Chapter IV

(i)

ON the eighteenth of November I received at Cam-bridge a grim little birthday present in the form of a note enclosed in one from Chris. It ran as follows: —

" CROWSTON, SUSSEX,

" November 16. "MY DEAR SIR,

" I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and to say that I shall be happy to see you and your two friends on the 25th. You do not inform me of the nature of the news you wish to lay before me, beyond saying that it concerns my son Algernon, and that you come from him. But you must allow me to say that if it has any bearing upon my decision that my son must not live at home, I feel it right to tell you that no arguments you can bring before me will have any effect. I say this to spare you the trouble of coming on a useless errand. Perhaps you will kindly assure me that this is not the case. " Yours faithfully,

"JOHN T. BANISTER." " C. DELL, Esq."

Chris added a line or two to say that he had sent this assurance, and had announced that we would arrive by the three-fifty on the date mentioned. We could leave again a little after six. He asked me to send both the notes on to Dick.

Now I knew hardly anything of what had happened at Esher, beyond what a rather exultant and incoherent note from Dick had conveyed to me. In it he hinted that something had happened which confirmed his own belief in the boy's vocation, and that the way would now be cleared of Miss Maple. He promised to tell me more when we met.

I spent the next few days in conjecture. I put Miss Maple aside. I felt I did not know enough; and confined myself to Algy. At this time I knew nothing of Algy's father except what Algy himself had told me; and a son is not usually a good critic of his parents. I scarcely knew what to expect. From the letter I deduced a strong will, an ambition to be business-like, and an entire lack of imagination. The handwriting corroborated these points. The letter was written with a " J" pen, itself a significant detail; the lines were level; the capitals unimportant; there was a thick black line beneath the signature; one or two of the words tailed off rather. I said to myself, oracularly, that here was a strong man, but not so strong as he thought.

I began to wonder all over again what in the world this man would make of the Contemplative Life. Probably he would be under the impression that there were no Contemplatives at the beginning of this twentieth century; and that what there had been before the days of breezy King Hal had devoted themselves entirely to chambering and wantonness, to enormous meals such as are depicted in comic papers, to the taking of too much wine, and to other carnalities. It would surely be entirely impossible to convince him that there were still many thousands of persons, men and women, who deliberately shut themselves up in order to pray; and that his son Algy proposed to make one of them.... The imagination boggled at the thought of the interview.

So, once more, I escaped into irresponsibility, threw out anchors, so to speak, and wished for the day.

On the twenty-fourth I received a long letter from Algy, recounting his Esher experience, and making other remarks. This I prefer not to insert....

I went to town on the morning of the twenty-fifth, and drove straight to Dick's house; and the instant I set eyes on him, sunk despairingly in his arm-chair, I knew that things were somehow all wrong. He looked at me hopelessly.

" Where's Chris? " I began.

" He's to meet us at the station, if we really are to go."

I ignored this.

" And Algy? "

" He's dining here this evening."

Dick was in his dramatic mood; I could see that, and determined to face it cheerfully.

" Look here, Dick; what's the matter? "

He waved his hands despairingly as I sat down.

" I can't tell you; I can't tell you; that's the worst of it. And I shall burst if I don't."

" If you mean Esher you needn't trouble. I heard from Algy yesterday.... Yes, quite full and explicit."

" Thank God! " broke out Dick piously; and sat down too. Then he went on rapidly. " My dear man; that boy's going to be a saint. He's — he's gorgeous. I fear nothing for him. He knows the whole thing now, and he never wavered one second."

" Well then "

" It's the other one, my dear man; it's the other one."

" You mean Miss Maple? "

" Yes.... Well, I went straight to Lady Brasted, with his leave, and told her everything — I mean about his vocation, and told her to pass it on. Wasn't that right? "

" I suppose so."

" Well, of course, it never even entered my head that she wouldn't."

" Do you mean "

anything. I don't believe that woman's told her, after all."

" Stuff and nonsense! " I said. " She must have."

" I don't believe it for a minute," cried Dick. " I believe she's trying to force it on more than ever.

" Tell me exactly what happened in the evening I said judicially.

" Nothing, nothing at all. Miss Maple was right: and of course I thought that Lady Brasted wasn't going to tell her till after we'd gone. So that didn't disturb me. But Algy! Algy! My dear man, he was absolutely himself again. He took her in to dinner; he turned over music for her — Lady B. asked him, by the way — he was perfectly natural. I can't think where that boy gets his self-control from. How in the world he did it is beyond me. I was like a cat on hot plates, inside. But he did it all without a tremor; I never caught him off his guard once. We went off early next morning, and the last thing I saw was that girl waving to us from the porch. She was a bit too serene for my liking, because she must have seen there had been something queer about Algy in the oak-room."

