“Perhaps Mrs. Strang would give us a night a week if we are really going to contemplate the scheme? It would remove a most unfortunate impression!”
Mr. Strang’s sermon did this much good, at all events, that the scheme for the canteen was settled rapidly and efficiently by Miss Henly, who will clearly make it a Sphere of Influence, as everyone hoped to catch me afterwards for a little talk, and not so very little either, on the iniquities of the Curate. I could not avoid hearing several comments, as Mrs. Weekes, Miss Boness and Miss Grieve walked with me, a sombre little Lenten procession in goloshes, to the next committee, of the District Nursing Association; but as they all had so much to say themselves, I easily maintained an impression of neutrality under my umbrella.
Here again is a committee on which I have really no business at all, but here again, too, the War has removed our chief props and some of our subscribers. The Treasurer showed, as most societies do just now, a deficit of £13 19s. 11½d., and we gloomily debated the necessity of a Whist Drive or a Jumble Sale. “And don’t”, said Miss Grieve, “forget our Cake and Candy Sale on Saturday afternoon!” Nurse came in, and made Miss Grieve blush very much by describing in detail the welcome gift of an indispensable adjunct for invalids, and the Secretary was instructed to write our thanks. Just as I feared that the Strang Question would come before the house again, Miss Grieve remembered that a friend had written to her with a most interesting description of Berlin, from a cousin whose nephew had been there just before the War. Having hastily voted in favour of a Jumble Sale, we all listened respectfully while she read an extract, found with some difficulty, and a little trouble over the spectacles, from which it appears that the whole German people were only awaiting the outbreak of War to rise against the Nazis, that the rebels all recognize each other by means of a secret number concealed on their persons—(thus surely making recognition very difficult?)—and that it all fits in exactly with what dear Papa said about the Pyramids.
With these happy distractions—and luckily Miss Boness has always felt there was something in the Pyramids—we found ourselves re-established as a new committee in the Saint Simon’s Parish Room. This time we were considering the Women’s Branch of the XYZ Missionary Society. Some twenty years ago the women of Stampfield were persuaded to undertake the care of a ward in the Szublele Women’s Hospital in Central Africa. Every November some noble, earnest, pallid Sister comes over to inspire our enthusiasm, and I am filled with such whole-hearted respect that I have never brought myself to ask why they use square pyjamas. This year, of course, we had no visit, and though some of their subscribers have nobly produced their usual donation, many have felt that War, or the pinch of taxation, oblige them to withdraw or diminish their contributions. (How naturally, alas, one falls into the language of reports!) There are practically no donations, and when Miss Boness declared, with her Irish sprightliness still undismayed, that we do seem to be up a gum tree, no-one had any suggestion as to how we were to come unstuck. Even Mrs. Weekes sounded less plumply certain of herself than usual when she suggested a Bazaar, and had no reply to Miss Grieve’s obviously true remark that there would be no-one but ourselves either to sell or to buy (and she hoped we would not forget her Cake and Candy Sale), or to amplify Miss Boness’s suggestion that “we must enlarge our borders, we must enlarge our borders”!
Miss Cookes, the Secretary of this committee, a drooping, emaciated lady of sixty, shook her head till her beads from Travancore and her bangles from Amritsar joined in a tinkling dirge, and expressed suddenly what most of us realize already:
“Who is there to be got? When all of us older ones are in our graves”—(Mrs. Weekes frowned severely)—“all our Missions will have to close down as far as I can see. What young person nowadays has any interest in Missions? Oh, yes, I know we have some societies for children of school age, but what happens when they grow up? Do you ever hear of them again? Every society in Great Britain is appealing for aid, not to enlarge its old work, but to keep its present stations from closing down. Things have been serious enough since the last War, but this War will be fatal!” Everyone looked at me as if I should make some apology, and I could only suggest, what I believe to be the case, that the conscience of young people is more exercised over bad conditions in the slums and the housing question at home. When we were young, I pointed out, missionaries were still pioneers and explorers, and they appealed to the imagination of youth in a way which was not quite so obvious now.
“But what”, cried Miss Cookes, “did the Duke of Wellington say to the Curate who objected to Missions? ‘Look at your Gospel, Sir—“Go ye into all the world!” Marching orders, Sir! Marching orders!’”
