LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 8, 9 June 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AUSTIN CHASUBLE'S LOVE CHAKCB

IN TWO CHAPTEES. —II Continued.

It was not long before T saw Juliet again. In fact, our visiting routes appeared to coincide, for we were continually meeting, now in one house and now in another, and I cannot say that I was always edified by the words which fell from my fair acquaintance's lips on these occasions. She had a way of riding roughshod over anythiug which had the slightest approach to what she called 1 cant,' and which were generally the pious sentences of resignation which many of my parishioners were at the trouble to bring forth for my approval. She once spoke of Job aH a ' person of most unfortunately dirty habits ;' and hoped that an old crossingsweeper, with whom we were both acquainted and svho had Mrs Bosely's objection to baths, both Turkish and otherwise, would not end by getting into the patriarch's condition. She read the Bible in as lively a tone as if it were a novel, and spoke of St John's epistles as ' jolly !' Once I felt obliged to remonstrate with her, took the book into my own hands, and put it away. She stared at me with a lovely rising blush, and as we vveut down stairs said —

'Mr Chasuble, did I offend you today V ' Offend me ? No.'

' Then why—' ' I am afraid of your offending these people's principles by such expressions. Please don't be offended ' —and indeed I was coloring violently ' but remember they do not know what you mean as well as I do. You would not like your heedless tongue to harm other people's souls, I am sure.'

' Of course not ; but— Who would mind what I say V ' Everybody who knows and likes you as I—as you deserve to be liked.' When I got out into the street I felt hot and breathless. What had I been on the point of saying 1 Nothing very dreadful ; and yet I was thankful from the bottom of my heart that I had checked myself before saying it, and betraying—what 1 Before I went to bed that night I was in love —in love with an irreverent little girl, with blue eyes and a dimpled cheek ; and after this I became very unhappy. I loved, and yet I quarrelled with my love, rebuked it, turned away from it; and (then, like a weak, inconsistent fool, took it in my arms and hugged it. Of course this latter proceeding was utter madness ; for what had I Austin Chasuble, in common with this wilful impetuous, richly robed damsel ? I did not even know her name, rank, or anything but that her manners were those of a lady, her dress that of one reared in the lap of luxury ; and I did know, only too well, that I received a bare hundred a year as curate of St Stephen's, and an additional fifty from my mother, the widow of the late very Rev Dean of Bibchester, and still living with my sisters in a cosy house within the Cathedral close of that town. Now, stretch a hundred and fifty pounds as far as you may, I defy you to make it keep one person in luxury, let alone two. It might keep two, with painful economy, in some remote country parts ; but in London 1 And then two so seldom remain two, and so often multiply themselves indefinitely. What could I do ?

The girl had fairly betwitched me; yet, like a madman, instead of avoiding her society, I sought it. I found out the days she visited the poor ; and not only devoted those to the same errand, but almost every other as well, lest I might by accident miss one chance of seeing her. Surcingle, the junior curate, said I left him nothing to do outside the church. He was perfectly correct in his statement.

Would I not have walked myself to death rather than let him incur the danger of meeting my bonny Juliet in the West-end slums 1 By degrees I grew thin and haggard, between combating with my love passion and trying to devise means for satisfying it —so haggard, indeed, that sometimes the bright eyes would look at me compassionately, and she would say—- ' Mr Chasuble, you look awfully ill. I don't believe you give yourself half enough food or rest. You ought to lay up and have some one to look after you.' Ah ! how gladly would I have laid up if I had had her to look after me : to look in once a week or so, as she did on Mrs Gridlan, and ask me how I did, with that frank, inspiriting smile of hers. Alas ! when my ailment was comprised within the simple fact of my love for herself, how could her presence but aggravate instead of curing the evil ? Another time she hurt me cruelly by saying, as I was opening her umbrella for her—- ' One thing I like so much in you Ritualistic clergymen, Mr Chasuble, is your not marrying. It makes you so much more useful among the poor. You couldn't give all your time to them, as you do, if you had an exigcante wife at home ; and I always thought it one of the great advantages the Roman clergy possessed over ours.' It was Hke a knife through my heart that she should say this, and be glad of it; and with difficulty I commanded myself enough to reply—- ' Celibacy, certainly, has its recommendations in some cases ; but you must remember Miss Juliet, it is wholly voluntary with us, not enforced as with the Roman priesthood.' ' Then it is all the more right and sensible of you,' she answered, warmly ; and, shaking my hand, departed. That night I felt desperately unhappy. It was perfectly true that hitherto I had regarded celibacy as my particular vocation ; had extolled the benefits, mundane and spiritual, of that state ; and enlarged both at home and abroad, on the drawbacks and general inferiority of a married clergy. Indeed, if I ever condescended to admit any dreams in which a woman took a part, she always appeared as a pale, spiritual creature, with lofty brow, deep violet eyes, and palely golden hair banded Madonna-wise on either side of her transparent temples—some " rare pale Margaret," or heavenly minded Hilda, whose heart being already enclosed within the sacred atmosphere of the church, might make a worthy helpmate to one of the pastor* of that establishment. Such was my ideal—an ideal on which I had more than once expounded in eloquent gravity to my admiring mother and sistcra ' in the cathedral close at Bibchcster, and to which I had in my college days inscribed various sonnets ef varying excellence—sonnets in which the heroine's slight, pale , fingers, inspired glance, and lily-like com-

