Chapter II

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YES," said Algy, an hour later, as we still sat over the dinner-table. " Mad. I am very sorry if you think me a conceited ass; but that is what I think."

He was a little flushed and excited with talk, for ris was an admirable conversationalist, and had succeeded, with remarkable skill, in making this young man feel at his ease with three Papists. It was the world in general, and his own family in paricular, whom Algy was calling mad just now.

Chris leaned back out of the full candlelight, smiling isibly.

" You do think so, Mr. Dell? "

" Well," drawled Chris, " not exactly conceited— but — shall we say, a little narrow-minded? "

Algy burst out again, recounting his experiences in the smoking-room at home. He pretended to a bewildered humility at the antics of his people.

Surely it isn't I who am narrow-minded? " he cried; and I saw that the accusation had stung.

" My dear chap," said Chris, " you see, I don't know your people; but what I do know is that you haven't any kind of business to say that anybody is narrow-minded just because he doesn't agree with your conception of the universe. Further, I think that it is you who are narrow-minded in not thinking it possible that they may have some function too."

Algy ground out his cigarette end in his coffee saucer. (I had been astonished during the last hour at the dinner Chris had provided. There had been three courses with cheese and fruit. Usually his friends were confined to one course, fruit and no coffee.)

" It is this," said Algy again, more deliberately. " I imagine we were sent into the world to fulfil some end. I don't see any end fulfilled by the kind of life that most people live. For myself "

Chris leaned forward swiftly.

" Ah! yes. Speak for yourself," he said.

Algy fell into confusion. He stammered a sentence or two about finding out what the end was, and then pursuing it. All that he was certain of was that conventional life did not touch it.

" Then you're not certain of anything else yet? " pursued Chris relentlessly.

Algy glanced at me and away again. I knew perfectly what he meant. It was that he had a kind of ideal which it was impossible to state in mixed company; and I agreed with him. It seemed to me that Chris was being rather tiresome and indelicate.

Chris leaned back once more; so far back that the shaded candles threw no light on his face; all

Kl iat I could see was the glitter of his black eyes and hite teeth. He spoke at first quietly, but afterards with an extraordinary kind of intensity; and e delivered such a speech as I had never heard from before.

I am not going to attempt to reproduce it here; it would not be decent. All that I know is that I sat perfectly still, and never once glanced at either of the other two. I only looked now and again at Chris. Briefly its point was this — that Almighty God had scheme to work out of which it was absurd and proane for us to judge. Even Nature showed that; ere were ten thousand mysteries of pain and sin hich no religion worthy of the name even attempted solve. He gave away with one hand all that sentiental scientists asked; he granted that the world as, apparently, full of irremediable wrong; he flung it down before himself and us and said that he had o answer. From that he deduced that we, obviously, ere not responsible for anything except our own affairs; and that for those we were responsible, erefore let Algy Banister hold his tongue about his pie! They might have functions of which he had o conception — at any rate it was their affair, not

What did matter then was Vocation. It was the >nly thing that did matter. Vocation did not mean lat one life was, necessarily, better than another; it did not mean that other lives were necessarily inle. The only insanity lay in neglecting first to discover Vocation or, secondly, in neglecting it when discovered.

LThat, then, was Algy Banister's business; as it was also Christopher Dell's for Christopher Dell, and that of these reverend fathers for these reverend fathers.

He proceeded to say some things about Almighty God and the soul that somehow made me feel extraordinarily small and unimportant — which, I hold, is always a wholesome feeling — and I have no doubt that he made Algy feel small too. (Dick, I don't believe, ever feels anything else, though he does not look it.) And he said it all with startling eloquence.

He said nothing about his own past as most people would have done — (an action which I think to be as offensive as undressing in public to exhibit wounds); and he said nothing whatever that could possibly flatter anybody that was present. In fact, for the first time since Algy's arrival he hinted at that young man's youth and inexperience; and finally ended by a sentence or two that had the effect of making not only ourselves but the world about us, the table at which we sat, the rinds of orange peel on our plates, and the fragrance of Algy's perished cigarette seem simultaneously rather less than nothing and rather more than everything — a truth which, to my mind, is both the beginning and the end of wisdom. I do not know how he did it; it was his air, his slight gestures, the modulations of his voice, fully as much as his words.

