The Canon leant back in his chair again with his eyes closed, as though momentarily exhausted by the extraordinary passion with which he had spoken.
So profoundly did Owen Quentillian disagree with his host, that he remained absolutely silent. He reminded himself that since his majority he had sought, voluntarily, only the companionship of those whose views were at least as progressive as his own. He had almost forgotten that those other, older, views existed, were held with a passion of sincerity contrasting oddly with the cool, detached, carefully impersonal logic that was the only attitude contemplated by himself and his kind for the consideration of all problems of ethics, morals, or of Life itself.
No doubt the Canon did not admit the normal evolution of the art of self-sacrifice to be self-advertisement, and held the officious pelican to be the best of birds.
Quentillian, horribly aware of his own priggishness, wanted to reform the whole of the Canon’s philosophy at once.
Nevertheless he retained enough humour to hope that the preposterous desire had not been apparent in his silence.
His eyes met those of Valeria Morchard, and read there amusement, and something not unlike protest.
Lucilla, in her level voice, offered him tea.
“The cup that cheers,” said Mr. Clover in a nervous way.
The ineptitude roused in Quentillian a disproportionate sense of irritation and renewed his old conviction that his nerves were not even yet under his complete control.
As though the Canon, too, were mildly averse from such trivialities, he began to speak again.
“What one feels in the cleverness of the day is the note of ugliness that prevails. Do you not feel that? The sordid, the grotesque, the painful — all, all sought out and dwelt upon. That, we are told, is the new realism. We know, indeed, that there is a sad side to life, but is it realism to dwell only upon one side of the picture? Surely, surely, a sane optimism were the better outlook — the truer realism.”
“You don’t think, then, that the optimism of England is responsible for her present plight, sir?”
Quentillian’s tone was one of respectful suggestion, but he was aware that Val, beside him, had suddenly caught her breath as though at an audacity, and that Flora and Mr. Clover were both gazing anxiously at the Canon.
A flash of lightning shot from those ardent eyes straight into the passionless irony of the younger man’s.
“But for England’s optimism, there would be no England today. It was the spirit of optimism that won the war, Owen.”
A sick recollection of men, armed and disciplined, taking steady aim at other men, standing against a wall to be shot for cowardice or treason, of grey-faced commanders leading those who followed them into certain death, all surged into Quentillian’s rebellious mind. They, the men who had been there, had known better than to prate of optimism.
They had faced facts, had anticipated disaster, had envisaged the worst possibilities, and their pessimism had won the war.
“Are you, too, bitten with the folly of the day?” The Canon’s voice was gentle again, his arm once more laid across Quentillian’s shoulders.
“Did I not hear something about shell-shock, dear fellow? We must have no talk of the war here. Thank God for that He hath brought it to an end. Tell me, dear lad, will you play tennis?”
Bewildered, almost affronted, Quentillian yet agreed to play tennis, feeling himself more like a forward boy, being treated with forbearance, than like a modern intellect illuminating the way of thought for the older generation.
He played with Valeria as his partner, and found the Canon’s eulogy of her service to be entirely justified.
He found an opportunity at the end of the game of expressing his admiration for her play, and she replied, conventionally enough, that she had a great deal of practice.
“There isn’t much else to do,” she added, with a slight grimace.
Under pretext of looking for a distant ball, they continued the conversation.
“If you remember this place at all,” Val said, “you know how dull it is. Just tennis in the summer, and horrible bazaars and jumble sales, and never a new person or a new idea from year’s end to year’s end.”
“It sounds appalling. But, after all, you’re not bound, in the old, antiquated way. You can go away.”
“No I can’t,” she said bluntly. “I did get to France, for six months, during the war, but it was only because it was the war. And even then — oh, well, the sort of letters I got were enough to make me feel that Father really hated my being there.”
Quentillian was genuinely aghast.
“But I thought that sort of attitude had gone out with all the other Victorian traditions. I thought women did what they liked — were as free as men.”
“That’s what it says in the books I read, and what some of the girls I met in France told me. But it isn’t like that here. And one can’t hurt Father. You know what he’s like — so good, and so sensitive, and — and so noble, somehow. He makes modern things seem trivial — vulgar, even.”
“Your father is a reactionary,” said Quentillian kindly, rather as one might say: “Your father is a Hottentot.”
“You mustn’t think that he just wants us to stay at home and arrange the flowers,” Val said. “You know how he always wanted us to have intellectual interests. Oh, Owen, don’t you remember the collections?”
She broke off, and blushed and laughed.
“It seems so very natural — I’ve so often thought of you as Owen.”
“That was very nice of you, Val,” said Quentillian calmly.
He had every intention of retaining his early privileges, where Val was concerned.
“I should like to read some of the things you’ve written,” she said abruptly. “Lucilla reads your articles, and has always admired them.”
It seemed to Quentillian so extremely natural that anybody who read his articles should admire them, that he was conscious of receiving a slight shock when Valeria added:
“I gather that Father wouldn’t like them at all. Lucilla always kept them out of his way.”
