Chapter VI

(i)

FT is not my business to defend Algy's constancy, -*- only to relate it. He was aware of a conviction that was immovable — a conviction against which arguments, which he could not answer, beat in vain. But this book is not a treatise on theology. The thing that hurt, however, was his father's kindness.

It was about a week later that Mr. Banister was made really aware of Algy's position. Harold, vaguely excited and gloriously contemptuous, was reading the " Daily Mail " in the hall an hour before lunch, when the Vicar came through from the garden. He was a genial man who hated trouble, with minute side-whiskers and a sunburnt face, and a trifle inclined to be stout. He paused as he saw the boy. Harold jumped up.

" Is your father in? " asked the clergyman abruptly.

" In the library."

Still he hesitated. Then he went quickly on through the swing-door of the ante-room; and Harold sped out into the garden to find Algy.

He read the signs correctly. For the third time that week Algy had drearily gone down to the Vicarage at his father's request to discuss theology. The two were at it half the morning. Then Algy had appeared at lunch silent and dispirited, eyed furtively by his father. But this was the first time that the Vicar had shown signs of agitation: there had been a brusque annoyance in his air that revealed volumes. Harold conjectured that Algy had issued an ultimatum at last*

Outside, the garden lay in the hot summer sunshine, full of sound and colour; and beyond the cedar, up and down the terrace, paced a figure in brown holland and a Panama hat, leaving a trail of fragrant smoke behind him. Harold went straight across.

He was a good boy, and he was sincerely touched by the face of Algy. It was utterly and entirely miserable, and rather peevish.

" Well, old man? " said Harold.

Algy's face twitched, as he halted.

" Look here," he said, " have you come to jaw, or what? "

Harold passed his hand through his brother's arm.

" Look here," he said seriously; "of course, I think you all wrong and all that. But I'm beastly sorry for you."

" I don't want your pity," snapped Algy, horribly aware that he was not behaving as a martyr should.

Harold drove down his resentment.

" I say, old man, you needn't be beastly with me* I swear I haven't come out to jaw." The truth was that he was consumed with curiosity, and he knew he could learn nothing if he snarled back, p 209

" Tell me," he said, as Algy yielded, and the two began to walk down the terrace together; "I saw old Simkinson just now. What's he gone to see father about? "

" He's gone to tell him that I'm going to be a Catholic."

" I say! Really and truly? "

" Really and truly."

" But,.. but..."

" I'm sick of it," burst out Algy. " Of course, I can't answer all his beastly books. But he couldn't answer mine. And, after all, I know my own mind, I suppose."

Harold pondered this.

" But I can't make out why you're so keen. Why isn't the Church of England good enough? "

" Because it isn't."

" I can't make out why you want to change, for all that. It seems to me it doesn't much matter either way."

" My good chap, I happen to believe that it does matter a good deal. Look here, Harold Oh,

Lord! what's the good? "

Algy had gone through extraordinary misery during the last week. That must be his excuse. For the first time in his life he had really plunged into controversy, and controversy tangled inextricably with personal questions. It was not that his people were not kind; the worst of it all was that they were so kind. They treated him with an indulgence he had never known. His father had behaved to him almost as to a man of his own age; his mother, after a feeble and pathetic remonstrance or two, treated him with astonishing attention. Harold had not once made himself offensive; and Mary even had gone so far as to write him a womanly little note of sympathy, which was delivered one morning with his early tea. He had begun to realise for the first time that he was really rather an important person, and that he could not move a finger in the web in which he walked without interfering violently with other people's arrangements. And this was intolerable. He could have borne fury far more easily: he could have set his teeth and laid his ears back and waited for the storm to pass; but it was quite another matter to know that he was wounding instead of being wounded in the house of his friends.

There had been a dreadful little incident on Sunday. As usual he had gone to church with the others, but on coming out on this day, his parents had turned aside from the path to where a large, white marble monument, presiding over a white marble border, represented that Theodore Banister, the beloved eldest son of John and Anna Banister, here slept in the Lord awaiting a glorious resurrection. There they had stood, the two old folks with bent necks, he bareheaded, in his frock-coat and grey trousers and white spats, and she in her purple bonnet and silk dress, for at least a minute, while the two sons stood, ill at ease, with Mary, three or four yards away. Then the two had returned; and the mother had looked at him once.

That appeal to Theo's memory was horrible to him. That Theo, of all persons in the world, should be thus mutely indicated as a beloved son; dying obediently in the faith of his fathers and the fear of God — it was dreadful and it was inexpressibly ludicrous. It was a sentiment to which there was no answer, a blow delivered below the belt. And Theo of all people! Why it was the death of Theo that had first made conventional religion seem so wearisomely inadequate.

