VII
Thevicar remembered his sermon and looked at his watch. It was within twenty minutes of luncheon; the most valuable morning of the week was gone. The spirit of vexation rose in him again. It was all the fault of this miserable fellow, John Smith. Two priceless hours had been lavished on this wastrel, this dead charge on the community. Moreover he would not be able to make up for lost time in the course of the afternoon. At three o’clock he was due at Brombridge to attend the War Economy Committee; at seven he had to take the chair at a recruiting meeting at Grayfield, and dine afterward with his old Magdalen friend, Whymper.
It cut him to the heart to forego the morrow’s sermon. He was the soul of conscientiousness, and not since his attack of rheumatoid arthritis nine years ago had he failed to come up to time on Sunday evening with a brand new discourse. And if ever one was needed it was now. The time cried aloud for pulpit direction. The government was conducting the war in half-hearted fashion. It had not yet dared to bringin a Conscription Bill, yet in Mr. Perry-Hennington’s opinion every man and every woman in the country up to the age of sixty-five ought to have been forcibly enlisted months ago. Several times already he had made that proposal in the newspapers over his own signature, and it had been greatly applauded by the only sort of people who counted in war time.
The hour was certainly ripe for a rasper in the way of a sermon. The nation wanted “gingering up.” He must find time somehow to put his ideas together against Sunday evening. As he strode with his long legs down the glorious avenue of Hart’s Ghyll he felt braced and reënforced with energy. Once more his thought began to flow. He had his text at any rate, and it ought not to be difficult to strike something compelling out of it. By the time the porter’s lodge was reached, he had grown quite hopeful. Phrases, ideas, were filling his mind; perhaps his morning had not been wholly wasted after all; it seemed to have stirred him to something. “Let us put on the armor of light.” For the vicar those words were a bugle call to the old Adam within. The spirit of conflict, like a sleeping giant, sprang to new life.
Hardly had Mr. Perry-Hennington passed beyond the iron gates into the village street, when a ratherperspiring, decidedly genial-looking man on a bicycle immediately recalled his pastoral duty to his mind. Nay, it was more than that. The matter of John Smith had as much to do with the state as the recruiting question, the economy question, the supineness of the government, and the morrow’s sermon.
“Good-morning, Joliffe,” said the vicar in a hearty, detaining voice. “The very man I want to see.”
“Nothing wrong at home I hope,” said the man on the bicycle, who was the village doctor. He spoke in a simple, direct, unaffectedly practical way, which all the same was not without a faint note of deference, ever grateful to Mr. Perry-Hennington’s ear.
Dr. Joliffe slowed up and hopped from his bicycle.
“No, nothing of that kind I’m glad to say.” The vicar’s reply was equally precise and to the point. “But I want to have a little talk with you privately about a matter that is worrying me a good deal.”
“Very glad any time.” Dr. Joliffe looked at his watch. “Why not come and take potluck with me now—if you are not afraid of Mrs. Small in war time. She’s not up to your form at any time, but you are very welcome to what we have.”
The vicar hesitated. He was expected at home, but John Smith was burning a hole in his mind. He felt there must be no delay in taking a man whomhe could trust into his confidence, and if he lost this present opportunity no other chance might arise for several days.
“You will?” said the practical Joliffe. “Although you’ll not expect much. I’ll send my boy along to the vicarage to tell them not to wait for you.”
Mr. Perry-Hennington allowed himself to be persuaded. Joliffe was the only person in the place to whom he might turn for help; moreover he was a discreet, unaffectedly honest man whom the vicar had always instinctively trusted. And disconcerted as he was by Brandon’s attitude in the matter, it was imperative that no time should be lost in taking competent advice.
