Anthony John/Chapter 17
HOW to tell her? The door was not quite closed. He could hear her voice giving directions to the maid, the rustling of garments, the opening and shutting of drawers. Later, he would hear her wish the maid good night; and then the door would open and she would come in for their customary talk before going to bed. It was the hour when she had always seemed to him most beautiful, clad in loose shimmering robes, veiling her wonderful whiteness. Tonight she would clasp her soft arms round his neck and, laughing, tell him how proud she was of him. All the evening he had read the promise of it in her eyes. And they would kiss, perhaps for the last time.
Could he not put it off—again, for the hundredth time? Was it not cruel to choose this night? It had been a day of roses, and she had been so happy. In the morning there had been the unveiling of the war memorial, the great granite cross with the four bronze guns at its base. It stood high up on the crest of the moor, for all the town to see, the sky for its background; and carved in golden letters round its pedestal, so that the cold grey cross seemed, as it were, to have grown out of their blood, the names of the young men who had given their lives that England might rejoice. His speech had been a supreme success. It had moved the people as such speeches rarely do, for with every word he uttered he had been thinking of himself.
Even his two children, occasionally critical of him, had congratulated him. The boy had had tears in his eyes. He had looked very handsome in his weather-stained uniform, in spite of the angry scar across his cheek. He had taken things into his own hands at the beginning of the war, had enlisted as a private, and had won his commission on the field. For Norah, the war had happened at a providential moment. During the suffrage movement she had caused Eleanor many a sleepless night. The war had caught her up and directed her passions into orthodox channels. It had done even better for her. It had thrown her into the company of quite a nice boy, with only a consumptive cousin between him and an ancient peerage. To Anthony himself, the war had brought, without any effort of his own, increasing wealth and power. Millsborough had become a shining centre for the output of munitions. Anthony's genius for organization had been the motive force behind. At the luncheon that had followed the unveiling of the memorial a Cabinet Minister had dropped hints. Eleanor's prophecy of long ago that Anthony would become a millionaire with a seat in the House of Lords would all come true.
In the evening the great new dining-room, fashioned out of the ruins of what had once been the monk's refectory, had been thrown open for the first time. All their world and his wife had dined there; his fellow-townsmen who had grown up with him, who had watched, admired and envied his marvellous career; county folk from far and near; famous folk, humble folk. The Reverend Horace Pendergast, most eloquent of divines, and soon to be a bishop, had proposed the toast of "The uncrowned king of Millsborough," his dear and well-beloved cousin Anthony Strong'nth'arm—had quoted scripture appropriate in speaking of one so evidently singled out for favour by the Lord. General Sir James Coomber, in a short, blunt speech, had seconded the toast, claiming merit for himself as having from the first, and against family opposition, encouraged his sister to stick to her guns and marry the man of her choice. Not that she had needed much encouragement, Jim had added amid laughter. She would have done it, was Jim's opinion, if all the King's horses, and all the King's men had tried to prevent her. And from Eleanor, seated at the other end of the long table, had come a distinct "Hear, hear," followed by more laughter. Others, one after another, had risen spontaneously to add their testimony to the honour and affection with which he was regarded throughout Millsborough, and all round about.
And then an odd thing had happened. As he rose to respond there came into his mind the sudden thought that here within the space of these same walls must often have supped his namesake, the monk Anthony. And with the thought there came the face and form of the young monk plainly before him. It entered by a small serving door that stood ajar, and slipped into a vacant seat left empty by a guest who had been called away. He knew the whole thing was an hallucination, a fancy that his sudden thought had conjured up. But the curious part of it was that the face of the young monk, who with elbows resting on the table was looking at him with such earnestness, was not the face of the monk in the picture with which he was familiar, the hero, the martyr, but the face of a timid youth. The hands were clasped, and the eyes that were fixed on Anthony seemed to be pleading with him.
He could not remember what he had said. He did not think it was the speech he had intended. He had the feeling he was answering the questioning eyes of the young monk still fixed upon him. But it seemed to have gone all right, though there had been no applause when he had sat down. Instead, a little silence had followed; and when the conversation round the table was renewed it had been in a subdued tone, as though some new note had been struck.
Foolish though it seemed, it was this slight episode that had finally decided him that he must speak with her this very night. Too long he had put it off, whispering to himself now one excuse, now another. It had come to him while he had been preparing his speech for the unveiling of the war memorial: How long was he going to play the coward? When was he going to answer the call of his King, his country?
When had that call first come to him? What voice—what vision had first spoken to him? He tried to think. There had been no trumpet call. No pillar of light had flashed before his eyes. It had come to him in little whispers of the wind, in little pluckings at his sleeve. Some small wild creature's cry of pain. The sorrow of a passing face. The story of a wrong done, when or where it did not matter. Always the darkness was full of reproachful eyes accusing him of delay.
It seemed to him that he was standing beside God in some vast doorless chamber, listening to the falling of the tears of the world—the tears of all the ages that were past, the tears of the ages yet to come; and God's sad eyes were watching him.
