The Art of Disappearing Part 54

"Judy," said Anne in the shade of the trees, "is Arthur hugging Honora, or...."

"Glory be," whispered Judy with tears streaming down her face, "it's Honora that's hugging Arthur ... no, it's both o' them at wanst, thanks be to G.o.d."

And the two old ladies stole away home through the happy woods.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THREE SCENES.

Anne might have been the bitterest critic of Honora for her descent from the higher to the lesser life, but she loved the girl too well even to look displeasure. Having come to believe that Arthur would be hers alone forever, she regarded Honora's decision as a mistake. The whole world rejoiced at the union of these ideal creatures, even Sister Magdalen, from whom Arthur had s.n.a.t.c.hed a prize. Honora was her own severest critic. How she had let herself go in pity for a sufferer to whom her people, her faith, her father, her friends, and herself owed much, she knew not. His explanation was simple: G.o.d gave you to me.

The process of surrender really began at Louis' ordination. Arthur watched his boy, the center of the august ceremony, with wet eyes. This innocent heart, with its solemn aspirations, its spiritual beauty, had always been for him a wonder and a delight; and it seemed fitting that a life so mysteriously beautiful should end its novitiate and begin its career with a ceremony so touching. The September sun streamed through the venerable windows of the cathedral, the music soared among the arches, the altar glowed with lights and flowers; the venerable archbishop and his priests and attendants filled the sanctuary, an adoring crowd breathed with reverence in the nave; but the center of the scene, its heart of beauty, was the pale, sanctified son of Mary Everard.

For him were all these glories! Happy, happy, youth! Blessed mother!

There were no two like them in the whole world, he said in his emotion.

Her glorified face often shone on him in the pauses of the ceremony. Her look repeated the words she had uttered the night before: "Under G.o.d my happiness is owing to you, Arthur Dillon: like the happiness of so many others; and that I am not to-day dead of sorrow and grief is also owing to you; now may G.o.d grant you the dearest wish of your heart, as He has granted mine this day through you; for there is nothing too good for a man with a heart and a hand like yours."

How his heart had like to burst under that blessing! He thought of Honora, not yet his own.

The entire Irishry was present, with their friends of every race. In deference to his faithful adherent, the great Livingstone sat in the very front pew, seriously attentive to the rite, and studious of its significance. Around him were grouped the well-beloved of Arthur Dillon, the souls knit to his with the strength of heaven; the Senator, high-colored, richly-dressed, resplendent, sincere; the Boss, dark and taciturn, keen, full of emotion, sighing from the depths of his rich nature over the meaning of life, as it leaped into the light of this scene; Birmingham, impressive and dignified, rejoicing at the splendor so powerful with the world that reckons everything by the outward show; and all the friends of the new life, to whom this ceremony was dear as the breath of their bodies. For this people the sanctuary signified the highest honor, the n.o.blest service, the loftiest glory. Beside it the honors of the secular life, no matter how esteemed, looked like dead flowers.

At times his emotion seemed to slip from the rein, threatening to unman him. This child, whose innocent hands were anointed with the Holy Oil, who was bound and led away, who read the ma.s.s with the bishop and received the Sacred Elements with him, upon whom the prelate breathed solemn powers, who lay prostrate on the floor, whose head was blessed by the hands of the a.s.sembled priests: this child G.o.d had given him to replace the innocent so cruelly destroyed long ago!

Honora's eyes hardly left Arthur's transfigured face, which held her, charmed her, frightened her by its ever-changing expression. Light and shadow flew across it as over the depths of the sea. The mask off, the habit of repression laid aside, his severe features responded to the inner emotions. She saw his great eyes fill with tears, his breast heave at times. As yet she had not heard his story. The power of that story came less from the tale than the recollection of scenes like this, which she unthinking had witnessed in the years of their companions.h.i.+p. What made this strange man so unlike all other men?

At the close of the ordination the blessing from the new priest began.

Flushed, dewy-eyed, calm, and white, Louis stood at the railing to lay his anointed hands on each in turn; first the mother, and the father.

Then came a little pause, while Mona made way for him dearest to all hearts that day, Arthur. He held back until he saw that his delay r.e.t.a.r.ded the ceremony, when he accepted the honor. He felt the blessed hands on his head, and a thrill leaped through him as the palms, odorous of the balmy chrism, touched his lips.

