§ 12
There was an uneasy shuffle of relief throughout the room. The situation, though still painful, had been cleared of an exasperating side-issue. But at the same time Mary was uncomfortably aware that she had changed the focus of her father’s anger from her brother to herself.
“What do you mean?” he rapped out, when the sound of George’s protesting retreat had died away.
“I mean that you and George have been arguing for nothing. As I told you some time ago, I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying Charles.”
“And why not, may I ask?”
“Because I’ve had enough of marriage.”
“But Mary, think of us—think of your family,” wailed Lady Alard—“what are we going to do if you don’t marry?”
“I can’t see what difference it will make.”
“It will make all the difference in the world. If you marry Charles and go abroad for a bit, you’ll find that after a time people will receive you—I don’t say here, but in London. If you don’t marry, you will always be looked upon with suspicion.”
“Why?”
“Married women without husbands always are.”
“Then in spite of all the judges and juries and courts and decrees, I’m still a married woman?”
“I don’t see what else you’re to call yourself, dear. You’re certainly not a spinster, and you can’t say you’re a widow.”
“Then if I marry again I shall have two husbands, and in six months Julian will have two wives.”
Lady Alard began to weep.
“For God’s sake! let’s stop talking this nonsense,” cried Sir John. “Mary’s marriage has been dissolved, and her one chance of reinstating herself—and us—is by marrying this man who’s been the cause of all the trouble. I say it’s her duty—she’s brought us all into disgrace, so I don’t think it’s asking too much of her to take the only possible way of getting us out, even at the sacrifice of her personal inclinations.”
“Father—I never asked you to defend the case. I begged you not to—all this horror we have been through is due to your defence.”
“If you’d behaved properly there would have been no case at all, and if you had behaved with only ordinary discretion the defence could have been proved. When I decided that we must, for the honour of the family, defend the case, I had no idea what an utter fool you had been. Your cross-examination was a revelation to me as well as to the court. You’ve simply played Old Harry with your reputation, and now the only decent thing for you to do is to marry this man and get out.”
“I can get out without marrying this man.”
“And where will you go?”
“I shall go abroad. I have enough money of my own to live on quietly, and I needn’t be a disgrace to anyone. If I marry Charles I shall only bring unhappiness to both of us.”
“Oh, Mary, do be reasonable!” cried Lady Alard—“do think of the girls”—with a wave that included both twenty-two and thirty-eight—“and do think how all this is your own fault. When you first left Julian, you should have come here and lived at home, then no one would ever have imagined anything. But you would go off and live by yourself, and think you could do just the same as if you weren’t married—though I’m sure I’d be sorry to see Jenny going about with anyone as you went about with Charles Smith. When I was engaged to your father, we were hardly ever so much as left alone in a room together——”
“Your reminiscences are interesting, my dear,” said Sir John, “but cast no light on the situation. The point is that Mary refuses to pay the price of her folly, even though by doing so she could buy out her family as well as herself.”
“I fail to see how.”
“Then you must be blind.”
“It seems to me it would be much better if I went right away. I’ve made a hideous mess of my life, and brought trouble upon you all—I acknowledge that; but at least there’s one thing I will not do—and that is walk with my eyes open into the trap I walked into ten years ago with my eyes shut.”
“Then you need expect nothing more from your family.”
“I won’t.”
“Father,” said Peter—“if she isn’t fond of the chap....”
Mary interrupted him.
“Don’t—it isn’t quite that. I am fond of him. I’m not in love with him or anything romantic, but I’m fond of him, and for that very reason I won’t take this way out. He’s twenty years older than I am, and set in his bachelor ways—and I firmly believe that only chivalry has made him stand by me as he has done. He doesn’t in his heart want to marry a woman who’s ruined and spoiled ... and I won’t let him throw himself away. If I leave him alone, he can live things down—men always can; but if I marry him, he’ll sink with me. And I’ve nothing to give him that will make up to him for what he will suffer. I won’t let him pay such a price for ... for being ... kind to me.”
Nobody spoke a word. Perhaps the introduction of Charles Smith’s future as a motive for refusing to use him to patch up the situation struck the Alards as slightly indecent. And Mary suddenly knew that if the argument were resumed she would yield—that she was at the end of her resources and could stand out no longer. Her only chance of saving Charles’s happiness and her own soul now lay in the humiliation of flight. There is only one salvation for the weak and that is to realise their weakness. She rose unsteadily to her feet. A dozen miles seemed to yawn between her and the door....
“Where are you going, Mary?” asked Sir John—“we haven’t nearly finished talking yet.”
Would anybody help her?—yes—here was Jenny unexpectedly opening the door for her and pushing her out. And in the hall was Gervase, his Ford lorry throbbing outside in the drive.
“Gervase!” cried Mary faintly—“if I pack in ten minutes, will you take me to the station?”
§ 13
It was a very different packing from that before Mary’s departure eighteen months ago. There was no soft-treading Gisèle, and her clothes, though she had been at Leasan six months, were fewer than when she had come for a Christmas visit. They were still beautiful, however, and Mary still loved them—it hurt her to see Jenny tumbling and squeezing them into the trunk. But she must not be critical, it was as well perhaps that she had someone to pack for her who did not really care for clothes and did not waste time in smoothing and folding ... because she must get out of the house quickly, before the rest of the family had time to find out what she was about. It was undignified, she knew, but her many defeats had brought her a bitter carelessness.
The sisters did not talk much during the packing. But Mary knew that Jenny approved of what she was doing. Perhaps Jenny herself would like to be starting out on a flight from Alard. She wondered a little how Jenny’s own affair was going—that unacknowledged yet obsessing affair. She realised rather sadly that she had lost her sister’s confidence—or perhaps had never quite had it. Her own detachment, her own passion for aloofness and independence had grown up like a mist between them. And now when her aloofness was destroyed, when some million citizens of England were acquainted with her heart, when all the golden web she had spun round herself was torn, soiled and scattered, her sister was gone. She stood alone—no longer set apart, no longer veiled from her fellows by delicate self-spun webs—but just alone.
“Shall I ring for Pollock?” said Jenny.
“No, I’d much rather you didn’t.”
