CHAPTER XIX.
"CHOOSE OF TWO LOVES."
Wesley's letter came upon George Stobart like the sudden opening of agate into Paradise. It was a year since he had seen Antonia's face.For a year he had been the martyr of obedience to his spiritual guide,had surrendered every hope of earthly happiness, and had submitted toregard his life on earth only as an apprenticeship to the life to come.
And in a moment he was free, free to hope, free to behold the face, tohear the voice he loved. Free to win her, if he could. There was thequestion! He had never yet presumed, in his more thoughtful moods, tobelieve his love returned. How coldly she had bidden him adieu whenlast they met! Her manner had been without resentment, and withoutkindness. It seemed as if, when he offended her by his shamelessaddresses, he had ceased to exist. Her goodness to his wife had norelation to her friendship for him.
How could he approach her? Not in her own house, till he had someground for hoping that her door would not be closed against him.He would steal upon her path unawares, and endeavour to regain herconfidence by gentle means. He hurried to the Foundery to answerWesley's letter in person, and found that good man busy with hispreparations for leaving London. From him he heard of Antonia'sprogress in good works, and in her attendance at Wesley's services.
"That heart which you thought adamant has melted, George, and theRedeemer's saving Grace will be exemplified in this ransomed soul. Sheis so fine a creature, so generous, charitable, compassionate, that itwrung my heart to hear her, in this room, less than three months ago,boldly confess herself an infidel."
He told Stobart all that Antonia had done for his poor, and, at hisrequest, gave him the addresses of some of the people she visited.
"They have all learnt to love her," he said, "which has not been alwaysthe case when I have sent women of exalted piety upon such missions.Her high-bred manner has a genial charm that wins them unawares. Shedoes not attempt to teach, but she reads the Gospel to them; and I maytell you that she has an exquisite voice, and is a most accomplishedreader. It was but the other day I approved of a female preacher, thefirst we have ever had, whose work so far has prospered. Should LadyKilrush continue in well-doing, I should like her occasionally toaddress a room full of working women. A woman should know best how toreach women's hearts."
Stobart smiled at the suggestion. Antonia, the Voltairean, the friendof Lady Bolingbroke, the avowed sceptic, the woman of fashion,preaching the Gospel to a crowd of tatterdemalions in a Whitechapelkitchen! If Wesley could bring her to that pass he was indeed amiracle-worker. Could it be that she had cast a spell around the leaderof the Methodists, and that his belief in her conversion was but thedelusion of a kind heart, willing to think the best of so beautiful andgracious a creature?
Stobart was not an ardent believer in sudden conversions, though, inthe course of his field preaching, it had been a common thing forhim to see men and women fling themselves on their knees and declarethat they were "saved," convinced of sin, justified, sanctified, onthe instant, by one single operation of the Holy Spirit. He had seensomething of the convulsionists of Bristol. The miracle of Pentecosthad, in a lesser degree, been often repeated before his eyes; and amongthese instantaneous conversions he knew of some that had been thebeginning of changed and holy lives. But he could not picture Antoniaamongst Wesley's easily won converts. Had he not wrestled again andagain with that stubborn spirit of unbelief, in the days when they werefriends, and when he never spared hard words? All his arguments, allhis pleadings, had failed to change her.
He did not allow for the influence of time, satiety, _Weltschmerz_, theaching void of a life without love.
He rode with Wesley as far as Barnet, on the first stage of hisNorthern journey, heard him preach there in the evening to aclosely-packed audience, and rode back to London next morning. It waslate in the afternoon, a mild spring afternoon, when, after visitingseveral houses in the neighbourhood of Moorfields, he discovered LadyKilrush in an underground kitchen, seated by the sick-bed of a cobbler,a young man with a wife and two children, dying of a consumption. Thewife sat on one side of the bed, her husband's hand clasped in hers,Antonia on the other side reading the Gospel of St. John, in thosethrilling tones which Wesley had noted. She looked up as Stobartentered the kitchen, and her cheek crimsoned as she recognized him; butwhen she spoke her voice was cold as at their parting.
