A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 13, 27 March 1924, Page 11

A Complete Story

Not of Obligation " r (By Eveline Cole, in Catholic Progress.) '- -.The old out-of-date house, Eleanor Burton told herself, was all she had left. Coming to it direct from the modernity of her London flat whose ; conveniences she had never with due twentieth century appreciation valued, she felt its air as of a past age appealing to her the more poignantly" as "home." Flat accommodation,, in spite of its high level of perfection in Victoria Street, where for the ten years since her aunt's death she had made her abode, had persistently spelled for her cramp and unhomeliness, a dissent from the manner of life around her explained by the fact that in -this self-same ancient house she had spent her childhood's years. ■- Abiding impressions of its spaciousness and dignity had remained, and now in middle-age, after the heat and passion of certain episodes in the interval had subsided, she was returning there with an infinite content. If, during her journey to the quiet village on whose outskirts lay Burton House, she had reviewed her London life, it would have yielded a chronicle of mingled gain and loss. Belonging by birth to the Protestant branch of the Burton family, she had passed on the death of her parents into the charge of a Catholic aunt, under the influence of whose saintliness Eleanor had, on coming of age, been received into, the Church. Her Faith, thereafter, had for a time been her one, only, and sufficient romance.- Then, in the conflict of a certain bitter crisis of passion, treachery, and suffering, wherein she had learned the instability of human pledges, spiritual realisation, and religious fervor, together with much else, had been lost in the shipwreck of happiness. On this October afternoon, therefore, her thoughts were exclusively concentrated upon her coming possession of the family heirloom and, in spite of sad memories connected, with her right of entry, she could not repress a thrill of exultation as she came in sight of her future home. ~-Thoughts overwhelmed her as she stood wrapped in its contemplation. Separate features clamored for recognition, turret and gable, the great bay of the hall and the chimney stacks, showing the Tudor mastery in perfect balance. Finally, the roof held her gaze, the house's coverlid, wherein Ruskin, she remembered, declared the heart and hospitality of a dwelling were revealed. Her lawyers, apprehensive, perhaps, of rheumatic dangers for Miss Burton from the ruinous condition of a house of doubtful"; value from the point of view of material comfort, had advised 'her to defer habitation till the spring, but her impatience would not allow her to wait so long. As she drew nearer pleasant anticipation of the further joys of the interior possessed her and memories flashed back of the years passed there with her brother, through whose death she inherited. „. r She had entered by the wrought-iron gates and was near enough now to count the leaded panes of the squareheaded windows with their mullions and transoms;- reaching quietly the threshold of her old home before the village woman sent in to clean had discovered her presence. - ... "It do take a power of cleanin', mum," Mrs. White said, after a hearty, if surprised greeting, as she opened wide the grand old door to provide fitting ingress for the .newcomer. "I'm doin' the hall last, as no one don't it. Leastways, Mr. Burton never did. It's too big and cold, you see, Miss, specially in winter," and she pushed forward a heavy chair for the mistress-to-be. : -. \ ..'/:. Eleanor Burton, however, scarcely heeded her; she was absorbed in the associations called up by her i surroundings. Presently she roused to find that the woman had ; gone back to the kitchen at the further end ■of j the hall, probably to- prepare tea which had not been ready, owing .to her own unconventionally early 'arrival.' v. ;.•-"",,:.._•' :. She was glad to be alone for first impressions, though later/JsheVwouia cultivate Mrs; White's acquaintance to

