Part 23 (1/2)

”Really?” was all he said. ”All the same, I think I will call at seven and try to persuade her to change her mind again. Good night.”

As plainly as possible he had said to Peter, ”I believe you to be lying.”

Peter had no particular objection to his believing that; he was not proud; but he did object to his calling at seven and trying to persuade Rhoda to change her mind again, for he believed that that would be a task easy of achievement.

He went back into the sitting-room. Rhoda was sitting still, her hands twisted together on the green serge on her lap. Peter sat down by her and said, ”Will you come out with me instead to-morrow evening?” and she looked at him, her teeth clenched over her lower lip as if to steady it, and said after a moment, forlornly, ”If you like.”

It was so much less exciting than going with Vyvian would have been, that Peter felt compunction.

”You shall choose the play,” he said. ”'Peter Pan,' do you think? Or something funny--'The Sins of Society,' or something?”

Rhoda whispered ”Anything,” nearly on the edge of tears. A vividness had flashed again into her grey life, and she was trying to quench it. She had heroically, though as an afterthought, flung an extinguis.h.i.+ng douche of water at it; but now that she had done so she was melting into unheroic self-pity.

”I want to go to bed,” she said shakily, and did so, feeling for her pocket-handkerchief as she crossed the room.

At a quarter to seven the next evening Peter looked for Rhoda, thinking it well that they should be out of the house by seven o'clock, but couldn't find her, till Miss Clegson said she had met her ”going into church” as she herself came out. Peter went to the church to find her.

Rhoda didn't as a rule frequent churches, not believing in the creeds they taught; but even to the unbelieving a church is often a refuge.

Peter, coming into the great dim place out of the wet fog, found it again, as he had long since known it to be, a refuge from fogs and other ills of living. Far up, the seven lamps that never go out burned dimly through the blurred air. It was a gaudy place, no doubt; over-decorated; a church for the poor, who love gaudiness. Perhaps Peter too loved gaudiness. Anyhow, he loved this place and its seven lamps and its shrines and statued saints.

Surely, whatever one believed of the mysterious world and of all the other mysterious worlds that might be floating behind the veils, surely here was a very present help in trouble, a luminous brightness s.h.i.+ning in a fog-choked world.

Peter, sitting by the door, sank into a great peace. Half-way up the church he saw Rhoda sitting very still. She too was looking up the church towards the lamps and the altar beyond them.

Presently a ca.s.socked sacristan came and lit the vesper lights, for evensong was to be at seven, and the altar blazed out, an unearthly brilliance in the dim place. The low murmur of voices (a patient priest had been hearing confessions for an hour) ceased, and people began coming in one by one for service. Rhoda s.h.i.+vered a little, and got up and came down the church. Peter joined her at the door, and they pa.s.sed s.h.i.+vering into the fog together.

”I was looking for you,” said Peter, when they were out in the alley that led to the church door.

”It's time we went, isn't it,” she said apathetically.

Then she added, inconsequently, ”The church seems the only place where one can find a bit of peace. I can't think why, when probably it's all a fairy-tale.”

”I suppose that's why,” said Peter. ”Fairyland is the most peaceful country there is.”

”You can't get peace out of what's not true,” Rhoda insisted querulously.

”Oh, I don't know.... Besides, fairy-tales aren't necessarily untrue, do you think? I don't mean that, when I call what churches teach a fairy-tale. I mean it's beautiful and romantic and full of light and colour and wonderful things happening. And it's probably the truer for that.”

”D'you _believe_ it all?” queried Rhoda; but he couldn't answer her as to that.

”I don't know. I never do know exactly what I believe. I can't think how anyone does. But yes, I think I like to believe in those things; they're too beautiful not to be true.”

”It's the ugly things that are true,” she said, coughing in the fog.

”Why, yes, the ugly things and the beautiful; G.o.d and the devil, if one puts it like that. Oh, yes, I believe very much in the devil; I can't believe that any street of houses could look quite like this without the help of someone utterly given over to evil thinking. _We_ aren't, you see; none of us are ugly enough in our minds to have thought out some of the things one sees; so there must be a devil.”

Rhoda was silent. He thought she was crying. He said gently, ”I say, would you like to come out to-night, or would you rather be quiet at home?” It would be safe to return home by half-past seven, he thought.

She said, in a small m.u.f.fled voice, that she didn't care.

A tall figure pa.s.sed by them in the narrow alley, looming through the fog. Rhoda started, and shrank back against the brick wall, clutching Peter's arm. The next moment the figure pa.s.sed into the circle of light thrown down by a high lamp that glimmered over a Robbia-esque plaque shrine let into the wall, and they saw that it was a ca.s.socked priest from the clergy-house going into church. Rhoda let out her breath faintly in a sigh, and her fingers fell from Peter's coat-sleeve.

”Oh,” she whispered, ”I'm frightened.... Let's stay close to the church; just outside the door, where we can see the light and hear the music. I don't want to go out into the streets to-night, Peter, I want to stay here. I'm ... so frightened.”