Poor Caroline (17 page)

The young priest who was not Father Lasseter climbed the pulpit steps.

'A good-looking young man,' whispered Caroline with
interest. 'I always say that looks are half the battle in the
pulpit.'

Eleanor acknowledged that he was good looking, though
his inquiring nose was too long and his
mouth too wide.
Still, he was tall and straight and pleasing; his attractive
brown hair swept in an unruly wave across his intelligent forehead; his hands that clutched the little desk as though
their owner were none too happy in his elevated position
were long and delicately shaped.

A pleasing young man in many ways, Eleanor decided,
but that made his ordination all the more regrettable.

She could never look upon young and personable clergy
men without distrustful interest, for she found it incredible
that a man who was normally strong and intelligent
should seek to shut himself off into that company of
persons claiming to be able to instruct their neighbours in
morality. It seemed as though, once a young man had
put on the uniform of the church, he consecrated himself
to unreality, and was no longer entitled to normal human
consideration.

This particular young man was neither pimpled, nor
gauche, nor sickly, nor did he exhibit any other external disadvantage which Eleanor associated with Anglican curates.
He bore himself with shy, abrupt dignity. He announced
his text in a quiet, unclerical voice. 'Jesus said unto him, If
thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to
the poor.' He did not speak very well. His manner was too
stiff, his voice too diffident, his diction a little forced. But as he developed his theme, he twice forgot himself and his con
gregation, and became for the moment almost eloquent. To
Eleanor's amusement, on both of these occasions, he dropped
his deliberate simplicity and became the young college don
lecturing on Ethics to a class of undergraduates. Then he
pulled himself up abruptly, blushed a little, and with an
effort resumed his shy colloquialisms.

Eleanor, who had expected to be bored, found herself delightfully entertained, for it seemed to her that here was a clever young man of the donnish type, who had been com
manded by his superiors to be simple. His inclination was
to dispute with an All Souls Fellow, his duty to convert a
tired charwoman. He had brought notes to the pulpit,
but he screwed up his blue, short-sighted eyes at them as
though he could not see, and ultimately abandoned them
altogether.

'Poor young man,' mocked Eleanor. 'He's not at all comfortable. Well, if he'd resisted this temptation to spiritual
pride and remained quietly at a university, he'd probably
have been a great success. He's got intelligence and person
ality, and he'll soon develop a pompous prig.'

Her interest in the young man's dilemma made her give
some attention to his words, and from criticizing the manner she passed to consider the matter of his discourse. And indeed, this seemed to her to be aptly chosen. For his theme arose quite naturally from his text. Following Lord Morley, with whose essay he was obviously acquainted, he spoke of Compromise, its leaden weight upon idealism, its fascina
tion for the mediocre. His commendation of enthusiasm
came quaintly from lips so plainly diffident; his indictment of the half-hearted, his praise of audacity, his conception of
an aristocracy of gamblers, those who dare to risk all their fortune for an ideal, conveyed to Eleanor an impression of
romanticism which discomfited her, at first because she dis
agreed with it, but later because she applied it to herself.
For as he spoke, she found herself fitting the cap of those who
play for safety on to the Smiths of Marshington, on to the
respectable bourgeoisie, the protected, the sensible, the
timid followers of convention. The true aristocrats, who
sought perfection, were those who like St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis Xavier, and Joan of Arc-yes, and like Caroline, even poor Caroline — counted no cost, but made the
splendid and reckless gesture of independence. And she
herself?

Suddenly Eleanor saw herself as one of the compromisers,
who could make the Great Refusal, because of their posses
sions. Caroline had said that she could never strip herself
as naked as the women of the older generation. That was
true. She was protected for ever by her education, her free
dom, and her father's sympathy for her ambitions. All that
Caroline had cried out to her that night in the office became
here part of the young clergyman's argument. It was she
who compromised, she who was immune. She had chided God for His failure to perform a miracle. The miracle was within her power as well as God's. She had three thousand
pounds. She could save the Christian Cinema Company if
she would, and thus with one act teach God Himself a
lesson and strip herself of part, at least, of her intolerable
immunity.

Directly the thought entered her mind, it seemed so patently clear that she wondered why she had not done it
before. She had the money. She did not really need it. At
the end of her six months' course she would be equipped to
earn her living, and she had funds enough to last her, with
economy, through her training. It was idle to deny that she was the best student in her class. She had had a good scien
tific education, and her Commercial Dutch was an addi
tional asset. Even now she could, if she liked, accept a part-
time job of translating Dutch correspondence for a firm of merchants. What need had she for three thousand pounds?
She would use it for the salvation of the company.

