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Title: Shepherds in Sackcloth
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
  New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1930 (First Edition)
Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith (1887-1956)
Date first posted: 12 July 2007
Date last updated: 12 July 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #15

This ebook was produced by: Andrew Templeton




                         SHEPHERDS IN SACKCLOTH
                          By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH



                      HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
                          NEW YORK AND LONDON
                                 1930




Table of Contents

  I. MR. BENNET
 II. MRS. BENNET
III. THERESA (solar)
 IV. THERESA (lunar)
  V. GEORGE
 VI. MRS. IGGULSDEN (1st Battle)
VII. MRS. IGGULSDEN (2nd Battle)




                             I. Mr. Bennet



                                  1

Mr. Bennet was working in his garden. The hopeful Spring came to him,
fanning up the Rother from the warm shores of Kent. This Spring promised
well for his roses, well for his pansies and his peas and his plums--a
little less well for the world outside, since it was a Spring of
industrial storms and ecclesiastical strife, while nearer home were
troubles involved by a change of tradition, a great Manor's loss. But
Mr. Bennet was not thinking of the Spring, either benevolent or
malevolent. His thoughts followed humbler ways, in fact nothing less
lowly than the boiling of the kettle he had left on the kitchen
oil-stove for his own and his wife's tea.

Mrs. Bennet had gone into Hawkhurst, the nearest village of more than
one-shop size, to buy herself a new hat. When she came back she would be
tired and in want of a cup of tea. Emily, the maid, was out, and unless
Mr. Bennet made the tea, the weary traveller, with bones ashake and her
throat full of dust, would have to wait some forty minutes while the
temperature of cold water crept slowly through warmth to a reluctant
boiling.

The kettle must have been on nearly forty minutes now. Ought he to go in
and see what was happening? He wanted badly to reach the end of this
border first. There were many dead heads to come off, and it would look
odd if he left it half finished. It was doubtful when he next would have
any free time far gardening, for Sunday was upon him, and a ruri-decanal
conference at Goudhurst on Monday. He must do what he could now--before
tea; after tea he would have to go down to the church, and then he must
call at Goldstrow . . . and there was still a lot of weeding to do--and
his sermon to prepare . . . and people seemed to think that a country
parson's life was one long dream of idleness. . . . Well, let 'em try it
for themselves--let 'em try being gardener and housemaid and plumber and
priest and gentleman all on three hundred and fifty pounds a year and a
house with eleven bedrooms.

He had come to the end of his row of pansies, and straightened his back
regretfully. There was still a lot of clearing up to be done--it was
long since he had had such a good day for the garden--but he really
would indulge himself no further. Lucy might be home any minute now--the
bus was due at the corner at a quarter to five--and it would never do if
she came back to find no tea ready for her, or worse still, a kitchen
deluge. Sighing deeply, he put on his coat and pottered towards the
house.

The house was very peaceful on Emily's afternoon off. Generally a thin
sound drifted through it, which was her singing--her wordless, tuneless
singing, with which she accompanied every task, nearly every movement.
There had been a time when they had tried to stop or at least reduce it,
but that had been long ago when Mrs. Bennet still had thoughts of
"training" her, when they had deemed it both unkind and unnecessary to
call her Poor Emily as everyone else did. Now they accepted the fact
that she was "not like other people," though indignantly rejecting Dr.
Gilpin's definition of her as a "hopeless moron," or even the old
postman's milder verdict that she was a "poor larmentable natural
creature wud a head as good as a gate post fur thinking."

Anyway, Emily's kitchen was spotlessly clean. It was a large dark room
full of those ecclesiastical suggestions which builders in the
'seventies considered indispensable to a Rectory house. A heavily
mullioned window fought with the exhausted light that struggled through
a laurel thicket, while the fireplace had a Gothic hood descending over
the unused, coal-eating range. Set in what little light there was, the
kettle boiled with reassuring moderation on the oil cooking stove.

Mr. Bennet made tea in a brown teapot waiting on the tray which he had
already spread with a lace-edged cloth. Mrs. Bennet always liked lace on
the tea-table, and washed the cloths herself rather than go without it.
He smoothed the lace with his big clumsy fingers, and set out very
carefully and warily some little biscuits upon a plate. All he had to do
now was to carry the tray into the drawing-room. They always had tea in
the drawing-room in Summer when there was no problem of an extra fire.
It was the room they liked best, with its upholstery of faded, flowery
chintz, its dimly riotous wall-paper, and the fans and fire-screens that
Mrs. Bennet had painted in her youth, and a little tinkling Collard
piano that seemed specially made to be played on by elderly, small,
ringed fingers, coaxing out Mendelssohn's _Lieder_ or the Overture to
Weber's _Oberon_.

Mr. Bennet pulled up the blinds, which were always kept drawn in unequal
warfare with the greedy sun, sucking the last faint colours out of the
walls and furniture. As he did so, the drive-gate clicked, and he felt
rising in his heart that warm, comfortable gladness which, throughout
thirty-five years of married life, had never failed to welcome his
wife's return. He had seldom felt anything less, or anything very much
more. There were no crumbled frenzies to compare either gladly or
regretfully with this smooth elation. He stood in the window--where the
ecclesiastically minded architect had achieved the compromise of a
Gothic bow--to watch her come round the laurel bushes at the drive bend.
But when she did so, his face fell. It was not his wife at all.

He was rather short-sighted, even with his glasses on, but he could not
fail to recognise Mrs. Bennet's small figure, shading, when dressed in
her best, from her yellow hat down through her fawn jacket to her brown
skirt. This figure, though also small, started with green at the top
instead of yellow, and then from shoulder to hip achieved an even
brighter verdure. It advanced rapidly towards the house, at very much
his wife's rate and gait, bobbing and dipping along like a bird. Then
suddenly he saw that it was Lucy after all--Lucy translated by a new hat
and coat, laughing at his perplexed face which she could dimly see
through the window. The next minute she was in the room.

"Well, my love! Here I am. And do you see any difference in me?"

"I hardly knew you at first. What have you been doing?"

"I'm wearing my new hat, that's all. You knew I was going to get one at
Budgen's, and I simply couldn't resist wearing it home. I never
can"--she giggled lightly--"and then this coat . . . of course you'll
scold me for being so extravagant, but it really was a bargain. You see
it goes perfectly with the hat--almost the same shade of green, only
perhaps a little brighter, and I do want something cooler than my
jacket, now Summer's coming on. It cost only ten shillings and
elevenpence."

"How much was the hat?"

"Five and eleven, and I was prepared to go up to seven and six; so I've
really saved a little. . . . But you mustn't scold me, darling, for I've
been wonderfully economical on the whole this year; and I do think it my
duty as a clergyman's wife to be always nicely dressed. Otherwise people
might think that religion was a depressing sort of thing that wouldn't
let us wear pretty clothes, and--and----"

He knew from old experience that only a kiss would stop her chattering
mouth.

"My love, I'm not blaming you. How could I? You always manage so well
and look so nice. I think I like you in green for a change."

"Yes, it's a long time since I've worn green; not since that green coat
and skirt I bought when Miss Pierce was married--the one I had dyed
black just before the war. It lasted me right up to a couple of years
ago--as knickers, I mean, for I couldn't go on wearing the skirt after
it caught on a thorn bush that day I came back from Lossenham by the
fields, so----"

"I've got your tea ready for you, dear."

"Oh, thank you. That will be nice. I'm dying for a cup of tea. You're
always so thoughtful, Harry."

"Well, I want a cup of tea myself, and Emily's out, you know."

"Yes, thank goodness! . . . Poor Emily."



                                  2

The old couple sat down to their tea. They did not really look so very
old--not their full sixties. The Rector's hair was grey, almost white,
but thick as a thatch upon his head, while Mrs. Bennet's hair was still
the faded straw-colour that had once been gold. She showed at every
point a direct contrast to her husband. While he was big and stooping,
slow in his movements, inclined to fumble, she was small, erect and
rapid, lavish of gesture. While he was deliberate in speech,
deep-voiced, and given to rumbling laughter, she chattered and giggled
shrilly--mastiff and poll-parrot; thus an unsympathising wit had once
defined them. But in one point they were alike. Their two so-different
faces--his dark-complexioned and heavy-featured, hers still wearing the
afterglow of her girlhood's pink and white--had both something of the
alert, watchful innocence of children. They were faces of those who
accept at the hands of life both good and evil, who wonder but do not
criticise, whose fears and doubts have been purged by a simplicity which
is almost faith.

"Well, my dear, and what have you been doing this afternoon? Anybody
called?"

"I've been gardening, and nobody's called, unless you count two tramps
as callers."

"Tramps . . . what kind were they?"

"Oh, the usual kind. They'd come from Cranbrook, and were working me in
with Hawkhurst and Wittersham, I gather."

"Did they tell good stories?"

"Oh, quite. They earned their shilling."

The Bennets had long ceased to give alms on any moral system. They paid
for "stories" as a magazine editor pays for them, not because they are
true but because they are creditable pieces of fiction.

"Did you give them a shilling each?"

"No; because they came together and told the same story. They had both
apparently once been servers at St. Bartholomew's, Brighton. But one
said he used to know Mr. Naesmyth at Skelborough."

"That was clever of him. I think that deserved another shilling, dear."

"No it didn't, and you're an unscrupulous woman--paying tramps for
lies."

"But they're such clever lies and they must have spent a lot of time and
trouble finding out about you. Besides, if one wasn't unscrupulous, one
would never help anybody--at least not tramps."

"You're quite right, and some day I shall develop scruples and save a
lot of money."

They went on with their tea in silence for a few minutes. Then Mrs.
Bennet said:

"So you haven't been up to Goldstrow?"

"No. I thought I might as well take the afternoon in the garden. Those
side beds are getting terribly ragged . . . and I can easily fit in
Goldstrow after church."

"Won't that be rather late for Mrs. Millington--if she's ill?"

"She's not ill. The whole village is agreed about that, and the village
must be right. It always is."

"Oh, Harry!"

"Well, isn't it? As it happens, Dr. Gilpin passed the time of day with
me over the hedge, and he tells me she's only got a cold--a heavy cold.
She'll be quite well in a day or two."

"Then I suppose it won't matter your going late. But, Harry, do be
careful what you say, and keep on the right side of her. After all,
perhaps we were a little to blame. We ought to have told her about Sue."

"No, we ought not. What Sue did in her first situation four years ago is
no business of anybody who employs her now. Good heavens! Is the poor
girl never going to be allowed to forget the past?"

"Yes, it does seem hard. But please be careful, dear. Don't offend
her--with the Garden Party coming on, and the Parish Fund in such low
water."

"My love, trust me. I'll be very diplomatic. I've no wish to offend
her--and not only because of her money. I like that girl of hers, and I
want to get her."

"Get her! What for?"

"For the Church, my dear Lucy for a better sort of life and religion
than her aunt's."

"Oh, Harry . . ." Mrs. Bennet did not care to express, even to herself,
any doubt of her husband's prowess as a fisher of men. But she found it
difficult to visualise the situation that he now held up to her all dim
in the glory of pastoral hope. "It would be nice if you could," she
finished lamely.

"Yes . . . and why not? Theresa's a wild, self-willed young thing. But
that's just the sort that makes such a good Christian in the end."

"I know, dear, and really . . . but of course . . . I mean, it's rather
awkward . . . I wish you could do something with her soon. I met her the
other day, pushing her bicycle up the hill between the two Gasson boys,
and when I tried to make her join me instead, she said she was going
with them to Rolvenden Fair. The village is quite shocked at the way she
runs wild and goes about with the boys."

"She can't come to any harm with the young Gassons. They're decent,
sensible lads."

"Yes, but it isn't only them. Mrs. Boorman was saying in the bus this
afternoon that two days ago she walked into the Plough, all among the
men in the bar, and asked for a pint of ale as bold as brass. Mr.
Boorman wouldn't serve her, of course. He persuaded her to go into the
parlour, and Mrs. Boorman brought her half a pint, just to taste, since
she was so eager. I don't know what Mrs. Millington would say if she
heard."

"I hope she won't hear. But of course she will if Mrs. Boorman goes
shouting about it in the Hawkhurst bus. Really I think there's
everything to be said for that poor girl. She must have a terribly dull
life up at Goldstrow, and not a soul to know outside it. There are
practically no young people of her own class in the district, so
naturally she goes about with the Gassons and their kind. We might ask
her in here now and again, for dinner and tea. But we're only old
fogeys."

"What a difference it would have made to her if our Sylvia had lived.
She would have been such a lovely friend."

"A little too old for her, I'm afraid."

"Yes, of course. . . . Sylvia would have been nearly twenty-nine."

"Married by this time, perhaps."

"Yes indeed, I expect so. I'm sure she would have grown up a beautiful
girl."

It was now more than twenty-five years since the Bennets had lost their
only daughter.



                                  3

When tea was over, Mr. Bennet dried the tea things which his wife washed
up. Then he put on a shabby old hat of the kind known as "gentle
shepherd," and walked down to his church in Delmonden.

The village lay between the church and the Rectory, a small homely
street running downhill towards the Rother. At this point the Rother is
one with the Kent Ditch, and a boundary line between Kent and Sussex.
On either side of it lie the marshes that are the width of the mighty
river it once was, and beyond them the gently rising fields that were
once its banks. This evening the marshes were yellow with sunshine and
buttercups, and on the hills the young woods lifted torches of green
fire to the sky. The white of the hawthorn and the wild cherry flashed
from their borders, and from the hedges of the seaward road that crossed
the Rother at Delmonden bridge.

The church stood almost on the marsh itself, the last of Kent. It was a
small, mysterious place, without tower or steeple, its roof sprawling
nearly to the ground on either side. In reality it was not a complete
church, but the chancel of a church once planned but only partly built,
by the monks of Canterbury--those lusty builders who had spiked the
wastes of Romany Marsh with soaring temples and wakened inland echoes
with their new-foundered bells. At Delmonden, however, they had not been
successful. Boundaries were then ill-defined, and the Rother valley not
only lay uncertainly in Kent, but uncertainly in the diocese of
Canterbury. The successor of St. Richard laid claim to it from his
cathedral church at Chichester, and the monks of Battle Abbey, grown
poor and envious since Becket's martyrdom, resented the coming of these
new rich guardians of this new-made shrine, to raise up a steeple in a
land where the steeples had hitherto been raised by the faith and
good-will of Sussex.

As the result of prolonged altercation, and some personal interference
on the part of one Richard Dalyngruge of Bodiham Castle on the Rother,
the monks departed, leaving behind them a mere chancel. Battle Abbey was
too poor to build a nave, so the chancel remained--looking down the
marshes to the sunrise. Neither St. Thomas nor St. Richard claimed it
now, for after having spent some hundreds of years in undisputed
possession of Canterbury, it had in the eighteen-eighties been handed
over to the newly formed diocese of Maidstone. No one had ever thought
of finishing it, for the village of Delmonden had not grown any bigger
or shown any signs of crowding it as it stood. In the late nineteenth
century, the hand of the restorer was ruthlessly laid upon it--a
Victorian-Gothic sanctuary was built out at the east end, with a vestry,
and a hideous and terrifying heating apparatus.

It could not be called beautiful by any stretch of courtesy or
imagination. The monks of Canterbury had built in a hurry, with one eye
on Bodiham Castle, while the Victorian restorers had had only too much
time. Of recent years, the parish had sunk, and there had been little
money to spend, though the old Squire--now supplanted by Mrs. Millington
at Goldstrow--had devoted a learned and sensitive taste to the church's
improvement. An English altar, darkly hung with a blue-green frontal and
riddells, was furnished austerely in lacquered brass. The East Window
was mercifully unpictured, save for some ancient coats of arms. The War
Memorial--a humble crucifix above a prayer-desk set round with bowls and
pots of flowers--had the merits of simplicity and homeliness and
constant use. The font was Victorian, monstrous on a thirteenth-century
base; the seats were pitch-pine, littered with huge hassocks surviving
from Hanoverian pews.

Mr. Bennet loved it all--old sprawling roof, tuppenny chancel, xsthetic
altar, hybrid font, pitch-pine seats, Hanoverian hassocks--Middle
Gothic, Churchwarden Gothic, Victorian, Georgian, Sarum--he loved it
all, and was aware of no dissonance in its discordant parts, all of
which were harmonised for him by love and use. For more than twenty-five
years now he had watched over it, seeking its order and prosperity.
Though visiting priests sometimes hinted their thought that he could
have done more in twenty-five years, he himself felt that he had gone
quite fast enough. Visiting priests did not know how slow were country
ways, how catastrophic country changes from the blue bed to the brown,
from the black stole to the green; how that uprooting a hymn was like
uprooting a tree; how new lights were as strange and troubling as new
stars.

In the porch was nailed up a notice in the Rector's spidery handwriting,
beginning with a quotation from the Book of Common Prayer: "and because
it is requisite, that no man should come to the Holy Communion, but with
a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience . . ." and
ending "in accordance with the above, the Rector will be in church every
Saturday evening at half past five, to hear confessions and give
spiritual advice to any who may need it." This evening he went in as he
had gone in almost every Saturday for twenty-five years, put on his
cassock and surplice, and sat down beside a prayer-desk set against the
west wall--and, as on almost every Saturday, he sat there alone.

There had never been any special eagerness on the part of his flock to
avail themselves of the power of the keys. Children round about the
confirmation age came sometimes before the big church festivals, and
occasionally in Summer a stranger would drift in, holidaying from the
more zealous religion of the South Coast. But that was all; except, of
course, the three old people who never failed him--Mrs. Iggulsden, Mrs.
Body, and Davy Spong. Those were the three whom sometimes, in moments of
depression, he would call his three sheaves of wheat in a harvest of
straw. For twenty-five years he had watched them growing and ripening,
and they were very old now. He ministered to Mrs. Iggulsden at her
bedside, and Mrs. Body and Mr. Spong came out only with the bright
weather. One day they would all three pass on out of sight, ahead of
him, leaving him alone with his harvest of straw.

The door stood open, showing him the evening full of sunlight, and
allowing the cluck of farmyards to drift into the church. He prayed as
he sat there alone, and read from a little book called "The Hidden
Life." He always sat there for half an hour, and his people always knew
where they could find him. Towards the end of the half hour, he could
hear footsteps, and shadows moved across the brightness of the door.
They were there outside, anxious to consult him, but waiting till he
looked less dangerous. With a wry smile, he dragged out his watch--a
difficult process under cassock and surplice, and crumpling them badly,
so that he looked a queer bunchy old figure as he stood up at last, put
aside his stole, and went out onto the porch.



                                  4

"Good evenun, Sir."

At first he did not recognise the old labouring man who approached him.
Then he remembered him as the drover at Palster Court, over in
Wittersham Parish.

"Good evening, Mr. Pix. How are you? It's a long time since I've seen
you up at Delmonden."

"Surelye, Sir, 'tis a long time. I'm gitting an old man, wud trouble in
my bans, and my work's all I'm able to do, stepping up to Palster dis
cruel weather. Today's de fust day I've felt in heart to come a bit
furder, so I thought I'd come around and see as to my being put in on
de electric roll."

"You couldn't be put on till next year, I'm afraid. The roll was revised
at Easter. And anyhow, you don't live in this parish. You belong to
Wittersham."

"But I dant never go dere, Sir."

"Nor do you ever come here."

"But dis is de church I do favour, Sir."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to favour it inside as well as out, or you
can't be on the electoral roll--a whole year's regular attendance. How
should you like that?"

"I shouldn't like dat at all, Sir. I'm gitting an old man, wud trouble
in my bans. I can't attend regular nowhere, and reckon it comes tedious
hard on us old folks if we un't allowed on de electric roll, seeing as
when we wur young and could attend regular dere wurn't none."

The old brown face, set with its encircling frill of whisker between
bent shoulders and a round black hat very like Mr. Bennet's, was working
with disappointment. No gentle shepherd could send away this poor old
sheep uncomforted, though properly speaking, he belonged to another
flock.

"If I were you, Mr. Pix, I'd get myself put on the roll at Wittersham;
that will be quite easy, as you're a parishioner. You go and see Mr.
Fanshawe at the Rectory, and he'll arrange it for you."

"And I wan't have to attend regular?"

"No, not if you're in the parish."

"Den dat do seem de easier way, dan't it, Sir?"

"Yes, it does. But"--he felt that so much eagerness must be due to some
misconception as to benefits received--"don't make any mistake. I'm
afraid you get nothing out of being on the roll beyond the power to vote
at the Parish Meeting once a year."

"I dan't want to vote at no meetings, Sir. Reckon dat wouldn't do my
bans any good. But I've taken a powerful fancy to be on de electric
roll, and now reckon I'll be on, and it'll be a gurt joy and pride to me
and to my old woman. Thank you kindly, Sir, and good evenun to you."

"Good evening, Mr. Pix."

He turned to the others who were waiting--signed one or two papers,
promised a hospital letter, and interviewed one of his Sunday-school
teachers, who had discovered that certain of her flock took advantage of
the bus service between Delmonden and Hawkhurst to go into chapel on
Sunday evenings--"I can't stop them, Miss Apps--either them or the bus."

Then he went back into the vestry, and took off his cassock and
surplice, in preparation for his walk to Goldstrow. His Saturday
evenings nearly always ended like this. He came as the physician of
souls, but was forced instead to minister to bodies. He came as the
Lord's ambassador, but was required to act as an English magistrate.
Only a few desired the spiritual gifts he offered; all that most of his
people wanted was his help in the little pettifogging business of their
day--their little ambitions, their little needs, their little
controversies. Thus it had always been, and for a long time now he had
recognised it and accepted it.

As he tried before the dim looking-glass to make himself presentable for
his visit to high places, his mind went back to the day early in his
ministry when he had first learned this lesson. He saw himself a young,
eager, newly ordained priest, leaning over the bed where a miner's wife
lay dying in the Durham pit village of his first curacy. He heard her
faint voice murmuring--"I want . . . I want . . ."

He had been so sure what she wanted, so proud that he could give it to
her, this poor soul, setting out on her lonely journey. He had stooped
close to her panting mouth.

"What is it? What can I do for you?" and he remembered how he had
pictured himself hurrying back to the big dark church to fetch her the
Sacrament, and then sending her forth with words of comfort and
committal, so that she left a glory behind her. "I want . . . I
want . . . some tabioca pudding."

That incident seemed now to typify the course of his ministry. And just
as then he had not dared despise her poor request, but had immediately
set about getting her what she wanted, fetching it himself from a
neighbour's kitchen, so now he would not fail these souls who, when he
offered them the Bread of Life, asked for tabioca pudding instead. It
was better than giving them nothing. He ought to be thankful that there
was at least some way in which he could be their minister.



                                  5

The Rector could never approach Goldstrow without a sense of loss. Sir
John Fleet, the "old Squire," last of five generations of Fleets that
had owned Goldstrow, had hardly been as conspicuous in the neighbourhood
as his position warranted. By natural tastes a scholar, the succeeding
blows of Lloyd George's Land Act and the Great War had forced him into a
reclusion of poverty. Goldstrow, both house and estate, had fallen on
bad times; but he himself could always be found by those who sought him
out in his heritage--a man and a brother.

Between him and the Rector had existed a very real friendship. Though
they had few circumstances and interests in common, their temperaments
agreed, and Mr. Bennet could always be sure of finding at Goldstrow good
wine, good talk, and good understanding. The Squire's death had meant
the breaking of a tradition in Delmonden. Though poverty had spoiled his
part as Squire and landlord, his mere living at the Manor House had
stood for something venerable and socially constructive. The Fleets of
Goldstrow had been a part of Delmonden's social order, and this man's
death was the death of the Fleets and the death of Goldstrow.

For some time the Manor's fate had been uncertain. Distant heirs would
hear of nothing but selling it, and Goldstrow hung on the edge of
nameless dishonours. Hotel proprietors and school mistresses inspected
it--it was even bargained over as a possible Sanatorium. Luckily these
schemes all came to nothing, and Mr. Bennet, together with most of
Delmonden, was relieved to hear that it had been bought by the widow of
a wealthy London banker.

Preliminary rumours had promised well for Mrs. Millington. She was rich,
but not newly rich. Indeed, she came of a family of landed proprietors.
She had been brought up at the Hall and knew the ways of Squirearchy.
She would put the seedy old house in order and revive the failing life
of its farms. Rumour also said that she was a Good Churchwoman. The old
Squire's churchmanship had been chiefly aesthetic, confined to his
efforts to chasten and beautify St. Thomas  Becket's, Delmonden. But
Mrs. Millington was well known as a subscriber to church charities and
missionary societies. Her husband had been churchwarden of a fashionable
London church, and first cousin to the Bishop of Glastonbury. Mr. Bennet
dreamed of half-crowns in his collection plate, among all the pennies
and halfpennies, and guineas on his subscription lists among all the
shillings.

Rumour had, it proved, a little exaggerated the lady's good points. She
was certainly interested in her estate, but her ideas dated largely from
the times when, living in her father's house, she had watched a very
different administration from any that was possible in rural England
after the War. Now all that which used to be bestowed of bounty was
demanded of right. Mrs. Millington liked to be bountiful; she liked to
give her maids new dress-lengths at Christmas; she liked to send soup
and jelly to sick folk, mufflers and flannel petticoats to old ones; she
liked to give sides of bacon to large families and buns to children. But
she did not like to give wages which would have enabled everybody to buy
dress-lengths, soup, jelly, mufflers, flannel petticoats, bacon and buns
for themselves. However, her tenants suffered her, because she mended
their roofs and put their farms in order.

In religious matters, too, she preferred bounty to equity. She was
generous--the Rector's hopes had not been disappointed--but her gifts
were not free. She considered that she bought with them certain rights
in the church and the parish; moreover she did not altogether like the
services at Delmonden, which were very different from the services at
St. Smaragdus's, South Kensington. Mr. Bennet lived in a constant strain
of propitiation.

The strain was upon him this evening. There were words that he wanted to
say, that he felt himself bound to say, and there were words that he
must say if he wanted to keep her favour, her guineas, and her
half-crowns. He was ashamed of himself for his own restraints--he knew
that, ideally, he ought to be snapping his fingers at her money. But
quite blankly and literally he could not afford to do so. The organ
would have to be repaired this Summer, and it was most unlikely that his
parishioners would be able to raise the funds, while next Winter
something would have to be done about the heating apparatus if they
didn't want either to be frozen out or blown up. No, his conscience must
take a larger view--a view of Delmonden parish and its needs, rather
than those relations of strict integrity desirable between a Rector and
his Squire.

Mrs. Millington received him in her bedroom, but she was not in bed. She
was sitting in an armchair by the fire, a lace scarf over her abundant
and beautiful grey hair. She was a handsome woman, grey-haired,
brown-eyed, and delicate of skin, having at the first glance an air of
patrician fragility which a closer inspection denied.

"Good evening, Mrs. Millington."

"Good evening, Mr. Bennet. I'm glad you've been able to come. But I was
expecting you to tea."

"I'm so sorry, but my wife was over at Hawkhurst for the afternoon, and
it was our maid's day out, so I had to stay at home. We get a great many
callers, you see."

"I see--and I suppose that was why you couldn't send anybody over with a
message, to let me know."

"I'm afraid not. It was our maid's day out . . . and as if it mattered
to you whether I came or not. You haven't got to worry about making
extra work or buying extra tea in order to receive a guest."

The last two-thirds of this reply were uttered secretly in Mr. Bennet's
heart. He found that it made things easier if he allowed his thoughts to
say what his lips must not. He could just bear to dissemble before
others, but he could not bear to dissemble before his own soul.

"Oh, well, of course I understand, and I hope it hasn't been awkward for
you to come over now. But I'm anxious to talk to you about this
unfortunate girl. It really is a most deplorable business, for now she
has been five months in my employment and it would be difficult to
exaggerate the harm she may have done."

"In what way, Mrs. Millington? I trust you don't find she's been
misbehaving?"

"How do I know? Servants always stand by one another. But think of the
influence to which my other maids have been exposed."

"Not a bad influence, I assure you. She is a nice-minded, well-spoken
girl."

"Really, Mr. Bennet, you surprise me! One would think you didn't know
she had committed an abominable sin."

"Four years ago."

"That makes no difference to me. I employ only respectable girls. And I
may add now that I consider you behaved very strangely in not telling me
all about her when I came here. I should never have engaged her if I'd
known."

"No, you wouldn't--and that's why I didn't tell you," said Mr. Bennet's
heart. His lips said: "Susan Lamb brought you a good reference from her
last employer, and had, I believe, an equally good one from the employer
before that. I really didn't think it fair to drag up the poor girl's
past. God has forgiven it, so man may as well forget it."

Mrs. Millington looked shocked.

"I really don't see that you need introduce the Almighty's name into
this, Mr. Bennet. The facts are that Susan Lamb has had a baby without
being married, and that nobody here told me a word about it when I
engaged her; and I shouldn't have known now if a friend from
Bulverhythe, where apparently it all happened, hadn't recognised her and
undeceived me."

"Evil-tongued, gossiping cat! The Lord rebuke her," cried Mr. Bennet's
inner voice. After which he was able to say aloud:

"I've known Susan ever since she was a baby. Her parents used to live
here before they went into Bulverhythe, and they are in every way
worthy, respectable people. Barring this one lapse, I've heard nothing
but good of her--and it happened four years ago. Also, as you probably
know, the baby died. Poor little girl, there's really no reason why
she shouldn't put the past right behind her, and perhaps in time marry
some good young man----"

"Who will probably be treated as I have been, and told nothing about
her."

Mr. Bennet flushed.

"His position would be a little different," he managed to say.

"Well, I really do consider that I've been treated badly, as nothing
would have induced me to engage her if I'd known of her past."

"But now you do know, won't you help her to leave the past behind her?
May I beg you not to send her away? I understand that she is a good
little maidservant."

"I have no fault to find with her service. It's her morals that I object
to, and I should have thought that with you, as with me, they would have
counted more than mere efficiency. No, Mr. Bennet, I cannot possibly
keep her. I have my other maids to consider--to say nothing of my niece.
I have no right to expose them to contamination."

"Contamination! From Susan Lamb!" scoffed Mr. Bennet's indignant heart.
Aloud he said:

"Very well, Mrs. Millington. I shall say no more. I shall only ask you
just one thing. May I see Susan before I leave this house?"

"I'm afraid you can't do that. She's gone."

"Gone! Then why did you send for me? This discussion has been a farce.
You have the effrontery to summon a busy priest a mile across the
country for no reason at all except that you want to scold him for not
having thought it necessary to rake up the whole past of a wretched girl
who was fool enough to want to enter your service. . . ."

He turned crimson with his unspoken fury. He must go at once, or he'd be
saying it all out loud. Drat the woman! She was impossible.

"Yes, I thought it best for her to go at once," continued Mrs.
Millington, "best for all of us. It's awkward enough in any
circumstances having servants about the place when they're under notice.
I'd have let her stay till tomorrow, but there's no train into
Bulverhythe on Sunday. If she hadn't gone today she'd have had to stop
over the week-end. I've given her her wages. There's no need to think
I've turned her out without a penny--though I should have been within my
rights if I had. I assure you, she was extremely grateful."

Luckily for Mr. Bennet at that point they were interrupted. The door
opened, and a voice said:

"It's me. May I come in, Aunt Emily?"

Mrs. Millington's expression changed. She lost her look of displeased
great lady, and into her eyes came something eager and anxious, that
made Mr. Bennet for a single moment almost pity her.

"Come in, Theresa; there's only the Rector here."

A rough red head came poking round the door, a mane of hair, curling and
flaming above a face in which youth and health glowed so brightly as to
be almost enough beauty in themselves. Mr. Bennet stood up as Miss
Theresa Silk, Mrs. Millington's niece, followed her head and shoulders
into the room.

"Hullo!" she cried. "I knew you were here. I saw your hat on the hall
seat."

Her greeting seemed to melt away the hard, indignant mood of the last
few minutes. The grim line of his mouth stretched into a smile.

"So you guessed I couldn't be far off? You're getting an expert
detective, I see."

"Have you read a book called _The Sneaker_ or something, by somebody
called Edgar Wallace? That's all about detectives, and easier to read
than most books."

"Theresa, don't expose yourself," said Mrs. Millington.

"I'm not. Mr. Bennet knows I can't read books, and he says some people
are made that way and there's no use worrying."

Mrs. Millington looked as if she did not altogether approve of this
advice.

"When I was your age I was a great reader. I think I'd read everything
that Charlotte Yonge ever wrote, as well as Scott and Dickens. I was
very fond of sewing and embroidery, too, and so was your poor mother."

"Then I guess I take after my papa," said Theresa, easily. She was
leaning up against the foot of Mrs. Millington's bed, her vigorous,
ungainly young figure almost hidden under the big ulster she wore belted
round her. She was about eighteen, and had not yet quite finished
growing. Her hands and feet were large in proportion to the rest of her,
her joints were coltish and her movements clumsy.

"Theresa!" cried Mrs. Millington, "your boots!"

Both Theresa and Mr. Bennet looked at them and at the stains of cow dung
on the carpet.

"Where have you been?" questioned her aunt.

"Oh, nowhere in particular--just round and about the place."

"You've been in somebody's farmyard," thought Mr. Bennet to himself, but
he would not say it aloud, because, though really he deplored as much as
his wife, Theresa's association with the country boys, he would not make
a culprit of her to Mrs. Millington. "Well, go and take them off at once, and change into something
respectable for dinner, if you're going to have it upstairs with me."

"Oh, Aunt, not now. It's only just after six, and such a lovely evening.
I want to go out."

"But you've been out all day."

"No, I haven't. I was carpentering in the tool-shed all the morning--I'm
making a model of the Bulverhythe bus. Now I want to stretch my legs. So
I thought I'd bike up to the village and hear the news."

"What news?"

"Didn't you know that Delmonden's playing Bethersden at cricket this
afternoon--the first match of the season? You knew, didn't you, Mr.
Bennet?"

"Oh, yes--but the results won't be out till the team comes home, and
that won't be till after supper. But if you want to stretch your legs,
Miss Theresa, why not walk back with me? I must be going now, and if
you'll keep me company, I promise Mrs. Millington you shall be home in
time to change your dress."



                                  6

Theresa and the Rector set out for the village together--he bare-headed,
she with his "gentle shepherd" hat set grotesquely on her fiery hair.
That this big, clumsy hoyden, all freckles and tan, should have been
named after the burning Carmelite seemed rather a bad joke to Mr.
Bennet. It could doubtless be accounted for by the fact that the
Theresas are very like the Mabels at the baptismal age; but this Theresa
herself saw the incongruity into which she had grown, and had asked to
be called Terry, a request which both her aunt and Mr. Bennet denied.

"I refuse to hash up that noble name," he had told her, "even though it
oughtn't to be yours. I'd rather you kept it and tried to grow like
it--Theresa of the Flaming Heart. Meanwhile I'll call you Theresa of the
Flaming Head and perhaps some day your head will set your heart on
fire."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Theresa had shouted at that.

This evening they discussed the chances of Delmonden against Bethersden
on the cricket field.

"I wish I could have gone," said she, "but there wasn't any way of
getting over. I asked Bob Sayer to take me on the pillion of his motor
bike, but he wouldn't."

"Quite right, too--just what I'd have expected him to say. He's a
sensible lad."

"But why shouldn't he have taken me?"

"Because, my dear, it doesn't look well for you to go about like that
with the village boys."

"I don't go about with them. I merely want to go to places, and ask them
to take me, which isn't at all the same thing, especially as they won't
do it."

"Why do you want to go to places?"

"To see what they're like and join in any fun that's going. I want to go
to Benenden Fair next Thursday. I love fairs--but it's too far to bike
over and be back to lunch. Aunt always gets fussy if I'm not in to
meals."

"That's quite natural. I think she allows you a great deal of freedom,
considering how--" he had nearly said, "how she bullies everyone else."

"Oh, she doesn't know what I'm doing half the time. She's busy with her
housekeeping and her tenants and her committees and all that sort of
thing. I'd be simply horribly dull if I relied on her for company."

"How did you manage when you lived in London?"

"Oh, I, was at school then--away most of the time. London itself was
beastly--no fun at all. I love this place, but if I don't talk to the
village people, who am I to talk to? There isn't anyone else."

"There are the Ingpens and the Cheesmans--both with girls of your own
age."

"I can't bear them; they talk of nothing but men. I hate talking about
men."

"Well, what about Dr. and Mrs. Gilpin?"

"Oh, they're too old."

As Dr. Gilpin was about twenty years younger than Mr. Bennet, there
didn't seem any good suggesting himself and his wife as possible
companions.

"Why not take up some sort of work? You might interest yourself in one
or two of your aunt's concerns and help her run them."

"Committees and clergymen? Good Lord, no! I hate all that sort of
thing."

"Then stop wearing a clergyman's hat and boring yourself with a
clergyman's company. It's time you went home, if you're to change your
dress."

Mr. Bennet was annoyed. In vain he told himself that the
anti-clericalism of a girl of eighteen ought not to be taken seriously.
She saw that she had displeased him.

"Oh, don't be angry. It shows how nice I think you if I forget you're a
clergyman."

This did not help at all. Mr. Bennet held out his hand for his hat.

"I promised your aunt I'd send you back in time."

"But you're angry with me."

"Of course I am. You've insulted my office. But don't worry--I'm used to
that sort of thing and will have forgotten all about it in an hour or
two."

"If you'd seen Aunt's awful Reverend Grant you'd understand what I feel.
I can't help it. When I've met a few more clergymen like you, I expect
I'll change my mind. Meanwhile I like you terribly, so please don't go
on being angry longer than you can help."

"Very well, perhaps I won't."

"You promise?"

He could not help smiling at her as she stood before him like some
mediaeval picture of the sun--round grinning face and fiery rays of
hair. Poor child! She was queerly out of place in her aunt's household;
it was difficult to realise they were kin. He understood that Mrs.
Millington's sister had married disastrously. Perhaps Theresa "took
after" the disaster.

He went on his solitary way up Delmonden Hill. He felt tired--a long,
battling, fruitless evening, like so many others.

At the Rectory, Mrs. Bennet had cooked a "surprise" in the shape of
Welsh rarebit, and he felt a little better when she told him he looked
exhausted and insisted on opening a bottle of Bass. After supper he
helped her wash up, and, before they had finished, Poor Emily came in
with the news that Delmonden had won the cricket match.

"Who told 'you, Emily?"

"My little Arthur told me. Mr. Boorman took him over to see the play,
and he said it was fine. Young Southerden made eighty-seven runs."

"My little Arthur" was the quite imaginary son of the virgin Emily, but,
strangely enough, the information he brought nearly always proved
correct.

"I'm thinking you'll be wanting some wood chopped, Mum."

"Oh, no, Emily. Everything's ready for tomorrow. You must go to bed
now."

Another of Emily's eccentricities was a desire to perform unnecessary
tasks at unusual hours. She was however amenable to command if not to
reason, and went off to bed without another word.

Thus the day ended for Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. An hour later they were both
lying side by side in their twin iron bedsteads, in their big, bare,
cold, Gothic bedroom. Mrs. Bennet was asleep, but her husband, as usual,
lay awake a little longer. He had definitely put from him the shadows of
the day, but his mind lay as it were suspended above sleep, the lake in
whose heating waters he would soon be lost, to rise from them tomorrow
full of trust in the new day. At the bottom of that lake all the past
day's shadows would be left to lie forgotten, just as some day he hoped
to leave his whole life's shadows to drown in an even deeper lake.



                                  7

Theresa Silk liked Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. In her vocabulary they were "old
pets." Sometimes she found the Rector rather too heavily facetious and
his wife a little boring with her chatter, but she liked them more than
anyone else in Delmonden. She was sorry that she had annoyed Mr. Bennet
by "insulting his office," whatever that might mean. She had not
intended it, but since she had done it, and could see by his face that
he was really affronted, she felt sorry, and would do her best to atone.

She decided that she would go to church on Sunday morning. Usually such
a course was inevitable, but Theresa had staked much on her aunt's
illness, which would providentially keep her at home. She had meant to
set out ostensibly for church but actually for a walk down the marshes,
exploring the country of hawthorn and buttercups that stretched a white
and golden mystery into the east. She had trusted the Rector not to
betray her if he noticed her absence, but now she would not strain his
generosity.

Accordingly, hatted and gloved, she set out shortly before ten, feeling
a little exalted after bidding her aunt good-bye with an unexpectedly
clear conscience. She promised to notice if the Bourners were in
church--lately they had given up coming, and as they were tenants, Mrs.
Millington felt it her duty to enquire into the matter--if the Rector
gave out the notice about the Melanesian Mission that she had specially
sent in to him, and if they kept St. Mark's day or the Fourth Sunday
after Easter--the two festivals coinciding and Mrs. Millington's vote
going to St. Mark.

At Delmonden, the hour of eleven had not acquired the religious
significance it has in towns. At a few minutes to ten the bells were
ringing for the service that began at the half hour. The Canterbury
monks had built no steeple, so it was only a little mean peal of tubular
bells, with a haunting minor note in its descending scale, that crept
out over the marsh to meet the hearty chimes that Sussex was sending
across from Northiam.

Theresa walked sedately, conscious of hat and gloves and thin tight
shoes. In her hand she clasped a Book of Common Prayer and a copy of
Hymns Ancient and Modern. The only hymn she liked was "Onward Christian
Soldiers," which she could hardly expect today, unless by a lucky chance
the Rector considered it appropriate to St. Mark. The other hymns were
all so thin and frail--just tum, tum, tum, tum, tee. She liked hymns
that went: Rum, tum, rumpty, rumpitty, tum, like those the Salvation
Army sang. It would be fun to belong to the Salvation Army, and play and
sing at street corners and shake a tambourine. . . .

The church was nearly a mile from Goldstrow. In order to reach it she
had first to walk down an old narrow lane that wound towards the village
past the Rectory. Then she found herself going down Delmonden hill in a
thin straggle of folk, all churchward bound. She viewed them
disapprovingly. They looked a dull crowd, all in their best clothes.
There went Dr. Gilpin and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Apps, who kept the
general shop, and the Rector's idiot servant, Poor Emily, with the
Vidlers from Reedbed Farm and the Batups from Kitchenhour, and other
honest families. Why didn't the gipsies go to church? There was an
encampment of them at Marsh Quarter. She supposed they never went. But
she was sorry for it; she would like to see a church full of
gipsies. . . .

As she came to the churchyard gate, she realised that it was only a
quarter past ten. She didn't want to have to sit in church for a quarter
of an hour before the service began. It would be long enough without any
such preface--Mr. Bennet was sometimes terribly slow. Normally she would
have had to sit staring and fidgeting beside her aunt while the
Sunday-school children clattered into their places, and the old folk
established themselves with collected hassocks, and the young folk hung
chattering round the porch, waiting for the last bell before they came
in. Today she was blessedly free, and could go for a walk on the marsh
if she chose.

Just beyond the church a grassy track led under the hill that had once
been the Rother's shore, to Lossenham, a tiny collection of houses about
half a mile from Delmonden. Theresa turned into the shelter of a rough
hedgerow, where a milky way of chervil and cow parsley floated on either
side almost shoulder high. It was the beginning of the path she had
chosen before contrition towards Mr. Bennet had made her decide on
church. She would just go down it as far as the houses. She wanted to
see who lived there. She had been told that a family of house-bound
gipsies had a cottage at Lossenham.

Theresa was in most ways younger than eighteen. Mrs. Millington had
always treated her as a child, and when they lived in London a governess
had been engaged for her holidays. This poor woman, Theresa had dragged
in search of adventure to Berwick Market and Petticoat Lane, to
Smithfield and Mile End, and even on an abortive expedition to
Limehouse, which they were persuaded to abandon by a policeman of whom
they asked the way. The governess had always been a cypher, an unwilling
but obedient dog at the heels of her charge's enterprise.

Theresa loved strange places and queer people--fired by the spark of
burnt-out memories, which she could not be sure were memories or only
dreams. . . . "Of course, she was too young to know--it's a great
mercy," Mrs. Millington would murmur to more than one friend.

She found the country infinitely more exciting and adventurous than the
town--partly because she could wear old clothes and ride a bicycle, and
partly because the governess was gone. She now had no unwilling
accomplice to be dragged about, and coaxed and bullied into silence. The
painful possession of a conscience even at second hand need no longer
embarrass her. "Thank heaven, I can lie naturally," was the pious
ejaculation of her heart. Her aunt, busy and careful with her
old-established interests and her newly acquired occupations, left her
very much to herself. Theresa was now supposed to be grown up, and it
was taken for granted, without much evidence, that she comported herself
as a grown-up person. Mrs. Millington never imagined that her niece was
still so much a child that she was scarcely even a girl, but lived in
that unawakened land where the shout of the boy heroes still stirs the
soul, the shout of all the boys of Henty and Marryat and Fenimore
Cooper, with an echo of the shout of the gipsy and the big drum at the
Fair.

Theresa had come to where, beyond the last cottage, a stile and a
footbridge link the track with the trackless mystery of the marsh. She
stared regretfully, and turned away. There was nobody about--neither
gentile nor gipsy. The little cottages looked shut and blind. Perhaps
everyone was in church. She had better go there herself, and quickly, or
it would be too late. The major scale of Northiam bells and the minor
scale of Delmonden, which down here on the marsh had sounded like a
lusty song and its sorrowful echo, had both now given place to two
solitary notes answering each other from Sussex and Kent. That meant she
had only five minutes more. She walked a few steps, and then saw a
cottage door open ahead of her. Out came two girls with red and brown
faces, and roving black eyes. The gipsies at last!

They stared at her and whispered something to each other, then set out
towards the village. She followed them, keeping a few yards behind. They
were gyppos for certain, but of course civilised, house-bound, and much
less stirring than the gipsies at Marsh Quarter. Tom Body had told her
that quite a number of gipsies were settled in cottages round and about
these parts. They always owned the cottages they lived in and gave
themselves great airs. But Tom said they stole chickens just the same.
She wondered if these girls stole chickens. They were on their way to
church now, carrying big Bibles under their arms. But that didn't mean
they didn't steal chickens, any more than Aunt Emily's prayer-book meant
that she didn't bully her maids. Oh, dear no! Theresa smiled in a
satisfaction of worldly wisdom.

The gipsies came to the end of the track, and then turned towards
Delmonden, but to Theresa's disappointment they walked past the church,
going briskly up the hill towards the village. After a scarcely
noticeable hesitation, she followed them. Where were they going with
those big Bibles under their arms? Then suddenly she knew. Why, of
course they were going to chapel.

This had not struck her before, because chapel had hitherto been outside
her world, and yet without that appeal from beyond-the-horizon which so
many things outside her world possessed. Now it occurred to her that
chapel was probably much more interesting than church, that odder people
went there and odder things happened there. Now was her time to hunt a
new experience--to follow these gipsies to whatever mysteries took the
place of the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England in their
religious scheme. She did not think they were going to Hawkhurst; it was
much too late--already the bells were silent both in Sussex and in Kent.
They were probably going to Providence, the little old chapel in
Delmonden.

It stood in a by-lane, at the end of a row of cottages known as
Puddingcake. It had been built a couple of hundred years, before
Nonconformist churches developed an ecclesiastical style. In fact it
looked very like a barn, weather-boarded in white, with a roof of
brownish tiles and a few small casement windows. Outside, one or two old
tombstones leaned this way and that between rhododendron bushes. The
rhododendrons were in flower, and from their midst on this sunny morning
came the hum of bees. The whole place stewed in the sunshine--old,
drowsy, homely, humble, and content.



                                  8

It was not till Theresa was inside, seated on a narrow, backless bench
behind the gipsies, that she realised she had entirely wrecked her plan
for propitiating Mr. Bennet. He would scarcely regard her attendance at
chapel as propitiation. For all the good she'd done, she might just as
well have gone for her walk on the marsh. But it was too late now. Her
going out so soon after her coming in would make too much clatter in
this little empty place. It was very small. When full it would not hold
more than about fifty, and this morning it held less than a dozen.

Most of the Nonconformists in Delmonden liked to take the bus into
Hawkhurst and attend one of the chapels there--Wesleyan, Baptist, or
Congregational. Providence was Calvinistic Methodist, and was served
only by a lay evangelist, who came there on alternate Sundays. Only
those attended who were old-fashioned enough to think it a sin to travel
by bus on the Sabbath day, or who found the Hawkhurst chapels too
foreign or too fine.

Theresa felt alarmingly conspicuous. She knew that she was dressed
differently from everybody else, that she carried two small books where
everybody else carried one large one, with other distressing
peculiarities. But her self-consciousness was soon lost in these new,
challenging surroundings. The congregation looked unusual--quite
different from the congregation in church, where one might see just one
or two odd-looking folk in an ordinary crowd. It consisted, besides
herself and the gipsies, of a fantastically ancient man in a greatcoat
so long that it was almost a cassock, of a couple of farm-labourers with
their wives, who might be gipsies too, if brown faces and queer secret
eyes meant anything, of a pale-faced girl with a crutch and a high
shoulder, and of a little boy who seemed to be quite alone but greatly
at his ease. That was all, and she knew nobody. It was a comfortable
change from the familiar, inquisitive, commonplace world of church.

The service was evidently just about to start, for a door behind the
pulpit opened and a young man came in. At first, Theresa thought he must
be a verger or choir-leader or some such official. But he walked
straight into the pulpit, and opening the big Bible there, said in a
pleasing country voice:

"Dear brothers and sisters, let us begin by reading God's Word in the
eleventh chapter of Luke."

All the Bibles were opened and the places found. The young man looked
round him, and then a terrible thing happened. She saw his big, rather
stern blue eyes fall on her hands, which were folded in her empty lap.
Then he said:

"I see that one of our sisters has no Bible. Will somebody kindly
furnish her with a copy of the Word of God?"

Nine pairs of eyes, all rather strange and different from the eyes she
knew, turned and fixed themselves upon her. Then the old, old man rose
up and tottered to a shelf, from which he took a black and shining copy
of the Word of God, and handed it to her. Theresa would have liked to
get up and run out of the chapel. But that was still the course of
greater courage, so she sat still, blushing and downcast, frenziedly
reading the genealogies of Azrikam, Bocheru, and Sheariah on the page
that had opened before her.

After a time she felt better. The reader's voice droned pleasantly
through the silence, mending the torn places. She lifted her eyes from
the page of Chronicles and watched his face as he read. He was a very
young man, younger than she had imagined a preacher could be, with a
high, ruddy countenance, freckled like her own, and chestnut hair that
was thick like a mat upon his head, and sunbleached, as if he never wore
a hat. She wondered who he could be--some farmer's son, perhaps. She
knew little or nothing of countryside religion, and no gossip had
reached her concerning Providence Chapel and its young evangelist. But
she had certainly done well to follow the gipsies up the hill, for her
worship today was more pleasant and entertaining than she had ever
thought worship could be. She loved listening to the preacher's voice,
so drawly and countryfied, so unlike the booming Oxford voice of Mr.
Bennet, just as the rambling, colloquial language of the prayer that
followed the Bible-reading was unlike the stiff Tudor language she was
used to hearing in church. Also the chapel was full of sunshine, great
spills of it on the floor and on the white walls, and through the
windows with their clear uncoloured glass she could see the tops of the
rhododendron bushes and the blue sky quivering with heat, while through
the open door came the hum of the bees to murmur with the overtones of
prayer.

