CHRISTMAS AT SHAYLOR'S PATCH
On Christmas Eve Winnie had regained her old haven at Shaylor's Patch.
It seemed as restful and peaceful as ever, nay, even to an unusual
degree, for the only other guest was Dennehy, and Dennehy and Alice
(again home for holidays) exercised some restraining force on sceptical
argument. Both father and mother were intent on giving the child 'a good
time,' and Stephen at least could throw himself into a game with just as
much zest as into a dispute or a speculation. Here, too, were holly and
mistletoe; and, if not a snapdragon, yet a Christmas tree and a fine
array of presents, carefully hidden till the morrow. As they had
preceded the Faith, so the old observances survived all doubts about it.
But though the haven was the same, the mariner was in a different case.
When she had come before, Shaylor's Patch had seemed the final end of a
storm-tossed voyage; now it was but a harbour into which her barque put
for a few hours in the course of a journey yet more arduous, a journey
which had little more than begun; the most she could look for was a few
hours of repose, a brief opportunity to rest and refit. Her relation
towards her friends and hosts was changed, as it seemed to her,
profoundly; she looked at Stephen and Tora Aikenhead with new eyes. The
position between them and her was to her feelings almost reversed. They
were no longer the intrepid voyagers to whose stories her ignorance
hearkened so admiringly. In ultimate truth, now newly apparent, they had
made no voyages; from the safe recesses of the haven they did but talk
about the perils of the uncharted sea. She was now the explorer; she was
making the discoveries about which they only gossiped and speculated.
She remembered Mrs. Lenoir's kindly yet half-contemptuous smile over
Stephen's facile theories and easy assurance of his theories' easy
triumph. She was not as Mrs. Lenoir by the difference of many years and
much knowledge; for Mrs. Lenoir still had that same smile for her. None
the less, something of the spirit of it was in her when she came the
second time to Shaylor's Patch.
But she resolved to take her brief rest and be thankful for her respite.
Tora's benignant calm, Stephen's boyish gaiety, the simplicity of the
child, Dennehy's loyal friendship--here were anodynes. For the moment
nothing could be done; why then fret and worry about what to do? And if
she spoke of or hinted at trouble, might it not seem to be in some sense
like imputing a responsibility to her hosts? Yet she was asking much of
herself in this resolve. She could hold her tongue, but she could not
bind her thoughts.
In the morning Dennehy was off early on a five-mile walk to the nearest
town, to hear Mass. The question of attending church Stephen referred to
Alice's arbitrament; she decided in the affirmative.
"Whose turn?" asked Stephen of his wife.
"Mine," said Tora, with the nearest approach to an expression of
discontent that Winnie had ever seen on her face.
Winnie stepped into the breach. "Oh, you look rather tired, and we've a
busy day before us! Let me take Alice." So it was agreed, and Alice ran
off to get ready.
"Do you always leave the question to her?"
"What else could we do? We say nothing against it, but how could we
force her?"
"She's forced at school, I suppose?"
"I don't think any doubts suggest themselves. It's just part of the
discipline. As a fact, I think the child's naturally religious. If
so----" He waved his hands tolerantly.
Winnie laughed. "If so, she'll soon be rather shocked at her parents."
"It's quite arguable, Winnie, that it's a good thing for children to see
their parents doing some things which they would naturally think--or at
any rate be taught to think--wrong. They know by experience that the
parents are on the whole a decent sort--kind and so on--and they learn
not to condemn other people wholesale on the strength of one or two
doubtful or eccentric practices. Do you see what I mean? It promotes
breadth of view."
"I dare say it's arguable--most things are here--but I won't argue it,
or we shall be late for church."
When Godfrey Ledstone attended church with his family on the same day,
he went without any questioning, not conscious of any peculiarity in his
attitude towards the Church, though well aware of what the Church's
attitude would be towards him, if its notice happened to be called to
the facts. What of that? One compromised with the Church just as one
compromised with the world; the code had provisions as applicable to the
one negotiation as to the other. He did not go to church regularly, but,
when he did, he took part in the service with an untroubled
gratification, if not with any particular spiritual benefit. On this
occasion he achieved what was, considering the worries which oppressed
him, a very creditable degree of attention.
