THURLOE END
MADMAN.
The wild duck, stringing through the sky,
Are south away.
Their green necks glitter as they fly,
The lake is grey.
So still, so lone, the fowler never heeds.
The wind goes rustle, rustle, through the reeds.
* * * * *
Not thus, not thus are the wild souls of men.
No peace for those
Who step beyond the blindness of the pen
To where the skies unclose.
From them the spitting mob, the cross, the crown of thorns,
The bull gone mad, the Saviour on his horns.
JOHN MASEFIELD: _Good Friday_.
(1)
"Mr. Kestern, sir?" enquired the man, outside the little country
station.
Paul nodded. "Yes," he said; "are you from Father Vassall?"
"Yes, sir. Been waiting 'arf an hower, sir. Trains that late. We've
five mile to drive, sir, so if you'll get in...."
Paul deposited his suitcase in the dog-cart and climbed on to the seat
alongside the driver. He was in the heart of the Midlands, and the
lamps on the little country station were already being dimmed to save
the Company's oil, since the next and last train of the day was not due
for several hours. Outside the station enclosure, lights behind the
red blinds of an inn threw a glow on the hard road, and from a cottage
window or two came here and there a flicker; but these passed, they
were speedily out into the open country. Trees loomed up against
frosty stars; but for the most part high hedges hid even the fields on
either side the narrow lane. A small moon, low on the horizon, swung
up and down over them like a child's toy. The beast between the shafts
kept up a steady trot, though now and again the steam of his exertion
rose mistily in the radiance of the poor lamps of the dog-cart as he
ploughed uphill at a walk. By his side, Paul's driver soon relapsed
into the monotonous silence of the country. Paul himself, muffled up
on his high seat, swaying a little with the motion, had time to think.
He was actually on his way to stay with Father Vassall, and he was
aware that he was in doubt as to the issue of his journey. The last
Christmas vacation and the ensuing Lent term had goaded him to the act.
Christmas had been almost impossible at home, and the Lent term had
shown him, every day more clearly, that he could not profess
evangelical Anglicanism as a minister and a missionary. Claxted had
stung him into that conclusion on every side. The atmosphere of the
Mission Hall, sincere, earnest, zealous as it was, left him gasping now
as a fish out of water. He had stood on its platform and not known
what to say. The illogical inconclusiveness of the old attitude stared
at him so starkly that he could no longer repeat the old shibboleths.
The sermon in which one expounded a text as if the phrases of it and
the entire context had dropped, verbally complete, like the image of
the great goddess Diana, from the skies, and then exhorted, in words
made as vivid and as practical as possible, to the vague sensationalism
of "Come to Jesus" or "Accept Salvation," was now beyond him. The
thing, left thus in the air, had become meaningless to him, and his
very sincerity forbad his preaching anything in which he did not
wholeheartedly believe. The Church and Sacraments, the old truths set
in a practical system, these seemed necessary to the Gospel salvation.
Yet a more thoughtful worker or two had already been offended by the
vague and tentative phrasing in which he tried to hint at it.
Or again, though this he tried to suppress, the gorge of the poet in
him would rise now against Moody and Sankey or Torrey and Alexander.
Metre and rhyme had come to be things that he could not help
subconsciously analysing, but it does not do to analyse mission
hymn-books. Nor can one make a really successful evangelist if one is
affected almost to desperation by a cornet out of tune, or tracts for
distribution that are neither English nor common sense.
Lastly, the home atmosphere was electric with disagreement. He was out
of tune with it all. There seemed no longer anything to talk about at
table. Mr. Kestern was not interested in literature and art; with his
politics Paul, feeling after Socialism, was in violent collision; the
parish was no longer his world; and even into talk of the Second Coming
of Christ would creep the voice of criticism, or into the Islington
Conference the question of Rome. It was, of course, a common-place
tragedy, but that did not make it the less tragic. The man had stood
still, and the boy had gone on. Also, at the fork roads, he had taken
the unfamiliar turn.
Full of it all, then, he was coming to stay with Father Vassall. He
had determined to do that this once at least. He must talk things out
with his friend. But should they come to a conclusion, and if so to
what conclusion and with what results, that was the question.
"That's the 'ouse, sir."
Paul peered eagerly ahead. He could make out a dark, vague outline,
and a wall on the left. "Wo-up, beauty," cried his driver to the
horse. They came to a standstill before a big iron gate between tall
red-brick gate-posts.
Paul climbed stiffly down, and swung his bag out. He found himself on
a flagged path that ran up to a door set in a shallow portico in the
front of a long, low, mellow Queen Anne house. It was not too dark to
see a solid cornice and parapet. "The bell's on the right, sir," said
the voice at the gate. "I'll drive on round to the stable."
Paul pulled the wrought-iron bell-pull, and somewhere in the black
recesses a bell jangled. He heard a door open and the sound of feet.
"All right, Bridget," called a familiar voice; "I'll let him in." A
door opened somewhere. A faint glimmer of moving light shone through
the glass panes and drew nearer. The front door swung open. Paul
blinked in the light.
The priest stood with a lantern in his left hand. He wore his cassock,
and was muffled in a cloak, with a black skull-cap on his head. His
merry smiling face was turned up to Paul, clean shaven, youthful
looking, the hair a little tumbled.
"Good evening, Father," said Paul. "Sorry I'm late. I've been longing
to get here."
"H-how are you?" exploded the priest. "C-come in. It's splendid, your
c-coming."
Paul passed in. He had the odd thought that it was all part of a
dream. The passage was stone-flagged and the hall beautifully bare.
An oak bench ran along one wall. There were a few carvings and weapons
and curios about. A sombre print or two hung opposite: St. Francis
Xavier in a high biretta, and an Entombment. The figure in black
putting up the latch by the light of the lantern was mediæval and
fantastic. Yet it was all real, and it was real that he, Paul Kestern,
was there at last, in the house of a Catholic priest.
