Chapter 31

The Archdeacon gave the signal and led the way with Lady Robert to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Macrae, redolent of perfume, was reclining on a sofa with the “lady poodle” by her side. As soon as the company were seated the Archdeacon rose and coughed loudly.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we have no assurance of a blessing except 'Ask and ye shall receive.' Therefore, before we go further, it is our duty, as brethren of a common family in Christ, to ask the blessing of Almighty God on this enterprise.”

There was a subdued rustle of drooping hats and bonnets, when suddenly a thin voice was heard to say, “Mr. Archdeacon, may I inquire first who is to ask the blessing?”

“I thought of doing so myself,” said the Archdeacon with a meek smile.

“In that case, as a Unitarian, I must object to an invocation in which I do not believe.”

There was a half-suppressed titter from the wall at the back, where Lord Robert Ure was standing with his face screwed up to his eyeglass.

“Well, if the name of our Lord is a stumbling block to our Unitarian, brother, no doubt the prayer in this instance would be acceptable without the customary Christian benediction.”

“That's just like you,” said a large man near the door, with whiskers all round his face. “You've been trimming all your life, and now you are going to trim away the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“If our Low-Church brother thinks he can do better----”

But John Storm intervened. He had looked icy cold, though the twitching of his lower lip showed that he was red hot within.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a quavering voice, “I apologize for bringing you together. I thought if we were in earnest about the union of Christendom we might at least unite in the real contest with evil. But I find it is a dream; we have only been trifling with ourselves, and there is not one of us who wants the union of Christendom, except on the condition that his rod shall be like Aaron's rod which swallowed up all the rest. It was a mistake, and I beg your pardon.”

“Yes, sir,” said the Archdeacon, “it _was_ a mistake; and if you had taken my advice from the first, and asked the blessing of God through good High Churchmen alone----”

“God doesn't wait for any asking,” said John, now flushing up to the eyes. “He gives freely to High Churchmen, Low Churchmen, and No Churchmen alike.”

“If that is your opinion, sir, you are no better than some of your friends, and for my part I will never darken your door again!”

“_Darken_ is a good word for it, Archdeacon,” said John, and with that the company broke up.

Mrs. Macrae looked like a thunder-cloud as John bowed to her on passing out, but Mrs. Callender cried out in a jubilant voice, “Be skipper of your ain ship, laddie!” and added (being two yards behind the Archdeacon's broad back going down the stairs), “If some folks are to be inheritors of the kingdom of heaven there'll be a michty crush at the pearly gates, I'm thinking!”

John Storm went back to Soho with a heavy heart. Going up Victoria Street he passed a crowd of ragged people who were ploughing their way through the carriages. Two constables were taking a man and woman to the police court in Rochester Row. The prisoners were Sharkey, the keeper of the gambling house, and his wife the baby-farmer.

But within a week John Storm, in greater spirits than ever, was writing to Glory again:

“The Archdeacon has deserted me, but no matter! My uncle has advanced me another thousand of my mother's money, so the crusade is _self_-supporting in one sense at all events. What a fool I am! Ask Aunt Anna her opinion of me, or say old Chalse or the village natural--but never mind! Folly and wisdom are relative terms, and I don't envy the world its narrow ideas of either. You would be amused to see how the women of the West End are taking up the movement--Lady Robert Ure among the rest! They have banded themselves into a Sisterhood, and christened our clergy-house a 'Settlement.' One of my Greek owners came in the other evening to see the alterations. His eyes glistened at the change, and he asked leave to bring a friend. I trust you are well and settling things comfortably, and that Miss Macquarrie has gone. It is raining through a colander here, but I have no time to think of depressing weather. Sometimes when I cross our great squares, where the birds sing among the yellowing leaves, my mind goes off to your sweet home in the sunshine; and when I drop into the dark alleys and lanes, where the pale-faced children play in their poverty and rags, I think of a day that is coming, and, God willing, is now so near, when a ministering angel of tenderness and strength will be passing through them like a gleam. But I am more than ever sure that you do well to avoid for the present the pompous joys of life in London, where for one happy being there are a thousand pretenders to happiness.”

