Father Hilarion

Chapter I

Lady Janet Charteris gave a vigorous pull at the gate-bell of the Priory of the Sacred Heart. Then she raised her lorgnette, and stared around ; ..directing her glances first up and down the narrow, squalid street, then upon the tall, dingy buildings behind her ; and lastly, at the dirty, ragged children in the gutter at her feet. Her face wore a look, now of ineffable disgust, now of tragic despair, and now of iron resolution. The Priory and the adjoining Church of our Lady of Sorrows stood in the heart of one of the most crowded, squalid and busy parishes of that immense district, lying to the north-east of the city boundaries of London. Lady Janet had descended from her carriage at the corner of the broad thoroughfare beyond the street of St. Saviour's, upon which the Priory gate opened.

She had picked her way among the dust and garbage of the narrow street until she had reached her destination. A tiny child crawled out of the roadway, and fur tively stretched out a small, grimy hand, to stroke the grand lady's velvet dress. The child's face was of A angel beauty, but fruit-stains, smuts, and recent tears concealed every trace of the delicate bloom on its cheeks. Its frock and pinafore were grey and sodden with the filth and dirt of the street. Lady Janet Charteris looked down, shuddered, and pealed the bell again. An old woman hobbled out of a recess in the wall surrounding the Priory buildings ; and, ostentatiously affecting preoccupation, drew near to the stranger. She held out a misshapen, yellow hand, and, from between toothless gums, gasped out a breathless request for " bre'n butter, pot o' tea, waty creess, and winkles."

Failing those, " some lowly crumbs from Her Grace's table." Lady Janet peremptorily turned her back upon the writhing body and claw-like fingers, shuddered again, and gave a third pull at the bell handle. This time she stamped while so doing, and her eyes shot fire. The barred door in the wall opened, and the visitor to the Priory swept through the entrance. The door closed to behind her, and the street resumed its normal look of dinginess, dreariness and squalor. " The idiocy of the East End transcends its impu dence ! " exclaimed the lady, turning round, in dignantly, upon the man who had opened the gate, and who stood holding his keys in an attitude of resigned expectation. " Do I look as though I carried pots of tea, or ' lowly crumbs ' about with me, pray?" She looked exactly what she was — a high-spirited, extremely handsome, imperious matron of forty.

She was fashionably and elegantly attired, and she had so long assumed royal airs, that she now habitu ally bore herself like a queen. Always she had been her own mistress, and the mistress of those she loved. But to-day the tragedy of a shattered kingdom was in her eyes, and there was a restless pre-occupation in her manner, which showed that her blaze of dis pleasure over the East End had not come from her heart. In her imperious face there was little hardness, but plenty of self-will ; and her large, dark eyes proclaimed her to be capable of ardent affections and fierce prejudices. Now they burned with suppressed excitement; her finely-coloured face was pale, and her eyes dark-rimmed and heavy, as if with recent weeping. Her companion bent upon her a look of grave, keen scrutiny. She held out her hand with a gesture of impatience.

" Put down those absurd keys, Hilarion ! " she ex claimed, in the same voice of mingled impatience and contempt that had marked her first utterance. "And for God's sake take me somewhere where I can talk to you, without the whole Priory's overhearing us ! " The man whom she had called Hilarion moved across the cloister towards a door at the right of the hall, or lodge, in which they were standing. A high wall ran all the way round the settlement ; and a narrow strip of garden lay at the foot of it, between the inner wall and the buildings. The Church and the Priory stood one on each side of a little garden, with a grass plot in the middle. Cloisters ran round the two buildings, both inside opening on to the lawn, and outside overlooking the narrow strip of garden. It was early in June. From the cloister windows could be seen the purple irises, planted in a ring at the side of the gravel path that edged the lawn.

Athwart the cloisters fell broad streaks of sunlight, and upon these the pillars, upholding Gothic arches, threw deep shadows. The Priory rooms on one side of the lodge lay sunk in complete silence. From the church on the other side could be heard the tones of an organ, and the chanting of a choir. Janet Charteris followed her companion into the reception-room. This was a long room, plainly fur nished with table, chairs and a desk ; and it lay out side the actual limits of the Priory proper. " For God's sake, shut the door ! " she began, im petuously wheeling round on him, ere he was well inside the room. " I'm not going to have my private affairs and our family disgrace discussed by these Fathers, just because you choose to masquerade here as one of them ! " He stood with bent head as if awaiting her pleasure.

