Saint`s Progress

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Men, even if they are not artistic, who have been in strange places and known many nooks of the world, get the scenic habit, become open to pictorial sensation. It was as a picture or series of pictures that Jimmy Fort ever afterwards remembered his first supper at Leila’s. He happened to have been all day in the open, motoring about to horse farms under a hot sun; and Leila’s hock cup possessed a bland and subtle strength. The scenic sense derived therefrom had a certain poignancy, the more so because the tall child whom he met there did not drink it, and her father seemed but to wet his lips, so that Leila and he had all the rest. Rather a wonderful little scene it made in his mind, very warm, glowing, yet with a strange dark sharpness to it, which came perhaps from the black walls.

The flat had belonged to an artist who was at the war. It was but a pocket dwelling on the third floor. The two windows of the little square sitting-room looked out on some trees and a church. But Leila, who hated dining by daylight, had soon drawn curtains of a deep blue over them. The picture which Fort remembered was this: A little four-square table of dark wood, with a Chinese mat of vivid blue in the centre, whereon stood a silver lustre bowl of clove carnations; some greenish

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glasses with hock cup in them; on his left, Leila in a low lilac frock, her neck and shoulders very white, her face a little powdered, her eyes large, her lips smiling; opposite him a blackclothed padre with a little gold cross, over whose thin darkish face, with its grave pointed beard, passed little gentle smiles, but whose deep sunk grey eyes were burnt and bright; on his right, a girl in a high grey frock, almost white, just hollowed at the neck, with full sleeves to the elbow, so that her slim arms escaped; her short fair hair a little tumbled; her big grey eyes grave; her full lips shaping with a strange daintiness round every word – and they not many; brilliant red shades over golden lights dotting the black walls; a blue divan; a little black piano flush with the wall; a dark polished floor; four Japanese prints; a white ceiling. He was conscious that his own khaki spoiled something as curious and rare as some old Chinese tea-chest. He even remembered what they ate; lobster; cold pigeon pie; asparagus; St. Ivel cheese; raspberries and cream. He did not remember half so well what they talked of, except that he himself told them stories of the Boer War, in which he had served in the Yeomanry, and while he was telling them, the girl, like a child listening to a fairy-tale, never moved her eyes from his face. He remembered that after supper they all smoked cigarettes, even the tall child, after the padre had said to her mildly, «My dear!»and she had answered: «I simply must, Daddy, just one».He remembered Leila brewing Turkish coffee – very good, and how beautiful her white arms looked, hovering about the cups. He remembered her making the padre sit down at the piano, and play to them. And she and the girl on the divan together, side by side, a strange contrast;

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with just as strange a likeness to each other. He always remembered how fine and rare that music sounded in the little room, flooding him with a dreamy beatitude. Then – he remembered – Leila sang, the padre standing-by; and the tall child on the divan bending forward over her knees, with her chin on her hands. He remembered rather vividly how Leila turned her neck and looked up, now at the padre, now at himself; and, all through, the delightful sense of colour and warmth, a sort of glamour over all the evening; and the lingering pressure of Leila’s hand when he said good-bye and they went away, for they all went together. He remembered talking a great deal to the padre in the cab, about the public school they had both been at, and thinking: ‘It’s a good padre – this!’ He remembered how their taxi took them to an old Square which he did not know, where the garden trees looked densely black in the starshine. He remembered that a man outside the house had engaged the padre in earnest talk, while the tall child and himself stood in the open doorway, where the hall beyond was dark. Very exactly he remembered the little conversation which then took place between them, while they waited for her father.

«Is it very horrid in the trenches, Captain Fort?» «Yes, Miss Pierson; it is very horrid, as a rule». «Is it dangerous all the time?»

«Pretty well».

«Do officers run more risks than the men?» «Not unless there’s an attack».

«Are there attacks very often?»

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I

1

To wash up is not an exciting operation. To wash up in August became for Noel a process which taxed her strength and enthusiasm. She combined it with other forms of instruction in the art of nursing, had very little leisure, and in the evenings at home would often fall asleep curled up in a large chintz-covered chair.

