CHAPTER XXII

Two months had pa.s.sed, and February was about to give place to March-- two months empty of outward event for Dominic Iglesias, but big with thought and consolidation of purpose. He had been more than ever solitary during this period, for his acquaintance, even to the faithful George Lovegrove, stood aloof. But Dominic hardly noticed this. Though solitary, he had not been lonely, since his mind was absorbed in question, in pursuit, in the consciousness of deepening conviction. For the recognition not merely of religion, but of Christianity, as a supreme factor in earthly existence, which had come to him in the dreary December twilight, as, broken in health and in spirit, he gazed upon the carven picture of Calvary, had proved no fugitive experience. It remained by him, entracing his imagination and satisfying both his heart and his intelligence; so that he looked back upon the hour of his despair thankfully, seeing in it the starting- point of a journey the prosecution of which promised not only to be the main occupation of his remaining years here in time, but, the river of death once crossed, to stretch onward and onward through realms, at present inconceivable, of beauty, of knowledge, and of love. And so, for the moment, solitude was sweet to him, leaving him free of petty cares and anxieties--he moving forward, ignorant of the gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine plots and counterplots of which his blameless bachelorhood was at once the provoking cause and the object; while in his eyes--though of this, too, he was ignorant--dwelt increasingly reflection of that mysterious and lovely light which, let obstinately purblind man deny it as he may, lies forever along the far horizon, for comfort of G.o.dly wayfarers and as beacon of the elect.

Yet it must not be supposed that the outset of Iglesias' spiritual journey was wholly serene, free from obstacle or hesitation, from risk of untoward selection, or rejection, of the safe way. Many roads, and those bristling with contradictory signposts, presented themselves.

Noisy touts, each crying up his own special mode and means of conveyance, rushed forth at every turn.

Modern Protestantism, as he encountered it in the pages of popular newspapers and magazines, at Mrs. Porcher's dinner-table, or in the good Lovegroves' drawing-room, had small attraction for him, since it appeared to advance chiefly by negations stated with rather blatant self-sufficiency and self-conceit. It might tend to the making of respectable munic.i.p.al councillors; but, in his opinion, it was idle to pretend that it tended to the making of saints--and for the saints, those experts in the divine science, Iglesias confessed a weakness. Of spirituality it showed, to his seeing, as little outward evidence as of philosophy or of art. The phrases of piety might still be upon the lips of its votaries; but the att.i.tude and aspirations engendered by piety were unfortunately dead. Its system of ethics was frankly utilitarian. Its goal, though hidden from the simple by a maze of high-sounding sentiment, was Rationalism pure and simple. Its G.o.d was not the creator of the visible universe, of angels and archangels, dominions, princ.i.p.alities, and powers, of incalculable natural and supernatural forces, but a jerky loose-jointed pasteboard divinity, the exclusive possession, since it is the exclusive invention, of the Anglo-Saxon race, through whose gaping mouth any and every self- elected prophet was free to shout, as heaven-descended truth, in the name of progress and liberty, whatever political or social catchword chanced to be the fashion of the hour.

Nor did the neo-mystics, whose utterances are also sown broadcast in contemporary literature and who are so lavish with their offers of divine enlightenment, please Iglesias any better. For his mind, thanks to his Latin ancestry, was of the logical order, while a business training and long knowledge of affairs had taught him the value of method, giving him an unalterable reverence for fact, and impressing upon him the existence of law, absolute and immutable, in every department of nature and of human activity--law, to break which is to destroy the sequence of cause and effect, and so procure abortion.

