Part 16 (1/2)

Sounds in the hall. ”In the morning room,” came Low Jinks's voice.

”Lunch ... wash your hands, sir?”

There was only one person in all England who, arriving at Crawshaws, would not have been gently but firmly enfolded by the machine-like order of its perfect administration and been led in and introduced with rites proper to the occasion. But that one person was the Reverend Cyril Boom Bagshaw, and he now strolled across the threshold and into the room.

VI

He strolled in. He wore a well-made suit of dark grey flannel, brown brogue shoes and a soft collar with a black tie tied in a sailor's knot.

He disliked clerical dress and he rarely wore it. He was dark. His good-looking face bore habitually a rather sulky expression as though he were a little bored or dissatisfied. You would never have thought, to look at him, that he was a clergyman, or, as he would have said, a priest, and in not thinking that you would have paid him the compliment that pleased him most. This was not because Mr. Boom Bagshaw lacked earnestness in his calling, for he was enormously in earnest, but because he disliked and despised the conventional habits and manners and appearance of the clergy and, in any case, intensely disliked being one of a cla.s.s. For the same reasons he wore a monocle; not because the vision of his right eye was defective but because no clergyman wears a monocle. It is not done by the priesthood and that is why the Reverend Cyril Boom Bagshaw did it.

He strolled negligently into the morning room, his hands in his trouser pockets, the skirt of his jacket rumpled on his wrists. He gave the impression of having been strolling about the house all day and of now strolling in here for want of a better room to stroll into. He nodded negligently to Sabre, ”Hullo, Sabre.” He smiled negligently at Mabel and seated himself negligently on the edge of the table, still with his hands in his pockets. He swung one leg negligently and negligently remarked, ”Good morning, Mrs. Sabre. Embroidery?”

Sabre had the immediate and convinced feeling that the negligent and reverend gentleman was not in his house but that he was permitted to be in the house of the negligent and reverend gentleman. And this was the feeling that the negligent and reverend gentleman invariably gave to his hosts, whoever they might be; likewise to his congregations. Indeed it was said by a profane person (who fortunately does not enter this history) that the Deity entered Mr. Boom Bagshaw's church on the same terms, and accepted them.

As he sat negligently swinging his leg he frequently strained his chin upwards and outwards, rather as if his collar were tight (but it was neatly loose), or as if he were performing an exercise for stretching the muscles of his neck. This was a habit of his.

VII

A silver entree dish was placed before Mabel, another before Sabre. Low Jinks removed her mistress's cover and Mr. Boom Bagshaw pushed aside a flower vase to obtain a view.

”I don't eat salmon,” he remarked. The vase was now between himself and Sabre. He again moved it, ”Or cutlets.”

Mabel exclaimed, ”Oh, dear! Now I got this salmon in specially from Tidborough.”

”I'll have some of that ham,” said Mr. Boom Bagshaw; and he arose sulkily and strolled to the sideboard where he rather sulkily cut from a ham in thick wedges. The house was clearly his house.

He addressed himself to Mabel. ”Now in a very few weeks you'll no longer have to get things from Tidborough, Mrs. Sabre--salmon or anything else.

The shops in Market Square are going the minute they're complete. I got a couple of fishmongers only yesterday.”

He spoke as if he had shot a brace of fishmongers and slung them over his shoulder and flung them into Market Square. Market Square was that portion of the Garden Home designed for the shopping centre.

”Two!” said Mabel.

”Two. I encourage compet.i.tion. No one is going to sleep in the Garden Home.”

”What will all the bedrooms be used for then?” Sabre inquired.

Mr. Boom Bagshaw, who was eating his ham with a fork only, holding it at its extremity in the tips of his fingers and occasionally flipping a piece of ham into his mouth and swallowing it without visible mastication, flipped in another morsel and with his right hand moved three more vases which stood between himself and Sabre. He moved each deliberately and set it down with a slight thump, rather as if it were a chessman.

He directed the fork at Sabre and after an impressive moment spoke:

”You know, Sabre, I don't think you're quite alive to what it is that is growing up about you. Flippancy is out of place. I abominate flippancy.”

(”Well, dash it, it's my house!” Sabre thought.) ”This Garden Home is not a speculation. It's not a fad. It's not a joke. What is it? You're thinking it's a d.a.m.ned nuisance. You're right. It _is_ a d.a.m.ned nuisance--”

Sabre began, ”Well--”

”Now, listen, Sabre. It _is_ a d.a.m.ned nuisance; and I put it to you that, when a toad is discovered embedded in a solid ma.s.s of coal or stone, that coal or stone, when it was slowly forming about that toad, was a d.a.m.ned nuisance to the toad.”

Sabre asked, ”Well, am I going to be discovered embedded--”