Bewildering Cares

by Peck,Winifred

  “Talk of War Aims,” a pleasant babyish-looking boy in the militia said to me, grinning, “what I say about the Germans is, ‘Drown the lot’!”

  “That’s right, Bill, but I’d keep ’Itler and his lot for a bit of torture first, not half I wouldn’t!”

  “Tell you what I’d do,” said a tall girl with a Jewish nose, “I’d just split up Germany into the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and put a Jew at the top of each.”

  An A.T.S. lounging at the bar, who, apparently, shares some of Mr. Strang’s views, said she would rather make peace as it was such a phoney war anyway, and what about marrying Hitler to Princess Elizabeth? This opinion seemed to be going to bring her into just such popularity as the curate’s, when her boy-friend cut in to suggest that she should stow her gaff, and didn’t she know that Lord Haw-Haw hoped to make England a republic before all was done? This led to a great deal of ribald laughter, and the singing of half a verse of the National Anthem, for we are profoundly loyal in Stampfield, and under the cover of that I made for the door, warmly congratulating Miss Henly on the success of the idea.

  “Only a mere beginning!” she shouted. “By Wednesday we shall have dart-boards and some competitions going, I hope. That’s why I put off the Rector till then!” How much these extras will appeal to the Rector, whose life in the shadow of dead Anglican divines has produced an attitude of resigned gloom and disapproval, I cannot imagine, but I felt refreshed and inspirited as I went home.

  “Some of us,” I suggested to Mr. Elgin and Arthur, whom I found in the drawing-room, “don’t see nearly enough of the young and irreligious. It’s all right for you, Arthur, as you’re so often at the Works and your Boys’ Clubs, but we parish hacks do feel we get out of touch with youth.”

  “You can have my choir-boys as a gift,” said Mr. Elgin, gloomily. He had evidently been sitting alone with my husband for some time, in a state of nervous tension, as his boots had snuffled muddy figures of eight on my matting, and cigarette ash lay around him and on him in every direction.

  “They look such angels in surplices,” I protested. “Of course, I know little Jimmy Hay, but then think of his home!”

  “I’m usually thankful to get a boy from a bad home,” said Mr. Elgin. “Your best church families always put in boys without an ear and with bad adenoids. I’ve just been telling the Vicar that I really can’t stand Tom Higgs any longer, even if he is a good influence and is going to be confirmed in April, not if his voice cracks on E again.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll train his substitute before you go,” said Arthur, equably. “I’ve been telling Elgin how much we shall miss his wonderful playing, my dear.”

  The door bell rang and I hurried down to admit Miss Croft. To my great discomfiture Archdeacon Pratt was behind her, and I hadn’t expected him before seven at the soonest.

  “I fear”, said the Archdeacon, following Miss Croft and myself upstairs, “that I am a little early, as I promised to look in at the Old Rectory after tea. Mrs. Gage was so very kind as to ask me to stay there, but I told her I was already trysted to you, Mrs. Lacely.” (I can only trust my face did not show my disappointment at this unnecessary loyalty.) “She’s such a charming woman, isn’t she, and so efficient. Everything in her house is so beautifully done, and yet she seems always so far above mere material considerations.”

  Any woman who said all that could, of course, have been nothing but a cat, but I knew this was merely the record of Mrs. Eardley-Gage on the Archdeacon’s card-index mind, and endured it. I did, however, bear him a grudge for joining my tea-party, as it would be impossible to kindle a spark of romance in his presence. He could probably give the methods of courtship in every primitive nation in Asia and Africa, but we could never slip, under his eyes, into one of those comfortable after-tea dreamy silences which I had planned for the encouragement of sentiment in our middle-aged, diffident couple. But no-one could have been kinder or more ready to adapt himself to our visitors than the Archdeacon. He told Mr. Elgin, all about the organ which had been installed in his last parish church, and the chants which he considered most suitable for a small choir. When he heard Miss Croft murmur something about investments to Arthur, he turned round and gave us a comprehensive survey of the industrial market in war-time, not forgetting Swedish match-timber. He inquired after Mr. Strang and told us all about the new remedy for influenza hearts. He asked after Dick, and, without waiting for an answer, described the newest anti-aircraft gun to us, with a wealth of technical detail. It is extraordinary how such omniscience leads to a torpid state of depression in the listeners, and I was just thinking that if I were Mrs. Pratt I should some day put on his tombstone, “Quick in opinion, always in the right” when he got up and said that, as he knew it took just seven minutes to walk to the Old Rectory, he must be going, to arrive there at six o’clock. Arthur said he would walk along with him, and I slipped out of the room after them, as Mrs. Sime was pealing at the back-door bell for admission.

