Chapter VII

(i)

'T^O be perfectly frank, Father Maple had fallen asleep over his office in the garden. There was every possible excuse: it was a really hot afternoon; his housekeeper, who was a woman deeply Conservative in all matters except Home Rule, had insisted on giving him hot mutton for lunch, followed by sago pudding, in spite of his remonstrances; the flies were so troublesome that he put his handkerchief over the top of his head, and it had slipped forward so as to shade his eyes; and the pages of his book insisted on turning green by way of balancing the glow of the afternoon sun. So, on finishing the second nocturn, he had thought that he would attend better to the third if he closed his eyes for three minutes to rest them, with the result that when the clock from the Norman tower over the way struck four, it failed to disturb him.

It was a pleasant, rectangular, old-fashioned garden in which he sat, with his head bowed on his breast. It was surrounded by a high old brick wall, mellow with age, and covered on its east and west walls with trained fruit trees; the south wall was occupied by the Queen Anne house, with the chapel projecting; and the north by a properly built brick summer-house with a tiled roof, with a shrubbery on either side. The garden itself was just one lawn split into four by paved paths, with a sundial in the middle, and skirted by long and deep herbaceous beds; and the priest had erected a trellis on the top of the wall that divided his own garden from the next in such a manner that he could not be overlooked even by the upper windows. It was a formal but friendly place, exactly appropriate to the formal and friendly house that it served.

It was very quiet here this afternoon. Outside lay the long, hot street, silent and empty. Even cyclists were absent, and there were no brakeparties come over to see Medhurst, as to-day was Thursday, and Tuesdays and Fridays were the only opportunities when the family was at home. A dog or two lay asleep in the shadows, no doubt, sitting up now and again to snap at flies; the farm-yard opposite the " Medd Arms " was empty; the churchyard was as empty as a churchyard ever can be. And it is probable that in perhaps thirty or forty bedrooms all along this street there slumbered persons who on cooler days would have been talking or bustling and disturbing the world generally. The hot weather had come back indeed, and was doing its work. And, what is very touching indeed if one reflects upon it (though quite irrelevant to this story), the clergyman was as soundly asleep in the vicarage garden as the priest in the presbytery's.

Almost immediately after the clock had struck four Bridget's figure appeared in the study window. She peeped out under her hand, and immediately disappeared. Simultaneously with her appearance the priest opened his eyes, without otherwise moving, and saw her; and since he knew her ways, called out, before she had time to take any further steps:

"Is that anyone for me, Bridget?"

Bridget reappeared again.

" Sure I was just telling the gentleman that I mustn't disturb your Reverence."

The priest got up, put his handkerchief in his pocket, and went towards the house as Val came out, carrying his white hat in his hand.

" Tea, Bridget," said the priest; and then: " This is excellent. You're just in time for tea."

He observed Val while they had tea, though he scarcely looked at him; and perceived that there was some very particular emotion hidden a long way out of sight, which, if he himself were at all abrupt or careless, might never come to light. He had hoped he would come some time ago; but three or four weeks had passed since the dinner at which he had met him, and the boy had not come. He conjectured then that something had happened since then, that was the cause of this visit.

The priest had a great theory about the sequence of events. He held that things happened or did not happen — things, that is, in which free-will integrally came in — according to the movements of a kind of under-world in which free-will played a very large part. (Prayer, of course, is one manifestation of all this.) For instance, it had become plain to him that he himself must make a big attempt to get at the boy whose mother had been so confidential, and that he must get him to come spontaneously: it would not be of the smallest use to ask him outright. So he had set to work on the night of the dinner to communicate with the boy without the boy's knowing it; and so certain was he that he had succeeded, that he was really astonished that the effect had not followed sooner. However, it seemed to have worked at last; for here was the boy. And the fact that he held such a theory, and habitually acted on it, made him quite extraordinarily confident and self-possessed, now that it had been justified once more.... He gathered, however, from the abruptness with which the boy had turned up, that something rather important had happened to precipitate the process. (I do not know whether all this is in the least intelligible. At any rate, it was what the man held.)

The priest talked of odds and ends for some time, while he handed tea and made suggestions as to various kinds of food. He felt that he must first establish a sense of ordinariness and normality in the boy's mind; and meantime he watched interiorly, with extreme care, the gradual settling down of the other's agitation. Val soon began to answer easily; to sit less on the edge of his chair; and even to begin little new subjects.

" I say, that's a splendid piano you've got," he said.

The priest spoke of his piano; pointed out one or two ordinary devices for increasing resonance; explained that he had as few hangings and carpets in the room as possible, for the same reason.

