Читать книгу Heirs Apparent - Philip Gibbs - Страница 13

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Audrey was reading in bed, having switched off her light when she heard her mother going up the corridor—and switched it on again when she heard her mother’s bedroom door safely shut. By that subterfuge she avoided a moral protest against the waste of electric light, followed by the usual rebuke: “How often have I begged you not to read in bed, Audrey dearest? You never respect the slightest word I say. And those abominable novels....”

She was startled later by a tap at the door and her father’s voice.

“Still awake, Audrey? Can I have a word with you?”

“A million words, father. Come in.”

Mr. Nye came in and closed the door quietly.

“I don’t want to keep you awake, Kiddy,” he said, “but your mother’s greatly distressed about you.”

“Yes,” said Audrey. “She’s making a habit of it.”

Mr. Nye smiled, and then looked serious again. “I know. But I confess I’m rather alarmed by what she tells me this time. In fact I may say I’m scared to death, my dear.”

“Oh, rats, father!”

“Not altogether rats,” said Mr. Nye, mildly. “What on earth is all this about your gadding about the countryside with a young man—after being sent down from Somerville? The last fact is enough to turn my hair grey, on top of so much other worry with Frank and all that. A most dreadful disappointment. But it pales into insignificance before the thought that you’ve been falling into bad ways. Playing with fire! My darling little Audrey! I hope to God—”

Audrey sat up in bed and flung the two plaits into which she had tied her hair—reminiscent of Julia and Celia with their pigtails—over her shoulders with an impatient gesture.

“My dear Daddy, for Heaven’s sake don’t be parsonical with me. Mother’s bad enough, and it’s no good arguing with her, because she’s encrusted in early Victorian propriety. But I do expect more understanding from you. More sense of humour. Surely you know me well enough to be assured that I can take care of myself!”

“I’ve always hoped so,” said Mr. Nye. “Subject to the usual limitations of human nature and a wild spirit, my dear. But you must admit it’s not discreet, to say the least of it, to wander about the countryside with a young fellow who may be a dissolute scoundrel for all I know.”

“Well, let me inform you,” said Audrey smiling, “that he’s not a dissolute scoundrel, but a most charming youth, sans peur et sans reproche!”

“And nothing serious has happened between you? You are still my little pure and innocent flower?”

Audrey laughed outright at this simple question.

“I’m all right, father. Unspotted as the lily and all that.”

“Thank God!” said Mr. Nye, with an air of intense relief.

“But not as innocent as a blue-eyed doll, father! We’re brought up in a different code from the young people of your early days, thank goodness! If you haven’t found that out yet you must go about the world with your eyes shut.”

Mr. Nye thrust a hand through his curly chestnut hair and looked absurdly young to be Audrey’s father.

“I go about the world astonished, shocked, and terrified, by its sinfulness, its irreligion, and its defiance of God,” he said, not gloomily, but as an alarming fact. “It was the war that did it. It broke down all laws. It liberated primitive instincts. It smashed the old barriers of restraint imposed by the social code if not by the Christian faith.”

“A jolly good thing too,” said Audrey with the calm assurance of youth. “It has liberated human nature which was shut up in artificial conventions and blinded by blinkers. We’re looking at the truth of things without fear. We’re not going to let the joy of life be spoilt by silly old restrictions and blue funk. Why, father, you and mother are full of quaking terrors—terror of God, terror of life, terror of public opinion, terror of laughter, terror of youth. It must be miserable for you.”

Mr. Nye laughed with a groan in his voice.

“Quite true! I’m a bit of a coward. But it’s because I’ve seen the fearful dangers of the world around—and in my own heart. The old words have not lost their truth, my dear. ‘The devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.’ ‘The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.’ ”

“Not yours, Dad. You’re one of the saints, alas. As for the old devil, I say pooh to him. Also bah! I don’t believe in him. He’s a silly old myth belonging to the dark of the mind.”

Mr. Nye shook his head.

“I’ve no difficulty whatever in believing in only one devil. Look at the world to-day. Look at Europe—plagued by all the devils of hate, greed, lies, immorality, cruelty. And I have only to look in my own heart. You say I’m a saint. Why, my dear child, I’m a pest-house of iniquity!”

He made this assertion with a kind of cheerful emphasis.

Audrey laughed gaily, looking at his ascetic face, and his troubled boyish eyes.