Therefore this new school of thinkers--if one can dignify by the name of thinkers persons of so vague and topsy-turvy a mental habit-- nourishing themselves upon the windy meat of secular and time-exploded fallacies, upon the temple-sweepings of all the religions, oriental and occidental, old and new, combined with ill-attested marvels of modern physical and psychological experiment, were far from commending themselves to his calm and patient judgment. Such excited persons, as a slight acquaintance with history proves beyond all question, have existed in every age; and, suffering from chronic mental dyspepsia, have ever been liable to mistake the rumblings of internal flatulence for the Witness of the Spirit. In their current p.r.o.nouncements Iglesias met with a wearisome pa.s.sion for paradox, and an equally wearisome disposition to hail all eccentricity as genius, all hysteria as inspiration. While in their exaltation of the "sub-conscious self"

--namely, of those blind movements of instinct and foreboding common to the lower animals and to savage or degenerate man alike--as against the intellect and the reasoned action of the will, he saw a menace to human attainment, to civilisation--in the best meaning of that word-- to right reason and n.o.ble living, which it would be difficult to overestimate. These good people, while pouring contempt on the body, and even denying its existence, in point of fact thought and talked about little else. All of which struck him as not only very tiresome and very silly, but very dangerous. Modern Protestantism might eventuate in Rationalism, in a limiting of human endeavour exclusively to the end of material well-being. But this worship of the pseudo- sciences, this tinkering at the accepted foundations and accepted decencies of the social order, this cultivation of intellectual and moral chaos, could, for the vast majority of its professors at all events, eventuate only in the mad-house. And to the mad-house, whether by twentieth-century esoteric airship or occult subway, Dominic Iglesias had not the very smallest desire to go.

For he had no ambition to be "on time" and up-to-date, to electrify either himself or his contemporaries by an exhibition of mental smartness. He merely desired, earnestly yet humbly, to be given grace to find the road--however archaic in the eyes of the modern world that road might be--which leads to the light on the far horizon and beyond to the presence of G.o.d. The more he meditated on these things the more inconceivable it became to him but that this road veritably existed; and that, not by labour of man, but by everlasting ordinance of G.o.d.

It was absurd, in face of a state of being so complex, so highly organised, so universally subjected to law, as the one in which he found himself, that a matter of such supreme importance as the channel of intercourse between the soul and its Maker should have been left to haphazard accident or blundering of lucky chance. And so, having supplemented his researches in print, by listening to the discourses of many teachers, from one end of London to the other in lecture-hall, chapel, and church, having even stood among the crowds which gather around itinerant preachers in the Park, Dominic found his thought fixing itself with deepening a.s.surance upon the communion in which he had been born and baptised, which his father, in the interests of the revolutionary propaganda, had so bitterly repudiated, and from which his mother, broken by the tyranny of circ.u.mstance and bodily weakness, had lapsed.

Outside that communion he beheld only weltering seas of prejudice and conflicting opinion, heard only the tumult of confused and acrimonious contest. Within he beheld the calm of fearlessly wielded authority and of loyal obedience; heard the awed silence of those who worship being glad. For the Catholic Church, as Iglesias began to understand, is something far greater than any triumphant example of that which can be attained by cooperation and organisation. It is not an organisation, but an organism; a Living Being, perfectly proportioned, with inherent powers of development and growth; ever-existent in the Divine Mind before Time was; recipient and guardian of the deepest secrets, the most sacred mysteries of existence; endlessly adaptable to changing conditions yet immutably the same. Hence it is that Catholicism presents no questionable historic pedigree and speaks with no uncertain voice. Claiming not only to know the road the soul must tread would it reach the far horizon, but to be the appointed warden of that same road and sustainer of it, she points with proud confidence to the vast mult.i.tude which, under her guidance, has joyfully trodden it--a mult.i.tude as diverse in gifts and estate, as in age and race--as proof of the authenticity of her mission to the toiling and sorrowful children of men.

Yet, since unconditional surrender must ever strike a pretty shrewd blow at the roots both of personal pride and worldly caution, Dominic Iglesias hesitated to take the final step and declare himself. To one who has long lived outside the creeds, and that not unG.o.dly, still less b.e.s.t.i.a.lly, it is no light matter to subject att.i.tude of mind and daily habit to distinct rule. Not only does the natural man rebel against the apparent limiting of his personal freedom, but the conventional and sophisticated man fears lest agreement should, after all, spell weakness, while indifferentism--specially in outward observances--argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those undertaking them is a sincere one--and thus.