Altogether it was an extraordinary little speech. Dick broke the silence that followed, characteristically. He sneezed twice, loudly; and the tension bac shi

We dispersed somehow; that is to say that Chris d Dick drifted presently away into one of the parirs; and Algy and I remained at the table. Almost immediately, however, he pushed his chair k, stood up and began to walk restlessly up and down the little room.

I watched him closely — the glimmer of his white irt, and the look on his face when he came into the candlelight; for I could see that my treatment begun to tell. The puzzled look I had noticed his eyes at our first meeting, and which had begun go lately, had now deepened again. He seemed eoccupied. There was also about his air a kind troubled energy that I had not seen before. He the appearance of a man suddenly facing an urgent problem. His hands were behind his back as he walked, his head was carried high, and he hardly med aware of my presence.

I knew perfectly what was troubling him; it -was e strangeness of finding that there were other people the world who had somehow got into the same igion as himself. He had thought that he had discovered a new country, silent, mysterious, and unpulated; and behold! here was Christopher Dell, old inhabitant of it all the while, knowing all about, perfectly familiar with what he himself had thought to be unexplored woods and paths. I have seen that bewilderment before, pretty often.

So I observed Algy closely, waiting humbly upon his restlessness, watching, if I may say so, without pride, the movements of his mind as one may watch the activity within a glass bee-hive. Its inmates are free, yet they meet invariable laws with invariable instincts.

Algy was the first to speak, suddenly standing still opposite me.

" Good Lord! " he said. " And that's Mr. Dell."

" That's Mr. Dell," I said.

" WeU— but— I don't understand.... Why does he go on living here if he feels like that? If I felt all that I'd... I'd...

" WeU, what would you do? "

Algy began to walk up and down again. I looked at him, at his white shirt-front in the dusk, his high collar and his boyish, troubled face.

"It's exactly what I feel myself," he said; "only I've never put it into words."

" Well, why don't you do whatever it is that you would do? " I asked.

" Because I don't know what it is," he snapped. " I only know "

" My dear chap," I said, " hasn't it yet dawned on you that Chris Dell has found his Vocation? It's to live here, and to do his little jobs, and say his prayers. It doesn't matter in the slightest what we do, so long as we've got to do it."

He said nothing. And what you've got to do," I went on, "is to

.d out yours. You won't find it all in a minute. Don't be alarmed. Everybody who thinks at all goes through what you're going through."

They don't," he said fiercely. "They just do hat comes."

" And that's probably the very thing for them;

certainly is if they honestly think so."

Algy again made no answer; and then, rather rudely I thought, he strolled off after the others; and I was left meditating.

My meditations comprised a number of subjects; but the principal of them was a profound satisfaction ith myself for having brought Algy down here.

ris was exactly the man for him. Algy was a testant layman, and therefore a priest's advice ust seem always slightly tainted by professionalism, ce, oddly enough, theology seems the one subject in which proficiency is supposed to create bias rather than insight — and Chris was a layman too. And Chris was not in the least an ecclesiastical layman; on the contrary, he was obviously a real though eccentric man of the world. He had not had the slightest air of preaching just now; he had carried himself throughout in the manner of a man who is simply and entirely interested in his subject. He had talked as he might have talked on botany if he had a passion for that.

Further, I thanked my stars, in that I saw Chris would shrink at nothing. He had got his scalpel in the right place at the first attempt — which was in the very middle of Algy's pride — yet without causing more pain than was necessary; and I perceived thai if the saw had to be substituted it would presently be at work.

So I sat there, and considered, listening to the voic< in the parlour, until the door suddenly opened, am I heard Chris's voice very clear and sharp.

"All right, then; that's settled. We'll start at twelve and take lunch."