On the Sunday night following, Crook Lane, outside the clergy-house, was almost blocked with noisy people of both sexes. They were a detachment of the “Skeletons,” and the talk among them was of the trial of the Sharkeys, which had taken place the day before. “They've 'ed six menths,” said one. “And it's all along o' minjee parsons,” said another; and Charlie Wilkes, who had a certain reputation for humour, did a step-dance and sang some doggerel beginning--

Father Storm is a werry good man, 'E does you all the 'arm 'e can.

Through this crowd two gentlemen pushed their way to the clergy-house, which was brilliantly lit up. One of them was the Greek owner, the other was Lord Robert Ure. Entering a large room on the ground floor, they first came upon John Storm, in cassock and biretta, standing at the door and shaking hands with everybody who came in and went out. He betrayed no surprise, but greeted them respectfully and then passed them on. Every moment of his time was occupied. The room was full of the young girls of the district, with here and there a Sister out of another world entirely. Some were reading, some conversing, some laughing, some playing a piano, and some singing. Their voices filled the air like the chirping of birds, and their faces were bright and happy. “Good-evening, Father,” they said on entering, and “Good-night, Father,” as they went away.

The two men stood some minutes and looked round the room. It was observed that Lord Robert did not remove his hat. He kept chewing the end of a broken cigarette, whereof the other end hung down his chin. One of the Sisters heard him say, “It will do with a little alteration, I think.” Then he went off alone, and the Greek owner stepped up to John Storm.

It was not at first that John could attend to him, and when he was able to do so he began to rattle on about his own affairs. “See,” he said with a delighted smile and a wave of the arm, “see how crowded we are! We'll have to think of taking in the next door soon.”

“Father Storm,” said the Greek, “I have something serious to say, though the official notification will of course reach you by another channel.”

John's face darkened as a ripe cornfield does when the sun dies away from it.

“I am sorry to tell you that the trustees, having had a favourable offer for this property----”

“Well?” His great staring eyes had stopped the man.

“----have decided to sell.”

“_Sell_? Did you say se----? To whom? What?”

“To tell you the truth, to the syndicate of a music hall.”

John staggered back, breathing audibly. “Now if a man had to believe that--Do you know if I thought such a thing _could_ happen----”

“I'm sorry you take the matter so seriously, Father Storm. It's true you've spent money on the property, but, believe me, the trustees will derive no profit----”

“Profit? Money? Do you suppose I'm thinking of that, and not of the desecration, the outrage, the horror? But who are they? Is that man--Lord----”

The Greek had nodded his head, and John flung open the door. “Out of this! Out of it, you Judas!” And almost before the Greek had crossed the threshold the door was banged at his back.

The incident had been observed, and there was dead silence in the club-room, but John only cried, “Let's sing something, girls,” and when a Sister struck up his favourite Nazareth there was no voice so loud as his.

But he had realized everything. “Gloria” was coming back, and the work of months was overthrown!

When he was going home groups of the girls were talking in whispers in the hall, and Mrs. Pincher, who was wiping her eyes at the door, said, “I wonder you don't drown yourself--I do!”

At the corner of the lane Mr. Jupe was waiting for him to beg his pardon and to ask his advice. What he had said of Mrs. Jupe had turned out to be true. The Sharkeys had “split” on her and she had been arrested. “It was all in the evenin' pipers last night,” the weak creature whimpered, “and to-day my manager told me I 'ad best look out for another place. Oh, my poor Lidjer! What am I to do?”

“Do? Cut her off like a rotten bough!” said John scornfully, and with that he strode down the street. The human sea roared around him, and he felt as if he wanted to fling himself into the midst of it and be swallowed up.

