A Clergyman's Daughter

horrible things like getting up at five in the morning to go to

  Holy Communion on an empty belly? Surely you're not homesick for

  that kind of thing?'

  'I don't believe in it any longer, if that's what you mean. And I

  see now that a lot of it was rather silly. But that doesn't help.

  The point is that all the beliefs I had are gone, and I've nothing

  to put in their place.'

  'But good God! why do you want to put anything in their place?

  You've got rid of a load of superstitious rubbish, and you ought to

  be glad of it. Surely it doesn't make you any happier to go about

  quaking in fear of Hell fire?'

  'But don't you see--you must see--how different everything is when

  all of a sudden the whole world is empty?'

  'Empty?' exclaimed Mr Warburton. 'What do you mean by saying it's

  empty? I call that perfectly scandalous in a girl of your age.

  It's not empty at all, it's a deuced sight too full, that's the

  trouble with it. We're here today and gone tomorrow, and we've no

  time to enjoy what we've got.'

  'But how CAN one enjoy anything when all the meaning's been taken

  out of it?'

  'Good gracious! What do you want with a meaning? When I eat my

  dinner I don't do it to the greater glory of God; I do it because I

  enjoy it. The world's full of amusing things--books, pictures,

  wine, travel, friends--everything. I've never seen any meaning in

  it all, and I don't want to see one. Why not take life as you find

  it?'

  'But--'

  She broke off, for she saw already that she was wasting words in

  trying to make herself clear to him. He was quite incapable of

  understanding her difficulty--incapable of realizing how a mind

  naturally pious must recoil from a world discovered to be

  meaningless. Even the loathsome platitudes of the pantheists would

  be beyond his understanding. Probably the idea that life was

  essentially futile, if he thought of it at all, struck him as

  rather amusing than otherwise. And yet with all this he was

  sufficiently acute. He could see the difficulty of her own

  particular position, and he adverted to it a moment later.

  'Of course,' he said, 'I can see that things are going to be a

  little awkward for you when you get home. You're going to be, so

  to speak, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Parish work--Mothers'

  Meetings, prayers with the dying, and all that--I suppose it might

  be a little distasteful at times. Are you afraid you won't be able

  to keep it up--is that the trouble?'

  'Oh, no. I wasn't thinking of that. I shall go on with it, just

  the same as before. It's what I'm most used to. Besides, Father

  needs my help. He can't afford a curate, and the work's got to be

  done.'

  'Then what's the matter? Is it the hypocrisy that's worrying you?

  Afraid that the consecrated bread might stick in your throat, and

  so forth? I shouldn't trouble. Half the parsons' daughters in

  England are probably in the same difficulty. And quite nine-tenths

  of the parsons, I should say.'

  'It's partly that. I shall have to be always pretending--oh, you

  can't imagine in what ways! But that's not the worst. Perhaps

  that part of it doesn't matter, really. Perhaps it's better to be

  a hypocrite--THAT kind of hypocrite--than some things.'

  'Why do you say THAT kind of hypocrite? I hope you don't mean that

  pretending to believe is the next best thing to believing?'

  'Yes . . . I suppose that's what I do mean. Perhaps it's better--

  less selfish--to pretend one believes even when one doesn't, than

  to say openly that one's an unbeliever and perhaps help turn other

  people into unbelievers too.'

  'My dear Dorothy,' said Mr Warburton, 'your mind, if you'll excuse

  my saying so, is in a morbid condition. No, dash it! it's worse

  than morbid; it's downright septic. You've a sort of mental

  gangrene hanging over from your Christian upbringing. You tell me

  that you've got rid of these ridiculous beliefs that were stuffed

  into you from your cradle upwards, and yet you're taking an

  attitude to life which is simply meaningless without those beliefs.

  Do you call that reasonable?'

  'I don't know. No perhaps it's not. But I suppose it's what comes

  naturally to me.'

