Chapter IV

(i)

ILLNESSES are both dreary and complicated considered as a subject for description; and no doubt I should make many mistakes if I attempted to describe exactly what Theo Banister went through. But, very briefly, he suffered from appendicitis; on the Wednesday morning an operation was performed; and on Thursday morning Mr. Mortimer was sent for, in the Vicar's absence in Zermatt. It was a very curious household, regarded in the lemn light of the shadow of death. The Bras teds, with Jack Hamilton, fled at once, on the Monday vening: fortunately they were independent of the train service, and arrived at Esher in time for dinner, bringing with them Sybil, who was to be despatched her home next morning. But Mary stayed on. rs. Banister seemed to desire a female friend, though did not say so; and Mary, on an impulse, went to Algy and asked him to ask his father whether she ould be of any use. So she stayed.

No one seemed to know how to behave, and all, therefore, took refuge in solemnity. After a long ilence at lunch on Wednesday, Harold choked suddenly and left the room abruptly; and, in sympathy with him, Algy had to bite very hard on his lower lip, which was still sore from his encounter on Sunday. It had been announced to them an hour before that the operation had not been as successful as had been hoped. The Crowston doctor, a perfectly competent man, was to come again this evening, and again on the following morning. The specialist had returned to London.

The worst of all was that amusement of any sort seemed indecent. Shooting was out of the question; even a round of golf on the park links would have been a trifle profane. Mr. Banister struck the key in which the house was to live by appearing each day in trousers instead of knickerbockers.

Harold was horribly unhappy during the rest of Wednesday, and showed it by an extreme degree of crossness.

He wandered into the billiard-room about half an hour before the dressing-bell and found Algy knocking the balls about. He sat down by the fire, took up a " Punch " and stared in dead silence at a cartoon by Mr. Sambourne for about five minutes. And all the while he was framing a remark.

It came out at last. He banged the " Punch " and stood up, glowering.

" I think you might have the decency not to play billiards," he said.

Algy, who at that moment was addressing himself a stroke, made it with extreme though trembling deliberation, watched the unsuccessful run of the balls with elaborate interest, and then straightened himself.

" It's as good as ' Punch ' I think," he said.

Harold half lowered his eyelids in a way he had in annoyance.

" Oh! well, if you think so " he said, " when — when Theo's dying."

His pathos was too much for him; and, as at lunch, he went out hastily.

Algy made a couple more strokes; put his cue down, went to the fire and leaned his head against the high mantelpiece. In both of them the sense of humour was just now overlaid.

He, too, was extremely unhappy; he was going through emotions which he could not fully understand; but one thing he did see, and that was that to behave in as normal a manner as possible was the best thing to do.

The element that particularly bewildered him was the strange juxtaposition of Theo and death; it was as if a retriever developed a taste for Beethoven. There seemed absolutely nothing in common between them; and yet there was not the tragedy of a brilliant contrast. The two were unmixable, impossible on the same plane.

Death, to Algy's mind, roughly connoted the unknown, the mysterious, the delicate, the mystical, the spiritual; and Theo stood for shooting-gaiters, cigars, and the pedigree of dogs. You do not put the " Imitation of Christ " on the same shelf as the " Sporting Guide," though there is nothing whatever intrinsically sinful about the " Sporting Guide," and nothing intrinsically holy about the "Imitation." Only, you do not put them on the same shelf. Yet upstairs that was the situation. Theo was next door to death.

The passage of time, too, seemed such a relative thing just now. It was last Sunday only that he had been battered by a young man in a lane, yet, for all personal connection with the fact, it might have happened in his childhood. He no longer felt any sense of shame at it. That, and shooting, and the Bras teds, and even Mary as he had thought of her last week, were simply in another volume.

In so strange a mood was Algy that grief, properly so called, had not yet begun — scarcely even anxiety as it is commonly understood. If Theo, at this moment, had marched in in dress-clothes, and said that he had got all right after all, and wanted a knock at the balls before dinner, certainly a huge burden would have been lifted from Algy's heart, but it would not have been exactly joy. Rather it would have been a sense of relief that things were normal again, instead of abnormal.

