1
The short figure looked taller in the cassock, funny and hounded, like
all curates; pounding about and arranging a place for her and trying to
collect his thoughts while he repeated how good it was of her to have
come. He sat down at last to the poached eggs and tea laid on one end of
the small book-crowded table.
"I have a service at four-thirty" he said busily eating and glaring in
front of him with unseeing eyes, a little like Mr. Grove only less
desperate because his dark head was round and his eyes were blue--"so
you must excuse my meal. I have a volume of _Plato_ here."
"Oh yes" said Miriam doubtfully.
"Are you familiar with Plato?"
She pondered intensely and rushed in just in time to prevent his
speaking again.
"I _should_ like him I know--I've come across extracts in other books."
"He is a great man; my favourite companion. I spend most of my leisure
up here with Plato."
"What a delightful life" said Miriam enviously, looking about the small
crowded room.
"As much time as I can spare from my work at the Institute and the
Mission chapel; they fill my _active_ hours."
Where would a woman, a wife-woman, be in a life like this? He poured
himself out a cup of tea; the eyes turned towards the tea-pot were
worried and hurried; his whole compact rounded form was a little worried
and anxious. There was something--bunnyish about him. Reading Plato the
expression of his person would still have something of the worried
rabbit about it. His face would be calm and intent. Then he would look
up from the page, taking in a thought and something in his room would
bring him back again to worry. But he was too stout to belong to a
religious order.
"You must have a very busy life" said Miriam, her attention wandering
rapidly off hither and thither.
"Of course" he said turning away from the table to the fire beside which
she sat. "I think the clergy should keep in touch to some extent with
modern thought--in so far as it helps them with their own particular
work."
Miriam wondered why she felt no desire to open the subject of religion
and science; or any other subject. It was so extraordinary to find
herself sitting tête-à-tête with a clergyman, and still more strange to
find him communicatively trying to show her his life from the inside. He
went on talking, not looking at her but gazing into the fire. She tried
in vain to tether her attention. It was straining away to work upon
something, upon some curious evidence it had collected since she came
into the room; and even with her eyes fixed upon his person and her mind
noting the strange contradiction between the thin rippling many-buttoned
cassock and the stout square-toed boots protruding beneath it, she could
not completely convince herself that he was there.
"... novels; my friends to recommend any that might be helpful."
He had looked up towards her with this phrase.
"Oh yes, Red Pottage" she said grasping hurriedly and looking attentive.
"Have you read that novel?"
"No. I imagined that you had because you lent it to Miss Dear."
"Miss Dear has spoken to you of me."
"Oh yes."
"Of you she has spoken a great deal. You know her very well. It is
because of your long friendship with her that I have taken courage to
ask you to come here and discuss with me about her affairs."
"I have known Miss Dear only a very short time" said Miriam, sternly
gazing into the fire. Nothing should persuade her to become the
caretaker of the future Mrs. Taunton.
"That surprises me very much indeed" he said propping his head upon his
hand by one finger held against a tooth. He sat brooding.
"She is very much in need of friends just now" he said suddenly and
evenly towards the fire without removing his finger from his tooth.
"Yes" said Miriam gravely.
"You are, nevertheless, the only intimate woman friend to whom just now
she has access."
"I've done little things for her. I couldn't do much."
"You were sorry for her." Mr. Taunton was studying her face and waiting.
"Well--I don't know--she" she consulted the fire intensely, looking for
the truth; "she seems to me too strong for that." Light! Women have no
pity on women ... they _know_ how _strong_ women are; a sick man _is_
more helpless and pitiful than a sick woman; almost as helpless as a
child. People in order of strength ... women, men, children. This man
without his worldly props, his money and his job and his health had not
a hundredth part of the strength of a woman ... nor had Dr. Densley....
"I think she _fascinated_ me."
Mr. Taunton gathered himself together in his chair and sat very upright.
"She has an exceptional power of inspiring affection--affection and the
desire to give her the help she so sorely needs."
