“Oh, indeed? Enterprising idea. How did you like her?”
“Like her? Well, she seemed a pleasant sort of girl, though I
can’t say I formed any definite opinion. I just taught her the German,
that was all—we never talked on any other matters.”
“That’s just like you, isn’t it?” Trevis laughed.
“I can see now why you’ve got the reputation in this town of
being absolutely impervious to female charm. I don’t suppose you even
noticed whether the girl was pretty or not?”
Howat smiled; it slightly gratified him to receive this kind of
unsolicited testimonial, for it had always been his aim to avoid any of that
foolishness that so often mars and complicates the relationship between a
minister and the younger ladies of his congregation. He replied: “Well,
anyhow, I certainly don’t recollect that she
was
pretty.”
“She isn’t,” Trevis said, abruptly. “But
she’s attractive, in her own way.”
“You know her, then?”
“I used to. I haven’t seen much of her for the last few years,
though—I’ve been away so often, and she also doesn’t spend
more time in. Browdley than she needs. They say that most nights she’s
off to Manchester as soon as the library closes down, and that she
doesn’t come back till the last train. Gay life, eh? Possibly—I
should say she’s capable of most things, and certainly of not telling
anyone her own business. Unusual sort of girl.”
“And you used to know her well?”
“Yes, till my old man quarrelled with her old man-that must have
been about ten years ago. Dad was old Garland’s solicitor, you know,
and solicitors have pretty cast-iron consciences, but even Dad boggled at
some of Garland’s business. Anyhow, they had a fine old row which ended
by Garland taking his affairs somewhere else. I remember it all quite
well—the girl and I were of the age when we were told that we
mustn’t play with each other any more.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Oh, yes, we did, lots of times. But we gradually saw less of each
other, for all that. I always rather liked her, I must say, and I’d be
sorry if she’d made a fool of herself. I suppose it doesn’t
exactly fall within your province to do anything in the matter?”
“At present the difficulty is that she hasn’t let anyone know
where she’s gone to. Of course, if I could do anything I
would—very willingly.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Trevis, and the matter
dropped.
During dinner at the Manse conversation eddied and swirled around the
dramatic disappearance of Elizabeth Garland, and Howat, in the centre of the
whirlpool, was rather baffled by it all. He knew so little, and both his wife
and Aunt Viney seemed to expect him to know so much; there were, it appeared,
all kinds of astonishing rumours about the town. Not only was it now
definitely accepted that the girl had absconded with a man, but the man
himself had been provisionally identified as a member of a cinema orchestra
in Manchester. It was quite obvious, Mrs. Freemantle said, that the girl had
a completely bad character, and everyone must feel sympathy for Mr. and Mrs.
Garland, such respectable people, in having been so disgraced. “And to
think,” commented Aunt Viney, “that only last Tuesday she was
here for her German lesson, as large as life!”
“I wonder,” continued Mrs. Freemantle, “that you found
it possible to get on at all with her, Howat. But then you’re so
unobservant about things. I must say,
I
never took to her.”
Howat said nothing for the simple reason that there seemed to him nothing
to say; he had already heard quite enough talk about the girl, besides which,
he hated gossip, especially of the less charitable kind.
“And as for sending you that picture of a woman, I consider it
nothing less than shameless in the circumstances,” Mrs. Freemantle
still went on. (Aunt Viney must have told her about it, Howat reflected; but
then, of course, Aunt Viney always did tell her about everything.) “She
must actually have posted it on Saturday, when she was on her way with that
man. I’m surprised, Howat—I really am surprised that even you
could have gone on giving her those lessons week after week without noticing
anything!”
Howat crumbled his bread uncomfortably. “But, my dear, what
could
I have noticed? I merely taught her German. She behaved
quite’ normally while she was here, if that’s what you mean. And
I do think that it would be better to refrain from judging the matter
until—at any rate—we know a little more about it.”
And with this very mild rebuke, which he did not for a moment expect to
have any effect, he relapsed again into silence.