(n)

Dick's aunt's motor was a Humber, very smooth-running, very swift and very comfortable. The chauffeur was a man with a clean-shaven, sardonic face like a mephistophelean mask, who fell into a kind of trance so soon as he got his hands on the wheel, and appeared to come up out of depths of contemplation when he was spoken to. By twelve we were started.

We had passed a most uneventful morning — all four of us went over to Crawley for mass, and Dick and I occupied adjacent altars. Chris and Algy remained at the end of the church. It was the first time Algy had ever heard mass, he told me some weeks later.... We passed the hours till twelve mostly

Chris and I in our respective rooms; once I ooked out of the window and saw Algy with his hands behind his back going up and down the flagged path the end of the little garden.

In the motor I was put beside the chauffeur, and other three sat behind; so I did not have the vantage of their company. I was glad of that, for was thinking steadily and swiftly, watching images before me, calculating possibilities, rehearsing versations, hearing only the murmur of talk bed, the steady rush of the gear; and seeing the white road splitting like a ribbon before the painted snout of the machine, and the spring-lit fields, up hill down dale, reeling to right and left. Sussex is really an ideal country for such an extion; it has all the necessary elements of tranquil interest, pleasing domestic villages to skim through, charming dips and hills to diversify the view, and, w and again far away, the suggestiveness of high, naked Downs against the sky. The spring was in full crescendo; the high banks were crowded with flowers, a pleasant west- wind blew in our faces, the air was quick with larks; there was everywhere the scent d sound of rising life.

I forget our route; once, I know, far away to the right, I saw a line of buildings on a hill and heard Hayward's Heath " mentioned behind; but for the ost part I was in that meditative daze in which the chauffeur was a proficient, and perceived nothing tween the minutest details of physical vision and ri£ the large topics on which I was internally engaged. After nearly two hours' running Chris suddenly thrust his head from behind almost into my ear.

" Lunch," he said. " I think we might stop in few minutes. What about that hill up there? "

I assented with a start. We were running alon^ on the side of some long promontory of the with rich, flat country on our right, pricked here an< there by high-shouldered little churches, set with among the opening trees, and the bare, orisp-grasse< turf rising like tumbled old velvet up to the sky 01 our left. There was the sense of huge spaces aboul us, wider and more deep than ever shows itself in th< fen-country where I live, since here and there the rises into a kind of competition with the sky and give a measure by which distance may be judged, whil< in the fens it lies hopelessly vanquished, flat beneatl an overpowering dome. This was certainly a pi to lunch and lie on the back and stare up into the monstrous, towering, cloud-flecked vault.

The motor wheeled to the left, grumbled a little over the broken road, turned again to the right, sped softly and heavingly over springy turf, and slid down into motionlessness.

It was a little while before we found an entirely suitable place; but at last we found it, under the shelter of a high bank, convenient to the back, looking straight out northwards on to the swelling, luxuriant country that somehow had the air of an Academy picture. It was exquisitely arranged. The ground

VAV/ b.

away almost precipitously at our feet straight wn into the trees, diversified by wind-swept gorse; yond began the flat country, a huddle of fields, copses, villages, stretching away up through shades of green, blue, and peacock, into the intense violet of e horizon. Here, too, the larks were at the height of their singing. Two hundred yards away, like a child's painted toy dropped from heaven, rested the trangely incongruous motor with the sardonic chaufur fumbling for food under the seat. I caught the h of paper as I undid my own sandwiches. Swift motion through the air always produces in a kind of stupidity, or perhaps it may be the supreme ity — I am not sure. At any rate, everything med to me rather unreal. When I was able to nd off from myself, all this made a very pleasant perience — we four on the breezy down, each with packet and bottle, with that immense view and ital air to soothe and enliven us. But I have only e most disconnected ideas as to what we talked -bout. Once I think Chris and Dick quarrelled as to our exact position; a map was produced and pinned down by stones — then it was snatched at and torn; t even now I forget what the point was. Algy said a little later that it was almost impossible to ick a cork off a table if you walked up to it with utstretched arm — unless you knew the trick. Dick id he would undertake to do it three times out of ur; and a bet of fourpence was entered on Algy's ff — a penny for each attempt. I said that I believed

I had just caught meningitis, since I felt a strange pressure on the top of my head. And so on — it was poor silly stuff — not at all like our high communings of the evening before. Finally, we played an elaborate game with corks, of which I entirely forget the rules; the only point that I remember was that we all flatly contradicted Dick who was the master of the revels, and who claimed with some pathos to know what the rules were, since he had himself invented them.