“She is devoted to him, I can see that.”
“Yes, of course.”
Something in her voice made him look at her, and she exclaimed, half laughing and half petulant: “We’re all devoted to him, Lucilla and Flossie and I! I didn’t mean the least shadow of a criticism of him. Only that it’s a little difficult, sometimes, to keep up to his level.”
It seemed to Quentillian so monstrous a state of affairs that the Canon’s three daughters should have no worthier aim in life than the one implied, that something of his feeling was reflected in his face, and Valeria on the instant applied herself to looking for the missing ball, found it, and returned to the tea-table and the group there.
The Canon was again speaking, this time to young Cuscaden.
“If it is to be Canada, I believe I could give you one or two introductions that might be of service to you. The Government people, for instance.... I have one or two very good friends amongst them. You are really anxious to leave the Army and try colonization?”
“Quite determined to, sir.”
“Ah, you young fellows, you young fellows! It seems to me that there is none of the spirit of stability that existed in our day! But perhaps the wish to see further afield is a natural one. Certainly, my own greatest regret is that I have had so little time for travelling.”
He turned to Lucilla.
“Your dearest mother and I had planned a visit to Italy the very year that she was taken from us. Well, well! It was not to be. I shall never see the Eternal City now, I imagine, except with the eyes of the mind. Clover, you are amongst those who have seen Rome. Think of it! Seen Rome, where Peter healed and
Paul preached the Gospel, where Laurence and Agnes and Cyprian and countless others were martyred! Tell us something of the Coliseum.”
Mr. Clover did not give the effect of being an eloquent person, but he had evidently been called up
on before by the Canon, and he gave a not unilluminating little description, punctuated, and indeed supplemented, by Canon Morchard’s exhaustive comments.
Quentillian listened in a sort of amazement, not at all untinged by a rather uncertain wonder as to how he should ever sustain his own part in these ingenuous conversations....
The others, he saw, listened, with the possible exception of Lucilla, whose eyes were fixed upon a distant flower-bed.
Captain Cuscaden kept his gaze upon Valeria, but he put in an occasional question, generally upon a subject of architecture. Flora played with a leaf and said nothing at all, and Val, unconsciously, Quentillian felt sure, repeated everything her father said in more colloquial English.
“It amazes me to realize that with a lack of all our modern appliances, such veritable giants of architecture should yet have been raised,” mused the Canon.
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful to think they had none of our machines and things, and yet made those enormous statues and gates and things?” said Val.
“Well for us, indeed, that they did so, my child. Every fresh excavation proves to be a new link with the past.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Clover.
“Yes, all the new things they dig up seem to make a fresh link with those old Roman days,” echoed Val faithfully.
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Clover.
“If any of you young people followed the accounts of the recent Egyptian excavations — Valeria, I think you are our keenest antiquarian — were you not struck by the extraordinary confirmation of Scripture narrative afforded by each fresh discovery?”
This time Mr. Clover only said “Indeed?” and Valeria repeated:
“Yes, it all carried out the things one reads in the Bible, didn’t it?”
“We required no such confirmation, certainly, but it comes to one as a fresh joy, and brings these things home with full force.”
And Mr. Clover, with what Quentillian perversely chose to regard as misplaced ingenuity, once more found a variation of his formula, and remarked, “Indeed, yes.”
On these lines they talked about Egypt.
Then they talked about Rome again.
Then they went back to Egypt.
Quentillian looked at the rebellious profile beneath Val’s shady hat, and came to the conclusion that, whether she fully realized it or not, she was as profoundly bored as himself.
It was Captain Cuscaden who released them from the strain, by rising to take his leave.
“I’m sorry you have not seen Adrian. He will be disappointed to have missed you,” Canon Morchard said courteously. “Another day, when Adrian is at home, you must come over again. He is spending the afternoon with friends at a distance, and will hardly be home before dinner-time. You must come over again.”
“Thank you, sir. I should like to very much.”
Something in the Captain’s prompt reply convinced Quentillian that his acceptance was not merely a conventional one.
“Your motor-bicycle is round by the hall door,” said Valeria, and she and Captain Cuscaden left the garden together.
“And now, dear lad, you and I must have some talk together.”
Rather to Quentillian’s dismay, the firm and genial pronouncement of his host seemed to have been anticipated. Lucilla could be discerned bending over the distant flower-bed which had been the object of her solicitation during the talk about Rome, and Flora had disappeared. Mr. Clover now turned and hastened towards the house.
“You and I have had our heart-to-heart talks before now, Owen,” said the Canon affectionately. “We must have many more of them, dear fellow — many more.”
III
The natural instinct of Quentillian, as of everybody else, was to suppose that a heart-to-heart talk must necessarily be upon the subject of himself.
He was therefore slightly disconcerted, though also undoubtedly relieved, when he perceived that the Canon’s thoughts were only preoccupied with his own two sons.
