Part 1. The Descent - Chapter 7. A Girl And Her Faith

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_ PART I. THE DESCENT
CHAPTER VII. A GIRL AND HER FAITH

"If faith produce no works, I see
That faith is not a living tree."

HANNAH MORE.

During that Sunday at Weybridge I saw but little of my friend Leslie. It was only by having obtained special permission from the Daily Gazette office that I was able to remain away from town that day. My leisure was brief, my chances few, I felt; and that seemed to justify the devoting of every possible moment to Sylvia's company.

Sylvia's church was not the family place of worship. When Mrs. Wheeler and Marjory attended service, it was at St. Mark's, but Sylvia made her devotions at St. Jude's, a church famous in that district for its high Anglicanism and stately ritual.

The incumbent of St. Jude's, his Reverence, or Father Hinton, as Sylvia always called him, was a tall, full-bodied man, with flashing dark eyes, and a fine, dramatic presence. I believe he was an indefatigable worker among the poor. I know he had a keen appreciation of the dramatic element in his priestly calling, and in the ritual of his church, with its rich symbolism and elaborate impressiveness. Even from my brief glimpses of the situation, I realized that this priest (the words clergyman and vicar were discouraged at St. Jude's) played a very important, a vital part, in the scheme of Sylvia's religion. I think Sylvia would have said that the personality of the man was nothing; but she would have added that his office was much, very much to her.

She may have been right, though not entirely so, I think. But it is certain that, in the case of Father Hinton, the dramatic personality of the man did nothing to lessen the magnitude of his office in the minds of such members of his flock as Sylvia. I gathered that belief in the celibacy of the clergy was, if not an article of faith, at least a part of piety at St. Jude's.

Before seven o'clock on Sunday morning I heard footsteps on the gravel under my window, and, looking out, saw Sylvia, book in hand, leaving the house. She was exquisitely dressed, the distinguishing note of her attire being, as always in my eyes, a demure sort of richness and picturesqueness. Never was there another saint so charming in appearance, I thought. Her very Prayer Book, or whatever the volume might be, had a seductive, feminine charm about its dimpled cover.

I hurried over my dressing and was out of the house by half-past seven and on my way to St. Jude's. Breakfast was not until half-past nine, I knew. The morning was brilliantly sunny; and life in the world, despite its drawbacks and complexities, as seen from Fleet Street, seemed an admirably good thing to me as I strode over a carpet of pine-needles, and watched the slanting sun-rays turning the tree trunks to burnished copper.

The service was barely over when I tiptoed into a seat beside the door at St. Jude's. At this period the appurtenances of ritual in such churches as St. Jude's--incense, candles, rich vestments, and the like--rivalled those of Rome itself. I remember that, fresh from the dewy morning sunshine without, these symbols rather jarred upon my senses than otherwise, with a strong hint of artificiality and tawdriness, the suggestion of a theatre seen by daylight. But they meant a great deal to many good folks in Weybridge, for, despite the earliness of the hour, there were fifty or sixty women present, besides Sylvia, and half a dozen men.

I could see Sylvia distinctly from my corner by the door, and I was made rather uneasy by the fact that she remained in her place when every one else had left the building. Five, ten minutes I waited, and then walked softly up the aisle to her place. I did not perceive, until I reached her side, that she was kneeling, or I suppose I should have felt obliged to refrain from disturbing her. As it was, Sylvia heard me, and, having seen who disturbed her, rose, with the gravest little smile, and, with a curtsy to the altar, walked out before me.

I found that Sylvia generally stayed on in the church for the eight o'clock service; and I was duly grateful when she yielded to my solicitations and set out for a walk with me instead. I had taken a few biscuits from the dining-room and eaten them on my way out; but I learned later, rather to my distress, that Sylvia had not broken her fast. I must suppose she was accustomed to such practices, for she seemed to enjoy almost as much as I did our long ramble in the fresh morning air.

I learned a good deal during that morning walk, and the day that followed it, the greater part of which I spent by Sylvia's side. Upon the whole, I was perturbed and made uneasy; but I continued to assure myself, perhaps too insistently for confidence or comfort, that Sylvia was wholly desirable and sweet. It was perhaps unfortunate for my peace of mind that the day was one of continuous religious exercises. The fact tinged all our converse, and indeed supplied the motive of most of it.

I did not at the time realize exactly what chilled and disturbed me, but I think now that it was what I might call the inhumanity of Sylvia's religion. I dipped into one of her sumptuous little books at some time during the day, and I remember this passage:

"To this end spiritual writers recommend what is called a 'holy indifference' to all created things, including things inanimate, place, time, and the like. Try as far as possible to be indifferent to all things. Remember that the one thing important above all others to you is the salvation of your own soul. It is the great work of your life, far greater than your work as parent, child, husband, wife, or friend."

