Saint's Progress

2

How she came to be sitting in Trafalgar Square she did not know. Tears had formed a mist between her and all that seething, summer-evening crowd. Her eyes mechanically followed the wandering search-lights, those new milky ways, quartering the heavens and leading nowhere. All was wonderfully beautiful, the sky a deep dark blue, the moonlight whitening the spire of St. Martin’s, and everywhere endowing the great blacked-out buildings with dream-life. Even the lions had come to life, and stared out over this moonlit desert of little human figures too small to be worth the stretching out of a paw. She sat there, aching dreadfully, as if the longing of every bereaved heart in all the town had settled in her. She felt it tonight a thousand times worse; for last night she had been drugged on the new sensation of love triumphantly fulfilled. Now she felt as if life had placed her in the corner of a huge silent room, blown out the flame of joy, and locked the door. A little dry sob came from her. The hay-fields and Cyril, with shirt unbuttoned at the neck, pitching hay and gazing at her while she dabbled her fork in the thin leavings. The bright river, and their boat grounded on the shallows, and the swallows flitting over them. And that long dance, with the feel of his hand between her shoulder-blades! Memories so sweet and sharp that she almost cried out. She saw again their dark grassy courtyard in the Abbey, and the white owl flying over them. The white owl! Flying there again to-night, with no lovers on the grass below! She could only picture Cyril now as a brown atom in that swirling brown flood of men, flowing to a huge brown sea. Those cruel minutes on the platform, when she had searched and searched the walking wood for her, one tree, seemed to have burned themselves into her eyes. Cyril was lost, she could not single him out, all blurred among those thousand other shapes. And suddenly she thought: ‘And I – I’m lost to him; he’s never seen me at home, never seen me in London; he won’t be able to imagine me. It’s all in the past, only the past – for both of us. Is there anybody so unhappy?’ And the town’s voices-wheels, and passing feet, whistles, talk, laughter – seemed to answer callously: ‘Not one.’ She looked at her wrist-watch; like his, it had luminous hands: ‘Half-past ten’ was greenishly imprinted there. She got up in dismay. They would think she was lost, or run over, or something silly! She could not find an empty taxi, and began to walk, uncertain of her way at night. At last she stopped a policeman, and said:

“Which is the way towards Bloomsbury, please? I can’t find a taxi.” The man looked at her, and took time to think it over; then he said:

“They’re linin’ up for the theatres,” and looked at her again. Something seemed to move in his mechanism:

“I’m goin’ that way, miss. If you like, you can step along with me.” Noel stepped along.

“The streets aren’t what they ought to be,” the policeman said. “What with the darkness, and the war turning the girls heads – you’d be surprised the number of them that comes out. It’s the soldiers, of course.”

Noel felt her cheeks burning.

“I daresay you wouldn’t have noticed it,” the policeman went on: “but this war’s a funny thing. The streets are gayer and more crowded at night than I’ve ever seen them; it’s a fair picnic all the time. What we’re goin’ to settle down to when peace comes, I don’t know. I suppose you find it quiet enough up your way, miss?”

“Yes,” said Noel; “quite quiet.”

“No soldiers up in Bloomsbury. You got anyone in the Army, miss?”

Noel nodded.

“Ah! It’s anxious times for ladies. What with the Zeps, and their brothers and all in France, it’s ‘arassin’. I’ve lost a brother meself, and I’ve got a boy out there in the Garden of Eden; his mother carries on dreadful about him. What we shall think of it when it’s all over, I can’t tell. These Huns are a wicked tough lot!”

Noel looked at him; a tall man, regular and orderly, with one of those perfectly decent faces so often seen in the London police.

“I’m sorry you’ve lost someone,” she said. “I haven’t lost anyone very near, yet.”

“Well, let’s ‘ope you won’t, miss. These times make you feel for others, an’ that’s something. I’ve noticed a great change in folks you’d never think would feel for anyone. And yet I’ve seen some wicked things too; we do, in the police. Some of these English wives of aliens, and ‘armless little German bakers, an’ Austrians, and what-not: they get a crool time. It’s their misfortune, not their fault, that’s what I think; and the way they get served – well, it makes you ashamed o’ bein’ English sometimes – it does straight: And the women are the worst. I said to my wife only last night, I said: ‘They call themselves Christians,’ I said, ‘but for all the charity that’s in ‘em they might as well be Huns.’ She couldn’t see it-not she!’ Well, why do they drop bombs?’ she says. ‘What!’ I said, ‘those English wives and bakers drop bombs? Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘They’re as innocent as we.’ It’s the innocent that gets punished for the guilty. ‘But they’re all spies,’ she says. ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘old lady! Now really! At your time of life!’ But there it is; you can’t get a woman to see reason. It’s readin’ the papers. I often think they must be written by women – beggin’ your pardon, miss – but reely, the ‘ysterics and the ‘atred – they’re a fair knockout. D’you find much hatred in your household, miss?”

