Chapter IX

It was with extraordinary excitement that Percy came up the stairs from Kensington Station and saw Reggie waiting for him at the top. He knew that the Friary was not ten minutes' walk away.

Hitherto he had not spoken to the Vicar. He had gone to the last frantic choir-practice on the Wednesday night; he had sung, in a stifling atmosphere of vegetables, on the Thursday night, and had watched, through a kind of bower, the bishop preaching on the Lessons of the Harvest; he had even gone into the Vicarage to meet him afterwards, and had had the privilege of offering him a plate of seedcake, on the hearthrug. Caleb Simper had gone tolerably, and Gadsby in C excellently.

But he had not discussed anything with either of his pastors. Obviously they both knew the crisis through which he was passing; for the Vicar had patted him on the shoulder with particular attention as he actually held the plate of cake towards the bishop; and Mr. Main had looked at him, and, still more, not looked at him, with a peculiar sort of expression. But he had held to his determination to consult Father Hilary first. And now the day and hour had come. He had lunched at one o'clock sharp in an A. B. C. shop, and had come immediately on to Kensington, whither Reggie had preceded him.

High Street wore a dream-like look to him as he came out into it. People did not seem quite real. It was un-

Digitized by Google imaginable that they could be content not to be going to a Friary.... He was quite silent as he walked, listening to Reggie explaining in an important undertone that Father Hilary could not give them long, as he had to be in his " box " at half-past two. He did not even ask what this signified.

As he stood by the door of the Friary he had a fierce impulse to run away. The flat, dull face of the house appeared to him sinister. Reggie looked at his awe-stricken face with pardonable elation.

"Just talk straight out to him, won't you?" he said. " He's as nice as he can be. I shall leave you alone with him in the parlour, you know."

Percy nodded; his face was resolute, if pale.

A minute later he found himself in the "parlour," eyeing the retreating brown back and the bare heels of the brother who had shown them in. It was, indeed, fairyland come true. He looked round the parlour: it seemed to him astonishingly commonplace. The walls were distempered a faint green, with a mechanical key-pattern border four feet up; there was a table, with a wax crucifix under a glass case upon it; there were three rush-bottomed chairs, a strip of old carpet, and a shelf with three or four faded books in it: and nothing else. It was pleasant to find it so poor; but he wondered why it need be so ugly. He thought with a faint amusement of Helen's views on copper and stained wood.

" This is their kind of drawing-room," said Reggie in an arch undertone.

Then the door opened and Father Hilary came in, smiling and holding out his hand.

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" I understand entirely/' said the friar, twenty minutes later. "And it's as satisfactory as it can be. So many inquirers, you know, begin by being drawn by the externals — the system, so to speak. Now that's one way, certainly; but I don't think it's the best. Yours seems to me the best (if I may say so). With you it's the interior things first. The other will come later."

Percy swallowed in his throat, and nodded.

The situation had developed very swiftly indeed, since Reggie had departed (with a discreet air of proprietorship) twenty minutes ago, leaving Percy in a state of profound disquiet and terror.

Fifst, there had been the astonishingly easy friendliness of this priest. There was no stiffness, no pose, no rigidity of propriety about him at all. Percy had half expected signs of the cross to be waved at him, oracles uttered, and even perhaps threats or warnings. Or if not these, he had thought that the friar would be insinuating or silky or disingenuous. (It must be remembered that this boy's acquaintance with Catholicism was entirely drawn from literature.) But, on the contrary, Father Hilary had been exactly like everyone else, only far more accessible than most; he had not patronized the boy at all; he had talked a little, fluently and charmingly, until Percy's frozenness began to melt; and then he had begun, gently, to question him.

Next, the priest had seemed to understand him even before he had properly explained himself: he had put into words, once or twice, precisely what Percy was feeling very much better than Percy felt himself capable of putting it.

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Thirdly, so far from urging him to become a Catholic instantly, he had told him what a very serious step it was; how much consideration it needed; what a respect, he must remember, was due to his parents and their wishes — "short of offending God," the priest had said; and, finally he had remarked that a course of instruction was absolutely necessary, and that this instruction would in any case occupy not less than four months or so, and perhaps a great deal more.

" And even if you put yourself under instruction," the priest had added, " it would not commit you in the least. If, at the end, you felt that you were not entirely convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, it would be your duty to draw back."