After the prayer came a hymn, a strange hymn about rivers and fountains;
then more reading from the Word of God, and then the sermon. Hitherto
Theresa had not listened much. Her mind had been full of impressions
coming and going, while her eyes roved about the chapel, and her ears
rang with words. Now she suddenly found herself attending. The
preacher's eyes were fixed upon her and they seemed to be sending his
words deep into her heart. He spoke of the elect soul, clothed in white,
sinless, the bride of the Lamb. "Like a wife following her husband she
follows the Lamb wheresoever he goeth. He will not allow her to fall,
but she must not look on the ground, even to see where the rough places
are. She must look only on him, her bridegroom, so altogether lovely."

His blue eyes seemed to burn as he spoke, and his face was full of a
warm, mounting colour. Theresa had hardly noticed a man's face before,
except to observe its oddities; but now she found herself studying this
unknown preacher--his eyes, his mouth, his hair, his neck which was
milk-white above his low, turned-down collar.

"I expect, dear brothers and sisters, you have often walked in the lanes
of a dark night. And maybe you've fallen about a bit, what with the
puddles and the ruts, and then all of a sudden the moon's come up all
shining and lighting you, and you think it's like as if the Lord was
hanging out a lamp from his window to light you home. There's a lamp
hanging out from God's window to light our souls home to Him. And when
we've come to the door we must knock, as we read in the Word today,
'Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' Oh, brothers and sisters, who
will open the door? Why, him! The Lamb himself! The Bridegroom! He'll
say to our poor souls, 'Where have you been walking out there in the
night? Come in and put on your white raiment.' Can you imagine the joy
of the poor soul to find herself thus welcomed and embraced?"

A faint strange thrill was passing down Theresa's spine, and down her
arms from her shoulders to her wrists. She suddenly felt herself
trembling and cold, afraid and yet attracted. What was the meaning of
this? Was she turning religious--being converted? Oh, how wonderful to
be converted in Providence Chapel by a young preacher with solemn blue
eyes! She waited for something more to happen, but nothing did.

The sermon ended. The friendly, husky voice was still, and for a few
moments they were all silent, in the sunshine and the drone of the bees.
A hymn brought the service to an end with the collection, to which
Theresa impiously contributed the half-crown that her aunt had given her
to put in the church plate. It caused some stir. She saw the ancient man
pointing it out to the preacher when he handed him the alms-dish, and
once again she felt conspicuous and embarrassed. Now she hoped she would
be able to slip away quietly. But the worst was still to come. She saw
the evangelist come down from the pulpit and stand by the door, to greet
his little flock as they passed out.

She might have foreseen it, knowing country ways in church. But somehow
she had expected chapel to be different in this respect as in others.
Well, she must face it. She only hoped he wouldn't be too inquisitive
about her, ask her who she was. She slipped behind the gipsies, in front
of one of the couples, hoping rather foolishly that he would not notice
her. It was strange to feel so shy, to find her heart thumping so
hurriedly against her side. . . .

She stood opposite him, and had taken his outstretched hand.
"Good morning," he said simply, "I hope you liked the service."

"Oh, yes, very much, thank you. . . ."

That was all. But once more down her spine and down her arm passed that
strange tingling thrill; once more she felt her heart full of a great
charge of mystery, of longing and fear. She had had no idea religion was
like this.



                                  9

The chapel service had lasted a little longer than the service in
church, and Mr. Bennet's congregation had dispersed into its homes,
fortunately for Theresa, who came flying down the hill to meet him
walking up it, like a shepherd at the tail of his flock.

"Oh! hullo! Good morning. Oh, please tell me--is it St. Mark's day or
the Fourth Sunday after Easter?"

Mr. Bennet felt surprised. This was an unusual greeting from his young
friend, Miss Silk, and she looked, he thought, a little wilder than
usual, waving her Sunday hat in one hand, and her prayer-book in the
other, while her hair stood out round her face more than ever like the
rays of a mediaeval sun.

"It is St. Mark's day. St. Mark being the feast of an Evangelist, takes
precedence of----"

"Oh, please don't tell me about that. I want to know--were the Bourners
in church? The Bourners of Devenden?"

"I didn't notice. I can't always see who's in the congregation."

"Then I'll say they were. That'll save a fuss. And now--did you give out
that notice about the Melanesian Mission?"

"My dear young lady, why this catechism? . . . And weren't you in church
yourself?"

"No, I'm sorry to say I wasn't. I started out, but never got there. Oh,
do be a sport and tell me about the notice."

"Yes, I gave it out. But what makes you so anxious to know?"

"Because, don't you see? Aunt asked me to find out all these things for
her in church, and if I don't know them she'll guess I've never been."

"Are you going to tell her lies about it?"

"I suppose so. There'll be the filthiest row if I don't."

"And you're getting me to aid and abet you in this disgraceful scheme?"

"Please don't be angry. If you lived with Aunt you'd soon find yourself
telling lies--bigger and better ones every day. And I really did mean to
go to church. I got as far as the gate, but then I met two gipsies
coming from Lossenham, and I simply couldn't resist following them to
see where they went, and they went to chapel."

"So you went to chapel too?"

"Yes, I did. There, you see I'm telling you the truth."

She had turned round with him, and they were walking together up the
hill.

"Oh, don't say I've offended you again," she pleaded.

"Again?"

"Yes, you didn't like what I said yesterday about clergymen, so I swore
to myself I'd go to church today just on purpose to make it up to you.
Otherwise I'd have taken advantage of Aunt being ill to go off and enjoy
myself. Then I met the gipsies, and followed them, and I simply couldn't
resist the chance of exploring a new thing."

"And how did you like the new thing?"

"Chapel? I liked it very much indeed, though I felt rather queer, as
there were so few people, and everybody looked at me."

"Do you really think they won't tell your aunt where you've been?"

"There wasn't anyone there who knew me."

"They all knew you, you may take my word for it; and the whole village
will be talking about it this evening. So all the lies I've promised to
help you tell will be wasted."

"Oh, no, they won't. I don't believe anyone would give me away to Aunt
Eleanor. They haven't yet."

"Perhaps they wouldn't tell her straight out, but they gossip about you
to each other and it might get round that way. Only yesterday Mrs.
Boorman was telling Mrs. Bennet you'd been to the Plough and had asked
her husband to serve you with a drink."

"And he wouldn't do it, the old swine; but his wife made me go and sit
with her in the parlour, and then they brought it in on a tray and let
me taste it, the way you'd let a child taste tea. Next time I'll try the
pub at Hawkhurst."


"I hope you'll do nothing of the kind."

Theresa grinned. Then suddenly she thought of something else.

"Tell me, who is the preacher at Providence Chapel?"

"Young George Heasman; he's a son of the Heasmans at Ethnam."

"Why, that's one of Aunt's farms."

"Yes, you're quite right; it is. That's another reason for her hearing
all about you. He lives over at Cranbrook, where he's got a job of some
sort. I believe he wants to enter the Methodist ministry, but they can't
afford just yet to send him to a training college, so he's doing work as
a lay preacher for the moment."

"Do you know him?"

"Not very well. His parents are nominally church people, but he left us
when he went to Cranbrook."

"Isn't he rather young to be a minister?"

"I think he's about twenty-one, and he isn't a real minister yet."

They had come to the Rectory gate, where their ways divided. Theresa
faltered, as if she had more questions to ask, but all she said was:

"You won't give me away to Aunt Eleanor?"

"No, I won't. It'll be on my conscience, but I won't."

"That's decent of you, and I'll do the same for you one day. Good-bye."

She was off, leaving him as usual half regretful for opportunities
missed in her company.



                                  10

Mr. Bennet was right. By evening the story of Theresa's visit to
Providence Chapel had spread all over the village. But Theresa was right
too, and no rumour of it reached her aunt. After all, Goldstrow's
intercourse with Delmonden was conducted on lines discouraging to
gossip; and though Delmonden disapproved of Miss Silk, it disapproved of
her in a friendly, family way, much as it often disapproved of Mr.
Bennet, and would never pass on her judgment to one whom it looked upon
as beyond the pale of its domesticities.

There was the further safeguard of Mrs. Millington's being in bed with a
chill, and on her recovery spending a few days in Bulverhythe, where it
was her proud duty to open a Bazaar and visit a missionary exhibition.
She had one or two friends of her London days staying at the Queen's
Hotel, so it was not till Friday that Delmonden saw her again, and, by
then, Sunday's scandal had worn a little pale and thin.

The Rector met her on Saturday morning, at an inopportune
moment--inopportune because it called him out of the peace which always
descended upon him after a visit to his old friend Mrs. Iggulsden. Every
Saturday morning for the last two years he had taken the Sacrament to
her in her cottage at Mount Pleasant, just above the church, where she
lived with her son and his wife and their three little children. For
those two years she had been almost completely bedridden, and when his
ministry was over, he would sit beside her while she drank her cup of
tea, and tell her about Delmonden and its business, at one time
unconsciously seeking her advice, often now deliberately asking for it,
as he had come to learn how rich her old heart was in wisdom.

Today he told her about Theresa Silk.

"I take a special interest in that girl. I don't know why. My wife says
it's because we've lost our own daughter; but if Sylvia had lived I
don't think she would have grown up at all like Theresa. And she'd have
been much older--nearly thirty by now--though I always think of her as a
little thing of four."

"Maybe this is a charge laid on you instead of the other."

"Maybe it is, but it's hard to think what I can do about it. I've no
control over her, and she'd been mishandled all through the years when
good handling is so important."

"You shouldn't fret over such things as control and handling. They dant
mean nothing much. Young folks are like the birds, that'll come to you
if you've sugar between your lips, but ull die maybe if you handle
them."

"Yes, that's true, and I'm afraid I don't carry sugar as a rule."

"You're sweet enough--your heart's sweet enough towards me, my kind
friend. But, of late, I've had a feeling you're growing tired."

"I'm growing old, Mrs. Iggulsden."

"Old! You un't old at sixty-five."

"I'm old enough to see how little I've done in so much time, and how
much I've got to do in so little."

"Surelye, you're gitting old when you talk like that. But it un't often
I hear such words from you. I tell you, you're growing tired wud the
burden of this place, and maybe when you've had a bit of change in the
Fall you'll be as young as your years. Scarce more'n a boy it seems to
me, seeing as I'm eighty-three and could be mother to you."

Thus they chatted on, the relations of parson and parishioner lost in a
friendship based on deeper things. It had been an irritating reaction to
find himself in the street, confronting the woman who was in all points
Mrs. Iggulsden's anti-climax.

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Bennet--I've been wanting to speak to you."

For a moment he thought that she had heard about Theresa's visit to
Providence, but all she had to complain of was that on entering the
church on some pretext or other that morning she had found a young woman
there without a hat.

"The holiday season has begun early, and I suppose she was a tripper
from Bulverhythe. I told her either to go out at once or tie her
handkerchief over her head. If I were you I'd put up a notice in the
porch about it."

Mr. Bennet's face slowly turned a brick red.

"How dare you order people about in my church!" said his heart. His
lips, after a struggle, managed to say, "I'm afraid I'm used to hatless
heads in church. When I was at Skelborough, in Durham, we couldn't worry
about hats, or we shouldn't have had any children at all. I believe it's
the same in East London--the children don't wear hats in church or
anywhere else."

"This wasn't a child, but an exceedingly impertinent young woman. She
seemed to think I was the Rector's wife, judging by the way she spoke.
Besides, Delmonden isn't either Durham or East London--and I don't see
how you get round St. Paul."

"Delmonden isn't Corinth," Mr. Bennet's inner voice retorted--rather
neatly, he thought. "I think St. Paul was writing chiefly for his own
times in that matter," he paraphrased aloud.

"Oh! I suppose you're a Modernist. I confess the old faith's good enough
for me. But Modernism is very popular just now--especially in high
places."

"Yes, I look like a man in favour with high places," sneered Mr.
Bennet's heart, now nearly bursting with rage. Outwardly he could say
nothing at all, but "Good morning," as he turned to go.

"Oh! don't hurry off like that, please. There's something else I want to
ask you. The reason I went into church this morning was to see if it was
true, as I'd been told in Marlingate, that you keep the Sacrament
there."

"I have done so for the last five years."

"Well, I was not aware of it. I know nothing about these things, and you
do it in such a hole-and-corner way. . . . I'd no idea of it till my
friends, the Leslies, told me. I suppose that means that if I am ill you
won't come to celebrate for me at my house."

"It doesn't necessarily mean that at all. And will you please forgive me
if I don't go on with this discussion? It is a religious matter which I
find it difficult to discuss with--at the street corner."

He could trust himself no further, and taking off his hat, he left her.



                                  11

Afterwards, he wondered if he had done wrong. Perhaps he had spoken too
hastily. Ah--that was it; his besetting sin. On too many of those too
rare occasions when he found time to take his burdened heart into
Bulverhythe and there open his grief to some discreet and learned
Minister of God's Word, he found himself confronted with that besetting
sin of hastiness and impatience. It had always been there, even in the
North-country days of his youth, when his religious practice was
sharper, before he became lost in Paganism or the religion of the
villages. The quality of his haste had altered, that was all. It was now
altogether more of a tetchy, ratchy affair, an old man's failing, rather
than the youthful, potent thing it used to be. It used to be a fine,
vigorous full-blooded eagle of a sin, and here it was, after thirty
years, moulting and casting its feathers, as ugly as old age itself--No!
he mustn't say that. There was Mrs. Iggulsden, whose old age was not
ugly. And there was Lucy. . . . He could not really think of her as
old--and yet she was as old as he. Only a few months had divided them
when they left the altar of St. Oswald's church in Durham. So, since he
was old, she must be old--and since she seemed so young, perhaps he
wasn't really so old as he felt this morning.

Slightly cheered by this thought, he walked home in search of her, and
together they devised schemes for propitiating Mrs. Millington, if so be
she needed propitiation.

"We might ask her to tea," suggested Mrs. Bennet, "in fact I really
think we ought to, as we have been there twice, and perhaps we should
have had her here before this. But I was waiting till we were quite
through with the Spring cleaning, as I want the place to look nice for
her. Besides, it's rather hard on Poor Emily if we entertain much while
she's working so hard, to say nothing of her sometimes being rather
queer when she's tired, so that I could never feel quite sure----"

"My dear, you needn't worry. She doesn't want our hospitality. She would
rather have us indebted to her for a few meals. What she wants is to run
this parish."

"Well, you'd never let her do that, of course. I don't think people
understand. . . . I mean, why, even I daren't put my nose into anything.
You remember how often you've told me I have no canonical
existence"--trying to make him smile with an old joke--"so of course
you can't allow Mrs. Millington . . . we might ask her to open the
Parish Garden Party."

"I've as good as asked Mrs. Gilpin."

"That's a pity, for I think Mrs. Millington might expect to be asked, in
view of her position. Besides, she has so much more money to spend."

"Well, Goldstrow was empty when I spoke to Mrs. Gilpin about it. I
daresay she's forgotten by now. Certainly we'd make more out of Mrs.
Millington. She doesn't mind spending her money, especially if she
thinks she gets a few souls thrown in as make-weights. We might do worse
than ask her. But that won't pacify her much. She's out for bigger game.
She wants to control the church and its services."

"What makes you think that?"

"She was talking to me about it this morning. I'm in for a bad time if
she starts interfering in that way."

"She can't make you do anything you don't approve of."

"No, but she might write to the Bishop about me."

"You know, dear, he wouldn't take the slightest notice. You don't do
anything he doesn't allow, and he hates being bothered."

"Yes, but her letters might bother him more than anything he can do to
me. And anyhow it won't help me at all, being complained of by aggrieved
parishioners. I've managed to keep everybody happy and quiet so far, and
I don't want trouble now."

"There won't be any trouble, I'm sure of it. All you've got to do is to
show her some little attention. I'll ask her to tea, and you'll ask her
to open the Garden Party, and you'll soon find she'll stop worrying
about the services. After all, she's been five months here and never
complained."

"And all this for a woman whom, if I hadn't been in my present position,
I'd have read out from the altar for what she did to poor Susan Lamb!
But I've got to truckle and defer to her because she has money, and I
haven't, so I want hers. Really it's disgraceful to see us, Anglican
clergy, all over the country selling our immortal souls for money. Why
haven't we got any of our own? Why haven't I got as much as those old
rascals who built this church and then ran away in a fright and left it?
Why can't I keep the dead body of a bishop in a golden shrine and fleece
the laity throughout the length and breadth of England to fill my
coffers? Why can't I scare people out of their lives with a mere threat
of Purgatory? Bah! I can't even scare 'em with hell. Why, oh why, was
there a Reformation?"

"Darling, you know you don't really mean all that."

"Yes, I do. I mean every word of it. But you needn't worry--I shan't say
anything outside this house. I'll be as meek as a lamb, as mild as a
dove, as creeping and cringing as any worm or parson. You needn't worry,
my dear."



                           II. Mrs. Bennet



                                  1

Mrs. Bennet was out distributing the "Parish Magazine." This was a duty
she took upon herself once a month, and unless the weather was really
atrocious not a single copy ever went through the post. This afternoon
seemed a specially good one for the task, as Mr. Bennett was making one
of his rare expeditions into Bulverhythe. The besetting sin called for
it, and he also felt that he ought to go to see the Lambs and do what he
could about poor Susan, who would now be at home, drinking her second,
unnecessary cup of disgrace.

Mrs. Bennet on such occasions always made herself busy, so that she
might forget the miles between them. It was curious, she thought, how
she never could grow used to the idea of Harry's being away from her,
even after thirty-five years of married life. She missed him if he left
her for so much as a day. A long tramp round the parish would fill her
time and occupy her thoughts, and give her, moreover, the satisfaction
of having coped with and settled the magazine this month.

Delmonden "Parish Magazine" was bound in a blue cover illustrated with a
drawing of Delmonden church, which old Sir John Fleet had presented to
it some years ago. Below was printed a list of any possible human being
in any possible connection with the parish--choir men, choir boys,
bell-ringers, parochial church councillors, churchwardens, sidesmen,
sexton, organist, schoolmaster, schoolmistress, Sunday-school teachers,
all who liked to see their names in print and would buy the magazine for
the privilege. Inside the cover, Mr. Apps advertised his groceries and
Mr. Boorman his ales, and Mr. Tilden announced that he came three
afternoons a week to Delmonden for boot repairs. Miss Bell, the organist
and schoolmistress (several of the names appeared in more than one
capacity), offered music lessons at a shilling for half an hour, and the
Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes proclaimed that their Christmas
Club was open.

Then came the Rector's Notes, a letter from an old Delmondian in Canada,
a list of Baptisms (one), Marriages (none), and Deaths (one) for the
month, and then the heart and pith, in the shape of an "inset" published
by a church society, and providing stories, pictures, poems, recipes,
and answers to correspondents. Mrs. Bennet thought it a wonderful two
pennyworth, and never failed to read every word of it--"so bright, so
interesting, and really of very high quality. I like it better than the
expensive magazines you see on the bookstalls." It contained a serial
story nearly as Gothic as Delmonden Rectory itself--all about Alice a
novice unsure of her vocation. For four months now--January, February,
March, April--she had been unsure, and Mrs. Bennet had guessed that, in
May, she would decide to come out into the world. That would leave her
seven months to grow sure and go back again. But in May the story had
left the convent abruptly, and devoted its instalment of about a
thousand words to an entirely new character--a young and zealous,
curate. Could it be that a bridegroom was awaiting Alice, and that if
she came out of the convent she would not have to return? Mrs. Bennet
trusted that it was not wrong of her to hope so--and yet she doubted.
Some of the readers of "The Parish Sentinel" were strong advocates of
clerical celibacy and would not approve of such a union. The June number
was therefore fraught with a special interest, and she regretted that
there had been no time to read it before she set out.

Indeed, by the time she reached the end of the Rectory lane, this regret
had become so poignant that she felt she could not begin her round
without at least a glimpse of Alice's fate. It was true that her own
copy awaited her return for more leisured enjoyment, but it was quite
possible that she would not get back much before Harry, and then he
would want to tell her about his doings in Bulverhythe, and the evening
would be filled up with chat. She might just as well take a peep now,
and satisfy her curiosity. Something admonitory in her system told her
that curiosity ought to be mortified rather than satisfied; but dallying
with temptation nearly always had the effect on Mrs. Bennet of turning
desire into obsession. At the corner of Rectory lane and Delmonden hill,
she snatched open the top copy of her burden, with the result that all
the others fell into the road.

One glimpse of Alice, without her habit and with a suitcase in her hand,
saying good-bye to the Mother Superior . . . she'd come out, then . . .
"to be continued" . . . "Oh, dear, how wrong of me! I shouldn't have
done that, and now, look what a mess! I hope nothing's spoiled. Oh,
dear, oh, dear, the wind's blowing them away! What shall I do?--Oh,
thank you, my dear, thank you, thank you. How good you are!"

Theresa Silk had jumped off her bicycle, on a road sky-blue with
Delmonden Magazine. She propped her machine against the hedge and
started picking up the litter, laughing boisterously the while. It did
not take long. Soon all the copies were retrieved, not much the worse.

"Whatever made you do that?" mocked Miss Silk.

"I wanted to take a dip into just one of them . . . it was silly of me,
I know. I'm so grateful to you, dear, for picking them up. I don't know
what I should have done if you hadn't come when you did, for the wind
was beginning to blow them away."

"Lucky I passed, then. I say, do you happen to know if there's a wedding
round hereabouts today? a gipsy wedding?"

"There's none in Delmonden, I know for sure. Mr. Bennet's gone into
Bulverhythe for the afternoon."

"I wonder where it can be, then. I'm nearly sure they said this
Wednesday. It was those gipsies, you know, that I followed to chapel. On
the way back I heard them talking, and they said Aunt Slippery Jane or
somebody was going to be married. I do want to see a gipsy wedding."

"They don't always get married in church, I'm afraid, and if they do,
it's just like any other wedding. I shouldn't go looking for them, if I
were you, dear. You might have a Disagreeable Experience."

She gazed anxiously at Theresa. Really it was bad to see the child
tearing about the country like this. If Mrs. Millington would only look
after her, half as well as she looked after other people's business . . .

"Now, it would be really kind if you would come round with me and help
me carry all these magazines. Then I shan't drop them again."

"Where on earth are you taking them?"

"Oh, round the parish. I've a lot of houses to go to in the
village--just handing them in, you know, and saying a few bright words.
Then I'll have to go out with them as far as Reedbed, Wassall, Ethnam,
and some other farms."

Theresa hesitated. She was not given to good deeds, and would not out of
kindness to Mrs. Bennet have abandoned her expedition, but she had
caught the name of Ethnam, and remembered it was there, so the Rector
had told her, that the parents of the Providence preacher lived. She
would like to see them; possibly she might see him too--just possibly.
It seemed worth while to forego her hunt of the shadow of Aunt Slippery
Jane, in order that she might enjoy the substance of the Heasman family.

"Very well, then," she said, "I'll come. Give me the magazines, and I'll
push 'em along on the bike."



                                  2

Mrs. Bennet's parochial visitation was not so terrible as she had made
it sound. Her "bright words" resolved themselves in practice into a few
humble enquiries as to her parishioners' welfare. She had by this time
thoroughly learned her job as Parson's wife, though she imagined that
she performed it with more of an air than was actually the case. She
knew who was ill, and who was convalescent, and who was always in good
heart, praise the Lord! She knew who had young children at school or
leaving school or just going to school. She knew who had relations in
Canada or Australia or London or Bulverhythe. She knew all this, and she
was pleased to know it, without showing any special curiosity to know
more. She humbly sought to please, and the parish appreciated her
endeavour. Here was no fine lady condescending--on the contrary, she
sometimes made them condescend, which was a pleasant and rare
experience. She allowed them the luxury of occasionally feeling sorry
for her--living in that great big house with only little more money than
they lived on in their cottages, losing her baby girl years ago with
diphtheria, and never having another to take her place, poor woman. . . .
There were few villages so well placed in regard to their Parson's
wife. . . .

Towards the end of the road this attitude began to express itself in the
offer of cups of tea.

"The kettle's just on the boil, Ma'am." "A good cup of tea 'ud put some
heart into you, Mrs. Bennet " "You look tired, my dear."

Thus, in various keys of friendship, Mrs. Gasson, Mrs. Sayer, and Mrs.
Godfrey pressed her, but Mrs. Bennet could not wait. She knew that the
farms would force tea upon her. She would have to sit down to table
either at Reedbed or at Ethnam, and she had no time to spare for the
village too.

"The people are all so kind," she said to Theresa, when at last they
left Delmonden behind them. "Whenever I go out with the magazine, I
always say to Emily: 'Now, don't lay tea for me, for I'm sure to be
given it somewhere. Make your own tea at five o'clock, but don't lay it
for me.' I have to tell her everything exactly like that, you know, or
she'd do something foolish. She'd boil the kettle and make the tea and
cut the bread and butter for Mr. Bennet and me, even if we had gone away
for the afternoon. Such a waste! But, poor thing, we really mustn't
blame her. She's most hard-working and devoted. In fact her mistakes
always make more trouble for her than for us."

"Where are we going now?" asked Theresa.

"I thought either Ethnam or Reedbed next--it depends on where you'd like
to have tea. They'll both want to give us tea, and it doesn't make much
difference which we go to first."

"I'd like to have tea at Ethnam."

"Very well, we'll go there, then. Mr. Vidler of Reedbed is Mr. Bennet's
churchwarden--perhaps he'd think we ought to have tea with them, as the
Heasmans aren't at all good church people . . . but I don't see that he
can really mind much . . . it'll seem quite natural for us to have had
tea at Ethnam if we get there about five o'clock, as I expect we shall
if we go now. . . . Anyhow, it might do more good if we had tea with the
Heasmans--I mean they might feel encouraged to go to church. They used
to come quite a lot once, but having their son a Nonconformist preacher
has naturally changed them a bit. In fact I think they'd probably turn
Nonconformist too if it wasn't for fear of offending Mrs. Millington.
She's rather a dragon about some things, you know--Oh, I beg pardon, my
dear. I forgot she was your aunt."

"That doesn't matter. I know what Aunt's like."

"Well, Ethnam's her property, and of course she has a right to do as she
pleases. Also, I don't think poor Heasman's a very good farmer--some of
his fields look dreadful. . . . His lease expires at the end of next
year, and if he went to chapel it's more than likely she wouldn't let
him renew it. It's hard for them, though, never being able to hear their
son preach. . . . I'm told he's quite a good preacher. Oh, by the way, I
suppose you've heard him."

"Yes, he was preaching at Providence Chapel when I went there."

"I don't think _you_ ought to have gone there"--Mrs. Bennet remembered
herself suddenly as a clergyman's wife--"you have no special call to be
interested, like the poor Heasmans. But I must say that if I went to
chapel--as I never would, of course, for I love the Church, and Bishop
Wilkinson himself prepared me for Confirmation, when he was at St.
Peter's, Eaton Square; but if I could ever picture myself going to
chapel, which of course I couldn't, I'd rather go to Providence, than to
any of the chapels in Hawkhurst, which attract people so much, I'm
afraid, now that the buses run on Sundays. Quite a lot of our people go,
you know, in the evenings; but before the buses were put on they used to
go to church, as Providence Chapel was always considered rather low
class."

"George Heasman works in Cranbrook, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he's head salesman at the United Tea Stores. I've seen him looking
very smart in his white coat. He wants, of course, to be a real
minister, poor lad, but they can't afford the training. Meanwhile he
comes here as lay Evangelist on alternate Sundays--the other Sundays I
believe he goes to Iden Green. By the way, Wednesday's early closing day
at Cranbrook, so we may see him at Ethnam this afternoon."



                                  3

They arrived at the farm in a spate of chatter--Mrs. Bennet's chatter,
for Theresa had scarcely uttered a word since she had heard there was
such a good chance of meeting George Heasman. Her heart was troubled;
she did not know whether she wanted to meet him or not. She had wanted
to see what his parents and his home were like, but for some strange
reason she was not quite sure if she wanted to see him himself.
Something in her was afraid--afraid and yet wanting what she was afraid
of. Why did she feel like this? What nonsense it all was! She began to
wish she had not come.

Ethnam was rather a poor little farm, settled in a fold of the Goldstrow
estate, and staring away through its small, white-rimmed windows towards
the hills of Kent. Mrs. Heasman opened the door, revealing a low-roofed
kitchen where tea was in progress. The room seemed crowded indefinitely,
for the smoke of the woods fire hung under the rafters, blurring the
figures of the men who sat around the table. Theresa stared at them
anxiously, searching among them, but it was impossible to see what she
wanted in the vague mass of heads and shoulders standing out of the
smoke, all patched by the light of the tiny window, which seemed to fall
on nothing squarely but the white tablecloth over which everybody was
hunched.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Heasman. I've called with the magazine. I do hope
it's not an awkward moment, but----"

"Delighted to see you, I'm sure, Mrs. Bennet, and you're just in time
for a cup of tea."

Mrs. Heasman came from the Shires, and her voice was prettier than most
voices round Delmonden.

"That's very kind--very kind indeed of you. But there are two of us, you
know. Miss Silk has been helping me this afternoon."

"Certainly, Ma'am. Come in, both of you. Master, George, here's Mrs.
Bennet honouring us for a cup of tea."

They stepped down into the kitchen, which was below the level of the
door. Two figures had disentangled themselves from the group round the
table--the Master, a small delicate-looking fellow with sandy hair, and
George, big and bent under the rafters.

Mrs. Bennet shook hands with both of them, and Theresa did the same. As
she took George's hand, she saw his solemn blue eyes recognising her in
some perplexity.

"Yes, we've met before. I was at your chapel the Sunday before last."

It was awkwardly spoken, and he seemed at a loss for an answer. Mrs.
Heasman filled the pause.

"Yes, George was telling us a stranger--a young lady--had been to
Providence. And I must say from what he told me, I guessed it was Miss
Silk. But I couldn't be sure."

"I went because the gipsies came," said Theresa. "I followed them in. Do
they come every Sunday?"

"No, not every Sunday--very seldom, in fact."

"Do you know their names?"

"Yes; they are Rosa and Medina Criol--and they're not real gipsies, you
know, or they wouldn't live in a house."

"Oh, no--I know that, of course. Tom Body told me--and is it true that
they haven't real gipsy names, but are named after places? Is Criol a
place?"

"There's a Criol Farm over by Shadowhurst."

During this conversation they had taken their seats at the tea-table
among the farm men. Owing to some mismanagement, a big labourer sat
stooping over his lifted saucerful of tea between Theresa and Mrs.
Bennet. She and George were separated from the others, shut in among the
farm men, islanded in their own queer little conversation, away from the
polite platitudes that were passing between Mrs. Bennet and her hosts.
George's voice was not like his mother's, the voice of the Shires, but
the voice of Kent, rough, drawling, inarticulated--though he was
obviously trying to do his best with it, realising no doubt its
unfitness to be a minister's. Theresa liked it better than any voice she
had heard, and as she listened to it, drawling on about the gipsies and
their ways, she suddenly felt again that thrill which had passed
quickening through her in Providence Chapel two Sundays ago.

This time she knew that it could have nothing to do with religion. It
was not religion that made her heart suddenly miss a beat, her eyes
fill, and her thoughts fail. It was some queer secret call that passed
from him to her, making her almost wish that he would rise up and go
away out of the room, out of the house, so that she could follow him.
What did it mean?--that she had fallen in love? She felt frightened--and
unwilling. It was all nonsense; she couldn't have fallen in love with a
man whom she scarcely knew. Why, she'd seen him only twice, spoken to
him only once--and she'd never cared about men. Angrily she buried her
thoughts in the conversation. Did he know the gipsies at Marsh Quarter?

"No; I don't have much truck with gipsies nor they with me. But
sometimes I've wondered if there mightn't be a call to labour among
them."

"I don't expect they labour much, do they?"

"I mean a call to take them the Word."

She remembered with a little shock that he was a preacher.

"Yes," he continued; "sometimes I feel I'm wasting my time calling the
righteous to repentance. I should ought to go among sinners--gipsies,
mumpers, and such. I feel it would be fine to go from village to
village, preaching on the greens instead of in half-empty chapels . . ."

"Yes, it would be fine." She suddenly saw the preaching of the Gospel as
an adventure, instead of, as she had always thought it, the dullest of
dull things.

"But I can't do it. I must go where I'm sent, for I hope to get my
training as a minister some day. My dad and mam can't afford to pay for
me, so I'm working hard to earn the money."

"Mrs. Bennet told me you work at Cranbrook."

"Yes, I've a job with the United Tea Company--quite a good job, and I
hope that in five or six years' time . . ."

"Are you going to Cranbrook Fair?"

The sudden turn in the conversation took him by surprise, and made him
stammer.

"N-n-no. I don't go to fairs."

"I want to go to this one, and see Rita. Have you heard about Rita? No
arms, no legs, no head, only a body. It's all done with mirrors, of
course. Ethel and Sid Gasson were telling me about her. She was on show
at Rye, but I couldn't get over. I'll go to Cranbrook if I die for it."

"It's queer to think of a young lady like you going to fairs. They're
rough places."

"That's why I love them--they're exciting and odd. Don't you sometimes
want to do things that are exciting and odd?"

"No," he said, priggishly; then suddenly caught her eye and said "Yes,"
with a shamefaced air.

"You do."

"I do when I'm not feeling serious-minded."

Theresa stared at him in some surprise. Then the words suddenly rushed
past her:

"Come to Cranbrook Fair."

"I'll be busy at my work."

Her face fell, then she remembered:

"It's on a Wednesday."

Young Heasman began to wonder why she so much wanted his company. Her
eagerness flattered him, and he felt that, after all, his speech and
manners must be nearer ministerial standards than he had thought in his
first humility. Then he remembered that Miss Silk was considered in
Delmonden as "no particular class." She was the niece of Delmonden's
Great Lady, but rumour told strange tales about her father. Mrs.
Millington's only sister had made a runaway marriage with some
groom-footman-ploughboy-tinker (rumour was not very sure nor
particularly concerned) and everybody said that the daughter took after
her father. He did not quite approve of, nor quite trust, this queer,
unladylike young lady, with her rather pushful friendliness. But when he
looked into her warm, glowing face, something in himself began to glow,
and he could not help thinking that it would be rather a fine thing to
go to a fair with this gay creature. After all, there was always a lot
of harmless fun and interest at a fair. One could keep away from any
rowdiness or drinking . . . and if he was going to be a minister, it
mightn't be so bad for him to know a Great Lady's niece. . . .

By the time the chairs were all pushed back from table, George Heasman
and Theresa Silk had made their tryst for Cranbrook Fair.



                                  4

Mrs. Bennet hoped she had not done wrong. Perhaps it had not been wise
to leave Theresa behind at Ethnam when she went on to Reedbed. But the
girl had been so anxious to see the farm, and George Heasman had been so
willing to show it to her, and she could be home in ten minutes on her
bicycle. . . . Yet perhaps it had not been wise. Theresa seemed to have
made friends almost too quickly with young George. It was no doubt part
of her undesirable faculty for getting on with the village boys. She
seemed to like boys better than girls, and yet there was no suggestion
of the flirt or the baggage about her. In that respect she was younger
than her age--ignorant and simple-minded as a child. Though how long
that ignorance and simplicity would survive her strange tastes and
associations it was difficult to say. However, George was a serious,
steady youth, quite different from some of the others. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Bennet did not, as she expressed it, "quite like the look of
him"--why, she could not say, though dim surmises troubled her and
intuition gave her some unaccountable certainties.

However, the Summer passing with its train soon put the episode out of
her mind. There were all the usual Summer activities to crowd her, and
there were in addition certain surprises. One of them was the death of
the Bishop, of Maidstone towards the end of June. It was quite sudden,
and disturbed Mr. Bennet considerably. The Bishop had had the supreme,
if negative, merit of letting his clergy alone, and the Rector's
experience in a northern diocese had rooted in him the conviction that
if Bishops do not neglect their clergy they persecute them. In vain Mrs.
Bennet tried to paint in glowing colours the portrait of a father in
God. Her husband would have none of it.

Just as there are clergy in the Church of England for whom the Bishop
can do no wrong, so there are others for whom he can do no right. Mr.
Bennet belonged to the latter group. By temperament and training he was
an Episcophobiac. At his theological college, his Bishop had stood as a
sort of schoolmaster-deity, armed with the power of the keys, to lock
the ministerial door on those candidates who did not satisfy the vain
curiosities of his examining chaplain. Afterwards, in his first curacy,
the Bishop became a sort of disciplinary bugbear, a devourer of deacons.
Then had come his appointment to the Rectory of Skelborough in County
Durham, and for ten years--till, at the death of his daughter, and after
his wife's subsequent breakdown, he had fled to urbaner aspects of
weather and religion--he had fought his Bishop for what were to him bare
necessities of faith. He, the shepherd, had fought his chief pastor and
overseer under the monstrous aspect of a wolf devouring the flock, and
his mind had never quite recovered its balance afterwards.

All had been peace in the diocese of Maidstone. Northern battlefields
became friendly, cultivated ground in the sunshine of the London,
Brighton, and South Coast religion. The Bishop who died that June had
been in the diocese nearly as long as Mr. Bennet, and had visited
Delmonden church exactly once. He was of scholarly rather than pastoral
temperament, and devoted his energies to compiling enormous commentaries
on conservative lines, which the press, to his intense annoyance, always
hailed as the last word in revolutionary modernism, on the strength of
some careful doubt of Bishop Ussher's chronology, Jonah's whale, or
Balaam's ass.

His death revived to the full Mr. Bennet's anti-episcopal complex. He
was convinced that his successor would rush ravening over Delmonden
after the manner of the northern wolf. He could not believe it when he
was told that the old frenzy had passed from the episcopate and that a
zealous Evangelical would be far better for the diocese than an
indifferent High Churchman. Many of the clergy in southwest Kent had
more ritualistic services than Mr. Bennet, and they all said it was a
good thing the old man had died.

"You wait and see what happens," said the Rector of Delmonden to the
Rectors of Witsunden and Trillinghurst, "you're too young to remember
the old times in the north."

"That's all finished and done with, thank heaven. Why, think of the
Bishops who preached at the jubilee of All Saints, Middlesborough."

"Oh, they'll sail with the wind, right enough."

"Well, the wind in these parts blows strong from Brighton and the South
Coast. If the Bishop's a timeserver it'll be all the better for us."

Thus they trifled with the first and last things of an older generation.
Mr. Bennet was shocked at them, and thought them frivolous, and they
thought him a fire-eating old die-hard, who lived on trouble.

Witsunden said, when he was gone:

"If any of these old chaps found themselves living on good terms with
their diocesans they'd think they were living in sin."

"And it isn't as if he was at all extreme," replied Trillinghurst; "I
believe he still has a sung Matins every other Sunday."

"Does he? Then what on earth does he expect the Bishop to bite him for?"

"Oh, simply because he's been brought up to think that all Bishops bite;
it's a tradition that's almost of faith with his generation."



                                  5

Fortunately, there were many other things happening at this time, to
distract Mr. Bennet's thoughts from Maidstone's empty see. Delmonden's
annual festival, the Parish Garden Party, was drawing near, sucking up
all the days into its vortex. And further, the time was approaching for
the Bennets' holiday, and events must be set in train for it. They
nearly always took their holiday late in September, because "the
country's so pleasant in Summer--it seems a pity to go away," and Autumn
meant lower prices in Brighton which for years had been the limit of
their venture. At one time it had been the Rector's custom to "exchange"
with some town parson, and visit, half-bound, half-free, some more
distant coast resort or inland watering place; but that arrangement had
often meant an increase rather than a reduction of work and
responsibility, and of late years he had felt unequal to its demands.
Better go away for a fortnight's real rest and freedom than spend six
weeks under another man's burden. Besides, town parsons upset his people
. . . he had once come back to a village brooding resentfully over a
sermon on Indulgences, while another time he had found his parishioners
elated yet doubtful at the good news that "there is no sin." Now, when
he was away, he always had the same quiet, safe old scholar out of
Bulverhythe, who would keep the engine of Delmonden's parish life
ticking gently for a guinea a week and the use of the Rectory. Dr.
Kemp's one drawback was that he seldom preached for less than forty
minutes--but that was an advantage in its way, as Mr. Bennet could
always feel sure of his welcome home.

As the weeks went by, the Summer visitors began to arrive, not in any
great numbers--just a thin scatter of strangers in the village and at
the farms. For the most part they were people from Bulverhythe, who
could not afford to go very far for their annual change. The Bennets
knew most of them, and a tea party at the Rectory was part of the
entertainment that Delmonden provided for each one. There were the two
old ladies, known to the ribald as Oreb and Zeb, who came every year to
rooms at Kitchenhour. They looked exactly like each other, but their
relationship was reported to be that of mistress and maid, though which
was the mistress and which the maid, no one had ever been able to find
out. There were also the Sweets, an elderly clergyman and his wife, both
half mad and existing somehow on a pension of twelve shillings a week.
They came to all the services at Delmonden church, where the chatter and
squeak of their private devotions made their presence more distressing
than edifying. There were also one or two pleasant young men on the
serving-staff at St. Saviour's, Bulverhythe, who made terrific inroads
on the cold beef at Sunday supper, also a sprinkling of clerks and shop
girls, and one or two mysterious couples, holidaying platonically
together after the outrageous manner of the times.

Luckily neither Mrs. Bennet nor Poor Emily resented so many intrusions
on their privacy and leisure. Indeed Emily took a real delight in so
much company--a delight perhaps surprising in a maid-of-all-work who had
charge of three Gothic sitting-rooms and eleven Gothic bedrooms.

"I'm fond of company, but I reckon things are often a bit slow down
here. There's always company in heaven. It says in church: 'Therefore
wud angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. . . . Maybe the
Lord ull let me wait on 'em there, when he sits down to supper wud all
his holy ones."



                                  6

Shortly before the Garden Party, Mrs. Bennet was forcibly recalled to
her anxieties on behalf of Theresa Silk. At the beginning of August, she
became aware that there was gossip in the village about her and young
George Heasman. Delmonden gossip was seldom entirely without foundation,
and in this case was more circumstantial than usual. Mr. and Mrs.
Boorman, Mrs. Apps, and Mrs. Breeds had, each one separately, seen them
together at Cranbrook Fair--"riding on the roundabouts"--"having tea in
a tent"--"talking to the gipsies." These indulgences seemed to be
considered as odd for young George as for his companion--"a serious sort
of chap he'd always be--you'd never catch him enjoying himself
anywheres." Then they were seen at Tenterden Fair--then walking together
in the lanes over by Udiam--then Sam Tuppeny, carter at Hobby Hobb's
farm, had met them on their bicycles as far away as Ebony. Last and
worst of all, Mrs. Swaffer of Moon's Green had come upon them kissing.

"I don't believe it!--I don't believe it!" cried Mrs. Bennet,
indignantly, to her husband. "Why, she's the last girl in the world, and
he's the last boy, to do such a thing."

"I don't believe it either," said Mr. Bennet. "Did Mrs. Swaffer say she
actually saw them herself?"

"Yes, behind a haystack at the edge of their two-acre field. She'd gone
out after a hen that was laying abroad, and she was searching round
under the stacks when she turned a corner and came upon them--they
didn't see her."

"I wonder if she saw them--it might have been anybody. How close was
she? What time of day was it? Did she tell you this herself?"

"No, she didn't. Miss Bell told me."

"Then I should take no notice--it's not good enough."

"You don't think I ought to ask Mrs. Swaffer about it?"

"No--it's simply encouraging all this darned bubble and scandal that
goes on in this place the whole year round. If you get a chance of
dropping a hint to the girl herself, that's another matter. She probably
has been reckless, though I don't believe in the kissing."

"I never seem to see her at all these days. We're so busy entertaining
. . . and she never comes to the house the way she used to."

"She'll come to the Garden Party, won't she? That's only a week ahead,
and you might get a chance of speaking to her then."

"I'll make one, anyhow. . . . Yes, perhaps that would be the best thing
to do."



                                  7

It had been a happy inspiration of Mrs. Bennet's to ask Mrs. Millington
to open the Garden Party. Her response had been warm and immediate, and
Mrs. Gilpin's disappointment (if any) had been nobly concealed. Indeed,
about a week before the festival, which always took place on the last
Wednesday in August, the Great Lady of Goldstrow wrote offering the loan
of a trestle-table, two dozen chairs, tablecloths, glass, china, and
plate in any quantities.

It seemed almost too good to be true. Mrs. Bennet was used to cadging
these necessities in small amounts from several small houses, and hiring
the rest. Now money, time, trouble, and temper would all be saved. She
only hoped there would be no breakages. . . . It really was too good of
Mrs. Millington, and only showed how right she'd been when she'd told
Harry to put up with her tiresome ways for the sake of what he could get
out of her. . . . That sounded, mercenary. But you simply had to be
mercenary if you were a clergyman's wife--always in need of money,
always in need of workers. It was worth while swallowing one's proper
pride occasionally--not one's principles, of course. . . . She had never
meant Harry to do that . . . but just a few mouthfuls of humble pie.

She wrote her benefactor such a letter as made her see herself finally
established as Lady Bountiful in her own right, with the result that she
did not ask the Bennets to fetch the things as she had first intended,
but graciously dispatched them in one of her own carts and with her own
man to unpack them, thus saving more money, time, trouble, and temper.

On Tuesday afternoon two big tents were put up on the Rectory lawn--one
for refreshments, the other for the exhibition of vegetables and
livestock. There would also be a few stalls with goods for sale, a band,
and an "al fresco entertainment," with dancing to follow after dusk,
when the garden was lit up with Chinese lanterns. But these could not be
arranged till the morning of the feast, as one could never feel sure of
the weather, and a shower in the night would ruin everything. Also early
one morning, some years ago, the Bennets had awakened to see stalls,
decorations, chairs, and stands all flying and scattering over the lawn
to the tune of the gambols of a herd of bullocks that had somehow broken
in from the Glebe field; while, on the edge of the wreck, Poor Emily ran
frantically to and fro shouting, "Stop it, you naughty boys!--Stop it,
you naughty boys!"--and then, at the sight of her mistress's horrified
face, "Don't worry, Ma'am--don't heed them. They're only boys dressed up
in bullocks' clothes."

To Mr. Bennet, the effect of every Parish Party was much the same as if
his lawn had been trampled by a herd of bullocks. But each Summer he
bravely faced the ordeal and its consequences. The party was the climax
of Delmonden's social year, and though the advance of culture into the
villages had somewhat dimmed its brilliance with comparisons, the parish
supported it enthusiastically, and attended it without distinctions of
rank or creed.

Every year, though, the Rector was aware of growing anxiety in its
preparation, and growing criticism in its enjoyment. It had all been
easy enough twenty years ago, when nothing was wanted but facilities for
eating and drinking and the display of garden produce. Now, with buses
running to and fro regularly from Bulverhythe with its cinemas, theatre,
winter-garden and Palace Pier, the neighbourhood was far more
experienced in pleasure and demanded more kick in its entertainments. So
the stalls were set up, to introduce the thrills of commerce, and sold
household goods, children's clothes, and a certain amount of
food-stuffs, while the concert consisted no longer of the unaided
efforts of the Delmonden Brass Band, but involved one or two "turns" by
celebrities from Cranbrook, Goudhurst, Bethersden, and other places, who
had to be fetched and returned in borrowed cars, while the ladies of the
Tenterden Amateur Dramatic Club performed a playlet which involved the
setting aside of a room in the Rectory for their dressing and making-up.
Mr. Bennet foresaw a time when it might be well to remove the whole
performance to Goldstrow, and wondered how much self-respect it would
cost him to obtain this boon.



                                  8

This year, the great day dawned perversely with rain slanting from a big
wedge-shaped cloud that hung over the marshes. But just as Mrs. Bennet
had almost made up her distracted mind, rent between ideals of the "al
fresco" and practical realities of health and comfort, the big
wedge-shaped cloud moved off solemnly like a ship sailing the yellow
heavens of dawn, which, at its sailing, deepened safely into blue, and
received from behind Marsh Quarter a sun without any crimson threats for
the day.

When at last the afternoon had come--and it seemed several months before
it did--that sun was still shining safely and brightly, and up Delmonden
hill from the village, and down it from the northern boundaries of the
parish, and along the Rectory lane from outlying parts in the east, came
men, women, and children of all kinds and creeds. There were farmers and
their families, and farm labourers, from Reedbed, Wassall, Udiam,
Devenden, Kitchenhour--cottagers from Lossenham and Four Throws--and the
aristocracy of Delmonden, such as the Cheesmans from the new house by
Knelle Wood, the Ingpens who had taken over Morghew and made such a mess
of it, Dr. and Mrs. Gilpin, the Stones, the Pratts, and others. Then, of
course, there were the villagers, and the holidaymakers, and a few
pilgrims from other parishes, Rolvenden, Bethersden, Tenterden, and the
Isle of Oxney. . . . So altogether there was a great concourse upon the
roads and soon a great crowd upon the Rectory lawn.

Mrs. Millington arrived punctually and in a good humour, and Theresa
came with her, looking unexpectedly civilised and feminine in a gown of
demure, pale blue muslin, like the sky. Mrs. Bennet was astonished at
the change in her. She looked almost beautiful with the golden rays of
her hair flying out from under her hat, which dimmed her face with its
blue shadow till red and brown were almost pink and white. Her, manner,
too, had subtly changed, honeyed and softened. . . . Mrs. Bennet
suddenly grew alarmed--this was just the sort of change you would expect
a young man to make. She remembered how she, herself, had been accounted
something of a tomboy before she met Harry . . . "and then I went
straight out and bought a veil and a pair of gloves. Oh, I must make a
point of speaking to Theresa some time today."

It was difficult, however, to have a private conversation with anyone,
however necessary. And Theresa was especially elusive--she seemed to be
always in the distance, always hovering at the edge of some far-off
group, lounging in the shadow of some tent or stall between which and
the Rector's wife surged a flood of acquaintances, clamouring and
greeting. She hung about almost as if she were waiting for some one . . .
and then Mrs. Bennet's worst fear was confirmed. George Heasman
arrived. There was, on the face of it, nothing extraordinary or
outrageous in his coming, for he came with his parents, and there were
no distinctions of creed at the Garden Party. But the fact remained that
he had never come before, for he was inclined to believe that the Rector
looked down on him, and to avoid him in consequence. It was a bad sign
that he should be here today. . . . "I must speak to her," said Mrs.
Bennet "give her a word of warning, now, when I've got the chance." She
could see Theresa in the distance, looking on in a bored way at a game
of clock golf which raged between Miss Bell and Mr. Spragge the sexton.
But no sooner had she started to walk in her direction than an indignant
Mrs. Apps straddled across the way.