George and Gratian had long gone back to their respective hospitals, and she and her father had the house to themselves. She received many letters from Cyril which she carried about with her and read on her way to and from the hospital; and every other day she wrote to him. He was not yet in the firing line; his letters were descriptive of his men, his food, or the natives, or reminiscent of Kestrel; hers descriptive of washing up, or reminiscent of Kestrel. But in both there was always some little word of the longing within them.

It was towards the end of August when she had the letter which said that he had been moved up. From now on he would be in hourly danger! That evening after dinner she did not go to sleep in the chair, but sat under the open

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window, clenching her hands, and reading «Pride and Prejudice»without understanding a word. While she was so engaged her father came up and said:

«Captain Fort, Nollie. Will you give him some coffee? I’m afraid I must go out».

When he had gone, Noel looked at her visitor drinking his coffee. He had been out there, too, and he was alive; with only a little limp. The visitor smiled and said:

«What were you thinking about when we came in?» «Only the war».

«Any news of him?»

Noel frowned, she hated to show her feelings.

«Yes! he’s gone to the Front. Won’t you have a cigarette?» «Thanks. Will you?»

«I want one awfully. I think sitting still and waiting is more dreadful than anything in the world».

«Except, knowing that others are waiting. When I was out there I used to worry horribly over my mother. She was ill at the time. The cruelest thing in war is the anxiety of people about each other – nothing touches that».

The words exactly summed up Noel’s hourly thought. He said nice things, this man with the long legs and the thin brown bumpy face!

«I wish I were a man»,she said, «I think women have much the worst time in the war. Is your mother old?»But of course she was old why he was old himself!

«She died last Christmas». «Oh! I’m so sorry!»

«You lost your mother when you were a babe, didn’t you?»

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«Yes. That’s her portrait».At the end of the room, hanging on a strip of black velvet was a pastel, very faint in colouring, as though faded, of a young woman, with an eager, sweet face, dark eyes, and bent a little forward, as if questioning her painter. Fort went up to it.

«It’s not a bit like you. But she must have been a very sweet woman».

«It’s a sort of presence in the room. I wish I were like her!» Fort turned. «No»,he said; «no. Better as you are. It would

only have spoiled a complete thing». «She was good».

«And aren’t you?» «Oh! no. I get a devil».

«You! Why, you’re out of a fairy-tale!»

«It comes from Daddy – only he doesn’t know, because he’s a perfect saint; but I know he’s had a devil somewhere, or he couldn’t be the saint he is».

«H’m!»said Fort. «That’s very deep: and I believe it’s true – the saints did have devils».

«Poor Daddy’s devil has been dead ages. It’s been starved out of him, I think».

«Does your devil ever get away with you?»

Noel felt her cheeks growing red under his stare, and she turned to the window:

«Yes. It’s a real devil».

Vividly there had come before her the dark Abbey, and the moon balancing over the top of the crumbling wall, and the white owl flying across. And, speaking to the air, she said:

«It makes you do things that you want to do».

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She wondered if he would laugh – it sounded so silly. But he did not.

«And damn the consequences? I know. It’s rather a jolly thing to have».

Noel shook her head. «Here’s Daddy coming back!» Fort held out his hand.

«I won’t stay. Good night; and don’t worry too much, will you?»

He kept her hand rather a long time, and gave it a hard squeeze.

Don’t worry! What advice! Ah! if she could see Cyril just for a minute!

2

In September, 1916, Saturday still came before Sunday, in spite of the war. For Edward Pierson this Saturday had been a strenuous day, and even now, at nearly midnight, he was still conning his just-completed sermon.

A patriot of patriots, he had often a passionate longing to resign his parish, and go like his curate for a chaplain at the Front. It seemed to him that people must think his life idle and sheltered and useless. Even in times of peace he had been sensitive enough to feel the cold draughty blasts which the Church encounters in a material age. He knew that nine people out of ten looked on him as something of a parasite, with no real work in the world. And since he was nothing if not conscientious, he always worked himself to the bone.

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