plexion appeared on every paee. And now, behold me I —'fallen, fallen, fallen from my high estate," and hungering mightily for a. very fHsh and blood damsel with saucy eye* anil ii|;c lips, a damsel without a trace of either heavenliness, ill-health, or inspiration about her, a cirl of the period, who talked enjoyiugly of delicious whitebait lunches at Greenwich, told her poor protegees that she looked pale of course, because she had been dancing till morning at such a jolly ball, and insisted with an honest deprecation of a higher motive, that she only visited the poor because it 'fun.'

' One gets so awfully tired of rich hawhaw, Bleeky proper people, you know, Mr Chasuble. They do get frightfully slow after a time ; and so I come down among the slum.j now and then for a fillip, just as gourmands take a pill or a glass of bitters before dinner.'

I remonstrated warmly against this. Fain, indeed, would I have made myself consistent by making an angel out of her ; but she set down her foot, and would not have it at any price ; so, as I might not love a saint, I e'en lay down in the dust and worshipped a sinner. Aye, good heavens, how I worshipped her I and I did not even know her name 1

One day I betrayed myself. She had mentioned on one occasion that she always went to see Mrs Bosely on a Friday. I went to see Mrs Bosely on a Friday also. Fasting days are, t consider, peculiarly adapted to works of charity, and accordingly we encountered each other one afternoon at the entrance of Jinks'-alley just as it was coming on to rain. ' Barely in time for shelter,' she said, without stopping ; and I only lifted my hat smilingly in return, and hurried on to get the dame's door open. She came scudding in after me, laughing and shaking the rain drops off her skirts ; and I had taken tha umbrella from her before either ot us noticed that the room was empty, save of ourselves. Mrs Bosely had gone out; arid as our baffled eyes met each other in return from the vain search, there must have been something ludicrous in the situation, for we both laughed. 'lt seems we have come on the same errand, I said, colouring consciously. 'lt seems we're always coming on the same errand,' she retorted. ' I was just thinking to day that I never come to see my old people without finding you too, Mr Chasuble; but I hardly calculated on finding only you.' ' You forget they are my people also,' I said, vexed with myself for reddening still more under her words—' if not more so than yours. It is my business to look after them.'

' Your business and my pleasure; Well, both combined bring us together pretty often.'

' Not so often as to be unpleasant to you, I hope,' T said —as anxiously, poor fool, as if my life hung on the answer. ' Certainly not, Mr Chasuble— l rather like it, though you do scold me about Job, and trample on all my little pet weaknesses.'

' Not very hardly, I think, Miss Juliet — l hope not, at least.' ' I don't know," she answered, giving her head a little wilful shake as she stood drying the soles of her boots at the small fire. ' However, I am resigning myself to being trampled on to-day, for 1 must wait till the rain is over, and I want to wait till Mrs Bosely comes in. I shouldn't like to go away without bidding the ridiculous old thing good-bye.' • Good-bye !' I repeated, vaguely. Some of the rain must have run down my back just then—such a cold shiver ran through me. 'You are not surely you are not going away.' She looked up, her blue eyes wide with surprise. My tone must have sounded of the despair I felt.' ' Indeed I am. Don't think I'm tired of my ragged friends ; but I leave London next week, and I shall be too busy to come down to them again ; so you will have them all to yourself in the future.' I felt I was growing white as death. I could not speak or look at her. ' I am afraid you are rather glad," flhe said, brushing the dried mud stain oft her boot with one of Mrs Bosely's dusters. ' But I haven't corrupted your flock very much. I think I say worse things when you are there than when I am alone.' Still no answer. The words would not come.

< I know I did say, ' The nearer the church the farther from God,' when Mrs Gridlan said so long as she could hear St Stephen's bells and see you she wouldn't repine at not goiug to church,' the girl went on, with a sort of mirthful penitence ; " and I burst out laughing when that fat old Mrs Ball told me she felt like a ' sparrer on a 'ousetop.' But it is so difficult not to laugh, isn't it? And how does a sparrow on a housetop feel V Some'one felt lonelier than any sparrow on a housetop just then, and found it rather difficult not to burst out crying into the bargain. ' You will have to forgive me, now I am going,' she said, drying the other sole with great care. ' I feel quite sorry you are not going away somewhere, too. You must want a holiday.' A holiday when my work was connected with her. 'Are you going for long Miss Juliet, I asked rather hoarsely. ' Oh, I am going for good. At least, I ara not coming back to live in London again.' ' Not at all! Oh ! Juliet, shall I never see you again V The words broke from me without any will of my own. It was vain attempting to restrain them; and only when they were spoken I knew by the rush of colour to her face what I had done. To be continued,