What I learned was detrimental – to trust without discrimination, to expect too much both of people and life, to surrender my personality, my inmost thoughts and feelings, too readily to the demand of others. Not until years afterwards did I learn that such a surrender leaves one no retreat. And even while I was, as I imagined, happy, the precariousness of my content was becoming evident. I look back on a Rachel Curgenven obstinately proclaiming to herself a happiness which was belied in every direction.
As the cold, rain-driven term went on, the surface security afforded by the rigid routine satisfied only a part, and that a diminishing one, of Rachel’s personality. Her own nature, her deepening perceptions, would have brought dissatisfaction in the end, but the process was intensified by her preoccupation with the adult problems of love and marriage with which she was attempting to grapple in her play of Clytemnestra. Ignorant, inexperienced and prejudiced by home circumstances, this might have been no more than an adolescent malaise, but Margaret, with her cryptic remarks, forced the whole problem on to a more immediate plane. What had been part theorizing, part fortuitous circumstance, took on the intensity of a near personal experience.
Conversation with Margaret usually had a disturbing effect upon Rachel, and the more so now when such conversations were rare. Phrases, undercurrents of meaning in Margaret’s casual words, returned to trouble her mind again and again, and ruffled the smooth surface of her precarious Bampfield contentment. Her chance meeting with Margaret that night, after she had failed to keep the appointment at the music cell, and the general lack of rapport between the two of them, nagged at the back of her mind. She found her creative urge deserting her, was certain she would never write poetry again, felt out of love with herself and with her play. Her mind remained full of questionings but she could not have discussed them with anyone. She found a certain peace in Georgie Murrill’s room, talking about house affairs, playing Beethoven duets, and discussing history. But she was wary, unable to surrender herself readily to the offered warmth; prickly, given to sudden moods, and displays of temper, which provoked the schoolmistress in Georgie, and ended in prim reprimands or curt dismissals. Rachel would then sulk. The rapprochement with Margaret was short-lived. There was no quarrel. Margaret simply did not seek her company, and Rachel was too proud to ask for it. At brief moments, Margaret would speak a few words to her, and the old note of intimacy was there, reinforced by an undercurrent of urgency to which Rachel would have responded had she known what response to make. But Margaret, always enigmatic, was doubly so now. She treated Rachel to a kind of intermittent confederacy, but in what she was a confederate, Rachel did not as yet know. It was an incomprehensible and unsatisfying alliance, the terms of which were completely beyond her.
It was then, almost as an experiment, that Rachel turned to religion. In the spring term candidates were prepared for confirmation and instruction had already begun. For two years Rachel had stubbornly refused to have anything to do with this, and had paraded her scepticism. Now she went to Chief and asked if it was too late to start the classes. Chief, delighted at this volte-face, allowed her to join them. Bampfield was a school centralized on God. We were made aware of this and derived from it, probably, a part of our security. The prospectus paid lip-service to ‘Christian principles’, ‘A strong sense of religion’, and few parents had the acumen to probe deeply into what was really meant by a phrase like ‘The Principal believes that a Christian foundation in education is essential.’
When the school moved to this large Somersetshire house, the Head’s first act was to build a school chapel. It was a long, low asbestos erection, jutting out from the side of the house, in close proximity to the school lavatories and kitchen premises. No more than the sanctuary itself was consecrated. The rest of the building was only dedicated. We were told that this had been done in order that we need not wear hats and our voices be lost in the brims, but I see now that it was only one of the many indirect attacks upon our femininity. It was usual for girls to wear hats in chapel but we were not girls. We were public school boys and therefore did not wear hats.
Schools of Bampfield’s size could hardly have supported a permanent chaplain, but only one visiting clergyman was permitted to take services. He was the uncle of one of the staff, Miss Naylor, and he was rarely allowed to officiate except at Holy Communion. Morning and evening services on Sunday were taken by Chief, but even she did not dare arrogate to herself the right to administer the sacrament. She was very human in her desire to preach. She went just that much further than most clergymen manqués – she built herself a pulpit and a chapel to put round it. Nor do I blame her. What would I not give to preach – a long, meaty doctrinal sermon, or a fiery polemic against the wickedness of the world, and the certainty of hell for those upon whom I cast my glaring, impassioned, prejudiced eye; or a closely-knit piece of sophistry, as neatly fitted as a mosaic, on some obscure text, such as, ‘And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.’