We all received this chestnut respectfully, because there really did not seem much to say. It is always depressing when elderly people sit together, wondering what has happened to the ideals of their youth, and the tragedy is all the greater, I suppose, because never have there been so many earnest, intellectual and broadminded workers in the Church abroad. Gone are the days when a Missionary was represented as a comic figure with a top-hat and clerical collar, landing on a cannibal island. We can no longer, in these secular times, be accused of conquering the world with a Bible in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other, for we are far too diplomatic, imperially, to produce the Bible. And there are enthusiasts at home, still, of course, as well as a splendid army of Missionaries abroad, but the supplies everywhere are failing, the purse of the public is lean and locked-up.
“Of course”, said Miss Grieve, sadly, “it has been people like us with, if I may say so, a tradition behind us—those of us connected with the Church, the Army, and the Professions—who have done so much in the past, and now our class is being taxed out of existence.”
“I’m sure business people have not been wanting in their support,” said Mrs. Weekes very stiffly. Now and then she grows rather restive about “my brother, the Major”.
“Well, but what are we to do?” demanded Miss Cookes, her bangles tinkling again. “How can we raise some money?”
For some minutes we discussed Bazaars (and again we are reminded that Miss Grieve and Miss Croft are holding a Cake and Candy Sale on Saturday), Diminishing Teas, and house-to-house visitations, without much enthusiasm, ignoring the wilder ideas of a Flag Day and Missionary Exhibition advocated by Miss Cookes, and Mrs. Weekes had just said that she would ask Mr. Weekes to see what he could do about it this year (and the capital that good kind man is amassing in Heaven is incredible), when Miss Boness declared ominously:
“If you ask me, it’s all this subversive pacifism which is going about which is ruining our Missions. I don’t suppose people who preach against our Empire can possibly feel any proper responsibility for it!”
“Did Mr. Strang really preach against the Empire as well?” asked Miss Grieve, in prim disgust. (Either she had not been at church, or had been asleep like myself.)
“He preached against everything!” replied Miss Boness. “I asked myself”—(and her eyebrows disappeared entirely into her hair)—“is anything sacred to that young man?”
“I really feel I must ask you, Mrs. Lacely,” said Mrs. Weekes, entering upon a direct frontal attack at last, “whether the dear Vicar is doing anything about it.”
“He has been having a talk with Mr. Strang this morning,” I replied, looking at my watch and seeing a way of escape. “If there is no more business, perhaps you’ll excuse me? I should like to look in at the Midday Service, and it’s nearly one o’clock.” That was a lucky escape, for the church is just across the road from the hall, and no-one could criticize my reason for cutting short the conversation. Of course it is impossible to keep up this cowardly technique of rapid withdrawals, but in a small place any remark may be so easily misinterpreted and wrongly repeated.
I like the Mid-day Service in our church in Lent. The building itself is of the most dismal Victorian Gothic, with pitch pine pews and pulpit, and a dismal East window with four lights, one for each of the Evangelists
, who differ only in the length of their hair and the colour of their robes. But I always think it has some of the warm, friendly love which Arthur feels for humanity; and in the Early Morning Services, to which Arthur has at length persuaded some of the working people to come in their ordinary clothes, these externals fade away before a real sense of union in worship. And I feel the same at these Mid-day Services, which people are asked to attend just as, and for how long they like, so that there is a casual homely feeling about the place, even though I must admit it is a little draughty and noisy. Arthur seems to mind neither, and refuses to have the door shut for his short sermon. He shocked Mr. Strang once by saying that he believed a sort of ecclesiastical claustrophobia was partly the cause of the falling off of church attendance in England, and that if you could once persuade people to look in and find that they could escape as they pleased, they might come back again. To which Mr. Strang only replied, with a snap of his teeth, that it was disrespect for the authority of the “Chuch” to-day which was at the root of all evils. Certainly the respect for his authority couldn’t be lower than it is just now!
There were more people than usual to-day, in spite of the rain, attracted, I fear, by the hope of hearing a violent repudiation of Mr. Strang’s doctrines from Arthur. If so, they were disappointed, for my husband gave instead an interesting account of some experiences of early Christian missionaries in the marshes and fens of Northern Europe.
