Gervase felt rather angry with Peter. He was angry to think that he who had the power was divided as to the will. How was it possible that he could stumble at such a choice? What was money, position, land or inheritance compared to simple, solid happiness?... He buried his face in the pillow, and a kind of horror seized him at the cruel ways of things. It was as if a bogey was in the room—the kind that used to be there when he was a child, but no longer visible in the heeling shadows round the nightlight, rather an invisible sickness, the fetish of the Alards dancing in triumph over Stella and Peter.
It was strange that he should be so hurt by what was after all not his tragedy—he was not really in love with Stella, only felt that, given freedom for her and a few more years for him, he could have been and would have been. And he was not so much hurt as frightened. He was afraid because life seemed to him at once so trivial and so gross. The things over which people agonised were, after all, small shoddy things—earth and halfpence; to see them have such power to crush hopes and deform lives was like seeing a noble tree eaten up by insects. In time he too would be eaten up ... No, no! He must save himself, somehow. He must find happiness somewhere. But how?
When he tried to think, he was afraid. He remembered what he used to do in the old days when he was so dreadfully afraid in this room. He used to draw up his knees to his chin and pray—pray frantically in his fear. That was before he had heard about the Ninety-nine Just Sheep being left for the one that was lost; directly he had heard that story he had given up saying his prayers, for fear he should be a Just Sheep, when he would so much rather be the lost one, because the shepherd loved it and had carried it in his arms.... He must have been a queer sort of kid. Now all that was gone—religion ... the school chapel, confirmation classes, manly Christians, the Bishop’s sleeves ... he could scarcely realise those dim delicate raptures he had had as a child—his passionate interest in that dear Friend and God walking the earth ... all the wonderful things he had pondered in his heart. Religion was so different after you were grown up. It became an affair of earth and halfpence like everything else.
Stella’s religion still seemed to have some colour left in it, some life, some youth. It was more like his childhood’s faith than anything he had met so far. She had told him tonight that there were two Christmas trees in church, one each side of the Altar, all bright with the glass balls and birds that had made his childhood’s Christmas trees seem almost supernatural.... Yggdrasils decked for the eternal Yule ... he was falling asleep.... He was sorry for Stella. She had told him too about the Christmas Crib, the little straw house she had built in the church for Mary and Joseph and the Baby, for the ox and the ass and the shepherds and their dogs and the lambs they could not leave behind.... She had told him that she never thought of Christ as being born in Bethlehem, but in the barn at the back of the Plough Inn at Udimore.... He saw the long road running into the sunrise, wet and shining, red with an angry morning. Someone was coming along it carrying a lamb ... was it the lost sheep—or just one of the lambs the shepherds could not leave behind? ... all along the road the trees were hung with glass balls and many-coloured birds. He could feel Stella beside him, though he could not see her. She was trying to make him come with her to the inn. She was saying “Come, Peter—oh, do come, Peter,” and he seemed to be Peter going with her. Then suddenly he knew he was not Peter, and the earth roared and the trees flew up into the sky, which shook and flamed.... He must be falling asleep.
§ 13
Gervase’s feelings towards Alard being what they were, anybody might wonder he should think of giving up Oxford for the family’s sake. Indeed, he almost changed his mind in the throes of that wakeful, resentful night, and resolved to take his expensive way to Christ’s or Balliol. But by morning he had come to see himself more clearly and to laugh at his own pretences. He wasn’t “giving up” Oxford—he didn’t want to go there—he had always shrunk from the thought of Oxford life with its patterns and conventions—and then at the end of it he would still be his father’s youngest son, drawing a youngest son’s allowance from depleted coffers. He would far rather learn his job as an engineer and win an early independence. Going to his work every morning, meeting all sorts of men, rough and smooth, no longer feeling irrevocably shut up in a class, a cult, a tradition ... in that way he might really win freedom and defy the house of Alard. “My name’s Gervase Alard,” he said to himself—“and I’m damned if Gervase shall be sacrificed to Alard, for he’s the most important of the two.”
If only he could persuade his father to see as he saw—not quite, of course, but near enough to let him make a start. Peter had not seen very well, still he had nearly agreed when the argument was broken up. Sir John must be found in a propitious hour.
The next day provided none such, for Christmas had not unexpectedly brought a return of the Squire’s twinges, but these passed off with unusual quickness, and on Innocents’ Day his indomitable pluck mounted him once again on his grey horse to ride round the farms. Gervase found him finishing his breakfast when he came down for his own, and seeing by whip and gaiters what was planned, he realised that a favourable time had come. So he rushed into his request while he was helping himself to bacon.
To his surprise his father heard him without interruption.
“Have you any bent for engineering?” he asked at the end.