PART IILEASAN PARSONAGE
§ 1
February was nearly over when Peter came back from his Algerian honeymoon, and found Starvecrow waiting to receive him. It was the mild end of a rainy day, with the air full of yellow sunshine, which was reflected in the floods of the Tillingham marshes. The house was faintly bloomed with it, and its windows shone like golden pools. Peter caught his first glimpse from the top of Brede Eye hill, and his heart grew warm in the chill English dusk as no African sun had made it. “Look!” he said to Vera, and pointed over the top of Conster’s firs at the grey and golden house with its smoking chimneys—for the first time the smoke of his own fires was going up from Starvecrow.
The car—the splendid Sunbeam which Vera’s parents had given as their wedding-present—swept down into the valley, over the Tillingham bridge, and up Starvecrow’s twisting drive, reflecting the rushing hazels and apple-trees in the mirror of its polished sides. Without noise or jar it stopped outside the porch—“Wait for the man, dear,” said Vera, but Peter was out, staring enraptured at his own front door. He had a foolish, ridiculous feeling that he wanted to carry her across the threshold, but was deterred by the appearance of a smart parlourmaid, also by Vera’s obvious unpreparedness for so primitive an entrance.
So he contented himself with kissing her in the delightful drawing-room that led out of the hall. A large wood fire burned in the open fireplace, and bright cretonnes were inrather sophisticated contrast to oak beams and pure white walls. The house had been thoroughly overhauled, and amazing treasures had come to light in the way of Tudor fireplaces and old oak. It seemed to Peter that it was now more like a small country house than the farmhouse of his love and memory, but certainly these things were more appropriate than the Greenings’ rather ramshackle furniture, Victorian wallpapers and blackleaded grates.
“Isn’t it lovely?” breathed Vera, crouching down by the fire and warming her delicate hands.
“Yes, it is,” said Peter—“and so are you.”
He put his hand on her little close-fitting hat and tilted back her head till her full, rather oriental lips were under his. He loved her long, satisfying kisses, so unlike the uneasy ones of most English girls—he told himself that it was this Eastern quality in her love, inherited through the Jewish blood of her fathers, which had made the last few weeks so wonderful.
A minute later the parlourmaid brought in tea, and they had it together beside the singing hearth. There was no light in the room except the dancing glow on beams and walls, the reflections from polished silver and lustre-ware. Vera did not talk much, for she was tired, and after tea she said she would like to go up to her room and lie down before dinner. Peter offered to go with her and read her to sleep—he could not bear to be away from her very long—but Vera said she would rather be quiet, in which no doubt she was wise, for the gods had not given Peter the gift of reading aloud.
Well, perhaps it was all to the good that she did not want him, because he would have to go up to Conster some time this evening, and he would rather go now than after dinner, when he could be sitting on the hearthrug at Vera’s feet keeping their first watch together by their own fire. So though he was feeling a bit fagged himself after the journey, he put on his overcoat again and went out into the early darkness which was thick with a new drizzle.
Starvecrow was lost in the night, except for a golden squarewhich was Vera’s room, and the distant sulky glow of a lantern among the barns. Only a gleaming of puddles and the water in the ruts showed him the farm drive—which had remained a farm-drive in spite of the Asher’s wish that it should become an avenue; for, as he pointed out to them, his traffic of wagons would do for nothing more genteel. As he reached the bottom, the distant murmur of a car, far away in the network of lanes between Starvecrow and Vinehall, made him unaccountably think of Stella. Queer ... it must be just a year since he had seen her last. How many things had happened since then, and how seldom he thought of her now—poor little girl!... And yet he had loved her—there was no good making out that he hadn’t—and he had been grief-stricken when she had gone away—thought a dozen times of calling her back and letting Starvecrow and the rest go hang.... It merely showed that Mary was right, and love, like everything else, could die. Would his love for Vera die?—why not, since his love for Stella had died?—But his love for Vera was so warm and alive—So had his love for Stella been once. Oh, damn! he was getting into a melancholy mood—it must be the effect of the journey. Thank God! here he was at Conster and wouldn’t have much more time for the blues, though the thought of seeing his family again did not give him any overwhelming pleasure.
He found his father and mother and two sisters in the drawing-room, and it seemed to him that their greeting had a queer, uneasy quality about it, a kind of abstraction—as if their thoughts were centred on something more engrossing than his return. When he had gone his round of kisses and handshakes, Lady Alard seemed suddenly to express the real interest of the party by crying in a heartbroken voice——
“Peter! whatdoyou think has happened?”
“What?” cried Peter sharply. He had a vision of a foreclosing mortgagee.
“It’s Mary!” wailed Lady Alard—“Julian is divorcing her.”
“Mary!”
Peter was genuinely shocked—the Alards did not appear in the divorce court; also his imagination was staggered at the thought of Mary, the fastidious, the pure, the intense, being caught in the coarse machinery of the state marriage laws.
“Yes—isn’t it utterly dreadful? It appears he’s had her watched by detectives ever since she left him, and now they’ve found something against her—at least they think they have. It was that time she went abroad with Meg Sellons, and Charles joined them at Bordighera—which I always said was unwise. But the worst of all, Peter, is that she says she won’t defend herself—she says that she’s done nothing wrong, but she won’t defend herself—she’ll let Julian put her away, and everyone will think she’s—oh, Peter, this will finish me—it really will. When I got Mary’s letter I had the worst attack I’ve had for years—we had to send for Dr. Mount in the middle of the night. I really thought——”
Sir John interrupted her——
“You’d better let me finish, Lucy. The subject is legal, not medical. Mary has behaved like a fool and run her head into Julian’s trap. I don’t know how much there is in it, but from what she says I doubt if he has much of a case. If she’ll defend it, she’ll probably be able to clear herself, and what’s more I bet she could bring a counter-petition.”
“That would be a nasty mess, wouldn’t it, Sir?” said Peter.
“Not such a nasty mess as my daughter being held up in all the newspapers as an adulteress!”
“Oh, John!” cried Lady Alard—“what a dreadful thing to say before the girls!”
“Doris is old enough to hear the word now if she’s never heard it before, and Jenny—she’s Emancipated, and a great deal older than you and me. I tell you I object to my daughter being placarded in the penny papers as an adulteress, and I’d much rather she proved Julian an adulterer.”
