David Pannell, a study of conscience

Chapter I. David Pannell

had been taking a party of ladies over the Doria Palace in Genoa. They had seen the stately chambers, with their heavy-carved chimney-pieces, and had stepped out upon the terrace to enjoy the magnificent view over the harbour, above which Genoa sits a queen. What if her mountains have no trees, as the spiteful Florentines said of her ? When the sun shins on her forest of masts, on her cupolas and palaces rising from the ample crescent of her bay, who can look on her, and deny her right to be called Genoa la superba ! ; 2 The ladies, who were but lately come from England, and had never been in Italy before, were fairly enchanted. Miss Amory could hardly tear herself away. She had asked Pannell if he had ever tried to get the effect — so difficult, because so contradictory — of the crowded scene and the wide expanse.

"It would have to be treated very broadly," she was saying, when the appearance of another party of sightseers drove her in from the terrace. And Pannell had instantly resolved to make the attempt, and treat it very broadly. " And now where is the portrait of Andrew Doria with his cat ? " she had asked of the self-sufficient custodian — who thereupon be came affable. Miss Amory looked a good while at the grim old admiral and his grim old cat ; the cat, she declared, was fairly bursting with satisfaction. " He is saying, ' I am Andrew Doria's cat — whose cat are you ? ' " said she to Pannell. Her gaiety was infectious — it almost carried him away. But he was afraid to be too much at ease, and this fear made him shrink into himself a little. The custode did not understand what the pretty English lady was saying, but he saw that she was interested, and he was pleased with her ; so he showed her the portrait of the splendid dog which Carlo Ouinto gave the great Admiral, and told her (in his mincing Italian French, learned for the benefit of the forestieri) that the dog was buried up on the hill above, at the feet of the statue of Hercules she had seen from the top of the terrace.

Her beautiful eyes — bluish-grey, so dark at the edge of the iris, that they were often taken for hazel — shone with something like tears — tears for the touch of nature running through all this splendour and romance, for the generous master and the good dog. " I hope," she said to Pannell, "he is gone to the happy hunting grounds, and has found his master again ! " Something in her tone so thrilled him that he could not speak. It would take too long to tell all that went through him in that ; 4 moment — sheer emotion, the sense of a tender woman's heart — the sweetness of it mixed with a furtive shiver, not unpleasing for once, at the ease with which Juliet Amory could utter a remark so boldly speculative. It seemed to cost her nothing to say it, although it raised so many difficult questions that Pannell hoped she would not ask him if he agreed with her.

It was but a passing shiver — the habitual caution and indecision of his character had almost sunk out of sight to-day, swept down by the sudden leaping into flame of a long smouldering emotion. For I will not call it a passion — David's emotions were often agonis ingly keen, but they never rose to the white heat of passion ; yet it was an exquisite sensa tion, and it transfigured the whole world. And it did a great deal more than this. It is not enough that the world should be transfigured^we want to be transfigured ourselves, to be delivered from the stagnation of a con sciousness never tempest-tossed, and to become interesting to ourselves, by discovering how much we can feel. And this was what had now happened to David Pannell. It had been coming a long while — ever since the first moment he saw her.

But then the thing had seemed so impossible that he had put the thought from him as something which might unsettle him, perhaps expose him to humiliation, but could never by any possibility come to pass. To-day, for the very first time, he asked himself whether it really was absolutely im possible ? And he asked it at the moment when Juliet uttered her fanciful wish about the dog. He saw the admiration she excited, and how people turned to look at her again. She was a beautiful girl, with a graceful, flexible young figure, and a quantity of bright brown hair ; but her great charm lay in her varying ex pression — in the exquisitely delicate eyebrows, and the sweet serenity of her brow. She had a curious way of slightly contracting her forehead when she was perplexed by anything. It gave her a most charming and original expression, and Pannell used to try and provoke ; it, by saying what he knew she would not agree to.

He liked her half-whimsical mood better than her graver ones — they were almost too grave ; and when she heard that anybody had done a mean or a cruel thing, her indignation was not sufficiently tempered by a consideration which Pannell always tried to keep in sight — namely, that probably the action in question did not appear so bad to the doer as it did to her. But to-day there was absolutely nothing to disturb his perfect en joyment — she was in her sweetest, gentlest mood. How charming she was ! What a sweet way she had of holding her head — a little inclined, as if trying to see the matter from another point. She was perfectly well-bred (a thing he set a high value upon) ; and it was her advantages of birth and position over himself which had led him to despair. Yet how unlike she was to everybody else !

