"Come in," said Father Vassall again. "You must be cold. Come and get warm before supper. There's a t-t-topping fire in the p-parlour."
He led the way, bustling forward with a swish of cassock, welcoming, kind. Paul entered the long low library, hung with panels of green cloth, and took in its satisfactory furnishing at a glance. The room rested quietly, waiting for him. With a swift mental comparison, he saw himself arriving at Claxted instead. Then he, too, laughed eagerly, and moved forward to the big open Tudor fireplace.
A log burned there brightly, the "royal flames" leaping in the iron grate behind a high screen. A deep green-brocaded arm-chair stood back in an ingle, a litter of papers on the rug near by, a shaded candle in a tall twisted candlestick throwing a pool of light down upon them. Above the fireplace stood unfamiliar incongruous objects: a white skull-cap that had been Pius IX.'s, in a glass-fronted box, and a black Madonna hung with beads. There was an unframed water-colour too, and a pencil sketch. From the rug, he turned to survey the room. Its bare wood floor reached out into the shadows, save where a goat-skin caught the light. Bookcases with white shelves stood out from the walls. On a stand in a window recess were tall lilies growing in a pot. The marble head of Bernard of Clairvaux, wrapt in contemplation, stood on a bracket; he could just see the aquiline nose, and downcast eyes. There was a solid narrow oak table with a chest below. In a corner there was a hanging lamp, burning dimly, so that one could see to move over there. It glinted on a grand piano. A comfortable chintz-covered chair or two stood about.
His host pulled forward an arm-chair whose elbows ended in carved griffin-heads. "Sit down," he reiterated, "and toast yourself. It is jolly to see you here. How's C-Cambridge?"
Paul drew a deep breath and seated himself. "Fine," he said. "I suppose it exists, by the way," he went on, with a laugh. "We went up four in the Lents. I say, this is just heavenly."
"Good man. Have a cigarette. Supper won't be long."
"Are you very busy, Father? We miss you awfully at Cambridge. When's the next book to appear?"
"I'm so b-b-busy I don't know what to do. Preaching nearly every Sunday, and lectures. I've got to l-lecture to Anglicans on M-Mysticism in t-town on Monday. Oh, I say, they are coming in. Two conversions last week, both c-clergymen and such good fellows. And it's such fun here. There's heaps to do yet. You shall see to-morrow."
"Yes?"
He nodded, wrapping his hands in his cloak and laughing merrily. "Of course, when I came I built a chapel. It's an old barn, much older than the house, thirteenth century they say. It must have been a chapel before, I think; it feels like it. Well, all the village talked, of course. P-Popish treason and p-plot! Bridget told me, and Tim; all the servants are Catholic you know. But I wouldn't let anyone see it, for I'm not here regularly enough to start a new church like that. Perhaps we'll have another priest one day, and a Mission. Of course, if they enquire, that's another story. So, last week when several of them came to Tim and got him to ask me to have a service on Sunday evening, I did. It was full; p-packed. The Wesleyan local preacher came too. We had B-Benediction. Oh, you ought to have been here, my dear. They all sang 'Star of the Sea' b-b-beautifully!"