Father Stafford

Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.

Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled by Claudia's latest proceedings. On the morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received from her an incoherent note, in which she took great blame to herself for "this unhappy occurrence," and intimated that it would be long before she could bear to discuss any question pending between herself and her correspondent. Eugene was not disposed to acquiesce in this decision. He had done as much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason why his own happiness should be longer delayed; for he had little doubt that Stafford's rebuff meant his own success. He could not, however, persist in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness to be sought; and he departed from Territon Park in some degree of dudgeon. All this sort of thing seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about it. But Claudia took it seriously; she did not forbid him to write to her, but she answered none of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he encountered at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon Park. Rickmansworth openly scoffed at this behavior, and Eugene did not know whether to be pleased at finding his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his mistress's whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately, he found himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding with Rickmansworth's dictum that girls rather liked making fools of themselves, and that Claudia was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene's misfortunes that he could not cherish illusions about his friends, unless his feeling toward Stafford must be ranked as an illusion. About the latter he had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir Roderick, telling him that no tragedy of a violent character need now be feared. He was anxious to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman had also vanished to recruit at a German bath after his arduous labors.

It was mid-November before any progress was made in the matter. Eugene was in London, and so were very many people, for Parliament met in the autumn that year, and the season before Christmas was more active than usual. He had met Haddington about the House, and congratulated him with a fervor and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly glad to get rid of Kate? thought the happy man who had won her from him. It really looked as if there were something more than met the eye. Eugene detected this idea in Haddington's mind, and it caused him keen amusement. Kate also he had encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the ceremonious friendship demanded by the circumstances. The flavor of diplomacy imparted to private life by these episodes had not, however, been strong enough to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing from day to day less patient of Claudia's invisibility, and he expressed his feeling very plainly one day to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his way to the unwonted haunt of the House of Lords, thereto attracted by a debate on the proper precautions it behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.

"Surprising," he said, "what interesting subjects the old buffers get hold of now and then! Come and hear 'em, old man."

"The Lord forbid!" said Eugene. "But I want to say a word to you, Rick, about Claudia. I can't stand this much longer."

"I wouldn't," said Rickmansworth, "if I were you; but it isn't my fault."

"It's absurd treating me like this because of Stafford's affair."

"Well, why don't you go and call in Grosvenor Square? She's there with Aunt Julia."

"I will. Do you think she'll see me?"

"My dear fellow, I don't know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet she'd see me."

Eugene smiled at his friend's indomitable self-confidence, and let him fly to the arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with his own presence in his branch of the Legislature, and took his way toward Grosvenor Square, where Lord Rickmansworth's town house was.

Lady Claudia was not at home. She had gone with her aunt earlier in the day to give Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting her portrait.

"I expect they've stayed to tea. I haven't seen old Morewood for no end of a time. Gad! I'll go to tea."

And he got into a hansom and went, wondering with some amusement how Claudia had persuaded Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however, that the transaction was of a purely commercial character. Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting above referred to, had been minded to give his sister a present, and she had chosen her own head on a canvas. The price offered was such that Morewood could not refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting greatly annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her face did not interest him and was, in fact, such a face as he would never have painted but for the pressure of penury.

"Why doesn't it interest you?" asked she, in pardonable irritation.

"I don't know. It's—but I dare say it's my fault," he replied, in that tone which clearly implies the opposite of what is asserted.

"It must be, I think," said Claudia gently. "You see, it interests so many people, Mr. Morewood."

"Not artists."

"Dear me! no!"

"Whom, then?"

"Oh, the nobility and gentry."

"And clergy?"

A shadow passed across her face—but a fleeting shadow.

"You paint very slowly," she said.

"I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting young women."

"Oh! Why?"

"They're not meant to be painted; they're meant to be kissed."

"Does the one exclude the other?"

"That's for you to say," said Morewood, with a grin.

"I think they're meant to be painted by some people, and kissed by other people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr. Morewood."