“Is that possible, sir?” asked Peter.
“Of course it is—the man’s been on the loose for a year.”
“If that’s all your evidence——”
“Well, I haven’t had him followed by detectives, but I can turn a few on now, and——”
“Really, Sir, I do agree with Mary that it would be better to leave the matter alone. An undefended case can be slipped through the papers with very little fuss, while if you have a defence, to say nothing of a cross-petition ... it isn’t as if she particularly wanted to keep Julian as a husband—I expect she’s glad to have the chance of getting rid of him so easily.”
“I daresay she is. I daresay she wants to marry that old ass Charles Smith. But what about her reputation?—what about ours? I tell you I’m not going to stand still and have filth thrown at me by the press. I’m proud of my name if you aren’t.”
“It really seems to me that the matter rests with Mary—if she doesn’t want to defend herself....”
“Mary must think of her family—it ought to come before her private feelings.”
The words seemed an echo of a far-back argument—they reminded Peter dimly of his own straits last year. The family must come first.... That time it was money, now it was reputation. After all, why not? There was no good holding to the one and letting the other go. But he was sorry for Mary all the same.
“Well, I can’t stay any longer now. I must be getting back to dinner. I’ll bring Vera up tomorrow morning.”
“Mary’s coming down in the afternoon.”
“Oh, is she?”
“Yes—I’ve wired for her. I insist on her listening to reason.”
So Mary would have to face Peter’s choice—family duty against personal inclination.... Well, after all he hadn’t made such a bad thing of it.... He thought of Vera waiting for him at Starvecrow, and in spite of the fret of the last half-hour a smile of childlike satisfaction was on his face as he went home.
§ 3
Peter was out early the next morning, when the first pale sunshine was stealing up the valley of the Tillingham, flooding all the world in a gleam of watery gold. He had awoken to the music of his farm, to the crowing of his cocks, to the stamping of his cattle in their stalls, to the clattering of his workmen’s feet on the cobbles of the yard. Starvecrow was his home, his place for waking up and falling asleep, for eating his food and warming himself at his fire, for finding his wife at the end of the day, for the birth of his children.... He had, as he stood that morning in the yard, a feeling both of proud ownership and proud adoption.
The whole farm, house and buildings, looked tidy and prosperous. It had lost that rather dilapidated, if homely, air it had worn before his marriage. Though the Ashers might have neither enough capital nor inclination to pay off the debts of their son-in-law’s family, they had certainly been generous in the matter of their daughter’s home. But for them the place could never have been what it was now—trimmings and clippings, furnishings and restorings had been their willingly paid price for Alard blood. The whole farm had been repaired, replanted and restocked. Indeed Starvecrow was now not so much a farm as a little manor, a rival to Conster up on the hill. Was this exactly what Peter had intended for it?—he did not stop to probe. No doubt his imagination had never held anything so solid and so trim, but that might have been only because his imagination had planned strictly for the possible, and all that had been possible up to his falling in love with Vera was just the shelter of that big kindly roof, the simplicity of those common farmhouse rooms, with the hope and labour of slow achievement and slow restoration.
Still, he was proud of the place, and looked round him with satisfaction as he walked down the bricked garden path, beside the well-raked herbaceous border. He went into the yard where his men were at work—he now employed two extrahands, and his staff consisted of a stockman, a shepherd, a ploughman, and two odd men, as well as the shepherd’s wife, who looked after the chickens and calves.
Going into the cowhouse he found Jim Lambard milking the last of the long string of Sussex cows. He greeted his master with a grin and a “good marnun, sur”—it was good to hear the slurry Sussex speech again. Peter walked to the end of the shed where two straw-coloured Jerseys were tethered—one of them, Flora, was due to calve shortly, and after inspecting her, he went out to interview the stockman. John Elias had held office not only in Greening’s time, but in the days before him when Starvecrow was worked by a tenant farmer—he was an oldish man who combined deep experience and real practical knowledge with certain old-fashioned obstinacies. Peter sometimes found him irritating to an intense degree, but clung to him, knowing that the old obstinacies are better than the new where farm-work is concerned, and that the man who insists on doing his work according to the rules of 1770 is really of more practical value than the man who does it according to the rules of the Agricultural Labourers’ Union. Elias had now been up a couple of nights with the Jersey, and his keen blue eye was a trifle dim from anxiety and want of sleep. Peter told him to get off to bed for a few hours, promising to have him sent for if anything should happen.
He then sent for the ploughman, and discussed with him the advisability of giving the Hammer field a second ploughing. There was also the wheat to be dressed in the threshing machine before it was delivered to the firm of corn-merchants who had bought last year’s harvest. A final talk with his shepherd about the ewes and prospects for next month’s lambing—and Peter turned back towards the house, sharp-set for breakfast and comfortably proud of the day’s beginning. He liked to think of the machinery of his farm, working efficiently under his direction, making Starvecrow rich.... Conster might still shake on its foundations but Starvecrow was settled and established—he had saved Starvecrow.
The breakfast-room faced east, and the sunshine poured through its long, low window, falling upon the white cloth of the breakfast table, the silver, the china and the flowers. The room was decorated in yellow, which increased the effect of lightness—Peter was thrilled and dazzled, and for a moment did not notice that breakfast had been laid only for one. When he did, it gave him a faint shock.
“Where’s your mistress?” he asked the parlourmaid, who was bringing in the coffee—“isn’t she coming down?”
“No, sir. She’s taking her breakfast upstairs.”
Peter felt blank. Then suddenly he realised—of course she was tired! What a brute he was not to think of it—it was all very well for him to feel vigorous after such a journey, and go traipsing round the farm; but Vera—she was made of more delicate stuff.... He had a feeling as if he must apologise to her for having even thought she was coming down; and running upstairs he knocked at her door.
“Come in,” said Vera’s rather deep, sweet voice.
Her room was full of sunshine too, but the blind was down so that it did not fall on the bed. She lay in the shadow, reading her letters and smoking a cigarette. Peter had another shock of the incongruous.
“My darling, are you dreadfully tired?”
“No—I feel quite revived this morning,” and she lifted her long white throat for him to kiss.
“Have you had your breakfast?”
