It was a good many years ago, soon after I left Oxford, when I was
twenty-three years old, that all this happened. I had taken a degree in
Classics, and I had not given much thought to my future profession. There
was no very obvious opening for me, no family business, no influence in any
particular direction. My father had been in the Army, but was long dead. My
mother and only sister lived quietly in the country. I had no prosaic and
practical uncles to push me into any particular line; while on coming of
age I had inherited a little capital which brought me in some two hundred a
year, so that I could afford to wait and look round. My only real taste was
for literature. I wanted to write, but I had no very pressing aspirations
or inspirations. I may confess that I was indolent, fond of company, but
not afraid of comparative solitude, and I was moreover an entire
dilettante. I read a good many books, and tried feverishly to write in the
style of the authors who most attracted me, I settled down at home, more or
less, in a country village where I knew everyone; I travelled a little; and
I paid occasional visits to London, where several of my undergraduate and
school friends lived, with a vague idea of getting to know literary people;
but they were not very easy to meet, and, when I did meet them, they did
not betray any very marked interest in my designs and visions.
I was dining one night at a restaurant with a College friend of mine, Jack
Vincent, whose tastes were much the same as my own, only more strenuous;
his father and mother lived in London, and when I went there I generally
stayed with them. They were well-to-do, good-natured people; but, beyond
occasionally reminding Jack that he ought to be thinking about a
profession, they left him very much to his own devices, and he had begun to
write a novel, and a play, and two or three other masterpieces.
That particular night his father and mother were dining out, so we
determined to go to a restaurant. And it was there that Vincent told me
about "Father" Payne, as he was called by his friends, though he was a
layman and an Anglican. He had heard all about him from an Oxford man,
Leonard Barthrop, some years older than ourselves, who was one of the
circle of men whom Father Payne had collected about him. Vincent was very
full of the subject. He said that Father Payne was an elderly man, who had
been for a good many years a rather unsuccessful teacher in London, and
that he had unexpectedly inherited a little country estate in
Northamptonshire. He had gradually gathered about him a small knot of men,
mainly interested in literature, who were lodged and boarded free, and were
a sort of informal community, bound by no very strict regulations, except
that they were pledged to produce a certain amount of work at stated
intervals for Father Payne's inspection. As long as they did this, they
were allowed to work very much as they liked, and Father Payne was always
ready to give criticism and advice. Father Payne reserved the right of
dismissing them if they were idle, quarrelsome, or troublesome in any way,
and exercised it decisively. But Barthrop had told him that it was a most
delightful life; that Father Payne was a very interesting, good-natured,
and amusing man; and that the whole thing was both pleasant and
stimulating. There were certain rules about work and hours, and members of
the circle were not allowed to absent themselves without leave, while
Father Payne sometimes sent them off for a time, if he thought they
required a change. "I gather," said Vincent, "that he is an absolute
autocrat, and that you have to do what he tells you; but that he doesn't
preach, and he doesn't fuss. Barthrop says he has never been so happy in
his life." He went on to say that there were at least two vacancies in the
circle--one of the number had lately married, and another had accepted a
journalistic post. "Now what do you say," said Vincent, "to us two trying
to go there for a bit? You can try it, I believe, without pledging
yourself, for two or three months; and then if Father Payne approves, and
you want to go on, you can regularly join."
I confess that it seemed to me a very attractive affair, and all that
Vincent told me of the place, and particularly of Father Payne, attracted
me. Vincent said that he had mentioned me to Barthrop, and that Barthrop
had said that I might have a chance of getting in. It appeared that we
should have to go down to the place to be interviewed.
We made up our minds to apply, and that night Vincent wrote to Barthrop.
The answer was favourable. Two days later Vincent received a note from
Father Payne, written in a big, finely-formed hand, to the effect that he
would be glad to see Vincent any night that he could come down, and that I
might also arrange an interview, if I wished, but that we were to come
separately. "Mind," said the letter, "I can make no promises and can give
no reasons; but I will not keep either of you waiting."
Vincent went first. He spent a night at Aveley Hall, as the place was
called. I continued my visit to his people, and awaited his return with
great interest.
He told me what had happened. He had been met at the station by an odd
little trap, had driven up to the house--a biggish place, close to a small
church, on the outskirts of a tiny village. It was dark when he arrived,
and he had found Father Payne at tea with four or five men, in a flagged
hall. There had been a good deal of talk and laughter. "He is a big man,
Father Payne, with a beard, dressed rather badly, like a country squire,
very good-natured and talkative. Everyone seemed to say pretty much what
they liked, but he kept them in order, too, I could see that!" Then he had
been carried off to a little study and questioned. "He simply turned me
inside out," said Vincent, "and I told him all my biography, and everything
I had ever done and thought of. He didn't seem to look at me much, but I
felt he was overhauling me somehow. Then I went and read in a sort of
library, and then we had dinner--just the same business. Then the men
mostly disappeared, and Barthrop carried me off for a talk, and told me a
lot about everything. Then I went to my room, a big, ugly, comfortable
bedroom; and in the morning there was breakfast, where people dropped in,
read papers or letters, did not talk, and went off when they had done. Then
I walked about in a nice, rather wild garden. There seemed a lot of fields
and trees beyond, all belonging to the house, but no park, and only a small
stable, with a kitchen-garden. There were very few servants that I saw--an
old butler and some elderly maids--and then I came away. Father Payne just
came out and shook hands, and said he would write to me. It seemed exactly
the sort of thing I should like. I only hope we shall both get in."
It certainly sounded attractive, and it was with great curiosity that I
went off on the following day, as appointed, for my own interview.