"Please, Ma'am, there's that old lady been picking your flowers."

"Which old lady?"

"Her, over there; the old Parson's wife"--and she indicated Mrs. Sweet,
who stood with her husband a few yards off, clutching a bunch of
larkspur and lupin in a guilty, conscious way, like a child that has
been found out and fears that it will be deprived of its treasure.

"I told her straight, I did, as it was trespassing," continued the
indignant Mrs. Apps, "and a great abuse of your kindness, Ma'am, I
says."

"Well, never mind; I won't say anything to her now--not unless she does
it again. After all, it's only a few flowers, and she's very poor--not
quite right in her head, if the truth were known."

"There's too many not quite right in their heads around here,"
complained Mrs. Apps, "it comes hard on them what are and have got to
behave themselves."

"I can't speak to her now, anyway. I want to find Miss Silk."

But Miss Silk had vanished. The trees of the garden had received her and
hidden her from view. Somewhere in Delmonden's glebe she wandered, but
Mrs. Bennet could go no further in her pursuit. The Entertainment was
beginning, and she must be at her post.

She did not see Theresa again till tea-time, and then she was having tea
with her aunt, and nothing could be said. Mrs. Millington still approved
of her surroundings--"A very successful afternoon we're having, Mrs.
Bennet. That was an excellent entertainment those Tenterden ladies gave
us, though I don't approve of a girl playing a man's part. If she does,
she should play it in women's clothes; but there are so many plays
written nowadays for women only that it really isn't necessary to have
men's parts at all."

"I hope you approve of the tea arrangements?"

"Oh, yes, I think you've managed excellently. These cakes were made by
my cook, were they not?--Ah, yes, I thought I recognised them. I said to
Theresa, 'We shall be safe if we take these.' How do you think the
child's looking, Mrs. Bennet?"

"I think she's looking lovely." Mrs. Bennet beamed on Theresa's looks in
spite of her distrust of their causes.

"I'm going to leave her here when I go back after tea. She says she'd
like to stay for the dancing. I'll come and fetch her about nine
o'clock, as I'd like to see some of the dancing myself. You'll look
after her, won't you?"

"Oh, indeed I will."

But, as before, Theresa did not give her a chance. She was always
elusive and often invisible. It almost seemed as if she were fleeing
Mrs. Bennet. At first there was a certain comfort in the thought that
George Heasman had left. His parents had gone home, and she had not seen
him about since tea-time. Then suddenly, when the dancing had begun, she
caught sight of him and Theresa at the edge of the crowd of onlookers.
It was dusk, and the new-lit lanterns made the light still more
uncertain, but they seemed to be talking earnestly. She went over to
them, resolved on their separation. George, she knew, would not
dance--he thought it wrong--but she would find a partner for Theresa.
Her eye lit on young Trevor Ingpen, newly home from Siam, and, gathering
him on her way, she brought him before the young couple who were blind
to all except each other.

"Theresa, my dear. You must dance. Let me introduce you to Mr. Trevor
Ingpen."

"I really don't want to dance, thank you, Mrs. Bennet."

"My dear, please do. We _all_ do. I'm going to."

Theresa glanced at George. Her eager bright eyes seemed to say, "There
now!"

He shook his head.

"I'm not trained for dancing," he said sulkily.

Theresa tossed her head and gave her hand to Trevor Ingpen. Mrs.
Bennet's point was won, and she felt almost sorry for the disconsolate
George.

"Won't you let me find you a partner?" she beamed. "I know so many nice
girls."

He turned from her almost rudely.

"No nice girl would dance like this, hugged in a man's arms. It's the
beginning of evil."

Mrs. Bennet walked away.

"What a terrible young man!" she thought to herself. "I really can't
understand Theresa. I wonder . . . I really wonder if she's--well--quite
like other people."

It struck her that there was a curious simplicity about Theresa. She was
different from other girls of her own class, even from girls of a class
not her own. Mrs. Bennet felt suddenly painfully alarmed for her.

"O Lord," she prayed, with the echo of George Heasman's last word in her
ears, "O Lord, deliver her from evil."



                                  9

As the evening passed, Mrs. Bennet grew more light-hearted. She saw
Theresa dancing again with young Ingpen, and the sight encouraged her.
Also, she was dancing herself. She always danced at the Party, once at
least with Mr. Boorman, and once with each of the Churchwardens, Dr.
Gilpin and Dr. Vidler of Reedbed. She knew that she was growing too old
for it, but she had done it for twenty-five years, and enjoyed it in
spite of scanty breath.

It was a lovely evening, fresh and warm. She was glad she had put on her
blue silk--she seldom had a chance of wearing it, and it was so pretty,
she thought, with its fall of lace. It would do for at least another two
years, and then she would get something black--though of course there
was no harm in wearing pretty colours . . . she had always stood out for
that . . . but she was getting old . . . and perhaps black was more
becoming . . . though not economical . . . black was not . . .
economical wear . . . in the country . . . and a nice brown, perhaps
. . . a nice . . . Whoosh!

The last of Mrs. Bennet's breath, which for a turn or two had been
breaking up her thoughts with gasps, rushed out of her body as a pair of
huge shoulders crashed into her and laid her fiat upon her partner's
bosom.

"Hi!" yelled Mr. Boorman, "take care where you're going, young chap.
It's that Heasman lad," he added, as he led the Rector's wife out of the
crush; "he's never danced before in his life, and he can't do it now."

"Why . . . he told me . . . he didn't want to dance. . . . I offered . . .
him a partner."

"He's dancing with Miss Silk."

"Miss Silk!"

"Yes, I reckon he didn't like her dancing so much with young Mr.
Ingpen."

Mrs. Bennet was speechless. Her eyes searched the mass of the dancers,
as it swayed, jigging to the strains of some negroid rhythm that had
come to Delmonden from Tennessee. The last of the dusk was gone, and it
was now quite dark. The Chinese lanterns that for a time had hung round
the lawn like dim, delicious fruit were now so many moons under the
trees. They cast only a freakish light upon the dancers, and she found
it hard to distinguish anybody. She thought she saw Theresa's big hat,
but when it came nearer it was only Ethel Gasson's big hat. . . . Oh
dear, what had become of her? She must be somewhere in that mass--feet
shuffling and sliding, shoulders jerking, arms embracing . . . "hugged
in a man's arms" . . . that was what that dreadful young fellow had
said. And now he was hugging Theresa, hugging her and bumping her about.
. . . With a sigh Mrs. Bennet turned away from the chiaroscuro of the
lawn, into the light of the many moons that hung under the trees. Here
she found her husband, looking for her.

"My dear, Mrs. Millington's come back."

"Oh, has she? I'm so glad."

This did not sound quite natural, but the Rector had no time for
wondering. Mrs. Millington stood close by with Mrs. Gilpin and Mrs.
Ingpen. She had been surprised to hear that Mrs. Bennet was dancing.

"Really, how very energetic you are," was her greeting; "but I never
expected you'd have this sort of dancing at all. I was looking forward
to country dances--the good, old-fashioned kind, you know."

"I'm afraid nobody here can dance those."

"How very odd! When I lived in London, our Girl Guides danced them
beautifully. It's queer, isn't it, that London girls should know country
dances, while country girls can dance only this dreadful modern stuff?"

"We pride ourselves on being very up to date in Delmonden," Mr. Bennet
boomed jocosely--to drown the far from jocund voice within, which was
telling Mrs. Millington exactly what he thought of her and her Girl
Guides and her country dances.

"I expect they could dance Sir Roger de Coverley," suggested Mrs.
Bennet.

"Oh, no, pray do not put anyone to inconvenience on my account. I am
only a little disappointed, that's all. I've come to fetch Theresa, and
we really ought to be going home now. Do you know where she is?"

"N-no; at least, I had an idea she was dancing."

"Then we'll wait for the end of this dance--unless, perhaps, Mr. Bennet
can go and find her."

But at that moment the dance ended, the music ceased, and after some
desultory clapping the dancers streamed off the lawn, into the tents or
under the trees. Theresa did not appear, and after waiting a little, the
Rector went in search of her. But she was not to be found, and he came
back alone.

"She and her partner must have slipped off somewhere. Shall we take a
stroll round the garden? Then perhaps we shall come upon them; and Mrs.
Millington can see the illuminations, which we take rather a pride
in--eh, don't we, Lucy?"

They moved off, the three of them together, Mrs. Bennet feeling vaguely
miserable and uneasy. The Chinese lanterns hung from all the trees, so
that there were no dark corners in the Rectory garden--no secret places
for lovers. It was not that either the Rector or his wife disapproved of
lovers or love-making, but sad experience had taught them that these
things can sometimes go too far, and that it is a pity when they go too
far at a Rectory dance. Once, fifteen years ago, a village scandal was
said to have originated at the Garden Party, and ever since then the
dark places of the garden had been artistically illuminated; and though
of course there was nothing to prevent would-be lovers from straying off
into the fields, it was hoped that the continued presence of the
bullocks might in a measure safeguard the morals of the community.



                                  10

But there are some lovers so bold, so lost to shame, that they do not
require darkness, but will stand embracing even in daylight or in the
light of a Chinese lantern hung from a sycamore bough. Just such a pair
confronted the Bennets and Mrs. Millington at a turn of the shrubbery
path. The light was not enough to show who they were, and the first
impulse of the Rector and his wife was to turn quickly away the--Rector
because he disliked gazing at the private mysteries of love, his wife
because of a sudden impulsive fear. But Mrs. Millington had no such
qualms. After a slight check she marched boldly forward, and at once the
young couple sprang apart, showing the flushed, startled faces of George
Heasman and Theresa Silk.

For a moment there was complete silence. Everybody was too surprised to
speak. It was one of those nightmare moments when help comes only by
magical chance. Then Mrs. Millington cried suddenly and harshly:

"Theresa!"

The girl was still clinging to George Heasman's arm. Her hat was pushed
back off her hair, her cheeks and her eyes blazed in a confusion which
was still half triumphant. Then, suddenly, the boy seemed to recover
himself. He put his hand over hers that clung to his sleeve, and threw
up his head.

"I love this lady," he said, stammering a little, "and I want to marry
her."

Mrs. Bennet gasped. She found her dislike of him surprisingly gone. He
looked proud and brave, caught in this sudden plight.

"Don't talk nonsense," said the Rector.

"Theresa, come with me at once," said Mrs. Millington.

"It's true," cried Theresa, her voice sobbing, "it's true."

"It can't be true. I never heard of such a thing in my life. Mr. Bennet,
who is this young man?"

"My name's George Heasman, and I can answer for myself. I'm the son of
Alfred Heasman of Ethnam, and I'm the preacher at Providence Chapel. I'm
not ashamed of my name or of my profession or of my love for this young
lady."

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bennet would have thought he had it in him to speak
like that. They both revised a former bad opinion. Mrs. Millington
apparently did not.

"Oh, I know who you are. Your father's a tenant of mine, isn't he?"

"Yes, Ma'am, he is."

"Then will you kindly go away at once? Later on I may require you to
apologise for this outrageous conduct."

"I shall not apologise, and I shall not go away and leave my Theresa at
your mercy."

"I think you'd better," said Mr. Bennet; "nobody's going to be angry
with Theresa if you go, but if you stay there may be a scene----"

"Which you don't want in your garden. I understand, Sir."

"Of course I don't want it in my garden or anywhere else. My dear
fellow, we're all very angry, and if we separate we may cool down and be
able to talk this over calmly."

"Then you promise that we shall talk it over?"

"No, certainly not!" cried Mrs. Millington; "there is nothing that could
possibly be discussed without insulting me and my niece. Your conduct
has been unpardonable, Mr. Heasman."

The band had begun to play another dance. Strains of "Pickin' Cotton"
drifted to the little group under the sycamore tree, and at the same
time the rest of the garden seemed to come alive, footsteps and voices
passed. It was impossible to prolong the scene. Mr. Bennet seized young
Heasman by the arm and whispered to him:

"I promise you the matter shall be discussed. I guarantee it
absolutely."

"George," said Theresa, "please, please go."

It was so long since she had spoken that her voice came almost as a
shock, and as they looked at her they saw that tears were rolling down
her face.



                         III. Theresa (solar)



                                  1

It would be hard to say who suffered most during the days that followed.
No doubt the parted lovers had their just claim to sorrow's crown, but
they also had their love to sustain them, and the strength of their own
constancy. Never, never, they told Mrs. Millington and the Bennets and
the Heasmans (who had been made reluctant, surprised participators in
the fray), never would they forswear their solemn vows. They bore
themselves, whether separate or together, with a queer, stiff gallantry
that was unlike them both. Their youth and the exaltation of first love
was making their plight into high romance.

Mrs. Millington, on the other hand, had neither youth nor first love to
light the stage for her. She suffered from outraged affection and
wounded pride, neither of which is dramatically satisfying. She had to
face the fact that she knew nothing of Theresa, whom she loved so much.
The girl had taken her entirely by surprise, and she had revived before
her aunt a certain Arthur Silk whom she had thought long dead. Arthur
Silk had come from the dim borderlands of society, wooing Winifred
Hurst, stealing her away from her home and her loving, deluded sister;
and now with their daughter it was happening again--though on a still
lower level. For Arthur Silk had come of mixed yeoman and gipsy blood,
while George Heasman was only the son of an inefficient tenant farmer,
and worked in a small-town grocery store, and on Sundays went
Bible-thumping in obscure village chapels.

The suitor's family were overwhelmed with fear at their position. Their
lease of Ethnam came to an end next year, and for certain she would turn
them out. It was just like George, having got them on the wrong side of
the Parsonage by turning Methodist, now to make trouble for them with
the Manor by this lamentable conduct that they'd never seen the like of
in their days.

As for the Bennets, they were rent between conflicting claims. They
loved the niece and would have liked to take her part; they did not love
the aunt. But they saw that the aunt, and not the niece, was right. The
idea of Theresa marrying George Heasman, now or at any time, was almost
preposterous. In spite of their improved opinion of the boy they could
not see him as a suitable husband for the heiress of Goldstrow.

"He's had nothing but a board-school education," said Mr. Bennet, "and
though the Methodists will probably cram a little learning into him
before they're done with him, I don't suppose he'll ever be much more
than a sort of peasant preacher."

"And what good will it do if he is? I can't see Theresa as a minister's
wife."

"Nor can I. Indeed, it's a mystery to me how she ever came to fall in
love with him."

"So it is to me. They seem to have nothing in common; indeed, I'm afraid
. . . I can't help feeling that it's only a case of . . . since we're
alone perhaps I may say it . . . a case of sex attraction."

"I think it's a little more than that. From what I can get out of
him--which isn't much, as he's always on the defensive--from what I can
get out of him, there is a certain small kinship of mind between them.
I'm not so sure about her, but for him she certainly stands for more
than sex----"

"Oh, my dear! Of course! I----"

"I mean it's not only her health and her youth that have done it. After
all, the young man has ideas and ambitions considerably above his
station, and Theresa's a lady--and a more accessible lady than most. He
probably finds very little to attract him in girls of his own class, and
yet Theresa has something of that class about her--just enough to put
him at his ease. From his point of view, I don't see that it's such a
bad thing----"

"But she can take no interest in his religious work."

"I'm not so sure of that. She's in love with him, remember. We haven't
been able to touch her, but possibly he has."

"Oh, how I wish we could have introduced her to some nice young
Churchman."

"My dear, Theresa would never get on with anybody 'nice.' She's got a
queer streak in her--I don't know where it comes from--and in some ways
George Heasman's more her going than any well-educated, well-bred chap
could be."

"You almost talk as if you were on their side."

"I'm not--of course I'm not. But it's a difficult problem. I only hope
Mrs. Millington won't make a hopeless mess of it."

"I don't think she will. She's very fond of Theresa, you know."

"But I doubt if Theresa's very fond of her."

"No, I'm afraid she's not. But Theresa's not unreasonable. Poor child
. . . she doesn't seem quite to understand what's happened to her. She
used to be such a tomboy, and now . . . why, she said to me only last
time I saw her, 'Oh, Mrs. Bennet, I never used to care about men; I
thought all that kind of thing so silly; yet now I can't even think of
George without wanting to cry!'--and she did cry, too, poor child."

"Poor child. I wonder what this will make of her."

"A woman, perhaps."

"Bah!" cried the Rector, suddenly and angrily. "It's only calf love. Why
do we all make such a fuss about it?"



                                  2

At last the matter was settled. The lovers were to part. There seemed no
alternative, since the law of the land made a runaway marriage
impossible. Mr. Bennet succeeded in impressing on young Heasman that
nothing could happen till Theresa was twenty-one. On her twenty-first
birthday she would be a free agent and also would inherit a small sum of
money. Let them wait till then. If their love endured the vigil, then
its worth was proved and it could claim a noble independence.

He himself did not expect it thus to win its spurs. At first, of course,
a secret correspondence would be maintained, and vows pass through the
post, so beautiful that one would expect the very postman's feet to fly
like an angel's over the road. Then letters and vows would both grow
rarer, then shamefaced, then the postman's feet would drag slowly in the
mud, as he handed in the letter that at last confessed "it had all been
a mistake," and some other man was going to lead Theresa away or some
other girl keep house for Heasman.

Naturally he did not tell the young people this, and his restraint was
in part responsible for the outward smoothness of Mrs. Millington's
victory. She herself declared that the parting was for ever. It was an
outrage that Theresa should live even in young Heasman's thoughts. As
for the girl, she must at once be taken out into society and introduced
to all the eligible young men that it was possible to find in her aunt's
somewhat elderly circle of acquaintance. Mrs. Millington babbled of
house-parties at Goldstrow, of Captain This and Sir Somebody That, and
sending Theresa to London for the Little Season.

In her wiser moments the details of the separation were settled on more
practical ground. She would find another job for Heasman that would take
him right out of the district. She knew one of the directors of the
United Tea Company, and he would see about transferring the young man to
another branch. She did not know anybody on the Central Council of the
Calvinistic Methodists, but doubtless when their evangelist was
commercially translated they would provide him with a new religious
field. If he refused to go, then his father and mother would be turned
out of Ethnam as soon as the law allowed.

To Mr. Bennet this was not a fair fight, and he deeply sympathised with
the sore and outraged Heasman, though it was his business to persuade
him into agreement.

"After all, neither of you could be happy if you went on living within a
dozen miles of each other. Apart from all this, you would be bound to go
away."

"I've got my work at Providence and my work at Iden Green, and it's as
important to me as your work at Delmonden is to you. I bet you wouldn't
clear out of your Rectory for anybody's threats."

All this was a great pity, thought Mr. Bennet, and he was not really the
man who ought to have been sent to negotiate with young George, who
insisted on viewing him as a proud prelate triumphing over the lay
evangelist. However, he would make the best of it he could.

"If, as a young man, I'd ever found myself in your position with regard
to a young woman, I honestly think I should have cleared out. In our job
there's always plenty of work to be done everywhere, and I haven't a
doubt but that the Methodist Council, or whatever settles these things
for you, will be only too glad of your services wherever you go. If you
stay, you won't be doing the slightest good to Theresa or to yourself,
and to your own people you'll be doing definite harm."

"It's outrageous that she should blackmail me like this."

"I quite agree--it is outrageous. Still, there it is. She's quite within
her rights, and we can't do anything about it."

"If I go you'll all spend all your time trying to turn Theresa against
me."

"I promise you that my wife and I will do nothing of the kind."

"But Mrs. Millington will."

"Her influence goes for very little."

The young man glared into the embers of Ethnam's kitchen, where this
uneasy interview was taking place.

"You can't pretend," he said thickly, "that you aren't all of you
against me. It isn't only her auntie that thinks I'm not fit to touch
her."

"Come, come, my dear fellow, you're imagining what isn't true."

"It is true. You know you look down on me. You're saying in your heart
that I'm only a boy in a shop--I'm only a lay preacher, that hopes to be
a minister some day. But, even when I'm a minister, I shan't be a
gentleman--not like your Established priests, who are always gentlemen
no matter where they were raised. . . . Ha, ha! I know some tales about
that."

"No doubt you do. So do I. Please don't think I'm being a snob over
this. If I've suggested . . . or asked--asked you to ask yourself
certain questions . . . it's only on the score of suitability of
character. Birth and education have some influence on that, you know."

"Theresa isn't particularly well educated, and she's more fond of queer
company than I am."

"And how does she fit in with your religious life?"

"She likes my religion. It's the first time she's ever met a religion
that isn't all dressed up--and she likes it. That's another thing
that'll happen when I go away--you'll try and get her back to the
Church--that's never given her the Gospel . . . ."

"I'll certainly give her all the Gospel I can," said Mr. Bennet,
beginning to lose his temper.

He saw there was no longer any profit in the interview, and hurried it
to an end. He must not quarrel with this preposterous young fellow,
however much he asked for it.

His forbearance was rewarded, and in the course of the next week he
succeeded in persuading George Heasman to accept Mrs. Millington's
terms. He made no more efforts to induce him to question his own wisdom.
After all, the next three years would make plain just how much enduring
quality there was in his love. So it was all arranged--that Heasman was
to go away to Newbury in Oxfordshire, and take over the management of
the United Tea Company's Stores in that town. It would mean promotion
and an increase of salary for him, so Delmonden would not be able
definitely to link his departure from Cranbrook with the terrification
that was said to have happened at the Parish Garden Party. The only
drawback was that arrangements could not be made for him to "take over"
till the middle of October, now more than a month ahead. Mrs.
Millington, however, said she would go to London with Theresa till he
was safely out of the district.

An alternative plan came rather surprisingly from Theresa herself. If
she must go away, must she go to London, which she hated? Might she not
go with Mr. and Mrs. Bennet to Brighton, when their holiday began next
week? It was a suggestion that pleased neither Mrs. Millington nor the
Bennets themselves. Their annual holiday had always been something in
the nature of a honeymoon, and Theresa would be the intolerable third.
On the other hand they were touched by the poor child's affection, and
well aware that her aunt was not the most suitable companion for her in
her new unhappiness. If she was with them, they could comfort and cheer
her, and perhaps do something to win her rebel soul. It was a chance
that they had no right to throw away.

As for Mrs. Millington, she was naturally hurt that Theresa should
prefer other company to hers, but it would be convenient not to have to
go up to town just now, when her interests and activities were all in
the country. Also, she was temporarily pleased with the Bennets for what
they had done during the last week or two. Mr. Bennet had been
invaluable as a go-between, he had talked that impossible young man into
reason and compliance, and he and his wife had somehow managed between
them to damp down any scandal there might have been in Delmonden--which
means that they had taken steps to ensure that none of it should reach
her ears. To crown all, she was anxious to please Theresa, the being
whom she loved and had hopelessly offended . . . Theresa should realise
that her aunt was ready to give her anything in the world she wanted as
long as it involved only her own sacrifice.

So it was arranged that Theresa should go with the Bennets to Brighton,
as their paying-guest, and that their holiday should be prolonged to the
full month at Mrs. Millington's expense. Which, as they were humble
souls, pleased them extraordinarily well.



                                  3

The Bennets always went to the same rooms in Brighton every year. They
were not on the sea front, but Mrs. Bennet declared that it was quieter
and healthier as well as cheaper up at Preston, and of course there was
Preston Park. . . . They had "partial board" only, which meant that they
did not have to come back from the sea for luncheon, but could eat it in
the exciting surroundings of the Regent or Sherry's, or more
economically in some bun-shop on the Parade.

Every year there were certain things that they did--that they had done
for the last twenty years, so that they had by now acquired almost the
solemnity and obligation of religious rites. One of these was lunch at
the Metropole. Every year a sum of money was set aside for it, and a day
chosen when Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, dressed in their very best, sat stern
with excitement in the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs, and reverently ate
the table d'hte luncheon, washed down with half a bottle of Sauterne.
Then there was always a matine at one of the theatres, and a ceremonial
visit to each of the piers, a cinema, and a char--banc drive. They also
went a great deal to church.

This, curiously enough, was a great diversion when on holiday. One would
have thought that Mr. Bennet had enough church during the year to make
his holiday consist, at least in part, of his emancipation from it. But
this was far from being the case. Going to other clergymen's churches
was as big a change as not going to church at all, and more satisfying
to the conscience. After all, to lie in bed all the morning or to lounge
on the cliffs by Rottingdean could scarcely be more remote in style from
Sunday morning service in Delmonden than High Mass in one of the great
cathedrals of the London, Brighton, and South Coast religion. The
thronging crowds, the thundering music, the soaring voices, the scarlet
cassocks, the incense, the banners, the candles, the flowers, the lace
were all to this poor pagan priest, who for twenty-five years had
ministered the religion of the villages, much what the Lord Mayor's
Banquet would be to a hungry workingman. Indeed High Mass at St.
Bartholomew's stood in much the same relation to services in Delmonden
Church as lunch at the Metropole stood in relation to lunches at
Delmonden Rectory.

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet visited devoutly all the principal churches in
Brighton. They went of course to St. Bartholomew's, towering like Noah's
Ark above the London Road; they went to St. Martin's, the soldiers'
church, to St. Paul's with its cavernous approaches, All Saints, All
Souls, and up the hill to the gay little Annunciation, and to St.
Michael's, which very considerately kept its Patronal Festival during
the Bennets' holiday. Occasionally he went to call on certain clergy
whom he knew, but not often, because he did not seem quite to belong to
their world. Their talk was sometimes too remote from realities--when
they asked him if he ever gave Benediction, and what he did to keep the
women in bounds . . . apparently they suffered from the excessive piety
of their flocks, which compelled them to provide more services than they
were inclined to. Delmonden was not like that.

It might be considered doubtful how far Miss Theresa Silk would fit in
with such a holiday. But she was unexpectedly accommodating. She did not
like going to church, nor did she particularly want to have lunch at the
Metropole, but she would be happy for hours putting her pennies into the
slots of the automatic machines on the Palace Pier, or paddling about in
one of the paddle boats on the pool on the Lower Parade. Also she had
friends in the district. There was a family at Hove who occasionally
relieved the Bennets of her company, and out at Henfield lived an old
school friend whom now and then she went to see. This girl once came
into Brighton and proved rather astonishing as a friend of Theresa's,
for she was elegant and sophisticated and feminine, with beautiful
clothes and a carefully powdered face on which her thin, plucked
eyebrows maintained an unfaltering arch of surprise.

But Theresa herself had changed. The Bennets could see that, now that
they had her to themselves. In her manners she was still a tomboy,
preferring the Pier to the shop windows and the paddle boats to the
Parade; but the focus of her life had shifted--it had become feminine.
She had no longer that queer, hard air of boyishness, or rather of the
creature that is neither girl nor boy. One could imagine her talking
feminine secrets with Violet Clutter, planning feminine campaigns.

Her general air was far more cheerful than anybody had expected. She
never spoke of George Heasman--she would not speak of him. If Mrs.
Bennet ever, when they were alone, led the conversation that way with a
view to comfort and good advice, she was resolutely evaded. Sometimes
she felt a little hurt that Theresa would no longer confide in her--she
wondered if she confided in Violet Clutter. She was a queer, hard little
thing, after all. . . . Of course they were both quite sure that she and
George wrote to each other, but not a word was said. Only sometimes her
eyelids would droop over a shining mystery, that might have been rapture
or that might have been tears.



                                  4

One day, when they were within a week of their return to Delmonden,
Theresa set out for her last visit to Henfield. The Bennets had as usual
gone down to the Parade, carrying a string bag which contained their
library novels, their spectacles, Mr. Bennet's office book, and Mrs.
Bennet's knitting, also some stale bread for the sea-gulls.

Theresa watched them go with a certain sense of pathos. They looked so
old and so innocent. It was a shame to deceive them. She watched them
walking together towards their bus-stop, arm in arm, Mr. Bennet's old
black coat seeming to reflect the parrot-green of his wife's rather than
to manifest its own decay. They were laughing and talking, full of the
excitement of their ridiculous day--so utterly unsuspicious. . . .

She never used to feel about them like this. She had always found them
funny, but never pathetic. Was it because she was deceiving them, or was
it merely one of those queer things that had happened lately--part of
the ever-growing torment of her tears? She never used to cry. She cried
over everything now--over nothing at all, such as the old Bennets
wandering off together to sit on the beach till it was time to get up
and eat buns, then to sit on the beach again till it was time to get up
and go to evensong. She ought to laugh really--not cry.

She wiped one or two tears away as she took her seat in the bus. She was
not really crying about them at all--she did not know what she was
crying about. . . . In a way it would be a relief when George was gone,
and yet, how could she bear it? She clenched her hands upon her lap, and
tossed her head back so that no more tears should fall. Through the
window she could see the calm pure outline of the downs, dark against
the crystal sky of Autumn. A new sense of self-pity nearly choked her.
Oh, how happy she had been six months ago, when without a care in her
heart she had wandered free about the country, seeking queer
things--never sorry either for herself or for other people. Why had that
lovely world departed from her?



                                  5

George met her where the bus stopped at Muddles Wood corner. They did
not say much to each other, for at first meeting a great shyness always
overwhelmed them. It was almost as if they met as strangers every time.
The sight of George, big, brown-faced, golden-haired, whose voice and
whose touch were so dear, always for some strange reason made Theresa a
little afraid. As for George, he longed for the moment when there should
be no further need for the speech he found so difficult. Once he had
taken her in his arms, the barriers between them would have melted, and
words need no longer stumble and fail.

"Are we going to Violet's?" he asked awkwardly.

"No, not today. I've settled that."

"I'm glad."

George did not like Violet. He did not approve of her powdered face and
plucked, surprised eyebrows, nor of the worldly way in which she
regarded everything, their love included. It humiliated and embarrassed
him to have to accept the cloak she offered. But otherwise how could
they meet? And they must meet in these sorrowful days, before they were
to be parted for so long.

"Where shall we go then?" he asked.

"I dunno. Up on the downs--or there's a fair at Twineham."

"Oh, don't let's go to a fair--among a lot of people on our last day."

The image of the fair dropped from her, scarcely formed.

"Very well, then, we'll go up on the downs. It's going to be lovely."

They set off together along the road, turning off it at the first
throws. The little lane led steeply up and down on its eccentric way
towards Small Dole; against the southward sky rose the Downs of
Edburton, with Fulking at their roots. It was one of those days of
crystalline brightness that are set like diamonds among the autumn
mists. The sky was washed clear blue by a high wind that troubled not
the earth. The outlines of distant fields and woods and farms were sharp
for many miles away. The little white-rimmed windows shone like eyes,
and the brooks were like half-hidden swords among the trees. Turning as
they climbed from Small Dole, they could see as far as Horsham and
Itchingfield, with the high places of Surrey beyond. From behind them,
over the hill, came the soft croon of a siren upon the sea, to show
where the fogs waited.

At Fulking they bought a pocketful of bread and cheese, and then there
was only a short, stiff breathless climb between them and the solitudes
they longed for. All the way from Henfield they had not talked
much--merely a few gruff questions and answers.

"Have you settled your lodgings yet?"

"Yes; 15, Pitt Street. I'll write it down."

"What time do you go tomorrow?"

"Twelve-eighteen."

"Will you come home for your holidays?"

"Not till the new lease for Ethnam's signed."

"Have you heard from the Council?"

"No."

During the last fierce climb they did not speak at all, but toiled up
silently, panting side by side over the last of the thyme and the bee
orchis, till the top was won. Here, long ago, the first men of the south
had built a camp, piling earthworks against the foe advancing from the
trackless forest which is now the weald. The centuries had made of this
warlike place a sweet green garth, with turf-scented walls to shut out
the chastening of the wind, and hollows that trapped the sunshine.
George and Theresa cast themselves down, breathless, happy, smiling
captains of the fort.

For a moment they lay motionless, just filling their lungs while their
bodies throbbed in a relief of sweet rest. Then George put out his hand
and found Theresa's. She felt his fingers, warm, hard, strong, and a
little rough, close over hers; and, as months ago in Providence Chapel,
her heart seemed to falter, while through her blood stole a strange
sickness and ecstasy.

"Oh, George--Oh . . ."

With a sudden movement she turned her face, burying it in her arm.
Lifting himself on his elbow, he could see nothing but her tawny bunch
of hair, more vivid than ever against Edburton's green.

"Terry, what is it? My dear!"

His other arm came over her, he held her close. He could feel her warm
and trembling against him, and his love grew bigger to receive a
sweetness of compassion that was almost maternal.

"My little bird--my pretty little bird."

"Oh, Georgie . . ."

"What is it, pretty one?"

"Nothing--only that we're alone together at last."

And for the last time. He would not spoil their hour by saying it, but
the shadow of their parting already lay on the hill--the shadow that
waited with the fog to rise at twilight and swallow up the beauty of
their diamond day.

"Terry, kiss me."

She lifted her face, and their lips met, and as the long kiss ended they
tasted each other's tears.

"You mustn't go--you mustn't go."

She had flung her arms round him, clinging with all her strength.

"I don't want to go. It's dreadful; but what can I do? . . . with those
people all hunting and driving us?"

"Let me come with you."

"But we couldn't be married--the law won't allow it till you're
twenty-one, without your auntie's consent. Oh, they've got us every way
all right."

"I don't care about being married. I'll come without that--but I can't
live without you."

A month ago these words would have shocked him, but now his love for
Theresa lived in a world that was out of sight of Providence Chapel.

"My darling, that wouldn't be fair. You would be miserable, and I expect
they would be able to get you away from me."

"No, they wouldn't. Oh, no, they wouldn't. Let 'em try . . . and
couldn't we pretend I was twenty-one and get married in some place where
they didn't know us?"

"They'd find out about us all right. I tell you, I've been looking into
these things, for I've wanted the same as you. But it's no good. We
can't be married without your auntie's consent until you're twenty-one,
unless we go before a magistrate and say her consent's been
'unreasonably withheld' or some such."

"Well, couldn't we do that?"

"There's not a magistrate who wouldn't back her up. They'd all think I
was a cad, and was after your money--and maybe you'll think it yourself
before you're twenty-one."

"Oh, I shan't! I shan't! How can you be so cruel?"

She burst into tears--those dreadful tears that would come and spoil
their times together. Her sobs seemed something outside herself--a wild
beast seizing and shaking her.

"Terry, don't..."

He put his arms round her and held her close to him till the convulsion
passed.

"Georgie, I didn't know love was like this."

"It isn't really. This is only what other people have made it for us.
We'll be happy in the end. I promise you, dear. It isn't quite three
years to wait, and then we'll be together always. After all, lots of
people are engaged as long as that in the ordinary way. My sister
Alice----"

"But never to see each other all the time . . ."

"We shall see each other. We'll find ways of meeting, and once that
lease is signed I shan't mind turning up at Ethnam now and again. Think
of me as if I was out in India or Egypt or somewhere, the way lots of
girls' sweethearts are."

Thus he tried to soothe her, and they ate their bread and cheese, and
all the while the sun spilled down on them, calling out the scents of
turf and thyme from Edburton hill. It was a surprise, almost a shock,
when, their food all eaten, thinking to ease their sorrows by a walk,
they looked out over the camp wall to see below all round them a white
ocean of fog, drifting up from the Channel across the down and over the
wealden valley. The sun shone down on it, and it looked like a flood of
gleaming marble waves, a sea of moonstone, with rifts in it through
which the sunbeams went to stroke the fields below. It was so beautiful
that at first they hardly realised that it had made them prisoners.
Their camp was an island of sunshine rising out of that sea, which had
swallowed up all landmarks save other summits far away.

"Well," said George at last, "that settles us. We'll have to stay here
for the afternoon."

"I don't mind if we stay here for ever."

She crouched up against him, holding him tight in her arms. It seemed as
if she could never hold him quite close enough.

"My Terry," he whispered, comforting her, "my own little girl--who's
some day going to be all mine."

"I'm all yours now," she answered him, and he could not find it in his
heart to tell her there was more to give, though his whole being ached
with the lack.

But she too was aware of it, in spite of her innocence. Her body was
full of a consciousness that did not touch her mind. Her arms dragged
him closer, and she pressed her hot face against his, so that once again
it was wet with her tears.

"Darling, don't 'ee cry. It hurts me."

"I know, I know . . . but I can't help it. Oh, what's happened to me?
Why must I feel like this?"

Nearly crying himself he began to kiss her tears away.

"Georgie, I can't bear you to go. We must be married--oh, we must."

"Sweetheart, don't . . ."

He began to tremble, and suddenly he pushed her from him.

"What is it?" she cried. "Oh, don't be angry with me. I know I'm a fool,
but--but I can't help it . . . and I'm sorry--sorry . . ."

"Terry, you don't know what you're doing."

She had crept up close to him again, and her arms were round him,
straining him to her with a helpless passion that made him feel almost
faint with conflict. Why must they suffer so, he and his darling love?
What right had these self-righteous, class-conscious people to keep them
from each other? . . . "Oh, Terry, Terry--you don't know what you're
doing." He made one feeble effort to free himself, but he had not the
power.

"I love you, I love you," she was murmuring to him, while her hands
stroked his face, and tried to turn it towards her kisses. He loved
Terry. . . . Oh, how he loved her! His love was driving him mad. . . .
He could no longer turn his face from her, the lovely, precious thing
. . . their lips met, and fire passed over them--a hot, sweet gust that
seemed to burn away at once both his wisdom and her ignorance.

His kisses suddenly changed, and she stiffened in his arms with fear.
But it was too late now--he could not and would not let her go, and his
arms held her in spite of the pity of his heart as she struggled against
him. Then the next moment she relaxed, with an abandonment that first
surprised and then intoxicated him.

The sun beat down upon Edburton hill, till the scent of the turf was as
the scent of the sunshine. Outside their refuge, the world that had
persecuted the lovers lay drowned at the bottom of a white sea, rolling
slowly over it. They had forgotten it. They were alone, cast away on
their island, alone with the sun. Their love had ceased to concern
itself with the ways of the world under the fog. It followed the way of
the sun with Edburton hill. To his fiery need and her self-offering
ignorance there seemed no other way. It was as if they had learned this
lesson long ago, long before they were born, in dim ages when the sun
first shone upon the earth.



                                  6

The afternoon wore on, and they must have slept, for George had a dream.
He dreamed that he and Theresa were sitting together in a field full of
flowers. She wore a white wedding-dress, and they were going to be
married. Old Mr. Bennet came stepping across the fields, with a book
under his arm, to marry them. Then George suddenly realised in his
dream, that it was wrong to be married out in the fields. He must have a
believer's wedding . . . and immediately they were in Providence Chapel,
walking up the aisle together. But when they came under the pulpit, he
saw to his horror that there were two of himself--Theresa's bridegroom
and the minister who towered above them with the book. He was
both--monstrously divided. An infinite terror ran through him. The
chapel was full of a cold mist, that chilled and thickened. Theresa
seemed to fall back into it, and all he saw was his own face glaring
down on him. He woke in a sweat of fear.

The sun was gone, and the mist was everywhere. Thick, cold, and white it
lay over them, so that even the camp walls showed dimly through it.
Their island had been swallowed up by the sea. Starting up on his elbow
he looked round for Theresa. There she lay huddled against him, and her
eyes had just opened. They opened lazily and sweetly, and suddenly all
the fear of his dream was gone, as he stooped to kiss her warm, sweet
face.

"Georgie--darling, darling Georgie."

He could not speak. His throat felt thick with love. He could only kiss
her and kiss her, stroking her hair back from her darling face that
smiled at him.

"My own Georgie."

"My sweet, my love, my baby."

He nearly cried. Then suddenly he laughed.

"Look what's happened to us."

"The fog?"

"Yes, it's everywhere now."

"So much the better; we must stay where we are."

He looked up into the drifting layers. They were all white; the dusk was
still far off, but the turf under his head was wet, all the thyme wore
pearls. . . . With that maternal, protective quality still lingering in
his love, he was anxious for her.

"We can't stay here; you'll get wet, you'll catch cold. It's quite
light, and we can easily find our way off the hill in spite of the fog.
I'll take you somewhere warm."

"But I don't want to leave you. You won't send me home, will you?"

How could he send her home? Their love seemed only just begun. Kneeling
upright there upon the fog-soaked turf, they clung like two children,
their arms straining about each other, their cheeks pressed close. The
thought of their parting at Muddles Wood corner was terror and misery.
It simply could not be. They must not part till he was finally obliged,
to set out for exile. The fog, drifting round them, blotting them into
their refuge, was like a miracle specially worked for their sakes.

"The fog won't let us go home," murmured Theresa; "we must stay here."

"We can't stay here. You'd catch cold and die, my darling. But I'll tell
you what we'll do. We'll spend the night at some cottage or farmhouse.
Then in the morning I can get back to Cranbrook in time to catch my
train."

This in the almost giddy state they were in at the moment seemed an
excellent plan. It was not till they had gone some way and the camp on
Edburton hill was lost behind them in the chill white cloud, that they
began to think of difficulties. Then Theresa cried suddenly:

"What about the Bennets?"

"Oh, I'd forgotten them."

"They'll be frantic if I don't come back--and perhaps they'll wire to
Aunt Eleanor."

The Bennets had lost the pathetic halo which had invested them in the
morning. She thought of them only in relation to their powers of
betraying her.

"Are they on the telephone?"

"Yes, they are. I could ring up, of course, and tell them I'm spending
the night with Violet."

"That's a good idea. We'll do it from Fulking."

He no longer disapproved of Violet's cloak. He took it and wore it
gladly.

But they never reached Fulking. The fog that spread all round them
disguised the hillside and jumbled north and south. By the time they
reached the bottom, all they could see was another hill rising steeply
ahead. There was no trace of any village, house or road. They must have
turned southward into the downs and be walking away from the weald.

"Never mind," said Theresa, "we needn't care."

So peculiar was their mood that at first they didn't. Arm in arm, hugged
close side to side, they tramped over the mist-pearled grass, their
faces and clothes all wet with the fog that drifted over them, their
bodies warm with each other's warmth, their hearts warm with love's red
fire--red and glowing though it burned green boughs.

But, after a while, Theresa began to feel tired, began to think that a
hot cup of tea would be welcome. Also she began to worry again about the
Bennets. Suppose they did not reach a village till the post office was
shut and it was too late to telephone. The Bennets would be sure to get
in a funk about her if she didn't come home. Would they wire to Aunt
Eleanor? Or would they ring up Violet? And would Violet have the
resource to say that Theresa was spending the night with her? Possibly
she would and possibly she would not.

"What's worrying you, sweetheart?" said George.

"Only that I feel it's time we got somewhere, or the post office may be
shut and we shan't be able to 'phone the Bennets."

"It's only just turned half past four . . . and if we don't find a post
office we'll go to a private house."

They walked on for another three-quarters of an hour, and the mist was
beginning to grow soiled and dingy with twilight when they suddenly came
down on the village of Upper Beeding. The lights were on in the little
houses, for the fog was bringing the dusk early. The post office was
warm with lamplight, and also announced that it provided tea.

George ordered tea for them in the little back parlour, while Theresa
went to the telephone. To her relief, the Bennets had not yet come in,
so all she did was to leave a message with their landlady to the effect
that Violet Clutter had asked her to stop on for the night, and that she
would be back soon after breakfast the next morning . . . "and tell them
not to ring me up, because we're going out to dinner with some friends
of Miss Clutter's."

She thought this last lie rather a clever one. It made her feel as in
the old days when she explored London's by-ways, or on some recent
adventure at Delmonden. She was good at constructive as well as at
purely negative lying. But she had never lied to anyone she liked as
much as the Bennets. For a moment their pathos came back in a faint
aureole. Poor funny old things!

She was in a thoughtful mood as she returned to George at the tea-table.
But it soon passed. Growing rested and warmer with the hot friendly meal
in the friendly lamplight, she planned the future with him--the only
future that mattered now--of this one night.

"We might go to the inn here," she suggested.

"I don't think we'd better go to an inn, a cottage or a farmhouse would
be quieter. Perhaps the people here could tell us of one."

They questioned the post office girl, and she suggested a farmhouse down
the valley of the Ardur, by Botolphs, or, if they liked, there was a
house at Flitterbanks, on the Storrington road.

"Are you on a walking tour?" she asked.

"Yes," said Theresa.

The girl looked at them curiously.

"What's happened to your luggage? You'll want a change tonight."

"We sent our luggage on by train to Arundel," said Theresa, glibly; "but
the fog delayed us, and we'll never get so far."

George stared at her open-mouthed. He did not know she could lie like
that.

"There's a train goes to Arundel from Bramber at seven-four. If I were
you I'd go after your luggage. You'll catch your deaths of cold in those
wet things:"

"Thanks very much. We know how to manage," said Theresa, loftily.

She was annoyed, because the post office girl was too sharp for her. She
hoped there were not many more as sharp as that.

Unfortunately there were.

When at last they found Botolphs, lost in the mists that streamed up the
Ardur from Shoreham, the farmer's wife eyed them suspiciously. She held
the door half open while they talked, asking her for supper and a room
for the night, telling her that same story about their luggage, only
making out that it was at Lurgashall, so that she should not send them
after it by train.

"I dunno. I'm sure I couldn't say. I dan't think as I've a room to
spare, now wud the children here."

"We'll pay in advance," said George, and took a ten-shilling note out of
his pocket.

The woman seemed to hesitate. Then she suddenly opened the door wider,
so that the lamplight from the passage streamed over them. Theresa could
almost feel her stare upon her ringless hand.

"No, I'm afraid I couldn't do it. I dan't let lodgings as a
rule--leastways not like this." And she banged the door.

The lovers gazed forlornly at each other.

"It's because I haven't got a wedding ring," said Theresa.

"The idea of her looking for that!"

"I could see that she was."

A spate of indignation rose to George's lips, but was suddenly checked
by the thought that thus he would have acted himself, thus his mother
would have acted. Folk had the good name of their house to think of, and
were not likely to give lodging to nameless, ringless, and luggageless
strangers, no matter what money they could show.

Sorrowfully they turned away, back towards Upper Beeding.

"There's two things we must have," said he, "luggage and a wedding
ring."

"I could wear your ring, Georgie."

He wore one of those large metal rings that are considered a protection
against rheumatism, and before they went any further into the
inhospitable darkness, he took it off and put it on her finger. It was
very much too big, but by clenching her hand she could keep it in place
and endure the most searching glares of farmers' wives. When George saw
it on her hand, his heart melted, and taking the little brown clenched
hand in his he kissed it and the ring upon it.

"Darling--that's our wedding ring. In spite of all they've done to part
us, you're my wife."



                                  7

Thick darkness had fallen by the time they were back at Upper Beeding.
But there were lights and cottages all along the Storrington
Road--Bramber and then Steyning lit up the wet surfaces, and sent a red
glare into the fog. At Steyning the shops were still open, and at one of
them George bought a cheap suitcase and at another some rather queer
night clothes for himself and Theresa. They had now removed their two
chief reproaches--they had luggage and a wedding ring. It would no
longer be so difficult to convince people that they were a respectable
young couple on holiday.

Unfortunately, their purchases did not leave them with much money for a
night's lodging. An inn Was now out of the question, though by this time
George's objections had been worn down by the hard roads under his feet
and the weight of the suitcase on his arm. They must find a place that
would take them in for a very few shillings, and perhaps that place
would be hard to find. Theresa was by now feeling thoroughly tired, and
a little cold, but she slouched on gamely beside George, her cold hands
deep in her pockets, while now and then a little tune played round her
lips.

After leaving Steyning, the road ran on, houseless, for some way. It was
impossible to see if it still followed the course of the Downs, for the
fog was everywhere, and hills, woods, and fields were all alike. It was
a main road, much used, and every now and then a great glare would light
up the fog--a conflagration that moved swiftly towards them, seeming to
fill all space. They would cower side by side in the ditch, scarcely
knowing how the danger approached, till at last the fiery mist seemed to
condense into two angry, flaring eyes, sweeping past them with a shadow
which they knew was the body of a big car. This happened about every two
minutes, and by the time they reached Flitterbanks, a little group of
houses by Storrington throws, they were sore with the frightened anger
of the pedestrian, which must be not unlike the frightened anger of the
first man in an age of dinosaurs.

They found the cottage which had been recommended to them at Upper
Beeding, but disappointment met them on the doorstep, in spite of
suitcase and wedding ring. Yes, Mrs. Pepper had rooms to let, but they
were full . . . any other time. . . . Howsumever (and now they saw that
their efforts had not been in vain), Mrs. Clements at New Hatch on the
Findon Road was empty. Her gentry had gone last Monday. They'd come to
it if they turned south at the throws--the first house; there was the
name on the gate and a big board up----

So off they trudged again, by this time thoroughly weary.

"If she hasn't a bedroom we'll ask if we may sleep in the kitchen," said
George; "you look just about fagged, my dear."

She gave him a sudden smile, which he could hardly see in the darkness.

"I didn't know it would be so difficult. But anyway, we're together. We
shan't have to say good-bye till the last minute."

With this comfort they walked on, and came at last to a small lonely
cottage, set almost flush with the road. There was a light in one of the
lower windows, and a large notice-board was nailed to the fence.

"Here we are," cried George; "she told us there was a big board up."

"But look what it says!" cried Theresa.

The board said in large white letters on a black ground--"Repent ye and
believe the Gospel."

"This can't be the place," said George, and his voice in the fog sounded
suddenly as if he meant to turn and run away.

"It must be. She said it was the first house we came to, with a big
board . . . and there's 'New Hatch' on the gate."

"I don't like the look of it."

"Oh, never mind. We really must get in somewhere--we can't go tramping
on forever."

She opened the neat little gate and marched up to the door, George
following her unwillingly. When Theresa knocked he felt that some stern
elder would open the door, with scrutiny in his eyes and judgment on his
lips. But instead there appeared a pleasant-faced young woman, who
seemed perfectly willing to accommodate them without many questions.

"Yes, we've got a good room. Our lodgers left on Monday. The bed isn't
made up, but I'll soon see about that. . . . Supper? Well, we've only a
bit of bacon in the house, but I could fry you some rashers . . . six
shillings for the two of you--will that do?"

It just would, leaving them a little money over for emergencies and
their fare home. They followed the young woman into the house, which
seemed fresh and tidy, and upstairs into a front bedroom. The lamp that
she carried revealed walls gaily papered and a window hung with
Nottingham lace. There was an iron bedstead and a jumble of cheap
furniture, but a certain air of cheerfulness and comfort.

"I'll bring your supper up to you. Or would you rather have it
downstairs in the kitchen?"

"I think we'd rather you brought it here," said Theresa, who seemed to
have taken charge of the proceedings.

"Why do you have that text written up so big on the fence?" asked
George.

"Oh, that was Father's doing. He used to be a Free Christian before he
got his tumour. This house is on the Worthing road, you see, so he
thought he'd give Scripture to all the motorists going by. Which reminds
me, those people broke the blind before they left, and I'm afraid you'll
find the cars make a lot of light in the room as well as noise."

"Oh, never mind," said Theresa; "we shan't have to dodge 'em, anyway."

As the girl left the room, she pulled off her soaked hat, throwing it on
the bed, and all her hair flew out like fire in the lamplight.

