________________________________________________
_ The nearest Roman Catholic church was upwards of twenty miles
away. Ivor, who was punctilious in his devotions, came down
early to breakfast and had his car at the door, ready to start,
by a quarter to ten. It was a smart, expensive-looking machine,
enamelled a pure lemon yellow and upholstered in emerald green
leather. There were two seats--three if you squeezed tightly
enough--and their occupants were protected from wind, dust, and
weather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant eighteenth-
century hump, from the midst of the body of the car.
Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought it would
be an interesting experience, and, when the car moved off through
the great gates of the courtyard, she was occupying the spare
seat in the sedan. The sea-lion horn roared, faintlier,
faintlier, and they were gone.
In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kings vi.
18: "And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops"--a
sermon of immediately local interest. For the past two years the
problem of the War Memorial had exercised the minds of all those
in Crome who had enough leisure, or mental energy, or party
spirit to think of such things. Henry Wimbush was all for a
library--a library of local literature, stocked with county
histories, old maps of the district, monographs on the local
antiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geology
and natural history. He liked to think of the villagers,
inspired by such reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon
to look for fossils and flint arrow-heads. The villagers
themselves favoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water
supply. But the busiest and most articulate party followed Mr.
Bodiham in demanding something religious in character--a second
lich-gate, for example, a stained-glass window, a monument of
marble, or, if possible, all three. So far, however, nothing had
been done, partly because the memorial committee had never been
able to agree, partly for the more cogent reason that too little
money had been subscribed to carry out any of the proposed
schemes. Every three or four months Mr. Bodiham preached a
sermon on the subject. His last had been delivered in March; it
was high time that his congregation had a fresh reminder.
"And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops."
Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon's temple. From thence he
passed to temples and churches in general. What were the
characteristics of these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously,
the fact of their, from a human point of view, complete
uselessness. They were unpractical buildings "carved with
knops." Solomon might have built a library--indeed, what could
be more to the taste of the world's wisest man? He might have
dug a reservoir--what more useful in a parched city like
Jerusalem? He did neither; he built a house all carved with
knops, useless and unpractical. Why? Because he was dedicating
the work to God. There had been much talk in Crome about the
proposed War Memorial. A War Memorial was, in its very nature, a
work dedicated to God. It was a token of thankfulness that the
first stage in the culminating world-war had been crowned by the
triumph of righteousness; it was at the same time a visibly
embodied supplication that God might not long delay the Advent
which alone could bring the final peace. A library, a reservoir?
Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly condemned the idea. These
were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a War Memorial they
were totally unsuitable. A lich-gate had been suggested. This
was an object which answered perfectly to the definition of a War
Memorial: a useless work dedicated to God and carved with knops.
One lich-gate, it was true, already existed. But nothing would
be easier than to make a second entrance into the churchyard; and
a second entrance would need a second gate. Other suggestions
had been made. Stained-glass windows, a monument of marble.
Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It was high
time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon be too
late. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come.
Meanwhile a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate.
All should subscribe according to their means. Those who had
lost relations in the war might reasonably be expected to
subscribe a sum equal to that which they would have had to pay in
funeral expenses if the relative had died while at home. Further
delay was disastrous. The War Memorial must be built at once.
He appealed to the patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all
his hearers.
Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would present
to the War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. He
took the path through the fields; it was pleasanter than the
road. At the first stile a group of village boys, loutish young
fellows all dressed in the hideous ill-fitting black which makes
a funeral of every English Sunday and holiday, were assembled,
drearily guffawing as they smoked their cigarettes. They made
way for Henry Wimbush, touching their caps as he passed. He
returned their salute; his bowler and face were one in their
unruffled gravity.
In Sir Ferdinando's time, he reflected, in the time of his son,
Sir Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday
diversions even at Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would
have been archery, skittles, dancing--social amusements in which
they would have partaken as members of a conscious community.
Now they had nothing, nothing except Mr. Bodiham's forbidding
Boys' Club and the rare dances and concerts organised by himself.
Boredom or the urban pleasures of the county metropolis were the
alternatives that presented themselves to these poor youths.
Country pleasures were no more; they had been stamped out by the
Puritans.
In Manningham's Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, he
remembered, a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in
Berkshire, Puritan magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. One
moonlit summer night they had ridden out with their posse and
there, among the hills, they had come upon a company of men and
women, dancing, stark naked, among the sheepcotes. The
magistrates and their men had ridden their horses into the crowd.
How self-conscious the poor people must suddenly have felt, how
helpless without their clothes against armed and booted horsemen!
The dancers were arrested, whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks;
the moonlight dance is never danced again. What old, earthy,
Panic rite came to extinction here? he wondered. Who knows?--
perhaps their ancestors had danced like this in the moonlight
ages before Adam and Eve were so much as thought of. He liked to
think so. And now it was no more. These weary young men, if
they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle six miles to the
town. The country was desolate, without life of its own, without
indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates had snuffed out for
ever a little happy flame that had burned from the beginning of
time.
"And as on Tullia's tomb one lamp burned clear,
Unchanged for fifteen hundred year..."
He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think of
all the murdered past. _
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