Read Online Wood and Stone by John Cowper Powys - Free Book Online Page A

Taxater. And I implore you to be quite direct with me. You do not think, do you, that my girl is tending towards your church—towards Rome? I confess it would be a heavy blow to me, one of the heaviest I have ever had, if anything of that kind happened. I know you are tolerant enough to let me speak like this without scruple. I like you , my dear friend—”Here a soft flush spread over Valentia’s ivory-coloured cheeks and she made a little movement as if to put her hand on her companion’s arm. “I like you yourself, and have the utmost confidence in you. But Oh, it would be a terrible shock to me if Vennie became a Roman Catholic. She would enter a convent; I know she would enter a convent and that would be more than I could bear.” The accumulated distress of many years was in the old lady’s voice and tears stood in her eyes. “I know it is silly,” she went on as Mr. Taxater steadily regarded the landscape. “But I cannot help it. I do so hope—Oh, I can’t tell you how much—that Vennie will marry and have children. It is the secret burden of my life, the thought that, with this frail little thing, our ancient race should disappear. I feel it my deepest duty—my duty to the Past and my duty to the Future—to arrange a happy marriage for her. If only that could be achieved, I should be able to die content.”
    “You have no evidence, no authority for thinking,” said Mr. Taxater gravely, “that she is meditating any approach to my church, as you call it, have you?”
    “Oh no!” cried the old lady, “quite the contrary. She seems absorbed in the services here. She works with Mr. Clavering, she discusses everything with Mr. Clavering, she helps Mr. Clavering with the poor. I believe”—here Valentia lowered her voice; “I believe she confesses to Mr. Clavering.”
    Francis Taxater smiled—the smile of the heir of Christendom’s classic faith at these pathetic fumblings of heresy—and carefully knocked the ashes from his cigarette against the handle of his cane.
    “You don’t think, dear lady,” he said, “that byany chance—girls are curiously subtle in these little things—she is ‘in love,’ as they call it, with our nice handsome Vicar?
    Valentia gave an involuntary little start. In her heart there rose up the shadow of a shadow of questioning , whether in this last remark the great secular diplomatist had not lapsed into something approaching a “faux pas.”
    “Certainly not,” she answered. “Vennie is not a girl to mix up her religion with things of that sort.”
    Francis Taxater permitted the flicker of a smile to cross his face. He slightly protruded his lower lip which gave his countenance a rather sinister expression . His look said, more clearly than words, that in his opinion there was no woman on earth who did not “mix up these things” with her religion.
    “I have not yet made my request to you,” continued the old lady, with a certain nervous hesitation. “I am so afraid lest you should think it an evidence of a lack of confidence. It isn’t so! It really isn’t so. I only do it to relieve my mind;—to make my food taste better, if you understand?—and to stop this throbbing in my head.” She paused for a moment , and picking up her stick, prodded the gravel with it, with lowered face. The voices of not less than three wood-pigeons were audible from the apple-orchard. And this soft accompaniment to her words seemed to give her courage. Fate could not, surely, altogether betray her prayers, in a place so brooded over by “the wings of the dove.” In the exquisite hush of the afternoon the birds’ rich voices seemed to take an almost liturgical tone—as though they were the ministers of a great natural temple.To make a solemn request of a dear friend under such conditions was almost as though one were exacting a sacred vow under the very shadow of the altar.
    So at least Valentia felt, as she uttered her serious petition; though it may well be that Mr.