“Do you imagine I don’t know what temptation is?” he asked. “Don’t forget that a young clergyman with any pretensions to good looks is surrounded by admiring women and that if he’s in the least degree susceptible he’s in constant danger. As a young man, in spite of your dear mother, I had some very narrow escapes, old kid. Hair-breadth escapes! I tremble at the thought of them.”

Audrey regarded him with considerable enjoyment.

“I bet mother kept a sharp eye on you! And don’t put it all down to the admiring females, father. In spite of your sanctity and your middle age, you’re a terrific flirt, even now. How’s Mrs. Middleton getting on? Have you been to hold her hand lately and listen to her spiritual adventures?”

Mr. Nye’s face deepened in colour.

“Audrey! For goodness’ sake, dear child, don’t jest so lightly about things like that! Mrs. Middleton is a very charming woman, but as a matter of fact I’ve given up calling on her. One can’t be too careful, I acknowledge, at whatever time of life.”

“Then there’s Mrs. Harbord,” said Audrey slyly. “Mother was rather worried about that little lady! And no blame to her either.”

“Hush!” said Mr. Nye, greatly embarrassed. “I tried to help the poor lady after her divorce. I pointed out her sinfulness—frankly and kindly—but she became a perfect nuisance to me with her coy seductive ways.”

“Oh, father!” said Audrey with mock gravity. “Playing with fire! And you dare to lecture me!”

He swept her teasing suggestions away with a sudden gesture of impatience.

“Joking apart, old girl, it’s because I’ve had some experience of these things—my own weakness, as I tell you frankly—that I tremble for you sometimes, and feel very much afraid. You young people of to-day take enormous risks, gaily, in a spirit of adventure, without a glance or thought for the consequences. My dear, you’re not immune from danger. The adventure ends disastrously sometimes—many times. As a clergyman—if my lips were not sealed—I could tell you dreadful stories—dreadful—of young boys and girls in this very neighbourhood. Ruined lives. Marriages in a hurry. Poor little broken hearts that only God Himself can mend again, as certainly He will hereafter, with infinite pity.”

“Servant girls,” said Audrey. “Poor little country sluts who have never had their eyes opened.”

“No,” said Mr. Nye gravely. “Girls like you, Audrey. Girls from good families.”

“Rotters,” protested Audrey. “Dirty little decadents.”

“Girls like you, Audrey,” said Mr. Nye again. “As pretty as you. Once as joyous as you.”

He sat on the side of her bed and took her hand and put it to his lips.

“Life is full of terrors,” he said. “You’re quite right, my dear. Middle aged folk, like your mother and me, have no sense of security in our hearts. We walk with fear because of you young people—so rebellious, so daring, so resentful of advice and restraint. Look at Frank. Out of a job again. A haunter of public houses.”

“Frank’s all right,” said Audrey, loyal to her brother. “Perfectly normal and healthy.”

“He shirks work,” said Mr. Nye. “What’s going to become of him? Does he expect me to keep him for ever, eating the bread of idleness? It’s a disgrace in the village, for one thing. ‘Look at the parson’s son,’ they say, ‘hanging about at a loose end again. A pity he wasn’t better taught!’ That’s not pleasant for me. And God knows I’ve been patient with him and enormously tolerant.”

“He’ll find the right kind of job one of these days,” said Audrey. “After all, he did serve his country in time of war and help to save little old England. He deserves time to look around.”

Mr. Nye sighed and rumpled his curly hair again.

“Time’s getting on. It’s four years since the war ended.”

“Well, it’s not easy to get a job that’s any good,” said Audrey. “Meanwhile this old house is large enough to give him free lodging while he looks about.”

Mr. Nye kissed the blue bow on one of her plaits.

“I can’t afford to keep idle sons or idle daughters. You’re my latest source of anxiety, Audrey. You know how we economised to send you to Somerville on the high road to a brilliant career which might have enabled you to pay back a little. Now that hope’s dashed.”

“I’m saving you money,” said Audrey, audaciously. “Somerville was beastly expensive.”

Mr. Nye glanced at her doubtfully.

“One of these days,” he said, “you and Frank will have to keep your poor mother. Perhaps sooner than you expect!”

There was a look of mystery in his eyes.

Audrey smiled rather callously.

“Now, father, don’t you ask me to believe you feel the hand of death on you, or any sob-stuff of that kind. You know the doctor examined you the other day and said you were as fit as a fiddle.”

“It’s not that,” said Mr. Nye, with suppressed excitement. “It’s something else which I’m afraid will make us all very, very poor. I didn’t want to tell you just yet, and I must ask you to say nothing whatever to mother.”

Audrey stared at him with a comical look.

