Worship

The Brocks had a long pew at the top of the church. The pew had an opulent cushion and footstool upholstered in crimson. On Sunday mornings Mrs. Brock, stiff and demure, sat at the far end of the pew, and Robert Brock, comfortable and paternal, at the other. The much-curled heads of six little Brocks bobbed between—handsome, well dressed children.

Mr Brock was a business man of integrity. He was also church warden. In the family pew he took the children’s hats off and put them on again. He found all their places in the prayerbook and hymnal. If the long sermon got too wearisome he passed a bag of soothing sucker-lollypops down the pew. When the Bishop was nearing his Amen, Robert Brock dived into his pocket and took out a handful of pennies; like the early and late labourer, each child received a penny. Then Mr Brock left his pew, crossed the chancel, and met his fellow church warden.

Side by side they marched down the long centre aisle passing the collection plate. At the church door they parted, one turning right, one left; each took a side aisle. By the time Robert reached his own pew at the top of the church the children’s six pennies were lost. Mr Brock waited, holding the plate, while all the cracks behind the pew cushion were searched, then the floor, even the prayerbooks and hymnals held by covers and shaken, while the big brass collection plate waited and the choir improvised an additional verse to the hymn.

Mr Brock bought a great field lying some miles beyond the town, a cleared hummocky field that had been pasturage for a farm nearby. There was a two-roomed cabin in the field. Close to the cabin Mr Brock raised two tents, cosying them with floors and siding. In this camp he planned holidaying his family during the long summer vacations, himself going back and forth to town in a rig with a handsome black horse driven by one of his office men.

Mr Brock was well pleased with his new property. It was bounded on one side by the sea, having a good bathing beach for the children, on another side by the country road. On the other two sides right up to his fence grew dense pine woods which, after a stretch of forest green on top and purple underneath where the sun could not penetrate, met a high rocky ridge of hills which protected the camp from the prevailing summer winds. Sunshine played across the wide field all day.

Janet Brock was irked by camp life. She hated inconvenience, wasps, and brambles. The ants and mosquitoes bit her. But her children loved camp so much that for their sake she endured with only minor grumblings. She handed the provocations and inconvenience of camp over to Hannah, the cockney maid of all work, folded her pretty hands over her white forearms, and sat the summer through.

“Mother,” said Robert, “we should not let the children’s religious training drop because we are pleasuring.”

“But, Robert, there is not a church within miles of camp.”

Robert considered, his eyes roving his field: presently he noted a slight rift in the dark of the woods adjoining his property. He went to it and saw that a great flat moss-covered rock lay in the woods just the other side of his field. The rock was as large as a big room. Robert took axe and saw and cut a hole in his fence. Into the hole he hinged a little gate.

“I have made a church, Mother. Come and see, it is just the other side of our own fence.”

“Robert! You know I cannot climb fences!”

“I have made a gate.”

The children came from the bench. “Oh, Father! Is this a play-house for us in the woods?”

“No, this is our church. We will keep it just for that.”

The Brocks entered the church and looked round. Janet said, “Robert, I could not possibly sit on moss nor pray among ants and beetles!”

“We will carry a chair out for you, Mother.”

The trees grew so close together that all their under-boughs were rusty for lack of sunshine, nor had they opportunity to grow thick massive boles. Red-purple and a foot thick was the best they could do. They receded back and back till they were lost in mystery, but the standing boles did not absolutely enclose like man-made walls.

There was the pungent sweetness of pines and earth in the air of this woods church. Janet said, “The place smells like a sepulchre!” The quiet of woods shivered her. She turned back to the bright rock. Its crevices were filled with patches of brilliant green licorice fern. The green yellow of moss on the rock was rich and deep and dotted with pink shepherd’s purse and wild blue forget-me-not. Spiraea bushes grew round the edges of the rock, dropping rich creamy bunches of blossoms whose weight bent their slender woody stalks, straining out towards the sunshine which filled the little rock chapel at high noon when the sun was overhead. A bold and brazen tiger lily grew on the edge of the rock. It had five blossoms on each stalk, blossoms with faces furiously splotched, and orange petals rolled back like the lips of angry cats.

The novelty of having an outdoor church pleased the children, so Mrs Brock made the best of it. A chair was brought out of the cabin and placed on the moss, and Janet felt regal sitting in it, her children grouped around her feet on the moss.