Algy had no high thoughts to sustain him. He did not in the least move to the sound of spiritual trumpets and the light of mystical vision. That was all gone. He knew nothing, except that he must be a Catholic; and that if he recoiled it would be to the outrage of all he knew as certainly good and true.

But he could say nothing of this to anybody. He wrote one despairing letter to Dick and another to Chris. Dick answered by four pages of encouragement; Chris did not answer at all: and of the two he preferred the latter. Here then he was stuck, alone and hopeless; and he had just sent in his ultimatum to his father.

Harold remained a minute or two longer, trying to make conversation, seeking in a vague fashion to get inside the secret of this strange enchantment that had swept off his brother: but it was useless. Harold was incapable even of conceiving Algy's state of mind.

To him religion was a department as remote as botany. There were the ceremonies and creeds; one performed the one and repeated the other, as a man might walk in a garden and say over the names of the flowers he knew; but all had nothing whatever to do with real life. Real life was doing a large number of interesting things, shooting small animals, performing social duties, eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, reading the " Strand Magazine " and certain volumes of Badminton, making love to Sybil, and behaving decently to his own family and other people that he liked. If you had pressed him he would have said that certain things were " wrong "; that there was some kind of reckoning probable after death, and that he supposed Christianity was true. He could have no more changed his religion than he could have become a naturalised Portuguese.

He looked up once or twice towards the garden-steps, vaguely expecting to see his father appear, wrathful and denunciatory. But nothing happened.

" I say, old man, they're a long time at it. I wonder what father's saying."

" Lord! How should I know? "

Harold sniffed reproachfully. He felt so virtuous himself that he could afford to keep his temper.

" I wonder what '11 happen," he said, for the fourth time.

All about them lay the sweet summer, as serene as if there were no Faith at all to come down like a sword between father and son. The pigeons cooed in the high trees of the wood half a mile away; the butterflies danced and swerved above the flowers. Something of the serenity echoed in Harold's small soul; and he wondered again why people couldn't take things as they found them. Algy, on the other hand, was reflecting bitterly that if it had been a question of his losing all religion whatsoever there would not have been half this fuss.

The bell rang out from the turret for the servants' dinner as they turned at the end of the terrace, and, as if at a signal, at the head of the garden-steps appeared Mr. Banister with the clergyman behind him.

The two brothers stopped dead.

" Look," said Harold softly, " he's beckoning."

The two men disappeared again within as Algy dropped his brother's arm and went towards the house.

(n)

It was a family council, aided by the spiritual arm, in whose presence Algy found himself as he pushed open the half-open door of the library.

Standing at the fire-place, with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, facing the door, but with his eyes downcast, stood his father. His face was piteous to see.

It was the face of a Conventionalist in the grip of a problem.... His lips were tightened into a line of severity; his eyes, when he raised them for an instant as Algy came in, shot out a dozen emotions under his heavy brows — tenderness, indignation, appeal, resolve. Across the whole passed now and again an uncontrollable twitching, and as Algy, his own heart sick and exhausted, went in silence to the seat set ready for him, he saw the thick, weather-tanned hand of his father shaking violently as he fingered a small bronze stag that lay beneath them.

On the left sat his mother, her eyes too downcast and her lips trembling. Plainly she had lately collapsed, so far as she was capable of doing so. Her fingers were interlocked in her rather spacious lap* He saw she would not utter a word while sentence was given.

Behind Mr. Banister stood the clergyman. Algy caught one glimpse of his face, troubled and depressed. Then he fixed his eyes on his father.

" Where is Harold? " asked Mr. Banister in a deep voice.

Algy rose hastily, but he was beckoned down again, and the bell was rung. Then a pause followed, deadly and sickening, till a man came in.

" I wish to see Mr. Harold here immediately."

Again the closing of the door was followed by the same pregnant pause.

Algy strove to marshal his ideas. But it was impossible. He selected one and held on to it, with, so to speak, his ears back and his eyes shut, and his teeth and hands gripping it. It was to the effect that he must not swerve in the slightest, nor give the faintest hint that delay would be of any use. He seemed to himself, on his weaker side, an unmitigated brute. It appeared to him, now and again, that Religion of all kinds was an intolerable, unnatural nightmare — a horrible, insidious, corrupting thing that broke up families and sucked blood. Then again he set his teeth in his resolve and waited.

Harold appeared presently, very pale and bright-eyed, breathing quickly. He was motioned to a seat behind Algy: and the door was closed.

Then Mr. Banister left off fingering the stag, turned round full face, his hands locked behind his back, and began.

He delivered his little speech as from a public platform. Assaulted in his conventions he took refuge in them desperately.