What a triumph for Caroline, what a snub for the indif
ferent Board, what a reproof for the Marshington Smiths, who always thought that Caroline would achieve nothing. Why had she never thought of that before? The nice young
man! A Daniel come to judgment. Indeed, thought
Eleanor, it is appropriate that my association with the
Christian Cinema Company should be inspired by a sermon, sermons being so little my customary mental
diet.

Directly she had made her decision, the depression of the
last few days vanished. She was happy, happier even than
when she bought her car. She felt as though she had already effected something. She was about to take an action which would change the course of history, even though it was an
obscure and local history.

She did not hear the conclusion of the sermon. So far as
she was concerned, its message had been delivered. She
joined in the final hymn with gusto equal to Caroline's,
though she had no voice and little ear for music. She fol
lowed Caroline from the church, her nerves tingling, her
pulses dancing, her lips
twitching into a triumphant little
smile.

She could hardly bear to wait until they had boarded
the bus, before she observed casually, 'You know, I've
been thinking, Cousin Caroline, what about that three
thousand pounds that Father left me? I think that 5 per
cent. War Loan is deadly dull, don't you? What do you
really think about putting it into
the Christian Cinema
Company?'

Afterwards she always told herself that whatever her rash
impulse might have cost her, it was worth while, if only for
the amusement of watching Caroline's face tremble into
ecstatic eagerness. 'At least,' thought Eleanor, 'I've taught God his duty by answering one prayer prayed by a faithful
Christian. Poor Caroline!'

Chapter 4 :
Hugh Angus Macafee

§1

hugh angus macafee,
so far as he was made at all, was a
self-made man. The great disadvantage of making oneself
lies in the difficulty of getting both sides to match. Hugh's development was distressingly one-sided. At twenty-six he
was a brilliant technician. He could calculate to a nicety
the acoustical properties of any given buildings; he could
compose accurate but unilluminating treatises on colour
photography, electrical reproduction of sound, the uses of
cellulose or the synchronization of light and music: he could
write examination papers which would win him First Class Honours in Physics, Chemistry or Engineering in any European university; he could live on fifteen shillings a week
without experiencing conscious hardship; and he had in
vented a film to synchronize with sound-production which
was almost as effective as the Glasgow Galloway Patent then
in use at Hollywood. But he could not order a dinner,
interview a patron, market a patent, recognize a song-tune, make a woman fall in love with herself, or work for more
than half an hour with any man without antagonizing
him.

To do him justice, he was not dissatisfied with his own
production. Disapproval was his favourite hobby, but he rarely applied it to himself. He disapproved of the Oxford
accent, of modern novels, of Bittniger's electrical process, of
classical education, of a supernatural deity, of all women -
except mothers — of Anglo-Catholicism, central heating,
hors
d'ouvres,
studied courtesy, Gomschalk's atomic theory, and
the English nation. He approved of Robert Burns, High
land scenery, honest poverty, oatmeal porridge, scientific
education, and himself.

He
was a peasant's son from Perthshire, who when fifteen
years old had looked around upon his home and prospects
and found them not at all what he desired. He was an im
perious lad, and he found his father enslaved to winds and
seasons. He was impatient, and he saw his mother bound
to the slow wasteful routine of natural reproduction, hav
ing reared five children and buried seven. He was intelli
gent, controversial, alert and curious, and he found himself
doomed to agricultural passivity.

His teacher commended his aptitude for mathematics,
and thrashed him for obstinacy and insubordination. Hugh asked his father's leave to try for a bursary to continue his
education, and met with curt refusal. But his mother
understood something of the boy's ambition. When Hugh
ran away to become odd-lad to a third-rate photographer in
Perth, he told her of his destination. She sent him surrep
titiously little parcels of soda scones and oatcake throughout
the lean, long years of his apprenticeship.

Photography fascinated him. At nights he read in the
public library, attended evening classes and looked into a
new enchanting world of order. He read chemistry and
physics and works on technical photographic processes. Be
yond the casual chaotic appearance of things lay perfect
symmetry. Too small for the clumsy eye of man to see,
moved systems exquisitely attuned to clear precision. The coarse deal chair in his lodgings became a thing of wonder. The law which bound to an appearance of solidity its spin
ning electrons, the law which changed the texture of its
wood, the law which governed the expansion or contraction of its measurement, became to Hugh an absorbing interest. The joy which some men find in music, others in form, and others in contemplating the spiritual majesty of God, Hugh found in natural science. Chemistry and physics introduced him to an ecstasy of wonder that changed his whole relation
to the universe.