Part 16

She could not doubt, however, that its effect upon Flora was far otherwise.

Although she saw, as time went by, that no outside influence would have power to shatter the vision so clearly before the Canon’s eyes and to which he so unfalteringly directed Flora’s gaze, it brought to her a slight sense of personal relief when the Canon, after inditing a letter of his usual unbridled length and meticulous candour, informed her that he had besought Quentillian to spend at St. Gwenllian that which he emphasized as Flora’s last evening at home.

“It will make it easier for us all, to have that dearest of dear fellows amongst us. He is so truly one of ourselves, and yet the mere presence of someone who does not always form part of our familiar little circle, will prevent overmuch dwelling upon the tender associations of the past that are well-nigh beyond bearing, at such a time as this.”

* * * * *

Owen, laconic as Lucilla herself, made no attempt to conceal either his personal dislike of the solution to Flora’s problem, or his innate conviction of her complete right to any form of self-slaughter that she might select.

They exchanged no opinions, but he found occasion to say to her in private:

“One thing, Flora. Will you leave me to deal with the Mrs. Carey equation, if it ever comes to be necessary?”

“I hope it never will.”

“So do I. But make it your legacy to me, so that if ever it has to be thought of again, I may do as seems best to me.”

Flora smiled, her shadowy, tremulous smile.

“Wouldn’t you do that anyway?”

“Perhaps I should. But I would rather have your permission. And after all, you know, Flora--you won’t be able to pull strings from your Sisterhood.”

It was the last, almost the only, reference that he would permit himself, and both could smile at it faintly.

“Very well, Owen. I don’t want to remember it ever again, and I shall only think of Mrs. Carey now in one way.”

She lacked the Canon’s capacity for outward expression, even now, and her colour rose as she spoke.

Only in earnest and uncondemnatory intercession would Mrs. Carey find place again in Flora’s thoughts.

Owen knew it as well as though she had told him so.

The evening was mild and beautiful, and the Canon sat at the open window, leaning back as though greatly fatigued, and asked Flora for some music.

“Shall I sing?” she asked.

“Are you able to, my dear?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said earnestly, and Quentillian could surmise that she was instinctively eager for the form of self-expression most natural to her, as a vent for her own mingled emotions.

Her voice was more beautiful than ever, with a depth of feeling new to it.

Quentillian was indignant with himself when he found that this perfectly traditional setting for a pathetic situation was unmistakably affecting him.

The only light round them was that of the summer’s evening, and Flora’s voice came with strength and sweetness and purity from her scarcely-seen figure at the far end of the room, in well-remembered and intrinsically-exquisite melody. She was part of his childhood--she was going away--they would none of them ever again see Flora, as they had known her, any more....

Quentillian, in a violent endeavour to react from an emotion that he unsparingly qualified as blatant, turned his eyes away from the singer.

He looked at Lucilla, and saw that she sat very still. He reflected that for a face so sensitive, and possessed of so much latent humour, hers was singularly inexpressive of anything but acceptance. Nevertheless it was an acceptance that had its origin, most unmistakably, in a self-control acquired long since, rather than in an absence of any capacity for strong feeling.

He wondered, not for the first time, what her life had taught Lucilla.

He looked at Canon Morchard.

The Canon had closed his eyes and his face, on which the lines were showing heavily at last, was white with the grey pallor of age. Nevertheless he, too, showed the deep, essential placidity of a conscious acceptance, and for the first time Quentillian perceived a fundamental resemblance between the Canon and his eldest daughter.

As though aware of the scrutiny fixed upon him, the Canon opened his eyes, and smiled as they met Quentillian’s.

“That harmony will be lost to us for a time, perhaps,” he said softly. “But is it not a foretaste of that great Song of Praise that will have no ending, and in which all, all, will be able to join together? I think so, Owen.”

He turned his head slightly, his finger-tips joined together in the position habitual to him.

“Flora, my child, my dear daughter, will it be too much if I ask for ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ as you have so often given it to us on long-ago Sundays when we have been all together--all together?”

