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Title: The Cathedral: A Novel

Author: Hugh Walpole

Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8135]
                Most recently updated: January 18, 2017

Language: English

Credits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CATHEDRAL: A NOVEL ***




Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE CATHEDRAL

_A Novel_

by HUGH WALPOLE

Author of _The Young Enchanted_, _The Captives_,
_Jeremy_, _The Secret City_, _The Green Mirror_, etc.




TO
JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD
WITH MUCH LOVE


[Illustration: Sonore sans dureto]




CONTENTS


BOOK I: Prelude

   I.  Brandons
  II.  Ronders
 III.  One of Joan's Days
  IV.  The Impertinent Elephan
   V.  Mrs. Brandon Goes Out to Tea
  VI.  Seatown Mist and Cathedral Dust
 VII.  Ronder's Day
VIII.  Son--Father


BOOK II: The Whispering Gallery

   I.  Five O'Clock--The Green Cloud
  II.  Souls on Sunday
 III.  The May-Day Prologue
  IV.  The Genial Heart
   V.  Falk by the River
  VI.  Falk's Flight
 VII.  Brandon Puts On His Armour
VIII.  The Wind Flies Over the House
  IX.  The Quarrel


Book III: The Jubilee

   I.  June 17, Thursday: Anticipation
  II.  Friday, June 18: Shadow Meets Shadow
 III.  Saturday, June 19: The Ball
  IV.  Sunday, June 20: In the Bedroom
   V.  Tuesday, June 22: I. The Cathedral
  VI.  Tuesday, June 22: II. The Fair
 VII.  Tuesday, June 22: III. Torchlight


Book IV: The Last Stand

   I.  In Ronder's House: Ronder, Wistons
  II.  Two in the House
 III.  Prelude to Battle
  IV.  The Last Tournament




Book I

Prelude



"Thou shalt have none other gods but Me."




Chapter I

Brandons



Adam Brandon was born at Little Empton in Kent in 1839. He was educated at
the King's School, Canterbury, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Ordained in 1863, he was first curate at St. Martin's, Portsmouth, then
Chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester; in the year 1875 he accepted the
living of Pomfret in Wiltshire and was there for twelve years. It was in
1887 that he came to our town; he was first Canon and afterwards
Archdeacon. Ten years later he had, by personal influence and strength of
character, acquired so striking a position amongst us that he was often
alluded to as "the King of Polchester." His power was the greater because
both our Bishop (Bishop Purcell) and our Dean (Dean Sampson) during that
period were men of retiring habits of life. A better man, a greater saint
than Bishop Purcell has never lived, but in 1896 he was eighty-six years
of age and preferred study and the sanctity of his wonderful library at
Carpledon to the publicity and turmoil of a public career; Dean Sampson,
gentle and amiable as he was, was not intended by nature for a moulder of
men. He was, however, one of the best botanists in the County and his
little book on "Glebshire Ferns" is, I believe, an authority in its own
line.

Archdeacon Brandon was, of course, greatly helped by his magnificent
physical presence. "Magnificent" is not, I think, too strong a word. Six
feet two or three in height, he had the figure of an athlete, light blue
eyes, and his hair was still, when he was fifty-eight years of age, thick
and fair and curly like that of a boy. He looked, indeed, marvellously
young, and his energy and grace of movement might indeed have belonged to
a youth still in his teens. It is not difficult to imagine how startling
an effect his first appearance in Polchester created. Many of the
Polchester ladies thought that he was like "a Greek God" (the fact that
they had never seen one gave them the greater confidence), and Miss
Dobell, who was the best read of all the ladies in our town, called him
"the Viking." This stuck to him, being an easy and emphatic word and
pleasantly cultured.

Indeed, had Brandon come to Polchester as a single man there might have
been many broken hearts; however, in 1875 he had married Amy Broughton,
then a young girl of twenty. He had by her two children, a boy, Falcon,
now twenty-one years of age, and a girl, Joan, just eighteen. Brandon
therefore was safe from the feminine Polchester world; our town is famous
among Cathedral cities for the morality of its upper classes.

It would not have been possible during all these years for Brandon to have
remained unconscious of the remarkable splendour of his good looks. He was
very well aware of it, but any one who called him conceited (and every one
has his enemies) did him a grave injustice. He was not conceited at all--
he simply regarded himself as a completely exceptional person. He was not
elated that he was exceptional, he did not flatter himself because it was
so; God had seen fit (in a moment of boredom, perhaps, at the number of
insignificant and misshaped human beings He was forced to create) to fling
into the world, for once, a truly Fine Specimen, Fine in Body, Fine in
Soul, Fine in Intellect. Brandon had none of the sublime egoism of Sir
Willoughby Patterne--he thought of others and was kindly and often
unselfish--but he did, like Sir Willoughby, believe himself to be of quite
another clay from the rest of mankind. He was intended to rule, God had
put him into the world for that purpose, and rule he would--to the glory
of God and a little, if it must be so, to the glory of himself. He was a
very simple person, as indeed were most of the men and women in the
Polchester of 1897. He did not analyse motives, whether his own or any one
else's; he was aware that he had "weaknesses" (his ungovernable temper was
a source of real distress to him at times--at other times he felt that it
had its uses). On the whole, however, he was satisfied with himself, his
appearance, his abilities, his wife, his family, and, above all, his
position in Polchester. This last was very splendid.

His position in the Cathedral, in the Precincts, in the Chapter, in the
Town, was unshakable.

He trusted in God, of course, but, like a wise man, he trusted also in
himself.

It happened that on a certain wild and stormy afternoon in October 1896
Brandon was filled with a great exultation. As he stood, for a moment, at
the door of his house in the Precincts before crossing the Green to the
Cathedral, he looked up at the sky obscured with flying wrack of cloud,
felt the rain drive across his face, heard the elms in the neighbouring
garden creaking and groaning, saw the lights of the town far beneath the
low wall that bounded the Precincts sway and blink in the storm, his heart
beat with such pride and happiness that it threatened to burst the body
that contained it. There had not been, perhaps, that day anything
especially magnificent to elate him; he had won, at the Chapter Meeting
that morning, a cheap and easy victory over Canon Foster, the only Canon
in Polchester who still showed, at times, a wretched pugnacious resistance
to his opinion; he had met Mrs. Combermere afterwards in the High Street
and, on the strength of his Chapter victory, had dealt with her haughtily;
he had received an especially kind note from Lady St. Leath asking him to
dinner early next month; but all these events were of too usual a nature
to excite his triumph.

No, there had descended upon him this afternoon that especial ecstasy that
is surrendered once and again by the gods to men to lead them, maybe, into
some especial blunder or to sharpen, for Olympian humour, the contrast of
some swiftly approaching anguish.

Brandon stood for a moment, his head raised, his chest out, his soul in
flight, feeling the sharp sting of the raindrops upon his cheek; then,
with a little breath of pleasure and happiness, he crossed the Green to
the little dark door of Saint Margaret's Chapel.

The Cathedral hung over him, as he stood, feeling in his pocket for his
key, a huge black shadow, vast indeed to-day, as it mingled with the grey
sky and seemed to be taking part in the directing of the wildness of the
storm. Two little gargoyles, perched on the porch of Saint Margaret's
door, leered down upon the Archdeacon. The rain trickled down over their
naked twisted bodies, running in rivulets behind their outstanding ears,
lodging for a moment on the projection of their hideous nether lips. They
grinned down upon the Archdeacon, amused that he should have difficulty,
there in the rain, in finding his key. "Pah!" they heard him mutter, and
then, perhaps, something worse. The key was found, and he had then to bend
his great height to squeeze through the little door. Once inside, he was
at the corner of the Saint Margaret Chapel and could see, in the faint
half-light, the rosy colours of the beautiful Saint Margaret window that
glimmered ever so dimly upon the rows of cane-bottomed chairs, the dingy
red hassocks, and the brass tablets upon the grey stone walls. He walked
through, picking his way carefully in the dusk, saw for an instant the
high, vast expanse of the nave with its few twinkling lights that blew in
the windy air, then turned to the left into the Vestry, closing the door
behind him. Even as he closed the door he could hear high, high up above
him the ringing of the bell for Evensong.

In the Vestry he found Canon Dobell and Canon Rogers. Dobell, the Minor
Canon who was singing the service, was a short, round, chubby clergyman,
thirty-eight years of age, whose great aim in life was to have an easy
time and agree with every one. He lived with a sister in a little house in
the Precincts and gave excellent dinners. Very different was Canon Rogers,
a thin esthetic man with black bushy eyebrows, a slight stoop and thin
brown hair. He took life with grim seriousness. He was a stupid man but
obstinate, dogmatic, and given to the condemnation of his fellow-men. He
hated innovations as strongly as the Archdeacon himself, but with his
clinging to old forms and rituals there went no self-exaltation. He was a
cold-blooded man, although his obstinacy seemed sometimes to point to a
fiery fanaticism. But he was not a fanatic any more than a mule is one
when he plants his feet four-square and refuses to go forward. No
compliments nor threats could move him; he would have lived, had he had a
spark of asceticism, a hermit far from the haunts of men, but even that
withdrawal would have implied devotion. He was devoted to no one, to no
cause, to no religion, to no ambition. He spent his days in maintaining
things as they were, not because he loved them, simply because he was
obstinate. Brandon quite frankly hated him.

In the farther room the choir-boys were standing in their surplices,
whispering and giggling. The sound of the bell was suddenly emphatic.
Canon Rogers stood, his hands folded motionless, gazing in front of him.
Dobell, smiling so that a dimple appeared in each cheek, said in his
chuckling whisper to Brandon:

"Ronder comes to-day, doesn't he?"

"Ronder?" Brandon repeated, coming abruptly out of his secret exultation.

"Yes...Hart-Smith's successor."

"Oh, yes--I believe he does...."

Cobbett, the Verger, with his gold staff, appeared in the Vestry door. A
tall handsome man, he had been in the service of the Cathedral as man and
boy for fifty years. He had his private ambitions, the main one being that
old Lawrence, the head Verger, in his opinion a silly old fool, should die
and permit his own legitimate succession. Another ambition was that he
should save enough money to buy another three cottages down in Seatown. He
owned already six there. But no one observing his magnificent impassivity
(he was famous for this throughout ecclesiastical Glebeshire) would have
supposed that he had any thought other than those connected with ceremony.
As he appeared the organ began its voluntary, the music stealing through
the thick grey walls, creeping past the stout grey pillars that had
listened, with so impervious an immobility, to an endless succession of
voluntaries. The Archdeacon prayed, the choir responded with a long Amen,
and the procession filed out, the boys with faces pious and wistful, the
choir-men moving with nonchalance, their restless eyes wandering over the
scene so absolutely known to them. Then came Rogers like a martyr; Dobell
gaily as though he were enjoying some little joke of his own; last of all,
Brandon, superb in carriage, in dignity, in his magnificent recognition of
the value of ceremony.

Because to-day was simply an ordinary afternoon with an ordinary Anthem
and an ordinary service (Martin in F) the congregation was small, the
gates of the great screen closed with a clang behind the choir, and the
nave, purple grey under the soft light of the candle-lit choir, was shut
out into twilight. In the high carved seats behind and beyond the choir
the congregation was sitting; Miss Dobell, who never missed a service that
her brother was singing, with her pinched white face and funny old-
fashioned bonnet, lost between the huge arms of her seat; Mrs. Combermere,
with a friend, stiff and majestic; Mrs. Cole and her sister-in-law, Amy
Cole; a few tourists; a man or two; Major Drake, who liked to join in the
psalms with his deep bass; and little Mr. Thompson, one of the masters at
the School who loved music and always came to Evensong when he could.

There they were then, and the Archdeacon, looking at them from his stall,
could not but feel that they were rather a poor lot. Not that he exactly
despised them; he felt kindly towards them and would have done no single
one of them an injury, but he knew them all so well--Mrs. Combermere, Miss
Dobell, Mrs. Cole, Drake, Thompson. They were shadows before him. If he
looked hard at them, they seemed to disappear....

The exultation that he had felt as he stood outside his house-door
increased with every moment that passed. It was strange, but he had never,
perhaps, in all his life been so happy as he was at that hour. He was
driven by the sense of it to that, with him, rarest of all things,
introspection. Why should he feel like this? Why did his heart beat
thickly, why were his cheeks flushed with a triumphant heat? It could not
but be that he was realising to-day how everything was well with him. And
why should he not realise it? Looking up to the high vaulted roofs above
him, he greeted God, greeted Him as an equal, and thanked Him as a fellow-
companion who had helped him through a difficult and dusty journey. He
thanked Him for his health, for his bodily vigour and strength, for his
beauty, for his good brain, for his successful married life, for his wife
(poor Amy), for his house and furniture, for his garden and tennis-lawn,
for his carriage and horses, for his son, for his position in the town,
his dominance in the Chapter, his authority on the School Council, his
importance in the district.... For all these things he thanked God, and he
greeted Him with an outstretched hand.

