Breakfast on Sunday morning was an hour later than on week-days, and
Priscilla, who usually made no public appearance before luncheon,
honoured it by her presence. Dressed in black silk, with a ruby cross as
well as her customary string of pearls round her neck, she presided.
An enormous Sunday paper concealed all but the extreme pinnacle of her
coiffure from the outer world.
“I see Surrey has won,” she said, with her mouth full, “by four wickets.
The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!”
“Splendid game, cricket,” remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one
in particular; “so thoroughly English.”
Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with a start.
“What?” she said. “What?”
“So English,” repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith.
Jenny looked at him, surprised. “English? Of course I am.”
He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sunday paper,
and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst of orange
splendours. “I see there’s a new series of articles on the next world
just beginning,” she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “This one’s called
‘Summer Land and Gehenna.’”
“Summer Land,” echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes. “Summer
Land. A beautiful name. Beautiful--beautiful.”
Mary had taken the seat next to Denis’s. After a night of careful
consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have less talent than
Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness, but somehow he
was safer.
“Are you writing much poetry here in the country?” she asked, with a
bright gravity.
“None,” said Denis curtly. “I haven’t brought my typewriter.”
“But do you mean to say you can’t write without a typewriter?”
Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and, besides, he
wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the other end of the table.
“...My scheme for dealing with the Church,” Mr. Scogan was saying, “is
beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglican clergy wear their
collars the wrong way round. I would compel them to wear, not only their
collars, but all their clothes, turned back to frantic--coat, waistcoat,
trousers, boots--so that every clergyman should present to the world
a smooth facade, unbroken by stud, button, or lace. The enforcement of
such a livery would act as a wholesome deterrent to those intending to
enter the Church. At the same time it would enormously enhance, what
Archbishop Laud so rightly insisted on, the ‘beauty of holiness’ in the
few incorrigibles who could not be deterred.”
“In hell, it seems,” said Priscilla, reading in her Sunday paper, “the
children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive.”
“Ah, but, dear lady, that’s only a symbol,” exclaimed Mr.
Barbecue-Smith, “a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambs
signify...”
“Then there are military uniforms,” Mr. Scogan went on. “When scarlet
and pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some who trembled for
the future of war. But then, finding how elegant the new tunic was, how
closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously, with the lateral
bustles of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips; when they realized the
brilliant potentialities of breeches and top-boots, they were reassured.
Abolish these military elegances, standardise a uniform of sack-cloth
and mackintosh, you will very soon find that...”
“Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?” asked Henry Wimbush.
No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. “I read the lessons,
you know. And there’s Mr. Bodiham. His sermons are sometimes worth
hearing.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. “I for one prefer to
worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does our Shakespeare put
it? ‘Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.’” He waved his arm
in a fine gesture towards the window, and even as he did so he became
vaguely, but none the less insistently, none the less uncomfortably
aware that something had gone wrong with the quotation. Something--what
could it be? Sermons? Stones? Books?