Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1152 page)

“The Church, Mr. Romayne, hesitates to receive, as benevolent contributions, money derived from property of its own, arbitrarily taken from it, and placed in a layman’s hands. No!” he cried, interrupting Romayne, who instantly understood the allusion to Vange Abbey — ”no! I must beg you to hear me out. I state the case plainly, at your own request. At the same time, I am bound to admit that the lapse of centuries has, in the eye of the law, sanctioned the deliberate act of robbery perpetrated by Henry the Eighth. You have lawfully inherited Vange Abbey from your ancestors. The Church is not unreasonable enough to assert a merely moral right against the law of the country. It may feel the act of spoliation — but it submits.” He unlocked the flat mahogany box, and gently dropped his dignity: the man took the place of the priest. “As the master of Vange,” he said, “you may be interested in looking at a little historical curiosity which we have preserved. The title-deeds, dear Romayne, by which the monks held your present property, in
their
time. Take another glass of wine.”

Romayne looked at the title-deeds, and laid them aside unread.

Father Benwell had roused his pride, his sense of justice, his wild and lavish instincts of generosity. He, who had always despised money — except when it assumed its only estimable character, as a means for the attainment of merciful and noble ends —
he
was in possession of property to which he had no moral right: without even the poor excuse of associations which attached him to the place.

“I hope I have not offended you?” said Father Benwell.

“You have made me ashamed of myself,” Romayne answered, warmly. “On the day when I became a Catholic, I ought to have remembered Vange. Better late than never. I refuse to take shelter under the law — I respect the moral right of the Church. I will at once restore the property which I have usurped.”

Father Benwell took both Romayne’s hands in his, and pressed them fervently.

“I am proud of you!” he said. “We shall all be proud of you, when I write word to Rome of what has passed between us. But — no, Romayne! — this must not be. I admire you, feel with you; and I refuse. On behalf of the Church, I say it — I refuse the gift.”

“Wait a little, Father Benwell! You don’t know the state of my affairs. I don’t deserve the admiration which you feel for me. The loss of the Vange property will be no pecuniary loss, in my case. I have inherited a fortune from my aunt. My income from that source is far larger than my income from the Yorkshire property.”

“Romayne, it must not be!”

“Pardon me, it must be. I have more money than I can spend — without Vange. And I have painful associations with the house which disincline me ever to enter it again.”

Even this confession failed to move Father Benwell. He obstinately crossed his arms, obstinately tapped his foot on the floor. “No!” he said. “Plead as generously as you may, my answer is, No.”

Romayne only became more resolute on his side. “The property is absolutely my own,” he persisted. “I am without a near relation in the world. I have no children. My wife is already provided for at my death, out of the fortune left me by my aunt. It is downright obstinacy — forgive me for saying so — to persist in your refusal.”

“It is downright duty, Romayne. If I gave way to you, I should be the means of exposing the priesthood to the vilest misinterpretation. I should be deservedly reprimanded, and your proposal of restitution — if you expressed it in writing — would, without a moment’s hesitation, be torn up. If you have any regard for me, drop the subject.”

Romayne refused to yield, even to this unanswerable appeal.

“Very well,” he said, “there is one document you can’t tear up. You can’t interfere with my making another will. I shall leave the Vange property to the Church, and I shall appoint you one of the trustees. You can’t object to that.”

Father Benwell smiled sadly.

“The law spares me the ungracious necessity of objecting, in this case,” he answered. “My friend, you forget the Statutes of Mortmain. They positively forbid you to carry out the intention which you have just expressed.”

Romayne dismissed this appeal to the law irritably, by waving his hand. “The Statutes of Mortmain,” he rejoined, “can’t prevent my bequeathing my property to an individual. I shall leave Vange Abbey to You. Now, Father Benwell! have I got the better of you at last?”

With Christian humility the Jesuit accepted the defeat, for which he had paved the way from the outset of the interview. A t the same time, he shuffled all personal responsibility off his own shoulders. He had gained the victory for the Church — without (to do him justice) thinking of himself.

“Your generosity has conquered me,” he said. “But I must be allowed to clear myself of even the suspicion of an interested motive. On the day when your will is executed, I shall write to the General of our Order at Rome, leaving my inheritance to him. This proceeding will be followed by a deed, in due form, conveying the property to the Church. You have no objection to my taking that course? No? My dear Romayne, words are useless at such a time as this. My acts shall speak for me. I am too agitated to say more. Let us talk of something else — let us have some wine.”

He filled the glasses; he offered more biscuits. — he was really, and even perceptibly, agitated by the victory that he had won. But one last necessity now confronted him — the necessity of placing a serious obstacle in the way of any future change of purpose on the part of Romayne. As to the choice of that obstacle, Father Benwell’s mind had been made up for some time past.

“What
was
it I had to say to you?” he resumed “Surely, I was speaking on the subject of your future life?”

“You are very kind, Father Benwell. The subject has little interest for me. My future life is shaped out — domestic retirement, ennobled by religious duties.”

