Chapter V

(I) CuRIs paused with uplifted fountain pen, and looked at the windows for inspiration.

It was the second week in January, and he was engaged on his third descriptive article for the Saturday Express. He was conducting his readers through the year in Italy, a month late, and had arrived at Christmas Eve in Naples. At this moment, before his eyes, for he was an excellent visualiser, floated the forms of men clad in sheepskin, marching with out-turned feet, legs wrapped in rags, and felt-hatted, playing upon little pipes through the streets in the early morning.

There were few people about; a child or two stood in a doorway, a troop of Satanic goats dawdled on the Rampe Brancaccio, and two Englishmen, of whom he was one, invited the musicians to come upstairs to the flat and play a little melody to an ivory statue of the Mother of God. It was very charming he remembered; the cold morning sky, the brisk air, the pale island across the Bay, the solemn smoke-oozing mountain, all vast and violet against a rosy dawn; then there was the climb upstairs; the odd contrast between the tanned country-boys and the damask-lined walls, the shrill sweet playing, and the delicate yellow image looking down from its bracket between the windows. He remembered the curious thrill with which he realised the splendid Catholic paganism of it all; it was so that men had played twenty centuries ago before other statues than this.

Then as he stared and smiled the vision faded, and he saw the heavy London fog (so fit an emblem of the character of the people who made it) lying like a woollen bank against the panes. He sighed, put down his pen, and went to the window.

He had been settled in now for six weeks, and better understood what it was that lay before him. Two years was a long time. He had returned a fortnight ago from his Christmas visit to Hinton, and his appetite was still keen. She had been so sweet! They had skated together one day on the Long Water; he had held her hands and looked into her face among the furs, rosy-flushed where warmth and biting air kissed one another. They had sat long evenings together over the wood-fire in the schoolroom, listening to the deathly silence of the frost outside, watching the lilac flames lick the fragrant logs. The days had gone by like pearls, he thought, each perfect, no two alike, linked by a golden string of dreams and a half-conscious joy of being where he was. (That was a poetical thought, he told himself; he would see presently how a sonnet would frame it.) But the pearls had slipped through his fingers, and he was left now, empty-fingered and dissatisfied.

Two years! And Easter would be the next glimpse of paradise.

Yet he knew perfectly well that he was happier than he had been in the whole previous course of his life. The fever was gone, soothed away by coolness

—the coolness of his love’s hands. There was an object now, and there had been none; the dreariest details of life, the little journeys on an omnibus, the sulphur of the Underground Railway, foggy mornings like this—all were rendered less opaque by a distant light on the horizon; in two years he would say good-bye to all this.

At the same time he was occasionally conscious of a strain.

Before all this had begun and he had learnt the ecstasy of innocence, there had always been the relief of the imagination; there had been districts of thought, visualised images, formed partly from retrospect, partly from anticipation, which had been open to him as a city of refuge from sordid facts. Now all this was closed; it was disloyalty even to look at the closed doors that led to this bewitched country. At first it had been an intense joy to know that he had looked his last on this realm; it was the happiness of coming out from an artificially-lit, heavily-scented room into clean morning air. But now he was conscious that there were moments when the clean morning air struck a little chilly; when objects seen in the cold light of a pure dawn were less inviting; when the warm fancies of his old life beckoned him, as when an early riser in winter looks for a moment regretfully at the tumbled bed in a darkened room left an hour before.

But the attraction was not severe. After all the keen air is better, and pride at having been resolute compensates for lost comfort. There was not yet anything approaching to a struggle in his mind; he firmly believed that he would grow stronger every month, and that by the time that the two years were gone he would be free even from the perils of imagination.

He shivered pleasantly as he looked out at the smoky orange medium that seethed beneath in the street, listened for a moment to the solemn roar of the City, and went back to his place by the cheerful fire

Dick looked in half-an-hour before lunch, with rather a pinched, tired face.

“ Well?”” he asked with an obvious attempt not to be peevish.

“ Pretty fair,” said Chris. “It will be Pompeii in a thunderstorm next week, and we shall spend Lent in Rome.”

“Pompeii in a thunderstorm,” observed Dick reflectively, sitting down and taking up the poker. (He felt rather dreary, generally, on Monday mornings.)

