Part 8

"Not at all. I'd finished my work. I'm alone. I'm always alone in this house. Have you ever thought how lonely a man can be in his own house? . . . You've not? You don't think? May be you're wise, though, maybe again, you're only young. Well, I tell you, a man can be very lonely in his own house, but not many are as lonely as I am. Looking at it purely philosophically it's something of an achievement--in a negative sort of way. I mean, not many men can have all that nature has provided for a man and get nothing at all out of it. Nearly all men manage to get some pickings for their vanity, but I don't even get that. I get nothing. . . . So do hundreds of thousands of people. They can't. But the difference between them and me is that they can pretend and I can't. Nature's very wasteful. She produces far more men and women than she wants. Just a few are sound and really alive. The rest are shadows. I'm a shadow. I don't know what you are. A sort of betwixt and between I should say, just looking at you. The real men make loveliness, and the intelligent shadows have a sort of echo of it and have a sort of reflected life through it. The rest wither away and are dead years and years before they die. What I can't stand though is their damned cruelty. I can't expect you to make much of that. I talk like that for hours to old Tibby. She's the most real person in this house, and the rest of us are sticking to her like leeches. She's had no life of her own, hasn't Tibby, and sometimes she will stand and look at me and say, 'You're a wonderful talker, man,' and I'll say, 'I'm nothing else, woman.' Queer people, we are. But we're all queer in this place to go on living in the darkness and mist of it as we do. I've met your father. He's a comfortable man. It must be very pleasant to have a comfortable man in the house."

Frederic did his best to follow him in his harangue, and, though he could make very little of it all, he was interested and wanted him to go on. He had never been in a house like it before. Never had he had such a sensation of empty darkness, and he wanted very much to know what was in the rest of the house besides the boy who had spoken to him on the doorstep and Tibby and the cat. And what did they all do when old Lawrie got drunk?

The boy Bennett came into the room, walked across to the book-shelves by the window, took down a book and went out again without taking the smallest notice of his father.

The old man watched him with a sort of hunger, and he took a piece of paper and tore it up into a thousand pieces and let them flutter down on to the floor at his feet.

Frederic plunged into his own affairs and said:

"Do you remember some drawings I showed you? My brother's come back. I think he wants them. The boy at the club . . ."

"I have them."

"You remember Mr. Beecroft said he was a genius."

"Beecroft's a sot and a fool. But they're good. Things seen and felt. I've given over asking for more than that."

He went to a cupboard and produced the portfolio. Frederic saw it with immense relief, and ceased to take any interest in old Lawrie, or Tibby, or Bennett, or the cat. He was secure against any unpleasantness, and the old man's talk seemed to him now only maundering folly. Before he had been more than half convinced that the world was a miserable place of shadows and shams.

Except for awful moments Frederic had always found life very pleasant and amusing. He had done very much as he pleased and fancied that he had been remarkably successful in dodging consequences. He did not imagine that things could ever be different, and thinking about it always seemed to him to be a ridiculous waste of time.

He took the portfolio and began to tell old Lawrie the little he knew about Serge, and soon worked round to Beecroft's declaration that an exhibition ought to be organised, and the old man, more to humour him and to get rid of him than for any enthusiasm that he had, asked him to bring his brother to the club some Sunday evening. Frederic promised and took his leave.

In the dark passage he met Bennett waiting for him. Bennett was very nervous and took him into a little dark cell of a room at the foot of the stairs and took him by the arm and whispered:

"Did you really mean me to come? Of course I can't ask you to come here. I can't, you know. But I would like to come to your house. You sing, don't you, and act? I can sing and act, and I can draw and write verses. Your brother's a painter, isn't he? I should love to come."

Frederic felt irritated. The boy was so horribly in earnest. There was nothing particularly delightful in the house in Fern Square, but if the queer little idiot liked to come of course there was no reason why he shouldn't. He was religious, and therefore, presumably, respectable enough.

"All right," said Frederic gruffly. "Next Sunday."

"Oh! Thanks. Thanks."

