Grandmother and the Priests (17 page)

Benedict suddenly laughed, remembering D’Israeli’s pungent remark on British morality.

“Does he often speak of India?”

“No. Not at all. And he has none of those frightful big brass plates, all carved with symbols and serpents, and strange furniture and hangings, all from India — so fashionable these days. They give me the vapors. Very depressing. One expects cobras to come gliding from under the sofas. No. Joshua’s house is just as comfortable and sensible as mine, and in as good taste.” Amanda looked about her complacently. Benedict looked about, too, and thought, as he had always thought, how crowded and how tasteless this rich room was, and then he thought how much he loved it as his home.

“I don’t think,” said Amanda, “that he liked India. But what has India got to do with it, Benedict? How your mind wanders. That comes of the fevers you have been having in heathen places.”

Benedict indeed had suffered from various fevers in jungles and in deserts, and he was here at home because his superiors thought he needed considerable time to recover. His superiors were very fond of Amanda now, and increasingly grateful, and she was old.

There was no one at the party even of his own age, and he was not very young any longer. There was not a lady or gentleman present under sixty-five. Most of them were much older. They were all very fat and staid and had round opinions, like Amanda, and they all exuded that serene air which told of large bank accounts and solid investments. They laughed happily and cosily, and were satisfied and content. Sir Joshua Fielding was not like them in the least.

In fact, Sir Joshua resembled, startlingly, a number of old and courtly Monsignori of ancient Italian family whom Benedict had met frequently in Rome. He had their slender and swaying height, their attenuation, their fine and patrician Roman profiles, their bright and mystical eyes, their noble heads, their exquisite manners, their air of detachment and quiet benevolence. Benedict wondered why he had never become a priest, himself, this regal old bachelor whose voice was both soft and resonant, carrying yet calm, and who wore about him, as an almost visible aura, the lofty saintliness of those who are genuinely good and innocent of spirit. And, like the Italian Monsignori, he appeared well aware of reality, in spite of Amanda’s fixed opinion of him. This mingling of intrinsic innocence and accepting worldliness was an intriguing blend, and Benedict soon became fascinated merely by watching his subtle face, his slight and graceful gestures, the way he lifted a glass and inclined his head, his sudden sweet smiles, and the laughter, never cruel, which lurked in the corners of his fine mouth. He was the sort of person of whom it is usually said when he is young, “He is not really a child,” and of whom it is said when he is old, “He will always be young.”

Sir Joshua and Benedict became friends almost at once. He talked of Benedict’s life with interest, and he had the marvelous gift of listening and interpreting immediately. While listening, the merry eyes, so youthful and alive, would become soft and grave. And then Benedict suddenly knew, right in the midst of dinner, that in one way his aunt had been correct: Sir Joshua lived for a dream, and lived in it also, quite apart from his mortal life, which he appeared to be enjoying very much, indeed. There was no regret or sadness or yearning in that dream, Benedict saw, no mawkish superstition, no fanatic obsession, no removal from reality.

Benedict began to wonder. Had he loved a girl he had lost, or a virtuous married woman whom he could not have? Certainly, there was a far glow of love in his eyes, but it was the glow of fulfillment and possession and joy. A man did not look like this after he had lost his love.

Benedict began to probe delicately and curiously, for he was only human, when the gentlemen were left alone with their brandy and the ladies had retired to the drawing-room. He had found a seat for himself next to Sir Joshua, who was a general and respected favorite even among those beefy and very earthy men. The mighty chandelier poured down its rainbowed light on the gleaming white tablecloth; the paneled walls glimmered in firelight. The dinner had been excellent. The gentlemen, ‘Roman’ and non-Roman, felt a little constraint at having a priest among them, and quite a youngish one at that. Their elderly lewdness had to be suppressed, and this made them slightly melancholy. So, to give them an opportunity to whisper their innocent naughtiness to each other, Benedict leaned towards Sir Joshua and began his probing in what he thought was a most unobtrusive way. Suddenly Sir Joshua’s eyes began to sparkle with paternal amusement, and this made Benedict blush. The older man pulled his chair closer to Benedict’s, so that they formed a little island in the midst of gleeful whispers and noisy, abrupt laughter.

The eternal and patient rain of England was falling outside, this early autumn night, and Benedict could hear its mysterious whispering against the shuttered windows. It was a most peaceful sound. It was, as the English said, “a soft night.”

“Our friends are being considerate of you,” said Sir Joshua. “I am sure you could tell them of more outrageous things than those they are whispering now. They are very good men, you know, my dear boy. The strong, beating heart of England. The strong, lusty heart. I hope it beats forever! I hope the Empire will never disintegrate, as other empires have done all through the past. If that happens, a whole world will be lost to order and character and discipline and freedom. Yes, these are the heart of England. I think it is very kind of them to accept me so whole-heartedly, don’t you?”

Benedict was startled. He stared at the aristocratic face smiling at him, and then at the somewhat gross and very much overfed faces of ‘the heart of England’.

“For, you see,” said Sir Joshua, removing the ash from his cigar gracefully, “my dear and wonderful father was only a traveler. He carried his pack on his back through three counties every year, walking every foot of the weary way. In the wildest of weather. He was such a little man. A lifetime of privation and hunger and poverty, and the hardest work, had stunted his body. But not his soul. I think he is a saint now, unknown to the Church but not to God. And my mother, to make ends meet, took in sewing and washing. She could not go out to the rich houses to work, for I was a sickly child. I owe my life, for what it is, to her endless and loving care. I was their only child.

“So, you see that my friends are very tolerant, indeed, in accepting me among them, as if I had been born to their wealth and in one of their houses.”