What ever she said seemed to be interesting. Pannell was keenly alive to this, having been pursued through life by the commonplace. But, on the other hand, he much disliked anything loud or outre', and Juliet's delicate womanliness of manner was inexpressibly soothing to his somewhat over-sensitive nerves. As for Juliet, she had always liked and respected Pannell — had to a certain extent looked on him as a shy, retiring genius, who wanted encouragement, and she had accordingly tried to encourage him. But to-day she had been aware of a subtle difference — she had become conscious of his personality in a way she had never been before. It is difficult to describe this new impression with sufficient vagueness — it was so very vague. So when I say that it was a sense of an encounter, I feel I have said too much.

Juliet's most intimate friends sometimes accused her of being masterful, but this was an unjust accusation. She only wanted to stir people up a little, and make them live their own lives, and think their own thoughts, and not be so terribly afraid of being alive. Pannell would have pleased her ; 8 better if he had impressed her more vividly with his own personality — he had done so to-day, and had instantly startled her out of her safe, sympathetic friendliness, into some thing which she had not yet had time to understand. She felt as though she had hitherto been talking to an unsubstantial vision, and all of a sudden the vision had become substantial. In a curious way she felt as though she must defend herself — she, who certainly had, till now, supposed her own will was much more stubborn than Pannell's. It was rather a new sensation to Juliet to be withstood in this way, and above all to receive an impression, instead of making one.

To be sure, she and George were always quarrelling, but that was entirely different. To begin with, George was invariably in the wrong ; and in the second place, his arguments never made the smallest impression upon her. She even thought she had not done justice to Pannell's personal appearance (it is always a dangerous moment when a woman thinks this). It was a fine head, with plenty of loose-falling yellow hair, and gentle blue eyes — much paler than Juliet's. The worst thing about him was a want of sharpness in the angles of face and figure, but his features were good, and artists are apt to get rather slouching. He had on a red neck-tie, and it became him, and gave him a touch of daring which pleased her. But she was a little frightened. This was a new sensation. She was not used to feeling herself less than the mistress of the situation.

She liked to feel sure ; she was inclined to condemn persons who do not know their own minds — and it had just been revealed to her that she did not know hers. And what would her mother say, if But here such a complication of perplexity assailed her, that she felt it necessary to begin a new chapter. There had been quite enough of this most delightful day. A little more of it, and she might be hurried into something she might not be able to stand to. And to make a mistake — to think you like some body, and afterwards to discover that you do ; 10 not, is a thing so despicable ! — it shows such frivolity ! Juliet meant to make quite sure — and as sure as she was about George. That, at any rate, was clear enough. Then, by way of rounding off this happy day, she said to David, " We really can't thank you enough, Mr. Pannell, for giving up your time to us as you have.

It has been so delightful to come here with you ! Whenever I think of Genoa, I shall always remember to-day." Pannell's reply was rather incoherent, and it alarmed Miss Amory still more. It would be a horrid complication if he made up his mind before she did. She had never suspected any thing of the kind until to-day — he did not seem to think about marrying. She had even thought him a little cold and impersonal. But once or twice to-day — it was not so much what he had actually said, but there had been silences. As for Pannell, he could not have told what he was thinking — he was not really thinking at all, but only feeling. He was conscious of knowing that this was the happiest, brightest day of his whole life — when, just as they stepped into the street, he saw the man whom of all others he disliked, the man whom of all others he would not have met on this day of all days.

He thought Juliet, too, seemed annoyed. The obnoxious person was her cousin, but there was no sort of sympathy between them. His presence prevented Pannell caring to see the ladies home. There were reasons which made him feel at a disadvantage when in Travers' company — reasons quite apart from personal dislike. So he took his leave, much to the joy of Travers, who returned his dislike on the solid, honest ground of jealousy. As Pannell returned home by a street he seldom passed down — the Via di Pre — he thought of the strange chance which had brought Travers to Genoa just when the Amorys were there. He would have given much that this should not have happened. The very sight of him had turned Pannell's confidence into doubt — he could never be himself in Travers' presence. The glory of the day was ; 12 gone — it was to Pannell as though the sun had already set.

