“You see, Lawrence,” he said, “I leave Paris as I promised Stair, and I travel into Dauphiné.”
“But by a roundabout road,” I answered eagerly. “It is possible that you might take St. Germains on the way;” for it had reached my ears that Queen Mary of Modena was desirous to try her persuasions upon him.
“No,” he returned, with a shake of the head; “I have my poor friends in England to consider. I should provide a fine excuse for ill-using them if I made common cause with the Chevalier. They have served me; it is my turn to serve them; and I shall be better employed that way than in weaving fairystories with Queen Abdicate.—But what’s the trouble?” he continued, with a change of tone. “You walked as though the world had withered at your feet”
“Nay,” I answered, with a laugh, “there is no trouble. I was merely wondering——” and I hesitated.
“At what?” he asked curiously.
“At the rule which bids me sleep with my chamberwindow closed,” I returned, with a laugh. And, indeed, it was a question you had reason to put during this hot spring, when from behind your stifling panes you looked out at night across Paris lying cool and spacious beneath a purple sky. But the truth is that all these regulations which were instituted to discipline the novice to a habit of obedience, were beginning to work me into a ferment of irritability; and through the months that followed, April, May, and June, the irritability increased in me to a spirit of rebellion. At times I felt a mad desire to rise in my seat and hurl defiance, and with that defiance my books, at my tutors’ heads. The desire surged up within my veins, became active in every limb, and I had to set my teeth until my jaws ached to repress it. At times sick and dispirited, I counted up the years to come; I passed them through my thoughts even as I passed the beads of my rosary beneath my thumb, and even as the beads of my rosary, they were monotonously alike one to the other.
Doubtless, too, the recollection of the picture I had seen at the monastery of the Chartreux helped to intensify my unrest. For it abode vividly in my memory, and the menace I drew from it grew more and more urgent as the days slipped on. I should note, however, that a certain change took place in the manner in which it presented itself. I could still see, I could still hear the figure speaking. But it did not so much cry “Hypocrite!” as thunder out, in the very lines of the Carmelite preacher, “The Eve of St. Bartholomew—the Eve of St. Bartholomew.”
Of course, as the rector had declared, I was under no vows or obligation to persist in my novitiate. But I felt the very knowledge that I was free to be in some way a chain about my ankle constraining me. I took a cast back to the period of my boyhood when enrolment amongst the priests of the Jesuit order had been the aim of a fervid ambition; when the thought of that body, twenty thousand in number, spread throughout the earth, in Japan, in the Indies, in Peru, and working one and all in a consonant vigilance for the glory of their order, had stirred me with its sublimity; and I sought—with what effort and despair!—to recreate those earlier visions. For to count them fanciful seemed treachery; to turn deliberately aside from them was evident instability.
So much I have deemed it necessary to set down concerning my perplexities at this time, since they throw, I think, a light upon the events which I am to relate. For I was shortly afterwards to depart from this safe corner, and wander astray just as I wandered when I lost myself in the labyrinth of Blackladies. And the explanation I take to be this—for it is merely in explanation and not at all in extenuation that I put this forward—I had clean broken from the one principle by which, however clumsily, I had hitherto guided my life, and had as yet grappled to no other with sufficient steadiness of faith to make it useful as a substitute.
It was on the Saturday of the first week of July that I left the Jesuit College. I was standing at my window about two of the afternoon, and looking down at the river and the bridge which crossed it. I had a clear view of the bridge from end to end betwixt the gables of a house, and I noticed that it was empty, save for one man, who jogged across on horseback—or rather, so it seemed at the height from which I looked, for when I saw the horse close at hand a short while afterwards, I found reason to believe that the man had galloped. I stood watching him idly until he crossed out on to the quay; and I remember that the refectory bell rang just as he turned the corner and passed out of my sight. Towards the end of dinner, a message was brought to me that the rector desired to see me in his study as soon as we were risen from table. This time, however, it was in no hesitancy or trepidation that I waited on him, but rather with a springing heart. For let him but dismiss me from the college, and here was an end to all the torture of my questionings—an unworthy thought, you will say, and, indeed, none knew that more surely than myself.
On the contrary, however, the rector received me with a benevolent eye. “I have strange news for you, my son,” said he, with a glance towards a stranger who stood apart in the window; and the stranger stepped forward hurriedly, as though he would have the telling of the news himself. He was a man of middle height and very close-knit, though of no great bulk, dark in complexion, and possessed, as far as I could judge, of an honest countenance.
