Part 5

“As though one cared _that_ for public opinion.” The vicar snapped heroic fingers. “Still, I see your point. And broadly speaking, I agree with it. Now to pass to the second alternative. The man said to me--let me give his precise words if I can--‘At two o’clock this morning a presence entered my room and said, ”I am Goethe and I have come to pray for Germany.” And I answered him, “Certainly I shall be very glad to pray for Germany,” and we knelt and prayed together; and then he arose and I embraced him and he showed me the little town with its gables and turrets where he sleeps at night and then he left me, promising to return.’”

“Perfectly preposterous,” said the doctor. “I quite agree that the man ought to be locked up. But of course he doesn’t intend to be taken literally. Obviously it is his idea of a poetic fancy.”

“No doubt. But a man must be taught to curb such poetic fancies in a time like the present. Now the point which arises”--the vicar raised a dogmatic forefinger--“is that a person who makes such statements in public renders himself amenable to the Defense of the Realm Regulations. And there is no doubt that any bench of magistrates that knew its business would know how to deal with him.”

“Personally, I’m not altogether clear that they would,” said Dr. Joliffe cautiously. “I agree with you, of course, that a man who talks in that way needs a strait waistcoat--one wonders what would happen to a man in Germany who went about saying he was praying for England! At the same time one ought not to forget that nowadays even the county bench is not composed exclusively of people as clear-sighted as you and I.”

“That is so, I am afraid. Even the county bench is getting fearfully mixed. Timson, the Brombridge grocer, is the latest addition, by the way. But I see your point. In such an absurd country as this one couldn’t depend on the man being dealt with in the way that he deserves. That’s where the enemy with its wonderful internal administration has such an advantage. Their system has much to recommend it in war time--or in any other if it comes to that.”

Dr. Joliffe agreed. “We have much to learn from them in the handling of the masses.”

“Ah, well, Joliffe,” said the vicar hopefully, “we shall learn many things if this war goes on long enough.”

“I am convinced that the only way to down Prussia is to adopt Prussia’s methods.”

“However,” said the vicar briskly, “we have not come to them yet. Therefore we can’t rely on the county bench doing its duty in the matter, although I hate having to say so. And that brings us to alternative the third, which is, Joliffe, that this man, John Smith, must be put away privately--for the good of the community.”

This taking of the bull by the horns was followed by a pause on the part of the doctor. He was an admirer of the vicar’s thorough-goingness, he was in full sympathy with the main premises of his argument, but he was a conscientious man. And he had a clear perception of the difficulties inherent in the process of confining a lunatic.

At last Dr. Joliffe broke a dubious silence. “To begin with, vicar, you will have to get two doctors to certify the chap insane, and then you will have to get two magistrates to sign a warrant for his removal.”

“I know that,” said the vicar. “And I am fully prepared to do it. But to begin with, Joliffe, I must have your help in the matter.”

“I am willing to give it of course. It’s one’s duty.”

“Then I shall ask you to certify him at once.”

Dr. Joliffe hesitated. A cloud of indecision came on his face. “Before I do that,” he said very slowly, “I should like the opinion of someone who has more knowledge of mental disease than I pretend to.”

“But, my dear fellow,” said the vicar rather surprisedly, “after what I have told you aren’t you already convinced that the fellow is insane?”

“Insanity is a complicated subject,” said the cautious Joliffe. “A very much more complicated subject than the layman appreciates.”

The vicar, at heart an autocrat, began to bristle at once. Scenting contradiction in the quarter where he had least expected to find it, he grew suddenly impatient. “But even a layman knows,” he said in a tone of authority, “that insanity on one point is insanity on all.”

“Just so.”

“Well, that is already proved.”

“I shall not gainsay it. But a general practitioner is naturally cautious--it is his duty to be so--in a matter of this kind. Let me suggest that we have the opinion of a mental specialist before we commit ourselves to any line of action.”

In the opinion of Mr. Perry-Hennington this was perilously like a display of moral cowardice, but from a purely professional standpoint it might not be unreasonable. All the mental specialists of Harley Street would not alter the fact that the man was insane--it was the only charitable assumption. At the same time, Joliffe’s request was quite easy to understand.