Still pacing the room, Father Benwell stopped at that reply, and put his hand kindly on Romayne’s shoulder.

“We don’t allow a good Catholic to drift into domestic retirement, who is worthy of better things,” he said. “The Church, Romayne wishes to make use of you. I never flattered any one in my life, but I may say before your face what I have said behind your back. A man of your strict sense of honour — of your intellect — of your high aspirations — of your personal charm and influence — is not a man whom we can allow to run to waste. Open your mind, my friend, fairly to me, and I will open my mind fairly to you. Let me set the example. I say it with authority; an enviable future is before you.”

Romayne’s pale cheeks flushed with excitement. “What future?” he asked, eagerly. “Am I free to choose? Must I remind you that a man with a wife cannot think only of himself?”

“Suppose you were
not
a man with a wife.”

“What do you mean?”

“Romayne, I am trying to break my way through that inveterate reserve which is one of the failings in your character. Unless you can prevail on yourself to tell me those secret thoughts, those unexpressed regrets, which you can confide to no other man, this conversation must come to an end. Is there no yearning, in your inmost soul, for anything beyond the position which you now occupy?”

There was a pause. The flush on Romayne’s face faded away. He was silent.

“You are not in the confessional,” Father Benwell reminded him, with melancholy submission to circumstances. “You are under no obligation to answer me.”

Romayne roused himself. He spoke in low, reluctant tones. “I am afraid to answer you,” he said.

That apparently discouraging reply armed Father Benwell with the absolute confidence of success which he had thus far failed to feel. He wound his way deeper and deeper into Romayne’s mind, with the delicate ingenuity of penetration, of which the practice of years had made him master.

“Perhaps I have failed to make myself clearly understood,” he said. “I will try to put it more plainly. You are no half-hearted man, Romayne. What you believe, you believe fervently. Impressions are not dimly and slowly produced on
your
mind. As the necessary result, your conversion being once accomplished, your whole soul is given to the Faith that is in you. Do I read your character rightly?”

“So far as I know it — yes.”

Father Benwell went on.

“Bear in mind what I have just said,” he resumed; “and you will understand why I feel it my duty to press the question which you have not answered yet. You have found in the Catholic Faith the peace of mind which you have failed to obtain by other means. If I had been dealing with an ordinary man, I should have expected from the change no happier result than this. But I ask You, has that blessed influence taken no deeper and nobler hold on your heart? Can you truly say to me, ‘I am content with what I have gained; I wish for no more’?”

“I cannot truly say it,” Romayne answered.

The time had now come for speaking plainly. Father Benwell no longer advanced to his end under cover of a cloud of words.

“A little while since,” he said, “you spoke of Penrose as of a man whose lot in life you longed to share. The career which has associated him with an Indian mission is, as I told you, only adapted to a man of his special character and special gifts. But the career which has carried him into the sacred ranks of the priesthood is open to every man who feels the sense of divine vocation, which has made Penrose one of Us.”

“No, Father Benwell! Not open to every man.”

“I say, Yes!”

“It is not open to Me!”

“I say it is open to You. And more — I enjoin, I command, you to dismiss from your mind all merely human obstacles and discouragements. They are beneath the notice of a man who feels himself called to the priesthood. Give me your hand, Romayne! Does your conscience tell you that you are that man?”

Romayne started to his feet, shaken to the soul by the solemnity of the appeal.

“I can’t dismiss the obstacles that surround me!” he cried, passionately. “To a man in my position, your advice is absolutely useless. The ties that bind me are beyond the limit of a priest’s sympathies.”

“Nothing is beyond the limit of a priest’s sympathies.”

“Father Benwell, I am married!”

Father Benwell folded his arms over his breast — looked with immovable resolution straight in Romayne’s face — and struck the blow which he had been meditating for months past.

“Rouse your courage,” he said sternly. “You are no more married than I am.”

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE ROAD TO ROME.

THERE was not a sound in the room. Romayne stood, looking at the priest

“Did you hear what I said?” Father Benwell asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that I really mean what I said?”

He made no reply — he waited, like a man expecting to hear more.

Father Benwell was alive to the vast importance, at such a moment, of not shrinking from the responsibility which he had assumed. “I see how I distress you,” he said; “but, for your sake, I am bound to speak out. Romayne! the woman whom you have married is the wife of another man. Don’t ask me how I know it — I do know it. You shall have positive proof, as soon as you have recovered. Come! rest a little in the easy-chair.”

He took Romayne’s arm, and led him to the chair, and made him drink some wine. They waited a while. Romayne lifted his head, with a heavy sigh.

“The woman whom I have married is the wife of another man.” He slowly repeated the words to himself — and then looked at Father Benwell.

“Who is the man?” he asked.

“I introduced you to him, when I was as ignorant of the circumstances as you are,” the priest answered. “The man is Mr. Bernard Winterfield.”

Romayne half raised himself from the chair. A momentary anger glittered in his eyes, and faded out again, extinguished by the nobler emotions of grief and shame. He remembered Winterfield’s introduction to Stella.