That evening after dinner we two were left with Barthrop in the
smoking-room, and we talked freely about Father Payne. Barthrop said that
his past was a little mysterious. "He was at Marlborough, you know, and
Oxford; and after that, he lived in town, took pupils, and tried to
write--but he was not successful, and had much difficulty in getting
along." "What is his line exactly?" said Vincent. "That's just it," said
Barthrop, "he hasn't any line. He has a wide knowledge of things, and is
quicker at picking up the drift of a subject than anyone I know; and he has
a rare power of criticism. But he isn't anything in particular. He can't
write a bit, he is not a speaker, he isn't learned, he can teach able
people, but he couldn't teach stupid men--he hasn't enough patience. I
can't imagine any line of life for which he would be exactly fitted: and
yet he's the biggest person I have ever met; he carries us all along with
him, like a river. You can't resist him, you can't contradict him. That is
the one danger, that he exerts more influence than he knows, so that when
you are with him, it is hard to be quite yourself. But he puts the wind
into your sails; and, my word, he can take it out of your sails, if he
likes! I have only seen him really angry about twice, and then it was
really appalling. Once was when a man lied to him, and once was when a man
was impertinent to him. He simply blasted them with his displeasure--that
is the only word. He hates getting angry--I expect he had a bad temper
once--and he apologises afterwards; but it's no use--it's like a
thunderstorm apologising to a tree which has been struck. I don't think he
knows his strength. He believes himself to be sensitive and weak-willed--I
have heard him say so. The fact is that he dislikes doing an unpleasant
thing or speaking severely; and he will take a lot of trouble to avoid a
scene, or to keep an irritable man in a good temper. But if he lets himself
loose! I can't express to you the sort of terror I have in thinking of
those two occasions. He didn't say very much, but he looked as if he were
possessed by any number of devils."
"He was never married, I suppose?" I said.
"No," said Barthrop, "and yet he seems to make friends with women very
easily--in fact, they tend to fall in love with him, if I may say so. He
has got a beautiful manner with them, and he is simply devoted to children.
You will see that they really rather worship him in the village. He knows
everyone in the place, and never forgets a fact about them."
"What does he _do_ mostly?" I said.
"I really don't know," said Barthrop. "He is rather a solitary man. He very
often has one of us in for an hour in the evening or morning--but we don't
see much of him in the afternoon; he gardens or walks about. He has a quick
eye for things, birds and plants, and so on; and he can find more nests in
an hour than any man I ever saw. Sometimes he will go and shut himself up
in the church--he is rather fond of going to church; he always goes to the
Communion."
"Does he expect us to go?" I said.
"No," said Barthrop. "He rather likes us to go, but he doesn't at all like
us going to please him. 'I want you to want to go,' I heard him say once,
'but I don't want you to go _because_ I want you.' And he has no
particular views, I think, about the whole thing--at least not for other
people."
"Tell me some more about him," I said.
"What is there to say?" said Barthrop. "He is just there--the biggest fact
on the horizon. Oh yes, there is one thing; he is tremendously devoted to
music. We have some music in the evenings very often. You saw the organ in
the gallery--it is rather a fine one, and he generally has someone here who
can play. Lestrange is a first-rate musician. Father Payne can't play
himself, but he knows all about it, and composes sometimes. But I think he
looks on music as rather a dangerous indulgence, and does not allow himself
very much of it. You can see how it affects him. And you mustn't be taken
in by his manner. You might think him heavy and unperceptive, with that
quiet and rather secret eye of his; yet he notices everything, always, and
far quicker than anyone else. But it is hard to describe him, because he
can't do anything much, and you might think he was indolent; and yet he is
the biggest person I have ever seen, the one drawback being that he credits
other people with being big too."
"I notice that you call him 'Father Payne,'" said Vincent. "Does that mean
anything in particular?"
"No," said Barthrop, smiling. "It began as a sort of joke, I believe--but
it seemed to fit him; and it's rather convenient. We can't begin by calling
him 'Payne,' and 'Mr. Payne' is a little formal. Some of the men call him
'sir,' but I think he likes 'Father Payne' best, or simply 'Father,' You
will find it exactly expresses him."
"Yes," I said, "I am sure it does!"
I did not sleep much that night. The great change in my life had all taken
place with such rapidity and ease that I felt bewildered, and the thought
of the time ahead was full of a vague excitement. But most of all the
thought of Father Payne ran in my mind, I regarded him with a singular
mixture of interest, liking, admiration, and dread. Yet he had contrived to
kindle a curious flame in my mind. It was not that I fully understood what
he was working for, but I was conscious of a great desire to prove to him
that I could do something, exhibit some tenacity, approve myself to him. I
wanted to make him retract what he had said about me; and, further on, I
had a dim sense of an initiation into ideas, familiar enough, but which had
only been words to me hitherto--power, purpose, seriousness. They had been
ideas which before this had just vaguely troubled my peace, clouds hanging
in a bright sky. I had the sense that there were some duties which I ought
to perform, efforts to be made, ends to fulfil; but they had seemed to me
expressed in rather priggish phrases, words which oppressed me, and ruffled
the surface of my easy joy. Now they loomed up before me as big realities
which could not be escaped, hills to climb, with no pleasant path round
about their bases. I seemed in sight of some inspiring secret. I could not
tell what it was, but Father Payne knew it, might show it me?
Thus I drowsed and woke, a dozen times, till in the glimmer of the early
light I rose and drew back my curtains. The dawn was struggling up fitfully
in the east, among cloudy bars, tipping and edging them with smouldering
flashes of light, and there was a lustrous radiance in the air. Then, to my
surprise, looking down at the silent garden, pale with dew, I saw the great
figure of Father Payne, bare-headed, wrapt in a cloak, pacing solidly and,
I thought, happily among the shrubberies, stopping every now and then to
watch the fiery light and to breathe the invigorating air--and I felt then
that, whatever he might be doing, he at all events _was_ something, in
a sense which applied to but few people I knew. He was not hard,
unimaginative, fenced in by stupidity and self-righteousness from
unhappiness and doubt, as were some of the men accounted successful whom I
knew. No, it was something positive, some self-created light, some stirring
of hidden force, that emanated from him, such as I had never encountered
before.