“All I want. I’m not much of a breakfast eater, that’s one reason why I prefer having it up here.”
“But—but aren’t you ever coming down?”
“Poor boy—do you feel lonely without me?”
“Yes, damnably,” said Peter.
“But, my dear, I’d be poor company for you at this hour. I’m much better upstairs till ten or eleven—besides it makes the day so long if one’s down for breakfast.”
Peter looked at her silently—her argument dispirited him: “the day so long.”... For him the day was never long enough. He suddenly saw her as infinitely older and tireder than himself.
“Run down and have yours, now,” she said to him, “and then you can come up and sit with me for a bit before I dress.”
The next day Mary Pembroke came to Conster, and that same evening was confronted by her family. Sir John insisted on everyone being present, except Gervase—whom he still considered a mere boy—and the daughters-in-law. Vera was glad to be left out, for she had no wish to sit in judgment on a fellow woman, in whose guilt she believed and with whose lies she sympathised, but Rose was indignant, for she detected a slight in the omission.
“Besides,” she said to her husband, “I’m the only one who considers the problem chiefly from a moral point of view—the rest think only of the family, whether it will be good or bad for their reputation if she fights the case.”
“What about me?” asked her husband, perhaps justly aggrieved—“surely you can trust me not to forget the moral side of things.”
“Well, I hope so I’m sure. But you must speak out and not be afraid of your father.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“Indeed you are—you never can stand up to him. It’s he who manages this parish, not you.”
“How can you say that?”
“What else can I say when you still let him read the lessons after he created such a scandal by saying ‘damn’ when the pages stuck together.”
“Nobody heard him.”
“Indeed they did—all the three first rows, and the choir boys. It’s so bad for them. If I’d been in your place he shouldn’t have read another word.”
“My dear, I assure you it wasn’t such a scandal as you think—certainly not enough to justify a breach with my father.”
“That’s just it—you’re afraid of him, and I want you tostand your ground this time. It’s not right that we should be looked down upon the way we are, but we always will be if you won’t stick up for yourself—and I really fail to see why you should countenance immorality just to please your father.”
Perhaps it was owing to this conversation with his wife that during most of the conference George sat dumb. As a matter of fact, nobody talked much, except Sir John and Mary. Mary had a queer, desperate volubility about her—she who was so aloof had now become familiar, to defend her aloofness. Her whole nature shrank from the exposure of the divorce court.
“But what have you got to expose?” cried Sir John when she used this expression, “you tell me you’ve done nothing.”
“I’ve loved Julian, and he’s killed my love for him—I don’t want that shown up before everybody.”
“It won’t be—it doesn’t concern the case.”
“Oh, yes, it does—that sort of thing always comes out—‘the parties were married in 1912 and lived happily together till 1919, when the respondent left the petitioner without any explanation’—it’ll be all to Julian’s interest to show that he made me an excellent husband and that I loved him devotedly till Something—which means Somebody—came between us.”
“He’ll do that if you don’t defend the case.”
“But it won’t be dwelt on—pored over—it won’t provide copy for the newspapers. Oh, can’t anybody see that when a woman makes a mistake like mine she doesn’t want it read about at the breakfast tables of thousands of—of——”
“One would understand you much better,” said Doris, who for a few moments had been swallowing violently as a preliminary to speech—“one would understand you much better if what you objected to was thousands of people reading that you’d been unfaithful to the husband you once loved so much.”
“But it wouldn’t be true.”
“They’d believe it all the same—naturally, if the decree was given against you.”
“I don’t care about that—it’s what’s true that I mind people knowing.”
“Don’t be a fool,” interrupted Sir John—“you’re not going to disgrace your family for an idea like that.”
“I’ll disgrace it worse if I give the thing all the extra publicity of a defended suit.”
“But, Mary dear,” said Lady Alard—“think how dreadful it will be for us as well as for you if the decree is given against you. There’s Jenny, now—it’s sure to interfere with her prospects—What did you say, Jenny?”
“Nothing, Mother,” said Jenny, who had laughed.
“But you don’t seem to consider,” persisted Mary, “that even if I defend the case I may lose it—and then we’ll all be ever so much worse off than if I’d let it go quietly through.”
“And Julian have his revenge without even the trouble of fighting for it!” cried Sir John. “I tell you he’s got nothing of a case against you if you choose to defend it.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Appearances are pretty bad.”
“Egad, you’re cool, Ma’am!—But I forgot—you don’t care tuppence what people think as long as they don’t think what’s true. But, damn it all, there’s your family to be considered as well as yourself.”
“Is it that you want to marry Charles Smith?” asked Peter. “If she does, Sir, it’s hardly fair to make her risk....”
“Listen to me!” George had spoken at last—the voice of morality and religion was lifted from the chesterfield. “You must realise that if the decree is given against her, she will not be free in the eyes of the Church to marry again. Whereas if she gets a decree against her husband, she would find certain of the more moderate-minded clergy willing to perform the ceremony for the innocent partner.”
“I don’t see that,” said Peter rudely—“she’d be just as innocent if she lost the suit.”
“She wouldn’t be legally the innocent partner,” said George, “and no clergyman in the land would perform the ceremony for her.”
“Which means that the Church takes the argument from law and not from facts.”
“No—no. Not at all. In fact, the Church as a whole condemns, indeed—er—forbids the re-marriage of divorced persons. But the Church of England is noted for toleration, and there are certain clergy who would willingly perform the ceremony for the innocent partner. There are others—men like Luce, for instance—who are horrified at the idea of such a thing. But I’ve always prided myself on——”
“Hold your tongue, George,” broke in his father, “I won’t have you and Peter arguing about such rubbish.”
“I’m not arguing with him, Sir. I would scarcely argue with Peter on an ecclesiastical subject. In the eyes of the Church——”
“Damn the eyes of the Church! Mary is perfectly free to re-marry if she likes, innocent or guilty. If the Church won’t marry her, she can go to the registrar’s. You think nothing can be done without a clergyman, but I tell you any wretched little civil servant can do your job.”
“You all talk as if I wanted to marry again—” Mary’s voice shot up with a certain shrill despair in it. “I tell you it’s the last thing in the world I’d ever do—whatever you make me do I would never do that. Once is enough.”