On reaching Victoria Square he told Mrs. Callender the news--flung it out at her with a sort of triumphant shout. His church had been sold over his head, and being only “Chaplain to the Greek-Turks,” he was to be turned into the streets. Then he laughed wildly, and by some devilish impulse began to abuse Glory. “The next chaplain is to be a girl,” he cried, “one of those creatures who throw kisses at gaping crowds and sweep curtsies for their dirty crusts.”

But all at once he turned white as a ghost and sat down trembling. Mrs. Callender's face was twitching, and to prevent herself from crying she burst into scorching satire. “There!” she said, sitting in her rocking-chair and rocking herself furiously, “I ken'd weel what it would come til! Adversity mak's a man wise, they say, if it doesna mak' him rich. But it's the Prime Minister I blame for this. The auld dolt! he must be fallen to his dotage. It's enough to mak' a reasonable body go out of her mind to think of sic wise asses. I told you what to expect, but you were always miscalling me for a suspicious auld woman. Oh, it's a thing ye'd no suspect; but Jane Callender is only a daft auld fool, ye see, and doesna ken what she's saying!”

But at the next moment she had jumped up and flung her arms about John's neck, and was crying over him like a girl. “Oh, my son! my ain son! And is it for me to fling out at ye? Aye, aye, it's a heartless world, laddie!”

He kissed the old woman, and then she tried to coax him to eat. “Come, come, a wee bittie, just a wee bittie. We must eat our supper anyway.”

“God seems dead and heaven a long way off!” he murmured.

“And a drap o' whisky will do no harm--a wee drappie.”

“There's only one thing clear--God sees I'm unfit for the work, so he has taken it away from me.”

She turned aside from the table, and the supper was left untouched.

* * * * *

The first post next morning brought a letter from Glory.

“The Garden House,

“Clement's Inn, W. C.

“Forgive me! I have returned to town! I couldn't help it, I couldn't, I couldn't! London dragged me back. What was I to do after everything was settled and the aunties provided for?--assist in a dame's school and wage war with pothooks and hangers? Oh! I was dying of weariness--dying, dying, dying!

“And then they made me such tempting offers. Not the music hall--don't think that. I dare say you were quite right there. No, but the theatre, the regular theatre! Mr. Drake has bought some broken-down old place, and is to turn it into a beautiful theatre expressly for me. I am to play Juliet. Only think--Juliet!--and in my own theatre! Already I feel like a liberated slave who has crossed her Red Sea.

“And don't think a woman's mourning is like the silly old laws which lasted but three days. _He_ is buried in my heart, not in the earth, and I shall love him and revere him always! And then didn't you tell me yourself it would not be right to allow his death to stop my life?

“Write and say you forgive me, John. Reply by return, and make yourself your own postman--registered. You'll find me here at Rosa's. Come, come, come! I'll never forgive you if you don't come soon--never, never!

“Glory.”

XII.

A fortnight had passed, and John Storm had not yet visited Glory. Nevertheless, he had heard of her from day to day through the medium of the newspapers. Every morning he had glanced down the black columns for the name that stood out from them as if its letters had been printed in blood. The reports had been many and mysterious. First, the brilliant young artiste, who had made such an extraordinary impression some months before, had returned to London and would shortly resume the promising career which had been interrupted by illness and family bereavement. Next, the forthcoming appearance would be on the regular stage, and in a Shakespearian character, which was always understood to be a crucial test of histrionic genius. Then, the revival of Romeo and Juliet, which had formerly been in contemplation, would probably give way to the still more ambitious project of an entirely new production by a well-known Scandinavian author, with a part peculiarly fitted to the personality and talents of the _débutante_. Finally, a syndicate was about to be formed for the purchase of some old property, with a view to its reconstruction as a theatre, in the interests of the new play and the new player.

John Storm laughed bitterly. He told himself that Glory was unworthy of the least of his thoughts. It was his duty to go on with his work and think of her no more.

