A Laodicean

Chapter 7

At the sound of a new voice the lady in the bower started, as

he could see by her outline through the crevices of the wood-

work and creepers. The minister looked surprised.

'You will lend me your Bible, sir, to assist my memory?' he

continued.

The minister held out the Bible with some reluctance, but he

allowed Somerset to take it from his hand. The latter,

stepping upon a large moss-covered stone which stood near, and

laying his hat on a flat beech bough that rose and fell behind

him, pointed to the minister to seat himself on the grass.

The minister looked at the grass, and looked up again at

Somerset, but did not move.

Somerset for the moment was not observing him. His new

position had turned out to be exactly opposite the open side

of the bower, and now for the first time he beheld the

interior. On the seat was the woman who had stood beneath his

eyes in the chapel, the 'Paula' of Miss De Stancy's

enthusiastic eulogies. She wore a summer hat, beneath which

her fair curly hair formed a thicket round her forehead. It

would be impossible to describe her as she then appeared. Not

sensuous enough for an Aphrodite, and too subdued for a Hebe,

she would yet, with the adjunct of doves or nectar, have stood

sufficiently well for either of those personages, if presented

in a pink morning light, and with mythological scarcity of

attire.

Half in surprise she glanced up at him; and lowering her eyes

again, as if no surprise were ever let influence her actions

for more than a moment, she sat on as before, looking past

Somerset's position at the view down the river, visible for a

long distance before her till it was lost under the bending

trees.

Somerset turned over the leaves of the minister's Bible, and

began:--

'In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the seventh chapter

and the fourteenth verse--'.

Here the young lady raised her eyes in spite of her reserve,

but it being, apparently, too much labour to keep them raised,

allowed her glance to subside upon her jet necklace, extending

it with the thumb of her left hand.

'Sir!' said the Baptist excitedly, 'I know that passage well--

it is the last refuge of the Paedobaptists--I foresee your

argument. I have met it dozens of times, and it is not worth

that snap of the fingers! It is worth no more than the

argument from circumcision, or the Suffer-little-children

argument.'

'Then turn to the sixteenth chapter of the Acts, and the

thirty-third--'

'That, too,' cried the minister, 'is answered by what I said

before! I perceive, sir, that you adopt the method of a

special pleader, and not that of an honest inquirer. Is it,

or is it not, an answer to my proofs from the eighth chapter

of the Acts, the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh verses; the

sixteenth of Mark, sixteenth verse; second of Acts, forty-

first verse; the tenth and the forty-seventh verse; or the

eighteenth and eighth verse?'

'Very well, then. Let me prove the point by other reasoning--

by the argument from Apostolic tradition.' He threw the

minister's book upon the grass, and proceeded with his

contention, which comprised a fairly good exposition of the

earliest practice of the Church and inferences therefrom.

(When he reached this point an interest in his off-hand

arguments was revealed by the mobile bosom of Miss Paula

Power, though she still occupied herself by drawing out the

necklace. Testimony from Justin Martyr followed; with

inferences from Irenaeus in the expression, 'Omnes enim venit

per semetipsum salvare; omnes inquam, qui per eum renascuntur

in Deum, INFANTES et parvulos et pueros et juvenes.' (At the

sound of so much seriousness Paula turned her eyes upon the

speaker with attention.) He next adduced proof of the

signification of 'renascor' in the writings of the Fathers, as

reasoned by Wall; arguments from Tertullian's advice to defer

the rite; citations from Cyprian, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and

Jerome; and briefly summed up the whole matter.

Somerset looked round for the minister as he concluded. But

the old man, after standing face to face with the speaker, had

turned his back upon him, and during the latter portions of

the attack had moved slowly away. He now looked back; his

countenance was full of commiserating reproach as he lifted

his hand, twice shook his head, and said, 'In the Epistle to

the Philippians, first chapter and sixteenth verse, it is

written that there are some who preach in contention and not

sincerely. And in the Second Epistle to Timothy, fourth

chapter and fourth verse, attention is drawn to those whose

ears refuse the truth, and are turned unto fables. I wish you

good afternoon, sir, and that priceless gift, SINCERITY.'

