Where the Blue Begins

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The little chapel at Dalmatian Heights sat upon a hill, among a groveof pines, the most romantic of all trees. Life, a powerful but clumsydramatist, does not reject the most claptrap "situations," which asophisticated playwright would discard as too obvious. For this sandyplateau, strewn with satiny pine-needles, was the very horizon that hadlooked so blue and beckoning from the little house by the pond. Not faraway was the great Airedale estate, which Gissing had known only at anadmiring distance--and now he was living there as an honoured guest.

  The Bishop had taken him to call upon the Airedales; and they, delightedthat the chapel was to be re-opened, had insisted upon his staying withthem. The chapel, in fact, was a special interest with Mr. Airedale, whohad been a leading contributor toward its erection. Gissing was findingthat life seemed to be continually putting him into false positions;and now he discovered, somewhat to his chagrin, that the lovely littleshrine of St. Spitz, whose stained windows glowed like rubies in itscloister of dark trees, was rather a fashionable hobby among the wealthylandowners of Dalmatian Hills. It had been closed all summer, and theyhad missed it. The Bishop, in his airy and indefinite way, had not madeit quite plain that Gissing was only a lay reader; and in spite of hisembarrassed disclaimers, he found himself introduced by Mr. Airedale tothe country-house clique as the new "vicar."

  But at any rate it was lucky that the Airedales had insisted on takinghim in as a guest; for he had learned from the Bishop (just as thelatter was leaving) that there was no stipend attached to the office oflay reader. Fortunately he still had much of the money he had saved fromhis salary as General Manager. And whatever sense of anomaly he feltwas quickly assuaged by the extraordinary comfort and novelty of hisenvironment. In the great Airedale mansion he experienced for the firsttime that ultimate triumph of civilization--a cup of tea served in bedbefore breakfast, with slices of bread-and-butter of tenuous and amazingfragile thinness. He was pleased, too, with the deference paid him as arepresentative of the cloth, even though it compelled him to asolemnity he did not inwardly feel. But most of all, undoubtedly, he wascaptivated by the loveliness and warmth of Miss Airedale.

  The Bishop had not erred. Admiring the aristocratic Roman trend ofher brow and nose; the proud, inquisitive carriage of her somewhatrectangular head, her admirable, vigorous figure and clear topazeyes, Gissing was aware of something he had not experienced before--adisturbance both urgent and agreeable, in which the intellect seemed toplay little part. He was startled by the strength of her attractiveness,amazed to learn how pleasing it was to be in her company. She was veryyoung and brisk: wore clothes of a smart sporting cut, and was(he thought) quite divine in her riding breeches. But she was alsocompletely devoted to the chapel, where she played the music on Sundays.She was a volatile creature, full of mischievous surprise: at theirfirst music practice, after playing over some hymns on the pipe-organ,she burst into jazz, filling the quiet grove with the clamorous syncopeof Paddy-Paws, a favourite song that summer.

  So into the brilliant social life of the Airedales and their friendshe found himself suddenly pitchforked. In spite of the oddity of thesituation, and of occasional anxiety when he considered the possibilityof Mr. Poodle finding him out, he was very happy. This was not quitewhat he had expected, but he was always adaptable. Miss Airedale was anenchanting companion. In the privacy of his bedroom he measured himselffor a pair of riding breeches and wrote to his tailor in town to havethem made as soon as possible. He served the little chapel assiduously,though he felt it better to conceal from the Airedales the fact that hewent there every day. He suspected they would think him slightly mad ifthey knew, so he used to pretend that he had business in town. Then hewould slip away to the balsam-scented hilltop and be perfectly happysweeping the chapel floor, dusting the pews, polishing the brasswork,rearranging the hymnals in the racks. He arranged with the milkman toleave a bottle of milk and some cinnamon buns at the chapel gateevery morning, so he had a cheerful and stealthy little lunch inthe vestry-room, though always a trifle nervous lest some of hisparishioners should discover him.

  He practiced reading the lessons aloud at the brass lectern, anddiscovered how easy is dramatic elocution when you are alone. He wishedit were possible to hold a service daily. For the first time he was ableto sing hymns as loud as he liked. Miss Airedale played the organ withemphatic fervour, and the congregation, after a little hesitation,enjoyed the lusty sincerity of a hymn well trolled. Some of his flock,who had previously relished taking part in the general routine of theservice, were disappointed by his zeal, for Gissing insisted on doingeverything himself. He rang the bell, ushered the congregation to theirseats, read the service, recited the Quadrupeds' Creed, led thechoir, gave out as many announcements as he could devise, took up thecollection, and at the close skipped out through the vestry and wasready and beaming in the porch before the nimblest worshipper hadreached the door. On his first Sunday, indeed, he carried enthusiasmrather too far: in an innocent eagerness to prolong the service as muchas possible, and being too excited to realize quite what he was doing,he went through the complete list of supplications for all possibleoccasions. The congregation were startled to find themselves prayingsimultaneously both for rain and for fair weather.

