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Making of a Bigot

<h2>CHAPTER VIII. THE VISITORS GO.</h2> NEXT morning Eileen got a letter. She read it before breakfast, turned rather paler, and looked up at Eddy as if she was trying to bring her mind back from a great distance. In her eyes was fear, and that look of brooding, soft pity that he had learnt to associate with one only of Eileen’s friends. She said, “Hugh’s ill,” frowning at him absently, and added, “I must go to him, this morning. He’s alone,” and Eddy remembered a paragraph he had seen in the Morning Post about Lady Dorothy Datcherd and the Riviera. Lady Dorothy never stayed with Datcherd when he was ill. Periodically his lungs got much worse, and he had to lie up, and he hated that. “Does he write himself?” Arnold asked. He was fond of Hugh Datcherd. “Yes—oh, he doesn’t say he’s ill, he never will, but I know it by his writing—I must go by the next train, I’m afraid”; she remembered to turn to Mrs. Oliver and speak apologetically. “I’m very sorry to be so sudden.” “We are so sorry for the cause,” said Mrs. Oliver, courteously. “Is it your brother?” (Surely it wouldn’t be her husband, in the circumstances?) “It is not,” said Eileen, still abstracted. “It’s a friend. He’s alone, and consumptive, and if he’s not looked after he destroys himself doing quite mad things. His wife’s gone away.” Mrs. Oliver became a shade less sympathetic. It was a pity it was not a brother, which would have been more natural. However, Mrs. Le Moine was, of course, a married woman, though under curious circumstances. She began to discuss trains, and the pony-carriage, and sandwiches. Eddy explained afterwards while Eileen was upstairs. “It’s Hugh Datcherd, a great friend of hers; poor chap, his lungs are frightfully gone, I’m afraid. He’s an extraordinarily interesting and capable man; runs an enormous settlement in North-East London, and has any number of different social schemes all over the place. He edits Further—do you ever see it, father?” “Further? Yes, it’s been brought to my notice once or twice. It goes a good way ‘further’ than even our poor heretical deans, doesn’t it?” It went in a quite different direction, Eddy thought. Our heretical deans do not always go very far along the road which leads to social betterment and slum-destroying; they are often too busy improving theology to have much time to improve houses. “An able man, I daresay,” said the Dean. “Like all the Datcherds. Most of them have been Parliamentary, of course. Two Datcherds were at Cambridge with me—Roger and Stephen; this man’s uncles, I suppose; his father would be before my time. They were both very brilliant fellows, and fine speakers at the Union, and have become capable Parliamentary speakers now. A family of hereditary Whigs; but this man’s the only out and out Radical, I should say. A pity he’s so bitter against Christianity.” “He’s not bitter,” said Eddy. “He’s very gentle. Only he disbelieves in it as a means of progress.” “Surely,” said Mrs. Oliver, “he married one of Lord Ulverstone’s daughters—Dorothy, wasn’t it.” (Lord Ulverstone and Mrs. Oliver’s family were both of Westmorland, where there is strong clannish feeling.) “He and Dorothy don’t seem to be hitting it off, do they,” put in Daphne, and her mother said, “Daphne, dear,” and changed the subject. Daphne ought not, by good rights, to have heard that about Hugh Datcherd being ill and alone, and Mrs. Le Moine going to him. “She’s a trying woman, I fancy,” said Eddy, who did not mean to be tactless, but had been absorbed in his own thoughts and had got left behind when his mother started a new subject. “Hard, and selfish, and extravagant, and thinks of nothing but amusing herself, and doesn’t care a hang for any of Datcherd’s schemes, or for Datcherd himself, for that matter. She just goes off and leaves him to be ill by himself. He nearly died last year; he was awfully cut up, too, about their little girl dying—she was the only child, and Datcherd was absolutely devoted to her, and I believe her mother neglected her when she was ill, just as she does Datcherd.” “These stories get exaggerated, of course,” said Mrs. Oliver, because Lady Dorothy was one of the Westmorland Ulverstones, because Daphne was listening, and because she suspected the source of the stories to be Eileen Le Moine. “Oh, I’ve no doubt there’s her side of it, too, if one knew it,” admitted Eddy, ready, as usual, to see everyone’s point of view. “It would be a frightful bore being married to a man who was interested in all the things you hated most, and gave his whole time and money and energy to them. But anyhow, you see why his friends, and particularly Eileen, who’s his greatest friend, feel responsible for him.” “A very sad state of things,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Anyhow,” said Daphne, “here’s