It would naturally be supposed that the thoughts of the lover ran upon his mistress, on her gracious kindness that day, which had inspired so presumptuous a hope, and, above all, on that hope itself, and the likeliest way of making it less presumptuous. But Pannell had a subject for meditation which pressed upon him even more immediately than Juliet's kindness. Whenever he tried to think of her, he saw something else. He could not escape it, for it was inextricably mixed up with her. It had already pursued him for weary days and sleepless nights. It had left him while he was with Juliet, but the instant he turned from her it sprang upon his shoulder, and there sat like a familiar imp, whispering discordant counsels in his ear. And the sight of Travers seemed almost like an evil omen. Any one who had known Pannell well — say, as a sister does a brother — would have perceived that he winced a little, and would have known that he was turning away his thoughts from a subject he did not like — much as he would have turned away his eyes from a face he would not see.

At such times a curious change came over Pannell — it was with him as when a book is suddenly closed, or as when running water suddenly freezes. But Pannell was a quiet man, and it would have taken a very close observer to note the change.

Chapter II. To

keep his thoughts from wandering back to George Travers and all that he represented, Pannell began to pay more attention to surrounding objects. Not far from the Doria Palace the Via di Pre begins. It is a long narrow street which winds its tortuous way at the back of the quays that lead to the Piazza di Caricamento. The houses are high, and not remarkably well provided with win dows. At so many as there are, however, a goodly array of garments may generally be seen hanging out to dry. The shops are small and shabby — second-hand furniture, old jewellery, a locksmith's or two, a great many ship's chandlers, and more than one Spazio di Vino. And plenty of lanes and passages lead up and down — up into the centre of the M city, down, to the quays. The Via di Pre is not a crowded street, if you compare it with the Via degli Orefici, or the Piazza Carlo Felice, but it has a good deal of via-vieni, as the Italians call it, in one of those terse idiomatic phrases of theirs, which so much resemble our own.

There were a good many people hurry ing along it, this October afternoon — dock porters, laden with goods from the docks, street-/ ace hini, carrying charcoal on their blue bloused backs, and a liberal allowance on their faces and hands ; women, with children, pitchers, and baskets ; men and boys rattling along with empty trucks, or labouring slowly with full ones — and all making a great clatter on the knobbly pavement. Footway there was none, but as no carriages come down the Via di Pre, this did not matter. Once in a while a priest would pass by, his long skirts and the flaps which depended from his shoulders flying behind him, if he was a young man, or pompously swelling out before ; 16 him, if he was well laden with years and flesh. Now and then, a close-shaven, sleek-faced person, in correct and sober broadcloth, would come along, carrying a sheaf of papers under his arm, and a bag in his hand.

He would be an avvocato, going home, and meditating as he went on the particulars, just confided to him, of the quarrel between two part-owners of a trading schooner. The majority of the passers-by had a certain maritime look about them — or, at least, so much of it as can be acquired by lading and unlading ships' cargoes. Old women, their heads tied up in scarlet handkerchiefs, and their faces dried and wrinkled with aee till they looked like withered leaves, sat knitting coarse blue yarn at their doors. There were fair-haired young women, and straw-haired children, and most of the men had the shrewd Genoese countenance, light in complexion, with long, sharp-pointed noses, and rather high cheek-bones. But many nations were represented in the Via di Pre, in the course of Pannell's walk. Neapolitan sailors, Jews, Englishmen — even a negro or two, and a red capped lascar.

But the facchini predominated. In all varieties of picturesque half-nakedness they staggered along under all sorts of burdens — boxes of Sicilian oranges, casks of wine, baskets packed with flasks of Lucca oil, bales of hemp — and jostled their noisy way through the loiterers and the chafferers, while the children and the dogs constantly got in their way, or tried ineffectually to get out of it. And lastly, recognisable afar off, came the Man with the Nose. Say, rather, the Man with the Seven Noses. Pannell knew him well by sight — he had a shop under the colonnade, close to the Piazza di Caricamento. He was an unpleasant object. His nose had blossomed out all over his face, and was no doubt as inconvenient to himself as it was repulsive to others. Pannell, who was fastidious both by temperament and profession, had a woman's horror of this unfortunate individual — it was, indeed, partly to avoid beholding him that he ; 18 had taken the Via di Pre, instead of the more interesting road by the quay.