But Theo was not there in dress-clothes. He was upstairs in his room, with two baize doors kept closed in the passage that led to it; he was in bed, with bandages and a drawn face; and two nurses sat by him; and a monstrous shadow darkened over him hour by hour.

Since then things were so abnormal, within and without, Algy saw that to do normal things steadily was the only reasonable plan; he deplored Harold's artificiality; and it was exactly that which gave him his undoubted sense of a superior position over the extreme unnaturalness of the other. He, at any rate, had some kind of an anchor down; Harold had none.

Dinner was terrible that evening. His mother and Mary were dining upstairs; and his father and Harold were scarcely relieving to the situation. Mr. Banister, following out some profound instinct, wore a swallowtail coat instead of a dinner jacket, and sat with an air of fateful gloom that would have brought inevitable disaster upon an hysterically inclined observer. Harold ate rapidly and slightly and drank a good deal; and both of them were practically dumb.

Mr. Banister vanished again upstairs after dinner, and did not reappear.

Harold also vanished, but came to the smoking-room, where Algy betook himself, some half -hour later.

It seemed as if Harold had undergone a change of some kind since his flash of bitterness in the billiard-room; for he seemed comparatively softened. He sat down in silence for a minute or two, staring at the fire, yet without any sign of resentment; and at last he spoke.

" Algy, old chap — I'm — I'm sorry I said that before dinner."

" Oh, that's all right," mumbled Algy, laying aside "Punch," and covered in a moment with extreme and overpowering confusion.

Harold swallowed once in his throat.

" I was beastly to you. I often am. I'm beastly sorry."

"That's all right," mumbled Algy again. "I'm just as bad."

But Harold seemed determined on a detailed penitence. He thrust out his boyish face bravely to the fire.

" Twice on Sunday, too: once in the wood; and in the house in the evening. I'm sorry."

Algy braced up his forces.

" Look here, Harold; shut up. I'm as bad as you.... There. Now let's talk about something else."

They did talk of something else then; but it was not very successful. They discussed, Harold with vindictive insistence, the identity of the young man who had battered Algy. They made, too, when their voices got steadier, cheerful remarks about " old Theo," and about arrangements for another shoot as soon as he was better. It was desperate work, but they did it; and Harold grew positively animated, though with a touch of feverishness.

It was not until after ten minutes or so that Algy began to see the reason of his change of front, and he saw it, I suppose, through interpreting his own modified attitude. It was that Harold had a vague idea of

J.J.C V dinn ning propitiatory to the Unseen Powers. These must be satisfied and soothed, since Theo was in Their hands: it would not do to be resentful and suspicious. He wondered whether Harold had gone upstairs after er to say his prayers; it seemed probable — yet to Algy, oddly enough, it did not occur that to say his prayers was exactly what was needed. Rather there was a sort of general attitude to the Supertural that seemed more suitable: he was perfectly ware that fervent adjurations, poured out even in -clothes in a fire-lit bedroom after dinner, need always attain their explicit object. In fact, very ^ they did not, and even more pathetic petitions than those, if such was possible. Yet that there was an attitude required he perfectly understood — an ttitude which he could not have defined, and yet hich consisted rather in an identification of himself ith Them, his will with Theirs, rather than in an ttempt to wrench Theirs to his. This, he even perived, was more likely to be successful in obtaining.eo's recovery, than any amount of what was probably Harold's method. Intellectually he could not have defended the position; practically he was certain f it as sound.

The two brothers went up to bed a little later, on iptoe, after an elaborate and courteous lighting of >ne another's candles. Men do not, like women, exchange long glances on such occasions: they mutually perform small offices instead.

