Part 21

"She's one of the very best," cried Mark. "I say--it was awfully good of you, old Archie, to run down here. I expect work has piled up."

"It has; it has. I want to speak to you about that." He paused for a moment, as a smile flickered across Mark's lips. Archibald, Mark was reflecting, had an axe to grind. He had not left home merely to visit a brother laid by the heels. Suddenly his feeling which had flamed grew chill. He listened perfunctorily to some introductory remarks.

"My Lenten sermons are giving me grave anxiety; I find that something out of the common is expected. If you will bear with me, I'll walk over the--er--course which I've marked out."

"Cut along!" said Mark.

Archibald winced. Mark had no sense of the fitness of things. He spoke at times as if he (the Rector of St. Anne's) were a boy in his teens. Perhaps a word in season might----

"_A propos_," he said, with dignity, "don't you think, my dear fellow, that it is time for you to put away certain childish--you will pardon the adjective--certain childish expressions. It's absurd to talk of a man of my weight--'cutting along'...."

"True! You can stroll if you like, as the placid Pecksniff strolled. You have put on weight, Archie."

Archibald, indeed, was broader and thicker about the neck and shoulders. He had lost the look of youth; the hair on the top of his head was thinner; his eyes were less clear; his fine skin had become redder and coarser in texture.

"I carry great burdens," he replied. "Perhaps I ought not to ask you to share them."

Mark responded instantly, touched by this unexpected solicitude: "I'm all right."

"You might come to us for a week. Betty will nurse you."

"That is impossible. I must finish my book."

"Oh, yes--your book. I am looking forward to reading that. But I wish you would turn your talents to something more serious than fiction. I----"

"Shall we talk about your work?"

Archibald smiled, but Mark fidgeted and frowned, as carefully culled platitudes fell upon his ear. Archibald was indeed strolling placidly down familiar paths to the great festival of Christendom. The very name of Easter had always quickened Mark's pulses. Hitherto he had hastened to the feast, the most joyful of pilgrims. Now he was shut out; or rather, the door stood wide open, but he dared not pass it. The ban lay upon him--and upon how many thousands? His imagination flared, revealing a multitude staring with yearning eyes at tables spread for others. Archibald, in his silky tones, was enumerating celestial joys. His words flowed like a pellucid stream.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked abruptly.

"I beg your pardon," Mark replied, "but you remind me of an alderman reciting to a starving mob the names of the dishes to which he and his corporation are about to sit down."

Archibald had wit enough to see and feel the point. He saw, too, that Mark was moved.

"You have an idea. I should like to hear it, although----"

"Although I am without the pale, you would say. Archie, if you would descend from your pulpit and walk in the shadows with me for a little while--and if then you could set forth my doubts and perplexities, how many, think you, of your congregation would not say: 'I, too, have wandered in those blind alleys.' And having pierced the crust of their indifference with your sympathy and insight, if then you could transmit the light which seems to have always blazed on you, this Easter would indeed be a Day of Resurrection to hundreds who now lie cold and dead." He paused, gazed keenly at Archibald, and continued: "But you--you cannot do that. You have not trod the wilderness...." He covered his face with his hand.

"It is true," said Archibald, in a low voice, "that I do lack an experience common, I fear, to hundreds of my parishioners. And if I cannot open their hearts, and you can, lend me your key."

Mark was silent. Then, as before, the sense that he had envied and hated this once dearly beloved brother made him generous.

"I will write down and send what is in my mind. No--don't thank me!"

He began to talk briskly of other things. Presently Mary came in and reminded him to take his medicine. Archibald had not seen her before. Twice during the previous summer Betty and he had come to Weybridge, but each day had been spent upon the river. Mark went into his bedroom, and Mary disappeared, to reappear a moment later with a tea-tray. Archibald was alone with her for a couple of minutes. She arranged the tea-things with quick, deft fingers, displaying the admirable lines of her figure as she moved to and fro, now standing upright, now bending down. In the soft light of the spring afternoon she looked charming, with the inexpressible freshness of youth and health. Archibald addressed her.

