Chapter IX

Percy, if the truth must be told, was feeling very considerably satisfied with himself, though he still thought it proper to affect an air of melancholy.

For, first, he had been of service to Mr. Main; at least he had done his utmost to be of service, since he had not only written a very warm letter himself to the firm in whose employment he had been, but had prevailed on his father to write one too. And he had had the most grateful letter from Mr. Main in answer.

Next, he had behaved, he thought, with singular resolution in the affairs of Gladys. He had had a line from Father Hilary, telling him of course exactly what he expected, that there was no other course open to a Catholic; and he had then sent off his previously drafted letter to Gladys herself — full of the most beautiful sentiments. In this he had drawn a fine picture of his own grief — a grief, he had remarked, which was doubled by the thought of the sorrow he must be giving. (He had, actually, said this!) He had referred to sacrifices which others had been forced to make in the same cause of religion; and hoped that Gladys herself, too, would rise to the occasion. (He did not put it quite like this; but these were the sentiments he conveyed.) Finally, he said that he was quite certain that they must not meet again — " it was better so... no good could be served"... Only distress could be caused: and he had ended with further expressions of grief and of his own desolate heart.

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The letter, then, was entirely correct from a logical and intellectual point of view. Every word of it, and, more, every argument was perfectly defensible. A man who really had Catholic principles could not possibly act otherwise, nor justify his act more completely.

It was now thirty-six hours since the letter had been despatched; and no answer had come from Gladys; although it should have come if she had replied by the next post.

It was a charming morning as Percy strolled out in the middle of it into the big gardens to the northeast.

These were as severe and formal as the house they adorned. A huge lawn, with two or three groups of cedars, ran along the whole side of the house from the edge of the carriage-drive to beyond the laundry — a small temple-like building tucked away amongst shrubs — and was bounded by a paved terrace: this again led down by a couple of spacious openings to a further long strip of shaven turf, bounded again by a low wall. And, from the whole, the park sank away in rich slopes to the village and the high-road.

It was up and down this lower strip of lawn that Percy was pacing when Helen and Mabel came upon him.

He looked all that he should. The little mistakes of dress — so indefinable, yet so evident — with which he had begun his high-life, were all smoothed away. His clothes no longer looked too new or too careful. He had dropped his beautiful waistcoat and wore a proper Norfolk-jacket instead, suitable to his years. Its belt was unbuttoned, and he carried his hands in his knickerbockers pockets: he wore nice low, strong shoes with leather fringes coming out of them. Here, then, in the spring sunlight, with

Digitized by Google his pleasant boyish face and bright eyes, his smooth complexion, and his curly hair, hatless, wearing as he did just now a little air of melancholy — he really looked very well indeed. He resembled a gentleman in every possible detail.

" Hullo! " said Helen over the wall.

Percy turned. Then he saw Mabel's little triangular smiling face under a big hat. He smiled back.

" You're over early," he said. " What's op? "

" Oh! five thousand things," said Mabel.

Percy knew precisely the kind of things she meant — all the innumerable small affairs that girls work up together — things like the decorations of churches, or poker-work, or the dressing of charity-dolls, or mysterious confidences, or exchanges of literary efforts — all the indefinable crop of business and secrets that make their appearance when two girls become friends. Mabel came over pretty often now: sometimes she stayed to lunch, and sometimes not.

" I want you to look after her for a bit," said Helen. " I've got to see Mrs. Bennett."

" I shall be delighted," said Percy. " Come and walk along here, Miss Marridon: the grass is quite dry."

" I'll be back in five or ten minutes," said Helen. " Or a quarter of an hour at the latest."

Percy had reached now, he thought, that pleasant stage of intimacy in which one can be abrupt. He said nothing for four or five paces. Then he began.

" I've been thinking about what you said over at Cleever. Do you really think that, Miss Marridon? "

Mabel looked startled.

"About what?" she asked, "I forget."

" About • •. about the Colonel, you know; and his religion."

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" Oh, yes!... of course I do, Mr. Brandreth-Smith. It's only that in his case he doesn't put his religion forward at all."

" A man came to see me the other day," said Percy pensively. " He was the curate in our old home at Hanstead. Well; he's become a Roman Catholic; and he's having a fearfully hard time."

Mabel sniffed delicately.

"Don't you... don't you think that's rather fine?" asked Percy tentatively. " He's lost everything and gained nothing, you know. His wife gives him an awful time, I expect."

" And has she lost everything too? "

" Why, yes: her position and so on, of course. They're in lodgings somewhere."

" I think it's extraordinarily selfish of him," said Mabel deliberately. " You don't really think it's fine of him, do you?" (She began to grow excited.) "Just because he thought he'd like to change his religion, he's... he's sacrificed his wife and all her happiness. What did he marry her for, if he couldn't keep his word to her better than that? "

"His word?"

