Hadrian the Seventh. Frederick Rolfe
to wait for orders; and, at the present moment, to win a merit from a contemplation of the honour which was his in being received as a guest at the cardinalitial table. He turned his head to the left, wondering whether mere accident had placed him at His Eminency's right hand where the light from the window fell full upon him. He studied the singularly distinct features of his diocesan, who was reading from the Times of the outbreak of revolution in France, where General André's army-reforms of 1902, the blatant scandalous venality of Combes and Pelletan, and the Influence of that frightful society of school-boys called Les Frères de la Côte, had thrown the military power into the hands of Jaurès and his anarchists, revived the Commune, and broken off diplomatic relations with the Powers. Dreadful! His Eminency feared that he would be obliged to return to Rome by the sea-route, unless, perhaps, he could go comfortably through Germany. Oh, very dreadful!
George listened, regretting that he had not the paper and a cigarette all to himself: but the coffee was not bad; and the ponderous irritation of his matutinal headache was disappearing. He took another cup. He remembered how he had laughed at an Occ. Note in the Pall Mall Gazette some few months before, to the effect that the old tradition of antipathy between the two peoples separated by the Channel was as dead as Georgian England and the era of the Bien-Aimé, and suggesting that the two leading democracies of the world— (England a democracy indeed!)— ought to live on terms of good understanding and neighbourliness, or some such tomfoolery. How could two walk together unless they were agreed? And on what single permanent and vital essential were England and France agreed? George could think of none, any more than Nelson could. Commerce? Yes, perhaps some fools thought so, forgetful that commerce fluctuates from day to day, and that it is the spawning-bed of individual and international rivalry. No. He had no confidence in France. She openly had been accumulating combustibility these five years; and here was the conflagration. This seemed to be a thoroughly French revolution, sudden, sanguinary, flamboyant, engendered by self-esteem on instability, and produced with élan and theatrical effect. Brisk and prompt to war, soft and not in the least able to resist calamity, fickle in catching at schemes, and always striving after novelties— French characteristics remained unaltered twenty centuries after Julius Cæsar made a note of them for all time.
George detected himself in the very act of affixing a label to a nation. He brought down his will with a thud on his critical faculty. The bishop looked at the cardinal, suggesting that Mr. Rose was accustomed to smoke over his meals.
"Don't you find it bad for the digestion?" the cardinal inquired in the tone of an archbishop to an acolyth. An access of genial gentlehood, and something else, to which George at the moment was unable to put a name, suddenly infused his manner when he had spoken.
"I don't think I have a digestion. At least it never manifests itself to me."
"Happy man!" the cardinal exclaimed to no one in particular: adding, "Well perhaps we might go upstairs; and Mr. Rose can have his cigarette and listen to me at the same time."
The room to which they went was a private cabinet, a very vermilion and gold room, large, airy, princely. The cardinal took a long envelope from the bureau.
"I think you will find that correct, Mr. Rose," he said. "You had better open it before we go any further."
The contents were a blank cheque book, and a bank-book containing Messrs. Coutts's acknowledgment of the credit of ten thousand pounds to the current account of the Reverend George Arthur Rose.
Notwithstanding his natural hypersensibility, that peculiar individual did not become the plaything of his emotions until some time after the event which brought them into action. At the moment when blows or blessings fell upon him, he rarely was conscious of more than a crab is conscious of when its shell is struck or stroked. Later, when he deliberately set himself to analyse consequences, all his senses throbbed and tingled. But, at first, he was wont to act, on the impulse certainly:— but to act. Having acquainted himself with the contents of the envelope, he took out his beloved Waterman, saying.
"I'm sure Your Eminency will let me have the pleasure of writing my first cheque here."
He handed to the cardinal a draft for five thousand pounds, payable to bearer. It afterwards occurred to him that he could have taken no more cynical way of testing the reality of his fortune. He felt ashamed of himself, for he hated cynicism. The act itself merely was the act of a man awakening from a vivid dream and automatically doing what he had resolved, before falling asleep, to do. In effect, it was by way of being a pinch of a kind to himself. There was no doubt whatever but that it was a pinch of another kind to the cardinal. Followed alternatively disclaimers, stolidity, embarrassment, humility, unction: the cheque went into the bureau, the cheque-book and the bank-book into the pocket of George's jacket.
And now, what was the extent of his theological studies? His general knowledge of course was unexceptional: but special— knowledge theology? Well, in Dogma he had done the treatises On Grace—"a very difficult treatise, Mr. Rose"— and On the Church—"a very important treatise, Mr. Rose";— and in Moral Theology he had read Lehmkuhl, especially On the Eucharist and On Penance,—"nothing could be better, Mr. Rose." These had been the subjects of the professorial lectures at Maryvale. During the years which had elapsed since then, he had read them again and again, until he thought he had them at his fingers' ends. As for Cardinal Franzelin's De Ecclesia (that was the Maryvale text-book), he found it one of the most fascinating books in the world. In fact, it was a regular bedside book of his: and by this time he knew it by heart. Being a man of letters, of course he would like to enlarge it a little, to put a gloss upon it here and there, perhaps even to expand the thesis at certain points. St. Augustine's Encheiridion was another favourite book. And St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo was another. His reading was extensive and curious: but, sad to say, desultory and unsystematic, because undirected. He had read the standard works as a matter of duty: but he had made a far more exhaustive study of obscure writers. The occult, white magicbien entendue, was intensely interesting, the book on Demoniality by Fr. Sinistrari of Ameno, for example. Perhaps it would be desirable for him to tabulate the sum of his studies, that His Eminency might decide whether to have him examined in those or to submit him to a fresh course.
"Quite unnecessary, Mr. Rose. And now touching the matter of ceremonial."
He had made a point of mastering Martinucci, practice as well as theory. It was astonishing what a lot could be done with a guide-book, a few household-implements, and imagination. He was aware that he had practised under difficulties: but a few rehearsals beneath the eye of an expert— —
"And Canon Law?"
"Nothing at all."
"Well, well, just those few treatises in Dogmatic and Moral Theology in particular, and a large amount of random reading in general. Of course the Grace of God can supply all our deficiencies. I myself— Things which are hidden from the wise and prudent oft-times are revealed unto— oh yes! Well, Mr. Rose, it is not a large, or, humanly speaking, an adequate equipment for— for the priesthood, certainly. But we must consider the years which you have waited. Yes. Well, perhaps we had better waste no more time now. Go home and pack your bag: and come and stay with me for a little till we can settle on your future. I shall give you the subdiaconate tomorrow morning; and you can arrange to say your first Mass on Sunday in the cathedral."
"My first Mass must be a black mass, Eminency."
The cardinalitial eyebrows would go up.
"It is a long-planned intention, Eminency: it is all I can do."
"I quite understand, Mr. Rose. You would wish to say your first mass quietly and alone. You shall say it in the private chapel. The Bishop of Caerleon would like to be your assistant; and— ha— I shall be very glad if you will allow me to serve you."
George looked from the cardinal to the bishop; and back again. After storm, this was calm and peace, with a vengeance.
Chapter 1
What