Читать книгу The Way Home - Basil King - Страница 10

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On the following evening, being Sunday, Mr and Mrs Legrand came to supper at the rectory, after the late service, as they often did. While on such occasions the rector enjoyed his cigar, and Legrand his pipe, they took the opportunity to discuss the incidents of the week that had passed, and any plans that might come up for future work. Supper ended, Emma, when there, generally retired to the drawing-room with Mrs Legrand, the two men lingering at the table. Charlie Grace would slip into the study, to con his lessons for the morrow, but taking care to leave the door of communication open. By this means, without eavesdropping, he not infrequently obtained bits of information valuable to himself. On this particular evening he was trying to master the provisions of the Conventicle and Five-Mile Acts, as set forth in his Mediæval and Modern History, when he heard his father say:

"The bishop writes me he will come to us on the third Sunday after Easter. I hope we shall have a good confirmation class. We haven't had for several years past. I don't like to see things falling off. How many did we have last year? Twenty-four, wasn't it? We never used to fall below thirty-five or forty."

For Charlie Grace the Conventicle and Five Mile Acts ceased to have an interest. He was sure that something was going to happen to which he had long looked forward with a kind of dread. He would have to be confirmed. As Legrand said nothing, the boy listened attentively while his father went on:

"There are a number of young people who ought to be ready now. There's my boy Charlie, and young Fred Furnival, and Reginald Hornblower, and his sister Frances, and Harriet Bright, and—"

The boy closed his book, and crept softly upstairs to his room. He had on odd feeling of being trapped—not by his father, nor by the ecclesiastical usages of the society in which he had grown up, but by life itself. In spite of his intention "to be a minister," as his phrase was, he had never relinquished, in the matter of religion, half-formed hopes of being able to drift along without declaring himself too definitely as to either faith or conduct. Now it was as though he were about to be headed off, and challenged to take a stand. It made him uneasy; it even alarmed him. Some inward force that defied his control objected to taking a stand; he was far from sure that he had a stand to take.

He kept silence on the subject, however, till a few days later, when he found himself, according to custom, walking home from school with Furny. Having tired of the game of clouting each other with their satchels full of books, Furny said suddenly:

"My old man says I've got to be confirmed."

On the principle that misery loves company, this information was welcome to Charlie Grace. Whatever he might be called on to go through, he should have someone to keep him in countenance. Nevertheless, he contented himself with saying:

"And are you going to be?"

Furny made a dash with his satchel at a wandering dog, which, with reproachful eyes, took a wide circuit into the street. "You bet. Got to be. Are you?"

"My old man hasn't said anything to me about it yet. But I expect he will."

"Oh, well. What's the odds? Everybody gets confirmed some time. My old man was confirmed when he was only fourteen. What do they do it for, anyhow?"

"I do' know." Then, feeling the responsibility of his future career already upon him, Charlie Grace added: "I suppose they do it because it's right."

"Yes, but what makes it right? My old man doesn't know, and he was confirmed when he was fourteen years old. Mother just says it's the proper thing to do. Anyhow, I don't care. Besides, my old man says that if I'm confirmed I can give up botany. That's another thing I don't see the sense of. Do you?"

Charlie Grace admitted that he didn't, and so the subject changed.

It lay on his mind, however, and when, in the course of the week, the inspiration came to lay it before Rufus Legrand, he acted on the impulse.

"Mr Legrand, what do people have to be confirmed for?"

He had been sent by his father into the vestry of St David's with a note. Legrand read it as he stood. In his cassock he was very spare and tall. His thin, regular features, handsome in an ascetic way, got emphasis from the surroundings. When he had said there was no answer to the note the boy already had his hand on the door knob, to go away. He had blurted out his question as to the necessity for confirmation before taking time to reflect.

For a minute or two Legrand was silent, trying to follow the working of the lad's mind. The latter still stood with his hand on the door-knob, his eyes rolling round on the familiar furnishings of the vestry—on the Gothic desk where the clergy wrote their notes—on the portraits of the three successive rectors of St David's hanging above it—on the row of engraved or photographed heads of the bishops of New York—on an old print of Vandiver Place as it had been forty years before—on the assistant's surplice and stole, thrown temporarily over the back of a Gothic chair, as he had come into the vestry from "taking evensong."

"They don't have to be confirmed," Legrand said at last.

The boy felt this to be begging the question. "I know they don't have to be unless they want to, but—"

"That's just it—unless they want to. The action must be voluntary—it must spring from a desire."

"Well, I haven't got any desire."

Again the words were out before he knew it. If he had taken time to think he would probably have kept that special bit of information to himself. Legrand heard it, however, without sign of surprise, saying merely:

"Haven't you? Then I daresay you'd better not be confirmed."

"But papa wants me to."

"I'll talk to him about that if you like."

This prompt way of settling the question did not, however, appeal to Charlie Grace. The matter seemed to him to require more circumlocution, perhaps more argument. "I don't want not to be confirmed," he stammered, "only—only—I want to keep free to do things—I'm—I'm fond of doing."

"So you would be—except for wrong things."

There was a perceptible pause before the boy said: "But that's what I mean—wrong things."

