Chapter VII

Percy awakened next morning straight into his new joy.

Of course the thing sounds ridiculous; but the fact remains that there is no happiness in the world comparable to that of the experience known as Conversion. It is as if the world had come tenderly alive; as if the sky had grown transparent and gracious faces looked down; as if the rooms and streets of common life were on a sudden thronged with friends; as if, above all, a brilliant light, warm and radiant, had started into flame within the soul.

Naturally all this has to materialize in small actions as well as in great.

Last night when Percy had gone up to his room he had first written a letter to Reggie — not very long, but eloquent. He had told him briefly that he had been " knocked over " by the sermon; he asked him to meet him for a cup of tea at five o'clock to-morrow, and to come down with him to Hanstead for an hour or two at least. He had told him, too, that everything "seemed quite different." This letter he proposed to leave at Reggie's office on his way through the City.

Then an idea had come to him; and he had gone to a little Japanese cabinet he had on the top of his bookshelf, and after opening two or three drawers had found what he was looking for. It was a little brass and blackwood crucifix he had picked up in the street one day. It seemed to him that this would be helpful as a kind of focus for concentration. He had tacked this up, taking care not to make too much noise, over the side of his bed; and had knelt down before it to say his prayers with an

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And now, on this Monday morning, he awoke a little before seven, and lay looking at it.

" The Love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord...."

At a quarter past seven he got up, and knelt in his pyjamas, with his elbows on the bed, for a quarter of an hour, staring at the crucifix. His thoughts went round and round, dwelling now on the material of the brass and wood, now on the Thing for which it stood. He said his ordinary prayers over three or four times.... He was cold before he was done; but his heart burned like fire. Certainly " everything was quite different."

Breakfast was almost a sacramental meal. He felt both elated and reasonable. He had had a long talk with his father last night; had heard mention made of the doctor's "position as a churchwarden"; had enthusiastically assented to this; had given full consent to his father to tell the Vicar everything; had said that he thought it quite unlikely he would want to become a Roman Catholic; had promised to take no explicit step without informing them at home.

His sense of elation and reasonableness were at full pitch this morning. He felt he had acted frankly and courageously. So he rang the bell for the eggs, and cut bread on the sideboard, and took plates away with an alert and zealous attention. His parents and Helen regarded him; but said little.

It was astonishing how friendly he felt to all the world

Digitized by Google as he went along the High Street to catch the nine-seven. Everyone seemed a brother; he took off his hat — right off — radiantly, to Mr. Main, who came out, melancholy as ever, from the churchyard after reading morning prayers. He greeted the station-master with a loud cheerfulness, although up to the present he had borne a certain grudge against that official for not treating him with sufficient deference.

He bought no half -penny paper this morning. He felt it would be a tiresome distraction. He was sufficient company to himself.

So all day the elation continued; for it appeared to him that drudgery over accounts was no longer drudgery; it was as sacramental as everything else. He did it with a strange delight.

" My dear chap! " whispered Reggie earnestly. " I can't tell you "

He broke off; there was no more to be said; but he shook with excited sympathy.

Percy fetched his cup and a sponge-cake to the little round table in the corner behind the pillar where they could talk unheard; and began. (His hands trembled a little.)

" Well/' he said. " It's as I told you. It's just... just knocked me over. I don't know how to put it into words. But you understand, don't you? "

Reggie looked at him, nodding a little.

"Well: I want to know," continued Percy, "what's to be done next."

" See Father Hilary," said Reggie.

Percy hesitated. Then he took a bite at his spongecake.

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" But that means my becoming a Catholic, doesn't it? " " That's what you mean, isn't it? " cried Reggie with round eyes.

Percy perceived that the thing was more complex than he had thought.

" I don't exactly see why," he said slowly. "It isn't the Church I want It's... it's..

" My dear chap, you don't understand! You can't possibly not be a Catholic now! I thought that was what you meant."

Reggie's face had a look of dismay on it. Of course he hadn't understood in the slightest. It had seemed to him that, when Percy had said he was "knocked over," he had meant of course by Catholicism.

" Look here," said Percy softly, glancing round the white pillared room to make certain he was not overheard. " You remember what the chap preached about. Well, that's what it did for me.... And I don't quite see where Catholicism comes in. Surely "

" Look here," said Reggie in his turn. " Will you come and sie Father Hilary? He'll put the whole thing far better than I can. Are you afraid of your people?"

" No: it's not that. I've spoken to them. They were awfully decent"

"Well, will you let me speak to Father Hilary? "

There was a pause.

Percy did not know exactly how far the priest was bound up in his new experience. It had been by the personality of the man that he had been captured, but it appeared to him that he had immediately been handed on, by him, so to speak, to this new and astonishing world of religion. At the same time he could not even think of the priest without a thrill.... He seemed to him a kind of radiant demigod, a glorious personal gateway to

Digitized by Google unimaginable things. It appeared incredible that he could really talk with him in the flesh. " Do you think " he began.

Reggie made an impatient movement. He felt like a fisherman whose fish sulks at the last moment.