"As one power to another," his soul cried, "greetings! You have been a
true and loyal friend to me. Anything that I can do for You I will do...."

The time came for him to read the First Lesson. He crossed to the Lectern
and was conscious that the tourists were whispering together about him. He
read aloud, in his splendid voice, something about battles and vengeance,
plagues and punishment, God's anger and the trembling Israelites. He might
himself have been an avenging God as he read. He was uplifted with the
glory of power and the exultation of personal dominion...

He crossed back to his seat, and, as they began the "Magnificat," his eye
alighted on the tomb of the Black Bishop. In the volume on Polchester in
Chimes' Cathedral Series (4th edition, 1910), page 52, you will find this
description of the Black Bishop's Tomb: "It stands between the pillars at
the far east end of the choir in the eighth bay from the choir screen. The
stone screen which surrounds the tomb is of most elaborate workmanship,
and it has, in certain lights, the effect of delicate lace; the canopy
over the tomb has pinnacles which rise high above the level of the choir-
stalls. The tomb itself is made from a solid block of a dark blue stone.
The figure of the bishop, carved in black marble, lies with his hands
folded across his breast, clothed in his Episcopal robes and mitre, and
crozier on his shoulder. At his feet are a vizor and a pair of gauntlets,
these also carved in black marble. On one finger of his right hand is a
ring carved from some green stone. His head is raised by angels and at his
feet beyond the vizor and gauntlets are tiny figures of four knights fully
armed. A small arcade runs round the tomb with a series of shields in the
spaces, and these shields have his motto, 'God giveth Strength,' and the
arms of the See of Polchester. His epitaph in brass round the edge of the
tomb has thus been translated:

"'Here, having surrendered himself back to God, lies Henry of Arden. His
life, which was distinguished for its great piety, its unfailing
generosity, its noble statesmanship, was rudely taken in the nave of this
Cathedral by men who feared neither the punishment of their fellows nor
the just vengeance of an irate God.

"'He died, bravely defending this great house of Prayer, and is now, in
eternal happiness, fulfilling the reward of all good and faithful
servants, at his Master's side.'"

It has been often remarked by visitors to the Cathedral how curiously this
tomb catches light from all sides of the building, but this is undoubtedly
in the main due to the fact that the blue stone of which it is chiefly
composed responds immediately to the purple and violet lights that fall
from the great East window. On a summer day the blue of the tomb seems
almost opaque as though it were made of blue glass, and the gilt on the
background of the screen and the brasses of the groins glitter and sparkle
like fire.

Brandon to-day, wrapped in his strange mood of almost mystical triumph,
felt as though he were, indeed, a reincarnation of the great Bishop.

As the "Magnificat" proceeded, he seemed to enter into the very tomb and
share in the Bishop's dust. "I stood beside you," he might almost have
cried, "when in the last savage encounter you faced them on the very steps
of the altar, striking down two of them with your fists, falling at last,
bleeding from a hundred wounds, but crying at the very end, 'God is my
right!'"

As he stared across at the tomb, he seemed to see the great figure,
deserted by all his terrified adherents, lying in his blood in the now
deserted Cathedral; he saw the coloured dusk creep forward and cover him.
And then, in the darkness of the night, the two faithful servants who
crept in and carried away his body to keep it in safety until his day
should come again.

Born in 1100, Henry of Arden had been the first Bishop to give Polchester
dignity and power. What William of Wykeham was to Winchester, that Henry
of Arden was to the See of Polchester. Through all the wild days of the
quarrel between Stephen and Matilda he had stood triumphant, yielding at
last only to the mad overwhelming attacks of his private enemies. Of those
he had had many. It had been said of him that "he thought himself God--the
proudest prelate on earth." Proud he may have been, but he had loved his
Bishopric. It was in his time that the Saint Margaret's Chapel had been
built, through his energy that the two great Western Towers had risen,
because of him that Polchester now could boast one of the richest revenues
of any Cathedral in Europe. Men said that he had plundered, stolen the
land of powerless men, himself headed forays against neighbouring villages
and even castles. He had done it for the greater glory of God. They had
been troublous times. It had been every man for himself....

He had told his people that he was God's chief servant; it was even said
that he had once, in the plenitude of his power, cried that he was God
Himself....

His figure remained to this very day dominating Polchester, vast in
stature, black-bearded, rejoicing in his physical strength. He could kill,
they used to say, an ox with his fist....

The "Gloria" rang triumphantly up into the shadows of the nave. Brandon
moved once more across to the Lectern. He read of the casting of the
money-changers out of the Temple.

His voice quivered with pride and exultation so that Cobbett, who had
acquired, after many years' practice, the gift of sleeping during the
Lessons and Sermon with his eyes open, woke up with a start and wondered
what was the matter.

Brandon's mood, when he was back in his own drawing-room, did not leave
him; it was rather intensified by the cosiness and security of his home.
Lying back in his large arm-chair in front of the fire, his long legs
stretched out before him, he could hear the rain beating on the window-
panes and beyond that the murmur of the organ (Brockett, the organist, was
practising, as he often did after Evensong).

The drawing-room was a long narrow one with many windows; it was furnished
in excellent taste. The carpet and the curtains and the dark blue
coverings to the chairs were all a little faded, but this only gave them
an additional dignity and repose. There were two large portraits of
himself and Mrs. Brandon painted at the time of their marriage, some low
white book-shelves, a large copy of "Christ in the Temple"--plenty of
space, flowers, light.

Mrs. Brandon was, at this time, a woman of forty-two, but she looked very
much less than that. She was slight, dark, pale, quite undistinguished.
She had large grey eyes that looked on to the ground when you spoke to
her. She was considered a very shy woman, negative in every way. She
agreed with everything that was said to her and seemed to have no opinions
of her own. She was simply "the wife of the Archdeacon." Mrs. Combermere
considered her a "poor little fool." She had no real friends in
Polchester, and it made little difference to any gathering whether she
were there or not. She had been only once known to lose her temper in
public--once in the market-place she had seen a farmer beat his horse over
the eyes. She had actually gone up to him and struck him. Afterwards she
had said that "she did not like to see animals ill-treated." The
Archdeacon had apologised for her, and no more had been said about it. The
farmer had borne her no grudge.

She sat now at the little tea-table, her eyes screwed up over the serious
question of giving the Archdeacon his tea exactly as he wanted it. Her
whole mind was apparently engaged on this problem, and the Archdeacon did
not care to-day that she did not answer his questions and support his
comments because he was very, very happy, the whole of his being thrilling
with security and success and innocent pride.

Joan Brandon came in. In appearance she was, as Mrs. Sampson said,
"insignificant." You would not look at her twice any more than you would
have looked at her mother twice. Her figure was slight and her legs (she
was wearing long skirts this year for the first time) too long. Her hair
was dark brown and her eyes dark brown. She had nice rosy cheeks, but they
were inclined to freckle. She smiled a good deal and laughed, when in
company, more noisily than was proper. "A bit of a tomboy, I'm afraid,"
was what one used to hear about her. But she was not really a tomboy; she
moved quietly, and her own bedroom was always neat and tidy. She had very
little pocket-money and only seldom new clothes, not because the
Archdeacon was mean, but because Joan was so often forgotten and left out
of the scheme of things. It was surprising that the only girl in the house
should be so often forgotten, but the Archdeacon did not care for girls,
and Mrs. Brandon did not appear to think very often of any one except the
Archdeacon. Falk, Joan's brother, now at Oxford, when he was at home had
other things to do than consider Joan. She had gone, ever since she was
twelve, to the Polchester High School for Girls, and there she was
popular, and might have made many friends, had it not been that she could
not invite her companions to her home. Her father did not like "noise in
the house." She had been Captain of the Hockey team; the small girls in
the school had all adored her. She had left the place six months ago and
had come home to "help her mother." She had had, in honest fact, six
months' loneliness, although no one knew that except herself. Her mother
had not wanted her help. There had been nothing for her to do, and she had
felt herself too young to venture into the company of older girls in the
town. She had been rather "blue" and had looked back on Seafield House,
the High School, with longing, and then suddenly, one morning, for no very
clear reason she had taken a new view of life. Everything seemed
delightful and even thrilling, commonplace things that she had known all
her days, the High Street, keeping her rooms tidy, spending or saving the
minute monthly allowance, the Cathedral, the river. She was all in a
moment aware that something very delightful would shortly occur. What it
was she did not know, and she laughed at herself for imagining that
anything extraordinary could ever happen to any one so commonplace as
herself, but there the strange feeling was and it would not go away.

To-day, as always when her father was there, she came in very quietly, sat
down near her mother, saw that she made no sort of interruption to the
Archdeacon's flow of conversation. She found that he was in a good humour
to-day, and she was glad of that because it would please her mother. She
herself had a great interest in all that he said. She thought him a most
wonderful man, and secretly was swollen with pride that she was his
daughter. It did not hurt her at all that he never took any notice of her.
Why should he? Nor did she ever feel jealous of Falk, her father's
favourite. That seemed to her quite natural. She had the idea, now most
thoroughly exploded but then universally held in Polchester, that women
were greatly inferior to men. She did not read the more advanced novels
written by Mme. Sarah Grand and Mrs. Lynn Linton. I am ashamed to say that
her favourite authors were Miss Alcott and Miss Charlotte Mary Yonge.
Moreover, she herself admired Falk extremely. He seemed to her a hero and
always right in everything that he did.

Her father continued to talk, and behind the reverberation of his deep
voice the roll of the organ like an approving echo could faintly be heard.

"There was a moment when I thought Foster was going to interfere. I've
been against the garden-roller from the first--they've got one and what do
they want another for? And, anyway, he thinks I meddle with the School's
affairs too much. Who wants to meddle with the School's affairs? I'm sure
they're nothing but a nuisance, but some one's got to prevent the place
from going to wrack and ruin, and if they all leave it to me I can't very
well refuse it, can I? Hey?"

"No, dear."

"You see what I mean?"

"Yes, dear."

"Well, then--" (As though Mrs. Brandon had just been overcome in an
argument in which she'd shown the greatest obstinacy.) "There you are. It
would be false modesty to deny that I've got the Chapter more or less in
my pocket And why shouldn't I have? Has any one worked harder for this
place and the Cathedral than I have?"

"No, dear."

"Well, then.... There's this new fellow Ronder coming to-day. Don't know
much about him, but he won't give much trouble, I expect--trouble in the
way of delaying things, I mean. What we want is work done expeditiously.
I've just about got that Chapter moving at last. Ten years' hard work.
Deserve a V.C. or something. Hey?"

"Yes, dear, I'm sure you do."

The Archdeacon gave one of his well-known roars of laughter--a laugh
famous throughout the county, a laugh described by his admirers as
"Homeric," by his enemies as "ear-splitting." There was, however, enemies
or no enemies, something sympathetic in that laugh, something boyish and
simple and honest.

He suddenly pulled himself up, bringing his long legs close against his
broad chest.

"No letter from Falk to-day, was there?"

"No, dear."

"Humph. That's three weeks we haven't heard. Hope there's nothing wrong."

"What could there be wrong, dear?"

"Nothing, of course.... Well, Joan, and what have you been doing with
yourself all day?"

It was only in his most happy and resplendent moods that the Archdeacon
held jocular conversations with his daughter. These conversations had
been, in the past, moments of agony and terror to her, but since that
morning when she had suddenly woken to a realisation of the marvellous
possibilities in life her terror had left her. There were other people in
the world besides her father....

Nevertheless, a little, her agitation was still with her. She looked up at
him, smiling.

"Oh, I don't know, father.... I went to the Library this morning to change
the books for mother--"

"Novels, I suppose. No one ever reads anything but trash nowadays."

"They hadn't anything that mother put down. They never have. Miss Milton
sits on the new novels and keeps them for Mrs. Sampson and Mrs.
Combermere."

"Sits on them?"

"Yes--really sits on them. I saw her take one from under her skirt the
other day when Mrs. Sampson asked for it. It was one that mother has
wanted a long time."

The Archdeacon was angry. "I never heard anything so scandalous. I'll just
see to that. What's the use of being on the Library Committee if that kind
of thing happens? That woman shall go."

"Oh no! father!..."

"Of course she shall go. I never heard anything so dishonest in my
life!..."

Joan remembered that little conversation until the end of her life. And
with reason.

The door was flung open. Some one came hurriedly in, then stopped, with a
sudden arrested impulse, looking at them. It was Falk.

Falk was a very good-looking man--fair hair, light blue eyes like his
father's, slim and straight and quite obviously fearless. It was that
quality of courage that struck every one who saw him; it was not only that
he feared, it seemed, no one and nothing, but that he went a step further
than that, spending his life in defying every one and everything, as a
practised dueller might challenge every one he met in order to keep his
play in practice. "I don't like young Brandon," Mrs. Sampson said. "He
snorts contempt at you...."

