The Soul of a Bishop. H. G. Wells

envied the cleverness of Cardinal Manning. Manning would have got right into the front of this affair. He would have accumulated credit for his church and himself. …

      But would he have done much? …

      The bishop wandered along the platform to its end, and stood contemplating the convergent ways that gather together beyond the station and plunge into the hillside and the wilderness of sidings and trucks, signal-boxes, huts, coal-pits, electric standards, goods sheds, turntables, and engine-houses, that ends in a bluish bricked-up cliff against the hill. A train rushed with a roar and clatter into the throat of the great tunnel and was immediately silenced; its rear lights twinkled and vanished, and then out of that huge black throat came wisps of white steam and curled slowly upward like lazy snakes until they caught the slanting sunshine. For the first time the day betrayed a softness and touched this scene of black energy to gold. All late afternoons are beautiful, whatever the day has been—if only there is a gleam of sun. And now a kind of mechanical greatness took the place of mere black disorder in the bishop's perception of his see. It was harsh, it was vast and strong, it was no lamb he had to rule but a dragon. Would it ever be given to him to overcome his dragon, to lead it home, and bless it?

      He stood at the very end of the platform, with his gaitered legs wide apart and his hands folded behind him, staring beyond all visible things.

      Should he do something very bold and striking? Should he invite both men and masters to the cathedral, and preach tremendous sermons to them upon these living issues?

      Short sermons, of course.

      But stating the church's attitude with a new and convincing vigour.

      He had a vision of the great aisle strangely full and alive and astir. The organ notes still echoed in the fretted vaulting, as the preacher made his way from the chancel to the pulpit. The congregation was tense with expectation, and for some reason his mind dwelt for a long time upon the figure of the preacher ascending the steps of the pulpit. Outside the day was dark and stormy, so that the stained-glass windows looked absolutely dead. For a little while the preacher prayed. Then in the attentive silence the tenor of the preacher would begin, a thin jet of sound, a ray of light in the darkness, speaking to all these men as they had never been spoken to before. …

      Surely so one might call a halt to all these harsh conflicts. So one might lay hands afresh upon these stubborn minds, one might win them round to look at Christ the Master and Servant. …

      That, he thought, would be a good phrase: “Christ the Master and Servant.”. …

      “Members of one Body,” that should be his text. … At last it was finished. The big congregation, which had kept so still, sighed and stirred. The task of reconciliation was as good as done. “And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. …”

      Outside the day had become suddenly bright, the threatening storm had drifted away, and great shafts of coloured light from the pictured windows were smiting like arrows amidst his hearers. …

      This idea of a great sermon upon capital and labour did so powerfully grip the bishop's imagination that he came near to losing the 8.27 train also.

      He discovered it when it was already in the station. He had to walk down the platform very quickly. He did not run, but his gaiters, he felt, twinkled more than a bishop's should.

      (8)

      Directly he met his wife he realized that he had to hear something important and unpleasant.

      She stood waiting for him in the inner hall, looking very grave and still. The light fell upon her pale face and her dark hair and her long white silken dress, making her seem more delicate and unworldly than usual and making the bishop feel grimy and sordid.

      “I must have a wash,” he said, though before he had thought of nothing but food. “I have had nothing to eat since tea-time—and that was mostly talk.”

      Lady Ella considered. “There are cold things. … You shall have a tray in the study. Not in the dining-room. Eleanor is there. I want to tell you something. But go upstairs first and wash your poor tired face.”

      “Nothing serious, I hope?” he asked, struck by an unusual quality in her voice.

      “I will tell you,” she evaded, and after a moment of mutual scrutiny he went past her upstairs.

      Since they had come to Princhester Lady Ella had changed very markedly. She seemed to her husband to have gained in dignity; she was stiller and more restrained; a certain faint arrogance, a touch of the “ruling class” manner had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. There had been a time when she had inclined to an authoritative hauteur, when she had seemed likely to develop into one of those aggressive and interfering old ladies who play so overwhelming a part in British public affairs. She had been known to initiate adverse judgments, to exercise the snub, to cut and humiliate. Princhester had done much to purge her of such tendencies. Princhester had made her think abundantly, and had put a new and subtler quality into her beauty. It had taken away the least little disposition to rustle as she moved, and it had softened her voice.

      Now, when presently she stood in the study, she showed a new circumspection in her treatment of her husband. She surveyed the tray before him.

      “You ought not to drink that Burgundy,” she said. “I can see you are dog-tired. It was uncorked yesterday, and anyhow it is not very digestible. This cold meat is bad enough. You ought to have one of those quarter bottles of champagne you got for my last convalescence. There's more than a dozen left over.”

      The bishop felt that this was a pretty return of his own kindly thoughts “after many days,” and soon Dunk, his valet-butler, was pouring out the precious and refreshing glassful. …

      “And now, dear?” said the bishop, feeling already much better.

      Lady Ella had come round to the marble fireplace. The mantel-piece was a handsome work by a Princhester artist in the Gill style—with contemplative ascetics as supporters.

      “I am worried about Eleanor,” said Lady Ella.

      “She is in the dining-room now,” she said, “having some dinner. She came in about a quarter past eight, half way through dinner.”

      “Where had she been?” asked the bishop.

      “Her dress was torn—in two places. Her wrist had been twisted and a little sprained.”

      “My dear!”

      “Her face—Grubby! And she had been crying.”

      “But, my dear, what had happened to her? You don't mean—?”

      Husband and wife stared at one another aghast. Neither of them said the horrid word that flamed between them.

      “Merciful heaven!” said the bishop, and assumed an attitude of despair.

      “I didn't know she knew any of them. But it seems it is the second Walshingham girl—Phoebe. It's impossible to trace a girl's thoughts and friends. She persuaded her to go.”

      “But did she understand?”

      “That's the serious thing,” said Lady Ella.

      She seemed to consider whether he could bear the blow.

      “She understands all sorts of things. She argues. … I am quite unable to argue with her.”

      “About this vote business?”

      “About all sorts of things. Things I didn't imagine she had heard of. I knew she had been reading books. But I never imagined that she could have understood. …”

      The bishop laid down his knife and fork.

      “One may read in books, one may even talk of things, without fully understanding,” he said.

      Lady Ella tried to entertain this comforting thought. “It isn't like that,” she said at last. “She