Neither was Winnie--in the little church at Nether End--convicted of
sin; after all, that is not the particular note sought to be struck by a
Christmas service--the Church has its seasons. But she was overcome by
an unnerving sense of insignificance. The sermon dwelt on the familiar,
yet ever striking, theme that all over the world, in well-nigh every
tongue, this service was being held in honour of, and in gratitude for,
the great Event of this day. That seemed a tremendous thing to stand up
against. There is majesty in great organizations, be they spiritual or
secular. Are insignificant atoms to flout them? Or can the argument from
insignificance be turned, and the rebel plead that he is so small that
it does not matter what he does? The organizations will not allow the
plea. Insignificant as you are, they answer, little as your puny dissent
affects us, yet it is of bad example, and if you persist in it we will,
in our way, make you unhappy and uncomfortable. Now mankind has been, in
the course of its eventful history, from time to time convinced that
many things do matter and that many do not, and opinions have varied and
shall vary thereanent. But nobody has had any real success in convincing
mankind that it does not matter whether it is happy or not--in the long
run. Mankind is obstinately of the contrary opinion.
At the church door Dennehy was waiting for her and Alice--his Mass heard
and ten good miles of country road behind him; spiritually and
physically fortified. He was not handsome, but middle-age on its
approach found him clean in wind and limb--temperate, kindly (outside
politics), and really intensely happy.
"It's a concession for me to come as far as the door of this place," he
said, smiling. Winnie glanced warningly at Alice. "You needn't mind
her--the poor child hears everything! But it's my belief that Heaven
has made her a fine old Tory, and they can't hurt her."
"You approving of Tories! Mr. Dennehy!" She turned to the child. "You
liked it, Alice?"
"Didn't you hear me singing?" It seemed a good retort. Alice had sung
lustily. She did not seem inclined to talk. She walked beside them in a
demure and absent gravity. Over her head they looked at one another; the
child was thinking of the story of the Child, and finding it not
strange, but natural and beautiful, the greatest of all her beloved
fairy stories--and yet true.
Dennehy gently patted Alice's shoulder. "In God's good time!" he
murmured.
"What do you mean?" Winnie asked, in a low voice.
"True people will find truth, and sweet people do sweet things," he
answered. Then he laughed and snapped his fingers. "And the Divvle take
the rest of humanity!"
"Everybody except the Irish, you mean?"
"I mustn't be supposed to let in Ulster," he warned her with a twinkle.
"But there's an English soul or two I'd save, Mrs. Ledstone."
"I don't like your being false to your convictions. I've one name that
I've not denied and that nobody denies me. It's Winnie."
"Winnie it shall be on my lips too henceforth," he answered. "And I
thank you."
Respect for his convictions? Yes. But there was more behind her
permission, her request. There was a great friendliness, and, with it, a
new sense that 'Mrs. Winifred Ledstone' might prove to be a transitory
being, that the title was held precariously. Why need her chosen friends
be bound to the use of it?
Richard Dennehy was by now one of that small band. He was so loyal and
sympathetic, though he was also very cocksure in his condemnations, and
terribly certain that he and his organization alone had got hold of the
right end of the stick. Yet the cocksureness was really for the
organization only; it left him in himself a humble man, not thinking
himself so clever as the emancipated persons among whom he moved, rather
regretting that such able minds should be so led astray. One habit
indeed he had, of which Stephen Aikenhead would humorously complain; he
used emotion as an argumentative weapon. There are words and phrases
which carry an appeal independent of the validity of the idea they
express, a strength born of memory and association. They can make a man
feel like a child again, or make him feel a traitor, and either against
his reason.
"Spells and incantations I call them," said Stephen, "and I formally
protest against their use in serious discussion."
"And why do you call them that?"