“Yes, the old and the new, don’t you know. It actually happened to me. There wasn’t a soul there besides myself. Vesuvius roared and smoked, and the rain came down in torrents. And then the sky cleared to a bright blue, and there was the—the vile place, like a sort of decayed roué, all dripping and shining.”

Dick grunted.

“ And then Rome in Lent. By Gad! I shall let the tourists have it. Baedekers and green veils, don’t you know, at the giving of ashes in St. John Lateran! i

“Tet them have it! Let them have it!” murmured the priest.

“You may depend on me. Look here, may I just read you my stuff?” 10— (2096)

Dick did not attend very closely. He was thinking for the hundredth time of how very extraordinary and pleasant the whole thing was, and how very tired he was. They had got on admirably so far for six weeks. Chris was an ideal companion; he was always friendly and interesting; it was nice to come in from mass on cold mornings and find him, brisk and clean-looking, warming his hands over the fire, ready with short selections of news from the morning paper. During the day they did not meet a great deal except at meals, and at times like this when a solitary soul desires a relief. Chris was generally attentive and thoughtful. Once when the priest came back from a sick-call towards three o’clock in the morning he found that his friend had made a fire and boiled cocoa. Chris had been greatly distressed when Dick had reminded him that it was after midnight, and that refreshment was not possible to a mass-priest.

It was pleasant too in the evenings to go up to Chris’s room and sit there for an hour before going to bed, listening to his compositions with more or less of attention, and conspiring inefficiently in plans for the screwing of editors.

But Chris’s literary life was making good progress; there was no real need for conspiracy; his extra articles had a kind of sting about them that caused them to be accepted, and there was no more any cause for anxiety as to the necessary income of two hundred pounds a year.

There was therefore nothing to cloud the prospect. If Chris could only be kept quiet and busy—and there was no sort of reason to expect him to be otherwise— the two years would roll by, and the story would leave him happy ever afterwards.

Chris’s voice ended, and the priest stood up, stretching himself and yawning.

“Excellent, my dear chap! Just a little pagan, you know, but——”

“Pagan! Why, of course it is. Catholicism is just that. That’s why it’s so obviously true; it’s the sum of all religions, and the Queen of them. Why, if I didn’t think %

“Oh! yes. I know all that. I suppose it’s all right.”

“Why, look at the Vestal Virgins! What are they but nuns? With the same virtues and the same sanctity! And incense, and lights, and flowers—all pagan, my good man—every one of them. And Catholicism has absorbed them all, just as it is bound to do. Why, it’s the strongest argument of all.”

“ Yes, yes, I know ts

“And what are the old gods but attributes of the Christian God? Pallas Athene is His wisdom— Apollo His beauty, and so on. Puritanism is the Devil, my dear Dick. It’s just sectarianism, that rules off a little corner, and denies everything but itself. That’s why I put up Hermes in my rooms at Oxford. By George! I'll put him up here.”

“You mustn’t. It would cause admiratio to Betty.”

“ What’s that?”

“ Admiratio? Oh! it’s not admiration, it’s a mild sort of scandal.”

“It’s a good word,” said Chris fervently. ““ I must remember that.”

“Oh! it’sanexcellent word. It meetsa felt want,” said Dick, yawning again.

‘Give me another instance.”

“Oh! it would cause admiratio ifi—if I smoked a pipe in the street, or if you said you believed in Pallas Athene.”

apt oledogs

“Very well, then. If you said that outside this room it would cause admiratio.”

“Then I’ve caused a lot in my time.”

“Then you shouldn’t.”

“Why not? Look here, Dick, I’m not one of those people who can shuffle and act and pretend. If I feel a thing I say it. I can’t keep back my real beliefs.”

“My dear man, that’s the sheerest nonsense. Of course we all keep back lots of things. We don’t shout out in the morning from our windows that we've slept very tolerably, and are just going to have our bath.”

“That’s not fair; it’s not parallel. You preach what you believe, don’t you? Weil, why shouldn’t I? It’s the creed that makes the man——”

“Bosh! Shut up. You’re a heretic. Besides, it’s time for lunch.”

Chris followed, protesting.

He announced at lunch that he was going round to his old club to see about re-admittance, and the payment of arrears. Dick felt rather annoyed at the news.

“Why do you want a club?”

‘My dear man, it’s necessary. One hears all the gossip there.”

