"Yes—and then?"
"Well, first, the character of the messages changed a little. His friends in thegnosiswarned him of mischievous spirits, even of bad ones, but he was not to be afraid. He would not be afraid. For a while the good returned—and riveted his chains more firmly. Then the shadow crept in again. He was told of a new morality, led on to seek relief in stimulants, encouraged to voyage far and often in trance. At last only there, in trance, was there full escape. He loathed himself, but his waking life was beset with devils, prurient curiosity, perverted sensuality, a desire to inflict pain. He struggled, but in vain. But in the trance-sleep he was free."
A motor car hummed up the hill and buzzed over the crest. Etheridge "waited till the sound died away. Neither of his listeners moved.
"And then one day, Mr. Kestern," went on the narrator at last evenly, "having gone over in trance, he found his return barred. He could see his own body on the couch and he longed to re-enter it. But he could not. A Watcher stood on the Threshold. For an eternity there seemed no possibility of return."
Paul moistened dry lips. "A watcher?" he managed to ask.
"Yes. Beyond telling. Do you loathe anything? Have you ever felt Fear? Do you shrink from corruption, its scent and sight? You cannot imagine all those incarnate, but it was that."
"My G-G-God," said Father Vassall. "That's enough, Etheridge."
"But you are here," cried Paul. "What saved you?"
"The grace of God, which is beyond telling, at the moment, and, under Him, Father Vassall afterwards. He may tell you if he please."
Paul glanced at the priest. But he shook his head. "I t-t-told you it was the d-d-devil," he said.
"Father Vassall, perhaps, can hardly speak of it, Mr. Kestern. He fought for my soul. He held me all one night, and a crucifix in my hands, while Satan shook my body, my bed, the very room, but could not prevail."
And silence drew in and sat between the three of them.
Paul broke it. He sighed. "Forgive me," he said, "but what is one to believe? You explain one thing by an unknown force; why not so explain this? And—I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Etheridge—I suppose we all have a side to our character which, supposing it were for any reason developed and released, might do terrible things."
The ex-Spiritualist bowed slightly. "You are quite right," he said tranquilly. "That is one explanation. You can explain the Gospels and the Incarnation and Lourdes and—and Spiritualism that way. Men even explain man. If there were no explanation possible, there would be no need of faith."
"But I haven't——" began Paul.
Father Vassall made a quick gesture. "'Si scires donum Dei,'" he said. "Don't t-t-tempt God, Kestern."
Etheridge rose as if he had not heard. "Let us walk in the garden a little," he said, "and breathe clean air."
That evening, Father Vassall varied the order of night prayers somewhat. He crossed over the chapel to Paul, after the Scripture reading, and put a little manual in his hand. It was not wholly unfamiliar to the boy, but for the first time the real significance of the Office of Compline dawned on him. He saw the long dark corridors leading from chapel, the silent shut-off monastic cells, the peasant on his lonely road home, the soldier on sentry guard while the camp slept. He saw that the night had been alive to such, and that their faith had made these prayers for a shield. And he was not sorry for that shield himself that night.
Grant us, O Lord, a quiet night and a perfect end.Your adversary the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion seekingwhom he may devour.Thou shalt not be afraid for the Terror by night,For He shall give His angels charge over thee.Visit this house, we beseech Thee, O Lord. Drive far from itall snares of the enemy. Let Thy holy angels dwell therein....
All his imagination astir, Paul listened, in his secret heart, for the drift of pinions. Nor, then, did he wonder that he failed to hear them; he only marvelled a little at the impenetrability of clay-shuttered doors.
(5)
Thus, then, came Paul Kestern to his last night at Thurloe End. Judge ye, who may. This, at least, was the manner of it.
The Father had read aloudThe Holy Grail, and PaulThe Hound of Heaven. He had himself chosen it; he had no one to blame for that.
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest (he read),I am He Whom thou seekest;Thou drivest Love from thee, Who drivest Me.
He shut the book. The little priest was nursing his knees against the tall fender, and the boy looked from him to the candlelight on the white of the uncanonised saint's hat on the mantelshelf. It rather fascinated him, that round skull-cap. It was a child's trick to put it there, the little white satiny thing in its glass-fronted box—a child's trick, lovable. He looked at the priest again. The other stirred.
"My dear," he said, stammering badly, "you g-g-go to-m-m-morrow. And we've kept the tr-truce."
Paul nodded.
Silence.
The priest spoke again. "I don't know," he said. "I can't stick my fingers into your soul. I d-d-don't want to. Only God's been good to you, you know. And—and He's a j-j-jealous God."
"Oh, I don't know," burst out the boy. "Father, I don't know. There's so much for and against. And I've prayed and prayed and prayed, and—and God hides Himself."
"He's given you all the l-l-light you need. He's shown you! He's sent His Son and appointed His Church and p-p-put it b-b-bang in your p-path. What else do you want? Do you want a special r-r-revelation?"
"Oh, I don't know," wailed Paul. "I don't KNOW."
His voice broke a little. Father Vassall dropped his knees and jumped up, catching his robe about him. His eyes shone, though his face was grave. "L-look here," he said. "Here's a bit of paper. I'll put here all the things that make for the Church, unless you feel honestly, in your own mind, that the balance of evidence on a point puts it on the other side. Now."
When the paper was written it appeared thus:
WHICH is TRUE?
R.C.Anglican.
Emotions in Catholic Church. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Emotions at Claxted, Keswick,etc.Reason?History?Which Works?Scripture?Tradition?Catholic Idea?Consistency?Gospel of the Poor?Beauty?Common sense?Miracles?Peter?
(After the first, Paul had objected: "But Christianity may not be reasonable at all." "T-t-that hardly makes for Anglicanism," retorted Father Vassall. "Isit, the Via Media, reasonable?" And Paul had been silent thereafter.)
"That's enough, Father," said Paul, in a still voice.
"It is, only this." (He added, last on the list—Peter.) "Now, here you are. To-morrow, after breakfast, go into the chapel, put this before you, and pray. Pray. PRAY. Hear? I'll say no more, now or ever. You're alone, you know, you must be.... If it's 'yes,' after that, come and tell me, and I'll get the faculties and receive you. If it's 'no,' then don't say anything. Just 'good-bye.' And G-God bless you, anyway."
He had his way. The boy went almost silently to bed, heard Mass, ate breakfast quietly, went into the chapel, and knelt down. He propped his papers before him. He chose to kneel before the red lamp.
He read his paper, but he could not think. Confused
images buzzed through his head, and voices. "I'd rather see a son of mine dead," said Mr. Kestern. "God is very far off," said Childers. "He was deluded by Satan," said David Etheridge. "Oh, don't break your father's heart, Paul," cried his mother. "Concubinage is a regular thing in Spain," said the Bishop of Mozambique. "Christ is the most arresting figure in history," said Manning coolly. "He's a j-j-jealous God," said Father Vassall.