The tide of war had begun to turn. Earlier in the week had come the news of General Cronje's surrender, after the three days' sh.e.l.ling of his laager at Paardeberg. Hence satisfaction, not only of victory but of compa.s.sion, since a sense of horror had weighed on the hearts of even the least sentimental at thought of the stubborn thousands, penned in that flaming rat-trap of the dry river-bed, ringed about by sun-baked rock and sand and death-belching guns. To-day came news of the relief of long-beleaguered Ladysmith, and London was shaken by emotion, under the bleak moisture-laden March sky, the air thick with the clash of joy-bells, buildings gay with riotous outbreak of many- coloured flags, the streets vibrant with the tread and voices of surging crowds.

Iglesias, who early that afternoon had walked Citywards to see the holiday aspect of the town and glean the latest war news, growing somewhat weary on his homeward journey of the humours of his fellow- citizens--which became beery and boisterous as the day drew on--turned in at the open gates of the Oratory, in pa.s.sing along the Brompton Road. His purpose was to gain a little breathing s.p.a.ce from the jostling throng, by standing at the head of the steps under the wide portico of the great church. Looking westward, above the wedge of mean and ill-a.s.sorted houses that marks the junction of the Fulham and the Cromwell Roads--the muddy pavements of which, far as the eye carried, were black with people--the yellowish glare of a pallid sunset spread itself across the leaden dulness of the sky. The wan and sickly light touched the architrave and columns of the facade of the great church, bringing this and the statue of the Blessed Virgin which surmounts it into a strange and phantasmal relief--a building not material and of this world, but rather of a city of dreams. To Iglesias it appeared as though there was an element of menace in that cold and melancholy reflection of the sunset. It produced in him a sense of insecurity and distrust, which the roar of the traffic and horseplay of the crowd were powerless to counteract. London, the monstrous mother, in this hour of her rejoicing showed singularly unattractive. Her features were grimed with soot, her dull-hued garments foul with slush, her gestures were common, her laughter coa.r.s.e. His soul revolted from the sight and sound of her; revolted against the fate which had bound him so closely to her in the past, and which bound him still. The spirit of her infected even the sky above her, painting it with the sad colours of perplexity and doubt. He stepped farther back under the portico, moved by desire to escape from the too insistent thought and spectacle of her. Doing so, he became aware of music reaching him faintly from behind the closed doors of the church, fine yet sonorous harmonies supporting the radiant clarity of a boy's voice.

Then Iglesias understood that he was presented here and immediately with the moment of final choice. Delay was dishonourable, since it was nothing less than a shirking of the obligations which his convictions had created. So there, on the one hand--for so the whole matter pictured itself to his seeing--was London, the type, as she is in fact the capital, of the modern world--of its ambitions, material and social, of its activities, of its amazing a.s.sociation of pleasure and misery, of the rankest poverty and most plethoric wealth--at once formless, sprawling, ugly, vicious, while magnificent in intelligence, in vitality, in display, as in actual area and bulk. On the other hand, and in the eyes of the majority phantasmal as a city of dreams, was Holy Church, austere, restrictive, demanding much yet promising little save clean hands and a pure heart, until the long and difficult road is traversed which--as she declares--leads to the light on the far horizon and beyond to the presence of G.o.d.

"If one could be certain of that last, then all would be simple and easy," Iglesias said to himself, looking out over the turbulence of the streets to the pallid menace of the western sky. "But it is in the nature of things, that one cannot be certain. Certainty, whether for good or evil, can only come after the event. One must take the risk.

And the risk is great, almost appallingly great."