“Then how shall we manage about your trunk?—it’s too heavy for us to carry down ourselves.”
“Can’t Gervase carry it?”
“Yes—I expect he could.”
She called her brother up from the hall, and he easily swung up the trunk on his shoulder. As he did so, and Mary saw his hands with their broken nails and the grime of the shop worked into the skin, she realised that they symbolised a freedom which was more actual than any she had made. Gervase was the only one of the family who was really free, though he worked ten hours a day for ten shillings a week. Doris was not free, for she had accepted the position of idle daughter, and was bound by all the ropes of a convention which had no substance in fact. Peter was not free because he had, Mary knew, married away from his real choice, and was now bound to justify his new choice to his heart—George was not free, he was least free of all, because individual members of the family had power over him as well as the collective fetish. Jenny was not free, because she must love according to opportunity. Slaves ... all the Alards were slaves ... to Alard—to the convention of the old county family with its prosperity of income and acres, its house, its servants, its ancient name and reputation—a convention the foundations of which were rotten right through, which was bound to topple sooner or later, crushing all those who tried to shelter under it. So far only two had broken away, herself and Gervase—herself so feebly, so painfully, in such haste and humiliation, he so calmly and carelessly and sufficiently. He would be happy and prosperous in his freedom, but she ... she dared not think.
However, Jenny was thinking for her.
“What will you do, Mary?” she asked, as they crossed the hall—“where are you going?”
“I’m going back to London. I don’t know yet what I’ll do.”
“Have you enough money? I can easily lend you something—I cashed a cheque yesterday.”
“Oh, I’m quite all right, thanks.”
“Do you think you’ll go abroad?”
“I’ll try to. Meg is going again next month. I expect I could go with her.”
They were outside. Mary’s box was on the back of the lorry, and Gervase already on the driver’s seat. It was rather a lowly way of leaving the house of one’s fathers. Mary had never been on the lorry before, and had some difficulty in climbing over the wheel.
Jenny steadied her, and for a moment kept her hand after she was seated.
“Of course you know I think you’re doing the only possible thing.”
“Yes ... thank you, Jenny; but I wish I’d done it earlier.”
“How could you?”
“Refused to defend the case—spared myself and everybody all this muck.”
“It’s very difficult, standing up to the family. But you’ve done it now. I wish I could.... Goodbye, Mary dear, and I expect we’ll meet in town before very long.”
“Goodbye.”
The Ford gargled, and they ran round the flower-bed in the middle of Conster’s gravel sweep. Jenny waved farewell from the doorstep and went indoors. Gervase began to whistle; he seemed happy—“I wonder,” thought Mary, “if it’s true that he’s in love.”
§ 14
During the upheaval which followed Mary’s departure, George Alard kept away from Conster. He wouldn’t go any more, he said, where he wasn’t wanted. What was the good of asking his advice if he was to be insulted—publicly insulted when he gave it? He brooded tenaciously over the scene between him and his father. Sir John had insulted him not only as a man but as a priest, and he had a right to be offended.
Rose supported him at first—she was glad to find that there were occasions on which he would stand up to his father. George had been abominably treated, she told Doris—really one was nearly driven to say that Sir John had no sense of decency.
“He speaks to him exactly as if he were a child.”
“He speaks to us all like that.”
“Then it’s high time somebody stood up to him, and I’m very glad George did so.”
“My dear Rose—if you think George stood up....”
After a time Rose grew a little weary of her husband’s attitude, also though she was always willing to take up arms against the family at Conster, she had too practical an idea of her own and her children’s interests to remain in a state of war. George had made his protest—let him now be content.
But George was nursing his injury with inconceivable perseverance. Hitherto she had often had to reproach him for his subservience to his father, for the meekness with which he accepted his direction and swallowed his affronts.
“If you can put up with his swearing in church, you can put up with what he said to you about Mary.”
“He has insulted me as a priest.”
“He probably doesn’t realise you are one.”
“That’s just it.”
She seemed to have given him fresh cause for brooding. He sulked and grieved, and lost interest in his parish organisations—his Sunday School and Mothers’ Union, his Sewing Club and Coal Club, his Parochial Church Council—now established in all its glory, though without Peter’s name upon the roll, his branches of the S.P.G., the C.E.M.S., all those activities which used to fill his days, which had thrilled him with such pride when he enumerated them in his advertisements for a locum in the Guardian.
He developed disquieting eccentricities, such as going into the church to pray. Rose would not have minded this if he had not fretted and upset himself because he never found anyone else praying there.
“Why should they?” she asked, a little exasperated—“They can say their prayers just as well at home.”
“I’ve never been into Vinehall church and found it empty.”
“Oh, you’re still worrying about Gervase going to Vinehall?”
“I’m not talking about Gervase. I’m talking about people in general. Vinehall church is used for prayer—mine is always empty except on Sundays.”
“Indeed it’s not—I’ve often seen people in it, looking at the old glass, and the carving in the South Aisle.”
“But they don’t pray.”
“Of course not. We English don’t do that sort of thing in public. They may at Vinehall; but you know what I think of Vinehall—it’s un-English.”
“I expect it’s what the whole of England was like before the Reformation.”
“George!” cried Rose—“you must be ill.”
Only a physical cause could account for such mental disintegration. She decided to send for Dr. Mount, who confirmed her diagnosis rather disconcertingly. George’s heart was diseased—had been diseased for some time. His case was the exact contrast of Lady Alard’s—those qualms and stabs and suffocations which for so long both he and his wife had insisted were indigestion, were in reality symptoms of the dread angina.
He must be very careful not to overstrain himself in any way. No, Dr. Mount did not think a parish like Leasan too heavy a burden—but of course a complete rest and holiday would do him good.
This, however, George refused to take—his new obstinacy persisted, and though the treatment prescribed by Dr. Mount did much to improve his general condition, mental as well as physical, he evidently still brooded over his grievances. There were moments when he tried to emphasise his sacerdotal dignity by a new solemnity of manner which the family at Conster found humorous, and the family at Leasan found irritating. At other times he was extraordinarily severe, threatening such discipline as the deprivation of blankets and petticoats to old women who would not come to church—the most irreproachable Innocent Partner could not have cajoled the marriage service out of him then. He also started reading his office in church every day, though Rose pointed out to him that it was sheer waste of time, since nobody came to hear it.
