CHAPTER VIII
Blackcoat-tails came whisking up Heron drive on a bicycle, and Verity tore to the drawing-room to set about her usual preparations.
From some obscure corner a dustyDoll’s Housewas dragged into the light of day;Anne Veronicascuttled into position beside the latest problem novel,Woman Enthroned; Zola, Oscar Wilde and Cicely Hamilton shared the shelter of the same chrysanthemum; while from the silver table Mrs. Pankhurst addressed the world at large.
The hall-door opened, and Verity, scattering a few Mormon tracts at random over the sofa, flung herself at the piano and dashed into the new war-song—“Way for the Women!” just as the Vicar was announced; only to be conscious, as she rose to greet him, of the utter futility of her dramatic efforts.
“The man sees nothing but the inside of his own head!” she told herself, as she welcomed him prettily, and watched him settle himself among the Mormons. “It’s a real waste of time trying to be artistic with him, and I think I’d better take Larry’s advice and give it up.”
“I’ll tell my mother,” she added aloud, moving to the door. Mrs. Cantacute was a widow and an invalid, which was counted by some as Verity’s sole excuse.
The young parson, however, sprang to his feet, putting out a protesting hand, his dark eyes very bright and eager.
“No, no, please don’t!—that is, not just yet. There is something I want to say to you alone, Miss Cantacute, if you will be kind enough to spare me a few minutes.”
“Of course!” Verity shifted Ibsen from his chair, and sat down with him in her lap, the title invitingly uppermost; and Mr. Grant looked at the little figure in blue with its shining head and downcast eyes, and thought of Raphael and Correggio and Fra Angelico and ladders of angels and Rebekah at the well.
“I want to ask you a favour,” he began, picking up a Mormon, and crackling it nervously without looking at it. “You’ll think I’m very interfering, I expect, and perhaps very impertinent, but I don’t doubt that you will see my point of view in the end. One has only to look at you, Miss Cantacute, to know that you are incapable of any but the very highest and noblest instincts concerning any subject of spiritual importance.”
Verity looked up deprecatingly without saying anything; then refixed her gaze on the buckle of her left shoe. The Mormon crackled harder than ever.
“I hear that you are arranging an elaborate Pierrot entertainment,” he went on, “the work for which is to occupy a large portion of the winter. I don’t want to discount your kindness, Miss Cantacute, in organising displays of this sort for the amusement of an isolated little village, but I do ask you to consider one particular point. As you know, I found, when I came, that many of the usual church efforts for promoting spiritual growth had fallen into neglect. There was no mission-work, for instance, no special service for men, no Girls’ Friendly or Temperance League; no sewing-parties, night-classes or lectures. I have worked hard to alter that state of things, and at last I earnestly believe I am beginning to succeed. Most of the young men and women of the parish are at present pleasantly and profitably employed during each evening of the week, striving to become worthy helpers in the great Cause. Now you, Miss Cantacute, propose to distract their minds by musical and dramatic rehearsals held almost daily; and I ask you, very humbly, and with real anxiety, whether you think yourself justified in interfering thus arbitrarily with the work of the Church? I love my task, as you scarcely need telling, but at the same time it has its disagreeable side. I have had my battle to fight, like every one else, and it has not been a small one, by any means—far from it! But at least I was beginning to trust it was won. Now—I don’t know. I don’t know!”
He rose sharply, and began to pace up and down theroom, his hands behind him, passingAnneand Oscar without so much as a glance. Verity still said nothing.
“I had heard so much about you before I came, Miss Cantacute. I was told how clever you were, how charming, how heart to heart with the villagers, how affectionately regarded on all sides! I had it said to me that, with Verity Cantacute under my banner, I need never know an hour’s uneasiness. I have tried very hard to enlist you; you will admit that. I have asked you to work for me—the very highest compliment in the world! I have offered you posts second only in importance to my own. I have done all in my power to demonstrate to you that, after myself, I regard you as the greatest influence in the parish. And yet, despite all this, you have met me, time after time, with rebuff on rebuff, refusal on refusal—rejection, discouragement, almost contempt!”
