Thomas Wingfold, Curate V2
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George MacDonald >> Thomas Wingfold, Curate V2
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"You will allow this much in excuse for their being so misled,"
returned Helen, with some bitterness, "that the old fable pretends
at least to provide help for sore hearts; and except it be
vivisection, I----"
"Do be serious, Helen," interrupted George. "I don't object to
joking, you know, but you are not joking in a right spirit. This
matter has to do with the well-being of the race; and we MUST think
of others, however your Jew-gospel, in the genuine spirit of the
Hebrew of all time, would set everybody to the saving of his own
wind-bubble of a soul. Believe me, to live for others is the true
way to lose sight of our own fancied sorrows."
Helen gave a deep sigh. Fancied sorrows!--Yes, gladly indeed would
she live for ONE other at least! Nay more--she would die for him.
But alas! what would that do for one whose very being was consumed
with grief ineffable!--She must speak, else he would read her heart.
"There are real sorrows," she said. "They are not all fancied."
"There are very few sorrows," returned George, "in which fancy does
not bear a stronger proportion than even a woman of sense, while the
fancy is upon her, will be prepared to admit. I can remember bursts
of grief when I was a boy, in which it seemed impossible anything
should ever console me; but in one minute all would be gone, and my
heart, or my spleen, or my diaphragm, as merry as ever. Believe that
all is well, and you will find all will be well--very tolerably
well, that is, considering."
"Considering that the well-being has to be divided and apportioned
and accommodated to the various parts of such a huge whole, and that
there is no God to look after the business!" said Helen, who,
according to the state of the tide in the sea of her trouble,
resented or accepted her cousin's teaching.
Few women are willing to believe in death. Most of them love life,
and are faithful to hope; and I much doubt whether, if Helen had but
had a taste of trouble to rouse the woman within her before her
cousin conceived the wish of making her a proselyte, she would have
turned even a tolerably patient ear to his instructions. Yet it is
strange to see how even noble women, with the divine gift of
imagination, may be argued into unbelief in their best instincts by
some small man, as common-place as clever, who beside them is as
limestone to marble. The knowing craft comes creeping up into the
shadow of the rich galleon, and lo, with all her bountiful sails
gleaming in the sun, the ship of God glides off in the wake of the
felucca to the sweltering hollows betwixt the winds!
"You perplex me, my dear cousin," said Bascombe. "It is plain your
nursing has been too much for you. You see everything with a
jaundiced eye."
"Thank you, Cousin George," said Helen. "You are even more courteous
than usual."
She turned from him and went into the house. Bascombe walked to the
bottom of the garden and lighted his cigar, confessing to himself
that for once he could not understand Helen.--Was it then only that
he was ignorant of the awful fact that lay burrowing in her heart,
or was he not ignorant also of the nature of that heart in which
such a fact must so burrow? Was there anything in his system to wipe
off that burning, torturing red? "Such things must be: men who wrong
society must suffer for the sake of that society." But the red lay
burning on the conscience of Helen too, and she had not murdered!
And for him who had, he gave society never a thought, but shrieked
aloud in his dreams, and moaned and wept when he waked over the
memory of the woman who had wronged him, and whom he had, if
Bascombe was right, swept out of being like an aphis from a
rose-leaf.
CHAPTER XVI.
A VANISHING GLIMMER.
Helen ran upstairs, dropped on her knees by her brother's bedside,
and fell into a fit of sobbing, which no tears came to relieve.
"Helen! Helen! if you give way I shall go mad," said a voice of
misery from the pillow.
She jumped up, wiping her dry eyes.