"Perhaps that is it" said Miriam judicially. But you are very much
mistaken in calling on me for help ... 'domestic work and the care of
the aged and the sick'--very convenient--all the stuffy nerve-racking
never-ending things to be dumped on to women--who are to be openly
praised and secretly despised for their unselfishness--I've got twice
the brain power you have. You are something of a scholar; but there is a
way in which my time is more valuable than yours. There is a way in
which it is more right for you to be tied to this woman than for me.
Your reading is a habit, like most men's reading, not a quest. You don't
want it disturbed. But you are kinder than I am. You are splendid. It
will be awful--you don't know how awful yet--poor little man.
"I think it has been so in my case if you will allow me to tell you."
"Oh yes _do_" said Miriam a little archly--"of course--I know--I mean to
say Miss Dear has told me."
"Yes" he said eagerly.
"How things are" she finished looking shyly into the fire.
"Nevertheless if you will allow me I should like to tell you exactly
what has occurred and to ask your advice as to the future. My mother and
sisters are in the Midlands."
"Yes" said Miriam in a carefully sombre non-committal tone; waiting for
the revelation of some of the things men expect from mothers and sisters
and wondering whether he was beginning to see her unsuitability for the
rôle of convenient sister.
"When my rector sent me to look up Miss Dear" he began heavily "I
thought it was an ordinary parish case and I was shocked beyond measure
to find a delicately nurtured ladylike girl in such a situation. I came
back here to my rooms and found myself unable to enter into my usual
employments. I was haunted by the thought of what that lonely girl who
might have been one of my own sisters--must be suffering and enduring
and I returned to give what relief I could without waiting to report the
case to my rector for ordinary parish relief. I am not dependent on my
stipend and I felt that I could not withhold the help she ought to have.
I saw her landlady and made arrangements as to her feeding and called
each day myself to take little things to cheer her--as a rule when my
day's work was done. I have never come in contact with a more pathetic
case. It did not occur to me for ... a moment that she viewed my visits
and the help I was so glad to be able to give ... in ... in any other
light ... that she viewed me as other than her parish priest."
"Of _course_ not" said Miriam violently.
"She is a singularly attractive and lovable nature. That to my mind
makes her helplessness and resourcelessness all the more painfully
pathetic. Her very name----" he paused gazing into the fire. "I told her
lately in one of her moments of deep depression that she would never
want for friends, that she would always inspire affection wherever she
went and that as long as I lived she should never know want. Last
week--the day I met you at the gates--finding her up and apparently very
much better, I suggested that it would be well to discontinue my visits
for the present, pointing out the social reasons and so forth.... I had
with me a letter from a very pleasant Home in Bournemouth. She had
hinted much earlier that a long rest in some place such as Bournemouth
was what she wanted to set her up in health. I am bound to tell you what
followed. She broke down completely, told me that, socially speaking, it
was too late to discontinue my visits; that people in the house were
already talking."
"People in _that_ house!"--you little simpleton--"Who? It is the most
monstrous thing I ever heard."
"Well--there you have the whole story. The poor girl's distress and
dependence were most moving. I have a very great respect for her
character and esteem for her personality--and of course I am pledged."
"I see," said Miriam narrowly regarding him. Do you want to be
saved--ought I to save you--why should I save you--it is a solution of
the whole thing and a use for your money--you won't marry her when you
know how ill she is.
"It is of course the immediate future that causes me anxiety and
disquietude. It is there I need your advice and help."
"I see. Is Miss Dear going to Bournemouth?"
"Well; that is just it. Now that the opportunity is there she seems
disinclined to avail herself of it. I hope that you will support me in
trying to persuade her."
"Of course. She _must_ go."
"I am glad you think so. It is obvious that definite plans must be
postponed until she is well and strong."
"You would be able to go down and see her."
"Occasionally, as my duties permit, oh yes. It is a very pleasant place
and I have friends in Bournemouth who would visit her."
"She ought to be longing to go" said Miriam on her strange sudden smile.
It had come from somewhere; the atmosphere was easier; suddenly in the
room with her was the sense of bluebells, a wood blue with bluebells,
and dim roofs, roofs in a town ... sur les toits ... and books; people
reading books under them.
Mr. Taunton smiled too.
