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The Altar Steps by Compton MacKenzie

C >> Compton MacKenzie >> The Altar Steps




"You're spoiling me, Mark Anthony," he said one day. "There's nothing
for me to do this evening."

"I know," Mark agreed contentedly. "I want to give you a rest for once."

"Rest?" the priest echoed. "You don't seriously expect a fat man like me
to sit down in an armchair and rest, do you? Besides, you've got your
own reading to do, and you didn't come to Chatsea as my punkah walla."

Mark insisted that he was getting along in his own way quite fast
enough, and that he had plenty of time on his hands to keep Father
Rowley's correspondence in some kind of order.

"All these other people have any amount to do," said Mark. "Cartwright
has his boys every evening and Warrender has his men."

"And Mark Anthony has nothing but a fat, poverty-stricken, slothful
mission priest," Father Rowley gurgled.

"Yes, and you're more trouble than all the rest put together. Look here,
I've written to the Bishop's chaplain about that confirmation; I
explained why we wanted to hold a special confirmation for these two
boys we are emigrating, and he has written back to say that the Bishop
has no objection to a special confirmation's being held by the Bishop of
Matabeleland when he comes to stay here next week. At the same time, he
says the Bishop doesn't want it to become a precedent."

"No. I can quite understand that," Father Rowley chuckled. "Bishops are
haunted by the creation of precedents. A precedent in the life of a
bishop is like an illegitimate child in the life of a respectable
churchwarden. No, the only thing I fear is that if I devour all your
spare time you won't get quite what you wanted to get by coming to live
with us."

He laid a fat hand on Mark's shoulder.

"Please don't bother about me," said Mark. "I get all I want and more
than I expected if I can be of the least use to you. I know I'm rather
disappointing you by not behaving like half the people who come down
here and want to get up a concert on Monday, a dance on Tuesday, a
conjuring entertainment on Wednesday, a street procession on Thursday, a
day of intercession on Friday, and an amateur dramatic entertainment on
Saturday, not to mention acting as ceremonarius on Sunday. I know you'd
like me to propose all sorts of energetic diversions, so that you could
have the pleasure of assuring me that I was only proposing them to
gratify my own vanity, which of course would be perfectly true. Luckily
I'm of a retiring disposition, and I don't want to do anything to help
the ten thousand benighted parishioners of Saint Agnes', except
indirectly by striving to help in my own feeble way the man who really
is helping them. Now don't throw that inkpot at me, because the room's
quite dirty enough already, and as I've made you sit still for five
minutes I've achieved something this evening that mighty few people
have achieved in Keppel Street. I believe the only time you really rest
is in the confessional box."

"Mark Anthony, Mark Anthony," said the priest, "you talk a great deal
too much. Come along now, it's bedtime."

One of the rules of the Mission House was that every inmate should be in
bed by ten o'clock and all lights out by a quarter past. The day began
with Mass at seven o'clock at which everybody was expected to be
present; and from that time onward everybody was so fully occupied that
it was essential to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Guests who came down
for a night or two were often apt to forget how much the regular workers
had to do and what a tax it put upon the willing servants to manage a
house of which nobody could say ten minutes before a meal how many would
sit down to it, nor even until lights out for how many people beds must
be made. In case any guest should forget this rule by coming back after
ten o'clock, Father Rowley made a point of having the front door bell to
ring in his bedroom, so that he might get out of bed at any hour of the
night and admit the loiterer. Guests were warned what would be the
effect of their lack of consideration, and it was seldom that Father
Rowley was disturbed.

Among the guests there was one class of which a representative was
usually to be found at the Mission House. This was the drunken
clergyman, which sounds as if there was at this date a high proportion
of drunken clergymen in the Church of England; but which means that when
one did come to St. Agnes' he usually stayed for a long time, because he
would in most cases have been sent there when everybody else had
despaired of him to see what Father Rowley could effect.

About the time when Mark was beginning to be recognized as Father
Rowley's personal vassal, it happened that the Reverend George Edward
Mousley who had been handed on from diocese to diocese during the last
five years had lately reached the Mission House. For more than two
months now he had spent his time inconspicuously reading in his own
room, and so well had he behaved, so humbly had he presented himself to
the notice of his fellow guests, that Father Rowley was moved one
afternoon to dictate a letter about him to Mark, who felt that the
Missioner by taking him so far into his confidence had surrendered to
his pertinacity and that thenceforth he might consider himself
established as his private secretary.