He was only twenty-one, a contemptuous age. He looked as though he had
been living in that house for weeks, although, as a fact, he had just
driven up, after a long and tiresome journey, in an ancient cab through
the pouring rain. The Archdeacon gazed at his son in a bewildered,
confused amaze, as though he, a convinced sceptic, were suddenly
confronted, in broad daylight, with an undoubted ghost.

"What's the matter?" he said at last. "Why are you here?"

"I've been sent down," said Falk.

It was characteristic of the relationship in that family that, at that
statement, Mrs. Brandon and Joan did not look at Falk but at the
Archdeacon.

"Sent down!"

"Yes, for ragging! They wanted to do it last term."

"Sent down!" The Archdeacon shot to his feet; his voice suddenly lifted
into a cry. "And you have the impertinence to come here and tell me! You
walk in as though nothing had happened! You walk in!..."

"You're angry," said Falk, smiling. "Of course I knew you would be. You
might hear me out first. But I'll come along when I've unpacked and you're
a bit cooler. I wanted some tea, but I suppose that will have to wait. You
just listen, father, and you'll find it isn't so bad. Oxford's a rotten
place for any one who wants to be on his own, and, anyway, you won't have
to pay my bills any more."

Falk turned and went.

The Archdeacon, as he stood there, felt a dim mysterious pain as though an
adversary whom he completely despised had found suddenly with his weapon a
joint in his armour.




Chapter II

Ronders



The train that brought Falk Brandon back to Polchester brought also the
Ronders--Frederick Ronder, newly Canon of Polchester, and his aunt, Miss
Alice Ronder. About them the station gathered in a black cloud, dirty,
obscure, lit by flashes of light and flame, shaken with screams,
rumblings, the crashing of carriage against carriage, the rattle of cab-
wheels on the cobbles outside. To-day also there was the hiss and scatter
of the rain upon the glass roof. The Ronders stood, not bewildered, for
that they never were, but thinking what would be best. The new Canon was a
round man, round-shouldered, round-faced, round-stomached, round legged. A
fair height, he was not ludicrous, but it seemed that if you laid him down
he would roll naturally, still smiling, to the farthest end of the
station. He wore large, very round spectacles. His black clerical coat and
trousers and hat were scrupulously clean and smartly cut. He was not a
dandy, but he was not shabby. He smiled a great deal, not nervously as
curates are supposed to smile, not effusively, but simply with geniality.
His aunt was a contrast, thin, straight, stiff white collar, little black
bow-tie, coat like a man's, skirt with no nonsense about it. No nonsense
about her anywhere. She was not unamiable, perhaps, but business came
first.

"Well, what do we do?" he asked.

"We collect our bags and find the cab," she answered briskly.

They found their bags, and there were a great many of them; Miss Ronder,
having seen that they were all there and that there was no nonsense about
the porter, moved off to the barrier followed by her nephew.

As they came into the station square, all smelling of hay and the rain,
the deluge slowly withdrew its forces, recalling them gradually so that
the drops whispered now, patter-patter--pit-pat. A pigeon hovered down and
pecked at the cobbles. Faint colour threaded the thick blotting-paper
grey.

Old Fawcett himself had come to the station to meet them. Why had he felt
it to be an occasion? God only knows. A new Canon was nothing to him. He
very seldom now, being over eighty, with a strange "wormy" pain in his
left ear, took his horses out himself. He saved his money and counted it
over by his fireside to see that his old woman didn't get any of it. He
hated his old woman, and in a vaguely superstitious, thoroughly Glebeshire
fashion half-believed that she had cast a spell over him and was really
responsible for his "wormy" ear.

Why had he come? He didn't himself know. Perhaps Ronder was going to be of
importance in the place, he had come from London and they all had money in
London. He licked his purple protruding lips greedily as he saw the
generous man. Yes, kindly and generous he looked....

They got into the musty cab and rattled away over the cobbles.

"I hope Mrs. Clay got the telegram all right." Miss Ronder's thin bosom
was a little agitated beneath its white waistcoat. "You'll never forgive
me if things aren't looking as though we'd lived in the place for months."

Alice Ronder was over sixty and as active as a woman of forty. Ronder
looked at her and laughed.

"Never forgive you! What words! Do I ever cherish grievances? Never...
but I do like to be comfortable."

"Well, everything was all right a week ago. I've slaved at the place, as
you know, and Mrs. Clay's a jewel--but she complains of the Polchester
maids--says there isn't one that's any good. Oh, I want my tea, I want my
tea!"

They were climbing up from the market-place into the High Street. Ronder
looked about him with genial curiosity.

"Very nice," he said; "I believe I can be comfortable here."

"If you aren't comfortable you certainly won't stay," she answered him
sharply.

"Then I _must_ be comfortable," he replied, laughing.

He laughed a great deal, but absent-mindedly, as though his thoughts were
elsewhere. It would have been interesting to a student of human nature to
have been there and watched him as he sat back in the cab, looking through
the window, indeed, but seeing apparently nothing. He seemed to be gazing
through his round spectacles very short-sightedly, his eyes screwed up and
dim. His fat soft hands were planted solidly on his thick knees.

The observer would have been interested because he would soon have
realised that Ronder saw everything; nothing, however insignificant,
escaped him, but he seemed to see with his brain as though he had learnt
the trick of forcing it to some new function that did not properly belong
to it. The broad white forehead under the soft black clerical hat was
smooth, unwrinkled, mild and calm.... He had trained it to be so.

The High Street was like any High Street of a small Cathedral town in the
early evening. The pavements were sleek and shiny after the rain; people
were walking with the air of being unusually pleased with the world,
always the human expression when the storms have withdrawn and there is
peace and colour in the sky. There were lights behind the solemn panes of
Bennett's the bookseller's, that fine shop whose first master had seen Sir
Walter Scott in London and spoken to Byron. In his window were rows of the
classics in calf and first editions of the Surtees books and _Dr.
Syntax_. At the very top of the High Street was Mellock's the pastry-
cook's, gay with its gas, rich with its famous saffron buns, its still
more famous ginger-bread cake, and, most famous of all, its lemon
biscuits. Even as the Ronders' cab paused for a moment before it turned to
pass under the dark Arden Gate on to the asphalt of the Precincts, the
great Mrs. Mellock herself, round and rubicund, came to the door and
looked about her at the weather. An errand-boy passed, whistling, down the
hill, a stiff military-looking gentleman with white moustaches mounted
majestically the steps of the Conservative Club; then they rattled under
the black archway, echoed for a moment on the noisy cobbles, then slipped
into the quiet solemnity of the Precincts asphalt. It was Brandon who had
insisted on the asphalt. Old residents had complained that to take away
the cobbles would be to rid the Precincts of all its atmosphere.

"I don't care about atmosphere," said the Archdeacon, "I want to sleep at
night."

Very quiet here; not a sound penetrated. The Cathedral was a huge shadow
above its darkened lawns; not a human soul was to be seen.

The cab stopped with a jerk at Number Eight. The bell was rung by old
Fawcett, who stood on the top step looking down at Ronder and wondering
how much he dared to ask him. Ask him too much now and perhaps he would
not deal with him in the future. Moreover, although the man wore large
spectacles and was fat he was probably not a fool.... Fawcett could not
tell why he was so sure, but there was something....

Mrs. Clay was at the door, smiling and ordering a small frightened girl to
"hurry up now." Miss Ronder disappeared into the house. Ronder stood for a
moment looking about him as though he were a spy in enemy country and must
let nothing escape him.

"Whose is that big place there?" he asked Fawcett, pointing to a house
that stood by itself at the farther corner of the Precincts.

"Archdeacon Brandon's, sir."

"Oh!..." Ronder mounted the steps. "Good night," he said to Fawcett. "Mrs.
Clay, pay the cabman, please."

The Ronders had taken this house a month ago; for two months before that
it had stood desolate, wisps of paper and straw blowing about it, its "To
let" notice creaking and screaming in every wind. The Hon. Mrs.
Pentecoste, an eccentric old lady, had lived there for many years, and had
died in the middle of a game of patience; her worn and tattered furniture
had been sold at auction, and the house had remained unlet for a
considerable period because people in the town said that the ghost of Mrs.
Pentecoste's cat (a famous blue Persian) walked there. The Ronders cared
nothing for ghosts; the house was exactly what they wanted. It had two
panelled rooms, two powder-closets, and a little walled garden at the back
with fruit trees.

It was quite wonderful what Miss Ronder had done in a month; she had
abandoned Eaton Square for a week, worked in the Polchester house like a
slave, then retired back to Eaton Square again, leaving Mrs. Clay, her
aide-de-camp, to manage the rest. Mrs. Clay had managed very well. She
would not have been in the service of the Ronders for nearly fifteen years
had she not had a gift for managing....

Ronder, washed and brushed, came down to tea, looked about him, and saw
that all was good.

"I congratulate you, Aunt Alice," he said--"excellent!"

Miss Ronder very slightly flushed.

"There are a lot of things still to be done," she said; nevertheless she
was immensely pleased.

The drawing-room was charming. The stencilled walls, the cushions of the
chairs, the cover of a gate-legged table, the curtains of the mullioned
windows were of a warm dark blue. And whatever in the room was not blue
seemed to be white, or wood in its natural colour, or polished brass.
Books ran round the room in low white book-cases. In one corner a pure
white Hermes stood on a pedestal with tiny wings outspread. There was only
one picture, an excellent copy of "Rembrandt's mother." The windows looked
out to the garden, now veiled by the dusk of evening. Tea was on a little
table close to the white tiled fireplace. A little square brass clock
chimed the half-hour as Ronder came in.

"I suppose Ellen will be over," Ronder said. He drank in the details of
the room with a quite sensual pleasure. He went over to the Hermes and
lifted it, holding it for a moment in his podgy hands.

"You beauty!" he whispered aloud. He put it back, turned round to his
aunt.

"Of course Ellen will be over," he repeated.

"Of course," Miss Ronder repeated, picking up the old square black lacquer
tea-caddy and peering into it.

He picked up the books on the table--two novels, _Sentimental Tommy_,
by J. M. Barrie, and _Sir George Tressady_, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mr.
Swinburne's _Tale of Balen_, and _The Works of Max Beerbohm_.
Last of all Leslie Stephen's _Social Rights and Duties_.

He looked at them all, with their light yellow Mudie labels, their fresh
bindings, then, slowly and very carefully, put them back on the table.

He always handled books as though they were human beings.

He came and sat down by the fire.

"I won't see over the place until to-morrow," he said. "What have you done
about the other books?"

"The book-cases are in. It's the best room in the house. Looks over the
river and gets most of the light. The books are as you packed them. I
haven't dared touch them. In fact, I've left that room entirely for you to
arrange."

"Well," he said, "if you've done the rest of this house as well as this
room, you'll do. It's jolly--it really is. I'm going to like this place."

"And you hated the very idea of it."

"I hated the discomfort there'd be before we settled in. But the settling
in is going to be easier than I thought. Of course we don't know yet how
the land lies. Ellen will tell us."

They were silent for a little. Then he looked at her with a puzzled, half-
humorous, half-ironical glance.

"It's a bit of a blow to you, Aunt Alice, burying yourself down here.
London was the breath of your nostrils. What did you come for? Love of
me?"

She looked steadily back at him.

"Not love exactly. Curiosity, perhaps. I want to see at first hand what
you'll do. You're the most interesting human being I've ever met, and that
isn't prejudice. Aunts do not, as a rule, find their nephews interesting.
And what have you come here for? I assure you I haven't the least idea."

The door was opened by Mrs. Clay.

"Miss Stiles," she said.

Miss Stiles, who came in, was not handsome. She was large and fat, with a
round red face like a sun, and she wore colours too bright for her size.
She had a slow soft voice like the melancholy moo of a cow. She was not a
bad woman, but, temperamentally, was made unhappy by the success or good
fortune of others. Were you in distress, she would love you, cherish you,
never abandon you. She would share her last penny with you, run to the end
of the world for you, defend you before the whole of humanity. Were you,
however, in robust health, she would hint to every one of a possible
cancer; were you popular, it would worry her terribly and she would
discover a thousand faults in your character; were you successful in your
work, she would pray for your approaching failure lest you should become
arrogant. She gossiped without cessation, and always, as it were, to
restore the proper balance of the world, to pull down the mighty from
their high places, to lift the humble only that they in their turn might
be pulled down. She played fluently and execrably on the piano. She spent
her day in running from house to house.