"You are," he was about to say "Mary," but changed it to "Miss Dew."

"Oh, no, I am Mary," she replied, smiling. "Your brother calls me 'Honeydew.'"

"My brother calls you a ministering angel."

His soft voice had that fluid quality which percolates everywhere. He meant to be polite, nothing more; he wished to thank a pretty girl who had nursed a brother: but to Mary his words had other significance; his glance became an indictment, his tone inquisitorial. Without reason, her cheeks flamed. Archibald turned aside, murmuring a commonplace. When he looked at her, after a discreet interval, she was composed but pale. She went out of the room and did not return.

"Um!" said Archibald to himself, "I must speak to Betty about this."

Not, however, till late did he find an opportunity. Harry Kirtling was dining in Cadogan Place, and loath to say good-night. The young fellow had crushed a muscle of his leg out hunting, and had come up to London to see a famous surgeon, who prescribed gentle walking exercise and massage. Harry complained bitterly of the hardship of spending a fortnight away from his kennels, but was consoled by Betty, who promised to entertain him. Despite his injury, he looked astonishingly well, and brought with him from Cumberland a breezy atmosphere of mountain and moor which Betty inhaled gratefully. He had managed to make it plain that he was still her devoted slave--a tribute which the best of women accept without scruple. And he had asked her advice upon a score of matters connected with Kirtling.

When Harry had taken his clean, lean body out of her drawing-room, Betty turned rather impatiently to Archibald.

"Has anything happened? You have been so glum. Surely you do not resent my asking Harry to dine without consulting you?"

"Harry?" His tone was heavily contemptuous. "Harry can waste as much of your time as you like to give him. Yes; something has happened."

He told his story.

"I don't believe it."

"The girl is attractive. Her mother, I am told, reckons herself a lady. Something must be done. I give you my word that I am not mistaken."

"I don't believe it," Betty repeated.

None the less, she did believe it. Here again Archibald's voice beguiled her understanding. He had acquired that power, invaluable to a clergyman or a barrister, of making every statement sound as if it were irrefutable fact.

"I went down to Weybridge to see Mark on important business, and for a quarter of an hour he sang this girl's praises. It is obvious that he wished to impress me, to make me see with his eyes."

"What is she like?" Betty asked, shortly.

Archibald described her with a deliberation which annoyed his wife.

"The girl is very comely, my dear; alluring, many men would call her. A seductive figure--round, but not too plump; the complexion of Hebe."

"That's enough," said Betty.

"I tried to do the girl justice," replied her husband with dignity. "Personally speaking, her type of beauty does not appeal to me, but as a man of the world I cannot deny that it may appeal irresistibly to others!"

"You call yourself a man of the world," said Betty suddenly. "You do not preach to us as a man of the world. If this girl loves Mark, if he has made her love him, you ought to be the first to urge him to marry her. From a pagan point of view such a marriage may seem disastrous, but from the Christian's----"

She confronted him with heaving bosom and flaming eyes. Her agitation and excitement amazed him. But he grasped the essential fact that he had blundered, that it might be difficult to retrieve the blunder. He was aware that some of his sermons moved his wife to the core, for she had told him so a score of times. He was also aware, but as yet in less degree, that as mere man he had aroused without adequately satisfying her expectations.

"If you choose to misinterpret me----" he began.

"But I don't choose. I ask you, you the preacher and teacher, to make plain a puzzle which you, not I, have propounded. Let us admit what you tell me. Heaven knows that Mark has lived a lonely and forlorn life. Never has he complained to me; but I have guessed, I have felt that--that--beneath the mask he chooses to wear a devil tears him. That devil drove him from the Church. Well, we know that misery loves company. He has talked to me about this girl. She is a plucky creature, like Mark, inasmuch as she faces adversity with a smile. She has a selfish, querulous mother to whom she is devoted. Such a girl would appeal to such a man. And now you tell me that she is attractive. It is significant that Mark never mentioned that to me. I take back what I said. I believe you are right. Mark _has_ learned to love this girl, and she loves him. And what are you going to do about it? And in what capacity? As a man of the world? Or as a priest of the Most High God?