At the top of the stairs they paused; then peeped together, without a word, round the angle, up the corridor that led to Theo's room. But there was no sign either of life or death. The baize door kept all secrets. They stared at it fascinated, visualising what lay beyond — the darkened room, the nurses, Theo, and the shadow of death.

A door on the right suddenly opened without a sound, and, without seeing them, their father came out in his quilted dressing-gown and turned through the baize door. But Algy caught a clear glimpse of that ruddy, troubled face, thrown into vivid light and shadow by the candle he carried, the white eyebrows, the pursed mouth: and once more the strangeness and abnormality of it all swept him away.

If Theo was an incongruous subject for death, his father was no less an incongruous supporter in the conflict. What did even he, asked Algy of himself, really know about it all; and what could he say?

(n)

Mr. Mortimer was engaged on the Thursday morning in studying the " Guardian," which to him represented all that was brightest and best in Christianity. It reached him always by the first post, and after propping it against his tea-pot during breakfast, he retired with it to his arm-chair till the bell rang across the village street for mattins.

The Vicar was in Switzerland; and Mr. Mortimer read mattins (the shortened form) to the schoolmaster's wife's sister; and once more retired home to the " Guardian," a briar pipe, and his chair. On other days than Thursdays he studied theology until eleven, theology of the Cathedral Dean type; but, as he remarked, a man must be in touch with actual life as well as with books, if he is to be efficient, so he devoted Thursday morning to the " Guardian " newspaper.

He noticed with interest that the Bishop of Zebu was in England again as usual. That prelate, it seemed, thought that he could do more real good by pleading for his poor flock in England than by actually ministering to them; so he was accustomed to come home for the summer with his wife not more frequently than once in two years.

(He always said on such occasions, with an exilic ile, that his heart really lay in Zebu.)

There was a meeting of the English Church Union, too, Mr. Mortimer observed with disapproval, that had roused extreme enthusiasm in Manchester — with disapproval, for, as he said, he had no sympathy with extremists. It was the glory of the Church of England to preserve a mean in all things; and Mr. Mortimer lent his aid to that delicate task. In a word, he disapproved; that perhaps may indicate his attitude; or, if more particularity is required, he was vague without being wide; he was dogmatic on everything except dogma. He was earnest. And he was perfectly sincere.

He was deeply interested this morning in an editorial on the subject " How to Touch the Men," for this was Mr. Mortimer's special subject. Not that he was very successful, although his Bible-class on Sunday afternoons, enlivened occasionally by a cornet solo, was far from being a failure; but he had, like a certain hero of fiction, at least formed some ideas on the subject. His great point, which he urged at clerical meetings, was that if the men were to be touched at all, they must be met on their own platform — on their own level; the clergyman must not hold himself aloof — was it not notorious that France was what she was simply because the priests were of the seminary and the sacristy? The clergyman then must shoot with his wealthier parishioners and play football with his poorer; he must be a man of clubs and gymnasiums and carving-classes; he must not refuse even to dance upon occasion.

The " Guardian," it seemed, was of Mr. Mortimer's mind; and urged a more whole-hearted advance into the social life of the people. It quoted with qualified approval a parish on the great North Road where a motor garage was in process of erection in the vicar's fowl-run — a step forward which at any rate was in the right direction, though probably of too enthusiastic a nature. Cyclists' services, however, at half-past three on Sunday afternoon, with short addresses on such texts as " Many shall run to and fro," and facilities for tea to follow, met with that journal's cordial praise.

This was all very desperate and encouraging to Mr.

1YJ.U slai

Mortimer, and he began to read the article for the ond time; but he had hardly begun when his gate ammed and footsteps came quickly up the flagged path. He was too deep in his subject to be curious, and from where he sat he could not see who was ringing so loud at his front-door; but a minute later he heard the steps go rapidly down again; and then door opened.

" Please, sir, Mr. Theo's much worse, and would e to take communion. Would you kindly step up? " There followed consternation and excursions, rawers were pulled out; steps ran to and fro; Jane flew across to the church to unlock the vestry; and in about a quarter of an hour Mr. Mortimer, with a black bag, and Dr. Walsham How's work on pastoral ology in his pocket, was proceeding up the park a rapid pace.

