I had forgiven Frank Wildacre.
Or, rather, I had come to the knowledge that there was nothing to forgive: that the man whose insensate folly1 had spoilt my life and Fay's was not Frank at all, but myself.
But the result was the same. After nearly three years of the outer darkness I had come once more into the light: I was at peace with Man and therefore with God: and that seemed to be all that signified.
On myself I had no mercy. I could not forgive myself—I cannot forgive myself now—I never shall forgive myself. But that was a matter of no moment. Self-pardon is never the way of salvation2. I knew—how I knew I cannot tell, but I did know it—that God had forgiven me: I believed from the depths of my heart that Fay, with the more perfect comprehension of those who are already on the Other Side, had forgiven me also: therefore my self-condemnation was no bar across the path of life, but rather a healthy and permanent discipline of the soul.
With a joy beyond all earthly joy I rose and dressed and went out into the hazy3 autumn morning. It was Sunday: and as I stood in the grey mist which still lay over everything and which shrouded4 the garden and the fields from my view, I heard the church-bell ringing for the eight o'clock Celebration. And for the first time for more than two years that bell called to me, and bade me come and take my place at the Eucharistic Feast: for at last I was in love and charity with all men, and intended to lead a new life.
I answered the Call and entered the Church which was hallowed by the worship of centuries: and there I made my confession5 to Almighty6 God, meekly8 kneeling upon my knees, as the pilgrims had knelt there ages and ages before me. And as in lowly adoration9 I partook of the Blessed Food Which Christ Himself had ordained10, I thereby11 received Him into my heart by faith: and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, once more filled my heart and mind with the knowledge and love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ.
And so I began life over again in that autumn morning in Restham Church, at the beginning of the Great War.
I did not see Frank when I came home after the Service was over, as he never came down to breakfast: but as I sat at my solitary12 meal I knew no loneliness: the glory of the Great Reconciliation13 was about me still.
After breakfast Jeavons came to me in a somewhat deprecating manner.
"I am sorry to trouble you, Sir Reginald," he began, "and I told Maggie Pearson so, but she wouldn't take no, and begged me to come and give you her message."
Maggie Pearson was the daughter of one of my keepers—a respectable man with a tidy wife and a large family.
"And what was her message?" I asked.
Jeavons still appeared confused. "I really did my best, Sir Reginald, to make her understand that you'd given up all that sort of thing and never went in for it now, finding it more or less uncertain, as you might say, and out of the usual course of events, and so not altogether to be depended upon; and that she'd much better stick to the doctor and not trouble you, Mr. Wildacre being laid up in the house, and you with enough on your hands as it is. But she went on crying, and said her mother'd never forgive her if she didn't give you the message."
I felt that such unaccustomed loquacity14 was a sign of serious mental disturbance15 on the part of Jeavons. He was generally so very brief and to the point.
"Well, what was the message?" I repeated, with (I cannot help thinking) commendable16 patience.
"Well, Sir Reginald, begging your pardon, the fact is that Mrs. Pearson's baby is dying of brownchitis or pewmonia or some other disease connected with its teething, and nothing will satisfy her but that you should come and lay your hands on it, like as was your custom at one time, having outgrown17 it since. I told Maggie as how you had given up the habit long ago, which she said her mother knew: but all the same, Mrs. Pearson still persisted that she was sure you could cure the baby if you tried, which was just like her obstinacy18, and to my thinking a great impertinence."
"Have they had the doctor, do you know?" I asked.
"Yes, Sir Reginald, and he can't do nothing more than what he has done, he says, and he is afraid the child will die. Though what they wants with that extra child at all, beats me, having six besides, and none too much food for them all, with the dreadful war sending up the prices of everything."
For two years now I had refused all the villagers' requests that I would exercise my gift of healing upon them, as I knew, alas20! that the gift was no longer mine: and they had gradually ceased to proffer21 these requests. Therefore it struck me as noteworthy that on the very day when, as the old theologists put it, I had "found peace," I should be asked to exercise this lost power once more. It seemed to be one of those wonderful instances of direct Interposition which we of this faithless and perverse22 generation disguise under the pseudonym23 of "remarkable24 coincidences."
"Tell Maggie that I will come at once," I said.
And Jeavons accordingly departed, leaving behind him an atmosphere of respectful disapproval25 and regret. Anything bordering on the unusual—let alone the miraculous—filled my excellent butler with horror and dismay.