"Come in," said Father Vassall again. "You must be cold. Come and get
warm before supper. There's a t-t-topping fire in the p-parlour."
He led the way, bustling forward with a swish of cassock, welcoming,
kind. Paul entered the long low library, hung with panels of green
cloth, and took in its satisfactory furnishing at a glance. The room
rested quietly, waiting for him. With a swift mental comparison, he
saw himself arriving at Claxted instead. Then he, too, laughed
eagerly, and moved forward to the big open Tudor fireplace.
A log burned there brightly, the "royal flames" leaping in the iron
grate behind a high screen. A deep green-brocaded arm-chair stood back
in an ingle, a litter of papers on the rug near by, a shaded candle in
a tall twisted candlestick throwing a pool of light down upon them.
Above the fireplace stood unfamiliar incongruous objects: a white
skull-cap that had been Pius IX.'s, in a glass-fronted box, and a black
Madonna hung with beads. There was an unframed water-colour too, and a
pencil sketch. From the rug, he turned to survey the room. Its bare
wood floor reached out into the shadows, save where a goat-skin caught
the light. Bookcases with white shelves stood out from the walls. On
a stand in a window recess were tall lilies growing in a pot. The
marble head of Bernard of Clairvaux, wrapt in contemplation, stood on a
bracket; he could just see the aquiline nose, and downcast eyes. There
was a solid narrow oak table with a chest below. In a corner there was
a hanging lamp, burning dimly, so that one could see to move over
there. It glinted on a grand piano. A comfortable chintz-covered
chair or two stood about.
His host pulled forward an arm-chair whose elbows ended in carved
griffin-heads. "Sit down," he reiterated, "and toast yourself. It is
jolly to see you here. How's C-Cambridge?"
Paul drew a deep breath and seated himself. "Fine," he said. "I
suppose it exists, by the way," he went on, with a laugh. "We went up
four in the Lents. I say, this is just heavenly."
"Good man. Have a cigarette. Supper won't be long."
"Are you very busy, Father? We miss you awfully at Cambridge. When's
the next book to appear?"
"I'm so b-b-busy I don't know what to do. Preaching nearly every
Sunday, and lectures. I've got to l-lecture to Anglicans on
M-Mysticism in t-town on Monday. Oh, I say, they are coming in. Two
conversions last week, both c-clergymen and such good fellows. And
it's such fun here. There's heaps to do yet. You shall see to-morrow."
"Yes?"
He nodded, wrapping his hands in his cloak and laughing merrily. "Of
course, when I came I built a chapel. It's an old barn, much older
than the house, thirteenth century they say. It must have been a
chapel before, I think; it feels like it. Well, all the village
talked, of course. P-Popish treason and p-plot! Bridget told me, and
Tim; all the servants are Catholic you know. But I wouldn't let anyone
see it, for I'm not here regularly enough to start a new church like
that. Perhaps we'll have another priest one day, and a Mission. Of
course, if they enquire, that's another story. So, last week when
several of them came to Tim and got him to ask me to have a service on
Sunday evening, I did. It was full; p-packed. The Wesleyan local
preacher came too. We had B-Benediction. Oh, you ought to have been
here, my dear. They all sang 'Star of the Sea' b-b-beautifully!"
It was so like Father Vassall, Paul thought. He was as eager as a boy,
and the Faith was a glorious kind of adventure with him. There was no
checking his enthusiasm. In his company Paul always felt as if he were
living in the times of the Apostles when Christians were a little
persecuted, defiant, daring band, but the Cross and the Resurrection
things of but yesterday. And although he always had a sense that the
world of thought and action in which the priest lived was utterly
remote from the world of the average man, still he had come to see that
there was nothing of the poseur in his friend. He did not pose as a
mediævalist; he simply was one. And he did not adapt his religion to
the world; he adapted his world to his religion.
It was on that platform that the two met so readily. Paul was utterly
accustomed to that point of view. Only at Claxted there was a
different religion.
So now, at once, the little priest shot his swift question quite
simply. "And how is it with you?" he asked. "Have you decided to
l-l-let yourself g-go?" Not so differently does a Salvationist ask a
sinner at the penitent form if he is saved.
Paul moved uneasily. "Don't, Father," he said; "don't ask me that yet.
I can't say. I'm pulled all ways. Whenever I sit down to think, a
great tangle grows and weaves in my mind till I'm in despair at ever
deciding anything."
Father Vassall nodded. "I know," he said. "So it was with me. You're
on the r-rack. Every n-nerve gives you pain. You've thought enough.
You know enough really. If you went on reading and talking and arguing
till d-d-doomsday, you'd get no c-clearer. You must turn simply to our
Lord and do His W-Will."
"If I knew it!"
The priest watched him in silence. Then he rose and felt for a
cigarette. "You do know it," he said. "What you don't know is whether
you dare do it."
"My father says I'm too young to make such a decision. He wanted me to
go and see Prebendary----"
Father Vassall interrupted him. "See no one," he said. "Don't see me
if you like. Go away alone and ask our Lord, in the light of what He
has shown you. Oh, my dear! It's as plain as the n-n-nose on your
f-f-face!"
"My father says I'm utterly unstable and always changing my mind."
"That's not t-t-true. See here: I know exactly what's happened to you."
"What?"
"You began, as a boy, by turning to our Lord with all the love of which
your heart was capable. You vowed to be His lover. And He weighed
you, looked you through and through, and accepted you. Step by step He
led you on. He showed you new things about Himself as you were ready
to bear them. He trusted you. He never left you. And now at last, He
has shown you Himself in His Church. You know He's there. I believe,
in your heart of hearts, you have faith. And you hang back because you
are afraid. You ought to be a Catholic. You ought to be a religious,
a R-Redemptorist, I think. You're stamped and marked out for it.
There! I've never said as much to anyone. God help you."
