"While I'm making the pancakes," said Mrs. Eames, as they crossed the
green where the nets and geese were, "you might give Timothy a bit of a
talking to; stir him up, you know. I'm always trying to, but I've never
succeeded in the least. A word or two from you----"
"I do not think it at all likely that I should influence him," said Sir
Evelyn stiffly.
He had no idea of taking on the task of stimulating into activity a
lazy country vicar. That was what the Rev. Timothy Eames seemed to be.
"Oh, but you could," said Mrs. Eames. "Force of good example, you
know. Tell him you're writing a book, and then, very likely, he'll
write one too. He could if he chose. I was sitting beside a Dean once
at tea--not quite a first-rate Dean, but still fairly important--and
I heard him say to another Dean that there is a corner to be made in
the Christological heresies, if anyone cared to seize the chance. I
remembered that and told Timothy afterwards, hoping that he might go in
for it."
"Might make a corner?"
"Exactly. Just what you're doing, you know. I don't say Christological
heresies are as good as smugglers. They're not. But a corner is a
corner whatever it's in. My idea was that Timothy might dart in before
anyone else tumbled to the chance, and corner those heretics. I know he
can read Greek, for I've seen him do it, and so far as I can make out
that's the only qualification required. Do try and persuade him, won't
you?"
"I'm afraid----"
"You needn't be," said Mrs. Eames. "Timothy won't resent anything you
say. He isn't the kind of man who resents good advice. I give him lots
and lots, and he's never even annoyed. He simply lies down under it.
Such a pity, when he really can read Greek, a thing very few can do."
They passed through the gateway of the vicarage--the gate itself had
long ago decayed away--and walked up an ill-kept drive. They found the
vicar seated on a rickety chair in front of the house. He had a book in
his hand, perhaps a Greek book, but instead of reading it he was gazing
at the sea with mild, watery eyes. He stood up as his wife and Sir
Evelyn approached, and showed himself to be a tall, gaunt man. He rose
slowly to an incredible height, and then seemed to shrink again as he
relapsed into his habitual stoop. Mrs. Eames was fluent and explanatory
in her introduction.
"This is Sir Evelyn Dent," she said, "and he has come to luncheon. He
was a very eminent Cabinet Minister until the Government was hoofed
out, which wasn't his fault, and happens to all Governments sooner or
later. What do you think Sir Evelyn did then, Timothy? He sat straight
down to historical research of the most abstruse kind. There's an
example for you! Now, Sir Evelyn, you talk to him about Christological
heresies while I go and make the pancakes. You'll hardly believe it,
but I've put the advantages of that corner of the Dean's before him
dozens of times and he hasn't done a thing yet, not even ragged a
Monophysite, though that must be an easy enough thing for anyone who
knows Greek."
She ran into the house, leaving two embarrassed men behind her. Sir
Evelyn, though a man of the world and practised in dealing with awkward
situations, stood tongue-tied. The vicar, sighing gently, looked at his
visitor, apparently waiting for the scolding which he felt he deserved.
It was he who first broke the silence.
"Do you find the Christological controversies really interesting?" he
asked mildly.
"Interesting!" Sir Evelyn was a little irritable. "Good heavens, no! I
don't even know what Christological controversies are. I never heard of
them till Mrs. Eames mentioned them to me ten minutes ago."
"Oh," said the vicar. "I thought Agatha said that you and some Dean
were going into the subject together. I must have been mistaken. But
I'm often mistaken, in fact--generally, especially about things Agatha
says. She will talk fast and jump about from one thing to another."
"My subject," said Sir Evelyn, beginning to recover himself, "is
Eighteenth Century Smuggling."
"And is that interesting? But, of course, it must be to you, or you
wouldn't take it up. I suppose that any subject would be interesting
if only one succeeded in getting started, even the Christological
heresies. But we needn't talk about them, at least not until Agatha
comes back. Indeed we needn't even then unless we want to. She will do
all the talking necessary. So restful for us. Don't you think so?"
Sir Evelyn did not. He liked talking, and held the view, taken by St.
Paul, that women ought to keep silence. They are at their best when
listening, respectfully, to what men like Sir Evelyn have to say.
"The Hailey Compton cave," he began, as if delivering a public lecture,
"which I came here to-day to investigate, was undoubtedly much used
by smugglers. Its situation, close to a remote village difficult of
access, rendered it peculiarly suitable for their lawless trade. Its
great size and the ease with which it can be approached from the sea at
high tide, help to mark it out as one of the places...."