" We are gathered here for a very painful duty; and we must not shrink from it. My eldest son told me a week ago that he intended leaving the religion of his mother and myself, and of the rest of his family for three hundred years, and joining himself to the Roman Catholics. I was quite stunned by that news — stunned, and, I need not say, terribly grieved. But I hoped it was just a fancy, and that a little thought would put it right. But it seems that I was wrong. The Vicar here, who has very kindly talked to my son several times, and put before him the strongest possible reasons against such a terrible step, tells me now that his arguments have been of no use, and that he cannot even get an answer to them. He tells me, further, that my son declines to argue any more, and announces his firm determination to persist and to be received into the Romanist body immediately. I will now ask my son if he corroborates this."

Algy drew a long breath and licked his lips.

" Yes, father."

" You are quite determined? "

" Yes, father."

There was a pause. Algy dropped his eyes again, and fixed them upon the brass fender at his father's feet. He noticed a gleam of tarnish in one spot.

" Very good," said Mr. Banister, turning again slightly, and beginning once more to finger the bronze stag. " Then I do not suppose that any arguments of mine will prevail. I will say no more on the point. But I must now announce the determination to which I have come, after consultation with my wife and the Vicar.... I have no intention of making my son a martyr for his ideas. I know my religion, I hope, better than that. But I have to consider the rest of my family, and the terrible effects that my son's presence here, as a professed Romanist, might have upon those for whom I am responsible. I cannot take it as a light matter, as some might. My... my religion is very dear to me. My wife and I were married in it — our parents on both sides for three hundred years have lived by it; my dear son Theo " — his voice faltered, and for one horrible instant Algy feared there would be a collapse. But the old man was courageous and strong — " my dear son Theo died in it, only last year. I cannot therefore, conscientiously, allow my son, when once he has become a Romanist, to live here any longer. When I am dead, he will do as he pleases." (A spasm caught Algy by the throat: he seized his lower lip in his teeth, and by the acute pain saved himself.)..." I will leave that to his conscience. In the meanwhile I must ask him to live elsewhere; and for that purpose I shall place at his disposal a sum of two hundred and fifty pounds per annum. Should he come down here, or attempt to live here, after he has taken this step, I shall be compelled to withdraw that allowance. I wish it to be understood that in no sense do I cast him off: we shall meet no doubt in other places from time to time. I desire to keep up friendly relations with him, for I believe that he is more sinned against than sinning. Only, I cannot permit his being under the same roof as his mother and brother. He will understand, I am sure, what pain it gives to me...."

Then the horrible thing happened: Conventionality fled and the old man collapsed, dropping his head upon his arm on the mantelpiece, and breaking out into loud, overpowering sobs.

At that sight and sound there came upon Algy, with a force that all this last week had been unable to effect, the temptation to throw all off and come back, to spring up and cry that all was a mistake and an illusion,

Yet something, he recognised afterwards, held him in a grip he could not resist. He did not know what happened, but he found himself at his father's side, clutching the rough grey sleeve, crying out piteously. Behind him was a babble of voices, his mother's, the Vicar's.

Then he tore himself free, and ran out, miserably, blindly, not knowing where he ran.

(m)

Ten minutes later he threw himself down in the bracken, at the same place where nearly a year before he had nursed his indignation and watched Harold and Sybil pass together to the garden-gate.

About him again lay the hot summer, here in green and fragrant gloom, punctuated by a million tiny flies, up there in cloudless blue. Beneath his hands, as he lay outstretched, was the cool moss and heather....

It was the familiar sound of the turret-bell, ringing to announce luncheon, that brought him back again to connected thought, and the first imagination that formulated itself plainly before him was the sense that the whole affair was unreal and impossible. It was as it had been with him at Theo's death.

Here, about him, was normal life; the life of nature, beautiful, unconscious, and divine; there, it culminated in luncheon. And across this he had dragged ruthlessly a harrow of unreality, a series of linked thoughts and propositions that might very well mean nothing at all. To become a Catholic meant to readjust everything, to destroy many things, to break up orderly, normal, conventional life, to reject experience, to give intolerable pain to those to whom obviously, if duty meant anything, he owed love and tenderness. And the whole foundation of this extravagant and brutal action lay in his opinion that a series of thoughts and propositions were true....

Briefly, this was the conflict; and he regarded it for a long while. It was, as appeared afterwards, the last great fight in his experience, at least for the present, between what seemed and what was. On one side lay the whole of normal life, on the other that strange thing called the Supernatural. He perceived that to many people there comes no such conflict; the two things live together, like body and soul, in comparative harmony. But for him it was not so. He saw perfectly distinctly that for him it was a choice. He might, with the approval of practically the whole of his world, and with that, also, of a good deal of his own moral judgment, become a " sensible " boy again, go back to the house, sit down at luncheon, go with his father into the library afterwards and say that he had been hasty. Then, as he knew very well, the next step would be that the Vicar would be sent for once more, and arguments retraced. He knew, perfectly well, that this time he would pay more attention to the arguments, that he would not be able to answer them, and that, gradually, he would be convinced by them. So it would go on, for a week or so, perhaps a month; and at the close of it he would go to his father once more and tell him he had determined to take no step for the present... and, at that moment, he would have chosen finally for the rest of his life. In the future, whenever he felt uncomfortable, he would tell himself to be sensible, that he had been through the whole question carefully, and that life was not long enough to reopen it. (Oh! Algy knew himself well.)