"Georgie . . ."

"Oh, my dear."

"Don't look so stuck and solemn. What's the matter?"

"Nothing--nothing."

She held out her arms, and he ran to her, hiding his face against her
neck, under the fiery cloud of her hair.

"You're not worrying about that old text? It's nothing to do with us.
We're married, Georgie. You said so. It's the way the gipsies marry.
It's the way you get married in Scotland or some such place--I've heard
it ever so many times. You just give a ring, and say 'I take you for my
wife.' They've tried to stop us and they haven't been able to. You said
it yourself a little time ago."

Thus she smoothed the troubled waters of his soul.



                                  8

That night George Heasman dreamed again. It was the same monstrous dream
of the marriage in the fields that became the marriage in Providence
Chapel. Only this time there was no mist. The chapel was full of a
strange light, like fire, and he could see clearly his own face staring
down at him from the pulpit, from behind the Book. Theresa had
vanished--it seemed as if she had never been there. He stood face to
face with himself, meeting his own indignant soul in judgment. George
the Preacher towered above poor George the Bridegroom, and his mouth
formed horrible silent words. Then suddenly he smote the Book and
shouted in a loud voice, "Repent ye and believe the Gospel," and at the
same time flames ran out from under the covers of the Book, and passed
searing over George in a terrible glare that consumed without heat,
burning him up in agonies of light. . . .

He woke, sitting up in bed, all steeped in the light of a passing motor
car that had flung the beam of its headlamps over the ceiling, over the
bed, wheeling and sinking and dying away, measuring with a few seconds
the eternity of his dream.

"O God!" he cried. "O God!"

Theresa lay sleeping, curled up on her side, but the sight of her could
not, as on Edburton hill, pluck him from judgment. He had fallen asleep
the happy lover beside his beloved; he had wakened the convicted sinner,
face to face with hell.

"Mercy!" he cried.

Then he sprang out of bed, and, crossing the room, fell on his knees by
the window. Theresa did not wake, and for a moment she was to him
scarcely a living creature. She was only the source and partner of his
sin, an instrument of the evil powers that had compassed and overthrown
him. He could hardly realise the full blackness of his fall, though his
whole mind was shadowed by it. He was like a man drowning, who fights
blindly great weights and movements of water. At the same time he was
like a man awaking to find he has committed a murder in his sleep. He
looked back on the last day and night with loathing and perplexity. How
could he have done this thing--Both done it and found it sweet. Its
sweetness was unreal to him now--a dream, a tale. All that was real was
this awful desolation, this ravening contrition--"Repent ye and believe
the Gospel."

George the Preacher had driven away George the Bridegroom. He no longer
lived banished in dreams, but stalked through daylight as its possessor.
It was George the Bridegroom who had become a dream, who lived in dimly
remembered, scattered fragments of life, moments of sunshine on Edburton
hill and of fog in the valley of the Ardur. . . . Oh, how George the
Preacher hated George the Bridegroom! He would have liked to cast him
even out of memory; he would have given all he possessed for him never
to have lived. As for the Bride, he could not hate her, but his thoughts
of her were turned to bitterness, and made him hate his other self the
more; for the Bridegroom had taken her from the Preacher, to whom she
belonged, and had made her an instrument of those black powers whom it
was the Preacher's business to fight. Unhappy Bridegroom and unhappy
Bride, and unhappy Preacher, who now must repent for them both.

Scarcely knowing what he did, he struggled from his knees, and began to
dress. Through the blindless windows, pale bands and streamers of light
could be seen, with the outline of the downs like a black shadow upon
the sky. The fog had gone, or rather had risen, hanging like a cloud,
which afterwards the wind would scatter into the north. The dawn was
still too faint to make much light in the room, and, as George groped
and stumbled in the darkness of his mind as well as of his surroundings,
he pushed over the table on which their supper things of yesterday
evening had been laid. There was a deafening crash, which even Theresa's
deep and healthy sleep could not withstand. She started up, flushed,
bewildered and a little frightened.

"What was that? What is it, George? Where are you?"

Then she saw him blocked against the window.

"What are you doing?"

"I've upset the supper tray."

He began to grope stupidly for the things that had fallen, searching for
them and putting them back, as if they mattered in his broken world.

Theresa jumped out of bed.

"I wish you'd tell me what you're doing out there in the cold. Is it
time to get up?"

"No--yes. I've had an awful dream."

She could faintly distinguish his drawn features in the light near the
window, and moved by a sudden anxiety she came over to him where he sat,
and put her arms round his neck.

"Georgie . . . Georgie. What is it? Tell me."

He pushed her away.

"No, no . . . go . . . don't touch me. I'm a miserable sinner, who's
been brought to judgment."

She gaped at him in surprise. The old George of Providence Chapel had
been so long gone that she scarcely recognised him now. This was a
stranger.

"What's happened? Oh, don't look at me like that--I can't bear it--" and
throwing herself on her knees beside him once more she hugged him close.

He seemed to relax, then suddenly recovering he pushed her from him with
such violence that she fell back on the floor. For a moment neither of
them moved. They crouched, staring at each other in the light that was
still half darkness. Theresa's face was set in its look of surprise and
outrage, as if his violence had turned her to stone. George, on his
chair, bowed forward on his knees, hating himself, and hating her,
since, because of her, he hated himself.

"I'm a wretch that's not worthy to live or to die."

"You're mad. You frighten me."

"I'm no madder than I've been since yesterday morning--since I first met
you, if it comes to that. You've bewitched me. You've tried to make me
sell my soul for a mess of pottage, for bodily lusts. I should have been
lost if the Lord hadn't brought me here."

"What _do_ you mean?"

She scrambled suddenly to her feet.

"I mean that the Lord's been good to both of us, in showing us our evil
ways: 'Repent ye and believe the Gospel.'"

She suddenly thought she understood him, and all her old tenderness came
back, mixed with a new, strange compassion.

"Oh, Georgie--you haven't been frightening yourself with that old text?
It's nothing to do with us."

He laughed bitterly.

"Who else has it got to do with? Two miserable sinners who came here for
the express purpose of sinning against God."

"How can you say such a thing?"

"It's true."

"It isn't. We're not sinners. We're husband and wife--we're married. You
yourself said so."

"I said it only to drown my conscience. We're not married according to
the laws of the land or by the laws of the Gospel."

"We're married as the gipsies are----"

"What do I care about gipsies? They're godless, outcast folk living like
cattle. You're a Christian woman and I'm a Preacher of the Gospel. Oh,
my God! My God!"

She felt a thrill of fear go through her. This was something strange and
terrible and outside her experience--something she could not understand.
George's religion had always been a thing apart from their love. In the
days of courtship it had influenced his behaviour--occasionally bringing
her up against queer repressions and denials, that she had accepted
because she loved him. Lately, there had been fewer of these, though he
still sometimes talked about his ministry, and they had both made plans
for its continuance when he left Kent. But never had she encountered his
religion in this guise--as the dominant passion of his life, trampling
and fouling their love, sweeping him away from her into strange paths
where she could not follow, spurning and insulting her for all she had
given him and wanted still to give.

"Oh, I don't understand," she cried miserably.

Then his manner changed, and he threw his arms round her, becoming in
his turn tender and beseeching.

"Do understand," he begged her. "Oh, Terry, do understand what I
feel--what's happened. It's God in his goodness who's given us a call to
repentance, and woe betide us if we don't hear that call."

"I don't hear it."

"He brought us to this house----"

"He didn't. The woman from Flitterbanks sent us----"

"He spoke with her voice. Why couldn't she take us in? Why was her house
full, and this, here, empty? Oh, Terry, don't you see the work of
Providence?"

"No," said Theresa, in sullen anger. "I don't."

"I pray that your eyes may be opened. I pray that you may walk with me
on the way of repentance. For I still love you, Terry. Oh, my dear,
don't think this means I don't love you any more."

"I don't know what it means. It's all beyond me. What I can't make out
is that if we've been doing wrong all this time, you didn't know it
earlier."

"I did know it, but I tell you my conscience was asleep. I tried to make
myself believe that we were right in helping ourselves to what other
folk wouldn't give us----"

"And weren't we?"

"You know we weren't."

"I don't know anything about it. It all seemed natural. I didn't think
at all at the time, and afterwards you said we were married. . . ."

A fresh panic seized him in the face of her ignorance. "O Lord! What a
villain I am! What a mean, low-down villain--seducing an innocent thing
like you. My dear--my little dear, I'm not fit to live."

"How dare you say such things!"

"It's all true. I'm filth. I'm scum. I've dragged you into this, and now
I can't make amends."

"I don't want you to make amends."

"But you'll marry me, some day. Terry, swear you'll marry me. You
haven't turned against me with all this?"

The dusk in the room had kindled, and in the waking light his wan face
looked so pitiful that all her anger against him melted away.

"My poor Georgie, my poor old Georgie," and she rocked his head against
her bosom, "of course I'll never turn against you--and I'll always think
myself your wife, whatever you may think----"

"But you'll marry me properly some day?"

"Yes, properly. I promise. And now do come back to bed. It's ever so
cold, and we can't go away yet, for the people aren't up. . . ."

"You go back to bed. I'll sit here."

"But you're just as cold as I am."

"I'm not, and anyway it doesn't matter. Can't you understand?"

She realised that a wall had risen between them--a wall on which was
written "Repent ye and believe the Gospel." From the further side of
that wall his voice came beseeching, "Can't you understand?" She
couldn't, but she wished she could. Shaken and miserable, she climbed
back into bed, hiding her face deep in the pillows, while the daylight
grew.



                         IV. Theresa (lunar)



                                  1

A few days later the Bennets returned to Delmonden. It had been, they
told everyone, a most successful holiday, and also, they told each
other, Theresa Silk had added substantially to the pleasure of it all.
Contrary to expectations she had not been the slightest trouble. She had
known so well how to amuse herself that her company had never once been
a burden. Their only regret was that, unlike themselves, she did not
seem to feel the benefit of the change. She looked fagged. Mrs. Bennet
was inclined to blame Violet Clutter, for Theresa had come back
dog-tired from that night she had spent at Henfield, and had said they
had all been dancing after the dinner party, and had not gone to bed
till nearly five o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Bennet had made her rest
as much as possible all that day and the next, but she never seemed
quite restored, and arrived back in Delmonden looking faded and
unrefreshed.

The parish was now settling down for the winter. The last of the
visitors had gone. The last of the harvest had been gathered in from the
hop-gardens down by the Rother, and the blue smoke of the drying
furnaces had ceased to pour in sweetening gusts from the oast-houses of
Udiam and Kitchenhour. The fields lay brown and bare, their furrows
veiled by the mists that clung no more to the river's course in a ribbon
of haze, but stole inland, creeping into the woods and brooding over the
fields. There was a queer choke of salt in them, telling of their birth
at sea.

As Autumn had come to the countryside, so it had come to the church.
Mrs. Bennet no longer found lupins and delphiniums to set in the altar
vases, but brought chrysanthemums, picking them covered with frosty dew.
In the still unwarmed church the dew clung to their petals, and when Mr.
Bennet stood at the altar it rose to his nostrils in a ghost of scent,
troubling him with thoughts of the Summer that was gone. St. Luke
brought his little Summer to the woods, and, in his honour, the church
wore crimson too. As at his going the fog thickened over the marshes and
the floods drowned Wet Level under the raining sky, so the Cloud of
Witness came into the church, and the tears fell of those who remember
the dead.

By All Saints' tide, Mr. Bennet had once more become reconciled to his
lot. Always on his return from his holiday he suffered from a kind of
Brighton sickness. He could not help comparing Delmonden church with the
churches he had visited while away--its humble struggles with their
grand and glorious progress. For several days his brain had fluttered
with mean tatters of envy--envy of their music, their ceremonial, their
huge congregations, their women devout even unto persecution, their
choristers, their acolytes. Goaded by a sense of his shortcomings, he
would fall every year upon some part of Delmonden's ecclesiastical
anatomy and try to beat it into better shape.

This year he attacked the music. It really was disgraceful--anyway, it
seemed so after the music at St. Bartholomew's. Hardly a Sunday passed
without the organ cyphering, or the organist losing her place, or the
choir losing their heads. Organ, organist, organ-blower, choir men, and
choir boys were all so many separate centres of possible disruption. It
was all quite shocking, and Mr. Bennet wrote admonishingly in the
"Parish Magazine," arranged for extra choir-practices, collected a
little money to buy some new music, and ordered the psalms to be
monotoned till everybody had learned how to sing them.

Unfortunately these reforms were hampered by his total lack of any
knowledge of music, and also by his inability to change his raw
material. He could not afford a new organ, so he must make the best of
the rheumy one he had; he was too kind-hearted to turn away Miss Bell,
the organist, so he must put up with her lapses and collapses; the
supply of small boys with tolerable voices was limited in Delmonden, so
he must endure their occasional soarings into unlicensed cacophony. In
the face of these obstacles his zeal flagged--as it always did every
time he tried to rise above pagan levels. Just as last year he had
decided that it was better to have no servers at all than louts who fell
over their own feet, broke his vessels, and tore his book, and in other
years had tired of the thankless task of beating up congregations for
daily services, harrying the towns for visiting preachers, badgering his
parishioners with simplex and duplex systems of moneymaking, so now he
decided that in this matter of music town standards were not for him to
follow. Soon, all that remained of Delmonden's latest reformation was a
new anthem, which at least every month made him regret his zeal.



                                  2

Apart from these strifes and envyings, he was glad to be back in his
parish. He had lived too long in the country to feel happy in a town for
more than a few holiday weeks. Also, after his idleness--prolonged this
year to twice its usual length--it was good to be at work again,
visiting, teaching, holding services. Even the "tabioca-pudding" side of
his ministry seemed worth while in those last weeks of Autumn.

Besides, there were, as always, those three who preferred the Bread of
Life to tabioca pudding--his old folk, Mrs. Iggulsden and Mrs. Body and
Davy Spong. In their society he could afford to forget the scrambling
faithful of the Brighton churches. These three must be the final test of
his ministry, just as it is age and not youth which is the final test of
all religion. Religion is easy enough to youth, and conversely youth
seems to do very well without it. But in old age it is no longer easy to
come by or easy to forego. When Mr. Bennet looked at his three old folk
he saw in them his faith's proud vindication. Hope triumphed with faith,
and love had trodden out all the way, till life and death were both
things of exquisite simplicity. From their dim eyes, their young souls
looked out at him, like birds eager for flight. . . . "They shall renew
their youth, they shall mount up like eagles." . . . Meanwhile he could
take comfort from them in the midst of his present anxieties, and
courage for the days when he too should be very old.

But early that winter there was a change among them. Old Davy Spong
died. He had gone in the morning as usual to work at Great Job's Cross,
and that evening had turned in to bed after his usual supper of bacon
and rice pudding. He had said, for the first time anyone remembered,
that he felt a "liddle bit tired," and the next morning he was unable to
get up. He lay in bed for eighteen days, and then passed away quietly in
his sleep, his old heart running down like an unwound watch. Before he
died, Mr. Bennet brought him the Sacrament, and said by his bedside some
prayers they both loved and had often said together.

So now, he had only two left who preferred the Bread of Life. He must go
on feeding these, in spite of the threats that were banking like clouds
behind the cathedral towers of Maidstone. And, as a true pastor, he must
feed the others too--those who preferred tabioca pudding. He must see
that they were given the best that could be had, that no one went hungry
or neglected, or left this world with a sore heart because the shepherd
of his soul had despised his poor body.



                                  3

As the year went down into the solstice, both Mr. and Mrs. Bennet found
that they were growing uneasy about Theresa. She had not recovered her
old health and energy after that visit to Brighton. Of course it was
only to be expected that she should take George Heasman's absence hard.
But now she did not seem to have those queer lifts of spirit that had
lightened her gloom during the first weeks of the separation. She
appeared listless and indifferent when not actually depressed. She would
never talk of George, turning the conversation fiercely from him, if
ever in their concern for her the Bennets spoke his name.

"I'm afraid she feels we've taken her aunt's part against her," said
Mrs. Bennet; "she seems to avoid us now, and when we do meet, she hardly
talks at all."

"I don't see how she can blame us. We couldn't possibly have encouraged
her to run off with Heasman, even if the law had allowed their
marriage."

"But we've always spoken against the marriage--as if it would be a bad
thing if it ever took place; and now I'm not quite sure that it would."

"And what's made you change your mind?"

"Nothing, except that I think the young fellow has behaved extremely
well over the whole business. I confess I didn't like him much before it
happened, but then I didn't know him at all."

"How much do you know him now?"

"Oh, not any better--except that he does seem to have behaved well, and
that she does seem truly to love him."

"She's only a child."

"I know--and I never expected her to take it so hard; anyway, not to go
on fretting like this. I thought that, at her age, she would get over it
in a month or two. But she isn't getting over it at all. She looks
positively ill--and all her old spirits are gone; she never larks about
with the village people now."

"And a good thing, too."

"Yes, I know it is. But it's not natural--in her. And it's not natural
of her to avoid us. She used to be always looking in at the Rectory, or
running after me if she saw me in the lane . . . now she often merely
bows like a grown-up person, and walks on. And we were all so jolly
together at Brighton--I don't see how we can have offended her in any
way."

"Perhaps we have. You never know."

"We ought to be able to know with her. She's not the sort to hide her
feelings. I think I'll ask her to tea, and then we'll be able to tell if
it's anything to do with us."

"Perhaps she won't come."

"I'll go on asking her till she does, or till we can be quite sure she
wants to avoid us."

They asked Theresa once and she did not come. They asked her a second
time, and she came, and it was easy enough to see that neither of the
Bennets had offended her. She seemed glad enough to sit in the wintry
sunshine by the study window, and eat Poor Emily's rather difficult
cake, and talk about the weather and the robins on the lawn and the
Christmas Tree at the Infants' Treat. She was only painfully anxious not
to talk about George Heasman, and would even break into the stream of
Mrs. Bennet's conversation if she thought that it was taking her that
way.

"We've seen so little of you since we came back from Brighton. I'd
rather hoped we might meet before this and talk over our little holiday.
I always think it's such fun talking over good times when they're ended,
almost as nice as having them--no, that's not true; of course one enjoys
them more at the time. I particularly enjoyed our holiday this Summer.
It was so delightful having you, dear, and thanks to your aunt's
kindness we were able to be away just twice as long as usual. All I
regret is that you got so tired just before we left. Really I oughtn't
to have let----"

"What I liked so much at Brighton was those little paddle boats you work
with your hands."

"Yes, I should think they were most enjoyable, though I've never
ventured in one myself. But----" Mrs. Bennet was determined to break
down this strange barrier of secrecy that had risen between them, "I
really have been a bit worried about you, dear. You've seemed to avoid
us, and I've sometimes wondered if Mr. Bennet or I had done anything to
offend you."

"Oh, no, of course you haven't."

"Then why won't you ever come and talk to us as you used to
do--about . . ."

"I've not been feeling well."

The Rector's wife could not resist this false trail.

"You haven't looked it, child."

"No, I've had simply foul indigestion."

"Oh, dear!"

This seemed a prosaic explanation of Theresa's love-wan looks.

"Yes, I don't know what's happened to me. I never used to have it. I
sometimes feel quite queer."

"Have you told your aunt? I expect she'd ask Dr. Gilpin to prescribe for
you."

"I've told her a little, but I don't want her to get in a fuss about me.
Her fusses are so dreary, and she'd try and make me go up to London when
she goes next month, and I don't want to. I want to stay here."

"You'll be very lonely."

"Oh, no, I shan't. I don't mind being alone, but I hate London."

"Still, I think you ought to tell her if you feel ill."

"I'd much rather tell you, and you can advise me what to take. I know
you've got lots of stuff in a medicine cupboard."

Mrs. Bennet had. In the course of thirty-five years as a clergyman's
wife, she had acquired a great many favourite cures for most ills. She
could seldom resist administering these, and, tea being over, she and
Theresa went forthwith to the inspection of her store, and discussed
symptoms and remedies in a way certainly unusual to one of them. It was
not till Theresa had gone, with a bottle and two packages in the pocket
of her ulster, that Mrs. Bennet realised they had never spoken about
George Heasman.



                                  4

The Winter passed. The austere Spring of February came to the fields
when Lent came to church--cold, rigid, yet hopeful, with long-drawn
yellow sunsets and much rain. The Winter had not been eventful--it
seldom was. There had been the usual Christmas treats and feasts, more
modest than the Summer ones because more uncertain in their rivalry with
the towns. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet had, as usual, had their Christmas dinner
with Dr. and Mrs. Gilpin, and had, as usual, said it was the best they
had ever eaten. The serial story in "The Parish Sentinel" had come to an
end, and Mrs. Bennet had seen with relief the total rout of the
pro-celibacy party and her heroine firmly clasped to the bosom of a
strapping curate. Mrs. Millington had left Goldstrow for London soon
after Christmas, and Theresa Silk had won her point and stayed behind.
She came occasionally to meals at the Rectory, but otherwise the Bennets
did not see much of her. She was on her bicycle again, scouring the
country, though she no longer cared about queer people and often still
looked miserable enough, poor child.

A winter event of more importance than any of the foregoing had been at
last an appointment to the vacant see of Maidstone. It had stayed empty
longer than is usual because of the general reluctance to undertake the
responsibility of a large agricultural diocese that had been given its
head by its late Bishop and ruled by simple processes of neglect. There
had been some speculation among the clergy as to who would be the most
likely to accept the undertaking--an easygoing scholar who wouldn't
trouble about anything as long as he was left in peace, or a zealous
pastor eager for hard work and reform. The Right Reverend Herbert Bacon
belonged to the latter class, and of course Mr. Bennet prophesied the
worst. In vain, other clergymen told him that it would be a distinct
improvement to have a Bishop who had gained his pastoral experience as
Rector of a parish rather than as Headmaster of a school. Mr. Bennet saw
only that the parish was Evangelical, and therefore that the experience
gained in it would be a curse rather than a blessing to parishes of a
different type.

"What'll happen to me if he takes away my grant? The diocese allows me
two hundred pounds a year. If he takes it away I've got only a hundred
and fifty to live upon."

"Why should he take away your grant?" asked the Rector of Witsunden, who
had halted his motor-bicycle for a few minutes' chat over the news.

"He's sure to make conditions that I shan't be able to accept."

"I don't see why he should. You don't do anything very dangerous, do
you?"

"I reserve the Blessed Sacrament for my sick communicants. I've done it
for five years now, and I'm not going to stop."

"Well, I've done the same, and I don't intend to stop, either. But I
don't expect him to ask me to. All he'll do will be to send out some
printed regulations, that we can follow or not as we please."

"Oh, you young men!" wailed Mr. Bennet; "if only you'd lived in the old
days you wouldn't be laughing now."

But even he was favourably impressed, when scarcely a week after the new
Bishop's enthronement, he received a letter from him, written in the
most kind and fatherly style, expressing nothing less than his wish to
come and administer Confirmation at Delmonden. It was eighteen years
since the church had been so honoured--for eighteen years Mr. Bennet had
taken his candidates into the county boroughs of Maidstone or Ashford,
or sometimes into the market towns of Goudhurst, Cranbrook, or
Tenterden. A simple village church had been beneath the late Bishop's
notice, but now it appeared that his successor was especially singling
out the humble places that had hitherto been neglected. He wanted to
know all his clergy, and the particular needs of each parish, however
small and rural. Even Mr. Bennet's distrust flagged in the face of such
fatherly zeal.

He now became all excitement for the event. There must be a brave show
of candidates, and Delmonden must look its very best. Hitherto he had
always been cautious in his approach of the unconfirmed--the view of
confirmation as a social rite or as something done to please the Parson
was to him a profanity, and he was always afraid of such motives
influencing his flock. But now, he told himself, he might perhaps use a
little more persuasion, since a good appearance would probably make a
great difference to Delmonden's spiritual future. The Bishop could not
fail to be impressed by a goodly number of candidates, and in the dazzle
of their countenances might lose sight of those few trivial ornaments
that troubled the legalities of Delmonden church.

Mrs. Bennet was also highly excited, and made preparations of a grosser
kind. They must, she declared, entertain the Bishop at lunch. In fact,
they ought really to ask one or two people to meet him--the Gilpins,
Mrs. Millington, the Ingpens . . . she was afraid she could not manage
more than that in view of the tea there would have to be afterwards for
the visiting incumbents and candidates.

"A luncheon party of eight! That'll be a big event for us. I don't think
we've ever had so many before--Sunday supper, perhaps . . . and tea, of
course . . . but never luncheon. As I tell people, I really don't
entertain now. I've had to give up entertaining. People don't expect it
since the war. I remember that in the old days I always considered it an
important part of my duties as a clergyman's wife; though of course we
were never rich. My dear, I shall never forget the first luncheon you
took me out to after we were married. You were going to preach at Canon
Wood-Saunders's church in Stockton, and I shall always remember how Mrs.
Canon Wood-Saunders carved the fowl wearing a pair of grey kid gloves
. . . it so impressed me. . . . It's a thing I would never dare do
myself, I'm afraid."

"I don't suppose anyone would expect it nowadays. And don't take too much
upon yourself, my dear--are you sure you can manage as many as eight
people?"

"Oh, of course I can. Mabel Breeds will help Poor Emily with the
waiting, and eight is really easier than four--they entertain one
another. I shall have some soup, and a couple of fowls, and the spring
vegetables will be coming on nicely then . . . and a rhubard tart, or
that nice dish with tinned apricots . . . perhaps we might have both
. . . well, we'll see. And what about wine, dear?"

"Wine!" Her husband's anti-episcopal complex flared suddenly. "He won't
drink wine. He's a Bishop, and all bishops are Manichees."

"We'll want some for the others. I don't suppose they're all Manichees."

"Well, I'm not, anyway. I'm a priest of the Holy Catholic Church, and
don't indulge in ancient heresies or dare to correct my Lord and Master.
. . . There'll be wine at my table, just as there was at Cana, and he
can take it or leave it."

"Of course he can, dear, and we'll get something good. Mr. Boorman told
me he had a special new lot of Australian burgundy--or was it South
African? Anyway, I'll ask him to send round two bottles. And, Harry
darling--don't you think the occasion warrants a new dress? Or a new
jumper, anyway?"

"Oh, you women!"

Mr. Bennet beamed upon his wife, his momentary lapse into episcophobia
forgotten in his delight at her feminine wiles. He saw her coquetry as
something infinitely youthful and fascinating.

"Well, don't you think so?"

"Yes, perhaps I do. But don't ruin me with all this."

"Oh, no. I promise. I'll get it at Budgen's--I shan't go in to
Bulverhythe."

"Well, no one could know that the clothes you buy at Budgen's don't come
from Bulverhythe--or even from London."

And he really believed it.

Unfortunately for the smooth working of Mrs. Bennet's plans, Mrs.
Millington came back towards the end of February, and seemed to think
that the Bishop ought to have lunch at Goldstrow.

"My dear Mrs. Bennet, it's really too much of an undertaking for you to
have him at the Rectory, and I'm sure he wouldn't expect it."

"But I'd like to have him. I'm looking forward to my party."

"Well, of course, you know, it's not too easy to entertain a Bishop.
They're used to visiting in very elaborately appointed houses. Besides,
I've just discovered that his sister, Elizabeth Bacon, married the
brother of the Bishop of Glastonbury, who was a first cousin of my
husband's. I really think he'll expect to be invited to Goldstrow."

"Can't you invite him to tea?"

"I think that's what _you'd_ better do, Mrs. Bennet. I'll have him to
luncheon and you'll have him to tea."

"But I can't have him to tea. There's always a big tea for the
candidates in the Parish Room, and I have to supervise it."

Mrs. Bennet was determined not to give up her luncheon. At first the
Rector had feared that she might surrender as part of her plan for
placating Goldstrow. But she stood unexpectedly firm, and in the end
managed to persuade Mrs. Millington to be content with a large tea party
to which all of gentle rank in Delmonden would be invited "to meet the
Bishop." She herself sent out her invitations and everybody accepted
them, even Mrs. Millington herself. There remained only to order the two
plumpest chickens in Delmonden, the tenderest spring cabbage, and the
most delicate young rhubarb--and two bottles of Australian burgundy, for
the honour of Cana of Galilee.



                                  5

When the day came, it was more successful on the worldly side than on
the other-worldly. Mrs. Bennet's luncheon passed off without any
embarrassment graver than Poor Emily's addressing everybody, male and
female, as "My Lord," in consequence of too emphatic instructions with
regard to the Bishop. Otherwise it was all worth the trouble it cost.
The cooking justified the most frenzied struggles with the Rectory's
fire-eating range, and Mabel Breeds, waiting at table, was brisk and
efficient, if also rather loud in the breath and creaking in the shoe.

The Bishop certainly showed no hankerings after better things--indeed,
when she remembered all that Mrs. Millington had said, Mrs. Bennet found
him unexpectedly homely. He had two helpings of fowl, and a large one of
each of the sweets, and drank three glasses of the lemonade which,
without consulting her husband, she had provided in hospitable deference
to his Manichaean aberrations. In fact, in view of what he ate, it was
surprising that he should be so thin, with a lean, rake-like body that
rose nearly half a head taller than anyone else's at the table. His
length seemed to be in his body rather than in his aproned, gaitered
legs. He had a small head, curiously straight at the back--indeed, on
close inspection, he was a mass of lesser physical peculiarities--a long
nose, and a mouth that Mrs. Bennet longed to keep forever harmlessly
occupied in receiving food. For when she saw it in repose, it was a
fighter's mouth, large and grim, too much like her husband's for her to
feel easy. His eyes were not like her husband's, for they bulged a
little, and they never twinkled.

But on the whole she liked him. He was courteous and unassuming, and had
a smile and a kind word for everybody. When Poor Emily helped him on
with his greatcoat he asked her if she was coming to the service, and
she replied:

"Oh, yes, my Lord; my little Arthur's going to be confirmed."

"Ah, indeed. Is that your son?"

"Yes, my Lord."

Mrs. Bennet trembled for Emily's ringless hand, but the Bishop was
beaming too benevolently to notice it.

"Ah, indeed. And how old is he?"

For an anxious moment the Rector feared that Poor Emily would create an
ecclesiastical dilemma by putting little Arthur below the official
confirmation age, but she fortunately answered "Twelve and a half, my
Lord," though he had been nine only a week ago.



                                  6

Delmonden vestry was full of squirming little boys, who looked as if
they were engaged in a pillow fight, so desperately did they struggle
with their newly starched surplices. Mr. Bennet felt that he had
committed a blunder. He should have given the Bishop a room at the
Rectory to vest in, and then have driven him to church in all the magpie
splendour of his episcopal motley. It was so long since a Bishop had
visited Delmonden that he had forgotten that probably his father-in-God
was not used to scrambling into his robes in the midst of a riot. The
Rector did it Sunday after Sunday, so that by this time he scarcely
noticed his own difficulties; but a Bishop was probably used to more
decorous surroundings. . . . Mr. Bennet ordered the whole chair out into
the churchyard, and so abashed were they at the sight of a live Bishop
that they obeyed him.

The Rector of Witsunden was there to officiate as Bishop's chaplain, and
carry his big crozier before him into the chancel. There were, besides,
seven or eight visiting clergymen, bringing about twenty-five candidates
between them; so Delmonden church was full as it had seldom been in the
course of its history. Mr. Bennet felt a definite thrill of pride as he
looked down from the chancel into the sunny nave, and saw all the white
veils of the girls and the shiny heads of the boys. Fourteen of them
were Delmonden boys and girls, more than half the number brought by all
the other parishes together. It was wrong, he supposed, to gloat, but he
had had so few opportunities for gloating that he felt a kindly
Providence might forgive him now. The organ began to play the hymn "My
God accept my heart this day," and the choir to sing "Come, Holy Ghost,
Creator Blest," and the Rector's gloating came to its usual end.

Nothing happened to restore it. The Bishop gave two addresses of highly
disturbing quality. They were both dogmatic--the dogma being for the
most part an exact contradiction of that in which Mr. Bennet had
carefully instructed his candidates. All the Rector's distrust of him
revived--"negative and fanatical--as bad as anything we ever had up
North. Why couldn't he just tell the children to be good? I've done all
the teaching that's necessary; all he's got to do is to put the fear of
God into 'em; instead of which he's putting doubts of their parson. I
hope to goodness they're not listening."

Mrs. Bennet was not listening. Her head was far too full of the past
luncheon and the coming tea. As a result, she enjoyed the service very
much indeed. The March sunshine in the church, the children, and the
singing all stirred her heart with a deep and thankful joy. She was
sorry when the last of the recessional hymn died away, and the choir,
the clergy, and the Bishop were all struggling together in the vestry.

Her part was now to shepherd the candidates to the Parish Room where tea
awaited them. It had been laid earlier in the day, and during the last
hymn Mrs. Gasson and Mrs. Boorman and Mrs. Apps had slipped out to boil
the kettles. Mrs. Bennet waited only to say good-bye to the Bishop, who
was now to be swept away in Mrs. Millington's car to Goldstrow. He came
at last, followed by his ruffled host. Mrs. Millington immediately
pounced upon him.

"My dear Bishop, how tired you must be! My car's ready, and you must
come at once to Goldstrow for a rest, and to meet some delightful people
who----"

Mr. Bennet was so annoyed with things in general that he forgot his
tactics with Goldstrow and interrupted her----

"I hope, my Lord, you have time to shake hands with one or two of my
parishioners, who have been waiting here in hopes of meeting you."

"Certainly, certainly--I'm not tired in the least. Your parishioners
have first claim on me, Mr. Bennet."

The Rector's anger melted at this sign of grace, and he brought forward
his dear Mrs. Body, dressed in her neat Sunday bonnet and cape, and
smiling at the Bishop with her tired, sweet blue eyes, which were full
of the mysticism of the earth.

"I'm honoured, Sir," she said as she shook hands; "we're all honoured by
this kind visit."

"You should address the Bishop as 'my Lord,'" Mrs. Millington admonished
her.

Mrs. Body looked confused, and the grasses in her bonnet trembled a
little, but she was too shy to say anything. The Rector could have
smitten Mrs. Miliington to the ground.

"I think all this ought to have been done in the vestry," remarked that
lady as Mr. Apps and Mr. Boorman were led up.

"You can't do anything in the vestry," Mrs. Bennet tried nervously to
soothe her. "We really ought to have another, but I don't know where the
money's to come from. Our church has many shortcomings, but they're
nearly all due to want of money. . . . There, now, I think the Bishop's
ready. How kind he is! I'm so sorry you've been kept waiting, but these
old people would have been terribly disappointed if he hadn't spoken to
them."

Evidently the Bishop had given satisfaction all round, for everybody
looked pleased, even Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Millington was now no longer to be
cheated of her prey. She snatched him and swooped him into her car with
such rapidity that the suitcase containing his episcopal gear was nearly
left behind. He drove off bowing and smiling and rubbing his hands, and
the villagers cheered desultorily, and Mrs. Bennet called, unnoticed,
"Give my love to Theresa." She was sorry the child had not come to the
confirmation. It would have been sure to have done her good.



                                  7

When Mrs. Bennet had left for the Parish Room, in the midst of her
white-veiled candidates like a flock of doves, the Rector set out for
home, where nearly a dozen hungry clergymen awaited him. It had been
thought considerate to feed them apart from their flocks, with whom they
would soon have to journey, in crowded proximity, back to Trillinghurst,
Witsunden, Haffenden, Boldshaves, and other places they came from. Poor
Emily and Mabel Breeds had charge of the Rectory tea, which was served
in the big, sun-eaten drawing room, every armchair of which contained a
weary shepherd, worn out with the effort of transporting bodies for long
distances in the interests of their souls.

"Never mind," said Witsunden, cheerily, "perhaps it'll be our turn next
year, and you'll have to come to us."

"I must say," said an old and surly Parson from Ramstile, "that it's not
very considerate of the Bishop to have chosen a parish right on the edge
of the diocese. Somewhere more central would have been better
appreciated."

"I think he's following the plan of going to those places most neglected
by his predecessor--and Delmonden hasn't had an Episcopal visit for
about twenty years; isn't that so, Bennet?"

"I hope he keeps away for another twenty years," grumbled the Rector of
Delmonden.

"Really! You're very ungrateful. I wish he'd come to me; it 'ud give us
no end of a leg-up."

"Considering he as good as told my candidates that everything I'd been
teaching them was lies . . ."

"My dear man, what does that matter? Any well-instructed candidate knows
he or she mustn't believe a word the Bishop says. I told mine they were
not to, under any circumstances, unless they asked me first."

"You think it helps forward the faith in this country if our young folk
grow up distrusting their Bishops?"

"Well, we distrust them, don't we? And the young folk see that we do, so
it's best to be honest."

"I don't agree with you," said Mr. Bennet, rather angrily; "I'm all for
safeguarding the ideals of youth. None of my children know that I
distrust my Bishop."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that. They'll probably find out some day, and
then they may distrust you too. I'm all for facing the facts. And may I
point out that I've never had a row with a Bishop in my life, and don't
intend to have one--in fact I'll bet you I won't, and I'll bet you I
won't keep out of it by giving way to him, either."

"I've had dozens of rows," said Mr. Bennet, with a struggle of pride in
his voice--"in the past, that's to say. It's been perfect peace down
here, till now, of course, when it's all going to start over again."

 "Ideals must be more quarrelsome things than facts," laughed Witsunden.

Mr. Bennet glared at him, and moved his chair nearer Boldshaves, who,
being a pious, old-fashioned Evangelical, was a little bewildered by the
conversation.

The clergy of South-West Kent in Mr. Bennet's drawing room must have
represented between them quite half a dozen varieties of the Anglican
religion. At Trillinghurst and Witsunden, hopeful young men refused to
surrender to the religion of the villages and filled their churches with
broken gleams of a wider faith. The majority of the visiting candidates
were theirs. At Heartsap a fine old scholar dozed among his books during
the week, and on Sundays put his congregation to sleep with his efforts
to talk to them in their own language. At Bettenham a hearty,
pig-judging Squarson administered the Parish in good old Hanoverian
style. At Boldshaves, the best of Victorian piety comforted the old folk
and outraged the young. At Haffenden a wild-man-of-the-woods lived in a
thicketed Rectory beside a church locked like a cupboard--and the
cupboard was bare. The rest were just rather vague, honest, disappointed
men, rooted in the villages so long that they had forgotten the world
which had forgotten them.

They all had one point in common, except Bettenham, and that was
poverty. Their united incomes would not have come to much more than two
thousand a year. The cruel sun, licking the last colours out of the
carpet, cynically exposed their worn suits and cassocks, frayed cuffs,
celluloid collars, and patched shoes. It also mocked their poverty in
another way by showing them up as an exceedingly healthy set of men.
Even Trillinghurst, who had come into the country threatened with
consumption, looked stout and rosy. Evidently plain living, combined in
most cases with the plainest thinking, had had no ill effect upon them.
Their faces were the brown and red, weathered faces of labouring men,
and in their eyes was sometimes a clear, distant look, which the earth
puts into the eyes of labouring men. But for their black clothes and
perverted collars they might have been a set of farmers gathered
together incongruously in a drawing-room for afternoon tea.

As Mr. Bennet sat by the tea tray, fragments of their conversation
reached him from different parts of the room.

"Yes, that's always the way. Queen Anne's Bounty takes two and a half
per cent, and then keeps you waiting for your money. I used to get my
tithe from only two farms, and they both paid on the nail--two twopenny
stamps for the receipt, that was all it cost me." . . . "I can't get
them to come. They don't seem interested. It's not like it was when we
first came. People don't care. It's the pull of the towns, I suppose.
None of the young ones seem to care about religion at all." . . . "I'm
trying jerseys now. Wonderful milk, and I can sell it twice as easily as
I did when I had the Sussex. I don't think they're so delicate as people
make out, and I've built a new place for them." "Yes, we had eighty at
the Sung Mass, not counting the children. I'm ordering some simple music
from the Faith Press. I want 'em all to sing." "My wife can't do much in
the garden now, and I find it rather difficult to manage without her.
She never really got over that fall, you know. Perhaps we ought to move
into a more accessible place, but it's so difficult to hear of anything.
One reads a lot about the shortage of clergy, but when it comes to
getting a decent living. . . ." "Mere nonsense and waste of time.
They're just a pack of poachers--the same now as when I first went
there." "Have you ever tried King Edwards?" . . . "Solemnity of St.
Joseph" . . . "New edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern" . . . My Church
Council won't" . . . "Trying to get a kitchen range out of the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners" . . .

It all buzzed round him, so that he was almost asleep, and it was half
in a dream that he seemed to see the face of Theresa Silk
close to the window.

"Hullo!"

He started up, and at the same moment the face withdrew. He wondered if
he had really dreamed it; then he saw her again, full length in her old
ulster, pushing her bicycle down the drive. He tapped at the window, and
beckoned, but she only shook her head at him. Why had she come? What had
frightened her away? Doubtless the clergy of South-West Kent. She must
have expected to find him and Mrs. Bennet alone, and he had a vague,
uneasy sense of personal failure as he watched her go.



                                  8

Theresa pushed her bicycle as far as the lane, then mounted and rode
off, turning right at the high road and pedalling towards Four Throws.
She had no very clear idea of where she wanted to go. All places were
fog-bound, dim, and unreal on the edge of her thought--that land of
sorrow which was so pitilessly clear. The only thing she knew was that
she did not want to be at Goldstrow, where her aunt and the aristocracy
of Delmonden serenaded the Bishop with clinking teacups. She had not
heard, or had forgotten, about the tea in the Parish Room, and had
expected to find Mr. and Mrs. Bennet alone together at the Rectory. She
had looked in at the window and all she had seen had been a lot of
odd-looking clergymen. Their faces in her memory had something of the
quality of a nightmare--ordinary and yet terrifying; because they had
shown her that once again she must put back her trouble into her heart
and bear it alone.

She was already beginning to feel that she didn't want to talk to anyone
about it. That was how she usually felt--sad and secret. But moments
sometimes came when her whole body trembled to tell--or rather, to ask.
For part of the bitterness of her trouble lay in that it was half a
question. She did not know. For about the first time in her life she
longed for motherly arms round her, and a motherly heart which would
answer her questions tenderly, soothingly, and negatively--"No, no,
dear, it's all right. You've made a mistake. Don't, worry any more. I
know all about these things, so you can trust me."

She felt that Mrs. Bennet would say all this. There was no one but Mrs.
Bennet. Her aunt--she turned her mind with a shudder from any thought of
confiding in her aunt, though Mrs. Millington's bosom, if rather hard,
was motherly in outline. Violet--no; she hated Violet's ideas, and
Violet could not comfort her--she could only help her hide. George--so
far away from her in body, so frighteningly near in the contacts of his
soul--she could not tell him, for one does not tell these things to
souls, only to bodies. His body was a stranger, living an unknown,
unimaginable life far away. She forgot that it had ever been so close,
so dear. They did not belong to each other any more--they were
separated, linked only occasionally by letters in which he poured out
his soul to her--that other stranger, his soul, whom she had been afraid
to meet, but was now compelled to know. She could only answer, "I love
you--I love you," scrawling over the page in a big hand that soon had
filled it with foolish, inadequate words.

She had passed Four Throws, and was free-wheeling down the little lane
that leads by Foxhole and Scullsgate to the hamlets at the back of
Benenden, where little red roofs scatter in the green of the Kentish
hill. She felt suddenly and horribly tired. Through the valley a little
stream flowed, and, propping her bicycle against the hedge, she climbed
over a gate, and sat down beside it. It moved over its stony bed with a
shallow, tinkling music, and at first the sound of it filled all her
thoughts, sending them to sleep. She stretched herself full length in
the damp grass by the water side, and for a moment everything seemed to
slip away. . . .

Was she fainting? Her heart beat wildly, and she clutched at it. This
was something new. She had grown used to the fatigue that rushed
suddenly upon her and overwhelmed her, that had in it a dreadful quality
both of heaviness and of restlessness. She had grown used to the nausea,
to the inexplicable moments of terror. . . . But as soon as she grew
used to one feeling of distress, it changed, or another succeeded it.
Oh, what was happening to her? But she no longer wanted to ask. She only
repeated over and over again to herself, "It can't be true--it can't be
true."

She wished now that she had interested herself more in the things that
interested other girls. Violet Clutter would never find herself in a
state like this. But then she had not cared for Violet Clutter when she
was at school, she had always despised her and those girls who talked
like her, about clothes and men; she had taken very little notice of her
till the time came when she had a man of her own, and then she had found
her useful. Other girls she knew, even at school, had been interested in
the way babies came, and had even been told by their mothers about it.
She had never cared two straws about these things--she had never wanted
to ask or know about them--she had been much more interested in the way
you made a water-mill in the carpenter's shop, and all about the
thieves' kitchen in _Olivcr Twist_, and how one could possibly manage to
learn thieves' Latin. . . . These things had absorbed her and sustained
her till she met George, who had taken her out of the queer world she
loved, into another world where she was an ignorant stranger. She would
not have minded so much if he had been near her, but he was so terribly
far away. They had said good-bye at the gate of the new world, and he
had gone on his way and she on hers, and it seemed as if they would
never meet again.

She had his ring--her wedding ring, as she still called it, gazing at it
now and then forlornly, and trying in vain to recover the moment when he
had first put it on her finger, kissing her clenched hand as they stood
in the fog and darkness outside the farm at Botolphs. But she could not
wear it, either on her hand or as a locket, for she dare not let it be
seen. She did not really mind--for it meant very little to her now. It
did not even seem now to look like a wedding ring--so thick and big and
obviously not golden . . . not real . . . well, of course it wasn't
real, just as her wedding had not been real. She sometimes asked herself
if her love had ever been real, for now it often seemed very like a
dream. . . .

George's last letter crackled in the pocket of her ulster, and she
pulled it out to read it, that she might feel him nearer. His letters
always surprised her, for they were so long and full of words. In them
he put all the energy of self-expression that he used once to put into
his preaching. For he preached no longer now; he had withdrawn his
application to the Calvinistic Methodist Council, and occupied himself
entirely with selling tea. Theresa was sorry, because she knew that he
suffered, and that she was the cause of his suffering, just as he was
the cause of hers. He too had been driven out of the world he loved, he
too was a lonely stranger in a new and terrifying world.

Should she write to him about her fears, as he wrote to her about his?
When he wrote, as he wrote in this letter--"Oh, Terry, sometimes I fear
I've sinned past God's forgiveness, for I've sinned against you, you
innocent thing, and the light that God has given me as the preacher of
his Gospel"--should she write: "Oh, George, I fear I'm going to have a
baby. I've felt so ill all this winter, but I don't know anything about
these things, and I'm afraid to ask anyone."? No, of course she
couldn't. If she could not bring herself to speak it, she certainly
could not write it. He must go on pouring out his terrors and troubles
to her, and she must say nothing about hers to him--must not because she
could not.

Yet perhaps she ought to. If she was going to have a child, they ought
to be married before it came. But how were they to be married? Would
Aunt Ethel relent if she knew what depended on it, or would she be
angrier than ever? And suppose it wasn't true?--suppose she gave herself
and George away and there was nothing in it? That was why she wanted to
see Mrs. Bennet--who would tell her without judgment. Mrs. Bennet would
be terribly shocked and upset, of course, but she would not be angry,
and perhaps she would say that it was not true. "Oh!" cried Theresa,
sitting up suddenly in the damp, green grass--"it can't--it can't be
true."



                                  9

The March sky hung lower over the fields, grey and filling itself with
rain. As it filled and darkened, the earth also became dark and terribly
clear. The hills of Kent were no longer a lambent green; the green
passed into the light, leaving them leaden grey, with iron-black woods
and hedges. Farms many miles away came nearer and the spaces between
earth and sky seemed to dwindle, as if the land lifted herself thirstily
to the rain. The first drops fell, and Theresa scarcely noticed them as
they spattered round her; then as the drops became rods and a low hiss
rose from the grass, she lifted herself wearily. She did not mind
getting wet, but if she came home wet through, her aunt would fuss, and
Theresa, who had always hated fuss, now feared it; for she knew that it
would mean questions and interference, and perhaps a sudden slip of her
goaded tongue.

Anyhow, if she caught cold she would have to see the doctor. Her aunt
had already threatened her with him once. Her aunt had been shocked when
she came back from London to find her looking so ill and run down. . . .
As she sat huddled in the rain, too listless and weary to fulfil her
purpose of getting to her feet, she suddenly wondered for the first time
if all the village knew about her trouble. Village people saw
everything, guessed everything--so Mr. Bennet said. Were they gossiping
about her? Did they know more about her than she knew about herself? Had
they already answered her dreadful question?

A new fear came down on her--the fear of the herd. She saw everybody
looking at her, pointing at her, whispering about her. She heard them
judging, jeering, shouting. . . . Oh, no doubt she was wicked--she had
done what nobody ever could forgive. She had done the same as that girl
Susan Lamb, whom her aunt had made such a hell about nearly a year ago.
She hadn't been supposed to know anything at the time, and she hadn't
known much, because at the time she hadn't cared about those things;
they hadn't interested her. Now she wished that they had interested her
more.

Vague fragments of classics, read at school without much understanding,
now came into her mind terribly explained. Hetty Sorrel . . . that was a
girl in a book, who had had a child without being married, and had
killed it because of the shame. Would she, Theresa, want to kill her
child? She had no pleasure in the thought of its coming, such a pleasure
as flowers redeemingly in many terrified and broken hearts. Her passion
for George had wakened her into a woman, but a woman who had nothing of
the mother about her. She did not even feel motherly towards
George--only plaintively loving and scared, and lost. She had never
wanted a child, she did not want one now; she knew nothing about
children, and cared nothing. Oh, why had life done this? For the first
time a protest against the way of things formed itself in her heart. She
felt betrayed--by life rather than by man. She had not asked for love,
and when she had loved she had not asked for anything more than each
moment as it passed. But she had been brought under the yoke she had
never imagined and had to face the future she had never thought
of--could not think of now.

At last she was on her feet, so tired that the prospect of the ride home
made the tears come into her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks as she
walked over the field towards the lane. Her bicycle lay propped against
the bank. She mounted it after two failures, and immediately fell off
it, as her whole body was contracted with a sudden, dreadful pain.

She had never felt anything like it before, and the sweat stood out on
her forehead, and her teeth began to chatter. What was she to do? What
could she do--if it came back? She waited, sweating and shaking, and
then as the minutes passed and it did not return, she ventured on a step
forward. Slowly, pushing her bicycle and leaning heavily on saddle and
handle bar, she walked along the level lane to where Scullsgate hill
rose steeply into rain-smothered woods. The hill looked topless, a Sinai
reaching into the clouds, and she would have to push her bicycle up--up
till the clouds were reached. Oh, why had she been such a fool and come
so far!

Wheels rumbled in the lane, and looking round she saw a big farm waggon
come slowly towards her behind a string of bay horses. She would ask for
a lift. Even if it went no farther than Four Throws, she would be spared
that dreadful hill. The relief was almost comfort.

