A Clergyman's Daughter Page 8

Catholic movement because he thinks they're too fond of ritualism

  for its own sake. And so do I.'

  'Oh, I don't say your father isn't absolutely sound on doctrine--

  absolutely sound. But if he thinks we're the Catholic Church, why

  doesn't he hold the service in a proper Catholic way? It's a shame

  we can't have incense OCCASIONALLY. And his ideas about vestments--

  if you don't mind my saying it--are simply awful. On Easter

  Sunday he was wearing a Gothic cope with a modern Italian lace alb.

  Dash it, it's like wearing a top hat with brown boots.'

  'Well, I don't think vestments are so important as you do,' said

  Dorothy. 'I think it's the spirit of the priest that matters, not

  the clothes he wears.'

  'That's the kind of thing a Primitive Methodist would say!'

  exclaimed Victor disgustedly. 'Of course vestments are important!

  Where's the sense of worshipping at all if we can't make a proper

  job of it? Now, if you want to see what real Catholic worship CAN

  be like, look at St Wedekind's in Millborough! By Jove, they do

  things in style there! Images of the Virgin, reservation of the

  Sacrament--everything. They've had the Kensitites on to them three

  times, and they simply defy the Bishop.'

  'Oh, I hate the way they go on at St Wedekind's!' said Dorothy.

  'They're absolutely spiky. You can hardly see what's happening at

  the altar, there are such clouds of incense. I think people like

  that ought to turn Roman Catholic and have done with it.'

  'My dear Dorothy, you ought to have been a Nonconformist. You

  really ought. A Plymouth Brother--or a Plymouth Sister or whatever

  it's called. I think your favourite hymn must be Number 567, "O my

  God I fear Thee, Thou art very High!"'

  'Yours is Number 231, "I nightly pitch my moving tent a day's march

  nearer Rome!"' retorted Dorothy, winding the thread round the last

  button.

  The argument continued for several minutes while Dorothy adorned a

  Cavalier's beaver hat (it was an old black felt school hat of her

  own) with plume and ribbons. She and Victor were never long

  together without being involved in an argument upon the question of

  'ritualism'. In Dorothy's opinion Victor was a kind to 'go over to

  Rome' if not prevented, and she was very likely right. But Victor

  was not yet aware of his probable destiny. At present the fevers

  of the Anglo-Catholic movement, with its ceaseless exciting warfare

  on three fronts at once--Protestants to right of you, Modernists to

  the left of you, and, unfortunately, Roman Catholics to rear of you

  and always ready for a sly kick in the pants--filled his mental

  horizon. Scoring off Dr Major in the Church Times meant more to

  him than any of the serious business of life. But for all his

  churchiness he had not an atom of real piety in his constitution.

  It was essentially as a game that religious controversy appealed to

  him--the most absorbing game ever invented, because it goes on for

  ever and because just a little cheating is allowed.

  'Thank goodness, that's done!' said Dorothy, twiddling the

  Cavalier's beaver hat round on her hand and then putting it down.

  'Oh dear, what piles of things there are still to do, though! I

  wish I could get those wretched jackboots off my mind. What's the

  time, Victor?'

  'It's nearly five to one.'

  'Oh, good gracious! I must run. I've got three omelettes to make.

  I daren't trust them to Ellen. And, oh, Victor! Have you got

  anything you can give us for the jumble sale? If you had an old

  pair of trousers you could give us, that would be best of all,

  because we can always sell trousers.'

  'Trousers? No. But I tell you what I have got, though. I've got

  a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress and another of Foxe's Book of

  Martyrs that I've been wanting to get rid of for years. Beastly

  Protestant trash! An old Dissenting aunt of mine gave them to me.--

  Doesn't it make you sick, all this cadging for pennies? Now, if

  we only held our services in a proper Catholic way, so that we

  could get up a proper congregation, don't you see, we shouldn't

  need--'

  'That'll be splendid,' said Dorothy. 'We always have a stall for

  books--we charge a penny for each book, and nearly all of them get

  sold. We simply MUST make that jumble sale a success, Victor! I'm

  counting on Miss Mayfill to give us something really NICE. What

  I'm specially hoping is that she might give us that beautiful old

  Lowestoft china tea service of hers, and we could sell it for five

  pounds at least. I've been making special prayers all the morning

  that she'll give it to us.'

