THE SOCIETY OF SIMPLE SOULS
UNDER sunset, at once softer and more sombre, under which the leaden sea
took on a Lenten purple, a tint appropriate to tragedy, Lady Joan Brett
was once more drifting moodily along the sea-front. The evening had been
rainy and lowering; the watering-place season was nearly over; and she
was almost alone on the shore; but she had fallen into the habit of
restlessly pacing the place, and it seemed to satisfy some subconscious
hunger in her rather mixed psychology. Through all her brooding her
animal senses always remained abnormally active: she could _smell_ the
sea when it had ebbed almost to the horizon, and in the same way she
heard, through every whisper of waves or wind, the swish or flutter of
another woman’s skirt behind her. There is, she felt, something
unmistakable about the movements of a lady who is generally very
dignified and rather slow, and who happens to be in a hurry.
She turned to look at the lady who was thus hastening to overtake her;
lifted her eyebrows a little and held out her hand. The interruption was
known to her as Lady Enid Wimpole, cousin of Lord Ivywood; a tall and
graceful lady who unbalanced her own elegance by a fashionable costume
that was at once funereal and fantastic; her fair hair was pale but
plentiful; her face was not only handsome and fastidious in the aquiline
style, but when considered seriously was sensitive, modest, and even
pathetic, but her wan blue eyes seemed slightly prominent, with that
expression of cold eagerness that is seen in the eyes of ladies who ask
questions at public meetings.
Joan Brett was herself, as she had said, a connection of the Ivywood
family; but Lady Enid was Ivywood’s first cousin, and for all practical
purposes his sister. For she kept house for him and his mother, who was
now so incredibly old that she only survived to satisfy conventional
opinion in the character of a speechless and useless _chaperon_. And
Ivywood was not the sort who would be likely to call out any activity in
an old lady exercising that office. Nor, for that matter, was Lady Enid
Wimpole; there seemed to shine on her face the same kind of inhuman,
absent-minded common sense that shone on her cousin’s.
“Oh, I’m so glad I’ve caught you up,” she said to Joan. “Lady Ivywood
wants you _so_ much to come to us for the week-end or so, while Philip
is still there. He always admired your sonnet on Cyprus so much, and he
wants to talk to you about this policy of his in Turkey. Of course he’s
awfully busy, but I shall be seeing him tonight after the meeting.”
“No living creature,” said Lady Joan, with a smile, “ever saw him except
before or after a meeting.”
“Are you a Simple Soul?” asked Lady Enid, carelessly.
“Am I a simple soul?” asked Joan, drawing her black brows together.
“Merciful Heavens, no! What can you mean?”
“Their meeting’s on tonight at the small Universal Hall, and Philip’s
taking the chair,” explained the other lady. “He’s very annoyed that he
has to leave early to get up to the House, but Mr. Leveson can take the
chair for the last bit. They’ve got Misysra Ammon.”
“Got Mrs. Who?” asked Joan, in honest doubt.
“You make game of everything,” said Lady Enid, in cheerless amiability.
“It’s the man everyone’s talking about—_you_ know as well as I do. It’s
really his influence that has _made_ the Simple Souls.”
“Oh!” said Lady Joan Brett.
Then after a long silence, she added: “Who are the Simple Souls? I
should be interested in them, if I could meet any.” And she turned her
dark, brooding face on the darkening purple sea.
“Do you mean to say, my dear,” asked Lady Enid Wimpole, “that you
haven’t met any of them yet?”
“No,” said Joan, looking at the last dark line of sea. “I never met but
one simple soul in my life.”
“But you must come to the meeting!” cried Lady Enid, with frosty and
sparkling gaity. “You must come at once! Philip is certain to be
eloquent on a subject like this, and of course Misysra Ammon is _always_
so wonderful.”
Without any very distinct idea of where she was going or why she was
going there, Joan allowed herself to be piloted to a low lead or tin
shed, beyond the last straggling hotels, out of the echoing shell of
which she could prematurely hear a voice that she thought she
recognised. When she came in Lord Ivywood was on his feet, in exquisite
evening dress, but with a light overcoat thrown over the seat behind
him. Beside him, in less tasteful but more obvious evening dress, was
the little old man she had heard on the beach.
No one else was on the platform, but just under it, rather to Joan’s
surprise, sat Miss Browning, her old typewriting friend in her old black
dress, industriously taking down Lord Ivywood’s words in shorthand. A
yard or two off, even more to her surprise, sat Miss Browning’s more
domestic sister, also taking down the same words in shorthand.
“That is Misysra Ammon,” whispered Lady Enid, earnestly, pointing a
delicate finger at the little old man beside the chairman.
“I know him,” said Joan. “Where’s the umbrella?”
“... at least evident,” Lord Ivywood was saying, “that one of those
ancestral impossibilities is no longer impossible. The East and the West
are one. The East is no longer East nor the West West; for a small
isthmus has been broken, and the Atlantic and Pacific are a single sea.