"The letter is to the Lord Bishop Suffragan of Warwick, St. Peter's
Rectory, Warwick," Father Rowley began. "My dear Bishop of Warwick, I
have now had poor Mousley here for two months. It is not a long time in
which to effect a lasting reformation of one who has fallen so often and
so grievously, but I think you know me well enough not to accuse me of
being too sanguine about drunken priests. I have had too many of them
here for that. In his case however I do feel justified in asking you to
agree with me in letting him have an opportunity to regain the respect
due to himself and the reverence due to his priesthood by being allowed
once more to the altar. I should not dream of allowing him to officiate
without your permission, because his sad history has been so much a
personal burden to yourself. I'm afraid that after the many
disappointments he has inflicted upon you, you will be doubtful of my
judgment. Yet I do think that the critical moment has arrived when by
surprising him thus we might clinch the matter of his future behaviour
once and for all. His conduct here has been so humble and patient and in
every way exemplary that my heart bleeds for him. Therefore, my dear
Bishop of Warwick, I hope you will agree to what I firmly trust will be
the completion of his spiritual cure. I am writing to you quite
impersonally and informally, as you see, so that in replying to me you
will not be involving yourself in the affairs of another diocese. You
will, of course, put me down as much a Jesuit as ever in writing to you
like this, but you will equally, I know, believe me to be, Yours ever
affectionately in Our Blessed Lord.

"And I'll sign it as soon as you can type it out," Father Rowley wound
up.

"Oh, I do hope he will agree," Mark exclaimed.

"He will," the Missioner prophesied. "He will because he is a wise and
tender and godly man and therefore will never be more than a Bishop
Suffragan as long as he lives. Mark!"

Mark looked up at the severity of the tone.

"Mark! Correct me when I fall into the habit of sneering at the
episcopate."

That night Father Rowley was attending a large temperance demonstration
in the Town Hall for the purpose of securing if possible a smaller
proportion of public houses than one for every eighty of the population,
which was the average for Chatsea. The meeting lasted until nearly ten
o'clock; and it had already struck the hour when Father Rowley with Mark
and two or three others got back to Keppel Street. There was nothing
Father Rowley disliked so much as arriving home himself after ten, and
he hurried up to his room without inquiring if everybody was in.

Mark's window looked out on Keppel Street; and the May night being warm
and his head aching from the effects of the meeting, he sat for nearly
an hour at the open window gazing down at the passers by. There was not
much to see, nothing more indeed than couples wandering home, a
bluejacket or two, an occasional cat, and a few women carrying jugs of
beer. By eleven o'clock even this slight traffic had ceased, and there
was nothing down the silent street except a salt wind from the harbour
that roused a memory of the beach at Nancepean years ago when he had sat
there watching the glow-worm and decided to be a lighthouse-keeper
keeping his lamps bright for mariners homeward bound. It was of streets
like Keppel Street that they would have dreamed, with the Stag Light
winking to port, and the west wind blowing strong astern. What a
lighthouse-keeper Father Rowley was! How except by the grace of God
could one explain such goodness as his? Fashions in saintliness might
change, but there was one kind of saint that always and for every creed
spoke plainly of God's existence, such saints as St. Francis of Assisi
or St. Anthony of Padua, who were manifestly the heirs of Christ. With
what a tender cynicism Our Lord had called St. Peter to be the
foundation stone of His Church, with what a sorrowful foreboding of the
failure of Christianity. Such a choice appeared as the expression of
God's will not to be let down again as He was let down by Adam. Jesus
Christ, conscious at the moment of what He must shortly suffer at the
hands of mankind, must have been equally conscious of the failure of
Christianity two thousand years beyond His Agony and Bloody Sweat and
Crucifixion. Why, within a short time after His life on earth it was
necessary for that light from heaven to shine round about Saul on the
Damascus road, because already scoffers, while the disciples were still
alive, may have been talking about the failure of Christianity. It must
have been another of God's self-imposed limitations that He did not give
to St. John that capacity of St. Paul for organization which might have
made practicable the Christianity of the master Who loved him. _Woman,
behold thy son! Behold thy mother!_ That dying charge showed that Our
Lord considered John the most Christlike of His disciples, and he
remained the most Christlike man until twelve hundred years later St.
Francis was born at Assisi. St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Dominic, if
Christianity could only produce mighty individualists of Faith like
them, it could scarcely have endured as it had endured. _And now abideth
faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
charity._ There was something almost wistful in those words coming from
the mouth of St. Paul. It was scarcely conceivable that St. John or St.
Francis could ever have said that; it would scarcely have struck either
that the three virtues were separable.