“By all means.” The vicar’s tone of assent implied that he had to deal with a timid fellow. “We’ll consult anyone you please. Of course, only one opinion is possible, but if you feel it will help and strengthen you in your duty don’t let us hesitate. By all means let us have someone down at once.”

“I am sure it is the proper course to take.”

“Very well. Who shall it be? Not necessarily a man in the first flight who will want a large fee, which I’m afraid will have to come out of my pocket instead of out of the Treasury. Not that I shall grudge it, whatever it may be. Still, the case is so clear that somebody local, such a man as Parker of Brombridge, will not have the slightest difficulty in certifying him.” The vicar gazed fixedly at Joliffe. “Yes--shall we say Parker? He’ll be at the meeting this afternoon. I’ll speak to him. We ought to move without delay. The fellow ought not to be at large a day longer than we can help. Yes--Dr. Parker--this afternoon. Get him over on Monday. And this evening I’m dining with Whymper and Lady Jane--I’ll mention it to Whymper. All to the good to get the local bench interested without delay.”

Dr. Joliffe nodded. But somehow he looked a little dubious.

“I think, Mr. Perry-Hennington,” he said rather uneasily, “we ought to be very careful to satisfy ourselves that it is a bona fide case of paranoia.”

“Certainly, certainly. I fully agree.”

“I’ve no objection to meeting Parker, of course, but I should welcome a London opinion if it is possible to arrange for one. You see, this is rather a serious matter.”

The vicar thought so too. “But personally, I have every confidence in Parker’s judgment. I remember some years ago when my eldest boy George had a murrain, Parker diagnosed it at once as a case of measles. I’ve always found him quite sound personally.”

“I’ve not a word to say against him, I cast no doubt upon his competence, but this is one of those delicate things which it hardly seems right, if you’ll excuse my saying so, to leave entirely to local practitioners whose experience must necessarily be limited.”

“Joliffe, I hope you are not hedging,” said the vicar sternly.

“No, I am not hedging. But, as I say, this is a ticklish matter.”

The vicar shook a pontifical head. “For the life of me,” he said, “I can’t see that it is more ticklish than any other matter. Had there been a doubt in the case one might have thought so. But the man is as mad as a hatter. A child could tell that who heard him talk as he talked to me this morning on the common.”

“No doubt you are right. But he has not yet aired these particular views to me, you know.”

“Then you’ve evidently not talked to him on his particular subject.”

“Evidently not.”

“Wait till you do, my friend! In the meantime I’ll mention the matter to Parker at the meeting and get him over on Monday to see him.”

Further conversation on the thorny subject was forbidden for the time being by the reappearance of Mrs. Small, who had to inform her master that the boy was round with the car. Thereupon Dr. Joliffe looked at his watch and declared that they must start at once if they were to be at Brombridge by three.

VIII

THE timed journey to Brombridge in the doctor’s runabout was forty minutes with reasonable driving. On the way both gentlemen were rather silent. By tacit consent John Smith was dismissed for the time being, and they were able to confine themselves to the prospect for potatoes, war in its relation to agriculture, the loss of tonnage, and hearty abuse of the government. For the true Briton, that unfortunate institution vies with that equally unfortunate institution, the weather, in supplying the theme of a never-ending jeremiad. All worthy of their salt, irrespective of creed or party, damn these miserable makeshifts impartially. At the moment the vicar and the doctor drove up to the Assembly Rooms, Brombridge, they were in cordial agreement that only one thing under divine providence could hope to make the British people lose the war, and that thing was the British Government.

By a graceful little act on the part of coincidence--most charming of the minor goddesses!--Dr. Parker was about to ascend the steps of the building just as the car of Dr. Joliffe drew up by the curb. The vicar hailed the leading physician of Brombridge promptly and heartily.

“The very man we want to see.” Mr. Perry-Hennington was one of the fortunate people who act first and do their thinking afterward.