Mona held up her baby with the secret prayer that he too would be found worthy of the sanctuary; then followed her husband and her sisters.

Honora did not see as she knelt how Arthur's heart leaped into his eyes, and shot a burning glance at Louis to remind him of a request uttered long ago: when you bless Honora, bless her for me! Thus all conspired against her. Was it wonderful that she left the cathedral drawn to her hero as never before?

The next day Arthur told her with pride and tenderness, as they drove to the church where Father Louis was to sing his first Ma.s.s, that every vestment of the young priest came from him. Sister Magdalen had made the entire set, with her own hands embroidered them, and he had borne the expense. Honora found her heart melting under these beautiful details of an affection, without limit. The depth of this man's heart seemed incredible, deeper than her father's, as if more savage sorrow had dug depths in what was deep enough by nature. Long afterward she recognized how deeply the ordination had affected her. It roused the feeling that such a heart should not be lightly rejected.

Desolation seized her, as the vision of the convent vanished like some lovely vale which one leaves forever. Very simply he banished the desolation.

"I have been computing," he said, as they sat on the veranda after breakfast, "what you might have been worth to the Church as a nun ...

hear me, hear me ... wait for the end of the story ... it is charming.

You are now about twenty-seven, I won't venture any nearer your age. I don't know my mother's age."

"And no man will ever know it," said Anne. "Men have no discretion about ages."

"Let me suppose," Arthur continued, "that fifty years of service would be the limit of your active life. You would then be seventy-seven, and there is no woman alive as old as that. The oldest is under sixty."

"Unless the newspapers want to say that she's a hundred," said Anne slyly.

"For the sake of notoriety she is willing to have the truth told about her age."

"As a school-teacher, a music-teacher, or a nurse, let me say that your services might be valued at one thousand a year for the fifty years, Honora. Do you think that a fair average?"

"Very fair," said she indifferently.

"Well, I am going to give that sum to the convent for having deprived them of your pleasant company," said he. "Hear me, hear me, ... I'm not done yet. I must be generous, and I know your conscience will be tender a long time, if something is not done to toughen it. I want to be married in the new cathedral, which another year will see dedicated. But a good round sum would advance the date. We owe much to Monsignor. In your name and mine I am going to give him enough to put the great church in the way to be dedicated by November."

He knew the suffering which burned her heart that morning, himself past master in the art of sorrow. That she had come down from the heights to the common level would be her grief forever; thus to console her would be his everlasting joy.

"What do you think of it? Isn't it a fair release?"

"Only I am not worth it," she said. "But so much the better, if every one gains more than I lose by my ... infatuation."

"Are you as much in love as that?" said Anne with malice.

They were married with becoming splendor in January. A quiet ceremony suggested by Honora had been promptly overruled by Anne Dillon, who saw in this wedding a social opportunity beyond any of her previous triumphs. Mrs. Dillon was not your mere aristocrat, who keeps exclusive her ceremonious march through life. At that early date she had perceived the usefulness to the aristocracy of the press, of general popularity, and of mixed a.s.semblies; things freely and openly sought for by society to-day. Therefore the great cathedral of the western continent never witnessed a more splendid ceremony than the wedding of Honora and Arthur; and no event in the career of Anne Dillon bore stronger testimony to her genius.

The Chief Justice of the nation headed the _elite_, among whom shone like a constellation the Countess of Skibbereen; the Senator brought in the whole political circle of the city and the state; Grahame marshaled the journalists and the conspirators against the peace of England; the profession of music came forward to honor the bride; the common people of Cherry Hill went to cheer their hero; Monsignor drew to the sanctuary the clerics of rank to honor the benefactor of the cathedral; and high above all, enthroned in beauty, the Cardinal of that year presided as the dispenser of the Sacrament.

As at the ordination of Louis the admirable Livingstone sat among the attendant princes. For the third time within a few months had he been witness to the splendors of Rome now budding on the American landscape.

He did not know what share this Arthur Dillon had in the life of Louis and in the building of the beautiful temple. But he knew the strength of his leaders.h.i.+p among his people; and he felt curious to see with his own eyes, to feel with his own heart, the charm, the enchantment, which had worked a spell so fatal on the richly endowed Endicott nature.