She had independent means, lived four months of the year in Polchester
(she had been born there and her family had been known there for many
generations before her), four months in London, and the rest of the year
abroad. She had met Alice Ronder in London and attached herself to her.
She liked the Ronders because they never boasted of their successes,
because Alice had a weak heart, because Ronder, who knew her character,
half-humorously deprecated his talents, which were, as he knew well
enough, no mean ones. She bored Alice Ronder, but Ronder found her useful.
She told him a great deal that he wanted to know, and although she was
never accurate in her information, he could separate the wheat from the
chaff. She was a walking mischief-maker, but meant no harm to a living
soul. She prided herself on her honesty, on saying exactly what she
thought to every one. She was kindness itself to her servants, who adored
her, as did railway-porters, cabmen and newspaper men. She overtipped
wherever she went because "she could not bear not to be liked." In our
Polchester world she was an important factor. She was always the first to
hear any piece of news in our town, and she gave it a wrong twist just as
fast as she could.

She was really delighted to see the Ronders, and told them so with many
assurances of affection, but she was a little distressed to find the room
so neat and settled. She would have preferred them to be "in a thorough
mess" and badly in need of her help.

"My dear Alice, how quick you've been! How clever you are! At the same
time I think you'll find there's a good deal to arrange still. The
Polchester girls are so slow and always breaking things. I suppose some
things have been smashed in the move--nothing very valuable, I hope."

"Lots of things, Ellen," said Ronder, laughing. "We've had the most awful
time and badly need your help. It's only this room that Aunt Alice got
straight--just to have something to show, you know. And our journey down!
I can't tell you what it was, hardly room to breathe and coming up here in
the rain!"

"Oh, you poor things! What a welcome to Polchester! You must simply have
hated the look of the whole place. _Such_ a bad introduction, and
everything looking as gloomy and depressing as possible. I expect you
wished yourselves well out of it. I don't wonder you're depressed. I hope
you're not feeling your heart, Alice dear."

"Well, I am a little," acknowledged Miss Ronder. "But I shall go to bed
early and get a good night."

"You poor dear! I was afraid you'd be absolutely done up. Now, you're
_not_ to get up in the morning and I'll run about and do your
shopping for you. I _insist_. How's Mrs. Clay?"

"A little grumpy at having so much to do," said Ronder, "but she'll get
over it."

"I'm afraid she's a little ill-tempered at times," said Miss Stiles with
satisfaction. "I thought when I came in that she looked out of sorts.
Troubles never come singly, of course."

All was well now and Miss Stiles completely satisfied. She admired the
room and the Hermes, and prophesied that, after a week or two, they would
probably find things not so bad after all. She drank several cups of tea
and passed on to general conversation. It was obvious, very soon, that she
was bursting with a piece of news.

"I can see, Ellen," said Ronder, humorously observing her, "that you're
longing to tell us something."

"Well, it is interesting. What do you think? Falk Brandon has been sent
down from Oxford for misbehaviour."

"And who is Falk Brandon?" asked Ronder.

"The Archdeacon's son. His only boy. I've told you about Archdeacon
Brandon many times. He thinks he runs the town and has been terribly above
himself for a long while. This will pull him down a little. I must say,
although I don't want to be uncharitable, that I'm glad of it. It's too
absurd the way that he's been having everything his own way here. All the
Canons are over ninety and simply give in to him about everything."

"When did this happen?"

"Oh, it's only just happened. He arrived by your train. I saw young George
Lascelles as I was on my way up to you. He met him at the station--Falk, I
mean--and he didn't pretend to disguise it. George said 'Hullo, Brandon,
what are you doing here?' and Falk said 'Oh, I've been sent down'--just
like that. Didn't pretend to disguise it. He's always been as brazen as
anything. He'll give his father a lot of trouble before he's done."

"There's nothing very terrible," said Ronder, laughing, "in being sent
down from Oxford. I've known plenty of good fellows who were."

Miss Stiles looked annoyed. "Oh, but you don't know. It will be terrible
for his father. He's the proudest man in England. Some people call it
conceit, but, however that may be, he thinks there's nothing like his
family. Even poor Mrs. Brandon he's proud of when she isn't there. It will
be awful for him that every one should know."

Ronder said nothing.

"You know," said Miss Stiles, who felt that her news had fallen flat,
"you'll have to fight him or give in to him. There's no other way here. I
hope you'll fight him."

"I?" said Ronder. "Why, I never fight anybody. I'm much too lazy."

"Then you'll never be comfortable here, that's all. He can't bear being
crossed. He must have his way about everything. If the Bishop weren't so
old and the Dean so stupid.... What we want here is a little life in the
place."

"You needn't look to us for that, Ellen," said Ronder. "We've come here to
rest----"

"Peace, perfect peace...."

"I don't believe you," said Miss Stiles, tossing her head. "I'd be
disappointed to think it of you."

Alice Ronder gave her nephew a curious look, half of amusement, half of
expectation.

"It's quite true, Ellen," she said. "Now, if you've finished your tea,
come and look at the rest of the house."




Chapter III

One of Joan's Days



I find it difficult now to realise how apart from the life of the world
Polchester was in those days. Even now, when the War has shaken up and
jostled together every small village in Great Britain, Polchester still
has some shreds of its isolation left to it; but then--why, it might have
been a walled-in fortress of mediaeval times, for all its connection with
the outside world!

This isolation was quite deliberately maintained. I don't mean, of course,
that Mrs. Combermere and Brandon and old Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Sampson
said to themselves in so many words, "We will keep this to ourselves and
defend its walls against every new invader, every new idea, new custom,
new impulse. We will all be butchered rather than allow one old form,
tradition, superstition to go!" It was not as conscious as that, but in
effect it was that that it came to. And they were wonderfully assisted by
circumstances. It is true that the main line ran through Polchester from
Drymouth, but its travellers were hurrying south, and only a few trippers,
a few Americans, a few sentimentalists stayed to see the Cathedral; and
those who stayed found "The Bull" an impossibly inconvenient and
uncomfortable hostelry and did not come again. It is true that even then,
in 1897, there were many agitations by sharp business men like Crosbie and
John Allen, Croppet and Fred Barnstaple, to make the place more widely
known, more commercially attractive. It was not until later that the golf
course was laid out and the St. Leath Hotel rose on Pol Hill. But other
things were tried--steamers on the Pol, char-à-bancs to various places of
local interest, and so on--but, at this time, all these efforts failed.
The Cathedral was too strong for them, above all Brandon and Mrs.
Combermere were too strong for them. Nothing was done to encourage
strangers; I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Combermere didn't pay old Jolliffe
of "The Bull" so much a year to keep his hotel inconvenient and
insanitary. The men on the Town Council were for the most part like the
Canons, aged and conservative. It is true that it was in 1897 that
Barnstaple was elected Mayor, but without Ronder I doubt whether even he
would have been able to do very much.

The town then revolved, so to speak, entirely on its own axis; it revolved
between the two great events of the year, the summer Polchester Fair, the
winter County Ball, and those two great affairs were conducted, in every
detail and particular, as they had been conducted a hundred years before.
I find it strange, writing from the angle of to-day, to conceive it
possible that so short a time ago anything in England could have been so
conservative. I myself was only thirteen years of age when Ronder came to
our town, and saw all grown figures with the exaggerated colour and
romance that local inquisitive age bestows. About my own contemporaries,
young Jeremy Cole for instance, there was no colour at all, but the older
figures were strange--gigantic, almost mythological. Mrs. Combermere, the
Dean, the Archdeacon, Mrs. Sampson, Canon Ronder, moved about the town, to
my young eyes, like gods and goddesses, and it was not until after my
return to Polchester at the end of my first Cambridge year that I saw
clearly how small a town it was and how tiny the figures in it.

Joan Brandon thought her father a marvellous man, as I have already said,
but she had seen him too often lose his temper, too often snub her mother,
too often be upset by trivial and unimportant details, to conceive him
romantically. Falk, her brother, was romantic to her because she had seen
so much less of him; her father she knew too well. For some time after
Falk's return from Oxford nothing happened. Joan did not know what exactly
she had expected to happen, but she had an uneasy sense that more was
going on behind the scenes than she knew.

The Archdeacon did not speak to Falk unless he were compelled, but Falk
did not seem to mind this in the least. His handsome defiant face flashed
scorn at the whole family.

He was out of the house most of the day, came down to breakfast when every
one else had finished, and often was not present at dinner in the evening.
The Archdeacon had said that breakfast was not to be kept for him, but
nevertheless breakfast was there, on the table, however late he was. The
cook and, indeed, all the servants adored him because, I suppose, he had
no sense of class-difference at all and laughed and joked with any one if
he was in a good temper. All these first days he spoke scarcely one word
to Joan; it was as though the whole family were in his black books for
some disgraceful act--they were the guilty ones and not he.

Joan blamed herself for feeling so light-hearted and gay during this
family crisis, but she could not help it. A very short time ago the
knowledge that battle was engaged in the very heart of the house would
have made her miserable and apprehensive, but now it seemed to be all
outside her and unconnected with her as though she had a life of her own
that no one could touch. Her courage seemed to grow with every half-hour
of her life. Some months passed, and then one morning she came into the
drawing-room and found her mother rather bewildered and distressed.

"Oh dear, I really don't know what to do!" said her mother.

It was so seldom that Joan was appealed to for advice that her heart now
beat with pride.

"What's the matter, mother?" she asked, trying to look dignified and
unconcerned.

Mrs. Brandon looked at her with a frightened and startled look as though
she had been speaking to herself and had not wished to be overheard.

"Oh, Joan!...I didn't know that you were there!"

"What's the matter? Is it anything I can help about?"

"'No, dear, nothing...really I didn't know that you were there."

"No, but you must let me help, mother." Joan marvelled at her own boldness
as she spoke.

"It's nothing you can do, dear."

"But it's sure to be something I can do. Do you know that I've been home
for months and months simply with the idea of helping you, and I'm never
allowed to do anything?"

"Really, Joan--I don't think that's quite the way to speak."

"No, but, mother, it's true. I _want_ to help. I'm grown up. I'm
going to dinner at the Castle, and I _must_ help you, or--or--I shall
go away and earn my own living!"

This last was so startling and fantastic that both Joan and her mother
stared at one another in a kind of horrified amazement.

"No, I didn't mean that, of course," Joan said, hurriedly recovering
herself. "But you must see that I must have some work to do."

"I don't know what your father would say," said Mrs. Brandon, still
bewildered.

"Oh, never mind father," said Joan quickly; "this is a matter just between
you and me. I'm here to help you, and you must let me do something. Now,
what's the trouble to-day?"

"I don't know, dear. There's no trouble exactly. Things are so difficult
just now. The fact is that I promised to go to tea with Miss Burnett this
afternoon and now your father wants me to go with him to the Deanery. So
provoking! Miss Burnett caught me in the street, where it's always so
difficult to think of excuses."

"Let me go to Miss Burnett's instead," said Joan. "It's quite time I took
on some of the calling for you. I've never seen Mr. Morris, and I hear
he's very nice."

"Very well, dear," said Mrs. Brandon, suddenly beginning, as her way was
when there was any real opposition, to capitulate on all sides at once.
"Suppose you do go, dear. I'm sure it's very kind of you. And you might
take those books back to the Circulating Library as well. It's Market-Day.
Are you sure you won't mind the horses and cows and dogs?"

Joan laughed. "I believe you think I'm still five years old, mother.
That's splendid. I'll start off after lunch."

Joan went up to her room, elated. Truly, this was a great step forward. It
occurred to her on further reflection that something very serious indeed
must be going on behind the scenes to cause her mother to give in so
quickly. She sat on her old faded rocking-chair, her hands crossed behind
her head, thinking it all out. Did she once begin calling on her own
account she was grown-up indeed. What would these Morrises be like?

She found now that she was beginning to be a little frightened. Mr. Morris
was the new Rector of St. James', the little church over by the cattle
market. He had not been in Polchester very long and was said to be a shy
timid man, but a good preacher. He was a widower, and his sister-in-law
kept house for him. Joan considered further on the great importance of
these concessions; it made all the difference to everything. She was now
to have a life of her own, and every kind of adventure and romance was
possible for her. She was suddenly so happy that she sprang up and did a
little dance round her room, a sort of polka, that became so vehement that
the pictures and the little rickety table rattled.

"I'll be so grown-up at the Morrises' this afternoon that they'll think
I've been calling for years," she said to herself.

She had need of all her courage and optimism at luncheon, for it was a
gloomy meal. Only her father and mother were present. They were all very
silent.

After lunch she went upstairs, put on her hat and coat, picked up the
three Library books, and started off. It was a sunny day, with shadows
chasing one another across the Cathedral green. There was, as there so
often is in Polchester, a smell of the sea in the air, cold and
invigorating. She paused for a moment and looked across at the Cathedral.
She did not know why, but she had been always afraid of the Cathedral. She
had never loved it, and had always wished that they could go on Sundays to
some little church like St. James'.

