Collected Works of E M Delafield, page 234
She flushed deeply and looked earnestly at Lucilla.
“I wish I could make you understand. But some things are too sacred to be described, even if one could. The only thing I can say is that I was unhappy, I felt I was wasting my life, and that nobody cared. And I was full of remorse for a wrong I had done. I can’t tell you what it was, Lucilla, nor anyone else ever, and I can’t undo it, now, but at least I can expiate it, and all my other failings.”’
“Expiation?” Lucilla spoke the word unenthusiastically. “But if you can’t undo whatever it was you did — and really, Flossie, I can’t believe it was anything so very desperate — will it be a good plan to go on being miserable about it for the rest of your life, all to no purpose?”
“ ‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness,’ “ Flora replied gently.
Lucilla was left to apply the truth of the adage to her own condition of mind.
She was very unhappy about her sister.
Nevertheless, Flora had ceased to weep, and although she ate less than ever and rose early for the purpose of going to church, she looked rather less ill. Only the strained look in her eyes remained, ever increasing, to justify Lucilla’s feeling of sick dismay.
That it was entirely unshared by Canon Morchard, she knew already, but she was not altogether prepared for the announcement that he presently made.
“I am very happy about dear Flora — peculiarly and wonderfully so. What think you, Lucilla, of this? Flora is turning her thoughts towards the Sisterhood at St. Mary church.”
It was never Miss Morchard’s way to respond over-emphatically to an invitation from her father to state her thoughts freely, experience having long since taught her what a tangled web we weave when first we practice speaking the truth inopportunely.
“Has she only just started the idea?”
“Nay, she tells me — and I can readily believe it — that the grace of God, according to its mysterious wont, has been working within her for a long while now. There has been a period of darkness for Flora, undoubtedly, but she is emerging more and more into the light — that light that shineth into the Perfect Day!” The Canon seemed rather inclined to forget himself in profound musings.
“It implies losing her,” said Lucilla.
“Humanly speaking, yes, and it is hard to eradicate the human element. But once that is done — and done it shall be — what remains is altogether joyful. I shall see her go, if go she does, with feelings far other than those with which I saw our poor Valeria leave home!” Lucilla thought so, too, and would emphatically have given the preference to Valeria’s method of inaugurating an independent career.
“I cannot be anything but glad that one of mine should be dedicated!” the Canon exclaimed, as though the exclamation broke from him almost irrepressibly. “But does Flora mean to go away at once?”
“She wishes it greatly, and I should hardly feel justified in restraining her. Flora is not a child, and her own desire, as she says herself, is to feel that wayward, wayless will of hers at safe anchorage at last. Dear child, her one regret is for me.”
Tears stood in the Canon’s eyes.
“The grief of last winter greatly developed Flora, I believe. There has been a tendency to dreaminess, to a too great absorption in her music, that I confess has made me anxious in the past. But she speaks most rightly and nobly of her certainty that a call has come to her, and if so, it is indeed a vocation that must not be gainsayed. She is all ardour and anxiety to begin, and if all is well, she and I go to St. Mary church to view the establishment there next week, and enter into the necessary arrangements.”
“What sort of life will it mean for her?”
“One of direct service, dear Lucilla, of shelter from the temptations of this world, of close personal union with Christ Himself, I trust. All indeed are not called to such union, but I believe with all my heart that our Flora is amongst the chosen few, and grievous though it be to lose her from our sadly diminished home-circle, I cannot but rejoice for her, and with her.”
The Canon’s voice trembled very much as he spoke, but his smile was one of single-hearted sincerity.
“But does she rejoice?” said Lucilla rather faintly.
“Indeed she does. I confess that Flora’s earnest desire for self-immolation, her ardent spirit, have taken me by surprise. She is of the stuff of which the martyrs were made. No austerity has any terrors for her — she is already far advanced upon the way of the mystic.”
Lucilla wrung her hands together.
“What is it, my dear one?” said her father gently.
She could not tell him. She felt unable to voice the terror and the profound distrust that possessed her at the thought of Flora, fanatically eager for discipline of her own seeking, finding in religious emotionalism an outlet for instincts that she had not dared, so far as Lucilla could judge, to call by their right name.
“One can only let other people go their own way, then?” she murmured, more to herself than to the Canon.
“Say, rather, the way appointed for them, dear Lucilla. Yours and mine may lie together yet awhile longer, I trust, but I am no longer young, and these repeated partings tell upon me. It is a sacrifice for you, too, to make, but let us do so cheerfully — aye, and right thankfully, too. Our little one has been chosen for the Bride of Heaven, as the beautiful old devotional phrase has it.”
Lucilla was only too conscious that the beautiful old devotional phrase awoke nothing in herself but a shuddering distaste.
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 f 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 oil. 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.”