"Wrong things—such as?"

The boy reddened. "Such as I've done—often—and other things—such as I expect—I shall do. I shall never be good, Mr Legrand," he declared, with a catch in his voice. "It isn't in me. I'm full up of something else. I guess if I ever die I shall go to hell."

Legrand smiled. "Isn't that travelling a little too fast? I daresay some of your trouble lies there. You're not satisfied with thinking how bad you are, but you must go on to imagine how much worse you're going to be."

"But when I know—"

"Oh, no, you don't. You don't know a bit better than I do. I should advise you, however, not to make the thought father to the wish. One can, you know."

The boy had been so near to tears that he was obliged to snuffle and blow his nose. He had a vague expectation, too, that Legrand would ask the obvious question as to how he thought of entering on his future career if he balked at its preliminaries now. He was both disappointed and relieved at getting away from the vestry without having the subject raised.

And yet when the third Sunday after Easter came round he was confirmed. He was confirmed for a number of reasons, each one of which seemed compulsory. First of all there was no way of meeting his father with the frankness he could use toward Rufus Legrand. Then, he realized that if by refusal he escaped this year, he should be confronted by the same situation a twelvemonth later. Then, the rector's dismay at the meagreness of the class was such that the boy resolved to step up with Furny, and young Hornblower, and Hattie Bright, and some fifteen or sixteen others, and make one more for his father's sake, whatever the spiritual consequence. Lastly, before Easter came, Rufus Legrand had gone away leaving his young parishioner master of his acts.

Charlie Grace received the first intimation of the coming change from the lips of little Esther Legrand, as he sat on the sofa in her mother's drawing-room. He had been sent to deliver a message from the rector to the assistant, and was waiting for Mrs Legrand to come downstairs to receive it.

The little four-year-old appeared shyly in the doorway, hugging a rag-doll.

"Hello, Esther." The boy leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, snapping his fingers by way of greeting. "Come here."

She looked at him in silence, with big grave eyes. "Did you ever notice the eyes of that Legrand young one?" he had asked not long since of Hattie Bright.

"I've noticed," she replied, "that you can't tell whether they're blue or black. Just when you think they're the one you'll see they're the other—and then it'll be the opposite way round. I think it's ridic'lous the way Mrs Legrand dresses her, don't you? I declare that woman has so many airs she just about makes me sick."

"I think she's lovely," the boy asserted loyally. "She's pretty too."

"Pretty? So is a china doll pretty. Whatever a man like Mr Legrand could have seen in her—"

Hattie was obliged to leave her sentence unfinished, for the question had puzzled older heads than hers. Rather, it would have puzzled them if life had not accustomed them to so many queer mysteries in mating that the subject was placed beyond the scope of inquiry.

There was nothing "ridic'lous," however, in the way little Esther Legrand was dressed on this particular forenoon, seeing that she wore a little white silk frock, "smocked à l'anglaise," as Mrs Legrand was fond of saying, from the wardrobe of some wealthier relative. She was acquainted with Charlie Grace, well enough not to be afraid of him, and yet not so well as to be intimate. In response to his invitation she advanced slowly into the room, coming to a pause at a safe distance.

"My papa 'ud going fa-a-a' away," she informed him, with a prolonged coo on the word "fa'" to indicate distance.

He continued to snap his fingers as at a little dog. "Come here, Esther, and let me look at your eyes."

"Po' dolly sick," she informed him, maintaining her ground. "She wamited all night."

"Well, I'm a doctor. Bring her to me."

"She wamited and wamited and wamited. My papa," she began again, more solemnly, "'ud going fa-a-a' away. Po' dolly."

With strong, light step Mrs Legrand came down the stairs and into the room.

"Oh, Charlie, I'm so sorry to keep you waiting."

He stood up to deliver the message he was leaving for Mr Legrand. She, too, stood while she listened to it, her hands in the pockets of a little apron edged with lace. Except for a slight fullness in the cheeks, and the merest hint of an approaching double chin, she was as pretty as when she appeared in Vandiver Place as a bride. Her rose-petal complexion was almost as fresh as ever, and she still had the habit of holding her head to one side with a challenging little smile.

"Yes; I'm to tell Mr Legrand that old Mr Piper died this morning, and will he kindly call at the house to make arrangements for the funeral. Is that it?"

She had so long pretended helplessness with regard to parish affairs that she had acquired it at last as an accomplishment.

"My papa 'ud going fa-a-a' away," the little girl said solemnly again.

Charlie Grace laughed. "What does she mean? She's said that two or three times."

The mother looked down proudly. "What did you say, darling? Say it again to mamma. There's a love."

"My papa 'ud going fa-a-a' away," the child said obediently.

Even the mother was obliged to think twice before catching the little girl's drift. When she did she covered her face with her hands, and threw herself laughing into a corner of the sofa. "Oh, that child. She'll be the death of me. What do you think she's got hold of now? Do sit down, Charlie. I simply must tell someone. You'll know it in a day or two anyhow."

He seated himself in the other corner of the sofa, while his hostess ran on. "We're going away. She's heard us talking it over. Who'd have thought that a little creature like that could have been listening? Oh, she's clever. Clever isn't the word. Well, we are. Mr Legrand made up his mind last night. He's going to tell your father to-day."