There was a humility about his air and manner so exquisite that his very presence seemed an act of homage. But his pulse throbbed painfully ; and every tumultuous beat of it was an inarticulate expression of the passion of pride that ran riot through his veins at her impatient scorn. A faint flush mounted to his colourless face. But Janet Charteris, if she saw it, was no more daunted thereby, than by the sudden danger signals that sprang to his lowered eyes. " I have no patience with you ! " she exclaimed hotly. " You make me travel into this filthy neighbourhood, through these filthy slums, to talk to you • and then you put on your pious airs, aping a monkisk humility, just as you ape the priest himself. If you are a priest, why don't you dress like one, pray ?" He was clothed in a dark suit of fine cloth, fault lessly cut.

Dress, accent, gesture and bearing alike proclaimed him to be a gentleman. He was Janet's first cousin, though ten years her junior. His face was full of beauty, dignity and refinement ; but in every line of it and on every feature was stamped a look of sorrow, unrest and bitterness unspeakable. " I don't dress like a priest, because I am not a priest. I am the gate-keeper," he replied quietly, to her last scornful question. But again a hot flush overspread his face, while a fever of impatience at the intrusion, and a keen resentment at her mortifying contempt, were burning fiercely within him. " Then, why don't you dress like a gate-keeper ? " she retorted sharply, sweeping over one chair, ere settling herself, royally, in another. " You always make me angry, Hilarion. And God only knows why I'm fool enough to come and talk to you about my affairs !

" she added with emphasis, almost vindic tive in its intensity, " when the sight of you and your monstrous affectations of piety drive all calmness and coherence out of me, and simply make me feel in clined to stamp about these cloisters and swear." He made no reply. Perhaps he, in his turn, was wondering why she did trouble to come and discuss her affairs with him, seeing that he had so baleful an influence upon her sense of dignity and decorum. Janet Charteris had a large circle of acquaintances and relatives, but she was far too independent to re quire any confidential friends. From his early years some secret and undefinable magnetism had attracted her to her cousin Hilarion, with whom alone of all her family and friends she condescended to be on intimate terms. She had never forgiven him, in that some years ago he had renounced the world, and entered the service of the Fathers of the Assumption as a servant of the Sacred Heart.

The little Catholic settlement to which he came was served by some half dozen priests and lay brothers, the former belonging to a branch order of the Fathers of the Assumption, the latter being called servants, or servitors, of the Sacred Heart. These assisted the priests in their active service among the poor, and among their different offices were the care of the Priory and the visiting of the sick, either in their own homes, or in the infirmary, hospitals, or prison of the district. Among these, Janet's cousin had lived and laboured for some six years. To Janet herself, he was, to-day, the same mystery, and the same exasperation that he had been on his first withdrawal from the world. " I know you know exactly what I've come to talk to you about, Hilarion," she resumed abruptly, and trying vainly to stare through his mask of mild and patient resignation, "so don't put on that preoccupied and saintly look.

I suppose you can detach yourself from your prayers and beads sufficiently to talk to me about my worldly affairs ? " she asked, with a swift, mocking smile. " I can always talk to you," he replied gently, keeping his uncontrollably and fiercely expressive eyes lowered before her shrewd, sharp glances. Well, you got my letter ? You know what I've told you about my Jamie ? " " I know everything about Jamie," he replied wearily, impatiently, as though the matter failed to interest him at all. " What do you know ? " she asked fiercely. She perceived his preoccupation, but did not see it was but a feint to conceal his sudden unwillingness to go further into the subject. " You shut yourself up here ! Give up the world, your family, friends, home, everything, for a senseless whim no man has ever yet been able to discover ; and all to gratify your love of being eccentric.

What do you know about my Jamie, pray, more than I've told you ? " Her emphasis was cruel, her tone a challenge. " You forget," he answered, in the quiet tones he had schooled himself to adopt, in the face of the most humiliating contempt. " Jamie loves me as if I were his brother. He tells me everything." " You are his father confessor, I suppose ! " she sneered ; but tears were not far from her eyes, and her voice trembled with mortification. " What advice do you give him, then, when he tells you he will defy me, his mother, and break my heart ? For I suppose he tells you that, if he tells you the whole of his in sensate folly and infatuation over that woman. Do you abet him, Father Hilarion ? " "You forget," he said again, and now impatience thrilled audibly through his tone. " I know nothing of this woman, good or ill."

" How should you know anything, shut up here in this den ? But you see Jamie ? " He smiled a little bitterly. " In Jamie's eyes she is an angel, and I see her only through his." She rose from her chair, and began restlessly to pace the room. " I've seen her ! " she broke out abruptly. " But what does it matter what she is like ? She is the village schoolmistress, and teaches in the village choir. And worse, Hilarion, as I told you in my letter, she is of no family, a base-born child ! I got the fact from her grandfather. He never knew her father, and never will ; for her mother is dead, and she never knew the real name of the man who had ruined her. Good God ! think of it, Hilarion ! and my Jamie wants to make her his wife ! " Her voice had sunk to a deep, hoarse whisper. The wave of utter repugnance that swept over her face was reflected in the face of her companion.

