"I would have gone just the same had you been here, Bernard," she tells him, with wistful eyes fixed on his disapproving face. "I love these country anniversaries. One sees so much character -- and, oh, the addresses were grand. Besides, the Mountfords came, and many that I knew. How could I help wanting to meet them?"
"Your position here," Pendrill answers, "has its responsibilities, and I must ask you, Gildas, not to ignore them. To attend on irregular and unauthorized ministries is to give the parishioners a wrong impression of the importance of consistence. When those to whom they naturally look up for guidance and example, worship indiscriminately here and there, they are led to suppose it is a trifling and easily excusable matter to forsake their parish church."
Gildas never goes again to Rosebrake Chapel. She is thrown back, to her growth and gain, upon her Bible -- nay, she is thrown back upon her Lord, and as one whom a mother comforteth, so He comforts the heart of His child. She strives hard to gather messages of help from the sermons at church. Pendrill's preaching is never barren, but he is greatly in request on special occasions around, and there are frequently clergy in his pulpit who intone far better than they preach.
Again and again when Gildas' weary spirit can make no sense of the discourse going round and round the subject and "o'er and o'er," yet never seeming to enter within it, she reminds herself this is the time when "God takes the text and preaches Patience."
She knows that what seem hindrances to her own devotions may yet be helpful to others, and all this she can quietly accept and bear.
When summer again comes round, Miss Sophia and Miss Letitia, with Tabitha, their stately Persian cat, arrive for a fortnight's sojourn at the Vicarage. Gildas has long dreaded this visit, knowing she is no favourite with the old ladies, and that all her attempts to gain their favour and make them comfortable will be resented with chilling and consistently disapproving dignity.
Miss Sophia cannot forbear a start of dismay when Gildas, like a quiet little ghost, glides forward to greet them, and hastens to get them tea.
"Has your wife been ill, Bernard?" ask his sisters, when Gildas is out of the room. "You did not inform us, but of course sisters are nobody, and would naturally take no interest in your domestic affairs."
"My dear Sophia and Letitia," he answers, rather irritably, "Gildas is in good health, with the exception of occasional headaches. I must ask you to excuse me now -- the bell is calling to evensong."
"I never saw such a change in anyone," says Miss Letitia, solemnly. "She was just a bright eyed child a few months back. Now she looks years older, and mark my words, she is stamped with the seal of decline. She ought to see a medical man immediately. Neither Sophia nor I like the look of her."
Bernard Pendrill knows his sisters are given to melancholy and groundless forebodings, but he does not like the thought that Gildas seems unwell to them. Seeing her day by day, he has noticed no change, but now he asks her if she thinks she is weaker and paler than she used to be, and she quietly answers nothing is amiss with her but the heat of the weather.
The anniversary of the Coronation of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria is always a festival in Rosebrake. At the church there is a special service, which all the children attend, and then there is a feast in the grounds of the Hall, when Mr. Stretton, the squire, provides Punch and Judy, fire balloons, and all kinds of amusements for the juveniles; and his sister, Miss Stretton, is quite a Lady Bountiful with cakes and sweets.
The gala takes place this year as usual, and all from the Vicarage go up to help. A day or two later a heinous offence is brought home to the conscience of Gildas. Her husband informs her that Dissenting children were discovered at the treat, and asks her if it is true she admitted them to a tea arranged by private hospitality for the children of the Church Sunday school.
"They never came to tea," says Gildas. "It was long after tea I let the three little Wilsons in. Poor little things, they are motherless, and they were peeping through the palings so wistfully at Punch and Judy. Yes, I opened the gate and let them stand close and see the show. Then I sent them away with some sweets, but only out of the bag I had myself provided for the scrambling. They never tasted Miss Stretton's feast, and they were not ten minutes in the grounds. I know I ought to have hardened my heart against their pleading little faces, but I could not. I think it would have been nice of the Strettons to have thrown open their grounds to all the village children, seeing the Queen reigns over the little Dissenters as much as over Miss Stretton's chosen flock!"