"I wonder if you'll stick to your last," said Morewood.

Claudia decided that she had better not see this joke, if the contemptible quip could be so called. It was very impertinent, and she had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring her sitting at an end, and inviting herself and her aunt to stay to tea.

"I've got no end of work to do," Morewood protested.

"Surely tea is compris?" she asked, with raised eyebrows. "We shan't stay more than an hour."

Morewood groaned, but ordered tea. After all, it was too dark to paint, and—well, she was amusing.

Eugene arrived almost at the same moment as tea. Morewood was glad to see him, and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady Julia received him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.

"I have pursued you from Grosvenor Square, Lady Julia," he said. "I didn't come to see old Morewood, you know."

"As much as to see me, I dare say," said Lady Julia in an aside.

Eugene protested with a shake of the head, and Morewood carried him off to have such inspection of the picture as artificial light could afford.

"You've got her very well."

"Yes, pretty well. It's a bright little shallow face."

"Go to the devil!" said Eugene, in strong indignation.

"I only said that to draw you. There is something in the girl—but not overmuch, you know."

"There's all I want."

"Oh, I should think so! Heard anything of Stafford?"

"No, except that he's gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre; Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now."

"A queer combination."

"Yes. I wonder what they'll make of one another!"

Morewood was a good-natured man at bottom, and after a few minutes' more talk he carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.

"So I have run you down at last?" said Eugene to Claudia.

"I told you I didn't want to see you."

"I know. But that was a month ago."

"I was very much upset."

"So was I, awfully!"

"Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?"

"Not a bit. So far as it was anybody's fault, it was mine."

"How yours?"

"Well, you see, he thought—"

"Yes, I see. You needn't go on. He thought you were out of the question, and therefore—"

"Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel again?"

"No, I don't think so. Only you are so annoying. Is he in great trouble?"

"He was. I think he's better now. But it was a terrible blow to him, as it would be to any one."

"To you?"

"It would be death!"

"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "What is he going to do?"

"I don't know. I think he will go back to work."

"I never intended any harm."

"You never do."

"You mean I do it? Pray don't try to be desperate and romantic, Mr. Lane. It's not in your line."

"It's curious I can never get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a miserable month."

"So have I."

"Because I could not see the person I love best in the world."

"Ah! that wasn't my reason."

"Claudia, you must give me an answer."

Claudia rose, and joined her aunt and Morewood. She gave Eugene no further opportunity for private conversation, and soon after the ladies took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia, he said:

"May I call to-morrow?"

"You are a little unkind; but you may." And she rapidly passed on to Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment for her next sitting.

"Why does she fence so with me?" he asked the painter, as he took his hat.

"What's the harm? You know you enjoy it."

"I don't."

But it is very possible he did.

The next day Eugene took advantage of Claudia's permission. He went to Grosvenor Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He was shown into the drawing-room. After a time Claudia came to him.

"I have come for my answer," he said, taking her hand.

Claudia was looking grave.

"You know the answer," she said. "It must be 'Yes.'"

Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.

"But you say 'Yes' as if it gave you pain."

"So it does, in a way."

"You don't like being conquered even by your own prisoner?"

"It's not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any rate, I don't feel it."

"What is it, then? You don't care enough for me?"

"Ah, I care too much!" she cried. "Eugene, I wish I could have loved Father Stafford, and not you."

"Why so?"

"I was at the very center of his life. I don't think I am more than on the fringe of yours."

"A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!" said he, kissing her hand.

"Yes," she answered, with a smile, "you are perfect in that. You might give lessons in amatory deportment."

"Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh."

"Ah! does it? May not a lover be too point-de-vice in his speeches as well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford came to me pale, yes, trembling, and with rugged words."

"I am not the man that Stafford is—save for my lady's favor."

"And you came in confidence?"

"You had let me hope."

"You have known it for a long while. I don't trust you, you know, but I must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?"