For most of her conscious life the Cathedral had hung over her with its
dark menacing shadow, forbidding her, as it seemed to her, to be gay or
happy or careless. To-day the thought suddenly came to her, "That place is
going to do us harm. I hate it," and for a moment she was depressed and
uneasy; but when she came out from the Arden Gate and saw the High Street
all shining with the sun, running down the hill into glittering distance,
she was gloriously cheerful once more. There the second wonderful thing
that day happened to her. She had taken scarcely a step down the hill when
she came upon Mrs. Sampson. There was nothing wonderful about that; Mrs.
Sampson, being the wife of a Dean who was much more retiring than he
should be, was to be seen in public at all times and seasons, having to
do, as it were, the work of two rather than one. No, the wonderful thing
was that Joan suddenly realised that her terror of Mrs. Sampson--a terror
that had always been a real thorn in her flesh--was completely gone. It
was as though a charm, an Abracadabra, had been whispered over Mrs.
Sampson and she had been changed immediately into a rabbit. It had never
been Mrs. Sampson's fault that she was alarming to the young. She was a
good woman, but she was cursed with two sad burdens--a desperate shyness
and a series, unrelenting, unmitigating, mysterious, desperate, of nervous
headaches.

Her headaches were a feature of Polchester life, and those who were old
enough to understand pitied her and offered her many remedies. But the
young cannot be expected to realise that there can be anything physically
wrong with the old, and Mrs. Sampson's sharpness of manner, her terrifying
habit of rapping out a "Yes" or a "No," her gloomy view of boisterous
habits and healthy appetites, made her one most truly to be avoided.
Before to-day Joan would have willingly walked a mile out of her way to
escape her; to-day she only saw a nervous, pale-faced little woman in an
ill-fitting blue dress, for whom she could not be anything but sorry.

"Good morning, Mrs. Sampson."

"Good morning, Joan."

"Isn't it a nice day?"

"It's cold, I think. Is your mother well?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Give her my love."

"I will, Mrs. Sampson."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Mrs. Sampson's nose, that would take on a blue colour on a cold day,
quivered, her thin mouth shut with a snap, and she was gone.

"But I wasn't afraid of her!" She was almost frightened at this new spirit
that had come to her, and, feeling rather that in another moment she would
be punished for her piratical audacity, she turned up the steps into the
Circulating Library.

It was the custom in those days that far away from the dust of the grimy
shelves, in the very middle of the room, there was a table with all the
latest works of fiction in their gaudy bindings, a few volumes of poetry
and a few memoirs. Close to this table Miss Milton sat, wrapped, in the
warmest weather, in a thick shawl and knitting endless stockings. She
hated children, myself in particular. She was also a Snob of the Snobs,
and thanked God on her knees every night for Lady St. Leath, Mrs.
Combermere and Mrs. Sampson, by whose graces she was left in her present
position.

Joan was still too near childhood to be considered very seriously, and it
was well known that her father did not take her very seriously either. She
was always, therefore, on the rare occasions when she entered the Library,
snubbed by Miss Milton. It must be confessed that to-day, in spite of her
success with Mrs. Sampson, she was nervous. She was nervous partly because
she hated Miss Milton's red-rimmed eyes, and never looked at them if she
could help it, but, in the main, because she knew that her mother was
returning the Library books too quickly, and had, moreover, insisted that
she should ask for Mr. Barrie's _Sentimental Tommy_ and Mr. Seton
Merriman's _The Sowers_, both of them books that had been asked for
for weeks and as steadily and persistently refused.

Joan knew what Miss Milton would say, "That they might be in next week,
but that she couldn't be sure." Was Joan strong enough now, in her new-
found glory, to fight for them? She did not know.

She advanced to the table smiling. Miss Milton did not look up, but
continued to knit one of her horrible stockings.

"Good-morning, Miss Milton. Mother has sent back these books. They were
not quite what she wanted."

"I'm sorry for that." Miss Milton took the books into her chilblained
protection. "It's a little difficult, I must say, to know what Mrs.
Brandon prefers."

"Well, there's _Sentimental Tommy_," began Joan.

But Miss Milton was an old general.

"Oh, that's out, I'm afraid. Now, here's a sweetly pretty book--_Roger
Varibrugh's Wife_, by Adeline Sergeant. It'a only just out...."

"Or there's _The Sowers,"_ said Joan, caught against her will by the
red-rimmed eyes and staring at them.

"Oh, that's out, I'm afraid. There are several books here--"

"You promised mother," said Joan, "that she should have _Sentimental
Tommy_ this week. You promised her a month ago. It's about time that
mother had a book that she cares for."

"Really," said Miss Milton, wide-eyed at Joan's audacity. "You seem to be
charging me with some remissness, Miss Brandon. If you have any complaint,
I'm sure the Library Committee will attend to it. It's to them I have to
answer. When the book is in you shall have it. I can promise no more. I am
only human."

"You have said that now for three months," said Joan, beginning, to her
own surprised delight, to be angry. "Surely the last reader hasn't been
three months over it. I thought subscribers were only allowed to keep a
book a week."

Miss Milton's crimson colouring turned to a deep purple.

"The book is out," she said. "Both books are out. They are in great
demand. I have no more to say."

The Library door opened, and a young man came in. Joan was still too young
to wish for scenes in public. She must give up the battle for to-day.
When, however, she saw who it was she blushed. It was young Lord St. Leath
--Johnny St. Leath, as he was known to his familiars, who were many and of
all sorts and conditions. Joan hated herself for blushing, especially
before the odious Miss Milton, but there was a reason. One day in last
October after morning service Joan and her mother had waited in the
Cloisters to avoid a shower of rain. St. Leath had also waited and very
pleasantly had talked to them both. There was nothing very alarming in
this, but as the rain cleared and Mrs. Brandon had moved forward across
the Green, he had suddenly, with a confusion that had seemed to her
charming, asked Joan whether one day they mightn't meet again. He had
given her one look straight in the eyes, tried to say something more,
failed, and turned away down the Cloisters.

Joan had never before been asked by any young man to meet him again. She
had told herself that this was nothing but the merest, most obvious
politeness; nevertheless the look that he had given her remained.

Now, as she saw him advancing towards her, there was the thought, was it
not on that very morning that her new courage and self-confidence had come
to her? The thought was so absurd that she flung it at Miss Milton. But
the blush remained.

Johnny was an ungainly young man, with a red face, freckles, a large
mouth, and a bull-terrier--a conventional British type, I suppose, saved,
nevertheless, from conventionality by his affection for his three plain
sisters, his determination to see things as they were, and his sense of
humour, the last of these something quite his own, and always appearing in
unexpected places. The bull-terrier, in spite of the notice on the Library
door that no dogs were admitted, advanced breathlessly and dribbling with
excitement for Miss Milton's large black felt slippers.

"Here, Andrew, old man. Heel! Heel!" said Johnny. Andrew, however, quite
naturally concluded that this was only an approval of his intentions, and
there might have followed an awkward scene had his master not caught him
by the collar and held him suspended in mid-air, to his own indignant
surprise and astonishment.

Joan laughed, and Miss Milton, quivering between indignation, fear and
snobbery, dropped the stocking that she was knitting.

Andrew burst from his master's clutches, rushed the stocking into the
farthest recesses of the Library, and proceeded there to enjoy it.

Johnny apologised.

"Oh, it's quite all right, Lord St. Leath," said Miss Milton. "What a fine
animal!"

"Yes, he is," said Johnny, rescuing the stocking. "He's as strong as
Lucifer. Here, Andrew, you devil, I'll break every bone in your body."

During this little scene Johnny had smiled at Joan, and in so pleasant a
way that she was compelled to smile back at him.

"How do you do, Miss Brandon?" He had recalled Andrew now, and the dog was
slobbering happily at his feet. "Jolly day, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Joan, and stood there awkwardly, feeling that she ought to go
but not knowing quite how to do so. He also seemed embarrassed, and turned
abruptly to Miss Milton.

"I say, look here.... Mother asked me to come in and get that book you
promised her. What's the name of the thing?...I've got it written down."

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a bit of paper.

"Here it is. _Sentimental Tommy_, by a man called Barrie. Silly name,
but mother's always reading the most awful stuff."

Joan turned towards Miss Milton.

"How funny!" she said. "That's the book I've just been asking for. It's
out."

Miss Milton's face was a curious purple.

"Well, that's odd," said Johnny. "Mother told me that you'd sent her a
line to say it was in whenever she sent for it."

"It's been out three months," said Joan, staring now straight into Miss
Milton's angry eyes.

"I've been keeping..." said Miss Milton. "That is, there's a special
copy.... Lady St. Leath specially asked----"

"Is it in, or isn't it?" asked Johnny.

"There _is_ a copy, Lord St. Leath----" With confused fingers Miss
Milton searched in a drawer. She produced the book.

"You told me," said Joan, forgetting now in her anger St. Leath and all
the world, "that there wouldn't he a copy for weeks. If you'd told me you
were keeping one for St. Leath, that would have been different. You
shouldn't have told me a lie."

"Do you mean to say," said Johnny, opening his eyes very widely indeed,
"that you refused this copy to Miss Brandon?"

"Certainly," said Miss Milton, breathing very hard as though she had been
running a long distance. "I was keeping it for your mother."

"Well, I'm damned," said Johnny. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brandon,...but
I never heard such a thing. Does my mother pay a larger subscription than
other people?"

"Certainly not."

"Then what right had you to tell Miss Brandon a lie?"

Miss Milton, in spite of long training in the kind of warfare attaching,
of necessity, to Circulating Libraries, was very near to tears--also
murder. She would have been delighted to pierce Joan's heart with a bright
stiletto, had such a weapon been handy. She saw the softest, easiest,
idlest job in the world slipping out of her fingers; she saw herself, a
desolate and haggard virgin, begging her bread on the Polchester streets.
She saw...but never mind her visions. They were terrible ones. She had
recourse to her only defence.

"If I have misunderstood my duty," she said in a trembling voice, "there
is the Library Committee."

"Oh, never mind," said Joan whose anger had disappeared. "It doesn't
matter a bit. We'll have the book after Lady St. Leath."

"Indeed you won't," said Johnny, seizing the volume and forcing it upon
Joan. "Mother can wait. I never heard of such a thing." He turned fiercely
upon Miss Milton. "My mother shall know exactly what has happened. I'm
sure she'd be horrified if she understood that you were keeping books from
other subscribers in order that she might have them.... Good afternoon."

He strode from the room. At the door he paused.

"Can I--Shall we--Are you going down the High Street, Miss Brandon?"

"Yes," said Joan. They went out of the room and down the Library steps
together.

In the shiny, sunny street they paused. The dark cobwebs of the Library
hung behind Joan's consciousness like the sudden breaking of a mischievous
spell.

She was so happy that she could have embraced Andrew, who was, however,
already occupied with the distant aura of a white poodle on the other side
of the street.

Johnny was driven by the impulse of his indignation down the hill. Joan,
rather breathlessly, followed him.

"I say!" said Johnny. "Did you ever hear of such a woman! She ought to be
poisoned. She ought indeed. No, poisoning's too good for her. Hung, drawn
and quartered. That's what she ought to be. She'll get into trouble over
that."

"Oh no," said Joan. "Please, Lord St. Leath, don't say any more about it.
She has a difficult time, I expect, everybody wanting the same books.
After all a promise is a promise."

"But she'd promised your mother----"

"No, she never really did. She always said that it would be in in a day or
two. She never properly promised. I expect we'd have had it next."

"The snob, the rotten snob!" Johnny paused and raised his stick. "I hate
women like that. No, she's not doing her job properly. She oughtn't to be
there."

So swift had been their descent that they arrived in a moment at the
market.

Because to-day was market-day there was a fine noise, confusion and
splendour--carts rattling in and out, sheep and cows driven hither and
thither, the wooden stalls bright with flowers and vegetables, the dim
arcades looming behind the square filled with mysterious riches. They
could not talk very much here, and Joan was glad. She was too deeply
excited to talk. At one moment St. Leath took her arm to guide her past a
confused mob of bewildered sheep. The Glebeshire peasant on marketing-day
has plenty of conversation. Old wrinkled women, stout red-faced farmers,
boys and girls all shouted together, and above the scene the light driving
clouds flung their transparent shadows, like weaving shuttles across the
sun.

"Oh, do let's stop here a moment," said Joan, peering into one of the
arcades. "I've always loved this one all my life. I've never been able to
resist it."

This was the Toy Arcade, now, I'm afraid, gone the way of so many other
romantic things. It had been to all of us the most wonderful spot in
Polchester from the very earliest days, this partly because of the toys
themselves, partly because it was the densest and darkest of all the
Arcades, never utterly to be pierced by our youthful eyes, partly because
only two doors away were the sinister rooms of Mr. Dawson, the dentist.
Here not only was there every kind of toy--dolls, soldiers, horses, carts,
games, tops, hoops, dogs, elephants--but also sweets--chocolates, jujubes,
caramels, and the best sweet in the whole world, the Polchester Bull's-
eye.

