Star over Bethlehem Read online

  In fancy, Mrs. Hargreaves’ arm went round Mrs. Chubb’s shoulder. She thought with affection: “You poor stupid dear. It’s not as bad as you think. I don’t believe she’s dying at all.” Of course Mrs. Chubb had exaggerated, had sought deliberately for tragedy, because that was the way Mrs. Chubb saw life—in melodramatic terms. It made life less drab, easier to live. Mrs. Hargreaves understood so well …

  Other people came into Mrs. Hargreaves’ mind. Those women enjoying their fight at the butcher’s counter. Characters, all of them. Fun, really! Especially the big red-faced woman with her passion for justice. She really liked a good row!

  Why on earth, Mrs. Hargreaves wondered, had she minded the woman at the greengrocer’s calling her “Luv”? It was a kindly term.

  That bad-tempered bus conductress—why—her mind probed, came up with a solution. Her young man had stood her up the evening before. And so she hated everybody, hated her monotonous life, wanted to make other people feel her power—one could so easily feel like that if things went wrong …

  The kaleidoscope shook—changed. She was no longer looking at it—she was inside it—part of it …​

  The boat hooted. She sighed, moved, opened her eyes. They had come at last to Greenwich.

  Mrs. Hargreaves went back by train from Greenwich. The train, at this time of day, the lunch hour, was almost empty.

  But Mrs. Hargreaves wouldn’t have cared if it had been full …

  Because, for a brief space of time, she was at one with her fellow beings. She liked people. Almost—she loved them!

  It wouldn’t last, of course. She knew that. A complete change of character was not within the bounds of reality. But she was deeply, humbly, and comprehendingly grateful for what she had been given.

  She knew now what the thing that she had coveted was like. She knew the warmth of it, and the happiness—knew it, not from intelligent observation from without, but from within. From feeling it.

  And perhaps, knowing now just what it was, she could learn the beginning of the road to it …?

  She thought of the coat woven in the harmony of one piece. She had not been able to see the man’s face. But she thought she knew who He was …

  Already the warmth and the vision were fading. But she would not forget—she would never forget!

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Hargreaves, speaking from the depths of a grateful heart.

  She said it aloud in the empty railway carriage.

  The mate of the water bus was staring at the tickets in his hand.

  “Where’s t’other one?” he asked.

  “Whatchermean?” said the Captain who was preparing to go ashore for lunch.

  “Must be someone on board still. Eight passengers there was. I counted them. And I’ve only got seven tickets here.”

  “Nobody left on board. Look for yourself. One of ’em must have got off without your noticing ’im—either that or he walked on the water!”

  And the Captain laughed heartily at his own joke.

  In the Cool of the Evening

  The church was fairly full. Evensong, nowadays, was always better attended than morning service.

  Mrs. Grierson and her husband knelt side by side in the fifth pew on the pulpit side. Mrs. Grierson knelt decorously, her elegant back curved. A conventional worshipper, one would have said, breathing a mild and temperate prayer.

  But there was nothing mild about Janet Grierson’s petition. It sped upwards into space on wings of fire.

  “God, help him! Have mercy upon him. Have mercy upon me. Cure him, Lord. Thou hast all power. Have mercy—have mercy. Stretch out Thy hand. Open his mind. He’s such a sweet boy—so gentle—so innocent. Let him be healed. Let him be normal. Hear me, Lord. Hear me … Ask of me anything you like, but stretch out Thy hand and make him whole. Oh God, hear me. Hear me. With Thee all things are possible. My faith shall make him whole—I have faith—I believe. I believe! Help me!”

  The people stood. Mrs. Grierson stood with them. Elegant, fashionable, composed. The service proceeded.

  The Rector mounted the steps of the pulpit, gave out his text.

  Part of the 95th psalm; the tenth verse. Part of the psalm we sing every Sunday morning. “It is a people who do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways.”

  The Rector was a good man, but not an eloquent one. He strove to give to his listeners the thought that the words had conveyed to him. A people that erred, not in what they did, not in actions displeasing to God, not in overt sin—but a people not even knowing that they erred. A people who, quite simply, did not know God … ​They did not know what God was, what he wanted, how he showed himself. They could know. That was the point the Rector was striving to make. Ignorance is no defence. They could know.

  He turned to the East.

  “And now to God the Father …”

  He’d put it very badly, the Rector thought sadly. He hadn’t made his meaning clear at all …

  Quite a good congregation this evening. How many of them, he wondered, really knew God?

  Again Janet Grierson knelt and prayed with fervour and desperation. It was a matter of will, of concentration. If she could get through—God was all powerful. If she could reach him …

  For a moment she felt she was getting there—and then there was the irritating rustle of people rising; sighs, movements. Her husband touched her arm. Unwillingly she rose. Her face was very pale. Her husband looked at her with a slight frown. He was a quiet man who disliked intensity of any kind.

  In the porch friends met them.

  “What an attractive hat, Janet. It’s new, isn’t it?”

