Phyllis of Philistia Part 23

_Unless_----

She got to her feet--very slowly--and walked very slowly--across the room. She seated herself on the sofa where Ella had sat, and she remained motionless for some minutes. Then she made a motion with one of her hands as if sweeping from before her eyes some flimsy repulsiveness--the web of an unclean thing flas.h.i.+ng in the air. In another instant she had buried her face in the pillow that still bore the impress of Ella's face.

"Oh, G.o.d--my G.o.d, forgive me--forgive me--forgive me!" was her silent, pa.s.sionate prayer as she lay there sobbing. "How could I ever have such a thought, so terrible a thought. She is my friend--my sister--and she put herself into her husband's arms and kissed him! Oh, G.o.d, forgive me!"

That was her prayer for the greater part of the night as she lay in her white bed.

She felt that she had sinned grievously in thought against her friend, when she recalled the way in which her friend had thrown herself into the arms of her husband. That was the one action which the girl felt should ent.i.tle Ella Linton to be the subject of no such horrid thought as had been for a shocking instant forced upon her mind, when she reflected upon the strange pa.s.sion which had tingled through Ella's repet.i.tion of the fiery words of _Juliet_.

She recalled every strange element in the incident of Ella's appearance in the drawing room: the way in which Ella had kissed her and clung to her as a child might have done on finding someone to protect it; she recalled the wild words which Ella had uttered, and, finally, the terrible expression which had appeared on her face as she whispered that reckless answer to Phyllis' question, when she had picked up her wrap and flung it around her just before the sound of footsteps had come to their ears. All that she recalled in connection with that extraordinary visit of Ella's was quite intelligible to her; but the mystery of all was more than neutralized by her recollection of the way Ella had thrown herself into her husband's arms. That action should, she felt, be regarded as the one important factor, as it were, in the solution of the problem of Ella's mood--Ella's series of moods. Nothing else that she had done, nothing that she had said, was worthy of being taken account of, alongside that dominant act of the true wife.

The little whisper which suggested to her that there was a good deal that was mysterious in the incident of her friend's visit she refused to regard as rendering it less obligatory on her--Phyllis--to pray that she might be forgiven that horrid suspicion which, for an instant, had come to her; and so she fell asleep praying to G.o.d to forgive her for her sin (in thought) against her friend.

And while Phyllis was praying her prayer, her friend, the True Wife, was praying with her face down upon her pillow, and her bare arms stretched out over the white lace of the bed:

"Forgive me, O G.o.d; forgive me! and keep him away from me--forever and ever and ever. Amen."

And while both these prayers were being prayed, Herbert Courtland was sitting on one of the deck stools of the yacht _Water Nymph_, looking back at the many lights that gleamed in cl.u.s.ters along the southern coast of England, now far astern; for a light breeze was sending the boat along with a creaming, quivering wake. In the bows a youth was making the night hideous through the agency of a banjo and a sham negro melody. Amids.h.i.+ps, Lord Earlscourt and two other men were playing, by the light of a lantern slung from the backstay, a game called poker; Lord Earlscourt, at every fresh deal, trying to make the rest understand how greatly the worry of being held responsible, as the patron of the living of St. Chad's, for the eccentricities of his rector, had affected his nerves--a matter upon which his friends a.s.sured him, with varied degrees of emphasis, they were in no way interested.

Within a few feet of these congenial s.h.i.+pmates Herbert Courtland sat looking across the s.h.i.+ning ripples to the s.h.i.+ning lights of the coast; wondering how he came to be on the sea instead of on the sh.o.r.e. Was this indeed the night over which his imagination had gloated for months?

Was it indeed possible that this was the very night following the day--Thursday--for which he had engaged himself in accordance with the letter that he still carried in his pocket?

How on earth did it come that he was sitting with his arm over the bulwarks of a yacht instead of----Oh, the thing was a miracle--a miracle! He could think of it in no other light than that of a miracle.