"I thought it was Mr. Wesley," she said. "Has he sent you to see ourpoor Morris? This gentleman is one of Mr. Wesley's helpers, Morris."
The sick man smiled faintly, and held out a wasted hand to the visitor.
"Morris and I are old friends," Stobart said gently. "No, Lady Kilrush,I was not sent here," and then seeing there was no vacant chair, hestood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, waiting for Antonia to go onreading.
"'I am the true Vine,'" she began, and read to the end of the chapter;then rose quietly, bent over the dying man, murmured a few kind words,pressed the wife's hand tenderly, and stole from the room, almost asnoiselessly as if she had been indeed the good angel these peoplethought her. Stobart's survey of the wretched room had shown him thather charity had provided the sufferer with every comfort and evenluxury that could be administered in such a home.
He followed her into the squalid street. The sky above the dilapidatedred tile roofs was blue and bright, and the north-west wind blew thefreshness of April flowers from the fields and gardens between Finsburyand Islington. Antonia had no carriage waiting for her.
"I forget that I am a fine lady when I come here," she said, smiling athim. "I walk from house to house, and take a hackney-coach when I havedone my day's work."
"Shall I get you a coach now? It is nearly six o'clock. Or will youwalk a little way?"
"I should like to walk. The fresh air is very pleasant after that warmroom; that room which he will only leave for the grave, poor soul. Butit is not of him one thinks most, but of the wife. She so loves him.Happily she counts on being with him again--in a better world. She haswhat Mr. Wesley calls vital religion."
"Mr. Wesley has told me something that has made me very happy," Stobartsaid in a low voice that trembled ever so slightly. "He has told methat your heart is changed, that you do not think as you once thought."
"Oh, I am changed--heart, mind, desires, fancies--yes, all are changed.But I know not if it is for the better. I have left off caring forthings. I feel ever so old. Nothing in this life interests me, exceptsorrow and suffering. I went to Mr. Wesley when my spirits had sunk todespair, and he has been my good friend. I go home almost happy, afterI have worked all day among his poor."
"And he has taught you to believe in Christ?"
"One does not learn to believe. That must come from within, I think. Ihave come to feel the need of God, the need of a world after death; butI doubt I am no nearer believing in miracles than I was ten years agowhen first I read Voltaire. If to love Jesus is to be a Christian, whythen I am a Christian. But if a Christian must think exactly as you do,or as Mr. Wesley does, I am outside the pale."
"Oh, but the fuller light will come! 'God is light.' He will not leavea soul so precious in darkness. I knew long ago, when I saw you amongthose wretched creatures at Lambeth, I knew you could not be for everlost."
They walked on a little way in silence, facing towards the setting sun.They were crossing the public garden at Moorfields, where the cits andtheir wives and families walked on fine evenings.
"Will you not resume your work in my district? Our people long for you.Miss Potter is very kind--and your bounty is lavish--but they all want_you_, all those whom you visited three years ago, and who rememberyou with affection. Cannot you spare a little time from these newpensioners for your old friends?"
"Oh, sir, I doubt they are well cared for, now they have you."
"But will you not help me a little? Ah, madam, could you but understandwhat your help means for me! If you avoid the old places, the oldpeople, can I believe that you have pardoned my sin of the past? Surelythat one passionate hour has been expia
ted by the remorse of years."
"I have long since pardoned your folly, sir. Pray suffer me to forgetit."
Her cold disdain stung him to the quick. She did not even account hispassion worth her anger. How could he ever hope to break through thatadamant, to melt that ice?
He was persistent in spite of her coldness, and at last she promised toreturn occasionally to her old work at Lambeth, and to visit the peoplehe deemed most in need of her.