"I beg you to compose yourself."

"You can compose me by telling the truth----"

"You dare to imply that----"

"I dare be honest with my husband. I have not been happy for some weeks, and you must have noticed it. Sometimes, particularly of late, I look for the man I married, and I find somebody else. Let me finish! I am too conscious of my own shortcomings not to be aware that between most husbands and wives lie troubled waters only to be passed by mutual faith and patience. Why, happiness is faith; and women, I often think, are on the whole happier than men, because their faith is stronger. A woman can believe in her child, in her husband, in her God. Well, as years passed, my faith in God grew dim, and you restored my sight. But now, somehow, I no longer see so clearly. Is it my fault or yours? I listen to your sermons, and then I come back to this luxurious house, and somebody tells me that you are _persona grata_ at Windsor--that you are sure to be made a bishop, as if preferment were salvation; and----"

"My dear!" said Archibald, "it is late, and I have half a dozen letters to write. You have been talking in an unrestrained manner. You are not yourself."

He left the room, erect, impassive, master of himself, but not of her. She gazed defiantly after him, clenching her slender fingers. Intuition told her that this man was trying to serve God and Mammon, but when he came to bed an hour later, she owned herself humbly in the wrong. Again Archibald was magnanimous, assuring his dearest Betty that already he had forgiven and forgotten her offence. The "forgotten" sounded patronising. As if he, with his memory, could forget! She lay awake, perplexed and dismayed, for she knew that Mark was still so dear to her that the thought of his caring for any other woman was insupportable.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*BETTY SEES DANGER SIGNALS*

Second thoughts constrained Archibald not to interfere with Mark. He told himself that he had been alarmed unnecessarily. Mark was in no position to marry a penniless girl; the infatuation--if infatuation had been aroused--would subside, the more quickly, doubtless, if undisturbed. Moreover, he was too busy to give affairs other than his own more than a passing thought. Four days after the visit to Weybridge he received from Mark a huge envelope filled with rough notes and suggestions for a course of Lenten sermons. With these (and supplementary to them) were a score of sheets of foolscap setting forth the phases of modern unbelief, or want of belief. Archibald read this record with a keen appreciation of its dramatic value, but--it would be unfair to suppress the fact--touched to issues higher than those involved in rhetoric. His extraordinary "flair" had not been at fault. Mark had given him more than ideas: insight into a human heart. And whatever he saw Archibald could describe with emphasis and effect. At once the plan and purpose of his sermons were made clear. He would take infidelity as his theme, and treat it synthetically, putting together all forms of unbelief, and exhibiting them as the root from which evil sprang and flourished. Faithlessness was the common denominator of suffering and sin. He remembered what Betty had said about happiness in women being dependent on faith, and told her that wittingly or unwittingly she had hit a truth. But if he expected her to hit another, he was disappointed. She said quietly that she had drawn a bow at a venture.

About this time she paid a visit to Weybridge, Mark still pleading work as an excuse for not coming to Cadogan Place. Archibald awaited her report with awakened interest. Betty told her husband that Mark was certainly madly in love--with his heroine.

"And he tells me," she concluded triumphantly, "that Mary, who seems a nice modest girl, is going to marry a Mr. Batley. When _The Songs of the Angels_ is sent off to his publisher, he will come to us."

About mid-Lent the novel was despatched to town. After a few days a letter came from McIntyre, accepting the MS. and offering better terms than Mark had expected--fifty pounds upon the day of publication and a royalty upon a sliding scale. An American publisher, Cyrus Otway, who had large dealings with McIntyre's house, happened to be in England. He offered Mark similar terms for the American rights. Mark was jubilant, but McIntyre predicted limited sales.