"What a wicked, selfish, bad sister, bad nurse, bad everything, I
am, Poldie!" she said, her tone ascending the steps of vocal
indignation as she spoke. "But shall I tell you"--here she looked
all about the chamber and into the dressing-room ere she
proceeded--"shall I tell you, Poldie, what it is that makes me so--
I don't know what?--It is all the fault of the sermon I heard this
morning. It is the first sermon I ever really listened to in my
life--certainly the first I ever thought about again after I was
out of the church. Somehow or other of late Mr. Wingfold has been
preaching so strangely! but this is the first time I have cared to
listen. Do you know he preaches as if he actually believed the
things he was saying, and not only that, but as if he expected to
persuade you of them too! I USED to think all clergymen believed
them, but I doubt it now more than ever, for Mr. Wingfold speaks so
differently and looks so different. I never saw any clergyman look
like that; and I never saw such a change on a man as there is on
him. There must be something to account for it. Could it be that he
has himself really gone to--as he says--and found rest--or something
he hadn't got before? But you won't know what I mean unless I tell
you first what he was preaching about. His text was: Come unto me
all ye that labour and are heavy laden;--a common enough text, you
know? Poldie! but somehow it seemed fresh to him, and he made it
look fresh to me, for I felt as if it hadn't been intended for
preaching about at all, but for going straight into people's hearts
its own self, without any sermon. I think the way he did it was
this: he first made us feel the sort of person that said the words,
and then made us feel that he did say them, and so made us want to
see what they could really mean. But of course what made them so
different to me, was"--here Helen did burst into tears, but she
fought with her sobs, and went on--"was--was--that my heart is
breaking for you, Poldie--for I shall never see you smile again, my
darling!"
She buried her face on his pillow, and Leopold uttered "a great and
exceeding bitter cry." Her hand was on his mouth instantly, and her
sobs ceased, while the tears kept flowing down her white face.
"Just think, Poldie," she said, in a voice which she seemed to have
borrowed in her need from some one else, "--just think a moment!
What if there should be some help in the great wide universe--somewhere,
for as wide as it is--a heart that feels for us both, as my heart
feels for you, Poldie! Oh! oh! wouldn't it be grand? Wouldn't it be
lovely to be at peace again, Poldie? If there should be somebody
somewhere who could take this gnawing serpent from my heart!"--She
pulled wildly at her dress.--"'Come unto me,' he said, 'all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' That's what
he said:--oh! if it could be true!"
"Surely it is--for you, best of sisters," cried Leopold; "but what
has it to do with me? Nothing. She is DEAD--I killed her. Even if
God were to raise her to life again, HE could not make it that I
didn't drive the knife into her heart! Give ME rest!--why there's
the hand that did it! O my God! my God!" cried the poor youth, and
stared at his thin wasted hand, through which the light shone red,
as at a conscious evil thing that had done the deed, and was still
stained with its signs.
"God CAN'T be very angry with you, Poldie," sobbed Helen, feeling
about blindly in the dark forest of her thoughts for some herb of
comfort, and offering any leaf upon which her hand fell first.
"Then he ain't fit to be God!" cried Leopold fiercely. "I wouldn't
have a word to say to a God that didn't cut a man in pieces for such
a deed! Oh Helen, she was so lovely!--and what is she now?"
"Surely if there were a God, he would do something to set it right
somehow! I know if I was God, Poldie, I should find some way of
setting you up again, my darling. You ain't half as bad as you make
yourself out."
"You had better tell that to the jury, Helen, and see how they will
take it," said Leopold contemptuously.
"The jury!" Helen almost screamed. "What do you mean, Poldie?"
"Well!" returned Leopold, in a tone of justification, but made no
further answer to her question. "All God can do to set it right," he
resumed, after a pause, "is to damn me for ever and ever, as one of
the blackest creatures in creation."
"THAT I don't believe, anyhow!" returned Helen with equal vehemence
and indefiniteness.
And for the first time, George Bascombe's teachings were a comfort
to her. It was all nonsense about a God. As to her brother's misery,
it had no source but that to which Shakespeare attributed the misery
of Macbeth--and who should know better than Shakespeare?--the
fear, namely, of people doing the like to himself! But straightway
thereupon--horrible thought!--she found herself--yes! it was in
her--call it thought, or call it feeling, it was hers!--she found
herself despising her poor crushed brother! disgusted with him!
turning from him, not even in scorn of his weakness, but in anger at
what he had brought upon her! It was but a flash of the lightning of
hell: one glance of his great, troubled, appealing, yet hopeless
eyes, vague with the fogs that steamed up from the Phlegethon within
him, was enough to turn her anger at him into hate of herself who
had stabbed his angel in her heart. Then in herself she knew that
all murderers are not of Macbeth's order, and that all remorse is
not for oneself.