He had received his official notice to quit. The church was to be given up in a month, the clergy-house in two months, and he believed himself to be immersed in preparations for the rehousing of the club and home. Twenty young mothers and their children now lived in the upper rooms, under obedience to the Sisterhood, but Polly's boy had remained with Mrs. Pincher. From time to time he had seen the little one tethered to a chair by a scarf about its waist, creeping by the wall to the door, and there gazing out on the world with looks of intelligence, and babbling to it in various inarticulate noises. “Boo-loo! Lal-la! Mum-um!” The little dark face had the eyes of its mother, but it represented Glory for all that. John Storm loved to see it. He felt that he could never part with it, and that if Lord Robert Ure himself came and asked for it he would bundle him out of doors.

But a carriage drew up at Mrs. Callender's one morning, and Lady Robert Ure stepped out. Her pale and patient face had the feeble and nervous smile of the humiliated and unloved.

“Mr. Storm,” she said in her gentle voice, “I have come on a delicate errand. I can not delay any longer a duty I ought to have discharged before.”

It was about Polly's baby. She had heard of what had happened at the hospital; and the newspapers which had followed her to Paris, with reports of her wedding, had contained reports of the girl's death also. Since her return she had inquired about the child, and discovered that it had been rescued by him and was now in careful keeping.

“But it is for me to look after it, Mr. Storm, and I beg of you to give it up to me. Something tells me that God will never give me children of my own, so I shall be doing no harm to any one, and my husband need never know whose child it is I adopt. I promise you to be good to it. It shall never leave me. And if it should live to be a man, and grow to love me, that will help me to forget the past and to forgive myself for my own share in it. Oh, it is little I can do for the poor girl who is gone--for, after all, she loved him and I took him from her. But this is my duty, Mr. Storm, and I can not sleep at night or rest in the day until it is begun.”

“I don't know if it is your duty, dear lady, but if you wish for the child it is your right,” said John Storm, and they got into the carriage and drove to Soho.

“Boo-loo! Lal-la! Mum-um!” The child was tethered to the chair as usual and talking to the world according to its wont. When it was gone and the women on the doorsteps could see no more of the fine carriage of the great lady who had brought the odour of perfume and the rustle of silk into the dingy court, and Mrs. Pincher had turned back to the house with red eyes and her widow's cap awry, John Storm told himself that everything was for the best. The last link with Glory was broken! Thank God for that! He might go on with his work now and need think of her no more!

That day he called at Clement's Inn.

The Garden House was a pleasant dwelling, fronting on two of its sides to the garden of the ancient Inn of Chancery, and cosily furnished with many curtains and rugs. The Cockney maid who answered the door was familiar in a moment, and during the short passage from the hall to the floor above she communicated many things. Her name was Liza; she had heard him preach; he had made her cry; “Miss Gloria” had known her former mistress, and Mr. Drake had got her the present place.

There was a sound of laughter from the drawing-room. It was Glory's voice. When the door opened she was standing in the middle of the floor in a black dress and with a pale face, but her eyes were bright and she was laughing merrily. She stopped when John Storm entered and looked confused and ashamed. Drake, who was lounging on the couch, rose and bowed to him, and Miss Macquarrie, who was correcting long slips of printer's proofs at a desk by the window, came forward and welcomed him. Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him for his neglect of her.

“I have been busy,” he began, and then stopped with a sense of hypocrisy. “I mean worried and tormented,” and then stopped again, for Drake had dropped his head.

She laughed, though there was nothing to laugh at, and proposed tea, rattling along in broken sentences that were spoken with a tremulous trill, which had a suggestion of tears behind it. “Shall I ring for tea, Rosa? Oh, you _have_ rung for tea! Ah, here it comes!--Thank you, Liza. Set it here,” seating herself. “Now who says the 'girl'? Remember?” and then more laughter.

At that moment there was another arrival. It was Lord Robert Ure. He kissed Rosa's hand, smiled on Glory, saluted Drake familiarly, and then settled himself on a low stool by the tea-table, pulled up the knees of his trousers, relaxed the congested muscles of one half of his face, and let fall his eyeglass.

Drake was handing out the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was now dreaming of paradise--listen!--and then there were audible snores in the silence, and everybody laughed, and Glory screamed.

