I can attempt no sort of chronicle of our days, which indeed were quiet and
simple enough. I have only preserved in my diary the record of a few scenes
and talks and incidents. I will, however, first indicate how our party, as
I knew it, was constituted, so that the record may be intelligible.
First of us came Leonard Barthrop, who was, partly by his seniority and
partly by his temperament, a sort of second-in-command in the house, much
consulted and trusted by Father Payne. He was a man of about thirty-five,
grave, humorous, pleasant. If one was in a minor difficulty, too trivial to
take to Father Payne, it was natural to consult Barthrop; and he sometimes,
too, would say a word of warning to a man, if a storm seemed to be brewing.
It must not be denied that men occasionally got on Father Payne's nerves,
quite unconsciously, through tactlessness or stupid mannerisms--and
Barthrop was able to smooth the situation out by a word in season. He had a
power of doing this without giving offence, from the obvious goodwill which
permeated all he did. Barthrop was not very sociable or talkative, and he
was occupied, I think, in some sort of historical research--I believe he
has since made his name as a judicious and interesting historian; but I
knew little of what he was doing, and indeed was hardly intimate with him,
though always at ease in his company. He was not a man with strong
preferences or prejudices, nor was he in any sense a brilliant or
suggestive writer, I think he had merged himself very much in the life of
our little society, and kept things together more than I was at first
aware.
Then came Kaye, one of the least conspicuous of the whole group, though he
has since become perhaps the best known, by his poems and his beautiful
critical studies in both art and literature. Kaye is known as one of those
rare figures in literature, a creative critic. His rich and elaborate
style, his exquisite sidelights, his poetical faculty of interpretation,
make his work famous, though hardly popular. But I found that he worked
very slowly and even painfully, deliberately secreting his honey, and
depositing it cell by cell. He had a peculiar intimacy with Father Payne,
who treated him with a marked respect. Kaye was by far the most absorbed of
the party, went and came like a great moth, was the first to disappear, and
generally the last to arrive. Neither did he make any attempt at
friendship. He was a handsome and graceful fellow, now about thirty, with a
worn sort of beauty in his striking features, curling hair, long languid
frame, and fine hands. His hands, I used to think, were the most eloquent
things about him, and he was ever making silent little gestures with them,
as though they were accompanying unuttered trains of thought; but he had,
too, a strained and impatient air, as if he found the pursuit of phrases a
wearing and hazardous occupation. I used to feel Kaye the most attractive
and impressive of our society; but he neither made nor noticed any signals
of goodwill, though always courteous and kindly.
Pollard was a totally different man: he was about twenty-eight, and he was
writing some work of fiction. He was a small, sturdy, rubicund creature,
with beady eyes and pink cheeks, cherubic in aspect, entirely good-natured
and lively, full of not very exalted humour, and with a tendency to wild
and even hysterical giggling. I used to think that Father Payne did not
like him very much; but he was a quick and regular worker, and it was
impossible to find fault with him. He was extremely sociable and
appreciative, and I used to find his company a relief from the strain which
at times made itself felt. Pollard had a way of getting involved in absurd
adventures, which he related with immense gusto; and he had a really
wonderful power of description--more so in conversation than in
writing--and of humorous exaggeration, which made him a delightful
companion. But he was never able to put the best of himself into his books,
which tended to be sentimental and even conventional.
Then there was Lestrange; and I think he was the least congenial of the
lot. He was a handsome, rather clerical-looking man of about twenty-eight,
who had been brought up to take orders, and had decided against doing so.
He was very much in earnest, in rather a tiresome way, and his phrases were
conventional and pietistic. I used to feel that he jarred a good deal on
Father Payne, but much was forgiven him because of his musical talents,
which were really remarkable. His organ-playing, with its verve, its
delicacy, and its quiet mastery, was delicious to hear, he was engaged in
writing music mainly, and had a piano all to himself in a little remote
room beyond the dining-room, which looked out to the stable-yard and had
formerly been an estate-office. We used to hear faint sounds wafted down
the garden when the wind was in the west. He was friendly, but he had the
absorption of the musician in his art, which is unlike all other artistic
absorptions, because it seems literally to check the growth of other
qualities and interests. In fact, in many ways Lestrange was like a pious
child. He was apt to be snubbed by Father Payne, but he was wholly
indifferent to all irony. I used to listen to him playing the organ in the
evenings, and a language of emotions and visions certainly streamed from
his fingers which he was never able to put into words. Father Payne treated
him as one might treat an inspired fool, with a mixture of respect and
sharpness.
