DURING the latter part of this discourse Mr. Fellowes had been sorting
the books on the small table, and had them now arranged in two separate
heaps.
Gwen had been gradually edging her chair near Mrs. Fellowes and her face
was alight and eager.
Any new thing is always full of possibilities to a young creature moving
out in all directions after experience. Besides, there was an
undercurrent of quiet anxious affection running all through her father’s
half-incomprehensible speech, that struck her and kept down for the
moment her usual defiant attitude of mind when had up before her
parents.
Dacre’s reflections, whenever the paternal eye was off him, partook of
the most primitive simplicity.
“Thank goodness, I’m out of it. After all, it’s a good thing to be an
ass; and the army, oh golly! I never expected anything so sensible as
that from ’em.”
With that he winked lugubriously in Gwen’s direction and was rather
upset by catching Mr. Fellowes’ eye instead.
“I am quite certain that whatever you and Mrs. Waring have done in this
matter has been done most conscientiously,” said Mr. Fellowes
discreetly. “I am glad you think me capable of teaching your children,
what to my way of thinking is the head and front of all knowledge—the
knowledge of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ—”
Gwen looked at Mr. Fellowes with an astonished eager gaze.
“This all sounds quite good,” she reflected, “but then, is it? Things
are so very different from sounds,—every tutor before he comes, sounds
lovely.”
“But, Mr. Waring,” continued the rector mildly, “if you entrust this
matter to me you must also entrust me with the choosing of the books
bearing on the subject; for instance, I should decidedly reserve this
book, _Lord Amberley_, also this, Renan’s _Life of Jesus_, for that
future period when you intend to give your children the evidences
against Christianity. These, to my mode of thinking, would certainly be
valueless for our purpose.”
“Indeed, Mr. Fellowes, you surprise me!”
He went over and glanced in rather a hurt way at the books, “I consider
that work of Lord Amberley’s a most unimpassioned, useful, and an
eminently trustworthy history of religions. Lord Amberley seems quite of
our way of thinking—my wife’s and mine—for though he theorizes so
little, confining himself chiefly to the recording of facts, yet in the
whole tone of the work, one notices his predilection for that religion
instituted by Christ over other faiths. I must say I should have
considered _that_ book a valuable one in your cult; however, you are a
specialist,” he remarked magnanimously, “we but dabblers in these
matters, therefore we are bound to yield our judgment.
“As for Renan’s _Life_, it appears to me to be a charming composition,
simple, and in style delightful. I should have thought it would have
appealed pleasantly to the childish comprehension; however, as you
object, with, no doubt, full and sufficient ground for your objections,
we will leave the matter entirely in your hands and in those of your
dear wife,” he added with a stiff bow in her direction, “a most
excellent helpmeet in this as in all other things.”
“Oh, Mr. Waring, please don’t imagine that I meddle in all my husband’s
business!” cried Mrs. Fellowes, half-amused and half-angry; it was too
abominable to be made a sort of co, or under-curate to her husband, even
by this pair of curiosities. “I should never dream of interfering in the
religious instruction of anyone, either young or old; and if I had any
mind to, I assure you my husband would soon strangle that tendency in
me.”
“Oh dear me!” murmured Mr. Waring, “we always act so much together that
I never thought of interference in such a connection; pray excuse me,
dear Mrs. Fellowes,” he entreated nervously.
Mrs. Fellowes could have slain him and herself. She kept her eyes
carefully turned from her husband but she felt his silent malicious
laughter to the very tips of her fingers.
“Mr. Waring, there is nothing whatever to excuse, it is only a little
silly clerical point of etiquette. You have no idea how the clerical
mind runs to trifles, I am only beginning to get any correct notions and
I have been studying it now over eight years. It is much more
interesting than geology,” she continued, turning to Mrs. Waring and
awakening her out of her reverie, “and requires quite as much hammering
to get anything worth having out of it. John quite agrees with me.”
“Ah, Mrs. Fellowes, it is so easy for you to see fun in things,” said
Mrs. Waring in a pretty wistful way; “it is quite a gift, I fear it has
not been bestowed upon me.”
“Good gracious, I should think it hadn’t!” said Mrs. Fellowes to
herself, “if you had a spark of it you’d keep him in his right mind as
well as yourself.”