The doctor’s abode was a rather fine, small Georgian specimen, standing back from the center of the village street. A widower and childless in a house too large for his needs, a man of taste in furniture and bric-a-brac, with a capital cellar and a good cigar for his friends, he was also a man of private means to whom the neighboring villages owed a great deal. He was such an excellent fellow, so widely and so justly respected, that it was a little odd to find him tinged with the national vice of servility. But with all his great merits he sometimes found it rather hard to forget that he belonged to the middle class andthat the vicar belonged to the aristocracy. It may have been for that reason that Mr. Perry-Hennington felt so much confidence in his judgment. At any rate, the satisfying sense that Joliffe was aware of the deference due to a peer’s brother oiled the wheels of their intercourse, and enabled the vicar to treat him with a bonhomie which he knew would not be abused.
Mrs. Small had only a cottage pie and a pancake to offer the august visitor, but in spite of the King’s edict, to which the host apologetically referred, this fare was eked out by a very honest glass of brown sherry, a cup of coffee that did Mrs. Small great credit, and a really excellent cigar.
Both gentlemen were due at Brombridge at three, to which center of activity the doctor proposed to drive the vicar in his runabout. This suited the vicar very well. He would be there and back in half the time required by his gig. And old Alice, who was rising twenty-four, would be able to save herself for the evening journey to Grayfield, which old Alice’s master, fully conscious that “the old girl was not what she had been,” and a humane man to boot, had been inclined to view with some little concern. Things were turning out for the best in the mundane sphere at any rate, and the vicar was not unpleasantly aware of this fact as, after-luncheon cigar alight, he enteredupon the incidental cause of a modest but agreeable meal to which he had done perhaps rather better justice than the state of his emotions justified.
“Joliffe,” said the vicar, taking a long and impressive pull at his cigar, “what I really want to talk to you about is that fellow John Smith. I am sorry to say I’ve come to the conclusion that he can no longer be allowed to stay in the parish.”
“Indeed,” said the doctor casually. “A harmless sort of creature I’ve always thought. Doesn’t quite know himself perhaps. A little too free with his opinions may be, but strictly between ourselves”—Dr. Joliffe’s voice grew respectfully confidential—“I think we may lay that to the door of someone else.”
“Brandon, eh? I agree.” The vicar grew magisterial. “Always an injudicious fellow. That’s the worst of your radical. Gives these intermediate sort of people ideas.”
“Quite so. I wish you’d try the brandy.” The host pushed it across.
“No. Really. War time, you know.”
“I should value your opinion. Just half a glass.”
“Well, half a glass. To return to John Smith. Excellent brandy. My girl, Edith, presented this fellow Smith with a white feather this morning. Of course he’s a poor half-begotten sort of creature, butas far as one can see there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be working at munitions instead of loafing about the common.”
“Exactly. Sure you won’t have aleetlemore?”
“Quite. Well, if you please, he kissed the feather, stuck it in his buttonhole, and said, ‘And lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.’”
The doctor shook a grave, gray head. “Sounds decidedly cracked, I must say. At any rate a most improper speech to make to a clergyman’s daughter.”
“I should think so! Outrageous blasphemy!”
“Do you suppose the chap meant to insult her?”
“If he didn’t, and it’s charitable to give him the benefit of the doubt, his behavior only admits of one other explanation.”
Dr. Joliffe sat, a picture of perplexity. To a severely literal mind the speech was meaningless. He had known for some time that the man claimed to see visions, that he was a poet and a dreamer; and the doctor had lately heard rumors, to which he had paid little attention, that the man was dabbling in Christian Science in neighboring villages; but this was the first time it had occurred to him that the fellow was insane.But now the doctor agreed with the vicar that such behavior strongly suggested that condition.
“Mind you, that is not all.” And the vicar gave an account of his own visit to the common, his conversation with the man, his subsequent visit to the mother and the remarkable statement she had made to him.
“She has always been very religious,” said the doctor, “but up till now I have not questioned her sanity.”
“Nor I,” said the vicar. “But she is not important. She is practically bed-ridden. It is this son of hers we have to think about. I have already made up my mind that he must go. And that being the case, the problem arises as to what is the best means of getting rid of him.”
