Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  Aunt Anne walked first and took what was obviously her own regular seat near the front. Maggie sat between her two aunts. She could not feel for the moment anything but a startled surprise at the ugliness of the building. She had entered at different times the Glebeshire chapels, but their primitive position and need had given them the spirit of honest sincerity. Here she had expected she did not know what. Always from those very early days when she had first heard about her aunts she had had visions of a strange illuminated place into which God, “riding on a chariot clothed in flames,” would one day come. Even after she had grown up she had still fancied that the centre of her aunts’ strange, fantastic religion must be a strange, fantastic place. And yet now, as she looked around her, she was not, to her own surprise, disappointed. She was even satisfied; the “wonder” was not in the building. Well, then, it must be in something “inside,” something that she had yet to discover. The chapel had the thrilling quality of a little plain deal box that carries a jewel.

  She examined then the people around her. Women were in a great majority, a man scattered forlornly amongst them once and again. She discovered at once the alert eyes of young Mr. Warlock. He was seated in the side aisle with a thin, severe-looking woman beside him. He stared straight in front of him, wriggling sometimes his broad back as though he were a dog tied by a chain. Some one else very quickly claimed Maggie’s attention; this was a girl who, in the seat behind Mr. Warlock, was as noticeable in that congregation as a bird-of-paradise amongst a colony of crows. She was wearing a dress of light blue silk and a large hat of blue with a grey bird in the front of it.

  Her hair, beneath the hat, was bright gold, her cheeks were the brightest pink and her eyes sparkled in a most lovely and fascinating manner. She was immensely interesting to Maggie, who had never, in her life, dreamed of anything so dazzling. She was very restless and animated and self-conscious. There sat at her side a stout and solemn woman, who was evidently from a strange, almost ironical likeness her mother. The young lady seemed to regard both the place and the occasion as the greatest joke in the world. She flung her eyes from one to another as though inviting some one to share her merriment.

  Amongst that black-garbed assembly the blue dress shone out as though it would attract everything to itself. “She’s very pretty,” thought Maggie, who was more conscious of her shabby clothes than ever. But her chief feeling was of surprise that so brilliant a bird had been able to penetrate into the chapel at all. “She must be a stranger just come out of curiosity.” Then the girl’s eyes suddenly met Maggie’s and held them; the brilliant creature smiled and Maggie smiled in return. She looked afterwards at Aunt Anne, but Aunt Anne, buried in her book of devotions, had seen nothing.

  Suddenly, after a strange wheeze and muffled scream, the harmonium began. Every one looked up expectantly; Mr. Warlock, alone, appeared from a door at the right of the screen and took his place behind the desk.

  He stood for a moment facing them before he took his place. He was a man of great size, old now but holding himself absolutely erect. He was dressed in a plain black gown with a low, white collar and a white tie. This long gown added to his height, but the width of the shoulders and neck, and the carriage of his head showed that he was a man built on a noble scale. His hair was snow-white and he wore a beard, that was in startling contrast against his black gown. His cheeks were of high colour, his eyes blue; he was older than Maggie had expected and must, she thought, be over seventy. His whole bearing and behaviour was of a man who had enjoyed great physical health. His expression was mild and simple, dignified but not proud, utterly unconscious of self, earnest and determined, lacking in humour perhaps. There was nothing in the least theatrical about him and yet he conveyed an impression that was startling and dramatic. His was a figure that would have been noticed anywhere, if only for its physical health and shining cleanliness. Maggie felt that to many people there his entrance was a sensation, sought for and expected by them. So startling was the impression that he made upon herself that she wondered that the chapel was not crowded by an excited throng. She liked him at once, felt that she would be at ease with him as she had never been with anybody in her life. And yet behind this there was perhaps some subtle sense of disappointment. He was not mysterious, he did not seem very clever; he was only an old man, magnificently preserved. There was no fear nor wonder in her attitude to him. He could not convince her, she thought, of things that she herself had not seen.

  He knelt and prayed for a moment before his desk, then he rose and, with his hands resting on the wood before him, said: “Let us offer thanks to Almighty God that He has kept us in safety and in health during the past week.” They all knelt down. He prayed then, in a voice that was soft and clear and that hid behind the words a little roughness of accent that was not unpleasant. His prayer was extempore, and he addressed God intimately and almost conversationally. “Thou knowest how we are weak and foolish, our faults are all known to Thee and our blunders are not hid, therefore we thank Thee that Thou hast not been impatient with us, but, seeing that we are but little children in Thy hands, hast deemed the thunderbolt too heavy for our heads and the lightning too blinding for our eyes. With humble hearts we thank Thee, and pray that Thou wilt keep us mindful of Thy coming, that we may be found watching, with our loins girt and our lamps lit, waiting in prayer for Thy dreadful day...”