There is a certain fascination in horror, and Pannell, though he tried not to look, found his eyes drawn involuntarily towards the Man with the Nose. He wondered how the man had come into so frightful a condition. Had the disease begun slowly — advancing by steps at first almost invisible ? And, in the early stages, could nothing have been done to arrest it ? And now, how could he endure his life ? Pannell felt that he himself would be unable to walk abroad and show himself to the loathing of the passers-by. The Man with the Nose, however, made no attempt to conceal his deformity. At this moment, he had stopped an acquaintance, and was telling him something that made the other laugh — talking in a familiar nearness that fairly turned Pannell's stomach. Just at this moment, the church clocks of Genoa struck five, causing Pannell to look up, and to observe that he was close to the venerable old church which stands in the street.

He had never been inside it — he thought he would just look in, and so escape a near view of the Man with the Nose. "It is better not to see things that will haunt one's memory," he said to himself, as he pushed aside the heavy leather curtain, and stepped into the religious dimness within. The church was very dark — at first he could see nothing but the few small lamps which had been left burning. But as his eyes grew accustomed to the change from the brightness of the street, he saw that beyond its appearance of venerable age, it had but little to interest an artist. The light which came in at windows placed very high up in the walls, just sufficed to show an altar, dressed in the usual tawdry style, with tall, thin candles, and artificial roses. The form of the church was, however, some what uncommon — the nave was very short for its breadth, and it had no aisles.

Pannell could thus see the whole of it at once, despite the duskiness of the interior, and he presently made out, in the middle of the north ; 20 wall, a sort of cave, or grotto, containing one of those painfully realistic life-size figures of the Dead Christ, with which all travellers in Italy are familiar. An iron railing shut it in, and a man, wrapped in a cloak, was kneeling before it. Pannell looked at the wooden figure with a curious mixture of feeling. He had been brought up under the spiritual influences of a village conventicle, where persons like the kneeling man before him were from time to time referred to as " benighted Romanists." But since then many other influences had conspired to modify Pannell's views upon Romanists, and also upon many other subjects. His own character had none of the stern decisiveness which goes to make a bigot.

Moreover, he was just now sorely harassed by mental anxiety ; and although he had a morbid dread of enthusiasm, he considered him self, and was considered by others, a religious man. So, although he did not tread as lightly as he might, being much absorbed by his own thoughts, he looked on the worshipper with apologetic toleration — noting at the same time a certain ghastly effectiveness in the carving of the limbs of the Christ, on which the lamp shed a fitful light. It was terribly real, and something in Pannell always shrank from the real. He preferred it softened by a little ideality, and to him the Ideal meant something not quite so real as the Real. Presently he went across to the altar of the Virgin. As usual, it was evidently the favourite object of devotion. By the doubtful light he could see a perfect forest of candles, and vases filled with dirty artificial roses, the dust thick upon them.

A number of ex-votos were hung up on each side — hearts in cheap white metal, and small cards in frames, being the most frequent offerings. As Pannell stood there, his trained eye taking in all these tawdry details, he was startled by the church door suddenly closing with a bang — or so it seemed as it re-echoed through the empty church. It was only the man in the cloak who had gone out, and Pannell returned to his medita- ; 22 tions. They had by this time disentangled themselves into two distinct threads. How could he avoid both horns of an unpleasant dilemma ? And how did it feel to invoke Heaven at such junctures, with an expectation of being heard and assisted ? I have already said that Pannell was a religious man ; but if he must have chosen between appearing too loose and vague in his religious belief, and too narrow and rigid, he would have chosen vagueness rather than definition.

He was afraid of definition. The man he had just left with Miss Amory had said of him that you might as well try to get blood out of a stone as to make David Pannell define his opinion on any subject in heaven or earth. If Travers could at this moment have looked into Pannell's heart, he would have felt a sardonic satisfaction. For at that instant, Pannell — for the first time in his life — was envying the donors of those ex-votos at which he was staring as intently as though he expected to find in them an answer to his riddle. It is a fact which may be taken as significant, or as merely fortuitous, that, Protestant as he was, he yet felt no inclination to pursue his meditations before the figure of the Christ on the other side of the church. Whether from some half-unconscious sense that his present perplexity was one which could be more fitly solved under the eyes of a merely human helper (who might be expected to look with more indulgence on human weakness) — or whether Pannell was just then yielding to superstition— however it was, he felt a distinct reluctance to think his present thoughts in sight of the Dead Christ.