“Don’t you think Dacre looks rather idiotic?” whispered Gwen suddenly.
He certainly did, with his mouth ajar and the bright red tip of his
tongue visible through his teeth.
“They always have that effect upon him,” continued Gwen, “a frequent
course of it would very soon land him in an idiot asylum.”
“Hush, dear!”
Mr. Waring seemed now ill at ease and not at all satisfied at the way
things were shaping. The affair was missing fire both for him and for
his wife; they wanted, so to speak, a thorough microscopic examination
of their children; they wanted them then and there put out on the table
and carefully gone over as a preliminary proceeding, even if as yet no
final and systematic classification of their contents could be
attempted.
Where was the result of research to come in if the one was to be shipped
off to school the very next day, and the other to be turned over to Mr.
Fellowes? Mrs. Waring’s mind also ran in this groove.
“Will there not be an examination now at once?” she asked in pained
surprise. “I quite understood this was our arrangement.”
“I too, dear love; we must discuss the matter. Mr. Fellowes,—ahem, my
wife and I thought it might be as well to examine the state of our
children’s minds now at once; it seems important to ascertain clearly
how far our plans have been successful, and in this we might be of some
help to you.”
Mr. Fellowes looked gravely annoyed. Dacre started violently and nearly
took the tip off his tongue, and Gwen’s face fell; she straightened
herself and a transfiguration fell upon her, her mouth hardened, her
colour faded to a dull gray, and her eyes took on the masked look that
Mrs. Fellowes so detested to see.
“Always the same!” she muttered, “always the same! I was beginning to
think that with Dacre going to school and everything we might be let off
and have tea instead. Look, there it is getting stone cold, they’ve
clean forgotten it! I never can answer a word when they question me,
it’s beastly unfair to force one into looking like a fool when one
isn’t. Dacre, of course, might be a cabbage this minute—look at him!
They treat one’s brains like puppets to dance when they whistle!”
“Gwen, dear Gwen, you let your tongue go mad!”
Gwen winced, she prided herself a good deal on her strength and
reticence.
“As for the examination, it is quite natural your father and mother
should arrive at some idea of your state of mind, and as they start on
the premise that you know nothing they won’t expect you to shine.”
“You don’t know,” said the girl surlily, “one can’t argue from
experience with regard to them ever, they are as reasonless and as
unjust in their expectations as they are in everything.”
“Gwen, I am ashamed of you, you are unjust and no one else, and rather
rude seeing that any questions you have to answer will be asked by Mr.
Fellowes. Now listen, either your father or my husband is going to
speak.”
“Your father and mother,” said Mr. Fellowes coming over and standing so
that he could watch both of the children, “have asked me to put a few
simple questions to you.”
The countenances of Mr. and Mrs. Waring fell visibly, this informal,
good-humoured, casual way of carrying on, was not the sort of thing they
had expected.
“One should make a speciality of every form of knowledge, however
trivial,” said Mr. Waring in a low voice, “we should have put ourselves
in a position to be competent personally to conduct this affair.”
His wife looked comprehension, and clasped his hand a trifle harder.
No one but themselves and possibly their Creator had any idea of the
amount this unfortunate couple had to endure.
“If I ask you anything,” went on the rector, “and you can’t answer it,
you mustn’t mind, for as you just now heard from your father you are not
expected to know anything definitely.”
Gwen looked up with a quick sarcastic question in her face.
Mr. Fellowes laughed. “You think in that case I had better hold my
tongue; well, perhaps I had, but even if one gains no absolute knowledge
of the question asked, from the answers to it, one sometimes finds out
other things just as useful. In your classical readings you came across
many allusions to the gods of Greece and Rome, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” they assented. “That wasn’t much of a poser,” reflected Dacre
glibly.
“On the whole what did you think of them?”
“They were pretty mean,” said Dacre with conviction.
“They were just like other people, only stronger, and better looking,
and bigger,” said Gwen.
“Would you be inclined to think any one of them capable of any great or
stupendous work?”
“Goodness no!” said Gwen, “they had a great deal too much to do with
their little things; punishing mortals too, that took up half their
time.”
“Well, then, who do you imagine made the world—have you ever thought on
the subject?”