For answer, she struck the opening chords very gently.

“Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom “Lead thou me on “The night is dark, and I am far from home “Lead thou me on ... .... “Till, the night is gone “And with the morn those Angel faces smile “Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.”

Flora’s voice was rapt and unfaltering.

Lucilla did not move, nor raise her eyes.

It was Owen Quentillian, poignantly and unwillingly conscious of pathos, who set his teeth in a profound and intense resentment at the obvious emotional appeal that he found himself unable to ignore.

He unspeakably dreaded the breakdown of the Canon’s composure that he foresaw, when Flora’s last note had died away into silence.

He could not look up.

“Flora!”

The Canon’s voice was steady and gentle.

“Thank you, my child. Bid me good-night, and go, now. You must have some rest, before your journey tomorrow.”

She came to him and he blessed and kissed her as usual, only letting his hand linger for a moment on her head as he repeated as though speaking to himself:

“And with the morn those Angel faces smile “Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.”

“Good-night, Owen. Goodbye,” said Flora.

She left the room, and the Canon raised himself with difficulty from his low chair and said:

“I have some preparations to make for tomorrow. I will leave you for a little while.”

When he had gone, Owen felt the relaxation of his own mental tension.

For the first time, and with a sincerity that left him amazed, he found himself making use of the phrase that from others had so often aroused rebellion in himself:

“He is wonderful!”

Lucilla raised her eyes now, and looked full and gravely at Quentillian.

“Yes. I’m glad you see it at last, Owen.”

“At last?” he stammered, replying to her voice rather than to her words.

“He is very fond of you. He has always been very fond of you, ever since you were a little boy. And it has--vexed me--very often, to see that you gave him nothing in return, that, because he belongs to another school, and another generation, you have almost despised him, I think.”

Owen was conscious of colouring deeply in his sudden surprise and humiliation.

“Although you are so clever, Owen,” she said in the same grave, un-ironical tone, “it has seemed as though you are not able, at all, to see beyond the surface. I know that my father’s religious sentiment, sentimentality even, his constant outward expression of emotional piety, his guileless optimism, have all jarred upon you. But you have had no eyes for his pathetic courage, his constant striving for what he sees as the highest.”

“Lucilla--in justice to myself--although what you say may be true, if I have judged your father it has been far more on account of his children--of what I have seen of their lives.”

“You were not called upon to constitute yourself the champion of his children. Valeria, even, had no claim on your championship. It was not you whom she loved, and you, too, tried to make Val what she was never meant to be. When Val threw you over, if my father tried to force upon you what you could only see as the conventional _beau geste_ of renunciation, it was because he was incapable of believing that you could have asked a woman to marry you without loving her, body and soul. His forgiveness of Val, whether you thought him entitled to forgive or not, lay between him and her. And when you speak of our lives, Owen, can’t you see that Val and Adrian and I, and perhaps in a way even Flora, too, have come to what we were meant for? No one can stand between another soul, and life, really.”

He was oddly struck by the echo of words that he had himself once used to Flora.

“You admit that he tried, to stand between you and life?”

“I do,” she said instantly. “But if he had succeeded, the fault would have been ours.”

She suddenly smiled.

“Isn’t it true that to face facts means freedom? That’s why I’m not an optimist, Owen. I am willing to face all the facts you like. But you, I think, in judging my father, have only faced half of them.”

“You find me intolerant!” he exclaimed, half-ironically. Never before had such an adjective been presented to his strong sense of his own impartiality, his detached rationalism.

“Not exactly. Only, I’m afraid--a little bit of a prig.”

She uttered the strange, unimposing accusation, not rudely, not unkindly, but almost mournfully.

“Christianity has been accused of intolerance very often, and with only too much reason, but those outside the Churches, who frankly claim to be agnostic, often seem to me to be the most intolerant of all, of what they look upon as superstition. Why should you despise my father for beliefs that have led him to lead an honourable life, and that have given him courage to bear his many sorrows?”