"It will be well received," he said. "My readers have no doubt on that point, but we do not expect it to be popular. You have an admirable style, but your subject--eh?--is sublimated: over the heads of many. And the story is sad. The public likes a happy ending. Other things being equal, the story with the happy ending sells four to one at least. Mr. Cyrus Otway would like to meet you." Mark lunched with Cyrus Otway, and was entertained handsomely.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Samphire," said the Boston publisher, a thin, pale, carefully dressed man, with a typical New England manner as prim and precise as a spinster's, and very bright, restless eyes. "This is an experiment on our part--a leap in the dark. Our people, sir, know a good thing when they see it. But the difficulty lies in making them see it. Have you done any dramatic work? You have not. Ah, there's a goldfield! And, if I may be allowed to say so, I think that you would strike rich ore there. You have dramatic power and a re--markable insight into character...."

Mark repeated this conversation to Betty. He was staying at Cadogan Place and in high spirits. The drudgery of hack-writing no longer impended. Already he was in a position to do the work he liked best where and when and how he pleased.

"A hundred pounds is not much," said Betty doubtfully.

"It will last me a year," said Mark.

Meantime, Archibald's Lenten sermons were filling St. Anne's every Sunday and exciting widespread comment. Mark had seen and revised the first three before he left Weybridge. The others were prepared and written out under Mark's eye in the comfortable library at Cadogan Place. The Rector of St. Anne's made no scruple of accepting what help his brother could give him. Mark honoured all cheques, reflecting that this was a labour of love, which made for his happiness as well as Betty's. It never struck him that he was compounding a moral felony. Such knowledge came later; but, at the moment, had any person--Lady Randolph, for instance--pointed out what he was doing, he would have indignantly (and honestly) repudiated his own actions.

Betty listened to every word of these sermons and told herself she was the wife of an evangelist. None the less, she did not ignore the fact that a sharp distinction lay between Archibald as Man and Archibald as Priest. One day she said to Mark, "Somehow one does not expect a great preacher to lose his temper because the cook has sent up cod without oyster sauce."

"Oh, his little weaknesses ought to endear him to such a woman as you are. He tells us each Sunday what a man ought to be, and on weekdays he shows us what a man is. A preacher without his little infirmities would be as uninteresting as--as cod without oyster sauce."

After Easter, Mark returned to Weybridge. Betty missed him so much that she had a fit of nervous depression which lasted two days. She made a resolution to devote herself to parochial work, to begin a course of stiff reading: pamphlets dealing with the better housing of the poor, and kindred subjects.

Mark was now absorbed in writing another novel, and in the correction of proofs. _The Songs of the Angels_ appeared simultaneously in New York and London upon the first of May. Mark wrote to Betty that he had never felt in such good health, or more sanguine about the future. He was living in the open air, and had the appetite and complexion of a gipsy.

Archibald, meanwhile, was working hard on committees, hand-in-glove with a ducal philanthropist, whose music-loving duchess declared that Mr. Samphire had the best tenor voice in the kingdom. In return for this high compliment, the Rector of St. Anne's was persuaded to sing at the duchess's small dinner parties; and this led to a widening of a circle of acquaintance, which now included some very great people indeed. Betty found herself dining out three days in the week, and was amazed to discover that her husband enjoyed this mild dissipation. As a celebrity he began to be courted wherever he went, and his photograph embellished certain shops. Young women entreated him to write in their albums.

The world said that Chrysostom was a good fellow and still unspoiled, but his wife noted an ever-increasing complacency and compliancy which gave her pause. He had begged her, it will be remembered, to keep at arm's length certain frisky dames whom she had met at Newmarket and Monte Carlo, when she was under Lady Randolph's wing. These ladies were of no particular rank or position. But when Lady Cheyne, notorious all over Europe before and after she married her marquess, called upon Mrs. Samphire, Archibald insisted upon Betty returning the call and accepting an invitation to dine at Cheyne House. Betty protested, but he said blandly: "I have reason to know that Lady Cheyne is an indefatigable worker in Chelsea. She will be a parishioner of ours when we go to the Basilica. Personally I do not believe half the stories they tell about her."

"I should hope not," said Betty. "If a quarter be true, she is dyed scarlet."

Often she talked to Lady Randolph, but never with the candour of bygone days. Intuition told her that her old friend had no great liking for Archibald, although she rejoiced at his success.