  'Oh?' said Victor, less enthusiastically than usual. Like Proggett

  earlier in the morning, he was embarrassed by the word 'prayer'.

  He was ready to talk all day long about a point of ritual; but the

  mention of private devotions struck him as slightly indecent.

  'Don't forget to ask your father about the procession,' he said,

  getting back to a more congenial topic.

  'All right, I'll ask him. But you know how it'll be. He'll only

  get annoyed and say it's Roman Fever.'

  'Oh, damn Roman Fever!' said Victor, who, unlike Dorothy, did not

  set himself penances for swearing.

  Dorothy hurried to the kitchen, discovered that there were only

  five eggs to make the omelettes for three people, and decided to

  make one large omelette and swell it out a bit with the cold boiled

  potatoes left over from yesterday. With a short prayer for the

  success of the omelette (for omelettes are so dreadfully apt to get

  broken when you take them out of the pan), she whipped up the eggs,

  while Victor made off down the drive, half wistfully and half

  sulkily humming 'Hail thee, Festival Day', and passing on his way a

  disgusted-looking manservant carrying the two handleless chamber-

  pots which were Miss Mayfill's contribution to the jumble sale.

  6

  It was a little after ten o'clock. Various things had happened--

  nothing, however, of any particular importance; only the usual

  round of parish jobs that filled up Dorothy's afternoon and

  evening. Now, as she had arranged earlier in the day, she was at

  Mr Warburton's house, and was trying to hold her own in one of

  those meandering arguments in which he delighted to entangle her.

  They were talking--but indeed, Mr Warburton never failed to

  manoeuvre the conversation towards this subject--about the question

  of religious belief.

  'My dear Dorothy,' he was saying argumentatively, as he walked up

  and down with one hand in his coat pocket and the other manipulating

  a Brazilian cigar. 'My dear Dorothy, you don't seriously mean to

  tell me that at your age--twenty-seven, I believe--and with your

  intelligence, you will retain your religious beliefs more or less

  in toto?'

  'Of course I do. You know I do.'

  'Oh, come, now! The whole bag of tricks? All that nonsense that

  you learned at your mother's knee--surely you're not going to

  pretend to me that you still believe in it? But of cou
rse you

  don't! You can't! You're afraid to own up, that's all it is. No

  need to worry about that here, you know. The Rural Dean's wife

  isn't listening, and _I_ won't give the show away.'

  'I don't know what you mean by "all that NONSENSE",' began Dorothy,

  sitting up straighter in her chair, a little offended.

  'Well, let's take an instance. Something particularly hard to

  swallow--Hell, for instance. Do you believe in Hell? When I say

  BELIEVE, mind you, I'm not asking whether you believe it in some

  milk and water metaphorical way like these Modernist bishops young

  Victor Stone gets so excited about. I mean do you believe in it

  literally? Do you believe in Hell as you believe in Australia?'

  'Yes, of course I do,' said Dorothy, and she endeavoured to explain

  to him that the existence of Hell is much more real and permanent

  than the existence of Australia.

  'Hm,' said Mr Warburton, unimpressed. 'Very sound in its way, of

  course. But what always makes me so suspicious of you religious

  people is that you're so deucedly cold-blooded about your beliefs.

  It shows a very poor imagination, to say the least of it. Here am

  I an infidel and blasphemer and neck deep in at least six out of

  the Seven Deadly, and obviously doomed to eternal torment. There's

  no knowing that in an hour's time I mayn't be roasting in the

  hottest part of Hell. And yet you can sit there talking to me as

  calmly as though I'd nothing the matter with me. Now, if I'd

  merely got cancer or leprosy or some other bodily ailment, you'd be

  quite distressed about it--at least, I like to flatter myself that

  you would. Whereas, when I'm going to sizzle on the grid

  throughout eternity, you seem positively unconcerned about it.'