“I declare, on my honour, my dear,” said Drake with a mischievous look at John, “the creature is uglier than the beast that did the business on the day we eloped.”

“Eloped!” cried Rosa and Lord Robert together.

“Why, did you never hear that Glory eloped with me?”

Glory was trying to drown his voice with hollow laughter.

“She was seven and I was six and a half, and she had proposed to me in the orchard the day before!”

“Anybody have more tea? No? Some sally-lunn, perhaps?” and then more laughter.

“Hold your tongue, Glory! Nobody wants your tea! Let us hear the story,” said Rosa.

“Why, yes, certainly,” said Lord Robert, and everybody laughed again.

“She was all for travel and triumphal processions in those days----”

Glory stopped her ears and began to sing:

Willy, Willy Wilkin, Kissed the maid a-milkin'! Fa, la la!

“There were so many things people could do if they wouldn't waste so much time working----”

Willy, Willy Wilkin Kissed the maid----

“Glory, if you don't be quiet we'll turn you out!” and Rosa got up and nourished her proofs.

“I had brought my dog, and when I called her a----”

But Glory had leaped to her feet and fled from the room. Drake had leaped up also, and now, putting his back against the door, he raised his voice and went on with his story.

“Somebody saved us, though, and she lay in his arms and kissed him all the way home again.”

Glory was strumming on the door and singing to drown his voice. When the story was ended and she was allowed to come back she was panting and gasping with laughter, but there were tears in her eyes for all that, and Lord Robert was saying, with a sidelong look toward John Storm, “Really, this ought to be a scene in the new Sigurdsen, don't you know!”

John had retired within himself during this nonsense. He had been feeling an intense hatred of the two men, and was looking as gloomy as deep water. “All acting, sheer acting,” he thought, and then he told himself that Glory was only worthy of his contempt. What could attract her in the society of such men? Only their wealth, and their social station. Their intellectual and moral atmosphere must weary and revolt her.

Rosa had to go to her newspaper office, and Drake saw her to the door. John rose at the same time, and Glory said, “Going already?” but she did not try to detain him. She would see him again; she had much to say to him. “I suppose you were surprised to hear that I had returned to London?” she said, looking up at his knitted brows.

He did not answer immediately, and Lord Robert, who was leaning against the chimney-piece, said in his cold drawl, “Your friend ought to be happy that you have returned to London, seems to me, my dear, instead of wasting your life in that wilderness.”

John drew himself up. “It's not London I object to,” he said; “that was inevitable, I dare say.”

“What then?”

“The profession she has come back to follow.”

“Why, what's amiss with the profession?” said Lord Robert, and Drake, who returned to the room at the moment, said: “Yes, what's amiss with it? Some of the best men in the world have belonged to it, I think.”

“Tell me the name of one of them, since the world began, who ever lived an active Christian life.”

Lord Robert made a kink of laughter, and, turning to the window, began to play a tune with his finger tips on the glass of a pane. Drake struggled to keep a straight face, and answered, “It is not their rôle, sir.”

“Very well, if that's too much to ask, tell me how many of them have done anything in real life, anything for the world, for humanity--anything whatever, I don't care what it is.”

“You are unreasonable, sir,” said Drake, “and such objections could as properly apply to the professions of the painter and the musician. These are the children of joy. Their first function is to amuse. And surely amusement has its place in real life, as you say.”

“On the contrary,” said John, following his own thought, for he had not listened, “how many of them have lived lives of reckless abandonment, self-indulgence, and even scandalous license!”

“Those are abuses that apply equally to other professions, sir. Even the Church is not free from them. But in the view of reasonable beings one clergyman of evil life--nay, one hundred--would not make the profession of the clergy bad.”

“A profession,” said John, “which appeals above all to the senses, and lives on the emotions, and fosters jealousy and vanity and backbiting, and develops duplicity, and exists on lies, and does nothing to encourage self-sacrifice or to help suffering humanity, is a bad profession and a sinful one!”