"You were at Cheyne House last night," said Lady Randolph, with the twinkle in her eye which Betty knew so well. "I dare swear the dinner, my dear, was better than the company."

"Archie says the dinner was perfection." Then she flushed slightly, remembering that her husband ought to know, for he had spared but few dishes. "Have you read Mark's new book?"

"I have," said Lady Randolph.

At once Betty began to praise the _Songs_. It was to be inferred from her sparkling eyes and eager gestures that Mark's success had become vital to her. Lady Randolph drew conclusions which she kept to herself. But that night she said to Lord Randolph: "I saw Betty Samphire this afternoon. It is as I feared. Her parson, the man beneath the surplice, never inspired anything warmer than respect."

"Ay, say you so? Dear me--that's a pity. But there's stout stuff under the surplice."

"Stout?" Lady Randolph smiled. "You have hit the word, Randolph. Stout--and growing stouter. And some of the stuff is--stuffing."

"My dear, you are severe. _Who drives fat horses should himself be fat_. I have noticed that your good round parson is the most popular; your lean fellow makes everybody uncomfortable. Archibald is thought highly of. He is approachable; he has great gifts of organisation; he is liked by Nonconformists and Roman Catholics."

"No doubt," replied Lady Randolph impatiently. "In a word he can lunch at Lambeth and dine at Cheyne House, but I am thinking of Betty. A sword impends."

In a vague, mysterious way Betty herself was conscious of danger. As a girl the pageant of the London season had excited her. Her sensibilities, too keen, her adaptability, her faculty for enjoyment, inevitably were overstrained during those feverish months between April and August. When she married a clergyman she told herself that she was out of the rapids and at rest in a placid backwater. Now, involuntarily, she had been sucked into the current again. And curiously intermingled with the feeling of apprehension was a thrill. At times the desire to let herself go, to fling herself, like a Maenad, into the gay crowds, to be reckless, as they were, became almost irresistible. The devil-may-care temperament of the De Courcys set her pulses a-tingling. But so far she had restrained these longings. And then one night, in late June, Harry Kirtling met her at a ducal house to which Archibald deemed it a duty to go. A splendid entertainment had been provided. A famous prima donna and a brilliant violinist enchanted lovers of music; a French comedian travelled from Paris to recite; minor luminaries twinkled round these fixed stars. A few choice spirits, however, had withdrawn to a small room set apart for cards, wherein a young guardsman had opened a bank at baccarat. This was in flagrant bad taste, for both host and hostess detested gambling. Yet it lent a spice to the adventure. Lady Cheyne told her cavalier that she felt as if she were meeting a lover in a church. When the fun was getting furious, Betty and Kirtling came in on the heels of curiosity. Betty drew back, but Harry held her arm. A moment later he was recognised and invited to try his luck. Always easy-going and thoughtless, he pressed forward, half dragging Betty with him. Lady Cheyne looked up, saw Betty, and screamed with laughter. Her mocking laughter roused the devil in Betty. She had not gambled since her marriage; and gambling in all its forms was regarded by Archibald as a deadly sin. Upon the Sunday succeeding Derby Day he had preached upon this very subject. He had shown that betting had become a national vice; he had described with dramatic force its moral effect upon servants and children. This was one of a series of sermons upon the sins of the day, in the preparation of which the Rector of St. Anne's needed no assistance from others: culling his facts from pamphlets and Blue Books, and marshalling them with the skill which comes from long practice. To such sermons Betty lent an indifferent ear. They were of the Gradgrind type: too didactic, too florid, too obvious, to appeal to the intellectual members of his congregation. He preached in the same Cambyses vein upon drunkenness and gluttony. When Lady Cheyne laughed, Betty was vouchsafed a vision of her husband as she had seen him ten minutes before, sharing a _pate_ with a be-diamonded countess who admitted frankly that she lived to sup.

"You must not peach, Mrs. Samphire!" cried Lady Cheyne, turning up her impudent nose.

For a moment the game was stopped, and those present stared at Betty.