  'I never said YOU were going to Hell,' said Dorothy somewhat

  uncomfortably, and wishing that the conversation would take a

  different turn. For the truth was, though she was not going to

  tell him so, that the point Mr Warburton had raised was one with

  which she herself had had certain difficulties. She did indeed

  believe in Hell, but she had never been able to persuade herself

  that anyone actually WENT there. She believed that Hell existed,

  but that it was empty. Uncertain of the orthodoxy of this belief,

  she preferred to keep it to herself. 'It's never certain that

  ANYONE is going to Hell,' she said more firmly, feeling that here

  at least she was on sure ground.

  'What!' said Mr Warburton, halting in mock surprise. 'Surely you

  don't mean to say that there's hope for me yet?'

  'Of course there is. It's only those horrid Predestination people

  who pretend that you go to Hell whether you repent or not. You

  don't think the Church of England are Calvinists, do you?'

  'I suppose there's always the chance of getting off on a plea of

  Invincible Ignorance,' said Mr Warburton reflectively; and then,

  more confidently: 'Do you know, Dorothy, I've a sort of feeling

  that even now, after knowing me two years, you've still half an

  idea you can make a convert of me. A lost sheep--brand plucked

  from the burning, and all that. I believe you still hope against

  hope that one of these days my eyes will be opened and you'll meet

  me at Holy Communion at seven o'clock on some damned cold winter

  morning. Don't you?'

  'Well--' said Dorothy, again uncomfortably. She did, in fact,

  entertain some such hope about Mr Warburton, though he was not

  exactly a promising case for conversion. It was not in her nature

  to see a fellow being in a state of unbelief without making some

  effort to reclaim him. What hours she had spent, at different

  times, earnestly debating with vague village atheists who could not

  produce a single intelligible reason for their unbelief! 'Yes,'

  she admitted finally, not particularly wanting to make the

  admission, but not wanting to prevaricate.

  Mr Warburton laughed delightedly.

  'You've a hopeful nature,' he said. 'But you aren't afraid, by any

  chance, that I might convert YOU? "The dog it was that died", you

  may remember.'

  At this Dorothy merely smiled. 'Don't let him see he's shocking

  you'--that was always her maxim when she was talking to Mr

  Warburton. They had been arguing in this manner, without coming to

  any kind of conclusion, for the past hour, and might have gone on

  for the rest of the night if Dorothy had been willing to stay; for

  Mr Warburton delighted in teasing her about her religious beliefs.

  He had that fatal cleverness that so often goes with unbelief, and

  in their arguments, though Dorothy was always RIGHT, she was not

  always victorious. They were sitting, or rather Dorothy was

  sitting and Mr Warburton was standing, in a large agreeable room,

  giving on a moonlit lawn, that Mr Warburton called his 'studio'--

  not that there was any sign of work ever having been done in it.

  To Dorothy's great disappointment, the celebrated Mr Bewley had not

  turned up. (As a matter of fact, neither Mr Bewley, nor his wife,

  nor his novel entitled Fishpools and Concubines, actually existed.

  Mr Warburton had invented all three of them on the spur of the

  moment, as a pretext for inviting Dorothy to his house, well

  knowing that she would never come unchaperoned.) Dorothy had felt

  rather uneasy on finding that Mr Warburton was alone. It had

  occurred to her, indeed she had felt perfectly certain, that it

  would be wiser to go home at once; but she had stayed, chiefly

  because she was horribly tired and the leather armchair into which

  Mr Warburton had thrust her the moment she entered the house was

  too comfortable to leave. Now, however, her conscience was

  pricking her. It DIDN'T DO to stay too late at his house--people

  would talk if they heard of it. Besides, there was a multitude of

  jobs that she ought to be doing and that she had neglected in order

  to come here. She was so little used to idleness that even an hour

  spent in mere talking seemed to her vaguely sinful.

  She made an effort, and straightened herself in the too-comfortable

  chair. 'I think, if you don't mind, it's really time I was getting

  home,' she said.

  'Talking of Invincible Ignorance,' went on Mr Warburton, taking no

  notice of Dorothy's remark, 'I forget whether I ever told you that

  once when I was standing outside the World's End pub in Chelsea,

  waiting for a taxi, a damned ugly little Salvation Army lassie came

  up to me and said--without any kind of introduction, you know--

  "What will you say at the Judgement Seat?" I said, "I am reserving

  my defence." Rather neat, I think, don't you?'

