None Other Gods by Robert Hugh Benson (fb2 epub reader TXT) 📕

to the Major; and it was she who was the cause of contention. She loved to feel herself pulled this way and that by two such figures, to be quarreled over by such very strong and opposite types. It was a vague sensation to her, but very vivid and attractive; and although just now she believed herself to be thoroughly miserable, I have no doubt whatever that she was enjoying it all immensely. She was very feminine indeed, and the little scene of last night had brought matters to an almost exquisite point. She was crying a little now, gently, to herself.

* * * * *


The door opened. Frank came in, put down his cap, and took his seat on the bench by the fire.

"All out?" he asked.

Gertie nodded, and made a little broken sound.

"Very good," said Frank. "Then I'm going to talk to you."

Gertie wiped away a few more tears, and settled herself down for a little morbid pleasure. It was delightful to her to be found crying over the fire. Frank, at any rate, would appreciate that.

"Now," said Frank, "you've got the choice once more, and I'm going to put it plainly. If you don't do what I want this time, I shall have to see whether somebody else can't persuade you."

She glanced up, a little startled.

"Look here," said Frank. "I'm not going to take any more trouble myself over this affair. You were a good deal upset yesterday when the lady came round, and you'll be more upset yet before the thing's over. I shan't talk to you myself any more: you don't seem to care a hang what I say; in fact, I'm thinking of moving my lodgings after Christmas. So now you've got your choice."

He paused.

"On the one side you've got the Major; well, you know him; you know the way he treats you. But that's not the reason why I want you to leave him. I want you to leave him because I think that down at the bottom you've got the makings of a good woman--"

"I haven't," cried Gertie passionately.

"Well, I think you have. You're very patient, and you're very industrious, and because you care for this man you'll do simply anything in the world for him. Well, that's splendid. That shows you've got grit. But have you ever thought what it'll all be like in five years from now?"

"I shall be dead," wailed Gertie. "I wish I was dead now."

Frank paused.

"And when you're dead--?" he said slowly.

There was an instant's silence. Then Frank took up his discourse again. (So far he had done exactly what he had wanted. He had dropped two tiny ideas on her heart once more--hope and fear.)

"Now I've something to tell you. Do you remember the last time I talked to you? Well, I've been thinking what was the best thing to do, and a few days ago I saw my chance and took it. You've got a little prayer-book down at the bottom of your bundle, haven't you? Well, I got at that (you never let anyone see it, you know), and I looked through it. I looked through all your things. Did you know your address was written in it? I wasn't sure it was your address, you know, until--"

Gertie sat up, white with passion.

"You looked at my things?"

Frank looked her straight in the face.

"Don't talk to me like that," he said. "Wait till I've done.... Well, I wrote to the address, and I got an answer; then I wrote again, and I got another answer and a letter for you. It came this morning, to the post-office where I got it."

Gertie looked at him, still white, with her lips parted.

"Give me the letter," she whispered.

"As soon as I've done talking," said Frank serenely. "You've got to listen to me first. I knew what you'd say: you'd say that your people wouldn't have you back. And I knew perfectly well from the little things you'd said about them that they would. But I wrote to make sure....

"Gertie, d'you know that they're breaking their hearts for you?... that there's nothing, in the whole world they want so much as that you should come back?..."

"Give me the letter!"

"You've got a good heart yourself, Gertie; I know that well enough. Think hard, before I give you the letter. Which is best--the Major and this sort of life--and ... and--well, you know about the soul and God, don't you?... or to go home, and--"

Her face shook all over for one instant.

"Give me the letter," she wailed suddenly.

Then Frank gave it her.


(V)

"But I can't possibly go home like this," whispered Gertie agitatedly in the passage, after the Major's return half an hour later.

"Good Lord!" whispered Frank, "what an extraordinary girl you are, to think--"

"I don't care. I can't, and I won't."

Frank cast an eye at the door, beyond which dozed the Major in the chair before the fire.

"Well, what d'you want?"

"I want another dress, and ... and lots of things."

Frank stared at her resignedly.

"How much will it all come to?"

"I don't know. Two pounds--two pounds ten."

"Let's see: to-day's the twentieth. We must get you back before Christmas. If I let you have it to-morrow, will it do?--to-morrow night?"