It was a reputable sort of a book this, and fathered by a respected Oxford cleric.

There was singularly little of the mystic in my temperament. My mind, as you have seen, was surcharged with crude but fervent desires for the material betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not interested in human well-being, material progress, mortal ills and remedies. Approaching Sylvia's position and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his Reverence and St. Jude's; and found, or thought I found, that Sylvia's religion was at worst a selfish gratification of the senses of the individual worshipper, and at best a devout and pious ministration to the worshipper's own soul; in which the loving of one's neighbour and caring for one another seemed to play precisely no part at all.

True it was, as I already knew, that in the East End of London, and elsewhere, some of the very High Church clergy were carrying on a work of real devotion among the poor, and that with possibly a more distinguished measure of success than attended the efforts of any other branch of Christian service. They did not influence anything like the number of people who were influenced by dissenting bodies, but those who did come under their sway came without reservation.

But the point which absorbed me was the question of how this particular aspect of religion affected Sylvia. In this, at all events, it seemed to me a far from helpful or wholesome kind of religion. Sylvia liked early morning services because so few people attended them. It was "almost like having the church to oneself." The supreme feature of religious life for Sylvia had for its emblem the tinkle of the bell at the service she always called Mass. The coming of the Presence--that was the C Major of life for Sylvia. For the rest, meditation, preferably in the setting provided by St. Jude's, with its permanent aroma of incense and its dim lights--the world shut out by stained glass--this, with prayer, genuflections, and the ecstasy of long thought upon the circumstances of the supreme act of Christ's life upon earth, seemed to me to represent the sum total of Sylvia's religion.

But, over and above what was to me the chilling negativeness of all this, its indifference to the human welfare of all other mortals, there was in Sylvia's religion something else, which I find myself unable, even now, to put into words. Some indication of it, perhaps, is given by the little passage I have quoted from one of her books. It was the one thing positive which I found in my lady's religion; all the rest was to me a beautiful, intricate, purely artificial negation of human life and human interest.

This one thing positive struck into my vitals with a chill premonition, as of something unnatural and, to me, unfathomable. It was a sentiment which I can only call anti-human. Even as those of Sylvia's persuasion held that the clergy should be celibate, so it seemed to me they viewed all purely human loves, ties, emotions, sentiments, and interests generally with a kind of jealous suspicion, as influences to be belittled as far as possible, if not actually suppressed.

Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no concern with Puritanism, for it lacked the discipline, the self-restraint that made Cromwell's men invincible. There was no Puritanism in the influence which could make women indifferent to the earthly ties of love and sentiment, to children, to the home and domesticity, while at the same time implanting in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense, rich vestments, gorgeous decorations, and the whole paraphernalia of such a service as that of St. Jude's, Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would be more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this religion, did not say:

"Deny yourself this or that."

It said:

"Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny all other mortals. Wrap yourself in yourself, thinking only of your own soul and its relation to its Maker and Saviour."

This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though she was sweetly kind and sympathetic to me, Dick Mordan, I was strangely chilled and perturbed by realization of the fact that nothing human really weighed with her, unless her own soul was human; that the people, our fellow men and women, of whose situation and welfare I thought so much, were far less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints; that humanity had even less import for her, was less real, than to me, was the fascination of St. Jude's incense-laden atmosphere.

Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for me; the personality which animated and informed it chilled and repelled me as it might have been a thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear importance of some one of humanity's claims, the faraway gaze of her beautiful eyes, with their light that never was on sea or land, her faintly superior smile--all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with more baffling effect.

And then the accidental touch of her little hand would bring me back, with pulses fluttering, and the warm blood in my veins insisting that sweet Sylvia was adorable; that everything would be well lost in payment for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I spent that pleasant Sabbath day, attached to Sylvia by ties over which my mind had small control; by bonds which, if the truth were known, were not wholly dissimilar, I believe, from the ties which drew her daily to the heavy atmosphere of the sanctuary rails of St. Jude's.

In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and smoke a cigar with him in his private room, and the invitation was not one to be evaded. I was subconsciously aware that it elicited a meaning exchange of glances between Marjory and her mother.

"Well, Mordan, I hope things go well with you in Fleet Street," said Mr. Wheeler, when his cigar was alight and we were both seated in his luxurious little den.

"Oh, tolerably," I said. "Of course, I am quite an obscure person there as yet; quite on the lowest rungs, you know."

"Quite so; quite so; and from all I hear, competition is as keen there as in the City, though the rewards are--rather different, of course."

I nodded, and we were silent for a few moments. Then he flicked a little cigar-ash into a tray and looked up sharply, with quite the Moorgate Street expression, I remember thinking.