Two men were sitting up in front of it, an old man and a young one.
"Jump in," they said to Theresa, when she asked them if they would let
her ride as far as Four Throws. But they did not offer to help her lift
in her bicycle, till they saw that she was quite incapable of doing it
herself. Then the young one climbed down and helped her. He looked at
her in a way that made her want to hide herself, though his eyes were
kind and stupid.

"Tired, unt you, Miss?"

"A little bit."

"Far to go?"

"Delmonden."

"We turn off at the Throws--we're from Owley Farm, beyond Wittersham.
But maybe at the Throws you'll find a car that'll take you the rest of
the way."

"Hurry up, Fred," said the old man sitting in front, and Fred hurried,
leaving Theresa stretched out beside her bicycle among the empty sacks
on the waggon floor. He had left her only just in time, for she could
feel the pain coming back . . . the next minute it had seized her,
wrenched her . . . she swallowed down her cries and it passed. But worse
than any pain was the fright that held her now. Oh, what was happening
to her? It could not be that her child was going to be born. She knew
enough about these things to realise that it was much too early for
that. The eternity that divided her from George was scarcely six months
long. She must be very ill--enduring something altogether strange and
abnormal even for her strange and abnormal state. Oh, why hadn't she
been able to see Mrs. Bennet? . . . Yet what could Mrs. Bennet have done
for her? She couldn't have told her that nothing was wrong. She could
only have stopped her coming all the way out here like the fool she was.
. . .

Perhaps she was going to die--here in this farm cart. The thought of
death made her tremble, but at the moment it seemed scarcely more of a
terrifying mystery than birth. Nevertheless, she did not want to die.
She had enjoyed her life up to less than a year ago--oh, the fun it
Had been!--the explorations, the adventures, the secrets, the merry
lies. . . . All that queer, lonely, boy's life that she had lived--she
could hardly bear to think of it now. The last few months had been hell,
but she did not want to die. She wanted to wake from this nightmare and
live her free boy's life again.

The waggon rumbled on up the hill. The driver and the young man seemed
to have forgotten all about her. She could hear their voices drawling on
and on . . . they were talking about a prize-fight. A year ago their
talk would have thrilled her, but now it came down as mere words. "He's
a valiant chap, our Curley--a gurt lad" . . . "Reckon he could have
taken on two more strangers" . . . "Wur you there that time he knocked
out the Prancer over at Appledore?"

The rain was still falling fast. She pulled some of the sacks over her,
cowering beneath them. Her limbs were shaking, her brave red hair was
limp and draggled on her forehead. Those streaming rays of a mediaeval
sun were now nothing more than the tangled locks of a suffering woman.
She held her hands over her mouth to stifle the groans that would come
when the waggon jolted. . . . So on, and on, and on, and on up the hill
. . . . "What was the purse at Benenden?" . . . "I never saw better
foot-work in my days, no, not in any ring."



                                  10

Mrs. Bennet was saying good-bye to her candidates at the Rectory, where
they had all come back with her after tea to receive each one a sixpenny
prayer-book as her confirmation gift. Their veils discarded, they no
longer looked like a flock of doves, but ordinary, pudding-faced young
girls and women, who giggled and whispered to each other while she
talked to them. The boys had assembled with Mr. Bennet for a similar
purpose in his study. The Rectory had never been so full of young
life--youth made a little awkward and self-conscious by a great
occasion, but with the solemnity beginning to wear off and releasing
surreptitious kicks and punches among the boys and giggles among the
girls.

"It's been a wonderful day, girls--the most wonderful day you've, any of
you, ever had. It's been a wonderful day for me, though it's nearly
fifty years since I was confirmed. Bishop Wilkinson prepared me, you
know, when he was Vicar of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and it was the
happiest day of my life. At least, not quite"--even in the cause of
edification Mrs. Bennet felt she had better be truthful--"not quite, but
very nearly. In those days it was considered worldly to wear a white
dress, so I wore a grey one--and we had caps instead of veils . . .
frilly caps. . . . But that isn't what I want to talk to you about.
You'll use those prayer-books, won't you?"

"Oh, yes, Ma'am."

"I mean you won't just keep them in the parlour."

"Oh, no, Ma'am----"

"Please, Ma'am, there's a car coming up the drive."

"Never mind, Lily--it's nothing to do with us here."

But she could not resist craning forward just to see whose it was as it
passed the window. They were all crowded together in Mrs. Bennet's
little work-room, so they had not that fine prospect of the drive and
lawn that the drawing-room windows gave. The car was only an ordinary
small tourer with the hood up.

"I expect it's someone for the Rector. . . . Now, girls----"

But the next minute Poor Emily put her head in at the door:

"Please, Ma'am, you're wanted."

"Who is it, Emily? You know I'm engaged."

"It's two young ladies brought Miss Silk, Ma'am, and please come, Ma'am,
for I'm frightened."

Mrs. Bennet suddenly felt cold. Emily's words conveyed nothing to her
beyond a general sense of unusualness in Theresa's arrival, and her
manner was not specially ominous, for she was given to being frightened
on many quite normal occasions. But the whole effect was one of
strangeness and fear. She suddenly wished these grinning, giggling girls
out of the house. All she said was:

"Now please keep quiet, dears, till I come back."

Then she followed Emily out into the hall, quite uncertain of what she
was going to see. She saw two unknown young women standing on either
side of the hall seat, on which, between them, she had a glimpse of a
familiar old brown ulster, at the first glance carelessly flung down, at
the second, seen with dismay to contain the collapsed body of Theresa
Silk.

"My dear child----"

She hurried forward, and the two young women both began to speak at
once.

"Two men in a cart stopped us and asked if we'd give her a lift into
Delmonden. They said----" "She asked us to bring her to Delmonden
Rectory, so we----" "I'm afraid she's rather bad, and of course we
couldn't help jolting on these----" "I think she must have appendicitis.
I know something about----" "Would you like us to fetch a doctor? I
asked her if----"

Mrs. Bennet took scarcely any notice of them. She bent over Theresa, and
lifted away the dank hair that had fallen across her face.

Under the hair, Theresa's eyes were staring--frantic and forlorn,
through the Rector's wife into some abyss beyond her. She suddenly put
out her hand and seized Mrs. Bennet's, twisting it in a grip of despair.

"Let me stay here--don't send me away."

"My dear, tell me what's happened. Have you had an accident?"

"I'm nearly sure she has appendicitis," one of the young women began
again. "My sister had it only last year, so I think I know the
symptoms."

"Don't send me back to Goldstrow," wailed Theresa.

"But, dearie, I really think you ought to go home if you're feeling so
ill. You'll have your own nice comfortable bedroom, you know--and
perhaps these ladies will be so kind as to fetch Dr. Gilpin."

"I don't want him. I won't see him. I want you--I want to talk to you.
Send those awful girls away and let me talk to you."

She struggled up into a sitting position, and Mrs. Bennet suddenly
became autocratic.

"Help me get her on the sofa in the next room," she commanded.

With an effort they managed to lift Theresa, till she stood sagging
between them from her arms, which hooked over their shoulders.

"Emily, help me carry her legs."

But Emily was far too scared. She could only stand far back in the
shadows of the hall, twisting her apron, and muttering to herself about
"a sad accident--a larmentable accident--my liddle Arthur saw it up at
the Throws, and there was a young boy killed--a young, beautiful boy."

Mrs. Bennet told her to fetch her master, and then, somehow, the three
of them dragged Theresa into the drawing-room, as far as the sofa, where
she once more became, as it were, a mere part of her old brown ulster,
flung down upon the seat.

"Don't leave me--don't send me away."

"Of course I won't leave you, dear."

"But promise not to send me away--send those awful women away. I want to
speak to you."

Mrs. Bennet whispered hoarsely in the ear of the more intelligent
looking of the girls, to fetch Dr. Gilpin--"they'll tell you in the
village where he lives . . . and thank you so much for bringing her--you
mustn't mind what she says. She's not herself--but please, please go at
once."

They clumped out of the room, and Mrs. Bennet returned to the sofa. As
she looked down at Theresa, she felt utterly bewildered. Everything had
happened so suddenly and confusingly. She had not had a moment to think.
Now she wondered if the girl was unconscious--she lay so limply, like a
poor rag-doll . . . then once again that hot, twitching hand shot out
and seized hers.

"Mrs. Bennet--help me. Help me. I want you to tell me something."



                                  11

Mr. Bennet was enjoying himself over his last injunctions to the little
boys. He often enjoyed admonition of this sort, and was not unduly
exacting in his demands for attention. The study was comfortably noisy,
what with the Rector's slow, booming voice, and the scrappings and
scufflings and whisperings of six little youths, who were already
beginning to produce surreptitious marbles. That is why the noise of
Theresa's arrival seemed to him nothing more than a quite ordinary
noise, and he was terribly surprised when Poor Emily suddenly burst open
the door, crying:

"There's been an accident, Sir, a tur'ble accident. Miss Theresa Silk's
been run over by a motoring car. My liddle Arthur saw it up at the
Throws--a car and a farm-cart from Owley--and a beautiful boy killed."

"What-what-what-what?" stuttered Mr. Bennet.

"An accident, Sir," cheerfully cried all the little boys.

"Where is it? Where is she? Have they sent for me, Emily?"

"They've brought her in here, Sir--brought her here to die. The mistress
has got her in the drawing-room, and she said to me, 'Fetch your Master,
Emily, for there'll be work for him as well as for me tonight.'"

Mr. Bennet turned round on the boys.

"Go home at once--go home, all of you, and go quietly. Emily will show
you out the back way."

Then he hurried into the hall, and across it to the drawing-room, but as
he pushed open the door a voice he hardly recognised as Lucy's shouted:
"Don't come in!"

It sounded harsh and fierce, as he had only once heard her voice sound
before--when their little girl was dying. Somehow the ring of it made
him afraid as Emily's words had not, and he stood for a moment with his
hand on the door, silent and listening to a thin voice, within, that
rose and fell almost like a cry.

As he stood there he noticed a movement at the far end of the hall. The
girls in Mrs. Bennet's workroom had heard more of the matter than he,
and now they were beginning to come out one by one, standing in the
shadows at the back of the hall, where Emily had stood.

"Are we to stay, Mr. Bennet? Mrs. Bennet said we were to wait till she
came back, but she's bin gone a terrible long while."

"You'd better go home. Don't wait any longer. I've sent away the boys."

"May we be told what's happened, Sir?"

"There's been an accident. Miss Theresa Silk has had an accident."

They fluttered away. The grey and white mass that had been their frocks
and faces, faded off into the back parts of the house, leaving only
shadows which crept nearer to him across the hall.



                                  12

The news of the accident spread all over the village, being brought to
cottages and farms by scared young folk clasping sixpenny prayer-books.
Poor Emily up at the Parsonage had said Miss Theresa Silk was dying--not
that her word went for anything much, but you couldn't quite disbelieve
her, neither, for sometimes she queered you by saying a thing with no
reason at all and then being right.

Dr. Gilpin, pursued from Lossenham to Reedbed and then to Moon's Green
by the two alarmed and slightly offended young women, heard a different
story. He hurried at once to the Rectory, which seemed to be in
darkness. There was no light either upstairs or down, though as he
passed the drawing-room he saw that the windows were still unblinded,
giving the place that peculiarly forsaken air of a house that is neither
shut nor lighted. He rang the bell, half wondering if he hadn't been
misdirected--after all, it seemed odd that Theresa Silk should have been
taken to the Rectory and not to Goldstrow. But the door was opened
almost at once by Mr. Bennet.

He had been standing in the hall ever since the children had left,
listening to the thin, wordless voice that came from the drawing-room,
and with a growing sense of helplessness and horror to the moans that
sometimes strung themselves like beads upon its thread. The night had
crept into the house, and still he had waited. Once or twice he had
moved to go away, but had been held back by the thought that his wife
might need him, or that the doctor might come and find no one to let him
in, as it was impossible to tell what Poor Emily was doing in her
present state. Once he had knocked on the door and said, "I'm here,
Lucy," and she had answered, "Thank you, dear--don't come in." He
thought perhaps it helped her to know he was outside.

She would not even let him in when the doctor came. But she asked him to
bring the lamp, and the darkness of the house was slashed with a slant
of orange light, moving down the scullery passage and across the hall,
to light up the clumps of furniture in the drawing-room and send their
long shadows moving over the carpet. The shadows retreated before him
across the room, as he carried the lamp to a little table beside the
sofa, and out of them at last came Theresa, lying as if flung on its
hard, tapestried seat, her eyes staring at him in a way that was new,
her face no longer looking like her own, so old was it, and shocked and
wrung.

His hands trembled as he set down the lamp. He heard Dr. Gilpin say:

"We must get her to bed at once."

His wife answered:

"Yes. I'll go and find Emily, and we'll have the spare room ready in a
few minutes. Harry will help you carry her up."

"Oh, please don't leave me!" wailed Theresa.

Her new voice sounded familiar, because it was the thin sound he had
listened to for so long. She caught Mrs. Bennet's hand as she tried to
move away, and her face twisted suddenly.

"Oh, please don't leave me! It's coming back. I know it's coming back.
Oh, please don't leave me."

"Harry--you go," said Mrs. Bennet, "find Emily and tell her to get the
spare room ready--quickly, quickly, quickly!"

She too was speaking with a new voice, and of her, too, he felt a little
frightened. He hurried away, and luckily found Poor Emily no farther off
than the kitchen--sitting by the fire and singing a hymn under her
breath:
       Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
       Shine through the gloom and waft me to the skies . . .

The dirge-like croon suddenly stirred up Mr. Bennet into anger, and he
ordered her pretty roughly about her business.

"Don't sit yowling there, Emily--your mistress wants the spare room got
ready at once. Run upstairs and make yourself useful."

"I'm frightened," said Emily, but she was obedient nevertheless, and
hurried out of the room. Mr. Bennet, in response to a last injunction
from his wife, filled all the kettles and made up the fire. Then he went
back to the drawing-room, to help carry Theresa upstairs.

But as he arrived, the door opened, and Dr. Gilpin came out, carrying
her in his arms.

"It's all right--I can manage better like this," and he started to go
upstairs very evenly and slowly, following Mrs. Bennet, who held the
lamp. At the bend of the stairs she stopped and called back:

"Harry, dear. You'd better go into your study and wait till I come
down."

"Can't I do anything?"

"Not now. I'll come to you later."

Her voice was so clipped and calm that it warned him more than if she
had screamed. Was Theresa going to die? He opened his mouth to call
after Dr. Gilpin, but checked himself, realising that the poor child
herself must hear. He would have to wait till the doctor came down
again. He stood with his hand upon the knob of his study door, watching
the little procession as it disappeared round the angle of the stairs.
The last thing he saw--anyway, the last thing he remembered--was
Theresa's hair hanging in a colourless, matted lump upon the doctor's
arm.



                                  13

It seemed hours that he waited in the study, though really it was not
very long. He lit the lamp, and stood it on the little table by the
fireside, then he took the crucifix from his writing desk and set it in
the circle of light. The light and shadow played queer tricks with
it--they threw it monstrous upon the wall, where his eyes sought it
rather than in its small reality. As one who, over many years, has had
the habit of study prayers, he prayed seated in his worn armchair, his
eyes closed, his hands clasped before him. As one who has prayed much
and continuously from youth, he prayed without words, merely holding up
Theresa in the arms of his faith before God. When he opened his eyes he
saw other arms uplifted in shadow, upon the wall.

At last there was a movement in the house. The sound of voices and
footsteps made him go quickly to the door. As he opened it Mrs. Bennet's
voice spoke from the bend of the stairs.

"And you'll do your best, Doctor, not to let them know in the village
about this?"

"I'll do what I can, Mrs. Bennet."

"Do anything--tell lies--only spare the poor child . . ."

Her voice died away, and Mr. Bennet faced the doctor in bewilderment.

"What is it, Doctor? I'm all in the dark--except that I know there's
been an accident . . ."

"There's been no accident," said Dr. Gilpin.

He walked into the study, and the Rector followed him.

"My dear old friend, I'm afraid I'm going to give you a very great
shock. . . ."

Then he told him.

During his ministry of nearly forty years, Mr. Bennet had experienced
many such shocks. Many times he had put his trust in those who had
failed him. Many times he had believed in honesty and innocence that had
never existed, and, worse still, had seen true honesty and innocence
give way to deceit and corruption. He had seen strong souls sink under
some sudden stress, and virtuous souls suddenly and almost frivolously
stoop to crime. He had listened to lies from the truthful, obscenities
from the pure, and blasphemies from the devout. Unsophisticated he might
be, but he had had the usual priest's-eye view of humanity. Therefore he
was not so overwhelmingly shocked and surprised as, perhaps, the doctor
had expected. He was stricken rather than shaken--appalled at this fresh
instance of the power of Satan going to and fro in the earth.

"Theresa," he murmured, "oh, my poor child . . . poor little Theresa."

"Yes, it's pretty bad--as bad, perhaps, from your point of view as from
mine, which is saying a great deal."

"Is she very ill, then?"

"Ill! I should think she was. I'm off home now to telephone to
Bulverhythe for a couple of nurses, and to Goldstrow for her aunt."

"It'll be a ghastly blow for Mrs. Millington."

"I don't mind. She deserves it. It's incredible to think that she should
have allowed Theresa to come to this. If she'd only looked at her, as
she'd have looked at one of her housemaids. . . . I guess who the man
is, of course, though I haven't been told."

"I'd never have thought him capable. . . . A good steady youth . . . too
much of a prig. And as for her, she was innocent--quite innocent--hardly
grown up. . . ."

"That's just it. That's the trouble now. She didn't even suspect her own
condition till two months ago. She's been behaving recklessly, tearing
about the country on that wretched bicycle of hers, taking no care of
herself whatever, tiring herself out, she told me, so as to make herself
stop thinking----"

"Oh, why didn't she trust us? Why didn't she tell Mrs. Bennet? Only
think, we were taking her aunt's part against her--doing all we could to
separate her from this boy . . ."

"I repeat, she didn't know herself--didn't suspect till a couple of
months ago. Even now she's appallingly ignorant--doesn't in the least
realise what she's in for. . . . But I mustn't stand talking here. I
must be off and get those nurses."

"Is she in great danger? Tell me, Doctor--do you think she'll die?"

"She is in great danger. I can't tell you more than that."

"And--and the child?"

"The child has probably been dead some time. Just as well, perhaps."

He walked out of the room, and Mr. Bennet sat down again in his chair by
the fire--a man Stricken.

"Oh, Theresa--oh, my child!"

The image of her seemed to rise before him, lounging against her
bicycle, with her old brown ulster flopping round her knees, and her
hair raying out from her grinning face like the glory of a mediaeval
sun. She had seemed almost more boy than girl, with her loud laugh and
lonely ways and queer, vagabond interests. . . . "I'm mad to see
Tenterden Fair" . . . "I followed two gyppos all the way to Providence"
. . . "I'm off to the village to hear about the cricket match" . . . "I
was in the carpenter's shed all the morning--making a model of the
Bulverhythe bus . . ." It seemed incredible that passion had lain in
wait for that careless, sexless creature, had snared her and thrown her
down and bound her with the common bonds of womanhood. How had it all
happened? He could not imagine. Perhaps he would never know.

He could not let himself think any more. Even prayer was dangerous,
since it led to thought. He must pray with action, and hurrying out of
the study he went upstairs to ask Lucy what he could do. She came to the
door for a moment, but her voice was still that of an abrupt stranger.

"Tell Emily to hurry with that hot water--and, Harry, she wants George."

"George Heasman?"

"Yes, of course. You'd better wire for him. The post office will be
shut, but you can knock up Mrs. Apps. Tell him to come at once."

"What's his address?"

"Fifteen, Pitt Street, Newbury. He'd better be quick . . ."

"He won't get the wire till tomorrow."

"I can't help that. Hurry up and send it now."

"Lucy, won't you tell me how she is?"

Her lip quivered, and he realised how much her manner was a defence.

"I can't tell you . . . I don't know. Oh, Harry, pray for her."

The door suddenly swept between him and her convulsed face. He found
himself shut out into the darkness of the passage, and groped for the
stairs.

As he was about to leave the house on his errand, the bell rang, and to
his intense relief he found Mrs. Gilpin on the doorstep. Her husband had
sent her up to help Mrs. Bennet till the nurses came. He had realised
that Poor Emily was a very indifferent help in time of trouble, and that
the Rector's wife herself was well stricken in years and confronted with
a task that might have daunted many a younger woman. Mrs. Gilpin had had
hospital experience, and, moreover, kept a kind heart in her bosom and a
quiet tongue in her head. In his relief, Mr. Bennet could have kissed
her, though all he did was to greet her somewhat strangely with, "Thank
God--go upstairs"--pushing past her out of the house.

The night was dark and full of rain, the trees bowing before a
freshening wind from the south-west. Mr. Bennet hurried on, hatless and
coatless, hurrying all the more because he did not really want to send
for George Heasman. He felt furious and sick with the young man, and
though he knew that he was summoning him only for Theresa's sake, and
that if Theresa wanted him even his own wickedness towards her must not
stand in the way of her having him, his heart revolted against the
summons, against the idea of this betrayer being allowed to play an
important part in the final acts of the tragedy he had created. He had
never liked Heasman, and now he hated him. In vain he repeated to
himself the excuses that he had made again and again for other boys ...
after all, this was not the first boy he had known who had been suddenly
snared, who had fallen to demands that were stronger than his brittle
code of piety, stronger even than the normal honour of his love. Heasman
was different--Heasman was a hypocrite--a bigot who despised other men's
faith and then failed to prove his own. Heasman had taken advantage of
an innocence greater than the innocence of most girls. In other cases,
he had realised that the blame could be divided; but here, with Theresa
as the partner of his guilt, Heasman must bear all the blame.



                                  14

On his return he had expected to find Mrs. Millington, but she had not
yet arrived. Instead, his wife was sitting in the study--a little figure
lost in his big armchair, her best green gown, worn through all the
tragedy, giving an emerald air of raffishness to her sorrow. She had
lost the hard shell that had cased and protected her, and was now all
suffering tenderness. The picture of her seemed to concentrate in the
wet grey ball of a handkerchief that she held on her lap.

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, springing up as he came in. "Oh, Harry, how
dreadful it all is!"

He took her in his arms. Bending his cheek to her bowed head his mind
went back to the day long ago when their hope had departed from them,
and he had held her in his arms, just as he held her now. Her bowed head
had been golden then, but he had felt her shuddering, as she shuddered
at this moment. . . . Strange to say, a queer thrill of thankfulness
went through him--Thank God, it's not our Sylvia we're crying for. Thank
God, we've been spared the grief of seeing our daughter as we see
Theresa. . . . Sylvia is safe forever . . . she was taken from evils to
come.

"Tell me," he whispered, "how's the poor child?"

"Bad--terribly bad. I know Mrs. Gilpin thinks she'll die. . . . Oh,
Harry, Harry!"

"I wonder where her aunt is. I'd expected to find her here."

"I don't know. The doctor was going to have 'phoned her at once, but of
course she may have been out. Now I come to think of it, I believe she
meant to drive the Bishop to the station."

"I don't care if she never comes. I hope she doesn't. I don't want to
see her. I can't trust myself to speak to her after all this."

"Why not? It's not her fault."

"Isn't it, indeed! She's been a criminal fool. I consider her to blame
for the whole thing."

"You can't say that. It isn't her fault at all; that's the dreadful part
of it. It's our fault--ours."

She broke down and sobbed helplessly.

"Ours? What are you talking about? We never were responsible for
Theresa----"

"Yes we were--at Brighton, and that was where it all happened. We didn't
look after her properly; we let her go away into the country by herself,
and it was there--there----"

"But she was with another girl."

"No, she wasn't. She went to meet that young man. She's told me
everything. They used to meet in the country outside Brighton, and when
she said she had spent the night with Violet Clutter, she had really
spent it with him."

"Oh, God."

"Yes, there's no good blaming Mrs. Millington. The affair was quite
harmless while they were here at Delmonden; it was only when she was in
our charge . . ."

"Then she's lied to us--she's made a convenience of us. We're not to
blame. How could we know she was lying--how could we believe she was
capable of such brazen deceit?"

One of his old-man's rages had seized him. His hands began to tremble
and his face became fixed and paper-white.

"Oh, Harry, don't be angry with her--now."

"How can I help being angry? I'd no idea she was such an accomplished
liar. Think of all the lies she's told us . . . it's abominable. I'd
never have believed it."

He lashed at his rage, finding in its clawings a relief from the dull
ache of sorrow.

But Mrs. Bennet, who had never imagined such comfort, still tried to
persuade him out of it.

"Poor little thing--if she is to blame, she's paying for it now. And
it's not her fault so much as the way she's been brought up--she's been
abominably brought up."

"And yet you say that woman's not to blame."

"Not for this one especial thing."

"I tell you she is to blame for it. The girl's gone wrong because her
aunt has criminally neglected her. She's been so busy meddling with
other people's business that she's had no time to look after her
own--and she knows nothing about young people--nothing, nothing,
nothing."

"She's very fond of Theresa."

"Fond be damned!--and will be damned now. If she's fond, this will be
hell to her; and I'm glad, for if ever a woman deserved hell----"

"Harry! Harry!"

He put her out of his arms, and began pacing up and down the room.

She was frightened, for now it seemed as if his anger must do him some
injury in mind or body. But suddenly it all collapsed. He came back to
where she stood, and took her hand.

"Forgive me, Lucy. I'm being a troublesome, violent old man who's
forgotten he isn't the judge of this. Forgive me, and let's go through
it together, as we've been through other things. I want your help, my
dear."

"Oh, Harry, you're always such a help to me."

"I should be helpless without you. Now, tell me--what are we going to
do? We keep the girl here, I suppose?"

"Oh, of course we must do that. Dr. Gilpin says she can't be moved, and
she doesn't want to be. Her one cry is, 'Let me stay here! Don't send me
back to Aunt!'"

"That damnable woman----"

"Hush, love. Here she is----"

Mrs. Millington's Daimler had slipped up the drive so silently that in
the midst of their discussion they had not heard it. But now there were
sounds of arrival in the hall, and they could hear her voice speaking to
Poor Emily----

"Where is she? Take me to Mrs. Bennet. You know where she is, I
suppose?"

"She's alive," was Emily's reply, "alive and crying with Master in the
study."

The next minute the door opened and Mrs. Millington came in. As they
went to meet her both the Rector and his wife felt an unexpected throb
of pity; for her changed face showed them a being who suffered even more
than they. The blow that had stricken them had shattered her whole life
and turned her world upside down. She was facing not only the
unendurable but the inconceivable. She had been summoned out of all the
most pleasant unrealities, out of the tea-table triumphs of the
afternoon, to face reality in a quite unbelievable form. According to
her long-established ideas, the thing which had happened now was simply
impossible. Girls of the lower classes went wrong--indeed, had a marked
tendency that way--but not well-brought-up young ladies, such as she
imagined Theresa to be. . . . Her mind simply could not conceive such a
reversal of what was, in her world, almost a law of nature.

Even now she was not quite convinced.

"Tell me what's happened!" she cried. "Dr. Gilpin told me . . . but it's
impossible. There must be some abominable mistake. I'll never
believe--but it's really ridiculous . . . Why, if there'd been anything
of that kind, I'd have been the first to know."

Neither Mr. Bennet nor his wife could say a word. Mrs. Bennet's mind
painted a picture of awful pathos--a picture of Mrs. Millington pouring
out tea for the Bishop, watching him eat her choice cakes and scones,
and dazzle her neighbours with his conversation; finally driving him
triumphantly to the station in her car, receiving his thanks--"Such a
pleasant occasion--such a delightful afternoon" then coming home to be
told bluntly through the telephone by Dr. Gilpin--she could not imagine
that he had minced his words, after all the things he had said about her
at the Rectory--that her niece was very ill, dying perhaps, and six
months gone with child. . . . The expression seemed to sting Mrs. Bennet
like a snake as it crossed her mind. She looked up almost expecting to
see that Mrs. Millington had been stung.

"Theresa's upstairs," she said gently; "won't you come and see her?"

"Why was she brought here? I must get her home. . . I must send for a
doctor from Bulverhythe. Dr. Gilpin isn't to be trusted. He's talking
nonsense--wicked, scandalous nonsense. Theresa's perfectly incapable.
. . . Oh, I know she's been self-willed and disobedient, but she's always
been so nice-minded--she never thought about men at all till she met
that terrible creature. . . . Oh, you don't tell me," in a new twist of
horror, "that _he's_ got anything to do with it?"

"Of course he has," said Mr. Bennet; "you're only slandering your niece
if you think it could be anyone else."

"How dare you speak to me like that? Have you no sense of decency? ...
Well, if that man's to blame, I shall hold you guilty. It was you who
introduced them to each other. . . . But for you----"

"Madam, I----"

"Harry, Harry, don't say anything," pleaded his wife. "I can explain to
Mrs. Millington much better when we're alone. I'm going to take her
upstairs to see Theresa. I expect Dr. Gilpin will be back in a moment."

She guided a shaking and weeping woman out of the room, and he heard
them go upstairs.

"Theresa won't see her," he muttered to himself; "she can't bear the
sight of her--she won't let her go in."

He found an unworthy comfort in the thought.



                                  15

That night, was like no other night. It scarcely seemed like night at
all, with nobody in bed, and a constant going to and fro in the house.
It was merely a monstrous continuation of the day into darkness. Dr.
Gilpin came back, and soon afterwards the nurses arrived. Mr. Bennet
helped Poor Emily extemporise a supper for them, but no one had thought
of preparing any more bedrooms--indeed it would have been difficult,
for, though Delmonden Rectory contained eleven bedrooms, only two or
three of them were furnished, the rest being used to store furniture,
potatoes, apples, and other useful things.

Mrs. Gilpin, however, was well aware that the Bennets' resources had
been taxed beyond their strength; so, as she could now leave the sick
room, she hurried off to see what accommodation for the nurses could be
found in the village, and if Mabel Breeds or some other such girl
couldn't be sent up to share the burden of Poor Emily. She was a
resourceful, kind-hearted woman, but a bit too rough, on the whole, for
Mr. Bennet, who resented the language she sometimes used, and a certain
air of patronage in her voice when she spoke of church matters.

"About as bad as she can be, poor little devil," was her reply to the
enquiries with which he intercepted her going.

"Will she--do you--does Dr. Gilpin think she will die?"

"Well, I'm afraid ... but it all depends--" and she gave him some
details that the Rector thought would have been conveyed more suitably
by his wife; "anyhow, she won't die just yet. She'll live to see the
cause of all her trouble, and forgive him, as he doesn't deserve to be
forgiven."

"I doubt if he can get here before tomorrow evening."

"That may do all right, and of course she may pull through--though I'm
afraid Tuckie hasn't much hope. You see she's simply been killing
herself and the child for the last few weeks. . . . But don't start
bothering her about her soul, there's a good man."

As he was grateful to her for all her kindness, he pretended not to hear
the last few words, which were spoken as she walked away. None the less,
he brooded over them. She was just like all the rest of the ignorant
laity, who make of a deathbed the body's battlefield, and ignore the
poor soul, which, after all, has most concern in the issues of the day.
Everyone now was fussing over Theresa's body, but who cared for her
soul? Had anyone given it even two minutes' attention? . . . Ah, there
was a sting in that. For the soul was his business--had been his
business for the last year; and he had done nothing. If only he had
known . . . if only some angel could have warned him that his day's work
for her soul had already run on into the evening, and that the night was
coming when no man can work . . . oh, why had he not worked as if he had
scarcely an hour? He must not excuse himself with the thought that he
might have done more harm than good. He had missed many opportunities,
he had been too much of the worldly Parson, waiting an occasion and
biding his time. He had sought to win her friendship before he won her
soul, and her friendship for him had been her undoing. If she had not
asked to go with him and his wife to Brighton--he still thought it was
friendship which had made her go with them to Brighton--this terrible
thing would never have happened. Again, there was no good excusing
himself by saying that he could not have been expected to look for such
treachery in her. The fact remained that the wolf had seized the lamb
while that lamb was especially under his care. Oh, miserable shepherd!
He stood condemned and he could only plead in his defence the most banal
of human excuses--"I never knew . . ." "I did my best . . ." "I meant
well . . ." Bah! he would have none of them. He bit down on his own
guilt, swallowed it, and felt its bitterness in his very blood. "My
fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault. O Lord, I offer my
contrition for her soul, the soul you love, and I have betrayed. Let me
stand without excuse, that my punishment may be offered for her. Let the
unfaithful shepherd suffer for the sheep he has lost."

After this fashion he mused and prayed while the long night passed. His
wife came down and urged him to go to bed, but he would not. He could
not have slept, and his help might be needed to keep some watch or run
some errand. Anyway, his prayers were needed; so he prayed on. Towards
five o'clock a wood pigeon began to croon in the Rectory trees, and
immediately the dawn became shrill with waking birds--the voices of
blackbird, thrush, and robin, mingled in the first light, liquid and
golden as if a part of its essence. Tits and finches chattered round the
golden, drawling notes, and the starlings broke in with their song like
hissing, sucking water. The sun, watery as the starlings' song, came
suddenly through the trees.

He could hear movements overhead, footsteps that went down passages,
doors that opened and shut. Sometimes he thought he heard a cry, and his
heart thudded painfully. But no one came near him; he was not wanted for
the body, and they had forgotten all about the soul. "And no man cared
for my soul." At last a clock struck seven and he realised that he must
go at once to Delmonden church for his daily Eucharist. He had not even
given himself time to shave and bathe--he must appear before his God and
his congregation as neglected as Theresa's soul. . . .

His only congregation was Miss Bell, and she was not surprised at the
Rector's appearance, having heard the rumour of all that was toward up
at the Rectory--"No accident at all. That was Poor Emily's
invention--well, they'd probably have to invent something." The village
was uncertain as to the facts. Theresa had skulked so determinedly at
the background of its doings for the last three months that, though
scandal about her had started, it had not taken any definite direction,
but there was no limit as to its conjectures, running on the two
different lines of illness and accident, according to whether the first
news had come from the two motoring young women or the dispersed
confirmation candidates. Doubtless, with the new day, the two lines
would meet and rumour enlarge itself.

It was hard, thought Mr. Bennet, that when he most needed the comfort of
his religious observances, they should be most perversely unreal to him.
It was a hard yet common experience of his ministerial life. When he
most longed to lift his mind to Calvary, he would find it weighed down
with the burden of petty details--Miss Bell's voice was maddening . . .
she'd had that cold all the Winter--she ought to have lost it now . . .
sniff, sniff--he simply dreaded her adenoidal responses . . . and the
church was all in white after the Confirmation, for Mrs. Bennet had
meant to run down before supper last night and change the colours back
to Lent; but of course she had not been able to. So the church was all
white and innocent, when it ought to have been purple and experienced
. . . the flowers on the altar were like children, the boys and girls
who yesterday had sung "My God accept my heart this day." There ought
to have been no flowers--Lent . . . with the purple cloud of the
Passion leaning over the world.

But when the service was over, and Miss Bell had plagued him with her
last Abed, and he had made his thanksgiving before the little premature
Easter of Delmonden's altar, he felt strengthened. Strength had come to
him as it so often came, by no regular channel of emotional experience.
It came a little as the sensation of bodily fitness after fasting. His
soul felt energised and lean. He walked back up the hill to the Rectory,
conscious of a new preparedness, a new capacity for sorrow.

The doctor was just coming away, unshaven as the Rector. His healthy,
weathered face looked tired and drawn.

"Hello--I'm off home for a bite of breakfast. I'll be coming back
again."

"How is she?"

"Sinking, I'm afraid."

"Sinking ... dying?"

"That's it." He spoke roughly in his own distress--"We've had a hell of
a night, and though she's lived through it, she's utterly worn out now."

"She seemed so strong . . ."

"Very deceptive--those big healthy-looking girls often have very little
staying power. Besides, she's over young for this sort of thing."

"Is she conscious?"

"Yes, quite conscious. But, look here, Rector--go gently with her. If
you're wise you'll let her alone--don't bother her about her soul."

"I won't bother her."

He went into the house.

Mrs. Bennet was fluttering in the hall. She looked less haggard than
either of the men, but curiously transparent, illuminate--as if fatigue
were shining through her.

"Harry, dear, Mrs. Millington is in there, having breakfast. Won't you
go to her? She needs you."

He shook his head.

"I'm going to Theresa."

"Oh, Harry, she's so ill . . ."

He looked at her sadly--

"You, too, my dear?"



                                  16

Yet when he found himself alone with Theresa's soul, he felt some of the
doubt that the others had shown. Her body lay very flat and still in the
wide bed of Delmonden's Gothic spare room. The light, fighting in
through the heavy tracery of the window, showed him her straight,
extended form, moulded so clearly under the one coverlet as to give even
his unpractised eye an impression of utter exhaustion. Her head was low,
and her hair looked black upon the pillow rather than red--it had a
drenched appearance . . . He remembered how last he had seen it,
draggled and clotted on the doctor's arm. Theresa of the flaming hair
. . . that fire was extinguished now, and certainly it was not her head
that had set her heart alight, though her heart had blazed up and burnt
itself out. He felt suddenly afraid of her, as of a stranger.

A nurse came forward out of the shadows of the room. Mr. Bennet regarded
her warily, expecting conflict. But, as it happened, the nurse was an
ally. She belonged to a church guild for nurses, and had begun to worry
herself a little about Theresa's dying unhouselled.

"I'm glad you've come," she whispered. "I think she'll be glad to see
you. She's perfectly conscious."

Theresa's eyes were closed. She did not look conscious. She looked
already dead, so white was her face, so settled the blanched curve of
her lips, and her arms lay straight against her sides as if waiting for
someone to fold them upon her breast.

"Theresa," said Mr. Bennet.

Her eyes opened at once, and to his surprise she began to speak--not
faintly and stammeringly as he would have expected, but in a thin,
anxious voice that needed only to be a little louder to be shrill.

"I want my bicycle. It was left behind in that farm-cart, but if you
enquire about it now I'm sure you can get hold of it."

"Dearie, don't worry about that now."

"But I must. I'll be simply lost without my bicycle, and if we wait any
longer it may get stolen. The cart was from Owley, over by Wittersham.
Do promise me you'll send there and make enquiries."

He turned to the nurse.

"Does she know?"

"I should have thought she must, but she doesn't seem to."

"Theresa, dear, don't worry about your bicycle. You won't want it any
more."

"I shall. I shall want it more than ever, now I'm through with all this.
When I'm well again I shall go back to what I was before--before . . .
and I shall ride all over the country, just as I used to, and forget
this bloody time. If I don't have my bicycle I'll never forget."

Her voice began to shake, and the nurse took her hand, feeling the
pulse.

"Don't talk any more. It's bad for you. Let Mr. Bennet talk."

"But he must promise to try and find my bicycle----"

"I promise," cried the poor clergyman. "I'll send over to Owley or go
myself."

"Thank you, awfully. I knew you would. But the others didn't seem to
care."

He was touched, and took her hand which the nurse had left lying outside
the coverlet.

"Theresa, I want to help you in a much bigger way than just getting you
your bicycle. Will you let me care for your soul? Will you let me bring
you the Sacrament?"

"No, I don't want it."

"But you will need it--" his voice trembled--"food for your journey."

"What journey?"

"A long journey into another life."

"Do you mean I'm going to die?"

He could not speak--he just nodded. As he did so, he felt a sudden fear,
for he knew he had done what no doctor will tolerate. He had made the
patient give up the hope which is life--perhaps the shock, the fear,
would kill her. He watched her anxiously, expecting some outcry or
convulsion, but Theresa was incapable of anything violent. She only said
in the same thin, anxious voice----

"I don't want to die."

"My dear little girl, you needn't be afraid."

"But I want to live--I want to go back to where I was before. I want my
bicycle."

"Wouldn't you rather go on, instead of going back?"

"Go on where?"

"To God."

"God," said Theresa, and the way she said it made Mr. Bennet feel cold.
In that word, spoken as she spoke it in anguished, incredulous disgust,
seemed to lie the whole rebuke of his ministry, and not only of his but
that of every priest who had ever ministered. We are the teachers and
the fathers, and yet when our children come to die that is how they
speak the name of God. We bury ourselves in our little parishes and we
forget that outside them are the wandering stars who are also our
children, and to whom the name of God is nothing but pain and affront.
We have taken his name in vain so often, that it has become vanity. And
we comfort ourselves with our Mrs. Iggulsdens and our Mrs. Bodys and our
Davy Spongs, and fail our Theresa Silks by whom also we shall be judged.

"Theresa, forgive me."

Her eyes opened again. She was too near death to be bewildered.

"Oh, yes," she said wearily.

The nurse stared. It was not thus that she was used to see the clergy
minister to the dying.



                              V. George



                                  1

Later on in the day Mr. Bennet brought Theresa the Food for her journey,
and about an hour afterwards she set out, still querulously reluctant,
still wanting her bicycle. . . . Perhaps he should not have given her
the Sacrament, seeing how little it meant to her. But that, he told
himself, was his own fault--or if not personally his, the fault of other
priests with whom he stood condemned as a member of the body. Anyway, he
would earn no more reproaches from her soul.

Her aunt, Mrs. Bennet, and he, himself, were all with her when she died,
but George had not come, nor did she speak of him. After having asked
for him once, she seemed to have forgotten him. As the end drew near,
she seemed to become more and more as she used to be before passion and
suffering had made a reluctant woman of her. She died with no regrets
save for the lost wildness of her days.

It was not only Theresa who forgot poor George. Everyone else forgot
him--till he arrived suddenly in the twilight. The Bennets were having a
late, exhausted tea together, having persuaded Mrs. Millington to go
back to Goldstrow and leave them to face, more practically than she was
able, the approaching routine of undertakers. When they heard footsteps
in the drive they thought it was Mr. Buss, the undertaker from
Cranbrook, though there was a certain surprise in his not having come by
car. Mrs. Bennet nearly let loose a scream, when, instead of the
expected corpulence struggling to assume funereal poise and to compose
its crimson features into the proper mask of gloom, she found herself
staring into the real agony of George Heasman's face, as he came towards
them like an exhausted runner, with panting mouth and starting,
smouldering eyes.

"Harry!" she cried. "It's George."

"George Heasman!"

"Yes, of course--and we'd forgotten all about him."

The Rector was irascible again in his fatigue.

"Well, it's his own fault, the silly hound. Why didn't he send a wire to
say that he was coming?"

"Oh, my dear, I don't suppose he thought of it . . . and nothing's ready
for him.--I haven't even a bed for him to sleep in--and we'll have to
tell him that he's too late."

It was not the first time that either of them had had to break the news
of death, and often in circumstances more casually cruel than this. Now
each wanted to spare the other the experienced pain.

"I'll go and meet him," said Mrs. Bennet.

"No, let me do that."

"I'd much better go--" she just stopped herself adding--"he'll take it
better from me."

"It isn't your job."

"Of course it is--and we mustn't go on arguing, or he'll ring the bell
and be told goodness knows what by Poor Emily."

She hurried out of the room. She hated what she had to do, but she
wanted to spare her husband. She knew that because he disliked George
Heasman it would hurt him all the more to strike him; she did not like
George either, but she told herself that she was made of harder stuff
than Harry, because she was not so spiritual. All she hoped was that her
victim would not laugh; that had happened once--unforgettably. As she
opened the front door she seemed to hear that harsh clatter of laughter
with which a fellow creature had once greeted the end of his world.

George did not laugh. He stared at her as if he did not believe her, and
then when she was forced to repeat her words, he began most strangely
and pitifully to cry. He wept with his head on her shoulder. He was
shatteringly tired and he wanted some food. He asked her if there was
anything he could have to eat . . . she was glad Harry had not gone to
meet him.

She took him into the dining-room and brought a loaf of bread and some
butter and cheese, and ran to see if Emily's kettle was boiling. Then as
she sat down opposite him, to give what comfort he might seem to need as
he filled his belly, she suddenly realised that he did not know why
Theresa had died. This realisation frightened her so much that she got
up and walked out of the room. Somehow she had taken for granted that he
knew; yet, how could he? for Theresa had almost certainly never told
him. She could not think how she should break it to him now. It was
queer that he had never asked. . . . He seemed beaten and stupid with
his own fatigue, and no doubt, poor boy, he must be exhausted after that
dreadful cross-country journey. . . . How terribly you can suffer in the
train, listening to the racket that rhymes your grief! . . . He must
have been nearly frantic when he arrived, so frantic that the blow which
ended apprehension had almost brought relief. No wonder he was eating so
much. What she had to tell him would not help his digestion. She had
better go in and stop him before he ate any more. . . . At that,
somebody laughed loudly, and to her dismay she found that it was
herself.



                                  2

She arranged for him to have Poor Emily's bedroom--it was easy enough to
send her down to Mabel Breed's for the night. So he never knew that he
had been forgotten and unprepared for. He never knew, either, that
Theresa seemed at the last to have forgotten all about him.

"She asked for you," Mrs. Bennet kept on repeating, "she asked for you
almost directly she came here." She felt a little annoyed when she saw
that he seemed to take all that for granted. Indeed, as he revived with
the comfort of food and rest and her kindly tongue, he began to show a
certain resentment of the fact that he had not been sent for earlier.

"If only the telegram had come last night I could have got here in
time."

There was no doubt that the poor youth had an exasperating manner that
did him no service--a truculent, injured, defensive manner, as if he
expected slights and misunderstanding.

"We sent for you practically at once," she apologised, "because she
asked for you at once."

She thought--"It's a mercy he doesn't know that we all forgot him
afterwards."

"But hadn't you any idea," he persisted, "that this was coming? Couldn't
you see? Didn't, anybody guess? ... Oh, I tell you I can hardly believe
it, I can hardly believe it."

"Theresa kept very much to herself all this Winter, and you know her
aunt was away from the beginning of January. I often asked her to come
here, but she wouldn't . . . and she'd quite given up going in the
village. . . . She went bumping about the country on that awful bicycle
of hers. Oh, if I'd only known, I'd have broken it to pieces!"

"But why didn't she tell me? If only she'd told me this would never have
happened. I'd have married her--nobody should have stopped me. I'd have
saved her. I'd have . . . the poor little thing. Oh, the poor little
thing!"

He was weeping again--his strange, exhausted tears that it tore her
heart to witness.

"Don't do that," she whispered, uttering her protest, yet hoping it was
not heard.

"Lord help me!" he groaned, "this is my doing. I've killed her--I've
murdered her. Oh, how could I have been such a swine as to take
advantage of her. O Lord, O Lord!"

Mrs. Bennet said nothing.

"And you--what do you think of me? How can you bear to sit in the same
room as me? I'm a seducer and a murderer--I, a Preacher of the Gospel,
called of God. All I've done is to betray a child. Tell me, what do you
think of me?"

"I--I think you were both betrayed by a wicked power that took advantage
of you both. You--you shouldn't have trusted it so far."

"You're merciful," he said, taking away his hands from before his face,
and staring at her with his red eyes. "You're merciful. But you don't
know how bad I am--how far I've fallen. You don't know that I've fallen
right away from grace. I was a Preacher of the Gospel, and the Lord gave
me wonderful lights--but I've not opened my mouth in praise or prayer or
preaching since that day. My tongue belongs to Satan, for I coaxed her
with it from good ways. My lips are Satan's, sold with kisses. Oh, how
can I ever tell you the horror of when the Lord gave me Scripture from
the hedge--'Repent ye and believe the Gospel.' I saw that written up on
a board by the Worthing road, outside the house where we slept in all
our sins, and I tell you those words have been bleeding wounds to me
ever since. 'Repent ye and believe the Gospel.' Oh, I believe the Gospel
all right, but I haven't repented. I can't repent. I'm the profane
person such as Esau who for a morsel of meat sold his birthright and
found no place for repentance though he sought it with tears. Tears--oh,
yes, tears have been bread and meat to me since that day. But tears
won't wash me clean. And now she's dead, my lovely one, dead through my
sins and dead for my sins. The Lord has slain her as he slew David's son
and Ezekiel's wife, for a Sign. She's dead through my sins, and for my
sins, and in her sins--for a Sign. And this is the Sign written--'The
man of God who was disobedient unto the Word of the Lord.'"

Mrs. Bennet stared at him open-mouthed. Seldom had she listened to such
an astonishing flow of oratory. For the first time she visaged George as
a preacher, a conception of him which had so far baffled her. Indeed she
almost felt as if she now were "sitting under" him, receiving at her own
dining-room table his ministry of the Word.

The outburst seemed to have relieved him. There had been a release of
the preacher denied. His eyes burned out of their red rims, and his
hands trembled as he gripped them together on the table.

"Don't you shrink--" he cried, "don't you shrink from the thought that
you are giving hospitality to such a brute?"

"No, of course I don't. How could I? It's not for me to judge you. As my
husband says, we often forget we are not judges."

"Your husband!" She had been unfortunate. She could feel his hackles
rising. "Your husband--I know what your husband thinks of me. He says,
'This is the end of schism. This is where they all end--these
hedge-preachers.'"

"Oh, hush. He says nothing of the kind."

"He does. He's always despised me."

"No, he doesn't despise you. How can you imagine such a thing! He has
always been on your side--taken your part against Mrs. Millington----"

"He didn't. He acted as her ambassador."

"He had to try to persuade you to accept her terms, as there was no
other hope for you both just then. But you know where his sympathies lay
. . . and now, I know how deeply he feels for you. You must see him, and
perhaps he will be able to help you with all these dreadful spiritual
experiences you are going through."

"How could he help me with his vanity of works? If the Gospel cannot
help me--the pure Gospel of faith--then he certainly cannot help me with
his dead works and magical sacraments."

"You really mustn't talk like that."

She was beginning to feel annoyed with him again, but just as her
annoyance found words, down went his head once more on the table, and
the Preacher collapsed in exhausted tears, vain self-accusations, and
frantic, useless cries: "Oh, my pretty one, my love, my little
darling--come back! come back!"



                                  3

The next day George went to stay with his parents at Ethnam. He refused
to accept the hospitality of the Rectory for more than one night, and he
refused to go back to Newbury till after Theresa's funeral. Indeed, he
hinted that he might never go back there at all--he had only gone in
order to help his love through its crisis, and now that love lay past
all crisis and beyond all help, ready for burial.

Mr. Bennet thought him unwise, but did not say so. He had a sneaking
sympathy with the poor chap's wish to attend his sweetheart's funeral,
even though some might hold him responsible for her death. As for his
reluctance to go back to work, that too was natural, and perhaps would
pass when he had recovered a little from his misery and shock. He was
heartily glad, however, that he had removed himself from the Rectory.
For though his heart was compassionate towards poor George, he could not
help finding him insufferable. His manner of mixed truculence and
resentful inferiority did not help anyone to forget that he had helped
do Theresa to death. Out of his welter of self-accusation Mr. Bennet had
picked a self-righteous neglect which seemed to him more hateful than
any of the "betrayals," "seductions," and "fornications" that fell so
freely from the sinner's tongue.