Paul shut his eyes. He was so tired. He turned deliberately away and thought of Edith. He remembered Hursley Woods, and the little brown cap, and the brown leaves, and the blue sky. A thrush, too, that looked at them out of beady eyes. And here he was, in a Popish chapel, Father Vassall's chapel.
He looked up. In the clear morning light, the chapel was all so plain. In front of him, as plain as plain, was a sponge on reed, a spear, a ladder, a scourge. He noticed that they were a little dusty. The glass reliquary reminded him of wax flowers under a glass case belonging to his great-aunt Sophie; no, it did not remind him of the flowers, it was just the case, with its plush fringe, that it brought ridiculously to his mind. But inside the case was that small splinter the priest had described, a fragment splintered from Calvary with its sweat and turmoil and blood.
It had been, of course, like that figure on the rood. He had hung dead. Dead. Drained of blood. Dead.
Dead? A little to the right the white tabernacle veil hung in the folds to which Father Vassall had adjusted it this morning. And behind lay the mystery. If only he KNEW.
And then, suddenly, he saw it all as clearly as the day through the chapel window: his broken home, his mother's tears, Edith lost to him, his ambition to write poetry blocked out, and instead, instead—that silver Cup behind the white curtain thrust into his hand. A half-remembered line shot into his head:
And down the shaft of lightBlood-red...
And suppose, after all, it werenottrue....
If it were true, surely God would show him. If He were a Father, surely, surely...
(6)
That, then, was the manner in which Paul Kestern grew afraid. The utter silence of the chapel grew on him, bore down on him, wave on wave. Was it not time for the trap? Oh, but they would call him. Meantime, why wouldn't God speak? Just a word, a flicker of a curtain.... It was all so still. Not even a wind. The silence listened, that was the awful thing; it listened for him to pray. And if he prayed—oh, if he prayed, he would break down like a baby, and surrender, and he would never really have known.
Then Paul knew he could not pray.
But he shut his eyes; he groped into the blackness; he pressed against the silence; he knew he was alone, all alone; he knew if he could have fled, he would have done so, but that he could not move. He must fight it out alone, endure alone; and though that awful silence terrorised his very thought, he must still try to think....
"It's t-t-time to go," whispered a voice in his ear.
He got up, and stumbled out. "Thank you so much, Father," he said. There was utter terror in his soul, but that was what he said. He saw the other's face, tender and grave, and his quaint black gown, and the bare hall, and the little flagged path, and the iron gate, and the trap. Oh, he was glad to see the trap. He mustn't be afraid; it was absurd; he could walk out. "Really I've loved being here," he heard himself saying.
"C-come again s-s-some t-time," stammered Father Vassall.
"Thanks, I will, Father. Good-bye."
"G-g-good-bye."
He balanced himself as the horse started forward, and then turned and waved. The little priest waved too. They swung round the turn.
Paul looked at the clouds, moving serenely across the sky. He peered into the bare twigs of an oak. Some palm was in bloom, soft, yellow, feathery.
"Truth, it's real mild spring, sir," said Tim.
"Yes," said Paul. "I must say I'm glad summer is coming."
"London, single," he said through the wicket at the booking office. It was real, that funny little window, and odd, how absurd the man looked, peering at him! A couple of turns up the platform, a good asphalted platform, with staring advertisements, rather jolly—about pens, Easter in Normandy, Nestle's Milk. And there was the train at last, swinging merrily round the corner, noisy, fussy,real.
Third class, smoker, empty, that would do. Paul flung himself into a far corner. "Thank God," he said to himself, "thankGod."
A tall dark girl walked up the train. She looked in at Paul's window. He didn't see her, but she saw him, hesitated a moment, and decided, after all, she wouldn't travel to town with him. If perhaps, the next compartment was empty, she would prefer that. It was. She got in and shut the door. She had a newspaper and a novel to read, but she settled herself to stare out of the window instead. The country was so unimaginably lovely.
I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of Imagination. What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth.... The Imagination may be compared to Adam's dream;—he awoke and found it truth.—KEATS:Letters, November 22, 1817.
(1)
"Well," queried Tressor, "and what's the next move?"
He was seated at his desk in his study, pen in hand, a pile of correspondence before him, and Paul, who had not been able to remain still for five minutes since he had heard the news, was leaning at the moment against the open window opposite. June had come in full-throated. The trees in the Fellows' Garden were thick with green, and the roses in the parterres flamed in the sun. Everything flamed in such a sunlight as had never been before, nor, in its own way, would be again. Miracles of that sort are not so uncommon in life as might be thought, but each one stands by itself. So to-day Paul was inwardly if only half-consciously marvelling at the world, seeing that it was transfigured before him.
The don, watching him thoughtfully, was well aware of it. His own experiences of a quarter of a century before, rose like a kindly ghost before him. He knew in what a turmoil of suspense the boy must have wakened, but yet how a kind of dear regret had lingered with him at breakfast, the last breakfast of the true undergraduate stage, the stage in which the future is all possibility, the die still unread even if cast. He guessed how he and his friends had talked about everything and thought only about one thing; how they had strolled round to the Senate House; how a glamour had been there upon the ugly unimposing dull building that he, the don, knew so well; how anxiety had spurred the spirits of the men in the gallery; how the first names had been greeted with relieved cheers. And he knew how Paul had heard his own in the First Class Honours List of the History Tripos with a sense, first, of utter unreality, and then of triumph that had given him for a fleeting hour the carriage of a god.
Paul had come into King's Parade with his friends a new man. A light had fallen on his ways, and at first, as always, he had been blissfully ignorant of the bitter that lurks in all earth's sweets. He had been ignorant for about as long as it took him to walk to the post office. There, when Donaldson had said that there was no good his sending a telegram, he had seen real envy in the eyes of a friend, and when the clerk had read the flimsy paper without the flicker of an eyebrow, had realised that the world is mighty big and cares nothing. Ah well, Paul had thought as he hastened back to college, that made no difference to the fact that he, Paul Kestern, had got a First, which nothing could ever destroy and which would remain a title to respect among all sorts and conditions of men. Differ with him as men might and would, he had entered set and recognised lists and ridden a triumphant course.
And Tressor was genuinely pleased that the boy had come bursting in to him, scarcely waiting to knock, greeting him with the eyes of a grateful friend. "I've got it," he had cried, "I've got it, Tressor! A First after all! Thanks to you more than to anyone. I can hardly believe it's true."
Paul had walked about the study to tell his news. "Donaldson got a third, Strether a second. I wish Gussie had got a first. I say, my father will be pleased. How many? Oh there were only five given, out of a hundred and thirty, I think. You know I never could have written a decent line if it hadn't been for you. As it was I thought that Special Period would dish me. I say—does it sound beastly?—I'm most glad of all for one thing. Whatever I become, no one will ever be able to say that if I'd known a little history I'd have been different!"