  In a cupboard in the vestry-room he had found an old surplice hanging;he took it down, tried it on before the mirror, and wistfully put itback. To this symbolic vestment his mind returned as he sat solitaryunder the pine-trees, looking down upon the valley of home. It was theseason of goldenrod and aster on the hillsides: a hot swooning silencelay upon the late afternoon. The weight and closeness of the air hadstruck even the insects dumb. Under the pines, generally so murmurous,there was something almost gruesome in the blank stillness: a suspensionso absolute that the ears felt dull and sealed. He tried, involuntarily,to listen more clearly, to know if this uncanny hush were really so.There was a sense of being imprisoned, but only most delicately, in aspell, which some sudden cracking might disrupt.

  The surplice tempted him strongly, for it suggested the sermon he feltimpelled to deliver, against the Bishop's orders. For the beautifulchapel in the piny glade was, somehow, false: or, at any rate, false forhim. The architect had made it a dainty poem in stone and polished wood,but somehow God had evaded the neat little trap. Moreover, the Godhis well-bred congregation worshipped, the old traditionally imaginedsnow-white St. Bernard with radiant jowls of tenderness, shining dewlapsof love; paternal, omnipotent, calm--this deity, though sublime in itsway, was too plainly an extension of their own desires. His prominentparishioners--Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher, Mrs. Griffon, Mrs. Retriever;even the delightful Mr. Airedale himself--was it not likely that theyesteemed a deity everlastingly forgiving because they themselves feltneed of forgiveness? He had been deeply shocked by the docility withwhich they followed the codes of the service: even when he had committedhis blunder of the contradictory prayers, they had murmured the wordsautomatically, without protest. To the terrific solemnities of theLitany they had made the responses with prompt gabbling precision, andwith a rapidity that frankly implied impatience to take the strain offtheir knees.

  Somehow he felt that to account for a world of unutterable strangenessthey had invented a God far too cheaply simple. His mood was certainlynot one of ribald easy scoff. It was they (he assured himself) whosetheology was essentially cynical; not he. He was a little weary ofthis just, charitable, consoling, hebdomadal God; this God who might besufficiently honoured by a decorously memorized ritual. Yet was hetoo shallow? Was it not seemly that his fellows, bound on this dark,desperate venture of living, should console themselves with decentself-hypnosis?

  No, he thought. No, it was not entirely seemly. If they pretended thattheir God was the highest thing knowable, then they must bring toHis worship the highest possible powers of the mind. He had a strangeyearning for a God less lazily conceived: a God perhaps inclement,awful, master of inscrutable principles. Yet was it desirable to shakehis congregation's belief in their traditional divin
ity? He thought ofthem--so amiable, amusing, spirited and generous, but utterly untrainedfor abstract imaginative thought on any subject whatever. His ownstrange surmisings about deity would only shock and horrify them Andafter all, was it not exactly their simplicity that made them lovable?The great laws of truth would work their own destinies withoutassistance from him! Even if these pleasant creatures did not genuinelybelieve the rites they so politely observed (he knew they did not, forBELIEF is an intellectual process of extraordinary range and depth), wasit not socially useful that they should pretend to do so?

  And yet--with another painful swing of the mind--was it necessarythat Truth should be worshipped with the aid of such astonishinglytransparent formalisms, hoaxes, and mummeries? Alas, it seemed that thiswas an old, old struggle that must be troublesomely fought out, againand again down the generations. Prophets were twice stoned--first inanger; then, after their death, with a handsome slab in the graveyard.But words uttered in sincerity (he thought) never fail of some response.Though he saw his fellows leashed with a heavy chain of ignorance,stupidity, passion, and weakness, yet he divined in life someinscrutable principle of honour and justice; some unreckonable essenceof virtue too intimate to understand; some fumbling aspiration towarddecency, some brave generosity of spirit, some cheerful fidelity toBeauty. He could not see how, in a world so obviously vast and uncouthbeyond computation, they could find a puny, tidy, assumptive, scheduledworship so satisfying. But perhaps, since all Beauty was so staggering,it was better they should cherish it in small formal minims. Perhapsin this whole matter there was some lovely symbolism that he did notunderstand.

  The soft brightness was already lifting into upper air, a mingled tissueof shadows lay along the valley. In the magical clarity of the eveninglight he suddenly felt (as one often does, by unaccountable planetaryinstinct) that there was a new moon. Turning, he saw it, a silversnipping daintily afloat; and not far away, an early star. He had foundno creed in the prayer-book that accounted for the stars. Here atthe bottom of an ocean of sky, we look aloft and see themthick-speckled--mere barnacles, perhaps, on the keel of some greatership of space. He remembered how at home there had been a certainburning twinkle that peeped through the screen of the dogwood tree.As he moved on his porch, it seemed to flit to and fro, appearing andvanishing. He was often uncertain whether it was a firefly a few yardsaway, or a star the other side of Time. Possibly Truth was like that.

  There was a light swift rustle behind him, and Miss Airedale appeared.

  "Hullo!" she said. "I wondered where you were. Is this how you spendyour afternoons, all alone?"

