A Clergyman's Daughter

if he had ever possessed one, had perished many years ago. Perhaps

  it had been killed by overwork in a lifetime of squalid affairs

  with women.

  For an hour, perhaps, Dorothy was ill at ease, but after that the

  train reached Ipswich, where it stopped for a quarter of an hour,

  and there was the diversion of going to the refreshment room for a

  cup of tea. For the last twenty miles of the journey they talked

  quite amicably. Mr Warburton did not refer again to his proposal

  of marriage, but as the train neared Knype Hill he returned, less

  seriously than before, to the question of Dorothy's future.

  'So you really propose', he said 'to go back to your parish work?

  "The trivial round, the common task?" Mrs Pither's rheumatism and

  Mrs Lewin's corn-plaster and all the rest of it? The prospect

  doesn't dismay you?'

  'I don't know--sometimes it does. But I expect it'll be all right

  once I'm back at work. I've got the habit, you see.'

  'And you really feel equal to years of calculated hypocrisy? For

  that's what it amounts to, you know. Not afraid of the cat getting

  out of the bag? Quite sure you won't find yourself teaching the

  Sunday School kids to say the Lord's Prayer backwards, or reading

  Gibbon's fifteenth chapter to the Mothers' Union instead of Gene

  Stratton Porter?'

  'I don't think so. Because, you see, I do feel that that kind of

  work, even if it means saying prayers that one doesn't believe in,

  and even if it means teaching children things that one doesn't

  always think are true--I do feel that in a way it's useful.'

  'Useful?' said Mr Warburton distastefully. 'You're a little too

  fond of that depressing word "useful". Hypertrophy of the sense of

  duty--that's what's the matter with you. Now, to me, it seems the

  merest common sense to have a bit of fun while the going's good.'

  'That's just hedonism,' Dorothy objected.

  'My dear child, can you show me a philosophy of life that isn't

  hedonism? Your verminous Christian saints are the biggest hedonists

  of all. They're out for an eternity of bliss, whereas we poor

  sinners don't hope for more than a few years of it. Ultimately

  we're all trying for a bit of fun; but some people take it in such

  perverted forms. Your notion of fun seems to be massaging Mrs

  Pither's legs.'

  'It's not that exactly, but--oh! somehow I can't explain!'

  What she would have said was that though her faith had left her,

  she had not changed, could not change, did not want to change, the

  spiritual background of her mind; that her cosmos, though now it

  seemed to her empty and meaningless, was still in a sense the

  Christian cosmos; that the Christian way of life was still the way

  that must come naturally to her. But she could not put this into

  words, and felt that if she tried to do so he would probably begin

  making fun of her. So she concluded lamely:

  'Somehow I feel that it's better for me to go on as I was before.'

  'EXACTLY the same as before? The whole bill of fare? The Girl

  Guides, the Mothers' Union, the Band of Hope, the Companionship of

  Marriage, parish visiting and Sunday School teaching, Holy

  Communion twice a week and here we go round the doxology-bush,

  chanting Gregorian plain-song? You're quite certain you can manage

  it?'

  Dorothy smiled in spite of herself. 'Not plain-song. Father

  doesn't like it.'

  'And you think that, except for your inner thoughts, your life will

  be precisely what it was before you lost your faith? There will be

  NO change in your habits?'

  Dorothy thought. Yes, there WOULD be changes in her habits; but

  most of them would be secret ones. The memory of the disciplinary

  pin crossed her mind. It had always been a secret from everyone

  except herself and she decided not to mention it.

  'Well,' she said finally, 'perhaps at Holy Communion I shall kneel

  down on Miss Mayfill's right instead of on her left.'

  2

  A week had gone by.

  Dorothy rode up the hill from the town and wheeled her bicycle in

  at the Rectory gate. It was a fine evening, clear and cold, and

  the sun, unclouded, was sinking in remote, greenish skies. Dorothy

  noticed that the ash tree by the gate was in bloom, with clotted

  dark red blossoms that looked like festerings from a wound.

