Name This Child. A story of two

Front matter

NAME THIS CHILD a PRESS NOTICES of the FIRST EDITION. ' The novel in question may safely be classed among the most sparkling and entertaining works of fiction that have obtained pub licity for many months past.' — Daily Telegraph. ' There are fine things and beautiful things in the book.'— Daily Chronicle. ' The very latest novel of the year which we have to notice is one which, if we are not much mistaken, foreshadows a coming celebrity. ' — Daily News. ' Well written . . . suggestive . . . worth reading.' — Standard. ' "Name this Child " is in some ways a remarkable and original production. ' — Athenæum. ' The writer is well equipped with the weapons of irony, he has a rare epigrammatic vein, both cynical and otherwise, considerable imagination, and a powerful faculty of introspective analysis.' — Academy. ' The originality, vigour and promise in various ways which it exhibits make us look forward hopefully to further work from his pen.' — Spectator. ' This extremely able and minute history. ' — National Observer. ' There is plenty of good material and much vigour in his work. — Westminster Gazette. ' An arrangement of ideas (most of them clever, and some of them noble).' — Pall Ala!

I Gazette. ' Shows a knowledge of men and things not often found in the modem novel.' — Sun. ' Mr Chesson makes skilful use of the legend of Narcissus.' — Echo. ' The psychological interest of these volumes is considerable.' — Leeds Mercury. ' Mr Chesson's analytic treatment of this singularly acute con science is a fine piece of work. ' — Bradford Observer. NAME THIS CHILD A SaTORT OF aXWO BY WILFRID HUGH CHESSON ' This child hath promised by you, his sureties, to re nounce the devil.' — The Book of Common Prayer SECOND EDITION XonDon T. FISHER UNWIN Paternoster Square mdcccxcv TO TWO MEN MY FRIENDS AND TEACHERS WHOM NARCISSUS NEVER KNEW Œbfs 3Boofc is Dedicatee CONTENTS

Part I. The Godfather

CHAP. PAGE I. — TONGUE-WAGGING, ..... 3 II. — ABOUT THE CRADLE, . . . . .8 III. — WITH CLARK, ...... 13 IV. — CHOICE OF A NAME, . . . . .21 V. — AMONG THE TATLERS, .... 27 VI. — THE FIGHT FOR OFFICE, . . . 30 VII. — THE INSTALLATION, ..... 40 VIII. — THE PSYCHOLOGY OK AN EVENT, . . -49 IX. — RETROSPECT AND PRESENTIMENT, . . .62 X. — SOME SENSATIONS, ..... 68 XI. — THE SECOND ADVENT OF THE CLERGYMAN, . 85 XII. — BY THE SEA, ...... 98 XIII. — THE RETURN TO UPPER LOBOURNE, . . Contents. VIII

Part II. The Godchild

CHAP. PAGE I. — THE DAWN OF YOUTH, . . . . 121 II. — RECEPTION OF NATURE, . . . 34^ III. — RECEPTION OF ANTI-NATURE, . . . 149 IV. — A TEA-PARTY, ..... l66 V. — A PRELUDE TO WITCHCRAFT, . . . 17 1 VI. — WITCHCRAFT, ..... l82 VII. — THE STALEMATE OF CONSCIENCE, . . 206 VIII. — NEW FACES, ..... 217 IX. — MATERIAL FOR AN EPIC, .... 229 X. — A SUMMING-UP, ..... 249 XI. — BETWEEN TIMES, .... 261 XII. — THE CRACKLING OF THORNS, . . . 270 XIII. — A WRITING IN BLOOD, .... 281 XIV. — THE BLOSSOMING OF THE ROD, . . . 304 XV. — THE SCHOOLMASTER'S VOMIT, . . . 316 XVI. — SETTLEMENTS, ..... 329 XVII. — A REVIEW, ..... 338 XVIII.— STEPS TO A PINNACLE, .... 344 XIX.— AN ASSAULT ON NATURE, . . . 366 XX. — THE INDEX OF THIS BOOK, . . . 382 XXI. — PROS AND CONS, ..... 397 XXII. — AFTER ALL, .....

