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

his acquaintance whose ambition it had been for months to cross the bath by means of the swinging rings, and this person, too, afforded him hardly less pleasure, as he always had to let go at the fourth ring, if not the third, whence he plunged into the water with a sound that, curiously enough, was more resonant than sibilant.

At six, after looking through all the illustrated papers, he went out to get his coat, and was presently in the thick of a heated argument with a member of the committee on the subject of the new carpet in the front hall. It was not fit, said Dick (searching for hyperboles), for even the drawing-room of the "Cecil."

This argument made him a little later than he had intended, and, as he came up in the lift, the attendant informed him, in the passionless manner proper to such people, that the Mr. Kirkby who had been mentioned had arrived and was waiting for him in his rooms.


(III)

Shortly before midnight Dick attempted to sum up the situation. They had talked about Frank practically without ceasing, since Dick's man had set coffee on the table at nine o'clock, and both had learned new facts.

"Well, then, wire to go down to this man, Parham-Carter," said Dick, "the first thing after breakfast to-morrow. Do you know anything about the Eton Mission?"

"No. One used to have a collection for it each half, you know, in the houses."

"How do we go?"

"Oh! railway from Broad Street. I've looked it up. Victoria Park's the station."

Dick drew two or three draughts of smoke from his cigar-butt, and laid it down in a small silver tray at his elbow. (The tray was a gift from the old lady he had lunched with to-day.)

"All you've told me is extraordinarily interesting," he said. "It really was to get away this girl that he's stopped so long?"

"I expect that's what he tells himself--that's the handle, so to speak. But it's chiefly a sort of obstinacy. He said he would go on the roads, and so he's gone."

"I rather like that, you know," said Dick.

Jack snorted a little.

"Oh, it's better than saying a thing and not doing it. But why say it?"

"Oh! one must do something," said Dick. "At least, some people seem to think so. And I rather envy them, you know. I'm afraid I don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't do anything. Unless you can call this sort of thing doing something." He waved his hand vaguely round his perfectly arranged room.

Jack said nothing. He was inclined to be a little strenuous himself in some ways, and he had always been conscious of a faint annoyance with Dick's extreme leisureliness.

"I see you agree," went on Dick. "Well, we must see what can be done."

He stood up smiling and began to expand and contract his fingers luxuriously before the fire behind his back.

"If we can only get Frank away," murmured Jack. "That's enough for the present."

"And what do you propose to do with him then?"

"Oh, Lord! Anything. Go round the world if he likes. Come and stay at my place."

"And suppose he thinks that's a bit too near to ... to Lady Talgarth.".

This switched Jack back again to a line he had already run on for an hour this evening.

"Yes, that's the ghastly part of it all. He's sure not to have heard. And who the devil's to tell him? And how will he take it?"

"Do you know," said Dick, "I'm really not frightened about that? All you've told me about him makes me think he'll behave very well. Funny thing, isn't it, that you know him so much better than I do? I never dreamed there was so much in him, somehow."

"Oh, there's a lot in Frank. But one doesn't always know what it is."

"Do you think his religion's made much difference?"

"I think it's done this for him," said Jack slowly. "(I've been thinking a lot about that). I think it's fixed things, so to speak ...." He hesitated. He was not an expert in psychological analysis. Dick took him up quickly. He nodded three or four times.

"Exactly," he said. "That's it, no doubt. It's given him a center--a hub for the wheel."

"Eh?"

"It's ... it's joined everything on to one point in him. He'll be more obstinate and mad than ever before. He's got a center now.... I suppose that's what religion's for," he added meditatively.

This was Greek to Jack. He looked at Dick uncomprehendingly.

Dick turned round and began to stare into the fire, still contracting and expanding his fingers.

"It's a funny thing--this religion," he said at last. "I never could understand it."

"And what about Archie?" asked Jack with sudden abruptness. (He had no continuity of mind.)

Dick brought his meditations to a close with equal abruptness, or perhaps he would not have been so caustic as regards his first cousin.

"Oh, Archie's an ass!" he said. "We can leave him out."

Jack changed the subject again. He was feeling the situation very acutely indeed, and the result was that all its elements came tumbling out anyhow.

"I've been beastly uncomfortable," he said.

"Yes?" said Dick. "Any particular way?"

Jack shifted one leg over the other. He had not approached one element in the situation at all, as yet, with Dick, but it had been simmering in him for weeks, and had been brought to a point by Frank's letter received this morning. And now the curious intimacy into which he had been brought with Dick began to warm it out of him.

"You'll think me an ass, too, I expect," he said. "And I rather think it's true. But I can't help it."