He ended abruptly, utterly earnest, and stared at the fire, stretching
a hand out to it.
"I shall break my father's heart. How can I?" cried Paul, all the
bitter agony of days at home and hours of prayer, sweeping down upon
him.
The priest made a gesture. "Excuses. You know that too. 'He that
loveth father or mother more than Me...' And would you break His
heart?"
"It's so cruel, so awfully hard."
"Of course it's cruel. Wasn't the Cross cruel? Do you think
Christianity is a d-drawing-room g-game? It's fire. It's a sword.
It's death or life. Good Lord, what else has it been from the first
martyr to the last, yesterday? And you k-k-know it."
"It's more than I can bear," the boy burst out.
"It's n-n-not," stuttered the priest instantly. "Our Lord never offers
anyone a heavier cross than he can b-b-bear."
The passion of the declaration silenced Paul. But only for a few
seconds. Then the full force of what it would mean to his people
overcame him.
"You don't know my father," he half whispered. "He says he would
rather see me dead. Oh, he says terrible things! Father, he will see
nothing, nothing. And he always harps on the strain of my past
religious experiences. I deny them, he says, if I become a Catholic."
"You do no such thing. What does he himself think, for example,
happened at your Communions? He thinks Christ came to you spiritually
and fed your s-s-soul with His S-Spirit. And so He did. The Church
doesn't deny that. The Church says you will receive something within
her that outside they do not even pretend to give. You are not asked
to deny one whit of the past. And you know that too."
Paul sprang to his feet. "With you, it looks inevitable. You
hypnotise me into believing. But there are heaps of things to be said.
I do see the need for authority; I do understand the reasonableness of
the whole philosophy--from the Incarnation to relics and
indulgences--it's reasonable enough, it's logical; but is it true? Is
Peter true? Is the Church what you say? Come to that, is the Gospel
story itself true? Is it? Is it? Oh, my God, I would give everything
to know!"
He stood there, hands flung out, his whole soul in his face. And as
his tense voice ceased, the silence of the room hemmed them in.
Slowly Father Vassall got, too, to his feet. They faced each other
across the rug, and the black Madonna, hung with dripping beads, thrust
her Son out before them.
"Oh, my dear, I'm afraid for you!" whispered the priest, staring.
"Afraid?"
He nodded. "You see, you have the soul of a r-religious and that's no
t-t-trifle. And there you dare to stand, asking if the story of
B-Bethlehem and C-Calvary is true!"
"Well?" Paul was defiant.
The priest crossed the room, and came back from a little search on the
table with a paper in his hand. All the merriment had died out of his
face; it looked years older, wan. "I w-want you to p-promise me
something," he said, stammering much again in his emotion.
Paul leant back against the mantelpiece, wearily. "What, Father?" he
asked; "I'll do anything I can."
"You c-c-can do this, ea-easily. Don't let's argue any more all the
time you're here. Don't read books, except the N-N-New T-T-Testament.
And promise me to pray this every day in the chapel before the
S-Sacrament with all your heart."
He held out a paper. "I've w-w-written it out for you," he said.
Paul took the half-sheet of notepaper, written in the clear print of
the priest's hand. He read it through once, and then he read it
through again, only, this time, the letters were a little blurred.
Then he looked up at his friend.
"Father," he said, "I can't help it. I know this, whatever anyone
says. You bring our Lord to me as no one and nothing else has ever
done."
"Ah, then," cried the priest, "if you turn back now!"
Bridget put her head in. "Supper's ready, your reverence," she said.
Father Vassall nodded swiftly at her. "You promise?" he said, turning
to Paul.
"Oh, yes. And you'll pray for me?"
Father Vassall laughed meaningly. "Come to supper," he said gaily.
"It's p-p-pork and b-b-beans. But I can give you a glass of
Sp-Sp-Spanish B-B-Burgundy!"
(2)
In the chapel that night Paul prayed his prayer for the first time.
The priest walked in before him and showed him to his chair and a
prayer-desk with a courtly little gesture. The three servants sat
behind. A candle was already lit for Paul, and one burned also for the
priest in his corner. There was a white sanctuary lamp before the
altar, and a red one on the left. Otherwise there was no light.
Prayers began with Scripture reading. Father Vassall had announced the
fact with his odd air of almost playing with the thing. "We read the
B-B-Bible every night," he had said. "Do you m-m-mind? We read for
t-t-ten m-m-minutes!"
Paul had said, smilingly, that he did not mind.
So now he sat back in his chair and composed himself to listen and to
look. The priest opposite, a little black hunched-up figure, half
turned on one side to allow the candlelight to fall on his book, had
announced: "The Acts of the Holy Apostles" and begun in a
matter-of-fact, rather rapid tone, to read. As when he preached, so
when he read, he did not stammer, being shortly utterly engrossed in
his subject. He read on, chapter after chapter, without break or
division. Paul grew interested in the manner of it. The narrative
rolled out before him as a whole, a simple, nervous, obvious story
which singularly held even the attention of a listener who could have
gone on, pretty well, wherever the reader had cared to stop. But after
a while the boy allowed his eyes to rove. This story of Peter's
doings--odd, how Peter dominated the early chapters--did not somehow
seem out of place here. He began to apprise the details of the
building and its furniture.
It was plainly a barn. It had a barn roof of ancient unstained timber,
and a stone floor. The windows were irregular, uncurtained; he saw his
little moon again, steady now, shining through the bare casement, just
touching rough beams that spanned the irregular rectangle as a
rood-screen. In the centre rose a cross with flanking figures. They
were rudely carved, by the priest himself, but there was death in the
white nude body of the Christ and passionate life in the upturned head
of the Mary. John stood acquiescent; Paul wondered at his attitude.
It hid him; perhaps there was conflict in his heart. Perhaps he
understood. Perhaps, if one understood, conflict died down to peace.