She nodded. A sound came from beyond the door, and she fled.

* * * * *


I am not sure about the details of the manner in which Frank got the two pounds ten, but I know he got it, and without taking charity from a soul. I know that he managed somehow to draw his week's money two days before pay-day, and for the rest, I suspect the pawnshop. What is quite certain is that when his friends were able to take stock of his belongings a little later, the list of them was as follows:

One jacket, one shirt, one muffler, a pair of trousers, a pair of socks, a pair of boots, one cap, one tooth-brush, and a rosary. There was absolutely nothing else. Even his razor was gone.

Things, therefore, were pretty bad with him on the morning of the twenty-second of December. I imagine that he still possessed a few pence, but out of this few pence he had to pay for his own and Gertie's journey to Chiswick, as well as keep himself alive for another week. At least, so he must have thought.

It must have been somewhere in Kensington High Street that he first had a hint of a possibility of food to be obtained free, for, although I find it impossible to follow all his movements during these days, it is quite certain that he partook of the hospitality of the Carmelite Fathers on this morning. He mentions it, with pleasure, in his diary.

It is a very curious and medieval sight--this feeding of the poor in the little deep passage that runs along the outside of the cloister of the monastery in Church Street. The passage is approached by a door at the back of the house, opening upon the lane behind, and at a certain hour on each morning of the year is thronged from end to end with the most astonishing and deplorable collection of human beings to be seen in London. They are of all ages and sizes, from seventeen to seventy, and the one thing common to them all is extreme shabbiness and poverty.

A door opens at a given moment; the crowd surges a little towards a black-bearded man in a brown frock, with an apron over it, and five minutes later a deep silence, broken only by the sound of supping and swallowing, falls upon the crowd. There they stand, with the roar of London sounding overhead, the hooting of cars, the noise of innumerable feet, and the rain--at least, on this morning--falling dismally down the long well-like space. And here stand between two and three hundred men, pinched, feeble, and yet wolfish, gulping down hot soup and bread, looking something like a herd of ragged prisoners pent in between the high walls.

Here, then, Frank stood in the midst of them, gulping his soup. His van and horses, strictly against orders, remained in Church Street, under the care of a passer-by, whom Frank seems to have asked, quite openly, to do it for him for God's sake.

It is a dreary little scene in which to picture him, and yet, to myself, it is rather pleasant, too. I like to think of him, now for the second time within a few weeks, and all within the first six months of his Catholic life, depending upon his Church for the needs of the body as well as for the needs of the soul. There was nothing whatever to distinguish him from the rest; he, too, had now something of that lean look that is such a characteristic of that crowd, and his dress, too, was entirely suitable to his company. He spoke with none of his hosts; he took the basin in silence and gave it back in silence; then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and went out comforted.


CHAPTER V

(I)

Dick Guiseley sat over breakfast in his rooms off Oxford Street, entirely engrossed in a local Yorkshire paper two days old.

His rooms were very characteristic of himself. They were five in number--a dining-room, two bedrooms, and two sitting-rooms divided by curtains, as well as a little entrance-hall that opened on to the landing, close beside the lift that served all the flats. They were furnished in a peculiarly restrained style--so restrained, in fact, that it was almost impossible to remember what was in them. One was just conscious of a sense of extreme comfort and convenience. There was nothing in particular that arrested the attention or caught the eye, except here and there a space or a patch of wall about which Dick had not yet made up his mind. He had been in them two years, indeed, but he had not nearly finished furnishing. From time to time a new piece of furniture appeared, or a new picture--always exceedingly good of its kind, and even conspicuous. Yet, somehow or other, so excellent was his taste, as soon as the thing was in place its conspicuousness (so to speak) vanished amidst the protective coloring, and it looked as if it had been there for ever. The colors were chosen with the same superfine skill: singly they were brilliant, or at least remarkable (the ceilings, for instance, were of a rich buttercup yellow); collectively they were subdued and unnoticeable. And I suppose this is exactly what rooms ought to be.

The breakfast-table at which he sat was a good instance of his taste. The silver-plate on it was really remarkable. There was a delightful Caroline tankard in the middle, placed there for the sheer pleasure of looking at it; there was a large silver cow with a lid in its back; there were four rat-tail spoons; the china was an extremely cheap Venetian crockery of brilliant designs