  She was rather tired. She had had a busy week of it, what with

  visiting all the women on her list in turn and trying to get the

  parish affairs into some kind of order again. Everything was in a

  fearful mess after her absence. The church was dirty beyond all

  belief--in fact, Dorothy had had to spend the best part of a day

  cleaning up with scrubbing-brushes, broom and dustpan, and the beds

  of 'mouse dirts' that she had found behind the organ made her wince

  when she thought of them. (The reason why the mice came there was

  because Georgie Frew, the organ-blower, WOULD bring penny packets

  of biscuits into church and eat them during the sermon.) All the

  Church associations had been neglected, with the result that the

  Band of Hope and the Companionship of Marriage had now given up the

  ghost, Sunday School attendance had dropped by half, and there was

  internecine warfare going on in the Mothers' Union because of some

  tactless remark that Miss Foote had made. The belfry was in a

  worse state than ever. The parish magazine had not been delivered

  regularly and the money for it had not been collected. None of the

  accounts of the Church Funds had been properly kept up, and there

  was nineteen shillings unaccounted for in all, and even the parish

  registers were in a muddle--and so on and so on, ad infinitum. The

  Rector had let everything slide.

  Dorothy had been up to her eyes in work from the moment of reaching

  home. Indeed, things had slipped back into their old routine with

  astonishing swiftness. It was as though it had been only yesterday

  that she had gone away. Now that the scandal had blown over, her

  return to Knype Hill had aroused very little curiosity. Some of

  the women on her visiting list, particularly Mrs Pither, were

  genuinely glad to see her back, and Victor Stone, perhaps, seemed

  just a little ashamed of having temporarily believed Mrs Semprill's

  libel; but he soon forgot it in recounting to Dorothy his latest

  triumph in the Church Times. Various of the coffee-ladies, of

  course, had stopped Dorothy in the street with 'My dear, how VERY

  nice to see you back again! You HAVE been away a long time! And

  you know, dear, we all thought it such a SHAME when that horrible

  woman was going round telling those stories about you. But I do

  hope you'll understand, dear, that whatever anyone else may have

  thought, I never believed a word of them', etc., etc., etc. But

  nobody had asked her the uncomfortable questions that she had been

  fearing. 'I've been teaching in a school near London' had

  satisfied everyone; they had not even asked her the name of the

  school. Never, she saw, would she have to confess that she had

  slept in Trafalga
r Square and been arrested for begging. The fact

  is that people who live in small country towns have only a very dim

  conception of anything that happens more than ten miles from their

  own front door. The world outside is a terra incognita, inhabited,

  no doubt, by dragons and anthropophagi, but not particularly

  interesting.

  Even Dorothy's father had greeted her as though she had only been

  away for the week-end. He was in his study when she arrived,

  musingly smoking his pipe in front of the grandfather clock, whose

  glass, smashed by the charwoman's broom-handle four months ago, was

  still unmended. As Dorothy came into the room he took his pipe out

  of his mouth and put it away in his pocket with an absent-minded,

  old-mannish movement. He looked a great deal older, Dorothy

  thought.

  'So here you are at last,' he said. 'Did you have a good journey?'

  Dorothy put her arms round his neck and touched his silver-pale

  cheek with her lips. As she disengaged herself he patted her

  shoulder with a just perceptible trace more affection than usual.

  'What made you take it into your head to run away like that?' he

  said.

  'I told you, Father--I lost my memory.'

  'Hm,' said the Rector; and Dorothy saw that he did not believe her,

  never would believe her, and that on many and many a future

  occasion, when he was in a less agreeable mood than at present,

  that escapade would be brought up against her. 'Well,' he added,

  'when you've taken your bag upstairs, just bring your typewriter

  down here, would you? I want you to type out my sermon.'