Long before he had finished what he had to say about the Hailey Compton
cave Mrs. Eames came from the house again.
"So lucky," she said. "I found Gladys's aunt in the kitchen, so I just
scrambled the eggs and left her to make the pancakes. I expect she can
all right. Anyhow, she'll be better than Gladys, and quite as good as
me. She has nine children, so she must be able to make pancakes. What
I mean to say is that a woman who can bring up nine children can do
anything. And now, Sir Evelyn, do tell me all about London. Timothy,
darling, get a couple more chairs, and we'll all sit down and be
comfortable. We can't have lunch till the pancakes are ready and Gladys
has fetched the beer."
The vicar, who seemed obedient in most things though rebellious over
the Christological heresies, shambled into the house in search of
chairs.
"I'm just longing," said Mrs. Eames, "to hear all about the latest
music and art. I really live for music though, of course, I never hear
any, and I worship----" She looked round and saw that her husband had
not yet come out of the house. "Timothy isn't here, so I don't mind
saying that I worship the theatre. I hope you don't think it very wrong
of me to say 'worship,' on account of the second commandment, and me
being a clergyman's wife. Though, of course, the theatre isn't a graven
or molten image, is it? Still, Timothy mightn't quite like my saying
it, although it's true. Now what do you think about that, Sir Evelyn?"
Sir Evelyn evaded the point, a thing which his long practice in
politics enabled him to do without any difficulty. He did not feel
equal to deciding whether the second commandment forbids the worship of
the theatre.
"I'm afraid," he said, "that you have not much chance of indulging your
taste for the drama down here."
"Oh, but I have," said Mrs. Eames. "Timothy says I indulge it too
much. But I always tell him something must be done for the good of the
parish, and as he won't, I do. The year before last we had 'Macbeth,'
acted entirely by the village people. I do think Shakespeare is so
educative, don't you? Last year we had 'Othello,' and now we're getting
up 'Hamlet.' Oh, here's Timothy coming back with some chairs. Now we'll
be able to sit down and listen to you, Sir Evelyn. I always say that
the greatest pleasure in life is hearing a clever man talk, a really
clever man. Timothy, darling, Sir Evelyn thinks that we never have any
plays here. But we do, don't we?"
The vicar, shambling along with two chairs dragged behind him, stopped
when appealed to.
"Plays!" he said. "Oh, yes, certainly. Almost too many of them."
"I always think," said Mrs. Eames, "that Shakespeare is so much better
done in the open air by simple country people. More Elizabethan in
spirit. I'm sure you agree with me about that."
"I should have supposed," said Sir Evelyn, a little stiffly, "that it
would have been difficult to get a satisfactory local Hamlet."
"Not a bit," said Mrs. Eames. "There's a man here called Hinton, the
landlord of the inn--but you've seen him, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm sure you agree with me," said Mrs. Eames, "that he's a
perfect natural Hamlet--figure, manner, face, voice, everything. You
ought to see him in the grave-digger scene--and you shall. This isn't
the regular day for rehearsals, but we'll have one after lunch. I'll
send Gladys round to tell everyone. It'll be so good for us all to hear
what you have to say. I'm doing the Queen, Hamlet's mother, you know.
I'd have liked to do Ophelia; but that was scarcely possible with my
figure."
She sat down abruptly on a low deck chair which the vicar had dragged
out. Her skirt was a barely sufficient covering when she stood up.
It was very insufficient when she sat down in a low chair. She was
conscious of that but not at all embarrassed.
"You simply couldn't have an Ophelia with legs like those," she said.
Sir Evelyn agreed with her, but was not obliged to say so, for Gladys's
aunt put her head out of the kitchen window and shouted that luncheon
was ready.
"Has Gladys come back with the beer?" said Mrs. Eames.
The aunt said she was at that moment coming in through the back door
with a jug in her hand.
"I do hope it'll turn out that Gladys's aunt can make pancakes," said
Mrs. Eames as they went into the house. "Gladys can't. But these things
don't always run in families, which is a pity. If I could write for the
papers like Beth--she is my niece, Sir Evelyn, not Timothy's--we might
be quite rich. But I can't; which just shows that there's not so much
in heredity as some people say, and proves that Gladys's aunt may be
able to make pancakes. Anyhow, let's try."
Gladys, a failure as a cook and unwilling to make beds, appeared to be
quite incompetent as a parlourmaid. Mrs. Eames was obliged to run round
the table with plates and dishes, while Gladys, grinning foolishly,
followed her with the beer. This gave Sir Evelyn a chance of resuming
the monologue about smugglers' caves which had been interrupted by Mrs.