  I was annoyed with her for coming early, as she counts her fee of tenpence an hour from the moment she crosses my threshold, and I had asked her to arrive at seven; but she was so jubilant as she came in, in her shapeless coat with its rabbit collar, that I forbore to mention the time.

  “She’s got him!” she announced, dramatically. “Lil’s got him good and proper. They’ll be ’long soon to see the Vicar about the Bangs.” (This pronunciation of the words “banns” in Stampfield always gives an air of triumph to any marriage, and was particularly appropriate for the case of poor Lil.)

  “Who is he?” I asked, full of pity for the victim.

  “Why, Alf Byng, the same as she took up with at first. He wasn’t much good and made off, as you knows, but now he’s in the Air Force and back on leave, and says they may as well be hitched up and get an allowance for their kid. And they’ve always been true at ’eart through it all,” added Mrs. Sime, as a sop, I felt, to film conventions.

  Here again is a queer reaction of war on our little world! I cannot imagine that the Byng ménage would ever be a success in peace time, or that Lil will fulfil the Mothers’ Union ideal of a Christian home-maker; but I feel sure that Alf Byng will beat her if she is faithless, and that an enormous family will satisfy her requirements. The tax-payers will suffer, but poor Mrs. Sime will feel respectable at last.

  I thought I would give my guests a little longer to themselves, so I took the Archdeacon’s bag upstairs and unpacked it, wondering, as any parson’s wife would in these circumstances, whether her own husband would ever wear gaiters. Arthur would tell me here that I touch on a point which is a real argument in favour of the celibacy of the clergy. Never, he says, does any man in any rank of life, from mayor to viceroy, admit that he desires honours for himself. “It’s only to please the wife” is the basic formula, and though Arthur does not imagine, naturally, that a Bishop-elect would accept his appointment in those words, yet it is clear that, if wives alone covet honours, celibates must be the most unoffending souls alive.

  When, after these diversions, I went back to the drawing-room, feeling that my guests had really had time to settle the date of their wedding and future residence, it was a severe disappointment to find Mr. Elgin looking absently through a very old music-stand, containing little but my old Scarlatti and Dick’s jazz tunes, and Miss Croft sitting by the fire looking at a copy of the parish magazine, which can hardly be said to deserve the attention of a confessed highbrow. They both looked sincerely glad to see me, and still seemed undecided as to which could escape first. By way of a digression I told them Mrs. Sime’s news, and was horrified to see poor Mr. Elgin going as yellow as the keys of our old piano. An awful suspicion swept over me that the graceless Lil had thrown his name into the maelstrom of her scandals, and I longed to be Alf Byng myself and leather the wretched girl at once. The truth about this I shall never know, as Alf Byng’s rather mercenary chivalry will sweep away all old scandals satisfactorily; but if there is any truth in my surmise it explains the poor man’s tor
tured look. The very idea of such an affair, apart from any question of scandal, would be infinitely repulsive to a sensitive and lonely artist.

  “It is too bad of me, though, to have left you here so long,” I said, “and I fear I can’t even ask you to supper!”