Dr. Parker, an elderly, florid, bewhiskered, important-looking personage, stopped at once, turned about and gave the reverend gentleman the full benefit of his politest smile and his best bow. He then let his eyes pass to the second occupant of the car, fully prepared to let them infold a county magnate. Somehow Mr. Perry-Hennington always contrived to dispense an atmosphere of county magnates, or at least to live in the odor of their sanctity. But as soon as Dr. Parker saw who it was who had had the honor of conveying the vicar of Penfold to the meeting the polite smile and the ceremonious bow were merged almost magically in a brief nod and a gesture bearing a perilous resemblance to a scowl.

The truth was, Dr. Parker had a poor opinion of Dr. Joliffe, and Dr. Joliffe had a poor opinion of Dr. Parker. If pressed upon the point, Dr. Parker would solemnly confess that Dr. Joliffe was the biggest tufthunter in Kent, and Dr. Joliffe, also under duress, would return that singularly comprehensive compliment.

This was perhaps a pity. Both were good men, both were honest men, but like so many people, otherwise quite admirable, their sense of vision was not acute. Nodosities of character in their neighbors were apt to overshadow the central merit. In this case it was not so much a question of professional jealousy as a matter of social rivalry. The root of the trouble was that Dr. Joliffe and Dr. Parker were a little too much alike.

Dr. Parker was clearly gratified at being the very man whom the vicar of Penfold wanted to see, but carefully dissembled his feelings while Mr. Perry-Hennington stepped out of the car and buttonholed him rather ostentatiously on the steps of the council chamber. The vicar had to suggest that they should hold a little conference after the meeting in regard to a matter of importance. Certainly they were not in a position to hold it at the moment. Fellow members of the War Economy Committee were rolling up in surprising numbers; weird old landowners in wonderful vehicles, local J. P.’s, retired stockbrokers, civil servants, city men, and very _affairé_ ladies.

For all of these the parson of Penfold had a greeting. With his tall, thin, aristocratic figure, his distinguished air, his large, fleshy, important nose, he was the kind of man who dominates every company he enters. And it was so entirely natural to him to do so that no one ever thought of resenting it. He was not a clever man, a witty man, nor was tact his long suit, moreover he was apt to give himself airs, but for some reason or combination of reasons, he was greatly respected, generally looked up to and almost universally popular. He seemed to carry equal weight at Gleave Castle, the Mount Olympus of the local cosmos, and at the board of guardians. The acid people who dissect our naïve and charming human nature might have said that it was for no better reason than that the vicar of Penfold was a born busybody, doubly blessed with a loud voice, and a total absence of humor, but the good and the credulous who take things on trust and form a working majority in every republic always declared “it was because he was such a gentleman.”

By sheer pressure of human character, Mr. Perry-Hennington took a seat next the chairman of the meeting in the council chamber. And when that almost incredibly distinguished personage, a rather pathetic and extremely inaudible old thing in red mittens, got on to his legs, the vicar of Penfold could be heard rendering him very audible assistance in the course of his opening remarks. But it seemed entirely right and proper that it should be so. And nobody resented it, not even the old boy in the red mittens, who had retired from county business years ago, but who, as the master of Gleave, was fully determined to do his bit toward winning the war like everybody else.

The Clerk of the Committee, a rising Brombridge solicitor, had to submit to correction from the parson of Penfold, once when the Clerk was entirely in the right, once when he may have been wrong, but on a point so delicate that ordinary people would never have noticed it, and even if they had would hardly have thought it worth while to hold up the tide of human affairs in order to discuss it. Still, it was Mr. Perry-Hennington’s way and ordinary people admired it. Even Lady Jane Whymper, who was very far from being an ordinary person, and who was seated at the other side of the Chairman, admired it. The vicar of Penfold was such a dear man and he got things done.

This afternoon, however, the War Economy Committee would have transacted the same amount of business in at least twenty minutes less time had the vicar of Penfold been in the seclusion of his study grappling with his sermon. Still, that didn’t occur to anybody; and it would have been ungenerous to harbor the thought. The vicar of Penfold was an acknowledged ornament of any assembly he chose to enter and no gathering of this kind could have been complete without him. Everybody was amazingly in earnest, but Mr. Perry-Hennington was the most earnest of all. He made a number of suggestions, not one of which, after discussion, the Committee felt able to adopt, but the general effect of his presence was to give an air of life and virility to the proceedings.

