Such was Sally when young Jocelyn married her—mild inside, and only desiring to give satisfaction, and outside a thing that seemed made up of light. As Mr. Pinner had wished to hide her, so did Jocelyn wish to hide her, and wanted to be married in London, the least conspicuous of spots; but technical difficulties prevented this, seeing that he wanted to be married quickly, so he took the Vicar into his confidence, and got a special licence, and thus avoiding banns and publicity was married early one bright March morning, while Woodles, unaware of what was happening, was still washing up its breakfast things.
By this time Jocelyn was acquainted with Sally’s inability to give a plain answer to a question, and half expected her to reply ‘I don’t mind if I do’ to the Vicar when he asked if she would take him, Jocelyn, to be her wedded husband. She didn’t; but if she had he wouldn’t have cared, nor would the Vicar have cared. Whatever she did, whatever she said, was to these two dazzled men the one perfect gesture, the one perfect word.
But Sally, young and shy, said very little. Hardly had she spoken during the brief courtship. To the Vicar, full of awe of his office and his age, she scarcely dared raise her eyes, much less lift up her voice. It was enough, however; the old man was enthralled. Far from being surprised at Jocelyn’s determination to take his name off the books of his college and chuck his promising career and marry Sally and go up to London to pick up his living as a journalist, a profession for which he hadn’t the slightest aptitude, the Vicar understood perfectly. The college authorities, on the other hand, unaware of his reason for ruining himself, were amazed at such deliberate suicide. They had not seen Sally. The Vicar, who had, was convinced the young man was doing the one thing worth doing,—giving up everything to follow after Truth.
‘For is not Truth Beauty, and Beauty Truth?’ asked the Vicar, too old to bother any longer with material considerations.
Jocelyn and he were unanimous that it was.
§
The Vicar, indeed, was an immense comfort to Jocelyn the second and last week of his engagement, for Mr. Pinner was no comfort at all. Not that Jocelyn needed comfort at this marvellous moment; but he needed understanding, some one to talk to, some one who could and would listen intelligently. Mr. Pinner didn’t listen intelligently; he didn’t listen at all. All he did was to say heartily, ‘That’s right,’ to everything Jocelyn said, and such indiscrimination was annoying. It was a deep refreshment to get away from him and go up to the Vicarage, and there, slowly pacing up and down with the old man on the sunny path where the first daffodils were, talk with some one who so completely understood.
The Vicar concluded, from the frequency with which his young friend came to take counsel of him, that he was an orphan, but he asked no questions because he was long past the age of questions. The age of silence was his, of quiet resting on his oars, of a last warming of himself in the light of the sun, before departing hence and being no more seen. By this time, his mind being faintly bleared, he connected Sally with the Nunc Dimittis, and thanked God aloud, greatly to her confusion, for she couldn’t make out what the old gentleman was talking about, for being allowed to see, before departing in peace, the perfect loveliness of her whom he called the Lord’s Salvatia. Fitting and right was the young man’s attitude in the Vicar’s eyes; fitting and right to leave all things, and follow after this child of grace.
His unpractical attitude was immensely grateful to Jocelyn, who knew, though during this strange fortnight of thwarted love-making and arm’s-length worship he managed to forget, that one of the things he was leaving was his mother.