" I understand from Algy that it was just touch and go," I said slowly.

" Exactly; at least so he thinks, though I'm not sure.... Well, the question is, what's to be done? "

" Why didn't you tell her yourself? " I said severely.

Dick groaned.

" I wish to God I had; but I kept hoping and hoping all that Lady Brasted had, or would. Then I thought I'd tell her when we'd seen his people; and this morning I got a note to say she couldn't come to-morrow as she was going to Crows ton yesterday till Monday."

I sat pondering. These were indeed complications.

" What about her faith? " I asked.

" Oh! she's convinced all right. That's the worst of it in one way. If she was just a hypocrite I wouldn't mind. But she's not; there's a lot in her. I don't know when I've had a more satisfactory convert. And yet I can't doubt any longer that she's in love with this boy.... I've been thinking furiously.... She speaks of him now and then. It's all that other woman, you know."

" Tell me more about Algy."

Dick laughed shortly.

" Oh! you needn't bother about him. He's all right. I suppose you do really understand what happened to him that evening? "

" I imagine that he suddenly understood what falling in love meant."

" Exactly; though that's a mild way of putting it. He was just knocked clean off his feet. I've heard of it before; but I've never seen it till then."

" Was it... was it rather ghastly? "

Dick leaned forward.

" My dear," he said, " you and I are priests; Algy isn't. I suppose neither you or I ever have or ever can possibly understand it. But it was ghastly."

" And he never wavered? " I asked, after a pause, u 289

" Never for one second. He said that God was cruel. I began to tell him he was blaspheming; then I saw he wasn't.,.. He only meant that God must have everything or nothing — at least from him.,.. Well; he was staying here a night or two last week."

" Yes? "

" Well; I went to his room when he was out to get a book I'd lent him. I couldn't find it. I began to look among his things. There was a tin box there, one of those round things, you know, that altar-breads are kept in. Well; the top fell off as I moved it. Do you know what was inside? "

I shook my head.

" It was a little discipline that boy had made out of whipcord and wire,"

" Oh! they often do that. It's a regular symptom."

" Yes, I know. But this meant business. I tell you it was all streaked over with blood. That's new, since Esher, I expect."

" Did you say anything to him? "

"Good God! no."

There was a silence.... Then I returned abruptly to Miss Maple.

" She can't apostatise, because she isn't a Catholic-Miss Maple, I mean."

" No; but she can draw back... and, and break her heart."

I was silent.

" Does she know we're coming down to-day? " I asked presently.

" She's sure to by now. I didn't tell her."

" Why on earth not? It would have been rather a good "

" My dear man, I just couldn't.... I don't know. Oh, Lord! do let me alone \ What a confounded nuisance these women are! "

Dick began to stride about his room, hammering his head in perplexity.

" Come and lunch," I said, with as much tranquillity as I could summon. Things were getting beyond me altogether; and when they do that, I am accustomed to let go and wait,

It was a very dismal meal that we had. Dick was distracted and feverish. I began to wonder whether he was the right man to take with us or not, till I remembered the way in which I had seen him deport himself once or twice before in the presence of difficulties. (Oh I Dick has plenty of breeding. He'll rage on up to the verge of male hysterics when he's with friends; but he'll stiffen into the most proper rigidity when the crisis really arrives. I suppose it's the result of breeding.) But he was at his worst with me that day. He had long fits of staring at the tablecloth, answering me in the voice of one who dreams; he pushed his chair back at the end, forgetting to say grace, and seized a cigarette without offering me one; he also took the most comfortable chair with its back to the light. Finally, he said he didn't think he'd come with us, after all.

" You've got to," I said briefly. (Of course, the possibility had occurred to me of not going myself.) " But how can I face that girl? " he cried.

" You ass! She won't join the council. No; it's next Wednesday that'll be your crisis."

" What, when she comes for instruction? She won't come. I'll bet you what you like."

I knew nothing about that; and said so.

" I'm in such a tangle," said Dick slowly, " that I really don't see my way out. I wonder... oh! I wonder whether we're right. Suppose it doesn't come off. Suppose Algy funks it at the end!... Suppose, after all, he's got no Vocation!... What a vile mess we should have made of it! "

" Dick. That's not our affair. We've got to take things as they come. ' Do ye nexte thynge.' Besides, you know perfectly well he's got a Vocation."