  During this prayer Maggie was conscious of a strange excitement. She knelt with her eyes tightly closed, but through the darkness she felt as though he were addressing her alone. She seemed to approach him, to feel his hands upon her shoulders, to hear his voice in her ears. When she rose at the ending of the prayer it was as though she had definitely passed through some door into a new room. Then, rising, she was conscious that the laughing eyes of the young lady in blue were again trying to hold her own. She refused to look — she coloured, hanging her head so that her eyes should not be caught.

  For some time she was unaware of the progress of the service. Then the clear emphasis of his voice caught again her attention. “Our lesson for to-day,” he said, “is from the Fortieth Chapter of Isaiah.” He proceeded to read:

  Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

  Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

  The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:...

  The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

  O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

  Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

  He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

  How many times had Maggie heard the reading of those words. They brought instantly back to her her father’s voice, the strange snuffling hurry with which he hastened to the end, his voice hesitating a little as his wandering eye caught the misbehaviour of some small boy in the choir.

  Now the words were charged with a conviction that was neither forced nor adopted for dramatic effect. It was as though a herald read some proclamation for his master who was approaching the gates
of the city. The hymns and prayers that followed seemed to have no importance. The hymns happened on that day to be familiar ones that Maggie had always known: “As pants the hart for cooling streams,” “Just as I am, without one plea” and “Jerusalem the golden.” These were sung, of course, slowly, badly and sentimentally, the harmonium screaming in amazing discords, and the deep and untuneful voices of some members of the congregation drowning the ladies and placing a general discord upon everything. Especially distressing was Aunt Elizabeth, who evidently loved to sing hymns but had little idea of melody or rhythm, and was influenced entirely by a copious sentiment which overflowed into her eyes and trembled at the tips of her fingers.

  All this was as naive and awkward as is always the singing of English hymns in English churches by English citizens. The chapel, which had seemed before to be rising to some strange atmosphere of expectation, slipped back now to its native ugliness and sterility. The personality was in the man and in the man alone.

  Maggie looked about her, at the faces of the women who surrounded her. They were grey, strained, ugly in the poor light of the building. The majority of them seemed to be either servant-girls or women who had passed the adventurous period of life and had passed it without adventure. When the time for the sermon arrived Mr. Warlock prayed, his head bowed, during a moment’s silence, then leaning forward on his desk repeated some of the words of his earlier reading:

  Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: ... say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!...

  What followed was practical, eloquent, the preaching of a man who had through the course of a long life addressed men of all kinds and in all places. But behind the facility and easy flow of his words Maggie fancied that she detected some urgent insistence that came from the man’s very heart. She was moved by that as though he were saying to her personally, “Don’t heed these outward words of mine. But listen to me myself. There is something I must tell you. There is no time to lose. You must believe me. I will compel your belief. Follow me and I will show what will transform your life.” He concluded his sermon with these words:

  “And what of our responsibility? We may compare ourselves, I think, to men who, banded together on some secret service, wait for the moment when they are to declare themselves and, by that action, transform the world. Until that moment comes they must lead their ordinary daily lives, seem as careless of the future as their fellows, laugh and eat and work and play as though nothing beyond the business of the day were their concern. But in their hearts is the responsibility of their secret knowledge. They cannot be as other men knowing what they do, they cannot be to one another as they are to other men with the bond of their common duty shared between them. Much has been given them, much will be demanded of them; and when the day comes it will not be the events of that day that will test them but the private history, known only to themselves and their Master, of the hours that have preceded that day.”

  “I tell you what I have often told you before from this same place, that beside the history of the spirit the history of the body is nothing — and that history of the spirit is no easy, tranquil progress from birth to death, but must rather be, if we are to have any history at all, a struggle, a wrestling, a contest, bloody, unceasing, uncertain in its issue from the first hour until the last. This is no mere warning spoken from the lips only by one who, from sheer weekly necessity, may seem to you formal and official; it is as urgent, as deeply from the heart as though it were a summons from a messenger who has come to you directly from his Master. I beg of you to consider your responsibility, which is greater than that of other men. We are brothers bound together by a great expectation, a great preparation, a great trust. We are in training for a day when more will be demanded of us than of any other men upon the earth. That is no light thing. Let us hold ourselves then as souls upon whom a great charge is laid.”