If he could take her with him. If only she would come with him. There had been a moment at the beginning of the war when it might have been: those days of terror when the boy lay wounded unto death; and he had heard her cry out in the night: "Oh, God, take all I have but that." Had he urged her then? Honours, riches! In that moment she would have known their true value. But the child had lived, and all her desires were now for him. She would resent whatever might make to his detriment. No, he would have to go alone.
How was he going to put it into words? How could he hurt her least, while at the same time leaving no opening for false hope? He had purposely avoided thinking it out. It would be useless coming to her with cut and dried phrases. He would not be laying down the law. He would be pleading for forgiveness, for understanding. He could picture the bewilderment that would come into her eyes as slowly his meaning dawned upon her: giving place to anger, despair. It would seem to her that she had never known him, that she had been living with a strange man. Why had he not taken her into his confidence years ago, made her the sharer of his dreams—his visions? How did he know she would not have sympathized with him? It was his love for her that had made him false—or rather his love for himself. He had wanted to come to her always with gifts, so that she might be grateful to him, proud of him. Now it was too late. It would seem to her that all these years he had been living apart, her husband only in body. She would feel herself a woman scorned.
He smiled to himself, recalling how at the beginning of the Great War, as they had named it, the hope had come to him that after all he might not have to drink this cup. God was going to do without man's help. Out of one stupendous sacrifice of blood and tears the world was to be born anew. Sin was to destroy her own children; man's greed and hate was to be burned up in the fire man's evil passions had kindled. It was a strange delusion. Others had shared it. With the bitter awakening a dumb apathy had seized him, paralysing his soul. Of what use was the struggle. The gibe was true: "Mankind would always remain a race of low intelligence and evil instincts." Let it perish, the sooner the better.
And then, gradually, out of his despair, had arisen in him a great pity for God. It startled him at first. It was so grotesque an idea. And yet it grew upon him. The mysterious warfare between Good and Evil. It shaped itself in his brain, a thing concrete, visible. The loneliness of God. He saw Him as a Leader betrayed, deserted; his followers fleeing from him, hastening to make their peace with evil. He must find his way to God's side. God wanted him.
It was no passing mood. The thought took possession of him. All other voices sounded to him faint and trivial.
His sorrow was for her. If he could but have spared her. For himself he felt joy that the struggle was over, that he had conquered, that nothing now could turn him from his purpose. He would get rid of all his affairs—of everything, literally. Not for the sake of the poor. If all the riches of the world were gathered together and given to the poor it would be but a stirring of the waters, a moment's shifting of the social landmarks. Greed and selfishness would shape themselves anew. From time immemorial the rich had flung money to the poor, and the poor had ever increased in numbers, had sunk ever poorer. Money was a dead thing. It carried with it the seeds of destruction. Love, service, were the only living gifts. It was for his own sake—to escape, in the words of Timothy, from many hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdiction, that he must flee from his great possessions. No man could possess money without loving money. Only in common poverty—in common contentment with having food and raiment could there be brotherhood, love.
He had made his plans. He would rent a small house, next door to where his mother still lived in Bruton Square, and practise there as a solicitor. The old lady was still active and capable. If need be—if he had to go alone—she could keep house for him. He was keen on Bruton Square. It was where the mean part of the town began. It would not be too far for the poor to come to him. The little modest house would not frighten them with suggestion of charges beyond their means, of contemptuous indifference to their unprofitable bits of business. He would be able to help them, to keep them from falling into the hands of charlatans. They would come to trust him in their troubles. He might often be able to serve as mediator, as peacemaker between them. It would be a legitimate way of earning his living.
It was essential that he should earn his living. That seemed to him of tremendous importance. If the world were to be saved it must be saved by all men working together for God. That must be the dream, the goal. He wanted to tell men that the Christ-life could be lived not by the few but by all; not alone by celibates and mendicants—of what use would that be—but by men with wives and children. It must come to be the life of the street, the market-place, the home.
If she would come with him, join her voice with his, tell the people that man and woman could live happily together without this luxury and ostentation for which Youth daily sold its birthright of love and joy, condemned itself to frenzied toil and haunting fear; that life was not a thing of furniture and clothes, of many servants, of fine houses and rich foods; that a man and woman who had known these things could choose to give them up, find comfort and content without them; that having food and raiment there was no need of this savage struggling for more—this greed and covetousness that for so long had pierced the world with many sorrows. If only she would come with him. Together they might light a lamp.
How could he ask her? The mere physical discomforts and privations, it would not be the fear of these that would hold her back. Demand the heroic of her—call upon her, in the name of any cause worth fighting for, to face suffering, death itself, and she would put her hand in his and go with him gladly. She had envied Betty, going out alone to fight starvation and disease amid the terrors of a winter in the Russian steppes.
"I'd have loved to be going with her," she had told him. "It must be from my mother that it comes to me. Some strange thing happened to her when she was a girl. She would never tell me what, though I knew it had been her trouble all her life. And when she lay dying she drew me down to her, and whispered to me that in her youth God had called to her and she had not obeyed. It was dad and we children that had hindered her. She had married a husband so she could not come."
She had laughed and kissed him. He remembered the tears in her eyes and the little catch in her voice.