And so on, disjointedly, as the sense of it soaked in, and thoughts rose in his mind like bright bubbles—rose and burst. Tressor understood it all. And he liked the way the boy peered at a picture, picked up a paper-knife and examined it as if it were something rare, looked out at the roses, shot a questioning glance at him, and so on. All these things were so many signposts to the eager mind. Tressor felt again his own keen interest as to what that mind would do. And so he had at last asked his question. "Well," he had said, "and what's the next move?"
"Ah!" said Paul, and leant up against the open window-frame all at once, very still.
"I'm only twenty-one," he said at last.
Tressor turned the statement over. Then he understood. "Two years before you can be ordained," he said.
"Yes, thank God," said Paul, sincerely.
"Oh! Has it come to that?"
Paul's restlessness fell on him again, like a mantle. He straightened himself, thrust his hands into his pockets, looked round, and flung himself into a chair. "I suppose I've known it all the term," he said, "but I've never realised it till now."
Tressor laid down his pen and leaned back. He was frankly curious. The term had been so busy for both of them that this was the first vital conversation, although, at odd intervals, he had thought a good deal about the boy. Thus he knew of the visit to Thurloe End, but not of any details. He knew of conflicts, not of decisions, if there had been any.
"Yes," said Paul, "it has. I know one thing. I cannot be ordained in the Church of England unless my mind changes a great deal between this and then."
"That is odd to me," said Tressor meditatively. "That is one of the things I could do."
"You?"
"Yes. The Anglican ministry stands for an orderly, decent, restrained religious profession, but it does not commit the priest to dogmatic extravagance."
"I see," said Paul. "The Church of England appeals to you on those grounds exactly which make it impossible for me, at least as yet."
"But why? No bishop would refuse you on account of moderation."
"Quite so. But the Apostle had a word to say on that to the Church of Laodicea."
Tressor frowned slightly. He disliked Paul in that mood. "Surely you see now," he said, "that you cannot determine the universe by a single text."
Paul threw his leg over the arm of his chair. "That is precisely what I do see," he said. "I'm one immense note of interrogation."
The don smiled. "That's admirable, anyway, and that, I suppose, blocks Rome. I'm unfeignedly glad. I confess I saw you go to Thurloe End with some fear. You're impressionable, and Father Vassall has a magnetic personality."
A shadow gathered in Paul's face, gathered and deepened. "But I played the coward there," he said.
"Tell me," said Tressor, "if you can, that is."
"I'd like to." Paul was emphatic. Also the thing was very vivid to him and had lost nothing in retrospection. His hearer saw the situation as he unfolded it, saw it almost as vividly as Paul had seen it, but his wonder grew almost more quickly than his interest. He found himself scarcely listening, impatient of the final details. "So you see," concluded Paul, "I was afraid to pray. I knew that if I gave way an inch I should give way altogether. And in the end, I—I fled." There was death in his voice.
"Well," retorted Tressor, "I congratulate you with all my heart. Honestly, Paul, I did not think you had so much in you. Really, you interest me enormously."
"What!" cried the genuinely astonished Paul.
"Of course. The whole thing was consummate staged emotionalism. And you came through it, and Vassall's overwhelming hypnotic personality, by the sheer force of your own will. No, honestly, I never dreamed you had it in you. I am most extraordinarily glad."
Paul returned his leg to a normal position. He stared at the speaker for appreciable seconds without a word. Then he laughed. "Well," he said, "well—— And of course you may be right."
"I should say there can be no room for doubt.... But, if that's Rome, why not the Church of England? Orders and a fellowship—writing, lecturing, preaching. It would suit you admirably."
"It would not," retorted Paul decisively. "I should never be content. Besides, what should I preach? For what should I stand? I cannot see the Bible without the Gospel, and I can preach, in Christ's name, nothing but that."
The don knit his brows. "Then what's the matter with an evangelical ministry?"
Paul jumped up. He prowled about restlessly. Suddenly he made a couple of gestures, one to the well-lined shelves, the other to the garden. "That and that," he said.
"I'm afraid you go beyond me," said Tressor politely.
"Oh, I say, I'm sorry," cried Paul. "But—but—can't you see? Doubtless it's sheer presumption, but evangelicalism seems to me utterly divorced from reason and knowledge. It has no logical basis at all. Rome may be wrong, but it's logical. It's a conceivable theory. Evangelical Protestantism just won'tdo.... Look here, the Church might be infallible, divine. It's just possible. I don'tknow... but it'spossible. But the Bible is not infallible—we know that—and what is more, it would be useless if it were without an explicit interpretation. That's certain, final."
Tressor glanced at his correspondence. He ought to attend to it, but, on the other hand, an idea was forming in his mind. The more he thought of it, the more he liked it. The letters might wait. He got up and moved over towards the bookshelves. Paul, behind him, went on abstractedly.
"And then there's the other reason. That seems to me less honourable, less convincing, but—I can't help it—it's overpowering. Put it like this. Could I possibly put on the scarlet jersey of the Salvation Army and follow the band?CouldI? Well, I couldn't. That—that's an insult to—to beauty, a blasphemy against—against—oh, I don't know—against a summer's day, I think. And an evangelical ministry means a red jersey, you know—or something like it. The Mission Hall, for example; the Religious Tract Society.... I say, am I a—a damned fool?"
Tressor had taken a little book off the shelves, and was half mechanically turning the leaves. Immature, of course, weak in places, but—— He put it back.
"Eh?" he queried, smiling. "A red jersey? No, I rather agree. But the morning's going. Where are you lunching? Have some with me?"
"I'd love to," said Paul.
"Right. Give me half an hour for these letters. And at luncheon I'll tell you what's come into my head." He smiled, affectionately.
"Thanks," said Paul, getting up. Then he remembered his First again, overwhelmingly. "I think I'll just go and see," he said boyishly, "whether there are any telegrams for me."
Tressor turned to his desk. "Do," he said. "One o'clock."
(2)
Paul walked across the Second Court whistling. In the screens he met Strether. "There's only one other first," growled his friend. "Judson. Shows what egregious asses the examiners were."
Paul hit him in the ribs. "Where is he?" he demanded. "I must go and congratulate him."
"He's in the garden, reading telegrams. I believe there are some for you. It's a sickening sight, but I'll come with you if you like."
Paul took his arm and they marched off. "I'm sorry you didn't get one, Gussie," he said. "You deserved it."
The other snorted. "Rot," he grunted. "Never stood a look in. Lucky to get a second. But I always thought you'd score."
Between the First Court and the river, under the chestnuts, were a couple of deck-chairs and a rug. Judson in flannels sprawled there, with Hannam, Donaldson and one or two others. Somebody tossed Paul half a dozen orange envelopes. He threw himself down, and tore them open. Mr. Kestern wired that he and Mrs. Kestern were coming up to-morrow. Then an uncle had wired, and a grandfather. Mr. Ernest also. There was one from school, and that intrigued Paul. It was jolly to think that the Head and the rest of them had been expecting the occasion, thinking of it, caring. Pleasant, too, that he had conferred honour on the school. He stared out at the shining river, and saw the old hall, the cut and mutilated forms, the honour boards, the dais, the rows of shuffling schoolboys, and himself amongst them. Announcements were made after prayers. To-morrow, probably, then, the Head would say precisely: "I am sure the school will be glad to learn that Paul Kestern, who went up to St. Mary's, Cambridge, in ... has ..." The school would cheer, sensing a possible half-holiday in connection therewith. Well, he'd look in next month, towards the end of July, and then—— It was really rather pleasant.