“Mr. Clavering,” he began, with a certain deference, and after these months of “brother”; and “my son” the manner of his address struck upon my ears with a very pleasant sound, “I was steward to your uncle, Sir John Rookley, at Blackladies in Cumberland.”
“Was?” said I.
“Until Monday was se’nnight,” says he.
“Then what may be your business with me?” I asked sharply. For there was throughout England such a division of allegiance as set even the members of a family on opposite sides the while they maintained to the world an appearance of concord, so that many a dismissed servant carried away with him secret knowledge wherewith to make his profit. I was therefore pretty sharp with the steward, and quickly repeated the question.
“Then what may you have to ask of me?”
“That you will be pleased to continue me in the office,” he returned humbly.
I stood cluttered out of my senses, looking from the servant to the rector, and from the rector again to the servant, with I know not what wild fancies choking at my throat.
“It is true,” said the rector. “Your uncle died of an apoplexy a fortnight back.”
“But he has a son,” I gasped out
“Sir John quarrelled with Mr. Jervas two days before he died,” answered the steward. “Blackladies comes to you, Mr. Clavering, and I have travelled from Cumberland to acquaint you of the fact.”
It was true! My heart so throbbed and beat that I could not utter a word. I could not so much as think, no, not even of my uncle or my cousin. It is true that I had seldom seen the one, and never the other. I was conscious only of an enlarging world. But my eyes chanced at the moment to meet the rector’s. His gaze was fixed intently upon my face, and with a sudden feeling of shame I dropped my eyes to the ground.
“My son,” he said, drawing me a little on one side and speaking with all kindliness, as though in answer to my unspoken apology, “it may be well that you can do better service as the master of Blackladies. You will have the power and the means to help effectually, and such help we need in England;” and as I still continued silent, “If you become a priest, by the laws of your country you lose that power, and surely the Church will share in the loss. And are you fitted for a priest?” He looked at me keenly. “I spoke my doubts to you some while back, and I do not think they went much astray.”
I did not answer him, nor did he wait for an answer, but took me by the arm and led me back to the steward.
“My cousin quarrelled with his father. Then what has become of him?” I asked, still in an indecision.
“I do not know, sir. Most like he is in France.”
“In France?” I cried with a start. For the answer flashed a suspicion into my mind which—prove it true, and it was out of my power to accept the inheritance! “In France? And the substance of the quarrel?”
“It is not for me, sir, to meddle in the right or wrong of it,” he began.
“Nor did I ask you to,” I cut him short “I ask you for the bare fact.”
He looked at me for a second like one calculating his chances.
“Mr. Jervas sided with the Jacobites,” and the words struck my hopes dead. My world dwindled and straitened as swiftly as it had enlarged.
“Then I can hardly supplant him,” I said slowly, “for I side with that party too.”
The steward’s eyes gleamed very brightly of a sudden.
“Ah!” said I, “you, too, have the cause at heart”
“So much, sir, that I make bold to forget my station and to urge you to accept the bequest There is no supplanting in the case. For if you refuse Blackladies it will not fall to Mr. Jervas.” He drew from his pocket a roll of paper fastened with a great seal, and held it out to me. I broke the seal, and opened it It contained a letter from Sir John’s attorney at Appleby, and a copy of the will which set out very clearly that I was to possess the house and lands of Blackladies with all farms, properties, and rents attached thereto, upon the one condition, that I should not knowingly divert so much as the value of a farthing into the pockets of Mr. Jervas Rookley.
So far I had read when I looked up at the steward in a sudden perplexity.
“I do not understand why Sir John should disinherit his son, who is, at all events, a Protestant, because he is a Jacobite, in favour of myself, who am no less a Jacobite, and one of the true faith besides.”
The steward made a little uneasy movement of impatience. “I was not so deep in my master’s confidence that I can answer that.”
I held out the will to him, though my fingers clung to it. “I cannot,” I said, “take up the inheritance.”
It was not, however, the steward, but the rector who took the paper from me. He read it through with great deliberation, and then—
“You did not finish,” he said, and pointed his finger to the last clause.
“I saw no use in reading more, Father,” I replied; but I took the will again and glanced at the clause. It was to this effect: that if I failed to observe the one condition or did not enter into possession from whatsoever cause, the estate should become the property of the Crown.