Noel shook her head. “No; my father’s a clergyman, you see.”

“Ah!” said the policeman. And in the glance he bestowed on her could be seen an added respect.

“Of course,” he went on, “you’re bound to have a sense of justice against these Huns; some of their ways of goin’ on have been above the limit. But what I always think is – of course I don’t say these things – no use to make yourself unpopular – but to meself I often think: Take ‘em man for man, and you’d find ‘em much the same as we are, I daresay. It’s the vicious way they’re brought up, of actin’ in the mass, that’s made ‘em such a crool lot. I see a good bit of crowds in my profession, and I’ve a very low opinion of them. Crowds are the most blunderin’ blighted things that ever was. They’re like an angry woman with a bandage over her eyes, an’ you can’t have anything more dangerous than that. These Germans, it seems, are always in a crowd. They get a state o’ mind read out to them by Bill Kaser and all that bloody-minded lot, an’ they never stop to think for themselves.”

“I suppose they’d be shot if they did,” said Noel.

“Well, there is that,” said the policeman reflectively. “They’ve brought discipline to an ‘igh pitch, no doubt. An’ if you ask me,” – he lowered his voice till it was almost lost in his chin-strap, “we’ll be runnin’ ‘em a good second ‘ere, before long. The things we ‘ave to protect now are gettin’ beyond a joke. There’s the City against lights, there’s the streets against darkness, there’s the aliens, there’s the aliens’ shops, there’s the Belgians, there’s the British wives, there’s the soldiers against the women, there’s the women against the soldiers, there’s the Peace Party, there’s ‘orses against croolty, there’s a Cabinet Minister every now an’ then; and now we’ve got these Conchies. And, mind you, they haven’t raised our pay; no war wages in the police. So far as I can see, there’s only one good result of the war – the burglaries are off. But there again, you wait a bit and see if we don’t have a prize crop of ‘m, or my name’s not ‘Arris.”

“You must have an awfully exciting life!” said Noel.

The policeman looked down at her sideways, without lowering his face, as only a policeman can, and said indulgently:

“We’re used to it, you see; there’s no excitement in what you’re used to. They find that in the trenches, I’m told. Take our seamen – there’s lots of ‘em been blown up over and over again, and there they go and sign on again next day. That’s where the Germans make their mistake! England in war-time! I think a lot, you know, on my go; you can’t ‘elp it – the mind will work – an’ the more I think, the more I see the fightin’ spirit in the people. We don’t make a fuss about it like Bill Kaser. But you watch a little shopman, one o’ those fellows who’s had his house bombed; you watch the way he looks at the mess – sort of disgusted. You watch his face, and you see he’s got his teeth into it. You watch one of our Tommies on ‘is crutches, with the sweat pourin’ off his forehead an’ ‘is eyes all strainy, stumpin’ along – that gives you an idea! I pity these Peace fellows, reely I pity them; they don’t know what they’re up against. I expect there’s times when you wish you was a man, don’t you, miss? I’m sure there’s times when I feel I’d like to go in the trenches. That’s the worst o’ my job; you can’t be a human bein’ – not in the full sense of the word. You mustn’t let your passions rise, you mustn’t drink, you mustn’t talk; it’s a narrow walk o’ life. Well, here you are, miss; your Square’s the next turnin’ to the right. Good night and thank you for your conversation.”

Noel held out her hand. “Good night!” she said.

The policeman took her hand with a queer, flattered embarrassment.

“Good night, miss,” he said again. “I see you’ve got a trouble; and I’m sure I hope it’ll turn out for the best.”

Noel gave his huge hand a squeeze; her eyes had filled with tears, and she turned quickly up towards the Square, where a dark figure was coming towards her, in whom she recognised her father. His face was worn and harassed; he walked irresolutely, like a man who has lost something.

“Nollie!” he said. “Thank God!” In his voice was an infinite relief. “My child, where have you been?”

“It’s all right, Daddy. Cyril has just gone to the front. I’ve been seeing him off from Charing Cross.”

