The Captives [56]
the young man discovered motives and symptoms with the same dexterous surprise with which he discovered newts and tadpoles in the cellar-pond. Maggie bravely attacked Mr. Magnus.
"Why didn't he have men in to clear up the pond and lay a new floor?" she asked.
"That was just the point," said Mr. Magnus. "He couldn't."
"Why couldn't he?"
"Weakness of character and waiting to see what would happen."
"He talked too much," she answered decisively. "But are there houses in London with ponds in them ?"
"Lots," said Mr. Magnus. "Only the owners of the houses don't know it. There is a big pond in the Chapel. That's what Thurston came out of."
This was beyond Maggie altogether. An agreeable thing, however, about Mr. Magnus was that he did not mind when you disliked his work. He seemed to expect that you would not like it. He was certainly a very unconceited man.
A more important and more interesting theme was Mr. Magnus' reason for being where he was. What was he doing here? What led him to the Chapel doors, he being in no way a religious man?
"It was like this," he told her. "I was living in Golders Green, and suddenly one morning I was tired of the country that wasn't country, and the butcher boy and the postman. So I moved as far into the centre of things as I could and took a room in St. Martin's Lane close at hand here. Then one evening I was wandering about, a desolate Sunday evening when the town is given over to cats. I suddenly came across the Chapel. I like going into London churches by chance, there's always something interesting, something you wouldn't expect. The Chapel simply astonished me. I couldn't imagine what they were all about, it wasn't the ordinary London congregation, it was almost the ordinary London service and yet not quite; there was an air of expectation and even excitement which is most unusual in a London church. Then there was Warlock. Of course one could see at once that he was an extraordinary man, a kind of prophet all on his own; he was as far away from that congregation as Columbus was from his crew when he first sighted the Indies."
"I've met one or two prophets in my time, and their concern has always been with their audience first, themselves second and their vision last. Warlock is the other way round. He should have been a hermit, not the leader of a community. Well, it interested me. I came again and again . . . I'm going to stay on now until the end."
"The end?" asked Maggie.
"The end of myself or the Chapel, whichever comes first. I wrote a story once--a very bad one--about some merchants--why merchants I don't know--who were flung on a desert island. It was all jungle and desolation, and then suddenly they came upon a little white Temple. It doesn't matter what happened afterwards. I've myself forgotten most of it, but I remember that the sailors used the Temple in different ways to keep their hopes and expectations alive. Their expectations that one day a ship would come and save them . . . and so far as I remember they became imaginative about the Temple, and fancied that the Unknown God of it would help them to regain their private affairs: one of them wanted to get back to his girl, another to his favourite pub, another to his money-making, another to his collection of miniatures. And they used to sit and look at the Temple day after day and expect something to happen. When the ship came at last they wouldn't go into it because they couldn't bear to think that something should happen at last and they not be there to see it. Oh yes, one of them went back, I remember. But his actual meeting with his girl was so disappointing in comparison with his long expectation of it in front of the Temple that he took the next boat back to the island . . . but he never found it again. He travelled everywhere and died, a disappointed man, at sea."
Mr. Magnus was fond of telling little stories, obscure and pointless, and Maggie supposed that it was a literary habit. On this occasion he continued to talk quite naturally for his own satisfaction. "Yes, one can make
"Why didn't he have men in to clear up the pond and lay a new floor?" she asked.
"That was just the point," said Mr. Magnus. "He couldn't."
"Why couldn't he?"
"Weakness of character and waiting to see what would happen."
"He talked too much," she answered decisively. "But are there houses in London with ponds in them ?"
"Lots," said Mr. Magnus. "Only the owners of the houses don't know it. There is a big pond in the Chapel. That's what Thurston came out of."
This was beyond Maggie altogether. An agreeable thing, however, about Mr. Magnus was that he did not mind when you disliked his work. He seemed to expect that you would not like it. He was certainly a very unconceited man.
A more important and more interesting theme was Mr. Magnus' reason for being where he was. What was he doing here? What led him to the Chapel doors, he being in no way a religious man?
"It was like this," he told her. "I was living in Golders Green, and suddenly one morning I was tired of the country that wasn't country, and the butcher boy and the postman. So I moved as far into the centre of things as I could and took a room in St. Martin's Lane close at hand here. Then one evening I was wandering about, a desolate Sunday evening when the town is given over to cats. I suddenly came across the Chapel. I like going into London churches by chance, there's always something interesting, something you wouldn't expect. The Chapel simply astonished me. I couldn't imagine what they were all about, it wasn't the ordinary London congregation, it was almost the ordinary London service and yet not quite; there was an air of expectation and even excitement which is most unusual in a London church. Then there was Warlock. Of course one could see at once that he was an extraordinary man, a kind of prophet all on his own; he was as far away from that congregation as Columbus was from his crew when he first sighted the Indies."
"I've met one or two prophets in my time, and their concern has always been with their audience first, themselves second and their vision last. Warlock is the other way round. He should have been a hermit, not the leader of a community. Well, it interested me. I came again and again . . . I'm going to stay on now until the end."
"The end?" asked Maggie.
"The end of myself or the Chapel, whichever comes first. I wrote a story once--a very bad one--about some merchants--why merchants I don't know--who were flung on a desert island. It was all jungle and desolation, and then suddenly they came upon a little white Temple. It doesn't matter what happened afterwards. I've myself forgotten most of it, but I remember that the sailors used the Temple in different ways to keep their hopes and expectations alive. Their expectations that one day a ship would come and save them . . . and so far as I remember they became imaginative about the Temple, and fancied that the Unknown God of it would help them to regain their private affairs: one of them wanted to get back to his girl, another to his favourite pub, another to his money-making, another to his collection of miniatures. And they used to sit and look at the Temple day after day and expect something to happen. When the ship came at last they wouldn't go into it because they couldn't bear to think that something should happen at last and they not be there to see it. Oh yes, one of them went back, I remember. But his actual meeting with his girl was so disappointing in comparison with his long expectation of it in front of the Temple that he took the next boat back to the island . . . but he never found it again. He travelled everywhere and died, a disappointed man, at sea."
Mr. Magnus was fond of telling little stories, obscure and pointless, and Maggie supposed that it was a literary habit. On this occasion he continued to talk quite naturally for his own satisfaction. "Yes, one can make