the pony-trap.” Eileen came downstairs, hand-in-hand with Jane, and said goodbye to the Dean, and Mrs. Oliver, and Daphne, and “Thank you so much for having me,” and drove off with Eddy and Jane, still with that look of troubled wistfulness in her face. She smiled faintly at Eddy from the train. “I’m sorry, Eddy. It’s a shame I have to go,” but her thoughts were not for him, as he knew. Outside the station they met Arnold, and he and Jane walked off together to see something in the Cathedral, while Eddy drove home. Jane gave a little pitiful sigh. “Poor dears,” she murmured. “H’m?” questioned Arnold, who was interested in the streets. “Poor Eileen,” Jane amplified; “poor Hugh.” “Oh, quite,” Arnold nodded. But, feeling more interested in ideas than in people, he talked about Welchester. “The stuffiness of the place!” he commented, with energy of abuse. “The stodginess. The canons and their wives. The—the enlightened culture of the Deanery. The propriety. The correctness. The intelligence. The cathedralism. The good breeding. How can Eddy bear it, Jane? Why doesn’t he kick someone or something over and run?” “Eddy likes it,” said Jane. “He’s very fond of it. After all, it is rather exquisite; look——” They had stopped at the end of Church Street, and looked along its narrow length to the square that opened out before the splendid West Front. Arnold screwed up his eyes at it, appreciatively. “That’s all right. It’s the people I’m thinking of.” “But you know, Arnold, Eddy’s not exclusive like most people, like you and me, and—and Mrs. Oliver, and those nice Bellairs’. He likes everyone and everything. Things are delightful to him merely because they exist.” Arnold groaned. “Whitman said that before you, the brute. If I thought Eddy had anything in common with Walt, our friendship would end forthwith.” “He has nothing whatever,” Jane reassured him, placidly. “Whitman hated all sorts of things. Whitman’s more like you; he’d have hated Welchester.” “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true. The cleanliness, the cant, the smug faces of men and women in the street, the worshippers in cathedrals, the keepers of Sabbaths, the respectable and the well-to-do, the Sunday hats and black coats of the men, the panaches and tight skirts of the women, the tea-fights, the well-read deans and their lady-like wives—what have I to do with these or these with me? All, all of them I loathe; away with them, I will not have them near me any more. Allons, camerado, I will take to the open road beneath the stars.... What a pity he would have said that; but I can’t alter my opinion, even for him.... How at home dear old Phil Underwood would be here, wouldn’t he. How he must enjoy his visits to the Deanery, where he’s a persona grata. And how he must bore the young sister. She’s all right, you know, Jane. I rather like her. And she hates me. She’s quite genuine, and free from cant; just as worldly as they make ’em, and never pretends to be anything else. Besides, she’s all alive; rather like a young wild animal. It’s queer she and Eddy being brother and sister, she so decided and fixed in all her opinions and rejections, and he so impressionable. Oh, another thing—I have an unhappy feeling that Eddy is going, eventually, to marry that little yellow-eyed girl—Miss Bellairs. Somehow I feel it.” Jane said, “Nonsense,” and laughed. “She’s not a bit the sort.” “Of course she’s not. But to Eddy, as you observed, all sorts are acceptable. She’s one sort, you’ll admit. And one he’s attached to—wind and weather and jolly adventures and old companionship, she stands for to him. Not a subtle appeal, but still, an appeal. They’re fond of each other, and it will turn to that, you’ll see. Eddy never says, “That’s not the sort of thing, or the sort of person, for me.” Because they all are. Look at the way he swallowed those parsons down in his slum. Swallowed them—why, he loves them. Look at the way he accepts Welchester, stodginess and all, and likes it. He was the same at Cambridge; nothing was outside the range for him; he never drew the line. I’m really not particular”—Jane laughed at him again—“but I tell you he consorted sometimes with the most utterly utter, and didn’t seem to mind. Kept very bad company indeed on occasion; company the Dean wouldn’t at all have approved of, I’m sure. Many times I’ve had to step in and try in vain to haul him by force out of some select set. Nuts, smugs, pious men, betting roués, beefy hulks—all were grist to his mill. And still it’s the same. Miss Bellairs, no doubt, is a very nice girl, quite genuine and natural, and rather like a jolly kitten, which is always attractive. But she’s rigid within; she won’t mix with the people Eddy will want to mix with. She’s not comprehensive. She wouldn’t like us much, for instance; she’d think us rather queer and shady beings, not