  Had Miss Croft’s imagination followed the same paths as mine, I wondered, when she said with a warmth which had been wholly lacking in her manner before, that she had to go back to the shop to help her assistant to clear up a little after closing-time, and if Mr. Elgin liked to share some cocoa and sardine sandwiches with them there, she would be delighted. And when Mr. Elgin, his colour resuming its normal pallor, accepted as warmly as if it were an invitation to the Ritz, and they went off together, I found myself suddenly rehearsing events in the manner which my dear old grandmother would have done: “If there had not been a war you would have had two maids and Mrs. Sime would not have come in. You would have said nothing about Lil, to relieve all our minds, and, indeed, Alf would not have married Lil. Very probably, my dear, these elderly friends of yours will now come together, and so Good has come out of Evil and every Cloud has a Silver Lining.” That was the way her mind always worked, but of course it was easier to make silver linings out of Victorian campaigns in the distant Empire than out of the thunder-clouds about now.

  Dinner was quite a success. Mrs. Sime, feeling, I expect, that the days of her Obliging will soon be over now Lil is off her hands, brought up the courses from the kitchen in turn, and dumped the plates loudly on the hall-table to attract my attention. After that I saw the Archdeacon watch with fascination a grubby hand holding a dish appear at the door, and await delivery by Arthur or myself. He can card-index it as a Stampfield nature-myth, I thought! But the artichoke soup was really hot, and I trust the Archdeacon has learnt that stews are not stews but casseroles in war-time. The cold sweet had suffered from my economy in eggs and cream, but I left two apparently well-fed clerics to their coffee in the drawing-room. (Not even for the Archdeacon would I keep in Arthur’s study fire as well!) I did not disturb them till I had hustled Mrs. Sime up enough over the washing-up, not to let it extend into a third hour. (Yes, these ways are mean, but life is more a question of means than ways now, as Kate says epigrammatically.) The two men had reached the ends of their pipes, and the end also, I trusted, of what Dick would call the Strang Saga. By the end of the week I am quite incapable of taking any interest in First Principles, but these, alas, were still exciting the Archdeacon’s mind.

  “I cannot conceivably understand”, he was saying, and there are so many sides of human nature which no orderly mind can, “how you feel that the whole problem is finally settled by Strang’s illness. Everyone is sorry for him and is trying to help his family, you say? Well and good, that is Christian charity. But the question still remains as clamant as ever whether a clergyman has the right to use the pulpit for his own political propaganda or no. That is a big question, and one which exercises many minds at present, and this is a test case. You must decide what line you are going to take on Mr. Strang’s recovery.”

  “But won’t that partly depend on Strang’s mind?” asked Arthur.

  “And Mrs. Strang’s?” I added.

  “I can hardly hope from what you have told me of this very prejudiced young man that a sharp attack of illness will change his views,” said the Archdeacon, stiffly.

  “No, but Christian charity will, I am sure,” said Arthur. “Not that which gives, but that which takes. Strang will certainly be a humbler and more generous man, and the Weekes’s who, after all, really settle the tone of the parish, look upon him as their recreation, if not their creation. When once that attitude is established, I don’t believe any situation, domestic, nationals or international could occur which would not lead to a firm and lasting peace.”

  “Only you have to be very ill first,” I murmured regretfully.

  “Analogies”, said Arthur automatically, “are not arguments! They should never have any weight attached to them.”

  “Still,” said the Archdeacon, unconvinced, “it is all utterly unreasonable!”

  “Of course,” agreed Arthur, “but then what else is the greater part of mankind? Take an historic parallel. I know my grandfather told me once that he would never forget the illness of the Prince of Wales in Queen Victoria’s reign. There wasn’t the same open publicity about his life in the papers as we would have, perhaps, to-day; but every strict home in England looked upon him, before he had typhoid, as an utterly profligate and dissolute young man, without realizing, as we do now, the mistakes in his upbringing and the anomaly of his situation. It was no sign of grace in him that he lay dying of typhoid fever, but the whole interest of the country centred, said my grandfather, round his bed at Sandringham for weeks. And on his recovery his faults were forgotten and new rumours were discredited. He was the man who had been near death and was alive again, and that was enough for his critics. I don’t know if this is an especially English trait or not—”

  “Constitutional government?” I asked, feebly, and to my amazement the Archdeacon laughed heartily. People without much sense of humour feel safe with a pun, I always notice, and people who have a sense of humour, like Arthur, dislike them.