They disposed of David with a rapidity that was partly due to Quentillian’s own determined uncommunicativeness, and partly to the Canon’s evident anxiety to get on to the topic of Adrian.
“I wish David had been able to come home before returning to India, but no doubt these things are ordered for us. He writes fondly and affectionately, dear boy — fondly and affectionately. Not as often as I could wish, perhaps, but the young are thoughtless. It costs so little to send one line to those who are anxiously waiting and watching at home! Well, well — it has been a great joy to hear that the dear fellow is his own bright self. And his faith, Owen? Is all well there? Did he say anything to you of that?”
“No, sir.”
The Canon sighed.
“Perhaps it was not to be expected. You of the present generation do not discuss these things as we did. Even at Oxford, I am told, the men no longer preoccupy themselves with such questions in the same way.”
“Some do, sir,” said Quentillian, beginning to feel rather sorry for the Canon.
The Canon, however, received Quentillian’s consolatory effort very much at its true worth.
“Some do, perhaps, as you say, but they are not those from whom any very valuable contribution to the problems of the times is to be expected. The tone of Oxford is not what it was, Owen — not what it was. It lessens my disappointment at not sending Adrian there, to find an Alma Mater indeed, as his father before him. One had always thought of the Church for him, dear boy, but these things cannot be forced. His soldiering seems to have put an end to any leanings that way. Adrian is one reason, amongst many others, why I am glad to welcome you amongst us, Owen. He may find it easier to discuss things with a contemporary,” said the Canon wistfully. “Your own destiny, I imagine, is sealed?”
Quentillian assented, although he had thought of the very small property recently inherited by himself in no such grandiloquent terms.
“When do you take possession of your kingdom?”
“In a few months, sir. The place was let during my uncle’s lifetime, and there are repairs to be done before I go there. I intend to live there, and try my hand at farming.”
He purposely omitted any mention of his writing. “Good — good — excellent indeed. And we shall not be very distant neighbours, eh?”
“Just the other side of the county, sir. I should like to go over there from here, if you’re kind enough to put up with me for two or three days.”
“By all means, of course — but let there be no talk of two or three days, Owen, between you and me. Make this your headquarters; come and go quite freely, as one of ourselves. We have always thought of you as one of ourselves,” said the Canon warmly. “I think you have no very close ties, this side of the Great Division?”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Quentillian, feeling unable to accept the Great Division even by implication, but sincerely grateful for the Canon’s most genuine and spontaneous kindness.
“It’s more than good of you to receive me so kindly, and I shall be only too glad to take you at your word.”
He wished that his self-consciousness had allowed him to make this speech without a perfectly clear realization that he only did so because the normal economy of expression habitual to him would have left the elder man dissatisfied.
As it was, the Canon’s arm was, for the second time that day, affectionately laid across Quentillian’s shoulders, and thus they paced the garden and eventually entered the house, to the extreme relief of the Canon’s unresponsive prop.
“Your room, dear Owen. Lucilla is my housekeeper. Ask her for anything you want,” said the Canon, carrying Quentillian back to his ninth year, and almost making him expect to hear next that Valeria was the Canon’s tomboy.
No such inapposite piece of information followed, and Quentillian expressed his pleasure at the very charming room in which he found himself.
“Make it your own, dear lad, for as long as you will,” and, as though irrepressibly, the Canon added as he closed the door: “
Bless you.”
At dinner, Quentillian saw Adrian Morchard. He thought him very like his sister Val, and also very like the little boy who had rehearsed aloud colours for each day of the week.
Adrian spoke of Quentillian’s writings, said that he had read some of them, and was instantly and silently disbelieved by the author. The subject was not pursued.
In the drawing-room, later on in the evening, Flora played the piano, and although Quentillian was no musician, he had sufficient knowledge to understand that Flora was one. She played Bach, at the Canon’s request, and Debussy at Adrian’s. The Canon admitted, with a slight, grave smile, that he did not admire Debussy.
Valeria occupied herself with needlework, but Lucilla sat with her hands folded until her father said gently:
“Are we to see none of your great tomes tonight, my dear?”
Lucilla rose, and her father explained to the guest: “There are certain references for a small compilation that I may one day attempt, which Lucilla is kindly looking out for me. You remember her as a very scholarly little girl, no doubt.”
The nearest thing Quentillian could compass to this was a very distinct remembrance of having listened to several of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, read aloud by Lucilla, and the Canon looked very much pleased at the reminiscence.
“We are not without our literary evenings now,” he declared. “There have been some very pleasant readings and discussions round the lamp on winter evenings. Lucilla provides me with some absorbing book, and Valeria has her strip of embroidery there, and Flora is busy with her pencil. I enjoy a pleasant evening of reading aloud.”
The present occasion was not, however, one of reading aloud; nevertheless, Quentillian had none of the talk with Valeria that he had half-hoped to have.
The Canon’s attitude towards his family circle was patriarchal. He sat in an armchair and talked a great deal to Quentillian, and his eyes rested with grave satisfaction upon his children, grouped round him.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 216