The disgust and anger that thrilled through her voice found a responsive echo in his own proud heart. At the heart of both a secret fear was knocking, night and day ; a fear lest one day they should awake to find that Sir James Charteris, the Lord of Forest Dene Manor, had taken unto him, as his wife, the obscure and nameless schoolmistress and choir teacher from the village. The daughter of a peer and the widow of a baronet, Janet had been an heiress from her birth, and a famous beauty from her twelfth year. No serious trouble had crossed her life until she was in her fortieth year. The death of her husband shortly after the birth of her only child had not touched her heart. She had never loved him, all the wealth of her passionate affections being lavished on her child, a son, who was christened James after his father.

Between this child and his mother's cousin, Hil arion, ten years his senior, there had existed, from their earliest years, a deep, warm love, more than fraternal in its tenderness and devotion. The bond between Janet's dearly-loved son and his cousin en deared the latter to the proud and wilful lady in a way that no personal fascination could ever have. She had not yet forgiven either his renouncement, or his exasperating reserve in failing to enlighten her as to its cause. But she still consulted him when in doubt or difficulty ; and, though she was wont to call him, contemptuously, " My most unpractical cousin, Hilarion," she still, insensibly, relied upon his counsel in all the crises of her son's career. These, till within the last year, had been confined chiefly to the choice of a tutor, a public school and a university.

From her son's birth, Janet had been imbued with a fixed belief that he would do great things in the world. She remained proudly happy in this belief, throughout his bright, uneventful child hood and school life. By the time he was twenty-one, he was generally recognised as a young man of great promise and ability ; although, as yet, his chief distinction lay in the charm of his remarkably winning face and manner. He, himself, appeared to have no special bent beyond that of being always and everywhere in the highest spirits. Some months before, Charteris, when home from Oxford, was one day riding through the village, adjoining the manor of Forest Dene, when his careless glance alighted upon a girl, going across the village green before the schoolhouse. She wore a white sunbonnet, that covered her face, and a pink print gown ; and a child was hanging on to either arm.

He spurred his horse across the little brook, and cantered past the group. Looking backwards, he gazed for one moment right into the sunbonnet. The girl was laughing. Before twenty minutes had elapsed, he had found out that she was the new assistant schoolmistress of the village, and that she taught the village choir to sing. Within a week he had asked her to marry him, and she had said " No." He asked her again, a few weeks later, and she again said " No." He was not daunted by his second repulse, but re newed his suit again and again. The girl, he found out, had another lover. He, as well as Charteris, was not given the slightest hope that his suit would one day be successful. This man did not give Charteris one moment's pang of jealousy or uneasiness. The former lived in a perpetual hell of resentment, jealousy and fear.

It was not until her son's singular courtship was some weeks old, that tidings of it first reached Janet Charteris. Her pride felt the blow keenly; her peace of mind was destroyed ; and a dark cloud, ever darkening as the days and months went on, fell, pall like, over her life hopes. For Charteris, tractable till then, and in all things yielding his will to his mother, was not to be moved, either by threats or by persuasion, from his steadfast purpose of marrying the village schoolmistress. He looked up to his mother with a love and adoration little less than that she had for him ; but he was prepared to be disinherited, both of her love and of her fortune, rather than give up this woman. Jamie Charteris, unreserved by nature, spoke out his heart to his people concerning the girl he loved.

Of late, so many bitter and passionate words had passed between him and his mother, that, now, he spoke of her only to Hilarion. Janet Charteris' invincible repugnance to the match was openly proclaimed. Hilarion, servant of the Sacred Heart, hid his hostility deep down in his own heart. It was his secret, and no one, not even Jamie Charteris, who loved him with a more than brother's love, was con scious of his fierce dislike of the unknown and obscure woman who had bewitched his cousin, and had enkindled in his heart a flame of love that made him ready, for her sake, to give up family and fortune and a brilliant future. As he had said, he knew nothing of her, either good or bad, except that she was a village schoolmistress, and lived, with her grandfather, in the village of Forest Dene, in the midst of Sir James Charteris' estate.

