The Altar Steps. Compton Mackenzie

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      "Blaspheme!" she echoed. "It is you, James, who have blasphemed nature this afternoon. You have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and may you be forgiven by your God. I can never forgive you."

      "You're becoming hysterical."

      "How dare you say that? How dare you? I have loved you, James, with all the love that I could give you. I have suffered in silence when I saw how you regarded family life, how unkind you were to Mark, how utterly wrapped up in the outward forms of religion. You are a Pharisee, James, you should have lived before Our Lord came down to earth. But I will not suffer any longer. You need not worry about the evasion of your responsibilities. You cannot make me stay with you. You will not dare keep Mark. Save your own soul in your own way; but Mark's soul is as much mine as yours to save."

      During this storm of words Mark had been thinking how wicked it was of his father to upset his mother like that when she had a headache. He had thought also how terrible it was that he should apparently be the cause of this frightening quarrel. Often in Lima Street he had heard tales of wives who were beaten by their husbands and now he supposed that his own mother was going to be beaten. Suddenly he heard her crying. This was too much for him; he sprang from his hiding place and ran to put his arms round her in protection.

      "Mother, mother, don't cry. You are bad, you are bad," he told his father. "You are wicked and bad to make her cry."

      "Have you been in the room all this time?" his father asked.

      Mark did not even bother to nod his head, so intent was he upon consoling his mother. She checked her emotion when her son put his arms round her neck, and whispered to him not to speak. It was almost dark in the study now, and what little light was still filtering in at the window from the grey nightfall was obscured by the figure of the Missioner gazing out at the lantern spire of his new church. There was a tap at the door, and Mrs. Lidderdale snatched up the volume that Mark had let fall upon the floor when he emerged from the curtains, so that when Dora came in to light the gas and say that tea was ready, nothing of the stress of the last few minutes was visible. The Missioner was looking out of the window at his new church; his wife and son were contemplating the picture of an impervious Chinaman suspended in a cage where he could neither stand nor sit nor lie.

CHAPTER V

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PALM SUNDAY

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      Mark's dream from which he woke to wonder if the end of the world was at hand had been a shadow cast by coming events. So far as the world of Lima Street was concerned, it was the end of it. The night after that scene in his father's study, which made a deeper impression on him than anything before that date in his short life, his mother came to sleep in the nursery with him, to keep him company so that he should not be frightened any more, she offered as the explanation of her arrival. But Mark, although of course he never said so to her, was sure that she had come to him to be protected against his father.

      Mark did not overhear any more discussions between his parents, and he was taken by surprise when one day a week after his mother had come to sleep in his room, she asked him how he should like to go and live in the country. To Mark the country was as remote as Paradise, and at first he was inclined to regard the question as rhetorical to which a conventional reply was expected. If anybody had asked him how he should like to go to Heaven, he would have answered that he should like to go to Heaven very much. Cows, sheep, saints, angels, they were all equally unreal outside a picture book.

      "I would like to go to the country very much," he said. "And I would like to go to the Zoological Gardens very much. Perhaps we can go there soon, can we, mother?"

      "We can't go there if we're in the country."

      Mark stared at her.

      "But really go in the country?"

      "Yes, darling, really go."

      "Oh, mother," and immediately he checked his enthusiasm with a sceptical "when?"

      "Next Monday."

      "And shall I see cows?"

      "Yes."

      "And donkeys? And horses? And pigs? And goats?"

      To every question she nodded.

      "Oh, mother, I will be good," he promised of his own accord. "And can I take my grenadiers?"

      "You can take everything you have, darling."

      "Will Dora come?" He did not inquire about his father.

      "No."

      "Just you and me?"

      She nodded, and Mark flung his arms round her neck to press upon her lips a long fragrant kiss, such a kiss as only a child can give.

      On Sunday morning, the last Sunday morning he would worship in the little tin mission church, the last Sunday morning indeed that any of the children of Lima Street would worship there, Mark sat close beside his mother at the children's Mass. His father looking as he always looked, took off his chasuble, and in his alb walked up and down the aisle preaching his short sermon interspersed with questions.

      "What is this Sunday called?"

      There was a silence until a well-informed little girl breathed through her nose that it was called Passion Sunday.

      "Quite right. And next Sunday?"

      "Palm Sunday," all the children shouted with alacrity, for they looked forward to it almost more than to any Sunday in the year.

      "Next Sunday, dear children, I had hoped to give you the blessed palms in our beautiful new church, but God has willed otherwise, and another priest will come in my place. I hope you will listen to him as attentively as you have listened to me, and I hope you will try to encourage him by your behaviour both in and out of the church, by your punctuality and regular attendance at Mass, and by your example to other children who have not had the advantage of learning all about our glorious Catholic faith. I shall think about you all when I am gone and I shall never cease to ask our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ to guard you and keep you safe for Him. And I want you to pray to Our Blessed Lady and to our great patron Saint Wilfred that they will intercede for you and me. Will you all do this?"

      There was a unanimous and sibilant "Yes, father," from the assembled children, and then one little girl after being prodded by her companions on either side of her spoke up and asked the Missioner why he was going.

      "Ah, that is a very difficult question to answer; but I will try to explain it to you by a parable. What is a parable?"

      "Something that isn't true," sang out a too ready boy from the back of the church.

      "No, no, Arthur Williams. Surely some other boy or girl can correct Arthur Williams? How many times have we had that word explained to us! A parable is a story with a hidden meaning. Now please, every boy and girl, repeat that answer after me. A parable is a story with a hidden meaning."

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