"I think you are a good deal attracted by my youngest girl, Mordan?" he said; and his tone demanded a reply even more than his words.

"Yes, I certainly admire her greatly," I said, more than a little puzzled by the wording of the question; more than a little fluttered, it may be; for it seemed to me a welcoming sort of question, and I was keenly aware of my ineligibility as a suitor.

"Exactly. That is no more than I expected to hear from you. Indeed, I think anything less would--well, I shouldn't have been at all pleased with anything less."

His complaisance quite startled me. Somehow, too, it reminded me of my many baffled retirements of that day, before the elements in Sylvia's character which chilled and repelled me. I was almost glad that I had not committed myself to any warmer or more definite declaration. Mr. Wheeler weighed his cigar with nice care.

"Yes," he continued. "If you had disputed the attraction--the attachment, I should perhaps say--I should have found serious ground for criticizing your--your behaviour to my girl. As it is, of course, the thing is natural enough. You have been attracted; the child is attractive; and you have paid her marked attentions--which is what any young man might be expected to do."

"If he is going to suggest an engagement," I thought, "I must be very clear about my financial position, or want of position." Mr. Wheeler continued thoughtfully to eye his cigar.

"Yes, it is perfectly natural," he said; "and you will probably think, therefore, that what I am going to say is very unnatural and unkind. But you must just bear in mind that I am a good deal older than you, and, also, I am Sylvia's father."

I nodded, with a new interest.

"Well, now, Mordan, let me say first that I know my girls pretty well, and I am quite satisfied that Sylvia is not fitted to be a poor man's wife. You would probably think her far better fitted for that part than her sister, because Marjory is a lot more gay and frivolous. Well, you would be wrong. They are neither of them really qualified for the post, but Sylvia is far less so than Marjory. In point of fact she would be wretched in it, she would fail in it; and--I may say that the fact would not make matters easier for her husband."

There did not seem to me any need for a reply, but I nodded again; and Mr. Wheeler resumed, after a long draw at his cigar. He smoked a very excellent, rather rich Havana.

"Yes, girls are different now from the girls I sweethearted with; and girls like mine must have money. I dare say you think Sylvia dresses very prettily, in a simple way. My dear fellow, her laundry bill alone would bankrupt a newspaper reporter."

I may have indicated before, that Mr. Wheeler was not a person of any particular refinement. He had made the money which provided a tolerably costly upbringing for his children, but his own education I gathered had been of a much more exiguous character. There was, as I know, a good deal of truth in what he said of the girl of the period.

"Well, now, I put it to you, Mordan, whether, admitting that what I say about Sylvia is true--and you may take it from me that it is true--whether it would be very kind or fair on my part to allow you to go on paying attention to her at the rate of--say to-day's. Do you think it would be wise or kind of me to allow it? I say nothing about your side in the matter, because--well, because I still have some recollection of how a young fellow feels in such a case. But would it be wise of me to allow it?"

He was a shrewd man, this father of Sylvia, and of my old friend; and I have no doubt that the tactics I found so disarming had served him well before that day in the City. At the same time, instinct seemed to forbid complete surrender on my side.

"It is just consideration of the present difficulties of my position which has made me careful to avoid seeking to commit Sylvia in any way," I said.

It was probably an unwise remark. At all events, it struck the note of opposition, of contumacy, which it seemed my host had been anticipating; and he met it with a new inflection in his voice, as who should say: "Well, now to be done with explanations and the velvet glove. Have at you!" What he actually said was:

"Ah, there's a deal of mischief to be done without a declaration, my friend. But, however, I don't expect that you should share my view. I only suggested it on the off chance because--well, I suppose, because that would be the easiest way out for me, as host. But I don't know that I should have thought much of you if you had met me half-way. So now let me do my part and get it over, for it's not very pleasant. I have shown you my reasons, which, however they may seem to you, are undeniable to me. Now for my wishes in the matter, as a father; I am sure there is no need for me to say 'instructions,' so I say 'wishes.' They are simply that for the time--for a year or two, anyhow--you should not give me the pleasure of being your host, and that you should not communicate in any way with Sylvia. There, now it's said, and done, and I think we might leave it at that; for I don't think it's much more pleasant for me than for you. I'm sure I hope we shall have many a pleasant evening together--er--after a few years have passed. Now, what do you say--shall we have another cigar, or go in to the ladies?"

I flatter myself that, with all my shortcomings, I was never a sulky fellow. At all events, I elected to join the ladies; but my reward was not immediately apparent, for it seemed that Sylvia had retired for the night. At least, we did not meet again until breakfast-time next morning, when departure was imminent, and the week's work had, so to say, begun. _

Read next: Part 1. The Descent: Chapter 8. A Stirring Week

Read previous: Part 1. The Descent: Chapter 6. A Journalist's Surroundings

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