Pendrill, urged on by a sense of duty, and speaking the more sternly, perhaps, because the offender is so dear to his heart, endeavours to point out to her that it is not the only ground of complaint she has given the Church people, and as he proceeds it becomes evident to Gildas that her fears are realized -- the bond between them is untold misery to him at last.
"This cannot go on," she says suddenly. "We are not likeminded, and never will be, and every day only makes us more unhappy. Let me go my own way, and you go yours. It was a mistake for us ever to marry. There are many who mutually agree to separate -- so let us do that. I can earn my own living. I want nothing from you. We will let hate grow to each other soon if this kind of life goes on. Let us separate. Indeed, I cannot bear it."
"Gildas," he says, severely, "this is hysterical folly. Such a scandalous separation is not to be thought of for one moment. I will not hear of it, and I am astonished you can so lightly make the suggestion. All I ask of you is that you will avoid giving offence to the Church workers, who are naturally sensitive as to undue encouragement to those children who will not attend our Sunday school."
Gildas makes no reply. This conversation is the beginning of an estrangement which both feel, more than is mutually suspected. Each believes the other bitterly repents the link between them, and though outwardly only a close observer could discern any difference, they are both aware that in their home the music of heart-union is, alas, discordant and almost mute.
"What is amiss between Bernard and our sister-in-law?" the Misses Pendrill ask when visiting Miss Rowena Bertram for the day at Meadthorpe. "Demonstrative sentimentality is offensive, but it is not natural to see a young wife so quiet and repressed, and they seem to us almost to avoid each other. We are much distressed about the two. What can be the matter?"
Miss Rowena, who has been several times to Rosebrake, gives it as her opinion that Mrs. Pendrill's differing doctrinal notions have been made the most of by some in the parish. She has heard that the admission of the three little Dissenters to the Coronation feast caused special indignation to Miss Stretton.
"Hoity-toity Miss Stretton, indeed! So she means to control the parish, does she? I thought she was at the bottom of this trouble," says Miss Letitia. "I shall make a point of putting Bernard on his guard against her as a mischief-maker. Miss Stretton, indeed! What next, I wonder?"
The fact of Miss Stretton's displeasure is a speedy passport for Gildas to the favour of the Misses Pendrill, who have never forgotten how on one occasion when their brother was invited to the Squire's house to meet a Bishop, a Dean, and certain other dignitaries, they were somehow left out of the invitation.
In truth, their compassions, unconsciously to themselves, have already gone out to the quiet little mistress of the Vicarage, and not only do they try, despite an inbuilt want of tact, to draw husband and wife closer together, but they begin to make quite a pet of Gildas. She is touched to the heart by the change in their manner, and sees them leave at last with real regret.
One afternoon Gildas enters the house, feeling dejected and lonely, missing her sisters-in-law more than she could ever have supposed, and conscious to the depths of her heart of the great gulf that has opened between her husband and herself, when Lizzie meets her in the hall and asks her to come to the kitchen.
"I'm afraid that there dog ain't very well, missus," she says. "He's ate no dinner, and he don't seem to take no notice. He just keeps on the rug afore the fire. Perhaps he'd arouse
a bit if you was to speak to him."
"I thought he was very quiet this morning," says Gildas, anxiously; "and he's not tried to come out with me of late. Sometimes a little cod-liver oil has done him good. Lizzie, I must be extravagant for once and tempt him with a little beef tea."
Lizzie goes to fetch some, but a cry from Gildas brings her quickly from the larder.
"Lizzie, he's dying! Oh, Jones, don't leave me, my doggie. You're all of home I have left!"
She murmurs the words brokenly, with her arms round the old collie sleeping his life away calmly on the kitchen rug, having lived as long as collies may, and Nature being almost exhausted within him. Quieter and quieter has Jones become of late, more faithful to the fire and less inclined to bark even when cats are in question. But somehow Gildas has never realized that the last sleep can come to the playmate of her girlhood, her trusty comrade through shade and shine.