"I can but give them my surplus hours," she said, "since the best partof my life is pledged to Mr. Wesley. And now, sir, be so obliging as tocall a coach, and suffer me to bid you good evening."
There was a stand of coaches close by, and he handed her to her seat inone. He stood bareheaded, watching her drive away. Her serious manner,with that touch of hauteur, kept him at an immeasurable distance. Thefamiliar confidence of her old friendship seemed irrecoverably lost.
* * * * *
Nearly a year had gone since that meeting in the Whitechapel kitchen.It was spring again, but early spring, and the days were still short,and the skies still grey and cold, when George Stobart walked homewith Antonia after her visit to another dying bed, the bed of extremeold age this time, the gradual fading out of the vital flame, feebler,paler, day by day, the bed of boundless faith and ecstatic anticipationof a new and fairer life.
She had seen the last sands of another life run down in the autumn ofthe past year. She had kept her promise, and had gone back to Bellagioin September, and had watched by her Italian grandfather's dying bed--apeaceful end, in the odour of sanctity. She had followed the old manto his last resting-place, and had stayed at Bellagio long enough tomake all arrangements for Francesca's wedding, and her establishmentas mistress of the old villino. She was married at the New Year,handsomely dowered by her English cousin, and having chosen a worthymate. Antonia's obligations to her humble kinsfolk had been fulfilled.
Mr. Stobart and Lady Kilrush were on friendliest terms now; but no wordof love had been spoken. To be with her, to hear her voice, to knowthat she liked his company, was so much; and to declare himself mightbe the breaking of a spell. They had been together often among thehomes of the poor, in the library at St. James's Square, and sometimesin the churches and chapels where Wesley, Romaine, and other lights ofthe evangelical school were to be heard. But in all that time Stobarthad obtained no farther profession of faith from Antonia.
"If to love Christ is to be a Christian, I am one," she told him, whenhe tried to bring her to his own way of thinking, and that was all.
Final perseverance, sanctification, justification, conviction of sin!Those phrases seemed to her only the shibboleth of a sect. But all thestrength of her heart and intellect were engaged in those good works towhich the Methodists attached only a secondary merit. Her compassionfor human suffering was the dominating impulse of her life. She couldfeel for the thief in Newgate, pity the slut in Bridewell whose lifehad been one long disgrace. She had gone with Stobart into the prisonsof London, those dark places as yet unvisited by Howard or ElizabethFry. She shrank from no form of suffering, so long as it was possibleto help or to console.
She had done with the world and its pleasures. The recluse is soonforgotten in the merry-go-round of society. Her duchesses had longceased to trouble themselves about her. The princes and princesseshad forgotten her existence. The new reign had brought with it newinterests, a new set. Women were the top of the fashion who had beendowdies; men who had been blockheads were wits.
Lord Dunkeld had married a rosy-cheeked damsel of eighteen summers,daughter and heiress of a Lord of Session, was settled on his Scotchestate, and had come to think Edinburgh the focus of intelligenceand _ton_. The people who had courted and admired Lady Kilrush hadlong ceased to think of her, except as an eccentric, like LadyHuntingdon, who had caught the fever of piety that had been in the airfor the last twenty years--the contagion of Methodism, Moravianism,Predestinarianism--some boring and essentially middle-class form ofreligion which banished her from polite company.
A woman who neither visits nor gives entertainments is socially dead.Her female friends spoke of her sometimes with pity, as an unfortunatewho was afraid to let the town see her altered face, and who hadtaken to religion as a substitute for beauty. The idea that she wasdisfigured having once got abroad, her old rivals were slow to believeher face unspoilt, though people who had seen her at one of LadyHuntingdon's Thursdays swore that she was almost as handsome as ever.
"If she had not a cold, proud look that keeps an old friend ata distance," said one of her admirers, who had suffered one ofWhitefield's sermons in order to meet her.
"She would not have you near enough to discover the ravages of thathorrid malady. I'll wager her countenance is plastered a quarter of aninch thick with white lead," retorted the rival belle.
