Chapter XVI: Part 16

It was Mrs. Squire with a tray, and so, in a moment or two Maurice, drinking his coffee, was able to take a swift survey of his companions. There were a few more threads of grey in Tristram's dark, grizzled hair, a line or two more on his face, but yes, he was looking well, and young for his years. But Mr. Dormer--no, for the last twelve years or so he had looked much older than Tristram, and now, not ill exactly, but fragile in the extreme. Everything that was not spirit seemed to have ebbed away from his face, where, by reason of its bloodlessness, the angry line of the great scar was all the more noticeable. Indeed, it was hard to keep one's eyes off it, hard too, to avoid surprising the anxious glances cast by Tristram at his friend, who was evidently very tired.

Voices in altercation had been heard for some time in the hall, and now, as the simple meal drew to its close, reached a climax.

"Whatever is that noise?" exclaimed the visitor. "Not, surely, more ri----" He stopped himself in time.

"I think I had better go and see," said Tristram, getting up.

Maurice laid a hand on his arm. "Let them fight it out, mon pere! It is my first night, and I have only two."

Outside a child's voice was raised in a dismal howl. Tristram gently extricated himself. "I must go," he repeated. At the some moment there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Squire appeared, in some agitation. The little hall seemed entirely blocked up with people, a young cleric among them. Tristram closed the door behind him.

"What a place to live in! What a life--never a moment's peace!" exclaimed the young Frenchman.

"Tristram is wanted by everybody all day long," said Dormer.

"I'm not surprised," returned Maurice; "but I wanted him to-night."

Dormer shook his head as if it were hopeless. Then he said:

"Have I congratulated you, Maurice, as I should do? I don't think I have. I am most sincerely glad about Mademoiselle de Bethisy. Your mother has wished for it so long--and I have hoped for it, too. Then there is your rapid promotion. I suppose, my dear boy, that one can hardly congratulate you enough!"

He smiled, a very sweet and human smile that made him look suddenly years younger, and held out his hand, just as the door opened and Tristram reappeared, glancing down at someone behind him.

"Come in, Jack! You shall have some hot coffee, and be quick about it, and then I will come with you."

A thin, ragged boy of about twelve, all eyes, shyly followed him. In Tristram's arms, wrapped round with an old red shawl, was a rosy little girl, not much more than a baby, from whose cheeks Tristram was removing, presumably with his own handkerchief, a few remaining tears.

"Pour out some coffee, Maurice, will you?" he said. "No, Mary had better have milk only."

"There are no cups," observed Dormer, making to ring the bell.

"Here is mine," said Tristram, seizing it with his free hand. "Jack and Mary won't mind, and there is no time to lose."

"You are not going out again!" exclaimed Maurice in dismay.

"My dear boy, I'm afraid I must! I'm so sorry." He put the infant down in his chair, but as she immediately started to howl he picked her up again, and began to pour the milk down her throat himself. "You see, their mother has refused to have her baby christened. Now it is dying, and Jack has brought a message that if the Vicar would come himself she would have it 'done.' Mrs. Squire, who I am afraid is getting ideas of her own about who is and who is not to see me, has been trying to persuade them to take Wilmot or French, but the boy knew it would be useless, and seems to have been arguing with them all for the last ten minutes. That was what we heard. So I must go myself; I can't help it."

"You never could," said Maurice, getting up and stretching himself. "I shall come with you, mon pere. Is it far?"

"Yes, it's right down by the docks. Now, Jack, ready?" He shouldered the drowsy bundle. "Charles, don't sit up, I beg of you! It is a dark night, and we shall be at least an hour."

They went out, Tristram in his shabby cassock, the head of curls on his shoulder, the ragged boy's hand in his, and Maurice, Duc de la Roche-Guyon, Zouave of the Guard.

But Dormer sat motionless in his chair, his hands laid along the arms. "When did she ever think of herself?" Jack and Mary had cause to say the same, had they but known their debt to a greyhaired and crinolined French lady, the envied mother of a soldier one day to be famous. Yet it was not greyhaired and crinolined that Horatia de la Roche-Guyon came to the door of the priest's memory to-night, but as he had once seen her in a Parisian drawing-room, a few years after her return to France, still young, laughing, admired--marked nevertheless, to his eyes, with a sacrifice so deep that no one, perhaps for that very reason, could have guessed at its existence. There were times, he knew, when not even her child could comfort her. But from that aching loneliness the captivity of the Cross had long since set her free.

Yet Tristram, whose outward life was hard, had suffered less, for from the beginning it seemed as if the promise had been fulfilled to him, an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions. Tristram, who had been almost the last to see the vision which had called to his friends in the streets and gardens of Oxford, was, after all, one of the first to interpret it to others. Of those friends he who, among the shining spires, had seen it most clearly, was come many years since to the city whose builder and maker is God. But though the inspiration of his ardour was so early taken from them, though some were scattered, some disheartened, Hurrell Froude lived on in those who fought and suffered with unwavering hope. To these the vision splendid still beckoned, but for their leader, the brother of his spirit, it had faded into the light of common day. And so, haunted by his dream, John Henry Newman had gone out from among his own people, and for him another vision dawned.

But Charles Dormer was not unfaithful to his early vision. For though he too had not found,--though he no longer looked for--a perfect Church, he had seen amazingly disclosed, in his own communion, the treasures of a real if forgotten Catholicity. He had seen the slaves in the prison-house of sin free servants in the palace of a King, Who Himself struck off their fetters, and, clothing them in the garments of His righteousness, led them by the steep stairs of penitence to the protection of the angels, the companionship of the saints, that they might sit, even with the princes of His household, guests at the banquet of His love. Henceforward disappointment, failure, persecution, defection were to the Tractarian but proofs that the Church of England was indeed a part of the Body of Christ, for, all unworthy, she bore the marks of the Passion of her Lord.

And now the vision of the Light Divine, drawing him always out of the battle and the conflict, luring him still further into the way of prayer, had brought him at last to a dark place where he lay so close to God that he could no longer see Him, where, in the tomb of life, he waited the first rays of the Resurrection Glory.