It was his first wealthy death-bed, if such a phrase y be used; and he was nervous. He could not y quite the same things as to the farm labourers, r, at least, not in the same language; and further, stood in a certain inexplicable awe of Mr. Theo. It is true that he had shot with him several times since his coming to the parish, but he had not yet made sufficient way to be able to raise Theo's thoughts through partridge-shooting to higher things. At dinner, too, it had proved equally difficult. It might that this man was on his way to be Touched, but contact had not yet been established. 99

Mr. Mortimer was completely sincere; let that be understood. He was not at all superficial in his intentions; he was anxious, sincerely and humbly, to do what he could to help Theo to die; but he had not an idea as to how to set about it. It was for this reason that he had taken down Dr. Walsham How from his shelf. If all else failed he might read a little aloud perhaps.

The great white house, solemn and serene-looking, rose presently over the hedge of the garden; but Mr. Mortimer was still agitated. He wondered how he ought to begin. ' ' My dear brother ' ' must be his phrase; but what next?.... " Er... my dear brother," repeated Mr. Mortimer to himself.

He had better begin with the Communion Service. It was very encouraging that that had been mentioned. At least that showed that the dying man was in earnest. After that he might perhaps ask for a little private talk. Well; he must see.

A footman was waiting for him at the garden steps that led into the house.

" How is he? " gasped the clergyman, out of breath.

" The doctor thinks he is sinking, sir. Will you step this way? "

The man threw open the door into the morning-room, and Mr. Mortimer went in.

Mr. Banister was there, in a black tail-coat, with the doctor, a harmless but competent little man with the hair on his face resembling the cut of a horse's curb that had slipped over his mouth.

That re

That red old face was very grave and twitching as the clergyman held out his hand with a murmur of earnest sympathy.

" Thank you, Mr. Mortimer.... Yes.... Yes, the doctor thinks he had better receive communion at once.... He wishes to.... His mother asked him."

Then the brave old face twitched again, and resolved itself into such a solemnity that even Mr. Mortimer felt an hysterical lump rise suddenly in his throat.

It...is very unexpected," stammered the clergy-an. "I was meaning to call and inquire this afteroon.... Er.... Shall I vest here and go up mediately? "

He was extraordinarily moved by the sight of the old man, who seemed as dazed and broken as a child in the face of sudden and violent cruelty. Dr. Waisham How seemed an unnecessary burden after all. Surely his heart was full enough now.

He tore off his coat, disclosing grey flannel shirt-sleeves with white detachable cuffs, and opened his bag, listening, as he took out his garments, to the low talking of the other two, and meanwhile he framed tences that sprang to his brain.

Then his cassock was on, and he buttoned it hastily; then his stiff surplice, his Oxford hood and his black scarf; and he began to take out the communion vessels.

He turned.

" A — a little port wine, Mr. Banister, and... and a little plain bread.... Might I trouble you? "

VWVJLJL

The old man rang the bell from where he stood on the hearth-rug, and nodded towards the clergyman as the man appeared. Mr. Mortimer repeated his request.

It was a few minutes later that all was ready; and the footman still stood by the door.

" Might I ask the man to bring these other things upstairs, Mr. Banister? "

Then a little procession was formed.

The footman led the way carrying a decanter and a book, on which was placed a plate of bread cut into squares. Mr. Mortimer followed with the communion vessels under a white cloth, and Mr. Banister came last. In the passage leading to Theo's room, Mr. Mortimer halted, half turning round.

" How many will receive? " he whispered.

The old man's head jerked; but he could not speak.

A nurse opened the first baize door as they approached it, latched it back and passed on to the second.

Mr. Mortimer's heart was beating miserably hard. He was still a very young man; he knew no more really about Death than he did about Touching Men, and here was the double problem awaiting to test the ideas he had formed on both these subjects. He already was regretting having left Dr. Walsham How downstairs.