“Good gracious! You’ve not been gambling at Bridge or betting on the three-thirty, or anything like that, have you, father?”

A humorous smile played round his mouth and he shook his head.

“That’s not one of my little vices. A mug’s game, as they used to say in Walworth.”

“And you haven’t been getting into debt over some wicked woman, greedy for pearl necklaces and crême de menthe? Father, I’ll disown you for ever if you’ve been leading a double life!”

“In a way I have,” he said. “A double life! But not according to the flesh. A clergyman of the Church of England, trying to do his duty faithfully, loyally, but with his heart and faith elsewhere.”

Audrey for the first time began to take him seriously. She saw that he was deeply moved by some secret and disturbing thought, and that his eyes were shining with a kind of interior light.

“Good Lord, father, you haven’t become an infidel like me? That would be very awkward.”

“Not an infidel,” said Mr. Nye, with a queer boyish laugh. “A more perfect faith, more intense, more satisfying.”

“Not a Spiritualist, or a Christian Scientist, I hope? There’s rather a spooky look about you, Dad, now I come to look at you. I believe you’ve been dabbling in black magic! It’s that woman, Mrs. Harbord, with her séances and Oliver Lodge stuff.”

Mr. Nye shook his head and dismissed all such ideas with a wave of his hand.

“Audrey, my dear, I’m going to tell you a great secret. A most joyous secret, though it will lead to suffering for all of us, I’m afraid, and especially for your dear mother. I’m going to become a Catholic and join the only true Church. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I can hesitate no longer. To-night I put myself in the hands of Father Rivington.”

“Good God!” said Audrey. “That puts the lid on everything. Do you mean to say you’re going to chuck up your living?”

“I must, my dear. It’s God’s will.”

“It’s a damned outrage,” said Audrey. “It will kill mother. Father, I think you’ve gone dotty or something. It’s that absurd young priest with his hyena laugh and mask of frank simplicity. I expect he’s a Jesuit in disguise!”

“He’s not a Jesuit,” said Mr. Nye, “and not in disguise. And it’s nothing much to do with him. The idea has been growing in my mind ever since the war. Suddenly I saw the flaming truth of it in a little wood where I was walking the other day. A fairy glade. You know that avenue of beeches near Effingham? Like the aisle of a cathedral, but all green with the new leaves. It came upon me like a great illumination as I was looking at the bluebells with their wonderful colour, like Our Lady’s gown. ‘What the world wants is faith,’ I was saying, and then suddenly I knew that I had never had the real faith but only a compromise in a kind of half-way house. The great Catholic faith, with the authority of Peter, the miracles of all the saints, the love and pity of the Virgin Mother, the presence of Christ walking by one’s side, so comradely—”

“Oh, shut up, father,” said Audrey. “What absolute rot you do talk!”

“It’s God’s truth, little one,” said her father. “And I want you to be brave about it and help your mother to bear it. When I give up my living I shall have to get some work to do, and it’s not going to be easy at first. That’s why I want you and Frank—”

Audrey gave a hysterical laugh.

“Three out-of-work people in one family! I get sent down from Oxford, Frank gets the sack from the Bank, and you chuck the Church! If that isn’t the exaggerated limit.... Well, there’s always the workhouse, of course.”

After that laughing outburst she sat up straight in bed and struck her hands on the coverlet.

“Father, for goodness’ sake pull yourself together, old dear. You can’t do this thing! It’s too monstrously absurd. It’s too farcical and outrageous even for a mediævalist like you—a dreamer, and idealist, and absent-minded beggar. Think what it will mean to all of us, and especially to mother. Grinding poverty. Horrible squalor. The loss of all your old friends. But poverty above all and worst of all.”

“My lady Poverty!” said Mr. Nye. “We’ll pay our homage to her like St. Francis of Assisi.”

“When are you going to tell mother?” asked Audrey coldly.

“Not just yet. Not for a few days. I trust you to keep my secret, Kiddy.”

“I shan’t blab,” said Audrey. “But I warn you, Dad, that if you don’t get back to common sense I shan’t take it lying down.”

“I look to your comradeship, girlie. You and I have always been good pals. The best of pals. Like two sweethearts, you and I.”

This appeal seemed to touch a sensitive chord in Audrey’s heart.

“Oh, father!” she cried. “For goodness’ sake—”

She did not finish her sentence but put her face down on the pillow and burst into tears.

“My dear, my dear!” said Mr. Nye.

He bent over and kissed her wet cheek and then tip-toed out of the room.