A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.




"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, in some
agitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wish
you did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd better
not talk about it."

"It might interest me to know the facts," said Laura, in a little hard
voice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for a
good while."

"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'll
misunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him."
(Laura made a restless movement.) "It is not because we think we can save
our souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestants
put it----"

"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice.

"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification,'" she said, hurrying on.
"It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makes
saints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor father
didn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--he
didn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--it
doesn't, really."

"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point.

But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain.

"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--just
the common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all much
stricter, of course."

"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice.

"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybody
does.--I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants to
go back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----"

Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that in
the early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even a
drink. But Alan was not going to do that?

Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbon
round the dog's neck.

"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's
_nothing_--that would be interesting."

"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn't
settle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in the
English Church."

Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Laura
looked at her, smiling.

"Who settles it, then?"

"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have given
him leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visible
gulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her about
it. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never be
singular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it.
And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote down
a list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried over
it!"

Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, but
her blue eyes flamed.

"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there was
any hardship in that!"

"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself.--I
won't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation.

Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March buds
on the sycamores shining above the river.

"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning her
head over her shoulder.

"No, no," said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only to
himself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence,' you
understand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hard
with their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does.
Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I really
can't be always having extra things!"

Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her.

"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in your
Church," said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholic
doctor--said to you at Folkestone."

Mrs. Fountain sighed.

"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. No
improvement--till Lent's over?"

"Laura!"

But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid no
heed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness:

"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray."

Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but a
face all radiance.

"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Such
ridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And the
river's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know,
Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once been
born in it."

Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and said
nothing.

"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before a
picture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale.

In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girl
in white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised and
eager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with a
white veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brown
wall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it,
so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman.

Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a large
chair, deep in some thoughts of her own.

"That's our picture--the famous picture," she explained slowly.

"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of her
stepmother's.

Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, as
though she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time.
Laura was much puzzled by her.

"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much to
know that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses such
a thing?"

Augustina started.

"It's worth thousands," she said hastily. "We know that. There was a man
from London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would never
sell his things. And she was our great-grandmother."

An idea flashed through Laura's mind.

"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Laura
impetuously. "It would be a shame!"

"Alan can do what he likes with anything," said Augustina in a quick
resentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some of
it has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed on
him--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!"

Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh.

"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poor
dear house!" repeated Laura.

She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweet
confiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in the
homage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all the
natural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling under
foot.

Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head.

"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton's
afraid.--There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----"

"He certainly ought not to sell it," repeated Laura with emphasis. "He
has to think of the people that come after. What will they care for
orphanages? He only holds the picture in trust."

"There will be no one to come after," said Augustina slowly. "For of
course he will never marry."

"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say,
Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good."

She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words.

"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an
attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants
to be kind to you."

"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning
round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But
never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there
a great many more rooms to see?"

Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said,
"and Alan's study----"

"Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel."

Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It
was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had
once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the
treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled.

It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered
into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what
still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some
of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote
corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded
stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey
carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as
possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and
of comfort.

The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new
furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on
which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first
one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn;
dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the
gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment
of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing
could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising.
For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where
to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house
and its treasures were still intact.

The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living
upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making
alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might
be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's
plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of
course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl
hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them
all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the
one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little
hands.

They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they
neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their
back.

"It's Alan," said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!"

She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stood
still.

But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest with
outstretched hand.

"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce Father
Bowles to you?"

Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. She
saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby
hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His
long irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his very
small and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore an
expression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent a
little with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling.

He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequious
politeness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journey
and her arrival.

Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina was
all effusion.

"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" she
said to the priest as they moved on,--clasping her hands, and flushing.

"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it," he said in a little
murmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content her
children."

Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck.

"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us to
reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel," he said gravely. "It is a
privilege we never enjoyed till last year."

Laura made no reply.

"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her.

But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door;
and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others.

Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her.

"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes," he said to her as she
hurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, by
herself. Then she turned and looked about her.

It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and every
detail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves with
holy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was the
altar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulse
quickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erection
above it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lamp
burning in front of it?

She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the Blessed
Sacrament." Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of a
hearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much less
than any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, she
guessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, before
which Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively she
felt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figures
was being offered.

Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once she
had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and
a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the
"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there,
and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeed
specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as
they came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain would
disappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church that
stood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home half
an hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse.

But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a private
chapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--the
Christ of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar!

The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave of
the most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what an
intolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? The
next instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging to
him proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--the
little heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let her
rather rejoice that she was her father's daughter!

She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers had
risen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two or
three minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina was
talking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to the
altar.

It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than her
stepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new,--the
frescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of the
Virgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had the
air of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all the
more sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, the
starvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast.

But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of rich
beauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and the
perfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her,
thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to right
and left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with what
appeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in the
act. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women,
turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them from
a crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the row
was unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, still
waited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burned
with colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnations
and rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs and
greens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicity
of surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling,
something that spoke as it were from passion to passion.

Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt the
thrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room.

"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But it
isn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--and
rose! And the angels between!--and the flowers under their
feet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?"

"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her.

She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plump
white hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude which
seemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laura
shrank from, it in quick annoyance.

"They are very strange, and--and startling," she said stiffly, moving as
far away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?"

"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time by
a youth of great genius." Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word
"_ge_-nius," as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts,
but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped."

"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter."

The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without saying
anything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes and
the chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic of
listeners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking;
and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movement
towards the door all the time.

In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Laura
appeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while the
priest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, in
much agitation, whispered in the girl's ear:

"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about those
pictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you some
time--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!"

Laura drew herself away.

"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?"

"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall.
"People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been a
regular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn't
sympathise----"

"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm so
hungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that's
dinner."

* * * * *

Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signs
of austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles,
took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and
as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody
else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your
priest.

The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waiting
was done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task.

The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about the
country and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up the
dropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternately
eager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence by
some memory of the past.

Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to the
window with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly that
was buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flicked
the dead thing off the sill.

"I beg your pardon," he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned to
his seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think of
Beelzebub, who was the prince of the flies."

Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make a
study of Father Bowles.

And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest of
an old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners.
Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for his
recollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house to
say Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he was
naturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly.

But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not even
the presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had,
on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blow
out a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy the
smell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truth
were known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknesses
and were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or modern
devotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmly
believed that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and before
the Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now.

* * * * *

Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether any
conveyance was to be got in the village.

"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon," she said rather shortly.

"Certainly," said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is found
for you."

But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought him
ungracious.

"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble," she said, flushing, "I can
walk to the village."

Helbeck paused.

"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could
promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon."

"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to
do."

"Very well," said the girl unwillingly.

As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in a
dress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame with
perfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with the
plainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliant
in the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed to
Helbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he would
have said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, he
found himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishly
evident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassed
him. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, he
might have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd.

After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowles
talking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "new
buildings." Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat.

When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeck
opened the heavy outer door for her.

"May I have Bruno?" she said.

Helbeck turned and whistled.

"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka.

"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them."

At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laura
in her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, he
sprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; her
light voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the spring
wind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were in
sight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl,
the answering frolic of the dogs.

Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching.

"How thankful she is to get rid of us!"

He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly.

"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been
within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina.

Augustina flushed.

"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it
is to her."

She looked rather piteously at her brother.

"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not
realised----"

"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was
with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even
to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time."

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