“Why do you want the gossip? Is it worth ten pounds a year?”

“That and other things, certainly. You don’t understand a bit. It’s necessary for a man of my—”

“Oh! my good man pWellb?”?

“Can’t you forget your everlasting temperament for ten minutes?”

Chris looked slightly annoyed.

“1 wasn’t going to say that at all. I was going to say profession.”

Dick was rather tired with Sunday work, and his perceptions were just a little bit dull this morning. Besides there was a chilly round of pinkish beef, and only warmish potatoes. So he paid no attention to the symptoms of his friend.

“Don’t take yourself so beastly seriously. You are always jawing about your profession. After all, it isn’t such a——”

Chris whitened so suddenly that the priest stopped.

“ Well?” he said. “I was only going to say Z

‘Why do you always sneer at everything I do?” began Chris explosively. ‘‘ You are always jawing and finding fault. Of course, I’m very grateful ¢

“Good Lord!” sighed the priest.

“T will ask you not to interrupt. I was saying that of course I’m very grateful and all that, but that doesn’t give you a right v

‘‘T know it doesn’t,” moaned the other. “I take it all back. Your profession is the finest on God’s earth; we wouldn’t get on a day without it. And you’re the brightest ornament ”

Chris rose abruptly. His lips worked a moment.

“Took here, I’m not going to stand this. I’m doing my best to keep my temper; but, by George, there are some things——”’

Dick was rather angry too. He had meant nothing seriously, and he was annoyed that the other should take itso. He looked at him between half-shut eyes.

““T’ve never seen such a man,” he said. ‘“‘ You flare up at the least thing 2

Chris went out, banging the door behind him, and the priest heard his steps go downstairs. Then presently the street-door banged too.

In ten minutes Dick had become rather angry with himself. He honestly had not meant to be annoying, but he was quite aware that he had tended that way.

He looked at Chris’s half-emptied plate with a touch of real compunction; a piece of gristle, delicately severed, lay along the rim; the potatoes were half-eaten, and even in that moment of anger, Chris had not omitted to lay his knife and fork neatly together. It was really rather pathetic.

But he ought not to have gone off like that. Dick hated rudeness like sin, and it was certainly rude of Chris to depart so swiftly, shutting the doors in such a way. He wondered where he had gone—where he would get lunch, and so on.

He determined to say a word of regret when his friend came back; he would not apologise—that would be so bad for Chris. But he would just say that he had not been talking seriously, and that he was always stupid on Monday mornings.

Then he smoked a cigarette, dozed a little, awoke with a start and a taste in his mouth at half-past two, and got up, feeling more irritable than ever. There was some visiting to be done; there was a fog, and he was very tired.

He came back about half-past five, and there was no Chris. But there was a note, brought, Betty said, by a messenger-boy a little after four o'clock. He opened it and read it. It was scrawled on half a sheet of notepaper, stamped “ Doric Club” at the top, and contained half-a-dozen words.

“Dining out. Don’t sit up. In haste; C. 1 WS

It was rather a dreary evening that the priest passed. He supped alone, dozed again, read his office, answered a couple of letters, and finally, about eleven o’clock felt really angry.

It was scandalous behaviour on Chris’s part! Here was a man to whom he had given shelter and food, to whom he had been the means of unheard of prosperity, over whom he had taken a great deal of trouble, with whom he had borne through every sort of annoyance, and, above all, whom he had taken into his house at ridiculously inadequate terms, and had treated in every way with affection and respect. And now, at the first slight misunderstanding, this man had gone offinasulk. It was childish, babyish, unworthy of a grown man!

He went up to bed presently, crossing himself savagely with holy water at the door of his room, and in ten minutes was in bed, feeling particularly wide-awake. He heard the clock below strike the quarter, and the half, and then there were footsteps on the stairs.

The priest waited as usual for the minute tap on his door to see if he was awake; but, although he heard the footsteps pause, there was no tap; and a moment later, the door of the next room shut quietly.

Very well, said the priest to himself, there should be no apology, even of the most disguised nature next morning. He required to receive, not to offer, expressions of regret.

Dick felt a great deal better next morning.

