Father Payne had been out to luncheon one day with some neighbours. He had
groaned over the prospect the day before, and had complained that such
goings-on unsettled him.
"Well, Father," said Rose at dinner, "so you have got through your ordeal!
Was it very bad?"
"Bad!" said Father Payne, "why should it be bad? I'm crammed with
impressions--I'm a perfect mine of them."
"But you didn't like the prospect of going?" said Rose.
"No," said Father Payne, "I shrank from the strain--you phlegmatic,
aristocratic people,--men-of-the-world, blasés, highly-born and
highly-placed,--have no conception of the strain these things are on a
child of nature. You are used to such things, Rose, no doubt--you do not
anticipate a luncheon-party with a mixture of curiosity and gloom. But it
is good for me to go to such affairs--it is like a waterbreak in a
stream--it aerates and agitates the mind. But _you_ don't realise the
amount of observation I bring to bear on such an event--the strange house,
the unfamiliar food, the new inscrutable people--everything has to be
observed, dealt with, if possible accounted for, and if unaccountable, then
inflexibly faced and recollected. A torrent of impressions has poured in
upon me--to say nothing of the anxious consideration beforehand of topics
of conversation, and modes of investigation! To stay in a new house crushes
me with fatigue--and even a little party like this, which seems, I daresay,
to some of you, a negligible, even a tedious thing, is to me rich in
far-flung experience."
"Mayn't we have the benefit of some of it?" said Rose.
"Yes," said Father Payne, "you may--you must, indeed! I am grateful to you
for introducing the subject--it is more graceful than if I had simply
divested myself of my impressions unsolicited."
"What was it all about?" said Rose.
"Why," said Father Payne, "the answer to that is simple enough--it was to
meet an American! I know that race! Who but an American would have heard of
our little experiment here, and not only wanted to know--they all do
that--but positively arranged to know? Yes, he was a hard-featured man--a
man of wealth, I imagine--from some place, the grotesque and extravagant
name of which I could not even accurately retain, in the State of
Minnesota."
"Did he want to try a similar experiment?" said Barthrop.
"He did not," said Father Payne. "I gathered that he had no such
intention--but he desired to investigate ours. He was full of compliments,
of information, even of rhetoric. I have seldom heard a simple case stated
more emphatically, or with such continuous emphasis. My mind simply reeled
before it. He pursued me as a harpooner might pursue a whale. He had the
whole thing out of me in no time. He interrogated me as a corkscrew
interrogates a cork. That consumed the whole of luncheon. I made a poor
show. My experiment, such as it is, stood none of the tests he applied to
it. It appeared to be lacking in all earnestness and zeal. I was painfully
conscious of my lack of earnestness. 'Well, sir,' he said at the conclusion
of my examination-in-chief, 'I seem to detect that this business of yours
is conducted mainly with a view to your own entertainment, and I admit that
it causes me considerable disappointment.' The fact is, my boys," said
Father Payne, surveying the table, "that we must be more conscious of
higher aims here, and we must put them on a more commercial footing!"
"But that was not all?" said Barthrop.
"No, it was not all," said Father Payne; "and, to tell you the truth, I was
more alarmed by than interested in the Minnesota merchant. I couldn't state
my case--I failed in that--and I very much doubt if I could have convinced
him that there was anything in it. Indeed, he said that my conceptions of
culture were not as clear-cut as he had hoped."
"He seems to have been fairly frank," said Rose.
"He was frank, but not uncivil," said Father Payne. "He did not deride my
absence of definiteness, he only deplored it. But I really got more out of
the subsequent talk. We adjourned to a sort of portico, a pretty place
looking on to a formal garden: it was really very charmingly done--a clever
fake of an, old garden, but with nothing really beautiful about it. It
looked as if no one had ever lived in it, though the illusion of age was
skilfully contrived--old paving-stones, old bricks, old lead vases, but all
looking as if they were shy, and had only been just introduced to each
other. There was no harmony of use about it. But the talk--that was the
amazing thing! Such pleasant intelligent people, nice smiling women,
courteous grizzled men. By Jove, there wasn't a single writer or artist or
musician that they didn't seem to know intimately! It was a literary party,
I gathered: but even so there was a haze of politics and society about
it--vistas of politicians and personages of every kind, all known
intimately, all of them quoted, everything heard and whispered in the
background of events--we had no foregrounds, I can tell you, nothing
second-hand, no concealments or reticences. Everyone in the world worth
knowing seemed to have confided their secrets to that group. It was a
privilege, I can tell you! We simply swam in influences and authenticities.
I seemed to be in the innermost shrine of the world's forces--where they
get the steam up, you know!"
"But who are these people, after all?" said Rose.
"My dear Rose!" said Father Payne. "You mustn't destroy my illusions in
that majestic manner! What would I not have given to be able to ask myself
that question! To me they were simply the innermost circle, to whom the
writers and artists of the day told their dreams, and from whom they sought
encouragement and sympathy. That was enough for me. I stored my memory with
anecdotes and noble names, like the man in _Pride and Prejudice_."