“It would certainly look better if Mary didn’t re-marry,” said Doris, “then perhaps people would think she’d never cared for Commander Smith, and there was nothing in it.”
“But why did you go about with him, dear?” asked Lady Alard—“if you weren’t really fond of him?”
“I never said I wasn’t fond of him. I am fond of him—that’s one reason why I don’t want to marry him. He’s been a good friend to me—and I was alone ... and I thought I was free.... I saw other women going about with men, and nobody criticising. I didn’t know Julian was having me watched. I didn’t know I wasn’t free—and that now, thanks to you, I’ll never be free.”
She began to cry—not quietly and tragically, as one wouldhave expected of her—but loudly, noisily, brokenly. She was broken.
The next morning Sir John drove up to London to consult his solicitors. The next day he was there again, taking Mary with him. After that came endless arguments, letters and consultations. The solicitors’ advice was to persuade Julian Pembroke to withdraw his petition, but this proved impossible, for Julian, it now appeared, was anxious to marry again. He had fallen in love with a young girl of nineteen, whose parents were willing to accept him if Mary could be decorously got rid of.
This made Sir John all the more resolute that Mary should not be decorously got rid of—if mud was slung there was always a chance of some of it sticking to Julian and spoiling his appearance for the sweet young thing who had won the doubtful prize of his affections. He would have sacrificed a great deal to bring a counter-petition, but very slight investigations proved that there was no ground for this. Julian knew what he was doing, and had been discreet, whereas Mary had put herself in the wrong all through. Sir John would have to content himself with vindicating his daughter’s name and making it impossible for Julian to marry his new choice.
Mary’s resistance had entirely broken down—the family had crushed her, and she was merely limp and listless in their hands. Nothing seemed to matter—her chance of a quiet retreat into freedom and obscurity was over, and now seemed scarcely worth fighting for. What did it matter if her life’s humiliation was exposed and gaped at?—if she had to stand up and answer dirty questions to prove her cleanness?... She ought to have been stronger, she knew—but it was difficult to be strong when one stood alone, without weapon or counsellor.
Jenny and Gervase were on her side, it is true, but theywere negligible allies, whether from the point of view of impressing the family, or of any confidence their advice and arguments could inspire in herself. Vera Alard, though she did not share the family point of view, had been alienated by her sister-in-law’s surrender—“I’ve no sympathy with a woman who knows what she wants but hasn’t the courage to stand out for it,” she said to Peter. In her heart she thought that Mary was lying—that she had tried Charles Smith as a lover and found him wanting, but would have gladly used him as a means to freedom, if her family hadn’t butted in and made a scandal of it.
As for Peter, he no longer felt inclined to take his sister’s part. He was angry with her for her forgetfulness of her dignity. She had been careless of her honour, forgetting that it was not only hers but Alard’s—she had risked the family’s disgrace, before the world and before the man whose contempt of all the world’s would be hardest to bear. Peter hated such carelessness and such risks—he would do nothing more for Mary, especially as she had said she did not want to marry Charles Smith. If she had wanted that he would have understood her better, but she had said she did not want it, and thus had lost her only claim to an undefended suit. For Peter now did not doubt any more than his family that Julian would fail to prove his case.
Outside the family, Charles Smith did his best to help her. He came down to see her and try to persuade her people to let the petition go through undefended. But he was too like herself to be much use. He was as powerless as she to stand against her family, which was entering the divorce court in much the same spirit as its forefathers had gone to the Crusades—fired by the glory of the name of Alard and hatred of the Turk.
“I’m disappointed in my first co-respondent,” said Gervase to Jenny after he had left—“I’d expected something much more spirited—a blend of Abelard, Don Juan and Cesare Borgia, with a dash of Shelley. Instead of which I find a mild-mannered man with a pince-nez, who I know is simplydying to take me apart and start a conversation on eighteenth-century glass.”
“That’s because he isn’t a real co-respondent. You’ve only to look at Charles Smith to be perfectly sure he never did anything wrong in his life.”
“Well, let’s hope the Judge and jury will look at him, then.”
“I hope they won’t. I’m sure Mary wants to lose.”
“Not a defended case—she’d be simply too messed up after that.”
“She’ll be messed up anyhow, whether she wins or loses. There’ll be columns and columns about her and everything she did—and didn’t do—and might have done. Poor Mary ... I expect she’d rather lose, and then she can creep quietly away.”
“Do you think she’ll marry Smith?”
“No, I don’t. He’d like to marry her, or he thinks he’d like to, but I’m pretty sure she won’t have him.”
“Then she’d better win her case—or the family will make her have him.”
“George says she can’t marry again unless she’s the ‘innocent party.’”
“I don’t think what George says will make much difference. Anyhow, it’s a silly idea. If the marriage is dissolved, both of ’em can marry again—if the marriage isn’t dissolved, neither of ’em can, so I don’t see where George’s innocent party comes in. That’s Stella’s idea—part of her religion, you know—that marriage is a sacrament and can’t be dissolved. I think it’s much more logical.”
“I think it’s damned hard.”
“Yes, so do I. But then I think religion ought to be damned hard.”
“I’ll remind you of that next time I see you lounging in front of the fire when you ought to be in church. You know you hurt George’s feelings by not going.”
“I’m not partial to George’s sort of religion.”
“I hope you’re not partial to Stella’s—that would be another blow for this poor family.”
“Why?—it wouldn’t make any difference to them. Not that you need ever be afraid of my getting religion ... but if I did I must say I hope it would be a good stiff sort, that would give me the devil of a time. George arranges a nice comfortable service for me at eleven, with a family pew for me to sleep in. He preaches a nice comfortable sermon that makes me feel good, and then we all go home together in the nice comfortable car and eat roast beef and talk about who was there and how much there was in the collection. That isn’t my idea of the violent taking the Kingdom of Heaven by storm.”
“Are you trying to make me think that you’d be pious if only you were allowed to wear sandals and a hair shirt?”
“Oh, no, Jenny dear. But at least I can admire that sort of religion from a distance.”
“The distance being, I suppose, from here to Birmingham?”
“May I ask if you are what is vulgarly called getting at me?”
“Well, I’d like to know how long this correspondence between you and Stella has been going on.”
“Almost ever since she left—but we’ve only just got on to religion.”
“Be careful—that’s all. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“How?—with Stella or with Stella’s ideas?”