During the afternoon he ‘visited’. He believed that it was no
use preaching at people merely; you must go and see them in their own homes
and get to know them personally. He had always been regular and conscientious
in so doing, but he did not, despite that, reckon himself a good
‘visitor’. He was pretty fair with people who were in any trouble
or who needed the more straightforward kinds of advice, and he was all right
with people who happened to attract him personally, and he was always a huge
success with children; but there were a few persons who came into none of
these categories. He was never quite certain whether they dreaded meeting him
as much as he dreaded meeting them; and for the sake of this meagre doubt he
kept up the practice, till, after several years of it, he had developed a
barely adequate technique of small-talk suitable for such occasions.
This afternoon he did a rather strange thing; he thought of all the people
he least liked to visit, and visited them one after another. He did not quite
know why he did this—not entirely, anyhow, to mortify the spirit, and
certainly not at all with any idea of ‘getting them over’. On the
contrary these visits were to be extra ones—surplus dividends, as it
were, from the store of loving kindness in his heart. He thought: If
I’m going to be any good in this town, I’ve got to dive far
deeper than I’ve done hitherto. Yesterday, while I was with Miss Monks,
my feelings were absolutely selfish—I was thinking all the time what an
old tyrant she was and wondering how soon I could decently get
away—that, remember, with one of my chapel-members lying on her
deathbed. After all, what do I do in this town with any enthusiasm except the
things I like doing?—I like pottering about with children and young
people, I like giving talks on literature and music, I like preaching, too,
in a way—I like all these things, and therefore I do them. It all boils
down to the fact of a rather stupendous selfishness masquerading as virtue;
the truth is, I’m no better than anyone else—I like what I like.
But as a parson I ought to be different—yes, better—or else, in
Heaven’s name, why do I wear this collar the wrong way round?
So, in a state of self-disgust that only gradually wore itself out, he
visited old Jack Harmon, who was nearly stone deaf and was interested in
nothing but Association football. Not only had he to be shouted at in a way
of which his daughters alone had acquired the perfect knack, but his voice,
when he spoke, was a barely coherent muttering to which nobody in his house
ever paid the slightest attention. Howat, moreover, was not learned in
football, and could only vaguely follow the gist of the man’s talk. The
pleasure his visit was giving was, however, obvious—too obvious,
perhaps, since the old man, delighted to entertain the parson in a room which
directly overlooked the street and through whose window every passer-by could
see, clucked and gurgled his satisfaction till the saliva dribbled
inelegantly down his chin. Howat shouted “Yes” and
“No” and “Really?” while the pain in his throat,
rarely absent altogether, became a white-hot ache; then, after about an hour,
he managed to drag himself away, pursued even from the street-door by the
man’s joyful incoherencies.
Next he called on Mrs. Roseway in Hill Grove (he had intended visiting her
the previous day, but had put it off with an excuse which, he knew now, had
been merely a disguise for selfish personal reluctance); she was eighty-four,
and did nothing but grumble because she had rheumatism (“By Jove,”
Ringwood had once said, “it’s time she had something!”)
Howat had never been able to make any headway against the quiet, almost
contented querulousness of this old creature; she was fairly well off, yet
(again quoting Ringwood) ’you couldn’t get a penny out of her
without chloroform’. She had children, hard-working but unfortunate,
living in neighbouring towns, and Howat always hoped he might some day
persuade her to deal more generously with them. He had often come near to the
point of broaching the matter, but had never quite managed it; this
afternoon, with new determination in his heart, he decided that he would. He
listened for a time to her complaints, and then began a plea for greater
charitableness and help towards those in need of it, till at last the old
lady, shrewdly perceiving where his eloquence might lead, shut him up with a
quite final if not very courteous remark and resumed the more satisfying
topic of her own ailments.
Then he visited Joe Maracot, a former chapel member, now turned atheist,
who had fallen off a lorry and fractured a leg. Maracot treated him with
scarcely veiled hostility; he was a strong Labour enthusiast, an admirer of
Councillor Higgs, and tried to lure Howat into an argument about Russia, but
Howat, feeling himself being baited, declined to be drawn.