The thin supports of the rood dropped down through the shadows to the
floor. A little figure stood half-way up one of them. Oh, and in the
corner, between the far support and the wall, stood another statue.
Paul stared at it. Something writhed in the candlelight. Then he saw
that it should do so. St. Michael trod down the dragon there.
Paul looked through the rood to the altar. High hangings ran up into
the canopy, but it and they were lost in the shadows. In the centre, a
cartoon was appliquéd upon them; a Madonna and Child; it was just
visible. There were four candlesticks, silver; the candles were burned
low in them. A silver figure hung on an ebony cross--or it looked like
ebony. The tabernacle was a blur of white silk. A white cloth
glimmered there; and below, under the altar, a row of painted carven
shields. Paul could not distinguish more, but he knew them. He had
seen Father Vassall at work upon them in his study at Cambridge. They
emblazoned symbols of the Passion.
Then he began to concentrate on the gloom to the left, where the red
light burned. The shadows were all confused and blurred. There were
irregular outlines, streaks, shadowy lines. He puzzled out a small
altar, with tiny candlesticks and a biggish case upon it, that shone
fitfully. The lines radiated from the case, stuck through it, behind
it, as though they were a bundle of spears. Spears! It was a spear;
he could see, now, a gleam on the blade. Another was headed with a
bunched object. And then he knew.
A small ladder, a sponge on a reed, a spear, a shorter stick dripping
with the knotted cords of a scourge; these he could see now. And he
knew too what the reliquary held.
If it was true, that little heavily guarded splinter within had once
been stained with the Blood, the real, literal Blood, about which he
had so often preached and sung. Just such thongs as those had bit into
the reddening flesh, curled and twisted and hissed on white thighs and
shoulders that shrank to the utmost limit of the cords in the human
writhe and agony of Christ.... "But Peter and the Apostles answering,
said" (the reader read on): "We ought to obey God rather than men. The
God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging
Him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be Prince
and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And
we are witnesses of these things: and the Holy Ghost, whom God hath
given to all that obey Him."
Paul stared out before him motionless, with set lips. Before him,
plain, far far too plain against the dim wall, the twisting whips rose
and fell.
"'In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen,'"
said Father Vassall, and there was a little shuffling as they all knelt
down.
Acts of Faith, Hope, Charity and Contrition; the Creed; Our Father,
Hail Mary, Glory Be; odd-Englished prayers for night protection; more
shuffling; now Paul and the priest were alone. It grew utterly still.
Paul fumbled for his slip of paper and drew it out. The rustling
dominated the whole chapel; it even seemed to stir the shadows that
shifted always, silently, in the candlelight. He spread the paper on
the desk before him. Slowly he prayed each sentence.
AN ACT OF CONSECRATION.
O Lord JESUS Christ, Who art the Way, the Truth and the Life,
Without Whom no man cometh to the Father,
No man is free,
And no man lives eternally,
Unite me wholly to Thyself that I may walk in light and truly live.
But Thy Way must be the Way of Sorrows,
Thy Truth sharper than scourges,
And Thy Life a losing of my own....
Give me therefore Grace--or rather Thyself, the Fount of Grace;
Carry me, for I cannot walk alone;
Enlighten me, for I am all darkness;
Live in me, for I cannot live except in Thee.
Let me count all things loss but Thee, since Thou didst count all
things loss except my love.
For me Thou didst leave the joys of heaven;
For me Thou wast born in cold and nakedness;
For me Thou didst bear the contempt of Thy creatures and
hadst not where to lay Thy head;
For me Thou didst die daily in the souls of those that
rejected Thee, and in the souls of them that loved Thee;
die therefore in mine that Thou mayst live and I in
Thee;
For me Thou didst suffer Thy Mother to be pierced with
swords, Who wast Thyself pierced with nails; pierce me
then too, and nail me to Thy Cross.
I offer myself wholly and without reserve to Thee Who didst count
nothing greater than my love:
My flesh is weak, as Thou knowest Who didst bear it,
But my spirit is willing, though sorrowful as Thine even
unto death.
Unite me then, body and soul with Thy Divinity;
My sins to Thy Redemption;
My weakness to Thy Strength;
My abyss of nothingness to Thy Plenitude.
I give myself to Thee, stained, shrinking and afraid;
Give Thyself to me, O my crucified God, and make me Thine.
Dear JESUS! Be to me not a Judge, but a Saviour!
"Dear Jesus! Be to me not a Judge, but a Saviour!"
He cried it again, and again. Tears blinded him. He choked them back.
It was so still that he could not break the silence even with a sob.
(3)
The Truce of God held. It held so truly that for a brief succession of
days Paul banished the major part of his doubts and haunting fears in
the vivid atmosphere of Thurloe End. They did not sleep; they fled.
He was not quiescent, but rather overwhelmingly alive. He drank a
largely new and intoxicating drink.
It must be remembered for what, exactly, Claxted stood. Quite apart
from the rights or wrongs of religion, there was a life in Claxted that
was a sheer antithesis to this. It was an antithesis in small things
as well as in big, in utterly unreasonable and stupid things as well as
in vital ones. Thus, at Claxted, one never, at dinner or supper, sat
down to boiled beans and bacon; if one had, it would not have been
regarded as an adventure; moreover one never did sit down without
potatoes. It is extraordinarily easy to make a mock of it, but there
was a hid parable there. Food was food at Claxted; at Thurloe End it
was a sacrament, and a merry sacrament of life. Nor was it less life
because to Father Vassall it was Catholic life. Thus Father Vassall
even ate fish and maigre soup on Fridays, and enjoyed disliking it.
Most mornings there chanced to be early spring sunshine, and breakfast
was served out of doors. Breakfast out of doors at Claxted would have
seemed to verge on the profane, almost on the immoral. Tea, out of
doors, in midsummer, yes; prepared for, with guests. At Thurloe End
they ran in hastily for a little tea because they were so busy
gardening, and the lights were not long. At Claxted wine was a mocker;
at Thurloe End, the cask of Spanish Burgundy having just arrived, they
bottled it with zest and solemnity.