The boy took his hand and pressed it violently. He had a cold, hard bony hand, and Frederic had a feeling of repulsion. It seemed unnatural to him for a boy to be so emotional.

He reached home to find Serge entertaining a large party, including all the family, the Clibran-Bell girls, and his cousin, Streeten Folyat, who had suddenly appeared on his way to Westmoreland, where he had bought a sheep-farm. Streeten belonged to a wealthy branch of the family and had already tried nine different professions. He was a man of means, and Mrs. Folyat was making herself very charming to him, and had him sitting between herself and Mary. Serge was at the piano playing and singing absurd little buffoonish songs and teasing Jessie Clibran-Bell, whom for the first time Frederic began to think rather pretty. Minna was reading, and Gertrude was browsing in a corner, nursing the dog.

Minna put down her book as he entered and said:

"Doesn't Frederic look important to-night? You shall have all the centre of the room to yourself."

"I got your drawings, Serge," Frederic spoke in rather a loud voice. He wanted to attract Jessie Clibran-Bell's attention. "I lent them to old Lawrie, the dramatic critic. He showed them to some friends of his, and they say you must have an exhibition. We'll make your fortune, yet. They say Africa's very much in the air just now."

"Are you a painter, Mr. Folyat?" asked Jessie Clibran-Bell.

"One of Frederic's friends says I'm a genius," replied Serge.

"Oh! then you won't stay here. All the geniuses go to London. We had a cousin who wrote books and she went to America and made a lot of money."

"I didn't say I was a genius. I only said one of Frederic's friends said I was a genius. It does not follow that it is true."

"You shall judge for yourself, Jessie," said Frederic.

"How can she judge?" asked Serge. "She doesn't know anything about it."

Jessie went pink and her neck stiffened, and she turned to Frederic. He produced the drawings from the portfolio and placed them round the room, and an impromptu exhibition was held. Serge told them which they ought to admire, and they admired them. On the whole they were puzzled rather than interested. They were soon exhausted as a subject of discussion, and Frederic, having drawn Jessie away from Serge, began to tell her of his experience at old Lawrie's house. Presently his voice drowned all the rest and all in the room were listening.

"I asked young Bennett Lawrie to supper next Sunday," he said.

"He's very beautiful, isn't he, Gertie?" observed Minna pointedly.

"You know him then?" asked Frederic.

"He's an acolyte at St. Saviour's. We've been to St. Saviour's once or twice, haven't we Gertie?"

"Have we?" Gertrude's face was a brilliant Turkey red.

Mrs. Folyat wagged her head.

"I don't think your father will like your filling the house with young men."

"Rubbish, mother," said Serge. "Every house ought to be filled with young men and young women. Houses are quite intolerable unless people are making love in them."

"My dear!"

"They've got to make love somewhere."

Frederic caught Jessie's eye, and with a little swagger he said:

"Yes. But we don't talk about it."

"Good gracious me," said Serge with a laugh, "men and women hardly talk about anything else. If they don't talk they think the more, and that's bad for them."

"I think you are disgusting," said Gertrude, tartly, and left the room.

"Is he a nice young man, this Bennett Lawrie?" asked Mrs. Folyat.

"He's the queerest fish I ever met. His father's quite dotty."

"I'd like to know him," interrupted Serge.

"The boy's as nervous as a cat and as soft as a woman. He nearly cried with gratitude when I asked him to come. They live opposite the Haslams--Basil Haslam's a painter, or going to be one."

"Oh! Minna knows him," said Mary with sudden malice.

There was a gap in the conversation. Frederic asked Jessie if she would accompany him, and so manoeuvred Serge away from the piano. He sang a very sentimental love-ditty and gazed with soft eyes at the back of Jessie's neck the while.

When she left he insisted on seeing her home with her sister. It took him twenty-five minutes, and when he returned he found Serge buffooning for his mother and making her laugh till she cried.

"Oh! dear. Oh! dear," she cried. "I haven't laughed so much for years. You'd never think Serge was a grown man, would you, Frederic?"