PART I THE GODFATHER

A

Chapter I. Tongue- Wagging

' Felicitate me,' said Andrew Davids. Thomas Clark replied — ' At present I see no reason.' 'What?' ' Your word is a " portmanteau " ; it questions and exclaims at the same time. . . . Well, can you prove that it is blessed to originate life ■looked at as an abstract question ? ' ' The race, the race ! ' cried Davids, snapping his fingers. ' A threadbare excuse that. The race wants no individual thinking about. Instinct is overwhelm ingly in favour of reproduction.' ' Why, you are my advocate, Tom ! ' 'On the contrary. Did I say that instinct is wise ? ' ' If it creates a new capacity for happiness, it must be.' ' In the father ? ' ' I feel it.* In the son ? ' Surely it is better to live than not to live ? ' ' How should I know ? — not even having a sense of blessed sleep.' ' You suffer from nightmares, then ? ' Davids leaned back in the parlour easy-chair, and looked with amusement at the argumentative face turned to him. ' Light your pipe,' he continued, ' and become human.

It's funny they never discovered the way till the Middle Ages.' Clark pulled gently at a cigarette. ' After all,' he said, ' we must judge by the pro duction. What sort of thing is it ? ' Davids pondered a moment before replying. ' Like most infants,' he said, ' it begins by being all head.' ' A tadpole resemblance,' quoth Clark. TONGUE- WA GGING. 5 ' You are inconsequent,' said Davids. ' Its eyes are fine.' ' Report does not condemn the tadpole's eyes.' ' Report does not describe them as violet, violet as — as — ' ' The cassock of a chorister,' suggested Clark. ' I am talking of light as well as colour,' said Davids imperturbably. ' They are like the June sky at twilight when there is no blur on the ether.' ' I admit the inferiority of the cassock simile,' said Clark. Davids was hardly conscious of what was said.

Paternity, by which, so to speak, men achieve immortality of their textile fabric, made him feel Olympian, and therefore calm. He enhanced the feeling by aid of the tiniest of blue vapours breathed from his pipe. Clark suspected that his own philosophy was lying under the feet of his friend, and he felt piqued. ' You do not think me jealous ? ' he asked. ' It would not be my worst thought of you if I did,' rejoined Davids. ' I do not know what I may be later on,' said Clark ; ' but it would be quite impossible at present. Think how undeveloped it is — having only just signed its contract with Original Sin. And (horrors!) if, in spite of the sin, it should be commonplace ! ' Davids withdrew his pipe, and remarked serenely — ' Clark, you're a fool, and not for lack of taking pains.' Feeling himself in the dock, Clark determined to retain his wits as decorous counsel for the defence. ' I was thinking,' he said, ' that mankind turns out so cheap a brand of itself, that for an able man to encourage its propagation, is deplorable.' ' I am afraid, Tom, that you have struck a rich vein of nonsense.

But pray work it ! It may be entertaining by-and-by.' ' You do not know how serious I am,' said Clark. Davids rose and pointed to a field of poppies that shone behind the house. ' There,' he said, ' is a cheap brand — turned out in thousands. Would you wish one away?' Clark accepted his cue. ' You have struck your vein, now,' he said ; ' and it is one of sentiment. The human flower is rarer than the four-leaved shamrock.' ' To beget a child,' said Davids, ' is to experi mentalise. The issue is in the hands of Providence.' ' Precisely,' said Clark, ' and we do not know TONGUE- WA GGING. 7 the issue of your experiment even now. Where fore I do not felicitate you.' Having brought in the original theme of this discourse neatly in the form of a coda, Clark felt it would be inartistic to remain longer.

He shook hands and left. The door hardly closed upon him before his mood changed, and the sincere heart in him, that loathed acting, rose re proachfully. ' Good old Davids,' he mused, ' I am a match for him at most times — the volatile fellow that he generally is. He's happy now in spite of his " felicity " {because of it, I mean, hang it ! ) ; and to-day the foil was on my buttons.'

CHAPTER I ABOUT THE CRADLE.