  Dorothy did not answer. Her conscience had given her another and

  harder jab--she had remembered those wretched, unmade jackboots,

  and the fact that at least one of them had got to be made tonight.

  She was, however, unbearably tired. She had had an exhausting

  afternoon, starting off with ten miles or so bicycling to and fro

  in the sun, delivering the parish magazine, and continuing with the

  Mothers' Union tea in the hot little wo
oden-walled room behind the

  parish hall. The Mothers met every Wednesday afternoon to have tea

  and do some charitable sewing while Dorothy read aloud to them.

  (At present she was reading Gene Stratton Porter's A Girl of the

  Limberlost.) It was nearly always upon Dorothy that jobs of that

  kind devolved, because the phalanx of devoted women (the church

  fowls, they are called) who do the dirty work of most parishes had

  dwindled at Knype Hill to four or five at most. The only helper on

  whom Dorothy could count at all regularly was Miss Foote, a tall,

  rabbit-faced, dithering virgin of thirty-five, who meant well but

  made a mess of everything and was in a perpetual state of flurry.

  Mr Warburton used to say that she reminded him of a comet--'a

  ridiculous blunt-nosed creature rushing round on an eccentric orbit

  and always a little behind time'. You could trust Miss Foote with

  the church decorations, but not with the Mothers or the Sunday

  School, because, though a regular churchgoer, her orthodoxy was

  suspect. She had confided to Dorothy that she could worship God

  best under the blue dome of the sky. After tea Dorothy had dashed

  up to the church to put fresh flowers on the altar, and then she

  had typed out her father's sermon--her typewriter was a rickety

  pre-Boer War 'invisible', on which you couldn't average eight

  hundred words an hour--and after supper she had weeded the pea rows

  until the light failed and her back seemed to be breaking. With

  one thing and another, she was even more tired than usual.

  'I really MUST be getting home,' she repeated more firmly. 'I'm

  sure it's getting fearfully late.'

  'Home?' said Mr Warburton. 'Nonsense! The evening's hardly begun.'

  He was walking up and down the room again, with his hands in his

  coat pockets, having thrown away his cigar. The spectre of the

  unmade jackboots stalked back into Dorothy's mind. She would, she

  suddenly decided, make two jackboots tonight instead of only one,

  as a penance for the hour she had wasted. She was just beginning

  to make a mental sketch of the way she would cut out the pieces of

  brown paper for the insteps, when she noticed that Mr Warburton had

  halted behind her chair.

  'What time is it, do you know?' she said.

  'I dare say it might be half past ten. But people like you and me

  don't talk of such vulgar subjects as the time.'

  'If it's half past ten, then I really must be going,' said Dorothy.

  I've got a whole lot of work to do before I go to bed.'

  'Work! At this time of night? Impossible!'

  'Yes, I have. I've got to make a pair of jackboots.'

  'You've got to make a pair of WHAT?' said Mr Warburton.

  'Of jackboots. For the play the schoolchildren are acting. We

  make them out of glue and brown paper.'

  'Glue and brown paper! Good God!' murmured Mr Warburton. He went

  on, chiefly to cover the fact that he was drawing nearer to

  Dorothy's chair: 'What a life you lead! Messing about with glue

  and brown paper in the middle of the night! I must say, there are

  times when I feel just a little glad that I'm not a clergyman's

  daughter.'

  'I think--' began Dorothy.

  But at the same moment Mr Warburton, invisible behind her chair,

  had lowered his hands and taken her gently by the shoulders.

  Dorothy immediately wriggled herself in an effort to get free of

  him; but Mr Warburton pressed her back into her place.

  'Keep still,' he said peaceably.

  'Let me go!' exclaimed Dorothy.

  Mr Warburton ran his right hand caressingly down her upper arm.

  There was something very revealing, very characteristic in the way

  he did it; it was the lingering, appraising touch of a man to whom

  a woman's body is valuable precisely in the same way as though it

  were something to eat.

  'You really have extraordinary nice arms,' he said. 'How on earth