"Because they depend for their effect on a particular form of
words--either a particularly familiar or a particularly beautiful
formula. If you expressed the same idea in different language, its power
would be gone; at least it would seem just as legitimately open to
question as any profane statement that I may happen to make. Now to
depend for its efficacy on the exact formula and not on the force of the
idea is, to my mind, the precise characteristic of a spell, charm, or
incantation, Dick."
"I dare say the holy words make you uncomfortable, my boy!"
"Exactly! And is it fair? Why am I, a candid inquirer, to be made
uncomfortable? Prove me wrong, convince me if you can, but why make me
uncomfortable?"
Winnie, an auditor of the conversation, laughed gently. "I think that's
what you tried to do to me, coming back from church--when you talked
about 'God's good time,' I mean."
Dennehy scratched his head. "I don't do it on purpose. They just come to
my lips. And who knows?--It might be good for you!"
Alice ran in, announcing that it was time for the Christmas tree. Even
at Shaylor's Patch discussion languished for the rest of the day, and
Winnie had her hours of respite.
Indeed, it was a matter of hours only; peace was not to endure for her
even over the Sunday. Early in the morning the maid brought her a
telegram from Godfrey Ledstone: "Caught slight chill. Think better not
travel. Don't interrupt visit. Shall stay Woburn Square.--GODFREY."
It was significant of how far her mind had forecast probabilities that
she brushed aside the excuse without a moment's hesitation. Does an
hour's journey on a mild morning frighten a strong man if he really
wants to go? At any rate Winnie was not inclined to give Godfrey the
benefit of that doubt. He did want to stay in Woburn Square, or he did
not want to come to Shaylor's Patch. Whichever way it was put, it came
to much the same thing. It was another defeat for her, another victory
for the family. And for Mabel Thurseley? That, too, seemed very likely.
Her heart quailed in grief and apprehension, as it looked into a future
forlorn and desolate; but not for a moment did she think of giving up
the struggle. Instead of that, she would fight more resolutely, more
fiercely. This was not the common case of a variable man's affections
straying from one woman to another. She knew that it was his courage
which had failed first, and by its failure undermined the bastion of his
love. He had been ashamed of her first; if he had now ceased--or begun
to cease--to love her, it was because she made him ashamed before his
family and friends, because she put him "in a false position" and made
things awkward and uncomfortable. That he felt like that was in
part--nay, largely--her own fault. Either from mistaken confidence, or
chivalry, or scruple, or a mixture of the three, she had exposed him,
unsupported, to the fullest assault of Woburn Square, and of all it
represented. She had been wrong; she should have stood on her rights and
forbidden him to go there unless she were received also. At the
beginning she could have done it; she ought to have done it. Was it too
late to do it now?
She formed a plan of campaign. She would take him away, put the sea
between him and his people, the sea between him and Mabel Thurseley.
There was money in the till sufficient for a holiday. His very weakness,
his responsiveness to his surroundings, favoured success. He would
recover his courage, and hence-forward a ban should rest on his family
till his family removed its ban from her.
There was no church for her that morning; she was not in the mood.
Stephen had to go, since Tora sophistically maintained that she had
attended by proxy the day before. Winnie strolled with Dick Dennehy,
when he came back from his early expedition.
"It's funny we're such friends, when you think me so wicked," she said.
"You're not wicked, though you may do a wicked thing--through
wrong-headedness."
"You can't understand that I look on myself as Godfrey's wife for all my
life or his."
"Didn't you once think the same about Mr. Maxon?"
"Oh, you really are----!" Winnie laughed irritably.
"And you ran away from him. What happens if Master Godfrey runs away
from you?"
Winnie glanced at him sharply. Rather odd that he should put that
question! Was there any suspicion among her friends, any at Shaylor's
Patch?
"Because," Dennehy continued, "you wouldn't go on from man to man, being
married to each of 'em for life temporarily, would you?"
Winnie laughed, if reluctantly. But there is hardly anything that a
ready disputant cannot turn to ridicule.
"How you try to pin people down!" she complained. "You and your
principles! I know what I should like to see happen, Mr. Dennehy."