Davids ascended the stairs, and entered a room on the left-hand side of a landing, whereon ever green plants waved stately benedictions. He had been hastened by hearing a wail, and he now beheld his baby in the arms of a stout pleasant-faced nurse, who rocked him to and fro. ' Oh, 'e's just fretful,' explained the nurse. ' Give me him,' said Davids, while the baby, at the sound of his bass voice, ceased his noise with as little apparent reason as when he began it. From the vista a weak voice said, ' Andrew, you do not know how to hold him.' ' Lord, sir,' affirmed the nurse, ' his little back is that tender — ' ' Trust his father,' said Davids, holding out his hands. With the small pink-white bundle in his arms, he crossed over to where his wife lay, supported by pillows, her light-brown fluffy hair encircling them.

Her face was oval, and there was a tinge of colour on both her cheeks, as though her eyes' s ABOUT THE CRADLE. 9 light had burnt upon them. In her earnestness and weakness (saddest of combinations) she was a contrast to her husband, who was tall and straight, with the generous Saxon beard, a being to be called ' manly ' (as the leading characteristic) if you could forget the stream of persiflage that flowed from him. ' What does he mean ? ' thought Mrs Davids, as she watched him, hearing him say of the baby's eyes : ' they have all the future in them.' She smiled, saying, ' They are very beautiful eyes.' Inwardly she was thinking, ' He says things, and I feel them. It is like watching a play.' After more scrutiny of the baby's eyes, Davids observed, as though ending a train of thought, ' And yet " the issue is in the hands of Pro vidence."

I said so. Providence ! but that's his salvation. I should have told Tom that.' ' He's as quiet as a lamb, now you've come in,' said the nurse. ' He is like the spring, is he not ? ' said Davids brightly, ' but he seems to cry without tears.' ' That is as it should be,' said his wife. ' It's a pity we should get sillier as we grow older,' said Davids, kissing her to point the allusion. The nurse hurried forward in time to save the baby from his negligence. NAAIE THIS CHILD. 10 Softly stroking his wife's hand the while, Davids began one of his frequent, and often tiresome, monologues. 'It's a curious thing this first cry of a baby. It's a protest (isn't it ?), and so reasonable ! We call it out of Paradise, and it sees the humbug of our life directly. After a time it will think painful things exotic pleasures (so mixed are our chattels), for the philosophy of ignorance is never to be glad or angry.

But the baby is all-wise. Roaring is its sublime privilege.' The nurse, feeling out of her depth, quitted the room for the comforts of a kitchen. Mrs Davids said simply, ' Mr Clark has been here. The sarcasm was true. Davids' lips, with their froth of words, let forth all decent qualities in any quantity. It was the penalty of his wordiness that one could not say that he had got at a conviction of Davids, for he was always improvising variations on somebody else's. His optimism and his pessimism, his materialism and his transcendentalism, his nothingarianism and his Christianity all displayed the same rounded euphonies, leaving no wrinkle on the cheek or forehead. Trade had yielded him her increase in compliment to a sagacious eye on a certain stock. The sagacity lasted long enough for the vacillator's patience ; ABOUT THE CRADLE. 11 but thanks to it, here he was, high and dry, able and willing to wear many masks, and, as his depreciators said, ' the cap-and-bells.' Men may be thus, and only one person find it out.

Mrs Davids bore her secret knowledge well, but she felt it, nevertheless. Her motherhood gave her that strange sense (particular in women) of being chained to the actuality of life. When the baby was as a thought in her future, she had been worried incessantly by stern questions that brook no epigram. To what extent was she responsible for this mystery of which she was to be the expon ent ? This persistent note of interrogation was like a reaping-hook against the gay flowers in a field of corn. But, lo ! while herself was deepening, becoming morbid — sentimental, if you will — but still deepening, her husband did not change. As one outside the life common to each, he was faster in talk, more bewildering in theory. There was a boy once who used to ask riddles to which he had ascribed no answers, and so disconcert his friends.

Davids was like this youthful riddler, and his wife his audience. She knew the riddles did not bother him, but, alas ! they were interesting, and they lay on her brain ; and she could not shake them off. Wishful not to judge her husband too harshly, she hated Clark with sincerity. She had been punctuating Davids' monologue with a weary ' yes ' and ' no ' for nearly half-an hour when the nurse returned, whereupon Davids retreated. The nurse knitted quietly by the cradle while the mother conjured before her a face with wide violet eyes and a puckered mouth. She was in fairyland, and the nurse stood there as a comfortable figure, saving the scene from utter deviation from the natural. She seemed still to feel a flesh-link with the child, and yearned to have her arms about him. As the baby shortly began to whimper, the nurse saw no harm in bringing it near to her, and the two women on the one topic chatted freely — the nurse evoking experiences from a memory where babies were counted by the army, and so much alike as to take greatly from the glory of adding to them — the mother drinking in facts that made all womankind her sister, and showed how the earthiness of life redeems us from premature heavens. Wherefore think about them ? The nurse, who unconsciously bestowed this reflection on the mother, towered momentarily as a supreme benefactress.