For just then there awoke and cried in him all the repressed and frustrated pride of a man's life--l.u.s.t of the flesh, l.u.s.t of the eyes, overweening ambition of power and place, of cruelty even, of gross licence and debauch. For the moment he ceased to be an individual, limited by time and circ.u.mstances, and became, in desire, the possessor of the pa.s.sions and reckless curiosity of the whole human race. So that, in imagination he suffered unexampled temptations; and, in resisting them, flung aside unexampled allurements of grandeur and conceivable delight. Not what actually was, or ever had been, possible to and for him, Dominic Iglesias, bank-clerk, a.s.sailed him with provocative vision and voice; but the whole pageant of earthly being, and the inebriation of it. Nothing less than this did he behold, and drink of, and, in spirit, repudiate and put away forever, as at last he pulled open the heavy swing doors and pa.s.sed into the church.

Within all was dim, mist and incense smoke obscuring the roof of the great dome, the figures of the kneeling congregation far below showing small and dark. Only the high altar was ablaze with many lights, in the centre of which, high-uplifted, encircled by the golden rays of the monstrance, pale, mysterious, pearl of incalculable price, showed the immaculate Host.

Quietly yet fearlessly, as one who comes by long-established right, Dominic walked the length of the nave, knelt devoutly on both knees, prostrating himself as, long ago, in the days of early childhood his mother had taught him to do at the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Now, after all these years--and a sob rose in his throat-- he seemed to feel her hand upon his shoulder, the gentle pressure of which enjoined deepest reverence. Then rising, he took his place in the second row of seats on the gospel side, and remained there, through the concluding acts of the ceremonial, until the silent congregation suddenly finds voice--penetrated by austere emotion--in recitation of the Divine Praises.

Some minutes later he knelt in the confessional, laying bare the secrets of his heart.

Thus did Dominic Iglesias cast off the bondage of that monstrous mother, London-town, cast off the terror of those unbidden companions, Loneliness and Old Age, using and, taking the risks, humbly reconcile himself to Holy Church.

CHAPTER XXIII

Good George Lovegrove wandered solitary in Kensington Gardens. He had chosen the lower path running parallel with Kensington Gore, which leads, between flowerborders and thickset belts of shrubbery, from the Broad Walk to the railings enclosing the open s.p.a.ce around the Albert Memorial. This path, being sheltered and furnished with many green garden seats, is specially nurse and baby haunted, and it was to see the babies, whether st.u.r.dily on foot or seated in their little carriages, that George Lovegrove had come hither, being sad. Thrushes sang l.u.s.tily from the treetops. The flowerborders grew resplendent with polyanthus, crocus yellow, purple, and white, with early daffodils, and the heaven blue of _scilla sibirica_. Above, here and there a froth of almond or cherry blossom overspread the dark twigs and branches, while a ruddiness of burgeoning buds flushed the great elms. But babies of position, looking like tiny pink-faced polar bears, still wore their long leggings and white furs, the March wind being treacherous. They galloped, trumpeting, the clean air and merry sunshine going to their heads in the most inebriating fashion. It was early, moreover, so that they were full of the energy of a good night's sleep, of breakfast, and of comfortable nursery warmth. And George Lovegrove stepped among them carefully, watching their gambols moist-eyed, nervously anxious lest his quaintly solid figure should obstruct the erratic progress of toy-horse, or hoop, or ball. He craved for notice, for even the veriest sc.r.a.p of friendly recognition, yet was too diffident to attempt any direct intercourse with these delectable small personages, who, on their part, were royally indifferent to his existence so long as he did not get in their way.

This he clearly perceived, yet for it bore them no ill-will, preferring, as does every truly devout lover, to worship the beloved from a respectful distance rather than not worship at all.

And it was thus, even as a large and dusky elephant picking its way very gently through a flock of skippeting and lively lambs, that Mr.