"Never," replied Frederic with asperity.

"My good brother," said Serge solemnly, "you gave a remarkable description just now of the house of the Lawries--an unhappy, middle-class house. You said it felt like a prison with that raw-boned old Scotswoman for goaler. I've been a free man all my life and I feel about this house exactly what you felt about that. There's fear in it and unfriendliness. I don't understand why, but I will understand before I've done."

The two brothers were standing close together, and Serge had unwittingly raised his voice. Mrs. Folyat came and laid her hand on his arm and said:

"Please, please don't quarrel."

"We're not quarrelling, mother," replied Serge, "Frederic is annoyed with me. He doesn't know why, nor do I. It's those Lawries have upset him. It's all right, mother. You go to bed. I'm a disturbing influence at present. You'll get used to me and I shall become a habit like everything else."

"It isn't fair," said Frederic.

"What isn't fair?"

"It isn't fair to talk to mother like that. She doesn't understand you."

"Of course she doesn't. It isn't any good talking. Go to bed mother."

Frederic led his mother to the door and went out with her. Streeten declared that he must go and Mary saw him to the door.

Turning, Serge found Minna watching him with a broad grin on her face. She was as tall as he, big and fine, and he thought:

"Well, she at least is a handsome woman. Pity she doesn't dress better."

Minna said:

"I'm glad you made Frederic feel small. He's a beast."

"Is he? What kind of a beast?"

"The worst kind. A jealous beast."

"I think I rather like you, Minna."

"Thank you. And the rest of us?"

"I'm prepared to like you all."

"You're quite right about this house, Serge. It is a prison. It's been getting worse and worse ever since James died. It was awful, of course."

"Why don't you marry?"

"How can I? I've no money; can't make any--and I've no intention of marrying a poor man. It isn't so easy to fall in love either--unless you're like Bub."

"Who?"

"Gertrude. She's in love with that young Bennett Lawrie. She goes to his church and looks at him as though he were a beautifully-cooked chop. He is rather like that. I shall call him the mutton-chop when he comes."

"Don't any of the young women get married in these parts. What about the Clibran-Bells?"

"Oh! Jessie is in love with Frederic, always has been ever since he turned up."

"How long's that?"

"A good many years. It was awful when we first came. We arrived at five o'clock in the morning. It was pouring with rain, and we drove in two cabs through the horrible dirty streets. We were all very tired, and Gertrude and Mary had been squabbling in the train. We didn't know anything about towns, and Ma had made us very excited by talking about the rich people we were going to know--and marry. She always used to be talking about marriage. She doesn't do it so much now."

"Why on earth did they come? St. Withans was jolly enough."

"I don't know. I think they lost some money, and Ma got sick of the country and Mother Bub got tired of falling in love with the curates, and they worried pa until he did it."

"Does he always do what mother wants him to?"

"Oh! yes. She's a nagger."

Serge went up to Minna and put his arm round her waist and kissed her. She took his face in her hands and kissed his lips. Then she sighed:

"What a pity you're my brother."

"I fancy a good many women say that to their brothers--when they don't know any other men."

"Have you known a lot of women?"

"A good many."

"I thought so. We seem to exist for you as individuals. To the Frederic sort of man women only seem to exist as a surrounding presence. . . . If I did something dreadful you'd stand by me, wouldn't you?"

"I hope so. But don't do anything dreadful just for the fun of it. It isn't worth it."

Minna gave a little purr of contentment and rubbed her cheek against his and said:

"You're so warm and friendly. I'm glad you came. But I can understand people hating you like poison."

"They do, my dear, they do."

He kissed her again and she ran happily away and upstairs.

X

SUNDAY SUPPER

_He for God only._--MILTON.