" I suppose you're right," he said; and relapsed into thoughtful gloom.

The train left Victoria at two thirty-five; and at twenty minutes past the hour we told Betty to beckon up a cab.

It was a heavy November day as we drove through the streets — the kind of day that either drives one inwards or outwards; either into an understanding of how little man is and how helpless before the Large Mysteries; or of how strong and great he is to have accomplished so much in this world — these enormous buildings, this stupendous city, these labyrinths of rail and steam and streets. Here we were, two small men, in a hansom cab; here about us was London with its huge suggestiveness, its overpowering witness to materialism; and what was beyond it all? Was the whole affair visionary and impossible — this business on which we were bent? Or was it the most supremely real and vital thing? One of the two alternatives was the raving of madness, the other the apotheosis of sane sense. Which was which?...

On the strip of pavement outside the booking-office, among the supercilious porters who always at that station lounge about waiting for gentlemen in fur coats on their way to Brighton, to the discomfiture of all less wealthy travellers, stood a bearded figure in a fawn-coloured coat, brown boots and a Trilby hat.

" So here you are," he said. " I've got the tickets."

(n)

Harold was at home on an exeat from Oxford; and had arrived with Miss Maple and Sybil on the previous evening. There was to be shooting next day, for which another man or two were expected, and Mary and Sybil were come down to entertain them.

Harold was rather cross after lunch, for his darling was still talking in the hall with his mother; and lingering about had seemed useless. So he went to the billiard-room and began to knock the balls about. He had asked for the motor and had been told he couldn't have it.

" It's got to go to the station," said his father.

" Who's coming? "

" Some one to see me."

Mr. Banister looked severe, and thought how discreet he was. There was no earthly reason why he should not have announced our coming; but he had not done so except to his wife with an instruction to keep the confidence. I think he thought there was something vaguely disreputable in the fact that three papists were to enter his house. It might almost look as if Popish plots were being successful, and as if the defection of his own son were somehow furthering the machinations of the Jesuits, who, as is notorious, are perpetually worming themselves into blameless British households without the smallest motive. He knew that Chris gave himself out to be a layman; but he was not quite satisfied. On the whole, therefore, it seemed to him best to keep the whole affair dark, and to entertain us to conversation and tea in his own study. He still believed, as we learned presently, that the object of the deputation must be, in some manner, to reinstate Algy.

So Harold was doubly cross. He had failed to get the motor for himself and Sybil; and he had now failed to get Sybil for himself*

He played then with that listlessness that means failure. Four times did he venomously hit the balls round the table without accomplishing anything. Once more he set his teeth savagely and was addressing himself to the red, when Mary walked in.

He had not seen her alone since her arrival; but he had noticed, he thought, an unusual air about her. She had been very quiet at dinner on the previous evening, quiet again at breakfast and lunch; and yet she had not seemed at all depressed. There was a kind of radiant tranquillity in her brown eyes that had been rather pleasing when he had had time to notice it. Harold approved of Mary very much; and as soon as the disappointment that she was not Sybil had subsided he was conscious of being pleased that she had come.

" Come and knock about," he said.

Mary looked at him an instant as he played his stroke and missed,

" Yes, I will," she said. " I see there's hope for me to-day "; and she chose a cue.

Harold liked playing with Mary, because he knew he could always beat her if he really paid attention; and yet Mary played well enough to redeem the performance from absurdity.

" Aren't you going out? " she said.

"No; it's beastly. Besides, I've been out this morning. Go on: you begin. Fifty up."

It was very pleasant to watch her. She was so careful and so graceful. She bent her face so deliberately. Her hands were so white and firm. She really wanted to win; she was so genially distressed when she lost, which was three times out of four; she was so completely delighted when she won through Harold's inattention or magnanimity. She gave him exactly that which the young male desires — a competitor competent enough to be worth facing, inferior enough to be secure of beating, and pleasant enough to protect. Harold felt a real man when he played at billiards with Mary.

Outside, the day was bleak enough to heighten the pleasure of this warm and secure room. Gusts of wind pattered the laurel leaves together beneath the window; flaws of rain spattered on the glass; the huge cedar on the lawn tossed its well-bred fingers and arms despairingly in the air as a man shrugs his shoulders in disgust; and, beyond, heavy clouds ran continually across the sky.

The two were neck by neck up to forty-two; then Harold ran out, and laid down his cue,

" I wonder where Sybil is," he said inadvertently.

Mary looked at him with sisterly pleasure.

" Oh! Harold," she said, " I do like you."