He did not see Chris in the sacristy, so he vested and went in with the sacristan; but during the reading of the epistle he was aware that Chris was changing places with the server. He could not help reflecting that this signified that it was all right between them, and, as he bent over the altar for the Munda Cor he registered a swift vow to be natural at breakfast, and not to refer to the unfortunate incident of the previous day. It would be better so.

They both kept silence as usual during the unvesting after mass; the priest washed his hands, and went back into the church for his thanksgiving.

He stayed a long time this morning at his prayers. The little grimy church, pleasantly dark and faintly redolent still with the Sunday incense, was like a caress to him. It was very quiet this morning; the fog still soothed the traffic outside, and only an occasional woolly rumble in the little side-street broke the living silence within.

Dick pondered a number of things when he had said his more formal prayers, and chief among them were his relations with Chris. He had certainly been trying to his friend the day before, and he made an act or two of contrition for it. He did not know how he had come io forget himself; it was the first touch of unpleasantness that had come between them for over two months. He resolved to be extremely careful for the future, especially on Monday mornings when the surfaces of the soul are a little raw.

What a curious man Chris was! Undoubtedly prosperity was good for him; it had called out his virtues, not his defects. He was more, not less serene than when he was in trouble. On the whole he had really behaved not badly yesterday; perhaps it was not fair to accuse him of sulking; it might well be that he had thought that a few hours’ absence would go further than any amount of explanation in the direction of healing the rift.

Dick made another act of contrition with his eyes screwed tight, rounded up his devotions, and went out of the church, buttoning up his long double-breasted French coat.

He let himself in with his key, took off his coat in the hall, and went straight on into the dining-room, rubbing his hands with brisk cordiality, and determined to be as friendly as possible. Yes, he would presently say he was sorry.

Chris was not there.

For a moment he stood astonished. Such a thing had not happened once before. Then he saw the back of an envelope lying on his plate, and took it up, wondering.

There was a line written almost illegibly upon it.

‘Gone to catch the 9.10. There’s something the matter at Hinton. Just heard. Can’t wait a moment. Will write or wire.—C. D.”

As he still stood with this in his hand, not knowing what to think, Betty came in.

“ He’s gone, Master Dick; he just put a few things in his bag and went. He told me to tell you he couldn’t wait.”

Dick nodded.

“Was there a wire?” he asked.

“ No, Master Dick; I think there was a letter.”

Dick turned the paper over mechanically, and recognised Mrs. Hamilton’s neat handwriting.

He had an uncomfortably thoughtful breakfast. First he dismissed the theory of Annie’s illness; if it had been urgent there would have been a wire. Secondly he dismissed the thought that she had changed her mind about Chris; in that case the rejected lover would scarcely have been asked to come down. Then he reflected that he was judging hastily; Annie well might be ill, and Mrs. Hamilton have written to that effect; and a man like Chris would, of course, have caught the nine-ten. Or again, it might be even the second theory, and Chris have gone without an invitation. Really there seemed to be no other theory; but whatever the explanation was, it must be connected with bad news of some kind.

Dick poured out a second cup of coffee, and sat stirring it till it was cold.

He could hardly have believed that he could have passed so uncomfortable a morning for so small a cause as the departure of Chris.. But he sat before his fire, with a book taken up for a pretence, while his mind trod the round. There seemed something sinister even in his last interview with his friend; they had parted hastily, with sharp words, nearly twenty-four hours before, and had not spoken since, except in the stately dialogue at the altar. What if this were some kind of omen that he could not interpret? He was terrified at the thought that there might be some real trouble at Hinton; he could not even picture what it would mean to Chris. If this new element were suddenly withdrawn from his life, he would be in far worse case than ever; the whole of his new and ordered existence would crumble back with a crash into the chaos from which it had risen, carrying with it even the flimsy crust that had begun to form, however slightly, before he had known Annie. As the priest contemplated this, it seemed to him that he was looking into a pita

It was impossible for the most vivid imagination to construct any theory for the future, except the hackneyed suggestion of suicide.

A great regret seized him. If only he himself had been less peevish the day before he would not have suffered so much, but he felt that he had forfeited Chris’s confidence; it was not to him that the other would turn now in the event of disaster.