Then the bedroom door was before him; it opened, and he passed into the darkened room, straight up

IO2 to the little rosewood table at the foot of the bed, seeing over it a still figure lying among the sheets, and on either side faces watching.

It was when Mr. Mortimer entered the room in his surplice and hood that the horrible and poignant pathos of the whole thing suddenly and for the first time pierced Algy clean through.

He had been completely dazed by the report of the doctor that morning that Theo was sinking rapidly. It seemed impossible; it was so uncharacteristic of Theo to sink. He had remained in the billiard-room by the window where he heard the news, looking out at the great cedar in the mellow September air, holding his still unlighted cigarette, labouring to assimilate the fact.

Then his father had sent for him. Theo wished to receive communion; his mother was going to be there, and wished both her sons to be present and receive with them. It would be in half an hour's time. Mr. Mortimer had been sent for,...

Algy had run to his room; and emerged again twenty minutes later, seeing Harold go before him with a little book in his hand.

Then the minutes of waiting in the half-lit sickroom, for the mysterious parting Feast, with his finger in a little tin-edged Prayer Book, had been on the crust of sorrow and unreality like the sun on snow.... Theo.... Theo.... It was Theo who lay there, between him and the window, silent and motionless, his ruddy face hardly changed from when Algy had seen him last, with an august dignity as impersonal as a canopy over a child-king, entirely strange and unfamiliar, shadowing him. His mother and Mary knelt side by side beyond the bed, and Harold was on this side. The nurses had cleared the little rosewood table with spindle-legs and an inlaid chess-board in the middle, and set it at the foot of the bed. Then there had followed a long silence.

Still he had hoped against hope that the mysterious rite that was to be done would somehow resolve the suspension of the chord, and bring into one plane Theo and death; for they still stood as apart as ever. Something was needed — something personal to unite with Theo, something infinite to complete the bridge on the side of death. A saint could do it; or a vision, or a voice — even perhaps some august mechanical ceremony that was its own evidence....

And then Mr. Mortimer came in, and in a moment the hope died. He was inadequate, Algy knew in an instant, inadequate beyond description; inadequate in training, character, and commission. Here he stood at the little table, moved and shaking, in his stiff surplice and academic hood — as he had stood, though then at his ease, in the pulpit last Sunday, preaching on true manliness; the thing had been as unreal as a child's repetition. It was as virile as Mr. Mortimer himself on the Monday morning, in his dark grey Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers — no more and no

The t

The theology he was commissioned to preach — what was that, but ideas formed on the subject? Was it possible to picture Theo, an hour or two hence, with a crown on his head, in a white robe, with a palm?... But it was a metaphor! Then what id it illustrate? And, whatever it illustrated, what

God's name would Theo make of it all? Was Death so great a magician as that — as to make Theo capable of any form of spiritual existence comparable in the t to a white robe and a palm?...

" My son, despise not ihou the chastening of the Lord" rose the trembling voice.... " Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,..."

And this was Theo, with his flat cap and red mask f a face and his giggling laughter at certain kinds of tories.... The " chastening of the Lord "... " the Lord loveth "... And here he lay waiting, as simple as a child and as ignorant, willing to receive mmunion since it was the proper action dictated to im by the only spiritual authority of which he was ware, and suggested by his mother.

Yet Algy had no alternative to offer. Only it seemed him as if somewhere there were wide spaces and moveents larger than those little movements of the clergyman, and a sound more expansive than his little voice. But Christ Himself had said so — " Do this in remembrance of Me...." Somewhere, therefore, there was a link between this and that, an open door between the medically smelling darkened room and e vast, inexorable world towards which Theo's face was set.... And where was that? Algy was dumb.

" Ye that do truly and earnestly repent...."