  Not much that was of interest had happened in the town. Ye Olde

  Tea Shoppe was enlarging its premises, to the further disfigurement

  of the High Street. Mrs Pither's rheumatism was better (thanks to

  the angelica tea, no doubt), but Mr Pither had 'been under the

  doctor' and they were afraid he had stone in the bladder. Mr

  Blifil-Gordon was now in Parliament, a docile deadhead on the back

  benches of the Conservative Party. Old Mr Tombs had died just

  after Christmas, and Miss Foote had taken over seven of his cats

  and made heroic efforts to find homes for the others. Eva Twiss,

  the niece of Mr Twiss the ironmonger, had had an illegitimate baby,

  which had died. Proggett had dug the kitchen garden and sowed a

  few seeds, and the broad beans and the first peas were just

  showing. The shop-debts had begun to mount up again after the

  creditors' meeting, and there was six pounds owing to Cargill.

  Victor Stone had had a controversy with Professor Coulton in the

  Church Times, about the Holy Inquisition, and utterly routed him.

  Ellen's eczema had been very bad all the winter. Walph Blifil-

  Gordon had had two poems accepted by the London Mercury.

  Dorothy went into the conservatory. She had got a big job on hand--

  costumes for a pageant that the schoolchildren were going to have

  on St George's Day, in aid of the organ fund. Not a penny had been

  paid towards the organ during the past eight months, and it was

  perhaps as well that the Rector always threw the organ-people's

  bills away unopened, for their tone was growing more and more

  sulphurous. Dorothy had racked her brains for a way of raising

  some money, and finally decided on a historical pageant, beginning

  with Julius Caesar and ending with the Duke of Wellington. They

  might raise two pounds by a pageant, she thought--with luck and a

  fine day, they might even raise three pounds!

  She looked round the conservatory. She had hardly been in here

  since coming home, and evidently nothing had been touched during

  her absence. Her things were lying just as she had left them; but

  the dust was thick on everything. Her sewing-machine was on the

  table amid the old familiar litter of scraps of cloth, sheets of

  brown paper, cotton-reels and pots of paint, and though the needle

  had rusted, the thread was still in it. And, yes! there were the

  jackboots that she had been making the night she went away. She

  picked one of them up and looked at it. Something stirred in her

  heart. Yes, say what you like, they WERE good jackboots! What a

  pity they had never been used! However, they would come in useful

  for the pageant. For Charles II, perhaps--or, no, better not have

  Charles II; have Oliver Cromwell instead; because if you had Oliver

  Cromwell you wouldn't have to make him a wig.

  Dorothy lighted the oilstove, found her scissors and two sheets of

  brown paper, and sat down. There was a mountain of clothes to be

  made. Better start off with Julius Caesar's breastplate, she

  thought. It was always that wretched armour that made all the

  trouble! What did a Roman soldier's armour look like? Dorothy

  made an effort, and called to mind the statue of some idealized

  curly-bearded emperor in the Roman Room at the British Museum. You

  might make a sort of rough breastplate out of glue and brown paper,

  and glue narrow strips of paper across it to represent the plates

  of the armour, and then silver them over. No helmet to make, thank

  goodness! Julius Caesar always wore a laurel wreath--ashamed of

  his baldness, no doubt, like Mr Warburton. But what about greaves?

  Did they wear greaves in Julius Caesar's time? And boots? Was a

  caligum a boot or a sandal?

  After a few moments she stopped with the shears resting on her

  knee. A thought which had been haunting her like some inexorcizable

  ghost at every unoccupied moment during the past week had returned

  once more to distract her. It was the thought of what Mr Warburton

  had said to her in the train--of what her life was going to be like

  hereafter, unmarried and without money.

  It was not that she was in any doubt about the external facts of

  her future. She could see it all quite clearly before her. Ten

  years, perhaps, as unsalaried curate, and then back to school-

  teaching. Not necessarily in quite such a school as Mrs Creevy's--

  no doubt she could do something rather better for herself than

  that--but at least in some more or less shabby, more or less

  prison-like school; or perhaps in some even bleaker, even less

  human kind of drudgery. Whatever happened, at the very best, she

  had got to face the destiny that is common to all lonely and

  penniless women. 'The Old Maids of Old England', as somebody

  called them. She was twenty-eight--just old enough to enter their

  ranks.