“Both,” said Jenny darkly.
Charles Smith was not allowed to come down again. The solicitors declared it advisable that Mary should see nothing of him while proceedings were pending. Indeed it was necessary to guard her reputation like a shrine. She stayed at Conster while the weeks dragged through the spring, and when in May Sir John and Lady Alard went for their yearly visit to Bath, it was decided that she should go to the Vicarage, so that a polish of sanctity and ecclesiastical patronage might be given to her stainlessness.
So she packed her belongings—helped by Jenny instead of Gisèle, whose wages had been beyond her means ever since her plunge for freedom—and they were taken to where Leasan Parsonage stood hidden among May trees and lilac bushes down Leasan lane.
Mary was not personally looking forward to the change, though the atmosphere of Conster was eruptive, and though one felt the family solidarity more strongly at the Manor than at the Parsonage, and was also—in spite of luxury—more conscious of the family’s evil days. Her feeling for Rose was almost fear—her bustle, her curiosity, her love of rule, her touch of commonness provoked an antipathy which was less dislike than alarm. She also shrank from the ugliness and discomforts of the Vicarage life—Rose was supposed to have a gift for training Raw Girls, and, as Gervase once said even when the girls ceased to be actually raw, they were still remarkably underdone. Chatter, scoldings, creaking footsteps, and the smell of bad cooking filled the house all day—George, whom Mary was inclined to like in spite of his stupidity, took the usual male refuge in flight, and spent most of his time shut up in his study, which shared the sanctity of Leasan church and could be invaded by no one but his wife.
There were also two rather colourless children, Lillian and Edna, whose governess—a more cultured type of Raw Girl—made a sixth at luncheon. It had always been a secret grief to Rose that she had never had a son; her only comfort was that no other Alard had done so up till now. But this comfort would probably be taken from her soon. Vera would be sure to have a son—Jewesses always did.... Rose thought vaguely about Abraham....
The day started early at Leasan Parsonage—not that there was any particular reason why it should, but eight o’clock breakfast was Rose’s best protest against the sloppy ways of Conster, where you came down to breakfast when you liked,or had it upstairs. Mary was addicted to the latter vice, and on her first morning at Leasan came down heavy-eyed, with that especial sense of irritation and inadequacy which springs from a hurried toilet and a lukewarm bath.
“So you wear a tea-gown for breakfast,” said Rose, who wore a sports coat and a tweed skirt.
“A breakfast gown.”
“It’s the same thing. In fact you might call it a dressing-gown with those sleeves. Edna, don’t drink your tea with a spoon.”
“It’s too hot, Mother.”
“Well, leave it till it gets cooler. Don’t drink it with a spoon—you’ll be pouring it into your saucer next. George, what are your letters about today?”
“Income tax mostly—and there’s Mr. Green writing again about a Choral Celebration.”
“Well, you must be firm with him and tell him we can’t possibly have one. I told you what it would be, engaging an organist who’s used to such things—they won’t give them up.”
“I thought it might be possible to arrange it once a month, at an hour when it won’t interfere with Matins.”
“Nonsense, dear. The boys’ voices could never manage it and the men would go on strike.”
“They’re becoming fairly general, you know, even in country churches.”
“Well, I think it’s a pity. I’ve always distrusted anything that tends to make religion emotional.”
“I can’t understand anyone’s emotions—at least voluptuous emotions—being stirred by anything our choir could do.”
“George!—‘voluptuous’”—a violent shake of the head—“pas devant les enfants. Who’s your cheque from?”
“Dr. Mount. He’s very generously subscribing to the Maternity Fund. He says ‘I feel I’ve got a duty to Leasan as well as Vinehall, as I have patients in both parishes.’”
“I call that very good of him, for I know he never makes more than five hundred a year out of the practice. By the way, have you heard that Stella’s back?”
“No—since when?”
“I saw her driving through Vinehall yesterday. Edna and Lillian, you may get down now for a great treat, and have a run in the garden before Miss Cutfield comes.”
“May we go to meet Miss Cutfield?”
“If you don’t go further than the end of the lane. That’s right, darlings—say your grace—‘for what wehavereceived,’ Edna, not ‘about to’—now run away.”
“Why are you sending away the children?” asked George.
“Because I want to talk about Stella Mount.”
“But why is Stella unfit to discuss before the children?”
“Oh, George—you must know!—it was simply dreadful the way she ran after Peter.”
“You don’t think she’s still running after him?”
“I think it’s a bad sign she’s come back.”
“Her father wanted her, I expect. That chauffeur-secretary he had was no good. Besides, I expect she’s got over her feeling for Peter now.”
“I’m sure I hope she has, but you never know with a girl like Stella. She has too many ways of getting out of things.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“Oh, confession and all that. All she has to do is to go to a Priest and he’ll let her off anything.”
“Come, come, my dear, that is hardly a fair summary of what the Prayer Book calls ‘the benefit of absolution.’ My own position with regard to confession has always been that it is at least tolerable and occasionally helpful.”
“Not the way a girl like Stella would confess,” said Rose darkly—“Oh, I don’t mean anything wrong—only the whole thing seems to me not quite healthy. I dislike the sort of religion that gets into everything, even people’s meals. I expect Stella would rather die than eat meat on Friday.”
“But surely, dear,” said George who was rather dense—“that sort would not encourage her to run after a married man.”
“Well, if you can’t use your eyes! ... she’s been perfectly open about it.”
“But she hasn’t been here at all since he married.”
“I’m talking of before that—when she was always meeting him.”
“But if he wasn’t married you can hardly accuse her of running after a married man.”
“He’s married now. Don’t be so stupid, dear.”
Peter was a little annoyed to find that Stella had come back. It would perhaps be difficult to say why—whether her return was most disturbing to his memory or to his pride. He would have angrily denied that to see her again was in any sense a resurrection—and he would just as angrily have denied that her attitude of detached friendliness was disagreeable to his vanity. Surely he had forgotten her ... surely he did not want to think that she could ever forget him....
He did not press these questions closely—his nature shrank from unpleasant probings, and after all Stella’s presence did not make anything of that kind necessary. He saw very little of her. She came to tea at Starvecrow, seemed delighted with the improvements, was becomingly sweet to Vera—and after that all he had of her was an occasional glimpse at Conster or on the road.