Dr. Joliffe, a worldly-wise man within his sphere, stroked his chin solemnly but offered no advice.
“Of course,” said the vicar, “it is in the public interest that whatever steps we may take should not excite attention. It is sufficiently disagreeable to have that sort of lunatic in one’s parish, without having busybodies and maliciously inclined people making a fuss. The readiest and simplest means, no doubt, would be to institute a prosecution for blasphemy. He would most certainly be detained during hisMajesty’s pleasure. But such a proceeding might play into the hands of the enemies of the Established Church, in which, unfortunately, the country seems to abound. We might have Voltaires arising in the Cocoa Press or something equally revolting.”
“Quite so, vicar.” Dr. Joliffe compressed his lips. “You’ll be wise to go slow in a matter of this kind, believe me, or you might easily find public opinion against you.”
“As though one caredthatfor public opinion.” The vicar snapped heroic fingers. “Still, I see your point. And broadly speaking, I agree with it. Now to pass to the second alternative. The man said to me—let me give his precise words if I can—‘At two o’clock this morning a presence entered my room and said, ”I am Goethe and I have come to pray for Germany.” And I answered him, “Certainly I shall be very glad to pray for Germany,” and we knelt and prayed together; and then he arose and I embraced him and he showed me the little town with its gables and turrets where he sleeps at night and then he left me, promising to return.’”
“Perfectly preposterous,” said the doctor. “I quite agree that the man ought to be locked up. But of course he doesn’t intend to be taken literally. Obviously it is his idea of a poetic fancy.”
“No doubt. But a man must be taught to curb such poetic fancies in a time like the present. Now the point which arises”—the vicar raised a dogmatic forefinger—“is that a person who makes such statements in public renders himself amenable to the Defense of the Realm Regulations. And there is no doubt that any bench of magistrates that knew its business would know how to deal with him.”
“Personally, I’m not altogether clear that they would,” said Dr. Joliffe cautiously. “I agree with you, of course, that a man who talks in that way needs a strait waistcoat—one wonders what would happen to a man in Germany who went about saying he was praying for England! At the same time one ought not to forget that nowadays even the county bench is not composed exclusively of people as clear-sighted as you and I.”
“That is so, I am afraid. Even the county bench is getting fearfully mixed. Timson, the Brombridge grocer, is the latest addition, by the way. But I see your point. In such an absurd country as this one couldn’t depend on the man being dealt with in the way that he deserves. That’s where the enemy with its wonderful internal administration has such an advantage. Their system has much to recommend it in war time—or in any other if it comes to that.”
Dr. Joliffe agreed. “We have much to learn from them in the handling of the masses.”
“Ah, well, Joliffe,” said the vicar hopefully, “we shall learn many things if this war goes on long enough.”
“I am convinced that the only way to down Prussia is to adopt Prussia’s methods.”
“However,” said the vicar briskly, “we have not come to them yet. Therefore we can’t rely on the county bench doing its duty in the matter, although I hate having to say so. And that brings us to alternative the third, which is, Joliffe, that this man, John Smith, must be put away privately—for the good of the community.”
This taking of the bull by the horns was followed by a pause on the part of the doctor. He was an admirer of the vicar’s thorough-goingness, he was in full sympathy with the main premises of his argument, but he was a conscientious man. And he had a clear perception of the difficulties inherent in the process of confining a lunatic.
At last Dr. Joliffe broke a dubious silence. “To begin with, vicar, you will have to get two doctors to certify the chap insane, and then you will have to get two magistrates to sign a warrant for his removal.”
“I know that,” said the vicar. “And I am fully prepared to do it. But to begin with, Joliffe, I must have your help in the matter.”
“I am willing to give it of course. It’s one’s duty.”
“Then I shall ask you to certify him at once.”
Dr. Joliffe hesitated. A cloud of indecision came on his face. “Before I do that,” he said very slowly, “I should like the opinion of someone who has more knowledge of mental disease than I pretend to.”