The boy flushed, brought suddenly down from his manhood, while Mary sat down comfortably in the low, large, pig-skin chair by the fire.

" Shall I tell you something? " she said suddenly.

" All right."

" I don't think I will, then."

Harold affected to whistle; and Mary watched him with pleasure as he took up his cue once more. She knew perfectly what was in his mind. Then, after an ineffectual stroke, out it came.

"Is it anything about Sybil? " he asked, going round the table.

about me."

" Oh! "

" I will tell you," said Mary impulsively, " if you'll absolutely swear not to tell a soul."

" All right."

" No; come and sit down. I can't talk while you're doing that."

Harold finished his run (it would never do for the male to show interest in female secrets); tossed his cue on the table; came round and sat opposite her, with his hands in his pockets.

" It's this first," said Mary. " Have you ever talked to Algy much " she broke off in some confusion.

" No," she said, " it's nothing to do with Algy..., Oh! I may as well tell you...."

Again she stopped. Harold eyed her carefully.

" Well; get on," he said.

" I don't think I will," observed Mary very slowly. " At least, not just now. Let's talk about something else."

" What you please," said Harold politely.

" Well — Sybil," she said, determined to switch off the line effectually.

" What's there to say about her? "

" Well; what's she doing this afternoon? "

" I haven't the slightest idea."

" My dear boy," said Mary contentedly, " you needn't take that line with me. I think she's a dear girl; and so do you, you know."

" Oh! she's all right," remarked Harold uncomfortably. Mary had never talked quite like this before; she had never been quite so straightforward, though he knew and she knew and he knew that she knew, and so forth, exactly what the relations were.

" What I want to know is this," said Mary with unusual determination. " What's going to happen? "

" Oh 1 I don't know," said the boy peevishly. " What's the good of talking? "

" I wish I was of some use in the world," sighed Mary, beginning to drum her bronze shoe on the bear's head at her feet.

" When did you meet Algy last? " asked Harold suddenly,

" About a fortnight ago."

" Oh! where's he going to be for Christmas, do you know? "

" Lady Brasted's going to ask him down," said Mary with a superb unconcern.

" Oh! Are you going to be there? "

" Yes."

" Poor old Algy. Give him my love."

" I will."

Then Harold had a sudden impulse of confidence about himself. He felt cruelly used just now; there was the motor, and there was Sybil, and there were his debts at Oxford and his father's singularly unsympathetic attitude towards them, and a host of things, including the particular state of mind that one gets into in the middle of an afternoon indoors.

" Look here," he said. " Of course, you know all about it,... Well, I'm twenty-one next year; I shall then have three hundred pounds a year of my own. I ask you, what's a man to do with that? "

" Save it for five years," said Mary,

" Fifteen hundred pounds I Besides, I can't starve meantime, And there are some debts."

" Go into an office."

" I couldn't possibly. And even then Oh!

it's hopeless."

" Hasn't she got anything? "

" Not a penny piece.... Well, I suppose about fourpence."

He relapsed into silence again, eyeing only the little shoe that tapped and tapped, It was a cruel situation. Here was this ass Algy, certainly dreeing his weird just now (but, then, that was entirely his own fault), but with unlimited prospects to look forward to — to Crowston, to an adequate income, to comparative liberty. And he didn't in the least deserve it or appreciate it. Harold felt filled with sudden vindictiveness,

" And there's that fool Algy," he said, " with his rotten religion "

The foot stopped tapping very suddenly; and he looked up.

" Well? " he said.

" Don't abuse Algy's religion," said the girl quietly.

" Why not? Nobody but a fool "

" Please don't," she said again.

The panting of a motor suddenly became audible from the direction of the drive, sounding through the open door of the billiard-room that gave upon one of the hall passages. From where Harold sat he could see through that door, along the passage and through the window beyond to the front of the house.

" Here's the motor," he said, suddenly distracted. " I wonder who the chap is.... Good Lord! there are three of them; and two of them are parsons."

" Parsons? "

" They look like it. What on earth does father want with two parsons? I hate parsons. That's a fat one! "

Mary got up out of her chair and came across, looking too. Then she suddenly appeared to freeze. She remained perfectly still, half turned away from the boy, with one hand on the billiard table.

" What's up? " said Harold, startled by her attitude.

Mary took a step towards the door; then, as the three disappeared within the Corinthian portico she turned round. Her face was strangely set; and there was an odd light in her eyes. Still she did not speak.

" What's up? " asked Harold again. " Do you know any of them? "

" I know one of them," said Mary; " they're priests."

