Free After My Fashion by John Cowper Powys Page A

about science and the local flora and the insects and everything, were a real help to him in his work.‘
    As Nelly looked at her father uttering these words, the old man’s fanatical head, with the furrowed forehead and the noticeable wart on the high-bridged nose, took to itself the appearance of some ancient remorseless idol upon whose mechanical decision, entirely divorced from all reason and pity, her whole future depended. Her delicately moulded white face stiffened into a rigid mask of nervous tension and little twitching wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows.
    The low-voiced crooning of the doves, in the sycamore outside, teased her as something ill-timed, and the flowers on the table, picked by herself the day before, assumed the curious look which flowers have when they attend on some mortal disaster.
    The more she contemplated the fatal cul-de-sac, into which an evil focusing of apparently malleable circumstances had pushed her, the more devastating the prospect looked.
    The trap she had so innocently, step by step, walked into, narrowed upon her at that moment with what seemed like iron bands. She felt almost afraid of making the least movement of resistance lest the thing’s remorseless teeth should close with a snap. And yet, resist she must! A way of escape in some direction there must be. Life couldn’t intend to crush her with a stone before she had even begun to live.
    â€˜I suppose, Father,’ she began, in a voice that sounded like someone else’s voice, some voice of a harassed young woman in some unreal story. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of the bishop being willing to let you keep your work, in spite of your change of views?’
    The old man looked fiercely at her. ‘Haven’t I told you, child? It’s not our bishop. It’s the authority in London. But it’s not really that either. It’s my own conscience and self-respect. How can I go on reading the services here when I have ceased to believe a word of it? My plain duty, as an honest man, is to resign.’
    The corners of Nelly’s mouth drooped piteously. Tears came into her eyes. She bit her lip. ‘I don’t believe it would have happened – any of it – if mother had lived.’

    â€˜Your mother would have completely understood me,’ said the old man severely. ‘She always did understand me. However, if you’re determined to make it harder for me—’
    With a brave effort she swallowed her tears and spoke more calmly. ‘But, Father dear, I know you still believe in Christ. You couldn’t not believe in Him and consecrate the Sacrament every morning as you do. It is only some theological difficulty you have, quite separate from what is really important. You know what the bishop said when you went to see him.’
    The old man rose to his feet before her, a quavering tower of inarticulate passion. His long fingers twisted and trembled as they hung by his side. His hands jerked at the end of his long thin arms. The fleshy portion of his face seemed to draw itself tightly in, over the bony substructure, and his eyes glared as if from a cavernous pit.
    â€˜How dare you quote that man to me! Didn’t I tell you? He treated me like a silly woman with some ridiculous mania that meant nothing. He wouldn’t even hear what I had to say. He just talked and talked, pretty conventional nothings, and then took me into his garden and showed me his sweet-peas! And I had come to let him know, as my spiritual superior, the deepest thoughts of my soul. His sweet-peas! His episcopal sweet-peas!’ and the old man sank down again into his chair, exhausted with his outburst. His face quickly changed from that queer drawn look and assumed his normal expression but Nelly noted a weary world-tired droop about him that startled her. Yes, it was clear that something must be done. His mind was troubled to its very foundations.
    She moved over to his side.