The library in St. James's Square was in the half light of a springevening, as it had been a year ago when Stobart entered the room withso agonized an apprehension. He came in now with Antonia, a privilegedguest, coming and going as in the years gone by, taking his rest byher fireside, after the burden of the day. Her only other visitorswere Lady Margaret Laroche--who was faithful to her in spite of whatshe called her "degeneracy," and who came now and then to pour out hercomplaints at the foolishness of a world whose follies were necessaryto her existence--and Patty Granger, whose dog-like fidelity made herever welcome, and who loved to talk of Antonia's girlhood, and her ownfree and easy life in Covent Garden, when the General was a submissivelover, and not a peevish husband.
Stobart had been unusually silent during the walk from Lambeth, andAntonia had been full of thought, impressed as she ever was by thatmystery of the passing spirit, that unanswerable question, "Whithergoest thou, oh, departing soul, or is thy journey for ever finished,and is man's instinctive belief in immortality a vain dream?"
Antonia sank into her fireside chair, weary after a long day inwretched rooms, hearing and seeing sad things. She was almost too tiredto talk, and was glad of Stobart's silence. Sophy would come presentlyand make the tea--it being supposed that no man-servant's hand wasdelicate enough to brew that choice infusion--and their spirits wouldrevive. But in the meantime rest was all they wanted.
It startled her from this reposeful feeling when Stobart rose abruptlyand began to pace the room, for some minutes in silence, broken only bya sigh, then bursting into impassioned speech.
"Antonia, I can lock up my heart no longer! 'Tis a year since I camefrom America to find a desolate home. For a year I have known myself awidower. Dare I break the spell of silence? Shall I lose all in askingfor all? Will you banish me in anger, as you did when it was so black asin to speak of my love?"
He flung himself on his knees beside her chair.
"Say you will be pitiful and kind, you who are all pity; and if youcannot give me what I ask, promise not to make me an outcast from yourfriendship."
"I shall never again cease to be your friend, sir!" she answeredgently. "I think we know each other too well to quarrel. We are neitherof us perfect creatures; but I believe you are a good Christian, andthat your friendship will ever be precious to me."
"Make the bond something nearer than friendship, Antonia. Let it be thehallowed tie that makes two souls seem as one. Ah, my angelic friend,seldom has woman been so worshipped as you are by me. The love thatstole upon my mind and heart unawares, in this room, when it was sofoul a sin to love you; the love purified by years of repentance; thelove that haunted me in the wilderness, through long days and nightsof toil and pain, when your following ghost was nearer and more realto me than the foe that hemmed us round or the storm that beat uponour heads--that love is with me still, Antonia; time cannot change norfamiliarity lessen it. Will you be for ever cold, for ever deaf to myprayer?"
She had heard him to the end. Was it for the joy of hearing him, thoughshe knew what her answer must be? She knew now that she loved him,and had always loved him, from those days of a so-called friendship.She knew that he t
ook all the zest out of her life when he left her;and that the want of his company had been a dull pain, underlying allvarieties of pleasure, a sense of loss coming on her on a sudden amidstthe tempestuous gaiety of a masquerade, haunting her in some melodyat the opera house, saddening her in the midst of a gay throng, wherearrows of wit flashed fast to an accompaniment of joyous laughter.
"Can you forget what I told you years ago?" she said. "A marriageis impossible for me. I am married to the dead. I gave myself to myhusband for ever. I swore in his dying moments to belong to none buthim."
"'Twere madness to keep so wild a vow."
"What! Do the Methodist Christians think it no sin to break their oath?"
"They would violate no vow made in their rational moments. But yourpromise was given in the delirium of grief, and he to whom you gave itcould not be such a self-lover as to fetter youth and beauty to hiscoffin."