Hilarion came of an old historic family, and, despite his acquired humility, and his long service among the poor, there was in him a stubborn pride of race that actuated every fibre of his being. Janet Charteris had some suspicions of his resent ment against the schoolmistress, but she knew nothing of its passionate intensity. Yet she relied upon him — although he was, to her, the embodiment of human perversity — to aid and abet her in her resolution to make the marriage an impossibility. " You got my letter, Hilarion ? " she asked, in the little breathless pause that followed her last words of passionate and thrilling dread. " Yes," he answered shortly. " Get it and read it," she said, with equal curt ness. Without a word, he drew from the breast pocket of his coat a letter. In drawing it out, another fell to the ground.

She glanced at it, and a sudden gleam of angry suspicion leapt to her eyes. " That is from Jamie ? " " From Jamie," he said coldly, meeting her steady, challenging look with one of equal steadiness and defiance. " Read mine ! " she said, tossing her head, with an air of amused contempt. He opened her letter, received by him only that morning. " ' My dear Hilarion,'" he began, in a voice that was expressionless. " ' I have found out more about that woman ; she is the illegitimate — ' Do you want all this, Janet ? " he exclaimed, breaking off suddenly his dreary monotone, and speaking, at last, in a tone that was both animated and full of protest. " I want it all," was the imperious reply. " ' The illegitimate child of the old schoolmaster's dead daughter,' " he read, with heightened colour, and proud, resentful mouth.

" ' She's been at Forest Dene for six months, teaching the village brats to sing and say ABC. And where, before that, God only knows.' " He had recovered himself, and his face, as well as his voice, was devoid of all human expression and interest. Yet his heart was sick within him, both with anger and disgust. His anger was directed chiefly against his cousin, for forcing him to refer again to the obnoxious details of the letter ; his disgust was reserved solely for the schoolmistress and her story. " ' I have seen the old man, the grandfather,' " he read on, monotonously ; " ' but he told me he regretted Jamie's infatuation as bitterly as myself; so, of course, I lost my temper ; and I see no use in going near him again. The woman herself, I do not, for obvious reasons, choose to approach.' " Hilarion paused, and glanced across the open sheet at his cousin.

" What are those reasons, Janet ? " he inquired ; " they are not obvious to me." " I do not choose to go near her because I do not choose to go near her," she replied coolly. " Go on!" " ' I have found out also,' " he proceeded, " ' that she has another lover, some rustic boor, a gardener, a bricklayer, or something like that, who lives in the village, and who is violently in love with her.' " He paused again. " Did you underline those words 'violently in love' for any special reason, Janet ? " he asked, with another keen look towards her. " Am I one of those fools of women who underline every other word ? " she asked impatiently. " Of course, I meant to emphasize the fact that this country boor is as hot-headed as Jamie in his manner of wooing, and probably far less fastidious, not to say scrupulous."

" I do not understand you," he said coldly. " Because you don't choose to," she retorted, with equal coldness. " Finish the letter, please, without further comment." A frown contracted his brow when he turned again to the letter. His voice was full of angry emphasis. "'This match must be prevented by any means. My chief hope rests with this other man, this gardener lover. I want the girl and him to be irre vocably mated — ' " He broke off again. " Janet ! Yes, please allow me to speak, or I shall decline to read further, and shall wash my hands of the whole matter. Do those two words ' irrevocably mated ' mean . . . manned ? " " Of course they do ! " she replied angrily, flushing in her turn. " Did any other thought occur to your mind, Hilarion ? What a brute you are ! Before God, I had no such thought in mine !

" " You are outspoken," he said hoarsely. " And if I didn't know you so well as I do, that you speak your whole mind, without malice, I would not let your epithet pass without — without — " He stammered, flushed again, and was silent. A look of sincere regret for her hasty words had passed over Janet's face. It left it with a wondrous and startling softness. " I know you are a good man, Hilarion," she began, and again, in her altered tones, there was the suspicion of contrition and apology. " I didn't mean to imply that you were prepared to force the situation, so that the woman was wronged, either by those or any other unpardonable means. But you startled me. I only meant if you could, by counsel with the man, and pressure on the woman, and advice as to ways and means — if you could, Hilarion, get the two married, our Jamie would be safe."

"Am I to finish?" he asked heavily. During her speech he had been like one who listens but who does not understand. " Of course," she said, resuming her first air of restless impatience. He read on steadily: "'I now come to what should be the most im portant factor towards your success in this business. I have discovered, beyond doubt, that this woman has a child. He has been kept out of the way till lately ; at least, he was never seen. Now he plays always, openly, before the old man's cottage. The villagers say he is her child ; if he is not, no one knows who he is, except that he belongs to her, and lives with her and the old man. "'Well, of course, you can understand my reasons for not insisting upon the fact of the child in my remonstrances, both personally with the old man, and by letter with the woman — ' " " Which reasons you can understand or not, j ust as you choose," Janet interpolated, in an ironical undertone.

