INAUGURATION
It was at Victoria Station that Basil said good-bye to Helena. Spence
had been back again in London for a fortnight. Mr. Byars and his
daughter were to go straight back to Manchester the same day, and Gortre
was to take possession of his new quarters in Lincoln's Inn and enter on
his duties at St. Mary's without delay.
It had been a pleasant holiday, they all agreed, as the train brought
them up from Newhaven; how pleasant they had hardly realised till it was
all over. They had been all brought more intimately together than ever
before. Gortre had come to know Mr. Byars with far more completeness
than had been possible during their busy parochial life at Walktown. The
elder man's calm and steadfast belief, his wide knowledge and culture,
the Christian _sanity_ of his life, were never more manifest than in the
uninterrupted communion of this time of rest and pleasure.
He saw in his future father-in-law such a man as he himself humbly hoped
that he might become. The impulsiveness of an eager youth had toned down
into the mature judgment of middle age. The enthusiasms of life's
springtime had solidified into quiet strength and force, and faith and
intellect had combined into a deep and immovable conviction. And Mr.
Byars's was no simple, childlike nature to whom goodness and belief were
easy, a natural attribute of the man. He was subtle rather, complex,
and the victory over himself had cost him more than it costs most men.
So much Gortre realised, and his love and admiration for the vicar were
tempered with that joyous awe that one fine nature is privileged to feel
at the contact with another.
To Helena also this time of holiday had been very precious. To mark the
fervour of her chosen one, the energy he threw into Life, Love, and
Religion, to find him a _man_ and yet a priest, to follow him in thought
to the ivory gates of his Ideals--these were her uplifting occupations;
and to all these as they walked and talked, listened to the music at the
Casino, explored the ancient forest and castle at Arques, or knelt with
bowed heads as the sacring bell rang and the priests moved about the
altar--these had been the united bond of the great knowledge and hope
they shared together.
After the farewells had been said in the noisy station, and Basil's cab
drove him rapidly towards his new home, he felt wonderfully ready and
prepared for his new work.
The moving panorama of Victoria Street, the sudden stately vision of
Palace Yard, the grandeur of the Embankment--all spoke to the young man
of a vivid, many-coloured, and pulsating life which was waiting for him
and his activities. Here, indeed, was a fine battlefield and theatre for
the Holy War.
The cab moved slowly up Chancery Lane and then turned into the sudden
quiet of Lincoln's Inn. It was almost like going back to Oxford, he
thought, with a quick glow of pleasure to see himself surrounded by
mellow, ancient buildings once more.
All his heavy personal effects had been sent up from Walktown some days
before, and when he had carried up his two portmanteaus he knocked at
the "oak" or outside door of the chambers, which was shut, and waited
for a response. He saw that his name was freshly painted on the lintel
of the door under the two others:
+---------------------------------------+
| |
| MR. HAROLD M. SPENCE. |
| |
| MR. CYRIL HANDS. |
| |
| REV. BASIL GORTRE. |
| |
+---------------------------------------+
In a minute he heard footsteps. The inner door was opened and he saw a
tall, thin man, bearded and brown, peering at him through spectacles.
"Ah! Gortre, I suppose," said the other. "We were expecting you. I'm
Hands, you know, home for another month yet. Give me these bags. Come
in, come in."
He followed the big, stooping fellow with a sense of well-being at the
cheery bohemianism of his greeting.
He found himself in a very large room indeed, panelled from floor to
ceiling, the woodwork painted a sage green. Three great windows, each
with a cushioned seat in its recess, looked down into the quadrangle
below. Curtained doors faced him on all sides of the room, which was
oddly shaped and full of nooks and angles. Books and newspapers covered
two or three writing-tables and were piled on shelves between the doors.
A bright fire burned in a large grate and the mantel above was covered
with Oxford photographs, pipes, and tobacco jars. There was a note of
comfort everywhere, of luxurious comfort though not of luxury. The
furniture was not new and it bore the signs of long use no less than
careful choice. Bohemia it was, but not a squalid Bohemia. If a room can
have a personality, this was a _gentlemanly_ room. One saw that
gentlemen lived here, men who, without daintiness or a tinge of the
sybarite, yet liked a certain order and fitness around them. At once
Basil felt in key with the place. There was no jarring note anywhere.