"Ah, now--'Dick'--as a mere matter of fairness, Winnie!"
"Well, Dick, what I should just love to see is you in love with somebody
who was married, or had been divorced, or something of that sort, and
see how you'd like your principles yourself." She looked mischievous and
very pretty.
Dennehy shook his head. "We're all miserable sinners. But I don't
believe I'd do it."
"What, fall in love, or give way to it?"
"The latter. The former's out of any man's power, I think."
"What would you do?"
"Emigrate to America."
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire! It's full of divorced people,
isn't it?"
"Not the best Irish society." He laughed. "Well, you're chaffing me."
"Oh no, I'm not. I'm serious. I should like to see the experiment.
Dick, if Godfrey does run away, as you kindly suggest, give me a wide
berth! Oh, is it quite impossible that, if I tried, I might--make you
miserable?"
"If you'll flirt with me after this fashion every time we meet, I'll not
be miserable--I'll be very happy."
"Ah, but that's only the beginning! The beginning's always happy."
The sadness in her voice struck him. "You poor dear! You've had bad
luck, and you've fallen among evil counsellors, in which term, heaven
forgive me, I include my dear friends here at Shaylor's Patch."
"I'll try your principles another way. If you were Godfrey, would you
leave me--now?"
He twisted his moustache and hesitated. "Well, there you have me," he
admitted at last. "If a man does what he did, as a gentleman he must
stand to be damned for it."
"Godfrey's free to go, of course--that's our bargain. But you wouldn't
have made a bargain like that?"
"I would not, Winnie. To do me justice, I believe I'd think it enough to
be ruining one woman, without providing for my liberty to ruin another
as soon as I wanted to."
Winnie laid her hand on his arm for a moment. "How pleasantly we
quarrel!" she said.
"And why wouldn't we?" he asked, with native surprise that a quarrel
should be considered a thing inherently unpleasant. "Ah, here come
Stephen and Alice, back from church! I'll go and run races with her, and
get an appetite for lunch."
Stephen lounged up, his pipe in full blast.
"Stephen, how is it that this old world gets on at all, with everybody
at loggerheads with everybody else?"
"I've often considered that. The solution is economic--purely economic,
Winnie. You see, people must eat."
"So far the Court is with you, Stephen."
"And in anything except a rudimentary state of society they must feed
one another. Because no man has the genius to make for himself all the
things he wants to eat. Consequently--I put the argument summarily--you
will find that, broadly speaking, all the burning and bludgeoning and
fighting, all the killing in short, and equally all the refraining from
killing, are in the end determined by the consideration whether your
action one way or the other will seriously affect your supply of
food--to which, in civilized society, you may add clothes, and so on."
"Does that apply to the persecution of opinions?"
"Certainly it does--usually by way of limitation of killing, though an
exception must be made for human sacrifice. There have been temporary
aberrations of judgment, but, generally speaking, they never killed more
than a decent minimum of any useful heretics--not, anyhow, where secular
statesmen had the last word. They had to make some kind of a show, of
course, to satisfy, as they supposed, their superior officers.
Still--they left a good many Jews, Winnie!"
"Wasn't that the spread of toleration?"
"Certainly--toleration based on food, originally, and afterwards perhaps
reinforced by doubt." He broke into a laugh. "But even to-day I'm hanged
if I'd trust to the doubt without the food!" He beamed on her. "I'll
tell you a secret--religion's all food, Winnie."
Winnie had asked for the exposition--but she had had enough of it. Even
Stephen's last--and rather startling--thesis failed to draw further
inquiries.
"It seems to follow that we oughtn't to keep lunch waiting," she said,
laughing, as she put her arm through his. "I do love Shaylor's Patch,"
she went on, gently patting his arm. "You can always forget yourself and
your troubles by talking nonsense--or sense--about something or other.
If I come to grief again"--her voice shook for an instant--"you'll give
me a shed to lie in here, won't you, Stephen?"
"My poor house is thine, and all that is in it," he answered orientally.
"Yes, in a way I know it is--and so I needn't quite starve," said
Winnie.