what she’s used to or understands. We should worry and puzzle her. She’s gay and sweet and unselfish, and good, sweet maid, and lets who will be clever. Lets them, but doesn’t want to have much to do with them. She’ll shut us all out, and try to shut Eddy in with her. She won’t succeed, because he’ll go on wanting a little bit of all there is, and so they’ll both be miserable. Her share of the world, you see—all the share she asks for—is homogeneous; his is heterogeneous, a sort of gypsy stew with everything in it. You may say that he’s greedy for mixed fare, while she has a simple and fastidious appetite. There are the materials for another unhappy marriage ready provided.” Jane was looking at the Prior’s Door with her head on one side. She smiled at it peacefully. “Really, Arnold——” “Oh, I know. You’re going to say, what reason have I for supposing that Eddy has ever thought of this young girl in that way, as they say in fiction. I don’t say he has yet. But he will. Propinquity will do it, and common tastes, and old affection. You’ll see, Jane. I’m not often wrong about these unfortunate affairs. I dislike them so much that it gives me an instinct.” Jane shook her head. “I think Welchester is affecting you for bad, Arnold. That, you know, is what the people who annoy you so much here would do, I expect—look at all affection and friendship like that.” “That’s true.” Arnold looked at her in surprise. “But I shouldn’t have expected you to know it. You are improving in perspicacity, Jane; it’s the first time I have known you aware of the vulgarity about you.” Jane looked a little proud of herself, as she only did when she had displayed a piece of worldly knowledge. She did not say that she had obtained her knowledge from Mrs. Oliver and the Dean, who, watching Eddy and Eileen, had too obviously done so with troubled eyes, so that she longed to comfort them with explanations they would never understand. It was certain that they were relieved that Eileen had gone, though the reason of her going had placed her in a more dubious light. Also, she forgot, unfortunately, to write her bread and butter letter. “I suppose she can’t spare the time from Hugh,” said Daphne. But she wrote to Jane, telling her that Hugh was laid up with hemorrhage, and had been ordered to go away directly he was fit. “They say Davos, but he won’t. I don’t know where it will be.” Jane, whose worldly shrewdness after all had narrow limits, repeated this to Eddy in his mother’s presence. “Has his wife got back yet?” Mrs. Oliver inquired gravely, and Jane shook her head. “Oh no. She won’t. She’s spending the winter on the Riviera.” “I should think Mr. Datcherd too had better spend the winter on the Riviera,” suggested Mrs. Oliver. “Isn’t it rather bad for consumption?” said Eddy, shirking issues other than hygienic. “I believe,” said Jane, not shirking them, “his wife isn’t coming back to him at all again. She’s tired of him, I’m afraid. I daresay it’s a good thing; she is very irritating and difficult.” Mrs. Oliver changed the subject. These seemed to her what women in her district would have called strange goings on. She commented on them to the Dean, who, more tolerant, said, “One must allow some licence to genius, I suppose.” Perhaps: but the question was, how much. Genius might alter manners—(for the worse, Mrs. Oliver thought)—but it shouldn’t be allowed to alter morals. “Anyhow,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I am rather troubled that Eddy should be so intimate with these people.” “Eddy is a steady-headed boy,” said the Dean. “He knows where to draw the line.” Which is what parents often think of their children, with how little warrant! Drawing the line was precisely the art which, Arnold complained, Eddy had not learnt at all. Jane and Arnold stayed three days more at the Deanery. Jane drew details of the Cathedral and studies of Daphne. The Dean thought, as he had often thought before, that artists were interesting, child-like, but rather baffling people, incredibly innocent, or else incredibly apt to accept moral evil with indifference; also that, though, he feared, quite outside the Church, and what he considered to be pagan in outlook, she displayed, like poor Wilson Gavin, a very delicate appreciation of ecclesiastical architecture and religious art. Mrs. Oliver thought her more unconventional and lacking in knowledge of the world than any girl had a right to be. Daphne and the Bellairs family thought her a harmless crank, who took off her hat in the road. The Bellairs’ supposed she must Want a Vote, till she announced her indifference on that subject, which disgusted Daphne, an ardent and potentially militant suffragist, and disappointed her mother, a calm but earnest member of the National Union for Women’s Suffrage, who went to meetings Daphne was not allowed at. Jane—perhaps it