Hearing her voice and feeling her touch, Jones makes a last effort to lift his whitened head and kiss her cheek, then his head drops again on his paws, a tremble passes gently through his patriarchal frame, and Jones, her collie, is no more.
"Missus ... he's dead," says Lizzie. "I thought he were too old to last much longer. Where will we bury him, missus?"
But Gildas cannot reply. She clings to the still form, and the words of Luther to his dog -- words often quoted to Jones by her father with his sweet, kind smile -- bring unorthodox soothing to her sorrowing heart, "Be comforted, little dog -- in the resurrection thou, too, shalt have a little golden tail."
The loss of Jones has left Gildas quite alone. He was her last link to the past, and she knows she will never hear his voice in her home again. And the calm for which she has striven so bravely breaks down beneath this last grief.
When Bernard comes in to prepare for an evening meeting at Dilchester, whither he has promised to accompany Mr. Buisson of Bilsboro', he finds Gildas sobbing alone in her little sanctum. The long-repressed tears have found vent at last, and her grief goes to his heart as he watches her, with white, troubled face, knowing nothing yet of the loss that has shaken her stillness and composure.
He remembers her appeal to him to repair the mistake of their marriage, to give freedom to them both by a separation, and let both go their own ways, rather than prolong variance of spirit and mutual disquietude. He begins to realize that the home troubles have been worse for her to bear. Was his decision against that separation a cruelty to her? Is her heart beating to be away from him, as a caged bird beats its bars? Is she so miserable as this? "Lord God, help us both, and guide us to that which in Your sight shall be right and good!"
"Gildas," he says, softly, and she turns with a startled cry.
His voice is kinder than it has been for many a day. His heart is victorious over his doctrines for once, and she would fain hide the tears she cannot help on his breast, but his next words seem to freeze them on her lashes ere they fall.
"Do not grieve so, Gildas. I see our present life has become to you unbearable, and Rosebrake is only a prison to your heart. When I denounced the idea of a separation by mutual consent, the thought was new to me and it revolted me. Since then I have wondered more than once if in keeping you here against your will I am doing right. Your desire may be the solution of our perplexities. I will consider it in all its bearings, and see what is best to be done."
"I am sure that is best," says Gildas, sitting up, and trying to speak in composed and dignified accents. Since he can bear to consider the course he opposed so strongly, it must be for the best. She will go away out of his life -- he evidently needs her no longer. "I hope it can soon be settled," she says calmly.
"I am bewildered," he answers. "I want to secure your peace and happiness, and at Rosebrake I have not made you happy. Gildas, we are blind and ignorant, and in sore need of guidance now -- we two whom God gave to each other. Will you pray to Him concerning this idea of our separation? And I will too, and He will assuredly show us His will in this matter. Let us each pour out our heart before Him, telling Him the whole of our bewilderment. I am certain He will have mercy on us, and reveal to us what He would have us do."
Just then Mr. Buisson's ring on the doorbell warns Bernard he must prepare for departure. But before he leaves the house he comes again to the room where Gildas sits in lonely thought, and lays his hand gently, as in blessing, on her head, leaving with her a parting message that sends her in the quiet starlight to her knees, and brings her to the Mercy seat, the words by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier:
"The paths to trouble are many,
And never but one sure way
Leads out to the light beyond it,
My dear wife, let us pray."
Chapter 22 (last chapter)
"He That Hath Mercy on Them Shall Lead Them"
THE Dilchester meeting, to which Bernard Pendrill goes in company with Mr. Buisson, is a great annual missionary festival, largely attended by the clergy, and of a most inspiring nature, telling anew of the triumphs of Redeeming Love, dark and primitive districts changed to homes of brotherliness and peace, the Lamb of God beloved and served by those who dwelt in the habitations of cruelty.
An earnest appeal is made for helpers in the great broad-spreading harvest field. The call has come over for labourers from many a far-distant spot, and one who is himself on the point of returning to live or die in a remote Syrian district entreats the vast audience to unite in prayer, that the Lord of the harvest may send forth labourers in response to the cry of the needy: "Come over and help us!"