Pierson slipped his arm round her. They entered the house without speaking…

3

By the rail of his transport, as far – about two feet – as he could get from anyone, Cyril Morland stood watching Calais, a dream city, brighten out of the heat and grow solid. He could hear the guns already, the voice of his new life-talking in the distance. It came with its strange excitement into a being held by soft and marvellous memories, by one long vision of Noel and the moonlit grass, under the dark Abbey wall. This moment of passage from wonder to wonder was quite too much for a boy unused to introspection, and he stood staring stupidly at Calais, while the thunder of his new life came rolling in on that passionate moonlit dream.

VII

After the emotions of those last three days Pierson woke with the feeling a ship must have when it makes landfall. Such reliefs are natural, and as a rule delusive; for events are as much the parents of the future as they were the children of the past. To be at home with both his girls, and resting – for his holiday would not be over for ten days – was like old times. Now George was going on so well Gratian would be herself again; now Cyril Morland was gone Noel would lose that sudden youthful love fever. Perhaps in two or three days if George continued to progress, one might go off with Noel somewhere for one’s last week. In the meantime the old house, wherein was gathered so much remembrance of happiness and pain, was just as restful as anywhere else, and the companionship of his girls would be as sweet as on any of their past rambling holidays in Wales or Ireland. And that first morning of perfect idleness – for no one knew he was back in London – pottering, and playing the piano in the homely drawing-room where nothing to speak of was changed since his wife’s day, was very pleasant. He had not yet seen the girls, for Noel did not come down to breakfast, and Gratian was with George.

Discovery that there was still a barrier between him and them came but slowly in the next two days. He would not acknowledge it, yet it was there, in their voices, in their movements – rather an absence of something old than the presence of something new. It was as if each had said to him: “We love you, but you are not in our secrets – and you must not be, for you would try to destroy them.” They showed no fear of him, but seemed to be pushing him unconsciously away, lest he should restrain or alter what was very dear to them. They were both fond of him, but their natures had set foot on definitely diverging paths. The closer the affection, the more watchful they were against interference by that affection. Noel had a look on her face, half dazed, half proud, which touched, yet vexed him. What had he done to forfeit her confidence – surely she must see how natural and right his opposition had been! He made one great effort to show the real sympathy he felt for her. But she only said: “I can’t talk of Cyril, Daddy; I simply can’t!” And he, who easily shrank into his shell, could not but acquiesce in her reserve.

With Gratian it was different. He knew that an encounter was before him; a struggle between him and her husband – for characteristically he set the change in her, the defection of her faith, down to George, not to spontaneous thought and feeling in herself. He dreaded and yet looked forward to this encounter. It came on the third day, when Laird was up, lying on that very sofa where Pierson had sat listening to Gratian’s confession of disbelief. Except for putting in his head to say good morning, he had not yet seen his son-in-law: The young doctor could not look fragile, the build of his face, with that law and those heavy cheekbones was too much against it, but there was about him enough of the look of having come through a hard fight to give Pierson’s heart a squeeze.

“Well, George,” he said, “you gave us a dreadful fright! I thank God’s mercy.” With that half-mechanical phrase he had flung an unconscious challenge. Laird looked up whimsically.

“So you really think God merciful, sir?”

“Don’t let us argue, George; you’re not strong enough.”

“Oh! I’m pining for something to bite on.”

Pierson looked at Gratian, and said softly:

“God’s mercy is infinite, and you know it is.”

Laird also looked at Gratian, before he answered:

“God’s mercy is surely the amount of mercy man has succeeded in arriving at. How much that is, this war tells you, sir.”

Pierson flushed. “I don’t follow you,” he said painfully. “How can you say such things, when you yourself are only just – No; I refuse to argue, George; I refuse.”

Laird stretched out his hand to his wife, who came to him, and stood clasping it with her own. “Well, I’m going to argue,” he said; “I’m simply bursting with it. I challenge you, sir, to show me where there’s any sign of altruistic pity, except in man. Mother love doesn’t count – mother and child are too much one.”

The curious smile had come already, on both their faces.

“My dear George, is not man the highest work of God, and mercy the highest quality in man?”

“Not a bit. If geological time be taken as twenty-four hours, man’s existence on earth so far equals just two seconds of it; after a few more seconds, when man has been frozen off the earth, geological time will stretch for as long again, before the earth bumps into something, and becomes nebula once more. God’s hands haven’t been particularly full, sir, have they – two seconds out of twenty-four hours – if man is His pet concern? And as to mercy being the highest quality in, man, that’s only a modern fashion of talking. Man’s highest quality is the sense of proportion, for that’s what keeps him alive; and mercy, logically pursued, would kill him off. It’s a sort of a luxury or by-product.”