  'What you're trying to do, apparently,' pursued Mr Warburton, 'is

  to make the worst of both worlds. You stick to the Christian

  scheme of things, but you leave Paradise out of it. And I suppose,

  if the truth were known, there are quite a lot of your kind

  wandering about among the ruins of C. of E. You're practically a

  sect in yourselves,' he added reflectively: 'the Anglican Atheists.

  Not a sect I should care to belong to, I must say.'

  They talked for a little while longer, but not to much purpose. In

  reality the whole subject of religious belief and religious doubt

  was boring and incomprehensible to Mr Warburton. Its only appeal

  to him was as a pretext for blasphemy. Presently he changed the

  subject, as though giving up the attempt to understand Dorothy's

  outlook.

  'This is nonsense that we're talking,' he said. 'You've got hold

  of some very depressing ideas, but you'll grow out of them later

  on, you know. Christianity isn't really an incurable disease.

  However, there was something quite different that I was going to

  say to you. I want you to listen to me for a moment. You're

  coming home, after being away eight months, to what I expect you

  realize is a rather uncomfortable situation. You had a hard enough

  life before--at least, what I should call a hard life--and now that

  you aren't quite such a good Girl Guide as you used to be, it's

  going to be a great deal harder. Now, do you think it's absolutely

  necessary to go back to it?'

  'But I don't see what else I can do, unless I could get another

  job. I've really no alternative.'

  Mr Warburton, with his head cocked a little on one side, gave

  Dorothy a rather curious look.

  'As a matter of fact,' he said, in a more serious tone than usual,

  'there's at least one other alternative that I could suggest to

  you.'

  'You mean that I could go on being a schoolmistress? Perhaps

  that's what I ought to do, really. I shall come back to it in the

  end, in any case.'

  'No. I don't think that's what I should advise.'

  All this time Mr Warburton, unwilling as ever to expose his

  baldness, had been wearing his rakish, rather broad-brimmed grey

  felt hat. Now, however, he took it off and laid it carefully on

  the empty seat beside him. His naked cranium, with only a wisp or

  two of golden hair lingering in the neighbourhood of the ears,

  looked like some monstrous pink pearl. Dorothy watched him with a

  slight surprise.

  'I am taking my hat off,' he said, 'in order to let you see me at

  my very worst. You will understand why in a moment. Now, let me

  offer you another alternative besides going back to your Girl

  Guides and your Mothers' Union, or imprisoning yourself in some

  dungeo
n of a girls' school.'

  'What do you mean?' said Dorothy.

  'I mean, will you--think well before you answer; I admit there are

  some very obvious objections, but--will you marry me?'

  Dorothy's lips parted with surprise. Perhaps she turned a little

  paler. With a hasty, almost unconscious recoil she moved as far

  away from him as the back of the seat would allow. But he had made

  no movement towards her. He said with complete equanimity:

  'You know, of course, that Dolores [Dolores was Mr Warburton's ex-

  mistress] left me a year ago?'

  'But I can't, I can't!' exclaimed Dorothy. 'You know I can't! I'm

  not--like that. I thought you always knew. I shan't ever marry.'

  Mr Warburton ignored this remark.

  'I grant you,' he said, still with exemplary calmness, 'that I

  don't exactly come under the heading of eligible young men. I am

  somewhat older than you. We both seem to be putting our cards on

  the table today, so I'll let you into a great secret and tell you

  that my age is forty-nine. And then I've three children and a bad

  reputation. It's a marriage that your father would--well, regard

  with disfavour. And my income is only seven hundred a year. But

  still, don't you think it's worth considering!'

  'I can't, you know why I can't!' repeated Dorothy.

  She took it for granted that he 'knew why she couldn't', though she

  had never explained to him, or to anyone else, why it was impossible

  for her to marry. Very probably, even if she had explained, he

  would not have understood her. He went on speaking, not appearing

  to notice what she had said.

  'Let me put it to you', he said, 'in the form of a bargain. Of

  course, I needn't tell you that it's a great deal more than that.