" Priests! "

Then Mary was gone.

(m)

Harold too got up a moment later, and went after her; but she had disappeared. This was really exciting. Visions of plots and conversions moved before his brain. He had a wild picture, as he tiptoed along towards the hall, of his father going through strange rites in his study, from which he too should emerge a Catholic. Surely it must be news of Algy! Perhaps he was dead! One violent emotion tore through his heart as he perceived what this meant to himself. Tken he beat it down; for he was a goodhearted boy on the whole.

The hall was empty; but on the oak table in the centre there lay three hats; a silk one, a Trilby, and a wide-awake. He inspected them curiously. They seemed very suggestive. There was a stick, too, on the table, with a silver band round it; he looked at that too; and read the initials " C.D." Priests!

The door from the inner hall opened, and a charming face peeped in.

" Come here," hissed Harold melodramatically.

Sybil stepped in like a dainty cat.

" Who do you suppose these belong to? " whispered the boy, indicating the hats.

She shook her head silently, looking at him with expectant eyes. (Oh! she was charming!)

" Two Popish priests," hissed Harold once more;

*' and they've now gone to father to make him a Catholic. Don't you smell the incense? "

" What do you mean? JJ

" I swear they're priests."

" How do you know? "

" Mary told me so. She knows one of them, she said."

Sybil stared at him.

'' I passed her on the stairs just now. She was going to your mother's room."

The two regarded one another.

" Come along to the billiard-room," said Harold suddenly. " We must beat the bottom out of this."

There they sat down again on two chairs, on either side of the fire-place, leaving the door open as before in case the mysterious strangers should come out again. But the motor had gone off to the stables, and there appeared no hope of seeing them again for the present. It was quite like the situation at Esher, with other actors.

" By George! " began Harold. " Something's up."

Sybil nodded mutely. She was sitting where Mary had sat just now; and he could not help contrasting one with the other. Certainly Mary had looked very young just now; but with Sybil now instead!

What Mary had said of her a while ago was singularly true, thought Harold. She was like a Gainsborough — exactly like one; with an extraordinary suggestiveness of youth and breeding and daintiness, with large grey eyes and red mouth; and she would, as Mary had said, look more and more like a French marquise every year she lived.

The sun was beginning to go down beyond the windows in a cheerful glory, breaking out beneath the arched clouds, and the ruddy light shone its level rays straight in upon that picture opposite the boy, turning the girl's dark hair to threads of gold, charging her face with radiance and her eyes with light,

Harold broke off in the midst of an argument to the effect that Algy must have been offered an important post at a foreign court, probably by the Jesuits

" Good Lord! " he cried.

Then he was down on his knees at her feet, seizing her slender hands and kissing them furiously,

" My darling! " he cried.

Oh! he had kissed her before, shyly and suddenly in shrubberies and dark rooms; but never with this passion. It was the whole thing that inspired him — the vivid hope that would assert itself that in some way or another the visit of the priests would mean wealth to himself. No, no, his heart cried to him. Algy was not dead 1 he could not be dead! Poor old Algy! And, on the other, there was that vague hope that would not be stifled, that in some way or another the situation would be changed for the better. Harold had been so constant; and so very proud of it! Surely things would turn. Above all, there sat Sybil in an entrancing light.

Sybil too knew the difference between this kissing and the other ones. The dear face on her hands shook with passion; the lips stung.

" Let me go," she cried breathlessly, ashamed and frightened.

It was a minute or two before she could tear him off, and stood up, trembling and white.

" Oh! my darling! I'm so sorry," cried Harold. " I couldn't help it. I simply couldn't help it. You looked so sweet! "

He was still on his knees with his bright hair all ruffled, and his ardent eyes alight with love.

" You must never touch me like that again," she whispered, still half terrified.

" I won't! I swear I won't," cried the boy. " Oh! Sybil...."

The two were in their chairs again presently, with a full yard and a half between them. No indiscreet footman coming noiselessly to mend the fire would have had a word to say when he got back to the pantry. But Sybil was conscious that yet one more stage had been passed.

How it was all to end she had no more idea than Harold. For herself she could not conceive that three hundred pounds a year would not be ample for all needs, particularly with what Harold had called her own " fourpence," but elder persons had been so superior upon the subject that she had given up saying so. She had often got at opinions in the most artless manner and from the most unlikely people — opinions as to the cost of houses and the upkeep of a garden; and it seemed to her always that three hundred pounds a year meant wealth. Still, she said so no more.

The afternoon closed in as they sat there, discussing the significance of the visit of the three men.