No man assuredly has done more of this mighty work of unity than the
brilliant and distinguished philosopher to whom you will have the
pleasure of listening tonight; and I profoundly wish that affairs more
practical, for I will not call them more important, did not prevent my
remaining to enjoy his eloquence, as I have so often enjoyed it before.
Mr. Leveson has kindly consented to take my place, and I can do no more
than express my deep sympathy with the aims and ideals which will be
developed before you tonight. I have long been increasingly convinced
that underneath a certain mask of stiffness which the Mahomedan religion
has worn through certain centuries, as a somewhat similar mask has been
worn by the religion of the Jews, Islam has in it the potentialities of
being the most progressive of all religions; so that a century or two to
come we may see the cause of peace, of science and of reform everywhere
supported by Islam as it is everywhere supported by Israel. Not in vain,
I think, is the symbol of that faith the Crescent, the growing thing.
While other creeds carry emblems implying more or less of finality, for
this great creed of hope its very imperfection is its pride, and men
shall walk fearlessly in new and wonderful paths, following the
increasing curve which contains and holds up before them the eternal
promises of the orb.”
It was characteristic of Lord Ivywood that, though he was really in a
hurry, he sat down slowly and gravely amid the outburst of applause. The
quiet resumption of the speaker’s seat, like the applause itself, was an
artistic part of the peroration. When the last clap or stamp had
subsided, he sprang up alertly, his light great-coat over his arm, shook
hands with the lecturer, bowed to the audience and slid quickly out of
the hall. Mr. Leveson, the swarthy young man with the drooping
double-eyeglass rather bashfully to the front, took the empty seat on
the platform, and in a few words presented the eminent Turkish mystic
Misysra Ammon, sometimes called the Prophet of the Moon.
Lady Joan found the Prophet’s English accent somewhat improved by good
society, but he still elongated the letter “u” in the same bleating
manner, and his remarks had exactly the same rabidly wrong-headed
ingenuity as his lecture upon English inns. It appeared that he was
speaking on the higher Polygamy; but he began with a sort of general
defence of the Moslem civilisation, especially against the charge of
sterility and worldly ineffectiveness.
“It iss joost in the practical tings,” he was saying, “it iss joost in
the practical tings, if you could come to consider them in a manner
quite equal, that our methods are better than your methods. My ancestors
invented the curved swords, because one cuts better with a curved sword.
Your ancestors possessed the straight swords out of some romantic fancy
of being what you call straight; or, I will take a more plain example,
of which I have myself experience. When I first had the honour of
meeting Lord Ivywood, I was unused to your various ceremonies and had a
little difficulty, joost a little difficulty, in entering Mr. Claridge’s
hotel, where his lordship had invited me. A servant of the hotel was
standing joost beside me on the doorstep. I stoo-ooped down to take off
my boo-oots, and he asked me what I was dooing. I said to him: ‘My
friend, I am taking off my boo-oots.’”
A smothered sound came from Lady Joan Brett, but the lecturer did not
notice it and went on with a beautiful simplicity.
“I told him that in my country, when showing respect for any spot, we do
not take off our hats; we take off our boo-oots. And because I would
keep on my hat and take off my boo-oots, he suggested to me that I had
been afflicted by Allah, in the head. Now was not that foony?”
“Very,” said Lady Joan, inside her handkerchief, for she was choking
with laughter. Something like a faint smile passed over the earnest
faces of the two or three most intelligent of the Simple Souls, but for
the most part the Souls seemed very simple indeed, helpless looking
people with limp hair and gowns like green curtains, and their dry faces
were as dry as ever.
“But I explained to him. I explained to him for a long time, for a
carefully occupied time, that it was more practical, more business-like,
more altogether for utility, to take off the boo-oots than to remove the
hat. ‘Let us,’ I said to him ‘consider what many complaints are made
against the footwear, what few complaints against the headwear. You
complain if in your drawing-rooms is the marching about of muddy
boo-oots. Are any of your drawing-rooms marked thus with the marching
about of muddy hats? How very many of your husbands kick you with the
boo-oot! Yet how few of your husbands on any occasion butt you with the
hat?’”
He looked round with a radiant seriousness, which made Lady Joan almost
as speechless for sympathy as she was for amusement. With all that was
most sound in his too complicated soul she realized the presence of a
man really convinced.
“The man on the doorstep, he would not listen to me,” went on Misysra
Ammon, pathetically. “He said there would be a crowd if I stood on the
doorstep, holding in my hand my boo-oots. Well, I do not know why, in
your country you always send the young males to be the first of your
crowds. They certainly were making a number of noises, the young males.”
Lady Joan Brett stood up suddenly and displayed enormous interest in the
rest of the audience in the back parts of the hall. She felt that if she
looked for one moment more at the serious face with the Jewish nose and
the Persian beard, she would publicly disgrace herself; or, what was
quite as bad (for she was the generous sort of aristocrat) publicly
insult the lecturer. She had a feeling that the sight of all the Simple
Souls in bulk might have a soothing effect. It had. It had what might
have been mistaken for a depressing effect. Lady Joan resumed her seat
with a controlled countenance.
