Chapter 15

TOLD BY JUKE (IN HIS PRIVATE JOURNAL)

GIVING ADVICE

1

It is always rather amusing dining at Aylesbury House, with my stimulating family. Especially since Chloe, my present stepmother, entered it, three years ago. Chloe is great fun; much more entertaining than most variety artists. I know plenty of these, because Wycombe, my eldest brother, introduces them to me. As a class they seem pleasant and good-humoured, but a little crude, and lacking in the subtler forms of wit or understanding. After an hour or so of their company I want to yawn. But Chloe keeps me going. She is vulgar, but racy. She is also very kind to me, and insists on coming down to help with theatrical entertainments in the parish. It is so decent of her that I can't say no, though she doesn't really fit in awfully well with the O.U.D.S. people, and the Marlowe Society people, and the others whom I get down for theatricals. In fact, Elizabethan drama isn't really her touch. However, the parish prefers Chloe, I need hardly say.

I dined there on Chloe's birthday, October 15th, when we always have a family gathering. Family and other. But the family is heterogeneous enough to make quite a good party in itself. It was represented on that particular evening by my father and Chloe, my young sister Diana, my brothers Wycombe and Tony, Tony's wife, myself, my uncle Monsignor Juke, my aunt the Marchesa Centurione and a daughter, and my Aunt Cynthia, who had recently, on her own fiftieth birthday, come out of a convent in which she had spent twenty-five years and was preparing to see Life. Besides the family, there were two or three theatrical friends of Chloe's, and two friends of my father's--a youngish literary man called Bryan, and the cabinet minister to whom Tony was secretary, but whom I will not name, because he might not care for it to be generally known that he was an inmate of so fast a household.

My Aunt Cynthia, having renounced her vows, and having only a comparatively short time in which to enjoy the world, the flesh and the devil, is making the most of it. She has only been out of her convent a year, but is already a spring of invaluable personal information about men and manners. She knows everything that is being said of everybody else, and quite a lot that hasn't even got as far as that. Her Church interests (undiminished in keenness) provide a store of tales inaccessible to most of my family and their set (except my Uncle Ferdinand, of course, and his are mostly Roman not Anglican). Aunt Cynthia has a string of wonderful stories about Cowley Fathers biting Nestorian Bishops, and Athelstan Riley pinching Hensley Henson, and so forth. She is as good as Ronnie Knox at producing or inventing them. I'm not bad myself, when I like, but Aunt Cynthia leaves me out of sight.

This evening she was full of vim. She usually talks at the top of a very high and strident voice (I don't know what they did with it at the convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, 'Haven't you heard _that_? Oh, everybody's quoting it in Fleet Street, aren't they, Mr. Bryan? But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr. Blank; it's so important, isn't it, for the government not to get mixed up with the press. Well, I'll tell it you.

'There was a young journalist Yid, Of his foes of the press he got rid In ways brief and bright, For, at dead of the night, He threw them downstairs, so he did.

It's about the late editor of the _Daily Haste_ and Mr. Gideon of the _Weekly Fact_. No, I don't know who's responsible for it, but I believe it's perfectly true. They're saying so everywhere now. I believe that awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; it's been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr. Hobart himself. No, I'm sure she didn't make the limerick; she's not a poet, only a novelist. Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through planchette. Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder charge very shortly, and that there's no doubt he's guilty.'

I leant across the table.

'_Who's_ saying so, Aunt Cynthia?' I asked her.

Aunt Cynthia hates being asked that about her stories. Of course. Every one does. I do myself.

Aunt Cynthia looked at me with her childlike convent stare.

'My dear Laurie, how can I remember who says anything, with every one saying everything all the time? Who? Why, all sorts of people.... Aren't they, Chloe?'

Chloe, who was showing a spoon and glass trick to the Monsignor, said, 'Aren't who what?'

'Isn't every one saying that Arthur Gideon threw Oliver Hobart downstairs and killed him?'

'I expect so, dear. Never heard of either of the gentlemen myself. And did he?'

'Of course he did. He's a Jew, and he hated Hobart and his paper like poison. The _Fact's_ so different, you know. Every one's clear he did it. Mind you, I don't blame him. The _Daily Haste_ is a vulgar Protestant rag.'

'The Jew's a dear friend of Laurie's,' put in Wycombe. 'You'd better be careful, Aunt Cynthia.'

'Oh, Laurie dear,' my aunt cried, 'how tactless of me. But, my dear boy, are you really friends with a Jew, and you a Christian priest?'

'I'm friends with Gideon. He's a Gentile by religion, by the way; an ordinary agnostic. Aunt Cynthia, don't go on spreading that nonsense, if you don't mind. You might contradict it if you hear it again.'