Nevertheless, he took George's part against Mrs. Millington when she
demanded that he should forthwith remove himself from the country. He
had gone up to Goldstrow to arrange with her about the funeral.
Theresa's body had already been taken to the great house where she had
refused to die. It lay in unnatural state among the flowers that had
been sent by Mrs. Millington's friends--friends who whispered and
wondered and asked each other questions that would never be answered.

As she let him in, the parlour-maid suggested that he should go and see
her, "She looks beautiful, Sir--quite beautiful." But Mr. Bennet did not
want to see Theresa looking beautiful. During her life she had known no
beauty but the beauty of the sun--of glowing health and tan and freckles
and ruddy, raying hair; but now she was dead her beauty was of the moon,
cold and colourless and exquisite and unreal. He had seen her once in
her lunar beauty and he did not want to see her again.

Mrs. Millington was in bed. She had been there ever since she left the
Rectory, attended by Dr. Gilpin for shock. In her case "shock" was no
mere fine name for nerves and mental sloth. When he saw her face,
something in Mr. Bennet said "she has picked a mandrake." He did not
know where the words came from, but he seemed to see a picture of Mrs.
Millington walking in a garden and picking a flower that looked like a
lily--up it came, roots and all, and the roots screamed at her, and she
fell down fainting, unable to throw it away because of the screaming
roots that clung and twisted in her gown.

Her eyes were half closed, and she scarcely seemed to see him as he came
into the room. But when in his new compassion he would have pressed her
hand that lay on the counterpane, she pulled it away.

"I am terribly, terribly distressed," she said in a low, hoarse voice.

"I know," he murmured, his compassion surviving repulse.

"But how could you do--allow such an abominable thing?"

"I--what?"

"That scoundrel to go to Ethnam, to stay at Ethnam. You should have sent
him away--you should never have let him come. And yet I hear you sent
for him."

"She asked for him."

"She was delirious--she'd never have known if you hadn't . . . and
anyway, what difference did it make? He didn't get there in time."

"I hoped he would."

His compassion was melting. The mandrake had not changed her much.

"You hoped he would! . . . well, and now he's here, publicly staying
here--and everyone will guess--know . . ."

"There's no reason why they should. His being here doesn't mean more
than anyone knows already--that he loved her and hoped to marry her."

"How could he hope any such thing after all I said? . . . Well, now he's
here and I'm told he means to stay till after the funeral. It's
absolutely dreadful for me to know he's here, and will go on coming
here, I suppose, while his parents are at Ethnam. Thank heaven, that
Heasman's lease falls in this year. . . . But I want you to go round and
tell him he musn't stay. I won't see his face. If he goes to the
funeral, I shan't. It's a simply appalling state of affairs."

"I've already advised him to go away, but he won't listen to me."

"You must try again--you must make him go. I can't understand how he
dare come to the funeral, seeing that he's killed Theresa."

"I don't think you can quite put it like that."

"I can and will. It's owing to him and his wickedness that she's dead."

"We must all take some of the blame for her death."

"What do you mean?"

He had meant--"Her death is due to the ignorance and the omissions of us
all, and largely to your preconceived, class-bred notions of life which
would not allow you to think your niece capable of the same sins as any
other ignorant and unprincipled girl, which made you ignore signs that
in a housemaid would have worked you into a frenzy of suspicion. She
died of her own ignorance, which was not really hers so much as a thing
made up of the ignorance of us all, our slackness and our blindness. We
are all her betrayers."

"What do you mean?" repeated Mrs. Millington, as he did not speak.

"I mean that if Theresa had taken proper care of herself, she would
almost certainly be alive now--and it was the fault of the people who
had the charge of her that she didn't take care."

"How can you say such a thing? How dare you say it? Are you suggesting
that I should have suspected that . . . suspected her--my own niece? I
tell you, even now I can scarcely believe it. It seems like--like
something I've read in a wicked novel--something that could never happen
to me."

He was beginning to feel sorry for her again, for her mouth was shaking
and working like a very old woman's, and she plucked at the sheet as if
she still plucked at the mandrake's roots.

"Don't let's talk any more about this thing--don't let's blame anyone,
not even ourselves."

"But you said we were all to blame. You said it was my fault that
Theresa didn't take proper care of herself--that I ought to have known,
suspected my own niece, my lovely girl, who never had a wicked
thought--who never knew a thing about wickedness . . . you take the part
of that scoundrel who brought her to this. I tell you he's her murderer
as surely as if he'd killed her with his hands. And you--what about you?
You had her in your charge and you took no proper care of her--you let
her go wandering about all day and all night with that villain----"

"How was I to know she was with him?"

"You ought to have taken more care. She was in your charge, and if you'd
looked after her properly all this would never have happened."

Mr. Bennet had told himself many times this very thing, but it did not
follow that he wished to hear it even once from Mrs. Millington.

"If you didn't choose to suspect her, why should I?"

"I trusted you, and the poor child wanted to go with, you, so I let her
go. I was a fool--after those other things."

"What other things?"

"It was your wife who introduced George Heasman to her--took her to tea
at Ethnam, to tea in a farm-house kitchen, as if she was one of
themselves. It shows you are neither of you so particular as I am--and
then there was Susan Lamb."

"What about Susan Lamb?"

"You were exceedingly lax about her. You let her enter my service
without telling me the sort of girl she was. I ought to have known from
that that you were no fit and proper guardian for my niece."

Mr. Bennet got up and walked to the door. He was white and shaking with
anger. He could no longer feel any compassion for the frenzied old woman
in the bed. In vain he told himself that she was half mad with shock and
suffering, and that it was terrible to quarrel like this over Theresa's
death. The besetting sin had once more got the better of him. He
trembled with rage, and it was some moments before he found breath to
say:

"That being so, it seems unsuitable that I should conduct the funeral."

"It certainly is unsuitable, and I should never have dreamed of asking
you to do it. I have written to my dear Mr. Grant, and he will come and
lay my poor child to rest."

"You've had the effrontery to do that! But he can't come without my
permission. I'm the Parson of this Parish, and I have the right to
officiate. That man can't utter a word unless I allow it."

For a moment he was uncertain whether or not he had uttered these words
out loud. Then by the look on her face he saw that he had.

"I shall write to the Bishop," she said in a tight, whispering voice, "I
shall write to the Bishop."

"Write certainly, if you like; the Bishop can only uphold me in this."

But his anger was cooling, sinking suddenly like an exhausted fire. He
saw his behaviour as unwarrantable, unworthy. It was terrible to think
that after a ministry of over forty years he could lose his temper like
this with a wretched old woman who was in hell.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, "I waive my rights. I'm not worthy to
stand beside her grave. Mr. Grant shall officiate----" and he walked
out, leaving her with shock and triumph contending for the mastery of
her mind.




                                  4

After all, George Heasman did not go to the funeral, stopped by no
persuasion but by a heavy chill he contracted through wandering about
the country in the rain. It appeared that he had gone down every day to
the Rother marshes and had not come back till dark. His parents had
tried in vain to keep him at home--his haunted spirit drove him down to
that half-drowned country between Wittersham and Iden where Wet Level
spreads a sheet of many waters--the flood of many streams--between the
coasts of Sussex and Kent, reviving the lost beauty of that great
forgotten waters'-meet which once had been the Rother's mouth. From that
most sad and most sweet land he had taken the sadness and left the
sweetness, and now he was sick of the chills of the wet earth and of his
own tears.

Mr. Bennet took no part in the funeral, though he wore his cassock and
surplice and stood beside Theresa's grave. He had maintained his
humility. But to have put himself lower--into the congregation--might
have roused comment, thrown a fresh weight in the scale of gossip which
was sinking against her light reputation. The service was conducted with
due unction by "Aunt's awful Reverend Grant," and a great throng of
villagers attended. There had been a certain amount of local
disappointment when it became known that no inquest would be held, but a
fine London funeral, such as this, was regarded as the next best thing.

Yet it was not mere rumour and curiosity that had brought many of them
there. Certain currents of sympathy were flowing in that black crowd
which dotted the churchyard. No one had particularly loved Theresa; for
her manners, which were neither those of the lady she ought to have been
nor of the gipsy she could not quite be, had for the most part repulsed
and shocked and starched the villagers of Delmonden. But deep in their
hearts was something which urged them to go out and mourn her youth. She
was a young thing dying untimely in the Spring, and, perhaps, there
still survived in them, kept awake by the murmurings of the earth they
lived so near, pale, atavistic memories of the days when, by the
Rother's mouth every Spring, Baldur the Beautiful was slain by a blind
brother's hand.

Mr. Bennet, as he watched his sheep, wondered how much they knew. He had
dammed the streams of gossip on the surface, but he guessed that they
still flowed underground. Dr. Gilpin had certainly done his best; he had
said a great deal and said it incomprehensibly, which was quite the best
way of dealing with the occasion. To have shown reticence would have
roused almost the same surmises as to have spoken clearly. He had
absolute trust in the discretion of the two nurses he had engaged, and
it was possible, he declared, that the real story would never be known
if only Mrs. Millington and George Heasman kept their heads. Both were
doubtful; but George's indiscretions were not likely to go beyond his
family, since he had met, or spoken to, no one since his arrival in
Delmonden. As for Mrs. Millington, both the doctor and the Rector agreed
that the best thing she could do would be to go away for a while. If she
left Goldstrow, if she left it even for the Summer, the scandal might
die down and be forgotten. The doctor undertook to suggest it as a
necessary part of her cure.

The following Sunday, Mr. Bennet thought she had gone, for it was Palm
Sunday and she was not in church. But later he heard that she considered
herself too ill to go, and was still in bed. During the week he thought
but little of her. Holy Week seemed to take Theresa's death out of its
earthly setting and lift it into a dim heavenly significance, with other
trivial, translated things. It was the week of death, of all death, of
all the little swarming crepitant deaths of earth gathered up into one
tremendous Death--of a God who no longer smiled faintly through the
beautiful eyes of Baldur, but wept consumingly through the terrible eyes
of Christ. The pagan priest lost his sense of pressing controversies and
complications, as he tried feebly to minister to the story of that week.
He felt himself lost in the wood of the Passion--Christ's little ass
that had borne him into Jerusalem, now lost in the wood among the horns
of the Unicorns. . . . "They stand staring and looking upon me . . .
save me from the lion's mouth: thou hast heard me also from among the
horns of the Unicorns."

Once more the God had died in the Spring, and the earth mourned--but
hypocritically, for she felt the stirrings of the new life within her,
the life that his death had bought. Sunshine lay over the fields that
were, on this April Friday, the flowery cenacle of the buried Lord.
Already within them the risen life was stirring; Spring had been bought,
was given. The Easter sun blazed down upon the meadows, and in the
church, scented with primroses and willow catkin, children's and old
folks' voices sang windily:

  Lo, the fair beauty of earth, from the death of the winter arising,
  Every good gift of the year now with its Master returns.

The pagan priest came out of the wood of the Passion, stood for a while
in the garden, and then passed back into the controversies and
complications of his daily life.



                                  5

It was Mrs. Bennet who told him that Mrs. Millington was not in church,
and Mrs. Apps and Mrs. Boorman and several others gave him the news that
she had driven into Bulverhythe for service on Easter Sunday. His Easter
Offering went short of that five pounds she had generously contributed
last year, and of the half-crown she might conceivably have given in
this. "I wonder what she means," thought Mr. Bennet to himself.

Evidently she meant to break her connection with Delmonden church. She
was so angry with him that she would no longer accept his ministry. He
hoped that she would soon relent, for her proclaimed and sensational
pilgrimages to Bulverhythe would create a bad impression. He hoped too
that she would leave Goldstrow, if only for a little while, and after
the Easter vestry he walked home with the newly elected people's warden
and asked him if he had offered any advice of that kind.

"Advice! Why, of course I have--but she won't take it. She has her own
prescription."

"What's that?"

"That _you_ should go."

"I! Good heavens! What does the woman mean?"

"That you should resign--just that."

The doctor laughed heartily, but Mr. Bennet looked grim.

"Don't worry, my friend," said the warden; "she'll get over it, and I
feel pretty sure of being able to persuade her abroad before long. But
at present she's obstinate, and she has an obsession in the way of
fixing the blame of that poor girl's death on somebody. It's part of the
after-effect of shock, and if you'll excuse plain speaking, you said
something to her that wasn't very wise."

"What did I say?"

"Apparently something--that suggested she was to blame for Theresa's
death."

"I didn't. I said we were all to blame."

"Well, in her agitated state she seems to have taken it in a way you
didn't intend--or did you intend?"

"I confess that I wanted her to see that she couldn't put all the blame
on George Heasman."

"Quite so; and you probably told her something that she was secretly
conscious of already, for it's become an obsession, and in order to
escape from it she's accusing you."

"Accusing me of what?"

"Of general neglect and slackness in your moral attitude. She's raked up
some preposterous story about a housemaid of hers who once had a baby,
and that appears too to have been your fault."

"Look here----"

"Of course, I just laughed. But about other things I had to be more
sympathetic; though needless to say I took your part. Her ideas are
ridiculous, and as she gets better she'll see it herself and drop them
at--least I hope so."

"I hope so too. It'll come pretty hard on us here if she drives into
Bulverhythe every Sunday for church."

"We shall survive--and I think she'll recover. But, poor soul, she's had
a ghastly experience, even if she did deserve some of it. Meanwhile, I'd
keep out of her way if I were you."

"You're afraid of my upsetting her again?"

"In part," said his physician, frankly--"also she has it in her power to
make things still more unpleasant for you. I think it's only fair to
tell you that she's written to the Bishop."

"Great heavens! She's had the nerve to do that!"

"It's an outlet--and I don't suppose it'll do you much harm. You and I
both know that every Bishop gets dozens of letters like that every week
and just puts them into the waste-paper basket."

"He won't in this case. She's a sort of connection of his by
marriage----"

"Yes, I know--we've all been told. But I don't expect that'll make any
difference--he'll merely send a polite, non-committal answer, and put
her on his black list of interfering women."

"I don't believe it--" the anti-episcopal complex was rising in all its
strength--"I don't believe it. Bishops are only too glad to hear
anything against the more troublesome of their clergy."

"But you're not troublesome."

"A Catholic priest is always troublesome to an Evangelical bishop."

"Oh, come, come. Things aren't so rotten as all that--and I believe most
of the counts against you were moral, not ecclesiastical. He'll just
laugh."

"Most of them . . . then some were ecclesiastical. Do you know what they
were?"

"I don't--though I believe she told me some of them. She complained of
hundreds of things, everything here, in fact, that isn't the same as at
St. Smaragdus, South Kensington. I tell you the Bishop will laugh."

"He won't," said Mr. Bennet, gloomily.



                                  6

A few days later the situation was relieved by Mrs. Millington's
departure. Low Sunday would be spared the scandal of her Daimler humming
past Delmonden church door on its way to Bulverhythe. She had gone to
London, whence probably soon she would set out for the Continent on a
prolonged trip. Dr. Gilpin had done his work, and Delmonden Rectory
breathed an air clear again of the fumes of Goldstrow.

George was still at Ethnam, still sick, still shut away, Mr. Bennet
pondered whether he ought to go to see him. George was none of his
flock, though his parents were nominally in the fold. He ought to go to
see them, yet his whole being recoiled from another interview with
George Heasman. Once again, he knew, he would have to stand in futile
post-mortem over the body of his poor girl, whose death had been lost in
the wood of the Passion.

  So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
  And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
  And tricks his beams and with new-spangled ore
  Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
  So Lycidas, sunk low, is mounted high
  By the dear might of Him who walked the waves. . . .

Once more he had put Theresa back into the sun, and it would be terrible
again to have her come out and once more stand in judgment, while George
accused himself petulantly and vainly, till in the end his own absolved
misdeeds arose and shook their skulls at him--dead giants who shall not
praise the Lord.

Yet he knew that he ought to go, and, in the end, he went, because he
realised that if he did not go, his heart might one day accuse him, and
he dared not face the judgment of another missed opportunity. He could
endure poor George a little for the Lord's sake, a little for Theresa's,
and a little for his own.

It was a quiet warm day at the end of Easter week; the sun had not
broken through the veil of cloud that hung over the earth, and all the
country lay in subdued colours, as if resting Sabbatically at the end of
the Feast. All the greens were a little grey, all the yellows a little
brown, and the first white of the hawthorn seemed shadowed in the hedge.
The air had a heavy, lightly languorous quality, Summer breathing into
April. It seemed to hold and cherish scents rather than let them blow,
so that, at the corner by Castle Toll, Mr. Bennet walked through the
scent of young grass, and, by Lomas, he came into a heavy, hanging smell
of cows and milk, while at Ethnam, where last week's rain still lay in
yellow, hoof-shaped puddles by the gate, rose the slight, secret smell
of the earth herself, to mix with the smell of standing rain, and the
lingering smell of beasts.

The place looked quiet and empty. There did not seem to be anyone about,
but on his way up the drive, he met the ploughman coming down it with a
pair of horses.

"They're at Market, Sir--over at Tenterden. The Master and Mistress too;
though I reckon they'll be home for their tea."

"George Heasman is at home, isn't he?"

"Yes, Sir--he's at home. All alone in the house, if you care to go up
and see him."

"I'll go. Perhaps the Master will come back before I leave."

"Maybe he will, Sir. He'll want to have a look at the Four-Acre field
before it's dusk. We're putting it under the harrow today, and hoping
for a bit less camomile this year."

Mr. Bennet had perforce to follow the example of the joker and laugh at
the joke, though, in his heart, he felt sorry for poor Heasman, with his
plague of camomile. It was partly his own fault, no doubt, for he
starved his fields; but the poor man would be wretched enough when he
had to leave at the end of the year. He had farmed Ethnam for nearly
twenty years under the Fleets, and had not done so badly--only of late
he seemed to have lost heart. Mr. Bennet suspected a hidden story of
ill-health and struggle which would make it all the harder for him to
start in a new place. . . . George's father as well as his sweetheart
had suffered for his sins.

The door of the little house was ajar, and the Rector walked in. He
purposely made a great deal of noise, clattering with his stick, but no
sounds came from above. He went upstairs and knocked at one or two
doors, but nobody answered. He pushed open the doors and looked in, at
the usual furniture--crowded bedrooms of a farmhouse, till he came at
last to George Heasman's room; at least, it looked as if it must be his,
for the bed, unlike the others, had not been made, and the whole little
place showed signs of recent occupation. All this seemed strange, for
George was certainly supposed to be in bed. Mr. Bennet put his hand on
the sheet, which was still warm. No doubt there was a normal
explanation, but he could not check a feeling of alarm, for not only the
room but the whole house was empty. Then he caught sight of two
envelopes on the chest of drawers. Peering at them, he was able to read
the addresses without his spectacles--"Father and Mother." "The
Coroner."

For a moment, he felt paralysed, held by the feet to the shabby brown
carpet, unable to move or to think. Then his brain moved--he knew that
he must act, stop this abominable, lunatic plan of that abominable
lunatic George Heasman. . . . Rage released what fright had bound, and
he dashed out of the room, shouting for help.

He must get hold of someone, call up the men from the fields, the
chicken girl from wherever she had hidden herself, and perhaps they
would be able to catch George and stop him before he had committed his
crowning act of foolery and wickedness. As he ran, he remembered that
the bed was still warm, so the wretched boy could not have been out of
it long. Where was he? How did he propose to end his miserable life? By
drowning himself in a dyke? By hanging himself in a barn? There were
half a dozen ways, each one of which might have taken him to a different
place. Mr. Bennet saw that he had acted too quickly--he ought to have
read the farewell letters, which would possibly have told him what
George proposed to do. But there was no time to go back now he must find
somebody first. The yard seemed empty. He looked into the barns and saw
only shadows; he shouted, but only echoes answered him.

Then as he paused breathless for a moment by the oast-house, he thought
he heard a sound within--a cough. He waited, and there came a whole fit
of coughing. He dashed round to the barn door, and through the great
barn with its piles of straw and roots, to the little door that led into
the oast. There on the earthen floor in the darkness crouched George
Heasman, coughing and gasping, and clutching a big old-fashioned
shot-gun.

Mr. Bennet too was gasping with his haste. They stared at each other in
the dim light that crept down to them through the cowl of the oast. Then
suddenly the boy threw down the gun and cursed.

"Damn you! Why have you come here?"

"To find you--to stop you. What in God's name are you after?"

"My own business."

"I know quite well what that is. I've been into the house--into your
bedroom. Pick yourself up and come back there at once."

George picked himself up, but not to come back. His eyes glared
insanely, and with a sudden crafty movement he seized the gun. Mr.
Bennet sprang forward only just in time, and for a minute they struggled
desperately. George was by age and nature the stronger man of the two,
but his illness had weakened him, and the Rector was able to prevent him
getting the barrel to his head. Then suddenly the gun went off.

In the small funnel-shaped space of the oast the explosion was
indescribable. The noise seemed to run round and round the walls,
crashing and echoing, while the air reeked and stifled with fumes and
stench. At first both George and Mr. Bennet were surprised to find
themselves alive. They sat on the floor with dishevelled hair and grimy
startled faces, rubbing their heads and staring at each other.

The older man recovered himself first.

"You fool!" he cried. "You fool! You fool! You fool!"

"Are you hurt?" asked George, stupidly.

"Hurt! If I'm not it's no thanks to you, you brainless, senseless,
gutless--but I mustn't talk like this. Get up and come home at once."

"I can't. I can't."

"You must. You must get back into bed before you catch pneumonia and
die."

"That's why I came here--to die. And I'd have been dead now and the
world rid of me if you hadn't interfered."

"Thank God I did!"

"Why should you thank God? I'm much better dead."

In his anger against him Mr. Bennet felt inclined to agree, but with an
effort he mastered his dislike of the poor wretched young man.

"Come, come. You mustn't talk like that. Let's go up to the house--I
feel I want a drink of something after a shock like that. And if we stop
here, the men may come in and find us; they're sure to have heard that
noise."

"They won't. They're down in the Four-Acre. I made sure of that before I
came out."

"Then all this was deliberately planned?"

"I reckon it was. You don't shoot yourself all of a sudden with this
sort of gun. I chose a day my Mam and Dad were off to market and the
Four-Acre due to be harrowed. Then I told the gal she could go home till
tea-time, and I fetched the gun, which is the only one I got so I had to
do my best with it. But you must lay down to kill yourself properly with
a shot-gun; and it was that what spoiled my chance, for as soon as I lay
down these days I start coughing . . ."

Talking seemed to have the same effect, and once more a spasm convulsed
him. He hooped his back and the tears streamed down his cheeks. Mr.
Bennet seized him by the arm and dragged him out of the cast while he
was still helpless. He wore only his shirt and trousers, and his bare
feet shuffled reluctantly in the mud and dust of the yard, but he
offered no resistance. He let the Rector bring him into the house, into
the kitchen where a fire was burning.



                                  7

"There now," said Mr. Bennet, pushing him down into an armchair, "you
get warm, and then you can tell me what made you do this thing."

He suddenly felt very sorry for George. Hitherto his chief emotions had
been fear and anger and a sense of haste. His mind had been too full of
turmoil for pity. But now the turmoil had died down, and the pity was
there, plucking at his heart; he looked down uneasily at George, very
much as he had once looked down at Theresa. The pity was not quite the
same; it was not so pure, not so self-reproaching. But here again was a
young life in torment and futility. He looked down at the bowed head
with its brown mass of hair, and something in that bowed young head,
something clumsy and helpless in the bowed neck and shoulders, gave him
a new, tender feeling of fatherhood. George almost became a son.

"You want something to buck you up and warm you," he said, taking the
boy's cold, slack hand. "Is there any brandy in the house?"

"Brandy! Why should there be brandy? Anyway, I wouldn't touch it."

"Ah . . . well, never mind. I'll make you a cup of tea--I'm quite handy
at it, and it won't take long."

He busied himself with a kettle that was pushed to the back of the
stove. George stared at him apathetically. His frenzy over, he seemed to
have collapsed into indifference. He shivered a little as he sat there
by the fire.

"Perhaps you ought to go to bed," said Mr. Bennet.

"I'd sooner stay here. It's warmer."

"I don't want your parents to come in and find you like this."

"They won't come in for a good hour yet. Look here, you won't tell them,
will you? Not them nor anybody?"

"I won't, if you promise me one thing--not to do it again, not to go out
after I'm gone and have another try."

A tired bitter look came on George's face.

"Reckon all that's over--I'd never have the courage to start it again."

"I'm thankful."

"Not but what I hadn't much better have finished it when I was at it.
. . . But I don't want my poor Mam and Dad to know. Reckon I've given
them quite enough trouble. See here, there's my letter to them
upstairs--and to the Coroner. I must get hold of them and burn them,
or maybe they'll be found."

"I'll fetch them now; and I'll fetch that gun out of the oast, or
someone will be wondering how it came there."

"You're very kind."

He seemed grateful far the attention he was receiving, more grateful to
the Rector for waiting on him and running his errands than for having
saved him from death. A few minutes later the gun was back in its place
in the harness room, the letters were in the fire, and George's cold
hands were creeping round the cup of hot tea that Mr. Bennet had given
him.

"You're very kind," he repeated.

"I don't want you to think of it as kindness. I'm just a human being
whom God has sent to be with you in a bad hour."

"I don't believe . . . no, He never sent you. He knows I should ought to
be dead."

"Don't talk like that. Remember what you are."

"What I am! O Lord! that's good! As if I could forget."

"You know that isn't what I mean. I'm only trying to remind you that
you're a preacher of the Gospel."

"I'm not. I haven't preached for over a year now--not since . . . I'll
never preach again."

"Why?"

"Because--well, you needn't pretend you don't know."

"I know why you haven't been preaching since you left Delmonden but I
can't see any reason why you shouldn't preach again."

"I can see plenty--and so I reckon would you if I was after taking
orders in your Church."

Mr. Bennet made himself suddenly busy again with the tea-kettle. He must
not allow himself to be provoked.

He said, after a while:

"I should rejoice if I thought that at any future time there was a
chance of your taking orders in my Church, as you call it. I know you've
sinned--but surely you believe in the forgiveness of sins?"

"For them that repent."

"And haven't you repented?"

"How do I know? How can I know? I've sought a place of repentance, but
maybe there's none for such as me."

"How can there be none?"

George did not speak. He covered his face.

"There is a sin unto death," he groaned suddenly.

"But, my dear boy. My dear good fellow, what makes you think you have
committed it?"

"My own heart tells me . . . and if our heart condemn us, then God is
greater than our hearts. You don't seem to take in what I've done. I've
sinned against the light. There was I, a Preacher of the Lord's Gospel,
saved from Satan, knowing the truth, there was I giving myself back to
Satan in fornication and murder----"

"Come, come--that last word's too much."

"It ain't. If I hadn't loved her, she'd be alive now. But my love killed
her, because it was a sinful love that betrayed the innocent. Oh, you
wouldn't believe the innocent lamb she was--and I took advantage of her
innocence, her kindness . . . and now she's dead, killed by my sins. . . .
O God, how shall I bear it! How shall I bear it! The memory of her is
killing me. I must die."

"Don't speak like that. Remember you're a human soul."

"I'm a lost soul--who deserves to be lost, because I sinned against the
light. The Lord sent me a warning in a dream, but I wouldn't heed--I was
blind and deaf with sin. Then he sent me another warning--'Repent ye and
believe the Gospel'--but it was too late. All I could do then was to
hurt her sweet soul--she cried, she suffered, because I abused her for
her kindness to me. Leastways I didn't abuse her, but I said we were
both sinners; and she couldn't understand. I couldn't convince her of
sin, for all I was a Preacher of the Gospel--my power was gone. It had
been taken from me because I misused it. I should have brought her soul
to Christ, instead of which I brought it to Satan. Reckon I'm no better
than Satan's pimp and bully. . . . I deserve to die and go to hell at
once . . . not another day of life, even a life like this. And I can't
live without my sweet girl; I want her, I want her . . . oh, don't think
I was killing myself for my sins only, because I've lost the Gospel--but
because she's gone, and I shall never, never have her. And oh, I want
her--my little one, my little one . . ."

Mr. Bennet was shocked. He stood up, he took a pace across the room;
then he came back and laid his hand on George's shoulder. He tried to
make him drink some of the cooling tea; but the boy rocked himself,
weeping, and would not be comforted. Then it struck Mr. Bennet that his
frenzy might be relieving him--it might be what Dr. Gilpin called an
"outlet," like Mrs. Millington's letter to the Bishop. George too had
picked a mandrake, a screaming root, screaming "Sin! sin! sin!" in his
sick brain.

"I wish I could help you," he said brokenly, "I wish I could help you."

He was appalled at the abyss between him and George Heasman. What could
he do for this young man who had stirred in him so strangely the
half-unwilling feelings of a father? He could not give him the
absolution that would have been the only possible medicine for his own
soul. He felt all at sea, too, in the Calvinist's theological dilemmas.
Why was he so sure that there could be no forgiveness for him? Why must
he deny himself his right of atonement, of mending his life where he had
broken it, of preaching the Gospel as a sinner saved?

"You ought to have let me finish it," wailed the boy; "oh, I was a fool
not to have gone and drowned myself in the dyke. Then you wouldn't have
found me."

"I should still have found you if God had meant it."

"I can't believe He meant it. I belong to Satan, so the sooner he has me
the better."

"How can you speak like that? I refuse to believe that there's anything
in your religion which countenances such a monstrous idea. Think of
Theresa--how she would hate to hear you talking in that way."

"She did hate it--yet that was how I talked. Oh, I tell you, I made her
suffer. I tried to convince her of sin, but she couldn't understand. The
Lord had taken his word out of my mouth, and I had no power to save
her--my lamb, my darling one. Oh, when I think of her as I saw her then,
all hurt and scared and loving, I feel there's nothing, nothing I
wouldn't suffer to make up for what I've done."

"Well, your death wouldn't have helped her, but your life may."

"How?"

Once more the theological gulf yawned between them, and Arminius stared
helplessly at Calvin.

"Can't you believe that if you give your life to God you'll also be
giving it to her?"

George shook his head.

"There is such a thing," Mr. Bennet forced himself to continue, "and I'm
sure it can be seen from your point of view as well as from mine--there
is such a thing as a life of reparation."

"Not for me. How can I repair a thing that's dead? My life's dead--I've
lost my girl and I've lost my Gospel. All I can do now is to sell tea."

"Well, you might make a very good reparation out of selling tea . . .
but I'm quite sure you will preach again."

"I shan't. How should I dare?"

Mr. Bennet suddenly felt angry with him and his whole point of view.

"I think you're insulting the goodness of God. After all, your sin was
chiefly a sin of the body, and I believe that such sins often count less
with God than they count with men."

But George would have none of that.

"Reckon you don't seem to grasp the meaning and nature of sin. I've
sinned against the light . . . and even if I haven't sinned unto death,
I've sinned beyond anything that's allowed in a Minister of the Gospel.
The Calvinistic Methodist Council would never admit me to the Ministry
if they knew what I'd done, and I'd never feel right if I gained
admittance without their knowing."

"But you can preach without being ordained a Minister. You were
preaching at Providence all last year."

"I was given the charge. They'd never give me another charge now."

He sighed deeply, staring through the little window where the afternoon
light spilled itself among pots of musk and geranium. He was calmer now,
and the idea of preaching seemed to have taken hold of his sagging
mind--at least enough hold for him to feel a certain pain at its
abandonment. Mr. Bennet suddenly saw it as his one chance of recovery.
After all, preaching had been his life for the last four years--his job
in Cranbrook had been mere bread-winning, mere means to an end, and that
end the ministry; even his love for Theresa had been a strange and brief
experience, in conflict with the rest of life. His real life lay in
those homiletic hours in the pulpits of Bethel and Providence, and in
the dreams of which they were the crisis. He could never be happy as a
small tradesman, never happy as a small farmer; even as Theresa's
husband he must have pined for the ways denied him. For the first time,
Mr. Bennet saw George Heasman as a man who had received much the same
sort of call as himself--different in its nature and authority, but none
the less imperative. Experience told him it must be obeyed no matter
what stood in the way. No sense of personal worthlessness must keep him
from fulfilling it. George, like himself, was the victim of a vocation
. . . If he was blind, then his eyes must be opened.

"Look here," he said, his voice shaking a little with the drive of his
discovery--"I want you to forget I'm a Parson, and take my advice just
as you would from a man older than yourself, who's had a lot of
experience in the same line of business. My own opinion is that this
reluctance of yours to undertake preaching, this exaggerated feeling of
unworthiness, is simply another of the wiles of Satan, trying to keep
you from obeying the Lord's will."

"You think that it's the Lord's will I should preach?"

"I do."

"A sinner who's sinned against the light?"

"We've all sinned against the light; and even taking for granted that
you sinned as no other man has before--which I don't take for granted in
the least--that only makes you more fit to preach the Gospel to sinners,
to give them the good news of the forgiveness of sins. No preacher is
worth anything if he preaches any other way--as a sinner to sinners.
I've long known that."

"Folk should look up to their preacher."

"Look up to his office and his message--not to him. How do you know that
all this you've been through hasn't been a special call from God, to fit
you better for your work?"

"I'll never believe it was God who tempted me to sin--to do evil that
good might come."

"But don't you believe that he can bring good out of evil?"

"Not out of sin."

"Yes, out of sin. Have you never heard the words 'Oh, happy fault, which
has brought us so great a salvation'?"

"That is strange doctrine."

"Not so strange as a sin which can never be forgiven. If there's one
thing we preachers are especially prone to, it's self-righteousness, and
I believe that is more awful in the sight of God than any sin--murder,
adultery, any of 'em. So it's a happy fault that saves us from
self-righteousness. _O felix culpa_----"

"Latin!" cried George, "I thought it was Latin. I knew it wasn't the
Gospel."

"Salvation for sinners--isn't that the Gospel?"

"Yes, but not salvation through sin. I'd like to see what 'ud happen if
I preached that sort of stuff in any chapel of our connection."

"Don't preach it in chapel. Why don't you go and preach to the poor folk
who never go to chapel? If the Council won't have you for a minister,
why don't you go outside and preach to those outside; those the parsons
and ministers can never reach?"

George looked thoughtful, almost as if he dreamed his dreams again.

"It's a work that wants doing," urged Mr. Bennet, on fire with his new
idea. "Perhaps God has called you to it. Think of the poor folk, in the
country as well as in the towns, who have never heard the good news of
salvation--gipsies and tramps . . ."

"She said that," said George, slowly, "she said, 'Wouldn't it be fine to
go and preach to the gipsies?'"

"Well, perhaps she's still saying it."

"No, no--I'll never believe that. No, she's saying nothing."

His manner had once more grown agitated, and Mr. Bennet banished
Theresa's pleading ghost.

"There's your Gospel," he said, "your good news from a pardoned sinner."

"How do I know I'm a pardoned sinner?"

"Won't you take it from me?"

"I can't take it from you or from any man. I must have my own
assurance."

"But can't I help you to your own assurance? You're very tired, and your
feelings are as tired as your thoughts. Don't you believe that the voice
of God can speak to you through a living man as well as through a text
in the Bible? Wouldn't it help you at all if I said 'by the authority
the Lord gave me when he called me to preach the Gospel, I tell you that
you are free from all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost'?"

As the end of the phrase became to him familiar, often-repeated words,
his voice rang with a note that impressed George Heasman. He hesitated:

"I dunno. But I can't believe the Lord gave you any authority or called
you to preach the Gospel. . . . But I believe that you're a kind man,
and I've misjudged you. . . . Maybe the Lord has taught you things that
he's hidden from my heart. I can't see no reason why his Word shouldn't
come to me through you."

He bowed his head, and, still moved by that fatherly impulse, Mr. Bennet
laid his hand upon it. For a moment they stayed thus; then George shied
suddenly like a colt, and the hand fell.



                   VI. Mrs. Iggulsden (1st Battle)



                                  1

For some little while after he had left him, after he had seen him
sitting with his parents at a happier tea-making, Mr. Bennet wondered
how soon he ought to go again to see George Heasman. Had he given him
any help--apart from having turned him from death? And if so, ought he
to water the seed with his sympathy, or leave it to germinate more
sturdily alone? Just as he had made up his mind, two days later, to go
over to Ethnam, the news came that young Heasman had left Kent. He had
suddenly said that he felt much better, and had gone back to Newbury.

Mr. Bennet was hurt--this abrupt departure suggested a repudiation.
George evidently wanted to forget the scene in Ethnam's kitchen, as well
as the scene in Ethnam's oast, and to deny that one had brought him any
more comfort than the other. He might at least have shown a little
courtesy to the man who had shown him hospitality when he was an outlaw
and had pulled him out of the grave just as he was going down into it
. . . even if his efforts to give spiritual as well as material succour
had failed against the hard casing of the young man's soul.

"I'm afraid he's a cub," he said to his wife. "I've always tried to
think he isn't, but no sooner do I get a good impression of him than he
behaves like a cub."

"You really can't judge him by his behaviour now. The poor boy's
desperate. I've never liked him myself, I'm afraid, but I've always felt
sorry for him."

"I don't see that you need. His misfortunes are his own fault and other
people suffer more from them than he does."

He could not tell even his wife one of the reasons why he felt so deeply
injured--of the wound given to the new-quickened sense of fatherhood
that had moved him towards George . . . a daughter and a son--one was
dead and the other despised him.

Then, a few days later, a letter came which changed his opinion, and
made him see himself once more as an irascible old man who judged too
hastily. George wrote from Oxfordshire, repentant of any neglect. He had
suddenly seen that he must go, that he must get away from Kent where his
presence was incriminating his parents in the eyes of Goldstrow, which
still watched Ethnam from London. He must be able to think things over
and make plans, and he must also keep his job and earn some money.


I don't think I shall stay on here. I would rather go somewhere else and
I shall ask them to move me. So I must not offend them by stopping at
home too long. Work will do me good, though it is only selling tea. I
have been thinking a great deal about what you said, that maybe the Lord
has still some work for me to do. I have felt a powerful call in my
heart to preach to sinners. Also I had a dream in which those words you
spoke were given me: "O happy fault, which has brought us so great a
Salvation." I fear that they are not in Scripture, but I can believe
that as you say the Lord may sometimes speak to us by the voice of a
living man. If ever I can, with a clear conscience, preach again I shall
eternally give thanks and pray for you to the Father. But anyway I shall
have to keep on my job, as I cannot ever be a salaried minister. But now
I think it is better I shall not be, as I can speak more freely and to
sinners as well as saints. Please accept my grateful thanks for your
kindness to me in my misery. You have been very kind.

Yours in the way of His judgments,

                                                      GEORGE HEASMAN.


"Well," cried Mrs. Bennet, when her husband read out the letter to her,
"I'm glad he appreciates what you did for him, but I really think he
might remember what I did for him too. When he first came here that
awful day, he put down his head on my shoulder and cried. It was me he
wanted then, and his supper and his bed. That was what comforted him
when he was at his worst. He seems to forget that his body once wanted
comfort as well as his soul."

But Mr. Bennet now would hear nothing against George. He had entirely
forgotten that he had once thought him a cub.



                                  2

There were two postal deliveries at Delmonden Rectory, one in the
morning and one in the afternoon, and the afternoon brought the Rector a
letter which wiped out all the pleasure and hope the morning had given
him. It was now so long since he had heard Mrs. Millington's threat of
writing to the Bishop, that he had begun to think it had not been
carried out, or else had ended, as Dr. Gilpin foretold, in the episcopal
waste-paper basket. But here was a letter blazoned with the somewhat
recent heraldry of the see of Maidstone, and closing, as he anxiously
turned the page, with the flourishes of a regional signature.

It began after the deceptively friendly manner of Bishops "My dear Mr.
Bennet," and in between that and the "Yours sincerely, Herbert
Maidstone," came much that the Bishop's chaplain had begged him not to
write. "If I were you, my Lord," he had said, for he was privileged with
his master, "I'd keep Mrs. Millington's name out of it. Her moral
charges are, as you say, ridiculous, and if the others are correct,
you'll deal with them more easily if he doesn't know she's interfered."
But the Bishop had thought such evasion reprehensible. Tact sometimes
had a way of appearing to him as double dealing. "Besides, he ought to
know if his parishioners complain. One thing I have against these men is
that they drive excellent people away from the Church, and one hears
nothing about it, because as a rule nobody likes making a fuss. I think
he ought to know that his practices are objected to, because I don't
suppose any of his village folk would tell him."

So he wrote to Mr. Bennet:


Of course I do not for one moment consider these absurd charges. They
are due to her suffering state of mind, which has given her, as is not
unusual, a totally misleading view of the situation. When her grief has
abated, she will come to herself and realise how much you have done for
her niece and how much you, too, must have suffered on her account. But
I feel I cannot quite so easily dismiss her complaint that in the midst
of all her suffering she was unable to receive "the most comfortable
Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ," owing to your custom of
reserving the consecrated species in church, and consequent refusal to
celebrate in a private house according to the plain directions of the
Book of Common Prayer. Therefore I enclose a leaflet, which is a reprint
of instructions issued to my clergy in this month's "Diocesan Gazette."
I feel sure that I can rely on your loyal co-operation, and that the
practices therein mentioned will be cheerfully given up by you. I have
every confidence in a minister so experienced and devoted as yourself.


"Bah!" shouted Mr. Bennet, though there was nobody to hear. He was so
angry that for a minute or two he could not trust himself to read the
leaflet the Bishop enclosed. The "Diocesan Gazette" had come just after
Theresa's death and therefore not surprisingly had been put aside
unread. This leaflet would tell him the worst--would bring him out of
the purity of great suffering and the dignity of Easter and Passiontide
into the petty irritations of ecclesiastical controversy. Why couldn't
they let him alone? And how had Mrs. Millington dared tell such a
lie?--among other lies, no doubt, but the Bishop had had the sense to
disregard the others, whereas in this his prejudice had blinded him, and
he would persecute--persecute . . .

The leaflet, when read, was found to consist chiefly in the condemnation
of certain practices unknown to Delmonden; indeed some of them would
have been condemned by Mr. Bennet himself, would he not, by doing so,
have found himself in agreement with his Bishop. Only at the end was
there anything bearing on the present case, and that was a paragraph
stating that:


The practice of Reservation for the sick is forbidden in this diocese. I
know that certain of the Bishops have gone behind the recent decision of
parliament and made rules which I consider _ultra vires_. In large
industrial areas, or in big towns where there are many sick, special
emergency regulations might be temporarily put in force; but Maidstone
is almost entirely an agricultural diocese, and these considerations do
not arise. I am prepared to listen to arguments put forward by the
clergy of parishes of more than five thousand souls; smaller parishes
will find, if they exercise the virtues of good will and good
understanding, that the present regulations amply fulfil all need.


"Bah!" shouted Mr. Bennet again.

It was all ghastly, this atmosphere of petty warfare, which he had
breathed so painfully in the first years of his ministry; to which he
must now return after twenty-five years of sweeter air. True, he would
not have to breathe it if he surrendered on a single point, but it was
not in his nature to surrender. Apart from his ingrown fear and mistrust
of Bishops, the issue at stake was vital to his ministry. If he gave
way, he was offending the little ones--putting stumbling-blocks in the
way of the humbler, more ignorant sheep. How could he go to Mrs.
Iggulsden and say that he could no longer bring her the Bread of Life,
which she, almost alone in the parish, preferred to tabioca pudding? It
would not help her much if he were to come laden with ecclesiastical
paraphernalia, and attempt to perform a solemn liturgical service within
the three square feet of space in her tiny, crowded bedroom. To do so
would necessarily reduce her from a weekly comfort to a quarterly
anxiety. . . . No, he could not ask her to endure so much--at the end of
her strength, at the end of her time, when she had every claim to the
kindness of the world she was leaving. . . . Somehow or other the Bishop
must be convinced that she and one or two like her were as important as
any five thousand souls for whom he might make emergency regulations.
Bah!

Indignant, and still muttering, Mr. Bennet sat down to write a most
unsubmissive letter to his diocesan, but he had not achieved more than a
few lines when Mrs. Bennet came into the room.

"What's the matter, Harry?"

He told her, as he told her everything connected with the parish, though
he had a theory that he never consulted her. She turned a little white
as he spoke, and pressed her lips together. It was long, long since they
had had this sort of emergency, not since they had left the north. Her
first words surprised him.

"Damn that wretched woman!"

"My dear----"

"Well, I can't help it. I've often thought it, and now I've said it."

"I'm glad you have. Up till now you've always taken her part against
me."

"Oh, Harry!"

She looked at him miserably, and the letter he was writing. She
regretted and resented what had happened--chiefly because of its effect
on him--as he regretted and resented, it because of its effect on Mrs.
Iggulsden. Here he was near the end of his strength, the end of his
ministry, with every claim to peace and kindness, being driven back into
the old warfare that had harried his youth.

"Yes, you always made me truckle to her," he was saying, "but it was no
use. Such a woman will have one's blood somehow, and now I wish I'd kept
my dignity."

"I can't see that you've lost it by being patient. She really has
nothing against you, and if the Bishop will look into her complaint----"

"He'll see it's all a lie. She never even asked me . . . not that I'd
have . . . how dared she . . ."

"Harry, you mustn't get so angry. You're all trembling, and I'm afraid
you'll----"

"Well, is it surprising? Here have I been ministering in Delmonden for
over twenty-six years, and not a breath of opposition until now, when a
purse-proud woman demands I shall resign because she can't buy my soul."

"It isn't that, dear. Really it's nothing to do with the Church at
bottom. She wants you to go because at present she can't bear the sight
of you--you remind her of this dreadful thing she wants to forget . . .
and I expect she's hurt, too, because Theresa chose to come to us, and
died in our house. I think that hurt her terribly."

"That's just it. She knows she's been a criminal to that girl, so she
wants to punish me."

"She'll feel better when she's come back from abroad. Then she'll
probably see she's been unjust."

"Look here! I thought you said she was a damned woman. I'll hold you to
that."

"I do hold to it. I think she's behaved unpardonably, but you mustn't
make it worse."

"How can I make it worse?"

"By writing off to the Bishop in a hurry like that, without thinking it
over or consulting anybody."

"I'm consulting you, ain't I? Even though you have no canonical
existence."

"Well, I wish you'd consult somebody who has. Why not go over and see
Mr. Barnes at Trillinghurst, or Mr. Smith at Witsunden?"

"They'd be no use."

"Of course they would. They've probably had these leaflets sent to them
and will have to do something about it. You've often told me that the
clergy ought to act together."

"And am I never to tell the Bishop about that woman's lies?"

"Yes, of course. But there's other things . . . anyhow, darling, don't
write when you're so angry--please don't."

She could see herself as a young woman--wearing a dress that now seemed
absurd, with a red and white striped bustle at the back--leaning over
his shoulder as she was leaning now, and pleading with him in the same
anxious, coaxing words.



                                  3

He took her advice to the extent of postponing his letter till he had
consulted one or two of the other clergy who were likely to be involved
in the Bishop's declaration. A puzzle of country buses brought him first
to Trillinghurst and then to Witsunden. At both the counsel was the
same--"Don't start a fight."

"But he's started it," said Mr. Bennet.

"He hasn't. He's merely passed on a complaint which you can tell him is
a lie, and sent you a leaflet which at the present moment is in every
clergyman's waste-paper basket. Why don't you write him a polite,
stand-offish sort of letter, putting the facts before him, and saying
that of course you'll study his directions most carefully and he can
always count on your loyalty and devotion and all that sort of thing?
That's what we used to do at St. Saviour's, Marlingate, and nothing more
ever happened."

It was Witsunden who spoke, sunk deep in a garden chair at the corner of
his tangled lawn, sucking at a pipe and really more interested in the
doings of a missionary who was staying with him than in the crisis at
Delmonden. The missionary had just told the story of how his flock had
tried to poison him--describing, more flippantly than Mr. Bennet
approved, how he had felt when he stood before the altar and smelled in
his chalice the recognised fumes of a horrible death. "I'd never seen
the church so full before--now I knew why, and I tell you I hadn't felt
so hot and bothered in all my life. But I couldn't funk it--if I did I
was denying the Presence to myself and to them. . . . So I made an act
of faith and went through--and not even a headache afterwards, not even
a headache. I took the cruet to our doctor to analyse, and he said there
was enough dope in it to kill ten men. My! You never saw such a
disappointed crowd as my congregation."

"We have too many poisoned chalices in England," said Witsunden,
"poisoned with controversy--enough to kill ten churches. You know
Blake's poem about the serpent who--

                   Vomited his poison out
                   On the bread and on the wine
                   So I turned into a sty
                   And laid me down among the swine.

And that's why--because so many good Englishmen go and do as the poet
did--I'm advising our friend here to keep the peace."

"Peace can be bought too dear. I should lose my own peace of mind if I
evaded the issue."

"But one has to evade issues in the Church of England. There are so many
and most of them so footling that if we didn't evade them we'd never get
on with our jobs. After all, our only job is to save souls, so don't let
us be side-tracked into the marshes where Bishops boom and nothing else
ever happens."

"It's because I know it's my job to save souls that I feel I can never
keep the peace, as you call it. My people's souls are the issue at
stake."

"But surely your people's souls will do better if you let the Bishop
alone and he lets you alone."

"He won't let me alone."

"I tell you he will. He doesn't want to be forced into the open--he
doesn't want to know what you're doing. He's been made to notice you,
but he's only too anxious to let the whole thing drop. If you start an
argument he'll have to take action of some sort. He'd much rather leave
you to get on with your work."

"I don't believe it. My experience of Bishops dates back some forty
years, and I tell you they're statesmen--nothing but statesmen. They
don't care twopence about souls."

"Some don't, I agree. But I think this man does."

"Then he's all the more likely to see my case if I put it to him
clearly."

"The whole point is that he doesn't want to see it. If he does, he won't
be able to turn his blind eye to you any longer."

"I don't want his blind eye. I want the truth."

"Well, if there's to be the light of truth in your parish, there's got
to be a blind eye at Maidstone. That's the law of the Church of
England--we may not like it but there it is. And I don't mind telling
you that I'm being dashed disinterested over all this. Where you're
breaking the law in one instance, I'm breaking it in six, and it'll be
all the better for me if the Bishop drops on you. He can't run in every
clergyman in the diocese who doesn't conform, so if you draw his fire
he's all the more likely to let me alone. Since you've done me the
honour of asking my advice, I can only repeat that the best thing to do
is to write him a respectful, non-committal letter and simply let the
matter drop--which it will, without a doubt."

But Mr. Bennet would not listen to the soothsaying of Witsunden. To him
it was dishonour, saying "peace, peace," where there was no peace. After
all, the young man had been a baby when he, Mr. Bennet, was fighting the
northern wolf in shepherd's clothing . . . and he had been brought up in
a new and frivolous tradition that made fun of heresy and persecution.
He and the younger clergy like him were of the same generation as the
men who had joked in the trenches, who had made bitter fun of death and
bitter jokes about dead men and the shells that blew them to pieces. He
could never be the same as these young, disillusioned, faithful men.
Their warfare was not his. . . . He left them talking about Father
Somebody who was suffering miserably from an anchoress living in his
church tower . . . miracles and anchoresses--and both a little funny;
such an atmosphere was at once too rare and too profane for Delmonden.