" ' Of course, this makes our disgrace and Jamie's infatuation the more intolerable and shameful ; but it may be the better for us and for him too, poor boy, in the end. " ' For I cannot but think if you go to the woman, and let her see in what light we view this shocking episode in her past — I'm not squeamish, nor do I condemn the woman, it may have been the man s fault ; but still, the child's there— if you impress this on her, she may come round to see that that alone must irrevocably bar her marriage with my son. I think I will say this for her, she is ignorant, probably dull-witted, like most peasant women, and doesn't look at the social stigma of the thing. "'That is all I can write at present, Hilarion. Write and say you will go down and arrange this matter, so that this awful disgrace may be averted !

For Jamie's sake — and I know you love him. And I cannot believe, though Jamie tells me he has your sympathy, you approve the match. — Your affectionate cousin, '"Janet Charteris.'" He drew a long breath. She played restlessly with the fan hanging at her side by a silken cord. " I understand you wrote to her," he began, in a low voice. " What reply did she give ? " " Oh ! this letter ; I know it by heart," she answered, with a disdainful little laugh, and a shrug. " 'Dear madam, I do not want to marry your son, but he wants to marry me ; yours faithfully, Lorraine Keppel.' I admired her cheek, but I hate her." " Is Keppel the old man's name ? " " Yes, of course ! Don't, for God's sake, begin asking idiotic questions ! You know it irritates me ! I want you to act, and to act at once. That is why I came without waiting for a reply by letter.

Are you prepared to give me your support and active help ? I know you think in your heart Jamie is a fool." " I am not so sure," he said slowly. " Sometimes I think Jamie, in sticking to the woman he loves, even if he blights, in so doing, all his worldly prospects, is acting with a higher wisdom than that which influ ences our — your hostility to the match." " Don't preach, Father Hilarion," she said bluntly. " And you must remember," he went on, as though he had not heard her abrupt interpolation, "that, after all, all things happen under the providence of the Almighty. Jamie would not have met and fallen in love with the young woman if God had not so willed it." " I did not think you were a hypocrite, Hilarion ! " He winced before the scornful fires of her eyes. He knew she judged him wrongly ; but he would have cut his tongue out sooner than have told her so.

" In spite of your virtue and holiness, Father Hilarion," she sneered, " I believe I am better than you, and I make no pretence at goodness. I hate this woman, and I do not intend to have the match, and I make no pretence that I feel or intend any thing different. And you, Hilarion, in your heart — I have seen it since I sat here ! — you know you hate this woman too. Your preaching about God's providence and the higher wisdom sickens me." He changed colour; her words had gone straight home. " I — I confess I do not like the match," he stam mered, " and I think it will hurt Jamie's prospects." " Not if it takes place under God's providence, Father Hilarion ! " His mouth contracted in sudden anger. " May I ask that you do not call me by that misleading and absurd name ? " he said sternly. His resentment E seemed strangely disproportionate to the trivial nature of its cause, and she gazed upon him with a look of wonder, not unmingled with sarcastic triumph.

" This is the first time you have actually and out wardly lost your temper!" she exclaimed. "As a rule, you are so proud you do not lower yourself by flying into a passion. Pray, when the poor people call you ' Father,' as I hear they do, do you storm at them ? " " It is different with them." He spoke with some difficulty, and a wild, pathetic shadow sprang to his eyes. " I tell them I do not like it, but they forget, and they call me ' Father ' in sincerity and affection. Now you — you use the word ironically." Her shrewd, bright eyes seemed to penetrate his soul. " I have such a reverence for the priesthood," he re sumed in a low, deep voice, "that I cannot bear — I can not bear to hear you, in jest, apply that word — to — me." She shrugged her shoulders, half in impatience, half in resigned wonder, at this new phase of his inherent eccentricity.

"Well, tell me," she said abruptly, after a short, momentous silence, " do you really sympathise with Jamie ? He tells me you do, but I cannot believe you do in your heart, for I know you hate the woman and the idea of the marriage as intensely as I do." " Poor Jamie," said the man with the melancholy eyes, and the proud, pathetic mouth. The words expressed a wealth of love and pity, but Janet heard in them, and heard aright, his unspoken assurance that he would help her, to the uttermost, in preventing her son's marriage with the woman called Lorraine Keppel. " Don't think I too don't grieve for Jamie,'' she cried impetuously. Two burning tears suddenly fringed her lashes, but she proudly brushed them off. " I know as well as you it will half break his heart. But he will get over it, and it is only to save him from still greater misery in the future.