But where was the God to be found who could and MIGHT help in the
wretched case? How were they to approach him? Or what could he do
for them? Were such a being to assure Leopold that no hurt should
come to him--even that he thought little of the wrong that he had
done--would that make his crushed heart begin to swell again with
fresh life? would that bring back Emmeline from the dark grave and
the worms to the sunny earth and the speech of men? And whither, yet
farther, he might have sent her, she dared not think. And Leopold
was not merely at strife with himself, but condemned to dwell with a
self that was loathsome to him. She no longer saw any glimmer of
hope but such as lay in George's doctrine of death. If there was no
helper who could clean hearts and revive the light of life, then
welcome gaunt death! let the grim-mouthed skeleton be crowned at
every feast!
CHAPTER XVII.
LET US PRAY!
That was the sole chink in the prison where these two sat immured
alone from their kind--unless, indeed, the curate might know of
another.
One thing Helen had ground for being certain of--that the curate
would tell them no more than he knew. Even George Bascombe, who did
not believe one thing he said, counted him an honest man! Might she
venture to consult him, putting the case as of a person who had done
very wrong--say stolen money or committed forgery or something?
Might she not thus gather a little honey of comfort and bring it
home to Leopold?
Thinking thus and thus she sat silent; and all the time the
suffering eyes were fixed upon her face, looking for no comfort, but
finding there all they ever had of rest.
"Are you thinking about the sermon, Helen?" he asked. "What was it
you were telling me about it just now? Who preached it?"
"Mr. Wingfold," she answered listlessly.
"Who is Mr. Wingfold?"
"Our curate at the Abbey."
"What sort of man is he?"
"Oh, a man somewhere about thirty--a straightforward, ordinary kind
of man."
"Ah!" said Leopld--then added after a moment--"I was hoping he
might be an old man, with a grey head, like the brahmin who used to
teach me Sanscrit.--I wish I had treated him better, poor old
fellow! and learned a little more."
"What does it matter about Sanscrit? Why should you make troubles of
trifles?" said Helen, whose trials had at last begun to undermine
her temper.
"It was not of the Sanscrit, but the moonshee I was thinking,"
answered Leopold mildly.
"You darling!" cried Helen, already repentant. But with the
revulsion she felt that this state of things could not long
continue--she must either lose her senses, or turn into something
hateful to herself: the strain was more than she could bear. She
MUST speak to somebody, and she would try whether she could not
approach the subject with Mr. Wingfold.
But how was she to see him? It would be awkward to call upon him at
his lodgings, and she must see him absolutely alone to dare a
whisper of what was on her mind.
As she thus reflected, the thought of what people would say, were it
remarked that she contrived to meet the curate, brought a shadow of
scorn upon her face. Leopold saw the expression, and, sensitive as
an ailing woman, said,
"Helen, what HAVE I done to make you look like that?"
"How did I look, my Poldie?" she asked, turning on him eyes like
brimming wells of love and tenderness.
"Let me see," answered Leopold; and after a moment's thought
replied, "As Milton's Satan might have looked if Mammon had
counselled him to make off with the crown-jewels instead of
declaring war."
"Ah, Poldie!" cried Helen, delighted at the stray glance of
sunshine, and kissing him as she spoke, "you must really be better!
I'll tell you what!" she exclaimed joyfully, as a new thought struck
her: "As soon as you are able, we will set out for New York--to pay
Uncle Tom a visit of course! but we shall never be seen or heard of
again. At New York we will change our names, cross to San Francisco,
and from there sail for the Sandwich Islands. Perhaps we may be able
to find a little one to buy, just big enough for us two; and you
shall marry a nice native----"
Her forced gaiety gave way. She burst out weeping afresh, and
throwing her arms round him, sobbed--
"Poldie, Poldie! you can pray: cry to God to help us somehow or
other; and if there be no God to hear us, then let us die together.
There are easy ways of it, Poldie."
"Thank you! thank you, sister dear!" he answered, pressing her to
his bosom: "that is the first word of real comfort you have spoken
to me. I shall not be afraid if you go with me."
It was indeed a comfort to both of them to remember that there was
this alternative equally to the gallows and a long life of gnawing
fear and remorse. But it was only to be a last refuge of course.
Helen withdrew to the dressing-room, laid herself on her bed, and
began to compass how to meet and circumvent the curate, so as by an
innocent cunning to wile from him on false pretences what spiritual
balm she might so gain for the torn heart and conscience of her
brother. There was no doubt it would be genuine, and the best to be
had, seeing George Bascombe, who was honesty itself, judged the
curate an honest man. But how was it to be done? She could see only
one way. With some inconsistency, she resolved to cast herself on
his generosity, and yet would not trust him entirely.