The psychological effect of all this on the boy's mind was Very considerable; yet not so considerable as he thought. For what had been done to him was that his own position had been analysed, and the analysis laid before him; and this, by a very persuasive and simple man. Certainly one or two further points had been made clear, and one or two of his misconceptions corrected, so that the chain of his thoughts was better linked up. But no more than this.. *. And now he perceived that conviction was further advanced than he had dreamed. Up to half an hour ago he had believed that he was inclined towards Catholicism, but not at all convinced; now he thought he saw that he was practically convinced; but not altogether inclined towards it.

" Well," said the friar after a pause, " I'll give you one or two books. Will you read them, and then come and see me again — say in a fortnight?"

"Yes," said Percy.

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Then Father Hilary looked at him with sudden gravity, and the twinkle died from his eyes.

" And will you remember to pray regularly for light and strength? That's really the point, you know." He stood up.

" Reggie Ballard told me you'd like to see the Friary. We might go straight through the house now, and then end up in the church; and you can join him there."

Ill

The Friary made an enormous impression on him.

It must be remembered that all this was, to him, like an initiation. The fact that there actually were English-men, like himself in birth and experience, yet unlike him in that they lived a life under circumstances which he believed non-existent since the Middle Ages; that these Englishmen wore habits and sandals and were called friars; that they dined in silence; that they were bound by vows; that they had shaven heads; that their religion — and that the Catholic — was more real to them than banks or stock-exchanges or fluctuations of the cocoa-trade or nine-seven trains — well, he had known this in a kind of subconscious way; and now for the first time he saw it with his eyes, not under the slightly dramatic circumstances of a church, but in plain whitewashed passages, bare cells, and all but empty refectory. And it was one of them who was actually his guide; against whose habit he brushed as he walked, whose sandals flapped and creaked beside his own well-polished boots, who explained these mysteries to him in a matter-of-fact undertone. More than all this — it was this man who, from the high pulpit last Sunday morning, had drawn up the veil which every year had thickened between Percy's eyes and the Real.

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" This is the refectory," whispered the priest, motioning him through a door.

It was a long room, with stained deal joists visible in the ceiling, paved with wood-blocks, and furnished in a manner that recalled to Percy certain pictures in Christmas numbers of the illustrated papers. Round the entire room, with breaks here and there, extended long, narrow, spotlessly clean wooden tables, on trestles, with a continuous bench attached to the wall behind them. On these tables lay the simplest possible articles — in each place was laid a brown mug, a knife and fork, a wooden spoon, a brown water-bottle and a folded napkin. Between each two places stood a cruet-stand with oil and vinegar. Opposite the door, in a little recess, stood a high pulpit with a shaded gas-burner above it. On the extreme left, on the wall, hung an immense crucifix, blood-stained and weary looking. On the extreme right an open door showed the tiled wall of the kitchen.

" That is the pulpit," said the friar. " One of the fathers reads from that during meals. We don't talk at meals, except on certain days."

" What does he read? " whispered Percy.

"Well — always from the Gospels first; and then some other books — ' Lives of the Saints/ and so on."

Percy had an imagination, and he was using it strenuously. He ran his eyes round the room, picturing the hooded figures, each in his place, the Father-Guardian (as he had learned the Superior was called) beneath the crucifix; he perceived the leisure and the wideness and the slow, deliberate dignity of the action called dinner, under the grave voice of the Reader.... He contrasted it with the dining-room of his home, and the pictures, and the red walls, and the slight stuffiness, and the talk, and the figure of anxious Alice changing the plates.

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" I expect you'd like to see a cell," said Father Hilary as they came out again. " I've got leave to take you to mine. But I must just show you the room where we have what's called Recreation, first."

"What's that— father?" said Percy with sudden courage, as they went along the bare corridor.

The friar smiled frankly.

"Well; it's rather a trial to some of us at first," he said. " It means that we all have to sit round and talk, whether we want to or not. But it's very important No monastery can go on well that neglects it"

"Why not? I should have thought "

" Yes: I know. But without it, you know, you might get cliques, and special friendships, and so divisions and so on. — Well, here it is."

This too was an almost bare room. But it had a billiard-table at one side, covered with a cloth. Round the fireplace was a great semicircle of wooden chairs. There were a few religious pictures on the wall, and, on a bracket, over the mantelpiece, was a plaster image of St Francis. An immense black cat uncoiled himself with majesty where he lay on the seat of one of the chairs, and began slowly to stretch every muscle of his being, meanwhile displaying the interior of his mouth in a gigantic and deliberate yawn.