Then there was Rose, a man of twenty-five, a curious mixture of knowledge,
cynicism, energy, and affectionateness. I found Rose a very congenial
companion, though I never felt sure what he thought, and never aired my
enthusiasms in his presence. He had great aplomb, and was troubled by no
shyness nor hesitation. There was a touch of frostiness at times between
him and Father Payne. Rose was paradoxical and whimsical, and was apt to
support fantastic positions with apparent earnestness. But he was an
extremely capable and sensible man, and had a knack of dropping his
contentiousness the moment it began to give offence. He was by far the most
mundane of us, and had some command of money. I used to fancy that Father
Payne was a little afraid of him, when he displayed his very considerable
knowledge of the world. His father was a wealthy man, a member of
Parliament, and Rose really knew social personages of the day. I doubt if
he was ever quite in sympathy with the idea of the place, but I used to
feel that his presence was a wholesome sort of corrective, like the vinegar
in the salad. I believe he was writing a play, but he has done nothing
since in literature, and was in many ways more like a visitor than an
inmate.
Then came my friend Vincent, a solid, good-natured, hard-working man, with
a real enthusiasm for literature, not very critical or even imaginative,
but with a faculty for clear and careful writing. He was at work on a
realistic novel, which made some little reputation; but he has become
since, what I think he always was meant to be, an able journalist and an
excellent leader-writer on political and social topics. Vincent was the
most interested of all of us in current affairs, but at the same time had a
quiet sort of enthusiasm, and a power of idealising people, ardently but
unsentimentally, which made him the most loyal of friends.
The only other person of whom we saw anything was the Vicar of the
parish--a safe, decorous, useful man, a distant cousin of Father Payne's.
His wife was a good-humoured and conventional woman. Their two daughters
were pleasant, unaffected girls, just come to womanhood. Lestrange
afterwards married one of them.
We were not much troubled by sociabilities. The place was rather isolated,
and Father Payne had the reputation of being something of an eccentric.
Moreover, the big neighbouring domain, Whitbury Park, blocked all access to
north and west. The owner was an old and invalid peer, who lived a very
secluded life and entertained no one. To the south there was nothing for
miles but farms and hamlets, while the only near neighbour in the east was
a hunting squire, who thought Father Payne kept a sort of boarding-house,
and ignored him entirely. The result was that callers were absolutely
unknown, and the wildest form of dissipation was that Pollard and Rose
occasionally played lawn-tennis at neighbouring vicarages.
We were not often all there together, because Father Payne's scheme of
travel was strictly adhered to. He considered it a very integral part of
our life. I never quite knew what his plan was; but he would send a man
off, generally alone, with a solid sum for travelling expenses. Thus
Lestrange was sent for a month to Berlin when Joachim held court there, or
to Dresden and Munich. I remember Pollard and Vincent being packed off to
Switzerland together to climb mountains, with stern injunctions to be
sociable. Rose went to Spain, to Paris, to St. Petersburg. Kaye went more
than once to Italy; but we often went to different parts of England, and
then we were generally allowed to go together; but Father Payne's theory
was that we should travel alone, learn to pick up friends, and to fend for
ourselves. He had acquaintances in several parts of the Continent, and we
were generally provided with a letter of introduction to some one. We had a
fortnight in June and a fortnight at Christmas to go home--so that we were
always away for three months in the year, while Father Payne was apt to
send us off for a week at a time, if he thought we needed a change.
Barthrop, I think, made his own plans, and it was all reasonable enough, as
Father Payne would always listen to objections. Some of us paid for
ourselves on those tours, but he was always willing to supplement it
generously.
It used to be a puzzle to me how Father Payne had the command of so much
money; his estate was not large; but in the first place he spent very
little on himself, and our life was extremely simple. Moreover, I became
aware that some of his former pupils and friends used to send him money at
times for this express purpose.
The staff consisted of the old butler, whose wife was cook. There were
three other maid-servants; the gardener was also coachman. The house was
certainly clean and well-kept; we looked after ourselves to a great extent;
but there was never any apparent lack of money, though, on the other hand,
there was every sign of careful economy. Father Payne never talked about
money. "It's an interesting thing, money," I have heard him say, "and it's
curious to see how people handle it--but we must not do it too much honour,
and it isn't a thing that can be spoken of in general conversation."