PURITAN hostility to the proceedings in St. Paul's survived the demise of Flynn and his newspaper and spluttered into activity upon occasion, as when Francis instituted the Litany as a separate Sunday afternoon service or allowed his school-room to be used for musical entertainments organised by the local nigger minstrels--(the annual visit of Moore and Burgess gave birth to numerous amateur troupes)--or when in the jumble sales which were held at intervals he countenanced and even patronised raffles. One pretext was as good as another, but the fundamental grievance was his friendship with Father Soledano, a priest attached to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. The offence was greater in that he had no friend, hardly a kindly acquaintance among the Anglican clergy. They fought shy of him because he had incurred the disapproval of the dean, though their wives occasionally called on Mrs. Folyat because she was still visited by the bishop's wife.

Father Soledano was an Irishman of Spanish extraction, a little ugly man, with a lame leg, stiff bristling hair receding from a knobby, wrinkled forehead, little eyes glowing under bushy brows, a long upper lip and a sensitive mouth, and a chin that looked as though he had to shave it every half hour.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral was about a mile away from St. Paul's, and Father Soledano lived in the priest's house in an asphalt court that lay under its shadow. The surrounding district was inhabited mostly by poor Irish--ignorant, drunken, superstitious, and Jews, whose morality was a reproach to the rest of the dwellers in the slums; and there were French people, and Bavarians, Lithuanians, not a few Poles, and refugees from Russia. All these were swept into the various trades and manufactories--sweated tailoring, sweated shirt-making, sweated jam-making, sweated engineering. And Father Soledano found his work of digging for their souls infinitely amusing. Several of his Catholics lived over in the parish of St. Paul's, and he had sought Francis out on hearing a tale of his kindness to an old woman who, by practising midwifery, supported her daughter-in-law and four children. This old woman was a Catholic, and every penny she could spare was spent in buying images of saints. She had the Virgin, and St. Peter, and St. Anthony of Padua, and a little Saint Catherine of Siena. One day two of the men who had assaulted Frederic and overturned the gravestone of the boy James, made a round of all the Catholic houses they could discover and destroyed all the images. When Francis heard of it he went from house to house and was given a list of all that had been destroyed, and a week later he went round with his chief sidesman carrying a clothes-basket full of saints, and made good every loss. When the aforesaid old woman found herself with a new Virgin, a new Saint Peter, and a new Saint Anthony of Padua and a more beautiful new Saint Catherine of Siena than she had ever thought of in her wildest dreams, she knelt down and began to pray for the soul of the English Father. And Francis knelt down and prayed with her, and all the children gathered round and stared at their grandmother and the portly bearded man kneeling there by the kitchen table, and their mother began to cry, and the old woman began to cry, until Francis lifted her up and kissed her on the cheek. Then he sent the children out to buy bread and jam and cake and they had a lovely tea together.

Francis did not tell the tale to anybody, but it was soon out all over the parish, and there was much indignation. A few of the parishioners left the church and Mrs. Folyat was shocked and affronted. What offended her most was that Francis had carried the images publicly and openly through the streets. Being an inveterate gossip herself, she could not endure being the subject of it, except it were flattering to her vanity.

Father Soledano wrote to Francis and thanked him, and Francis invited him to come and see him. The invitation was accepted, and the two men found that they had many things in common outside their profession, and they had many a long talk about old Dublin days. Soledano was amused by the Anglican's easy-going optimism, and Francis was shocked, interested, and stimulated by the priest's almost cynical pessimism. They never discussed religion. To a certain extent they secretly allied forces in their work of dealing with the moral and economic difficulties of their poor, a certain substratum of whom were ultimately Catholic and Anglican according as they could win the attention and sympathy of the district visitors or the Little Sisters, though they hardly ever attended service either in the Cathedral or in St. Paul's.