Keppel Street was empty now. Mark's headache had been blown away by the
night wind with his memories and the incoherent thoughts which had
gathered round the contemplation of Father Rowley's character. He was
just going to draw away from the window and undress when he caught sight
of a figure tacking from one pavement to the other up Keppel Street.
Mark watched its progress, amused at the extraordinary amount of trouble
it was giving itself, until one tack was brought to a sharp conclusion
by a lamp-post to which the figure clung long enough to be recognized as
that of the Reverend George Edward Mousley, who had been tacking like
this to make the harbour of the Mission House. Mark, remembering the
letter which had been written to the Bishop of Warwick, wondered if he
could not at any rate for to-night spare Father Rowley the
disappointment of knowing that his plea for re-instatement was already
answered by the drunken priest himself. He must make up his mind
quickly, because even with the zigzag course Mousley was taking he would
soon be ringing the bell of the Mission House, which meant that Father
Rowley would be woken up and go down to let him in. Of course, he would
have to know all about it in the morning, but to-night when he had gone
to bed tired and full of hope for temperance in general and the
reformation of Mousley in particular it was surely right to let him
sleep in ignorance. Mark decided to take it upon himself to break the
rules of the house, to open the door to Mousley, and if possible to get
him upstairs to bed quietly. He went down with a lighted candle, crept
across the gymnasium, and opened the door. Mousley was still tacking
from pavement to pavement and making very little headway against a
strong current of drink. Mark thought he had better go out and offer his
services as pilot, because Mousley was beginning to sing an
extraordinary song in which the tune and the words of _Good-bye, Dolly,
I must leave you_, had got mixed up with _O happy band of pilgrims_.

"Look here, Mr. Mousley, you mustn't sing now," said Mark taking hold of
the arm with which the drunkard was trying to beat time. "It's after
eleven o'clock, and you're just outside the Mission House."

"I've been just outside the Mission House for an hour and three
quarters, old chap," said Mr. Mousley solemnly. "Most incompatible thing
I've ever known. I got back here at a quarter past nine, and I was just
going to walk in when the house took two paces to the rear, and I've
been walking after it the whole evening. Most incompatible thing I've
ever known. Most incompatible thing that's ever happened to me in my
life, Lidderdale. If I were a superstitious man, which I'm not, I should
say the house was bewitched. If I had a moment to spare, I should sit
down at once and write an account of my most incompatible experience to
the Society of Psychical Research, if I were a superstitious man, which
I'm not. Yes. . . ."

Mr. Mousley tried to focus his glassy eyes upon the arcana of
spiritualism, rocking ambiguously the while upon the kerb. Mark murmured
something more about the need for going in quietly.

"It's very kind of you to come out and talk to me like this," the
drunken priest went on. "But what you ought to have done was to have
kept hold of the house for a minute or two so as to give me time to get
in quietly. Now we shall probably both be out here all night trying to
get in quietly. It's impossible to keep warm by this lamp-post. Most
inadequate heating arrangement. It is a lamp-post, isn't it? Yes, I
thought it was. I had a fleeting impression that it was my bedroom
candle, but I see now that I was mistaken, I see now perfectly clearly
that it is a lamp-post, if not two. Of course, that may account for my
not being able to get into the Mission House. I was trying to decide
which front door I should go in by, and while I was waiting I think I
must have gone in by the wrong one, for I hit my nose a most severe blow
on the nose. One has to remember to be very careful with front doors. Of
course, if it was my own house I should have used a latch-key instanter;
for I inevitably, I mean invariably, carry a latch-key about with me and
when it won't open my front door I use it to wind my watch. You know,
it's one of those small keys you can wind up watches with, if you know
the kind of key I mean. I'd draw you a picture of it if I had a pencil,
but I haven't got a pencil."

"Now don't stay talking here," Mark urged. "Come along back, and do try
to come quietly. I keep telling you it's after eleven o'clock, and you
know Father Rowley likes everybody to be in by ten."

"That's what I've been saying to myself the whole evening," said Mr.
Mousley. "Only what happened, you see, was that I met the son of a man
who used to know my father, a very nice fellow indeed, a very
intellectual fellow. I never remember spending a more intellectual
evening in my life. A feast of reason and a flowing bowl, I mean soul,
s-o-u-l, not b-o-u-l. Did I say bowl? Soul. . . . Soul. . . ."

"All right," said Mark. "But if you've had such a jolly evening, come in
now and don't make a noise."

"I'll come in whenever you like," Mr. Mousley offered. "I'm at your
disposition entirely. The only request I have to make is that you will
guarantee that the house stays where it was built. It's all very fine
for an ordinary house to behave like this, but when a mission house
behaves like this I call it disgraceful. I don't know what I've done to
the house that it should conceive such a dislike to me. I say,
Lidderdale, have they been taking up the drains or something in this
street? Because I distinctly had an impression just then that I put my
foot into a hole."