Robert was distinctly nervous the first Sunday when he took his place on a bare portion of the rock and fingered his prayerbook and hymnal. He missed the protection of the church, of the congregation, as well as of the Bishop. There was not anything man-made in this place except the chair upon which Janet sat. Boles and boughs dimmed and dimmed, receding indefinitely. There was deep quiet. Janet bowed her head, the children bowed theirs; still Robert did not begin. He fidgeted with his books. His tongue turned stiff. He wanted to bolt through the little gate back into his own field.

The old house-dog lay at his feet. The trustful eyes of the old dog were the first thing to pull Robert together, looking direct and with trust into Robert’s face. Janet, shading her face with her hands, was furtively peeping to make sure there was no creeping thing near her. She peeped at Robert, wondering at so long a pause, anxious to get it over, to go away even to the slight shelter of the little cabin. One of the children tittered, watching a battle between two ants down in the moss. Robert thought, “He knows Father is scared. My son shall not think that.” Robert’s voice rang out strong and firm.

“God is in His holy place; let all the earth keep silence.” As he read his voice steadied.

“It was brave of you, Robert,” said Janet as he helped her through the gate and carefully tied it. “I could not have done it before the children.”

A visiting child once asked, “What is that lovely little place? Could we not go in there to play?” But the Brock children said, “No, that is our church. We do not go there to play.”

Two summers spent in the makeshift camp were enough for Janet. Hannah the cockney maid did the camp work, Janet did little but shoo mosquitoes, so she got bored and began to complain. Robert built for her a fine summer cottage far down the other end of the field close to the sea. The cottage had a nice kitchen, a great living-room, and plenty of bedrooms. Tents and cabin were abandoned. Janet’s second-best piano was included in the comfortable furnishings brought from town for the new cottage.

Janet could almost forgive insects for being insects now that she did not have to live on such intimate terms with them. She said, “Robert, now that we have the large sitting-room and the piano, it will not be necessary for us to wade across the hummocky field to that absurd rock beyond the gate? We can hold service in the living-room—piano, chairs! I think perhaps we should invite those children from the farm, too. The poor things have so few opportunities, and of course there will be Hannah too. An enclosed church with piano and real chairs will remove the familiarity I always felt a danger in that church picnic-style—everyone sitting around equal on the moss lacked class dignity.”

“As you wish, Janet.” But there was sadness in Robert’s heart as he took away the little gate and replaced the boards of the old fence, half envying the birds and snowflakes that could still continue to worship God out on the mossy rock in the woods chapel.

In the cottage living-room the chairs were set in two stiff rows on Sunday morning. Near the door were four other chairs—three for the farm children, one for Hannah.

The farm children plodded ungraciously to service across the fields carrying their Bibles. Their mother made them come. They sat uncomfortably on the edges of their chairs, feet dangling, mouths open.

The Brock children exhibited superiority by pinching, hairpulling, and tying their sisters to the chair-backs by the little girls’ sashes, so that when they faced over to pray, chair and all went too.

Janet thanked God that her children were not stodgy and heavy like the farm children. Janet played the hymns. Her voice, always a little flat, sounded a little flatter enclosed between walls. Once she had had those long curved white teeth peculiar to Englishwomen. A Canadian dentist had replaced them with shorter Canadian dentures. Her frustrated lips gathered into a pucker. They met like the fluted edges of a cockle-shell. She had nice eyes but they were always grave. The children were proud of their mother, proud of her white idle hands, her straight back, and elegant ways.

The service in the cottage living-room was over. Janet and Hannah rose from opposite ends of the room, rubbing their knees a little. “Polish be ’arder nor moss, mum,” remarked Hannah.

The farm children passed out the door. In slow lurching going they were nearly knocked over by a mob of young Brocks heading for the beach.

Hannah shoved the laps of the chairs under the dining-table. “Wuship be huntidity, mum, ’ymn books ’iggeldy-piglin’ all hover the plice.”

Robert and Janet went to sit on the cottage verandah.

Janet’s eyes followed the dust-kicking heels of the farm children crossing the fields. “Robert! Oh, Robert, those dreadful children! They are playing toss with their Bibles, the ones I gave them on Christmas! Should we allow our children to be exposed—irreligion!—”

“Only show-off, Mother. Those youngsters are all right. Showing off for nervousness.”

Janet sighed. “Our children for a pattern, the fine big room, the piano and the chairs, so different to the woods: I thought religion would—”

The clock in the living-room gave twelve slow raspy strikes. Like the piano, it was only the Brocks’ second-best. Robert tallied his watch, slipped it back into his pocket, laid a big warm hand on Janet’s knee.

“There are as many varieties of worship as there are kinds of time-pieces, Mother. Time himself is all that matters. Time who never hurries or slows. Time, time, time—time Hannah’s dinner was ready—come!”