After the meeting, the vicar staved off Lady Jane, with whom he had promised to dine that evening, and tactfully withdrew from the distinguished circle around the chairman in order to confer with Dr. Parker at the other end of the long table.

Dr. Parker, if rather flattered by this attention, was also a little perplexed by it. For one thing, Dr. Joliffe was scowling at him from the other end of the room. So little love was lost between these warriors that they never met in consultation if they could possibly help it. The vicar, however, had quite made up his mind that they should meet on Monday. He declined to give details, but maintained an air of reticence and mystery; yet he dropped a final hint that the matter was of immense importance, not merely to individuals but to the state.

Dr. Parker, having mounted gold eyeglasses and consulted his diary, consented in his dignified way to lunch at the vicarage on Monday. Thereupon Mr. Perry-Hennington thanked him with equal dignity and returned to Penfold in Dr. Joliffe’s car.

IX

NOT altogether pleased with the turn of events, Dr. Joliffe drove the vicar home. He was a conscientious man, and he had no more confidence in “that fool Parker,” than Dr. Parker had in “that fool Joliffe.” Still, the vicar could not be expected to know that. On the way back to Penfold he was inclined to congratulate himself. Machinery had been set in motion which could hardly fail to deal effectively with John Smith.

Dr. Joliffe was gloomy. All the way home he confined himself to polite monosyllables, and kept his eyes glued to the steering wheel of the car. Hitherto he had not had occasion to question the sanity of John Smith, whom he had always regarded as a particularly harmless creature. And even if the vicar had reported the man correctly, Dr. Joliffe was by no means clear that Mr. Perry-Hennington was not taking an extreme view of his duty.

The vicar, however, had not a doubt in the matter. A sermon unprepared still cast its shadow over him, but a cloud had lifted from his mind. A sanguine man endowed with great animal energy, he never questioned the logic of his own views, the soundness of his judgment, or the absolute rectitude of his conduct. It was in the interests of the community that John Smith should be taken care of. It even gave the vicar a certain satisfaction that his duty in a most disagreeable matter should now stand out so clearly before him.

Mr. Perry-Hennington had only just time to drink a cup of tea at the vicarage before he was off on his travels again. This time his objective was Grayfield, a feudal sort of hamlet over on the Sussex side. He had to speak at a recruiting meeting, arranged by his old Magdalen friend Whymper, with whom a distinguished member of parliament was spending the weekend.

Edith accompanied her father in the gig; and they had been invited to dine at the manor after the meeting. Grayfield was a good hour for old Alice, upon whom Anno Domini had set an unmistakable seal. But it was a rare evening for a drive. The sweet, clean air of the Sussex uplands was like a mellow wine; the road was straight and firm; the sun of June still lingered over Ashdown; trees and hedges wore a sheen of glory, with a trim farm or a cowled oasthouse nestling here and there. This calm and quiet land with its mathematically parceled acres, its placid cows and horses looking over five-barred gates to watch the stately progress of old Alice, its occasional forelock-pulling rustic, was like a “set” in a theater. The whole scene was so snug, so perfect, so ordained, that nature appeared to have very little part to play in it.

“Odd to think that Armageddon is _here_,” said the vicar.

Edith thought it was, very.

The vicar gave a shake of the reins to encourage old Alice. And then he said: “It’s my firm belief that there are people on this countryside who don’t realize it even yet.”

“I’m sure there are,” said Edith.

“It will be brought home to every man, every woman, every child in the land before we are through with it.”

“You think so?” said Edith, in the curious, precise voice she had inherited from the Henningtons. “Personally I am not so sure. We are much too secure here. I sometimes think that an invasion would be the best thing that could happen to us.”

“I am inclined to agree with you,” said her father, with another shake for old Alice. “But it’s gradually coming home to the nation. Rather than give in we shall fight to the last man and the last shilling, and unless they have altered since the days of Frederick the Great they will do the same.”