Then he told himself he was a fantastic ass; that Annie had probably a cold on the chest; that Mrs. Hamilton had proposed the two years to be shortened; either of these things would be quite enough to make Chris catch the nine-ten.,

He took up his book and read a little, but the dismay reasserted itself, and half-a-dozen times that morning he found himself reading the same page from which all interest had departed. Twice he started up, hearing a bell ring below, and waited; but silence followed, and the third ring he did not notice.

He had just stood up to poke the fire when Betty came in with an orange-coloured envelope in her hand. He snatched it, tore it open and read; and so stood.

“ Any answer, Master Dick?”

“ No—yes.”

He seized a pen, scribbled an answer and handed it to her.

“‘ And—Betty—I shall be going down to Amplefield by the two forty-five; I don’t know when I shall be back. Send round to St. Mary’s to see if a priest can say mass here to-morrow. If they can’t, tell Jennings to put up a notice on the church-door that there will be no mass.”

““Yes, Master Dick——”

“‘T will be back to-morrow night unless I wire.”

“Yes, Master Dick. There’s no bad news?”

“1 don’t know,” he said. ‘‘ Yes, there is; but I don’t know what. Oh, no, it’s nothing to do with my father.”

When she had gone he read the telegram again.

‘‘ For God’s sake come down. Am meeting 2.45. Dell. Amplefield.”

If the morning had been uncomfortable, the afternoon was ten times worse. He sat in the railway-carriage, first-class, for he could not bear company, staring out through the streaming pane at the blurred streaks and colours that represented the landscape, at the whirling horizontal wheels that stood for ploughed fields.

He knew now that it was bad news, and that it was news which in some way concerned him. Chris would scarcely have wired merely for the sake of receiving sympathy. And why was he at Amplefield, and not at Hinton Hall? There was only one possible answer to that. And all the while one theory, that he had fiercely stamped upon in the morning, raised its head higher and higher, and sickened him with the malignant despair in its face.

He pulled himself together as the train drew up in the dark at Marjesdon, but there was no Chns an the platform. <A groom only awaited him.

““ No, Master Dick, Mr. Dellisathome. The master has sent the brougham, and here's a note from him, sa”

He stood under a lamp to read it.

“T cannot leave him,” he read; “ there 8 some thing the matter at Hinton; he will not tell me what. He is in a dreadful state. Come to my room as on as you arrive.”

The drive seemed interminable. Dick sat with clenched hands on the edge of his swat, handily able to refrain from putting his head out of the windew and shouting to the coachman to gallop. He watched the lights in the little village as he drove through, and then the red trunks of the pines and the heather patches, in the light of the carriage-lamps, as they passed through the ledge gates and began to go uphill, and he sprang out at last beneath the Georgian portico, dazed at the sudden change from darkness and with the violent torment of his own thoughts.

His father came out of the smoking-room opposite, as his footsteps sounded in the hall, and the two turned and went into the study.

“ Well > >3

The old man looked at him, and then spoke with that hasty breathless voice that men use when there is sickness or death in the house.

“They have found out something at Hinton. I don’t know what. I believe it’s all over. Did you not see Lord Brasted at the station >”

Dick shook his head.

“He came by the same train as you. There is p

A New Disorder Si to be another interview to-morrow morning. That is why he wired for you.”

“What is he doing?”’

“ He’s sitting before the fire. I have hidden his revolver. My dear lad, he’s nearly out of his mind.”

“Let me go to him.”

“Qne moment. Let me tell you. I tell you I don’t know what it is, but it is something disgraceful. I ’ think perhaps you know what it is. He wrote the telegram instantly when I mentioned your name. I had to re-write it; it was scarcely legible.”

“Has he had anything to eat?”’

The old man shook his head.

“No, no. You don’t understand. I tell you he is nearly mad.”

“Let me go to him.”

“ Directly; there’s no hurry. He’s quieter now. Get quiet first yourself, dear boy. You mustn’t be hysterical.... There, there; it’s all right.”

“His revolver?’’ gasped Dick.

“Tve got it; it’s all right. He can’t hurt himself. But I thought [’'d better not come to meet you.... There’s no knowing, and I don’t want the servants to see him.”

“Ah! let me go!”

Mr. Yolland went to the door ot the study.

“You must use your discretion. I don’t know what to advise.... Try scolding him....I don’t know.”

Dick pushed past his father, crossed the hall, paused a moment at the door, and listened. But there was no sound from within.

Then he opened the door softly and stepped inside.