At Claxted, again, the rooms were elect to their various ends. The
drawing-room was for callers, tea and Sunday afternoons. The study was
for sermons. The dining-room was the room in which one dined; in which
Mr. Kestern rested for an hour after dinner; in which, after supper,
all duly remained, with books or work, till prayers and bed. Moreover,
there was routine order at Claxted, a pleasant, simple, kindly routine,
but routine. A Puritan routine, too, it was of course. It had never
struck Paul before, but no one laughed much at Claxted. The family was
anything but solemn; possibly, temperamentally, it was inclined to be
grave; but, then, on the other hand, it never, never _rioted_. Oh,
except at a Christmas party, at hide and seek and blind man's buff.
And now that one was grown up, one did not play such games.
On the other hand, at Thurloe, humour raced unrestrainedly. The
morning's post brought laughter (and tears) with it always. The day's
work was a perpetual surprise. Father Vassall would announce his
intention of doing something with as solemn a determination as Mr.
Kestern would have given to a month's holiday. "I shall wr-wr-write on
the v-v-verandah all the morning," he would announce firmly. Or: "I
shall r-r-read in the p-p-parlour for t-t-two hours." Sometimes he
would go to his room, and not reappear till luncheon. Sometimes he
would return to the chapel after breakfast for just as long. In the
evenings, before the fire, he would read what he had written during the
day, or Paul would read to him. Or they would make tapestry, or
wood-carve, or Father Vassall would play the piano; or sit still,
occasionally talking, but much more often sitting silently, while peace
dripped slowly in on Paul's soul. One never did nothing at Claxted.
He himself, in the mornings, usually strolled round till some corner
seemed inevitable for a letter, a book, or a poem, or the little table
in his bedroom beckoned inexorably to work. In a sentence, the day
arranged itself; perhaps better, it presented itself arranged; at
Claxted, as it was in the beginning, so it was, and ever would be.
Then again, at Thurloe End, the house was invested with a personality.
Paul used to wander around at first, making friends. The rooms stood
back, gravely, but with a smile hidden in them. The furniture belonged
to the house, and had been selected by it, he felt, with care. It had
chosen unvarnished oak, for the most part, because its tall, clear
windows were looking up always to the light, and old oak is wise about
light, taking its measure and passing the rest on enriched. Its
chairs, forms, tables, bookcases, were like open hands, holding much
graciousness. Moreover it was gravely proud of itself, and not ashamed
of its wide walls and the pools of its floors. Where it held out a
picture or a print, it did so with a curious restraint, yet with a kind
of courtesy. It wore pictures like a beautiful woman wears jewels.
At Claxted there was no house at all. There was a middle-class home.
Everything that the family had ever possessed, for three generations,
was collected in it. The Kesterns said about a new possession that it
would "go" there or there, and new possessions constantly poured
in--testimonials, seasonable gifts, kindly presents from workers after
summer holidays, another antimacassar after the Sale of Work,
photographs, texts, missionary curios. Things overflowed on to each
other: an occasional table on a rug; a crochet mat on a table; a pot on
the crochet mat; a fern in the pot; a cover about them both; a picture
above the fern; framed photographs below the picture; as like as not,
in the end, a small basket under the table. Small baskets were always
so useful for putting odds and ends in. And all the furniture and
carpets and mats and pictures, jostled each other, and cried to heaven
that here was no continuing city. Which, of course, is quite true, for
we seek one to come.
Clocks were all over the house at Claxted; at Thurloe End there was one
over the stable that struck the hours with much solemnity. Moreover it
had its own views as to correct time-telling which, as Father Vassall
said, was wholly right, since t-t-time was r-r-relative.
Paul told himself that religion had nothing to do with all this; that
there were Catholic middle-class homes, and Protestant houses. He was
not such a fool as not to know, too, that his own temperament liked the
one and disliked the other, but was not necessarily right or wrong
because of that. Yet after all we are all of us concerned with things
as we meet them, and religion and philosophy, speaking in generalities,
do shape people's houses, occupations and dress. Here, then, came the
Greeks bringing gifts, generous gifts for which he felt he had been
searching, at one time blindly, lately more definitely, all his days.
If the gifts were of God, they would leave little room for doubt.
The days of truce, however, were not without event. The pair of them
did portentous things. Up the centre of the garden ran an ancient
overgrown hedge, tangled, vast; and through it, with axe and saw, they
cut a leafy tunnel. In old flannel trousers, and shirts without
collars, they laboured in the sweat of their brows, and cut their hands
and scratched their faces and lost their way and despaired of finishing
and finally attained. Just before sunset they emerged one warm
delirious day, the scent of rising sap overflowing from the broken
twigs and boughs about them, a mellow light on the wall across a small
green ahead. Father Vassall cut the last impeding growth away, as was
fit, but Paul dragged it behind. They stepped out together. The
little priest looked about him with triumph, excitement and discovery
on his face. So Bilboa hailed the Pacific, and Pizarro climbed the
Andes. And so, also, Father Vassall had some such thought as they.
"A cross, just here, in the middle of that green," he cried. "One will
b-burrow through the tunnel, and find the c-cross at the end!"
And then, suddenly, the merriment died out of his face, and the two
looked at each other.
"I will go for the saw and the hammer," said Paul, after a second.
"Yes," cried Father Vassall, animation again. "I know of two
s-saplings which will just do."
Paul turned back. "N-N-No!" spluttered his friend; "n-n-not through
the tunnel now!"
So Paul went back another way.
Or, intermittently, they laboured at a rockery. The priest had been
engaged upon it, but he took a dislike to the job soon after Paul's
arrival. One day, after half an hour's work, he flung down his spade.