was because of the queer sexlessness which was part of her charm, perhaps because of being an artist, and other-worldly—seemed to care little for women’s rights or women’s wrongs. Mrs. Oliver noted that her social conscience was unawakened, and thought her selfish. Artists were perhaps like that—wrapped up in their own joy of the lovely world, so that they never turned and looked into the shadows. Eddy, a keen suffragist himself, said it was because Jane had never lived among the very poor. “She should use her power of vision,” said the Dean. “She’s got plenty.” “She’s one-windowed,” Eddy explained. “She only looks out on to the beautiful things; she has a blank wall between her and the ugly.” “In plain words, a selfish young woman,” said Mrs. Oliver, but to herself. So much for Jane. Arnold was more severely condemned. The more they all saw of him, the less they liked him, and the more supercilious he grew. Even at times he stopped remembering it was a Deanery, though he really tried to do this. But the atmosphere did annoy him. “Mr. Denison has really very unfortunate ways of expressing himself at times,” said Mrs. Oliver, who had too, Arnold thought. “Oh, he means well,” said Eddy apologetic. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s got corns, and if anyone steps on them he turns nasty. He’s always like that.” “In fact, a conceited pig,” said Daphne, not to herself. Personally Daphne thought the best of the three was Mrs. Le Moine, who anyhow dressed well and could dance, though her habits might be queer. Better queer habits than queer clothes, any day, thought Daphne, innately a pagan, with the artist’s eye and the materialist’s soul. Anyhow, Jane and Arnold departed on Monday. From the point of view of Mrs. Oliver and the Dean, it might have been better had it been Saturday, as their ideas of how to spend Sunday had been revealed as unfitting a Deanery. The Olivers were not in the least sabbatarian, they were much too wide-minded for that, but they thought their visitors should go to church once during the day. Perhaps Jane had been discouraged by her experiences with the Prayer Book on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps it never occurred to her to go. Anyhow in the morning she stayed at home and drew, and in the evening wandered into the Cathedral during the collects, stayed for the anthem, and wandered out, peaceful and content, with no suspicion of having done the wrong or unusual thing. Arnold lay in the hall all the morning and smoked and read The New Machiavelli, which was one of the books not liked at the Deanery. (Arnold, by the way, didn’t like it much either, but dipped in and out of it, grunting when bored.) In consequence (not in consequence of The New Machiavelli, which she would have found dull, but of being obliged herself to go to church), Daphne was cross and envious, the Dean and his wife slightly disapproving, and Eddy sorry about the misunderstanding. On the whole, the visit had not been the success Eddy had wished for. He felt that. In spite of some honest endeavour on both sides, the hosts and guests had not fitted into each other. Coming back into Welchester from a walk, and seeing its streets full of peace and blue winter twilight and starred with yellow lamps, Eddy thought it queer that there should be disharmonies in such a place. It had peace, and a wistful, ordered beauty, and dignity, and grace.... They were singing in the Cathedral, and lights glowed redly through the stained windows. Strangely the place transcended all factions, all barriers, proving them illusions in the still light of the Real. Eddy, beneath all his ineffectualities, his futilities of life and thought, had a very keen sense of unity, of the coherence of all beauty and good; in a sense he did really transcend the barriers recognised by less shallow people. With a welcoming leap his heart went out to embrace all beauty, all truth. Surely one could afford to miss no aspect of it through blindness. Open-eyed he looked into the blue night of lamps and shadows and men and women, and beyond it to the stars and the sickle of the moon, and all of it crowded into his vision, and he caught his breath a little and smiled, because it was so good and so much. When he got home he saw his mother sitting in the hall, reading the Times. Moved by love and liking, he put his arm round her shoulders and bent over her and kissed her. The grace, the breeding, the culture—she was surely part of it all, and should make, like the Cathedral, for harmony. Arnold had found Mrs. Oliver commonplace. Eddy found her admirable. Jane had not found her at all. There was the difference between them. Undoubtedly Eddy’s, whether the most truthful way or not, was the least wasteful. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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