Every now and then Soledano would come to supper at Fern Square on Sundays, and it so happened that he was there when Bennett Lawrie appeared for the first time dressed sprucely for the occasion with a new suit and a very high collar and a blue birds-eye tie. The whole family was present, having been to church in full force--Serge read the Lessons--and they had sat down to their meal, having forgotten all about young Lawrie, when there came a resounding peal at the bell. The servant was out and Gertrude opened the door to him. His face was utterly tragic, and he could hardly find his voice to ask if Mrs. Folyat were in. Gertrude admitted him, showed him into the dining-room, where several people were talking all at once, and disappeared into the kitchen to fetch him plate, knife, and fork. It was some moments before Frederic recognised him--two gas-jets in glass globes do not give very much light--and Bennett suffered agonies of shyness and began to wish he had never come. He saw Francis open his mouth and insert a large piece of cold beef and his beard wag as he chewed it slowly, and he rather resented it. He had romanticised Francis, and had always pictured him in his vestments very saintly and impressive. The other man, Soledano, sitting between Mrs. Folyat and Minna, looked much more like a saint. . . . Minna gazed at Bennett with mischievous approval, and he thought her very beautiful and cast down his eyes. Frederic said "Hullo" and told his mother who Bennett was, and Mrs. Folyat bade Serge and Mary make room for the young man between them. Gertrude returned with plate, knife and fork. Bennett sat down at the place made for him, and conversation was resumed and flowed on over him. It was chiefly concerned with food, and Mrs. Folyat was very anxious to know what Father Soledano had to eat at the priests' house. He told her they ate very little meat and a great deal of macaroni. Mary tried to talk to Bennett but could get nothing out of him but "Yes" and "No." He liked music but knew nothing about it, and had never been to a concert.

Serge tackled him. The directness of his questions embarrassed Bennett, and the kindliness of his interest moved him so that a lump rose in his throat and he could hardly get out his replies. He had, he said, been born in the town and had hardly ever been away from it; once to Scotland, where his father came from, and once to Westmoreland and once to Derbyshire. His family were so poor, you see, though they had once been quite rich and lived in a big house with a garden. He could just remember the garden. He was nineteen and had been in business since he was sixteen, first of all in a little office where there was only one clerk, and then, by the influence of his uncles, in a great firm of shippers where, if you did not earn very much, you were at any rate safe. His mother was Low Church and his father was a Presbyterian but never went to any place of worship. He had two brothers and two sisters, but they were all older than himself and didn't care about the things he cared for, though one of his brothers sang in the choir at the Church of the Ascension, where they only wore surplices and no cassocks. . . . Timidly he asked Serge if it was true that he was an artist, and Serge laughed and said he was a sort of middle-aged embryo.

"That must be splendid," said Bennett, wistfully. "I draw, but not real things, only dreams and horrible grotesques. We started a family paper once but the others wouldn't do anything, and I had to write it all myself and draw all the pictures, and they laughed at everything I did, and I drew a picture of my mother being carried off by the devil and they burnt it. I write verses about the people in the office, but they don't like them unless they're--you know--rather nasty. We can't smoke in our office and everybody takes snuff. I think I'd like to have been a clergyman."

He suddenly became conscious that Gertrude's eyes were upon him and that she was devouring every word he said. He had recognised her as the young woman who came so often to St. Saviour's, and he had thought about her a great deal. He had tortured himself with the notion that she might have come to see him, had even dreamed lofty romances in which she figured as a mysterious lady of high degree who swept him off in a great carriage with two tremendous horses, and then had been ashamed. It comforted him a little to know that she was the daughter of the Rev. Francis Folyat, and that her attendance at St. Saviour's could therefore only have been prompted by the highest spiritual motives. . . . All the same she was looking at him exactly as she did when he came down to the steps of the nave and stood with the great brass offertory-plate. He was wretchedly nervous, but he imagined the Folyats to be a happy united family, and he basked in the warmth which seemed to pervade their house. He listened to their bantering conversation and was very much afraid of them all except Serge. Frederic seemed to drink a vast quantity of beer, and he remembered stories that he had heard of him in the office. Like everybody else who was interested in church matters, he was familiar with the flying gossip concerning the Folyats, and the ill-natured remarks that were current about the unmarried daughters. He thought Minna more and more beautiful, and Mary devoted, and Gertrude--he could not disentangle Gertrude from all the absurd things he had thought of her before he knew who she was.