“But, my dear fellow,” said the vicar rather surprisedly, “after what I have told you aren’t you already convinced that the fellow is insane?”
“Insanity is a complicated subject,” said the cautious Joliffe. “A very much more complicated subject than the layman appreciates.”
The vicar, at heart an autocrat, began to bristle at once. Scenting contradiction in the quarter where he had least expected to find it, he grew suddenly impatient. “But even a layman knows,” he said in a tone of authority, “that insanity on one point is insanity on all.”
“Just so.”
“Well, that is already proved.”
“I shall not gainsay it. But a general practitioner is naturally cautious—it is his duty to be so—in a matter of this kind. Let me suggest that we have theopinion of a mental specialist before we commit ourselves to any line of action.”
In the opinion of Mr. Perry-Hennington this was perilously like a display of moral cowardice, but from a purely professional standpoint it might not be unreasonable. All the mental specialists of Harley Street would not alter the fact that the man was insane—it was the only charitable assumption. At the same time, Joliffe’s request was quite easy to understand.
“By all means.” The vicar’s tone of assent implied that he had to deal with a timid fellow. “We’ll consult anyone you please. Of course, only one opinion is possible, but if you feel it will help and strengthen you in your duty don’t let us hesitate. By all means let us have someone down at once.”
“I am sure it is the proper course to take.”
“Very well. Who shall it be? Not necessarily a man in the first flight who will want a large fee, which I’m afraid will have to come out of my pocket instead of out of the Treasury. Not that I shall grudge it, whatever it may be. Still, the case is so clear that somebody local, such a man as Parker of Brombridge, will not have the slightest difficulty in certifying him.” The vicar gazed fixedly at Joliffe. “Yes—shall we say Parker? He’ll be at the meeting this afternoon. I’ll speak to him. We ought to move without delay.The fellow ought not to be at large a day longer than we can help. Yes—Dr. Parker—this afternoon. Get him over on Monday. And this evening I’m dining with Whymper and Lady Jane—I’ll mention it to Whymper. All to the good to get the local bench interested without delay.”
Dr. Joliffe nodded. But somehow he looked a little dubious.
“I think, Mr. Perry-Hennington,” he said rather uneasily, “we ought to be very careful to satisfy ourselves that it is a bona fide case of paranoia.”
“Certainly, certainly. I fully agree.”
“I’ve no objection to meeting Parker, of course, but I should welcome a London opinion if it is possible to arrange for one. You see, this is rather a serious matter.”
The vicar thought so too. “But personally, I have every confidence in Parker’s judgment. I remember some years ago when my eldest boy George had a murrain, Parker diagnosed it at once as a case of measles. I’ve always found him quite sound personally.”
“I’ve not a word to say against him, I cast no doubt upon his competence, but this is one of those delicate things which it hardly seems right, if you’ll excusemy saying so, to leave entirely to local practitioners whose experience must necessarily be limited.”
“Joliffe, I hope you are not hedging,” said the vicar sternly.
“No, I am not hedging. But, as I say, this is a ticklish matter.”
The vicar shook a pontifical head. “For the life of me,” he said, “I can’t see that it is more ticklish than any other matter. Had there been a doubt in the case one might have thought so. But the man is as mad as a hatter. A child could tell that who heard him talk as he talked to me this morning on the common.”
“No doubt you are right. But he has not yet aired these particular views to me, you know.”
“Then you’ve evidently not talked to him on his particular subject.”
“Evidently not.”
“Wait till you do, my friend! In the meantime I’ll mention the matter to Parker at the meeting and get him over on Monday to see him.”
Further conversation on the thorny subject was forbidden for the time being by the reappearance of Mrs. Small, who had to inform her master that the boy was round with the car. Thereupon Dr. Joliffe looked at his watch and declared that they must start at once if they were to be at Brombridge by three.