He reached for the last telegram, speculating idly who had sent it. He could not know that Mr. Kestern had told the news to every possible person in the street as he himself went to the post office. "I'm so glad—Edith," he read.
He read it again and again. He glanced up covertly at the others. Then he folded the thin paper, slipped it back in its envelope, stretched himself out at full length and stared up into the blue sky. Fragments of conversation from the men about him drifted in and out of his mind, and now and again he had to respond to a remark addressed point-blank to him. He was still pleasantly aware of achievement and pride that must be hid. But he was wrestling all the while with an enigma.
He had seen the girl once only after his visit to Thurloe End, during the brief week-end of the vacation that he had spent at home. They had walked deviously home from Sunday evening service, and he had poured out his heart to her. He had been full of the contrast between Claxted and Thurloe End, as well as the growing impossibility he was experiencing in these occasional returns to service in the evangelical atmosphere. There had been reaction, too, in his outlook after the relief of escape from Father Vassall, and what with one thing and another he had been meditating—he spoke to her as if he were meditating—a return and a surrender. And she had astounded him: she had utterly refrained from suggesting that he should not do so. Indeed she had done more; she had brought to bear upon the problem the mind of, as it were, a Claxted Catholic, though, since nothing had as yet come of it, she had said nothing of her visit to St. Patrick's.
The witchery of Thurloe End had been meaningless to her. Claxted was still to her dear and simple. She saw nothing whatever to alter in her own home or in his. Barns, and shrines, and carven shields, merely bewildered her. He had felt, as he talked, that so far as externals went, she would have preferred the incandescent lights in rows, the red drugget and the pitch-pine of the Mission Hall. Perfectly simply, then, she had said:
"Paul, dear, if Jesus calls you, you must do what He says."
Parrot-like, he had answered her with the old cry: "But I don't know!"
He could feel now her fingers on his arm, clutching a little more tightly. "Don't, Paul," she had said. "It seems to me quite plain. Jesus doesn't hide Himself. He speaks plainly enough in our hearts, and you—you 'know His voice.'"
He had stared hard at her in the light of a street lamp as they passed: the firm little face rather sedate; the precise, neat dress; her gloved hand; the little hymn and prayer book she carried which he had given her, surreptitiously. Intuitively he saw that she belonged to Claxted; yes, though he knew that he had modified her views not a little, Claxted was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. Life was amazingly simple to her. She might question the form in which the things of religion reached her—the authority of Christ, His presence in the Sacrament; she might become High Church in practice; but nothing in Claxted rubbed her up the wrong way. And he saw suddenly just what it meant that her home was in Edward Street and her father a photographer. She was unobtrusive, trim, conventional. He had wanted to seize her almost roughly, shake her, drag her out, and he had not been able to do it at all because she would not have understood the first syllable of explanation. Come to that, did he? Perhaps, that very day, he had come to see more plainly the point. The scarlet jersey—well, it was just a scarlet jersey to Edith Thornton. You put it on, if Christ said so. Why not?
Lying there then, in the flush of success, blue shining sky above, clear shining river hard by, her words in his pocket, no, in his heart, Paul nevertheless saw a shadow athwart the sky. He had known long that an impermeable curtain was slowly dropping between him and his people; he had known that their very voices sounded odd—familiar, arrestingly familiar, but as those who speak another tongue; and he had known that the change lay in him and not in them. There were notes in the past that no longer struck response, that reached him muffled, through the curtain. And he saw plainly enough that Edith belonged to that side.
There was a shadow then even on this bright day. He loved her so. One moment, was it quite that? Was it not rather that he wanted to love her so much, wanted that they should speak and walk together, and knew they could not? Inexorably, hate it as he might, the irresistible tides were sweeping them apart. He was being moved on and out, protest as he would and did. Yet he could not protest altogether as he would, for his very heart was shaken. There was a "war in his members"—the old, old phrase rose unbidden in his mind. And, serene and far as that blue sky, God seemed to be.
Thus a thoughtful Paul went in to luncheon, yet wholly unaware of the new flood that was even then gathering to its height and was about to overmaster him. For a while the two talked inconsequently, on small things. Then, when the coffee was on the table, Tressor reopened the conversation of the morning.
"So, honestly, you don't quite know what to do next?"
"No. But I suppose I shall teach for a year or two, if possible do some private coaching. I must earn money; I shall have to say no definitely to the theological college next year, not this."
"Literature?"
"Well, of course, wherever I am I shall write. I can't help it. But could I make a living with my pen? I don't suppose so, and I can't ask my father for money. And even if I could, I doubt awfully if I could do occasional journalism."
Tressor shook his head emphatically. "Don't try," he said. "It's an impossibility for you, I should say—not your line at all."
Paul suddenly realised what a problem he was up against. He sighed. "It's awfully hard," he said. "I suppose I must teach."
"No," said Tressor, "not yet anyway. I want you to give your own literary taste a chance. Write poetry. Do another play—more carefully this time."
Paul smiled ruefully. In the Lent Term he had had an inspiration. Dropping his reading, cutting his lectures, burying himself in his rooms, he had begun and written a play. And Tressor had lectured him for the first, threatened dire things for the second, and finally and utterly turned down the last.
"I'd love to," said Paul, "but—I couldn't write a line in Claxted anyway."
"I know," said Tressor equably. "I don't suppose you could, and I'm not suggesting it. But what about Fordham?"
"Fordham?" queried Paul, puzzled.
The other nodded. "Fordham—my house."
"But—but——"
"Yes; as you know, I have a house to which I go occasionally. My friends sometimes consider it an unnecessary luxury since I'm only there two or three times a year. But it's rather a nice house, and it wants living in. It would do it good to have someone living in it and looking after it a little. There are some cottages, and some rough shooting, and a garden. I bought the place because of the garden; you'd like it. You might write poetry in it, and a play, or half a dozen, seeing how quickly you write. What do you say?"
He had talked slowly on to give Paul time. The boy's face was a study. Even then, he hardly took it in.
"Do you mean go—go—as your—your guest?" he stammered.
"No," said Tressor, "not exactly as my guest. Have some more coffee? You see, I want you to do some work. Go as my agent, let us say. My housekeeper will look after you, and be glad of it, and I'll give you a small salary. You'll keep yourself, and, I think, you'll write. To be honest, I think you'll write well."
"Oh, I say!" cried Paul, only when it came to the point he had nothing to say.
"I take it that's settled then?"