In the school chapel, Sunday after Sunday, Chief played her favourite role. Her early years as an actress were a sound qualification for her assumption of clerical dignity. She had evolved her own ritual for our service, which, as the prospectus proclaimed, was undenominational. It was certainly this. Chief’s ritual was as elaborate as the genuflecting and biretta-doffing of the Romans, and consisted of a great deal of play with her mortar-board, donning it here, doffing it there; and of gestures appropriate to certain points in the service, such as the taking of the offertory, when, at a moment nicely timed to coincide with the end of the collection, she rose from her seat (she usually sat through the hymns), took her mortar-board from the child behind her, hitched her royal blue hood round her shoulders, and walked towards the altar rails. When she reached them, she put on her mortar-board with an infinitely graceful gesture, and stood for a moment in front of the altar, greeting the Almighty. She then fetched the plate, and even the taking of the brass dish from its little table was done with such grace of outstretched arms and hands, that you might have expected her to dance back with it like Isadora Duncan. She would glance down the chapel to see what row the collectors were at and would time her movements so well with theirs that she would always arrive at the top of the altar steps just as they were embarking on their perambulation up the aisle. This gave her long enough, but not too long, to stand there waiting for them. I can see her very clearly, every detail of her face and clothes, as I saw her for six years on Sundays, while she waited for the collectors to reach her, and, the hymn finished, the harmonium droned its way rather inexpertly through a variety of keys in which, from time to time, the original tune of the collection hymn emerged gasping and half-drowned in the welter of harmony.
Chief’s sermons revolved round the theme of the world, the flesh and the devil, and the paramount importance of self-control in combating these adversaries. The New Testament was taken as a convenient handbook of simple stories illustrative of the virtues of self-discipline. Jesus was treated as a glorified Head Prefect of our school. He was presented to us as more human than ourselves, but, we were given to understand, His extraordinary powers of self-control (of which one of the highlights was the forty days in the wilderness, and the crowning achievement His three hours on the Cross) gave Him the capacity to perform wonders which appeared to His contemporaries of supernatural origin. Thus were the miracles disposed of. Perhaps there is some truth in all this, but not, I think, sufficient truth. Small wonder that old Canon Naylor was only permitted to take the Communion service. These mysteries were fool-proof, required no verbal interpretation. The priest was a mere medium, his function limited to the purveyance of bread and wine. Chief always attended the Communion services, and when she spoke to us about them, shortly before we were confirmed, she gave us to understand that the main virtue of the mystic bread and wine was to give us the strength and reinforcement of our will in our fight against the world, the flesh and the devil.
* * *
In nomine …
I
t is Sunday evening, about six o’clock. Outside, in the deserted park, the swathes of fine rain-mist roll up towards the house, trailing between naked trees and erasing the fine-drawn line of the little stream, which emerges to sight only near the house, like a black ribbon in soft grey hair. In the harsh light of unshaded electric bulbs, we get out our hymn-books, for the chapel bell is ringing. We are stiff with cold. The fires are dying down and the vast rooms with their torn tapestry wall-papers are raw and chilly. The gilt mirrors are glazed with children’s breath. In silence we walk down stone passages, past the kitchens with their warm, sickly odours and the raucous sound of servants’ voices. For them, perhaps, a hot supper amid a smell of dish-cloths, but for us, plates of bread and butter and bowls of jelly, the Sunday evening treat. As we go into chapel, the harmonium is wheezing out the slow movement from Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ sonata. The candles are lit on the altar, the chapel half-full of children, some sitting with their blue serge coats drawn closely over their shoulders, others at their conventional, pre-service prayers. I, a member of the choir, await service in the vestry behind heavy baize curtains, smelling of dust and tallow. The harmonium pants on its way, like the hart in the psalm. The organist has started the movement again, for, as always, Chief is late. We stand in silence, shifting from one cold foot to the other. We never talk or whisper or play about. We have been made to feel that it is our chapel, that our God inhabits it, only waiting to be released from His habitual silence and reserve by the prayers the Head will pray on our behalf. Then a pad, pad in the passage outside, the click of the latch on the chapel door, a hand swings back the vestry curtain with infinite grace, and Chief is before us, resplendent in mortar-board, gown and royal blue hood. We bow our heads.
‘Lord, let the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in Thy sight.’
Chief speaks in a low voice for our ears alone. We are the elect. For us the especial prayer, the private moment with God. Then we start our procession up the chapel and the chairs scrape as the children rise to their feet at our passing and watch us as we stalk, stiff and majestic, to our places in the chancel. We pray. We rise. Chief takes the paper from her prayer-desk and reads out the number of the opening hymn. On the asbestos roof of the chapel the rain beats incessantly a monotonous and dismal accompaniment to our childish orisons.
At last the lessons are over, the canticles and the collects. We relax on to our chairs, the chill of the evening enveloping us, anaesthetizing us, the altar candles guttering in the draught which always sweeps through the chancel from the side door. It is time for the address. Her mortar-board left behind by her chair, Chief steps up to the pulpit. She smiles a little, as if she had God by the hand and were introducing Him to us, and speaks:
‘I want to remind you tonight of words we all too easily forget, words which our Lord and Saviour spoke to His disciples, before they set out on their pilgrimage. He knew how hard the way would be. He knew that this weary wicked world of ours is no place for weaklings, for doubters, for cowards. Yet He knew, too, that these twelve men He had chosen – these twelve who are in some ways so like us – would often be weak, would long to give up the struggle, would turn back over and over again from the straight path. And so He spoke to them of the work He wanted them to do, not once but many times; He warned them of tribulation and persecution; He tried to give them His own strength, His own endurance, His own steadfastness of purpose in their coming struggle.