  “Oh no, it’s terribly old.”

  “Hats are so difficult,” Mrs. Stewart complained. “One hardly ever wears one in the country and then on Sunday one feels odd. Janet, do you know Mrs. Lamphrey—Mrs. Grierson. Major Grierson. The Lamphreys have taken Island Lodge.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Janet, shaking hands. “It’s a delightful house.”

  “Everyone says we’ll be flooded out in winter,” said Mrs. Lamphrey ruefully.

  “Oh no—not most years.”

  “But some years? I knew it! But the children were mad about it. And of course they’d adore a flood.”

  “How many have you?”

  “Two boys and a girl.”

  “Edward is just the same age as our Johnnie,” said Mrs. Stewart. “I suppose he’ll be going to his public school next year. Johnnie’s going to Winchester.”

  “Oh, Edward is much too much of a moron ever to pass common entrance, I’m sure,” sighed Mrs. Lamphrey. “He doesn’t care for anything but games. We’ll have to send him to a crammer’s. Isn’t it terrible, Mrs. Grierson, when one’s children turn out to be morons?”

  Almost at once, she felt the chill. A quick change of subject—the forthcoming fête at Wellsly Park.

  As the groups moved off in varying directions, Mrs. Stewart said to her friend:

  “Darling, I ought to have warned you!”

  “Did I say something wrong? I thought so—but what?”

  “The Griersons. Their boy. They’ve only got one. And he’s subnormal. Mentally retarded.”

  “Oh how awful—but I couldn’t know. Why does one always go and put one’s foot straight into things?”

  “It’s just that Janet’s rather sensitive …”

  As they walked along the field path, Rodney Grierson said gently,

  “They didn’t mean anything. That woman didn’t know.”

  “No. No, of course she didn’t.”

  “Janet, can’t you try—”

  “Try what?”

  “Try not to mind so much. Can’t you accept—”

  Her voice interrupted him, it was high and strained.

  “No, I can’t accept—as you put it. There must be something that could be done! He’s physically so perfect. It must be just some gland—some perfectly simple thing. Doctors will find out some day. There must be something—injections—hypnotism.�
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  “You only torture yourself, Janet. All these doctors you drag him round to. It worries the boy.”

  “I’m not like you, Rodney. I don’t give up. I prayed again in church just now.”

  “You pray too much.”

  “How can one pray ‘too much’? I believe in God, I tell you. I believe in him. I have faith—and faith can move mountains.”

  “You can’t give God orders, Janet.”

  “What an extraordinary thing to say!”

  “Well—” Major Grierson shifted uncomfortably.

  “I don’t think you know what faith is.”

  “It ought to be the same as trust.”

  Janet Grierson was not listening.

  “Today—in church, I had a terrible feeling. I felt that God wasn’t there. I didn’t feel that there was no God—just that He was somewhere else … But where?”

  “Really, Janet!”

  “Where could He be? Where could I find Him?”

  She calmed herself with an effort as they turned in at the gate of their own house. A stocky middle-aged woman came out smiling to meet them.

  “Have a nice service? Supper’s almost ready. Ten minutes?”

  “Oh good. Thank you, Gertrude. Where’s Alan?”

  “He’s out in the garden as usual. I’ll call him.”

  She cupped her mouth with her hands.

  “A—lan. A—lan.”

  Suddenly, with a rush, a boy came running. He was fair and blue-eyed. He looked excited and happy.

  “Daddy—Mummy—look what I’ve found.”

  He parted his cupped hands carefully, showing the small creature they contained.

  “Ugh, horrible.” Janet Grierson turned away with a shudder.

  “Don’t you like him? Daddy!” He turned to his father. “See, he’s partly like a frog—but he isn’t a frog—he’s got feathers and a sort of wings. He’s quite new—not like any other animal.”

  He came nearer, and dropped his voice.

  “I’ve got a name for him. I call him Raphion. Do you think it’s a nice name?”

  “Very nice, my boy,” said his father with a slight effort.

  The boy put the strange creature down.

  “Hop away, Raphion, or fly if you can. There he goes. He isn’t afraid of me.”

  “Come and get ready for supper, Alan,” said his mother.

  “Oh yes, I’m hungry.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Oh, I’ve been down at the end of the garden, talking to a friend. He helps me name the animals. We have such fun.”

  “He’s happy, Janet,” said Grierson as the boy ran up the stairs.

  “I know. But what’s going to become of him? And those horrible things he finds. They’re all about everywhere nowadays since the accident at the Research station.”

  “They’ll die out, dear. Mutations usually do.”

  “Queer heads—and extra legs!” She shuddered.

  “Well, think of all the legs centipedes have. You don’t mind them?”

  “They’re natural.”

  “Perhaps everything has to have a first time.”

  Alan came running down the stairs again.

  “Have you had a nice time? Where did you go? To church?” He laughed, trying the word out. “Church—church—that’s a funny name.”

  “It means God’s house,” said his mother.

  “Does it? I didn’t know God lived in a house.”