Words came with a rush. "I'd like it more than anything on earth. It would be absolutely too good to be true. I can't thank you enough. I—I——"
"Right, then. Thank me by writing good poetry. By the way, Manning is coming down with me in August; do you think you could join us, and remain on?"
"I must consult my father, of course," said Paul, "but I'm certain I can say yes. How perfectly too glorious. Oh, I say, you're just too good to me, sir."
"Let's go and smoke a cigarette in the Fellows' Garden."
On the way Paul remembered that another Children's Special Service Mission had been in the air for that August. Dick Hartley had urged it. Well, it was no longer in the air.
(3)
Paul met his parents on the station platform. Mr. Kestern shook his hand firmly; his mother kissed him with tears of pride in her eyes. "Oh, Paul," she whispered, "I'm so glad. Father's just delighted."
"The Lord has given you brains, sonnie," said the clergyman. "I pray that you will use them always in His service."
"Yes, father," said Paul. "I say, I've such news for you."
"So have we, Paul," said Mrs. Kestern. "Madeline and Mr. Ernest are coming up to see you take your degree."
"Are they? How jolly! We'll have a picnic up the river. But you'll never guess what I've got to tell you. Wait till we're in the cab. Porter, lend a hand with these traps, will you? I've got rooms for you quite near St. Mary's, mother."
"Yes, dear. Oh, Paul, I can't believe you're grown up! It's so funny to have my little son taking rooms for me."
Paul took her arm. "But, mater dear, I wish you would remember how old I am."
Mrs. Kestern sighed. "We don't want to lose you, dear," she said wistfully.
They were on thin ice, he thought. "Come on, this way. That cab will do for us. In you get, mother."
"Well, Paul, and what's the great news?" asked his father as they drove off.
Paul studied his face. He could not tell how he would take it. He would be disappointed, but he might be rather proud. Anyway, he must plunge.
"Mr. Tressor, father, wants me to go down to Fordham, nominally as his agent, really to have a year at least in which to write. He thinks I shall be able to do some good stuff. It will cost me nothing; he will even give me a small salary; and I shall really and truly be able to write at last."
"Paul!" cried his mother, and glanced swiftly at his father.
His father was not looking at him. "I take it, then," he said, "that this project—possibility—of joining the Church of Rome, is postponed—indefinitely?"
"Yes," replied Paul, suddenly astonished.
"Thank God," said Mr. Kestern, "thank God." (He paused a second, swallowing in his throat.) "May I be forgiven for doubting that our Lord ever failed to hear and answer prayer."
A little burst of anger flashed in Paul's heart. "At Thurloe End," he said, "I should have become a Roman Catholic if—if——" He remembered Tressor's comment, and stopped. If! If what? His mother supplied a further example of the diverse possible interpretations of that incident.
"Oh, my son," she said, "you will never know how your father agonised in prayer for you. All the time you were in that terrible place——"
"That will do, mother," put in Mr. Kestern quickly. "The lad has been saved, as it were, out of the mouth of the lion. That is enough. Thank God, thank God. And when do you go to Fordham, Paul?"
Enthusiasm had died in the boy. "In August, father," he said heavily.
"For a year, Paul? You will be able to go to Ridley Hall afterwards?"
"I don't know, mother. Or at least—— It all depends, anyway."
"Mr. Tressor must take a great interest in you, dear. Shall we meet him? Your father and I would like to thank him for his great kindness to our boy."
"He is coming to lunch," said Paul. "Mrs. Roper is probably getting it ready now. Manning and Strether are coming too. It'll be a bit of a tight fit, but I think we can all squeeze in somehow."
It was two years since his parents had last been in his rooms. His father's first look was for the text. It hung there still, Paul having stubbornly refused to take it down. The man remembered that first prayer, and again saw the hand of God upon him for good. Then he espied the writing-desk; by this time it was a crucifix that hung there. He looked quickly away; it were best to say nothing. His wife took that cue from him. Besides, she had eyes for the oar that hung immense the length of the wall. "Is that your oar, dear?" she asked. "Did you row with it?"
Paul smiled. "No, mummie," he said with affectionate raillery, "I used it for a walking-stick."
She glanced at him incredulously. Then smiled. "You shouldn't laugh at me," she said. "Paul, where did you get the pictures!"
She was examining his prints. "Do you like them, mother?" he asked proudly.
"Fairly, Paul. But I think I liked those dogs you had best. You always were an odd boy. Do you remember your doves, and your newts? Nasty things."
He laughed outright. "Oh, mother," he said, "my poor prints! But I've got the Landseers stored in the Gyp-room and I'll bring them home for you."
"Thank you, dear. I think they'd do nicely in your old bedroom, and they'll remind you of college when you come home."
Paul was not required to answer. Manning knocked, came in, and was introduced.
The days that followed were unforgettable. For one thing, they were to be the last in the old town and each one had to be savoured to the full. For another, only a few men, waiting for degrees, were up, and Paul had to take his people through colleges and churches and chapels that were not wholly deserted, but in which, nevertheless, beauty reigned supreme in unaccustomed silence. He had a new pride in lawn and court and hall. In a little, he was to be a part of the ancient place, an admitted son, and a son, moreover, who could, so to speak, look his foster-mother fairly in the face. Each separate street and building, too, held a remembered association. It was odd to recall how he had peered through the gate of Christ's and wondered if it were St. Mary's; wandered through Trinity, not quite sure that he had a right to be there; bought his first cake in that little grocer's; swept, one rag night, triumphantly down Pety Cury in a hurrying host with proctors hard in the rear. Then he had to show the Henry Martyn Hall, Parker's Piece, St. Saviour's, and he even dared greatly and pointed out the creeper-fronted Catholic presbytery.
Besides, the days gave him a new intimacy with his parents. A barrier had gone, now that the spectre of the Scarlet Woman no longer peeped out of every conversation. Also the furnishings of Claxted at least were not here. His father, it is true, occasionally probed him to see how far the original impulse to take Anglican Orders really remained, but the thrusts were easily parried. His mother was more of a difficulty. In Great St. Mary's she had laid a hand on his arm. "I wonder if I shall ever see my son preach in that pulpit," she said wistfully.
Paul had no heart to shatter her dream. "I wonder," he replied lightly. But he knew that he did not.
The Ernests came up the day before the great occasion. In the afternoon, the five of them went to a tea garden on the Upper River. Paul refrained from asking any other men for two reasons: for one, there was no one up, unless it were Strether, who would mix with his father and Mr. Ernest; for the other it was rather a wonderful Madeline that he met on the station platform. He never guessed how perseveringly the visit and the garnishings had been schemed for, planned and prepared. He only knew that she wore an amazingly simple frock and a big hat from whose shade the regular beauty of her face looked out at him. In the shaded sunlight, her big eyes, under the dark lashes striking and unusual in so fair a blonde, laughed up at his. "I say, Paul," she said, "you've no idea how proud we are of you."
"Don't," he cried, "you'll make me horribly nervous."
"Rubbish, you never are," she challenged. But it was not that that made her look away content.
