VIII
Thetimed journey to Brombridge in the doctor’s runabout was forty minutes with reasonable driving. On the way both gentlemen were rather silent. By tacit consent John Smith was dismissed for the time being, and they were able to confine themselves to the prospect for potatoes, war in its relation to agriculture, the loss of tonnage, and hearty abuse of the government. For the true Briton, that unfortunate institution vies with that equally unfortunate institution, the weather, in supplying the theme of a never-ending jeremiad. All worthy of their salt, irrespective of creed or party, damn these miserable makeshifts impartially. At the moment the vicar and the doctor drove up to the Assembly Rooms, Brombridge, they were in cordial agreement that only one thing under divine providence could hope to make the British people lose the war, and that thing was the British Government.
By a graceful little act on the part of coincidence—most charming of the minor goddesses!—Dr. Parker was about to ascend the steps of the building just asthe car of Dr. Joliffe drew up by the curb. The vicar hailed the leading physician of Brombridge promptly and heartily.
“The very man we want to see.” Mr. Perry-Hennington was one of the fortunate people who act first and do their thinking afterward.
Dr. Parker, an elderly, florid, bewhiskered, important-looking personage, stopped at once, turned about and gave the reverend gentleman the full benefit of his politest smile and his best bow. He then let his eyes pass to the second occupant of the car, fully prepared to let them infold a county magnate. Somehow Mr. Perry-Hennington always contrived to dispense an atmosphere of county magnates, or at least to live in the odor of their sanctity. But as soon as Dr. Parker saw who it was who had had the honor of conveying the vicar of Penfold to the meeting the polite smile and the ceremonious bow were merged almost magically in a brief nod and a gesture bearing a perilous resemblance to a scowl.
The truth was, Dr. Parker had a poor opinion of Dr. Joliffe, and Dr. Joliffe had a poor opinion of Dr. Parker. If pressed upon the point, Dr. Parker would solemnly confess that Dr. Joliffe was the biggest tufthunter in Kent, and Dr. Joliffe, also underduress, would return that singularly comprehensive compliment.
This was perhaps a pity. Both were good men, both were honest men, but like so many people, otherwise quite admirable, their sense of vision was not acute. Nodosities of character in their neighbors were apt to overshadow the central merit. In this case it was not so much a question of professional jealousy as a matter of social rivalry. The root of the trouble was that Dr. Joliffe and Dr. Parker were a little too much alike.
Dr. Parker was clearly gratified at being the very man whom the vicar of Penfold wanted to see, but carefully dissembled his feelings while Mr. Perry-Hennington stepped out of the car and buttonholed him rather ostentatiously on the steps of the council chamber. The vicar had to suggest that they should hold a little conference after the meeting in regard to a matter of importance. Certainly they were not in a position to hold it at the moment. Fellow members of the War Economy Committee were rolling up in surprising numbers; weird old landowners in wonderful vehicles, local J. P.’s, retired stockbrokers, civil servants, city men, and veryaffairéladies.
For all of these the parson of Penfold had a greeting. With his tall, thin, aristocratic figure, his distinguishedair, his large, fleshy, important nose, he was the kind of man who dominates every company he enters. And it was so entirely natural to him to do so that no one ever thought of resenting it. He was not a clever man, a witty man, nor was tact his long suit, moreover he was apt to give himself airs, but for some reason or combination of reasons, he was greatly respected, generally looked up to and almost universally popular. He seemed to carry equal weight at Gleave Castle, the Mount Olympus of the local cosmos, and at the board of guardians. The acid people who dissect our naïve and charming human nature might have said that it was for no better reason than that the vicar of Penfold was a born busybody, doubly blessed with a loud voice, and a total absence of humor, but the good and the credulous who take things on trust and form a working majority in every republic always declared “it was because he was such a gentleman.”
By sheer pressure of human character, Mr. Perry-Hennington took a seat next the chairman of the meeting in the council chamber. And when that almost incredibly distinguished personage, a rather pathetic and extremely inaudible old thing in red mittens, got on to his legs, the vicar of Penfold could be heard rendering him very audible assistance in thecourse of his opening remarks. But it seemed entirely right and proper that it should be so. And nobody resented it, not even the old boy in the red mittens, who had retired from county business years ago, but who, as the master of Gleave, was fully determined to do his bit toward winning the war like everybody else.
The Clerk of the Committee, a rising Brombridge solicitor, had to submit to correction from the parson of Penfold, once when the Clerk was entirely in the right, once when he may have been wrong, but on a point so delicate that ordinary people would never have noticed it, and even if they had would hardly have thought it worth while to hold up the tide of human affairs in order to discuss it. Still, it was Mr. Perry-Hennington’s way and ordinary people admired it. Even Lady Jane Whymper, who was very far from being an ordinary person, and who was seated at the other side of the Chairman, admired it. The vicar of Penfold was such a dear man and he got things done.
This afternoon, however, the War Economy Committee would have transacted the same amount of business in at least twenty minutes less time had the vicar of Penfold been in the seclusion of his study grappling with his sermon. Still, that didn’t occur to anybody;and it would have been ungenerous to harbor the thought. The vicar of Penfold was an acknowledged ornament of any assembly he chose to enter and no gathering of this kind could have been complete without him. Everybody was amazingly in earnest, but Mr. Perry-Hennington was the most earnest of all. He made a number of suggestions, not one of which, after discussion, the Committee felt able to adopt, but the general effect of his presence was to give an air of life and virility to the proceedings.
After the meeting, the vicar staved off Lady Jane, with whom he had promised to dine that evening, and tactfully withdrew from the distinguished circle around the chairman in order to confer with Dr. Parker at the other end of the long table.
Dr. Parker, if rather flattered by this attention, was also a little perplexed by it. For one thing, Dr. Joliffe was scowling at him from the other end of the room. So little love was lost between these warriors that they never met in consultation if they could possibly help it. The vicar, however, had quite made up his mind that they should meet on Monday. He declined to give details, but maintained an air of reticence and mystery; yet he dropped a final hint that the matter was of immense importance, not merely to individuals but to the state.
Dr. Parker, having mounted gold eyeglasses and consulted his diary, consented in his dignified way to lunch at the vicarage on Monday. Thereupon Mr. Perry-Hennington thanked him with equal dignity and returned to Penfold in Dr. Joliffe’s car.