Then (purely as a treat for himself) he looked in at the Infirmary and
spent half an hour in the children’s ward. After that he called on the
two Miss Jekylls, who talked endlessly about foreign missions—a
department of religious enterprise for which he had never, somehow, been able
to share the optimism of its partisans. The continual twitter of the two
ladies bored him (try as he would he could not help it), and their vision of
an Africa perfected by frock-coats and hymn-books had that large simplicity
that always affected him with a certain sadness of mind. And yet, he felt,
the Misses Jekyll were very likeable; they believed in their vision and
subscribed money for it with far more generosity than they could really
afford (there was a little box for ‘missionary pennies’ behind
the clock on the mantelpiece); they thought as kindly of an idealised black
man bowing down to wood and stone as they did harshly of the real
unfortunates who lived within a quarter-mile of their own house. If only
Howat could give a twist to that pathetic stream of good will, could bring it
nearer home and canalise it so that it ran in a warming current through the
streets of Browdley! He tried valiantly, but as fast as he mentioned local
hardship, the two ladies romped merrily along to some other instance of
wholesale conversion in distant lands—“over a thousand baptised
last month in India alone, so my missionary cousin writes to me.” Howat
forebore to reply that during that same month in India there must have been
at least a quarter of a million non-Christians born; he felt so sure that
they would be offended as well as unable to see the point of such a remark.
He just let them talk on, accepted a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and
then, after many mutual assurances that the visit had been enjoyable, took
his leave.
Lastly he visited an old man, a former chapel caretaker, slowly dying of
heart disease; the man was obviously too ill to talk or to want to be talked
to, and Howat did not stay more than a few minutes.
By that time it was time for ‘high tea’ at the Manse.
After tea he went into his study and prayed. He did not kneel or even bow
his head; he just sat back in an armchair before the fire and shut his eyes.
He did not want his wife or Aunt Viney to come in (as they would often do
without knocking) and find him in an obviously prayerful attitude; not that
he was ashamed of praying, but prayer to them was such a professional
business, something a parson did night and morning, a good deal on Sunday,
and occasionally at other people’s bedsides; he was sure they would
think him ill if they caught him at it on any less customary occasion.
Besides, his wasn’t a definite prayer; he didn’t put much of it
even into words; it was just an expression of the feeling of worthlessness
that had come over him, the doubt as to whether he was doing any good, and
the desire to be given (if it were possible) some secret reassurance.
As it chanced, Aunt Viney did interrupt; a message, she said, had come
from Miss Monks—would Howat call round and see her some time that
evening, if he could, as it was important?
He sighed and answered yes, certainly. It was all over the town, of
course, that the old woman was dying, and that Ringwood had given her the
news, however, had been dwarfed in significance by that more exciting
business about Garland’s daughter. He put on his hat and overcoat and
went into the chilly, lamp-lit streets. Well, he reflected, he would have a
chance to do better with the poor old soul than the day before—perhaps
it was more than he deserved. But he was very tired again, and there was the
Temperance meeting he ought to look in at later on—they liked him to
lead the singing.
He reached the house in Lower George Street about half-past seven, and was
shown up into that same stuffy, stale-smelling bedroom. But instead of a
dying woman’s greeting he was welcomed by a brisk “Good evening,
Mr. Freemantle “, and saw Miss Monks sitting up cheerfully in bed with
her eyes fixed on him in a way that put him rather in mind of a snake poised
to strike. He began:
“Well, Miss Monks, and how are you to-day?” in the usual
manner, but he was hardly prepared for the tremendous precision with which
she replied: “Better.”
“Better? That’s great—great!” he murmured, and
added irrelevantly that it was a gloriously clear evening, cold, but no
fog—so different from yesterday.
“And so I suppose,” said Miss Monks, ignoring the weather,
“that Garland’s girl has run away from home?”