Strether saw them together, and found occasion to make enquiries in his own fashion. "Who's the girl?" he growled.
Paul told him, gaily.
"Humph! Disgustin'. Better tell her there's no vicar's wife job going beggin'."
"You old ass," said Paul.
But he told her, all the same. After tea, the elders sat on in the dappled shade, and Paul dug out a punt and put the girl into it. They floated gently into "Paradise," and he pulled in under a spreading tree. "By Jove, it's hot," he said. "I think we'll lay up, if you don't mind."
"Of course. Come and sit down." She moved her skirt and shifted a cushion. She had no doubt whatever where he was to sit.
He threw himself down beside her. "May I smoke?" he asked. Claxted seemed impossibly far.
"Of course. I love it, you know. I don't see why you shouldn't."
He tapped his cigarette on his case. "No," he said vaguely. It was so trifling an incident, but it was one among many. Madeline at Cambridge was, somehow, a new Madeline. He was aware how much he liked the change, and he resolved to take Strether's advice.
"Do you know what I'm going to do next year?" he asked.
"No. Ridley?"
He told her.
She lay quite still. Then she heaved a little sigh. She couldn't help it. For one thing, Paul was rather delicious in his collarless shirt and blazer, the pillar of his throat good to see. For another, there was utter charm about them: the soft-flowing river, the whisper of the water under the punt's stern, the tall trees that met high overhead and interlaced in their delicate beauty, the bright sunlight on the green fields and swifter flow yonder, without the brooky tunnel. And besides——
"I prayed about it, Paul," she said simply. She meant it. In her own way, she meant it absolutely. Honestly, too, she was too glad to think for a moment, as she might have done, that perhaps this was the very best opening of them all. Yet, after all, it was not.
"Youprayed," queried Paul, frankly astonished.
"Yes. I thought you liked that horrid Father Vassall too much. I thought you'd become a Roman Catholic as sure as fate. Mother said—— But never mind. You won't now anyway. Oh, Paul, will you write a real play?"
"Look here," he said grimly, "I don't suppose I'll ever be a parson."
"Of course not. You can do much bett—— No," (she was very honest) "that's not right. I admire clergymen ever so much. But you know, Paul, almost anyone can be a clergyman."
"Can they? Yes, I suppose you're right. It looks rather like it anyway."
"Of course they can. Ethel Cator's brother is going to be a clergyman; you know him: he sings rather nicely. But just fancy writing a play! Paul, I don't care what they say at Claxted: you must give me a box the first night."
Paul suddenly thought he would.
She looked up at him dreamily. "You might even be an actor yourself," she said. "Do you remember those charades that Christmas at the Gators'?" Then a trifle hastily: "Talking of them reminds me."
She had taken off her hat. Her hair was so much sunshot silk. And Paul understood all about the charades at the Gators'. He had extemporised the whole affair, scene by scene. It was the one thing he loved at parties. And one scene had been the deck of a ship in the evening, a piano playing in the background, she in a chair, he, playing the lover, leaning on the bulwark. They had played it rather too well, if anything, though the Gators were not the sort of people, even at Claxted, to mind. And afterwards, Paul remembered, they had been chaffed over it, in a jolly kind of way, and he had been flattered, and they had gone on playing they were lovers, especially going down to supper, on the stairs. It was rather nice of her to remember.
He leant a little towards her. "I remember," he said, looking down into her face.
"We shall never see you after you go to Mr. Tressor's."
"You certainly will," he vowed. "I shall jolly well come. And I say, perhaps you and your father might even come to see me, at Fordham."
"Oh," she breathed, "thatwouldbe jolly. But it won't be possible, you know, unless——"
"Unless what?"
She looked up swiftly, and away. A spirit moved in Paul, but then, after all, he was not going to be a parson. He reached out and took her hand. "Unless what?"
She laughed. "But perhaps you'll come back and preach occasionally at the Mission Hall," she said. "The workers will miss you, Paul. Mr. Derrick, Albert Vintner and Edith Thornton."
Paul gave no sign, or he thought he did not. She studied him. The temptation to probe a little further was irresistible. "Miss Thornton's getting quite High Church," she said. "Her people are rather worried about it."
"Well," said Paul, rapidly mastering himself and speaking deliberately now, "I'm inclined to be High Church myself, come to that. The Catholic religion's rather wonderful, Madeline. Father Vassall thought I ought to be a Redemptorist."
"What's that?"
"A friar. A member of the religious order of the Redemptorists. They preach missions—a sort of Catholic evangelists."
"Is Father Vassall a Redemptorist?"
"Oh, no. He's a secular priest."
She nodded. "Yes, that's it.Heisn't a monk or a friar, but he'd like you to be one. I know. I've heard father talk about it."
Paul detected the sneer. He was perfectly cool now. More than that, he was getting angry. But he still held her hand, and she noticed nothing. "Edith Thornton," he said, "is rather wonderful."
Madeline shifted a little. "Is she?" she questioned. "I can't say I know her very well. She's full of good works, of course. I expect she'd make a splendid wife for a curate. She'd rather like to marry a clergyman, Paul."
"Wouldn't you, Madeline?"
She smiled slowly. "I think I'd rather marry a—a——"
For the life of him he couldn't help it. "An actor, perhaps," he said, "or an author."
She flushed. "I don't know," she said in an undertone.
He laughed suddenly. "Well, Madeline," he said, "I'll remember. I expect I'll be able to introduce you to ever so many. And I'm sure they'd want to marry you anyway. There'll be no need to pray about that."
He let go her hand and stood up. "By Jove," he said, "I think we ought to be getting back."
(4)
So, then, the great day came and went. Scarlet splashed the streets. Self-conscious young men moved about them in rabbit-skin hoods and undergraduate gowns and fluttering bows of white, girls walked beside them in conscious surrender of one day at any rate to superior claims, and parents brooded majestically in the background. The files of neophytes lined up on the crowded floor of the Senate House in an atmosphere of subdued whispering talk, peering over heads and round shoulders in an endeavour to see what was going forward at the far end. One had occasional glimpses of a rather bored-looking personage in robes on a raised chair, dons with sheafs of papers in the vicinity, and some young man or another kneeling in stiff self-consciousness. Other colleges' undergraduates went up, applauded by compatriots, disdained by the rest. Paul was vividly rejoiced that he came from St. Mary's and not from Emmanuel or Cats.; an Emmanuel rowing-blue, arriving a little late, shouldered past him with a glance that shouted aloud the absurdity of those half-dozen St. Mary's men. An usher gave them their signal. Paul found himself in a cleared space, and saw Tressor looming large on its edge. He was aware that he had to kneel in a feudal attitude and that the Vice-Chancellor was murmuring Latin. The indifference of the majority about him made the whole ceremony oddly impersonal. And now they were all out again, and there was the façade of the Library, and the buttresses of King's Chapel, looking stained and grey against a grey sky.