“But it can’t go on indefinitely. It means extermination.”

“The end of civilization at any rate,” said the vicar mournfully. “The clock has already been put back a century.”

“Sooner or later something must surely happen.”

“But what can happen? We don’t begin to look like downing them, and it’s unthinkable that they can down us.”

“There’s God,” said Edith, in a voice of sudden, throbbing softness. “I’m convinced that He must put an end to it soon.”

Before the vicar continued the conversation he gave Alice a little touch of the whip.

“Have you ever thought, my dear girl, what an awful weight of sin there is upon the human race? Instead of expecting God to put an end to it soon, it will be little short of miraculous if He ever puts an end to it at all.”

“But think of the awful suffering which falls for the most part on those who are the least to blame.”

“There is Biblical precedent for all that has happened, nay for far more than has happened. It is a judgment on the world, and the innocent have to suffer with the guilty.”

Edith was silent a little while.

“It all seems so horribly unfair,” she said at last, in a deep, palpitating tone which the vicar had not heard her use before. “It is not the people who have made the war who are really suffering by it.”

“They who question!” and the vicar shook up old Alice yet again.

A long silence followed, through which old Alice jogged in her placid way. Hardly a ripple stirred the evening air. It was very difficult to realize what was happening within a hundred miles.

“I can’t help thinking of that man,” Edith suddenly remarked.

“What man?” said her father. For the moment his thoughts were far away. An unwritten sermon was looming up at the back of his brain.

“John Smith. I can’t tell you what a curious impression he has left upon me. Somehow I have done nothing but think of him ever since the thing happened.”

It was a wrench for the vicar to quit the sequence of ideas which was being formed so painfully in his mind. And for the time he had had quite enough of the subject of John Smith, nay, was in process of suffering a reaction from it. Besides it was such a vexatiously disagreeable matter that he had no wish to discuss it more than was absolutely necessary.

“I should forget the man if I were you,” was his counsel to Edith.

“Somehow I can’t. He’s made a most curious impression upon me. I begin to feel now that I had no right to take for granted that what he said was meant for blasphemy.”

The vicar dissented forcibly. “There can be no possible excuse for him. It was a most improper remark for any man to make in such circumstances, and you were quite right to feel as you did about it. But if you are wise you will now put it out of your mind; at the same time I should like you to give up the practice of distributing feathers.”

“Yes, father, I will,” said Edith with a quick flush.

“You will be wise. I am arranging for an inquiry to be made into the man’s mental condition.”

“Is that absolutely necessary?” The flush grew deeper.

“The public interest calls for it. This incident is a climax of many.”

“Yet somehow he doesn’t seem exactly insane.”

“Not even when he talks in that way?” said the vicar surprisedly. “My dear girl, it is the only charitable explanation.”

“Do you really think so?” said the reluctant Edith.

“Demonstrably.”

“And yet somehow, when one really thinks about him, he seems so sweetly reasonable.”

“Sweetly reasonable!” The vicar pinned down the unfortunate phrase. “How can you say that? A mild and harmless creature, perhaps--apart from his opinions--but reasonable!--surely that is the very last word to apply to him.”

Perplexity deepened upon Edith’s face. “Somehow, I can’t throw off the curious impression he has left upon me.”

“Try to forget the man.” The vicar spoke sternly.

“Dismiss him from your thoughts, at any rate while the case is _sub judice_. You have done your duty by reporting the matter to me, and I am doing mine by putting in motion proper machinery to deal with it.”

“I sincerely hope that nothing is going to happen to him.”

“He will be sent to an asylum.”

Edith shivered. “Oh, I hope not,” she said, drawing in her breath sharply. “To my mind that is the cruellest fate that can overtake any human being.”

“One doesn’t altogether agree,” said the vicar. “He will be taken care of as he ought to be, and treated, of course, with the greatest humanity. You must remember that asylums are very different places from what they were sixty years ago, when Dickens--I think it was Dickens--wrote about them.”

“But it must mean dreadful suffering to be held for the rest of one’s life within four walls among lunatics without hope of escape.”