Paul grounded a loaded wheelbarrow, and laughed.
"What in the world is the matter?" he demanded.
"I will not have a r-r-rockery in my garden," said the priest, "not a
made rockery anyway. I knew it was a bad idea."
"Why ever?" asked Paul, frankly puzzled.
"The d-d-devil makes r-rockeries," said Father Vassall, "not G-G-God."
One evening Paul related at length the incidents of the Port o' Man
mission, and particularly that of Mr. Childers. Father Vassall heard
him gravely. At the close he asked: "Do you know David Etheridge?"
Paul shook his head.
"Ever heard of him?"
"No. Who is he?"
"We'll go and see him to-morrow. Shall we? You'll like him. He lives
about two miles off."
"Good," said Paul, smiling. "But who in the world is he?"
"He's a Catholic. He was a Spiritualist. He became converted because
it was the d-d-devil."
"Oh, I'd love to meet him then," cried Paul.
They went, then, luncheon being over, the priest in his rusty country
ulster, a little bent, preoccupied, grave; Paul swinging along in a
tweed jacket eagerly. The few passers-by saluted the priest, and a
clergyman on a bicycle looked at Paul intently. "He's the V-V-Vicar,"
said Father Vassall, bubbling with laughter. "He's a g-g-good man; I
like him; but I expect he'd like to r-r-rescue you!"
(4)
David Etheridge lived in a small cottage, and he was pottering about
the garden when they arrived. Paul had received no description of him
and had no reason to expect one thing more than another, but the
ex-Spiritualist's short, rather tubby figure and round, smiling, pink
face, tickled him. He looked the last man in the world to have met
with the devil. Anyway he seemed to have come well out of the
encounter.
He greeted the priest eagerly, and was introduced to Paul without
explanations. First he must show them round the garden. He had bulbs
in the grass, and others hidden cunningly among tree-roots, and these
he discovered with triumph. New green had been made, he declared,
since yesterday, and in one spot there were six tiny thrusting points,
when the brown leaves were raked away with discerning fingers, where at
the last visit there had been but five. They bent lingeringly over
them. "Wonderful, wonderful," cried Etheridge, in a subdued ecstasy.
"I don't care how many times one sees them, they're wonderful!"
Paul looked from the face of the priest to that of his friend. There
was genuine awe written on them both. It was odd, he thought, the
outlook of everyone down here. He himself loved the beauty of that new
determined virginal life, but these two saw more. They saw holy things.
Back in the cottage at tea, Paul's visit was frankly expounded. "I
b-brought K-K-Kestern to see you, Etheridge," said Father Vassall,
"because he's met a clairvoyant and seen a m-m-miracle. He's
impressed, naturally. And the fellow talked to him no end. I want him
to hear your side of the c-case."
"What was it you saw, Mr. Kestern?" asked Etheridge. "Was it at a
séance?"
"No," said Paul, "and that's what seems to me particularly interesting.
It was in a very ordinary house at a very ordinary luncheon, and in the
presence of four or five men who, as certainly as anything is certain,
were neither accomplices nor credulous nor open to hypnotic influence.
And it happened in broad daylight in about two minutes, while we all
sat round and watched."
"What happened?" queried Mr. Etheridge, with a serious air that did not
go so strangely with his face as a stranger would suppose.
"A pin, an ordinary pin, wobbled on a white tablecloth and stood on
end, all by itself."
"W-W-Wobbled?" exploded Father Vassall, earnestly.
Paul, looking at him, loved him suddenly with a great passionate
movement towards his childlike sincerity and profound faith. "Yes,
Father," he said as gravely, "wobbled."
"Do you mind telling me all about it?" put in their host. "You've
really begun at the wrong end of the stick, you know, Mr. Kestern."
And Paul told him. He told him everything, including the clairvoyant's
statement that God was very far off.
When he had finished, David Etheridge nodded. "That would be it," he
said. "So much of truth, so much of plausibility, a little release of
power, and the grain of error that would, without God, crack even
Peter's rock."
"But the p-pin?" asked Father Vassall. "How did he do that?"
"It's simple, Father. He was perfectly right. It is no miracle,
really, as he himself said. There is psychic power. It is as real a
thing as that of my muscles, perhaps in a sense more real because more
fundamental. All ultimate power may be psychic. And what he did with
a pin, all the mystic saints have done, when necessary, again and
again. Only they have done so under God and at His direction. Maybe
God Himself, incarnate, only made use of some such hidden human power
of His creation, when He walked the waves."
"Then Childers was right?" asked Paul, glancing at the priest however.
Etheridge seemed to be contradicting the verdict of his friend.
"Right, and from our standpoint wrong too, Mr. Kestern. So far as his
explanation of the pin went, he was right, but he was in the wrong
since he was playing with a power only to be exercised along the lines
revealed; and he was deluded by Satan when he spoke as he did of God."
"By Satan?"
"I have no doubt at all. It always begins so. He lies in wait to
deceive."
"I don't understand," said Paul, bewildered. "Childers was a man of
prayer and of great reverence. He spoke very kindly even of
Catholicism."
"That," said Etheridge gravely, "I fear the most."
Paul studied his face intently. He was looking out of the cottage
window at the broad high-road, his features very set and grave, and
with a strange mask of pain lying upon their cheery commonplace
exterior that was not good to see.
He seemed to become aware of the other's examination, and turned to
him. "It is like this," he said. "God has marked out the spiritual
way. He has hedged and protected it. Souls may go safely there very,
very far, even here, towards the celestial city. But if they stray off
that path for any reason, why, Mr. Kestern, in the woods and hollows
lurk enemies that let none escape."
"How do you know?" burst out Paul, vehemently. "Does the Church
definitely say so?"
Etheridge nodded towards the priest, with a faint smile that only
lingered a second however. "That's a question for his reverence," he
said, "but I can offer you an authority, if you like."