“You have said, yourself, that the facing of facts means freedom. I can see no freedom, and therefore no beauty, in living in illusion.”

“Not for yourself, perhaps. Illusions could never be anything but conscious, for you.”

“Nor for yourself, Lucilla,” he retorted swiftly.

“But how does that entitle us to despise another for holding them?” she demanded, quite as swiftly. Nevertheless Owen detected a lessening of severity, in so far as she had coupled them together in her speech.

“Tonight,” he said gravely, “I admired your father with all my heart.”

“I’m glad.”

On the words, the same as those with which Lucilla had begun their brief and rather amazing conversation, the Canon returned into the room.

IV

THE DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST

(i)

Quentillian’s next and final summons to St. Gwenllian came some months after Canon Morchard had taken Flora to her Sisterhood, and returned alone.

Owen was unprepared for the change in the Canon’s appearance, although he knew him to be ill.

“Aye, dear lad! It’s the last stage of the journey. I have thought that it was so for some time, and they tell me now that there is no doubt of it. This poor clay is worn out, and the spirit within is to be set free. Verily, I can still repeat those favourite words of mine: ‘All things work together for good, to those that love God.’ If you but knew the number of times during these last few years that I have cried out within myself ‘O for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest!’ And now it has come! and I hope to keep my Christmas feast among the blest. They tell me that it cannot be long.”

Quentillian looked the enquiry that he felt it difficult to put into words.

“I can take very little. Soon, they tell me that even that little will have become impossible. See how even the crowning mercy of preparedness is vouchsafed to me! I have put my house in order as well as may be, and have no care save for my poor Lucilla. She will be alone indeed, and it is for her sake, Owen, that I want you to do a great kindness to a dying man.”

“Anything, sir. Do you want me to stay?”

“You have it, Owen.” The Canon laid his hand, thin now to emaciation, upon Quentillian’s.

“Stay with us now until the end comes. It cannot be far off. I have outlived my brothers, and Lucilla’s remaining aunt is old and infirm. It is not fit, even were it possible, that she should come here. She will receive Lucilla most tenderly after I am gone--of that I am assured. But there is no one to uphold her, to spare her needless distress, when the time comes.”

“I will do everything that I can to help her.”

“I know it, dear fellow--I know it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It seems natural to treat you as a son.”

The Canon paused and looked wistfully at Quentillian upon the word.

“Perhaps Adrian will come home. I have written to him--a long letter. He need not be afraid of me.

“I have written to my three absent children: To Valeria--my blessing for her little sons--I would have given much to see them before going--aye, and their mother, too, my merry Valeria, as I once called her! I have missed Valeria’s laughter in this quiet house, that was once full of merriment and children’s voices.

“And I have written to Flora, my Flora, who chose the better part. May she indeed be blessed in her choice--little Flora!”

He sank back, looking exhausted.

“I will stay as long as you wish me to stay, and I will do all that I can for Lucilla,” repeated Quentillian.

“I know it. The last anxiety has been allayed. Aye, Owen, I have ceased to concern myself with these things now, I hope. If Adrian comes to me, and if Lucilla can count upon you as upon a brother, then I am well satisfied indeed. My affairs are in good order, I believe. My will is with my solicitors--Lucilla knows the address. What there is, goes in equal shares to Lucilla, Valeria, and Adrian. Flora has received her portion already. My books, dear Owen, are yours. All else--personal effects, manuscripts, and the rest--are Lucilla’s. She has been my right hand. There are mementos to Clover, to one or two old friends and servants--nothing else. I have thought it well to make Lucilla sole executrix--she has helped in all my business for so long!

“So you see that my temporal concerns are over and done with. In regard to the spiritual, I have had the unutterable honour and pleasure of a visit from the Bishop himself. He was all fatherly goodness and kindness. The dear Clover is always at hand for reading, and I can depend on him utterly for those last commendations that are to smooth my way down the Valley of the Shadow. There is nothing wanting. And now you have come!”

The Canon’s wasted face was both radiant and serene.