“I cannot help it,” I said. “To swell the treasury of the Hanoverian by however so little, is the last thing I would wish to do, but I cannot help it Mr. Jervas Rookley suffers in that he is what I pride myself on being. I cannot benefit by his sufferings,” and I folded up the will.
“There is another way, sir,” suggested the steward, diffidently.
“Another way?” I asked.
“Which would save the estate and save Mr. Jervas too from this injustice.”
“Explain!” I cried. “Explain!” For indeed it grieved me beyond measure that I should pass these revenues to one whom I could not but consider an usurper.
“I do but propose it, sir, because I see you scruple to——” he began.
“Nay, man!” I exclaimed, starting forward, “I need no apologies. Show me this way of yours!”
“Why, sir, the will says the Crown. It names no names. If you infringe the condition or refuse the estate, Blackladies goes to the Crown. But,” and he smiled cunningly, “it is not likely that King James, did he come to the throne, would accept of a bequest which comes to him because the rightful owner served his cause so well.”
I nodded my head. “That is true. King James would restore it,” I said.
“To the rightful owner,” said he.
“So be it, then!” I cried. “I will hold Blackladies in trust for Jervas Rookley,” and then I stopped. “But meanwhile Mr. Jervas Rookley must shift for himself,” I added, bethinking me of the condition.
The steward smiled again. “If you knew him, sir, you would not fear for him on that account;” and he continued, “You will return with me to England?”
“Yes, but not now,” I exclaimed, for all at once a new resolve had taken shape within my mind. There was no word in the will about my politics. Sir John was acquainted with them when he made the will. I was free to use Blackladies as I chose.
“Wait you here in Paris,” I cried to the steward, and came of a sudden to an awkward pause. “You brought money with you?” I asked.
“I have an order upon Mr. Waters the banker,” he replied.
“Good,” I said, my spirits rising with my voice. “Get it cashed—now, at once, and bring the money back to me. But be quick, be quick. For I have business in Lorraine.”
“In Lorraine?” exclaimed the steward, and his face flashed to an excitement equal with my own.
“In Lorraine,” I repeated, “and at Bar-le-Duc.”
He waited for no further explanation, but made his reverence to the rector, a low bow to me, and departed on his errand. I began to pace impatiently about the room, already looking for his return, even as I heard him pass beneath the window.
“Was I not right, my son? ” asked the rector. “You walk, you speak, like a man refreshed. And yet—and yet——”
He came over to me and laid a hand upon my shoulder, while a great gravity overspread his face, and somehow at the touch of his hand, at the mere sight of his face, my overweening confidence burst like a bubble. For looking through my eyes he seemed to search my soul, and in his eyes I seemed to see, as in a mirror, the naked truth of all the folly that he noted there.
“These are the last words,” he went on, “which I shall speak to the pupil, and I would have you bear them as the crest and motto of your life. I would have you beware of a feverish zeal. To each man I do solemnly believe there comes one hour of greatness, and only one. It is not the hour of supreme happiness, or of a soaring fortune, as worldlings choose to think, but the hour when God tries him upon His touchstone. And for that hour each man must watch if he would not fail. Indeed, it brings the test which proves—nay, makes—him man, and in God’s image, too, or leaves him lower than the brutes; for he has failed. Therefore watch! No man knoweth the hour of God’s coming. Therefore watch! But how shall he watch”—and his voice to my hearing had in it some element of prophecy—“how shall he watch who swings ever from elation to despair, and knows no resting-place between them? “
He spoke very quietly, and so left me alone. I do not know that I am inclined now to set great store upon the words. They seem almost to present some such theory as children and men over-occupied with book-learning are wont to fondle. But after he had left me alone, I sat with his discourse overlaying me like an appalling shadow. The sunlight in the court without lost its brightness; the very room darkened within. I saw my whole life before me, a procession of innumerable hours. Hooded and cloaked, they passed me with silent feet. I sought to distinguish between them. I chose at random from amongst them. “This,” I cried, in a veritable fear—“this is the hour;” and even as I spoke, one that had passed threw back the hood and turned on me a sorrowing face. So would the hour come, and so unready should I be to challenge it! My fear swelled to a panic; it bore me company all that day as I made my purchases in the streets, as I took leave of my companions, as I passed out of the Porte St. Antoine. It was with me, too, in the quiet evening long after the spires of Paris had vanished behind me, when I was riding with my steward at my back across that open country of windmills and poplar trees on the highroad to Lorraine.