But there was nothing heroic about this thing that he wanted to do. It was the littleness, the meanness of it that would freeze her sympathies. Her sense of humour would rise up against it. Was there no better way of serving Christ than by setting up as a pettifogging solicitor in a little square of faded gentility. And a solicitor of all professions! A calling so eminently suggestive of the Scribe and Pharisee. Was there not danger of the whole thing being smothered under laughter?
And why here in Millsborough where everybody knew him? Where they would be stared at, called after in the street, snapshotted and paragraphed in the local Press; where they would be the laughing stock of the whole town, a nuisance round the neck of all their friends and acquaintances. The boy's career: he would be the butt of the messroom. Norah's engagement: it would have to be broken off. What man wants to marry into a family of cranks? Could it serve Christ for His would-be followers to cover themselves with ridicule.
It was just because his going on with his own business had seemed to him the simplest, plainest path before him that he had chosen it. He had thought at one time of asking Matthew Witlock to let him come as his assistant in the workshop. He had retained much of his old skill as a mechanic. With a little practice it would come back to him. He would have enjoyed the work: the swinging of the hammer, the flashing of the sparks, the harmony of hand and brain. His desk had always bored him. The idea had grown upon him. It would have been like going home. He would have met there the little impish lad who had once been himself. Old Wandering Peter would have sat cross-legged upon the bench and talked to him. He would have come across his father, pottering about among the shadows; would have joked with him. Strong kindly Matthew of the dreamy eyes would have been sweet, helpful company. Together they would have listened to the passing footsteps. There, if anywhere, might have come the Master.
It had cost him an effort to dismiss the desire. He so wanted to preach the practical, the rational. We could not all be blacksmiths. We could not all do big things, heroic things. But we could all work for God, wherever and whatever we happened to be; that was the idea he wanted to set going.
He wanted to preach to men that the Christ-life was possible for all: for the shop-keeper, for the artisan, for the doctor, for the lawyer, for the labourer, for the business man. He wanted to tell the people that Christ had not to be sought for in any particular place, that he was here; that we had only to open the door and He would come to us just where we were. One went on with one's work, whatever it was, the thing that lay nearest to one, the thing one could do best. We changed the Master not the work, took other wages.
He wanted to tell it in Millsborough for the reason that it was the only place where he could be sure of being listened to. Nowhere else could he hope to attract the same attention. He wanted to attract attention—to advertise, if any cared to put it that way. It was the business man in him that had insisted upon Millsborough. In Millsborough, for a time—for quite a long time—this thing would be the chief topic of conversation. Men would discuss it, argue around it, think about it when alone.
In Millsborough he had influence. In Millsborough, if anywhere, he might hope to find followers. For twenty years he had been held up to the youth of Millsborough as a shining example: the man who had climbed, the man who had "got on," the man who had won all the rewards the devil promises to those who will fall down and worship him, wealth, honour, power—the kingdoms of the earth. He stood for the type of Millsborough's hero: the clever man, the knowing man, the successful man; the man who always got the best of the bargain; the man who always came out on top; the man who whatever might happen to others always managed to fall on his feet. "Keep your eye on Anthony Strong'nth'arm." In Millsborough it had become a saying. The man to be in with, the man to put your money on, the man God always prospered.
He could hear them—see their round, staring eyes. He could not help but grin as he thought of it. Anthony Strong'nth'arm declines a peerage. Anthony Strong'nth'arm resigns his chairmanship of this, that and the other most prosperous concern; his directorship in half a dozen high dividend-paying companies; gets rid of his vast holdings in twenty sound profitable enterprises; gives up his great office in St. Aldys Close, furniture, fittings and goodwill all included; writes a courteous letter of farewell to all his wealthy clients; takes a seven-roomed house in Bruton Square, rent thirty-two pounds a year; puts up his plate on the door: "Anthony John Strong'nth'arm, Solicitor. Also Commissioner for Oaths. Office hours, ten to four." What's the meaning of it? The man is not a fool. Has never, at any time, shown indications of insanity. What's he up to? What's come into his head? If it's God he is thinking of, what's wrong with the church or the chapel, or even the Pope, if he must have a change? Does he want a religion all to himself? Is it the poor that are troubling him? He'd do better for them, going on with his money-making, giving them ten—twenty, fifty per cent., if he liked, of his profits. What is the explanation? What does he say about it—Anthony Strong'nth'arm himself?
They would have to listen to him. If only from curiosity they would hear him out to the end. It might be but a nine days' wonder; the talk grow tiresome, the laughter die away. That was not his affair. He wanted to help. He was sure this was the best thing he could do.
He had not noticed the door open. She was standing before him. She drew his face down to her and kissed him.
"Thank you," she whispered, "for one of the happiest days of my life."
He held her to him for a while without speaking. He could feel the beating of her heart.
"There is something I want to tell you," he said.
She put a hand upon his lips. "I know," she answered. "In three minutes time. Then you shall tell me."
They stood with their arms round one another till the old French clock upon the mantelpiece had softly chimed the twelve hours. Then she released him, and seating herself in her usual chair, looked at him and waited.