For enchantment there must have been. The treachery and unworthiness of Sonia, detestable beyond thought, could not alone work so strange and weird a transformation. Half cynic always, and still more cynical since his late misfortunes, he could not withhold his approbation from the cleverness which grouped about this young man and his bride the great ones of the hour. The scene wholly depressed him. Not the grandeur, nor the presence of the powers of society, but the sight of this Endicott, of the mould of heroes, of the blood of the English Puritan, acting as sponsor of a new order of things in his beloved country, the order which he had hoped, still hoped, to destroy. His heart bled as he watched him.

The lovely mother, the high-hearted father, lay in their grave. Here stood their beloved, a prince among men, bowing before the idols of Rome, receiving for himself and his bride the blessing of the archpriest of Romanism, a cardinal in his ferocious scarlet. All his courage and skill would be forever at the service of the new order. Who was to blame? Was it not the rotten reed which he had leaned upon, the woman Sonia, rather than these? True it is, true it always will be, that a man's enemies are they of his own household.

A grand content filled the heart of Arthur. The bitterness of his fight had pa.s.sed. So long had he struggled that fighting had become a part of his dreams, as necessary as daily bread. He had not laid aside his armor even for his marriage. Yet there had been an armistice, quite unperceived, from the day of the cathedral's dedication. He had lonely possession of the battle-field. His enemies had fled. All was well with his people. They had reached and pa.s.sed the frontier, as it were, on that day when the great temple opened its sanctuary to G.o.d and its portals to the nation.

The building he regarded as a witness to the daring of Monsignor; for Honora's sake he had given to it a third of his fortune; the day of the dedication crowned Monsignor's triumph. When he had seen the spectacle, he learned how little men have to do with the great things of history.

G.o.d alone makes history; man is the tide which rushes in and out at His command, at the great hours set by Him, and knows only the fact, not the reason. In the building that day gathered a mult.i.tude representing every form of human activity and success. They stood for the triumph of a whole race, which, starved out of its native seat, had clung desperately to the land of Columbia in spite of persecution.

Soldiers sat in the a.s.sembly, witnesses for the dead of the southern battle-fields, for all who had given life and love, who had sacrificed their dearest, to the new land in its hour of calamity. Men rich in the honors of commerce, of the professions, of the schools, artists, journalists, leaders, bore witness to the native power of a people, who had been written down in the books of the hour as idle, inferior, incapable by their very nature. In the sanctuary sat priests and prelate, a brilliant gathering, surrounding the delicate-featured Cardinal, in gleaming red, high on his beautiful throne.

From the organ rolled the wonderful harmonies born of faith and genius; from the pulpit came in sonorous English the interpretation of the scene as a gifted mind perceived it; about the altar the ancient ritual enacted the holy drama, whose sublime enchantment holds every age.

Around rose the towering arches, the steady columns, the broad walls, lighted from the storied windows, of the first really great temple of the western continent!

Whose hands raised it? Arthur discovered in the answer the charm which had worked upon dying Ledwith, turned his failure into triumph, and his sadness into joy. What a witness, an eternal witness, to the energy and faith of a poor, simple, despised people, would be this temple! Looking upon its majestic beauty, who could doubt their powers, though the books printed English slanders in letters of gold? Out of these great doors would march ideas to strengthen and refresh the poor; ideas once rejected, once thought destructible by the air of the American wilderness. A conspiracy of centuries had been unable to destroy them.

Into these great portals for long years would a whole people march for their own sanctification and glory!

Thereafter the temple became for him a symbol, as for the faithful priest; the symbol of his own life as that of his people.

He saw it in the early dawn, whiter than the mist which broke against it, a great angel whose beautiful feet the longing earth had imprisoned!

red with the flush of morning, rosy with the tints of sunrise, as if heaven were smiling upon it from open gates! clear, majestic, commanding in the broad day, like a leader of the people, drawing all eyes to itself, provoking the question, the denial, the prayer from every pa.s.ser, as tributes to its power! in the sunset, as dying Ledwith had seen it, flushed with the fever of life, but paling like the day, tender, beseeching, appealing to the flying crowd for a last turning to G.o.d before the day be done forever! in the twilight, calm, restful, submissive to the darkness, which had no power over it, because of the Presence within! terrible when night falls and sin goes forth in purple and fine linen, a giant which had heaved the earth and raised itself from the dead stone to rebuke and threaten the erring children of G.o.d!