  I'm not a marrying kind of man, as the saying goes, and I shouldn't

  ask you to marry me if you hadn't a rather special attraction for

  me. But let me put the business side of it first. You need a home

  and a livelihood; I need a wife to keep me in order. I'm sick of

  these disgusting women I've spent my life with, if you'll forgive

  my mentioning them, and I'm rather anxious to settle down. A bit

  late in the day, perhaps, but better late than never. Besides, I

  need somebody to look after the children; the BASTARDS, you know.

  I don't expect you to find me overwhelmingly attractive,' he added,

  running a hand reflectively over his bald crown, 'but on the other

  hand I am very easy to get on with. Immoral people usually are, as

  a matter of fact. And from your own point of view the scheme would

  have certain advantages. Why should you spend your life delivering

  parish magazines and rubbing nasty old women's legs with Elliman's

  embrocation? You would be happier married, even to a husband with

  a bald head and a clouded past. You've had a hard, dull life for a

  girl of your age, and your future isn't exactly rosy. Have you

  really considered what your future will be like if you don't

  marry?'

  'I don't know. I have to some extent,' she said.

  As he had not attempted to lay hands on her or to offer any

  endearments, she answered his question without repeating her

  previous refusal. He looked out of the window, and went on in a

  musing voice, much quieter than his normal tone, so that at first

  she could barely hear him above the rattle of the train; but

  presently his voice rose, and took on a note of seriousness that

  she had never heard in it before, or even imagined that it could

  hold.

  'Consider what your future would be like,' he repeated. 'It's the

  same future that lies before any woman of your class with no

  husband and no money. Let us say your father will live another ten

  years. By the end of that time the last penny of his money will

  have gone down the sink. The desire to squander it will keep him

  alive just as long as it lasts, and probably no longer. All that

  time he will be growing more senile, more tiresome, more impossible

  to live with; he will tyrannize over you more and more, keep you

  shorter and shorter of money, make more and more trouble for you

  with the neighbours and the tradesmen. And you will go on with

  that slavish, worrying life that you have lived, struggling to make

  both ends meet, drilling the Girl Guides, reading novels to the

  Mothers' Union, polishing the altar brasses, cadging money for the

  organ fund, making brown paper jackboots for the schoolchildren's

  plays, keeping your end up in the vile little feuds and scandals of

  the church hen-coop. Year after year, winter and summer, you will

  bicycle from one reeking cottage to another, to dole out pennies

  from the poor box and repeat prayers that you don't even believe in

  any longer. You will sit through interminable church services

  which in the end will make you physically sick with their sameness

  and futility. Every year your life will be a little bleaker, a

  little fuller of those deadly little jobs that are shoved off on to

  lonely women. And remember that you won't always be twenty-eight.

  All the while you will be fading, withering, until one morning you

  will look in the glass and realize that you aren't a girl any

  longer, only a skinny old maid. You'll fight against it, of

  course. You'll keep your physical energy and your girlish

  mannerisms--you'll keep them just a little bit too long. Do you

  know that type of bright--too bright--spinster who says "topping"

  and "ripping" and "right-ho", and prides herself on being such a

  good sport, and she's such a good sport that she makes everyone

  feel a little unwell? And she's so splendidly hearty at tennis and

  so handy at amateur theatricals, and she throws herself with a kind

  of desperation into her Girl Guide work and her parish visiting,

  and she's the life and soul of Church socials, and always, year

  after year, she thinks of herself as a young girl still and never

  realizes that behind her back everyone laughs at her for a poor,

  disappointed old maid? That's what you'll become, what you must

  become, however much you foresee it and try to avoid it. There's

  no other future possible to you unless you marry. Women who don't

  marry wither up--they wither up like aspidistras in back-parlour

  windows; and the devilish thing is that they don't even know that

  they're withering.'