She did not go downstairs again, but had her tea with her brother.
In the evening her aunt went out to visit some of her pensioners,
for it was one of Mrs. Ramshorn's clerical duties to be kind to the
poor--a good deal at their expense, I am afraid--and presently
George came to the door of the sick-room to beg her to go down and
sing to him. Of course, in the house of a dean's relict, no music
except sacred must be heard on a Sunday; but to have Helen sing it,
George would condescend even to a hymn tune; and there was Handel,
for whom he professed a great admiration! What mattered his
subjects? He could but compose the sort of thing the court wanted of
him, and in order to that, had to fuddle his brains first, poor
fellow! So said George at least.
That Leopold might not hear them talking outside his door, a thing
which no invalid likes, Helen went downstairs with her cousin; but
although she had often sung from Handel for his pleasure, content to
reproduce the bare sounds, and caring nothing about the feelings
both they and the words represented, she positively refused this
evening to gratify him. She must go back to Leopold. She would sing
from The Creation if he liked, but nothing out of The Messiah would
she or could she sing.
Perhaps she could herself hardly have told why, but George perceived
the lingering influence of the morning's sermon, and more vexed than
he had ever yet been with her, for he could not endure her to
cherish the least prejudice in favour of what he despised, he said
he would overtake his aunt, and left the house. The moment he was
gone, she went to the piano, and began to sing, "Comfort ye." When
she came to "Come unto me," she broke down. But with sudden
resolution she rose, and, having opened every door between it and
her brother, raised the top of the piano, and then sang, "Come unto
me," as she had never sung in her life. Nor did she stop there. At
the distance of six of the wide-standing houses, her aunt and cousin
heard her singing "Thou didst not leave," with the tone and
expression of a prophetess--of a Maenad, George said. She was still
singing when he opened the door, but when they reached the
drawing-room she was gone. She was kneeling beside her brother.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TWO LETTERS.
The next morning, as Wingfold ate his breakfast by an open window
looking across the churchyard, he received a letter by the local
post. It was as follows:--
"Dear Mr. Wingfold, I am about to take an unheard-of liberty, but my
reasons are such as make me bold. The day may come when I shall be
able to tell you them all. Meantime I hope you can help me. I want
very much to ask your counsel upon a certain matter, and I cannot
beg you to call, for my aunt knows nothing of it. Could you contrive
a suitable way of meeting? You may imagine my necessity is grievous
when I thus expose myself to the possible bitterness of my own after
judgment. But I must have confidence in the man who spoke as you did
yesterday morning. I am, dear Mr. Wingfold, sincerely yours, Helen
Lingard.
"P.S.--I shall be walking along Pine Street from our end, at eleven
o'clock to-morrow."
The curate was not taken with a great surprise. But something like
fear overshadowed him at finding his sermons come back upon him
thus. Was he, an unbelieving labourer, to go reaping with his blunt
and broken sickle where the corn was ripest! But he had no time to
think about that now. It was nearly ten o'clock, and she would be
looking for her answer at eleven. He had not to think long, however,
before he saw what seemed a suitable plan to suggest; whereupon he
wrote as follows:
"Dear Miss Lingard, I need not say that I am entirely at your
service. But I am doubtful if the only way that occurs to me will
commend itself to you. I know what I am about to propose is safe,
but you may not have sufficient confidence in my judgment to accept
it as such.
"Doubtless you have seen the two deformed persons, an uncle and
niece, named Polwarth, who keep the gate of Osterfield Park. I know
them well, and, strange as it may seem, I must tell you, in order
that you may partake of my confidence, that whatever change you may
have observed in my public work is owing to the influence of those
two, who have more faith in God than I have ever met with before. It
may not be amiss to mention also that, although poor and distorted,
they are of gentle blood as well as noble nature. With this
preamble, I venture to propose that you should meet me at their
cottage. To them it would not appear at all strange that one of my
congregation should wish to see me alone, and I know you may trust
their discretion. But while I write thus, with all confidence in you
and in them, I must tell you that I have none in myself. I feel both
ashamed and perplexed that you should imagine any help in me. Of all
I know, I am the poorest creature to give counsel. All I can say for
myself is that I think I see a glimmer of light, and light is light,
through whatever cranny, and into whatever poverty-stricken chamber,
it may fall. Whatever I see I will say. If I can see nothing to help
you, I will be silent. And yet I may be able to direct you where to
find what I cannot give you. If you accept my plan, and will appoint
day and hour, I shall acquaint the Polwarths with the service we
desire of them. Should you object to it, I shall try to think of
another. I am, dear Miss Lingard, yours very truly, Thomas
Wingfold."