                                  4

Mr. Bennet went his own way. He would not shirk the issues, as he called
them, to rest in the comfortable darkness of Maidstone's blind eye.
Maidstone must be made to see--not only for his own sake but for the
sake of truth how monstrous were his directions in one respect at least.
He must realise that worse than having one law for the rich and another
for the poor, is to have the law of the rich only, for rich and poor
alike. The first letter was a song of Mrs. Iggulsden, her piety, her
sickness, and her sickroom; it digressed into the likelihood of Mrs.
Body, too, becoming bedridden before long, and it ended with one or two
regrettable remarks about Mrs. Millington. Altogether, it was not a wise
letter to send an Episcopal enemy, and Mrs. Bennet's heart might well
sink when she saw it lying ready for the post. She had not been
consulted or allowed to read it, and experience told her it was a bad
sign when her husband fled her counsel.

Nothing was said by either of them till the answer came; then Mr. Bennet
could not keep his indignation to himself. The Bishop simply swept aside
Mrs. Iggulsden and her sick-room, and he did not give so much as a
typewritten line to Mrs. Body.


Doubtless there are difficulties, but I feel sure that these can be
overcome. I cannot allow one solitary case to upset the rule of the
diocese. I have said that in parishes of over five thousand souls I am
willing to make special arrangements, but the population of Delmonden is
under five hundred and I cannot see that there is any need for
exceptional treatment. I am sorry you saw fit to write as you did about
Mrs. Millington. She has as much claim to your forebearance and sympathy
as any poor woman in your parish. I sometimes feel urged to remind
clergy of your school that rich people also have souls to be saved!


"Souls!" cried Mr. Bennet, "souls! What does he know or care about
souls? Why, he doesn't even notice 'em unless there's five thousand.
Souls in bundles--souls at five a penny . . . that's how they go at
Maidstone. While even a sparrow . . ."

Mrs. Bennet pressed his hand silently. She wanted to soothe him, but did
not know how. He was taking it more hardly than he had taken his
northern troubles. He had been a young man then, and had gone into
battle better armed. Now he was an old man, unable to fight as he had
fought--though he would never own it. In her heart she did not want him
to fight at all. Even though she was on his side, believing what he
believed and loving what he loved, she wished he would surrender,
despising herself for the wish. A true Christian woman, she felt sure,
would have stood at his side and urged him on, not caring for
consequences--not caring whether the fight maimed him or killed him
because he was old and his arm had lost its strength and his sword its
cunning. . . . She obviously was not a true Christian woman, only an old
woman who loved her old husband, and wanted them both to end their days
together in peace----

"Peace, peace, where there is no peace."

Her thoughts must have reached him, for she had not spoken. But they had
lived so long together that even their thoughts had become part of the
things they had in common.

"Peace--you all want peace. You want me to surrender, and that fellow at
Witsunden wants me to shirk the issues. But I won't be a coward to
please you or a humbug to please him. I tell you I'm going to fight."

So the fight went on--but not for long, because the Bishop had a weapon
which the Rector had not had to meet in his northern battles. He was
forbearing, and refrained from using it till he saw no other would
serve. Then he wrote and curtly told Mr. Bennet that he could go his own
way, but if he persisted in his rebellion against diocesan law he could
not expect any help from diocesan funds; in other words, his income
would be reduced from three hundred and fifty pounds a year to just over
one hundred and fifty.

But with this threat, he also sent a suggestion which might help the
rebel to a more honourable peace. His chaplain wished he had held back
the threat till his suggestion had been spurned, but again the Bishop
could not bring himself to believe that tact was honest. He suggested
that the special difficulties of Mrs. Iggulsden's case could be met by
taking her the Sacrament straight from the Altar, after the celebration.
This, he said, he was willing to allow, as it was a primitive custom,
authorised in the Church since the Reformation, and not so liable to
abuse as Delmonden's present way. In his opinion it would meet Mrs.
Iggulsden's need entirely and at the same time conform to the law of the
diocese.

As was only to be expected, the threat made more impression on Mr.
Bennet than the offered compromise.

"So he's trying to starve me. I never thought he'd stoop so low as that.
But of course he thinks a clergyman can always be starved . . . and most
of 'em can. But he'll find I'm tough; he'll find I'm precious tough."

"Darling, we can't live on a hundred and fifty pounds a year."

"Are you turning against me too?"

"You know I'm not."

"But you're not standing by me in this battle I'm fighting for the
Catholic faith, for my rights as a parish priest, and the souls in my
charge. Think of all that--and yet you say we can't live on a hundred
and fifty pounds a year."

"Well, can we?"

"Why can't we?"

"Because--because--" Mrs. Bennett's voice faltered as her hope became
more and more ignobly centred on compromise--"it's been hard enough to
live on three hundred and fifty, with this big house. We shouldn't
manage even now if it wasn't for what people give us--everyone is so
kind."

"And won't they go on being kind?"

"How can we expect it? If the Bishop puts the church 'under discipline,'
I'm sure that a certain number of our people will dislike it and go
elsewhere."

"Let 'em go. I don't want anyone to stay who worries about being 'under
discipline.' I'd far rather have nothing but loyal folk round us."

"But if well-to-do people go, like the Cheesemans or the Ingpens, that
means we'll never have enough to run the church on. Already there's a
terrible difference with Mrs. Millington away----"

"I hope she stays away, whatever happens. I never want to see her face
again, however much she pays."

"Harry, I think you're being very unchristian."

"Because I won't compromise the Christian faith?"

"No--but the way you talk is so dreadful . . . darling, I can't bear you
to be in a state like this. I'm not asking you to do anything against
your conscience, and certainly nothing that would hurt dear Mrs.
Iggulsden. But can't we at least consider this way out that the Bishop
suggests?"

"It's no way out for me."

"I don't see why not. She wouldn't suffer--it would be just the same to
her as it is now."

"It wouldn't if she was dying . . . and there are other people to
consider besides Mrs. Iggulsden. I expect to have a number of sick cases
next Winter--there are a great many old folk on the edge of breaking up;
and Miss Bell is always ill. You don't seem to understand--you don't
grasp that it would--would break my heart if a single soul in my charge
asked for the Bread of Life and was denied."

His voice faltered, shaken no longer now with rage but with pastoral
love and indignation. Her heart failed within her for the part that she
must play.

"My dear, I do understand. Oh, please believe that I do. I'm only trying
. . . I mean the chance of anything like that happening must be one in
hundreds."

"I don't care if it's one in thousands; as long as there's a single
chance. I simply daren't take it. Don't you see that I'm answerable for
these people to God--not to the Bishop? Besides, all this isn't really
the point. It's a matter of principle as well as practice. If I give
way, I deny the faith, I deny the rights, the obligations of my
priesthood--if I give way, under threat. . . . Do you really expect me
to write to the Bishop and tell him I can be bought?"

"No, of course not. But I don't see that he's buying you if you fall in
with his offer. If you like you can suggest that it's only a temporary
compromise."

His anger flared at her suddenly, as if she were an enemy seeking to
betray his pastoral love.

"You don't know anything about it at all. This is a matter of
principle--a matter of theology, and I do wrong to argue with you about
it. You should keep out of all this sort of thing altogether--I've been
a fool to let you come into it so much. I've often told you that,
canonically, you simply don't exist."

"But I exist for all other practical purposes," she said, trembling and
stiffening at his attack--"and I don't see how I'm to go on existing on
a hundred and fifty pounds a year."

"You can do it perfectly well if I can. I'll never believe it can't be
managed. After all, there are only two of us."

Mrs. Bennet suddenly and startlingly burst into tears.

"Yes, yes, I know there are only two, and you're glad there are only
two; you're glad your daughter is dead, so that you can go your own way
and sacrifice everybody and everything to your ideas, which are just
pig-headedness and vanity if only you knew it. You--you make me hate
religion when you talk like that."

"Lucy, Lucy!"

Never had she spoken to him so before, never had he been allowed to see
the breaking point of her spirit. In dismay and tenderness his rage
collapsed, and his arms enfolded her.



                                  5

She made him so ashamed of himself, that he consented to do as she
begged him and seek further advice. This was taken at Bulverhythe, where
for many years his old Tractarian confessor had sat in judgment on the
besetting sin. He seemed now to see the present crisis rather too much
in terms of the besetting sin--he regarded the bought, ignoble
compromise of Maidstone as an opportunity for its mortification; and
being an old Tractarian, he insisted that the Bishop was acting within
his rights. He saw certain difficulties but no treacheries involved by
obedience, and he counselled his elderly penitent to accept the offer
that had been made him and trust the God of Lowder and Stanton and
Dolling to bring a fruitful harvest out of his wasted field.

"You must wait," he said; "we have waited for everything."

Mr. Bennet thought that he had already waited long enough, and was
growing too old to wait much longer.

But he obeyed. The pressure against him was too strong. In his calmer
moments even he saw that he and Lucy could not hope to live on a hundred
and fifty pounds a year. True, he might resign his living, but it would
be difficult to find another at his age, and with his Bishop's word
against him; and his heart turned sick at the thought of leaving
Delmonden. No, he must stay, and trust that things would change--some
day, somehow, according to the hope of the Tractarian who waits for
everything. After all, he belonged of right to the older, patient
generation; he had little in common with the young men such as
Witsunden, with their intrigues and their jokes and their sensations. It
would profit him nothing to come out of his time and range himself with
them--they would only misunderstand him. He would be like the bat in the
fable, whom beast and bird disowned. He must keep his place among the
old patient people. All this he thought rather sadly as he surrendered.

He surrendered, and nobody and nothing reproached him. The Bishop wrote
him a thankful, fatherly letter, which rejoiced the heart of Mrs.
Bennet, but which Mr. Bennet put in the fire. Mrs. Iggulsden did not
know that anything had changed--he had carefully hidden from her the
fact that an ecclesiastical battle had raged round the humbled needs of
her soul. Her ignorance, it must be confessed, was shared by most of the
parish, for Mrs. Bennet had persuaded him not to make his sacrifices the
subject of a sermon. The churchwardens and one or two others had done
their best to understand the principles involved, but the rank and file
of the villagers of Delmonden, preoccupied with such matters as the
Spring sowings and the coming hay-crop, the state of their gardens, and
the Summer's chances, were not likely to notice that, in a dark corner
of Delmonden church, a lamp had been extinguished before an empty
shrine. Indeed, one or two folk whom he had taught to pray there, still
came, and he had not the heart to tell them that the shrine was empty.
Their prayers certainly were needed still.

Even Delmonden church did not reproach him for the presence withdrawn.
He had expected it to reproach him, for its shadows had closed like a
womb over a mystery which, till restored by him, it had not known for
nearly four hundred years. It was still as friendly, still as
comforting--its old walls saturated with prayer and no doubt the
memories of even bitterer disillusions. After all, it had lived through
bigger changes and blacker compromises than this. The record of its
clergy which hung at the west end--from Ranulph de Burghersh appointed,
in 1282, by the monks of Battle Abbey down to Henry Seton Bennet
appointed, in 1904, by Keble College Oxford--seemed cheerfully to
reassure him that a clergyman can swallow even bigger ecclesiastical
pills than he had swallowed and yet thrive. One Walter Chulkhurst had
apparently swallowed the old Missal of Henry's pious days, Cranmer's
Christmas Game, the Missal restored under Mary, and Elizabeth's final
compromise on a compromise; for his record had remained untroubled from
1538 to 1564. Through all troubles and changes he had been Rector of
Delmonden, Sir. Indeed the Vicar of Bay made but a poor showing beside
the Rector of Delmonden, and the Rectors and Vicars of many a village in
Sussex and Kent, for whom continuity was territorial rather than
doctrinal. Their ghostly voices seemed to cry to their successor:
"That's the spirit!--the only spirit that prevails."



                                  6

Summer came, and the swallows returned--wheeling and swooping over the
low, yellow fields of the Rother, building in the rafters of Udiam,
Wassall, Ethnam, and other farms, flying out through the dusk as though
to fly behind the parting day, hunting the sun over the hills. Those
swallows also returned which were Delmonden's special token of
Summer--the visitors who every year brought their money, bustle, and
news into the village. They did not all return, for the old Sweets were
dead--they had died together in Bulverhythe workhouse, the winter's
prey, and a warning to those clergymen who dare to be too poor. But Oreb
and Zeb were there, and the young folk who ate up Mr. Bennet's Sunday
beef, and only one or two of them noticed that Delmonden's shrine was
empty.

At the beginning of August, Mrs. Millington also returned. Mrs. Bennet's
heart sank when she saw the clean curtains being hung at Goldstrow. She
wondered how Harry would face it, and hoped that neither side would want
to go on with the battle. But Mr. Bennet's spirit was cowed for the
present. He was tired after his fruitless indignation, and more ready
for peace than his wife had ever seen him--not, it is to be feared, any
peace of active goodwill, but the passive peace that is preserved by
negatives, avoidances, and evasions. Mrs. Millington, fortunately,
seemed inclined for the same peace. She had been bitterly disappointed
when she had found that she could not make the Bishop order the Rector
to resign; but time and travel had abated the first violence of her
resentment. She saw now that his conduct in the affair of her Theresa
had been good as well as bad, and when on her return she found no gossip
or scandal remaining--which meant that none of it reached her ears--she
had the fairness to acknowledge that the Rector must be in some degree
responsible for the good behaviour of his parish.

She also knew that though the Bishop had defeated her main charge, her
side attack had won her a notable victory; and such knowledge softened
her towards Delmonden church and its services which were so unlike the
services at St. Smaragdus, South Kensington. On the first Sunday of her
return she came, and put a ten-shilling note in the plate. The
churchwardens were jubilant, and Mr. Bennet hid his feelings.

The Summer passed, and all still went smoothly. Every week Mrs.
Iggulsden received the Bread of Life, and in time even the dim reproach
of Mr. Bennet's own heart grew fainter--as in other places where he
looked for reproach he still found silence. The Rectory Garden Party
passed off with its usual success. It seemed a little dim, a little
haunted to Mrs. Bennet, who could not forget that at this very time and
place a year ago Theresa's love story had begun its bitter course--had
first come into the light, here under the stars and Chinese lantern. But
no one else seemed to remember or to regret, unless it was Mrs.
Millington, who this time kept away, though she sent cutlery and linen
as she had done before. Mrs. Bennet almost could hope that the warfare
with Goldstrow was ended.

The Autumn came; and with the first stripping of the hop-poles the
Bennets went to Brighton. Up to within a few weeks of the time they had
felt that they could not go back there, that they must find some other
refuge for their remaining holidays. But as the day drew near with its
established ceremonies, they realised that they were too old to change.
It was too much toil and risk to think of a new place after so many
years. They distrusted strange lodgings and strange landladies, even any
other journey than the old, familiar struggle through Hawkhurst,
Tonbridge, and Lewes to the coast. It was all very well for young people
to allow themselves to be swayed into new ventures by sentimental urges.
But they were old, and habit was stronger than either romance or regret.



                                  7

All through the Summer they had heard nothing from George Heasman.
According to his parents, he was still at his work at Newbury, doing
well, they said, and improved in health. Mr. Bennet sometimes wondered
whether, after all, George might not live and die a grocer, plucking no
more than his own soul out of all that had passed. In a way he was
disappointed--and yet, he asked himself, why should he be disappointed?
George Heasman's spiritual career was no affair of his. If he returned
to his preaching it would probably be in some schismatic sect with
doctrines at war with the truth. Besides, the less he heard or knew
about George the better--having saved him from death he was better done
with him. It was a pity that he still occasionally felt the warmth of
that fatherly impulse which once had moved him towards a misguided,
miserable, bumptious young man.

Then during their second week in Brighton, in the calm shining Autumn of
the sea, a letter came, redirected from Delmonden. It began rather
unexpectedly, "Dear Friend" . . . Mr. Bennet was surprised. He would
never have thought of himself as George's friend, nor believed that
George could think of him as his friend. But as he read on through the
next few lines, he realised that the boy was writing in a state of high
religious exaltation:


For long I have felt it would come, and now it has come. There have been
voices in dreams, and Scripture given me. Once a man in the street said
as he passed--"Two Timothy, four, two," and when I turned it up it went,
as I expect you know: "Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of
season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine,"
and just a verse or two further on it says "endure afflictions, do the
work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." I was
powerfully impressed by that, and then one morning, just as I woke up I
heard Her voice, as I had never hoped to hear it again. She said with
her own dear and beloved voice: "Go forth and preach the Word. God has
called you to the ministry." I jumped out of bed and I fell on my knees,
and at once a silver light seemed to shine round me, and I seemed to
feel hands laid upon my head, and I knew that I was as much the ordained
Minister of the Lord as if all the hands of the Council or of all the
Bishops of the Crown and Church of England had been laid on me. Then I
was as a man just waking out of sleep, with the tears running down my
face.


There followed several complicated sentences in which George wrestled
with the problem that he had apparently been converted twice. He solved
it by denying the validity of his first conversion, when he had been


"deceived" by blindness due to pride and wicked self-esteem, which, if
the Lord had not confounded, would have possessed me all my life. But
the Lord used the very wiles and artifices of Satan to open my eyes and
lead me to true repentance. My sin now is all wiped out and all my life
is given to Him. I shall go from place to place preaching the gospel of
forgiveness to sinners--in their halls where they will receive me, but
in their streets where they will not. The idea has been given me that I
can help support myself by selling tea and godly books, and I have been
appointed agent of Milton's Teas Limited, also of the Protestant Grace
Society. So I shall not have to make collections for myself, which
sometimes gives wrong ideas. I would like to thank you, dear friend, for
what you have done. For I know that the Lord has deigned to use your
human flesh and blood as an instrument of his glory. As not only did you
save me from death and certain hell, but you put into my head words that
have borne fruit. I hope that you will feel moved to pray for me in my
new life, and be sure that I shall not cease to pray for you, that the
light of truth may shine upon you, and your earthly ministry of the
imposition of earthly hands may be crowned by a heavenly call.

Your loving brother in Christ,

                                                    GEORGE HEASMAN.


"Well," said Mr. Bennet, "I scarcely know what to make of that."

"It all seems wonderful to me," said his wife. "But do you think Theresa
really said that to him?"

"It doesn't sound at all like the sort of thing she would say."

"No, it certainly doesn't . . . but if George feels it was, and has been
helped so much . . ."

"That's just it. I'm glad the boy's going to preach again. When I saw
him that time at Ethnam I felt very strongly that he had a call. I don't
know why. . . . I see he's kind enough to suggest that I may have a
call, too, some day."

"I hope he'll learn a little humility."

"It's a life that teaches it."

But in his heart he was more pleased than his words revealed. The
miracle of a sinner saved, even with so exclusive and self-conscious a
salvation, never failed to dazzle him with its recurrent power. The fact
that this young man's experiences were outside the covenant, that his
vintage was of the wild grapes and his harvest of the wild oats of the
spirit, seemed only to give them an additional glamour in the eyes of
the old man who all his life had followed the beaten paths of grace. He
saw in them another miracle of the Wind which bloweth where it listeth,
of the Rain which falls on the just and on the unjust.

"He'll talk a lot of stuff," he thought to himself; then added, "but so
do we all." He felt much as a man who had begotten a son in his old age,
a son whose name is Ishmael, whose birth is of the bond-woman not of the
free.



                                  8

Apparently George had written to others besides Mr. Bennet, for when
they came back to Delmonden, they found the village full of his news.
His parents were not entirely pleased. They were sorry that their son
had adopted a new means of livelihood as vagrant as his new
religion--they feared that he might come to them for support just as on
leaving Ethnam they fell into straitened circumstances.

"He'd much better have stuck by the Church," said Fred Heasman, "and the
tea."

"He'll still be selling tea," said Mr. Bennet, anxious to point out some
continuity in George's life.

"But after a strange fashion," said the father; "he was always a strange
lad. Yet I can't understand why, if he wants to preach the gospel and
sell tea, he can't have a chapel and a shop same as other folk."

The parish, as a whole, was divided as to the eligibility of young
Heasman's choice. It was now rumoured that he had been a "fine, accepted
preacher" up at Providence, but that being so, none could account for
the fact that so few had heard him--except that Providence had always
been considered a low place where only low people went.

"He'd preach about the Lamb of God, so as you could almost see the
heavens open," said Mrs. Boorman of the Plough. "I ain't never heard him
myself, but a young chap staying with us once had been to hear him, and
he said he was wunnerful refreshed--not as I, being church, hold wud
such manners of speech."

But Simmy Bourn, the old deacon at Providence, who had heard George
preach many times, testified against him.

"He hadn't given his heart," he mumbled; "he hadn't given his heart. And
wunst when I wur setting there under him, I looked up and I saw an Eye
watching him--I saw it wud the vision of my soul," he hastened to add,
for his creed disapproved of miracles outside the Bible--"but it was an
Eye all the same, watching him in judgment, and it said 'he speaks too
much of brides and bridegrooms.'"

"Maybe his heart's broke," said Mrs. Breeds, "for losing Miss Theresa,
and that's turned him to the Lord."

"He ought never to have thought of Miss Theresa. No converted man would
have thought of her."

"No converted man would have done as he did."

"No, you're right there," said Mrs. Boorman, "if he did it."

"Surely, he did it," said Mrs. Breeds. "We all know that, though we
don't speak of it, seeing as it hurts folk we look up to around here.
I'm talking of the Rectory, of course, not the Manor."

"Well, I'll never believe he did it. Why, she wasn't that sort of girl."

"Then what was it she died of up at the Rectory?"

"Shame on you, women. Have done, do, wud your licentious talk," cried
the old deacon. "Trouble about your souls that can still be saved rather
than about the dead whose eternal lot is cast."

"Well, George Heasman's alive, ain't he?" said Mrs. Boorman, sharply,
"and likely to make himself an unaccountable nuisance to us all if he
comes down here preaching salvation."

But George, not surprisingly, showed no especial zeal to convert his
native village. He set off on a circuit of Midland hamlets, and fell
suddenly into silence. After a while his name dropped to where Theresa's
still moved slowly down a dwindling stream of gossip, towards a dead sea
of village memories.



                                  9

Winter came swiftly that year. An October frost snapped the leaves from
green to red, and blackened the roses that lingered in Delmonden
gardens. Fogs hung salty and half-frozen above the Rother, putting
chills into wood and tile throughout the valley so that folk went sick
of the cold, with coughs and quinsies and aches in their bones. It was
not surprising that when the Winter came in season as well as in degree,
many old people were shut up in their houses, not to come out again till
April's sun should melt the thin, green ice that scummed the brooks. Old
Mrs. Body became bedridden, as Mr. Bennet had foretold, and one or two
of her age--Grandmother Breeds, Sam Hilder of Moon's Green cottages, and
the Dudwells' old aunt at Great Knelle--lost heart and became the
burdens of patient, harassed youth.

The Pastor's work increased. The fields could lie fallow, and the
contracting day shut the farms into dark hours of rest, but the Shepherd
of souls must work all the harder, because folk were sick and idle and
sinful with Winter's opportunities. The parish room must stand open and
be visited every evening, so that his people could have some change from
the Plough and their own kitchens. There must be Mothers' Meetings and
Sewing Parties up at the Rectory, and in the morning, when the ploughman
hugged himself in bed for another hour, the priest must rise as usual
for the altar, going out into the blue, cold darkness, down an empty
road, where the frost rang in the stones.

Mr. Bennet began to find then that the Bishop's law which had worked
smoothly in the Summer, now involved much toil and contrivance. He had
two or three old folk to care for, besides a few who were sick.
Moreover, he found it difficult in those cold days to beat up a
congregation. Miss Bell was ill, as usual, and the young and healthy had
their work which made it impossible for them to come to church. It there
was no congregation there could be no service, and if there was no
service there could be no Communion for those bedridden at home. . . .
The Rector tried to arrange for at least one person to be there every
day, but it was a harassing business, and involved no little hardship to
goodwill: Mrs. Bennet, of course, could normally have been relied on,
but late in November she caught a bad cold, with congestion in one lung.
It cleared up in time, but a certain amount of delicacy remained, and
Dr. Gilpin advised her not to go out in the early mornings. She was
distressed at being thus put aside when her help seemed specially
needed.

"Really, darling," she said to her husband, "I'm able to come. It's cold
out of doors, but the church is so warm--almost too warm."

"Yes, I'm afraid there's something wrong with the stove. I'm afraid we
shall have to start collecting money for another. . . . But if the
church is hot, that makes it all the more dangerous for you to go out
into the cold air afterwards."

"I'm sure it wouldn't hurt me, and I need only come occasionally--when
you're taking Communion to the sick. It won't matter so much if there's
no service on other days."

"I've celebrated Mass every day since I came to Delmonden--not missed
once till this Winter. It's not very comforting to think that after
twenty-seven years I fail for the first time to get a congregation."

Mrs. Bennet refrained from pointing out how many times during those
twenty-seven years, she alone had been the congregation.

"There's never been a Winter like this," she said; "it's really the most
terrible Winter we've had."

"It was just as bad in '93, and we managed all right. I remember I had a
server then."

"Yes, that nice boy Sharman--who did so very well out in Rhodesia. Well,
dear, he's still to your credit as a good Christian man."

"But he isn't here. Why haven't we any good Christian men in Delmonden?"

"I'm sure we have plenty; but an agricultural community . . . there's
nothing like farm work for making it impossible for one to go to
church."

"Yes, yes," he fussed, "but up till now I've always been able to get
someone. It's dreadful to think that now of all times this village must
go unprayed for."

"Not unprayed for, dear."

"No, worse still--unpraying. Every day up till this Winter the village
of Delmonden has been at my altar through the ministry of one of its
inhabitants. It's said its morning prayer--now it's silent."

"Darling, I beg you to let me come."

"I won't let your health be destroyed for the sake of this godless
village."

"Not godless--only cold."

"Cold and godless--all except a few poor folk who have to be sacrificed
to the others' indifference. The Bishop makes his rules on the basis
that this country's so full of religion that we have to guard against
excess. If he were a parish priest he'd know different. Bah!"

In the end it was settled that Mrs. Bennet should come to church on
days--and on such days only--when it was genuinely impossible to find
anyone else. If, on his arrival at poor little St. Thomas  Becket's, he
found it forsaken, he would ring the bell, which she could hear quite
plainly from the Rectory, and she would then come down and join him in
empty shadows of candle-light. Meanwhile he would preach to the
villagers on their duty to attend the Daily Sacrifice, so that it might
be hoped they would make his wife's effort unnecessary.

"Of course," she said, "when it gets a little warmer, I shall start
coming again regularly. You know how I love it; it's a great deprivation
having to stop at home. But Dr. Gilpin was so very firm, and I do so
want to get well. . . ."

The sermon bore fruit. After all, the villagers of Delmonden were good
folk and fond of their parson. They were used to his religion, which had
by now all the harmlessness of a familiar thing. It was only a question
of ways and means . . . always a serious question in an agricultural
parish. For over a month the altar was attended. Every morning Mrs.
Bennet listened for the bell, for the call of little St. Thomas on its
plaintive note. But it never came.

Then one morning she heard it--a frozen morning in January, with stars
fading out of a sullen sky where snow hung ready to fall. On no morning
could she have felt less ready. She had spent a wakeful night, and the
cold seemed to have entered her very bones. In the Gothic bedroom where
she still huddled under the quilt, the cold seemed to lie like stagnant
water, so that she moved her body against it and through it as she rose
and went to the window.

She thought of ignoring the summons. Harry would not mind--he would hate
her to come out if she really felt ill. But the next moment she
remembered that he had a special need of her today. He was going to take
the Sacrament to Mrs. Iggulsden and to Mrs. Body, and they would be
terribly disappointed if he did not come. It would be no real privation
for them to wait till tomorrow. . . . But tomorrow Harry had to go to
Cranbrook to a meeting; he would not have time . . . they would have to
wait two or three days if he did not come today.

Besides, greater than her sense of their need, was her sense of her
husband's disappointment at being unable to fulfil it, with no doubt a
recurrence of angry resentment against the Bishop who had put such a
stone of stumbling in his pastoral way. . . . He'd be upset. . . . .
He'd feel sore and sick and thwarted in his ministry. . . . She must go.
Unless of course she sent Poor Emily. . . . But Emily could not be
trusted to play her part in a service. Good as gold, she was denied no
spiritual opportunities; but it was not within her power to represent
the village of Delmonden at the altar. No, her mistress must go--it was
her place, her duty, and, if she had felt less ill, her pleasure. With
stiff fingers she began to put on her clothes, which felt all chill and
clammy with the cold.



                                  10

It did not do Mrs. Bennet any good to go to church on a cold, early
morning. She spent the next three days in bed, and on the fourth day she
felt ill enough to send for Dr. Gilpin, who told her she must stay where
she was for a week and learn how to take care of herself. She stayed for
a week and for a month. At first her husband was not unduly anxious--he
felt glad that she was being made to rest, and his mind was full of a
less heartrending but more irritating anxiety about the church stove,
which, after three days of volcanic misbehaviour, had collapsed
altogether in the coldest week of the year. He had to go about
collecting money for a new one, and when at last he had enough, he came
home to find that he had a very sick wife.

She insisted that she was not really ill, that it was only because she
had suddenly and unaccountably grown so tired that she had to keep in
bed, that she would lose this cold which oppressed her throat and lungs
as soon as the warm weather came. But before the ice had melted on the
farmyard ponds, she died going out on a February twilight, when the
first lamb of the year was bleating at Wassall Farm. She heard its
little voice, and signalled to her husband with a smile and a nod of her
head, as if to say, "the Winter's gone." On and on through the dusk he
heard it bleating, after she had left him and he still sat holding her
hand.



                                  11

Her death was a thing unimaginable--both before and after it had
happened. Somehow he had never thought that he would be the one to
survive--not on any ground of reason but simply for lack of the power to
picture himself without her. If he had thought at all of death for them,
he had thought of them dying together, sharing the last illness or the
last accident as they had shared the rest of life.

It was as difficult to imagine living without her as to imagine living
without his own flesh and blood. Yet she was gone--her bed and her chair
were empty, her footstep no longer sounded in the house, her voice would
never answer his, however desperately he called. In her cupboard her
clothes still hung--her bright-hued gowns and skirts and jackets, that
he felt he must keep forever, because in them he could sometimes see at
least the colours she had worn. She was gone--but he was the ghost. He
haunted Delmonden Rectory, a disembodied spirit, seeking his lost flesh
and blood. It was all unreal, as a dream, and sometimes he felt as if he
must wake and find her, as he had so often found her after unquiet
dreams, lying beside him in her narrow iron bedstead with the morning
light upon her face.

She was gone, and majestic words surrounded her--"light perpetual,"
"rest eternal." She had passed into rites and ceremonies, into
traditional phrases and illuminated script--"Of your charity pray for
the souls of the Faithful Departed." . . . He could never quite imagine
her in such august company; she had always been so homely and so humble
and so close to him. He could not even picture her without a
"transformation" she had worn for the last ten years. . . .

Most terrible of all, he could not lose the habit of her in the house.
Something within him that was too loving and too stupid to grasp even
the plain dealing of death still expected to see her when he entered a
room, and to find her waiting for him on his return from the parish. One
March day when, crossing the Lomas brook, he saw that the first wild
daffodils were out upon its banks, he stopped to pick them as he had
done for her every year, and found he could not quench the thought of
her delight. He brought them home, and threw them down in the empty
house. "Emily, the daffodils are out--help me to put them in water." She
came, and they arranged them together in jugs and bowls, setting them as
formerly in the drawing-room and in his study, and as he looked at them
he wondered why he had not left them growing by the water-side.



                  VII. Mrs. Iggulsden (2nd Battle)



                                  1

Everybody was kind to him. During the three months that followed his
Lucy's death he had more tokens of sympathy and love than he had had in
thirty years. Everybody was kind, because everybody was sorry. In the
village they said, "It's broken him up."

He did not know that his grief had laid such tragic marks upon him,
because sometimes in his heart he felt that it was not really a tragic
grief at all. Just as his love had expressed itself humbly in affection
and tenderness rather than in passion, so his grief walked in humble
ways of emptiness and loneliness rather than in despair. He felt it,
less as a consuming pain than as an aching loss. He was like a man who
has lost his right hand, and does not feel the pain so much as his own
helplessness. He was helpless. His habit was devastated--the habit of
the old, which had become life itself. Wherever he turned there were
empty places, loose ends, a sense of frustration, strangeness, and loss.

Yet he stumbled on--he would not change his way. The Bishop wrote very
kindly, suggesting that he should take a holiday and hinting that
diocesan funds could smooth any difficulties there might be. But Mr.
Bennet would not go. He could not bear in his new helplessness to be
away from his familiar house and village. Empty as it was, his house
comforted him. He would not leave it--indeed he felt as if he would
never leave it again.

He did not always feel as thankful as he might, or as he knew he ought,
for all the kindnesses shown him. It seemed as if people did not
understand what he really wanted. Young Witsunden, for instance, would
come over in the evenings to sit and talk to him. It was very good of
him to come twelve miles across country on his motor-cycle, to cheer the
lonely evenings of a widowed old man. But Mr. Bennet did not want to sit
and talk to Mr. Witsunden, to watch him sucking at his pipe, or to
listen to his tales of ecclesiastical horror and imagination. He wanted
to go to sleep. He wanted to feel the loving kindness of sleep steal
over him, taking him into a world where there was no loss.

He found it difficult to sleep upstairs in his bedroom, where his bed
felt so lost and lonely without hers beside it in the great cold space.
So he would doze in his study from about eight o'clock till one or two
in the morning, when somehow it seemed easier to go to bed alone, though
he seldom slept much after he was there. If Witsunden came he felt
harassed and frustrated. Yet it was kind of him to come.

It was kind, too, of Mrs. Millington to ask him to tea. He was surprised
when he read her letter, for though she had sent her condolences with
everyone else on his wife's death, he had noticed nothing particularly
at that time. Doubtless she was sorry for him, and wanted peace between
them. At first he thought he would not go; then he thought he would.
Lucy would have urged him to go, for she had always wanted peace. He
remembered how again and again she had pleaded with him for his patience
towards Goldstrow. She would be glad if, in the hidden place where she
was now, she could know he was having tea there. . . . Besides, it might
cheer him up to go. He often felt wretchedly lonely at his
meals--sitting there trying to eat, while the stupid tormentor crouching
just below his consciousness, expected her every minute to come in. . . .
"Darling, I'm sorry I'm late--I was kept in the village." . . .

So he went up to Goldstrow, where he had not been since that dreadful
day when he had seen the old woman in hell, and had struck at her there
in her torment--he hated to remember. Now he too was in torment, and she
held out her hand to him, and he took it almost gratefully. There was a
community of suffering between them, in which they could meet almost as
friends. They met with their hearts cleft with loss. The chasm in hers
had been softened by the growth of many months, but he saw the darkness
of it in her eyes as she greeted him.

"How do you do, Mr. Bennet? It's turned out finer than I expected."

"Yes, the wind's gone round to the east. I think we shall have fine
weather now."

"Do you take milk and sugar?"

"Yes, please, both."

"I hope that chair isn't too near the fire. It's getting late for fires
now, but I find it hard to bring myself to give up mine."

"I still have my study fire in the evenings."

"The evenings are nearly always chilly in the country, aren't they?"

"One is sometimes glad of a cool evening after a hot day."

"Will you have one of these cakes or some more bread and butter?"

"Thank you, I should like a cake, if I may."

"What are your views on the election, Mr. Bennet? Do you think the
Conservatives will get in?"

"Not with any workable majority."

"No, I'm afraid not. A little more tea?"

"Thank you so much."

That was how they talked the whole evening, those two whose hearts were
riven. They forgot all the dreadful, burning things they had once said
and thought about each other. Mrs. Millington forgot that she had held
Mr. Bennet responsible for Theresa's death and had done her best to
drive him out of Delmonden; and Mr. Bennet forgot that Mrs. Millington
was at the bottom of his parochial troubles, and had set in motion that
disciplinary wheel whose slow grinding had crushed his home.

Or rather, if he remembered, it was with his mind only. All the hot
coals of indignation that she once had kindled were buried so deep under
the slag of the past three months that he did not feel their heat any
more, though he could dimly recall how once they had tormented him, and
wondered why they did so no longer.

After tea she took him out into the garden, and showed him her flowers,
picking him a big bunch of roses to take back to his empty house.



                                  2

There was one friend whose presence always comforted him, a friend who
did him no kindness save to be always kind; and that was the old woman,
Mrs. Iggulsden. He went to see her nearly every day, taking his sick
mind to visit her sick body. He had begun to do so very soon after
Lucy's death, because on his first visit to her after his loss it had
been such a comfort to sit there and talk, or be silent, and never force
his mind. He had built up, almost zealously, another habit, cultivating
its growth there among the ruins of the old, like a tree growing up in
the breach of a fallen city. He would call in to see her on his way home
from visiting in the parish, late in the morning, when her room and her
bed had been made tidy by her daughter-in-law. He would tell her all
those things he would have told Lucy, so that, when he left her for his
own home, his mind would not be heavy with an undelivered burden.

She did not advise him so freely as Lucy had done, because she naturally
knew less about his business; besides her mind was shy of the heights of
his vocation. For Lucy he had never walked on heights--indeed, he
remembered poignantly there had been times when he had felt obliged to
remind her that though in one sense they were both miserable sinners, in
another he was set apart from her by, apostolic grace. But Mrs.
Iggulsden would always listen sympathetically to everything he had to
say, which after all was what he chiefly wanted, and would support and
respect him in the ways he had chosen, which was more than he could have
counted on from Lucy.

Their chief talk, however, was not of the parish and its ways, but of
the dead--their dead. For Mrs. Iggulsden had a husband and a daughter
and two sons in the place where Lucy was. They would talk over their
dead, as they had lived, and as they were now. They would wonder and
picture together, discussing those points, so many that they were almost
a cloud, on which both Scripture and the Church were silent. "Where are
the dead and with what body do they come?"

Peering into that invisible world, guessing and conjecturing with the
simplicity of unquestioning faith, they were like two children who,
their heads together, peer through the keyhole of a dark room. An added
thrill was given to their guessing by the knowledge that before long the
secrets of that room must be revealed, that the door would open, and
first one and then the other of them be summoned into the mystery.
Neither had the slightest fear or even a thought that on the opening of
that door they might find only darkness.

"I can't understand," he would say to her, "how it is when I know I must
go to her so soon, that I feel so terribly lost and lonely without her
now. After all, we can't be parted for more than a few years."

"'Tis the flesh crying out in us--the flesh that wants flesh, I reckon."

"But we shall meet in the flesh--'whom I shall see for myself, whom mine
eyes shall behold' . . ."

"Not this flesh of ourn--that's tired and has its own place to go to.
Our bodies soon grow tired, and the earth wants them. You know how the
psalm says--'O let the earth bless the Lord, praise him and magnify him
for ever.' That's when she gets our bodies back, which belong to
her--and reckon our bodies are sometimes unaccountable glad to go."

"Hers wasn't. She loved her life, and her heart was a young woman's
still."

"But her flesh wasn't a young woman's--reckon her flesh was glad to go,
reckon it was beginning to get tired of her soul. I sometimes think our
bodies don't understand our souls, and are afraid of them. Our souls
don't always treat them as kind as they should ought, and our bodies
want to git shut of them and lie down--'as a beast goeth down into the
valley to rest' . . . you know the words."

"But what is she if she isn't what I loved? I loved her body."

"You loved what her body was trying to tell you about herself, but often
our bodies are like beasts what don't understand their riders, and her
body could never tell you all that she is, all that you will know some
day."

In these conversations it was nearly always he that questioned and she
who answered. He felt sometimes very humble as he sat beside her. To all
the questions which he sent aching into heaven she seemed to find her
answers in the earth, and he felt comforted by her similitudes as a man
is comforted who lies down upon the earth.



                                  3

His great and growing fear of those days was that she too would soon be
leaving him, who was the last of his dearest friends. Now Lucy had died
he found that he expected everyone to die . . . saw every home broken
into and every love laid waste. In this case there was more than his own
nervous reaction to the shock of death; he had true grounds for his
fear. During the Winter her health had been steadily declining. For
years she had been neither better nor worse, but this last cruel Winter
had worn her down as it had worn down others. When Spring and Summer
came they did not restore her; instead of making mere casual visits of
friendship and enquiry Dr. Gilpin came to see her regularly once a week.
She was growing thinner, and her breathing laboured. He feared the
strain on her old heart.

Mr. Bennet watched her with an anxiety that he constantly betrayed. She
would reproach him, almost mock him for it.

"Dear friend, how long do you expect me to live? And how much do you
reckon my life's worth to me?"

"It's worth a lot to me--as much as my own to me--more."

"Don't talk such larmentable stuff. I'm old enough to be your mother,
as I've told you before, and folks must learn to lose their mothers. You
un't an old man yet to my way of thinking and you'll surely make many
more friends."

"None like those I've lost."

"Maybe not--'tis late. But see, we mustn't be brooding. We must learn
to look forward to our day. And since we're talking of these things, I
want you to have summat of mine to remember me by when I'm gone. If
you'll look over in my bower you'll see a dentical liddle box wud a
picture on it. My mammy brought me that box from Tenterden Fair when I
wur a liddle bit of a girl, so 'tis middling old. I thought maybe you
could carry the Sacrament in it to sick folks. Go over and look at it."

Mrs. Iggulsden's "bower" was a bamboo table covered with a coloured
cloth on which were set out various small treasures that were literally
all she had in the world. It had originally been called her "shrine" and
arranged in honour of a little wooden saint that Mr. Bennet had given
her when her illness had banished her from church. But soon her tongue
had fallen back to its natural ways of speech, and the saint had been
dwarfed by her other possessions, including a large green tea-cosy
shaped like a parrot which towered hideously above a mixed collection of
china ornaments, photographs, flower-vases, decorations of a Christmas
cake, and strange objects made of beads and shells.

The little box was painted with one of those curiously flat Victorian
conceptions of a rose, magenta against a blue ground. It was not likely
that it could ever be used in the way she intended.

"I've nun to give folk but things," she said, rather plaintively--"no
money. I only cost money now. All the money I'll be able to leave Ted
and Ivy and the children ull be the money they'll save when I'm dead.
But I've got something for each one."

"I shall always value your gift. But I hope it will be long--very long
before it's mine."

She only said:

"I'd lik to think my liddle box was carrying to other folks the same
tender comfort as you so often bring to me."

He no longer had his old anxieties about bringing her this comfort;
because ever since Lucy's death the Bishop's compromise had worked with
an unwonted smoothness. His altar had seemed almost miraculously
attended, and he sometimes wondered whether a religious revival were at
work in Delmonden.

In reality what happened was this. Mrs. Sayer or Mrs. Breeds or Mrs.
Gasson would see him going down the hill in the early morning, and cry
out:

"There goes our Passon on his way to church, and maybe there un't
anyone to answer back for him. You run, Ernie"--or Fred or Mabel or Tom
or Sidney--"and see if he wants anyone to answer back. I'd go myself if
he wurn't so mortal slow and I'd never be home to git the children off
to school--he do just about take his time these days, poor soul."

They were all sorry for him, and they all knew how much he had always
depended on his Lucy for a congregation--good woman that she was, going
up and down and that hill a dunnamany times a week, just to see as the
Lord's table was served. So, out of kindness, they saw that his
Eucharist never went in want of an Amen. That which he had tried in vain
to make them do for the love of God they would do at last for the love
of him, even though it was true that he did just about take his time.

He had grown inconceivably old and fumbling in those few months. He had
never been swift, never like those young men at Witsunden, and
Trillinghurst, whose soft gabble and quick professional gestures
bewildered their congregations--"shooting round on us lik an oast-cap
in a gale to say 'the Lord be with you,' and then before as we had time
to collect our wits, turning his back on us and going on wud summat
else." Mr. Bennet had never earned such criticisms from his flock;
indeed during the last few years even some of those slow minds had begun
to find him slow.

Now he was not merely slow but as an old man lost. He had always been a
little dishevelled at the altar--old clothes and old vestments of an
outrageous Tractarian cut had not been easy to wear neatly. But now he
was nothing but a bundle, shuffling out of the vestry with bent
shoulders, huddled into his white fool's robe, with his bonds hanging
loose from waist and wrist, and his yoke askew upon his shoulders, and
his cross crooked upon his back--"Surelye, Ernie, you should ought to go
in and help dress un. He'll trip over himself one of these days." There
he stood--old, crumpled, bundled, harassed, and fumbling, trying with
one hand to set the book upon the stand while the other adjusted his
spectacles. But as he fumbled there his heart was proud and his spirit
stood erect. In that one hour of the day nobody need have pitied him.

Standing before the altar he knew his own power--power over life and
over death, that could not fail. Away from the altar, he might grope and
stumble, and find himself the questioner of simple souls and the
pensioner of little kindnesses. But here he was the Priest, offering all
questions and all kindness alike to God. He even touched his Lucy's
death with power. He was no longer her poor widower, who could not eat
nor sleep without her, but her priest, her mediator, who had power to
reach and help her, and bring her with himself and all souls through
death into life. It was the supreme reward of his ministry that in his
darkest hour he should have this power in himself, and never feel
himself so consciously a priest as now when, in the sight of all men, he
stood as a victim.



                                  4

That Summer he again had news of George Heasman--not personally this
time, but through other people. The young man's parents had now left
Ethnam for a small grass farm over by Canterbury, but they still kept up
loosely certain correspondences, and one morning Mr. Vidler of Reedbed
Farm had a letter from Fred Heasman with a cutting from an Essex paper.

Mr. Bennet had come in to consult his churchwarden about the Garden
Party.

"I don't feel equal to running it this year . . . I mean it would be
difficult . . . so perhaps . . ."

"I plainly see that, Sir."

"Well, Mrs. Millington has very kindly written to offer her grounds for
it."

Mr. Vidler's face underwent a passing spasm, but he answered:

"That seems a middling good plan, Sir--if folks ull go."

"Why shouldn't they go?"

"Goldstrow's a bit of a step from the village, and maybe when they git
there they wan't feel so free . . ."

"But I don't see where else we're to have it--and I always meant . . . I
always hoped that one day she'd take it on. After all, the Rectory
garden isn't very big."

Mr. Vidler struggled to find words that would express the satisfaction
of all Delmonden with the Rectory garden up till now, but would also
convey the people's realisation that their Rector's loss would make it
difficult for him to entertain them this year, and at the same time
proclaim their willingness to be entertained by Goldstrow, with a hint
of their profound sense of Goldstrow's inferiority, coupled with a
complete readiness to do anything he liked in any way whatsoever. His
face changed slowly in colour from an apple to a plum--then he gave up
the effort, and produced Heasman's letter by way of a complete change
instead.

"He's been gitting his name in the papers, that young feller from
Providence. His dad has been sending me a piece out of a paper, wud a
lot in it all about young Heasman, such as we'd never expected."

He handed Mr. Bennet a cutting from the "Essex Advertiser." It was
headed:

"A New Evangelist. Remarkable Scenes at Riversedge," and began:


For the last three nights the Advent Chapel at Riversedge has been
crowded, on account of the visit of a young Evangelist, the Reverend
George Heasman. It appears that Mr. Heasman is already well known in the
Midland Counties as an eloquent preacher, but this is his first visit to
Riversedge, where the Advent Christians have invited him to hold a
Mission in their Chapel. Though the Mission was primarily intended for
Advent Christians only, it has led to a general revival throughout the
town, people of all denominations flocking to the Chapel, and crowding
the Penitents' Form at the end of the services. The Evangelist is still
a very young man, with a remarkably earnest manner. His message is quite
undenominational, being chiefly a call to repentance, with a solemn
assurance of the sinner's forgiveness. This he gives in a most
impressive manner to each separate penitent. The Reverend Mr. Heasman
intends to conduct a preaching tour through the whole of the south of
England. Next week he will be in Kent.


"'In Kent'--did you ever hear the like of that, Sir? Maybe he'll be
coming to convert us next."

"I don't suppose he'll ever come here."

"I shouldn't be anyways surprised if he did. He wur always an uncommon
cocksure lad, as ud think nun of teaching his betters. But for many
reasons I should advise him to keep out of this place."

"He won't come--I'm sure. But I'd like to hear him preach."

"You hear him, Sir!"

"Yes, I should like to . . ."

"He'd never speak sense such as a gentleman and a clergyman lik yourself
could listen to. I know young Heasman. Not as I ever heard him
preach"--the churchwarden suddenly remembered himself--"but folks ud
tell me as he wur always on the rant, wud sense as rare as Kentish hops
in Kentish ale. He'd make you feel ashamed of him, Sir, and of yourself
for being there."

Mr. Bennet said no more about hearing George Heasman preach, but he
still thought about it, and after a little while--he never did anything
quickly now--he wrote to him at his parents' address, and asked him if
he would be likely to come anywhere near Delmonden.

George answered at once. He would be coming as near Delmonden as
Goudhurst, where he was engaged to speak, at the Gospel Hall, about the
middle of August. He sent Mr. Bennet a ticket, for it was possible that
without it he would not be able to get in.


I have been wonderfully accepted since I started my tour seven months
ago. I have been all over Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex arid Hunts,
speaking mostly in halls and churches at the invitation of Christians,
but sometimes in market-places and cross-roads. I take no money, as I
make enough by selling books and tea, and Christians are always willing
to give me bed and board when needed. I feel wonderfully happy, set free
from sin, and spending my life in setting others free from sin, teaching
them that even sin itself can be a way of knowing God. It is a teaching
I have often had censured by the orthodox, but souls eat it up greedily.
I am attached to no religious denomination. I thought of founding a
church of my own, but then I thought better be free.


He enclosed a ticket which was merely a piece of paper with "Admit
bearer to good seat" written on it, also a price list of Milton's Teas.
He had so far grown in forbearance as not to enclose the prospectus of
the Protestant Grace Society.

"Tstck, tstck"--Mr. Bennet clucked his tongue--"Seems as if Vidler was
right and I'd be a fool to go. But I will go. I want to hear him. He
sounds as if he was sure to preach some abominable heresy . . . thought
of founding a new church, did he? He'll tell us next that he thought of
dying and rising again. He absolves sinners, does he?--'solemn assurance
of the sinner's forgiveness'? Ha! ha! He got that from me: He's got
everything from me. . . . But he's got back his soul. He owes body and
soul to me. I gave him both that day. He's my son. But not the son I
wanted. . . . I never wanted him. I wanted her--Theresa; and all because
of him and his wickedness she's dead. I don't want him; but there he
is--my son."



                                  5

That same evening he settled himself as usual in his study, and his mind
walked in the quiet ways of sleep; where though he did not meet his
Lucy, there was no sense of parting, no consciousness of loss, but a
gentle warmth as of sunshine on a wall. He slept in his armchair, his
hands dropped between his knees, his head fallen sideways towards his
shoulder. He would have slept like that for hours, with drowsy half
awakings, till the increasing cold roused him to seek greater ease for
his body in bed, had not a sudden knocking startled him out of his
dreams, and made him sit up, heavy and bemused.