That evening, Paul had an odd encounter. He had seen his people to their rooms, and, returning, hesitated to ring the bell and enter college. It had become a jolly night of stars, with a fleeting mist on the river, and he was going down for good the very next day. He thought he would walk through the old town for the last time, in the ways he had walked so many times during the past three years, his mind in a whirl of thought. So he strolled over the bridge, and down past spectral St. Laurence's, and round the corner by portentous John's, and so on to Trinity. And as he drew near to Trinity, the sound of bolts being withdrawn in the great gateway came to his ears in the stillness.
The door opened, and a tall figure emerged. "Good-night, my lord," said the porter's voice, subservient, deferential.
"Good-night," replied the other cheerfully, and strode briskly forward.
Paul smiled to himself. When the black-gaitered figure came abreast, he, too, spoke. "Good evening, my lord," he said.
The Bishop of Mozambique halted and stared through the night at his interlocutor curiously. "Good evening," he said. "I fear I don't recognise you."
"Naturally," said Paul. "Do you remember a railway carriage?"
"What! The sampler of Keswick Conventions and Wesleyan—was it?—Conferences. A rather dogmatic and assertive young man, if I remember rightly. Of course. How are you?"
"Very well, thanks. I've stayed up to take my degree."
"Good. Congratulations. What class did you get?"
Paul told him.
"Splendid," said the other, looking down more closely. "And now what's the next move? Have you made up your mind yet? How's Father Vassall?"
Paul was wide awake and in a state of mental exaltation. The other's voice was kindly and cheerful, and somehow invited confidences. He thought rapidly, that, after all, here was an adviser to hand whose point of view would be interesting hearing. Probably they would never meet again, and instinctively he knew that this big, almost boyish bishop would spare him five minutes and respect his confession. Moreover, though the Bishop of Mozambique could hardly be said to be in any way representative of the Church of England, at any rate he was an Anglican bishop with authority and Paul was still of his communion.
It was a rapid and impulsive decision, but once made, he acted immediately upon it. "Are you in a hurry?" he asked.
"Not particularly," said the Bishop, "but I'm lodging at Selwyn and must get back pretty soon."
"May I walk up with you? I wanted a stroll. It's my last Cambridge night, and it would be jolly through the Backs."
"Delighted. Shall we get on?"
They paced off together, a few steps in silence. Then Paul explained.
"I've decided what to do, temporarily at least. It doesn't matter what just now, but it means a rejection of Orders, for a time at any rate, and also of the Church of Rome. Now I came to that conclusion at Father Vassall's house down at Thurloe End last vac., but it has troubled me, more or less, ever since. I've heard several opinions upon it, none of which agree with my own, and I'd very much like yours. You see, you're the only bishop I know, and—and—you're Church of England too."
The big man laughed. "Excellent," he said. "'I'm Church of England too.' Well, well.... But I suppose I am, and if I can do anything I'll be delighted. Not particularly for that reason though."
Paul sensed humour, but he could not see it. The other's voice, however, was very friendly. And when the Bishop thrust his hand into his arm and bade him get on with it, he did so.
Once more again, then, this time under the shadowy high trees, as they paced in the scented dark past Fellows' gardens and placid sleeping lawns, Paul told of his conflict in the little chapel. The Bishop heard him very gravely. He asked a question or two as the story was told, but for the most part heard in silence. And when the boy finished, they walked a good hundred yards before he spoke. Then, looking straight before him, weightily, gently, he delivered his verdict.
"Kestern," he said, "I will tell you what I think, and I am pretty sure of it because, though I've seen so little of you, I feel fairly sure of you. I believe you love our Lord with all your heart. I believe you wish to serve Him. And therefore I can tell you what I think of that experience in the chapel."
Paul said nothing. Perhaps the other waited for him to speak, perhaps he did not. At any rate, at last he spoke again. Indirectly he passed his judgment. "'He shall give His angels charge concerning thee'," he quoted, "'to keep thee in all thy ways.'"
And once more Paul could not believe his ears.
In silence the two finished their walk. They stood for a few minutes outside of Selwyn Lodge, the tall big man looking into the boy's face with oddly troubled eyes. "But——" he said at last. He broke off abruptly. "I won't say it," he said. "It's not my job. You've asked me one thing, and given me one confidence; I can say no more. You must settle your own life."
"That's what Father Vassall says," put in Paul.
The other nodded. "He knows, of course," he said, as one professional might speak of another. "But look here: we could do with you in Mozambique if you care to come."
Paul was interiorly shaken by that more than a little. It was so sudden. In a flash, he saw a path before his feet. A clergyman, a missionary; not quite as he had imagined, but suppose the Bishop, after all, were right? Catholicism without the Pope, Catholicism in a sense with a kindlier, less definite cross. Fordham suddenly menaced him. What if it meant, well, well—betrayal, a cleverly hid, intriguing, attractive scheme, but betrayal. He hesitated.
"Think it over," said the Bishop.
He did not, could not know, of course, but the word tipped the scale. Think! Paul had thought till he could think no more. For a while he was done with thought. Fordham meant a year's rest, a year's solace.
"Thank you ever so much," he said. "I won't forget it. And thanks awfully for hearing me. But I'm booked for a year at least. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said the Bishop. "God bless you."
Paul walked off to St. Mary's alone, if a man who walks with a thousand fears, doubts, desires, hopes and loves legioned in his heart, ever walks alone.
In the morning he breakfasted with Manning. His friend was enthusiastic over the possibility of Fordham, and utterly and wholly delighted. He himself, having spent a fourth year in research work, was off to Central Africa in September to shoot big game and incidentally study tropical medicine, but he would see Paul at the Manor before he went. He was an odd mixture, and Paul rather envied him. Money, or the lack of it, did not hamper him; in his own subject, he was distinctly brilliant; yet his science was a plaything in his life. He did not sit lightly to the serious subjects that worried Paul, but he rode them on the curb with easy mastery. Paul was increasingly aware that he wanted, nowadays, to talk to Manning.
Thus, then, that the second post and not the first brought him his letter, mattered not a little—perhaps.
"MY DEAR" (Father Vassall wrote),
"I'll be quite honest; I don't like it. It seems to me that you are going down to Fordham as Jonah took ship for Tarshish. God grant there's a storm—and a whale! I shall pray for it anyway, so look out. Of course, after your visit here, I've no right to judge, for I believe you did not play tricks. But it beats me.... Honestly, I'd rather, far rather, hear that you were going to be a PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN!
"However, I'm here if you want me."
Paul, Mr. and Mrs. Kestern, Mr. Ernest and Madeline caught the 11.20 to town. They were all a bit subdued, especially Madeline.
Foot after foot ye go back and travail and make yourselves mad;Blind feet that feel for the track where highway is none to be had.Therefore the God that ye make you is grievous, and gives not aid,Because it is but for your sake that the God of your making is made.