"Slander!" cried he gayly. "I didn't 'treat' Kate. Kate 'treated' me."

"Poor fellow!"

He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

"At least, I don't think you'll like any one better than you like me, and I must be content with that."

"I have worshiped you for years. Was ever beauty so exacting?"

"With lucid intervals?"

"Never a moment. A sense of duty once led me astray—dynastic considerations—a suitable cousin."

"Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night."

"Pereant quae ante te! You know a little Latin?"

"I think I'd better not just now."

"You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender. But we'll not bandy recriminations."

"I wasn't joking."

"Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes, and every tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly serious before."

"Well, I won't be serious any more. The fatal deed is done!"

"And I may say 'Claudia' now without fear of any one?"

"You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years. I hope you won't get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all."

"Never while I live! You are a perpetual refreshment."

"A lofty function!"

"And the spring of all my life. Let us be happy, dear, and never mind fifty years hence."

"I will," she said; "and I am happy."

"And, please God, you shall always be so. One would think it was a very dangerous thing to marry me!"

"I will brave the danger."

"There is none. I have found my goddess."

The door opened suddenly, and Bob Territon entered at the very moment when Eugene was sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to be playful. Holding his hands before his face, he turned and pretended to fly.

"Come in, old man," cried Eugene, "and congratulate me!"

"Oh! you have fixed it, have you?"

"We have. Don't you think we shall do very well together?"

Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.

"Yes," he said at length, "I think you will. There's a pair of you."

And he could never be persuaded to explain this utterance. But it is to be feared that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very well.

An End and a Beginning.

When Sir Roderick Ayre returned to England, he had to undergo much questioning concerning his dealings with Stafford. It had somehow become known throughout the little group of people interested in Stafford's abortive love-affair that he and Ayre had held conference together, and the impression was that Ayre's counsel had, to some extent at least, shaped Stafford's resolution and conduct. Ayre did not talk freely on the matter. He fenced with the idle inquiries of the Territon brothers; he calmed Mrs. Lane's solicitude with soothing words; he put Morewood off with a sneer at the transitoriness of love-affairs in general. To Eugene he spoke more openly, and did not hesitate to congratulate himself on the part he had taken in reconciling Stafford to life and work. Eugene cordially agreed with his point of view; and Ayre felt that he was in a fair way to be rid of the matter, when one day Claudia sprang upon him with a new assault.

He had come to see her, and tender hearty congratulations. He felt that the successful issue of Eugene's suit was in some degree his own work, and he was well pleased that his two favorites should have taken to one another. Moreover, he reaped intellectual satisfaction from the fulfillment of a prophecy made when its prospect of realization seemed very scant. Claudia admitted her own pleasure in her engagement, and did not attempt to deny that her affection had dated from a period when by all the canons of propriety she should have had no thoughts of Eugene.

"We are not responsible for our emotions," she said, laughing; "and you will admit I behaved with the utmost decorum."

"About your usual decorum," he replied. "The situation was difficult."

"It was indeed," she sighed. "Eugene was so very—well, reckless. But I want to ask you something."

"Say on."

"I heard about your interview with Father Stafford; what did you say to him?"

"Of course Eugene has told you all I told him?"

"Probably. I told him to."

"Well, that's all."

"In fact, you told him I wasn't worth fretting about!"

"Not in that personal way. I asserted a general principle, and reluctantly denied that you were an exception."

"I hope you did tell him I wasn't worth it, and very plainly. But hasn't he gone back to his religious work?"

"I think he will."

"Did you advise him to do that?"

"Yes, certainly. It's what he's most fit for, and I told him so."

"He spoke to me as if—as if he had no religion left."

"Yes, it took him in that way. He'll get over that."

"I think you were wrong to tell him to go back. Didn't you encourage him to go back to the work without feeling the religion?"

"Perhaps I did. Did Eugene tell you that?"

"Yes."

"I'll never say anything to a lover again."

"Didn't you tell him to use his work for personal ends—for ambition, and so on?"

