Buried Alive: a Tale of These Days Part 8

_Priest_: Modern vice.

_Woman_: How charming! I read the last one--it was lovely.

_Priest_: Unless you have a ticket you'll never be able to get in.

_Woman_: But I must get in. I'll come to the vestry door, if there is a vestry door at St. Bede's.

_Priest_: It's impossible. You've no idea of the crush. And I've no favourites.

_Woman_: Oh yes, you have! You have me.

_Priest_: In my church, fashionable women must take their chance with the rest.

_Woman_: How horrid you are.

_Priest_: Perhaps. I may tell you, Miss Cohenson, that I've seen two d.u.c.h.esses standing at the back of the aisle of St. Bede's, and glad to be.

_Woman_: But _I_ shan't flatter you by standing at the back of your aisle, and you needn't think it. Haven't I given you a box before now?

_Priest_: I only accepted the box as a matter of duty; it is part of my duty to go everywhere.

_Man_: Come with me, Miss Cohenson. I've got two tickets for the _Record_.

_Woman_: Oh, so you do send seats to the press?

_Priest_: The press is different. Waiter, bring me half a bottle of Heidsieck.

_Waiter_: Half a bottle of Heidsieck? Yes, sir.

_Woman_: Heidsieck. Well, I like that. _We're_ dieting.

_Priest: I_ don't like Heidsieck. But I'm dieting too. It's my doctor's orders. Every night before retiring. It appears that my system needs it.

Maria Lady Rowndell insists on giving me a hundred a year to pay for it.

It is her own beautiful way of helping the good cause. Ice, please, waiter. I've just been seeing her to-night. She's staying here for the season. Saves her a lot of trouble. She's very much cut up about the death of Priam Farll, poor thing! So artistic, you know! The late Lord Rowndell had what is supposed to be the finest lot of Farlls in England.

_Man_: Did you ever meet Priam Farll, Father Luke?

_Priest_: Never. I understand he was most eccentric. I hate eccentricity. I once wrote to him to ask him if he would paint a Holy Family for St. Bede's.

_Man_: And what did he reply?

_Priest_: He didn't reply. Considering that he wasn't even an R.A., I don't think that it was quite nice of him. However, Maria Lady Rowndell insists that he must be buried in Westminster Abbey. She asked me what I could do.

_Woman_: Buried in Westminster Abbey! I'd no idea he was so big as all that! Gracious!

_Priest_: I have the greatest confidence in Maria Lady Rowndell's taste, and certainly I bear no grudge. I may be able to arrange something. My uncle the Dean----

_Man_: Pardon me. I always understood that since you left the Church----

_Priest_: Since I joined the Church, you mean. There is but one.

_Man_: Church of England, I meant.

_Priest_: Ah!

_Man_: Since you left the Church of England, there had been a breach between the Dean and yourself.

_Priest_: Merely religious. Besides my sister is the Dean's favourite niece. And I am her favourite brother. My sister takes much interest in art. She has just painted a really exquisite tea-cosy for me. Of course the Dean ultimately settles these questions of national funerals, Hence...

At this point the invisible orchestra began to play "G.o.d save the King."

_Woman_: Oh! What a bore!

Then nearly all the lights were extinguished.

_Waiter_: Please, gentlemen! Gentlemen, please!

_Priest_: You quite understand, Mr. Docksey, that I merely gave these family details in order to substantiate my statement that I may be able to arrange something. By the way, if you would care to have a typescript of my sermon to-morrow for the _Record_, you can have one by applying at the vestry.

_Waiter_: Please, gentlemen!

_Man_: So good of you. As regards the burial in Westminster Abbey, I think that the _Record_ will support the project. I say I _think_.

_Priest_: Maria Lady Rowndell will be grateful.

Five-sixths of the remaining lights went out, and the entire company followed them. In the foyer there was a prodigious crush of opera cloaks, silk hats, and cigars, all jostling together. News arrived from the Strand that the weather had turned to rain, and all the intellect of the Grand Babylon was centred upon the British climate, exactly as if the British climate had been the latest discovery of science. As the doors swung to and fro, the stridency of whistles, the throbbing of motor-cars, and the hoa.r.s.e cries of inhabitants of box seats mingled strangely with the delicate babble of the interior. Then, lo! as by magic, the foyer was empty save for the denizens of the hotel who could produce evidence of ident.i.ty. It had been proved to demonstration, for the sixth time that week, that in the metropolis of the greatest of Empires there is not one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Deeply affected by what he had overheard, Priam Farll rose in a lift and sought his bed. He perceived clearly that he had been among the governing cla.s.ses of the realm.

CHAPTER IV

_A Scoop_

Within less than twelve hours after that conversation between members of the governing cla.s.ses at the Grand Babylon Hotel, Priam Farll heard the first deep-throated echoes of the voice of England on the question of his funeral. The voice of England issued on this occasion through the mouth of the _Sunday News_, a newspaper which belonged to Lord Nasing, the proprietor of the _Daily Record_. There was a column in the _Sunday News_, partly concerning the meeting of Priam Farll and a celebrated star of the musical comedy stage at Ostend. There was also a leading article, in which it was made perfectly clear that England would stand ashamed among the nations, if she did not inter her greatest painter in Westminster Abbey. Only the article, instead of saying Westminster Abbey, said National Valhalla. It seemed to make a point of not mentioning Westminster Abbey by name, as though Westminster Abbey had been something not quite mentionable, such as a pair of trousers. The article ended with the word 'basilica,' and by the time you had reached this majestic substantive, you felt indeed, with the _Sunday News_, that a National Valhalla without the remains of a Priam Farll inside it, would be shocking, if not inconceivable.

Priam Farll was extremely disturbed.

On Monday morning the _Daily Record_ came n.o.bly to the support of the _Sunday News_. It had evidently spent its Sunday in collecting the opinions of a number of famous men--including three M.P.'s, a banker, a Colonial premier, a K.C., a cricketer, and the President of the Royal Academy--as to whether the National Valhalla was or was not a suitable place for the repose of the remains of Priam Farll; and the unanimous reply was in the affirmative. Other newspapers expressed the same view.

But there were opponents of the scheme. Some organs coldly inquired what Priam Farll had _done_ for England, and particularly for the higher life of England. He had not been a moral painter like Hogarth or Sir Noel Paton, nor a worshipper of cla.s.sic legend and beauty like the unique Leighton. He had openly scorned England. He had never lived in England.

He had avoided the Royal Academy, honouring every country save his own.

And was he such a great painter, after all? Was he anything but a clever dauber whose work had been forced into general admiration by the efforts of a small clique of eccentric admirers? Far be it from them, the organs, to decry a dead man, but the National Valhalla was the National Valhalla.... And so on.