Well, if it were a miracle, it had been the work of G.o.d, and G.o.d had to be thanked for it. He had explained to Phyllis once that he thought of G.o.d only as a Principle--as the Principle which worked in opposition to the principle of nature. That was certainly the G.o.d which had been evolved out of modern civilization. The pagan G.o.ds had been just the opposite. They had been founded on natural principles. The Hebrew tradition that G.o.d had made man in his own image was the reverse of the scheme of the pagan man who had made G.o.d after his own image; in the image of man created he G.o.d.

But holding the theory that he held--that G.o.d was the sometimes successful opponent to the principles of nature (which he called the Devil)--Herbert Courtland felt that this was the very G.o.d to whom his thanks were due for the miracle that had been performed on his behalf.

"Thank G.o.d--thank G.o.d--thank G.o.d!" he murmured, looking out over the rippling waters, steel gray in the soft shadow of the summer's night.

But then he held that "thank G.o.d" was but a figure of speech.

"Tinky-tink, tinky-tink, tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tink," went the youth with the banjo in the bows.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ITS MOUTHINGS OF THE PAST HAD BECOME ITS MUMBLINGS OF THE PRESENT.

It was very distressing--very disappointing! The bishop would neither inst.i.tute proceedings against the rector of St. Chad's nor state plainly if it was his intention to proceed against that clergyman. When some people suggested very delicately--the way ordinary people would suggest anything to a bishop--that it was surely not in sympathy with the organization of the Church for any clergyman to take advantage of his position and his pulpit to cast sometimes ridicule, sometimes abuse, upon certain "scriptural characters"--that was their phrase--who had hitherto always been regarded as sacred, comparatively sacred, the bishop had brought the tips of the fingers of one hand in immediate, or almost immediate, contact with the tips of the fingers of his other hand, and had shaken his head--mournfully, sadly. These signs of acquiescence, trifling though they were, had encouraged the deputation that once waited on his lords.h.i.+p--two military men (retired on the age clause), an officer of engineers (on the active list), a solicitor (retired), and a member of the London County Council (by occupation an ironmonger), to express the direct opinion that the scandal which had been created by the dissemination--the unrebuked dissemination--of the doctrines held by the rector of St. Chad's was affording the friends of Disestablishment an additional argument in favor of their policy of spoliation. At this statement his lords.h.i.+p had nodded his head three times with a gravity that deeply impressed the spokesman of the deputation. He wondered if his lords.h.i.+p had ever before heard that phrase about the furnis.h.i.+ng of an additional argument to the friends of Disestablishment. (As a matter of fact his lords.h.i.+p had heard it before.)

After an expression of the deputation's opinion that immediate steps should be taken to make the rector of St. Chad's amenable to the laws of the Church,

His lords.h.i.+p replied.

(It was his facility in making conciliatory replies that had brought about his elevation in the Church):

He referred to (1) his deep appreciation of the sincerity of the deputation; (2) his own sense of responsibility in regard to the feelings of the weaker brethren; (3) his appreciation of the value of the counsel of practical men in many affairs of the Church; (4) the existing position of the Church in regard to the laity; (5) the friendly relations that had always existed between himself personally and the clergy of his extensive diocese; (6) his earnest and prayerful desire that these relations might be strengthened; (7) the insecurity of a house divided against itself; (8) the progress of socialism; (9) the impossibility of socialism commending itself to Englishmen; (10) the recent anarchist outrages; (11) the purity of the Court of her Majesty the Queen; (12) the union of all Christian Churches; (13) the impossibility of such union ever becoming permanent; (14) the value of Holy Scripture in daily life; (15) his firm belief in the achievement of England's greatness by means of the open Bible; (16) the note of pessimism in modern life; (17) the necessity for the Church's combating modern pessimism; (18) the Church's position as a purveyor of healthy literature for the young; (19) his reluctance to take up any more of their valuable time, and (20) his a.s.surance that the remarks of their spokesman would have his earnest and prayerful attention.

The deputation then thanked his lords.h.i.+p and withdrew.