“George! You can have no music in your soul! Science is such a little thing, if you could only see.”

“Show me a bigger, sir.”

“Faith.”

“In what?”

“In what has been revealed to us.”

“Ah! There it is again! By whom – how?

“By God Himself – through our Lord.”

A faint flush rose in Laird’s yellow face, and his eyes brightened.

“Christ,” he said; “if He existed, which some people, as you know, doubt, was a very beautiful character; there have been others. But to ask us to believe in His supernaturalness or divinity at this time of day is to ask us to walk through the world blindfold. And that’s what you do, don’t you?”

Again Pierson looked at his daughter’s face. She was standing quite still, with her eyes fixed on her husband. Somehow he was aware that all these words of the sick man’s were for her benefit. Anger, and a sort of despair rose within him, and he said painfully:

“I cannot explain. There are things that I can’t make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in. For what do you imagine we are fighting this great war, if it is not to reestablish the belief in love as the guiding principle of life?”

Laird shook his head. “We are fighting to redress a balance, which was in danger of being lost.”

“The balance of power?”

“Heavens! – no! The balance of philosophy.”

Pierson smiled. “That sounds very clever, George; but again, I don’t follow you.”

“The balance between the sayings: ‘Might is Right,’ and ‘Right is Might.’ They’re both half-truth, but the first was beating the other out of the field. All the rest of it is cant, you know. And by the way, sir, your Church is solid for punishment of the evildoer. Where’s mercy there? Either its God is not merciful, or else it doesn’t believe in its God.”

“Just punishment does not preclude mercy, George.”

“It does in Nature.”

“Ah! Nature, George – always Nature. God transcends Nature.”

“Then why does He give it a free rein? A man too fond of drink, or women – how much mercy does he get from Nature? His overindulgence brings its exact equivalent of penalty; let him pray to God as much as he likes – unless he alters his ways he gets no mercy. If he does alter his ways, he gets no mercy either; he just gets Nature’s due reward. We English who have neglected brain and education – how much mercy are we getting in this war? Mercy’s a man-made ornament, disease, or luxury – call it what you will. Except that, I’ve nothing to say against it. On the contrary, I am all for it.”

Once more Pierson looked at his daughter. Something in her face hurt him – the silent intensity with which she was hanging on her husband’s words, the eager search of her eyes. And he turned to the door, saying:

“This is bad for you, George.”

He saw Gratian put her hand on her husband’s forehead, and thought – jealously: ‘How can I save my poor girl from this infidelity? Are my twenty years of care to go for nothing, against this modern spirit?’

Down in his study, the words went through his mind: “Holy, holy, holy, Merciful and Mighty!” And going to the little piano in the corner, he opened it, and began playing the hymn. He played it softly on the shabby keys of this thirty-year old friend, which had been with him since College days; and sang it softly in his worn voice.

A sound made him look up. Gratian had come in. She put her hand on his shoulder, and said:

“I know it hurts you, Dad. But we’ve got to find out for ourselves, haven’t we? All the time you and George were talking, I felt that you didn’t see that it’s I who’ve changed. It’s not what he thinks, but what I’ve come to think of my own accord. I wish you’d understand that I’ve got a mind of my own, Dad.”

Pierson looked up with amazement.

“Of course you have a mind.”

Gratian shook her head. “No, you thought my mind was yours; and now you think it’s George’s. But it’s my own. When you were my age weren’t you trying hard to find the truth yourself, and differing from your father?”

Pierson did not answer. He could not remember. It was like stirring a stick amongst a drift of last year’s leaves, to awaken but a dry rustling, a vague sense of unsubstantiality. Searched? No doubt he had searched, but the process had brought him nothing. Knowledge was all smoke! Emotional faith alone was truth – reality!

“Ah, Gracie!” he said, “search if you must, but where will you find bottom? The well is too deep for us. You will come back to God, my child, when you’re tired out; the only rest is there.”

“I don’t want to rest. Some people search all their lives, and die searching. Why shouldn’t I.

“You will be most unhappy, my child.”

“If I’m unhappy, Dad, it’ll be because the world’s unhappy. I don’t believe it ought to be; I think it only is, because it shuts its eyes.”

Pierson got up. “You think I shut my eyes?”

Gratian nodded.

“If I do, it is because there is no other way to happiness.”

“Are you happy; Dad?”

“As happy as my nature will let me be. I miss your mother. If I lose you and Noel – ”

“Oh, but we won’t let you!”

Pierson smiled. “My dear,” he said, “I think I have!”

VIII