"Oh, in a way. I had to stir him up—I had to tide him over a bad hour."

"That was very wrong. It was teaching him to degrade himself."

"He can pursue his work in perfect sincerity. I found that out."

"Can he if he does it with a low motive?"

"My dear girl, whose motives are not mixed? Whose heart is single?

"His was once!"

"Before he met—you and me? I made the best job I could. I cemented the breakage; I couldn't undo it."

"I would rather—"

"He'd picturesquely drown himself?"

"Oh, no," she said, with a shudder; "but it lowers my ideal of him."

"That, considering your position, is not wholly a bad thing."

"Do you think he's justified in doing it?"

"To tell the truth, I don't see quite to the bottom of him. But he will do great things."

"Now he is well quit of me?"

Sir Roderick smiled.

"Well, I don't like it."

"Then you should have married him, and left Eugene to do the drowning."

"Do you know, Sir Roderick, I rather doubt if Eugene would have drowned himself?"

"I don't know; he has very good manners."

They both laughed.

"But all the same, I am unhappy about Mr. Stafford."

"Ah, your notions of other people's morality are too exalted. I don't accept responsibility for Stafford. He would not have followed my suggestion unless the idea had been in germ in his own mind."

Claudia's pre-occupation with Stafford's fate would have been somewhat disturbing to a lover less philosophical or less sympathetic than Eugene. As it was, he was pleased with her concern, and his sorrow for the trouble it occasioned her was mitigated by a conviction that its effect would not be permanent. In this idea he proved perfectly correct. As the weeks passed by and nothing was heard of the vanished man, his place in the lives of those who had been so intimately associated with him became filled with other interests, and from a living presence he dwindled to an occasional memory. It was as if he had really died. His name was now and then mentioned with the sad affection we accord to those who have gone before us; for the most part the thought of him was thrust out in the busy give-and-take of everyday life. Save for the absence of that bitter sense of hopelessness which the separation of death brings, Stafford might as well have passed on the road which, but for Ayre's intervention, he had marked out for himself. Claudia and Eugene were wrapped up in one another; their love tor him, though not dead, was dormant, and his name was oftener upon the lips of Ayre and Morewood than of those who had been most closely united with him in the bonds of common experience. But Ayre and Morewood, besides entertaining a kindly memory of his personal charm, found delight in studying him as a problem. They were keenly interested in the upshot of his new start in life, and their blunter perceptions were deaf to the dissonance between the ideal he had set before himself and the alternative Ayre had suggested for his adoption. Perhaps they were right. If none but saints may do the work of the world, much of its most useful work must go undone.

Haddington and Kate Bernard were married before Christmas. Claudia deprecated such haste; and Eugene willingly acquiesced in her wish to put off the date of their own union. He thought that being engaged to Claudia was a pleasant state of existence, and why hasten to change it? Besides, as he suggested, they were not people of fickle mind, like Kate and Haddington (for, of course, Claudia had told him of Haddington's proposal to herself—it is believed ladies always do tell these incidents), and could afford to wait. Eugene went to the wedding. He was strongly opposed to such foolish things as standing quarrels, and Kate was entirely charming in the capacity of somebody else's wife: it is a comparatively easy part to fill, and he had no fault to find with her conception of it. The magnificence of his wedding present smoothed his return to favor, and Kate had the good sense to accept the rôle he offered her, and allowed it to be supposed that she had been the faithless, he the forsaken, one; whereas in reality, as Ayre remarked, she had herself doubled the parts. Claudia judiciously avoided the question of her presence at the ceremony by a timely absence from London, and enjoyed only at second-hand the amusement Eugene derived from Haddington's hesitation between triumph over his supposed rival, and doubt, which had in reality gained the better part. In spite of this doubt, it is allowable to hope for a very fair share of working happiness in the Haddington household. Kate was hardly a woman to make a man happy; but, on the other hand, she would not prevent him being happy if his bent lay in that direction. And Haddington was too entirely contented with himself to be other than happy.