  Stars, creeds, cosmologies, promptly receded into remote perspectiveand had to shift for themselves. It was true that Gissing had somewhatavoided her lately, for he feared her fascination. He wished nothingelse to interfere with his search for what he had not yet found.Postpone the female problem to the last, was his theory: not becauseit was insoluble, but because the solution might prove to be lessinteresting than the problem itself. But side by side with her, she wasirresistible. A skittish brightness shone in her eyes.

  "Great news!" she exclaimed. "I've persuaded Papa to take us all down toAtlantic City for a couple of days."

  "Wonderful!" cried Gissing. "Do you know, I've never been to theseashore."

  "Don't worry," she replied. "I won't let you see much of the ocean.We'll go to the Traymore, and spend the whole time dancing in theSubmarine Grill."

  "But I must be back in time for the service on Sunday," he said.

  "We're going to leave first thing in the morning. We'll go in the car,and I'll drive. Will you sit with me in the front seat?"

  "Watch me!" replied Gissing gallantly.

  "Come on then, or you'll be late for dinner. I'll race you home!" Andshe was off like a flash.

  But in spite of Miss Airedale's threat, at Atlantic City they both fellinto a kind of dreamy reverie. The wine-like tingle of that salty airwas a quiet drug. The apparently inexhaustible sunshine was sharpenedwith a faint sting of coming autumn. Gissing suddenly remembered that itwas ages since he had simply let his mind run slack and allowed life togo by unstudied. Mr. and Mrs. Airedale occupied a suite high up in theterraced mass of the huge hotel; they wrapped themselves in rugs andbasked on their private balcony. Gissing and the daughter were leftto their own amusements. They bathed in the warm September surf; theystrolled the Boardwalk up beyond the old Absecon light, where the greenglimmer of water runs in under the promenade. They sat on the deckof the hotel--or rather Miss Airedale sat, while Gissing, courteouslyattentive, leaned over her steamer-chair. He stood so for hours,apparently in devoted chat; but in fact he was half in dream. The smoothflow of the little rolling shays just below had a soothing hypnoticerect. But it was the glorious polished blue of the sea-horizon thatbounded all his thoughts. Even while Miss Airedale gazed archly up athim, and he was busy with cheerful conversation, he was conscious ofthat broad band of perfect colour, monotonous, comforting, thrilling.For the first time he realized the great rondure of the world. His mindwent back to the section of the prayer-book that had always touched himmost pointedly--the "Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea." In them he hadfound a note of sincere terror and humility. And now he viewed the seafor the first time in this setting of notable irony. The open dazzle ofplacid elements, obedient only to some cosmic calculus, lay as a serenecurtain against which the quaint flamboyance of the Boardwalk was allthe more amusing. The clear rim of sea curving off into space drew himwith painful curiosity. Here at last was what he had needed. The proudwaters went over his soul. Here indeed the blue began.

  He looked down at Miss Airedale, who had gone to sleep while waiting forhim to say something. He tiptoed away and went to his room to write downsome ideas. Against the wide challenge of that blue hemisphere, wherehalf the world lay open and free to the eye, the Bishop's prohibitionlost weight. He was resolved to preach a sermon.

  At dusk he met Miss Airedale on the high balcony that runs around thereading-room of the hotel. They were quite alone up there. Along theBoardwalk, in the pale sentimental twilight, the translucent electricglobes shone like a long string of pearls. She was very tempting ina gay evening frock, and reproached him for having neglected her. Sheshivered a little in the cool wind coming off the darkening water. Theweakness of the hour was upon him. He put his arm tenderly round her asthey leaned over the parapet.

  "See those darling children down on the sand," she said. "I do adorepuppies, don't you?"

  He remembered Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers. Nothing is so potent as thelove of children when you are away from them. She gazed languishingat him; he responded with a generous pressure. But his alarmed soulthrilled with panic.

  "You must excuse me a moment, while I dress for dinner," he said. He wasstrangely terrified by the look of secret understanding in her beautifuleyes. It seemed to imply some subtle, inexpressible pact. As a matter oftruth, she was unconscious of it: it was only the old demiurge speakingin her; the old demiurge which was pursuing him just as ardently as hewas trailing the dissolving blue of his dream. But he was much agitatedas he went down in the elevator.

  "Heavens," he said to himself; "are we all only toys in the power ofthese terrific instincts?"

  For the first time he was informed of the infinite feminine capacity forbeing wooed.

  That night they danced in the Submarine Grill. She floated in hisembrace with triumphant lightness. Her eyes, utilized as temporary lampsby a lighting-circuit of which she was quite unaware, beamed with happylustre. The lay reader, always docile to the necessities of occasion,murmured delightful trifles. But his private thoughts were as aloofand shining and evasive as the goldfish that twinkled in the glass pooloverhead. He picked up her scarf and her handkerchief when she droppedthem. He smiled vaguely when she suggested that she thought she couldpersuade Mr. Airedale to stay in Atlantic City over the week-end, andwhy worry about the service on Sunday? But when she and the yawning Mrs.Airedale had retired, he hastened to his chamber and packed his bag.Stealth
ily he went to the desk and explained that he was leavingunexpectedly on business, and that the bill should go to Mr. Airedale,whose guest he had been. He slipped away out of the side door, andcaught the late train. Mrs. Airedale chafed her daughter that night forwhining in her sleep.