When I am tempted—as indeed I often am, and frequently successfully—to despise those Jeavons-like souls who delight to burrow26 in the commonplace whenever the light of the supernatural shows above the horizon, I remind myself of the first Order that was given after the dread19 gates of death had been flung open and the ruler's little daughter had come through them back to life. He Who had performed the stupendous miracle did not take this unique opportunity of preaching a sermon to the company assembled in the house of mourning, with His Own Action as the text: on the contrary "He commanded that something should be given her to eat."
How joyfully27 those who had laughed Him to scorn when He contradicted their conventional assumption that death was the final ending—laughed, doubtless with the uncomfortable, mocking laughter of all materially minded people when confronted with things undreamed of in their smug philosophy—must have hurried to lay the table and prepare the meal, and perform all the trivial little duties which form the essence of the normal and the commonplace. How relieved they must have felt to find themselves once more in the ordinary routine of everyday existence!
And I like to think that it was then His turn to smile—He Who knew them so well, and remembered that they were but dust; yet the dust wherein He had clothed Himself in order to identify Himself with them. But I am sure that in His smile there was no scorn. He knew what they needed, and He supplied all their need.
Obedient to the Call which had come to me, I went through the village, hardly conscious of any volition28 on my own part. I had merged29 my will in another's, and had no longer any desire to act on my own initiative. It is a strange feeling, this absolute surrender of self, and brings with it that peace which the world can never give nor take away.
Still as in a dream I entered the cottage at the far end of the village, and found Mrs. Pearson rocking in her arms her dying child; the other children hanging round, all more or less in a state of tears.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Pearson," I said, when Maggie had ushered30 me into the midst of the weeping group. "I have come because you sent for me."
"And right thankful I am to you, Sir Reginald," replied the poor woman: "I says to myself, when the doctor give my baby up, 'If anybody can save her, Sir Reginald can.'"
"I will do what I can," I said, "but it is years now since I have had the power to heal anybody. I lost it when her ladyship went away."
"So I've heard, Sir Reginald. But I minded that story of the woman who wouldn't take 'No' even from the Blessed Lord Himself, but begged for just the crumbs31 under the table: and her child was healed in consequence."
I knelt down beside the rocking-chair, and laid my hands upon the little form lying on the mother's lap, at the same time lifting up my whole soul in prayer. And straightway the answer came—as in my heart of hearts I had known it would come. Like a mighty7 electrical force the healing power rushed through me to the child. I could feel it in every vein32 and every fibre of my body. And at the same time my consciousness of the Presence of Christ was so acute that it was almost as if I actually saw and heard and felt Him close beside me.
Whilst I prayed the moaning of the child ceased, and its laboured breathing grew gradually soft and easy: and when I rose from my knees and looked at it, I knew that it would live.
The poor mother clung to my hand, and wept tears of gratitude33. But I told her—as I always made a point of telling those whom I was permitted to help—that her thanksgivings were not due to me, but to Another Whose messenger for the time I was allowed to be: and then I hurried back through the village to the Church, there to render thanks, with the rest of the congregation at the office of Matins, for the blessings34 that had (in my case so wonderfully) been vouchsafed35 to me.
When I returned home after the morning service, I found Frank dressed and downstairs: but it was not until lunch was over and we had settled down in our usual places—he on the Chesterfield on one side of the hall fire, and I in my easy-chair on the other—that I found an opportunity of telling him, without fear of interruption, of the marvellous thing that had happened to me.
"Frank, my boy, I have something to say to you," I began.
"Yes, Reggie, what is it?"
"To me it is so wonderful that I find difficulty in putting it into words. But though I may be slow to speak, you are always swift to hear, so I dare say you will understand in spite of my blundering way of telling it."
"Fire away," said Frank encouragingly. "I shall catch on right enough, never fear."
"Well, first and foremost, I want you to know that I have forgiven you completely for any share that you may have had in helping36 Fay to leave me."
Frank gave a little cry of joy. "Oh, Reggie, how splendid of you!" he began.
But I lifted up my hand to stop him. "Wait a bit, my boy. Please hear all I have got to say before you cut in. I was going to tell you that I forgave you freely because I had found that there was nothing to forgive. It sounds rather Irish, I know: but I think you will understand that we are obliged to forgive people when we think they have injured us, even when we find they haven't really injured us at all. I mean we are bound to get back into love and charity with them, whether the lapse37 from love and charity was their fault or ours."
Frank nodded his head in the way that reminded me so of Fay. "I know exactly what you are driving at. When we quarrel with anybody we've got to bury the hatchet38 before we can be happy or good again: and the original ownership of the hatchet has no effect whatever upon the importance of the funeral."