The grief that had so often shown there seemed to have passed away, and Quentillian found it almost incredible that he had ever seen the Canon angry, or weighed down by a leaden depression of spirits.

“Is he really happy, all the time?” Quentillian asked Lucilla.

“Yes, all the time. Even when he has pain. But they say there won’t be any more pain, most likely, now. He will just sink, gradually. If you knew how very little he is living on, even now, you would be surprised.”

“Are you doing the nursing?”

“He wants a trained nurse. One has been sent for. He thinks that it will spare me,” said Lucilla, smiling a little.

In the days that followed, Owen saw how difficult Lucilla found it to be so spared.

The nurse was an efficient and conscientious woman, and the Canon quickly became dependent upon her. He begged Owen to spend as much time as possible with Lucilla, who remained downstairs, replying to the innumerable letters and the enquirers who came to the house.

She was now only with her father for a brief morning visit, and the hour in the afternoon when the nurse took her exercise out of doors. Very often Quentillian, at the Canon’s request, was also with them then.

“Lucilla and I have long ago said our last words, such as they are,” the Canon told him with a smile. “We understand one another too well to need to be left alone together.”

Time slipped by with monotonous regularity, the changes in the Canon almost imperceptible to the onlookers.

Then, preceded only by a telegram, Adrian came home.

“My father isn’t really dying, is he?” he asked piteously.

“He can’t take anything at all, now. It’s a question almost of hours.”

Lucilla took him upstairs to where his father lay, propped upon pillows, and they were left alone together.

“You know, it is very bad for Canon Morchard to have any agitation,” the nurse anxiously pointed out to Lucilla, when the interview had lasted a long while.

“Can it make any real difference?”

“It may reduce his strength more quickly.”

“He would say that it was worth it. He has not seen this son for a long while.”

Lucilla kept the woman out of the room as long as it was possible to do so.

At last Adrian came downstairs.

That evening the Canon said to Quentillian, with tears in his eyes:

“Adrian has promised me to give up his work for that man. Is it not wonderful, dear Owen? All, all added unto me. If this pain of mine is to be the price of my boy’s awaking to his own better nature, how gladly shall I not pay it!”

It was the only time that Quentillian had ever heard him allude to having suffered physical pain.

“I have not been so much at rest about Adrian since he was a little boy,” said the Canon. “He was always the most affectionate of them all. And he cried like a little child, poor fellow, this afternoon, and voluntarily passed me his promise to leave that man.”

Quentillian’s own involuntary distrust of the promise given by a weak nature, under strong emotional stress, was profound, but he gave no sign of it. It no longer caused him any satisfaction to be aware of a deeper insight in himself than in the Canon. He could not share that guileless singleness of vision, and felt no envy of it, and yet he paradoxically desired that it should remain unimpaired.

He asked Lucilla if she knew of Adrian’s promise.

“He told me. He was crying when he came down. He can’t believe even yet that father is dying, poor Adrian! And yet he must believe it, really, to have made that promise.”

“The Canon is so thankful for it.”

“I know. He wanted it more than anything in the world. Everything has come to make it easy for him to go, Owen.”

Something in her tone made him say gently:

“Poor Lucilla!”

“Even if the impression is only temporary with Adrian, it will be a comfort to him afterwards. He is very unhappy now, that there should have been any estrangement between them.”

It was evident enough that Lucilla, also, had no great reliance upon Adrian’s stability of purpose, although his present reaction had brought such joy and comfort to the dying man.

That night for the first time the Canon’s mind wandered. He spoke of his children as though all were once more of nursery age, and at home together.

“Little Adrian can take my hand, and then he can keep up with the others. Less noise, my love--a little less noise.... Valeria’s voice is too often raised, too often raised--although I like its merry note, in fit and proper season. My merry Valeria! Now are we ready? The sketch-book, Flora, the sketch-book.... I want to see that pretty attempt at the Church finished.”