"I've got you a sort of meal, Gortre," said Hands, pleasantly, "though
we were rather in doubt as to what a man could want at four o'clock in
the afternoon! Spence suggested afternoon tea, as you'll be wanting to
dine later on. But Mrs. Buscall, our laundress, suggested cold beef and
Bass's beer--after a sea voyage which she regards as a sort of Columbus
adventure. So fall to--here you are. Harold is just getting up."
Indeed, as he spoke there came a noise of vigorous splashing from behind
one of the closed doors and Spence's voice bellowed out a greeting.
Basil looked puzzled for a moment and Hands laughed as he saw it.
"You must remember that Spence doesn't get back from the office till
three in the morning," he said. "He's writing four leaders a week now,
and on his late nights, when he comes back, his brain is too alert and
excited to sleep, so he has some Bovril and just works away at other
stuff till morning. He won't interfere with us, though. I never hear him
come in, nor will you. These chambers are a regular rabbit warren for
size and ramification."
Basil went into the bedroom he was to have, a spacious, clean, and
simply furnished place, and when he came out again for his meal found
Spence, in a loose suit of flannels, smoking a cigarette. The journalist
joined him at the table.
In a very short time Gortre felt thoroughly at home. He knew by a kind
of instinct that he should be happy in Lincoln's Inn. Hands had still a
month to spend in London before he went back to Palestine to continue
his work for the Exploring Society, and he looked forward to many
interesting talks with him, the actual agent and superintendent of the
work at Jerusalem, the trained eye and arm of the great and influential
English Society.
And as for Spence, he had known him intimately ever since his first
Oxford days, many years ago now. Harold Spence was like a brother to
him--had always been that.
The first hour's conversation, desultory as it was, in a sense, showed
him how full and varied his new life promised to be. After the noisy
seclusion of Walktown he felt that he was now in the centre of things.
Both Spence and Hands were thoroughly cultured men, and both were
distinguished above the crowd in their respective spheres.
Basil heard keen, critical, "inside" talk for almost the first time. His
two companions knew everybody, were at the hub of things. Two nights ago
Spence had been talking to the Prime Minister for ten minutes.--_The
Daily Wire_ was the unofficial Government organ. Hands had been at
Lambeth with the Archbishop, the president and patron of the Palestine
Society. They were absolute types of the keen, vigorous, and _young_
mental aristocracy which is always on the active service of English
life. They belonged to the executive branch.
"I'm sorry, Basil," Spence said suddenly, "I've got a note for you from
Father Ripon. I forgot to give it to you. He sent it down by a special
messenger this morning. Here it is."
Father Ripon was the vicar of St. Mary's, Gortre's new chief.
He took the note and opened it, reading as follows:
"THE CLERGY HOUSE,
"ST MARY'S, BLOOMSBURY.
"DEAR MR. GORTRE,--Friend Spence says that you will arrive in
London this afternoon. I don't believe in wasting time and I want a
good long talk with you before you begin your work with us.
To-night I am due at Bethnal Green to give a lecture. I shall be
driving home about ten and I'll call at Lincoln's Inn on my way. If
this will not be too late for you, we can then talk matters
over.--Sincerely yours in Christ, ARTHUR RIPON."
Basil passed the note to Spence.
"That'll be all right," he said. "I shall be at work, and Hands will be
in his own room. What a man Ripon is! He's just the incarnation of
breezy energy. Brusque, unconventional as Dr. Parker himself, but one of
the sincerest Christians and best men I ever met or ever shall meet. He
signs his note like that because he means it. He hates cant, and what in
some men would appear cant, or at least a rather unnecessary form of
ending, is to him just an ordinary every-day fact. You will get on with
Father Ripon, Basil, I'm sure. You'll get to love the man as we all do.
I never knew any one so absolutely joyous as he is. He's about the
happiest man in town, I should say. His private income is nearly two
thousand a year, and his living's worth something too, and yet I don't
suppose his own expenses are fifty pounds. He lives more or less on
porridge--when he remembers to eat at all--and his only extravagance is
hansom cabs, so that he can cram more work into the day."
They all laughed, and Spence began to tell anecdotes of the famous
"ritualistic" parson who daily filled more stomachs, saved more souls,
and shocked more narrow-minded people than any two men in Crockford.
At seven o'clock they all went out together--Spence to his adjacent
office in Fleet Street, the other two to dine quietly at the University
Club.