§ 15
Social engagements of various kinds had always filled a good deal of George Alard’s life—he and Rose received invitations to most of the tea-parties, tennis-parties and garden-parties of the neighbourhood. He had always considered it part of his duty as a clergyman to attend these functions, just as he had considered it his duty to sit on every committee formed within ten miles and to introduce a branch of every episcopally-blessed Society into his own parish. Now with the decline of his interest in clubs and committees came a decline of his enthusiasm for tennis and tea. Rose deplored it all equally——
“If you won’t go to people’s parties you can’t expect them to come to your church.”
“I can and I do.”
“But they won’t.”
“Then let them stop away. The Church’s services aren’t a social return for hospitality received.”
“George, I wish you wouldn’t twist everything I say into some ridiculous meaning which I never intended—and I do think you might come with me to the Parishes this afternoon. You know they’re a sort of connection—at least everyone hopes Jim won’t marry Jenny.”
“I don’t feel well enough,” said George, taking a coward’s refuge—“not even to visit such close relations,” he added with one of those stray gleams of humour which were lost on Rose.
“Well, this is the second time I’ve been out by myself this week, and I must say.... However, if you don’t feel well enough.... But I think you’re making a great mistake—apart from my feelings....”
She went out, and George was left to the solitude and peace of his study. It was a comfortable room, looking out across the green, cedared lawn to the little church like a sitting hen. The walls were lined with books, the armchairs were engulfing wells of ease—there was a big writing-table by the window, and a rich, softly-coloured carpet on the floor. Rose’s work-bag on a side-table gave one rather agreeable feminine touch to the otherwise masculine scene. The room was typical of hundreds in the more prosperous parsonages of England, and George had up till quite recently felt an extraordinarily calm and soothing glow in its contemplation. It was ridiculous to think that a few words from his father—his father who was always speaking sharp, disparaging words—could have smashed all his self-satisfaction, all his pride of himself as Vicar of Leasan, all his comfortable possession of Leasan Vicarage and Leasan Church.... But now he seemed to remember that the dawn of that dissatisfaction had been in Leasan Church itself, before his father had spoken—while he was kneeling there alone among all those empty, shining pews....
He would go out for a walk. If he stopped at home he would only brood—it would be worse than going to the Parishes. He would go over and see Dr. Mount—it would save the doctor coming to the Vicarage, perhaps—there must be a visit about due—and they could have a chat and some tea. He liked Dr. Mount—a pleasant, happy, kind-hearted man.
The day was good for walking. The last of Autumn lay in ruddy veils over the woods of Leasan and Brede Eye. The smell of hops and apples was not all gone from the lanes. George walked through his parish with a professional eye on the cottages he passed. Most of the doors were shut in the afternoon stillness, but here and there a child swinging on a gate would smile at him shyly as he waved a Vicarial hand, or a woman would say “Good afternoon, Sir.” The cottages nearly all looked dilapidated and in want of paint and repair. George had done his duty and encouraged thrift among his parishioners, and the interiors of the cottages were many of them furnished with some degree of comfort, but the exterior structures were in bad condition owing to the poverty of the Manor. He cleared his throat distressfully once or twice—had one the right to own property when one could not afford to keep it in repair?... His philanthropic soul, bred in the corporal works of mercy, was in conflict with his racial instinct, bred in the tradition of the Squires.
When he came to Vinehall, he found to his disappointment that Dr. Mount was out, and not expected to be home till late that evening. George felt disheartened, for he had walked three miles in very poor condition. He would have enjoyed a cup of tea.... However, there was nothing to be done for it, unless indeed he went and called on Luce. But the idea did not appeal to him—he and the Rector of Vinehall were little more than acquaintances, and Luce was a shy, dull fellow who made conversation difficult. He had better start off home at once—he would be home in time for a late tea.
Then he remembered that the carrier’s cart would probably soon be passing through Vinehall and Leasan on its way from Robertsbridge station to Rye. If he went into the village he might be able to pick it up at the Eight Bells. Unfortunately he had walked the extra half-mile to the inn before he remembered that the cart went only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and today was Wednesday. He would have to walk home, more tired than ever. However, as he passed through the village, he thought of the church, partly because he was tired and wanted to rest, partly because Vinehall church always had a perverse fascination for him—he never could pass it without wanting to look in ... perhaps he had a secret, shameful hope that he would find it empty.
He crossed the farmyard, wondering why Luce did not at all costs provide a more decent approach, a wonder which was increased when, on entering the church, he found he had admitted not only himself but a large turkey, which in the chase that followed managed somehow to achieve more dignity than his pursuer. After three laps round the font it finally disappeared through the open door, and George collapsed on a chair, breathing hard, and not in the least devout.
The church had none of the swept, shiny look of Leasan, nor had it Leasan’s perfume of scrubbing and brass-polish; instead it smelt of stale incense, lamp-oil and old stones—partly a good smell and partly an exceedingly bad one. It was seated with rather dilapidated chairs, and at the east end was a huge white altar like a Christmas cake. There were two more altars at the end of the two side aisles and one of them was furnished with what looked suspiciously like two pairs of kitchen candlesticks. But what upset George most of all were the images, of which, counting crucifixes, there must have been about a dozen. His objections were not religious but aesthetic—it revolted his artistic taste to see the Christ pointing to His Sacred Heart, which He carried externally under His chin, to see St. Anthony of Padua looking like a girl in a monk’s dress, to see the Blessed Virgin with her rosary painted on her blue skirt—and his sense of reverence and decency to see the grubby daisy-chain with which some village child had adorned her. Luce must have bought his church furniture wholesale at a third-rate image shop....
George wished he could have stopped here, but he was bound to look further, towards the white star which hung in the east Yes ... it was just as usual ... a young man in working clothes was kneeling there ... and an immensely stout old woman in an apron was sitting not far off. Certainly the spectacle need not have inspired great devotional envy, but George knew that in his own parish the young man would probably have been lounging against the wall opposite the Four Oaks, while the old woman would have been having a nap before her kitchen fire. Certainly neither would have been found inside the church.