Eugene's wedding was fixed for the Easter recess, and among the party gathered for the occasion at Millstead were most of those who had been his guests in the previous summer. The Haddingtons were not there—Kate retorted Claudia's evasion; and of course Stafford's figure was missing; but the Territon brothers were there, and Morewood and Ayre, the former bringing with him the completed picture, which was Rickmansworth's present to his sister. The party was to be enlarged the day before, the wedding by a large company of relations of both their houses.

The evening before this invasion was expected, Eugene came down to dinner looking rather perturbed. He was a little silent during the meal, and when the ladies withdrew, he turned at once to Ayre:

"I have heard from Stafford."

"Ah! what does he say?"

"He has joined the Church of Rome."

"I thought he would."

Morewood grunted angrily.

"Did you tell him to?" he asked Ayre.

"No; I think I referred to it."

"Do you suppose he's honest?" Morewood went on.

"Why not?" asked Eugene. "I could never make out why he didn't go before. What do you say, Ayre?"

Sir Roderick was a little troubled. This exact following of, or anyhow coincidence with, his advice seemed to cast a responsibility upon him.

"Oh, I expect he's honest enough; and it's a splendid field for him," he answered, repeating the argument he had urged to Stafford himself.

"Ayre," said Morewood aggressively, "you've driven that young man to perdition."

"Bosh!" said Ayre. "He's not a sheep to be driven, and Rome isn't perdition. I did no more than give his thoughts a turn."

"I think I am glad," said Eugene; "it is much better in some ways. But he must have gone through another struggle, poor fellow!"

"I doubt it," said Ayre.

"Anyhow, it's rather a score for those chaps," remarked Rickmansworth. "He's a good fish to land."

"Yes, it will make a bit of a sensation," assented Ayre. "We'll see what the Bishop says when he comes to turn Eugene off. By the way, is it public property?"

"It will be in the papers, I expect, to-morrow. I wonder what they'll say!"

"Everything but the truth."

"By Jove, I hope so. And we alone know the secret history!"

"Yes," said Ayre; "and you, Rick, will have to sit silent and hear the enemy triumph."

Lord Rickmansworth did not think it worth while to repudiate the odium theologicum imputed to him. Probably he knew he was in reality above the suspicion of caring for such things.

"Shall you tell Claudia?" Ayre asked Eugene, as they went upstairs.

"Yes; I shall show her his letter. I think I ought, don't you?"

"Perhaps; will you show it me?"

"Yes; in fact he asks me to give you the news, as he is too occupied to write to you. The note is quite short, and, I think, studiously reserved."

He gave it to Ayre, who read it silently. It ran:

"DEAR EUGENE:

"A line to wish Lady Claudia and yourself all happiness and joy. Do not let your joy be shadowed by over-kind thoughts of me. I am my own man again. You will see soon by the papers that I have taken the important step of being received into the Catholic Church. I need not trouble you with an argument. I think I have done well, and hope to find there work for my hands to do. Pray give this news to Ayre, and with it my most warm and friendly remembrances. I would write but for my stress of work. He was a friend to me in my need. They are sending me to Rome for a time; after that I hope I shall come to England, and renew my friendships. Good-by, old fellow, till then. I long for ῆστ᾽ ἀγαυοφροϛὑῃ καὶ σοἱϛ ἀγανῖϛ ἐπἑεσσιυ.

"Yours always,

"C.S.K."

"That doesn't tell one much, does it?"

"No," said Ayre; "but we shall learn more if we watch him."

Claudia came up, and they gave her the note to read.

She read it, asking to have the Greek translated to her. Then she said to Ayre:

"What does it mean?"

"Why do you ask me?"

"Because you are most likely to know."

"Mind, I may be wrong; I may do him injustice, but I think—"

"Yes?" she said impatiently.

"I think, Lady Claudia, you have spoilt a Saint and made a Cardinal!"