Iglesias, entering the sheltered walk from the far end, first caught sight of him. To Dominic, it must be admitted, babies, song-birds, burgeoning buds and blossoms, alike presented themselves as but elements in the setting of the outward scene--a scene sweet enough had one leisure to contemplate it, touched by the genial vernal influence, witness to nature's undying youth. But his appreciation of that sweetness was just now cursory and indirect. His thought was absorbed and eager, penetrated by apprehension of matters lying above and beyond the range of ordinary human speech. For he was in that exalted interval of a many hours' fast when the spiritual intelligence is wholly alive and awake, the body becoming but the vesture of the soul --a vesture without impediment or weight, a beautifully negligible quant.i.ty in the general scheme of existence. Later reaction sets in.

The claims of the body become dominant; and the exalted moment is too often paid for sorrowfully enough in sluggish brain and irritated nerves. Dominic, however, had not reached that stage of the tragi-comedy of the marriage of flesh and spirit. He was happy, with the white unearthly happiness of those who have been admitted to the Sacred Mysteries. And it was not without a sense of shock, as of rough descent to common things, of pity and of regret, that he recognised good George Lovegrove cruising thus, elephantine, among the roystering babes. Then Iglesias checked himself sternly. To humble themselves, remembering their own great unworthiness, to come down from the Mount of Transfiguration to the dwellers in the plain, and be gentle and human towards them--this surely is the primary duty of those who have a.s.sisted at the Divine Sacrament? And so Iglesias went forward and hailed his old school-fellow in all tenderness and friendship, causing the latter to raise his eyes from pathetic contemplation of those charming but wholly self-absorbed small human animals, and look up.

"Dominic!" he cried. "Well, to be sure, you do surprise me. Who would have expected to meet you out at this hour of the morning? I do congratulate myself. I am pleased," he said. His honest face beamed, his fresh colour deepened. As a girl at the unlooked-for advent of her lover, he grew confused and shy. And Iglesias warmed towards him.

Whimsical in appearance, simple-minded, not greatly skilled in any sort of learning, yet he had a heart of gold--about that there could be no manner of doubt.

"Turn back then, and let us walk together," Iglesias said affectionately. "It is a long while since we have had a quiet talk-- that is, of course, if you have no particular business which calls you to town."

"I have no business of any description," he answered. "And between ourselves, Dominic, since I lost my seat on the borough council, I have had too much time on my hands, I think. It is beginning to be quite a trouble with me."

"Is life too softly padded, too dead-level easy and comfortable?"

Iglesias inquired. "Are you beginning to quarrel a little with your blessings?"

George Lovegrove became very serious.

"Yes," he said, "I am afraid you are right. As usual you have laid your finger on the spot. I do reproach myself for unthankfulness often. I know I have a good home, and everything decent and respectable about me; more so, indeed, than a man in my position has any right to expect. And yet I regret the old days in the city, Dominic, that I do. I should enjoy to be back at my old desk at the bank--just the little snap of anxiety in the morning as to whether one would catch the 'bus; the long ride through the streets with one's morning paper; the turning out with the other clerks--good fellows all of them, on the whole, were they not?--to get a snack of lunch. And then the coming home at night, with some trifling present or dainty to please the wife; and a look round the greenhouse and garden afterwards in your lounge suit; and hearing and retailing all the day's news, and talking of the good time coming when you would retire and be quite the independent gentleman; and the half-day on Sat.u.r.day, too, taking some nice little outing to Richmond or Kew, or an exhibition or something of the sort, and then the Sunday's rest."

He hesitated and sighed, looking wistfully at the white-clad babies.

"If one had two or three of those little people of one's own it might be very different--though I would never breathe a word of such a thought to the wife. Females are so easily upset; and if it raises regrets in us men, it must be much more trying for them, poor things, to be childless. But where was I? Yes, well now the good time has come--and I feel a criminal in saying so, but it appears to me to be growing stale already, Dominic. It was better in antic.i.p.ation than in fact. I am an ungrateful fellow, that I am, I know it; but sometimes I am inclined to ask myself whether all the things we set such fond hopes on are not like that."