There was a murmur of voices at the back of the south aisle, and looking round George saw one or two children squirming in the pews, while behind a rather frivolous blue curtain showed the top of a biretta. Luce was hearing confessions—the confessions of children.... George stiffened—he felt scandalised at the idea of anyone under twelve having any religious needs beyond instruction. This squandering of the sacraments on the young ... as if they were capable of understanding them....
He turned to go out, feeling that after all the scales had dropped on the debit side of Vinehall’s godliness, when he heard behind him a heavy tread and the flutter of a cassock. Luce had come out of his confessional.
“Why—Mr. Alard.”
George was a little shocked to hear him speak out loud, and not in the solemn whisper he considered appropriate for church. The Rector seemed surprised to see him—did he want to speak to him about anything?
“Oh, no—I only looked in as I was passing.”
“Seen our new picture?” asked Luce.
“Which one?” The church must have contained at least a dozen pictures besides the Stations of the Cross.
“In the Sacrament Chapel.”
They went down to the east end, where Luce genuflected, and George, wavering between politeness and the Bishop of Exeter’s definition of the Real Presence, made a sort of curtsey. There was a very dark oil painting behind the Altar—doubtful as to subject, but the only thing in the church, George told himself, which had any pretence to artistic value.
“Mrs. Hurst gave us that,” said Luce—“it used to hang in her dining-room, but considering the subject she thought it better for it to be here.”
He had dropped his voice to a whisper—George thought it must be out of respect to the Tabernacle, but the next minute was enlightened.
“She’s asleep,” he said, pointing to the stout old woman.
“Oh,” said George.
“Poor old soul,” said Luce—“I hope the chair won’t give way—they sometimes do.”
He genuflected again, and this time the decision went in favour of the Bishop of Exeter, and George bowed as to an empty throne. On their way out his stick caught in the daisy-chain which the Mother of God was wearing, and pulled it off.
§ 16
He and Luce walked out of the church together and through the farmyard without speaking a word. The silence oppressed George and he made a remark about the weather.
“Oh, yes, I expect it will,” said Luce vaguely.
He was a tall, white-faced, red-headed young man, who spoke with a slight stutter, and altogether, in his seedy cassock which the unkind sun showed less black than green, seemed to George an uninspiring figure, whose power it was difficult to account for. How was it that Luce could make his church a house of prayer and George could not? How was it that people thought and talked of Luce as a priest, consulted him in the affairs of their souls and resorted to him for the sacraments—whereas they thought of George only as a parson, paid him subscriptions and asked him to tea?
He was still wondering when they came to the cottage where the Rector lived—instead of in the twenty-five-roomed Rectory which the Parish provided, with an endowment of a hundred and fifty pounds a year. They paused awkwardly at the door, and the awkwardness was increased rather than diminished by Luce inviting him to come in. George’s first impulse was to decline—he felt he would rather not have any more of the other’s constraining company—but the next minute he realised that he now had the chance of a rest and tea without the preliminary endurance of a long and dusty walk. So he followed him in at the door, which opened disconcertingly into the kitchen, and through the kitchen into the little study-living-room beyond it.
It was not at all like George’s study at Leasan—the floor had many more books on it than the wall, the little leaded window looked out into a kitchen garden, and the two armchairs both appeared so doubtful as possible supports for George’s substantial figure that he preferred, in spite of his fatigue, to sit down on the kitchen chair that stood by the writing-table. He realised for the first time what he had always known—that Luce was desperately poor, having nothing but what he could get out of the living. Probably the whole did not amount to two hundred pounds ... and with post-war prices ... George decided to double his subscription to the Diocesan Fund.
Meantime he accepted a cigarette which was only just not a Woodbine, and tried to look as if he saw nothing extraordinary in the poverty-stricken room. He thought it would be only charitable to put the other at his ease.
“Convenient little place you’ve got here,” he remarked—“better for a single man than that barrack of a Rectory.”
“Oh, I could never have lived in the Rectory. I wonder you manage to live in yours.”
George muttered something indistinct about private means.
“It’s difficult enough to live here,” continued Luce—“I couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for what people give me.”
“Are your parishioners generous?”
“I think they are, considering they’re mostly poor people. The Pannells across the road often send me over some of their Sunday dinner in a covered dish.”
George was speechless.
“And I once found a hamper in the road outside the gate. But after I’d thanked God and eaten half a fowl and drunk a bottle of claret, I found it had dropped off the carrier’s cart and there was no end of a fuss.”
“Er—er—hum.”
There was a knock at the outer door, and before Luce could say “Come in,” the door of the study opened and a small boy stuck his head in.
“Please, Father, could you lend us your ink?—Mother wants to write a letter.”
“Oh, certainly, Tom—take it—there it is; but don’t forget to bring it back.”
The small boy said nothing, but snatched his booty and went out.
“Are your people—er—responsive?” asked George.
“Responsive to what?”
“Well—er—to you.”
“Oh, not at all.”
“Then how do you get them to come to church?”
“I don’t—Our Lord does.”
George coughed.
“They come to church because they know they’ll always find Him there—in spite of me.”
George could not keep back the remark that Reservation was theologically indefensible.
“Is it?” Luce did not seem much interested. “But I don’t keep the Blessed Sacrament in my church for purposes of theology, but for practical use. Suppose you were to die tonight—where would you get your last Communion from if not from my tabernacle?”
George winced.
“This is the only church in the rural deanery where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and the holy oils are kept. The number of people who die without the sacraments must be appalling.”
George had never been appalled by it.
“But why do you reserve publicly?” he asked—“that’s not primitive or catholic—to reserve for purposes of worship.”
“I don’t reserve for purposes of worship—I reserve for Communion. But I can’t prevent people from worshipping Our Lord. Nobody could—not all the Deans of all the cathedrals in England. Oh, I know you think my church dreadful—everybody does. Those statues ... well, I own they’re hideous. But so are all the best parlours in Vinehall. And I want the people to feel that the church is their Best Parlour—which they’ll never do if I decorate it in Anglican good taste, supposing always I could afford to do so. I want them to feel at home.”