" Yes: his promises, and all that she expected too! What right has he to do that?... Mr. Brandreth-Smith, you can't really think that's fine of him... do you? Why should he think about himself, more than about her? "

He had never seen her so serious and excited before. Her eyes had grown quite grave, and her face worked a little. She resembled a kitten that suddenly behaves like a cat: he said nothing for a few seconds. He was really surprised. He did not know her as Helen did.

Mabel was of that quite distinct and recognizable class,

Digitized by Google that on the subject of the Church of Rome, and on that only, becomes very nearly fanatical. Largely it was her education, and the influence of her father, who, with tolerably loose views on the subject of works, was very Evangelical indeed upon that of faith; and partly, to her very individualistic temperament, the idea of religious obedience was absolutely distasteful. Catholicism, then, to her, was the single subject for which nothing could be said. Religion, to her, was almost everything that Catholicism was not. But she was quite sincere too in her arguments just now, and entirely unaware that she was moved by prejudice. It seemed to her, honestly and genuinely, that a religion that could not take the second place — as in poor Mr. Main's case — was simply not religion at all. It was exactly unchristian. And her knowledge of Percy's own position gave her a deliberate and pointed force in all that she said.

" But," Percy began, a little uneasy that something was wrong, " it seems to me that if a person's conscience tells him a certain religion is true, he's bound to follow it whatever happens."

" But how can a religion be true — how can he even think it true, if it makes him cruel to his wife? That's not Christianity! 99

Percy was silent.

His mind was revolving vehemently. At one instant there came on him a violent impulse to tell her everything — everything, at least, with regard to his religious views. (He did not propose to tell even her about Gladys.) Then a no less violent impulse swayed him to do nothing of the kind. After all, why should he lower himself in her eyes? He did not forget how she had compared a conversion to Catholicism with marrying an actress.... Well, at any rate, he had not done the second....

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So he compromised, once more.

" Miss Marridon," he said, " do tell me what you mean by religion... I... I really want to know."

She turned her face on him, and an odd startled look, almost shy, took the place of the little glow that had been in her eyes just now.

" Yes: do tell me," he said. " I really mean it."

" But... but how can I gay it all in a minute or two? I really "

" I don't mean exactly everything you believe. But... but the whole thing."

She drew a breath, as they moved on again over the noiseless grass.

Ill

" So there you are," cried Helen, ten minutes later. " I'm fearfully sorry for being so late."

Mabel was beside her almost before she had finished speaking. It had been a very intimate conversation indeed; and the reaction had come.

" Yes, my dear, you are late. We shan't have time "

" You must stay to lunch. Come along. Good-bye, Percy."

Percy nodded; and as the two disappeared behind the low wall, was in time to catch a quick glance from the girl he had talked to so long. The glance certainly seemed eloquent; but he could not have put into words — scarcely into thought — exactly what it signified. It seemed to mean a great deal more than it possibly could.

For a minute or two, as he continued to walk up and down, he could think of nothing except of the girl herself. Indeed, she had revealed herself, it seemed to him, as never before. Up to the present they had talked purely on the tops of things: there had been plenty of

Digitized by Google camaraderie, and sympathy, and mutual understanding and all the rest of it; but it had been as if they had played at ball, catching and tossing, swiftly and easily. Now they had dropped the ball and come together.

A very real and vivid person, he thought, had been revealed to him; sane, cool, comforting, yet curiously stimulating. As she had talked, more and more had her pleasant conventionalities dropped from her, and her intimate self emerged. Her eyes had grown large and serious, and even eloquent; she had talked with little quick gestures of her hands, glancing at him — it seemed — as if unconscious of everything except her subject. He was nearer to her, he knew now, than ever before. And once more he assured himself that all this was "quite different" from any previous experience of his.

Then, presently, as though lit still by her presence, the extraordinary sanity of her Gospel (as he thought) began to fascinate him....

She had not, naturally, touched on dogma. Dogma had practically no place in her Gospel at all, except perhaps subconsciously, far away down, in mysteries. Her religion rather consisted in an Attitude — an attitude, primarily, to her neighbour. One must be good to people, she said; kindly and charitable; that was the First Great Commandment of the Law; and, compared with this, all else was secondary. After all (she had asked in effect), what do we really know of anything except that? Of course Christianity was true — no reasonable person de-nied that — and one must repeat the Creed and go to church; and there was heaven no doubt, to which (as a matter of private opinion) she held that everyone would go some time. But these things were, so to speak, extras; or, at least, they were not one's first business. One's first business, one's real religion, was to perform the duties

Digitized by Google of one's station; one must be good, of course, too; and one must be kind and pleasant. And anything that interfered with this, she had argued (with a memory of poor Mr. Main, and of, other circumstances too, within her knowledge), could not possibly be right or true — was not, in fact, Christianity.