Bernard Pendrill, during the first part of the meeting, is far away in thought from the people gathered there, and hears little of the glad, glorious tidings that thrill the heart of Mr. Buisson, and cause his face to glow with joy. Pendrill is revolving, almost in despair, the perplexity as to his married life. He cannot see Gildas miserable, yet it is difficult for him wholly to ignore the anxiety of those with whom he is connected, lest her Dissenting inclinations should unfairly represent the status of Nonconformity, and prove injurious to the growth of Church doctrines around.
The idea of arranging a separation is hateful to him. He knows what a painful position in many cases is that of a wife living apart from her husband, and he cannot bear that any breath of gossip should touch the name he holds so dear.
"Lord, help me!" is all, in his blindness, he feels able to pray. "Undertake for Thy children ... Thou who knowest all things, who knowest that we love Thee!"
The sound of many voices singing the missionary hymn startles him from his reverie. Like a trumpet call it rings aloud, and all night long as he lies, knowing little of sleep, in the house of a brother clergyman in Dilchester, it echoes again and again in his soul:
Lift up your heads, ye gates of brass!
Ye bars of iron, yield!
And let the King of Glory pass;
The Cross is in the field.
That Banner, brighter than the star,
That leads the train of night,
Shines on the march, and guides from far
His servants to the fight.
Next morning there are several meetings here and there in connection with Foreign Missions. Buisson goes early to a gathering of workers who take special interest in the society, and have met thus at the commencement of the day for a season of prayer.
Pendrill accompanies him, as the return train home is not leaving for some time. The leader of the meeting asks them to make it a subject for prayer that someone may be raised up in response to an urgent call from Christian workers in Africa, who want to send a pioneer into a distant district where the people themselves have expressed a desire for mission work. It will need a heart aflame with Christian zeal, a brave, energetic spirit, a healthy body, to hold forth the Christian banner to the tribes who have everything to learn.
"Oh, for one," prays Buisson fervently, "whose creed is Christ, whose lips the fire from Thine altar hath touched, to go for Thee in answer to this call, to be Thy messenger, O Lord of Hosts, a
nd set up Thine ensign in the land of the shadow of death."
Then Pendrill himself takes up the prayer, pleading for a herald on whom the Spirit of God shall rest, to rise up and answer to the call, "Here am I -- send me."
As he prays, a sudden message seems to come straight to his heart -- " Thou art the man" -- and he pauses brokenly, to the wonder of some in the room. But Buisson sees he is strangely moved, and lays a brotherly hand on the young man's shoulder.
Like a flash of light, has come to Bernard Pendrill the sense that God has answered his prayer, and revealed to him the path he is to take. Opposing thoughts crowd to his mind -- his ignorance of the language needful for mission work among these people; his quiet, safe life in his country parish, and the possible dangers that await him if he answers to this call; but still a Voice seems saying to him, "I will be with thee -- now, therefore, go;" and he leaves the meeting seeking a still retreat by the riverside, where he spreads the matter before God, and his resolve to answer that call from afar grows stronger and deeper as he prays.
In boyhood Pendrill envisioned the mission field, but the idea has left him for many years, and until now he has been quite content with his parish work, and happy in the lovely spot wherein his sphere of labour has been allotted. Now the old longing wakes within him, and he feels that his own life must fulfil that prayer made specially for a willing, fervent messenger.
He does not know that in his childhood his mother's secret prayers asked for mission work on her boy's behalf, for her heart had throbbed and thrilled in those days reading of those whose sacrificed lives are the seed of the Church, and she longed that the child God had given to her should take up the banner their hands had held.
Then he sees that if he no longer is Vicar of Rosebrake, if his life work lie abroad, will this not solve his wife's domestic troubles? May this not be his Father's way of showing him how to set her free and yet save her name from blight? As the wife of a missionary working afar, there will be no room for gossip concerning her; yet she will regain the liberty she craves, that he can scarcely give her here, save at the cost of scandal.