"Unfortunately that is not so" he said leaning back in his chair and
crossing his legs comfortably.
2
"You know" he said turning his blue gaze from the fire to Miriam's face,
"I have never been so worried in my life as I have during the last ten
days. It's upsetting my winter's work. It is altogether too difficult
and impossible. I cannot see any possible adjustment. You see I cannot
possibly be continually interrupted and in such--strange ways. She came
here yesterday afternoon with a list of complaints about her landlady. I
_really_ cannot attend to these things. She sends me _telegrams_. Only
this morning there was a telegram. Come at once. Difficulty with
chemist. Of course it was impossible for me to leave my work at a
moment's notice. This afternoon I called. It seems that she was under
the impression that there had been some insolence ... it absorbs so much
_time_ to enter into long explanations with regard to all these people.
I cannot do it. That is what it comes to. I cannot do it."
_Ah._ You've lost your temper; like anyone else. You want to shelve it.
Anyone would. But being a man you want to shelve it on to a woman. You
don't care who hears the long tales as long as you don't....
"Have you seen her doctor?"
"No. I think just now he is out of town."
"_Really?_ Are you sure?"
"You think I should see him."
"Certainly."
"I will do so on the first opportunity. That is the next step. Meantime
I will write provisionally to Bournemouth."
"Oh, she must go to Bournemouth anyhow; that's settled."
"Perhaps her medical man may help there."
"He won't make her do anything she doesn't mean to do."
"I see you are a reader of character."
"I don't think I am. I always begin by idealising people."
"Do you indeed?"
"Yes, always; and then they grow smaller and smaller."
"Is that your invariable experience of humanity?'"
"I don't think I'm an altruist."
"I think one must have one's heroes."
"In life or in books?"
"In both perhaps--one has them certainly in books--in records. Do you
know this book?"
Miriam sceptically accepted the bulky volume he took down from the
book-crowded mantelshelf.
"Oh how interesting" she said insincerely when she had read Great
Thoughts from Great Lives on the cover.... I ought to have said I don't
like extracts. "Lives of great men all remind us. We can make our lives
sublime," she read aloud under her breath from the first page.... I
ought to go. I can't enter into this.... I hate 'great men' I think....
"That book has been a treasure-house to me--for many years. I know it
now almost by heart. If it interests you, you will allow me I hope to
present it to you."
"Oh you must not let me deprive you of it--oh _no_. It is very kind of
you; but you really mustn't." She looked up and returned quickly to the
fascinating pages. Sentences shone out striking at her heart and brain
... names in italics; Marcus Aurelius ... Lao-Tse. Confucius ... Clement
of Alexandria ... Jacob Boehme. "It's full of the most fascinating
things. Oh no; I couldn't think of taking it. You must keep it. Who is
Jacob Boehme? That name always _fascinates_ me. I must have read
something, somewhere, a long time ago. I can't remember. But it is such
a _wonderful_ name."
"Jacob Boehme was a German visionary. You will find of course all shades
of opinion there."
"All contradicting each other; that's the worst of it. Still, I suppose
all roads lead to Rome."
"I see you have thought a great deal."
"Well" said Miriam feverishly, "there's always _science_, always all
that awful business of science, and no getting rid of it."
"I think--in that matter--one must not allow one's mind to be led away?"
"But one must keep an _open_ mind."
"Are you familiar with Professor Tyndall?"
"Only by meeting him in books about Huxley."
"Ah--he was very different; very different."
"Huxley" said Miriam with intense bitterness "was an egoistic
_adolescent_--all his life. I _never_ came across _anything_ like
his conceited complacency in my life. The very look of his
side-whiskers,--well, there you have the whole man." Her heart burned
and ached, beating out the words. She rose to go holding the volume in
hands that shook to the beating of her heart. Far away in the bitter
mist of the darkening room was the strange little figure.
"Let me just write your name in the book."
"Oh, well, really, it is too bad--thank you very much."
He carried the book to the window-sill and stood writing his bent head
very dark and round in the feeble grey light. Happy monk alone up under
the roof with his Plato. It was a _shame_.