The knocking was repeated. He could not realise yet what had happened.
He looked round the room--his study; so he had not gone to bed. Was that
Emily knocking to wake him? Had he overslept himself? Dead ashes on the
hearth, and stars in the blue window showed him that day was still far
off. The knocking came again and this time he knew that it was not on
the door of his room, as he had at first supposed, but on the door of
the house. Someone was knocking at the front door in the middle of the
night. He must be wanted in the parish. He must go at once.

The sense of urgency tore away the last of his confusion. He stood up
and went as quickly as his stiff legs would move him to the house door,
drawing back the bolts. Outside stood a familiar figure--young
Iggulsden, the old woman's son. Mr. Bennet suddenly became broad awake.

"Hullo, Iggulsden, what is it?"

"It's mother, Sir. She's been taken bad. Doctor says she won't last out
the night."

A terrible spasm contracted his heart. So it had come--that other loss.
Oh, he might have been spared a little longer, allowed to recover
himself for a brief space after the first blow. But the personal pain
scarcely twisted him for a moment before it was swallowed up in the
pastoral pain.

"I'm coming--at once. She wants me, doesn't she? Is she conscious?"

"Yes, Sir. She hoped as how you could bring her the Sacrament. It ain't
properly her day, but seeing as it's for the last time." . . .

"Of course she shall have it. I'll fetch it at once."

Then he felt the sweat break out on his forehead. He had not been quite
awake after all--he had forgotten. . . . For a moment he stood silent
and staring. He had never envisaged this. He could not take Mrs.
Iggulsden the Sacrament because it was not there.

"It's her heart," young Iggulsden was saying, "but we never thought it
ud take her so soon."

"No--never . . ."

"Are you coming, Sir?"

"Yes, yes. But wait a minute--I must fetch. . . . Quick! Come in,
Iggulsden, and sit down in the hall. I shan't be a minute. Quick."

He was muttering "Quick, quick" under his breath as he hurried back into
his study. It was there he kept his portable Communion set, with the
little Cowley altar, that had been given him years ago in the famine
days of the North. He had always kept it ready for use, though he had
not used it for years--no one had seemed to want it except Mrs.
Millington, and she had not asked for it. . . . Now Mrs. Iggulsden must
have it, though she had not asked for it and she did not want it; she
must have it because he himself had deprived her of the easier way. Hot
tides of anger went through him as he moved and fumbled, awkward with
his haste. Yes, he himself had deprived her, her shepherd . . . at the
bidding of his shepherd. Howl, O ye shepherds, in sackcloth and ashes.
. . . He had wakened now from something more than sleep--from the
drugging apathy of the last six months, when his heart had lain sick and
gentle within him, drugged with grief. Now this touch upon the hidden
wound of an old strife had brought to life a whole sequence of ideas and
emotions that for long had seemed dead. Once more he knew what it was to
be thrilled with anger, and in that anger he met again something that
was almost his old self.

At last he was ready, had seen that everything was there and in order.
He came out of the room staggering under a slight burden that he
scarcely felt. Iggulsden took it from him.

"What is this, Sir?"

"My portable altar. I must celebrate."

The man said nothing. He scarcely understood. Then when they had walked
a little way he asked:

"Is that what she wanted, Sir?"

"No, I'm afraid it isn't, but it's all I can do. You see I don't keep
the Sacrament in church any more. The Bishop ordered me to give it up,
and I obeyed him. I used to take her Communion straight from the altar,
so that she didn't know there was any difference . . . and I never
expected this to happen."

He had never thought she would go suddenly, without warning, she who had
lingered so long over her farewells to life. If ever he had pictured the
Sacrament needed in haste, it had been for someone else, someone with
more impatient gestures towards life and death, the victim of some
sudden stroke or accident. She should have gone gently, faded sweetly,
not suddenly cried to him like this: "I must go. Give me Food for my
journey."

The night was moonless, but swimming with big stars that glittered in
the black sea of the sky, and moved through the tossed branches of trees
that overarched the lane, in and out of the waving briars of the hedge.
The wind blew keenly up the marsh, but, though he had come out hatless,
he did not feel the cold. For one thing they were walking so
fast--hurrying--with a haste that echoed on the clinkers of the lane,
and rang more flatly on the smooth, tarred surface of the village
street.

"Is the doctor with her?" he once asked.

"Yes, Sir--he's doing all he can."

"But he doesn't think she'll last long."

"No, Sir, I'm afraid not. Poor Mother!"

"I don't suppose she's sorry to go. She was very tired."

"I reckon she was--but we shall all miss her terrible; she was an
uncommon sweet soul."

They walked through the blind and dark village nearly as far as the
church, then turned off into the cottage-row of Mount Pleasant. A light
shone in an upper window--the only light in dark Delmonden. Young
Iggulsden opened the door, and as he did so, Dr. Gilpin came quickly
down the stairs.

"That you, Bennet? Thank God! She's been asking for you."

"How is she?"

"Sinking fast."

The words contained an echo. Mr. Bennet saw himself meeting Dr. Gilpin a
year ago in the Rectory drive. . . .

"Can she last twenty minutes?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. You'd better go up at once."

Mr. Bennet walked up the small, crooked staircase, led by the
candle-gleam into Mrs. Iggulsden's room. She was lying flat in the bed,
her face waxen, her eyes closed, the sheet drawn up to her chin. She
looked already dead. His eyes met Iggulsden's across her.

"Mother," said the girl close to her ear--"he's come."

The blue lips moved--"Thank God."

Mr. Bennet looked anxiously round the room. The bed, a cupboard, and a
chest of drawers already filled it to congestion. No space to set up his
altar here. Then he saw to his infinite reproach that they had prepared
a corner of the chest for the Sacrament they supposed that he would
bring. They covered it as on former occasions with a clean white
handkerchief, and set on it a vase of flowers with a sixpence laid
beside it--her humble offering. His heart swelled with mingled grief and
anger that was almost physically painful.

"I'm sorry--dreadfully sorry--but things will have to be a little
different this time. I couldn't bring the Sacrament. I haven't got it.
But I will celebrate at once. . . . Iggulsden, are you there?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Give me that case . . . where can I set up the altar?" He gazed
anxiously round the tiny poke of room and passage, then through an
opposite door--"Is there room in there?"

"That's our bedroom, Sir."

"It looks bigger than this . . . Yes, I think I can manage. Help me,
please."

They all looked bewildered. They had expected something different--this
was all new and strange, and harassing among so much bustle and
affliction. He wished that he had explained things more clearly when the
changes had been made at the church. He had told them a little, but they
were simple souls, and the ways of ecclesiastical controversy were
strange to them. Now they must be martyred.

"She won't hear you, I'm afraid Sir, across the passage, and the
children are in bed."

"Never mind. It's all we can do. And we must make haste."

Then the woman in the bed spoke faintly:

"Have you brought it?"

His heart constricted, and he had to clench his hands to keep his
self-command. He stooped over her, and moved by a penitential impulse,
kissed her damp forehead where the dews of death were gathered.

"No--I could not. But I will bring it soon. Please wait for me, my
dear."

Then he hurried across the passage into the other room.

Here were two huge beds, in one of which the children lay sleeping. They
did not wake as he and Iggulsden set up the altar, and he put on the
thin silk vestment he had not worn for years. He had no cassock, and he
was aware that his trousered legs must look rather ridiculous. There was
no particular decency and order about this last rite--none of the
dignified simplicity with which he had ministered to her on other
occasions, and with which he would have liked to bid her now Godspeed.

But he must not stop to think or to regret. He must be quick; in case
death grew impatient, as well he might in the face of such a sorry
gesture from the living. He began the service, speaking in a loud clear
voice that he hoped would reach her in the other room, till he realised
that if he spoke loudly he would also speak more slowly. He must
hasten--gabble--in case she died before he had finished. He must reduce
the service to the bare bones of the essential. He must
hurry--hurry--hurry, for death was coming and would not wait. He was
racing death. Unfortunately he had not the habit of racing; when he
tried to be quick his tongue stumbled and his hands fumbled. . . . He
had never before had such a consciousness of performing a magical
rite--mumbling, mumbling, so that he might make here what he had been
unable to bring with him. Mumbling, mumbling . . . and all the while she
was hastening on her way. She could not wait while he struggled with a
long-winded formula. Death was calling her, while he was only mumbling.
. . .

Out of the corner of his eye he could see young Iggulsden on his knees
behind him. Queer shadows moved over walls and ceiling, as the candles
wavered in the draught. A child whimpered in its sleep. He suddenly
heard a voice, "Has the doctor gone?" Then came hurrying footsteps. He
knew now that he was too late--Kate had come in, and whispered to
Iggulsden, who rose from his knees. They both went out, leaving him
alone.

He was ready now. But he knew that he was too late, even before he
heard the son's voice say:

"She's gone, Sir."

Howl, O ye shepherds, in sackcloth and ashes. . . . Trembling, he placed
the water she had not received upon the little emergency paten. Then he
went into the other room and looked at her. She did not look very
different from when he had seen her last alive--waxen, with blue shadows
round her mouth. Her mouth was curiously sucked in, into a queer secret
smile, such as an old woman might wear who knew more than her
neighbours.



                                  6

She was dead, his dear old friend of many years, and gone without his
Grodspeed. He wondered how much she had understood of the last half
hour--his coming, his going, his not coming back. She had welcomed him
gladly, but she had seemed bewildered when he went away. Had she left
the world bewildered, wondering why her shepherd had denied her the
comfort he had so often brought before? He could not bear to think of
her in ultimate perplexity. Tears smarted in his eyes as he thought of
her setting forth with a reproach in her heart for him--no, not a
reproach, she was far too gentle and too loyal for that, but a question.

Kate Iggulsden was on her knees beside the bed, crying quietly with her
face hidden. Her husband stood with his honest red face working like
that of a child who is just about to cry. For long minutes nobody spoke.
Then Mr. Bennet said:

"I'm sorry."

They looked at him in silence. Even now they did not understand what it
was all about.

"She won't be any the worse--wanting anything she needs, poor soul?"
ventured the son at last.

"No," he said slowly, "thank God. There's another shepherd--a good
shepherd."

Silence came down again, and he knew that he must pray. His lips moved:

_"The Lord is my shepherd: therefore shall I lack nothing."_

He heard them joining with him--

_"He shall feed me in a green pasture: and lead me forth beside the
waters of comfort. He shall convert my soul: and bring me forth in the
paths of righteousness for His name's sake._

_"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff comfort me."_

Thank God! Thank God! No matter how cruelly the strife of shepherds
might have kept her from the pasture, there had been one to lead her
forth, whose rod and whose staff had comforted her, going before her
into the shadows. . . . She shall not want.

But he said in a loud voice:

"This shall never happen again in my parish while I'm alive."

He could not bear to stay any longer, so he said one or two commendatory
prayers, gave his blessing to the living and to the dead, and turned to
go. As he moved, his eye fell on Mrs. Iggulsden's "bower," lit
waveringly by candlelight, and more steadily if more dimly by the first
dawn now showing white in the window. He saw the little box with the
coloured rose, and picked it up.

"She wanted me to have this. May I take it now?"

"Surelye, Sir. I've often heard her say she wanted you to have it."

He carried it into the next room, and in it he reverently placed the
wafer which the dead woman had not consumed. Then he slipped the box
into his breast pocket, holding it safe and close to his heart with his
left hand, while he moved about, helped by Iggulsden, packing altar and
vestments.

"Perhaps you would kindly bring these things back to the Rectory any
time this morning. I can't take them now. I'm going to the church."

The man promised, and held the candle at the stairhead for Mr. Bennet to
go down. At the door, Dr. Gilpin's car had just pulled up, with the
parish nurse, whom the doctor had fetched for the washing and laying out
of the dead. They both greeted him, but he scarcely spoke; he brushed
past them into the pale street, where the dayspring struggled with the
last of night.

The church roof loomed black and steep against a sky slatted with
primrose. It was barely ten yards from Mount Pleasant, and soon he was
fumbling with his key in the vestry door. An unearthly silence hung over
the village and the marsh. Then suddenly a cock crew.

He had the door open at last. . . . It had been difficult in the
darkness, with his shaking hands. Why did his hands shake so? His whole
body shook--yet he felt strong, almost fierce, as he moved in the
darkness, groping for the matches he knew were there. At last he found
them, and helped himself to lamplight. Then he opened the small safe
where the church vessels were kept, and took out the long disused
ciborium. It had been kept bright and clean, ready for use. . . . Now it
would be used again, used as long as he breathed. . . . He would write
to the Bishop and tell him so. Yes, even Witsunden would say that he
must write to the Bishop now. Write and fight. . . . No matter how
old--never too old to fight. His old warlike spirit lifted its battered
crest, it snuffed the air and in his heart was a dreadful, disloyal
exaltation because now there was nobody to stop him fighting. . . .

He carried the ciborium into the church, placed the wafer within it and
restored it to the aumbry that had been empty for a year. He lit the
lamp that hung before the shrine--a seed of light in a great womb of
darkness. Then he slipped Mrs. Iggulsden's box back into his pocket;
once at least it had been used as she intended. The shadows were about
him as he knelt to pray, lifting his face to that small dayspring, which
seemed to grow smaller as outside the east window the dawn grew, piling
pearl on grey, and saffron on pearl, and flame on saffron. The cocks
were crowing--no longer in solitary reproach, but in united expectation.
A wan and terrible light swept into the church, smiting away, the
shadows. From distant places came the shapes of benches, pillars and an
ageless font.

His body still was shaking. He tried to pray, but he had no words,
scarcely thoughts, only a burning anger and grief.



                                  7

The Bishop's chaplain said:

"I hear on all sides that the poor old fellow's gone to pieces since his
wife's death."

The Bishop's mouth softened, but his eyes remained hard.

"He's gone back on his word."

"But at least he's had the honesty to write and tell you."

"What else could he do? I was bound to hear sooner or later, and
naturally it's better for him if I hear his side of the question first."

"Yes--quite so; but----"

The chaplain hesitated. Theologically he was on the Bishop's side, but
practically he thought there was something to be said for Mr. Bennet.
Anyway, he was an old man and a broken man; why not allow him to end his
ministry in peace? It probably would not be long before he died, or was
forced by illness to retire; and then--the living was in the Bishop's
gift, he could put in whom he chose, and all the defiance and trouble
would be ended. But his superior was speaking----

"It's a plain question of truth and falsehood. It seems to me that his
attitude conveys an altogether false and depraved idea of God's mercy.
I've told you many times that I regard this form of religion as a
definite throw-back to pagan conditions."

"He's an old man, and at his death the problem will solve itself
automatically."

"He's not so very old--not seventy yet. He may live another ten or
fifteen years. I must think of his parishioners."

"None of them has complained hitherto."

"I beg your pardon. One of them complained last year. Doubtless others
would complain if they had the courage--or were not so ignorant. There's
often a lot of hardship silently endured in these extreme parishes--and
I'm afraid, in this case, he's not only extreme but violent--quite
violent in his methods. You should have seen the letters he wrote me
last year."

"I did see some of them--he certainly doesn't pick and choose his words.
In what style does he write now?"

"The same. He seems obsessed by the practical aspects of the case--can't
see the legal or the doctrinal side at all--only the practical. It's
nothing but 'Mrs. Iggulsden,' 'Mrs. Iggulsden'--I'm really quite sick of
the poor woman's name. But read it yourself and judge."

He pushed the letter across to the chaplain, who saw at once that Mr.
Bennet's handwriting had changed if his style had not. It wavered up and
down the page, sharp and thin, with many missing words. To the younger
man, all the defiance of the contents seemed to spill itself and be lost
in those gaps of missing words.

"He's old," he repeated lamely--"that's an old man's letter. I wish you
could leave him alone."

"I wish I could. But really it would be weakness. There's something more
at stake than an old man's peace of mind."

"He's sinning rather out of excess than defect."

"I quite agree, and of course I'm terribly sorry for what has happened.
I'm always sorry to think that any Christian man or woman should be
denied the Sacrament in the hour of death. But it can't always be
avoided, and I simply won't believe that it can make any difference. The
poor woman's soul is none the worse, whereas many souls may be the worse
for what he is doing now. I shall certainly write and tell him that if
he will not desist from his illegal practices I shall do what I
threatened to do in the first instance--hold back his grant from the
Diocesan Funds."

"This time I doubt if you will be as successful as you were before. The
old chap's wife is dead, and I understand it was she who refused to live
on a hundred and fifty a year. Now he's alone, he'll probably attempt
it."

"He'll be a fool if he does."

"I'm afraid he will try."

The Bishop looked troubled. He had no wish to starve Mr. Bennet and had
only flourished his threat in the assurance of its efficacy. He could
not bear to think of the old man going short of such meagre comforts and
essential decencies as are to be bought for three hundred and fifty
pounds a year; but neither could he bear to think that a doctrine he
regarded as pernicious should receive even a temporary asylum in his
diocese. His high, fine brow contracted, and for a moment his eyes
wavered into the softness of his mouth.

"I'll go to see him," he said at last "I'll go and reason with him as a
father. I won't command. . . . Yes, that's the more excellent way. I
shall win him by tenderness as a father in God."

"I sadly fear you won't."

"Why not? If he's old and unhappy he's all the more likely to respond to
a little sympathy. We Bishops are often too prone to act as foremen
rather than shepherds. I shall approach him as one shepherd another. . . .
He'll respond to that, I feel sure. I won't ask him to come here--it's
a long way for an elderly man, and he probably can't afford the fare.
Look at my engagements for the week after next I know I haven't a minute
before then--and see if I can't squeeze out a couple of hours just to
drive over."

The chaplain, searching through the crowded pages, found a clear
afternoon about a fortnight ahead. But he could not share the Bishop's
hopes.

"It's a case of conscience with him," he said, "just as it is with you;
I think you'll find him more obstinate than anything you can possibly
imagine."

"Well, I shall have done my best, anyhow--and I've more faith in human
nature than you have. Please write and make the appointment with him."

The chaplain turned away, murmuring under his breath:

"When an irresistible force meets an immovable mass . . ."



                                  8

Mr. Bennet was surprised to receive from his Bishop a kindly worded
letter announcing his intention to come over to see him on Thursday, the
eighteenth of August, at half past two in the afternoon. "Then we can
discuss together this matter that is troubling us. Meanwhile I ask you
to pray for me that I may be guided aright, and that a solution may be
found for our difficulties."

This seemed to the old clergyman a most welcome sign of hope and grace,
and he began to congratulate himself on the success of his tactics.

"It's what I always said--show a firm front and they'll give way in the
end. They can't stand up to the truth. Oh, I was right to do as I did.
If only I'd done it earlier . . ."

Meanwhile, all was quiet in the parish. None made any protest because of
the shrine restored: Mrs. Millington was away, or possibly the peace
would have been broken. But Mr. Bennet felt more than a match for Mrs.
Millington. His old warlike spirit was in him again, but not quite in
the old way. He was like an old motor car, which had been put aside
after an accident, and now once more is taken out on the road. It dashes
along at something very like its former pace; but the fact that it makes
more noise than ever is not a good sign. At first Mr. Bennet thought it
was--because he no longer felt dull and mild and listless, but excited
and argumentative, he felt sure that he was better--better and happier,
in spite of his new loss and the self-reproach it had brought him. "I
feel more myself again," he would say, at the end of a talk with
Witsunden, or Dr. Gilpin, or Mr. Vidler.

One day Dr. Gilpin brought him up a little bottle.

"What's this? I'm feeling ever so much better now--I don't need any more
tonics."

"It's not a tonic. It's a sedative."

"I don't want a sedative."

"My dear old friend, you want one very badly. Take this for the next
week or two, and keep as quiet as you can."



                                  9

Shortly before the day fixed for the Bishop's visit, George Heasman came
to Goudhurst as he had said. He was to preach on one night only, at the
Gospel Hall, which was a hall attached to the Independent Chapel. Mr.
Bennet was glad it was to be in a hall. Neither he nor the old
Tractarian at Bulverhythe would approve of his attending worship in a
Nonconformist church; but a hall involved no precise dealings with
schism, and thus he was able to hear George preach with a clear
conscience. Which was just as well, for he was determined to hear him
and would have sacrificed his conscience rather than his opportunity.

He had a late tea instead of supper, and caught the bus at the end of
the Rectory lane, driving to Goudhurst by way of Benenden and the
Brogues. He was feeling a little tired when he arrived, for the summer
night was warm and the bus was crowded. On it he had detected more than
one of his parishioners, for though he had not meant to tell anyone of
George's intended visit, the news had leaked out, either through his
inadvertence or in some less likely way. Young Heasman was not popular
in Delmonden. His connection with Theresa's death had never been made a
certainty, but it had flourished powerfully as a supposition, and the
general trend was to distrust this new, strange flowering of a rotten
tree.

The Gospel Hall was a large building, barn-like in its outlines but
piously florid in detail, standing close to the Independent Chapel on
the outskirts of the town. Already it seemed full, and if Mr. Bennet had
not been able to show his ticket, he would probably have had to stay
outside. As it happened, he was given a seat in the front row, whence
even his short-sighted eyes could hope to see the preacher's face.
Opposite him was a high rostrum, crowned with a Bible and a glass of
water, with the scroll of a text mounting the wall behind it; from where
he sat beneath, all he could see was "Judgment."

A vague murmuring and shuffling filled the close air. People were trying
to find seats, were greeting neighbours, were exchanging hopes or
memories of the preacher. Mr. Bennet sat very stiff and upright, his
stick between his legs with his hands folded upon the crook of it. He
felt and looked a stranger. He was not used to this sort of thing. A
phase of village life was opening before him which, though he had always
known of it, he had never encountered. No church gathering would have
been quite like this. It would have been socially more mixed--the manor
and the villa attending as well as the farm and the cottage--it would
have been more respectable. Here was no higher rank than a small farmer
or two, and though there was the usual core of pious respectability,
there was also an uncommon periphery of dirt and rags--a couple of
tramps off the road, sitting together munching stale bread out of a
brown paper parcel, and here and there little knots of gipsies, staring
and whispering. All these people, judging from scraps of talk that came
to his ears, knew about George Heasman, and in some cases had heard him
preach. He must be well known on the roads, in that under-world of the
countryside where the Church and established Nonconformity have no
footing. He had indeed gone into the highways and hedges preaching to
sinners. . . . Mr. Bennet saw yet another wild fruit of the garden seed
he had sown.

Nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody. He felt a little out of
place, a little on the defensive. Though in a sense all this was his own
work, he did not really approve of it. The proceedings lacked that
quietness and dignity with which for him true religion always went
habited; he was conscious of no supernatural contacts or even
expectation. Crude sights, crude sounds, held his thoughts to earth.
They could not mount to heaven on the Scriptural baroque which was the
place's only ornament--whirling and flying scrolls of texts, Promises,
Judgments, Blood, Fountains, Jerusalem, Lamb of God. He stared at them
unedified as they spread their curves upon wall and cornice, sprawling
over doorways, swelling between windows, so full of a queer movement and
roundness that every letter might have been a flying cherub and every
scroll a cloud.

The door behind the pulpit opened, and George came in. At once there was
a hush, in the midst of which a woman's voice rose shrill and
sudden--"Hallelujah!" Mr. Bennet turned round indignantly to stare at
the interrupter, but nobody else took any notice, and the preacher
seemed entirely unmoved. He stood slowly turning over the leaves of the
great Bible, his eyes dreamy under frowning brows. He looked stouter,
comelier, and ruddier than Mr. Bennet had ever seen him, and when at
last he spoke his voice seemed almost musical with health.

The service opened with prayer--a queer, unedifying yet compelling
prayer, at which nobody knelt, during which all the congregation
shuffled their feet and scraped their chairs, coughed, hauked, blew
their noses, yet which somehow conveyed an almost disturbing sense of
devotional expectancy. It ended in a chorus of Aymens, and one
determined Hallelujah from the woman who had shouted before. Then they
all settled themselves for the sermon.

Mr. Bennet had not, of course, heard Heasman preach in the old days at
Providence, and his delivery was rather a shock to him. It might have
been a shock even if he had, for young George, no longer tempted by a
distant view of the ministry, had ceased to trouble about such things as
grammar and accent. Six months on the highways had broadened and
coarsened his speech. The drawling Kentish tones smote strangely on ears
used to Oxford and Cambridge in the pulpit. For some time, indeed, the
Rector found the discourse difficult to follow. George committed over
and over again the gravest sins of oratory. He held down his chin and
muttered, he threw it up and shouted to the roof; he babbled for long
periods, the words tumbling out of his mouth; then suddenly he would
pause and stammer, passing a sunburnt hand across his forehead, pushing
back his forelock of bleached hair so that a white line showed above the
healthy red of his brows; sometimes he waved his arms in meaningless
gestures, or he would suddenly stamp his foot so that the timid among
his congregation started like hares. It was all very trying, especially
as in time, when the preacher and hearers had warmed alike to their
business, his broken periods were cut up still further by Hallelujahs,
Aymens, Selahs, and Glory Be's. Mr. Bennet did not like it at all. He
sat stiffer than ever, his eyes fixed on the preacher's face. He saw
that the face was transformed, full of a light which was not in his
words nor in his thoughts. Moreover, as he looked about him, he saw that
light also reflected in the faces of the congregation. A power was at
work which did not lie in the eloquence of the preacher nor even in the
message that he brought. A queer sense of motion seemed to have come
into the room, as if not only the texts upon the wall, but the bodies
and minds and souls within it were all moving, moving in curious flight.
There was life, life, life everywhere . . . the life of the wind. He
felt as if he were assisting at some uncouth rustic Pentecost, had been
caught up into an uncharted movement of the Wind that bloweth where it
listeth. In time, his heart ceased to exclaim, though it was still
amazed and a little disgusted.

The matter of George's sermon was not more reassuring than the manner.
He brought home his message of forgiveness to sinners with the story of
his own sinful life, vomiting out his most secret experiences with the
painless ease of a babe at the breast.

"There was I, a pious young seller of tea and candles, my Mam's and my
Dad's good boy--never once I forgot to kneel beside my bed every morning
and evening and say the prayers my Mam had taught me. My one desire in
life was to be a Minister of God's Word, and I put myself through some
unaccountable stiff training--yes, I did; I tried to talk like an
educated person, like a real young undergrad, just laik this, ah did.
But I never could manage it, for the Lord had other things in store for
me. Oh, I was a presumptuous fool, I reckon, thinking I was saved, when
I had no real assurance, when sin had a root in my heart like a
dandelion. . . . I might have been now as I was then, smug-faced and
lost, if the Lord had not stooped in his mercy to my misery, and saved
me. And how do you think he saved me?--By a searching discourse? By a
meeting with one of his saints? By a little child's leading? No, dear
brothers and sisters, he saved me by none of these things. He saved me
by a new, dark, strange, and terrible way. He saved me by sin from sin.
What d'you think of that? Saved from sin--by sin?"

Mr. Bennet felt himself blushing for George, as he went on with his
story, hinting at the nature of his misdoing, or at least its roots in
the flesh--"a crushing, staggering, smiting sin of the heathen. None of
your pious sins, but a sin of blackness and darkness and burning lust."
He wondered if his part in the sinner's restoration would be enlarged
upon. But he appeared in the story only as "the voice of a living man."
There followed a theological argument to account for the apparent
failure of Scripture. George left the whole thing suspended in mid-air,
and went on to describe his growing sense of salvation, the spreading
light, which reached its fiery zenith in the flash where "a dear dead
girl bade me know myself as God's minister. I heard her dear voice
say--'The Lord has called you to his ministry. Go and preach the Word in
the highways and hedges.' And as I knelt in awe and wonder, I felt--I
swear as I stand here before you all that I felt--living hands laid upon
my head, and a living voice proclaimed me a Minister of God. I am
pledged to carry the glad tidings of salvation into the highways and
hedges, to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and bid
them come in to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

The rest of the discourse was taken up with an account of the glories of
that marriage feast, and an exhortation to his hearers to become
partakers of it with the Saints in light. His style was less broken and
changeful now, his speech seemed to combine and to flow, carrying along
the Aymens and Hallelujahs that were cast upon it as stones upon a
torrent. Mr. Bennet could feel all round him that men were praying. Part
of the motion in the hall was the motion of prayer, and suddenly it
became a physical motion, bodies rising up in different parts of the
building, bodies pressing and struggling down tight rows of eager
bodies, crushing up the aisle, scrambling up on the platform, where the
preacher stood with arms spread out, blue eyes solemn and blazing.

"Oh, my dear brothers and sisters. You cannot refuse this loving
invitation. The Bridegroom speaks, he calls you--'Come! Repent and
believe the Gospel.' Through the dark night, in the miry lane, he calls
you and his arms are waiting for your soul, as a husband's arms wait for
his wife, his erring wife. Oh, think of your soul as an erring wife, how
she goes creeping down the lane, to where she sees the lamp set in the
cottage window--the lamp of his love that never goes out day or night,
but is set in the window to beckon and guide her home. She comes, the
erring bride. She has only to knock--no she hasn't even to knock, for
the door is open. The Bridegroom's arms are round her, and as she lays
her head upon his breast and feels his forgiveness rain in kisses upon
her brow, that poor erring forgiven beloved soul can scarcely refrain
from crying--'O happy fault, which has brought me so great a
salvation!'"

The preacher took out a large coloured handkerchief and mopped his face.
Then he fell on his knees, praying silently, while his body swayed. An
elder announced a hymn and a collection.



                                  10

Quite a third of the congregation was now crowding to the platform. The
sense of motion all round him was so strong that Mr. Bennet could not
help wondering why he was not moved. He felt strangely apart, and
surprised, and a little repulsed. He picked his hat off the floor--it
had already been trodden on. There was no use trying to speak to George,
though he had wanted to speak to him. He had better make the best way
home he could. Then suddenly he heard young Heasman call his name.

"Mr. Bennet, Sir!"

He had jumped down off the platform, which was now crowded with
penitents, and his huge sunburnt hand seized the Rector's in a grip that
hurt.

"Kind of you to come, Sir. I'm unaccountable glad. I hope you had no
trouble in getting in."

His old manner of defensive truculence was completely gone--indeed, if
anything, he spoke with a touch of deference, as a young man to his
elder.

"No trouble at all," said Mr. Bennet, "thanks to the ticket you gave me.
How are you getting on? But I needn't ask."

"Fine, ain't it?" beamed George; "it ain't often you see a sight like
this."

Mr. Bennet had never seen anything like it before, and George was well
aware of that.

"All penitents, that is," he continued--"and now I must go and give the
message to each one. But I'd like to have a talk with you sometime, Mr.
Bennet. May I call around and see you one of these days? Seeing as the
Lord made use of your human flesh and blood to bring me to the light,
you should ought to know how I'm getting along."

"I would certainly like to hear. Are you staying in these parts?"

"Till next week. Then I go into Sussex. The Church at Burwash has
invited me to preach among them."

"The Church?"

"The Church of the Redeemed, not the Parish Church. Maybe I could call
and see you on my way. I take the Rother Valley train from Northiarn on
Thursday."

"Then come and see me--have a cup of tea. Will that suit you?"

"That will suit me fine--and now I must get along. My sinners are
waiting."

He leaped up on the platform to interview in one evening as many
penitents as Mr. Bennet had had in twenty years. The old parson made his
way out, thankful for the fresh air and the stillness of the street.



                                  11

It was not till some days later that he realised he had asked George to
tea on the same day he was expecting the Bishop. But, he reflected, it
was not at all likely that the Bishop would stay to tea. He was coming
at half past two, and probably the interview would be over in half an
hour; there was not much to be said--anyway, not much that could be said
with profit. He would see the Bishop in his study, and tea should be
laid in the drawing-room.

For nearly twenty minutes before his visitor was due to arrive he sat
waiting. He sat by his writing-table, erect and strung. He had not
thought yet what he would say. Somehow, whenever he had tried to think
of it, words and ideas had danced off together, and he had come to
himself far away from it all, wondering whether he should plant sweet
alyssum instead of violas in his borders next year, or remembering
painfully that he had not corrected the proofs of the "Parish
Magazine"--and had he written to the Universities' Mission about that
preacher they had promised to send? It was always in the midst of such a
question that he awoke, with his own particular question still
unanswered.

Not that it mattered much, he told himself. The less said the better.
And the fact that the Bishop was coming to see him meant that he had
virtually surrendered, otherwise he would never meet him on his own
ground, but would have summoned him to Maidstone. All they had to do was
to consider ways and means . . . and he would be magnanimous, he would
give way on any small details, though in essentials he would be firm as
a rock--the rock of the universal, undivided Church.

The Bishop came punctually, and Poor Emily showed him in, spinning round
twice before him in the doorway like a hen before a chasing car, crying
"The Bishop, my Lord," in a hoarse, awe-struck voice. Mr. Bennet rose to
meet his Father-in-God.

"It's very, very good of you to come," he said politely.

"My dear friend," the Bishop patted Mr. Bennet's shoulder with his free
hand, "I am so very glad to see you. I ought to have come before, to
offer you my personal condolences on your great loss; but a Bishop's
time, you know . . ."

Mr. Bennet bowed. He offered his visitor a chair, and they both sat
down.

"About this business," the Bishop began at once--for he had to be in
Maidstone again by five for a meeting--"I told my chaplain I felt sure
we could come to some friendly settlement if I saw you personally.
Letters are always unsatisfactory in a case like this."

Mr. Bennet agreed.

"I feel sure, my dear friend, that you do not mean to pit your
individual opinion against the law of this diocese."

"It is not my individual opinion, my Lord, but the opinion of the
undivided Church."

"Not of the Church of England."

"Surely the Church of England is a part of the undivided Church."

They had rushed into the argument up to their necks, and for some time
they floundered in it like hasty swimmers who are being carried too far
out to sea. They had about the same theological equipment, for the
Bishop's D.D. was honorary, and, like Mr. Bennet, he had always been too
busy to read much; they also had the same amount of practical
experience, though unfortunately of two quite different kinds. By the
time they had scrambled back on to the rock of plain fact only one thing
had been settled and that was that the Bishop had not come to Delmonden
in any spirit of weakness.

"Certainly not, Mr. Bennet. I am absolutely unable to make an exception
in your case. My only reason for coming personally is that I would
rather try to persuade you by friendly argument, than issue my commands
through the post."

"I am afraid that even you, my Lord, cannot persuade me to go against my
conscience in this matter."

A little of its first friendly bloom had worn off the meeting.

"But, my dear man, your conscience allowed you to obey me nine months
ago. Surely the doctrine of the undivided Church has not changed since
then?"

"No, but I have been shown--shown in a very terrible way--how wrong I
did in giving way to you."

"How can you have done wrong in giving way to your diocesan Bishop?"

"Because through doing so I have denied the Bread of Life to a soul that
asked for it."

The Bishop's mouth relaxed into a parenthetical concern, though his eyes
maintained their hard, dogmatic brightness.

"I agree absolutely that that was a most unfortunate incident, but I
think you are seeing it out of its true proportion. After all, this
woman, this poor dear woman, suffered no permanent loss. You surely
don't believe that she did."

"No, I don't. But she suffered all the same."

"Suffering is a good discipline for us all."

"But at my ordination I was not given any special authority to inflict
it."

"My dear Mr. Bennet, don't talk so wildly. I tell you that you're seeing
this thing out of all proportion. Besides, it's not a misfortune that is
ever likely to occur again. You have a tiny parish. Probably nobody else
will die suddenly in it for many years."

"There's old Mrs. Body--you know her, you met her at the
Confirmation--she may go any day this Winter. Besides, it isn't
that--you don't understand . . . if there's a single chance of a single
soul in my parish wanting the Sacrament and not getting it . . . why,
I've failed as a minister, as the shepherd of my flock. I've disobeyed
my Lord's commands to feed his sheep."

"But do you expect him to judge you for what is not your fault? You
can't do more than your best, and surely no loving Master will require
it of you. My complaint against your school of thought is that it often
encourages false ideas of God's mercy."

"It's not God's mercy I'm thinking of. I'm not thinking of myself at
all, and my own judgment. If I fail, I fail my ministry. I fail the
Church."

"But if you fail because you have obeyed the voice of the Church
speaking to you through your Bishop?"

"The voice of the Church does not always speak to me through my Bishop."

"Then how does it speak?"

Once more they were wetting their feet in that perilous theological sea,
but this time they shrank from wading farther into it. Hastily drawing
back they turned to the familiar shore of the concrete and the personal.

"Will you tell me exactly, Mr. Bennet, how many sick communions you have
weekly in your parish?"

"There's only Mrs. Body at present . . ."

"The present will do."

"But I must think of next Winter. There's always two or three old folk
that take to their beds in Winter, and I have besides, Mrs. Hilder, who
I'm afraid is drinking herself to death--she can't last much longer."

"Do you propose to take the Sacrament to a woman who is drinking herself
to death?"

"Yes I do, poor old soul, when she's dying. She's a very devout
churchwoman--used to be most regular up till about a year ago, when this
started. It began as a medicine and ended as a disease. It's a sin that
will die with her body."

"I have a great deal of parochial experience, Mr. Bennet, but I assure
you that my way of administering a parish is totally different from
yours."

"Then it's a mercy you're no longer a parish priest," said Mr. Bennet in
his heart; "but you'll probably do even more harm as a Bishop."

His lips were silent, but they must have moved, for the Bishop said:

"I beg your pardon, what was it you were saying?"

"I said nothing, my Lord."

He felt alarmed at having betrayed his inward voice even so little.
Suppose the time came when he could no longer control it. . . .

"My dear friend, do let us talk quietly and reasonably about these
things," pleaded his superior. "We ought to view the situation in the
abstract, not in its application to exceptional cases."

"The situation in the abstract seems to me just this, my Lord. You think
that the people of this country are so pious that their devotion wants
holding back, keeping from excesses. So you draw up rules that make
religion more difficult for them. It's easy enough to get 'tabioca
pudding' in this Church, but when a few exceptional people want the
Bread of Life instead, they're treated like criminals--like criminals, I
repeat."

"How can you say such a thing!"

"Well, they're put in chains like criminals, and get no encouragement
from the very people that ought to be thanking God that they exist, even
one or two in a parish."

"You should not speak in this way, Mr. Bennet. I beg you to control
yourself."

The concrete and personal shore was proving as unsafe as the theological
sea. The Bishop and Mr. Bennet faced each other uneasily. The Rector's
hands were shaking as he gripped the arms of his chair. He wished the
Bishop would go, and leave him alone. His arguments only worried him.

"My dear friend," pleaded Maidstone again, "don't let me feel I've
wasted three hours of my rather valuable time in coming to see you like
this. I could easily have written to you and said that if you refuse to
obey diocesan law you cannot expect to be helped by diocesan funds. But,
as I have already told you, I prefer persuasion to command."

"Threat you mean," said Mr. Bennet in his heart "I wish you'd stop
pulling that gaff over me, all about your valuable time and your
friendly persuasion. I'm sick of it. I wish you'd stopped at home. What
about my valuable time that's being wasted now?"

The Bishop was talking during an interval that he imagined to be an
interval of silence, but the Rector scarcely heard what he said. A
question suddenly reached him:

"Now, won't you trust me?"

"Not an inch."

He had not meant to say it, but it had come out. The Bishop looked hurt
and surprised.

"Really, Mr. Bennet, you are receiving me very strangely. What, would
the undivided Church have to say about such words to your
Father-in-God?"

"I'm sorry, my Lord," Mr. Bennet managed to say, "but you and I will
never agree. So, as you say, we're only wasting your time."

"I can't believe the situation is so desperate as all that. We came to a
settlement before--why can't we go back to it?"

"Because that settlement was a betrayal of one of my people."

The Bishop fought for patience.

"I have told you all I feel about that. I'm sorry, bitterly sorry that
it should have happened. But I've already tried to show you that it's
unlikely--almost impossible that it should happen again. Besides, what
we have to consider is the greatest good of the greatest number. The
individual must sometimes be sacrificed for the welfare of the
majority."

"It is expedient that one man should die for the people."

"Quite so . . . at least--" he had suddenly remembered the
context--"we're talking of something rather different."

"No, we're not. We're talking of that very thing. We're talking of how
we can sacrifice the good and holy to bolster up the respectabilities of
official religion. You kill my saints as you've always killed them.
Caiaphas!"

There was a moment of complete silence. Mr. Bennet felt curiously giddy
and shaken. He must be careful or he would be uttering his thoughts out
loud . . . why didn't the Bishop speak? . . . He looked across at him as
he sat there opposite, and as he looked at his face, he knew. Those
words had not been in his heart. He had spoken them out loud.

The Bishop's face was white, and his hands shook nearly as much as Mr.
Bennet's. Then, still shaking, he rose to his feet.

"This interview is ended. Dignity forbids me to prolong it any further.
You have forgotten yourself entirely."

A giddy defiance seized Mr. Bennet.

"On the contrary, my Lord, I've spoken from my heart."

"You have spoken disgracefully--unworthily. . . . I cannot compel you to
resign, but if you have any self-respect you will do so after this.
Anyhow, I refuse to have any more personal dealings with you, and your
grant from the diocese is stopped."

Two very angry old men, they faced each other for a moment. Then the
Bishop turned and walked out, leaving Mr. Bennet standing in the middle
of the room.



                                  12

Well, that was that, as the new generation in the village said . . . a
ridiculous interview--really a ridiculous interview . . . wasting
everybody's time, and nothing gained--nothing really said . . . the
Bishop was quite unfit for office--knew nothing about modern parish work
and couldn't stand plain speaking . . . losing his temper like that, and
all for a few plain words . . . of course he ought not to have said
them--not out loud . . . but he was glad he had spoken, let the Bishop
hear the truth for once. If only those men knew what the parish clergy
thought of them . . . Caiaphas! . . . ridiculous interview--ridiculous
interview.

There was a roar of a starting engine, and the Bishop's car went
rustling down the drive. Mr. Bennet moved shakily to the window and
opened it. The place felt terribly hot and stuffy. He could scarcely
breathe. . . . He would go into the drawing-room; it would be cooler in
there. Here it seemed as if all the fresh air had been used up in
argument. He really felt quite ill . . . but in the drawing-room he
could sit and rest and breathe freely.

Tea was already laid, in the anomalous recess of the Gothic bow. The
breeze was fluttering the curtains, and there was a pleasant smell of
new mown grass blowing in from the Rectory lawn. But Mr. Bennet still
did not feel well--his hands were shaking and he had a queer sensation
of sickness and giddiness. It was the Bishop's fault--talking such
ridiculous, unpastoral nonsense . . . ridiculous interview--really a
preposterous interview. But he didn't feel well--not at all well. He sat
down in one of the chintz-covered armchairs that had been pulled up to
the table. The rest of the room seemed to recede out of the sunlight,
the corners filling themselves with shadows. Moved by a sudden sense of
fear and loneliness, he rang the bell.

The sound went, ghostly and untoward, through the silent house. Neither
Mr. Bennet nor his wife had been in the habit of ringing bells, and
Emily came running in from the kitchen with a scared look on her face.

"Emily," said Mr. Bennet. He had meant to ask her for a glass of water,
but his mind suddenly became disobedient. It broke its long partnership
with his tongue, and refused to supply the words he wanted.
"Emily--bring me a--a kettle."

He had managed to say it. . . . No, it was not quite right. What was the
word he wanted?

"Here, you know what I mean. Bring me a--Bible. No, I . . ."

He stared at her miserably and she stared at him. Her mouth dropped
open, and he suddenly thought what an empty, idiotic face she had . . .
staring at him like that and unable to help him . . . and she was all he
had to help him now, all he had to live with him and look after him. Oh,
Lucy, Lucy! . . .

He suddenly cried out: "Go away!"

She fled.

He realised then that he had spoken violently, he had frightened her. He
ought not to have spoken to the poor thing like that. He was getting to
be a violent old man, shouting and scaring people. And he had spoken
most unbecomingly to the Bishop--he saw that now. He had been right in
his principles, but wrong in his behaviour--very wrong. Oh, that
besetting sin. . . . Lord, forgive my sinful tongue. It deserves to
suffer, and lose its power.

But his power had now returned. He called the words and they came to
him. . . . Bring me a glass of water. Yes, that was right. But he would
not ring for Emily again--he had frightened her too badly, poor soul,
and must give her time to recover. Besides, he felt better--much better;
and George would be here soon, and they would have tea.

His mind, more steady now, reviewed the last hour or two. Yes, he had
burned his boats. . . . One hundred and fifty pounds a year. He would
have to manage on that, and it wouldn't be much. When he'd paid Emily
her thirty pounds, and the wages of the boy who helped him struggle with
the garden, and the rates, and his insurance premium--there wouldn't be
much more than eighty pounds left for food and clothing, as well as fuel
and light, and any necessary repairs and odd expenses. . . . He'd have
to send away Emily--oh, no, he couldn't do that. She'd never get another
place, foolish as she was, and he could not manage without her--all
alone in this big house. He would sack the boy--that would save five
shillings a week, and he could manage the garden. Perhaps he could grow
vegetables and sell them. . . . But he would have to be
careful--exceedingly careful.

He pulled a used envelope out of his pocket, and began to scratch
figures on it; but his thoughts soon wandered. . . . What would his
churchwardens say to all this? Would they stand by him? They wouldn't be
pleased at so much money being lost, and the parish being under
discipline, with no visits from the Bishop, whom they all liked . . .
and Mrs. Millington would be furious, and take away all her guineas and
half-crowns. Well, let her do so. He had no use for her really. She was
a wicked, silly old woman who--no he mustn't let himself get angry
again. . . . But souls were worth more than money, and his business was
to take care of souls, not to worry about ways and means. . . . His
people would never see that. They would think him merely violent and
obstructive. He ought to have taught them the faith more clearly. He had
fought for the faith, but had he taught it?

The Bishop had sneered at his solitary sick communion--only one old
woman, and she'd soon be dead. How was it that he had so few elect souls
among his children? Mrs. Body was the last of them. When she died there
would be nobody--no elect soul who preferred the Bread of Life to
tabioca pudding. The elect souls were gone--Lucy, Mrs. Iggulsden, old
Spong, with Mrs. Body soon to follow. Had he failed because they had
gone on ahead of him, leaving him alone? . . . "They are all gone into a
world of light." . . . Yes, he had failed. He had failed. There ought to
be a crowd of eager young souls pressing on in the tracks of the old
ones--all the Ernies and Maudies and Mabels and Freds and Neds of the
parish. There ought to have been Theresa Silk . . . but no man cared for
her soul.

"Feed my lambs"--oh, where were the lambs? Lord, forgive thine unworthy
shepherd, who has brought thee only a few old sheep. The lambs have
sought other pastures, and the wolf took one of them. . . . Only a few
old folk. . . . But they are thine, thou carest for them . . . a few old
folk--no young ones. . . . There's George Heasman, but he's outside the
covenant, outside the fold, a vagabond shepherd with a flock of wild
goats. Yet wilt thou not accept him and receive him? for he's all I have
that's young to offer thee . . .



                                  13

He sat staring before him into the corners of the room, which were
growing dark again. He was feeling sick, and his limbs were strangely
heavy, but he would not ring for Emily. No, he need not trouble her--she
was no use, and Lucy would be in quite soon--Lucy would bring him
anything he wanted, and cheer and comfort him, and make him feel well
again. He wouldn't feel so lonely, so frightened and lonely . . . as he
felt now, with the shadows creeping towards him out of the corners of
the room--out of the corners of his mind. . . .

But she would never come back; she was dead. He knew now that she was
dead. He would go to her, but she could not return to him. He had often
expected her like this before, though not so deliberately and
consciously--looking for her to come in when he sat alone at his
tea-table. But she had never come. She would never come. She was dead.

He saw that the table was laid for two . . . this seemed strange. He
stared at it, and saw two plates, two cups, two spoons. There were cakes
in the stand, besides the bread and butter he ate when he was alone.
Perhaps, then, she was coming, after all. . . . Emily would not have
laid a place for her if she was dead. . . . He had dreamed before this
that she was dead, and wakened to find her beside him. She could not be
dead; he had only dreamed. . . . He was dreaming still; he would wake up
and find her there. . . . Or was he awake already, after a long sleep?
He felt mazed and heavy, as he so often felt after sleep. What had he
been dreaming of all this afternoon?

George Heasman . . . no, that was nonsense; George had gone off to
Newbury--been packed off, to prevent his marrying Theresa Silk. How
queer it was that he couldn't remember things. He felt all mixed up.
When Lucy came in he would get her to explain to him exactly what had
happened . . . George was coming to tea . . . the Gospel Hall at
Goudhurst. . . . No, he had dreamed that. It wasn't real. He had dreamed
it all. He had gone to sleep in the afternoon and slept too long. Lucy
had sometimes scolded him for that. The Bishop had been to see him . . .
no that was another dream. The Bishop would never have come to see him.
He wished he could get this clear--which of his memories were dreams and
which were not. It was all very trying and confusing. He had never felt
like this before--so drowsy and muddled. . . . Was he ill? Was some
terrible change taking place in his body? He felt now as if his limbs
were made of lead--he could not move in his chair. He could not ring for
Emily now if he wanted. . . . Lord, remember me. . . . All those queer,
doleful, frightening dreams at the back of his mind. . . .

Then suddenly he saw her standing near him--his Lucy, come at last. In
his relief he could have cried for joy. There she stood, just the same
as ever, though he could not be sure whether she was the same as when he
had first known and loved her or the same as she had been in those last,
faded wintry years. . . . He would have spoken to her, but no words
would come. Would she understand what had happened? Would she be able to
help him now that he was so ill? He thought she had come in to have tea
with him, but the next moment she was in the doorway, going out.

He rose up and followed her, all his sickness and heaviness forgotten.
In the hall he saw George Heasman coming towards the drawing-room door
with Emily, but he had no time to speak to him, and the young man did
not seem to expect it. . . . Lucy moved quickly over the lawn, down
towards the trees. At the edge of the long shadows that they cast she
turned and waited for him.

George Heasman came briskly into the room. "Good evening, Mr. Bennet.
I'm afraid I'm a little late, Sir, but----"

His voice broke off as he came close to the figure in the chair. It sat
in a queer, huddled attitude, breathing stertorously.

"He's ill!" cried George, and sprang towards the door--"Hi!
you--Miss--girl--Hi! Your master's been taken ill!"

Emily appeared suddenly like a ghost out of the shadows of the hall.

"He's gone," she said in a flat voice--"he's gone."

"No--he isn't dead. But he's uncommon bad--run and fetch your doctor,
quick. That's a good girl."

But by the time that Dr. Gilpin had been hunted on his round, and found
at Marsh Quarter, and brought to the Rectory, Mr. Bennet was dead, in
the arms of the vagabond shepherd. . . . He never recovered
consciousness, and he spoke only once, and then it was impossible to
make out what he said, though one word sounded like "dream."

THE END