  Dorothy sat silent and listening with intent and horrified

  fascination. She did not even notice that he had stood up, with

  one hand on the door to steady him against the swaying of the

  train. She was as though hypnotized, not so much by his voice as

  by the visions that his words had evoked in her. He had described

  her life, as it must inevitably be, with such dreadful fidelity

  that he seemed actually to have carried her ten years onward into

  the menacing future, and she felt herself no longer a girl full of

  youth and energy, but a desperate, worn virgin of thirty-eight. As

  he went on he took her hand, which was lying idle on the arm of the

  seat; and even that she scarcely noticed.

  'After ten years,' he continue
d, 'your father will die, and he will

  leave you with not a penny, only debts. You will be nearly forty,

  with no money, no profession, no chance of marrying; just a

  derelict parson's daughter like the ten thousand others in England.

  And after that, what do you suppose will become of you? You will

  have to find yourself a job--the sort of job that parsons'

  daughters get. A nursery governess, for instance, or companion to

  some diseased hag who will occupy herself in thinking of ways to

  humiliate you. Or you will go back to school-teaching; English

  mistress in some grisly girls' school, seventy-five pounds a year

  and your keep, and a fortnight in a seaside boarding-house every

  August. And all the time withering, drying up, growing more sour

  and more angular and more friendless. And therefore--'

  As he said 'therefore' he pulled Dorothy to her feet. She made no

  resistance. His voice had put her under a spell. As her mind took

  in the prospect of that forbidding future, whose emptiness she was

  far more able to appreciate than he, such a despair had grown in

  her that if she had spoken at all it would have been to say, 'Yes,

  I will marry you.' He put his arm very gently about her and drew

  her a little towards him, and even now she did not attempt to

  resist. Her eyes, half hypnotized, were fixed upon his. When he

  put his arm about her it was as though he were protecting her,

  sheltering her, drawing her away from the brink of grey, deadly

  poverty and back to the world of friendly and desirable things--to

  security and ease, to comely houses and good clothes, to books and

  friends and flowers, to summer days and distant lands. So for

  nearly a minute the fat, debauched bachelor and the thin,

  spinsterish girl stood face to face, their eyes meeting, their

  bodies all but touching, while the train swayed them in its motion,

  and clouds and telegraph poles and bud-misted hedges and fields

  green with young wheat raced past unseen.

  Mr Warburton tightened his grip and pulled her against him. It

  broke the spell. The visions that had held her helpless--visions

  of poverty and of escape from poverty--suddenly vanished and left

  only a shocked realization of what was happening to her. She was

  in the arms of a man--a fattish, oldish man! A wave of disgust and

  deadly fear went through her, and her entrails seemed to shrink and

  freeze. His thick male body was pressing her backwards and

  downwards, his large, pink face, smooth, but to her eyes old, was

  bearing down upon her own. The harsh odour of maleness forced

  itself into her nostrils. She recoiled. Furry thighs of satyrs!

  She began to struggle furiously, though indeed he made hardly any

  effort to retain her, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free

  and fallen back into her seat, white and trembling. She looked up

  at him with eyes which, from fear and aversion, were for a moment

  those of a stranger.

  Mr Warburton remained on his feet, regarding her with an expression

  of resigned, almost amused disappointment. He did not seem in the

  least distressed. As her calmness returned to her she perceived

  that all he had said had been no more than a trick to play upon her

  feelings and cajole her into saying that she would marry him; and

  what was stranger yet, that he had said it without seriously caring

  whether she married him or not. He had, in fact, merely been

  amusing himself. Very probably the whole thing was only another of

  his periodical attempts to seduce her.

  He sat down, but more deliberately than she, taking care of the

  creases of his trousers as he did so.

  'If you want to pull the communication cord,' he said mildly, 'you

  had better let me make sure that I have five pounds in my pocket-

  book.'

  After that he was quite himself again, or as nearly himself as

  anyone could possibly be after such a scene, and he went on talking

  without the smallest symptom of embarrassment. His sense of shame,