"But what did it all come to?" said Rose.
"Well," said Father Payne, "to tell you the truth, it didn't amount to very
much! At the time I was dazzled and stupefied--but subsequent reflection
has convinced me that the cooking was better than the food, so to speak."
"You mean that it was mostly humbug?" said Rose.
"Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as that," said Father Payne, "but it was
not very nutritive--no, the nutriment was lacking! Come, I'll tell you
frankly what I did think, as I came away. I thought these pretty people
very adventurous, very quick, very friendly. But I don't truly think they
were interested in the real thing at all--only interested in the words of
the wise, and in the unconsidered trifles of the Major Prophets, so to
speak. I didn't think it exactly pretentious--but they obviously only cared
for people of established reputation. They didn't admire the ideas behind,
only the reputations of the people who said the things. They had
undoubtedly seen and heard the great people--I confess it amazed me to
think how easily the men of mark can be exploited--but I did not discern
that they cared about the things represented,--only about the
representatives. The American was different. He, I think, cared about the
ideas, though he cared about them in the wrong way. I mean that he claimed
to find everything distinct, whereas the big things are naturally
indistinct. They loom up in a shadowy way, and the American was examining
them through field-glasses. But my other friends seemed to me to be only
interested in the people who had the entrée, so to speak--the priests of
the shrine. They had noticed everything that doesn't matter about the high
and holy ones--how they looked, spoke, dressed, behaved. It was awfully
clever, some of it; one of the women imitated Legard the essayist down to
the ground--the way he pontificates, you know--but nothing else. They were
simply interested in the great men, and not interested in what make the
great men different from other people, but simply in their resemblance to
other people. Even great people have to eat, you know! Legard himself eats,
though it's a leisurely process; and this woman imitated the way he forked
up a bit, held it till the bit dropped off, and put the empty fork into his
mouth. It was excruciatingly funny--I'll admit that. But they missed the
point, after all. They didn't care about Legard's books a bit--they cared
much more about that funny cameo ring he wears on his tie!"
"It all seems to me horribly vulgar," said Kaye.
"No, it was no more vulgar than a dance of gnats," said Father Payne. "They
were all alive, those people. They were just gnats, now I come to think of
it! They had stung all the great men of the day--even drawn a little
blood--and they were intoxicated by it. Mind, I don't say that it is worth
doing, that kind of thing! But they were having their fun--and the only
mistake they made was in thinking they cared about these people for the
right reasons. No, the only really rueful part of the business was the
revelation to me of what the great people can put up with, in the way of
being fêted, and the extent to which they seem able to give themselves away
to these pretty women. It must be enervating, I think, and even exhausting,
to be so pawed and caressed; but it's natural enough, and if it amuses
them, I'm not going to find fault. My only fear is that Legard and the rest
think they are really _living_ with these people. They are not doing
that; they are only being roped in for the fun of the performance. These
charming ladies just ensnare the big people, make them chatter, and then
get together, as they did to-day, and compare the locks of hair they have
snipped from their Samsons. But it isn't a bit malicious--it's simply
childish; and, by Jove, I enjoyed myself tremendously. Now, don't pull a
long face, Kaye! Of course it was very cheap--and I don't say that anyone
ought to enjoy that sort of thing enough to pursue it. But if it comes in
my way, why, it is like a dish of sweetmeats! I don't approve of it, but it
was like a story out of Boccaccio, full of life and zest, even though the
pestilence was at work down in the city. We must not think ill of life too
easily! I don't say that these people are living what is called the highest
life. But, after all, I only saw them amusing themselves. There were some
children about, nice children, sensibly dressed, well-behaved, full of go,
and yet properly drilled. These women are good wives and good mothers; and
I expect they have both spirit and tenderness, when either is wanted. I'm
not going to bemoan their light-mindedness; at all events, I thought it was
very pleasant, and they were very good to me. They saw I wasn't a
first-hander or a thoroughbred, and they made it easy for me. No, it was a
happy time for me--and, by George, how they fed us! I expect the women
looked after all that. I daresay that, as far as economics go, it was all
wrong, and that these people are only a sort of scum on the surface of
society. But it is a pretty scum, shot with bright colours. Anyhow, it is
no good beginning by trying to alter _them_! If you could alter
everything else, they would fall into line, because they are good-humoured
and sensible. And as long as people are kindly and full of life, I shall
not complain; I would rather have that than a dreary high-mindedness."
Father Payne rose. "Oh, do go on, Father!" said someone.
"No, my boy," said Father Payne, "I'm boiling over with impressions--rooms,
carpets, china, flowers, ladies' dresses! But that must all settle down a
bit. In a few days I'll interrogate my memory, like Wordsworth, and see if
there is anything of permanent worth there!"