The Feast by Margaret Kennedy Page A

immediately.’
    ‘We can’t make them go,’ sighed Mrs. Siddal. ‘I spoke to Canon Wraxton. I explained how embarrassing it is for us. But he simply said he’d paid for a week and should stay for a week.’
    ‘What about the girl? She was worse than he was … the ghastly noise she made.’
    ‘I don’t know where she is. She wasn’t at lunch, and she’s not in her room.’
    ‘Would Father …?’
    ‘Gerry, you know he wouldn’t.’
    ‘Very well, then. I must. I’ll go and speak to the old brute now. I’ll tell him to clear out. Give me the money they paid, and I’ll return it.’
    Gerry marched upstairs, determined to have a fight with somebody. He was not naturally pugnacious, but he felt that the morning’s outrage demanded action of some kind. The Wraxtons must be demolished. He did not distinguish much between them, nor was he quite clear about the facts. They had created a most blasphemous disturbance, shouting and laughing, until they were turned out. From his place, up by the altar, he had seen very little. He had tried to rush down and hit Canon Wraxton, but Father Bott had restrained him. He did not realize that Evangeline’s laughter proceeded from hysteria, not from mockery, and he believed that the interruption had been deliberately planned by both the offenders.
    The Canon was lying on his bed having forty winks. But when Gerry came in he sat up and swung his legs to the floor.
    ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘And what can I do for you ? ’
    Gerry put twelve guineas on the bedside table.
    ‘You must go, please,’ he said. ‘At once. Here is the money you paid.’
    ‘Are you,’ asked the Canon, ‘the proprietor of this hotel?’
    ‘No. I’m speaking for my mother.’
    ‘Why doesn’t she speak for herself?’
    ‘Because you won’t listen to her.’
    ‘I listened to her. It’s she who didn’t listen to me, or she’d have told you what I said.’
    And the Canon flung himself back on his bed.
    ‘She told me you wouldn’t go.’
    ‘And I told her that if she wants me out she’ll have to send for the police to put me out. Let nobody make any mistake about that.’
    ‘All right!’ said Gerry.
    ‘I also told her that, if I’m put out, I shall sue her for breach of contract. She agreed to take me in and to render certain services for which I paid.’
    ‘No hotel is expected to keep people who cause a public scandal,’ said Gerry.
    ‘No scandal, as you call it, occurred on your mother’s premises. But if she wants a fight she can have it. I don’t mind a fight. If Mister Bott wants a fight he can have one too. He’ll have it whether he wants it or not. I’m writing to his Bishop. I shall see that the facts are known.’
    ‘So shall we,’ declared Gerry.
    ‘And if I’m turned out of this hotel for doing my duty as a Minister of the Church of England, I shall see that that’s known too. I shall write to every newspaper in the country.’
    ‘You must do as you please about that,’ said Gerry. ‘As long as you go.’
    ‘I’ll go if I’m flung out by force. Not otherwise.’
    Gerry went off to find his mother, but could not persuade her to send for the police. She said that she would rather put up with the Canon for a week, nor would she agree that loyalty to their Parish Church demanded extreme measures. When he persisted, she even said that it was partly Father Bott’s fault, for being so High Church. ‘He’s not High Church,’ explained Gerry. ‘He’s Anglo-Catholic ’
    ‘Which is worse,’ said Mrs. Siddal. ‘I’m sure I sympathize with people who don’t like it. What did we have the Reformation for?’
    ‘I’m an Anglo-Catholic myself,’ said Gerry.
    ‘I know. But I’m not. I’m a Protestant and I don’tlike all these goings on in my Parish Church. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, and I won’t have the police brought into it.’
    In despair Gerry took an unusual step. He decided to consult his father, hoping to get some kind of