'Very well, dear. I'll say you have good reason to know it isn't true. I'll say you've been told who did kill Mr. Hobart, only it was under the seal, so you can't say. Shall I?'

'By all means, if you like.'

Then Aunt Cynthia chased off after another exciting subject, and that was all about Gideon.

2

I came away early (about eleven, that is, which is very early for one of Chloe's evenings, which don't end till summer dawn) feeling more worried than ever about Gideon. If the gossip about him had penetrated from Lady Pinkerton's circle to my aunt's, it must be pretty widespread. I was angry with Aunt Cynthia, and a little with every one I had met that evening. They were so cheerful, so content with things as they were, finding all the world such a screaming farce.... I sometimes get my family on my nerves, when I go there straight from Covent Garden and its slum babies, and see them spending and squandering and being irresponsible and dissolute and not caring twopence for the way two-thirds of the world live. There was Wycombe to-night, with a long story to tell me about his debts and his amours (he's going to be co-respondent in a divorce case directly), and Chloe, as hard as nails beneath her pretty ways, and simply out for a good time, and Aunt Cynthia, with half the gossip of London spouting out of her like a geyser, and Diana, who might turn out fine beyond description or degenerate into a mere selfish rake (it won't be my father's and Chloe's fault if she doesn't do the latter), and my Uncle Ferdinand in purple and fine linen, a prince of the Church, and Tony already booked for a political career, with his chief's shady secrets in his keeping to show him the way it's done. And they bandied about among them the name of a man who was worth the lot of them together, and repeated silly rhymes which might hang him.... It was a little more than I could stand.

One is so queer about one's family. I'm inclined to think every one is. Often I fit in with mine perfectly, and love to see them, and find them immensely refreshing after Covent Garden and parish shop. And then another time they'll be on my nerves and I feel glad I'm out of it all. And another time again I'm jealous of them, and wish I had Wycombe's or Tony's chances of doing something in the world other than what I am doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated audiences to preach to, and I want to have leisure to write more and to make a name.... It is merely a vulgar disease--a form of Potterism. One has to face it and fight it out.

But to-night I wasn't feeling that. I wasn't feeling anything very much, except that Gideon, and all that Gideon stood for, was worth immeasurably more than anything the Aylesbury lot had ever stood for.

And when I got back, I found a note from Katherine saying that she had warned Gideon about the talk and that he wasn't proposing to take any steps.

3

Next morning I had to go to Church House for a meeting. I got the _Daily Haste_ (which I seldom see) to read in the underground. On the front page, side by side with murders, suicides, divorces, allied notes, and Sinn Fein outrages, was a paragraph headed 'The Hobart Mystery. Suspicion of Foul Play.' It was about how Hobart's sudden death had never been adequately investigated, and how curious and suspicious circumstances had of late been discovered in connection with it, and inquiries were being pursued, and the _Haste_, which was naturally specially interested, hoped to give more news very soon.

So old Pinkerton was making a journalistic scoop of it. Of course; one might have known he would.

At my meeting (Pulpit Exchange, it was about) I met Frank Potter. He is a queer chap--commercial and grasping, like all his family, and dull too, and used to talk one sick about how little scope he had in his parish, and so on. Since he got to St. Agatha's he's cheered up a bit, and talks to me now instead of his big congregations and their fat purses. He's a dull-minded creature--rather stupid and entirely conventional. He's all against pulpit exchange, of course; he thinks it would be out of order and tradition. So it would. And he's a long way keener on order and tradition than he is on spiritual progress. A born Pharisee, he is really, and yet with Christianity struggling in him here and there; and that's why he's rather interesting, in spite of his dullness.

After the meeting I went up to him and showed him the _Haste_.

'Can't this be stopped?' I asked him.

He blinked at it.

'That's what Johnny is up in arms against too,' he said. 'He swears by this chap who is suspected, and won't hear a word against him.'

'Well,' I said, 'the question is, can Johnny or any one else do anything to stop it?... I've tried. I spoke to Lady Pinkerton the other day. It was no use. Can _you_ do anything?'

'I'm afraid not,' he said, rather apathetically. 'You see, my people believe Gideon killed Hobart, and are determined to press the matter. One can't blame them, you know, if they really think that. My mother feels perfectly sure of it, from various bits of evidence she's got hold of, and won't be happy till the thing is thoroughly sifted. Of course, if Gideon's innocent, it's best for him, too, to have the thing out, now it's got so far. Don't you agree?'

'I don't. Why should a man have to waste his time appearing in a criminal court to answer to a charge of manslaughter or murder which he never committed? Gideon happens to have other things to do than to make a nine days' wonder for the press and public.'