‘“If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
‘Daily – that is the word He stresses. That is the word we have to remember. He never allowed those friends of His to sit back, to slack and sloom as we do. It was a hard life they led with Him. He didn’t spare them, nor did He spare Himself.
‘What were these men like, who walked the hills of Galilee with our Lord, through burning wind and sun and winter rain? They were physically strong men, fishermen, many of them, used to enduring long hours in wind and weather, yet our Lord knew that the world, the flesh and the devil are stronger than wind and rain, and that they could not overcome the world without His help. Ruthlessly, He trained their minds and bodies.
‘“Take nothing for your journey, neither staves,
nor scrip, neither bread, neither money …”
‘He said. He warned them clearly of what was to come:
‘“Beware of men: for they will deliver you up
to the councils, and they will scourge you
in their synagogues.”
‘And so He warns us. He tells us plainly that our way is not easy. He urges us to train ourselves like those early disciples. I want you to understand Gud’s purposes. When you are faced with difficulties, when the ways of the world seem hard and unjust, when this school in which you live – this school to which you belong and which belongs to you – seems a harsh place, a place of few soft comforts, a place of discipline and rigour – I want you to remember that Gud has placed you here for a purpose, and given you these opportunities of training yourselves for that very purpose. I want you to remember the words of Jesus to His disciples:
‘“If any man will come after Me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”
‘Above all, I want you to remember Christ’s own example, that example which the fortunate disciples had always before their very eyes. I want you to see Christ as they saw Him. That is the Gud I want you to worship. Not the remote, bearded Father in heaven. Not the meek and mild young man of the Bible pictures. But the Gud who came down to earth, Who sweated over a carpenter’s bench, the Gud Who sat in the stern of a boat and talked with fishermen, the Gud Who turned the money-changers out of the temple, and the Gud Who, finally, hanging on a cross, cried to His companions, two robbers, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”
‘What are we like? We give way at the smallest pain, the slightest difficulty. We slack and sloom through life, doing the least we can, turning aside from every trial, every danger. How should we behave if we were tortured and persecuted as He was? We, who cannot even put up with a headache, or a disappointment? In this weary world of ours we shall have to face many hard and bitter things. We need His courage. We need His pride. Above all we need His will. That is what is the matter with us all today. Lack of will-power, lack of self-control. We know what is right and wrong. Gud has put into our hearts a conscience. We’ve all got one, whether we like it or not, and it tells us, however hard we shut our ears to it, it tells us what is right and what is wrong, what is the brave thing to do and what is the cowardly thing. Why? Because our wills are not equal to the demands of our consciences. Because we lack the self-control to reject the easy wrong and choose the difficult right. We think we can get away with shoddy work, with slack, easy lives, with selfishness and greed and indifference. But we can’t, you know. Every time we do the easy, worthless thing, instead of the hard, worth-while thing, we lose a little more of our will-power and self-control, until we are no longer capable of exerting it. When that time comes we are worthless – worthless to Gud and man. It is up to us, each one of us, every day and every hour of the day, to exert this power within us, to practise control over ourselves, so that we can, with Gud’s grace, conquer the world, the flesh and the devil, as He did. He never faltered. He was brave to the end. He could subdue His own sufferings so far that He could forgive His enemies, even on the Cross, and comfort the suffering sinners on either side of Him. That is a Gud worth having. That is a Gud worth following. That is a Gud worth worshipping. I am going to end this address with words that you may have heard me quote before:
‘“I’ll not bow
To the gentle Jesus of the women, I –
But to the man who hung ‘twixt earth and heaven
Six mortal hours, and knew the end (as strength
And custom was) three days away, yet ruled
His soul and body so, that when the sponge
Blessed His cracked lips with promise of relief
And quick oblivion, He would not drink:
He turned His head away and would not drink:
Spat out the anodyne and would not drink.
This was a god for kings and queens of pride,
And Him I follow.”
‘“And now to Gud the Father, Gud the Son, and Gud the Holy Ghost, be all honour …”’
As I rise to my feet I am writing hurriedly on the back of my hymn-book Sunday’s date and the words: ‘Elizabeth’s speech, from Will Shakespeare by Clemence Dane.’ When chapel is over I shall compare notes with my friends. We keep a scrupulous score of the Head’s quotations, and at present I have a lead of three points.
* * *
Although Chief’s attitude to religion was undoctrinal, she realized that we could hardly be confirmed without some professional preparation, and she allowed old Canon Naylor or his even older brother, to take confirmation classes. Once I had made up my mind to attend them, I looked forward to them keenly, for I was prepared to be deeply interested in my religion. Alas, though my interest remained, my belief was short-lived.
The Chinese Garden Page 9
