Part 14 (1/2)

”You ask Mr Nanjivell! Why d'ee reckon he's puttin' a lock on his doorway, 'nless 'tis to prevent what I'm tellin' you from happenin'

again?”

Mrs Penhaligon stared about her. She went to the kitchen, she pa.s.sed through the kitchen to the inner room. . . . No children! She came down the pa.s.sage and close behind Nicky-Nan (who continued to hammer hypocritically), she gazed up the stairway and called ”'Bert!”

”'Beida!” ”You naughty children--come down this moment!” Still no answer.

She turned upon Nicky-Nan. ”If they're really here and have been breakin' your gla.s.s--”

”You never heard no complaint from _me_, ma'am,” answered Nicky-Nan, still intent on fixing his staple.

”Oh!” interposed Mrs Climoe viciously, ”if you two are colleaguin'

already to hush something up, the affair lies between you, of course.

It seems odd to me, Maria Penhaligon, an' your proper husband not two days gone to the wars. But if Nicholas Nanjivell, here, chooses to play father to the fatherless an' cover up the sins of the children that go an' break his parlour windows afore my very eyes, well, 'tisn't for me to say more than I hope no harm'll come of it.”

She was preparing to say more. If she said more, Nicky-Nan did not hear it. For at this moment the three Penhaligon children broke in at the porch, burst past Mrs Climoe, and clung to their mother, clamouring for dinner.

In the hubbub Nicky-Nan meanly slipped back to his den, closed the door, and dragged two chairs against it. Then he took a worn tea-tray and propped it against the window, blocking the broken panes. It seemed to him that the world had suddenly grown full of eyes, peering upon him from every side.

CHAPTER X.

THE VICAR'S MISGIVINGS.

Mrs Steele, the Vicar's wife--a refined, shy little woman, somewhat austere in self-discipline and her own devotional exercises, but incapable of harsh judgment upon any other living soul--had spent Bank Holiday in writing letters and addressing them (from a list drawn up in long consultation with her husband) to ”women-workers” of all denominations in the parish, inviting them to meet in the Vicarage drawing-room at 3.30 P.M. on Wednesday, to discuss ”what steps (if any) could be taken to form sewing-parties, ambulance cla.s.ses, &c.,” and later to partake of afternoon tea.

The list was a depressing one, and not only because it included the names of Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver. ”It makes my heart sink,” Mrs Steele confessed. ”I hadn't realised till now, dear, how lonely we are--after five years, too--in this parish. Three out of every four are Nonconformists. It seems absurd, my taking the chair,” she added wistfully. ”Most likely they will wonder--even if they don't ask outright--what business I have to be showing the lead in this way.”

The Vicar kissed his wife. ”Let them wonder. And if they ask--but they won't, being west-country and well-mannered--I shall be here to answer.”

”I wish you would answer them before they start to ask. That would be running no risks. A few words from you, just to explain and put them at their ease--”

He laughed. ”Cunning woman!” said he, addressing an invisible audience. ”She means, 'to put _her_ at her ease,' by my taking over the few well-chosen remarks expected of the chairwoman. . . .

My dear, I know you will be horribly nervous, and it would be easy enough for me to do the talking. But I am not going to, and for two reasons. To begin with, you will do it better--”

”My _dear_ Robert!”

”Twice as effectively--and all the more effectively if you contrive to break down. _That_ would conciliate them at once; for it would be evident proof that you disliked the job.”

”I don't quite see.”

”The religion of these good people very largely consists in shaping their immortal souls against the grain: and I admire it, in a sense, though on the whole it's not comparable with ours, which works towards G.o.d by love through a natural felicity. Still, it is disciplinary, and this country will have great use for it in the next few months. To do everything you dislike, and to do it thoroughly, will carry you quite a long way in war-time. The point at which Protestantism becomes disreputable is when you so far yield to loving your neighbour that you start chastising his sins to the neglect of your own. I have never quite understood why charity should begin at home, but I am sure that discipline ought to: and I sometimes think it ought to stay there.”

”That Mrs Polsue has such a disapproving face! . . . I wonder she ever brought herself to marry.”

”If you had only been following my argument, Agatha, you would see that probably she had no time for repugnance, being preoccupied in getting the poor fellow to do what he disliked. . . . Secondly--”

”Oh! A sermon!”

”Secondly,” pursued the Vicar with firmness, ”this War is so great a business that, to my mind, it just swallows up--effaces--all scruples and modesties and mock-modesties about precedence and the like.

If any one sees a job that wants doing, and a way to put it through, he will simply have no time to be humble and let another man step before him. The jealousies and the broken pieces of Etiquette can be left to be picked up after the smoke has cleared away; and by that time, belike, they will have cleared away with the smoke. Do you remember that old story of Hans Andersen's, about the gale that altered the signboards? Well, I prophesy that a good many signboards will be altered by this blow, up and down England, perhaps even in our little parish. If it teach us at all to see things as they are, we shall all be known, the rest of our lives, for what we proved ourselves to be in 1914.”