Eames.
"There are," he said, "several hundred so-called smugglers' caves on
the south coast of England. Few of them, perhaps not more than eighty
or ninety altogether, were actually ever used for the storing of
contraband goods. All the rest are spurious, advertised by the local
hotel-keepers and railway companies as attractions to the trippers.
They are rapidly becoming popular features of our watering-places.
Picnic parties throng them. Campers pitch tents in their vicinity."
The vicar, who was drooping slowly at the head of the table, sighed.
The thought of picnic parties swarming into the Hailey Compton cave
filled him with horror. Mrs. Eames became interested. She was hovering
over the cold lamb with a carving knife in her hand. She paused to
consider a splendid prospect. Crowds of trippers, if they could be
attracted to Hailey Compton, would provide audiences for her plays, and
audiences were so far just what the plays lacked. A vision of Hailey
Compton as a sort of Shakespearean Ober-Ammergau, floated through her
mind.
"The claims of your cave," Sir Evelyn went on, bowing politely to the
vicar, "can certainly be substantiated at the bar of history."
A man gains this advantage by being an experienced public speaker.
He is able to use phrases like "Substantiated at the bar of history"
without suffering, though not, of course, without causing suffering
to others. The ordinary speech of an experienced politician contains
hundreds of similar phrases; and in his use of them he is like a
surgeon who can do the most disgusting things to the human body without
the slightest feeling of nausea because he has become thoroughly
accustomed to doing them. In the same way a Cabinet Minister can
use phrases, not only without self-contempt, but even with a glow of
satisfaction, which make other men sick. How splendid it must be to be
able to say "The answer is in the negative" without vomiting!
"Timothy," said Mrs. Eames while Sir Evelyn had his mouth full of
scrambled egg, "why hasn't our cave been advertised? I'm always telling
you that something ought to be done for the parish. As vicar you're
simply bound to do something. Here's a splendid opportunity for you.
Advertise the cave."
Sir Evelyn held up his hand in gentle but firm protest against Mrs.
Eames's interruptions. He still had a great deal to say and he meant
to say it all. It was a contest for the privilege of talking, and Sir
Evelyn's steady flow of words reduced Mrs. Eames to silence for a time.
Perhaps mere persistence would not have won the victory. Sir Evelyn was
more than persevering and monotonous. He was interesting and showed
that he possessed a gift for picturesque description. Having proved
that the Hailey Compton cave really had been used by smugglers, he
went on to give an account, imaginary but based on laboriously studied
facts, of the landing of a cargo of contraband goods.
He did it so well that even the vicar was slightly interested. Mrs.
Eames, who might have sat down and eaten her luncheon, stood with a
dish of potatoes in her hand, thrilled. Even Gladys stopped clattering
plates together on the sideboard. Sir Evelyn, like all good talkers,
responded to the sympathy of his audience. He spoke better than he ever
remembered speaking before.
A dark autumn night. A sighing wind. The hoarse roar of sullen waves
dragging at the stones on the beach. A watcher on the tower of the
church. The flash of a light far out at sea. A flare on the church
tower, subsiding, flaming up again. Glimmering lights in cottage
windows. The trampling of heavily booted feet across the beach. The
glowing of lanterns. A gathering of dim figures under the arch of the
cave, the sharp rattle of horsehoofs on the stony path which led down
the cliff to the village. (Sir Evelyn's own experiences earlier in the
day helped him to realise what that descent was like.) A gathering of
led pack horses, whinnying and neighing, on the short grass where now
the nets are spread. The continuous flashing of a ship's light near
at hand. Answering flashes from the mouth of the cave. All the while
the hollow booming of the sea. (Sir Evelyn had a good voice, resonant
and thrilling like the tones of a 'cello and he was telling his story
well.) The appearance of blacker shadows, huge, menacing, against the
blackness of the night--the great sails of the lugger. The rattle of
blocks and the whining of running ropes. Muttered orders. The slow
in-gliding of the boat. The making fast of mooring ropes.
This was part of one of the few chapters in Sir Evelyn's book which
was already written. He had worked at it so long and revised it so
often that he knew it off by heart. He thought it a fine piece of
writing, and it certainly seemed good to his audience. Perhaps it is
only because they despise their audiences that our statesmen talk stale
jargon in Parliament and on platforms. When they sit down to write,
hoping to be read by intelligent men and women, they are very often
capable of producing good English.