“Do you find all this helps to make them regular communicants?”
“Not as I’d like, of course; but we’re only beginning. Most of them come once a month—though a few come every week. I’ve only one daily communicant—a boy who works on Ellenwhorne Farm and comes here every evening to cook my supper and have it with me.”
George was beginning to feel uncomfortable in this strange atmosphere—also he was most horribly wanting his tea. Possibly, as Luce had supper instead of dinner, he took tea later than usual.
“Of course,” continued the Rector, “some people in this place don’t like our ways, and don’t come to church here at all. Some of my parishioners go to you, just as some of yours come to me.”
“You mean my brother Gervase?”
“I wasn’t thinking of him particularly, but he certainly does come.”
“The Mounts brought him.”
“In the first instance, I believe. I hope you don’t feel hurt at his coming here—but he told me he hadn’t been to church for over a year, so I thought....”
Not a sign of triumph, not a sign of shame—and not a sign of tea. It suddenly struck George as a hitherto undreamed-of possibility that Luce did not take tea. His whole life seemed so different from anything George had known that it was quite conceivable that he did not. Anyhow the Vicar of Leasan must be going—the long shadows of some poplars lay over the garden and were darkening the little room into an early twilight. He rose to depart.
“Well, I must be off, I suppose. Glad to have had a chat. Come and preach for me one day,” he added rashly.
“With pleasure—but I warn you, I’m simply hopeless as a preacher.”
“Oh, never mind, never mind,” said George—“all the better—I mean my people will enjoy the change—at least I mean——”
He grabbed desperately at his hat, and followed his host through the kitchen to the cottage door.
“Here’s Noakes coming up the street to cook supper,” said Luce—“I didn’t know it was so late.”
George stared rather hard at the Daily Communicant—having never to his knowledge seen such a thing. He was surprised and a little disappointed to find only a heavy, fair-haired young lout, whose face was the face of the district—like a freckled moon.
“I’m a bit early tonight, Father; but Maaster sent me over to Dixter wud their roots, and he said it wun’t worth me coming back and I’d better go straight on here. I thought maybe I could paint up the shed while the stuff’s boiling.”
“That’s a good idea—thanks, Noaky.”
“Father, there’s a couple of thrushes nesting again by the Mocksteeple. It’s the first time I’ve seen them nest in the fall.”
“It’s the warm weather we’ve been having.”
“Surelye, but I’m sorry for them when it turns cold.... Father, have you heard?—the Rangers beat the Hastings United by four goals to one....”
§ 17
When George had walked out of the village he felt better—he no longer breathed that choking atmosphere of a different world, in which lived daily communicants, devout children, and clergymen who hadn’t always enough to eat. It was not, of course, the first time that he had seen poverty among the clergy, but it was the first time he had not seen it decently covered up. Luce seemed totally unashamed of his ... had not made the slightest effort to conceal it ... his cottage was, except for the books, just the cottage of a working-man; indeed it was not so comfortable as the homes of many working men.
George began to wonder exactly how much difference it would have made if he had been poor instead of well-to-do—if he had been too poor to live in his comfortable vicarage, too poor to decorate his church in “Anglican good taste” ... not that he wouldn’t rather have left it bare than decorate it like Vinehall ... what nonsense Luce had talked to justify himself! The church wasn’t the village’s Best Parlour ... or was it?...
He felt quite tired when he reached Leasan, and Rose scolded him—“You’d much better have come with me to the Parishes.”... However, it was good to sit at his dinner-table and eat good food off good china, and drink his water out of eighteenth-century glass that he had picked up in Ashford.... Luce was not a total abstainer, judging by that story of the claret.... It is true that the creaking tread of the Raw Girl and the way she breathed down his neck when she handed the vegetables made him think less disparagingly of the domestic offices of the Daily Communicant; but somehow the Raw Girl fitted into the scheme of things—it was only fitting that local aspirants for “service” should be trained at the Vicarage—whereas farm-boys who came in to cook your supper and then sat down and ate it with you ... the idea was only a little less disturbing than the idea of farm-boys coming daily to the altar.... He wondered if Rose would say it was un-English.
“Oh, by the way, George”—Rose really was saying—“a message came down from Conster while you were out, asking you to go up there after dinner tonight.”
George’s illness had brought about a kind of artificial peace between the Manor and the Vicarage.
“What is it now? Have you been invited too?”
“No—I think Sir John wants to speak to you about something.”
“Whatever can it be?—Mary’s in Switzerland. It can’t be anything to do with her again.”
“No—I believe it’s something to do with Gervase. I saw Doris this evening and she tells me Sir John has found out that Gervase goes to confession.”
“Does he?—I didn’t know he’d got as far as that.”
“Yes—he goes to Mr. Luce. Mrs. Wade saw him waiting his turn last Saturday when she was in Vinehall church taking rubbings of the Oxenbridge brass. I suppose she must have mentioned it when she went to tea at Conster yesterday.”
“And my father wants me to interfere?”
“Of course—you’re a clergyman.”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“George, don’t talk such nonsense. Why, you’ve been complaining about your father’s disrespect for your priesthood, and now when he’s showing you that he does respect it——”
“He’s showing it no respect if he thinks I’d interfere in a case like this.”
“But surely you’ve a right—Gervase is your brother and he doesn’t ever come to your church.”
“I think it would be unwise for me to be my brother’s confessor.”
“It would be ridiculous. Whoever thought of such a thing?”
“Then why shouldn’t he go to Luce?—and as for my church, he hasn’t been to any church for a year, so if Luce can get him to go to his ... or rather if Our Lord can get him to go to Luce’s church....”
“I do hope it won’t rain tomorrow, as I’d thought of going into Hastings by the ’bus.”
Rose had abrupt ways of changing the conversation when she thought it was becoming indelicate.
§ 18
George went up to Conster after all. Rose finally persuaded him, and pushed him into his overcoat. She was anxious that he should not give fresh offence at the Manor; also she was in her own way jealous for his priestly honour and eager that he should vindicate it by exercising its functions when they were wanted instead of when they were not.
