Mary Westmacott - Giant's Bread

‘Well, don’t go and have a grand passion for La Marre.’

Joe did not answer. Presently she said:

‘I’m not like Mother. Mother was – was so soft about men. She gave in to them – would do anything for anyone she was fond of. I’m not like that.’

‘No,’ said Vernon, after thinking for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think you are. You won’t make a mess of your life in the same way she did. But you might make a mess of it in a different way.’

‘What sort of a way?’

‘I don’t quite know. Going and marrying someone you thought you had a grand passion for, just because everyone else disliked him, and then spending your life fighting him. Or deciding to go and live with someone just because you thought Free Love was a fine idea.’

‘So it is.’

‘Oh, I am not saying it isn’t – though as a matter of fact, I really think it is anti-social myself. But you’re always the same. If anyone forbids you anything you always want to do it – quite irrespective of whether you really want to. I haven’t put that well, but you know what I mean.’

‘What I really want is to do something! To be a great sculptor –’

‘That’s because you’ve got a pash for La Marre –’

‘It isn’t. Oh! Vernon, why will you be so trying? I’ve always wanted to do something – always – always! I used to say so at Abbots Puissants.’

‘It’s odd,’ said Vernon thoughtfully. ‘Old Sebastian used to say then very much what he says now. Perhaps one doesn’t change as much as one thinks.’

‘You were going to marry someone very beautiful and live at Abbots Puissants always,’ said Joe with slight scorn. ‘You don’t still feel that to be your life’s ambition, do you?’

‘One might do worse,’ said Vernon.

‘Lazy – downright lazy!’

Joe looked at him in unconcealed impatience. She and Vernon were so alike in some ways, and so different in others!

Vernon was thinking, ‘ Abbots Puissants. In a year I shall be twenty-one .’

They were passing a Salvation Army meeting. Joe stopped. A thin, white-faced man was standing on a box. His voice, high and raucous, came echoing across to them.

‘Why won’t you be saved? Why won’t you? Jesus wants you! Jesus wants you !’ Tremendous emphasis on the you. ‘Yes, brothers and sisters, and I’ll tell you something more. You want Jesus . You won’t admit it to yourselves, you turn your back on him, you’re afraid – that’s what it is, you’re afraid, because you want him so badly – you want him and you don’t know!’ His arms waved, his white face shone with ecstasy. ‘But you will know – you will know – there are things that you can’t run away from for ever.’ He spoke slowly, almost menacingly. ‘ I say unto you, this very night shall thy soul be required of thee –’

Vernon turned away with a slight shiver. A woman on the outskirts of the crowd gave a hysterical sob.

‘Disgusting,’ said Joe, her nose very much in the air. ‘Indecent and hysterical! For my part, I can’t see how any rational being can be anything but an atheist.’

Vernon smiled to himself, though he said nothing. He was remembering the time, a year ago, when Joe had risen every day to attend early service and had insisted on eating a boiled egg with some ostentation on Fridays, and had sat spellbound listening to the somewhat uninteresting but strictly dogmatical sermons of handsome Father Cuthbert at the Church of St Bartholomew’s, which was reputed to be so ‘high’ that Rome itself could do no more.

‘I wonder,’ he said aloud, ‘what it would feel like to be “saved”?’

It was half-past six on the following afternoon when Joe returned from her stolen day’s pleasure. Her Aunt Ethel met her in the hall.

‘Where’s Vernon?’ inquired Joe, in case she might be asked how she had liked the concert.

‘He came in about half an hour ago. He said there was nothing the matter, but somehow I don’t think he’s very well.’

‘Oh!’ Joe stared. ‘Where is he? In his room? I’ll go up and see.’

‘I wish you would, dear. Really he didn’t look well at all.’

Joe ran quickly up the stairs, gave a perfunctory rap on Vernon’s door and walked in. Vernon was sitting on his bed, and something in his appearance gave Joe a shock. She had never seen Vernon look quite like this.

He didn’t answer. He had the dazed look of someone who has undergone a terrible shock. It was as though he were too far away to be reached by mere words.

‘Vernon.’ She shook him by the shoulder. ‘What is the matter with you?’

He heard her this time.

‘Nothing.’

‘There must be something. You’re looking – you’re looking –’

Words failed her to express how he was looking. She left it at that.

‘Nothing,’ he repeated dully.

She sat down on the bed beside him.

‘Tell me,’ she said gently but authoritatively.

A long shuddering sigh broke from Vernon.

‘Joe, do you remember that man yesterday?’

‘Which man?’

‘That Salvation Army chap – those cant phrases he used. And that one – a fine one – from the Bible: “ This night shall thy soul be required of thee .” I said afterwards I wondered what it would be like to be saved. Just idly. Well, I know !’

Joe stared at him. Vernon . Oh, but such a thing was impossible.

‘Do you mean – do you mean –’ Difficult somehow to get the words. ‘Do you mean you’ve “got religion” – suddenly – like people do?’

She felt it was ridiculous as she said it. She was relieved when he gave a sudden spurt of laughter.

‘ Religion? Good God, no! Or is it that for some people? I wonder … No, I mean –’ He hesitated, brought the word out at last very softly, almost as though he dared not speak it. ‘Music –’

‘Music?’ She was still utterly at sea.

‘Yes. Joe, do you remember Nurse Frances?’

‘Nurse Frances? No, I don’t think I do. Who was she?’

‘Of course you wouldn’t. It was before you came – the time I broke my leg. I’ve always remembered something she said to me. About not being in a hurry to run away from things before you’ve had a good look. Well, that’s what happened to me today. I couldn’t run away any longer – I just had to look. Joe, music’s the most wonderful thing in the world –’

‘But – but – you’ve always said –’

‘I know. That’s why it’s been such an awful shock. Not that I mean music is so wonderful now – but it could be – if you had it as it was meant to be! Little bits of it are ugly – it’s like going up to a picture and seeing a nasty grey smear of paint – but go to a distance and it falls into its place as the most wonderful shadow. It’s got to be a whole . I still think one violin’s ugly, and a piano’s beastly – but useful in a way, I suppose. But – oh! Joe, music could be so wonderful – I know it could.’

Joe was silent, bewildered. She understood now what Vernon had meant by his opening words. His face had the queer dreamy exaltation that one associated with religious fervour. And yet she was a little frightened. His face had always expressed so little. Now, she thought, it expressed too much. It was a worse face or a better face – just as you chose to look on it.

He went on talking, hardly to her, more to himself.

‘There were nine orchestras, you know. All massed. Sound can be glorious if you get enough of it – I don’t mean just loudness – it shows more when it’s soft. But there must be enough. I don’t know what they played – nothing, I think, that was real. But it showed one – it showed one …’