Stephen walked out of Brighton station among a throng of holiday makers. He allowed them to carry him with them in the direction of the front. The beach was a mass of warm, untidy humanity, the sea scarcely audible above the clamour of thousands of chattering, laughing, screaming voices. To a philanthropist the spectacle would have been a pleasing one. It made Stephen feel slightly sick. He was reminded of pictures he had seen of a colony of nesting gannets. The same ridiculous herding instinct, the same insensate noise, the same abominable mess that would be left behind them when they were gone. The only difference was that their droppings were newspapers and cigarette cartons, and in that respect the advantage seemed to him all on the side of the birds. Guano was of some use, at all events. . . .
He remained for some time staring at the crowds. He told himself more than once that he was wasting his time—that he had not come down there to watch a crowd of fools enjoying themselves. None the less, a full quarter of an hour had gone by before he could bring himself to leave the front, and when he did so he walked away with lagging footsteps. He felt a very decided reluctance towards his task, not that he had any particular qualms at invading the privacy of strangers, but simply because he felt morally certain that this particular line of inquiry would prove fruitless. But it obviously had to be investigated, and his one hope now was that Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs would prove to be at home and amenable to his blandishments. Otherwise he might find himself faced with the necessity of spending a night away from home, and he grudged the expense.
As he went, he nervously fingered the little manual on medieval English brasses in his pocket. The one clue to Carstairs’ interests or character was the chance reference in Elderson’s report to the fact that he had delayed his departure from the hotel in order to obtain a rubbing from Pendlebury church. Stephen remembered a contemporary at school with a passion for this odd amusement. He was the only boy in the school to possess this interest, and, being unique, was naturally enough regarded as to that extent contemptible. His study was hung with long sheets of paper, bearing smudgy black figures, the fruit of long and solitary bicycle expeditions to distant churches. Stephen had never paid the smallest attention to them, except once, when an exceptionally acute phase of dislike for the young antiquarian had inspired him and half a dozen others to smash up the study furniture and destroy most of the rubbings. Having thus spurned the opportunity to acquire knowledge, he had now been reduced to mugging up the subject as best he could in the train. If Carstairs turned out to be a real expert, his ignorance would be exposed in no time.
Ormidale Crescent proved to be a street of respectable Regency houses, not very far from the sea, but a world away in spirit from the charabancs and trippers of the front. It was a positive shock to see a bathing-dress hanging out to dry on one of the elegant wrought-iron balustrades. The thing looked as much out of place there as a clothes line in Belgrave Square. No such incongruity defaced the narrow front of No. 14. On the other hand, the house hardly came up to the standard of its neighbours in the matter of cleanliness. Its windows were opaque with dirt, its doorstep was a sooty grey, and the condition of the door-knocker showed that the household’s interest in brass did not extend to the secular work of the nineteenth century.
A sullen and slovenly maid came to the door after Stephen had rung the bell two or three times. Asked whether Mr. Carstairs lived there, she answered grudgingly that he did. Was he at home? No, was the reply, he was at the church. The tone in which this was said clearly implied that the questioner was a fool for expecting him to be anywhere else. When would he be back? The maid couldn’t say for sure. As an afterthought she observed that he would not be home for his lunch. And Mrs. Carstairs? She was at church too. And the door slammed.
Stephen walked away up the Crescent feeling decidedly annoyed with himself. He had completely failed to take account of the fact that it was Sunday, and that there were still people who went to church on Sunday mornings. Now he would have to kill time until Mr. Carstairs should have come back from his lunch, whenever that might be. He had gone some way before the significance of something said by the maid struck his mind. He had noticed at the time that she had said, “Mr. Carstairs is at the church,” and not “at church.” There might be nothing in it, but it seemed an odd phrase to employ. It had an almost proprietary air. She had said it in just the same way that a stockbroker’s servant would have told him, “Mr. Smith is at the office.” Was that the explanation? Was Mr. Carstairs at the church for the same reason that Mr. Smith would have been at the office—because it was his job? True, there was nothing in Elderson’s report to indicate that he was a parson, but it remained a possibility.
