“It is only that she makes it impossible for you to teach her,” she hazarded, following his lead. “I know something of that difficulty myself. These wayward pleasure-loving people make it very hard for us all sometimes.”
Mr. Clavering shook his stick defiantly into the darkness, whether as a movement directed against the powers of evil or against the powers of good, he would himself have found it hard to say. Queer thoughts of a humourous frivolity passed through his mind. Something in the girl’s grave tone had an irritating effect upon him. It is always a little annoying, even to the best of men, to feel themselves being guided and directed by women, unless they are in love with them. Clavering was certainly not in love with Vennie; and though in his emotional agitation he had gone so far in confiding in her, he was by no means unconscious of something incongruous and even ridiculous in the situation. This queer new frivolity in him, which now peered forth from some twisted corner of his nature, like a rat out of a hole, found this whole interview intolerably absurd. He suddenly experienced the sensation of being led along at Vennie’s side like a convicted school-boy. He found himself rebelling against all women in his heart, both good and bad, and recalling, humorously and sadly, the old sweet scandalous attitude of contempt for the whole sex, of his irresponsible Cambridge days. Perhaps, dimly and unconsciously, he was reacting now, after all this interval, to the subtle influence of Mr. Taxater. He knew perfectly well that the very idea of a man—not to speak of a priest—confiding his amorous weaknesses to a woman, would have excited that epicurean sage to voluble fury. Everything that was mediæval and monkish in him rose up too, in support of this interior outburst of Rabelaisean spleen.
It would be interesting to know if Vennie had any inkling, as she walked in the darkness by his side, of this new and unexpected veering of his mood. Certainly she refrained from pressing him for any further confessions. Perhaps with the genuine clairvoyance of a saint she was conscious of her danger. At any rate she began speaking to him of herself, of her difficulties with her mother and her mother’s friends, of her desire to be of more use to Lacrima Traffio, and of the obstacles in the way of that.
Conversing with friendly familiarity on these less poignant topics they arrived at last at the gates of the Priory farm and the entrance to the church. Mr. Clavering was proceeding to escort her home, when she suddenly stopped in the road, and said in a quick hurried whisper, “I should dearly love to walk once round the churchyard before I go back.”
The cheerful light from the windows of the Goat and Boy showed, as it shone upon his face, his surprise as well as his disinclination. The truth is, that by a subtle reversion of logic he had now reached the idea that it was at once absurd and unkind to send that letter to Gladys. He was trembling to tear it in pieces, and burn the pieces in his kitchen-fire! Vennie however, did not look at his face. She looked at the solemn tower of St. Catharine’s church.
“Please get the key,” she said, “and let us walk once round.”
He was compelled to obey her, and knocking at the door of the clerk’s cottage aroused that astonished and scandalized official into throwing the object required out of his bedroom window. Once inside the churchyard however, the strange and mystical power of the spot brought his mood into nearer conformity with his companion’s.
They stopped, as everyone who visits Nevilton churchyard is induced to stop, before the extraordinary tomb of Gideon and Naomi Andersen. The thing had been constructed from the eccentric old carver’s own design, and had proved one of the keenest pleasures of his last hours.
Like the whimsical poet Donne, he had derived a sardonic and not altogether holy delight in contemplating before his end the actual slab of earthly consistence that was to make his bodily resurrection so emphatically miraculous. Clavering and Vennie stood for several minutes in mute contemplation before this strange monument. It was composed of a huge, solid block of Leonian stone, carved at the top into the likeness of an enormous human skull, and ornamented, below the skull, by a deeply cut cross surrounded by a circle. This last addition gave to the sacred symbol within it a certain heathen and ungodly look, making it seem as though it were no cross at all, but a pagan hieroglyph from some remote unconsecrated antiquity. The girl laid her fragile hand on the monstrous image of death, which the gloom around them made all the more threatening.
“It is wonderful,” she said, “how the power of Christ can change even the darkest objects into beauty. I like to think of Him striking His hand straight through the clumsy half-laws of Man and Nature, and holding out to us the promise of things far beyond all this morbid dissolution.”
“You are right, my friend,” answered the priest.
“I think the world is really a dark and dreadful place,” she went on. “I cannot help saying so. I know there are people who only see its beauty and joy. I cannot feel like that. If it wasn’t for Him I should be utterly miserable. I think I should go mad. There is too much unhappiness—too much to be borne! But this strong hand of His, struck clean down to us from outside the whole wretched confusion,—I cling to that; and it saves me. I know there are lots of happy people, but I cannot forget the others! I think of them in the night. I think of them always. They are so many—so many!”
“Dear child!” murmured the priest, his interlude of casual frivolity melting away like mist under the flame of her conviction.
“Do you think,” she continued, “that if we were able to hear the weeping of all those who suffer and have suffered since the beginning of the world, we could endure the idea of going on living? It would be too much! The burden of those tears would darken the sun and hide the moon. It is only His presence in the midst of us,—His presence, coming in from outside, that makes it possible for us to endure and have patience.”
“Yes, He must come in from outside,” murmured the priest, “or He cannot help us. He must be able to break every law and custom and rule of nature and man. He must strike at the whole miserable entanglement from outside it—from outside it!”
Clavering’s voice rose almost to a shout as he uttered these last words. He felt as though he were refuting in one tremendous cry of passionate certainty all those “modernistic” theories with which he loved sometimes to play. He was completely under Vennie’s influence now.
“And we must help Him,” said the girl, “by entering into His Sacrifice. Only by sacrifice—by the sacrifice of everything—can we enable Him to work the miracle which He would accomplish!”
Clavering could do nothing but echo her words.
“The sacrifice of everything,” he whispered, and abstractedly laid his hand upon the image of death carved by the old artist. Moved apparently by an unexpected impulse, Vennie seized, with her own, the hand thus extended.
“I have thought,” she cried, “of a way out of your difficulty. Give her her lessons in the church! That will not hurt her feelings, and it will save you. It will prevent her from distracting your mind, and it will concentrate her attention upon your teaching. It will save you both!”
Clavering held the little hand, thus innocently given him, tenderly and solemnly in both of his.
“You are right, my friend,” he said, and then, gravely and emphatically as if repeating a vow,—“I will take her in the church. That will settle everything.”
Vennie seemed thrilled with spiritual joy at his acquiescence in her happy inspiration. She walked so rapidly as they recrossed the churchyard that he could hardly keep pace with her. She seemed to long to escape, to the solitude of her own home, of her own room, in order to give full vent to her feelings. He locked the gate of the porch behind them, and put the key in his pocket. Very quickly and in complete silence they made their way up the road to the entrance of the Vicarage garden.
Here they separated, with one more significant and solemn hand-clasp. It was as if the spirit of St. Catharine herself was in the girl, so ethereal did she look, so transported by unearthly emotion, as the gate swung behind her.
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