It could not be said, by any stretch of evidence, that she was running after a married man. But Rose Alard soon had a fresh cause for alarm. Stella was seeing a great deal too much of Gervase. She must somehow have got into touch with the younger brother during her absence from home, for now on her return there seemed to be a friendship already established. They were occasionally seen out walking together in the long summer evenings, and on Sundays he sometimes went with her to church at Vinehall—which was a double crime, since it disparaged George’s ministrations at Leasan.
“I should hate to say she was mercenary,” said Rose reflectively, “but I must say appearances are against her—turning to the younger brother as soon as she’s lost the elder.”
“I don’t see where the mercenariness comes it,” said Mary—“Gervase won’t have a penny except what he earns, and there’s Peter and his probable sons, as well as George, between him and the title.”
“But he’s an Alard—I expect Stella would like to marry into the family.”
“I fail to see the temptation.”
“Well, anyhow, I think it very bad taste of her to take him to church at Vinehall—it’s always been difficult to get him to come here as it is, and George says he has no influence over him whatever.”
Mary only sighed. She could not argue with Rose, yet she had a special sympathy for a woman who having had love torn out of her heart tried to fill the empty aching space as best she could. Of course it was selfish—though not so selfish in Stella as it had been in herself, and she hoped Stella would not have to suffer as she had suffered. After all, it would do Gervase good to be licked into shape by a woman like Stella—he probably enjoyed the hopelessness of his love—if indeed it was hopeless ... and she could understand the relief that his ardent, slightly erratic courtship must be after Peter’s long series of stolid blunders.
But Stella was not quite in the position Mary fancied. She was not letting Gervase court her, indeed he would never have thought of doing so. She seemed definitely apart from any idea of love-making—she set up intangible barriers round herself, which even his imagination could not cross. Perhaps some day ... but even for “some day” his plans were not so much of love as of thinking of love.
Meanwhile she fulfilled a definite need of his, just as he fulfilled a need of hers. She gave him an outlet for the pent-up thoughts of his daily drives, and the society of a mind which delighted him with its warmth and quickness. Gervase too had a quick mind, and his and Stella’s struck sparks off each other, creating a glow in which he sometimes forgot that his heart went unwarmed. Their correspondence had been a slower, less stimulating version of the same process. They haddiscussed endless subjects through the post, and now Stella had come home in the midst of the most interesting. It was the most interesting to him because it was obviously the most interesting to her. She had bravely taken her share in their other discussions, but he soon discovered that she was too feminine to care about politics, too concrete to grasp abstractions, and that in matters of art and literature her taste was uncertain and often philistine. But in the matter of religion she showed both a firmer standing and a wider grasp. Indeed he was to find that her religion was the deepest, the most vital and most interesting part of her—in it alone did the whole Stella come alive.
The topic had been started by the tragedy of Mary’s marriage, and at first he had been repulsed by her attitude, which he thought strangely unlike her in its rigidity. But as time went on he began to contrast it favourably with George’s compromises—here was a faith which at least was logical, and which was not afraid to demand the uttermost.... They continued the discussion after she had come home, and he was surprised to see what he had hitherto looked upon equally as a fad and a convention, a collection of moral and intellectual lumber, show itself almost shockingly as an adventure and a power. Not that Stella had felt the full force of it yet—her life had always run pretty smoothly through the simplicities of joy and sorrow, there had been no conflict, no devastation. But strangely enough he, an outsider, seemed able to see what she herself possibly did not realise—that she carried in her heart a force which might one day both make and break it.
It had been his own suggestion that he should go with her to church, though he did not know whether it was to satisfy a hope or dismiss a fear. He had lost the detached attitude with which he had at first approached the subject, much as he would have approached Wells’s new novel or the Coalition Government. To his surprise he found himself at ease in the surroundings of Vinehall’s Parish Mass. Its gaiety and homeliness seemed the natural expression of instinctive needs. Vinehall church was decorated in a style more suggestive ofcombined poverty and enterprise than of artistic taste; the singing—accompanied rather frivolously on a piano—was poor and sometimes painful; the sermon was halting and trite. These things were better done by brother George at Leasan. But the Mass seemed strangely independent of its outward expression, and to hold its own solemn heart of worship under circumstances which would have destroyed the devotions of Leasan. Here, thought Gervase, was a faith which did not depend on the beauty of externals for its appeal—a faith, moreover, which was not afraid to make itself hard to men, which threw up round itself massive barriers of hardship, and yet within these was warm and sweet and friendly—which was furthermore a complete adventure, a taking of infinite risks, a gateway on unknown dangers....
As he knelt beside Stella in a silence which was like a first kiss, so old in experience did it seem, in spite of the shock of novelty, he found that the half-forgotten romances of his childhood were beginning to take back their colours and shine in a new light. Those figures of the Mother and her Child, the suffering Son of Man, the warm-hearted, thick-headed, glorious company of the apostles, which for so long had lived for him only in the gilt frames of Renaissance pictures, now seemed to wake again to life and friendliness. Once more he felt the thrill of the Good Shepherd going out to see the lost sheep ... and all the bells of heaven began to ring.
George Alard could not help being a little vexed at Gervase’s new tendencies. He told himself that he ought to be glad the boy was going to church at all, for he had been negligent and erratic for a long time past—he ought not to feel injured because another man had won him to some sense of his duty. But he must say he was surprised that Luce had succeeded where he himself had failed—Luce was a dry, dull fellow, and hopelessly unenterprising; not a branch in his parish of the C.E.M.S. or the A.C.S. or the S.P.G., no work-partiesor parish teas, and no excitement about the Enabling Act and the setting up of a Parochial Church Council which was now occupying most of George’s time. Still, he reflected, it was probably not so much Luce as Stella Mount who had done it—she was a pretty girl and perhaps not too scrupulous, she had persuaded Gervase. Then there had always been that curious streak in his brother’s character which differentiated him from the other Alards. George did not know how to describe it so well as by Ungentlemanliness. That part of Gervase which had revolted from a Gentleman’s Education and had gone into an engineering shop instead of to Oxford was now revolting from a Gentleman’s Religion and going to Mass instead of Dearly Beloved Brethren. There had always seemed to George something ungentlemanly about Catholicism, though he prided himself on being broad-minded, and would have introduced one or two changes on High Church lines into the services at Leasan if his father and his wife had let him.