This, roughly speaking, was the Gospel she had preached just now, with her quick little gestures and her bright grave eyes. And her sincerity had been undoubted. That had been a tremendous point in her favour. She appeared really to care; and to find inspiration in such a faith.

Now Percy knew perfectly well that the scheme was open to a number of criticisms. He was perfectly aware that it did not rest on anything but an individualistic point of view, quite natural indeed in a properly-brought-up person, and yet not seriously defensible. But he would not formulate these criticisms. He just regarded it, and it seemed wonderfully attractive.

In a word then, he saw the two Ideas of Christianity which were still within his choice. There was first Catholicism — that large, definite, coherent scheme of which he knew quite enough to understand its coherence.... Yet here, in this morning sunlight, on this rich lawn, shadowed by the great house that was his home, in these smooth circumstances, all coloured as they were by ten thousand tints and shades — to him, soothed now and tamed, as it were, by the alluring facts of his life and his money and his future, surrounded by a hundred suggestions, where all was rounded off and complete, where every wheel was oiled — against this background, to him still glowing from the intimacy of this delightful girl, whose very talking with him, flattered and excited him — to such a person, in such circumstances, the Idea of Catholicism, with its peremptory orders, its clear-cut statements, its

Digitized by Google rigidity and its demands, loomed out as something forbidding and unlovable.

Then again, too, working upon him underground with a force he never suspected, was the patient, untiring plan that his mother had pursued ever since they had first come to Marston. It was astonishing how subtly she had worked — how, in point after point, she had given him to understand that Catholicism was not at all wicked (for that would have stimulated him), but not quite well-bred; that it was in slightly bad taste; that it would be a handicap to him all his life. And there was not a soul near him to help him the other way. His father and sister, the Rector and his nice wife, the very servants of the place — all these people formed a kind of group from which he appeared to himself interiorly excluded. He remembered a sentence that the ex-priest had uttered months ago, about the Church being the enemy of domestic ties. For an instant, even now, he recoiled at the memory of that man, yet half its horror was gone. Besides, even though the man did have a disagreeable personality, his words might be reasonable enough. Surely there was something inhuman in the Catholic demands!

And, on the other hand, the Gospel he had just heard seemed precisely suited to his life, and even to have in it a certain inspiration. If men really lived up to it, what more could be wanted; if all men were kind and charitable, and went to church and didn't bother much about dogma, would not the victory of Christianity be, after all, complete? What need was there, after all, to drag in the gaunt structure of Catholicism across this smooth and pleasant countryside? The one was reasonable, suitable and quiet: the other was arresting, inharmonious and hard. What was there, after all, in the intellectual completeness of Catholicism, that it should

Digitized by Google necessarily be preferred to the moral and human completeness of the Gospel according to Mabel? •..

And Helen, when the two had got out of earshot of the terrace, had turned to her friend with a dancing light in her eyes.

" Well; did you rub it in? " she said; " as mother asked you?"

" I told him exactly what I thought," said Mabel.

" I want to speak to you an instant, Percy/' said his mother after lunch a couple of days later.

He followed her listlessly into the little morning-room that opened out of the drawing-room where Mabel and his sister were again over their coffee.

" Your father's caught a chill again, as you know. It's too tiresome. And the doctor told me just before lunch that he must take much more care than he did last time."

" I'm sorry," said the boy, still with that dreamy air, as he sat down in the window recess.

"Well, there it is; and the Rector's dreadfully upset, because of the bazaar, you know, on Easter Monday."

Percy looked up quickly.

" I'm to open it, you know," she went on. " But who's to do the speaking?... Percy?"

His heart was beginning to beat a little. "Yes?" he said.

" I wish you'd do it instead of him," she said abruptly. " I heard how well you spoke at the Servants' Ball... and... and you know the bazaar's for the Church certainly, for a new lectern the Rector wants and... and a stove for the vestry. But I don't see that need stop

Digitized by Google you. It's... it's for the place as a whole you know. And it's so important that we should be well represented there; and so I thought "

Percy moved his head abruptly; and she stopped. Then she began again, with an oddly mingled air of authority and complaint. She talked about " unreasonable prejudice/' " narrow-mindedness/' " the good Rector/' a " position in the county."

But Percy scarcely seemed to hear her. His pleasant, bright eyes, a little melancholy, now were resting on the far-off blue hills beyond the rich rolling slopes of the great park.

" All right, mother," he said quietly, as she stopped at last. " I'll speak if you like."

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