"Look here, don't hedge/' he said. "Will you come and see Father Hilary? "

" Yes, I will," said Percy almost defiantly.

"I'm glad you've spoken to your people," said Reggie, after a pause for refreshment. "And I'm extraordinarily glad they took it so well. I had rather a bad time with my mother, you know."

"Oh! my people are all right," said Percy. "You see that's always been their line. They're Church of England, but they aren't bigoted."

" Lots of people say that," said Reggie with an air of unbounded experience. " But when it comes to the point, you know.... Now let me tell you about Father Hilary."

For the next ten minutes Percy listened. He felt like a child introduced to the society of friendly giants or fairies. He heard all about the life of friars, about vows and discipline and the rest. It did not seem to touch common life at any point at all; it appeared a kind of ideal existence in another state of being. It presented itself to his imagination as an embodiment of the new world to which his own interior experience had given him access. It was as if a child, having for the first time seen a fairy, was informed minutely of their ways and haunts and etiquette. It was as if doors opened all round in what he had previously taken to be impenetrably confining walls.

It must be remembered that clerks in offices, who have been educated in grammar-schools and live at home, suffer under extraordinary disabilities. Up to the present, with

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Percy at any rate, the world had been a very sombre, materialistic kind of thing. The realities were things like breakfast, and nine-seven trains, and ledgers and money-making: these were the brutal undeniable facts; other things were dreams and fancies. Gadsby in C and girls at Yar-mouth or in the train were the nearest he had ever approached towards the gates of Romance: he had fastened upon those things as safety-valves through which a little of his rapidly lowering interior energy of imagination might escape. Gadsby in C, in fact (with the girls), stood to Percy for that for which Greek costumes and copper fireplaces stood to Helen. And now wide and glorious gates had rolled back and sunlight and music streamed through them: he thought he saw worlds within worlds; and now, again, from Reggie's talk, he understood that the vision was a fact; that there were men like himself who lived beyond those gates, who found religion as practical and as solid as money-making and morning trains; men whose objective lives and occupations were the embodiment of all this newly discovered glory.

"You're coming down to Hanstead, aren't you?" he said suddenly.

" There's no need. Besides I can't. I must get home: I've got to call at the friary on the way, too."

" Oh!... Well, perhaps that would be better; and "

" Oh, yes; I'll see Father Hilary to-night. Perhaps next Saturday afternoon we can see him."

Ill

It was a distinctly odd atmosphere in which Percy found himself this evening — or which, perhaps, he generated. And upon him too, as upon Helen last night, there began

Digitized by Google to come a sense that his parents did not quite know how to deal with the situation, that they found it very unusual and puzzling.

He mentioned at dinner that he had seen Reggie Ballard and that he was hoping to see the friar himself on the Saturday afternoon; and these statements were met with a certain blankness. His father pursed his lips and frowned a little, but not at all unkindly: his mother nodded once or twice, as if it were just what she had expected. Obviously they proposed to behave as well as possible.

In the drawing-room, however, the doctor made a little gentle attack — quite mild and quite kind.

He was holding the Nation in front of his face, and suddenly laid it down.

"Well, my boy," he said, "if you must go to see this... this priest, you must go. I wouldn't interfere with your liberty for anything. But... do you think it quite wise just now? "

"Why not, father?"

"Well, you see, you're excited and worked up. And you must remember that these priests are very highly trained. They're very clever and quick, you know."

"Are they?"

" Yes, my boy. It is the one thing they're trained to do — persuade.. • er... sensitive people like yourself. They have years of training, you know. I can't help thinking you'd be wiser if you'd wait a little."

Percy shifted in his seat.

" But, you know, I don't at all see why I should become a Catholic: and, in any case, it's a long business. It means months of instruction first, Reggie says."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, I'm sure.... But... but don't you think you might go and have a good talk to the Vicar first."

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Percy began to see light. It was obvious to him that his father had been round to the Vicarage already. He put the question straight

" You did see the Vicar, then, father? "

The doctor also shifted in his seat.

"Why, yes; I went round just to have a word this afternoon.. • your mother thought I'd better. He... he was very kind. He said he'd be delighted to be of any service to you that he could."

" Well: that's very good of him. I'd like to talk it over. Of course I would in any case before doing anything. But I think I'd better see Father Hilary first. And I'll promise to ask the Vicar anything that puzzles me."

"Very good, my boy, very good."

And the doctor took up the Nation once more.

Percy went to bed unusually early. He was honestly tired, for one thing, with all his emotions; and, for another, there was the crucifix waiting for him.

He stood looking at it a minute or two. He turned away, and then wheeled round, to see it again suddenly. The sight gave him extraordinary pleasure — that little dark emblem against the pale wall.

He took it off its nail presently and carried it round, trying it here and there in other places. Then he had an inspiration.

He laid it down, climbed on to a chair and got down from the top of his wardrobe a box containing quantities of small miscellaneous ornaments — such things as photograph-frames and china animals — things which he had rejected from the adornment of his walls. He found at last what he was looking for — two tiny tin candlesticks,

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Then he knelt down facing it, to say his prayers.

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