They went in together. Mrs. Magnet, now with God, an old woman like a
berry, always in a bonnet with green flowers, smiled and bobbed. The
colours of the toys jumbled against the dark walls were like patterns in a
carpet.

"What do you say, Miss Brandon?" said Johnny. "If I give you a toy will
you give me one?"

"Yes," said Joan, afraid a little of Mrs. Magnet's piercing black eye.

"You're not to see what I get. Turn your back a moment."

Joan turned around. As she waited she could hear the "Hie!...Hie! Woah!"
of the market-cries, the bleating of the sheep, the lowing of a cow.

"Here you are, then." She turned. He presented her with a Japanese doll,
gay in a pink cotton frock, his waist girdled with a sash of gold tissue.

"Now you turn your back," she said.

In a kind of happy desperation she seized a nigger with bold red checks, a
white jacket and crimson trousers.

Mrs. Magnet wrapped the presents up. They paid, and walked out into the
sun again.

"I'll keep that doll," said Johnny, "just as long as you keep yours."

"Good-bye," said Joan hurriedly. "I've got to call at a house on the other
side of the market.... Good-bye."

She felt the pressure of his hand on hers, then, clutching her parcel,
hurried, almost ran, indeed, through the market-stalls. She did not look
back.

When she had crossed the Square she turned down into a little side street.
The plan of Polchester is very simple. It is built, as it were, on the
side of a rock, running finally to a flat top, on which is the Cathedral.
Down the side of the rock there are broad ledges, and it is on one of
these that the market-place is built. At the bottom of the rock lies the
jumble of cottages known most erroneously as Seatown, and round the rock
runs the river Pol, slipping away at last through woods and hills and
valleys into the sea. At high tide you can go all the way by river to the
sea, and in the summer, this makes a pleasant and beautiful excursion. It
is because of this that Seatown has, perhaps, some right to its name,
because in one way and another sailors collect in the cottages and at the
"Dog and Pilchard," that pleasant and democratic hostelry of which, in
1897, Samuel Hogg was landlord. Many visitors have been known to declare
that Seatown was "too sweet for anything," and that "it would be really
wicked to knock down the ducks of cottages," but "the ducks of cottages"
were the foulest and most insanitary dwelling-places in the south of
England, and it has always been to me amazing that the Polchester Town
Council allowed them to stand so long as they did. In 1902, as all the
Glebeshire world knows, there was the great battle of Seatown, ending in
the cottages' destruction. In 1897 those evil dwelling-places gloried in
their full magnificence of sweet corruption, nor did the periodical
attacks of typhoid alarm in the least the citizens of the Upper Town. Once
and again gentlemen from other parts paid mysterious official visits, but
we had ways, in old times, of dealing with inquisitive meddlers from the
outside world.

Because the market-place was half-way down the Rock, and because the
Rectory of St. James' was just below the market-place, the upper windows
of that house commanded a wonderful view both of the hill, High Street and
Cathedral above it, and of Seatown, river and woods below it. It was said
that it was up this very rocky street from the river, through the market,
and up the High Street that the armed enemies of the Black Bishop had
fought their way to the Cathedral on that great day when the Bishop had
gone to meet his God, and a piece of rock is still shown to innocent
visitors as the place whence some of his enemies, in full armour, were
flung down, many thousand feet, to the waters of the Pol.

Joan had often longed to see the view from the windows of St. James'
Rectory, but she had not known old Dr. Burroughs, the former Rector, a
cross man with gout and rheumatism. She walked up some steps and found the
house the last of three all squeezed together on the edge of the hill. The
Rectory, because it was the last, stood square to all the winds of heaven,
and Joan fancied what it must be in wild wintry weather. Soon she was in
the drawing-room shaking hands with Miss Burnett, who was Mr. Morris'
sister-in-law, and kept house for him.

Miss Burnett was a stout negative woman, whose whole mind was absorbed in
the business of housekeeping, prices of food, wickedness and ingratitude
of servants, maliciousness of shopkeepers and so on. The house, with all
her managing, was neither tidy nor clean, as Joan quickly saw; Miss
Burnett was not, by temperament, methodical, nor had she ever received any
education. Her mind, so far as a perception of the outside world and its
history went, was some way behind that of a Hottentot or a South Sea
Islander. She had, from the day of her birth, been told by every one
around her that she was stupid, and, after a faint struggle, she had
acquiesced in that judgment. She knew that her younger sister, afterwards
Mrs. Morris, was pretty and accomplished, and that she would never be
either of those things. She was not angry nor jealous at this. The note of
her character was acquiescence, and when Agatha had died of pleurisy it
had seemed the natural thing for her to come and keep house for the
distressed widower. If Mr. Morris had since regretted the arrangement he
had, at any rate, never said so.

Miss Burnett's method of conversation was to say something about the
weather and then to lapse into a surprised and distressed stare. If her
visitor made some statement she crowned it with, "Well, now, that was just
was I was going to say."

Her nose, when she talked, twinkled at the nostrils apprehensively, and
many of her visitors found this fascinating, so that they suddenly, with
hot confusion, realised that they too had been staring in a most offensive
manner. Joan had not been out in the world long enough to enable her to
save a difficult situation by brilliant talk, and she very quickly found
herself staring at Miss Burnett's nose and longing to say something about
it, as, for instance, "What a stronge nose you've got, Miss Burnett--see
how it twitches!" or, "If you'll allow me, Miss Burnett, I'd just like to
study your nose for a minute." When she realised this horrible desire in
herself she blushed crimson and gazed about the untidy and entangled
drawing-room in real desperation. She could see nothing in the room that
was likely to save her. She was about to rise and depart, although she had
only been there five minutes, when Mr. Morris came in.

Joan realised at once that this man was quite different from any one whom
she had ever known. He was a stranger to her Polchester world in body,
soul and spirit, as though, a foreigner from some far-distant country, he
had been shipwrecked and cast upon an inhospitable shore. So strangely did
she feel this that she was quite surprised when he did not speak with a
foreign accent. "Oh, he must be a poet!" was her second thought about Mr.
Morris, not because he dressed oddly or had long hair. She could not tell
whence the impression came, unless it were in his strange, bewildered,
lost blue eyes. Lost, bewildered--yes, that was what he was! With every
movement of his slim, straight body, the impulse with which he brushed
back his untidy fair hair from his forehead, he seemed like a man only
just awake, a man needing care and protection, because he simply would not
be able to look after himself. So ridiculously did she have this
impression that she almost cried "Look out!" when he moved forward, as
though he would certainly knock himself against a chair or a table.

"How strange," she thought, "that this man should live with Miss Burnett!
What does he think of her?" She was excited by her discovery of him, but
that meant very little, because just now she was being excited by
everything. She found at once that talking to him was the easiest thing in
the world. Mr. Morris did not say very much; he smiled gently, and when
Miss Burnett, awaking suddenly from her torpor, said, "You'll have some
tea, Miss Brandon, won't you?" he, smiling, softly repeated the
invitation.

"Thank you," said Joan. "I will. How strange it is," she went on, "that
you are so close to the market and, even on market-day, you don't hear a
sound!"

And it was strange! as though the house were bewitched and had suddenly,
even as Joan entered it, gathered around it a dark wood for its
protection.

"Yes," said Mr. Morris. "We found it strange at first. But it's because we
are the last house, and the three others protect us. We get the wind and
rain, though. You should hear this place in a storm. But the house is
strong enough; it's very stoutly built; not a board creaks in the wildest
weather. Only the windows rattle and the wind comes roaring down the
chimneys."

"How long have you been here?" asked Joan.

"Nearly a year--and we still feel strangers. We were near Ashford in Kent
for twelve years, and the Glebeshire people are very different."

"Well," said Joan, who was a little irritated because she felt that his
voice was a little sadder than it ought to be, "I think you'll like
Polchester. I'm _sure_ you will. And you've come in a good year, too.
There's sure to be a lot going on this year because of the Jubilee."

Mr. Morris did not seem to be as thrilled as he should be by the thought
of the Jubilee, so Joan went on:

"It's so lucky for us that it comes just at the Polchester Feast time. We
always have a tremendous week at the Feast--the Horticultural Show and a
Ball in the Assembly Rooms, and all sorts of things. It's going to be my
first ball this year, although I've really come out already." She laughed.
"Festivities start to-morrow with the arrival of Marquis."

"Marquis?" repeated Mr. Morris politely.

"Oh, don't you know Marquis? His is the greatest Circus in England. He
comes to Polchester every year, and they have a procession through the
town--elephants and camels, and Britannia in her chariot, and sometimes a
cage with the lions and the tigers. Last year they had the sweetest little
ponies--four of them, no higher than St. Bernards--and there are the
clowns too, and a band."

She was suddenly afraid that she was talking too much--silly too, in her
childish enthusiasms. She remembered that she was in reality deputising
for her mother, who would never have talked about the Circus. Fortunately
at that moment the tea came in; it was brought by a flushed and
contemptuous maid, who put the tray down on a little table with a bang,
tossed her head as though she despised them all, and slammed the door
behind her.

Miss Burnett was upset by this, and her nose twitched more violently than
ever. Joan saw that her hand trembled as she poured out the tea, and she
was at once sorry for her.

Mr. Morris talked about Kent and London, and tea was drunk and the saffron
cake praised, and Joan thought it was time to go. At the last, however,
she turned to Mr. Morris and said:

"Do you like the Cathedral?"

"It's wonderful," he answered. "You should see it from our window
upstairs."

"Oh, I hate it--" said Joan.

"Why?" Morris asked her.

There was a curious challenge in his voice. They were both standing facing
one another.

"I suppose that's a silly thing to say. Only you don't live as close to it
as we do, and you haven't lived here so long as we have. It seems to hang
right over you, and it never changes, and I hate to think it will go on
just the same, years after we're dead."

"Have you seen the view from our window?" Morris asked her.

"No," said Joan, "I was never in this house before."

"Come and see it," he said.

"I'm sure," said Miss Burnett heavily, "Miss Brandon doesn't want to be
bothered--when she's seen the Cathedral all her life, too."

"Of course I'd love to see it," said Joan, laughing. "To tell you the
truth, that's what I've always wanted. I looked at this house again and
again when old Canon Burroughs was here, and thought there must be a
wonderful view."

She said good-bye to Miss Burnett.

"My mother does hope you will soon come and see us," she said.

"I have just met Mrs. Brandon for a moment at Mrs. Combermere's," said Mr.
Morris. "We'll be very glad to come."

She went out with him.

"It's up these stairs," he said. "Two flights. I hope you don't mind."

They climbed on to the second landing. At the end of the passage there was
a window. The evening was grey and only little faint wisps of blue still
lingered above the dusk, but the white sky threw up the Cathedral towers,
now black and sharp-edged in magnificent relief. Truly it _was_ a
view!

The window was in such a position that through it you gazed behind the
neighbouring houses, above some low roofs, straight up the twisting High
Street to the Cathedral. The great building seemed to be perched on the
very edge of the rock, almost, you felt, swinging in mid-air, and that so
precariously that with one push of the finger you might send it staggering
into space. Joan had never seen it so dominating, so commanding, so fierce
in its disregard of the tiny clustered world beneath it, so near to the
stars, so majestic and alone.

"Yes--it's wonderful," she said.

"Oh, but you should see it," he cried, "as it can be. It's dull to-day,
the sky's grey and there's no sunset,--but when it's flaming red with all
the windows shining, or when all the stars are out or in moonlight...
it's like a great ship sometimes, and sometimes like a cloud, and
sometimes like a fiery palace. Sometimes it's in mist and you can only see
just the top of the towers...."

"I don't like it," said Joan, turning away. "It doesn't care what happens
to us."

"Why should it?" he answered. "Think of all it's seen--the battles and the
fights and the plunder--and it doesn't care! We can do what we like and it
will remain just the same."

"People could come and knock it down," Joan said.

"I believe it would still be there if they did. The rock would be there
and the spirit of the Cathedral.... What do people matter beside a thing
like that? Why, we're ants...!"

He stopped suddenly.

"You'll think me foolish, Miss Brandon," he said. "You have known the
Cathedral so long----" He paused. "I think I know what you mean about
fearing it----"

He saw her to the door.

"Good-bye," he said, smiling. "Come again."

"I like him," she thought as she walked away. What a splendid day she had
had!