  “God is in Heaven, dear. Up in the sky. I told you.”

  “But not always? Doesn’t He come down and walk about? In the evenings? In summer? When it’s nice and cool?”

  “In the Garden of Eden,” said Grierson, smiling.

  “No, in this garden, here. He’d like all the funny new animals and things like I do.”

  Janet winced.

  “Those funny animals—darling.” She paused. “There was an accident, you know. At the big Station up on the downs. That’s why there are so many of these queer—things about. They get born like that. It’s very sad!”

  “Why? I think it’s exciting! Lots of new kinds of things being born all the time. I have to find names for them. Sometimes I think of lovely names.”

  He wriggled off his chair.

  “I’ve finished. Please—can I go now? My friend is waiting for me in the garden.”

  His father nodded. Gertrude said softly.

  “All children are the same. They always invent a ‘friend’ to play with.”

  “At five, perhaps. Not when they’re thirteen,” said Janet bitterly.

  “Try not to mind, dear,” said Gertrude gently.

  “How can I help it?”

  “You may be looking at it all the wrong way.”

  Down at the bottom of the garden, where it was cool under the trees, Alan found his friend waiting.

  He was stroking a rabbit who was not quite a rabbit but something rather different.

  “Do you like him, Alan?”

  “Oh yes. What shall we call him?”

  “It’s for you to say.”

  “Is it really? I shall call him—I shall call him—Forteor. Is that a good name?”

  “All your names are good names.”

  “Have you got a name yourself?”

  “I have a great many names.”

  “Is one of them God?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it was! You don’t really live in that stone house in the village with the long thing sticking up, do you?”

  “I live in many places … But sometimes, in the cool of the evening, I walk in a garden—with a friend and talk about the New World—”

  Jenny by the Sky

  Come down to me, Jenny, come down from the hill

  Come down to me here where I wait

  Come down to my arms, to my lips, my desire

  Come down all my hunger to sate

  But Jenny walks lonely, her head in the air,

  She walks on the hill top, the wind in her hair,

  She will not come down to me, loud though I cry

  She walks with the wind, upturned face to the sky …

  In the cool of the evening I walked in the glade,

  And there I met God … and I was not afraid.

  Together we walked in the depths of the wood

  And together we looked at the things we had made

  Together we looked—and we saw they were good …

  God made the World and the stars set on high

  The Galaxies rushing, none knows where or why.

  God fashioned the Cosmos, the Universe wide,

  And the hills and the valleys, the birds in the wood

  God made them and loved them, and saw they were good …

  And I—have made Jenny! To walk on the hill.

  She will not come down to me loud though I cry;

  She walks there for ever, her face to the sky,

  She will not come down though I call her,

  She will not come down to my greed,

  She is as I dreamed her … and made her

  Of my loving and longing and need …

  With my mind and my heart I made Jenny,

  I made her of love and desire,

  I made her to walk on the hill top

  In loneliness, beauty and fire …

  In the cool of the evening I walked in the wood

  And God walked beside me …

  We both understood.

  Promotion in the Highest

  They were walking down the hill from the little stone church on the hillside.

  It was very early in the morning, the hour just before dawn. There was no one about to see them as they went through the village, though one or two sleepers sighed and stirred in their sleep. The only human being who saw them that morning was Jacob Narracott, as he grunted and sat up in the ditch. He had collapsed there soon after he came out of the Bel and Dragon last night.

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, not quite believing what he saw. He st
aggered to his feet and shambled off in the direction of his cottage, made uneasy by the trick his eyes had played him. At the crossroads he met George Palk, the village constable, on his beat.

  “You’m late getting home, Jacob. Or should I say early?” Palk grinned.

  Jacob groaned, and rocked his head in his hands.

  “Government’s been and done something to the beer,” he affirmed. “Meddling again. I never used to feel like this.”

  “What’ll your Missus say when she sees you rolling home at this hour?”

  “Won’t say anything. She’s away to her sister’s.”

  “So you took the opportunity to see the New Year in?”

  Jacob grunted. Then he said uneasily: “You seen a lot of people just now, George? Coming along the road?”

  “No. What sort of people?”

  “Funny people. Dressed odd.”

  “You mean Beats?”

  “Nah, not Beats. Sort of old-fashioned like. Carrying things, some of ’em was.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Ruddy great wheel, one had—a woman. And there was a man with a gridiron. And one rather nice looking wench, dressed very rich and fancy with a great big basket of roses.”

  “Roses? This time of year? Was it a sort of procession?”

  “That’s right. Lights on their heads they had, too.”

  “Aw, get on, Jacob! Seeing things—that’s what’s the matter with you. Get on home, put your head under the tap, and sleep it off.”

  “Funny thing is, I feel I’ve seen ’em before somewhere—but for the life of me I can’t think where.”

  “Ban the bomb marchers, maybe.”

  “I tell you they was dressed all rich and funny. Fourteen of them there was. I counted. Walking in pairs mostly.”