Then he said with an apologetic note in his voice:

“Flora lacks perseverance, and is too easily discouraged, but we hope that she may show great feeling for art, by and bye. Lucilla’s _forte_ lies in more practical directions. She is my housekeeper--my right hand, I often call her. Look, children, at that effect of sunlight through the beech-leaves. Is it not wonderful? Come, Adrian, my man--no lagging behind....”

Presently a puzzled, distressed look came over his face and he asked: “Is not one missing? Is David here?”

Lucilla bent over him to say, “Yes, father,” but the distressed look still lingered.

“Where is David?” said the Canon. “Was there not some sadness--some trouble between us? No--no--all a dream.”

His face lightened again. “David is safe home. I shall see David tonight.”

By and by he asked to be told the time.

It was nine o’clock.

The Canon’s voice had become a weak whisper.

“I thought it was morning, and that I had them all again--little children. Such trustful little hands lying in mine ... and the children have grown up and gone away.... No ... Lucilla, you are there, are you not, my dear love? And Owen--Owen, that was like a third son to me. My own sons are there, too--David is safe home ... only a very little way on ... and Adrian, little Adrian--he promised ... ah, all things work together for good....”

His voice trailed thinly away into silence, his wan face was smiling.

“He will sleep,” whispered the nurse, and her words were verified almost instantly.

Owen took Lucilla away.

There was a strong sense upon him that the summons would not be long delayed now.

Lucilla went downstairs and quietly opened the outer door into the garden. They walked up and down there, Owen watching the red spark waxing and waning from his own cigar. The night was extraordinarily still, the dark arch of the sky powdered with stars.

Neither spoke directly of that which occupied their minds most, but Quentillian said by and bye:

“Where shall you go, eventually?”

“Torquay, perhaps. There is an old aunt there--father’s sister. I shall have just enough not to be dependent upon her, even if I make my home with her.”

“Will that be congenial?”

Lucilla gave a little low, sad laugh.

“I don’t think there’s much alternative, is there? This house, of course, goes to the next incumbent. If Mr. Clover is appointed--and we very much hope that he will be--he would probably buy a good deal of the furniture (which is just as well, as it would certainly drop to pieces if we tried to move it). I couldn’t possibly afford to set up house for myself, in any case. And I must have something to do. Aunt Mary would find plenty for me to do.”

“I daresay,” said Quentillian without enthusiasm.

“Perhaps you are thinking of my taking up an occupation or a profession seriously, but you know, Owen, it isn’t really a practical proposition, though one feels as though it ought to be. Just think for a minute, and tell me what I’m fit for--except perhaps being someone’s housekeeper.”

“My dear Lucilla, with your education and the literary training your father has given you, surely anyone would be glad of your services.”

“Not at all. I can’t write shorthand. My typing, which I taught myself, isn’t nearly as good or as quick as that of any little girl of sixteen who has learnt it properly, and can probably use half a dozen different makes of machine. I’ve never learnt office routine--filing, indexing, bookkeeping, the use of a dictaphone. I believe all those things are necessary nowadays. I don’t suppose, if I did learn them all now, I should ever be very good or very quick.”

“I’m not suggesting that you should become a City clerk at forty shillings a week.”

“A private secretary, then? I can’t honestly see why anyone should employ a woman with no experience, when there are so many experts wanting work. Languages might be an asset, but most people know French. German isn’t likely to be wanted now, and I don’t fancy there is any great demand for Latin or Greek. Even for teaching, schools want diplomas and certificates, besides proficiency in games.”

“But the higher professions are all open to women of education nowadays,” he protested. “You’re not restricted to the kitchen or the nursery.”

“Do you really think that I could work up, now, for a stiff legal or medical examination, and pass it?” she demanded with a sort of gentle irony. “You don’t realize, Owen, that I’m nearly forty.”

He had not realized it, and it silenced him momentarily.

“I think my chances went by a long time ago,” said Lucilla. “I’ve never told anyone about it, but I think I’d like to tell you now, because I don’t want you to think of me as a victim.”

Quentillian registered a silent mental appreciation of a reason diametrically opposite to the reason for which the majority of confidences are bestowed.