"Precisely39 so. I'd got to forgive you whether you'd done anything needing forgiveness or not: because I believed you had, and acted according to that belief. Therefore it was imperative40 upon me to root the bitterness towards you out of my heart: the fact that the bitterness to a great extent was undeserved, did not altogether rob it of its flavour. Well, then, that is the first thing: I want you to know that at last I am at peace with you after nearly three years of hot anger against you: whether you in any way deserved that anger, is your affair not mine."
Here Frank's enforced silence broke down. "I didn't deserve it as much as you thought, but I did deserve it a bit. I never tried to set Fay against you: but when I saw she was set against you, I induced her to cut and run, instead of using my influence to make her see things in a different light, and to bring you and her together again. After all is said and done, you were her husband: and when I saw the bond between you was loosening I ought to have helped to tie it tight again instead of undoing41 it altogether. Let's try to be just all round!"
"I am trying to be just," I replied: "and therefore I admit that though I myself was the principal culprit, you were not altogether free from blame."
"No, I wasn't. Neither was Fay, when you come to that, though I know you won't let me say so."
"Certainly I won't: so don't try it on. Let us pass on to the next thing. And that is that as I have forgiven you, so God has forgiven me, and has restored to me my power of healing."
"Oh, Reggie, is that really true? I minded that more than anything!" Frank's voice was hoarse43 with emotion and his language was confused: but I understood him right enough.
"Yes: I was instrumental in healing Mrs. Pearson's baby this morning; the first time that I have been permitted to do such a thing since Fay went away." Then I changed the subject hastily, with that shyness which all Englishmen feel when speaking about the matters that concern their own souls. "And there is yet another thing I want to say; that is to ask you to make your permanent home with me here. You can go over and visit your relations in Australia as often as you like; but I want you to feel that this is your real home. I have been very lonely ever since Fay went away. I was going to add, 'and ever since Annabel was married,' but candidly44 I don't think that really made much difference. When the worst has happened, minor45 troubles don't count. But you seem almost part of Fay—a sort of legacy46 that she has left me, because she loved us both: and I feel that it would please her if we devoted47 the rest of our lives to taking care of each other."
Frank was trying so hard to choke back his sob48 that he could not speak. He was still very weak after his awful experiences in Belgium. So I went on, order to give him time to recover himself.
"I think we shall be happy together, my boy, in a second-rate sort of way; but we can never be really perfectly49 happy until we see Fay again. At least I know I can't. But that is the worst of wrong-doing, or of any infringement50 of the great law of Love." I still continued talking, seeing that the boy was not yet master of himself: "We repent51 our wrong-doing, and God forgives us, and we know it will all come right again some day: but not here, or now. Between us you and I managed to spoil Fay's life; and no repentance52 of ours will set that right in this life, nor undo42 the harm that we (however unconsciously) wrought53. There is no bringing the shadow on the dial ten degrees backward. We may pretend to ourselves that there is, but there isn't really. God still performs many miracles, but not that one. Of course He could if He so willed it, but He certainly doesn't; and so what is done is done, and what is past is past, and it is only left to us to bear with God's help the consequences of our own misdeeds."
To my surprise the usually undemonstrative Frank sprang up from the couch where he was lying, and flung himself on his knees beside my chair, at the same time throwing his thin arms round my neck. "Yes, Reggie, He can," he gasped54 between his sobs55: "He can and He will and He does."
I turned my head in surprise, and for the first time since Frank's return to Restham, I saw his face within close range of my short-sighted eyes. For a moment I was literally56 paralysed with amazement57, and my heart and pulses seemed to stand still and then to rush on in a very delirium58 of unheard-of joy. For the face into which I looked at such close quarters—the face quivering with emotion and disfigured with tears, and yet to me the dearest and most beautiful face in the whole world—was not Frank's at all—but Fay's!
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1
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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5
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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6
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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7
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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8
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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9
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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10
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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11
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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13
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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14
loquacity
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| n.多话，饶舌 | |
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15
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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16
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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18
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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19
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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20
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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21
proffer
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| v.献出，赠送；n.提议，建议 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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26
burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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30
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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32
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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33
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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34
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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35
vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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36
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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37
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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38
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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39
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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40
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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41
undoing
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| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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42
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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43
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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44
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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45
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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46
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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47
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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48
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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49
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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50
infringement
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| n.违反；侵权 | |
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51
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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52
repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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53
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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54
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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55
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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56
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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57
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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58
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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