There was no family council assembled over Gervase as there had been over Mary. Only his father and mother were in the drawing-room when George arrived. Gervase was a minor in the Alard household, and religion a minor matter in the Alard world—no questions of money or marriage, those two arch-concerns of human life, were involved. It was merely a case of stopping a silly boy making a fool of himself and his family by going ways which were not the ways of squires. Not that Sir John did not think himself quite capable of stopping Gervase without any help from George, but neither had he doubted his capacity to deal with Mary without summoning a family council. It was merely the Alard tradition that the head should act through the members, that his despotism should be as it were mediated, showing thus his double power both over the rebel and the forces he employed for his subjection.
“Here you are, George—I was beginning to wonder if Rose had forgotten to give you my message. I want you to talk to that ass Gervase. It appears that he’s gone and taken to religion, on the top of a dirty trade and my eldest son’s ex-fiancée.”
“And you want me to talk him out of it?” George was occasionally sarcastic when tired.
“Not out of religion, of course. Could hardly mean that. But there’s religion and religion. There’s yours and there’s that fellow Luce’s.”
“Yes,” said George, “there’s mine and there’s Luce’s.”
“Well, yours is all right—go to church on Sundays—very right and proper in your own parish—set a good example and all that. But when it comes to letting religion interfere with your private life, then I say it’s time it was stopped. I’ve nothing against Luce personally——”
“Oh, I think he’s a perfectly dreadful man,” broke in Lady Alard—“he came to tea once, and talked about God—in the drawing-room!”
“My dear, I think this is a subject which would be all the better without your interference.”
“Well, if a mother hasn’t a right to interfere in the question of her child’s religion....”
“You did your bit when you taught him to say his prayers—I daresay that was what started all the mischief.”
“John, if you’re going to talk to me like this I shall leave the room.”
“I believe I’ve already suggested such a course once or twice this evening.”
Lady Alard rose with dignity and trailed to the door.
“I’m sure I hope you’ll be able to manage him,” she said bitterly to George as she went out, “but as far as I’m concerned I’d much rather you argued him out of his infatuation for Stella Mount.”
“There is always someone in my family in love with Stella Mount,” said Sir John, “and it’s better that it should be Gervase than Peter or George, who are closer to the title, and, of course, let me hasten to add, married men. But this is the first case of religious mania we’ve ever had in the house—therefore I’d rather George concentrated on that. Will you ask Mr. Gervase to come here?”—to the servant who answered his ring.
“Mr. Gervase is in the garage, sir.”
“Send him along.”
Gervase had been cleaning the Ford lorry, having been given to understand that his self-will and eccentricity with regard to Ashford were to devolve no extra duties on the chauffeur. His appearance, therefore, when he entered the drawing-room, was deplorable. He wore a dirty suit of overalls, his hands were black with oil and grime, and his hair was hanging into his eyes.
“How dare you come in like that, sir?” shouted Sir John.
“I’m sorry, sir—I thought you wanted me in a hurry.”
“So I do—but I didn’t know you were looking like a sweep. Why can’t you behave like other people after dinner?”
“I had to clean the car, sir. But I’ll go and wash.”
“No, stay where you are—George wants to speak to you.”
George did not look as if he did.
“It’s about this new folly of yours,” continued Sir John. “George was quite horrified when I told him you’d been to confession.”
“Oh, come, not ‘horrified’,” said George uneasily—“it was only the circumstances.... Thought you might have stuck to your parish church.”
“And you’d have heard his confession!” sneered Sir John.
“Well, sir, the Prayer Book is pretty outspoken in its commission to the priest to absolve——”
“But you’ve never heard a confession in your life.”
This was true, and for the first time George was stung by it. He suddenly felt his anger rising against Luce, who had enjoyed to the full those sacerdotal privileges which George now saw he had missed. His anger gave him enough heat to take up the argument.
“I’m not concerned to find out how Luce could bring himself to influence you when you have a brother in orders, but I’m surprised you shouldn’t have seen the disloyalty of your conduct. Here you are forsaking your parish church, which I may say is also your family church, and traipsing across the country to a place where they have services exciting enough to suit you.”
“I’m sorry, George. I know that if I’d behaved properly I’d have asked your advice about all this. But you see I was the heathen in his blindness, and if it hadn’t been for Father Luce I’d be that still.”
“You’re telling me I’ve neglected you?”
“Not at all—no one could have gone for me harder than you did. But, frankly, if I’d seen nothing more of religion than what I saw at your church I don’t think I’d ever have bothered about it much.”
“Not spectacular enough for you, eh?”
“I knew you’d say something like that.”
“Well, isn’t it true?”
“No.”
“Then may I ask in what way the religion of Vinehall is so superior to the religion of Leasan?”
“Just because it isn’t the religion of Vinehall—it’s the religion of the whole world. It’s a religion for everybody, not just for Englishmen. When I was at school I thought religion was simply a kind of gentlemanly aid to a decent life. After a time you find out that sort of life can be lived just as easily without religion—that good form and good manners and good nature will pull the thing through without any help from prayers and sermons. But when I saw Catholic Christianity I saw that it pointed to a life which simply couldn’t be lived without its help—that it wasn’t just an aid to good behaviour but something which demanded your whole life, not only in the teeth of what one calls evil, but in the teeth of that very decency and good form and good nature which are the religion of most Englishmen.”
“In other words and more briefly,” said Sir John, “you fell in love with a pretty girl.”
Gervase’s face darkened with a painful flush, and George felt sorry for him.
“I don’t deny,” he said rather haltingly, “that, if it hadn’t been for Stella I should never have gone to Vinehall church. But I assure you the thing isn’t resting on that now. I’ve nothing to gain from Stella by pleasing her. We’re not on that footing at all. She never tried to persuade me, either. It’s simply that after I’d seen only a little of the Catholic faith I realised that it was what I’d always unconsciously believed ... in my heart.... It was my childhood’s faith—all the things I’d ‘loved long since and lost awhile.’”
“But don’t you see,” said George, suddenly finding his feet in the argument, “that you’ve just put your finger on the weak spot of the whole thing? This ‘Catholic faith’ as you call it was unconsciously your faith as a child—well, now you ought to go on and leave all that behind you. ‘When I became a man I put away childish things.’”