Chapter III. With Clark

Clark began to thaw directly he left Davids' house. A serenely blue sky, freighted with warm yellow clouds, which bound him and the little red-brick village to the earth, created responsive longings in him by means of a pressure scarcely to be felt. As he crossed the village-green, the daisied lawn of his friend's house receding from him meanwhile, he heard the barking of a dog. The sound was very honest, and seemed to clear his mental atmosphere much as when, though he would not admit it, Davids said, ' you're a fool.' It was just one of the ordinary village voices, and, being philosophical, he mar velled how the earth answers logical cynicism by some inarticulate reply such as this dog's, whose truth we cannot suspect, because it pro ceeds from no citadel of lying reason. His thought was again diverted by sight of a slim woman walking placidly on the footpath.

Her age was perhaps thirty; her eyes of a pensive brown ; her cheeks warmly tinted, but with out bloom ('a kind of autumn colour,' Clark used to say). One was not apt to notice her dress. It seemed to fit her inevitably ; it was so absolutely in harmony with herself that even women never connected it with fashion. They called it quiet. Whether black, or brown, or grey, it is certain that it showed no untidiness at the throat or wrists — no tags or frills, but rims of starched linen as immaculate as the Sunday cuffs and collars of Eton boys. ' Hullo, Martha,' said Clark. She turned to him, not finding the greeting brusque, because the manner belonged to him. His speech was of this direct kind, as between man and man in a world juggled in by gods and men. ' We are in the same boat,' it seemed to indicate.

His was indeed a pilot's face — the brow square, and the features under it strongly marked and clean shaven ; his eyes' light lucent through dark panes ; his voice thin and clear. ' Sit down, Martha,' he continued. ' I want to speak to you.' Our spick-and-span civilisation had provided WITH CLARK. 15 neat seats at intervals of the whole periphery of the green, and in the centre children romped. ' Mrs Davids has achieved a first-born,' Clark remarked. I knew it,' said Martha. And are you not shuddering ? Why should I ? ' You do not know my friend and his wife. They are human beings, I suppose.' ' Well ? ' ' Their child will be a human being, I suppose.' ' A compound of the metaphysical and the re ligiously maniacal. Yes, I suppose it may walk on two legs.' ' They are your friends, Mr Clark.' ' Of course ; but what of that ?

We cannot review books till we have read them.' Martha said nothing for a space, though she might have seen the fallacy in his last sentence. ' I observe,' said Clark, ' that there is straw in the road before the house opposite.' ' Yes ; Mrs Dul worth has just had a baby — Janie.' ' What, named already ? ' ' Captain Dulworth named it prospectively be fore he died. ' What conspirators people are ! ' said Clark irrit- NAAIE THIS CHILD. ably. The race is replenished by stealth. The plot is prepared, and afterwards Madam Cannon is prostrate. It seems to me the straw ought to be by our doors.' ' You are neither kind nor just,' said Martha. ' Fresh babies are fresh problems,' said Clark. 'Why should we set sick Nature fresh sums? Are fractions so interesting?' ' God has something to do with it,' said Martha. ' You mustn't mind tne,' said Clark.

They rose and advanced towards a little house on the east side of the green. It was here Clark lived, in two rooms situate on the ground floor, having come, as it seemed to Upper Lobourne, out of Nowhere - in - Particular, to board with Martha, hailing from the same locality. Upper Lobourne respected the one as a house holder, and the other as the friend of a well-off man in it. The house itself was of curious reputation. John Ballard had lived there, a man of out rageous eccentricity, who was now in a mad house three miles away. Upper Lobourne remembered his small, shilpit figure, and his eyes of fire, red at the corners. He was a mutterer and a scribbler, fond of the decayed garden at the back of the house, and there was WITH CLARK. 17 i a horrid story, to which the chronicler need only allude, of his connection with the peculiar dis appearance of a woman in the village.