Chapter IV

The Impertinent Elephant



Archdeacon Brandon had surmounted with surprising celerity the shock of
Falk's unexpected return. He was helped to this firstly by his confident
belief in a God who had him especially in His eye and would, on no
account, do him any harm. As God had decided that Falk had better leave
Oxford, it was foolish to argue that it would have been wiser for him to
stay there. Secondly, he was helped by his own love for, and pride in, his
son. The independence and scorn that were so large a part of Falk's nature
were after his own heart. He might fight and oppose them (he often did),
but always behind the contest there was appreciation and approbation. That
was the way for a son of his to treat the world--to snap his fingers at
it! The natural thing to do, the good old world being as stupid as it was.
Thirdly, he was helped by his family pride. It took him only a night's
reflection to arrive at the decision that Falk had been entirely right in
this affair and Oxford entirely in the wrong. Two days after Falk's return
he wrote (without saying anything to the boy) Falk's tutor a very warm
letter, pointing out that he was sure the tutor would agree with him that
a little more tact and diplomacy might have prevented so unfortunate an
issue. It was not for him, Brandon, to suggest that the authorities in
Oxford were perhaps a little behind the times, a little out of the world.
Nevertheless it was probably true that long residence in Oxford had
hindered the aforesaid authorities from realising the trend of the day,
from appreciating the new spirit of independence that was growing up in
our younger generation. It seemed obvious to him, Archdeacon Brandon, that
you could no longer treat men of Falk's age and character as mere boys
and, although he was quite sure that the authorities at Oxford had done
their best, he nevertheless hoped that this unfortunate episode would
enable them to see that we were not now living in the Middle Ages, but
rather in the last years of the nineteenth century. It may seem to some a
little ironical that the Archdeacon, who was the most conservative soul
alive, should write thus to one of the most conservative of our
institutions, but--"Before Oxford the Brandons were...."

What the tutor remarked when he read this letter is not recorded. Brandon
said nothing to Falk about all this. Indeed, during the first weeks after
Falk's return he preserved a stern and dignified silence. After all, the
boy must learn that authority was authority, and he prided himself that he
knew, better than any number of Oxford Dons, how to train and educate the
young. Nevertheless light broke through. Some of Falk's jokes were so good
that his father, who had a real sense of fun if only a slight sense of
humour, was bound to laugh. Very soon father and son resumed their old
relations of sudden tempers and mutual admiration, and a strange, rather
pathetic, quite uneloquent love that was none the less real because it
was, on either side, completely selfish.

But there was a fourth reason why Falk's return caused so slight a storm.
That reason was that the Archdeacon was now girding up his loins before he
entered upon one of his famous campaigns. There had been many campaigns in
the past. Campaigns were indeed as truly the breath of the Archdeacon's
nostrils as they had been once of the great Napoleon's--and in every one
of them had the Archdeacon been victorious.

This one was to be the greatest of them all, and was to set the sign and
seal upon the whole of his career.

It happened that, three miles out of Polchester, there was a little
village known as Pybus St. Anthony. A very beautiful village it was, with
orchards and a stream and old-world cottages and a fine Norman church. But
not for its orchards nor its stream nor its church was it famous. It was
famous because for many years its listing had been regarded as one of the
most important in the whole diocese of Polchester. It was the tradition
that the man who went to Pybus St. Anthony had the world in front of him.
When likely men for preferment were looked for it was to Pybus St. Anthony
that men looked. Heaven alone knows how many Canons and Archdeacons had
made their first bow there to the Glebeshire world! Three Deans and a
Bishop had, at different times, made it their first stepping-stone to
fame. Canon Morrison (Honorary Canon of the Cathedral) was its present
incumbent. Less intellectual than some of the earlier incumbents, he was
nevertheless a fine fellow. He had been there only three years when
symptoms of cancer of the throat had appeared. He had been operated on in
London, and at first it had seemed that he would recover. Then the dreaded
signs had reappeared; he had wished, poor man, to surrender the living,
but because there was yet hope the Chapter, in whose gift the living was,
had insisted on his remaining.

A week ago, however, he had collapsed. It was feared now that at any
moment he might die. The Archdeacon was very sorry for Morrison. He liked
him, and was deeply touched by his tragedy; nevertheless one must face
facts; it was probable that at any moment now the Chapter would be forced
to make a new appointment.

He had been aware--he did not disguise it from himself in the least--for
some time now of the way that the appointment must go. There was a young
man, the Rev. Rex Forsyth by name, who, in his judgment, could be the only
possible man. Young Forsyth was, at the present moment, chaplain to the
Bishop of St. Minworth. St. Minworth was only a Suffragan Bishopric, and
it could not honestly be said that there was a great deal for Mr. Forsyth
to do there. But it was not because the Archdeacon thought that the young
man ought to have more to do that he wished to move him to Pybus St.
Anthony. Far from it! The Archdeacon, in the deep secrecy of his own
heart, could not honestly admit that young Forsyth was a very hard worker
--he liked hunting and whist and a good bottle of wine...he was that
kind of man.

Where, then, were his qualifications as Canon Morrison's successor? Well,
quite honestly--and the Archdeacon was one of the honestest men alive--his
qualifications belonged more especially to his ancestors rather than to
himself. In the Archdeacon's opinion there had been too many _clever_
men of Pybus. Time now for a _normal_ man. Morrison was normal and
Forsyth would be more normal still.

He was in fact first cousin to young Johnny St. Leath and therefore a very
near relation of the Countess herself. His father was the fourth son of
the Earl of Trewithen, and, as every one knows, the Trewithens and the St.
Leaths are, for all practical purposes, one and the same family, and
divide Glebeshire between them. No one ever quite knew what young Rex
Forsyth became a parson for. Some people said he did it for a wager; but
however true that might be, he was not very happy with dear old Bishop
Clematis and very ready for preferment.

Now the Archdeacon was no snob; he believed in men and women who had long
and elaborate family-trees simply because he believed in institutions and
because it had always seemed to him a quite obvious fact that the longer
any one or anything remained in a place the more chance there was of
things being done as they always had been done. It was not in the least
because she was a Countess that he thought the old Lady St. Leath a
wonderful woman; not wonderful for her looks certainly--no one could call
her a beautiful woman--and not wonderful for her intelligence; the
Archdeacon had frequently been compelled to admit to himself that she was
a little on the stupid side--but wonderful for her capacity for staying
where she was like a rock and allowing nothing whatever to move her. In
these dangerous days--and what dangerous days they were!--the safety of
the country simply depended on a few such figures as the Countess. Queen
Victoria was another of them, and for her the Archdeacon had a real and
very touching devotion. Thank God he would be able to show a little of it
in the prominent part he intended to play in the Polchester Jubilee
festivals this year!

Any one could see then that to have young Rex Forsyth close at hand at
Pybus St. Anthony was the very best possible thing for the good of
Polchester. Lady St. Leath saw it, Mrs. Combermere saw it, Mrs. Sampson
saw it, and young Forsyth himself saw it. The Archdeacon entirely failed
to understand how there could be any one who did not see it. However, he
was afraid that there were one or two in Polchester.... People said that
young Forsyth was stupid! Perhaps he was not very bright; all the easier
then to direct him in the way that he should go, and throw his forces into
the right direction. People said that he cared more for his hunting and
his whist than for his work--well, he was young and, at any rate, there
was none of the canting hypocrite about him. The Archdeacon hated canting
hypocrites!

There had been signs, once and again, of certain anarchists and devilish
fellows, who crept up and down the streets of Polchester spreading their
wicked mischief, their lying and disintegrating ideas. The Archdeacon was
determined to fight them to the very last breath in his body, even as the
Black Bishop before him had fought _his_ enemies. And the Archdeacon
had no fear of his victory.

Rex Forsyth at Pybus St. Anthony would be a fine step forward. Have one of
these irreligious radicals there, and Heaven alone knew what harm he might
wreak. No, Polchester must be saved. Let the rest of the world go to
pieces, Polchester would be preserved.

On how many earlier occasions had the Archdeacon surveyed the Chapter,
considered it in all its details and weighed up judiciously the elements,
good and bad, that composed it. How well he knew them all! First the Dean,
mild and polite and amiable, his mind generally busy with his beloved
flora and fauna, his flowers and his butterflies, very easy indeed to deal
with. Then Archdeacon Witheram, most nobly conscientious, a really devout
man, taking his work with a seriousness that was simply admirable, but
glued to the details of his own half of the diocese, so that broader and
larger questions did not concern him very closely. Bentinck-Major next.
The Archdeacon flattered himself that he knew Bentinck-Major through and
through--his snobbery, his vanity, his childish pleasure in his position
and his cook, his vanity in his own smart appearance! It would be
difficult to find words adequate for the scorn with which the Archdeacon
regarded that elegant little man. Then Byle, the Precentor. He was, to
some extent, an unknown quantity. His chief characteristic perhaps was his
hatred of quarrels--he would say or do anything if only he might not be
drawn into a "row." "Peace at any price" was his motto, and this, of
course, as with the famous Vicar of Bray, involved a good deal of
insincerity. The Archdeacon knew that he could not trust him, but a
masterful policy of terrorism had always been very successful. Ryle was
frankly frightened by the Archdeacon, and a very good thing too! Might he
long remain so! Lastly there was Foster, the Diocesan Missioner. Let it be
said at once that the Archdeacon hated Foster. Foster had been a thorn in
the Archdeacon's side ever since his arrival in Polchester--a thin,
shambly-kneed, untidy, pale-faced prig, that was what Foster was! The
Archdeacon hated everything about him--his grey hair, his large protruding
ears, the pimple on the end of his nose, the baggy knees to his trousers,
his thick heavy hands that never seemed to be properly washed.

Nevertheless beneath that hatred the Archdeacon was compelled to a
reluctant admiration. The man was fearless, a fanatic if you please, but
devoted to his religion, believing in it with a fervour and sincerity that
nothing could shake. An able man too, the best preacher in the diocese,
better read in every kind of theology than any clergyman in Glebeshire. It
was especially for his open mind about new religious ideas that the
Archdeacon mistrusted him. No opinion, however heterodox, shocked him. He
welcomed new thought and had himself written a book, _Christ and the
Gospels_, that for its learning and broad-mindedness had created a
considerable stir. But he was a dull dog, never laughed, never even
smiled, lived by himself and kept to himself. He had, in the past, opposed
every plan of the Archdeacon's, and opposed it relentlessly, but he was
always, thanks to the Archdeacon's efforts, in a minority. The other
Canons disliked him; the old Bishop, safely tucked away in his Palace at
Carpledon, was, except for his satellite Rogers, his only friend in
Polchester.

So much for the Chapter. There was now only one unknown element in the
situation--Ronder. Ronder's position was important because he was
Treasurer to the Cathedral. His predecessor, Hart-Smith, now promoted to
the Deanery of Norwich, had been an able man, but one of the old school, a
great friend of Brandon's, seeing eye to eye with him in everything. The
Archdeacon then had had his finger very closely upon the Cathedral purse,
and Hart-Smith's departure had been a very serious blow. The appointment
of the new Canon had been in the hands of the Crown, and Brandon had, of
course, had nothing to say to it. However, one glance at Ronder--he had
seen him and spoken to him at the Dean's a few days after his arrival--had
reassured him. Here, surely, was a man whom he need not fear--an easy,
good-natured, rather stupid fellow by the look of him. Brandon hoped to
have his finger on the Cathedral purse as tightly in a few weeks' time as
he had had it before.

And all this was in no sort of fashion for the Archdeacon's personal
advancement or ambition. He was contented with Polchester, and quite
prepared to live there for the rest of his days and be buried, with proper
ceremonies, when his end came. With all his soul he loved the Cathedral,
and if he regarded himself as the principal factor in its good governance
and order he did so with a sort of divine fatalism--no credit to him that
it was so. Let credit be given to the Lord God who had seen fit to make
him what he was and to place in his hands that great charge.

His fault in the matter was, perhaps, that he took it all too simply, that
he regarded these men and the other figures in Polchester exactly as he
saw them, did not believe that they could ever be anything else. As God
had created the world, so did Brandon create Polchester as nearly in his
own likeness as might be--there they all were and there, please God, they
would all be for ever!

Bending his mind then to this new campaign, he thought that he would go
and see the Dean. He knew by this time, he fancied, exactly how to prepare
the Dean's mind for the proper reception of an idea, although, in truth,
he was as simple over his plots and plans as a child brick-building in its
nursery.

About three o'clock one afternoon he prepared to sally forth. The Dean's
house was on the other side of the Cathedral, and you had to go down the
High Street and then to the left up Orange Street to get to it, an
irrational roundabout proceeding that always irritated the Archdeacon.
Very splendid he looked, his top-hat shining, his fine high white collar,
his spotless black clothes, his boots shapely and smart. (He and Bentinck-
Major were, I suppose, the only two clergymen in Polchester who used boot-
trees.) But his smartness was in no way an essential with him. Clothed in
rags he would still have the grand air. "I often think of him," Miss
Dobell once said, "as one of those glorious gondoliers in Venice. How
grand he would look!"