“And ‘whosoever will not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.’ It’s no good quoting texts at me, George—we might go on for ever like that. What I mean is that I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for, and it’s made Our Lord real to me, as He’s never been since I was a child—and now the whole of life seems real in a way it didn’t before—I don’t know how to explain, but it does. And it wasn’t only the romantic side of things which attracted me—it was the hard side too. In fact the hardness impressed me almost before I saw all the beauty and joy and romance. It was when we were having all that argument about Mary’s divorce.... I saw then that the Catholic Church wasn’t afraid of a Hard Saying. I thought, ‘Here’s a religion which wouldn’t be afraid to ask anything of me—whether it was to shut myself up for life in a monastery or simply to make a fool of myself.’”
“Well, on the whole, I’m glad you contented yourself with the latter,” said Sir John.
George said—“I think it’s a pity Gervase didn’t go to Oxford.”
“Whether he’s been to Oxford or not, he’s at least supposed to be a gentleman. He may try to delude himself by driving off every morning in a motor lorry, but he does in fact belong to an old and honourable house, and as head of that house I object to his abandoning his family’s religion.”
“I never had my family’s religion, Sir—I turned to Catholicism from no religion at all. I daresay it’s more respectable to have no religion than the Catholic religion, but I don’t mind about being respectable—in fact, I’d rather not.”
“You’re absorbing your new principles pretty fast—already you seem to have forgotten all family ties and obligations.”
“I can’t see that my family has any right to settle my religion for me—at least I’m Protestant enough to believe I must find my own salvation, and not expect my family to pass it on to me. I think this family wants to do too much.”
“What d’you mean, Sir?”
“It wants to settle all the private affairs of its members. There’s Peter—you wouldn’t let him marry Stella. There’s Mary, you wouldn’t let her walk out by the clean gate——”
“Hold your tongue! Who are you to discuss Peter’s affairs with me? And as for Mary—considering your disgraceful share in the business....”
“All right, Sir. I’m only trying to point out that the family is much more autocratic than the Church.”
“I thought you said that what first attracted you to the Church was the demands it made on you. George!”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Am I conducting this argument or are you?”
“You seem better able to do it than I, Sir.”
“Well, what did I send you to Oxford for, and to a theological college for, and put you into this living for, if you can’t argue a schoolboy out of the Catholic faith?”
“I’ve pointed out to Gervase, Sir, that the so-called Catholic movement is not the soundest intellectually, and that I don’t see why he should walk three miles to Vinehall on Sundays when he has everything necessary to salvation at his parish church. I can’t go any further than that.”
“How d’you mean?”
“I can’t reason him out of his faith—why should I? On the contrary, I’m very glad he’s found it. I don’t agree with all he believes—I think some of it is extravagant—but I see at least he’s got a religion which will make him happy and keep him straight, and really there’s no cause for me to interfere with it.”
George was purple.
“You’re a fool!” cried Sir John—“you’re a much bigger fool than Gervase, because at least he goes the whole hog, while you as usual are sitting on the fence. It’s just the same now as when I asked you to speak to Mary. If you’d go all the way I’d respect you, or if you’d go none of the way I’d respect you, but you go half way.... Gervase can go all the way to the Pope or to the devil, whichever he pleases—I don’t care now—he can’t be as big a fool as you.”
He turned and walked out of the room, banging the door furiously behind him. The brothers were left alone together. Gervase heaved a sigh of relief.
“Come along with me to the garage,” he said to George, “and help me take the Ford’s carburetor down.”
“No, thanks,” said George dully—“I’m going home.”
§ 19
He had failed again. As he walked through the thick yellow light of the Hunter’s Moon to Leasan, he saw himself as a curiously feeble and ineffective thing. It was not only that he had failed to persuade his brother by convincing arguments, or that he had failed once more to inspire his father with any sort of respect for his office, but he had somehow failed in regard to his own soul, and all his other failures were merely branches of that most bitter root.
He had been unable to convince Gervase because he was not convinced himself—he had been unable to inspire his father because he was not inspired himself. All his life he had stood for moderation, toleration, broad-mindedness ... and here he was, so moderate that no one would believe him, so tolerant that no one would respect him, so broad-minded that the water of life lay as it were stagnant in a wide and shallow pond instead of rushing powerfully between the rocky, narrow banks of a single heart....
He found Rose waiting for him in the hall.
“How late you are! I’ve shut up. They must have kept you an awful time.”
“I’ve been rather slow coming home.”
“Tired?”
“I am a bit.”
“How did you get on? I expect Gervase was cheeky.”
“Only a little.”
“Have you talked him round?”
“I can’t say that I have. And I don’t know that I want to.”
“George!”
Rose had put out the hall lamp, and her voice sounded hoarse and ghostly in the darkness.
“Well, the boy’s got some sort of religion at last after being a heathen for years.”
“I’m not sure that he wouldn’t be better as a heathen than believing the silly, extravagant things he does. I don’t suppose for a minute it’s gone really deep.”
“Why not?”
“The sort of thing couldn’t. What he wants is a sober, sensible, practical religion——”
“Soup?”
“George!”
“Well, that’s what Mary called it. And when I see that the boy has found adventure, discipline and joy in faith, am I to take it away and offer him soup?”
“George, I’m really shocked to hear you talk like that. Please turn down the landing light—I can’t reach it.”
“Religion is romance,” said George’s voice in the thick darkness of the house—“and I’ve been twelve years trying to turn it into soup....”
§ 20
Rose made up her mind that her husband must be ill, therefore she forebore further scolding or argument, and hurried him into bed with a cup of malted milk.
“You’ve done too much,” she said severely—“you said you didn’t feel well enough to come with me to the Parishes, and then you went tramping off to Vinehall. What can you expect when you’re so silly? Now drink this and go to sleep.”
