None Other Gods Part 2

"What?"

"Thirteen pounds eleven s.h.i.+llings and eightpence."

Jack burst into a mirthless laugh.

"Well, come along to lunch," he said.

It seemed to Jack that he moved in a dreary kind of dream that afternoon as he went about with Frank from shop to shop, paying bills. Frank's trouser-pockets bulged and jingled a good deal as they started--he had drawn all his remaining money in gold from the bank--and they bulged and jingled considerably less as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane.

There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen s.h.i.+llings and fourpence.

"Call it thirteen pounds," said Frank. "There's many a poor man--"

"Don't be a d.a.m.ned fool!" said Jack.

"I'm being simply prudent," said Frank. "A contented heart--"

Jack thrust a cup of tea and the b.u.t.tered buns before him.

These two were as nearly brothers as possible, in everything but blood.

Their homes lay within ten miles of one another. They had gone to a private school together, to Eton, and to Trinity. They had ridden together in the holidays, shot, dawdled, bathed, skated, and all the rest. They were considerably more brothers to one another than were Frank and Archie, his actual elder brother, known to the world as Viscount Merefield. Jack did not particularly approve of Archie; he thought him a pompous a.s.s, and occasionally said so.

For Frank he had quite an extraordinary affection, though he would not have expressed it so, to himself, for all the world, and a very real admiration of a quite indefinable kind. It was impossible to say why he admired him. Frank did nothing very well, but everything rather well; he played Rugby football just not well enough to represent his college; he had been in the Lower Boats at Eton, and the Lent Boat of his first year at Cambridge; then he had given up rowing and played lawn-tennis in the summer and fives in the Lent Term just well enough to make a brisk and interesting game. He was not at all learned; he had reached the First Hundred at Eton, and had read Law at Cambridge--that convenient branch of study which for the most part fills the vacuum for intelligent persons who have no particular bent and are heartily sick of cla.s.sics; and he had taken a Third Cla.s.s and his degree a day or two before. He was remarkably averaged, therefore; and yet, somehow or another, there was that in him which compelled Jack's admiration. I suppose it was that which is conveniently labeled "character." Certainly, nearly everybody who came into contact with him felt the same in some degree.

His becoming a Catholic had been an amazing shock to Jack, who had always supposed that Frank, like himself, took the ordinary sensible English view of religion. To be a professed unbeliever was bad form--it was like being a Little Englander or a Radical; to be pious was equally bad form--it resembled a violent devotion to the Union Jack. No; religion to Jack (and he had always. .h.i.therto supposed, to Frank) was a department of life in which one did not express any particular views: one did not say one's prayers; one attended chapel at the proper times; if one was musical, one occasionally went to King's on Sunday afternoon; in the country one went to church on Sunday morning as one went to the stables in the afternoon, and that was about all.

Frank had been, too, so extremely secretive about the whole thing. He had marched into Jack's rooms in Jesus Lane one morning nearly a fortnight ago.

"Come to ma.s.s at the Catholic Church," he said.

"Why, the--" began Jack.

"I've got to go. I'm a Catholic."

"_What!_"

"I became one last week."

Jack had stared at him, suddenly convinced that someone was mad. When he had verified that it was really a fact; that Frank had placed himself under instruction three months before, and had made his confession--(his confession!)--on Friday, and had been conditionally baptized; when he had certified himself of all these things, and had begun to find coherent language once more, he had demanded why Frank had done this.

"Because it's the true religion," said Frank. "Are you coming to ma.s.s or are you not?"

Jack had gone then, and had come away more bewildered than ever as to what it was all about. He had attempted to make a few inquiries, but Frank had waved his hands at him, and repeated that obviously the Catholic religion was the true one, and that he couldn't be bothered.

And now here they were at tea in Jesus Lane for the last time.

Of course, there was a little suppressed excitement about Frank. He drank three cups of tea and took the last (and the under) piece of b.u.t.tered bun without apologies, and he talked a good deal, rather fast.

It seemed that he had really no particular plans as to what he was going to do after he had walked out of Cambridge with his carpet-bag early next morning. He just meant, he said, to go along and see what happened.

He had had a belt made, which pleased him exceedingly, into which his money could be put (it lay on the table between them during tea), and he proposed, naturally, to spend as little of that money as possible....

No; he would not take one penny piece from Jack; it would be simply scandalous if he--a public-school boy and an University man--couldn't keep body and soul together by his own labor. There would be hay-making presently, he supposed, and fruit-picking, and small jobs on farms. He would just go along and see what happened. Besides there were always casual wards, weren't there? if the worst came to the worst; and he'd meet other men, he supposed, who'd put him in the way of things. Oh!

he'd get on all right.

Would he ever come to Barham? Well, if it came in the day's work he would. Yes: certainly he'd be most obliged if his letters might be sent there, and he could write for them when he wanted, or even call for them, if, as he said, it came in the day's work.

What was he going to do in the winter? He hadn't the slightest idea. He supposed, what other people did in the winter. Perhaps he'd have got a place by then--gamekeeper, perhaps--he'd like to be a gamekeeper.

At this Jack, mentally, threw up the sponge.

"You really mean to go on at this rotten idea of yours?"

Frank opened his eyes wide.

"Why, of course. Good Lord! did you think I was bluffing?"

"But ... but it's perfectly mad. Why on earth don't you get a proper situation somewhere--land-agent or something?"

"My dear man," said Frank, "if you will have it, it's because I want to do exactly what I'm going to do. No--I'm being perfectly serious. I've thought for ages that we're all wrong somehow. We're all so beastly artificial. I don't want to preach, but I want to test things for myself. My religion tells me--" He broke off. "No; this is fooling. I'm going to do it because I'm going to do it. And I'm really going to do it. I'm not going to be an amateur--like slumming. I'm going to find out things for myself."

"But on the roads--" expostulated Jack.

"Exactly. That's the very point. Back to the land."

Jack sat up.

"Good Lord!" he said. "Why, I never thought of it."

"What?"

"It's your old grandmother coming out."

Frank stared.

"Grandmother?"

"Yes--old Mrs. Kelly."

Frank laughed suddenly and loudly.

"By George!" he said, "I daresay it is. Old Grandmamma Kelly! She was a gipsy--so she was. I believe you've hit it, Jack. Let's see: she was my grandfather's second wife, wasn't she?"

Jack nodded.

"And he picked her up off the roads on his own estate. Wasn't she trespa.s.sing, or something?"