“Or did you”, I asked at lunch, “refer to the people of Stampfield when you talked about dangers from wild beasts and men wilder than the beasts? When you quoted that story about the Saxon tribe who waved their right arms above the river they were being baptized in, and said, ‘Never will we give up our sword arms to the gentle Christ!’ I thought I saw a marked gleam in Miss Grieve’s eyes. No, dearest, don’t look pained! I know you were hundreds of miles away from Stampfield in time and space.”
“I’m afraid it never occurred to me to connect my memories of Bede and Adamnam with this silly little business,” said Arthur, in obvious surprise. “In any case, I thought it out on Saturday.”
“I know, I know, and really the only reaction it had on me, as Miss Henly would say, was to decide that probably your nice monks were monks because they never had to sit on committees! Coracles in the West Highlands would be more dangerous, of course, but hardly damper than our meetings this morning.”
“And I don’t think the average mind is so disgustingly ingenious as yours,” said Arthur, comforted. “Or do you suppose poor Strang saw himself as one of those heroic figures, plodding by night through the dense forests, where every trunk concealed the form of an enemy, and every crack of a twig was the drawing of an invisible bow? Why shouldn’t he, after all? The voices of peacemakers in the world are as faint as the chants of the bearers of the Vexilla Regis, but the world heard them in the end.”
“That’s a lovely little sermon for myself, Arthur,” I acknowledged. “But isn’t poor little Mr. Strang more like the priest in Anatole France who lost his way, and prayed to the pagan goddess of the well, in his terror, before he slept in the forest? And baptized the well in honour of the Virgin next morning? Because, as you said to him, hasn’t he lost his way in his forest of causes a little?”
“I don’t think we can describe his zeal for peace as worship of a false goddess,” said Arthur, decidedly. “Remember, our generation was brought up on the ideal, ‘As God died to make men holy, so we die to make them free’, and though we can give a passable idea of our Christian ideal of holiness, no-one yet has ever succeeded in giving a comprehensive definition of what we mean by freedom. Do you mean freedom to murder or steal from each other, the freedom claimed, in fact, by Germany in international policy? Or do you mean, as my friends in Hanton’s factory here mean, freedom to get your half-pint, and go to the dog races, and read what news your paper likes to give you, without any crimson Dictator interfering with you?”
“Yes, yes I know,” I agreed. All through this argument Arthur had been taking any dish I offered him in the most gratifying way. I can only keep him properly nourished in Lent by starting an argument and thus making him entirely oblivious of the food he’s eating, or Lent, or our undue luxury … Like that poem in 1916, where all the peasants from every country speak, and all end up:
I gave my life for freedom, this I know,
For those who bade me do it told me so.
“But Arthur, though I do see that any generation is a poor judge of its own ideals, I don’t see how Mr. Strang can get away from the fact that if we laid down our arms now and let Germany annex us, there’d be very little freedom to worship God (let alone the half-pints and the dogs) for the next few generations!”
“But that’s no conclusive argument,” demurred Arthur. “Have we, as a nation, worshipped God so honourably in the days of this so-called freedom that we can be sure we should not be nearer Him in captivity? Aren’t the truest lovers of Sion those who weep by the waters of Babylon? Mind you, I don’t agree with Strang,” added Arthur, who rarely fails to dissociate himself from any view to which he has nearly converted you—so passionately anxious is he to see every side of a question. “I am ready to agree with him that our sins and follies have helped to bring Europe into this intolerable position, but I can see no way out but the way we’ve taken. But I recognize that I seem old and prejudiced to Strang, and I am willing to pay deference to him as a truer Christian and probably a truer philosopher, though I should like him to look up his Aristotle a little before he applies his creed so directly to politics. No, I cannot censure him for his beliefs, as I said, and there is much to be said for his view that he has a right to express his creed as a Christian from the pulpit.”
“Except that he’s making war in Stampfield! Or doesn’t war count to him unless it causes wounds and death? Because that brings you back to what’s not so Christian—a belief that a man’s life in this World matters more than anything else—more than his faith and ideals. If by war he means envy, hatred and malice, he’s made war here already! So, darling, as you would say, what meaning exactly do you attach to the word pacifism?”