*****
Cry out, for his kingdom is shaken; cry out, for the peopleblaspheme;Cry aloud till his godhead awaken; what doth he to sleep andto dream?Is not this the great God of your sires, that with souls and withbodies was fed,And the world was on flame with his fires? O fools, he was God,and is dead.ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE:Hymn of Man.
Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.—PASCAL:Pensées.
And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,Lift not thy hands to It for help—for ItRolls impotently on as Thou or I.OMAR KHAYYÃM.
(1)
Ursula Manning stared out at the rods of rain. Chanctonbury Ring was all but blotted out; she could just see the crown of beeches when the mists were blown aside for a few moments, and that was all. The woods below stood heavy and motionless, and the fields between them and the cottage lay stretched out, drinking it in. It had been a hot dry summer, and the whole world was rejoicing in the rain. That decided Ursula. She turned back into the bedroom, opened a wardrobe, and took out an old tweed skirt and jumper. Then she took off most of her clothes and assumed these. She let down her hair, twisted it into a long black plait, tied it firmly, and swung the heavy mass over her shoulder with a defiant jerk. Then, bareheaded, she went downstairs humming a little song, and selected a stick in the hall. She looked about eighteen, dressed so.
Her mother came out of the sitting-room. "Ursula," she cried, "you're not going out!"
"Yes, mother, I am. Why not? The rain's heavenly, and the woods have spread out their hands to it. And I want to get soaked."
The elder lady stood irresolute, a ludicrous expression of dismay in her face. The girl looked at her and laughed. "Oh, mother," she cried, "say it if it's any help!"
Mrs. Manning, at that, smiled ruefully. "Ursula," she said, "it's all very well, but you are trying. You'll probably catch your death of cold."
Ursula opened the door and stepped into the porch. She looked up into the leaden sky and down at the runnels of water on either side of the little garden path to the gate. Then she glanced back at her mother, smiled at her, waved her hand, and stepped into the downpour without a word.
Her mother gave a little scream. "Ursula! Where's your mac.?" The muffled click of the latch at the gate answered her.
It opened into a little lane that ran down on the left to a main road and up on the right towards the woods below Chanctonbury. Up this then, she went, swinging her stick, swinging out. The rain fell steadily around and upon her, and ever and again she lifted her face to it and smiled slowly to herself at the kiss and sting of it. In a little the winding track became a mere footpath and debouched into an old chalk-quarry, cut from the side of the hill, fringed with immense beech-trees and an occasional oak. The girl ran a few steps up a sodden low bank and stood for a moment looking down into the great bowl. A continual patter and sough of rain came up to her, though here, under the giant trees, less of the actual downpour reached her. The white chalk shone through the misty air. A miniature torrent poured as a little waterfall over the far brink and splashed below on to bushes and brambles. A warm, rich, wet fragrance rose all about her, and every living green thing seemed stretched out and motionless in an utter ecstasy of enjoyment.
The girl drew a deep breath. Unconsciously, she was registering it all. All the grey monotones, all the myriad little drips and splashings, all the washed leaves and grasses around and underfoot, and all the tall upreaching brown trunks that rose against the teeming sky, were impressing themselves upon her mind. She knew it as an instinct and stood there to miss nothing. And one day Ursula Manning would paint just such a picture, and people would wonder how she did it, and the critics talk of her unique gift.
But at the quarry she turned to the left. The high soaked grasses reached to her knees; last year's litter of leaves clung to her feet; sprays of bramble clutched at her short skirt; but she moved slowly and persistently on. Her eyes, that looked at you always without a tremor, glanced quietly right and left as she went. By field-path and coppice, and now in a sunken lane that skirted an old wall behind which rose Fordham Manor, she made her way. She was drenched through and through, but it was warm rain, and besides the exercise kept her warm. The pores of her skin, like those of the woods and the plants, opened to the joyous quickening benison of it. Rain dripped from her plaited hair and shone on her face. And still she moved steadily through it, with the erect carriage and proud swing of her, and those resolute eager eyes.
Just past the old wall, where it turns to run up to the coach-house and stables and barns against which fruitful ancient fig-trees grow, she crossed a field diagonally to her left. Its boundary hedge was thick and she moved along to the right seeking an opening. Not until she was all but at the corner did she find it, and there, pushing back a tangle of old man's beard and bryony, she leapt through and out on to the carriage-drive running by the park up to the house. And just then a car turned the corner and swept past her.
There were three men in it besides the driver. One sat next him, his hat pulled down, muffled in an overcoat, but she knew him. Of the others, one turned and waved cheerfully over the back as the car went on. She knew him, too, just as she knew that he was arriving that day to stay with Mr. Tressor. The third man she did not know. She smiled suddenly to herself. It was plain they had been caught in the open car by the sudden storm, driving up from Brighton probably. What fun! Her cousin hated rain.
Manning turned back to Paul. "My cousin Ursula," he said. "She lives just here, when she's not in town. Possibly you know the name. She paints, and has rather a growing reputation."
"Oh," said Paul. "What in the world was she doing out in this then? She looked drowned."
"I know. She loves that sort of thing. I wonder what you'll think of her, Paul."
"Why?"
"I don't know. She's rather unusual. Not your sort at all I should imagine. But—well, I don't know. It will be rather amusing to see."
(2)
Ursula went on down the drive, her thoughts idle, her appreciation vivid. Arrived in the macadamised road of civilisation, she followed it without giving a thought to the fact that girls, soaked to the skin, hatless but happy, are rareties along even country roads. The surface had been rapidly softening under the downpour, but little she cared for that either. Blackberries gleamed scarlet, purple, black in every hedge; thrushes, in the now gentle rain, were already out on the war-path for worms; and the sweep of the South Downs on her right was visible through the dripping trees. Ursula began to sing to herself as she went, breaking off to nod friendlily to a carter who knew her, and picking up her song again without troubling whether or not he was out of earshot. That was her way. She had always seen clearly and scorned muddle-headed conventionalities; at first, while her father lived and she was still in her teens, with a certain submission to authority, but since, after her twenty-first birthday, quite openly and frankly. Her mother, who never had had much of a will of her own, gave in to her daughter as she had to her husband. Thus, at Ursula's suggestion, they had taken the old cottage under Chanctonbury on the edge, but actually part of, Mr. Tressor's estate, and Mrs. Manning had been forced to admit the advantage of the change from the big establishment which Mr. Manning had maintained as befitted a banking magnate. Then, a rather lonely aunt coming to live with them, the girl had announced her intention of having a flat and studio in town, and since she had her own money and moreover made more, nothing in the world was able to prevent her. She came and went now between the two, with intervals of wandering abroad. She had a big circle of her own acquaintances of whom her mother knew little, chiefly however, it must be confessed, because she did not understand more than about a third of what they said and did when they came down to Sussex with her daughter; but she had only a few friends. These her mother knew less than the rest, retaining enough spirit to avow definitely that she did not want to know them. They professed views and took part in movements which were, frankly, beyond toleration. There was Muriel Lister, for example, who preached in churches and actually led a campaign for the admission of women to the priesthood.