He was, at any rate, a man apart, and prejudice had also attached itself to the house. Even Martha, practical as she was, did not at this time frequent the octagonal room at the top of the house, wherein he had written and slept, with exactly the lightness of thought which should be ac corded to preposterous superstitions. She had ' turned it out,' to use her phrase, put furniture into it, but introduced no upholsterers. Clean it was, and daylight was on it, and it was now called ' the spare room.' It was, in fact, only in Clark's premises that any money had been spent in repairs, though the front of the house had been recently whitewashed. But the spirit of Martha was everywhere, in the odour of order and sanity which attended all the materials on which she laid hands. It was this odour which Clark felt when, at the age of thirty-five, he came down to Upper Lobourne that he might inhale Nature, and be near his friend Davids.

When she brought in the tea-things on this day of argument, he felt soothed (he knew not why) by her silence, her unobtrusive way of lay- B NAME THLS CHLLD. 18 ing the cloth ; and a certain thought, common to bachelors, made him smile dimly. Presently in came Davids. The careless ease of the man was of gossamer lightness withal. The lustres on the mantel piece did not jingle with his tread, though, when Clark entered, they rang like the village peal. Davids lay at full length on the prickly horse hair sofa, with his head on a tight roll of the same material. He gazed hard at a stuffed bird, in a round glass-case upon the wall, and ejaculated, ' Really these are typical quarters ! ' ' It is not Miss Lingham's lack of perception, I think,' said Clark, ' but her sense of humour. " I am a landlady with all appurtenances," she said when I came to stay.' ' The sofa is quite sacrificial,' said Davids. ' What of the babe ? ' asked Clark. ' Oh, you are interested, then !

Well, sir, it is finer than a flower.' ft Something in Davids' tone, perhaps a reality foreign to it, struck at Clark, and made him feel ashamed of his recent speeches to Martha anent the baby. ' To more persons than you, old chap, I fear I have shown myself confoundedly jealous,' he said. WITH CLARK. 19 ' Thanks : it's no mere flattery from you. I feel proud,' said Davids. ' And yet I haven't seen it,' Clark said whimsi cally. ' When will you christen it ? I suppose it will be on view then ? ' ' Oh, shortly. And, by the way, Tom, will you godfather him ? ' ' Um ! What will your wife say ? ' ' Oh, she'll be delighted that I'm delighted, I'm sure,' said Davids untruthfully. Something of the essence of the retreating sun, that left over the earth a spiritual glow, stirred Clark strangely. The friend extended before him became doubly dear ; the room itself, saturated with the self of which he was so tired, prompted weary eyes, that roved over it, to seek something to love for its own sake, that the love might not be selfish.

He was, perhaps, more in love with an idea than a person, but the person was the way to it. ' You know, Andrew, I'm a heathen ? Well, nearly. I'm in a fog. I can't teach the catechism to your M or N.' ' Oh, leave that ! It's understood, then ? No nothing more, thank you ; there's nectar with the gods at home. Ta-ta.' Davids left hurriedly, the cord of parental affec- NAAIE THIS CHILD. tion tugging him ; and Clark lay back in deep thought, wondering why he had veered from mood to mood this day, and been an enigma to himself ; and ' let loose this damned tongue of mine ! ' He rang the bell. ' Martha,' he said as she entered with the tray, ' clear away, will you ? and . . . Oh, you must forget my foolishness of this afternoon. Davids' babe is nothing less than a flower. ... I have it from himself.'

Chapter IV. Choice Of

A NAME. On the evening of the day following, Davids ascended to his wife's room while the nurse was at tea. The baby was asleep, and the mother half-dozing; but she instinctively felt the gliding step to her side and opened her eyes. ' I want to talk over a matter,' said Davids. ' Oh, Andrew ! ' she said deprecatingly. ' It's only about his name,' observed her husband. ' Clark was calling him M or N. I wish to get beyond algebra immediately' ' Call him after yourself ' It's a dull sort of name,' said Davids ; ' besides there's a pun in it — if I recollect my school days.' ' Is there any word which a city person will not make two of?' ' Well, well,' said Davids ; 'all I meant was than a nice name costs nothing, and one had better have it — in spite of Shakespeare.' He glanced at the cradle. 'The little fellow is not eavesdropping.