Kate looked in at this point with a request that she might clear up now, as she wanted to pop across for a loaf of bread as we’d run a bit short if Mr. Dick took us all by surprise to-night. That means, I suppose, that Private Jenkins is looking in for yet another farewell, and though I grudge nothing, in theory, to the fighting forces, I do sometimes wish he would bring his ration with him instead of throwing it, as the authorities tell us, into a swill-pail. Meanwhile, Arthur looked at his watch, and rushed off for the door while I made up my mind with much reluctance that I had better go round my district this afternoon with the parish magazine.
III
Tuesday Afternoon
I have the greatest dislike to this clerical duty of selling magazines, which always makes me feel like an unpopular bag-man. The theory is that the production of the magazine is a good introduction to a little conversation, and helps to make acquaintanceship. I believe that men who travel with Hoovers and silk stockings are welcomed warmly by people like Kate, but then, however little Kate means to make any purchase, the travellers are attractive young men with tempting wares. I can never believe that I should warmly welcome any woman who came to my door with a pennyworth of literature, so alien to a film-loving public. The advertisements of the local shops and Saint Simon’s Court Circular in the outer pages may, however, have a certain attraction, and our parishioners don’t know how my poor Arthur groans over the composition of the Vicar’s letter. (There was a terrible occasion once when Dick wrote a skit upon it, and we thought it had gone to the printer by accident. It was a great relief to find it in the wastepaper basket, but Dick always held that no-one would have known it from the original but for the names! “Dear friends,” it ran, “yet another sacred season is upon us, though I cannot at the moment recollect which. The funds of all our societies from A to Z are in very low water, and I look to you all to put on your divers
’ suits and drag them out again. A great loss, as you know, has befallen our parish in the disappearance of Mr. Elgin, our beloved organist, into one of the big pipes of the instrument. It has been found, alas, impossible to rescue him, but his memory will long be fragrant in our midst—” I have forgotten the rest, but, as Arthur sighed, it was horribly true to form.)
The inner leaves of the magazine, which are common for every parish, are united rather too closely, I consider, to the traditions of the Victorian era to appeal to a nation which spends its spare time at the Pictures. “Give me the serial in Women’s Wisecracks every time,” said Mrs. Bebb, our chief literary critic, as we sat in her icy little room this afternoon. “Gives you something to think about, that do, with the poor gel’s husband taking a horsewhip to her, and her kidnapped by the Sultan of Oman’s yacht and all! That story of yours is too homely for my taste.”
Mrs. Dodd, whose husband is “out” for the second time this quarter, looked at my merchandise with lacklustre eyes, and said, listening to the screams of her six children in the yard, that she wasn’t much of a one for reading. Her eldest has just reached the statutory age of seven when he must have more sleeping room, and this means that poor Mr. Dodd will have to find another house when he is almost certainly in arrears here. These are the cases which should go to the C.O.S., but our people dislike questionnaires so much that I weakly hesitated to suggest it. Still I know one of the Council houses will be free soon, and I promised to see Mr. Chubb about it at once. (How I hoped Mr. Strang had not outraged him too far!) I put down a magazine vaguely with no request for a penny, and did the same at the Higgses next door. Poor Higgs, who broke his arm just outside the factory, unluckily, so that there is a doubt about his compensation, said he could read pretty nearly everything now they were coming to take the radio away, because his last two instalments were not paid up. It was out of the question to let the poor man lose his only source of entertainment (but for the parish magazine!) for five shillings, after managing half-a-crown for so many weary weeks, so I relinquished the idea of a new hat for the Weekes’ party, and handed the sum to him with a sigh; and then immediately felt ten shillings richer, because I had meant to spend 14s. 11d. on a really good plain felt in Stampfield’s one passable milliner! Anyhow, in their gratitude, the Higgses insisted on paying for their magazine, and that, I am ashamed to confess, was all the money I took this afternoon. Three houses have been evacuated, two people were out. Mrs. Jones’s Doris was ill again, and I went up to amuse her with cutting out paper figures, while Mrs. Jones slipped out for the bread and marge. The poor lamb had bronchitis six weeks ago, and her temperature still keeps up every night; so I promised to urge her case forward with the committee of the Convalescent Home, remembering sadly that this means Colonel Greenley and Mrs. Weekes again. If Mr. Strang’s folly is going to put grit into these parochial wheels, I shall walk him round the parish myself in a white shirt and taper!
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