Dick smiled at him encouragingly. (Certainly, thought Jack, this man was nicer than he had thought him.)

"Well, it's this--" he said suddenly. "But it's frightfully hard to put into words. You know what I told you about Frank's coming to me at Barham?"

"Yes."

"Well, there was something he said then that made me uncomfortable. And it's made me more and more uncomfortable ever since ..." (He paused again.) "Well, it's this. He said that he felt there was something going on that he couldn't understand--some sort of Plan, he said--in which he had to take part--a sort of scheme to be worked out, you know. I suppose he meant God," he explained feebly.

Dick looked at him questioningly.

"Oh! I can't put it into words," said Jack desperately. "Nor did he, exactly. But that was the kind of idea. A sort of Fate. He said he was quite certain of it.... And there were lots of little things that fitted in. He changed his clothes in the old vestry, you know--in the old church. It seemed like a sort of sacrifice, you know. And then I had a beastly dream that night. And then there was something my mother said.... And now there's his letter: the one I showed you at dinner--about something that might happen to him.... Oh! I'm a first-class ass, aren't I?"

There was a considerable silence. He glanced up in an ashamed sort of way, at the other, and saw him standing quite upright and still, again with his back to the fire, looking out across the room. From outside came the hum of the thoroughfare--the rolling of wheels, the jingle of bells, the cries of human beings. He waited in a kind of shame for Dick's next words. He had not put all these feelings into coherent form before, even to himself, and they sounded now even more fantastic than he had thought them. He waited, then, for the verdict of this quiet man, whom up to now he had deemed something of a fool, who cared about nothing but billiards and what was called Art. (Jack loathed Art.)

Then the verdict came in a surprising form. But he understood it perfectly.

"Well, what about bed?" said Dick quietly.


(IV)

It was on the morning of the twenty-fourth that Mr. Parham-Carter was summoned by the neat maid-servant of the clergy-house to see two gentlemen. She presented two cards on a plated salver, inscribed with the names of Richard Guiseley and John B. Kirkby. He got up very quickly, and went downstairs two at a time. A minute later he brought them both upstairs and shut the door.

"Sit down," he said. "I'm most awfully glad you've come. I ... I've been fearfully upset by all this, and I haven't known what to do."

"Now where is he?" demanded Jack Kirkby.

The clergyman made a deprecatory face.

"I've absolutely promised not to tell," he said. "And you know--"

"But that's ridiculous. We've come on purpose to fetch him away. It simply mustn't go on. That's why I didn't write. I sent Frank's letter on to Mr. Guiseley here (he's a cousin of Frank's, by the way), and he asked me to come up to town. I got to town last night, and we've come down here at once this morning."

Mr. Parham-Carter glanced at the neat melancholy-faced, bearded man who sat opposite.

"But you know I promised," he said.

"Yes," burst in Jack; "but one doesn't keep promises one makes to madmen. And--"

"But he's not mad in the least. He's--"

"Well?"

"I was going to say that it seems to me that he's more sane than anyone else," said the young man dismally. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but--"

Dick Guiseley nodded with such emphasis that he stopped.

"I know what you mean," said Dick in his gentle drawl. "And I quite understand."

"But it's all sickening rot," burst in Jack. "He must be mad. You don't know Frank as I do--neither of you. And now there's this last business--his father's marriage, I mean; and--"

He broke off and looked across at Dick.

"Go on," said Dick; "don't mind me."

"Well, we don't know whether he's heard of it or not; but he must hear sooner or later, and then--"

"But he has heard of it," interrupted the clergyman. "I showed him the paragraph myself."

"He's heard of it! And he knows all about it!"

"Certainly. And I understood from him that he knew the girl: the Rector's daughter, isn't it?"

"Knows the girl! Why, he was engaged to her himself."

"_What_?"

"Yes; didn't he tell you?"

"He didn't give me the faintest hint--"

"How did he behave? What did he say?"

Mr. Parham-Carter stared a moment in silence.

"What did he say?" snapped out Jack impatiently.

"Say? He said nothing. He just told me he knew the girl, when I asked him."

"Good God!" remarked Jack. And there was silence.

Dick broke it.

"Well, it seems to me we're rather in a hole."

"But it's preposterous," burst out Jack again. "Here's poor old Frank, simply breaking his heart, and here are we perfectly ready to do anything we can--why, the chap must be in hell!"

"Look here, Mr. Parham-Carter," said Dick softly. "What about your going round to his house and seeing if he's in, and what he's likely to be doing to-day."

"He'll be at the factory till this evening."

"The factory?"

"Yes; he's working at a jam factory just now."

A sound of fury and disdain broke from Jack.

"Well," continued