Benedict was astonished. He looked at Sir Joshua’s excellent broadcloth and fine linen, at his long white hands, so curiously youthful and supple, at his noble features and brilliant eyes. A beautiful ring was on the third finger of his left hand, worn in the manner of a betrothed woman. It sparkled and glowed with a thousand changing lights. It was not an opal, yet it had an opal’s restless and shifting colors, its cold yet fiery heart. Benedict found himself looking at that strange ring, even while he thought about what Sir Joshua had told him.

“You are wondering,” said Sir Joshua, “how it is that I am now rich and can afford what I have, and my carriage. I did not earn it; not a single penny. You see, my father, in his travels, came to know that the poor women on the farms and in the hamlets and villages longed, as do all women, for some fragrance in their lives, some luxury they could afford which would make them feel cherished. So my father, with my mother’s help when he was at home, concocted a smooth oval soap, made of sound if inexpensive materials, and scented quite strongly. It was a sweet and overpowering scent, and seemed to be compounded of roses and lilies and lilac — ”

“Fielding’s Fragrance!” exclaimed Benedict. “Soaps and sachets!”

“Exactly,” said Sir Joshua, smiling. “You know them then.”

“Who doesn’t?” said Benedict. “The whole world does, and not only the Empire. The soap, sixpence a packet. The sachets, in little satin bags, two for a shilling. The odor,” said Benedict, “lasts forever, they say.”

Sir Joshua’s face subtly changed. “Forever is a long time, thank God,” he said, and he looked at the ring on his finger. For a moment or two, or perhaps longer, Benedict lost him completely. The old gentleman seemed to have retreated behind the elegant facade of his body and face, and was now enjoying some deep delight beyond imagination.

“I was about twelve, and ready for work, when my father compounded his first packets of soap and his first sachets,” said Sir Joshua, at last. “I helped my parents pour the liquid into a mold my father had made. He had also made his own crude stamping for the soap, and it remains the same today: the name wreathed in buds and flowers and leaves and tendrils. For the first years, until I was eighteen, the products sold modestly but soundly, and my mother gave up her washing and sewing and she and I worked together and my father peddled his other wares, and the soap and sachets, on his rounds. And then fortune came all at once, as it usually does. Large soap companies discovered the soap and sachets, after the women all over the counties refused to buy any others but my father’s. Their fame had even come to London, and to Edinburgh.

“My father may have been a saint, but he knew the value of his work. He accepted the most magnificent offer, and continuing royalties: a penny a packet, and two pennies for the sachets, for himself and his heirs, everlastingly.

“Unfortunately, a lifetime of privation ended his life when he was on the very threshold of his new life. My mother, who had suffered with him, died of consumption. I was then twenty-two. I was a millionaire, or rather close to being one. I was not uneducated; my long childhood illnesses had kept me in bed, and I had read incessantly. There is nothing like the boldness of youth! Armed with my fortune, I did what my parents would have me do. I went abroad to the great schools of France and Italy, for, of course, I could not be accepted in England. And when I returned, after several years, I engaged an English gentleman to tutor me, to polish my accent, to make me a gentleman, myself! Snobbish of me, wasn’t it?” Sir Joshua laughed gently. “Yes, indeed. And I built the house where I still live, exactly as my parents would have had it, and I live as they dreamed of living. And the Queen enjoys my company. She may be regal, but she is not annoyed by a man’s background, if he has other virtues, and her Majesty appears to think I have those virtues.”

“I am sure you have,” said Benedict, with the warmth of a young man. Then he colored. He was being infernally rude. He had practically forced this fine old man to tell him of his life, and now he was being patronizing into the bargain. He was ashamed of himself. The Italian Monsignori, for all the ancient fame of their families, would not have done this, and they would have looked at Sir Joshua with respect and admiration and would have known him for the great gentleman he was.

“Forgive me for prying,” said Benedict. “It is just that my moth — my aunt — seems to be so fond of you, and she particularly mentioned that she wanted us to meet.”

“And she has spoken so often of you,” said Sir Joshua. “I am glad we have met. I have known Amanda only about two years, for I travel widely. I want to see if there is any spot in this world so beautiful as — ”

“As?” said Benedict, when Sir Joshua’s eloquent voice stopped abruptly.

“As a place I know,” said the old man. “I must tell you of it sometime. And you will be the very first to hear of it.” He looked at his ring again.

The gentlemen then rose to join the ladies.

Later, Benedict said cautiously to his aunt, “A wonderful old gentleman, that Sir Joshua Fielding.”

“Isn’t he?” said Amanda, gratified. “I knew you would like each other at once. And all that money, too. Millions of it. Soap and sachets. The servant girls adore them.” She paused and laughed. “I do, also. A little overwhelming, the scent, but such really good soap. Better than Pears and the imported French, I believe.” Her stays creaked, and she said, “I really must go up to bed, my dear. I am not as young as I was. Did Sir Joshua tell you of his immense charities and the yearly fortune he gives to your mutual Church? A fine fellow, dear Joshua.”

Just before he fell asleep Benedict remembered the odd words of Sir Joshua: “I want to see if there is any spot in this world as beautiful as — As a place I know.”

There were some souls, Benedict reflected, who are so pure and innocent and noble, so utterly filled with grace, that they are vouchsafed, in ecstasy, some glimpses of heaven. Was Sir Joshua one of them? His face had been the face of a lover, of a man loving, a man beloved, a man who was young.

Benedict paid visits to some priests he knew in London, and to the Bishop. He sounded them out on the subject of Sir Joshua Fielding. Invariably, their faces became full of light and affection. The Bishop could not speak too highly of the old gentleman. “A true son of the Church,” he said to Benedict. “A saint. He has told me of his will; he has left everything to the Church, including all royalties after his death. There were several winters when I am afraid we’d have almost starved to death here in London if it had not been for Joshua. He does not wait to be asked; he knows at once when others are in need.”