THE decree had gone forth, and Dacre was to go to Eton. Ancestral taint
and sisterly guile had won the day, though not without a tough struggle.
The idea of home culture, vague and ill-defined as it was, died hard,
and Mr. and Mrs. Waring still bemoaned their fate daily in the intervals
of work.
They were now much disturbed in their minds concerning the plan of
religion which they had conceived in the tender youth of their
offspring, and which had been worked up to with rather more consistency
than usually characterized those plans of theirs that dealt with outside
and minor matters.
That it should have occurred to Henry and Grace Waring was the most
remarkable part of this plan. They both looked upon religion as they did
upon art, as a thing apart and on a somewhat low level, to be considered
in leisure hours. In some phases of mind they might indeed almost have
been said to glory in it, and to rejoice that the ages should own such a
heritage, just as one might rejoice in the work of a great master.
They were, of course, both too appreciative of good literature to have
neglected the Bible, they knew every twist and turn in it as they did of
the Koran and the Brahminic Vedas.
As for doubts and things of that sort, they never, so to speak, went in
for them, their minds were not of that order. In the same way the truths
or the untruths of Christianity seemed to them an interesting enough
study between working hours. In Mrs. Waring’s case, perhaps, they
appealed fitfully to some part of herself she never quite understood,
that same sentimental part that often suffered a keen stab,—for instance
in the case of the Rectory babies, and sometimes from a strange look in
Gwen’s face. But she had almost ceased to speculate upon these odd
sensations, and was inclined to put them down to a strain of puritan
blood that had somehow trickled into the more vigorous fluid of her
fighting forbears, which perhaps might almost account for her preference
for Christianity over other creeds.
It will be seen then that the reception or rejection of Christianity by
their children, was a matter of no vital importance to these parents.
They were, however, intensely interested in the result itself, that was
quite another thing; the phases of mind the function must unfold seemed
certainly a subject worth research, and filled them with the keenest
interest.
“You are quite sure, dearest,” said Mr. Waring, a few days before
Dacre’s departure was to take place, “that Mary has not tampered with
the minds of our children.”
“I am certain, quite certain. She has certainly seemed to resent my
orders in this matter, but she has not disobeyed them.”
Mrs. Waring sat down and tried to take up the thread of her thoughts,
but it was broken again in a minute by Mr. Waring pushing back his chair
suddenly and looking at her in a disturbed restless way. She went over,
laid her hand on his shoulder, and looked anxiously into his face.
“Are you troubled, love, can I not help you?”
“I should be glad, my Grace, if I felt more convinced that the minds of
our children are really a blank as far as any knowledge of religion
goes.”
“I am sure Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes——”
“Dearest, the idea is revolting! Fellowes, a gentleman! And his wife!
She is your friend, that is sufficient.” He bowed as his grandfather,
the courtliest man in a courtly court might have done. “But I fear that
when very young the children may have received foreign impressions, the
class that people the stable-yard are often quite versed in what they
term ‘the truths of the Gospel’.”
“But so long ago?”
“Not so very long after all, and impressions are most tenacious things,
more especially erroneous ones. Does the fact not hamper us daily,
dearest? Even this moment,” he went on musingly, “after all these years,
I can recollect praying at my mother’s knee with a quite astonishing
fervour, which now seems next to reasonless, and yet I doubt if the
impression of that fervour will ever leave me.”
“We can only hope, dearest,” she said.
Her husband’s fear depressed her, she was feeling just then, and rather
to her cost, how very remarkably clinging old impressions were. They
were hovering round her at that very moment and entwining her in a maze
of the old dead visions of dead days, when she was a child herself and
wore long lawn nightgowns with frilled sashes, and said prayers. She
went over to the fire to make it up and ended by putting it out.
“Oh, Henry,” she said at last, from the hearthrug, shivering a little,
“what if, after all, we might just as well have allowed our children to
run along the common groove like those very fat children of Mrs.
Manners’,—they seem wholesome and not devoid of intelligence. And then
they are handsome and well grown, yet the boy is ten and not even in
Latin; Mrs. Manners considers that in ten years the fact will make no
difference in his career. On the contrary, look at Dacre, think of the
load of anxiety and thought we have expended upon him and yet——” She
broke off sadly.
Her husband regarded her for a minute with sympathizing eyes.
“Dearest,” he said at last softly, “you are apt to forget the fact that
our poor Dacre is—I hate to hurt you, dear, but you know it—he is most
unfortunately a throwing-back, and must follow the fate of his kind. He
must enter the army,—it is deplorable, but so it must be.”
“The army!” murmured the small woman wringing her hands softly, “it is
sad, it is hard on us. I do think, dearest, we might have been more
successful in our children.”
“Our child,” interrupted her husband.
Her eyes clouded and she repeated hesitatingly, “Yes, our child—Gwen’s
abilities are considerable.”
“Yes,” said her father with unmixed satisfaction, “my hopes rest on
Gwen, her abilities are indeed most gratifying.”
For one fleeting moment, which she blotted from her memory with shame,
her mother almost wished they weren’t; she might then be easier to get
some knowledge of, and not be quite so alarming.