Then Algy lit a cigarette with a motor-fusee that filled the air with sickening sweetness; we excavated a grave, buried the paper and string and fusee, and stood up, stretching. The moment had come.

Now Chris insisted on this, that no one but Algy himself should introduce the subject. We had made it possible, he said; it was our part to bring him to what might prove to be Pisgah, and there we must leave it. Whatever happened, he declared, would not be in the least final; he was not superstitious, but since he did happen to believe that Providence actually controlled details, it was but reasonable to allow Him to do so at one or two points. If Algy asked his question — well, that would prove nothing; it would be no more than the faintest whisper of encouragement. If he did not ask the question — again it would not be in the least final; only it would show that this particular suggestion was not the way to be pursued any further. I do not say that I altogether agreed with Chris; it seemed to me rather fortuitous; but I had known him manage matters before now with a very remarkable skill. ter all, it was like the throwing up of 'one feather; t might at least be taken to indicate the set of the e at that instant.

Algy stood, stretching himself with clawing hands, lear against the sky, on a little hummock of ground to my left — a figure dramatic in more than the artistic sense; Chris, close beside me, was clinking bottles together; Dick was still on his back a little down the slope, chewing grass. I must confess that my heart began to quicken a little.

Algy finished his long stretch, and relaxed suddenly. " I say, what's that? " he said, nodding out in the irection of a long line of buildings pricked by a tall ire scarcely visible half a dozen miles away.

tw his

He had said it; and I could not resist a glance at Chris. The clinking still continued for a moment or o, and not the faintest emotion was perceptible on face.

" What's that place? " asked Algy again. " Is it a lunatic asylum? "

Chris stood up.

" Which place? "

Algy pointed. Oh — that's the Carthusian monastery."

k

" Carthusian? What's that? " ' They're Contemplatives," said Chris deliberately. " They don't preach or write, or go out at all, except once a week for a walk."

" Eh? "

" They're Contemplatives," said Chris again, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

" Do you mean to say — do you mean to say?

Well, what do they do, then? "

" Each of them has a cell, with three or four rooms, a wood-shed and a garden. They have a church where they meet for offices and mass three times a day. They have one good meal in the day; they say the night-office from about eleven till one, every night. The rest of the time, except when they sleep, they do their best to remain in the state of prayer."

Algy looked at Chris sideways. His lips were parted, and his eyes had an odd, doubtful look in them. Chris spoke as unemotionally as if reading from a guide-book.

" But what's the object? " he said suddenly.

" Well, the idea is that the real thing that matters is the inner life. You know, there's a good deal to be said for that, really."

" Go on, please."

" There's not much else to say. For exercise they cut wood or dig in the garden. There are both lay brothers and priests there. They mortify themselves continually ' '

" Mortify? How do you mean? "

LTHE CONVENTIONALISTS Well, they scourge themselves. They hardly ever speak; they never touch meat. They are under absolute obedience."

" Scourge themselves? "

" Why not? "

" But why?... Is it really true? I thought at was all bunkum." He spoke with startled concern.

Chris drew a breath.

" My dear chap — that's too big a question. It's because of sin. Our Lord was scourged} you see."

There was dead silence. I glanced at Dick, and saw that that priest was lying perfectly still in the warm sunshine, but a grass-stalk no longer protruded from his mouth.

Algy stared out again at the white line and the squat wer beyond the trees.

" How many are there? " he said suddenly.

;' The last time I was there, there were about a hundred and fifty. Some French Fathers had joined them."

" You've been there! "

" Five years ago I tried my vocation there."