"London depresses me," said Hands, when they were seated on the top of
an omnibus and rolling westward through the Strand. "I am afraid that I
shall never be in love with London any more. I always dislike my
vacations, or rather my business visits to town. It's necessary that I
attend the annual meeting of the Society and see people in authority,
and I have to give a few lectures too. But I hate it all the same. I
love the simple life of the East, the sun, the deep blue shadows, my
silent Arabs. I know of no more beautiful sight than the Holy City--why
do they call Rome the 'Holy City'? Jerusalem is the Holy City--when the
hills are covered with the January snows. It is a wonderful, immemorial
land, Gortre, a silent, beautiful country. Just before I came over here
I spent a fortnight working at some inscriptions in a very ancient Latin
monastery. I never knew such peace. The monks are all sad-faced,
courteous Syrians, and they move along the rock balconies like benignant
ghosts. And then one comes back and is plunged into this!"
He threw out his hand over the side of the omnibus with a note of
disgust in his rather dreamy voice. The Strand was all brilliantly lit
and waiting crowds stood by all the theatre doors. Men and women passed
in and out of the bright orange light of bars and restaurants, and small
filthy boys stabbed the deep roar of the traffic with their shrill
voices as they called out the evening papers.
They dined quietly and simply at the big warm club in Piccadilly. Hands
did most of the talking and Gortre was content to listen to the pleasant
monotony of the low, level voice and to fall under the man's peculiar
spell or charm--a charm that he always exercised upon another artistic
temperament.
Hands was a poet by nature and sentiment. His strange, lonely life among
the evidences of the past under the Eastern sky had toned, mellowed,
and orientalised his vision.
As he listened Gortre also began to feel something of the mystery and
magic influence of that country of God's birth.
It was half-past nine when they got back to the chambers again. Hands
went at once to his own room to work and Basil sat down in front of a
red, glowing fire, gazing into the hot caverns, lost in reverie. It was
as though he had taken some opiate and there was nothing better in life
than to sit thus and dream in the warm silence of the firelit room.
A few minutes after ten he was suddenly called out of the clouds by a
furious knocking at the door of the chambers.
The sound cut into his dreams like a knife.
He went to open the door, and Father Ripon, his new vicar, came in like
a whirlwind. His voluminous black cloak brought cold air in its folds;
his breezy, genial personality was so actual a fact, struck such a
strident, material note, that dreams and reverie fled before it.
Gortre turned up the gas-jets and flooded the room with light.
Father Ripon was a tall, well-made man, too active to be portly, but
with hints of a tendency towards plumpness, which was never allowed to
ripen. His iron-grey hair was cropped close to his large, well-shaped
head. The shrewd, merry eyes, of a rare red-hazel colour, were shaded by
heavy grey brows, which gave them a singular directness and penetration.
The nose was aquiline, the lips thin, though the mouth was large, and
the chin massive and somewhat protruding. The mobile face, lined and
seamed by the strenuous life of its owner, was very seldom in repose. It
glowed and flashed continually with changing expression. On those
occasions when the play of feature sank to rest for a moment, at the
giving of a benediction or the saying of a solemn prayer in church, a
nobility and asceticism transformed the face into something saintly. But
in the ordinary business of life the large humanity of the man gave him
a readier title to the hearts of his people than their knowledge of the
underlying saintliness of his character.
"Whisky?" he said, as Gortre asked him to take some. "No, thanks.
Teetotaler for sake of example, always have been--and don't like the
stuff either, never did. But I'll have some coffee and some bread and
butter, if you've got it, and some of those oranges I see there. Forgot
to lunch and had no time to dine!"
He began ravenously upon the oranges and with little further preamble
plunged at once into the business of the parish. To emphasise a point,
he flung a piece of orange peel savagely into the fire now and again.
