Faith, the harmonic welding of the order and traditions of our Lord's own time with the full vivid life of the nineteenth century.

They were shown into the grim house. Truly the shadow of death seemed to lie there, was exhaled from the massive funereal furniture of a bygone generation, with all its faded pomp and circumstance.

The mistress of it all was going away from it for ever, would never hold her tawdry court in that grim drawing-room any more.

Dr. Coxe, Hibbert's assistant, came down-stairs and met them.