But still the bishop made no move in the matter, and the friends of the Rev. George Holland felt grievously disappointed. They had counted on the bishop's at least writing a letter of remonstrance to the rector of St. Chad's, and upon the publication of the letter, with the rector's reply in the newspapers; but now quite two months had pa.s.sed since the appearance of "Revised Versions," the bishop had returned from the Engadine, and still there were no indications of his intention to make the Rev. George Holland responsible to the right tribunal--whatever that was--for his doctrines. They counted on his martyrdom within six months; and, consequently, upon his election to a position of distinction in the eyes of his fellow-country-men--or, at least, of his country-women. But the bishop they found to be a poor thing after all. They felt sure that what the people said about his being quite humble in the presence of his wife was not without some foundation; and they thought that, after all, there was a great deal to be said in favor of the celibacy of priests compulsory in the Church of Rome. If the bishops of the Church of England were not very careful, they might be the means of such a going over to Rome as had never previously been witnessed in England.

George Holland may have been disappointed, or he may have been pleased at the inactivity of the bishop. He made no sign one way or the other.

Of course he was no more than human: he would have regarded a letter of remonstrance from the bishop as a personal compliment; he had certainly expected such a letter, for he had already put together the heads of the reply he would make--and publish--to any official remonstrance that might be offered to him. Still he made no sign. He preached at least one sermon every Sunday morning, and whenever it was known that he would preach, St. Chad's was crowded and the offertory was all that could be desired. The bishop's chaplain no longer held a watching brief in regard in regard to those sermons. He did not think it worth while to do so much, George Holland's friends said, shaking their heads and pursing out their lips. Oh, yes! there could be no doubt that the bishop was a very weak sort of man.

But then suddenly there appeared in the new number of the _Zeit Geist Review_ an article above the signature of George Holland, ent.i.tled "The Enemy to Christianity," and in a moment it became pretty plain that George Holland had not in his "Revised Versions," said the last word that he had to say regarding the att.i.tude of the Church of England in respect of the non-church-goers of the day. When people read the article they asked "Who is the Enemy to Christianity referred to by the writer?"

and they were forced to conclude that the answer which was made to such an inquiry by the article itself was, "The Church."

He pointed out the infatuation which possessed the heads of the Church of England in expecting to appeal with success to the educated people of the present day, while still declining to move with the course of thought of the people. Already the braying of a trombone out of tune, and the barbarous jingle of a tambourine, had absorbed some hundred thousand of possible church-goers; and though, of course, it was impossible for sensible men and women--the people whom the Church should endeavor to grapple to its soul with hooks of steel--to look, except with amused sadness, at the ludicrous methods and vulgar inept.i.tude of the Salvation Army, still the Church was making no effort to provide the sensible, thinking, educated people of England with an equivalent as suitable to their requirements as the Salvation Army was to the requirements of the foolish, the hysterical, the unthinking people who played the tambourines and brayed on the tuneless trombones. Thus it is that one man says to another nowadays, when he has got nothing better to talk about, "Are you a man of intelligence, or do you go to church?"

Men of intelligence do not go to church nowadays, Mr. Holland announced in that article of his in the _Zeit Geist_; many women of intelligence refrain from going, he added, though many beautifully dressed women were still frequent attenders. There was no blinking the fact that the cra.s.s stupidity of the Church had made church-going unpopular--almost impossible--with intelligent men and women. The Church insulted the intelligence by trying to reconcile the teachings of Judaism with the teachings of Christianity, when the two were absolutely irreconcilable.

It was the cra.s.s stupidity of the Church that had caused it--for its self-protection, it fancied--to bitterly oppose every truth that was revealed to man. The Church had tortured and burned at the stake the great men to whom G.o.d had revealed the great facts of nature's workings--the motion of the earth and the other planets. But these facts, being Divine Truth, became accepted by the world in spite of the thumb-screws and the f.a.gots--the arguments of the Church against Divine Truth. The list of the Divine Truths which the Church had bitterly opposed was a sickening doc.u.ment. Geography, Geology, Biology--the progress of all had, even within recent years, been bitterly opposed by the Church, and yet the self-const.i.tuted arbiters between Truth and falsehood had been compelled to eat their own words--to devour their own denunciations when they found that the Truth was accepted by the intelligence of the people in spite of the anathemas of the Church.