  But it didn't matter, it didn't matter! That was the thing that

  you could never drive into the heads of the Mr Warburtons of this

  world, not if you talked to them for a thousand years; that mere

  outward things like poverty and drudgery, and even loneliness,

  don't matter in themselves. It is the things that happen in your

  heart that matter. For just a moment--an evil moment--while Mr

  Warburton was talking to her in the train, she had known the fear

  of poverty. But she had mastered it; it was not a thing worth

  worrying about. It was not because of THAT that she had got to

  stiffen her courage and remake t
he whole structure of her mind.

  No, it was something far more fundamental; it was the deadly

  emptiness that she had discovered at the heart of things. She

  thought of how a year ago she had sat in this chair, with these

  scissors in her hand, doing precisely what she was doing now; and

  yet it was as though then and now she had been two different

  beings. Where had she gone, that well-meaning, ridiculous girl who

  had prayed ecstatically in summer-scented fields and pricked her

  arm as a punishment for sacrilegious thoughts? And where is any of

  ourselves of even a year ago? And yet after all--and here lay the

  trouble--she WAS the same girl. Beliefs change, thoughts change,

  but there is some inner part of the soul that does not change.

  Faith vanishes, but the need for faith remains the same as before.

  And given only faith, how can anything else matter? How can

  anything dismay you if only there is some purpose in the world

  which you can serve, and which, while serving it, you can

  understand? Your whole life is illumined by the sense of purpose.

  There is no weariness in your heart, no doubts, no feeling of

  futility, no Baudelairean ennui waiting for unguarded hours. Every

  act is significant, every moment sanctified, woven by faith as into

  a pattern, a fabric of never-ending joy.

  She began to meditate upon the nature of life. You emerged from

  the womb, you lived sixty or seventy years, and then you died and

  rotted. And in every detail of your life, if no ultimate purpose

  redeemed it, there was a quality of greyness, of desolation, that

  could never be described, but which you could feel like a physical

  pang at your heart. Life, if the grave really ends it, is

  monstrous and dreadful. No use trying to argue it away. Think of

  life as it really is, think of the DETAILS of life; and then think

  that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the

  grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives

  are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without

  flinching?

  She shifted her position in her chair. But after all there must be

  SOME meaning, SOME purpose in it all! The world cannot be an

  accident. Everything that happens must have a cause--ultimately,

  therefore, a purpose. Since you exist, God must have created you,

  and since He created you a conscious being, He must be conscious.

  The greater doesn't come out of the less. He created you, and He

  will kill you, for His own purpose. But that purpose is inscrutable.

  It is in the nature of things that you can never discover it, and

  perhaps even if you did discover it you would be averse to it.

  Your life and death, it may be, are a single note in the eternal

  orchestra that plays for His diversion. And suppose you don't like

  the tune? She thought of that dreadful unfrocked clergyman in

  Trafalgar Square. Had she dreamed the things he said, or had he

  really said them? 'Therefore with Demons and Archdemons and with

  all the company of Hell'. But that was silly, really. For your not

  liking the tune was also part of the tune.

  Her mind struggled with the problem, while perceiving that there

  was no solution. There was, she saw clearly, no possible

  substitute for faith; no pagan acceptance of life as sufficient to

  itself, no pantheistic cheer-up stuff, no pseudo-religion of

  'progress' with visions of glittering Utopias and ant-heaps of

  steel and concrete. It is all or nothing. Either life on earth is

  a preparation for something greater and more lasting, or it is

  meaningless, dark, and dreadful.

  Dorothy started. A frizzling sound was coming from the glue-pot.

  She had forgotten to put any water in the saucepan, and the glue

  was beginning to burn. She took the saucepan, hastened to the

  scullery sink to replenish it, then brought it back and put it on

  the oilstove again. I simply MUST get that breastplate done before

  supper! she thought. After Julius Caesar there was William the