At this point he passed a telephone kiosk, and it occurred to him to do what any moderately efficient detective would have done in the first place; namely, to turn up Mr. Carstairs’ entry in the directory. Sure enough, it ran: “Carstairs, Rev. E. M. J.” So that settled the point! Clergymen were comparatively approachable people, at all events, and if he could once get into touch with this one, he had little doubt that he would be able to make him talk. But he still cursed his luck in having to hang about until the afternoon before he could begin.
A little further on a pinched Gothic façade in grey stone broke the suave frontage of stucco. Was this “the” church? he wondered. It was worth trying, at all events. With a vague idea of assuming the role of an earnest inquirer in the vestry after the service, he made his way in. At the worst, it was as good a way of getting through the next half-hour as any other.
The service had been in progress some time. He entered just as a portly old gentleman was declaiming from the lectern, “Here Endeth the First Lesson.” A verger emerged from somewhere in the shadows and propelled him into a seat as the congregation rose for the Psalms. He was placed well at the back of the church and was striving to get a view of the face attached to the surpliced figure at the other end, when he was aware that his arm was being squeezed by his neighbour in the pew. Glancing round, he found himself looking into the face of his Aunt Lucy.
“Stephen! What a surprise finding you here!” she whispered.
Stephen smiled, nodded and hastily fumbled for his place in the greasy Prayer Book which the verger had provided. Here was a complication! There was nothing particularly surprising about the meeting, now he came to think of it, for he recollected that Aunt Lucy had mentioned when they last met after the funeral that she and George were thinking of going for a few weeks to Brighton; and the chances of finding Aunt Lucy in church on a Sunday morning might be safely computed at odds on. Stephen’s private opinion was that she went there to get away from Uncle George. And if he had to meet any of his family here she would certainly have been his first choice. But he had not come to Brighton to meet her, but Carstairs. Now there would have to be explanations, chatter, and more time wasted. And Uncle George would be certain to make a nuisance of himself if he possibly could. . . .
“Will you come back to lunch with us afterwards?” hissed Aunt Lucy as the doxology ended.
He shook his head.
“Sorry. I don’t think I can manage it,” he whispered back.
“Oh, do! You’ll help me out with the Carstairs,” was the astonishing rejoinder.
“Good Lord!” Stephen exclaimed almost out loud.
Aunt Lucy shot a reproachful glance at him as she sat back in her pew, while “Here Beginneth” boomed out from the lectern.
So it came about that after all his apprehensions Stephen found himself being introduced in a perfectly normal way to Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs. He had returned with his aunt after the service to their hotel. There they had found Uncle George, hot and peevish after an unsuccessful morning’s golf. The account of his misfortunes and the catalogue of his partner’s short-comings sufficed to fill up the interval before the arrival of the guests, and Stephen was able without difficulty to stave off any inquiries as to the reason for his presence in Brighton.
The Reverend E. M. J. Carstairs proved to be a fleshy, beetle-browed man of middle age. He was not, Stephen learned from his aunt, the regular incumbent of the church which he had attended that morning, but was merely “taking duty” during the absence of the vicar on holiday. Aunt Lucy, with her passion for all things ecclesiastical, had collected him, as she always collected parsons, as naturally as a child picking wild flowers. He lived in Brighton, whither he had retired two or three years before on giving up a missionary post abroad. He was a fluent talker on many subjects, but principally about himself, and his tones were loud and self-important. Evidently in his own eyes he was a person of consequence. It was some time before Stephen so much as noticed Mrs. Carstairs. Beside him, she was not a particularly noticeable person. She was small, mousy and ill-dressed, with a thin little mouth and very bright eyes. But it soon became apparent that she was very far from being in awe of her husband. She gave a taste of her quality quite early in the proceedings.
“I’ve met you before, haven’t I?” said Mr. Carstairs to Stephen as they sat down to lunch.
Stephen denied having ever had that pleasure.
“Seen you before, anyhow.”
“I think not.”
“My husband,” observed Mrs. Carstairs to the table in general, “is always saying that sort of thing to perfect strangers. He has in fact a shocking memory for faces. It really used to be very awkward when we were living out East, where one native looks exactly like another in any case. So you mustn’t mind what he says, Mr. Dickinson.”
Mr. Carstairs looked extremely uncomfortable and said no more. Aunt Lucy shot a look of admiration at the courageous wife, who continued to eat her lunch with perfect sang-froid.