"The street's perfectly all right," said Mark. "Nothing has been done to
it."

"There's no reason why they shouldn't take up the drains if they want
to, I'm not complaining. Drains have to be taken up and I should be the
last man to complain; but I merely asked a question, and I'm convinced
that they have been taking up the drains. Yes, I've had a very
intellectual evening. My head's whirling with philosophy. We've talked
about everything. My friend talked a good deal about Buddhism. And I
made rather a good joke about Confucius being so confusing, at which I
laughed inordinately. Inordinately, Lidderdale. I've had a very keen
sense of humour ever since I was a baby. I say, Lidderdale, you
certainly know your way about this street. I'm very much obliged to me
for meeting you. I shall get to know the street in time. You see, my
object was to get beyond the house, because I said to myself 'the house
is in Keppel Street, it can dodge about _in_ Keppel Street, but it can't
be in any other street,' so I thought that if I could dodge it into the
corner of Keppel Street--you follow what I mean? I may be talking a bit
above your head, we've been talking philosophy all the evening, but if
you concentrate you'll follow my meaning."

"Here we are," said Mark, for by this time he had persuaded Mr. Mousley
to put his foot upon the step of the front door.

"You managed the house very well," said the clergyman. "It's
extraordinary how a house will take to some people and not to others.
Now I can do anything I like with dogs, and you can do anything you like
with houses. But it's no good patting or stroking a house. You've got to
manage a house quite differently to that. You've got to keep a house's
accounts. You haven't got to keep a dog's accounts."

They were in the gymnasium by now, which by the light of Mark's small
candle loomed as vast as a church.

"Don't talk as you go upstairs," Mark admonished.

"Isn't that a dog I see there?"

"No, no, no," said Mark. "It's the horse. Come along."

"A horse?" Mousley echoed. "Well, I can manage horses too. Come here,
Dobbin. If I'd known we were going to meet a horse I should have brought
back some sugar with me. I suppose it's too late to go back and buy some
sugar now?"

"Yes, yes," said Mark impatiently. "Much too late. Come along."

"If I had a piece of sugar he'd follow us upstairs. You'll find a horse
will go anywhere after a piece of sugar. It is a horse, isn't it? Not a
donkey? Because if it was a donkey he would want a thistle, and I don't
know where I can get a thistle at this time of night. I say, did you
prod me in the stomach then with anything?" asked Mr. Mousley severely.

"No, no," said Mark. "Come along, it was the parallel bars."

"I've not been near any bars to-night, and if you are suggesting that
I've been in bars you're making an insinuation which I very much resent,
an insinuation which I resent most bitterly, an insinuation which I
should not allow anybody to make without first pointing out that it was
an insinuation."

"Do come down off that ladder," Mark said.

"I beg your pardon, Lidderdale. I was under the impression for the
moment that I was going upstairs. I have really been so confused by
Confucius and by the extraordinary behaviour of the house to-night,
recoiling from me as it did, that for the moment I was under the
impression that I was going upstairs."

At this moment Mr. Mousley fell from the ladder, luckily on one of the
gymnasium mats.

"I do think it's a most ridiculous habit," he said, "not to place a
doormat in what I might describe as a suitable cavity. The number of
times in my life that I've fallen over doormats simply because people
will not take the trouble to make the necessary depression in the floor
with which to contain such a useful domestic receptacle you would
scarcely believe. I must have fallen over thousands of doormats in my
life," he shouted at the top of his voice.

"You'll wake everybody up in the house," Mark exclaimed in an agony.
"For heaven's sake keep quiet."

"Oh, we are in the house, are we?" said Mr. Mousley. "I'm very much
relieved to hear you say that, Lidderdale. For a brief moment, I don't
know why, I was almost as confused as Confucius as to where we were."

At this moment, candle in hand, and in a white flannel nightgown looking
larger than ever, Father Rowley appeared in the gallery above and
leaning over demanded who was there.

"Is that Father Rowley?" Mr. Mousley inquired with intense courtesy. "Or
do my eyes deceive me? You'll excuse me from replying to your apparently
simple question, Father Rowley, but I have met such a number of people
to-night including the son of a man who used to know my father that I
really don't know who _is_ there, although I'm inclined to think that
_I_ am here. But I've had a series of such a remarkable series of
adventures to-night that I should like your advice about them. I've been
spending a very intellectual evening, Father Rowley."

"Go to bed," said the mission priest severely. "I'll speak to you in the
morning."

"Father Rowley isn't annoyed with me, is he?" Mr. Mousley asked.

"I think he's rather annoyed at your being so late," said Mark.

