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‘Oh no, only if it’s that sort of a day!’ said Vicky.
Sir William was still turning this remark over in his mind when the butler came in to announce that dinner was served. He found it so incomprehensible that presently, when he had taken a seat at Ermyntrude’s right hand in the dining-room and found that Vicky had been placed on his other side, he inquired what she had meant by it.
‘Well,’ said Vicky confidingly, ‘I don’t always feel Edwardian: in fact, practically never.’
‘Indeed! May I ask if helping one’s mother is now thought to be an Edwardian habit?’
‘Oh yes, definitely!’ Vicky assured him.
‘I am afraid I am sadly behind the times. Perhaps you are one of these young women who follow careers of their own?’
‘It’s so difficult to make up one’s mind,’ said Vicky, shaking sugar over her melon. ‘Sometimes I think I should like to go on the stage, and then I think perhaps not, on account of boarding-houses, and travelling about in trains, which makes me sick. And I do rather feel that it might be awfully exhausting, living for one’s art. It’s a bit like having a Mission in Life, which sounds grand, but really isn’t much fun, as far as I can make out.’
‘All striving after art, and personal careers must go to the wall,’ announced Mrs Bawtry, who happened to have been silent for long enough to have overheard some part of this interchange. ‘The only things that count are Absolute Truth, and Absolute Love.’
‘Dear Connie, not absolute truth, surely?’ demurred Lady Dering. ‘It wouldn’t be at all comfortable, besides often becoming quite impossible.’
‘If only you would become God-controlled you’d find how easy everything is!’ said Mrs Bawtry earnestly.
‘I saw a play once about speaking nothing but the truth,’ remarked Wally. ‘I remember I laughed a lot. It was very well done. Very funny indeed.’
‘A great many people,’ said Mrs Bawtry, who had her own way of forcing any conversation back to the channel of her choosing, ‘think that if you belong to the Group you have to become deadly serious. But that’s utterly false, and if ever you come to one of our House-Parties you’ll see how jolly religion can be.’
Wally looked a good deal surprised by this, and said dubiously: ‘Well, I dare say you know best, but all I can say is, it never seemed jolly to me.’
‘That’s because you haven’t been Changed!’ said Mrs Bawtry. ‘Why don’t you throw off all your foolish inhibitions, and join the march of the Christian revolution?’
Sir William had been trying to shut out the sound of this painful conversation by talking to his hostess, but these last words, uttered, as they were, in triumphant accents, made him break off what he was saying to demand: ‘Christian what ?’
‘Christian revolution!’ repeated Mrs Bawtry, unabashed. ‘Our God-confident armies are marching to rout the troops of chaos, and moral-rot.’
‘Here, I say, Connie!’ protested her husband uncomfortably. ‘Steady on!’
Hugh, who was seated between Connie Bawtry and Vicky, rather sacrificingly drew Connie’s fire. ‘I went to one of your meetings once,’ he said.
‘You did? I’m so glad!’ Connie said enthusiastically. ‘Now, tell me, what did you think of it?’
‘Well,’ said Hugh, ‘I was rather disappointed.’
‘Disappointed!’
‘Yes,’ he said, helping himself from the dish that was being offered to him. ‘There seemed to me to be a depressing lack of spirituality about the whole proceeding. A lot of people got up one by one to address the meeting, but, without wanting to be offensive, Connie, I honestly couldn’t see th
at they had any kind of message for us. What some of the members seemed to me to be suffering from was spiritual conceit in an aggravated form.’
This speech naturally made Connie feel extremely angry, and she had to pin the regulation smile rather firmly to her face. ‘You are utterly wrong!’ she said.
‘What’s more,’ continued Hugh, ‘I couldn’t for the life of me see why the platform was draped with a Union Jack.’
‘The rebirth of an Empire!’
‘But, my dear Connie, what has the Empire got to do with a religious revival?’
‘A lot of pernicious tomfoolery!’ declared Sir William roundly.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir! It was all quite innocuous as far as I could see.’
‘You think you’re annoying me, but I assure you you’re not!’ said Connie, not very convincingly. ‘If ever you learn the three lessons of Absolute Truth, Absolute Honesty, and Absolute Love, you’ll know how impossible it is for me to be annoyed by mere, silly, uninformed criticism.’