" What was that thing you began by playing when you dined with us? " said Val. " I've never forgotten it."

" That was what's called extemporisation," said the priest. " You take a theme -

" Do you mean that you made it up as you went along?" asked Val, amazed.

" Oh, it's not so impossible as it sounds. You take a theme first — an idea that's to say, expressed in sounds instead of words — an idea that's interesting, you know, and that's capable of development — like... like a paradox; and then you comment on it, and expand it, and draw it out, and turn it upside down, and alter it — yet it's all the same main idea. Then you contradict it flatly and argue it out... and finally you make it win, when you've explained it."

He broke off, smiling, seeing the boy's consternation. But he had seen, too, that he was not entirely unintelligible.

" Does that sound quite mad? " he asked.

Val smiled too, rather painfully.

"No..." he said. "But it seems to me extraordinary that anyone can do it — straight off."

The priest checked himself on the verge of another sentence. He saw that the boy had led up to the taking-off edge.... But the moment passed. Val struggled with himself an instant, and drew back....

" Shall we go out into the garden? I know you'd like to smoke. It's very good of you to come and see me at all."

So once more, in the garden, the priest soothed and reassured this boy who was shying, like a colt, at every opportunity. It was a laborious business. The priest knew perfectly well that the other had come down on purpose to make a confidence; and yet that it was quite conceivable that he would go away again without doing it.

And then at last the moment came.

Val, who was obviously not attending in the least to his host's description of the Dresden Kur-haus and its contents, suddenly interrupted.

" Look here," he said. " I've got to be up at the house at six, to go out riding. There's something I want to ask you most awfully: and it'll take rather a long time...."

(n)

It was half an hour before he had finished.

Again and again the priest had to help him out by a question or a comment, to reassure him when he grew too bitter, and finally, to sit without moving a finger or an eyelid, while Val recounted the last scene — that desperate attempt — a sham attempt, as he now saw it to be — to kill himself. It was very delicate work. A phrase too much, or a disdainful movement, or a touch of sentimentality would have upset the balance — the very delicate balance of a soul spinning free at last from complications, on a single line.... He had to let his soul come out clear into the open and see facts as they were. And then, then it might be possible to deal with it.

... " That's what I've come about then," ended the boy, pale and excited. " I didn't know who else to come to.... I felt I must come to someone who didn't know me. I could tell him the truth, then.... And this is the truth. I'm simply a coward. It was when you were playing that I first felt I could come to you — I don't know why. And there it is! I'm a coward. And I want to know what I'm to do. I hate myself every time; and I tell lies to myself. And I want to know, once and for all, whether I can do anything in the world to cure myself. It's no good telling me to do a big thing: I probably shouldn't do it.... And I want to know what to do."

The priest moved a little in his chair. He had been listening for the last five minutes without a word or movement.

"Look here," he said quietly. ("Take another cigarette. )... I take it you've come to me, as to a doctor? Well, I'm going to answer you like a doctor. Is that what you want? "

" Yes."

" You want to hear the truth? However unpleasant? Remember, I shouldn't tell you the truth unless " — (he leaned forward a little) — " unless I was perfectly certain there was a cure."

" Yes, the truth."

" Very well, then. Now listen.

" First, however, I want to say that you've done a brave thing in coming.... No; don't interrupt me. It is brave. It would have been much easier for you not to have come; to have gone on — er — lying to yourself. Particularly as there was no earthly reason why you should have come to me — to me, of all people. You would have easily salved your conscience by going to your mother "

The boy started.

"How did you know that?" he asked breathlessly.

" My dear boy, it's exactly what a real coward would have done.... No doubt you thought of it; but then, you see, you didn't do it. You came to me. Now listen, please, carefully."

The priest sat back in his chair, hesitated a moment to gather his words, and began.

" The first point is, Are you a coward really? To that I say, Yes and No. It depends entirely upon what you mean by the word. If it is to be a coward to have a highly strung nervous system and an imagination, and further, in moments of danger to be overwhelmed by this imagination, so that you do the weak thing instead of the strong thing against your real will, so to speak, then — Yes. But if you mean by the word coward what

I mean by it — a man with a lax will who intends to put his own physical safety first, who calculates on what will save him pain or death and acts on that calculation, then certainly you are not one. It's purely a question of words. Do you see?...