  When he had ended and knelt again to pray Maggie felt instantly the inevitable reaction. The harmonium quavered and rumbled over the first bars of some hymn which began with the words, “Cry, sinner, cry before the altar of the Lord,” the man with the brown, creaking boots walked about with a collection plate, an odour of gas-pipes, badly heated, penetrated the building, the rain lashed the grey window-panes. Maggie, looking about her, could not see in the pale, tired faces of the women who surrounded her the ardent souls of a glorious band. Their belief in the coming of God had, it seemed, done very little for them. It might be true that the history of the soul was of more importance than the history of the body, but common sense had something to say.

  Her mind went back inevitably to St. Dreot’s church, her father, Ellen the cook. That was what the history of the spirit had been to her so far. What reason had she to suppose that this was any more real than that had been? Nevertheless, when at the end of the sermon she left the building and went once more into the soaking streets some sense of expectation was with her, so that she hastened into her aunt’s house as though she would find that some strange event had occurred in her absence.

  Nothing, of course, had occurred.

  During the afternoon the rain ceased to fall and a dim, grey light, born of an intense silence, enveloped the town. About three o’clock the aunts went out to some religious gathering and Maggie was left to herself. She discovered in Aunt Elizabeth’s bedroom a bound volume of Good Words, and with this seated herself by the drawing-room fire. Soon she slept.

  She was awakened by a consciousness that some one was in the room and, sitting up, staring through the gloom, heard a movement near the door, a rustle, a little jingle, a laugh.

  “Is any one there?” said a high, shrill voice.

  Maggie got up.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  Some one came forward; it was the girl of the blue dress who had smiled at Maggie in chapel. She held out her hand— “I hope you don’t think me too awful. My name’s Caroline Smith. How do you do?”

  They shook hands. Maggie, still bewildered by sleep, said, stammering, “Won’t you sit down? I beg your pardon. My aunts—”

  “Oh, it isn’t the aunts I wanted to see,” replied Miss Smith, laughing so that a number of little bracelets jingled most tunefully together. “I came to see you. We smiled at one another in chapel. It was your first time, wasn’t it? Didn’t you think it all awfully quaint?”

  “Won’t you sit down?” said Maggie again, “and I’ll ring for the lamp.”

  “Oh! don’t ring for the lamp. I like the dusk. And we can make friends so much better without a lamp. I always say if you want to know anybody really well, don’t have a light.”

  She seated herself near the fire, arranging her dress very carefully, patting her hair beneath her hat, poking her shoes out from beneath her skirts, then withdrawing them again. “Well, what do you think of it all?”

  Maggie stared. She did not know what to say. She had never met any one in the least like this before.

  “I do hope,” Miss Smith went on, “that you don’t think me forward. I daresay you do. But I can’t bear wasting time. Of course I heard that you were coming, so then I looked out for you in chapel to-day. I thought you looked so nice that I said to mother, ‘I’ll go and see her this very afternoon.’ Of course I’ve known your aunts for ages. I’m always in and out here so that it isn’t as bad as it seems. They’ll all be back for tea soon and I want to have a talk first.”

  “Thank you very much,” was all that Maggie could think of to say.

  “You’ve come to live here, haven’t you?” continued Miss Smith. “I’m so glad. I think you look so nice. You don’t mind my saying that, do you? I always tell people what I think of them and then one knows where one is. Now, do tell me — I’m simply dying to know — what do you think of everything?”

  “Well,” said Maggie, smiling, “I only arrived here yesterda
y. It’s rather difficult to say.”

  “Oh! I know. I saw Mr. Magnus this morning and he told me that he met you. He said you were ill. You don’t look ill.”

  “It was very silly of me,” said Maggie, “I don’t know what made me faint. I’ve never done such a thing before.”

  “I used to faint simply heaps of times when I was a kid,” said Miss Smith, “I was always doing it. I had all sorts of doctors. They thought I’d never grow up. I’m not very strong now really. They say it’s heart, but I always say it can’t be that because I’ve given it all away.” Here Miss Smith laughed immoderately.

  “Weren’t they the most terrible set of frumps at chapel this morning?”

  She did not wait for an answer, but went on: “Mr. Warlock’s all right, of course. I think he’s such a fine-looking man, don’t you? Of course he’s old now, but his beard’s rather attractive I think. He’s a duck, but isn’t that harmonium ghastly? I can’t think why they don’t buy an organ, they’re most awfully rich I know, and do simply nothing with their money.”