George went to sleep. But in the middle of the night he awoke. All the separate things of life, all the differences of time and space, seemed to have run together in one sharp moment. He was not in the bed, he was not in the room ... the room seemed to be in him, for he saw every detail of its trim mediocrity ... and there lay George Alard on the bed beside a sleeping Rose ... but he was George Alard right enough, for George Alard’s pain was his, that queer constricting pain which was part of the functions of his body, of every breath he drew and every beat of his heart ... he was lying in bed ... gasping, suffering, dying ... this was what it meant to die.... Rose! Rose!
Rose bent over her husband; her big plaits swung in his face.
“What’s the matter, George?—are you ill?”
“Are you ill?” she repeated.
Then she groped for a match, and as soon as she saw his face, jumped out of bed.
No amount of bell-ringing would wake the Raw Girls, so Rose leaped upstairs to their attic, and beat on the door.
“Annie! Mabel! Get up and dress quickly, and go to Conster Manor and telephone for Dr. Mount. Your master’s ill.”
Sundry stampings announced the beginning of Annie’s and Mabel’s toilet, and Rose ran downstairs to her husband. She lit the lamp and propped him up in bed so that he could breathe more easily, thrusting her own pillows under his neck.
“Poor old man!—Are you better?” Her voice had a new tender quality—she drew her hand caressingly under his chin—“Poor old man!—I’ve sent for Dr. Mount.”
“Send for Luce.”
It was the first time he had spoken, and the words jerked out of him drily, without expression.
“All right, all right—but we want the doctor first. There, the girls are ready—hurry up, both of you, as fast as you can, and ask the butler, or whoever lets you in, to ’phone. It’s Vinehall 21—but they’re sure to know.”
She went back into the room and sat down again beside George, taking his hand. He looked dreadfully ill, his face was blue and he struggled for breath. Rose was not the sort of woman who could sit still for long—in a moment or two she sprang to her feet, and went to the medicine cupboard.
“I believe some brandy would do you good—it’s allowed in case of illness, you know.”
George did not seem to care whether it was allowed or not. Rose gave him a few drops, and he seemed better. She smoothed his pillows and wiped the sweat off his face.
She had hardly sat down again when the hall door opened and there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. It must be the girls coming back—Rose suddenly knew that she was desperately glad even of their company. She went to the door, and looked out on the landing. The light that streamed over her shoulder from the bedroom showed her the scared, tousled faces of Gervase and Jenny.
“What’s up, Rose?—Is he very bad?”
“I’m afraid so. Have you ’phoned Dr. Mount?”
“Yes—he’s coming along at once. We thought perhaps we could do something?”
“I don’t know what there is to do. I’ve given him some brandy. Come in.”
They followed her into the room and stood at the foot of the bed. Jenny, who had learned First Aid during the war, suggested propping him higher with a chair behind the pillows. She and Gervase looked dishevelled and half asleep in their pyjamas and great-coats. Rose suddenly realised that she was not wearing a dressing-gown—she tore it off the foot of the bed and wrapped it round her. For the first time in her life she felt scared, cold and helpless. She bent over George and laid her hand on his, which were clutched together on his breast.
His eyes were wide open, staring over her shoulder at Gervase.
“Luce ...” he said with difficulty—“Luce....”
“All right,” said Gervase—“I’ll fetch him.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have Canon Potter, dear?—He could come in his car.”
“No—Luce ... the only church.... Sacrament....”
“Don’t you worry—I’ll get him. I’ll go in the Ford.”
Gervase was out of the room, leaving Jenny in uneasy attendance. A few minutes later Doris arrived. She had wanted to come with the others, but had felt unable to leave her room without a toilet. She alone of the party was dressed—even to her boots.
“How is he, Rose?”
“He’s better now, but I wish Dr. Mount would come.”
“Do you think he’ll die?” asked Doris in a penetrating whisper—“ought I to have woken up Father and Mother?”
“No—of course not. Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I met Gervase on his way to fetch Mr. Luce.”
“That’s only because George wanted to see him—very natural to want to see a brother clergyman when you’re ill. But it’s only a slight attack—he’s much better already.”
She made expressive faces at Doris while she spoke.
“There’s Dr. Mount!” cried Jenny.
A car sounded in the Vicarage drive and a few moments later the doctor was in the room. His examination of George was brief. He took out some capsules.
“What are you going to do?” asked Rose.
“Give him a whiff of amyl nitrate.”
“It’s not serious? ... he’s not going to....”
“Ought we to fetch Father and Mother?” choked Doris.
“I don’t suppose Lady Alard would be able to come at this hour—but I think you might fetch Sir John.”
Rose suddenly began to cry. Then the sight of her own tears frightened her, and she was as suddenly still.
“I’ll go,” said Jenny.
“No—you’d better let me go,” said Doris—“I’ve got my boots on.”
“Where’s Gervase?” asked Dr. Mount.
“He’s gone to fetch Mr. Luce from Vinehall—George asked for him.”
“How did he go? Has he been gone long?”
“He went in his car—he ought to be back quite soon. Oh, doctor, do you think it’s urgent ... I mean ... he seems easier now.”
Dr. Mount did not speak—he bent over George, who lay motionless and exhausted, but seemingly at peace.
“Is he conscious?” asked Rose.
“Perfectly, I should say. But don’t let him speak.”
With a queer abandonment, unlike herself, Rose climbed on the bed, curling herself up beside George and holding his hand. The minutes ticked by. Jenny, feeling awkward and self-conscious, sat in the basket armchair by the fireplace. Dr. Mount moved quietly about the room—as in a dream Rose watched him set two lighted candles on the little table by the bed. There was absolute silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock. Rose began to feel herself again—the attack was over—George would be all right—it was a pity that Gervase had gone for Mr. Luce. She began to feel herself ridiculous, curled up with George in the bed ... she had better get out before Sir John came and sneered at her very useful flannel dressing-gown ... then suddenly, as she looked down on it, George’s face changed—once more the look of anguish convulsed it, and he started up in bed, clutching his side and fighting for his breath.
It seemed an age, though it was really only a few minutes, that the fight lasted. Rose had no time to be afraid or even pitiful, for Dr. Mount apparently could do nothing without her—as she rather proudly remembered afterwards, he wouldn’t let Jenny help at all, but turned to Rose for everything. She had just begun to think how horrible the room smelt with drugs and brandy, when there was a sound of wheels below in the drive.