Part 22 (1/2)

There was an instant lowering of eyes towards soup plates, an announcing of the various letters seen therein. Trix had an application for each, making the letters stand as the initials for words.

”C. S.,” said Miss Tibb.u.t.t presently, entering into the spirit of the game.

”Sure there isn't a T?” asked Trix.

”No,” said Miss Tibb.u.t.t peering closer, ”I mean there isn't one.”

”Well then, it can't be Catholic Truth Society. My imagination has given out. I can only think of Christian Science. I don't think it's quite right of you, Tibby dear.”

Miss Tibb.u.t.t blinked good-humouredly.

”Aren't they the people who think that the Bible dropped down straight from heaven in a s.h.i.+ny black cover with S. P. G. printed on it?” she asked.

Trix shook her head.

”No,” she declared solemnly, ”they're Bible Christians. The Christian Science people are the ones who think we haven't got any bodies.”

”No bodies!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Tibb.u.t.t.

”Well,” said Trix, ”anyhow they think bodies are a false--false something or other.”

”False claim,” suggested Father Dormer.

”That's it,” cried Trix, immensely delighted. ”How clever of you to have thought of it. Only I'm not sure if it's the bodies are a false claim, or the aches attached to the bodies. Perhaps it's both.”

”I thought that was the New Thought Idea,” said Pia.

Trix shook her head. ”Oh no, the New Thought people think a lot about one's body. They give us lots of bodies.”

”Really?” queried Doctor Hilary doubtfully.

”Oh yes,” responded Trix. ”I once went to one of their lectures.”

”My dear Trix!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Tibb.u.t.t fl.u.s.tered.

”It was quite an accident,” said Trix rea.s.suringly. ”A friend of mine, Sybil Martin, was coming up to town and wanted me to meet her. She suggested I should meet her at Paddington, and then go to a lecture on psychometry with her, and tea afterwards. I hadn't the faintest notion what psychometry was, but I supposed it might be first cousin to trigonometry, and quite as dull. But she wanted me, so I went. It _was_ funny,” gurgled Trix.

Doctor Hilary was watching her.

”You'd better disburden your mind,” he said.

Trix crumbled her bread, still smiling at the recollection.

”Well, the lecture was held in a biggish room, and there were a lot of odd people present. But the oddest of all was the lecturer. She wore a kind of purple velvet tea-gown, though it was only three o'clock in the afternoon. She talked for a long time about vibrations, and things that bored me awfully, and people kept interrupting with questions. One man interrupted particularly often. He kept saying, 'Excuse me, but am I right in thinking--' And then he would give a little lecture on his own account, and look around for the approval of the audience. I should have flung things at him if I had been the purple velvet lady. It was so obvious that he was not desiring _her_ information, but merely wishful to air his own. There was a text on the wall which said, 'We talk abundance here,' and when I pointed out to Sybil how true it was, she wasn't a bit pleased, and said it didn't mean what I thought _in the least_. But she wouldn't explain what it did mean. After the lecture, the purple velvet lady held things--jewelry chiefly--that people in the audience sent up to her, and described their owners, and where they'd got the things from.

There was quite a lot of family history, and people's characteristics and virtues and failings, and very, _very_ private things made public, but no one seemed to mind.”

”That's the odd thing about those people,” said Doctor Hilary thoughtfully. ”Disclosing their innermost thoughts, feelings, and so-called experiences, seems an absolute mania with them. And the more public the disclosure the better they are pleased. But go on, Miss Devereux.”

”Well,” said Trix, ”at last she began describing a sort of Cleopatra lady, and--and rather vivid love scenes, and--and things like that. When she'd ended, the bracelet turned out to belong to a little dowdy woman looking like a meek mouse. I thought the purple velvet lady would have been really upset and mortified at her mistake. But she wasn't in the least. She just smiled sweetly, and returned the bracelet to the owner, and said that the dowdy little woman had been Cleopatra in a former incarnation. Of course when she began on _that_ tack, I saw the kind of lecture I'd really let myself in for, and I knew I'd no business to be in the place at all, so I made Sybil take me away. It was nearly the end, and she didn't mind, because she missed the silver collection. But she talked to me about it the whole of tea-time, and she really believed it all,” sighed Trix pathetically.