I suppose that annoyed Potter rather. He said sharply, 'It's up to the chap to prove his innocence. Till he does, a great many people will believe him guilty, I'm afraid.'

'Including yourself, obviously.'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'I've no prejudices either way,' he returned, his emphasis on the personal pronoun indicating that I, in his opinion, had.

But there he was wrong. I hadn't. I was quite prepared to believe that Gideon had knocked Hobart downstairs, or that he hadn't. You can't be a parson, or, indeed, anything else, for long, without learning that decent men and women will do, at times, quite indecent things, and that the devil is quite strong enough to make a mess of any human being's life. You hear of a man that he was in love with another man's wife and hated her husband and at last killed him in a quarrel--and you think 'A bad lot.' But he may not be a bad lot at all; he may be a decent chap, full of ideals and generosity and fine thinking. Sometimes I'm inclined to agree with the author of that gushing and hysterical book _In Darkest Christendom and a Way Out_, that the only unforgiveable sin is exploitation. Exploitation of human needs and human weaknesses and human tragedies, for one's own profit.... And, as we very nearly all do it, in one way or another, let us hope that even that isn't quite unforgiveable. Yes, we nearly all do it. The press exploits for its benefit human silliness and ignorance and vulgarity and sensationalism, and, in exploiting it, feeds it. The war profiteers exploited the war.... We all exploit other people--use their affection, their dependence on us, their needs and their sins, for our own ends.

And that is deliberate. To knock a fellow human being downstairs in a quarrel, so that he dies--that may be impulse and accident, and is not so vile. Even to say nothing afterwards--even that is not so vile.

Still, I would rather, much rather, think that Gideon hadn't done it.

It was odd that, as I was thinking these things, walking up Surrey Street from the Temple Embankment, I overtook Gideon, who was slouching along in his usual abstracted way.

I touched his arm and spoke to him. He gave me his queer, half-ironical smile.

'Hallo, Jukie.... Where are you bound?... By the way, did you by chance see the _Haste_ this morning?'

'Not by chance. That doesn't happen with me and the _Haste_. But I saw it.'

'They obviously mean business, don't they. The sleuth-hound touch. I expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the _Pink Pictorial_ and the _Sunday Rag_. I must get a nice one taken.'

I suppose I looked as I felt, for he said in a different tone, 'Don't worry, old man. There's nothing to be done. We must just let this thing take its course.'

I couldn't say anything, because there was nothing to say that wouldn't seem like asking him questions, or trying to make him admit or deny the thing to me. I wanted to ask him if he couldn't produce an alibi and blow the ridiculous story to the four winds. But--suppose he couldn't...?

So I said nothing but, 'Well, let me know if ever I can be any use,' and we parted at the top of Surrey Street.

4

We have evensong at five at St. Christopher's. No one conies much. The people in the parish aren't the weekday church sort. Those among them who come to church at all mostly confine their energies to evening service on Sundays, though a few of them consent to turn up at choral mass at eleven. And, by means of guilds and persuasion, we've induced a good many of the lads and girls to come to early mass sometimes. The vicar gets discouraged at times, but not so much as most vicars would, because he more or less agrees with me in not thinking church-going a test of Christianity. The vicar is one of the cleverest and most original parsons in the Church, in my opinion. He has a keen, shrewd, practical insight into the distinction between essentials and non-essentials. He is popular in the parish, but I don't think the people understand, as a rule, what he is getting at.

Anyhow, the only people who usually came to our week-day services were a few church workers and an elderly lady or two who happened to be passing and dropped in. The elderly ladies who lived in the parish were much too busy for any such foolishness.

But this evening--the evening of the day I had met Gideon--there was a girl in church. She was rather at the back, and I didn't see who it was till I was going out. Then she stopped me at the door, and I saw that it was Clare Potter. I knew Clare Potter very slightly, and had never found her interesting. I had always believed her to be conventional and commonplace, without the brains of the twins or even the mild spirituality of Frank.

But I was startled by her face now; it was white and strained, and emotion wavered pitifully over it.

'Please,' she said, 'will you hear my confession?'

'I'm very sorry,' I told her, 'but I can't. I'm still in deacon's orders.'

She seemed disappointed.

'Oh! Oh dear! I didn't know....'

I was puzzled. Why had she pitched on me? Hadn't she, I wondered, a regular director, or was it her first confession she wanted to make? I began something about the vicar being always glad ... But she stopped me.

'No, please. It must be you. There's a reason.... Well, if you can't hear my confession, may I tell you something in private, and get your advice?'

'Of course,' I said.

'Now, at once, if you've time.... It's very urgent.'

I had time, and we went into the vestry.