"I'm awfully sorry," the boy said sincerely.

"Well, so am I—in a way. But, you see, Mr Legrand has had this very good offer from Trenton, and he doesn't feel it right to decline. You see, he couldn't go on for ever being an assistant, don't you know he couldn't? and this will make him his own master. And such a good position—one of the most exclusive churches in New Jersey. If he'll only keep it so. That's what I'm afraid of. You don't know what I've gone through here at St David's—to see him throw away his opportunities. I feel it on her account," she went on, with a gesture toward the little girl. "We've no money; but we have position, don't you know we have? and to fling it away—! It's doing her a great wrong, poor lamb, only I can't make my husband understand it. Poor darling," she cried, seizing the child in her arms, "you shan't drop out if mamma can keep you in—and she will keep you in. That's all, Charlie. Don't say anything about it till Mr Legrand has spoken to your father; but I know he's going to do it to-day. Of course I shall die when I leave New York; but we must get used to that, mustn't we? I hope I'm too good a wife to stand in my husband's way when he has this very good chance to pick up again. And who knows? we may be back in New York before you know it. I've often thought that if your father was made a bishop—and of course he will be—Mr Legrand would be the very one for St David's—but it's too early to talk about that yet. Only one looks ahead, don't you know one does? and with Rufus's antecedents—and mine, I may say, too—well, you can see that I feel we're only going away temporarily. But of course I shall die. I've never lived anywhere but in New York; and if it wasn't that I feel so strongly that Rufus should have another chance—and profit perhaps by the mistakes he's made here..."

Feeling it safe to speak in the evening, Charlie Grace said at supper:

"Is Mr Legrand going away, papa?"

Father and son were alone, Emma having recently gone to join her husband at Winnipeg. The rector raised his brows, taking on an expression of conventional distress, before he replied.

"I think I may say he is. Who told you?"

The boy spoke of his talk with Mrs Legrand.

"A good woman," Dr Grace commented; "somewhat feather-headed, but right in the main. Legrand has tried her—rather sorely."

"That's because he works among the poor, and wants to do them good, isn't it?"

The rector looked at his son suspiciously. "Not at all," he said haughtily. "There's no criticism to be made of Legrand's zeal; one is only obliged to question his discretion."

The boy flushed. It was the first time in his life that he had ever felt moved to rebel against the parochial view of religion. "I shouldn't think," he said, trying to speak as respectfully as indignation would let him, "I shouldn't think there was much room for discretion where the duties are so plain."

"That's because you know so little about it," the father said sharply. "When you're older you'll see that we must take human nature as we find it. Legrand is an excellent man—perfectly apostolic—but he lacks judgment. You're old enough now to allow of my speaking to you plainly; and I will not deny that, greatly as I regret his going from some points of view—from some points of view—his departure will not be without a measure of relief to me. A worthy, worthy fellow—but not suited to St David's. It's the more extraordinary when you think of the family he comes from."

The boy's heart grew hot within him. "I can understand that Mrs Legrand should feel like that, because—well, because we know what she is. But that you, papa—"

The rector smiled tolerantly. "There's one of Legrand's mistakes not infrequently made by people who haven't reflected. It's this—that the only souls to be saved are those of the poor. They ignore the fact that the rich and the educated have need of the message of the gospel as well as the worker in the factory or the dweller in the slums."

"But not as much—because they've got all the advantages of money and—"

"We're not making comparisons," Dr Grace interrupted, with a dignified gesture. "I'm only saying that the well-to-do are in actual need of the message of the gospel, and it is to the well-to-do in particular that St David's mission has been to minister. That's a condition we didn't create; we simply find it so. And till our good Legrand came among us I think we fulfilled our responsibilities with some success. Since then... Well, I need hardly discuss the matter. It merely comes to this, that while Legrand has been bringing people in at one end, he's been frightening them out at the other, with the result that our attendance is falling off, our income decreasing, and I myself brought to a state of much anxiety of mind."

"If the rich go out at one end because the poor come in at the other, then, I should think, they must have a pretty mean kind of religion."

Once more the rector smiled tolerantly. "We must take human nature as we find it. Man is a social animal, and in no country in the world do social conditions become the touchstone of conduct so generally as here in America. For this the reason is simple enough to a really reflecting mind. In England, and elsewhere in Europe, class distinctions are so plainly drawn that one can afford on occasions to transcend them. With us it isn't so. With us each man has to be, as it were, the defender of his own order—"

"But I thought there were no class distinctions in religion."

"Not in religion perhaps; but in a church—that is, in a parish—especially in an American church, or an American parish—not to respect the natural lines of social cleavage is to induce confusion."

Dr Grace rose with the air of one who has said the conclusive word, and withdrew to the study. The boy lingered at the table, his first feeling of rebellious irritation dying down. Now that his father was not actually present it was easier to think he might be right. He tried conscientiously to feel so; but in making the attempt he found Remnant's favourite aphorism crossing his mind with disquieting insistence: "There's a lot of hollerness to religion."