"Late for what?"

"Is that you, Mark, down there?" asked the Missioner.

"I'm lighting Mr. Mousley across the gymnasium," Mark explained. "I
think I'd better take him up to his room."

"If your young friend is as clever at managing rooms as he is at
managing houses we shall get on splendidly, Father Rowley. I have
perfect confidence in his manner with rooms. He soothed this house in
the most remarkable way. It was jumping about like a pea in a pod till
he caught hold of the reins."

"Mark, go to bed. I will see Mr. Mousley to his room."

"Several years ago," said the drunken priest. "I went with an old friend
to see Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. The resemblance between Father
Rowley and Miss Ellen Terry is very remarkable. Good-night, Lidderdale,
I am perfectly comfortable on this mat. Good-night."

In the gallery above Mark, who had not dared to disobey Father Rowley's
orders, asked him what was to be done to get Mr. Mousley to bed.

"Go and wake Cartwright and Warrender to help me to get him upstairs,"
the Missioner commanded.

"I can help you. . . ." Mark began.

"Do what I say," said the Missioner curtly.

In the morning Father Rowley sent for Mark to give his account of what
had happened the night before, and when Mark had finished his tale, the
priest sat for a while in silence.

"Are you going to send him away?" Mark asked.

"Send him away?" Father Rowley repeated. "Where would I send him? If he
can't keep off drink in this house and in these surroundings where else
will he keep off drink? No, I'm only amused at my optimism."

There was a knock on the door.

"I expect that is Mr. Mousley," said Mark. "I'll leave you with him."

"No, don't go away," said the Missioner. "If Mousley didn't mind your
seeing him as he was last night, there's no reason why this morning he
should mind your hearing my comments upon his behaviour."

The tap on the door was repeated.

"Come in, come in, Mousley, and take a seat."

Mr. Mousley walked timidly across the room and sat on the very edge of
the chair offered him by Father Rowley. He was a quiet, rather drab
little man, the kind of little man who always loses his seat in a
railway carriage and who always gets pushed further up in an omnibus,
one of life's pawns. The presence of Mark did not seem to affect him,
for no sooner was he seated than he began to apologize with suspicious
rapidity, as if by now his apologies had been reduced to a formula.

"I really must apologize, Father Rowley, for my lateness last night and
for coming in, I fear, slightly the worse for liquor. The fact is I had
a little headache and went to the chemist for a pick-me-up, on top of
which I met an old college friend, and though I don't think I had more
than two glasses of beer I may have had three. They didn't seem to go
very well with the pick-me-up. I assure you--"

"Stop," said Father Rowley. "The only assurance of any value to me will
be your behaviour in the future."

"Oh, then I'm not to leave this morning?" Mr. Mousley gasped with open
mouth.

"Where would you go if you left here?"

"Well, to tell you the truth," Mr. Mousley admitted, "I have been rather
worried over that little problem ever since I woke up this morning. I
scarcely expected that you would tolerate my presence any longer in this
house. You will excuse me, Father Rowley, but I am rather overwhelmed
for the moment by your kindness. I scarcely know how to express what I
feel. I have usually found people so very impatient of my weakness. Do
you seriously mean I needn't go away this morning?"

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Tell us your literary dreams
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

John Crace digests A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell

My English teacher is wearing a barrister's wig. He turns and points towards me as I sit trembling in the dock. "Members of the jury, I put it to you that this man, Tom Robinson, is innocent," he says, rather lugubriously. I want to protest. I want to shout that no, I am not Tom Robinson, but yes, I am innocent! But the words won't come out.

Then I wake up. It's another literary dream – one that's troubled me ever since I studied Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for GCSE.

Most of the time I'm disappointed to leave my literary dreams, waking to realise that I'm not really ensconced with with the boozing Welsh pensioners from Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils or haven't really been thrashing Harry Potter's Quidditch team. I remember with fondness a skiing trip with William Shakespeare and the delightful discovery that Don DeLillo was serving drinks behind the bar in my local pub.

It's not all sunshine, though. Tom Wolfe once ruined a trip to New York, shouting at me across Fifth Avenue: "You're not even familiar with my work – get outta town, asshole!" But that's nothing on Howard Jacobson. I spent a summer discovering his novels during my waking hours and bumping into him in my sleep. I'd see him in a local restaurant and tell him how much I was enjoying his novels. "Oh right," he'd snap, "that old chestnut, huh?" When I met him for real last year he was, in fact, charm personified. I didn't tell him about the dreams.

But enough about my subconscious, what about yours? It's Friday: forget about work and tell me all about your literary dreams. Don't hold back – it's not like we'll read anything into it.

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