"'Twas he who claimed the promise, and I gave it in all seriousness. Iloved him, sir. I would have given all the residue of my life for oneyear of happiness with him. I loved him; and our lives were severed bymy act, severed for years, to unite in death. If there be that otherworld Mr. Wesley believes in, I may see him again, may be with him ineternity. That, sir, is indeed a great perhaps. I will not hazard sucha chance of everlasting bliss."
"'Tis the pagan's heaven you picture, not the Christian's--theresumption of human ties, not union with Christ. Oh, can you be socruel as to make my life miserable, to deny the lover who adores you,for the sake of the dead man who lies in the quiet sleep that has noknowledge of you and me--must lie there unknowing, uncaring, till theDay of Judgment?"
"If ever that day come he shall not find me forsworn; no, not even foryou; not even to make you happy."
He had watched the exalted look in her face as the firelight shone uponit. She had looked upward as she spoke, her eyes dilated, her lipstremulous with emotion, and a fever spot on her cheek. But now on asudden her head drooped, and she burst into tears.
"Not even for you," she sobbed.
It was her confession of love. In the next moment she was in his arms,and their lips had met. She let him hold her there, she let her headlie upon his shoulder, and suffered his impassioned kisses in thesurprise of his wild vehemence.
"You love me, Antonia, you love me! No dead man shall stand between us.You must, you shall be mine!"
She released herself from his arms, and sprang to her feet.
"I am not so weak a thing as you fancy me, sir."
"I will not let you go. Shall a profligate's pale spectre stand betweenme and the woman I worship? A vow made under such conditions is no vow.Can it better him that my life should be miserable, that lovers as trueas you and I should pine in solitude, go down to the grave without everhaving known happiness? It shall not be."
"You are very imperious, Mr. Stobart; but I am the mistress of my ownfate."
"I am very resolute. You love me, Antonia. Your tears, your lips havetold me that divine secret."
"Be it so. I love you, sir. But I will not break my promise to one Iloved better, my first dear love, the man who brought sunshine into mylife, and extinguished the sun when he left me. The man who loved mebetter than he thought."
"Antonia!"
"Leave me, Mr. Stobart. If we are still to be friends, you had bestleave me."
"It is no longer a question of friendship. I know now that you love me,and I swear I will not lose you."
"Leave me, sir," she exclaimed. "If you ever wish to see my face again,leave me this instant."
"At least be merciful. Do not send me from you in despair. Antonia, bekind! I cannot live without you."
"Go, sir; your vehemence, your boldness, leave me no power to reason oreven to think. Go; and if after a night of thought I can bring myselfto believe that I am not bound, body and soul, by my promise to thedead----"
"You will be mine," he cried, with outstretched arms, trying to claspher again to his heart, but she drew herself away from him indignantly.
He grasped her unwilling hand, covered it with kisses and tears, andrushed from the room.
* * * * *
The watchmen were calling "Half-past eleven, and a fine night," whenLady Kilrush left her dressing-room, carrying a lighted candle and akey, and crossed the gallery to that other side of the spacious housewhere the late lord's rooms were situated. The household had retiredsoon after ten, and the great well staircase lay like a pit of darknessbelow the massive oak banisters. An oppressive silence, an oppressivegloom, pervaded the house, as Antonia unlocked the door that had seldombeen opened since the coffin was carried out on the first stage of itslong journey, on a summer night that memory recalled as if it had beenyesterday. The atmosphere, the feelings of that night were in her mindas she crossed the threshold of the room which had never known the usesof human life since Kilrush occupied it. The wainscot mouse, the spideron the wall, the moth lurking in the window drapery, had been its onlyinhabitants.
The tall silver candlesticks, the portfolio and standish were on thetable in the oak-panelled ante-room where Antonia remembered the lawyerand the doctor talking beside the empty hearth. The vastness of thebed-chamber had an appalling air in the glimmer of a single candle.Antonia's hand trembled as she lighted those other candles, the candlesthat had burnt beside the dying man when he spoke the words that madeher a peeress.