the fullest, 1 inasmuch as one of the ideals of her new life was to be a true lady vof the Manor to the village folks. - : v" Meanwhile, making her pilgrimage of the hall in leisurely ? fashion, she savored contentedly the serene homeliness of it all, from the ingle-nooked fireplace beneath the gallery to the grandfather clock, whose ticking had measured the hours of her childhood. She was in the historic centre of the house here, at .the very core of all the ancestral family life which had concentrated =in ■: the hall, the social living room. The idea of houses built to be let had always been abhorrent to her, and she breathed devout thanks that none but Burtons had ever dwelt here. She, as the last direct representative, of .the family, had for a problem to make the decision as to which of. the distant relatives she would choose to bequeath her treasure. The charwoman had returned now and showed a disposition to chat, which Miss Burton duly encouraged. -'There's but one side of the house as you can possibly live in, Miss,", she declared, "though you said as it was all to be cleaned up, but it's the tiler and carpenter it's needin' more than meself, I'm thinkin'." "The best that can be found must come from Waring," Miss Burton said with determination, naming the nearest large town. "I shall look over the whole house presently, but I'm going into the garden first, so that you can finish your work without me here to worry you." "You'll find it damp, I'm afeared," Mrs. White warned, "but I'll make a good fire 'gainst you comes in, it's cheerful like," and, indeed the flicker of firelight on the oak beams of the ceiling and on the panelling of the low walls was a goodly sight. Eleanor Burton left it, however, arid 1 descended the stone steps of the terrace to the lawn of the sloping garden. She wanted to tread the flagged pathway between the clipped yews where she. had last walked with her wellbeloved brother. He had discussed with her there his project of remarriage, but the bride he had found in the war had been death. Her observations had shown her that Mrs. White's verdict was correct. The house, though the work of a master builder, had yet been unable to hold out against "the wreckful siege of battering days." Its dilapidations wore without doubt somewhat formidable; she would summon a trustworthy architect for a skilled opinion, without delay. ... There was, she discovered, to be no difficulty about that, owing to the fact that the news of her intentions had not confined itself to the village, but had penetrated even to Ashton Towers, the humble manor house's lordly rival. The owner thereof, Lady Norton, had forthwith paid Miss Burton an early and informal call to suggest the employment of the architect lately at work upon the., repair of the historic Norton chapel, and Eleanor had gladly accepted the offer. He had thereupon made an exhaustive tour of inspection, displaying much enthusiasm for the genuine antiquity of the house and had left promising "a report within a few weeks as to the possibilities of restorations. Miss Burton was, during the period of waiting, in despite of the ache in her heart for her dead, something more than happy. For, in addition to the joy of her new possession there had been granted unto her a gift wonderful and unhoped; the redawn of passionate devotion to the Faith, the renewing of her first love. She regretted nothing now of the sufferings of the past, since" all sorrows were healed in the glory of the reconciliation of the. present. Many influences had perhaps been at work: the proverbial greater nearness- of God in the country'than in the town; the piety of Lady Norton recalling for Eleanor the memory of her dead aunt and the ever-present thought of her lately lost brother haunting her in the peace of the quiet chapel. ~._.. ..'.-; : In , gratitude for so unspeakable a grace she had cast herself and all that was hers at the Sacred Feet, beseeching acceptance of what small measure of reparation was within her. power ; for the blindness, coldness, and disloyalty of the, years that had been lost; offering whole-heartedly of that which was hers,; in pitiful ignorance that she would grudgingly withhold-the one possession for which she would be asked. * - ..

Then the : architect returned, and with more than a hint of excitment in his voice/ he begged Miss Burton's company on a second inspection and while they slowly went the round /and 'Mr.-Gainsford rather impulsively talked, there was made to Eleanor a first unheeded appeal. ■"::{ He : had sprung a surprise upon her without much preparation. ' r ' '■;?■ - • - "The,house is, of course, of various dates and had been modernised," he said, "but it is curious to my eyes how unsuccessfully and it doesn't deceive, once the hang of the building has. been grasped. I can show you a thousand proofs of its original purpose, Miss Burton, which by the merest chance I believe I have discovered though I had my suspicions on my first visit." • "Its original purpose?" Eleanor repeated. "It has had no other I believe than to shelter Burtons) at least since Tudor times." "Ah, yes, no doubt," the architect answered, with a hint in his voice that that portion of its history did not in the least interest him. "But I was going behind that modern period. I have a fancy for getting back of «ie Middle Ages or thereabouts, and Burton House, has the same story as so many other family mansions in this land of ruins. I was thinking of its primitive use and object." "I remember being told when I was a child that it was Henry VIII's gift to a Burton who had served him in some way who is the ancestor of the Protestant branch of our" family: the other, the Catholic, has always been poor," Eleanor informed him. "Exactly," the architect said, "for righteousness' sake I should judge! I must congratulate you, Miss Burton, that the old place has at last returned into Catholics hands." Eleanor wondered why he had used the word "returned." It seemed to ignore the facts she had just laid before him. She tried to bring him back to the practical aspect of affairs. "The first consideration for any inheritor at present is to put an end to its state of decay," she said, "and I shall be glad of your opinion as to how that can host be done." Mr. Gajnsford bowed, but his next words were still wide of the mark. "Pardon, Miss Burton," he said, "but you must forgive mo my interest in its past. I'm a bit of an antiquarian and it's strange to me that no one has suspected, though it is often so, but really there's no reasonable doubt as to its having boon originally a religious foundation." Then as Eleanor did not speak, he continued "In Lord Norton's library I found a quaint topographical history of this locality. An old plan is given of a certain ' cell '—a colony or offshoot from the Norton Abbey of Troarn— the outlines are quite recognisable as those of the original ' Burton House,'- my detailed examination has now mado me quite sure." • • "It may not interest you, of course," he" hazarded, "and fortunately it has not prevented it from making a very comfortable family abode! It is as the home of the Burtons that you naturally value it. You, perhaps, regard theories as to. its former use as rather beside the mark." But at Eleanor's rather half-hearted assertion that it was, of course, all most,, interesting, Mr. Gainsford was tempted to enlarge upon his fascinating discovery and his listener felt a strong stirring of her imagination at his words. A disinterred chapter of the old Faith had been unrolled before her. It seemed incredible thaij the billiard room could have been the chapel,-the drawing room the refectory and that the stone arch in the gable roof/ivhere once the vesper-bell swung, was still intact. This feature might, he assured Miss Burton, be preserved, but as it was as a family abode and not a convent she desired it restored, it would perhaps be out of place. • . , , But long after the architect had departed, Miss Burton remained unable to shake off the influence of his news. -, It gave her a strange sensation that her very own house should be Catholic, in its foundation stones. < His' words, too, had disturbed her mind stupid and uncomfortable thoughts which she told herself were ridiculous had worried her, though she had refused to take them seriously. The story of Burton House was nothing uncommon; the thing was usual enough all over- England,. the architect had said;