" You're looking at the billiard-table," smiled the priest. " Everybody does. But I assure you it's not touched once a week! An old lady insisted on giving it to us. She said she was sure we must be so dull."

He stooped to scratch the cat under the chin. The cat was, at that instant, just finishing his stretch, and the point of his great tail was ending in a quivering crook: he interrupted himself to incline his chin to the skilful finger. Percy glanced at the friar. He was smiling with that

Digitized by Google curious radiant contentment that the boy had noticed so often.

"What's the 'Box*?" said Percy suddenly. "Reggie told me you had to go "

"Oh! he meant the Confessional. Yes: I've got to be there in ten minutes. Saturday's our heavy day, you know.... (There, Tom!) "

"How long "

"Well: I shall get out about nine, I suppose."

"Do you mean that people will go on coming till nine o'clock, from half -past two?"

" Why, yes," said the priest gently. " It's one of our great feasts to-morrow."

" And do you all take it by turns? "

The friar smiled outright.

" We've got eight confessionals in church," he said. " They'll all be full."

It was beyond Percy altogether. He could only imagine that each confession must take at least half an hour.... He was going to ask as they turned; but he was distracted by seeing another friar go past in the corridor, raising his hands slightly to his head in salutation.

" That's Father-Guardian," whispered the priest. " He's going to church now — I must make haste."

The cell was the last straw; and there was no more spirit left in him. Or, rather, the new spirit, suggested by imagination and inflamed by what he had seen, surged up dominant and victorious. (The cat, who had preceded them with an air of a complete stranger, leapt on to the bed and proceeded to drive his claws into it, as if marking time.)

He looked at the narrow brown-veiled bed with the black crucifix over it; the coverless table, the upright chair,

Digitized by Google the curtain; and he understood that this was the home, deliberately chosen and obviously loved by the great simple preacher who stood by him. The vision had been dawning on him — as indeed it does dawn upon some souls — of a life entirely different in externals as well as in motive, from that which he had hitherto known and from that which the world considered normal and sane; a life simple indeed, but simplified by leaving most things out rather than by adding a few things on; a life of real poverty but of dignity as well; and, above all, a life inspired by the new motive whose driving-force had manifested itself to him for the first time hardly a week ago.

And the sight of the cell finished it. He had thought that there would be a few intimacies here — a photograph or two, a snug neatness, marks of an individuality, signs that a separate person and not the mere member of a community inhabited it: and there were none. This was the sanctuary of one who was a pilgrim on earth, as he professed to be, who looked for no city here as his home, but for one to come. (The cat was the sole domestic touch.)

The sight seemed to him to cause a sort of snap in his imagination, as of a last rivet or cog fitting into its place, completing the perfect adjustment of the whole.

He stared on it; and said nothing.

"Well," said Father Hilary, five minutes later, in the little passage outside the sacristy. " You'll remember, won't you, about the books I gave you just now. And you'll come again to-day fortnight at the same time?"

" Yes, father."

"God bless you. Pray for me."

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Percy could not speak. He gripped the little parcel given him just now in the cell upstairs, and held out his hand. The friar took it, smiling. Then Percy went out into the church, swiftly and dazedly, and down the aisle — aware of what seemed to him an unusual number of people — for such an hour, he thought — kneeling in church.

At the door he found Reggie beside him, and, reassured by his presence, turned and looked up the church. Then he understood why so many were there. Each group, he saw, was gathered near one of the curious structures, ranged along the sides of the building, as he had noticed them last Sunday. The figures were very quiet; but, as he looked, Father Hilary came out from the sacristy door, down the aisle, and turned into one of the little wooden erections. Two figures — a man and a woman — followed him closely, and themselves disappeared behind curtains on either side.

" Saturday afternoon, you know," murmured Reggie discreetly.

"Well? " said Reggie, when the two got outside at last. " It's... it's amazing," said Percy, with an intense solemnity. " To think that all that "

" I know; I know."

" I saw everything," said Percy " — everything. Even one of the cells... A cat came with us."

" And that goes on all the time," said Reggie. " I mean — well— all of it."

Percy was silent as they came up into High Street.

Before him there unrolled itself the usual spectacle of Saturday afternoon. The great shop-windows were shuttered for the most part, and there was a holiday air

Digitized by Google abroad. Young men on bicycles scudded hither and thither; girls in twos and threes paraded past him arm-inarm. The air was full of the solemn roar of wheels.

And this was considered ordinary normal life, thought the boy....

" I'll tell you what it is," he said; and then stopped.

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