  “But in any case, there it is. As Dr. Boness’s last report was so encouraging, I venture to predict that in a fortnight or so we will give thanks for his recovery; that Weekes will send him and his family away on a good holiday, and insist on paying for a locum for me in Holy Week, and that by the third or fourth Sunday after Easter, Strang will be back with a whole new series of sermons on the Parables or the Epistles, without one controversial word in them from first to last. My wife will probably add that Mrs. Strang will eventually produce a little boy who will marry the quite hypothetical daughter of Ida Weekes.”

  “Oh, no, no, I shouldn’t like that!” I said, feeling that even British Constitutional charity might go too far.

  The Archdeacon was obviously not convinced, but happily it was eleven o’clock, at which hour he always likes a glass of hot water—“hot, but not boiled, please Mrs. Lacely”, so that at five minutes past eleven he can go upstairs to bed. I had just got down to the basement when the telephone bell went, and leaving the kettle on the gas-ring, I ran upstairs.

  “I know it’s far too late, and I do apologize,” said a voice which was so agitated that I could only just recognize it as Miss Croft’s, “but I had to tell you just to whisper. Oh, I feel you’ll understand—I didn’t like to go to bed without telling you how very, very happy we are! Not a word to anyone yet, not a word of course, but oh, my dear. …”

  “But—but I can’t hear,” I had to say, after I had poured forth my congratulations and heard an indefinite murmur in reply.

  ‘“My heart is like a singing bird,’” quoted Miss Croft, with great dignity, and after prolonged good nights on this basis, I rushed back at length to my kettle.

  The Archdeacon had boiled water for once that night, but I hope he did not notice it. It was twelve minutes past eleven before he went up to bed, so that it is no use trying to come up to his conception of an organized household. Still, as I have a very warm invitation to the future home of Mr. and Mrs. Elgin—place and nature unknown, but there are to be two grand pianos in the drawing-room—I need not depend on Dillney for visits to the neighbouring country.

  IX

  Sunday

  In one of my rather neglected Holy books upstairs is a passage urging the reader never to let worldly thoughts occupy his or her mind before they make their Early Communion.

  It is beautiful advice, but how strangely it suggests the safe, orderly, comfortable homes of Victorian England! Author and reader alike so clearly envisaged that the early riser is called by a maid in good time, and bathes and dresses neatly in a set of clean clothes, washed and mended and laid out by invisible hands, before proceeding through the country lanes or empty, shining London streets, to a well-lit, well-warmed church.

  I think Arthur has some little books n
owadays for his working-girl Confirmation candidates, which do not imagine this environment, and I hope they are written by well and truly married parsons on a few hundreds a year, for how can you prevent worldly pre-occupations if you are without a maid, and going to return to provide breakfast for a household? I had done all I could the night before, by tidying and dusting the sitting-room, and leaving the breakfast things ready on a tray, but I was only too justifiably anxious about the condition of the stove when I crept downstairs early in the darkness. Our old-fashioned boiler is not so much independent as undependable, and on this occasion the bath-water had been cold overnight, but boiling at three o’clock when I happened to wake up and hear the well-known sounds of a fiery furnace below. This morning nothing showed but a heap of cold ashes! How often in the past I have told my maids that all it needs is a little common sense and clean flues, and how coldly I have accepted their excuses about draughts and the need of the sweep. Now I know by experience, when Kate is away, that I can do all that a stoker may in the way of making up the fire, by putting in the dampers at eleven, and leaving a nice steady glow, and yet in the morning I find desolation, and have to go out to get wood and small bits of coal from the cellar and struggle to start it, with equally bad effects on my nails and temper. This morning I muttered to myself, “Where their fire is not quenched”, as an ideal of human attainment, and was far too late for any pause of quiet recollection (see Holy Book again) as I ran to church under the dull grey morning skies.