Suppose we call him after Nature. Upon my soul, he's pretty ! ' Mrs Davids closed her eyes 'Don't call him anything heathen, that is all I ask.' ' I keep wishing he would open his eyes,' said Davids. ' By Jove, how solemn he is ! What does he see, I wonder, with his eyes shut? I don't suppose he could tell. The prophets rambled amazingly. Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Habakkuk — is there one of the mouthfuls fit for him ? ' ' Will he never stop ? ' the mother was saying to herself. She was in that sensitive condition when the gross handling of spiritual things is as the breaking of bric-a-brac in a boudoir. The simile does not, of course, stand for a reputed value of these things, but for the kind of vexation that Mrs Davids felt. This big man between her and the peaceful baby, with his iteration of nothings, made her desire to burst into tears.

Davids caught a queer sound of something suppressed in her throat. 'Why, Annie,' he whispered, 'what is the matter?' A very candid explanation was on her lips when suddenly the baby woke up and began to cry At her command Davids gave the child to CHOICE OF A NAME. 23 her and she nestled it to her bosom, crooning over it in sing-song baby language, expressive in tone, while Davids stood wondering why he was not affected as she was by every little dis tress of their son. Very soon the baby was quiet again, and Davids said coaxingly — 'Tell me all about it, Annie.' Mrs Davids, meanwhile, had effaced the small grievance which had prompted her to abuse him. Instead of her mind she unlocked her heart, so useful a key to it was five minutes' experience of the humanity of her baby. She had seen some thing of her husband in the little face, and had caught a kind glance from him at the same time. ' I am so wrapped up in the child,' she said. ' And I also,' said Davids kissing her.

With his caress the burden of much that is written down as ' yearnest ' by cynics, was revealed to him. Herself had propounded big Why's and Wherefore's to the poor woman through all the months of waiting : we have seen that. But one other hysterical thing had to be said — ' / feel the child is a part of me yet! ' It is our life,' he said rapturously. ' You speak in figures,' she said. ' I speak in fact. I felt a positive loss of soul when it was born, and now I feel I am two beings separate from each other.' ' That, my love, is nonsense ! ' ' You do not understand,' she said. ' My darling is a stamp of me. I know when it will wake ; I feel its uneasiness, its fear of life, of sin — the nascent sin that must lead it on.' ' It is a great privilege to be born,' said Davids. ' What you have just said is nonsense.' ' Say that again,' she asked.

He repeated that it was nonsense. ' I must feel that,' she said. ' I must feel that it Is nonsense, or I shall go mad.' Following on an uncomfortable silence,she said — ' What one feels sounds, may be, mere foolish ness ; but one feels it, nevertheless.' ' You must, I imagine,' said Davids, ' quench one feeling by another. Don't make yourself miserable by one point of view ; because, you know, there are hundreds.' ' No figures, please ' — she put up her hand — ' I was foolish enough ; but you want me to see things through a prism.' Indeed, Mrs Davids' ambition (as one may call it) to repress herself already reproached her for moral weakness, and she became frigid mistress of herself as soon as possible after indulgence in it. CHOICE OF A NAAIE. 25 Davids' eyes were meanwhile glancing over the tiny swinging bookcase in the room, and he took down a volume marked with womanly profusion.

And in it were these words : ' Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : A nd yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these! ' The human flower,' quoth Davids, looking at the baby ; ' it is the simile of similes.' At that moment something fell from the volume, and lay, rather dingy and pathetic, on the floor. It was a narcissus that had been ill pressed. ' The same I gave you two years ago ! ' cried Davids, quite melted. ' It is a kind of diary ; isn't it ? ' said his wife. ' It is rather odd that it should fade against the Divine eulogy of it,' said Davids. It was not really 'odd,' but the result of his wife's sweet sentimentality. ' Hardly,' she replied smilingly ; ' it is no longer ' of the field." It is silly to press withered flowers.' ' It's good for a reminder,' said Davids. ' The baby shall carry on its tradition, and "toil not, neither . . . spin," if I can help it.