§ 9

George Alard could not help being a little vexed at Gervase’s new tendencies. He told himself that he ought to be glad the boy was going to church at all, for he had been negligent and erratic for a long time past—he ought not to feel injured because another man had won him to some sense of his duty. But he must say he was surprised that Luce had succeeded where he himself had failed—Luce was a dry, dull fellow, and hopelessly unenterprising; not a branch in his parish of the C.E.M.S. or the A.C.S. or the S.P.G., no work-parties or parish teas, and no excitement about the Enabling Act and the setting up of a Parochial Church Council which was now occupying most of George’s time. Still, he reflected, it was probably not so much Luce as Stella Mount who had done it—she was a pretty girl and perhaps not too scrupulous, she had persuaded Gervase. Then there had always been that curious streak in his brother’s character which differentiated him from the other Alards. George did not know how to describe it so well as by Ungentlemanliness. That part of Gervase which had revolted from a Gentleman’s Education and had gone into an engineering shop instead of to Oxford was now revolting from a Gentleman’s Religion and going to Mass instead of Dearly Beloved Brethren. There had always seemed to George something ungentlemanly about Catholicism, though he prided himself on being broad-minded, and would have introduced one or two changes on High Church lines into the services at Leasan if his father and his wife had let him.

“Apart from every other consideration, I’m surprised he doesn’t realise how bad it looks for him to go Sunday to Vinehall when his brother is Vicar of Leasan.”

“He goes with Stella,” said Mary.

“I think that makes it worse,” said Rose.

“Why?” asked Peter.

He had come in to see George about his election to the Parochial Church Council, which his brother was extremely anxious should take place, but for which Peter had no wish to qualify himself. George had hoped that the bait of a seat on the Council, with the likelihood of being elected as the Parish’s representative at the Diocesan Conference, might induce Peter to avail himself once more of the church privileges which he had neglected for so long. It was uphill work, thought poor George, trying to run a parish when neither of one’s brothers came to church, and one’s father said ‘damn’ out loud when reading the lessons....

“Why?” asked Peter, a little resentful.

Rose looked uneasy——

“Well, everyone knows she used to run after you and now she’s running after Gervase.”

“She didn’t run after me and she isn’t running after Gervase,” said Peter; then he added heavily—“I ran after her, and Gervase is running after her now.”

“Oh!” Rose tossed her head—“I own I once thought ... but then when you married Vera ... well, anyhow I think she ought to discourage Gervase more than she does, and I insist that it’s in extremely bad taste for her to take him to church at Vinehall.”

“Perhaps he likes the service better,” said Mary, who during this discussion had been trying to write a letter and now gave up the effort in despair.

“Oh, I daresay he does—he’s young and excitable.”

“There’s nothing very exciting at Vinehall,” said George—“I don’t think Luce has even a surpliced choir these days.”

“Well, there’s incense and chasubles and all that—Gervase always did like things that are different.”

“I must say,” said Mary, who was perhaps a little irritated at having nowhere to write her letter (the Raw Girl being in devastating possession of her bedroom)—“I must say that if I had any religion myself, I’d like a religion which at least was religion and not soup.”

“What do you mean?”

Both George and Rose sat up stiffly, and even Peter looked shocked.

“Well, your religion here seems chiefly to consist in giving people soup-tickets and coal-tickets, and having rummage sales. Stella Mount’s religion at least means an attempt at worship, and at least.... Oh, well—” she broke down rather lamely—“anyhow it makes you want something you haven’t got.”

“We can most of us do that without religion,” said Peter, getting up.

Rose looked meaningly after him as he went out of the room, then she looked still more meaningly at her husband—it was as if her eyes and eyebrows were trying to tell him her conviction that Peter was finding life unsatisfactory in spite of Vera and Starvecrow, indeed that he regretted Stella—had he not championed her almost grotesquely just now? ... and he had talked of wanting something he had not got....

George refused to meet her eyes and read their language. He too rose and went out, but he did not follow Peter. He felt hurt and affronted by what Mary had said—“soup” ... that was what she had called the religion of her parish church, of her country, indeed, since George was convinced that Leasan represented the best in Anglicanism. Just because he didn’t have vestments and incense and foreign devotions, but plain, hearty, British services—because he looked after people’s bodies as well as their souls—he was to be laughed at by a woman like Mary, who—but he must not be uncharitable, he was quite convinced of Mary’s innocence, and only wished that her prudence had equalled it.

He walked out through the French windows of his study, and across the well-kept Vicarage lawn. Before him, beyond the lilacs Leasan’s squat towers stood against a misty blue sky. With its wide brown roof spreading low over its aisles almost to the ground the church was curiously like a sitting hen. It squatted like a hen over her brood, and gave a tender impression of watchfulness and warmth.... The door stood open, showing a green light that filtered in through creeper and stained glass. George went in, and the impression of motherly warmth was changed to one of cool emptiness. Rows of shining pews stretched from the west door to the chancel with its shining choir-stalls, and beyond in the sanctuary stood the shining altar with two shining brass candlesticks upon it.

George went to his desk and knelt down. But there was something curiously unprayerful in the atmosphere—he would have felt more at ease praying in his study or at his bedside. The emptiness of the church was something more than an emptiness of people—it was an emptiness of prayer. Now he came to think of it, he had never seen anyone at prayer in the church except at the set services—a good collection of the neighbouring gentlefolk at Matins, a hearty assembly of the villagers at Evensong, a few “good” people at the early celebration, and one or two old ladies for the Litany on Fridays—but never any prayer between, no farm lad ever on his knees before his village shrine, or busy mother coming in for a few minutes’ rest in the presence of God....

But that was what they did at Vinehall. He had looked into the church several times and had never seen it empty—there was always someone at prayer ... the single white lamp ... that was the Reserved Sacrament of course, theologically indefensible, though no doubt devotionally inspiring ... devotion—was it that which made the difference between religion and soup?

George felt a sudden qualm come over him as he knelt in his stall—it was physical rather than mental, though the memory of Mary’s impious word had once again stirred up his sleeping wrath. He lifted himself into a sitting position—that was better. For some weeks past he had been feeling ill—he ought to see a doctor ... but he daren’t, in case the doctor ordered him to rest. It was all very well for Mary to gibe at his work and call it soup, but it was work that must be done. She probably had no idea how hard he worked—visiting, teaching, sitting on committees, organising guilds, working parties, boy scouts, Church of England Men’s Society ... and two sermons on Sunday as well.... He was sure he did more than Luce, who had once told him that he looked upon his daily Mass as the chief work of his parish.... Luce wouldn’t wear himself out in his prime as George Alard was doing.... Soup!