She sat down, and I waited for her to speak. She wasn't nervous, or embarrassed, as most people are in these interviews. Two things occurred to me about her; one was that she was, in a way, too far through, too mentally agitated, to be embarrassed; the other was that she was, quite unconsciously, posing a little, behaving as the heroine of one of her mother's novels might have behaved. One knows the situation in fiction--the desperate girl appealing out of her misery to the Christian priest for help. So many women have this touch of melodrama, this sense of a situation.... I believed that she was, as she sat there, in these two conditions simultaneously, exactly as I was simultaneously analysing her and wanting to be of what service I could.

She leant forward across the vestry table, locking and unlocking her hands.

'This is quite private, isn't it,' she said. 'As private as if...?'

'Quite,' I told her.

She drew a long, shivering breath, and leant her forehead on her clasped hands.

'You know,' she said, so low that I had to bend forward to catch it, 'what people are saying--what my people suspect about--about Oliver Hobart's death.'

'Yes, I know.'

'Well--it wasn't Mr. Gideon.'

'You know that?' I said quickly. And a great relief flooded me. I hadn't known, until that moment, because I had driven it under, how large a part of my brain believed that Gideon had perhaps done this thing.

'Yes,' she whispered. 'I know it ... Because I know--I know--who did it.'

In that moment I felt that I knew too, and that Gideon knew, and that I ought to have guessed all along.

I said nothing, but waited for the girl's next word, if she had a next word to say. It wasn't for me to question her.

And then, quite suddenly, she gave a little moan of misery and broke into passionate tears.

I waited for a moment, then I got up and poured her out a glass of water. It must have been pretty bad for her. It must have been pretty bad all this time, I thought, knowing this thing about her sister.

She drank the water, and became quieter.

'Do you want to tell me any more?' I asked her, presently.

'Oh, I do, I do. But it's so difficult ... I don't know how to tell you.... Oh, God ... It was _I_ that killed him!'

'Yes?' I said, after a moment, gently, and without apparent surprise. One learns in parish work not to start, however much one may be startled. I merely added a legitimate inquiry. 'Why was that?'

She gulped. 'I want to tell you everything. I _want_ to.'

I was sure she did. She had reached the familiar pouring-out stage. It was obviously going to be a relief to her to spread herself on the subject. I am pretty well used to being told everything, and at times a good deal more, and have learnt to discount much of it. I looked away from her and prepared to listen, and to give my mind to sifting, if I could, the fact from the fancy in her story. This is a special art, and one which all parsons do well to learn. I have heard my vicar on the subject of women's confessions.

'Women--women. Some of them will invent any crime--give themselves away with both hands--merely to make themselves interesting. Poor things, they don't realise how tedious sin is. One has to be on one's guard the whole time, with that kind.'

I deduced that Clare Potter might possibly be that kind. So I listened carefully, at first neither believing nor disbelieving.

'It's difficult to tell you,' she began, in a pathetic, unsteady voice. 'It hurts, rather ...'

'No, I think not,' I corrected her. 'It's a relief, isn't it?'

She stared at me for a moment, then went on, 'Yes, I _want_ to tell. But it hurts, all the same.'

I let her have it her own way; I couldn't press the point. She really thought it did hurt. I perceived that she had, like so many people, a confused mind.

'Go on,' I said.

'I must begin a long way back.... You see, before Oliver fell in love with Jane, he ... he cared a little for me. He really did, Mr. Juke. And he made me care for him.' Her voice dropped to a whisper.

This was truth. I felt no doubt as to that.

'Then ... then Jane came, and took him away from me. He fell in love with her ... I thought my heart would break.'

I didn't protest against the phrase, or ask her to explain it, because she was unhappy. But I wish people wouldn't use it, because I don't know, and they don't know, what they mean by it. 'I thought I should be very unhappy,' is that the meaning? No, because they are already that. 'I thought my heart--the physical organ--would be injuriously affected to the point of rupture.' No; I do not believe that is what they mean. Frankly, I do not know. There should be a dictionary of the phrases in common use.

However, it would have been pedantic and unkind to ask Miss Potter, who could probably explain no phrases, to explain this.

She went on, crying a little again.

'I couldn't stop caring for him all at once. How could I? I suppose you'll despise me, Mr. Juke, but I just couldn't help going on loving him. It's once and for ever with me. Oh, I expect you think it was shameful of me!'

'Shameful? To love? No, why? It's human nature. You had bad luck, that's all.'

'Oh, I did.... Well, there it was, you see. He was married to Jane, and I cared for him so much that I could hardly bear to go to the house and see them together.... Oh, it wasn't my fault; he _made_ me care, indeed he