“Apart from every other consideration, I’m surprised he doesn’t realise how bad it looks for him to go Sunday to Vinehall when his brother is Vicar of Leasan.”
“He goes with Stella,” said Mary.
“I think that makes it worse,” said Rose.
“Why?” asked Peter.
He had come in to see George about his election to the Parochial Church Council, which his brother was extremely anxious should take place, but for which Peter had no wish to qualify himself. George had hoped that the bait of a seat on the Council, with the likelihood of being elected as the Parish’s representative at the Diocesan Conference, might induce Peter to avail himself once more of the church privileges which he had neglected for so long. It was uphill work, thought poor George, trying to run a parish when neither of one’s brothers came to church, and one’s father said ‘damn’ out loud when reading the lessons....
“Why?” asked Peter, a little resentful.
Rose looked uneasy——
“Well, everyone knows she used to run after you and now she’s running after Gervase.”
“She didn’t run after me and she isn’t running after Gervase,” said Peter; then he added heavily—“I ran after her, and Gervase is running after her now.”
“Oh!” Rose tossed her head—“I own I once thought ... but then when you married Vera ... well, anyhow I think she ought to discourage Gervase more than she does, and I insist that it’s in extremely bad taste for her to take him to church at Vinehall.”
“Perhaps he likes the service better,” said Mary, who during this discussion had been trying to write a letter and now gave up the effort in despair.
“Oh, I daresay he does—he’s young and excitable.”
“There’s nothing very exciting at Vinehall,” said George—“I don’t think Luce has even a surpliced choir these days.”
“Well, there’s incense and chasubles and all that—Gervase always did like things that are different.”
“I must say,” said Mary, who was perhaps a little irritated at having nowhere to write her letter (the Raw Girl being in devastating possession of her bedroom)—“I must say that if I had any religion myself, I’d like a religion which at least was religion and not soup.”
“What do you mean?”
Both George and Rose sat up stiffly, and even Peter looked shocked.
“Well, your religion here seems chiefly to consist in giving people soup-tickets and coal-tickets, and having rummage sales. Stella Mount’s religion at least means an attempt at worship, and at least.... Oh, well—” she broke down rather lamely—“anyhow it makes you want something you haven’t got.”
“We can most of us do that without religion,” said Peter, getting up.
Rose looked meaningly after him as he went out of the room, then she looked still more meaningly at her husband—it was as if her eyes and eyebrows were trying to tell himher conviction that Peter was finding life unsatisfactory in spite of Vera and Starvecrow, indeed that he regretted Stella—had he not championed her almost grotesquely just now? ... and he had talked of wanting something he had not got....
George refused to meet her eyes and read their language. He too rose and went out, but he did not follow Peter. He felt hurt and affronted by what Mary had said—“soup” ... that was what she had called the religion of her parish church, of her country, indeed, since George was convinced that Leasan represented the best in Anglicanism. Just because he didn’t have vestments and incense and foreign devotions, but plain, hearty, British services—because he looked after people’s bodies as well as their souls—he was to be laughed at by a woman like Mary, who—but he must not be uncharitable, he was quite convinced of Mary’s innocence, and only wished that her prudence had equalled it.
He walked out through the French windows of his study, and across the well-kept Vicarage lawn. Before him, beyond the lilacs Leasan’s squat towers stood against a misty blue sky. With its wide brown roof spreading low over its aisles almost to the ground the church was curiously like a sitting hen. It squatted like a hen over her brood, and gave a tender impression of watchfulness and warmth.... The door stood open, showing a green light that filtered in through creeper and stained glass. George went in, and the impression of motherly warmth was changed to one of cool emptiness. Rows of shining pews stretched from the west door to the chancel with its shining choir-stalls, and beyond in the sanctuary stood the shining altar with two shining brass candlesticks upon it.
George went to his desk and knelt down. But there was something curiously unprayerful in the atmosphere—he would have felt more at ease praying in his study or at his bedside. The emptiness of the church was something more than an emptiness of people—it was an emptiness of prayer. Now he came to think of it, he had never seen anyone at prayer inthe church except at the set services—a good collection of the neighbouring gentlefolk at Matins, a hearty assembly of the villagers at Evensong, a few “good” people at the early celebration, and one or two old ladies for the Litany on Fridays—but never any prayer between, no farm lad ever on his knees before his village shrine, or busy mother coming in for a few minutes’ rest in the presence of God....
But that was what they did at Vinehall. He had looked into the church several times and had never seen it empty—there was always someone at prayer ... the single white lamp ... that was the Reserved Sacrament of course, theologically indefensible, though no doubt devotionally inspiring ... devotion—was it that which made the difference between religion and soup?
George felt a sudden qualm come over him as he knelt in his stall—it was physical rather than mental, though the memory of Mary’s impious word had once again stirred up his sleeping wrath. He lifted himself into a sitting position—that was better. For some weeks past he had been feeling ill—he ought to see a doctor ... but he daren’t, in case the doctor ordered him to rest. It was all very well for Mary to gibe at his work and call it soup, but it was work that must be done. She probably had no idea how hard he worked—visiting, teaching, sitting on committees, organising guilds, working parties, boy scouts, Church of England Men’s Society ... and two sermons on Sunday as well.... He was sure he did more than Luce, who had once told him that he looked upon his daily Mass as the chief work of his parish.... Luce wouldn’t wear himself out in his prime as George Alard was doing.... Soup!
Mary went back to Conster for the uneasy days of the Summer. Her heart sickened at the dragging law—her marriage took much longer to unmake that it had taken to make. She thought of how her marriage was made—Leasan church ... the smell of lilies ... the smell of old lace ... lacehanging over her eyes, a white veil over the wedding-guests, over her father as he gave her away, over her brother as he towered above her in surplice and stole, over her bridegroom, kneeling at her side, holding her hand as he parted her shaking fingers ... “with this ring I thee wed” ... “from this day forward, till death do us part.”... How her heart was beating—fluttering in her throat like a dove ... now she was holding one fringed end of George’s stole, while Julian held the other—“that which God hath joined together let not man put asunder.”