He placed the letter between the pages of a pamphlet, took his hat
and stick, and was walking down Pine Street as the Abbey clock
struck eleven. Midway he met Helen, shook hands with her, and, after
an indifferent word or two, gave her the pamphlet, and bade her good
morning.
Helen hurried home. It had required all her self-command to look him
in the face, and her heart beat almost painfully as she opened the
letter.
She could not but be pleased--even more than pleased with it. If the
secret had been her own, she thought she could have trusted him
entirely; but she must not expose poor Leopold.
By the next post the curate received a grateful answer, appointing
the time, and expressing perfect readiness to trust those whom he
had tried.
She was received at the cottage door by Rachel, who asked her to
walk into the garden, where Mr. Wingfold was expecting her. The
curate led her to a seat overgrown with honeysuckle.
CHAPTER XIX.
ADVICE IN THE DARK.
It was some moments before either of them spoke, and it did not help
Wingfold that she sat clouded by a dark-coloured veil. At length he
said,
"You must not fear to trust me because I doubt my ability to help
you. I can at least assure you of my sympathy. The trouble I have
myself had enables me to promise you that."
"Can you tell me," she said, from behind more veils than that of
lace, "how to get rid of a haunting idea?"
"That depends on the nature of the idea, I should imagine," answered
the curate. "Such things sometimes arise merely from the state of
the health, and there the doctor is the best help."
Helen shook her head, and smiled behind her veil a grievous smile.
The curate paused, but, receiving no assistance, ventured on again.
"If it be a thought of something past and gone, for which nothing
can be done, I think activity in one's daily work must be the best
aid to endurance."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed Helen--"when one has no heart to endure,
and hates the very sunlight!--You wouldn't talk about work to a man
dying of hunger, would you?"
"I'm not sure about that."
"He wouldn't heed you."
"Perhaps not."
"What would you do then?"
"Give him some food, and try him again, I think."
"Then give me some food--some hope, I mean, and try me again.
Without that, I don't care about duty or life or anything."
"Tell me, then, what is the matter; I MAY be able to hint at some
hope," said Wingfold, very gently. "Do you call yourself a
Christian?"
The question would to most people have sounded strange, abrupt,
inquisitorial; but to Helen it sounded not one of them all.
"No," she answered.
"Ah!" said the curate a little sadly, and went on. "Because then I
could have said, you know where to go for comfort.--Might it not be
well however to try if there is any to be had from him that said
'COME UNTO ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST?'"
"I can do nothing with that. I have tried and tried to pray, but it
is of no use. There is such a weight on my heart that no power of
mine can lift it up. I suppose it is because I cannot believe there
is anyone hearing a word I say. Yesterday, when I got alone in the
park, I prayed aloud: I thought that perhaps, even if he might not
be able to read what was in my heart, he might be able to hear my
voice. I was even foolish enough to wish I knew Greek, because
perhaps he would understand me better if I were to pray in Greek. My
brain seems turning. It is of no use! There is no help anywhere!"
She tried hard, but could not prevent a sob. And then came a burst
of tears.
"Will you not tell me something about it?" said the curate, yet more
gently. Oh, how gladly would he relieve her heart if he might!
"Perhaps Jesus has begun to give you help, though you do not know it
yet," he said, "His help may be on the way to you, or even with you,
only you do not recognize it for what it is. I have known that kind
of thing. Tell me some fact or some feeling I can lay hold of.
Possibly there is something you ought to do and are not doing, and
that is why you cannot rest. I think Jesus would give no rest except
in the way of learning of him."
Helen's sobs ceased, but what appeared to the curate a long silence
followed. At length she said, with faltering voice:
"Suppose it were a great wrong that had been done, and that was the
unendurable thought? SUPPOSE, I say, that was what made me
miserable!"
"Then you must of course make all possible reparation," answered
Wingfold at once.
"But if none were possible--what then?"
Here the answer was not so plain, and the curate had to think.
"At least," he said at length, "you could confess the wrong, and ask
forgiveness."
"But if that also were impossible," said Helen, shuddering inwardly
to find how near she drew to the edge of the awful fact.
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