He looked again at his silent hostess—at the prayerful hands, lightly clasped, the Madonna-like parting of the hair, the subdued, gentle bend of the neck, and his hopes rose. Surely, surely she was touched! He sat down thoughtlessly uponWoman Enthroned, and leaned anxiously towards her.
“Can’t I persuade you to give up this entertainment, my friend? I don’t say that it is wrong in itself—I am not as ridiculously narrow and one-sided as that—but I do say that it comes at a very critical moment in the spiritual life of the parish—at a timewhen even an innocent amusement may be grasped by the devil as a weapon of offence. My boys and girls will come to you in preference to me—it is only natural. Music and laughter will of course appeal to them more than lantern-slides on Church History—singing and dancing please them better than lectures upon How to Keep Bees. There will be big gaps in my hitherto well-filled rows of faces—faces which send me to bed happy every night of the week. They will be with you, Miss Cantacute, enjoying themselves and learning to be very clever; but will they be learning to be—good?”
Verity was white to the lips as she pushed her chair back from him a fraction, so that theDoll’s Houseslid heavily to the floor; but she smiled at him quite sweetly.
“There’s Billy-boy Blackburn to be considered,” she said very gently. “Ididpay the bet, you know, so we’re quits again and can start afresh. And I want Billy-boy back.”
He stared at her, puzzled, worried, helpless before the workings of this strange little brain.
“I don’t think I quite understand,” he said at last. “You can’t mean, I suppose, that you want Billy as one of your Pierrots? Such a thing is absolutely out of the question!”
“But why?” Verity opened innocent eyes of wide surprise. “Billy-boy sings like an angel, and he has a perfect ear. As for dancing, you should just try reversing with him—oh, of course you can’t—butI give you my word that he’s positively divine.”
“‘Divine’ is certainly the very last term I should think of applying to him!” Grant snapped hastily, forgetting for the moment that he was a parson, and only remembering that he was a man. “If you insist upon having this performance, I must request that he shall not be included. You cannot have him to practise in your drawing-room. You cannot appear with him on a public platform. I—I shall speak to your mother about it, and in the meantime I absolutely forbid it!”
Verity laughed tunefully, and he was filled with a sudden and rabid desire to shake her.
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you!” she said kindly. “I was brought up with Billy-boy Blackburn, after a manner of speaking, and I know how to manage him beautifully. He’ll be a lamb, you’ll see, and dance like a duck. I’m dreadfully sorry, but I feel bound to go on with the entertainment now it’s started. Church History is a little—well—a littlehistorical, isn’t it?” She smiled angelically. “And, you know, Ididpay the salmon on the nail!”
He got up for the last time, also very white, and desperately hurt.
“You are exceedingly foolish!” he said, struggling to speak quietly. “Foolish and headstrong and very unfair.” He turned rather blindly in the direction of the door. “And very unkind!” he added, groping among the Mormons for his hat; and Verity bit herlip. It was only to his official side that she mentally put up her fists. When he was boyish and puzzled she wanted to promise everything and give him an orange. But to yield now meant defeat for all time, and that simply couldn’t be thought of, so she hardened her heart and refused to let Israel go. The next moment she congratulated herself, for he wrecked his cause at the very door.
“You will be sorry if you do this thing!” he said, losing his tact utterly before her steadier nerve. “You can’t really care about a foolish concert, and who knows what souls may through it be laid to your account? Give it up and come to my help with the Girls’ Friendly. I’m badly off for subordinates in several cases, just now. And if you really want to do something artistic, you might teach the Sunday School a little fairy play. Think it over!”
Verity laughed again, but openly this time, gaily and whole-heartedly. The dear thing was so deliciously funny!
“Billy-boy Blackburn is too old for Sunday School,” she said pleasantly, “and I can hardly picture him as a fairy, can you? After all, Billy is the point, you know. Don’t you think we might as well be frank and admit it? And Idoplay fair, whatever you say. You mustn’t forget that I paid the salmon!”