But, fortunately — (at least from my point of view) — he had always been honest with himself; and, after an hour or so, he saw absolutely clearly that this course of action would be nothing else than an outrage upon his conscience — upon that which he knew, though he could not explain why, he was bound morally to follow.

There then lay the two invitations — to be sensible, or to be conscientious. On one side lay all that I have described — in a word, Conventionalism. On the other side lay a strange thing — a Something that had risen over the horizon, at first a cloud no larger than a man's hand, yet charged with fire. It was an appalling thing to consider — this Supernatural. He began to see how madness lies that way, as it lies, too, in every passion — in human love and music and idealism — in fact, in everything that is not what is called normal, in everything as soon as it looms larger than other interests. He saw that while it is possible to envy those to whom comes no such overwhelming storm, yet these are only to be envied as every lower order of nature may be envied by that which is above. It was a question, he perceived, as to whether it was better to be normal and imperceptive and conventional, or to be abnormal and intuitive and passionate. The fire that kindles also burns. Thus then the Supernatural had come to him. On and up it had come, overcasting his sky, storming up over the edge of the world. There had been in it lightnings and voices and thunderings — the flash at Theo's death; the steady message — the appalling logic — of the Catholic creed; the cold and piercing silence of the Carthusians; the sharp voice of Christopher Dell; the rapid talk of Dick Yolland — all was as one here, and all was significant. He knew, with a certitude that I despair of making plain to those who have not experienced it, that this was all one, that it mingled into one clear and articulate Voice, pealing from heaven, ringing in his soul....

Now when he really perceived this, his choice was taken. He was an honest boy; and, for a few moments, there followed peace. He lay there content, lying in the green shadow, passive, without pain or desire, knowing himself one, not only with that Vision that passes understanding, but with all that is made, with nature as with grace, with the flies that danced as well as with their Maker....

And then, suddenly, without warning and without mercy, the piercing Voice cried again, a fresh and insistent invitation that he had silenced once before; and, in an instant his peace was gone.

He sat up, rebellious and despairing, telling himself that God had no mercy, that such a sacrifice was intolerable, complaining furiously that he who was ready to give so much ought not to be asked to give all, demanding a little breathing space. The conflict was upon him again, on a higher circle now of that mountain of God on which all men stand according to their stature.... He stood up; he clenched his hands; his eyes were bright with pain and fear; he took a quick step or two, this way and that. Then again he flung himself on his back.... Ah! why could not God let him alone?

It was late in the afternoon before he again sat up; and I think I should not have liked to see him then, for the conflict was not fought. He had avoided it, covering his retreat with a multitude of arguments, darkening his own outlook with the smoke of his words. He knew that it was so, though I do not think that he knew that he knew it.

Then he stood up, stretching himself slowly, and began very deliberately to step over among the ferns towards the glade beneath, externally self -controlled, internally troubled.

It was drawing on towards tea-time; the table would be out on the lawn by now. He must go and join them.

As regarded the first step his mind was now established; and, in a sense, this decision was easier to maintain, since he was distracted by the second question. He would say little or nothing to-night, he would take his place as usual; he would answer any questions that were put to him; and to-night, in the smoking-room, he would tell his father, simply and straightforwardly, that he must go on the next morning.

It was strange as he passed up the garden to see the table there, the glimmer of linen and silver in the cool shade, the three or four figures gathered there. Again that sense of unreality came upon him — the sensation as if he were stepping out of some land of dreams back towards solid and experienced life. No doubt he was a little pale and strained-looking, yet he was outwardly quiet enough, hatless, with his hands in his jacket pockets, and his brown shoes stepping among the flower-beds. Mary was there, he saw, and he noticed her say a word quickly to his mother. Harold was on a low chair to one side, busying himself with the muffin-dish. As Algy came the sensation deepened; it was like some old home-coming from school, when this home was a palace of delight and school lay behind him like a sordid dream. He knew, too, that his mother would presently express anxiety as regards his loss of luncheon. Yet in his deepest consciousness he never wavered; he knew that henceforward he must take this life as the dream, and his dreams as reality. He was concentrated utterly upon this, and determined. Yet, as at Theo's death, he knew that he must behave normally.

He sat down, without a word on his side or from the others, in a basket-chair.

" Muffins," he said, " when you have quite done with them."