Now what, in God's name again, did Theo know about that? Was there one man who had ever said one word to him on the subject? Repentance — that was a change of heart, a regret, an intention to do better. Was Theo then changed, or had any man ever told him how to be? If this instant he recovered, what would be his comment a week hence?

" By George, you chaps " — the sentence formed itself complete before Algy's twisting brain — " By George, you chaps, I had a narrow squeak. Parson came, and all that, you know."

Ah! it was intolerable — " By George, you chaps "

" Hear^what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith.... Come unto Me, all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."

For a moment Algy's bitterness melted, and his eyes filled with scalding tears. " Come unto Me."

And a great vision of a Divine Man with outstretched hands shone before his imagination — One who cared for sparrows, and even for heavy, complacent men who had never known themselves or Him — yet they must be heavy laden before they could rest — they must have " travailed " in their heaviness — and what did Theo know of this? And again Algy crushed down his bitterness — for surely He must be great enough even for that!

There was dead silence in the room as Mr. Mortimer began the Prayer of Consecration. There was not more than one there who believed that it signified more than a commemoration of an event done two thousand years ago — a memory of a Supper, and an aid to faith. It was what One had done to whom they looked with an uncertain hope, and that He had bidden them do as an indirect aid to something vague making for righteousness. Algy alone was not quite sure that it was only this.

The clergyman broke the crumbling bread, and laid his hands upon the cup; then presently he knelt down. Theo's head turned gently on the pillow, and he gave a sigh of pain or weariness.

Algy closed his eyes again and began to pray, hopelessly, confusedly, desiring to be simple; but he could not be. Again his mind tortured him, and images fled before him — little vignettes of Theo with his gun, Theo in dress-clothes, Mr. Mortimer in his Norfolk suit and the little gold cross at his button-hole. Even the sigh troubled him. Was Theo then just longing for the ceremony to be over? He had " wished to receive Communion "; but had that wish been strong enough to persevere through ten minutes of religious service? God knew. Algy did not.

Then for himself. Was he, too, fit to receive the mysterious Food? He had sparred ever so slightly with Harold at breakfast before the doctor had come. He had lit his cigarette as he came through the hall, though his father had often told him not. Then there were other things — his furious pride on Sunday night, his imaginations....

Well, well, " Come unto Me... all that travail." Hear what comfortable words! All that are heavy laden. Then would Theo's stoic bearing of pain count as travail?

The clergyman, still kneeling, stretched out his hand and took in his fingers a morsel of bread, swallowed it, and paused. Then he took the cup, repeating in a loud whisper —

" The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for me, preserve my body and soul unto everlasting life. I drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for me, and am thankful."

Mr. Banister received Communion first, where he knelt by his wife, taking in his shaking fingers the morsel of bread held out to him — then his wife and Mary. Then Mr. Mortimer passed round, brushing his silk scarf against the bed-post as he passed; Harold was the next, and then Algy.

Algy received it in the palm of his hand, as he had learnt in a church in Cambridge, lifted it to his lips, closed his eyes and swallowed it.... Then he heard a rustling as Theo lifted his hand from beneath the bedclothes.

Then the cup was carried round....

As Algy passed out behind his mother and Mary five minutes later, he noticed, lying on the little silver plate, fragments of the holy food. Mr. Mortimer, still in his cassock and surplice, was staying behind with Mr. Banister, to see, presumably, whether Theo was strong enough to bear a little reading. But before Algy, still loitering in the gallery above the hall, had reached the passage leading to his room, a figure in surplice, scarf, and Oxford hood, came out and began to descend the stairs carrying the silver vessels.

Theo died in his sleep that evening. Mary was bhere, helping the nurses, but no one else. They only found he was dead when one of the nurses happened to touch him.

Algy, sitting alone with his mother in her morning-

m an hour later, listened to her saying, over and over again, what a good boy Theo had always been, how pleased she was that he had received Communion, and how they must all think that he was watching over them now.

" But my dear," she said tearfully, touching Algy's Pace, " your cheek is all bruised still. I am sure you ought to have used arnica."