" Now it seems to me that what is the matter with you is the same thing that's the matter with every decent person — only in rather a vivid form. You've got violent temptations, and you yield to them. But you don't will to yield to them. There's the best part of you fighting all the time. That's entirely a different case from the man who has what we Catholics call ' malice ' — the man who plans temptations and calculates on them and means to yield to them. You've got a weak will, let us say, a vivid imagination, and a good heart. (Don't interrupt. I'm not whitewashing you.... I'm going to say some more unpleasant things presently.)

" Well... a really brave man doesn't allow himself to be dominated by his imagination — a really brave man — the kind of man who gets the V.C. His will rules him; or, rather, he rules himself through his will. He may be terribly frightened in his imagination all the while; and the more frightened his imagination is, the braver he is, if he dominates it. Mere physical courage — the absence of fear — simply is not worth calling bravery. It's the bravery of the tiger, not the moral bravery of the Man.

" And you aren't a brave man — in that sense. Nor are you a coward in the real sense either. You're just ordinary. And what we've got to see is how you're to get your will uppermost.

" The first thing you've got to do is to understand yourself — to see that you've got those two things pulling at you — imagination and will. And the second thing you've got to do is to try to live by your will, and not by your imagination — in quite small things I mean. Muscles become strong by doing small things — using small dumb-bells — over and over again; not by using huge dumb-bells once or twice. And the way the will becomes strong is the same — doing small things you've made up your mind to do, however much you don't want to do them at the time — I mean really small things — getting up in the morning, going to bed.... You simply can't lift big dumb-bells simply by wanting to. And I don't suppose that it was simply within your power to have done those other things you've told me of. (By the way, we Catholics believe, you know, that to fight a duel and to commit suicide are extremely wrong: they're what we call mortal sins.... However, that's not the point now. You didn't refrain from doing them because you thought them wrong, obviously.

We're talking about courage — the courage you hadn't got.)

" Now this sounds rather dreary advice, I expect. But you know we can't change the whole of our character all at once. To say that by willing it we can become strong, or... or good, all in a moment, is simply not true. It's as untrue as what you tell me that Professor said — that we can't change at all. That's a black lie, by the way. It's the kind of thing these modern people say: it saves them a lot of trouble, you see. We can change, slowly and steadily, if we set our will to it."

He paused. Val was sitting perfectly still now, listening. Two or three times during the priest's little speech he had moved as if to interrupt; but the other had stopped him by a word or gesture. And the boy sat still, his white hat in his hands.

"Well, that's my diagnosis," said the priest, smiling. " And that's my advice. Begin to exercise your will. Make a rule of life (as we Catholics say) by which you live — a rule about how you spend the day. And keep it; and go on keeping it. Don't dwell on what you would do if such and such a thing happened. As to whether you'd be brave or not. That's simply fatal; because it's encouraging and exciting the imagination. On the contrary, starve the imagination and feed the will. It's for the want of that that in these days of nervous systerns and rush and excitement that so many people break down...."

" And... and about religion? " asked Val shyly.

The priest waved his hands.

" Well," he said, " you know what my religion is. At least, you almost certainly don't. And, naturally, I'm quite convinced that mine is true. But that's not to the point now. If you really want to know, you can come and talk some other time. With regard to religion, I would only say to you now, Practise your own: do, in the way of prayers and so on, all that you conscientiously can... Yes, make a rule about that too, and stick to it. Make it a part of your rule, in fact. If you decide to say your prayers every day, say them, whatever you feel like. Don't drop them suddenly one morning just because you don't feel religious. That's fatal. It's letting your imagination dominate your will. And that's exactly what you want to avoid."

Val stood up briskly.

" I must be going," he said. " The quarter's just going to strike. Thanks most awfully." The priest stood up too.

" Not at all," he said. " It's my job, you know." Val still stood looking at him. What amazed the boy most was the naturalness and the absence of emotionalism of the whole thing. He had come down here facing, as he thought, a crisis. And to this quiet, small, grey-haired man it did not appear that it seemed a crisis at all; it was part of the day's work. Val wondered why on earth he hadn't been before — why he hadn't known that there were such people in the world.... Were all Roman Catholics priests like this?...

"Well, thanks again," he said. "By the way "

"Yes?"

" Do you think I shall have a chance — when I'm stronger, I mean — to... to show? "

" I'm quite sure you will," said the priest. " It may not be a very sensational chance, and perhaps no one will know. But you'll have one, don't be afraid." He paused. " Almighty God doesn't really waste His material, you know."

When the priest was alone he sat down again for a minute or two and remained without moving.

Then he spoke aloud softly — a bad habit he had contracted through living alone.

" And to think," he said excitedly, " that that boy doesn't know anything about Absolution!... What a a damnable shame it all is! "