“Now, why,” asked the Eastern philosopher, “do I tell so simple a little
story of your London streets—a thing happening any day? The little
mistake had no preju-udicial effect. Lord Ivywood came out, at the end.
He made no attempt to explain the true view of so important matters to
Mr. Claridge’s servant, though Mr. Claridge’s servant remained on the
doorstep. But he commanded Mr. Claridge’s servant to restore to me one
of my boo-oots, which had fallen down the front steps, while I was
explaining this harmlessness of the hat in the home. So all was, for me,
very well. But why do I tell such little tales?”
He spread out his hands again, in his fanlike eastern style. Then he
clapped them together, so suddenly that Joan jumped, and looked
instinctively for the entrance of five hundred negro slaves, laden with
jewels. But it was only his emphatic gesture of eloquence. He went on
with an excited thickening of the accent.
“Because, my friends, this is the best example I could give of the wrong
and slanderous character of the charge that we fail in our
domesticities. That we fail especially in our treatment of the
womenkind. I appeal to any lady, to any Christian lady. Is not the
boo-oot more devastating, more dreaded in the home than the hat? The
boot jumps, he bound, he run about, he break things, he leave on the
carpet the earths of the garden. The hat, he remain quiet on his
hat-peg. Look at him on his hat-peg; how quiet and good he remain! Why
not let him remain quiet also on his head?”
Lady Joan applauded warmly, as did several other ladies, and the sage
went on, encouraged.
“Can you not therefore trust, dear ladies, this great religion to
understand you concerning other things, as it understands you regarding
boo-oots? What is the common objection our worthy enemies make against
our polygamy? That it is disdainful of the womanhood. But how can this
be so, my friends, when it allows the womanhood to be present in so
large numbers? When in your House of Commons you put a hundred English
members and joost one little Welsh member, you do not say ‘The Welshman
is on top; he is our Sultan; may he live for ever!’ If your jury
contained eleven great large ladies and one leetle man you would not say
‘this is unfair to the great large ladies.’ Why should you shrink, then,
ladies, from this great polygamical experiment which Lord Ivywood
himself—”
Joan’s dark eyes were still fixed on the wrinkled, patient face of the
lecturer, but every word of the rest of the lecture was lost to her.
Under her glowing Spanish tint she had turned pale with extraordinary
emotions, but she did not stir a hair.
The door of the hall stood open, and occasional sounds came even from
that deserted end of the town. Two men seemed to be passing along the
distant parade; one of them was singing. It was common enough for
workmen to sing going home at night, and the voice, though a loud one,
would have been too far off for Joan to hear the words. Only Joan
happened to know the words. She could almost see them before her,
written in a round swaggering hand on the pink page of an old
school-girl album at home. She knew the words and the voice.
“I come from Castlepatrick and my heart is on my sleeve,
And any sword or pistol boy can hit ut with me leave,
It shines there for an epaulette, as golden as a flame,
As naked as me ancestors, as noble as me name.
For I come from Castlepatrick and my heart is on my sleeve,
But a lady stole it from me on St. Gallowglass’s Eve.”
Startlingly and with strong pain there sprang up before Joan’s eyes a
patch of broken heath with a very deep hollow of white sand, blinding in
the sun. No words, no name, only the place.
“The folks that live in Liverpool, their heart is in their boots;
They go to Hell like lambs, they do, because the hooter hoots.
Where men may not be dancin’, though the wheels may dance all day;
And men may not be smokin’, but only chimneys may.
But I come from Castlepatrick and my heart is on my sleeve,
But a lady stole it from me on St. Poleyander’s Eve.
“The folks that live in black Belfast, their heart is in their mouth;
They see us making murders in the meadows of the South;
They think a plough’s a rack they do, and cattle-calls are creeds,
And they think we’re burnin’ witches when we’re only burnin’ weeds.
But I come from Castlepatrick, and me heart is on me sleeve;
But a lady stole it from me on St. Barnabas’s Eve.”
The voice had stopped suddenly, but the last lines were so much more
distinct that it was certain the singer had come nearer, and was not
marching away.
It was only after all this, and through a sort of cloud, that Lady Joan
heard the indomitable Oriental bringing his whole eloquent address to a
conclusion.
“... And if you do not refu-use the sun that returns and rises in the
East with every morning, you will not refu-use either this great social
experiment, this great polygamical method which also arose out of the
East, and always returns. For this is that Higher Polygamy which always
comes, like the sun itself, out of the orient, but is only at its
noontide splendour when the sun is high in heaven.”
She was but vaguely conscious of Mr. Leveson, the man with the dark face
and the eyeglasses, acknowledging the entrancing lecture in suitable
terms, and calling on any of the Simple Souls who might have questions
to ask, to ask them. It was only when the Simple Souls had displayed
their simplicity with the usual parade of well-bred reluctance and fussy
self-effacement, that anyone addressed the chair. And it was only after
somebody had been addressing the chair for some time that Joan gradually
awoke to the fact that the address was somewhat unusual.
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