The intelligence of the Church was equal only to the duty of burning witches. It burned them by the thousand, simply because ancient Judaism had a profound belief in the witch and because a blood-thirsty Jewish murderer-monarch had organized a witch hunt.

And yet with such a record against it--a record of the murder of innocent men and women who endeavored to promulgate the Divine Truths of nature--the Church still arrogated to itself the right to lay down a rule of life for intelligent people--a rule of life founded upon that impossible amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. The science of the Church was not equal to the task of amalgamating two such deadly opponents.

Was it any wonder, then, that church-going had become practically obsolete among intelligent men and women? the writer asked.

He then went on to refer to the nature of the existing services of the Church of England. He dealt only casually with the mockery of the response of the congregation to the reading out of the Fourth Commandment by the priest, when no one in the Church paid the least respect to the Seventh Day. This was additional proof of the absurdity of the attempted amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. But what he dealt most fully with was the indiscriminate selection of what were very properly termed the "Lessons" from the Hebrew Bible. It was, he said, far from edifying to hear some chapters read out from the lectern without comment; though fortunately the readers were as a rule so imperfectly trained that the most objectionable pa.s.sages had their potentiality of mischief minimized. He concluded his indictment by a reference to a sermon preached by the average clergyman of the Church of England. This was, usually, he said, either a theological essay founded upon an obsolete system of theology, or a series of plat.i.tudes of morality delivered by an unpractical man. The first was an insult to the intelligence of an average man; the second was an insult to the intelligence of an average schoolgirl.

His summing up of the whole case against the Church was as logical as it was trenchant. The Church had surely become, he said, like unto the Giant Pagan in "The Pilgrim's Progress," who, when incapable of doing mischief, sat mumbling at the mouth of his cave on the roadside. The Church had become toothless, decrepit either for evil or for good. Its mouthings of the past had become its mumblings of the present. The cave at the mouth of which this toothless giant sat was very dark; and intelligent people went by with a good-natured and tolerant laugh.

This article was published in the _Review_ on Tuesday. Phyllis read it on the evening of that day. On Wednesday the newspapers were full of this further development of the theories of the writer, and on Thursday afternoon the writer paid a visit to Phyllis.

As he entered the drawing room he found himself face to face with Herbert Courtland, who was in the act of leaving.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SHE WAS A WIFE, AND SHE HAD A LOVER WHO DISAPPOINTED HER.

The prayer of Ella Linton had not been answered. She had prayed, not that her heart wherewith she loved Herbert Courtland might be changed--that she knew would be difficult; not that her love for Herbert Courtland might cease--that she believed to be impossible; but simply that Herbert Courtland might be kept away from her--that she knew to be the most sensible course her scheme of imploration could take.

She was well aware of the fact that G.o.d had given her strength to run away from Herbert Courtland, and for that she was sincerely thankful; she did not pause to a.n.a.lyze her feelings, to ask herself if her thanks were due to her reflection upon the circ.u.mstance of her husband's return, at the very hour when she had appointed to meet Herbert Courtland; she only felt that G.o.d had been good to her in giving her sufficient strength to run away from that appointment. Then it was that she had prayed that he might be kept away from her. Surely G.o.d would find it easy to do that, she thought. Surely she might a.s.sume that G.o.d was on her side, and that he would not leave his work half done.

But when she began to think of the thorough manner in which G.o.d does his work she began to wish that she had not prayed quite so earnestly.

Supposing that G.o.d should think it fit to keep him away from her by sending a blast from heaven to capsize that yacht in the deep sea, what would she think of the fervency of her prayer then?

The terror of her reflection upon the possibility of this occurrence flung her from her bed and sent her pacing, with bare feet and flying lace, the floor of her bedroom in the first pearly light of dawn, just as she had paced the floor of Phyllis' drawing room beneath the glow of the electric lights.

She wished that she had not prayed quite so earnestly that he might be kept apart from her. But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that she had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the matter of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her. She had prayed her prayer; only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would never say another prayer.

This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the effect of soothing her. She threw herself upon her bed once more and was able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence in the discrimination of Heaven.