By the time they had reached coffee she had twice corrected anecdotes of her husband’s about his experiences in the missionary field, and once flatly contradicted Uncle George when he ventured on a generalization on the subject of China. Otherwise she had contributed little to the conversation. Mr. Carstairs was meekness itself under her corrections, while Uncle George was so astonished at her temerity that by the end of the meal he had become gloomily silent. Stephen derived a certain amusement from the spectacle, but apart from that it did not seem as if the afternoon was going to show much profit after all. The atmosphere, however, changed completely after lunch, when Aunt Lucy inveigled Mrs. Carstairs up to her room on some pretext or another. With undisguised relief Uncle George led the way to the smoking-room, cigars were produced, and the comfortable illusion of masculine predominance was re-established.
“What you’ll never get people to understand about China—” said Uncle George, and proceeded to restate with emphasis the fallacy which Mrs. Carstairs had exposed ten minutes before.
“I absolutely agree with you,” said Mr. Carstairs heartily.
The two he-men nodded their heads in concert, and the feast of reason proceeded harmoniously, to the complete exclusion of Stephen. Presently—
“Would you care for a liqueur, Carstairs?”
“Well—er—it’s very good of you. I hardly care to, just at present.” He fingered his clerical collar. “It was different the other day. I was in mufti then. Ha, Ha! As a matter of fact I never wear this unless I am actually—”
“Don’t talk so much. Go on, a liqueur can’t hurt you.”
“Well, well . . .”
Over his liqueur Mr. Carstairs became quite confiding.
“My wife—” he said haltingly. “I don’t think you’ve met my wife before today, Mr. Dickinson?”
“No,” said Uncle George, his cigar clenched between his teeth, “I haven’t.”
“She’s been in London all the week. I’ve been quite a grass widower down here. Ha, Ha!” For some incomprehensible reason this simple statement of fact was apparently expected to be regarded as humorous. “She’s a very remarkable woman in many ways.”
“I dare say.” George’s rudeness would have been obvious to anyone not gifted with an unusually thick skin.
“She is, I assure you. She doesn’t spend her time in London amusing herself, I can tell you that! Ha, Ha!”
From the look on George’s face it was apparent that he was quite prepared to believe it. He made no comment, and it was left for Stephen to keep the conversation going.
“What does she do, exactly?” he asked.
“She works,” replied Mr. Carstairs complacently. “Work is the very breath of her nostrils. Naturally I miss her. A house without a woman’s guiding hand is only half a home. But I am an old campaigner, and, though I say it, I make shift very well by myself.”
Stephen remembered the dilapidated aspect of the house in Ormidale Crescent and shuddered.
“My own interests are mainly of a more scholarly character,” the parson went on. “Since my retirement I have busied myself in antiquarian pursuits—of an ecclesiastical nature, of course. I don’t know whether you are at all interested in our grand old medieval brasses, sir?”
He addressed George. But George, his cigar gone out, was dozing in his chair.
“As a matter of fact, I am rather interested—” Stephen began, but Mr. Carstairs was off again.
“But my wife remains heart and soul in her work,” he went on. “Work that I am happy to say does not go unrewarded, in the material sense, I mean. And what splendid work it is! She is Organizing Secretary of the Society for the Relief of Distress amongst the Widows of Professional Men—the S.R.D.W.P.M. Rather a mouthful that, eh? We call it the R.D. for short. Perhaps the initials are more familiar to you in another connexion, my young friend? Ha, Ha!” (Stephen was furious to find himself flushing at this point. They were, indeed, sickeningly familiar.) “A wonderful organization, but ill-supported, alas! Indeed, had it not been for a fortunate windfall the other day, it might have—”
He stopped abruptly, and the sudden ceasing of the soothing flow of words awakened George, who opened his eyes and sat up.
“Where the devil’s your aunt?” said George to Stephen, crossly, struggling stiffly to get up. “Time we went out to get up an appetite for tea.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Carstairs, “it’s getting quite late. I wonder where my wife has got to.”
Fortunately the ladies appeared at this point, and the party broke up. Stephen took his leave as soon as he decently could, and made his way back to the station. He wondered as he went why the name of the Society for the Relief of Distress amongst the Widows of Professional Men seemed familiar. It was not until his train had nearly reached Victoria that he remembered.
On the whole, he reported to Anne when they met, the day had not been completely wasted.