"Please," said Paul. There was something in the other's tone that awed
him.
"Well, Mr. Kestern, there was a young man who knew nothing of that
divine road save that, by Providence, his feet were placed upon it at
his baptism. But he was enticed aside. He was shown a seemingly fair
and direct path to the same bourne. He followed it. At first all went
well. To be precise, he, too, obtained something of the powers of
which you have seen a sample. He became adept at seeking escape in
trance. The pencil wrote for him automatically, and wrote good and
wise things. He made the practice of these things his life, and
finally they dominated him. He became all but their slave."
"Yes--and then?"
"Well, first, the character of the messages changed a little. His
friends in the _gnosis_ warned him of mischievous spirits, even of bad
ones, but he was not to be afraid. He would not be afraid. For a
while the good returned--and riveted his chains more firmly. Then the
shadow crept in again. He was told of a new morality, led on to seek
relief in stimulants, encouraged to voyage far and often in trance. At
last only there, in trance, was there full escape. He loathed himself,
but his waking life was beset with devils, prurient curiosity,
perverted sensuality, a desire to inflict pain. He struggled, but in
vain. But in the trance-sleep he was free."
A motor car hummed up the hill and buzzed over the crest. Etheridge
"waited till the sound died away. Neither of his listeners moved.
"And then one day, Mr. Kestern," went on the narrator at last evenly,
"having gone over in trance, he found his return barred. He could see
his own body on the couch and he longed to re-enter it. But he could
not. A Watcher stood on the Threshold. For an eternity there seemed
no possibility of return."
Paul moistened dry lips. "A watcher?" he managed to ask.
"Yes. Beyond telling. Do you loathe anything? Have you ever felt
Fear? Do you shrink from corruption, its scent and sight? You cannot
imagine all those incarnate, but it was that."
"My G-G-God," said Father Vassall. "That's enough, Etheridge."
"But you are here," cried Paul. "What saved you?"
"The grace of God, which is beyond telling, at the moment, and, under
Him, Father Vassall afterwards. He may tell you if he please."
Paul glanced at the priest. But he shook his head. "I t-t-told you it
was the d-d-devil," he said.
"Father Vassall, perhaps, can hardly speak of it, Mr. Kestern. He
fought for my soul. He held me all one night, and a crucifix in my
hands, while Satan shook my body, my bed, the very room, but could not
prevail."
And silence drew in and sat between the three of them.
Paul broke it. He sighed. "Forgive me," he said, "but what is one to
believe? You explain one thing by an unknown force; why not so explain
this? And--I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Etheridge--I suppose we all
have a side to our character which, supposing it were for any reason
developed and released, might do terrible things."
The ex-Spiritualist bowed slightly. "You are quite right," he said
tranquilly. "That is one explanation. You can explain the Gospels and
the Incarnation and Lourdes and--and Spiritualism that way. Men even
explain man. If there were no explanation possible, there would be no
need of faith."
"But I haven't----" began Paul.
Father Vassall made a quick gesture. "'_Si scires donum Dei_,'" he
said. "Don't t-t-tempt God, Kestern."
Etheridge rose as if he had not heard. "Let us walk in the garden a
little," he said, "and breathe clean air."
That evening, Father Vassall varied the order of night prayers
somewhat. He crossed over the chapel to Paul, after the Scripture
reading, and put a little manual in his hand. It was not wholly
unfamiliar to the boy, but for the first time the real significance of
the Office of Compline dawned on him. He saw the long dark corridors
leading from chapel, the silent shut-off monastic cells, the peasant on
his lonely road home, the soldier on sentry guard while the camp slept.
He saw that the night had been alive to such, and that their faith had
made these prayers for a shield. And he was not sorry for that shield
himself that night.
Grant us, O Lord, a quiet night and a perfect end.
Your adversary the devil, goeth about as a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the Terror by night,
For He shall give His angels charge over thee.
Visit this house, we beseech Thee, O Lord. Drive far from it
all snares of the enemy. Let Thy holy angels dwell therein....
All his imagination astir, Paul listened, in his secret heart, for the
drift of pinions. Nor, then, did he wonder that he failed to hear
them; he only marvelled a little at the impenetrability of
clay-shuttered doors.
(5)
Thus, then, came Paul Kestern to his last night at Thurloe End. Judge
ye, who may. This, at least, was the manner of it.
The Father had read aloud _The Holy Grail_, and Paul _The Hound of
Heaven_. He had himself chosen it; he had no one to blame for that.
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest (he read),
I am He Whom thou seekest;
Thou drivest Love from thee, Who drivest Me.
He shut the book. The little priest was nursing his knees against the
tall fender, and the boy looked from him to the candlelight on the
white of the uncanonised saint's hat on the mantelshelf. It rather
fascinated him, that round skull-cap. It was a child's trick to put it
there, the little white satiny thing in its glass-fronted box--a
child's trick, lovable. He looked at the priest again. The other
stirred.
"My dear," he said, stammering badly, "you g-g-go to-m-m-morrow. And
we've kept the tr-truce."
Paul nodded.
Silence.
The priest spoke again. "I don't know," he said. "I can't stick my
fingers into your soul. I d-d-don't want to. Only God's been good to
you, you know. And--and He's a j-j-jealous God."
"Oh, I don't know," burst out the boy. "Father, I don't know. There's
so much for and against. And I've prayed and prayed and prayed,
and--and God hides Himself."
"He's given you all the l-l-light you need. He's shown you! He's sent
His Son and appointed His Church and p-p-put it b-b-bang in your
p-path. What else do you want? Do you want a special r-r-revelation?"
"Oh, I don't know," wailed Paul. "I don't KNOW."
His voice broke a little. Father Vassall dropped his knees and jumped
up, catching his robe about him. His eyes shone, though his face was
grave. "L-look here," he said. "Here's a bit of paper. I'll put here
all the things that make for the Church, unless you feel honestly, in
your own mind, that the balance of evidence on a point puts it on the
other side. Now."
