THE timed journey to Brombridge in the doctor’s runabout was forty
minutes with reasonable driving. On the way both gentlemen were
rather silent. By tacit consent John Smith was dismissed for the time
being, and they were able to confine themselves to the prospect for
potatoes, war in its relation to agriculture, the loss of tonnage, and
hearty abuse of the government. For the true Briton, that unfortunate
institution vies with that equally unfortunate institution, the
weather, in supplying the theme of a never-ending jeremiad. All worthy
of their salt, irrespective of creed or party, damn these miserable
makeshifts impartially. At the moment the vicar and the doctor drove up
to the Assembly Rooms, Brombridge, they were in cordial agreement that
only one thing under divine providence could hope to make the British
people lose the war, and that thing was the British Government.
By a graceful little act on the part of coincidence--most charming of
the minor goddesses!--Dr. Parker was about to ascend the steps of the
building just as the car of Dr. Joliffe drew up by the curb. The vicar
hailed the leading physician of Brombridge promptly and heartily.
“The very man we want to see.” Mr. Perry-Hennington was one of the
fortunate people who act first and do their thinking afterward.
Dr. Parker, an elderly, florid, bewhiskered, important-looking
personage, stopped at once, turned about and gave the reverend
gentleman the full benefit of his politest smile and his best
bow. He then let his eyes pass to the second occupant of the car,
fully prepared to let them infold a county magnate. Somehow Mr.
Perry-Hennington always contrived to dispense an atmosphere of
county magnates, or at least to live in the odor of their sanctity.
But as soon as Dr. Parker saw who it was who had had the honor of
conveying the vicar of Penfold to the meeting the polite smile and
the ceremonious bow were merged almost magically in a brief nod and a
gesture bearing a perilous resemblance to a scowl.
The truth was, Dr. Parker had a poor opinion of Dr. Joliffe, and Dr.
Joliffe had a poor opinion of Dr. Parker. If pressed upon the point,
Dr. Parker would solemnly confess that Dr. Joliffe was the biggest
tufthunter in Kent, and Dr. Joliffe, also under duress, would return
that singularly comprehensive compliment.
This was perhaps a pity. Both were good men, both were honest men, but
like so many people, otherwise quite admirable, their sense of vision
was not acute. Nodosities of character in their neighbors were apt
to overshadow the central merit. In this case it was not so much a
question of professional jealousy as a matter of social rivalry. The
root of the trouble was that Dr. Joliffe and Dr. Parker were a little
too much alike.
Dr. Parker was clearly gratified at being the very man whom the vicar
of Penfold wanted to see, but carefully dissembled his feelings while
Mr. Perry-Hennington stepped out of the car and buttonholed him rather
ostentatiously on the steps of the council chamber. The vicar had to
suggest that they should hold a little conference after the meeting
in regard to a matter of importance. Certainly they were not in a
position to hold it at the moment. Fellow members of the War Economy
Committee were rolling up in surprising numbers; weird old landowners
in wonderful vehicles, local J. P.’s, retired stockbrokers, civil
servants, city men, and very _affairé_ ladies.
For all of these the parson of Penfold had a greeting. With his tall,
thin, aristocratic figure, his distinguished air, his large, fleshy,
important nose, he was the kind of man who dominates every company he
enters. And it was so entirely natural to him to do so that no one ever
thought of resenting it. He was not a clever man, a witty man, nor
was tact his long suit, moreover he was apt to give himself airs, but
for some reason or combination of reasons, he was greatly respected,
generally looked up to and almost universally popular. He seemed to
carry equal weight at Gleave Castle, the Mount Olympus of the local
cosmos, and at the board of guardians. The acid people who dissect
our naïve and charming human nature might have said that it was for
no better reason than that the vicar of Penfold was a born busybody,
doubly blessed with a loud voice, and a total absence of humor, but
the good and the credulous who take things on trust and form a working
majority in every republic always declared “it was because he was such
a gentleman.”
By sheer pressure of human character, Mr. Perry-Hennington took a seat
next the chairman of the meeting in the council chamber. And when
that almost incredibly distinguished personage, a rather pathetic and
extremely inaudible old thing in red mittens, got on to his legs, the
vicar of Penfold could be heard rendering him very audible assistance
in the course of his opening remarks. But it seemed entirely right and
proper that it should be so. And nobody resented it, not even the old
boy in the red mittens, who had retired from county business years ago,
but who, as the master of Gleave, was fully determined to do his bit
toward winning the war like everybody else.
The Clerk of the Committee, a rising Brombridge solicitor, had to
submit to correction from the parson of Penfold, once when the Clerk
was entirely in the right, once when he may have been wrong, but on a
point so delicate that ordinary people would never have noticed it,
and even if they had would hardly have thought it worth while to hold
up the tide of human affairs in order to discuss it. Still, it was Mr.
Perry-Hennington’s way and ordinary people admired it. Even Lady Jane
Whymper, who was very far from being an ordinary person, and who was
seated at the other side of the Chairman, admired it. The vicar of
Penfold was such a dear man and he got things done.
This afternoon, however, the War Economy Committee would have
transacted the same amount of business in at least twenty minutes
less time had the vicar of Penfold been in the seclusion of his study
grappling with his sermon. Still, that didn’t occur to anybody; and it
would have been ungenerous to harbor the thought. The vicar of Penfold
was an acknowledged ornament of any assembly he chose to enter and no
gathering of this kind could have been complete without him. Everybody
was amazingly in earnest, but Mr. Perry-Hennington was the most earnest
of all. He made a number of suggestions, not one of which, after
discussion, the Committee felt able to adopt, but the general effect of
his presence was to give an air of life and virility to the proceedings.
After the meeting, the vicar staved off Lady Jane, with whom he
had promised to dine that evening, and tactfully withdrew from the
distinguished circle around the chairman in order to confer with Dr.
Parker at the other end of the long table.
Dr. Parker, if rather flattered by this attention, was also a little
perplexed by it. For one thing, Dr. Joliffe was scowling at him from
the other end of the room. So little love was lost between these
warriors that they never met in consultation if they could possibly
help it. The vicar, however, had quite made up his mind that they
should meet on Monday. He declined to give details, but maintained an
air of reticence and mystery; yet he dropped a final hint that the
matter was of immense importance, not merely to individuals but to the
state.
Dr. Parker, having mounted gold eyeglasses and consulted his diary,
consented in his dignified way to lunch at the vicarage on Monday.
Thereupon Mr. Perry-Hennington thanked him with equal dignity and
returned to Penfold in Dr. Joliffe’s car.