How near that night seemed, as she stood beside the bed, funereal underthe dark velvet hangings, a catafalque rather than a bed. She couldhear the Bishop's full-mouthed tones, and that other voice, falteringand faint, but to her the world's best music.
"Oh, my beloved," she cried, falling on her knees beside the pillow onwhich his head had lain. "Oh, my dearest, kindest, best, surely it isyou I love and none other--you, only you, only you!"
Her arms were folded on the coverlet, her head resting on them. Sheremained thus on her knees, for a long time, dreaming back the past.She lived again through those hours in Rupert Buildings, those hoursspent in endless talk with Kilrush. They seemed to her now the mostblissful hours of her life. She looked back and wondered at thathappiness. Perhaps there was some touch of illusion in that dream ofthe past, something of the light that never was on sea or land; butto her there was no shadow of doubt that the joy of those past daysexceeded all she had known of gladness since her husband's death.
She had made her night toilet and put on a loose silken _neglige_,meaning to spend the long hours in this room. Her first night in ahusband's chamber--her wedding night, she thought, with a melancholysmile.
She had come here to solve the problem of the future, to determinewhether she should or should not break her promise to the dead. Forher, the free-thinker, it might seem a small thing to break a vow, whenher keeping it would make a good man's life desolate. But despite thevagueness of her hope in the Hereafter, despite that early teachingwhich had bidden her believe in nothing that her human intelligencecould not comprehend, her husband's image was a living presence in thatroom, a living influence in her life, and she could not imagine himlying in the dust, unconscious and indifferent. Somehow, somewhere, bysome mysterious unthinkable means, the dead still lived, still lovedher, still claimed her fidelity.
"My first dear love," she cried, in a burst of hysterical sobs, "I amyours and yours only. I can never belong to another, never own anyhusband but you."
Her tears, her reiterated vow soothed her. She rose from her knees,by-and-by, and sat on the bed, as she had sat when she held her dyinglover in her arms. Gradually her head sank on the pillow where his headhad lain, and she fell asleep.
"Past two o'clock, and a rainy night," called the watchman in thesquare.
Antonia did not wake till after five. The dead man was in her dreamsthrough those three hours of deepest sleep. It was not George Stobart'simpassioned embrace that haunted her slumber. The arms that encircledher, the lips that kissed her, were the arms and lips of the loverirrevocably lost, and there was a poignant joy in that embrace. Herw
edding night! The words were repeated in her dreams. It was a nightof dreams that ratified her promise to the dead. Surely he was nearher! The voice that sounded so close to her ear, that very voice sheknew so well, the lips whose touch thrilled her, gave her the assuranceof immortality; and in some dim land she could not picture, underconditions beyond the limit of human intelligence, they two would meetagain, husband and wife, spirit or flesh, reunited for ever.
* * * * *
George Stobart was at Kilrush House before nine o'clock. His patiencecould endure no longer. He had spent the night as he spent that otherand much more miserable night after Whitefield's sermon, wanderingabout the waste places between Lambeth Palace and Vauxhall. Slumber orrest was out of the question.
The hall porter was more awake than usual, and answered his inquirybriskly.
"No, sir, not at home. Her ladyship has left London. She will lie atDevizes to-night, on her way to Ireland."
"Gone! Impossible!"
"It was very sudden, sir, and as much as could be done. 'Twas nearlysix o'clock this morning when the servants had their orders. Herladyship takes only Miss Potter, her French waiting woman, and onefootman, in her travelling carriage and a post-chaise."
"What time did they leave?"
"They may have been gone over half an hour, sir. I heard the clockstrike eight after the coaches left the door. I have her ladyship'sletter for you, sir."
Stobart took the letter, speechless with mortification, and left thehouse before he broke the seal. It was a miserable morning, and hestood in the rain, under the low grey sky, while he read her letter,her letter of one line--
"Farewell for ever."
CHAPTER XX.
"AND CLEAVE UNTO THE BEST."