Father Payne. Benson Arthur Christopher

what he had said about me; and, further on, I had a dim sense of an initiation into ideas, familiar enough, but which had only been words to me hitherto—power, purpose, seriousness. They had been ideas which before this had just vaguely troubled my peace, clouds hanging in a bright sky. I had the sense that there were some duties which I ought to perform, efforts to be made, ends to fulfil; but they had seemed to me expressed in rather priggish phrases, words which oppressed me, and ruffled the surface of my easy joy. Now they loomed up before me as big realities which could not be escaped, hills to climb, with no pleasant path round about their bases. I seemed in sight of some inspiring secret. I could not tell what it was, but Father Payne knew it, might show it me?

      Thus I drowsed and woke, a dozen times, till in the glimmer of the early light I rose and drew back my curtains. The dawn was struggling up fitfully in the east, among cloudy bars, tipping and edging them with smouldering flashes of light, and there was a lustrous radiance in the air. Then, to my surprise, looking down at the silent garden, pale with dew, I saw the great figure of Father Payne, bare-headed, wrapt in a cloak, pacing solidly and, I thought, happily among the shrubberies, stopping every now and then to watch the fiery light and to breathe the invigorating air—and I felt then that, whatever he might be doing, he at all events was something, in a sense which applied to but few people I knew. He was not hard, unimaginative, fenced in by stupidity and self-righteousness from unhappiness and doubt, as were some of the men accounted successful whom I knew. No, it was something positive, some self-created light, some stirring of hidden force, that emanated from him, such as I had never encountered before.

VII

       Table of Contents

      THE MEN

      I can attempt no sort of chronicle of our days, which indeed were quiet and simple enough. I have only preserved in my diary the record of a few scenes and talks and incidents. I will, however, first indicate how our party, as I knew it, was constituted, so that the record may be intelligible.

      First of us came Leonard Barthrop, who was, partly by his seniority and partly by his temperament, a sort of second-in-command in the house, much consulted and trusted by Father Payne. He was a man of about thirty-five, grave, humorous, pleasant. If one was in a minor difficulty, too trivial to take to Father Payne, it was natural to consult Barthrop; and he sometimes, too, would say a word of warning to a man, if a storm seemed to be brewing. It must not be denied that men occasionally got on Father Payne's nerves, quite unconsciously, through tactlessness or stupid mannerisms—and Barthrop was able to smooth the situation out by a word in season. He had a power of doing this without giving offence, from the obvious goodwill which permeated all he did. Barthrop was not very sociable or talkative, and he was occupied, I think, in some sort of historical research—I believe he has since made his name as a judicious and interesting historian; but I knew little of what he was doing, and indeed was hardly intimate with him, though always at ease in his company. He was not a man with strong preferences or prejudices, nor was he in any sense a brilliant or suggestive writer, I think he had merged himself very much in the life of our little society, and kept things together more than I was at first aware.

      Then came Kaye, one of the least conspicuous of the whole group, though he has since become perhaps the best known, by his poems and his beautiful critical studies in both art and literature. Kaye is known as one of those rare figures in literature, a creative critic. His rich and elaborate style, his exquisite sidelights, his poetical faculty of interpretation, make his work famous, though hardly popular. But I found that he worked very slowly and even painfully, deliberately secreting his honey, and depositing it cell by cell. He had a peculiar intimacy with Father Payne, who treated him with a marked respect. Kaye was by far the most absorbed of the party, went and came like a great moth, was the first to disappear, and generally the last to arrive. Neither did he make any attempt at friendship. He was a handsome and graceful fellow, now about thirty, with a worn sort of beauty in his striking features, curling hair, long languid frame, and fine hands. His hands, I used to think, were the most eloquent things about him, and he was ever making silent little gestures with them, as though they were accompanying unuttered trains of thought; but he had, too, a strained and impatient air, as if he found the pursuit of phrases a wearing and hazardous occupation. I used to feel Kaye the most attractive and impressive of our society; but he neither made nor noticed any signals of goodwill, though always courteous and kindly.

      Pollard was a totally different man: he was about twenty-eight, and he was writing some work of fiction. He was a small, sturdy, rubicund creature, with beady eyes and pink cheeks, cherubic in aspect, entirely good-natured and lively, full of not very exalted humour, and with a tendency to wild and even hysterical giggling. I used to think that Father Payne did not like him very much; but he was a quick and regular worker, and it was impossible to find fault with him. He was extremely sociable and appreciative, and I used to find his company a relief from the strain which at times made itself felt. Pollard had a way of getting involved in absurd adventures, which he related with immense gusto; and he had a really wonderful power of description—more so in conversation than in writing—and of humorous exaggeration, which made him a delightful companion. But he was never able to put the best of himself into his books, which tended to be sentimental and even conventional.

      Then there was Lestrange; and I think he was the least congenial of the lot. He was a handsome, rather clerical-looking man of about twenty-eight, who had been brought up to take orders, and had decided against doing so. He was very much in earnest, in rather a tiresome way, and his phrases were conventional and pietistic. I used to feel that he jarred a good deal on Father Payne, but much was forgiven him because of his musical talents, which were really remarkable. His organ-playing, with its verve, its delicacy, and its quiet mastery, was delicious to hear, he was engaged in writing music mainly, and had a piano all to himself in a little remote room beyond the dining-room, which looked out to the stable-yard and had formerly been an estate-office. We used to hear faint sounds wafted down the garden when the wind was in the west. He was friendly, but he had the absorption of the musician in his art, which is unlike all other artistic absorptions, because it seems literally to check the growth of other qualities and interests. In fact, in many ways Lestrange was like a pious child. He was apt to be snubbed by Father Payne, but he was wholly indifferent to all irony. I used to listen to him playing the organ in the evenings, and a language of emotions and visions certainly streamed from his fingers which he was never able to put into words. Father Payne treated him as one might treat an inspired fool, with a mixture of respect and sharpness.

      Then there was Rose, a man of twenty-five, a curious mixture of knowledge, cynicism, energy, and affectionateness. I found Rose a very congenial companion, though I never felt sure what he thought, and never aired my enthusiasms in his presence. He had great aplomb, and was troubled by no shyness nor hesitation. There was a touch of frostiness at times between him and Father Payne. Rose was paradoxical and whimsical, and was apt to support fantastic positions with apparent earnestness. But he was an extremely capable and sensible man, and had a knack of dropping his contentiousness the moment it began to give offence. He was by far the most mundane of us, and had some command of money. I used to fancy that Father Payne was a little afraid of him, when he displayed his very considerable knowledge of the world. His father was a wealthy man, a member of Parliament, and Rose really knew social personages of the day. I doubt if he was ever quite in sympathy with the idea of the place, but I used to feel that his presence was a wholesome sort of corrective, like the vinegar in the salad. I believe he was writing a play, but he has done nothing since in literature, and was in many ways more like a visitor than an inmate.

      Then came my friend Vincent, a solid, good-natured, hard-working man, with a real enthusiasm for literature, not very critical or even imaginative, but with a faculty for clear and careful writing. He was at work on a realistic novel, which made some little reputation; but he has become since, what I think he always was meant to be, an able journalist and an excellent leader-writer on political and social topics. Vincent was the most interested of all of us in current affairs, but at the same time had a quiet sort of enthusiasm, and a power of idealising people, ardently but unsentimentally, which made him the most loyal