"No, not all," Iglesias answered, with a certain subdued enthusiasm.

"There are things--a few--which never grow stale. One may build on them as on a foundation of rock. If they ever seem to fail us, to be shaken and overthrown, it is an evil delusion, and the cause lies not in them but in ourselves. It is we who fail, who are shaken and overthrown through palsied will and feebleness of faith. They remain forever inviolate."

"I suppose so," the other man said timidly. He was unused to such vehemence of a.s.sertion on the part of his friend. He wondered to what it could refer. His thought, carrying back to the evening at the theatre, played around visions of distinguished amours. Then he steadied himself to heroic resolve.

"I suppose it is," he repeated, "and that makes my conduct appear all the more discreditable to me. My circ.u.mstances are too comfortable and easy. It is just that. And so I take to fretting over trifles and seeing slights and unkindness where none were intended." He looked up at Iglesias, his squinting eyes full of apology and admiration. "Yes, I am sadly poor-spirited and I have no excuse. I have been nursing a sense of injury towards those to whom I have most occasion for grat.i.tude--the wife and you. Dominic, believe me I am heartily ashamed of myself."

"Come, come," Iglesias answered, brought very much back to earth, yet touched and softened. "My dear friend, you of all men have small cause for self-reproach. In every relation of life--and our knowledge of one another dates back to early youth--I have found you perfect in loyalty and unselfish kindness."

George Lovegrove walked on for a moment in silence. He had to clear his throat once or twice before he could command his voice.

"Praise from you is very encouraging," he managed to say at last. "But I am afraid I do not deserve it. I have felt mortified lately sometimes, and I am afraid envious. I--but after your last words I am more than ever ashamed to own it--I have fancied that you were becoming distant and that an estrangement was growing up between us.

Of course I have always understood, though we happened to be school- fellows and in the same employment afterward, that your position and mine were different. And I want you to know that I would never be a clog on you, Dominic"--he spoke with an admirably simple dignity-- "believe me, I never would be that. Lately I have been troubled by the thought that I had extracted a promise from you to remain at Trimmer's Green. Now I beg of you most earnestly not to let that promise, given in a moment of generous indulgence, weigh with you in the slightest, if circ.u.mstances have arisen which point at your residing in a more fashionable part of the town."

"But why should I want to go to a more fashionable part of London?"

Iglesias asked, smiling.

"Well, you see," the other returned, his face growing furiously red, "it came to my knowledge, unexpectedly, that you have acquaintances in quite another walk of life to ours--the wife's and mine, I mean. And it would pain me deeply, very deeply, Dominic, that any promise given to me, regarding your place of residence, should stand between you and mixing as freely with those acquaintances as you might otherwise do."

They had come to the place where the sheltered pathway is crossed by the Broad Walk--the upward trend of which showed blond, in the sunshine, against the brilliant green of the gra.s.s and the dark boles of the great trees bordering it. Here Iglesias paused. He was not altogether pleased.

"I do not quite follow you," he said coldly. Then looking at the guileless and faithful being beside him, he softened once more. Was it not only more just, but more honourable, to treat this matter with candour? "You are alluding to the lady who was good enough to send for me the night you and Miss Lovegrove went with me to the play?"

"Yes," the excellent George a.s.sented in a strangled voice. He wanted to know badly. He was agonised by fear of having committed an indiscretion offensive to his idol.

"Set your mind quite at rest on that point then, my dear friend. Her world is not my world and never will be. In it I should be very much out of place."

Iglesias moved forward again, crossing the Broad Walk and making towards the small iron gate, at the lower corner of the Gardens, which opens on to Kensington High Street. But he walked slowly, becoming conscious that he grew tired and spent. The glory of the spirit dominant was departing, the tyranny of the body dominant beginning to rea.s.sert itself. His features contracted slightly. He felt unreasoningly sad.