Algy turned on him full. I could see that he was pale with excitement.

;' You've been there, you! "

" I was there for about eight months."

" What happened? "

" I was told I had no vocation."

Chris was looking at him now, too; and for a moment I could see that each was studying the other in a kind of wonder. I felt extremely small and unimportant. Far overhead poured out a torrent of ecstatic song from a bubbling heart of bird-life; and down here two men looked at one another with a House of Contemplatives before them.

" Will you tell me about it? " said Algy softly.

" I will tell you anything you wish to hear; but not now."

Once more Dick broke the tension.

" I say, you chaps; let's be getting on again."

To this day I do not know whether this remark of Dick's was simple innocence or the most superb art. I have never asked him. It was like his sneeze the night before. All I know is that what the world calls sanity rushed upon us again with its kindly embrace. I stood up perfectly natural, and made a remark about the chauffeur. Chris stooped and gathered up his bottles. Dick rolled to his feet, and Algy took out his cigarette-case.

Our journey home was completely uneventful. Dick was put in front, and I took his place with the other two. We talked of this and that and the other. Once a small boy, on seeing us unexpectedly whisk round the corner upon him, crouched against railings with clenched hands and squealed like a terrified mouse. Once I observed with interest a colony of rooks in the high trees overhead busy on an exceedingly Active Life with sticks and straws. As we went the evening light drew level behind us; the flitting tree-stems and the rich pastures were bathed in gold; a little church issued its brazen summons for evening prayer, and I noticed a clergyman accompanied by his wife emerge from the vicarage gate.

And so the panorama passed, and we sat on padded cushions and watched it.

I do not quite know what was the conclusion of my meditations, or even if I arrived at any at all. I made remarks now and then, but they were no more than floating sticks on my stream of thought. All kinds of reflections passed before me.

There was first a kind of wonder as to whether we ere at all supers titious^ and next a doubt as to whether we were not too managing. The managing element was represented, it seemed to me, by our careful plot to bring Algy within range of St. Hugh's, Parkminster, and superstition by the curious fulfilment of our expectation that he would put his question. It had been Chris's plan; and he had said most emphatically that it would prove nothing either way. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem as to how much one must interfere, and how far refrain. Certainly I should not have proposed such a plan myself.

And, in any case, were we not putting the cart a very long way in front of the horse? This boy was not even a Catholic! Certainly he had said some remarkable things to me at Cambridge — but boys do say remarkable things. The only significant point about Algy was the fact that he did not seem ever to about A have had any opportunity of learning them. Besides, they did not sound second-hand. That was at least something; and it had made a strong impression on my mind to cause me to arrange this visit to Chris — a thing I do not do once in a twelvemonth.

But again — was it in the least fair? Here was this boy, obviously romantic and impressionable — obviously out of touch with his world.... Was it fair to confront him suddenly with the most amazing product of the human race — a Contemplative House? — (for I had no sort of doubt any longer that he would ask to go over and see it). I argued this once more with myself. It was true that he was impressionable, but God had made him so, and therefore since he must always be taking in impressions, why should he not have all sorts presented to him? In no sense were we compelling him. The world had had twenty- two years' unlimited opportunities of influencing him, and twenty-two years is a good slice out of life. Was it so unfair, then, to let him have a glimpse of another side — of an objective fact to meet his subjective desires? Of course, if the Contemplative Life were an illusion, a morbid and artificial dream, an outraging of the nature that Providence intends us all to develop to the full — why, then all these objections would hold. But you must please remember that I am perfectly convinced of the precise opposite.... Very well, then. It was a matter of Vocation. It was Vocation; that, and nothing else. The only question was, Had Algy got it?...

I was so deep in self-contradiction and wonder and ty that I ceased presently to attend any more to the other two. I was sitting in the corner with Algy next me; and heard their voices only as in a dream.

Suddenly Chris leant over and touched me.

" Asleep! " he said.

I jumped.

" Certainly not."

" Well, then, are you fit for another to-morrow?

. Banister wants to go over to St. Hugh's."