The minister vanished behind the trees; Somerset and Miss

Power being left confronting each other alone.

Somerset stepped aside from the stone, hat in hand, at the

same moment in which Miss Power rose from her seat. She

hesitated for an instant, and said, with a pretty girlish

stiffness, sweeping back the skirt of her dress to free her

toes in turning: 'Although you are personally unknown to me,

I cannot leave you without expressing my deep sense of your

profound scholarship, and my admiration for the thoroughness

of your studies in divinity.'

'Your opinion gives me great pleasure,' said Somerset, bowing,

and fairly blushing. 'But, believe me, I am no scholar, and

no theologian. My knowledge of the subject arises simply from

the accident that some few years ago I looked into the

question for a special reason. In the study of my profession

I was interested in the designing of fonts and baptisteries,

and by a natural process I was led to investigate the history

of baptism; and some of the arguments I then learnt up still

remain with me. That's the simple explanation of my

erudition.'

'If your sermons at the church only match your address to-day,

I shall not wonder at hearing that the parishioners are at

last willing to attend.'

It flashed upon Somerset's mind that she supposed him to be

the new curate, of whose arrival he had casually heard, during

his sojourn at the inn. Before he could bring himself to

correct an error to which, perhaps, more than to anything

else, was owing the friendliness of her manner, she went on,

as if to escape the embarrassment of silence:--

'I need hardly say that I at least do not doubt the sincerity

of your arguments.'

'Nevertheless, I was not altogether sincere,' he answered.

She was silent.

'Then why should you have delivered such a defence of me?' she

asked with simple curiosity.

Somerset involuntarily looked in her face for his answer.

Paula again teased the necklace. 'Would you have spoken so

eloquently on the other side if I--if occasion had served?'

she inquired shyly.

'Perhaps I would.'

Another pause, till she said, 'I, too, was insincere.'

'You?'

'I was.'

'In what way?,

'In letting him, and you, think I had been at all influenced

by authority, scriptural or patristic.'

'May I ask, why, then, did you decline the ceremony the other

evening?'

'Ah, you, too, have heard of it!' she said quickly.

'No.'

'What then?'

'I saw it.'

She blushed and looked down the river. 'I cannot give my

reasons,' she said.

'Of course not,' said Somerset.

'I would give a great deal to possess real logical dogmatism.'

'So would I.'

There was a moment of embarrassment: she wanted to get away,

but did not precisely know how. He would have withdrawn had

she not said, as if rather oppressed by her conscience, and

evidently still thinking him the curate: 'I cannot but feel

that Mr. Woodwell's heart has been unnecessarily wounded.'

'The minister's?'

'Yes. He is single-mindedness itself. He gives away nearly

all he has to the poor. He works among the sick, carrying

them necessaries with his own hands. He teaches the ignorant

men and lads of the village when he ought to be resting at

home, till he is absolutely prostrate from exhaustion, and

then he sits up at night writing encouraging letters to those

poor people who formerly belonged to his congregation in the

village, and have now gone away. He always offends ladies,

because he can't help speaking the truth as he believes it;

but he hasn't offended me!'

Her feelings had risen towards the end, so that she finished

quite warmly, and turned aside.

'I was not in the least aware that he was such a man,'

murmured Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister. . . .

'Whatever you may have done, I fear that I have grievously

wounded a worthy man's heart from an idle wish to engage in a

useless, unbecoming, dull, last-century argument.'

'Not dull,' she murmured, 'for it interested me.'

Somerset accepted her correction willingly. 'It was ill-

considered of me, however,' he said; 'and in his distress he

has forgotten his Bible.' He went and picked up the worn

volume from where it lay on the grass.

'You can easily win him to forgive you, by just following, and

returning the book to him,' she observed.