Pannell was in one of the most awkward positions which can well befall a man. He had fallen into it accidentally, suddenly — so he told himself, silencing a whisper that reminded him of a haunting, half-uttered question — " What if I did it ? " But he had never made up his mind to do it — or, at least, not in the way in which it now seemed he would be compelled to do it. If he ever did it, he meant ; 24 to have done it in quite another way — a perfectly legitimate way — a way which would have made it a different thing altogether. "And a way which would have made it impossible ever to bring it home to you," said a voice within him — but it was not the voice of conscience — it was only the voice of George Travers. Travers (who, of course, knew nothing about the matter) was always saying things of this sort — cruel, harsh, unjust things.

He always took the severe view of an action which was liable to misconstruction — and what action is not ? Pannell felt that he would not like to be judged by Travers. If Travers knew his present dilemma, for instance, Pannell knew exactly what he would say — he could hear him saying it ; and how unjust, how mistaken, he would be ! How to save both credit and conscience? That was Pannell's dilemma. It is a perfectly legitimate thing to wish to save one's credit. It is, indeed, a positive sin to allow one's good to be evil spoken of, if one can possibly avoid it. Pannell's credit was very dear to him — intensely dear — but so was his conscience. Some of his friends thought he had too much conscience. Mr. Brown, of the publishing firm of Brown and Butterton, had even said of him that he was all conscience.

By an unlucky accident, he had got into — no, had found himself — in a strait so narrow that it seemed as if he could hardly get out again, without leaving something behind him — either a little of his conscience, or some of his credit. It was a cruel thing ! If he should elect to save his conscience, he would run the risk of being suspected of wrong-doing — or, at least, of a wrong intention, which it might be unjustly supposed he had lacked the courage to carry out. Through an unfortunate, but very natural nervous hesitation, he had let slip the one moment when he could with a word have set everything right. And yet, scarcely every thing — for even then, he would have been injured. He would have been throwing away what might have been of the utmost importance ; 26 to his prospects in life.

It was this consciousness which had caused his hesitation. In the perplexity of the moment, his one thought had been to gain time. And he had gained it — he had gained a fortnight, But the fortnight was nearly expired, and still he could find no way out — no way at all, except one which would expose him to George's misconstruction, and perhaps ruin him with Miss Amory. That David Pannell should he considered an honest man was to him the best thing in the world — honesty, the next best. It is a subtle distinction, but it makes the whole difference between an honest man, and him whom both the Church and the world have agreed to call a hypocrite. It was quite dark in the church by this time, but for the lamplight. There was a chair before the Virgin's altar. Some one had lately been kneeling on it, for the chair-back was turned towards the altar.

Pannell did not kneel, but he sat down on the chair, as it stood there, and, leaning his arms on the small ledge, remained for many minutes without stirring. His bodily eyes took in the doll-like figures of the Mother and Child, plentifully bedaubed with paint and gilding, but his inward vision was occupied with very different scenes. In them all appeared a face — the face of a man, a young man, but worn and haggard, and wearing a disagreeable expression of mockery, approaching to malice. It was a handsome face — much more finely cut than Pannell's own, whose commonplace features were only redeemed from commonness by a fine beard, and a well-arched forehead. -This face was pale, with that peculiar high-bred pallor which is neither sallow nor white. The eyebrows, of a yellowish-brown, were long and strongly marked, and had a curious hook at the corner next the eye.

The hair, much darker in tone, was parted in the middle, and having no curl in it, hung rather untidily over the straight forehead. The lips were thin and scornful, as was not concealed by a very small moustache of the same colour as the eyebrows. It was ; a striking face and one easy to recall. Pannell did recall it, to its slightest detail, as he sat, in apparent contemplation of the roses on the altar of the Virgin. He recalled, too, the tones of the voice which used to come from those lips. He could almost hear them saying, " My dear fellow, what will be thought of us when we have gone off the scene cannot matter to us. Our friends — those of us that have any — may like to hear us well spoken of, as it will reflect credit on themselves. But we shall have returned to our Mother, the Earth, and our reputations will trouble us as little as they will the churchyard worm that feeds on us."

Pannell had not slept much for several nights, and the recollection of these words, in this dark and shadowy church, made him shudder. He knew that the churchyard worm must even now be busy with the lips which uttered them — and the next instant, the blood rushed back from his heart, as he whispered to himself, " What if I take you at your word ? " And then his imagination played him a trick. It seemed to him that, out of the midst of one of the shabby nosegays of sham roses, looked the very face he was thinking of. He knew it was merely one of these optical illusions which we have all experienced, and that the fine, thin, aquiline nose, the yellow, hooked eyebrows, and the cynical eyes, were only present in his disturbed fancy, and in some chance fold and crease of an artificial and very dirty rose.