It was sad, but most certainly no fault of any present-day - inheritor, upon whom no shadow .of : responsibility;. for its long past alienation could a rest. Still, to set the question quite at rest, she would, some time secure an authoritative opinion upon the matter. - _ . : - ' -.- . ;v:'.:' Meanwhile, haunted by the ghosts the .architect had raised from the past, she determined to read for herself the evidence Mr. Gainsford had found convincing. Lady Norton's friendliness afforded the opportunity, she therefore borrowed the antiquated volume and chose the quiet hours of that evening for its examination. ; ' . . "• .-'■- Lifting her eyes at .length'after. a long period of absorption j -for..the old writer held her, they fell upon the lower part, of ; a sideboard. Of this, also Mr. Gainsford had had something to say. " >•- " v/Jn "Thai alone,'.' he had remarked, "gives away the secret. It was a chest once and is carved all over with an ecclesiastical pattern of mitres and crozicrs!" He was, she admitted, right. Not only the chest, but the whole house was "ecclesiastical,"" stamped beyond obliteration with the seal of the Faith recreating the atmosphere of a Catholic and religious past. Eleanor faced the fact and read on: a closing page of regrets wherein the author, lacking the architect's suavity, lamented in no measured terms "buildings alienated from their original purpose" and "pitifully desecrated," the. "misappropriation of religious houses, the spoils of the ancient religion," bewailing their confiscation and deformation into "genteel and commodious dwellings." Such beyond denial was the history of Burton House. _. "Well, the Burton who had first appropriated the building, if a Catholic, must, Eleanor thought, have suffered some uncomfortable pangs. Even, she, his innocent descendant of three hundred and fifty years after, could in a sense share them, for, aided by the knowledge she had acquired, her powers of inward vision played her strange tricks and in the words of the historian, "re-edified the decayed walls of the old convent." She knew all now, down to the very dates: how a certain devout Catholic of the thirteenth century had granted a portion of his land for the building of a little religious house thereon. The centuries of peaceful, uneventful history following passed before her until, in the book's mournful words, "the day came when the last Mass was sung therein, the last censer waved and for the last time the nuns bent in rapt and lowly adoration before the altar and the last tones of the day's even-song died away in the vaulted roof, the last lights in each holy place were extinguished." _ It was with her mind obsessed with this past that she listened one day to a pathetic story, related by Lady Norton, of a destitute band of Belgian "religeuses" housed temporarily in an already overcrowded convent. Miss Burton was sympathetic—she would aid with money and in any way she could. - The appeal was rendered the more forcible by-the fact that she was already nun-haunted. Then certain experiences befell —the loss of her ecstatic happiness, the gradual dying down of the zeal and fervor she had known but a few weeks ago and a suspicionof unrest of conscience. She had even an absurd fancy in the intimate hours of the night, when she and the house were alone together,*or at early morn when the remembrance of the Mass once said there would recur with pe- ■ culiar vividness, that the house was lifting up its voice against her, resenting the proposed modifications of its character and demanding restoration to its original purpose. the regaining of her peace of mind Eleanor obtained the pronouncement she had promised herself on her next visit' 1 to London. There was, as she expected, no obligation of any kind. Historical examples were furnished her: in Queen Mary's reign, when England was reconciled to the Holy See, holders of Church property were released from, any obligation to restore it and later in France, after the confiscation; of the Revolution, all such . claims were waived, v. As -a matter of counsel, such an inheritor might -be", advised toi devote some part of , his possessions toreligious" and charitablei purposes" and it was, of course, con■ceivable that a good Catholic might wish freely to restore a building to its earlier use. r> l: ~ -"'■•-■.• ----- ■■: •>i-*-^.^-^.-*; U ;>T ;Miss. Burton returned, home, , trying to congratulate herself...that the Church, in its practical, sober common.

sense, did not demand the unreasonable. - She arrived on the evening before the beginning of building operations, which she had finally decided,, with something of a defiant recklessness, should obliterate the last traces of ecclesiastical character .in the Burton House. But awaiting her was the unforeseen overthrow of all her plans. ' A letter from her' dead brother, "enclosed with a word of explanation by the Superior of the Belgian nuns of whom Lady Norton had spoken. It had been written on his deathbed and contained, in addition to the affectionate message and loving farewell to herself, one urgent and pressing request: that she should do all within her power to requite the devotedness of the nuns to whom he owed the tending and peace of his last hours. This time, the lust of possession dead within her, in compunction and shame, making the offering upon her knees, Eleanor gave, and nestling beneath the convent's shadow in a tiny cottage with a high-pitched roof such as Ruskin loved, grew old in exceeding peace. —J <*x> __