'I will,' said the young man impulsively. And, bowing to her,

he hastened along the river brink after the minister. He at

length saw his friend before him, leaning over the gate which

led from the private path into a lane, his cheek resting on

the palm of his hand with every outward sign of abstraction.

He was not conscious of Somerset's presence till the latter

touched him on the shoulder.

Never was a reconciliation effected more readily. When

Somerset said that, fearing his motives might be misconstrued,

he had followed to assure the minister of his goodwill and

esteem, Mr. Woodwell held out his hand, and proved his

friendliness in return by preparing to have the controversy on

their religious differences over again from the beginning,

with exhaustive detail. Somerset evaded this with alacrity,

and once having won his companion to other subjects he found

that the austere man had a smile as pleasant as an infant's on

the rare moments when he indulged in it; moreover, that he was

warmly attached to Miss Power.

'Though she gives me more trouble than all the rest of the

Baptist church in this district,' he said, 'I love her as my

own daughter. But I am sadly exercised to know what she is at

heart. Heaven supply me with fortitude to contest her wild

opinions, and intractability! But she has sweet virtues, and

her conduct at times can be most endearing.'

'I believe it!' said Somerset, with more fervour than mere

politeness required.

'Sometimes I think those Stancy towers and lands will be a

curse to her. The spirit of old papistical times still

lingers in the nooks of those silent walls, like a bad odour

in a still atmosphere, dulling the iconoclastic emotions of

the true Puritan. It would be a pity indeed if she were to be

tainted by the very situation that her father's indomitable

energy created for her.'

'Do not be concerned about her,' said Somerset gently. 'She's

not a Paedobaptist at heart, although she seems so.'

Mr. Woodwell placed his finger on Somerset's arm, saying, 'If

she's not a Paedobaptist, or Episcopalian; if she is not

vulnerable to the mediaeval influences of her mansion, lands,

and new acquaintance, it is because she's been vulnerable to

what is worse: to doctrines beside which the errors of

Paaedobaptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, are but as

air.'

'How? You astonish me.'

'Have you heard in your metropolitan experience of a curious

body of New Lights, as they think themselves?' The minister

whispered a name to his listener, as if he were fearful of

being overheard.

'O no,' said Somerset, shaking his head, and smiling at the

minister's horror. 'She's not that; at least, I think not. .

. . She's a woman; nothing more. Don't fear for her; all

will be well.'

The poor old man sighed. 'I love her as my own. I will say

no more.'

Somerset was now in haste to go back to the lady, to ease her

apparent anxiety as to the result of his mission, and also

because time seemed heavy in the loss of her discreet voice

and soft, buoyant look. Every moment of delay began to be as

two. But the minister was too earnest in his converse to see

his companion's haste, and it was not till perception was

forced upon him by the actual retreat of Somerset that he

remembered time to be a limited commodity. He then expressed

his wish to see Somerset at his house to tea any afternoon he

could spare, and receiving the other's promise to call as soon

as he could, allowed the younger man to set out for the

summer-house, which he did at a smart pace. When he reached

it he looked around, and found she was gone.

Somerset was immediately struck by his own lack of social

dexterity. Why did he act so readily on the whimsical

suggestion of another person, and follow the minister, when he

might have said that he would call on Mr. Woodwell to-morrow,

and, making himself known to Miss Power as the visiting

architect of whom she had heard from Miss De Stancy, have had

the pleasure of attending her to the castle? 'That's what any

other man would have had wit enough to do!' he said.

There then arose the question whether her despatching him

after the minister was such an admirable act of good-nature to

a good man as it had at first seemed to be. Perhaps it was

simply a manoeuvre for getting rid of himself; and he

remembered his doubt whether a certain light in her eyes when

she inquired concerning his sincerity were innocent

earnestness or the reverse. As the possibility of levity

crossed his brain, his face warmed; it pained him to think

that a woman so interesting could condescend to a trick of

even so mild a complexion as that. He wanted to think her the

soul of all that was tender, and noble, and kind. The

pleasure of setting himself to win a minister's goodwill was a

little tarnished now.