And now the unmaking—such a fuss—such a business this putting asunder! Telegrams, letters, interviews ... over and over again the story of her disillusion, of her running away, of her folly ... oh, it was all abominable, but it was her own fault—she should not have given in. Why could she never endure things quite to the end? When she had found out that Julian the husband was not the same as Julian the lover, but an altogether more difficult being, why had her love failed and died? And now that love was dead and she had run away from the corpse, why had she allowed her family to persuade her into this undignified battle over the grave? Why had she not gone quietly out of her husband’s life into the desolate freedom of her own, while he turned to another woman and parted her fingers to wear the pledge of his eternal love.
If only she had been a little better or a little worse!... A little better, and she could have steadied her marriage when it rocked, a little worse and she could have stepped out of it all, cast her memories from her, and started the whole damn thing over again as she had seen so many women do. But she wasn’t quite good enough for the one or bad enough for the other, so she must suffer as neither the good nor the bad have to suffer. She must pay the price for being fine, but not fine enough.
In Autumn the price was paid. For three days counsel argued on the possibility or impossibility of a woman leaving one man except for another—on the possibility or impossibilityof a woman being chaste when in the constant society of a male friend—on the minimum time which must be allowed for misconduct to take place. Waiters, chambermaids, chauffeurs gave confused evidence—there was “laughter in court”—the learned judge asked questions that brought shame into the soft, secret places of Mary’s heart—Julian stood before her to tell her and all the world that she had loved him once.... She found herself in the witness-box, receiving from her counsel the wounds of a friend.... Of course Julian must be blackened to account for her leaving him—was she able to paint him black enough? Probably not, since the verdict was given in his favour.
Most of the next day’s papers contained photographs of Mrs. Pembroke leaving the divorce court after a decree nisi had been obtained against her by her husband, Mr. Julian Pembroke (inset).
In spite of the non-committal attitude of his solicitors, Sir John Alard had been sure that to defend the suit would be to vindicate Mary and her family against the outrageous Julian. He would not believe that judgment could go against his daughter except by default, and now that this incredible thing had happened, and Mary had been publicly and argumentatively stripped of her own and Alard’s good name, while Julian, with innocence and virtue proclaimed by law, was set free to marry his new choice, he felt uncertain whether to blame most his daughter’s counsel or his daughter herself.
Counsel had failed to make what he might out of Julian’s cross-examination ... what a fruitful field was there! If only Sir John could have cross-examined Julian himself! There would have been an end of that mirage of the Deceived and Deserted Husband which had so impressed the court.... But Mary was to blame as well as counsel. She really had been appallingly indiscreet ... her cross-examination—Lord! what an affair! What a damn fool she had made of herself!—Hang it all, he’d really have thought better of her if she’dgone the whole hog ... the fellow wasn’t much good in the witness-box either ... but he’d behaved like a gentleman afterwards. He had made Mary a formal proposal of marriage the morning after the decree was given. The only thing to do now was for her to marry him.
Lady Alard marked her daughter’s disgrace by sending for Dr. Mount in the middle of the night, and “nearly dying on his hands” as she reproachfully told Mary when she returned to Conster the next afternoon. Mary looked a great deal more ill than her mother—dazed and blank she sat by Lady Alard’s sofa, listening to the tale of her sorrows and symptoms, only a slow occasional trembling of her lip showing that her heart was alive and in torment under the dead weight of her body’s stupefaction. All her mind and being was withdrawn into herself, and during the afternoon was in retreat, seeking strength for the last desperate stand that she must make.
After tea, Peter arrived, looking awkward and unhappy—then George, looking scared and pompous. Mary knew that a family conclave had been summoned, and her heart sank. What a farce and a sham these parliaments were, seeing that Alard was ruled by the absolute monarchy of Sir John. No one would take her part, unless perhaps it was Gervase—Uranus in the Alard system—but he would not be there today; she must stand alone. She gripped her hands together under the little bag on her lap, and in her dry heart there was a prayer at last—“Oh, God, I have never been able to be quite true to myself—now don’t let me be quite untrue.”
As soon as the servants had cleared away the last of the tea things—there had been a pretence of offering tea to Peter and George, as if they had casually dropped in—Sir John cast aside all convention of accident, and opened the attack.
“Well,” he said to his assembled family—“it’s been a dreadful business—unexpectedly dreadful. Shows what the Divorce Court is under all this talk about justice. There’s been only one saving clause to the whole business, and that’s Smith’s behaviour. He might have done better in the witness-box,but he’s stuck by Mary all through, and made her a formal offer of marriage directly the decree was given.”
“That was the least he could do,” said Peter.
“Of course; you needn’t tell me that. But I’ve seen such shocking examples of bad faith during the last three days.... It’s a comfort to find one man behaving decently. I’m convinced that the only thing Mary can do is to marry him as soon as the decree is made absolute.”
George gave a choking sound, and his father’s eye turned fiercely upon him.
“Well, sir—what haveyouto say?”
“I—I—er—only that Mary can’t marry again now—er—under these new circumstances ... only the innocent partner....”
“You dare, Sir! Damn it all—I’ll believe in my own daughter’s innocence in spite of all the courts in the country.”
“I don’t mean that she isn’t innocent—er—in fact—but the decree has been given against her.”
“What difference does that make?—if she was innocent before the decree she’s innocent after it, no matter which way it goes. Damn you and your humbug, Sir. But it doesn’t matter in the least—she can marry again, whatever you say; the law allows it, so you can’t stop it. She shall be married in Leasan church.”
“She shall not, Sir.”
A deep bluish flush was on George’s cheek-bones as he rose to his feet. Sir John was for a moment taken aback by defiance from such an unexpected quarter, but he soon recovered himself.
“I tell you she shall. Leasan belongs to me.”
“The living is in your gift, Sir, but at present I hold it, and as priest of this parish, I refuse to lend my church for the marriage of the guil—er—in fact, for—the marriage.”
“Bunkum! ‘Priest of this parish’—you’ll be calling yourself Pope next. If you can’t talk sense you can clear out.”
George was already at the door, and the hand he laid upon it trembled violently.
“Don’t go!”—it was Mary who cried after him—“there’s no need for you to upset yourself about my marriage. I haven’t the slightest thought of getting married.”
But George had gone out.