"Our congregation," he said, "is peculiar to the church. You'll realise
that when you get among them. I don't suppose in the whole of London
there is a more difficult class of people to reach than our own. In the
first place, it's a _young_ congregation, speaking generally. 'Good,'
you'll say; 'ductible material, plenty of enthusiasm to work on.' Not a
bit of it. Most of the men are engaged in the City as clerks upon a
small wage. They are mentally rather "small" men. Their lives are hard
and monotonous, their outlook upon life petty and vulgar. The lowest and
the highest classes are far easier to get at because they are
temperamentally more alike. The anarchists have some right on their side
when they condemn the _bourgeoisie_! It's difficult to show a small
brain a big thing. _Our_ difficulty is to explain the stupendous truths
of Christianity to flabby and inert, machine-like fellows. When we _do_
get hold of them, the very monotony of their lives makes religion a
more valuable thing to them. But the temptations of this class are
terribly strong, living alone in lodgings as they do. The cheap
music-hall and bar attract them; dissipation forms their society. Their
views of women are taken from their association with the girls of the
streets and the theatres. As they have no settled place in society, they
are horribly afraid of ridicule. They are a far more difficult lot than
their colleagues who live in the suburbs and have chances for healthier
recreations.
"Then much of our work lies among women who seem irretrievably lost,
and, I fear, very often are so. The Bloomsbury district is honeycombed
with well-conducted dens of impurity. The women of a certain class have
fixed upon the parish as their home. I don't mean the starving
prostitute that one meets in the East End, I mean the fairly prosperous,
utterly vicious, lazy women. You will meet with horrors of vice, a
marvellous and stony indifference, in the course of your work. To reach
some of these well-dressed, well-fed, well-housed girls, to show them
the spiritual and even the economic and material end of their lives,
requires almost superhuman powers. If an angel came some of them would
not believe. And in the great and luxurious buildings of flats which
have sprung up in all the squares, the well-known London
_demi-mondaines_--people who dance upon the stage and whose pictures
glare upon one from every hoarding--have made their homes and constantly
parade before the eyes of others the wealth which is the reward of lust.
"This is a wicked part of London, Gortre. And yet, day by day, in our
beautiful church, where the Eucharist is celebrated and prayers go up
unceasingly, we have evidences that our work is acceptable and that the
Power is with us. Magdalen still comes with her jewels and her tears of
repentance. I ask and beg of you to remember certain things--keep them
always before your eyes--during your ministry among us. Whenever a man
or woman comes to you, either at confession or otherwise, and tells of
incredible sins, welcome the very slightest movement towards the light.
Cultivate an all-embracing sympathy. I firmly believe that more souls
have been lost by a repellent manner on the part of a priest, or an
apparent lack of understanding, than any one has any idea of. Remember
that when a thoroughly evil and warped nature has made a great effort
and laid its spiritual case before a priest, it expects in its inner
consciousness a pat on the back for its new efforts. It wants
commendation. One _must_ fight warily, with a thorough psychological
knowledge, with a broad humanity. To take even the slightest signs of
repentance as a matter of course, to throw any doubt upon its reality or
permanence, is to accept an awful responsibility. Err rather on the side
of sentiment. Who are we to judge?"
Gortre had listened with deep attention to Father Ripon's earnest words.
He began to realise more clearly the difficulties of his new life. And
yet the obstacles did not daunt him. They seemed rather a trumpet note
for battle. Ripon's enthusiasm was contagious; he felt the exhilaration
of the tried soldier at a coming contest.
"One more thing," said the vicar. "In all your teaching and preaching
hammer away at the great central fact of the Incarnation. No system of
morals will reach these people--however plausible, however pure--unless
you constantly bring the supernatural side of religion before them.
Preach the Incarnation day in, day out. Don't, like so many men, regard
it as an accepted fact merely, using it as a postulate on which to found
a scheme of conduct. Once get the central truth of all into the hearts
of a congregation, and then all else will follow. Now, good-night. I've
kept you late, but I wished to have a talk with you. A good deal will
devolve upon you. I have especially arranged that you should not live in
the Clergy House with Stokes, Carr, and myself. I would rather that your
environment should be more secular. Stokes and Carr are perhaps a little
too priestly, too "professional" in manner, if you understand what I am
driving at. Keep yourself from that. If you go among the young men, see
them at home, smoke with them, and take what they offer you in the way
of refreshment. Well, good-bye. You are to preach at Sunday Evensongs
you know. Sir Michael Manichoe, our patron, will be there, and there
will be a large congregation."
He turned, said good-night with sudden abruptness, as if he had been
lingering too long and was displeased with himself, and hurried away. It
was his usual manner of farewell.
A few minutes afterwards Gortre went to bed. He found it difficult to
believe that he had walked down the Faubourg de la Barre that morning.
It had been a crowded day.