“This is most distressing,” whispered Mr. Waring, “he seems about to
give all these rank hypotheses as facts—this is childish, unworthy of
Gwen’s intellect!”
“Dear love, you are unfair, there is absolutely nothing proven on either
side.”
“But the counter arguments will not be presented as facts.”
“The religious school has firm convictions and admits no hypotheses, I
have heard. I confess this primitive mode rather interests me; I wonder
what Gwen’s reply will be—hush, here it comes!”
“I never could think of any one person undertaking such a work,” said
she, looking rather interested. “I have always thought it was done by
some ceaseless force, that keeps things wound up.”
“Do you think this force a beneficent one or the contrary?”
“Just as the humour takes it. It seems sometimes quite human in its
tempers and its injustice; rather capricious and old-womanish too,—I
often think that.”
“Why?”
“Why! From the stupid times and places that earthquakes and waterspouts
and things come, they hardly ever burst up or beat down desert islands
or places like that; they always flock to populated places where people
have been working for years to make themselves comfortable, and then all
in a minute their work is undone and they may think themselves lucky if
they aren’t undone altogether. That sort of thing seems reasonless and
like an old woman.”
“Poor little foolish Gwen!” said Mrs. Fellowes, with such a funny look
that Gwen had to laugh.
“When you are older,” said Mr. Fellowes, “and know more, you won’t be so
final in your judgments. I’m going to tell you a fact now, will you
believe it?”
Gwen got scarlet, the question seemed to her a reproach. “Mr. Fellowes,
of course I will!”
“Then, Gwen, incredible as it sounds, a great, a glorious, and an
Almighty God, a Spirit, Who has had neither beginning nor end, made this
world and keeps it going, and He is neither unjust nor unreasonable,
capricious nor an old woman, though,” he continued to the open-eyed
wonder of two in that room, “that you should accredit Him with all of
these rather despicable qualities, does not astonish me in the least.
Can you take my word for this fact I have told you? If you can’t, say
so; I need not ask you, however, you will be honest,” he added with a
little amused laugh.
“It sounds rather queer and mixed up, considering things as things are,”
said Gwen quaintly, “but I’d take your word for anything, Mr. Fellowes.”
Just then some unlucky impulse guided her eyes in her mother’s
direction, a little softening towards her had seized on the girl for the
instant and her eyes had followed her thoughts, but they dropped like a
shot, she stiffened, and loosed hold of the piece of Mrs. Fellowes’
dress she had furtively been clinging to. Her mother’s eyes were fixed
on her in a puzzled, uncomprehending, rather disappointed way, horribly
trying to her pride.
“I’ll not say another word, not if they tear me with wild horses!” she
said to herself tragically. “How dare she look at me like that! Now,
Dacre, upon my word, I would not blame her if she did it to him! Dacre,
you look awful!” she whispered viciously, “more beastly than human! Shut
your mouth!”
And not another word could Mr. Fellowes, to his infinite relief, extract
from the girl.
As for the boy he was, on the face of it, hopeless; so in defiance of
and despite the protesting attitude of the harassed parents, the rector
calmly put his foot down and brought this ceremony to a conclusion.
“Mr. Waring,” he said, “I think you must be satisfied that at least we
have fairly virgin soil to work in.”
Mr. Waring mumbled a gentle, “H’m!” He was thoroughly dissatisfied with
the whole business.
“Will you allow Gwen to come to our house,” went on Mr. Fellowes
imperturbably, “every Tuesday and, let me see, every Friday afternoon?”
Gwen flashed a glance of delight on Mrs. Fellowes and across her she
flung a grin of defiance on Dacre.
“And to Dacre, if you will allow me, I will give one or two books to
read when he happens to get time. Story books, Dacre, don’t squirm.”
Mr. and Mrs. Waring again looked with melancholy regret at each other,
then extended the glance to their offspring. When it reached Mr.
Fellowes a slight touch of gentle wrath had flittered into it, but it
was in vain to kick against the pricks, the proceedings were at an end,
and another failure had died and was buried out of their sight.
And then they all drank some cold tea, and little atoms of cake were
presented to the children, with a timid request from their mother to
pick the currants out of them, this bugbear of their infancy still
clinging to the little woman, and the drawing-room twilight was left at
last free to the pair who looked haggard, tired, and frustrated.