When the paper was written it appeared thus:
WHICH is TRUE?
_R.C._ _Anglican._
Emotions in Catholic Church. Emotions at Claxted, Keswick,
etc.
Reason?
History?
Which Works?
Scripture?
Tradition?
Catholic Idea?
Consistency?
Gospel of the Poor?
Beauty?
Common sense?
Miracles?
Peter?
(After the first, Paul had objected: "But Christianity may not be
reasonable at all." "T-t-that hardly makes for Anglicanism," retorted
Father Vassall. "Is _it_, the Via Media, reasonable?" And Paul had
been silent thereafter.)
"That's enough, Father," said Paul, in a still voice.
"It is, only this." (He added, last on the list--Peter.) "Now, here
you are. To-morrow, after breakfast, go into the chapel, put this
before you, and pray. Pray. PRAY. Hear? I'll say no more, now or
ever. You're alone, you know, you must be.... If it's 'yes,' after
that, come and tell me, and I'll get the faculties and receive you. If
it's 'no,' then don't say anything. Just 'good-bye.' And G-God bless
you, anyway."
He had his way. The boy went almost silently to bed, heard Mass, ate
breakfast quietly, went into the chapel, and knelt down. He propped
his papers before him. He chose to kneel before the red lamp.
He read his paper, but he could not think. Confused
images buzzed through his head, and voices. "I'd rather see a son of
mine dead," said Mr. Kestern. "God is very far off," said Childers.
"He was deluded by Satan," said David Etheridge. "Oh, don't break your
father's heart, Paul," cried his mother. "Concubinage is a regular
thing in Spain," said the Bishop of Mozambique. "Christ is the most
arresting figure in history," said Manning coolly. "He's a j-j-jealous
God," said Father Vassall.
Paul shut his eyes. He was so tired. He turned deliberately away and
thought of Edith. He remembered Hursley Woods, and the little brown
cap, and the brown leaves, and the blue sky. A thrush, too, that
looked at them out of beady eyes. And here he was, in a Popish chapel,
Father Vassall's chapel.
He looked up. In the clear morning light, the chapel was all so plain.
In front of him, as plain as plain, was a sponge on reed, a spear, a
ladder, a scourge. He noticed that they were a little dusty. The
glass reliquary reminded him of wax flowers under a glass case
belonging to his great-aunt Sophie; no, it did not remind him of the
flowers, it was just the case, with its plush fringe, that it brought
ridiculously to his mind. But inside the case was that small splinter
the priest had described, a fragment splintered from Calvary with its
sweat and turmoil and blood.
It had been, of course, like that figure on the rood. He had hung
dead. Dead. Drained of blood. Dead.
Dead? A little to the right the white tabernacle veil hung in the
folds to which Father Vassall had adjusted it this morning. And behind
lay the mystery. If only he KNEW.
And then, suddenly, he saw it all as clearly as the day through the
chapel window: his broken home, his mother's tears, Edith lost to him,
his ambition to write poetry blocked out, and instead, instead--that
silver Cup behind the white curtain thrust into his hand. A
half-remembered line shot into his head:
And down the shaft of light
Blood-red...
And suppose, after all, it were _not_ true....
If it were true, surely God would show him. If He were a Father,
surely, surely...
(6)
That, then, was the manner in which Paul Kestern grew afraid. The
utter silence of the chapel grew on him, bore down on him, wave on
wave. Was it not time for the trap? Oh, but they would call him.
Meantime, why wouldn't God speak? Just a word, a flicker of a
curtain.... It was all so still. Not even a wind. The silence
listened, that was the awful thing; it listened for him to pray. And
if he prayed--oh, if he prayed, he would break down like a baby, and
surrender, and he would never really have known.
Then Paul knew he could not pray.
But he shut his eyes; he groped into the blackness; he pressed against
the silence; he knew he was alone, all alone; he knew if he could have
fled, he would have done so, but that he could not move. He must fight
it out alone, endure alone; and though that awful silence terrorised
his very thought, he must still try to think....
"It's t-t-time to go," whispered a voice in his ear.
He got up, and stumbled out. "Thank you so much, Father," he said.
There was utter terror in his soul, but that was what he said. He saw
the other's face, tender and grave, and his quaint black gown, and the
bare hall, and the little flagged path, and the iron gate, and the
trap. Oh, he was glad to see the trap. He mustn't be afraid; it was
absurd; he could walk out. "Really I've loved being here," he heard
himself saying.
"C-come again s-s-some t-time," stammered Father Vassall.
"Thanks, I will, Father. Good-bye."
"G-g-good-bye."
He balanced himself as the horse started forward, and then turned and
waved. The little priest waved too. They swung round the turn.
Paul looked at the clouds, moving serenely across the sky. He peered
into the bare twigs of an oak. Some palm was in bloom, soft, yellow,
feathery.
"Truth, it's real mild spring, sir," said Tim.
"Yes," said Paul. "I must say I'm glad summer is coming."
"London, single," he said through the wicket at the booking office. It
was real, that funny little window, and odd, how absurd the man looked,
peering at him! A couple of turns up the platform, a good asphalted
platform, with staring advertisements, rather jolly--about pens, Easter
in Normandy, Nestle's Milk. And there was the train at last, swinging
merrily round the corner, noisy, fussy, _real_.
Third class, smoker, empty, that would do. Paul flung himself into a
far corner. "Thank God," he said to himself, "thank _God_."
A tall dark girl walked up the train. She looked in at Paul's window.
He didn't see her, but she saw him, hesitated a moment, and decided,
after all, she wouldn't travel to town with him. If perhaps, the next
compartment was empty, she would prefer that. It was. She got in and
shut the door. She had a newspaper and a novel to read, but she
settled herself to stare out of the window instead. The country was so
unimaginably lovely.