A very quiet evening followed. A bell rang out above the roof at 8.15. I
went down to the hall, where the men assembled. Father Payne came in. He
had changed his clothes, and was wearing a dark, loose-fitting suit, which
became him well--he always looked at home in his clothes. The others wore
similar suits or smoking jackets. Father Payne appeared abstracted, and
only gave me a nod. A gong sounded, and he marched straight out through a
door by the fireplace into the dining-room.
The dining-room was a rather grand place, panelled in dark wood, and with a
few portraits. At each end of the room was a section cut off from the
central portion by an oak column on each side. Three windows on one side
looked into the garden. It was lighted by candles only. We were seven in
all, and I sate by Father Payne. Dinner was very plain. There was soup, a
joint with vegetables, and a great apple-tart. The things were mostly
passed about from hand to hand, but the old butler kept a benignant eye
upon the proceedings, and saw that I was well supplied. There was a good
and simple claret in large flat-bottomed decanters, which most of the men
drank. There was a good deal of talk of a lively kind. Father Payne was
rather silent, though he struck in now and then, but his silence imposed no
constraint on the party. He was pressed to tell a story for my benefit,
which he did with much relish, but briefly. I was pleased at the simplicity
of it all. There was only one man who seemed a little out of tune--a
clerical-looking, handsome fellow of about thirty, called Lestrange, with
an air of some solemnity. He made remarks of rather an earnest type, and
was ironically assailed once or twice. Father Payne intervened once, and
said: "Lestrange is perfectly right, and you would think so too, if only he
could give what he said a more secular twist. 'Be soople in things
immaterial,' Lestrange, as the minister says in _Kidnapped_." "But who
is to judge if it _is_ immaterial?" said Lestrange rather
pertinaciously. "It mostly is," said Father Payne. "Anything is better than
being shocked! It's better to be ashamed afterwards of not speaking up than
to feel you have made a circle uncomfortable. You must not rebuke people
unless you really hate doing it. If you like doing it, you may be pretty
sure that it is vanity; a Christian ought not to feel out of place in a
smoking-room!"
The whole thing did not take more than three-quarters of an hour. Coffee
was brought in, very strong and good. Some of the party went off, and
Father Payne disappeared. I went to the smoking-room with two of the men,
and we talked a little. Finally I went away to my room, and tried to commit
my impressions of the whole thing to my diary before I went to bed. It
certainly seemed a happy life, and I was struck with the curious mixture of
freedom, frankness, and yet courtesy about the whole. There was no
roughness or wrangling or stupidity, nor had I any sense either of
exclusion, or of being elaborately included in the life of the circle. I
would call the atmosphere brotherly, if brotherliness did not often mean
the sort of frankness which is so unpleasant to strangers. There certainly
was an atmosphere about it, and I felt too that Father Payne, for all his
easiness, had somehow got the reins in his hands.
The next morning I went down to breakfast, which was, I found, like
breakfast at a club, as Vincent had said. It was a plain meal--cold bacon,
a vast dish of scrambled eggs kept hot by a spirit lamp and a hot-water
arrangement. You could make toast for yourself if you wished, and there was
a big fresh loaf, with excellent butter, marmalade, and jam--not an ascetic
breakfast at all. There were daily papers on the table, and no one talked.
I did not see Father Payne, who must have come in later.
After breakfast, Barthrop showed me the rooms of the house. The library was
fitted up with bookshelves and easy-chairs for reading, with a big round
oak table in the centre. The floor was of stained oak boards and covered
with rugs. There was also a capacious smoking-room, and I learned that
smoking was not allowed elsewhere. It was, in fact, a solid old family
mansion of some dignity. There were three or four oil paintings in all the
rooms, portraits and landscapes. The general tone of decoration was
dark--red wall-papers and fittings stained brown. It was all clean and
simple, and there was a total absence of ornament, I went and walked in the
garden, which was of the same very straightforward kind--plain grass,
shrubberies, winding paths, with comfortable wooden seats in sheltered
places; one or two big beds, evidently of old-fashioned perennials, and
some trellises for ramblers. The garden was adjoined by a sort of
wilderness, with big trees and ground-ivy, and open spaces in which
aconites and snowdrops were beginning to show themselves. Father Payne, I
gathered, was fond of the garden and often worked there; but there were no
curiosities--it was all very simple. Beyond that were pasture-fields, with
a good many clumps and hedgerow trees, running down to a stream, which had
been enlarged into a deep pool at one place, where there was a timbered
bathing-shed. The stream fed, through little sluices, a big, square pond,
full, I was told, in summer of bulrushes and water-lilies. I noticed a
couple of lawn-tennis courts, and there was a bowling-green by the house.
Then there was a large kitchen-garden, with standards and espaliers, and
box-edged beds. The stables, which were spacious, contained only a pony and
the little cart I had driven up in, and a few bicycles. I liked the solid
air of the big house, which had two wings at the back, corresponding to the
wings in front; the long row of stone pedimented windows, with heavy white
casements, was plain and stately, and there were some fine magnolias and
wisterias trained upon the walls. It all looked stately, and yet home-like;
there was nothing neglected about it, and yet it looked wholesomely left
alone; everything was neat, but nothing was smart.
I was strolling about, enjoying the gleams of bright sunshine and the cold
air, when I saw Father Payne coming down the garden towards me. He gave me
a pleasant nod: I said something about the beauty of the place; he smiled,
and said "Yes, it is the kind of thing I like--but I am so used to it that
I can hardly even see it! That's the worst of habit; but there is nothing
about the place to get on your nerves. It's a well-bred old house, I think,
and knows how to hold its tongue, without making you uncomfortable," Then
he went on presently: "You know how I came by it? It's an odd story. It had
been in my family, till my grandfather left it to his second wife, and cut
my father out. There was a son by the second wife, who was meant to have
it; but he died, and it went to a brother of the second wife, and his widow
left it back to me. It was an entire surprise, because I did not know her,
and the only time I had ever seen the house was once when I came down on
the sly, just to look at the old place, little thinking I should ever come
here. She had some superstition about it, I fancy! Anyhow, while I was
grubbing away in town, fifteen years ago, and hardly able to make two ends
meet, I suddenly found myself put in possession of it; and though I am
poor, as squires go, the farms and cottages bring me in quite enough to rub
along. At any rate it enabled me to try some experiments, and I have been
doing so ever since. Leisure and solitude! Those are the only two things
worth having that money can buy. Perhaps you don't think there's much
solitude about our life? But solitude only means the power to think your
own thoughts, without having other people's thoughts trailed across the
track. Loneliness is quite a different thing, and that's not wholesome."
He strolled on, looking about him. "Do you ever garden?" he said. "It's the
best fun in the world--making plants do as _you_ like, while all the
time they think they are doing as _they_ like. That's the secret of
it! You can't bully these wild things, but they are very obedient, as long
as they believe they are free. They are like children; they will take any
amount of trouble as long as you don't call it work."
Presently we heard the clatter of hoofs in the stable-yard. "That's for
you!" he said. "Will you go and see that they have brought your things
down? I'll meet you at the door." I went up and found my things had been
packed by the old butler. I gave him a little tip, and he said
confidentially: "I daresay we shall be seeing you back here, sir, one of
these days." "I hope so," I said, to which he replied with a mysterious
wink and nod.
Father Payne shook hands. "Well, good-bye!" he said. "It's good of you to
have come down, and I'm glad to have made acquaintance, whatever
happens--I'll drop you a line." I drove away, and he stood at the door
looking after me, till the little cart drove out of the gate.