However that might be, it is beyond question that the ridiculous clothes
that a clergyman of the Church of England is compelled to wear did not
make him absurd, nor did he look an over-dressed fop like Bentinck-Major.

Miss Dobell's gondolier was, on this present occasion, in an excellent
temper; and meeting his daughter Joan, he felt very genial towards her.
Joan had observed, several days before, that the family crisis might be
said to be past, and very thankful she was.

She had, at this time, her own happy dreams, so that father and daughter,
moved by some genial impulse, stopped and kissed.

"There! my dear!" said the Archdeacon. "And what are you doing this
afternoon, Joan?"

"I'm going with mother," she said, "to see Miss Ronder. It's time we
called, you know."

"I suppose it is." Brandon patted her cheek. "Everything you want?"

"Yes, father, thank you."

"That's right."

He left the house, humming a little tune. On the second step he paused, as
he was in the habit of doing, and surveyed the Precincts--the houses with
their shining knockers, their old-fashioned bow-windows and overhanging
portals, the Cathedral Green, and the towering front of the Cathedral
itself. He was, for a moment, a kind of presiding deity over all this. He
loved it and believed in it and trusted it exactly as though it had been
the work of his own hands. Halfway towards the Arden Gate he overtook poor
old shambling Canon Morphew, who really ought, in the Archdeacon's
opinion, to have died long ago. However, as he hadn't died the Archdeacon
felt kindly towards him, and he had, when he talked to the old man, a
sense of beneficence and charity very warming to the heart.

"Well, Morphew, enjoying the sun?"

Canon Morphew always started when any one spoke to him, being sunk all day
deep in dreams of his own, dreams that had their birth somewhere in the
heart of the misty dirty rooms where his books were piled ceiling-high and
papers blew about the floor.

"Good afternoon...good afternoon, Archdeacon. Pray forgive me. You came
upon me unawares."

Brandon moderated his manly stride to the other's shuffling steps.

"Hope you've had none of that tiresome rheumatism troubling you again."

"Rheumatism? Just a twinge--just a twinge.... It belongs to my time of
life."

"Oh, don't say that!" The Archdeacon laughed his hearty laugh. "You've
many years in front of you yet."

"No, I haven't--and you don't mean it, Archdeacon--you know you don't. A
few months perhaps--that's all. The Lord's will be done. But there's a
piece of work...a piece of work...."

He ran off into incoherent mumblings. Suddenly, just as they reached the
dark shadows of the Arden Gate, he seemed to wake up. His voice was quite
vigorous, his eyes, tired and worn as they were, bravely scanned Brandon's
health and vigour.

"We all come to it, you know. Yes, we do. The very strongest of us. You're
a young man, Archdeacon, by my years, and I hope you may long live to
continue your good work in this place. All the same, you'll be old
yourself one day. No one escapes.... No one escapes...."

"Well, good-day to you," said the Archdeacon hurriedly. "Good-day to
you.... Hope this bright weather continues," and started rather
precipitately down the hill, leaving Morphew to find his way by himself.

His impetuosity was soon restrained. He tumbled immediately into a crowd,
and pulling himself up abruptly and looking down the High Street he saw
that the pavement on both sides of the street was black with people. He
was not a man who liked to be jostled, and he was the more uncomfortable
in that he discovered that his immediate neighbour was Samuel Hogg, the
stout and rubicund landlord of the "Dog and Pilchard" of Seatown. With him
was his pretty daughter Annie. Near to them were Mr. John Curtis and Mr.
Samuel Croppet, two of the Town Councillors. With none of these gentlemen
did the Archdeacon wish to begin a conversation.

And yet it was difficult to know what to do. The High Street pavements
were narrow, and the crowd seemed continually to increase. There was a
good deal of pushing and laughter and boisterous good-humour. To return up
the street again seemed to have something ignominious about it. Brandon
decided to satisfy his curiosity, support his dignity and indulge his
amiability by staying where he was.

"Good afternoon, Hogg," he said. "What's the disturbance for?"

"Markisses Circus, sir," Hogg lifted his face like a large round sun.
"Surely you'd 'eard of it, Archdeacon?"

"Well, I didn't know," said Brandon in his most gracious manner, "that it
was this afternoon.... Of course, how stupid of me!"

He smiled round good-naturedly upon them all, and they all smiled back
upon him. He was a popular figure in the town; it was felt that his
handsome face and splendid presence did the town credit. Also, he always
knew his own mind. _And_ he was no coward.

He nodded to Curtis and Croppet and then stared in front of him, a fixed
genial smile on his face, his fine figure triumphant in the sun. He looked
as though he were enjoying himself and was happy because he liked to see
his fellow-creatures happy; in reality he was wondering how he could have
been so foolish as to forget Marquis' Circus. Why had not Joan said
something to him about it? Very careless of her to place him in this
unfortunate position.

He looked around him, but he could see no other dignitary of the Church
close at hand. How tiresome--really, how tiresome! Moreover, as the timed
moment of the procession arrived the crowd increased, and he was now most
uncomfortably pressed against other people. He felt a sharp little dig in
his stomach, then, turning, found close beside him the flushed anxious,
meagre little face of Samuel Bond, the Clerk of the Chapter. Bond's
struggle to reach his dignified position in the town had been a severe
one, and had only succeeded because of a multitude of self-submissions and
abnegations, humilities and contempts, flatteries and sycophancies that
would have tired and defeated a less determined soul. But, in the
background, there were the figures of Mrs. Bond and four little Bonds to
spur him forward. He adored his family. "Whatever I am, I'm a family man,"
was one of his favourite sayings. In so worthy a cause much sycophancy may
be forgiven him. To no one, however, was he so completely sycophantic as
to the Archdeacon. He was terrified of the Archdeacon; he would wake up in
the middle of the night and think of him, then tremble and cower under the
warm protection of Mrs. Bond until sleep rescued him once more.

It was natural, therefore, that however numerous the people in Polchester
might be whom the Archdeacon despised, he despised little Bond most of
all. And here was little Bond pressed up against him, with the large
circumference of the cheerful Mr. Samuel Hogg near by, and the ironical
town smartness of Messrs. Curtis and Croppet close at hand. Truly a
horrible position.

"Ah, Archdeacon! I didn't see you--indeed I didn't!" The little breathless
voice was like a child's penny whistle blown ignorantly. "Just fancy!--
meeting you like this! Hot, isn't it, although it's only February. Yes....
Hot indeed. I didn't know you cared for processions, Archdeacon----"

"I don't," said Brandon. "I hadn't realised that there was a procession.
Stupidly, I had forgotten----"

"Well, well," came the good-natured voice of Mr. Hogg. "It'll do us no
harm, Archdeacon--no harm at all. I forget whether you rightly know my
little girl. This is Annie--come out to see the procession with her
father."

The Archdeacon was compelled to shake hands. He did it very graciously.
She was certainly a fine girl--tall, strong, full-breasted, with dark
colour and raven black hair; curious, her eyes, very large and bright.
They stared full at you, but past you, as though they had decided that you
were of insufficient interest.

Annie thus gazed at the Archdeacon and said no word. Any further
intimacies were prevented by approach of the procession. To the present
generation Marquis' Circus would not appear, I suppose, very wonderful. To
many of us, thirty years ago, it seemed the final expression of Oriental
splendour and display.

There were murmurs and cries of "Here they come! Here they come! 'Ere they
be!" Every one pressed forward; Mr. Bond was nearly thrown off his feet
and caught at the lapel of the Archdeacon's coat to save himself. Only the
huge black eyes of Annie Hogg displayed no interest. The procession had
started from the meadows beyond the Cathedral and, after discreetly
avoiding the Precincts, was to plunge down the High Street, pass through
the Market-place and vanish up Orange Street--to follow, in fact, the very
path that the Archdeacon intended to pursue.

A band could be heard, there was an astounded hush (the whole of the High
Street holding its breath), then the herald appeared.

He was, perhaps, a rather shabby fellow, wearing the tarnished red and
gold of many a procession, but he walked confidently, holding in his hand
a tall wooden truncheon gay with paper-gilt, having his round cap of cloth
of gold set rakishly on one side of his head. After him came the band,
also in tarnished cloth of gold and looking as though they would have been
a trifle ashamed of themselves had they not been deeply involved in the
intricacies of their music. After the band came four rather shabby riders
on horseback, then some men dressed apparently in admiring imitation of
Charles II.; then, to the wonder and whispered incredulity of the crowd,
Britannia on her triumphal car. The car--an elaborate cart, with gilt
wheels and strange cardboard figures of dolphins and Father Neptune--had
in its centre a high seat painted white and perched on a kind of box.
Seated on this throne was Britannia herself--a large, full-bosomed,
flaxen-haired lady in white flowing robes, and having a very anxious
expression of countenance, as, indeed, poor thing, was natural enough,
because the cart rocked the box and the box yet more violently rocked the
chair. At any moment, it seemed, might she be precipitated, a fallen
goddess, among the crowd, and the fact that the High Street was on a slope
of considerable sharpness did not add to her ease and comfort. Two stout
gentlemen, perspiration bedewing their foreheads, strove to restrain the
ponies, and their classic clothing, that turned them into rather tattered
Bacchuses, did not make them less incongruous.

Britannia and her agony, however, were soon forgotten in the ferocious
excitements that followed her. Here were two camels, tired and dusty, with
that look of bored and indifferent superiority that belongs to their
tribe, two elephants, two clowns, and last, but of course the climax of
the whole affair, a cage in which there could be seen behind the iron bars
a lion and a lioness, jolted haplessly from side to side, but too deeply
shamed and indignant to do more than reproach the crowd with their burning
eyes. Finally, another clown bearing a sandwich-board on which was printed
in large red letters "Marquis' Circus--the Finest in the World--Renowned
through Europe--Come to the Church Meadows and see the Fun"--and so on.

As this glorious procession passed down the High Street the crowd
expressed its admiration in silent whispering. There was no loud applause;
nevertheless, Mr. Marquis, were he present, must have felt the air
electric with praise. It was murmured that Britannia was Mrs. Marquis,
and, if that were true, she must have given her spouse afterwards, in the
sanctity of their privacy, a very grateful account of her reception.

When the band had passed a little way down the street and their somewhat
raucous notes were modified by distance, the sun came out in especial
glory, as though to take his own peep at the show, the gilt and cloth of
gold shone and gleamed, the chair of Britannia rocked as though it were
bursting with pride, and the Cathedral bells, as though they too wished to
lend their dignified blessing to the scene, began to ring for Evensong. A
sentimental observer, had he been present, might have imagined that the
old town was glad to have once again an excuse for some display, and
preened itself and showed forth its richest and warmest colours and
wondered, perhaps, whether after all the drab and interesting citizens of
to-day were not minded to return to the gayer and happier old times. Quite
a noise, too, of chatter and trumpets and bells and laughter. Even the
Archdeacon forgot his official smile and laughed like a boy.

It was then that the terrible thing happened. Somewhere at the lower end
of the High Street the procession was held up and the chariot had suddenly
to pull itself back upon its wheels, and the band were able to breathe
freely for a minute, to gaze about them and to wipe the sweat from their
brows; even in February blowing and thumping "all round the town" was a
warm business.

Now, just opposite the Archdeacon were the two elephants, checked by the
sudden pause. Behind them was the cage with the lions, who, now that the
jolting had ceased, could collect their scattered indignities and roar a
little in exasperated protest. The elephants, too, perhaps felt the
humility of their position, accustomed though they might be to it by many
years of sordid slavery. It may be, too, that the sight of that
patronising and ignorant crowd, the crush and pack of the High Street, the
silly sniggering, the triumphant jangle of the Cathedral bells, thrust
through their slow and heavy brains some vision long faded now, but for an
instant revived, of their green jungles, their hot suns, their ancient
royalty and might. They realised perhaps a sudden instinct of their power,
that they could with one lifting of the hoof crush these midgets that
hemmed them in back to the pulp whence they came, and so go roaming and
bellowing their freedom through the streets and ways of the city. The
larger of the two suddenly raised his head and trumpeted; with his dim
uplifted eyes he caught sight of the Archdeacon's rich and gleaming top-
hat shining, as an emblem of the city's majesty, above the crowd. It
gleamed in the sun, and he hated it. He trumpeted again and yet again,
then, with a heavy lurching movement, stumbled towards the pavement, and
with little fierce eyes and uplifted trunk heaved towards his enemies.

The crowd, with screams and cries, fell back in agitated confusion. The
Archdeacon, caught by surprise, scarcely realising what had occurred,
blinded a little by the sun, stood where he was. In another movement his
top-hat was snatched from his head and tossed into air....

He felt the animal's hot breath upon his face, heard the shouts and cries
around him, and, in very natural alarm, started back, caught at anything
for safety (he had tumbled upon the broad and protective chest of Samuel
Hogg), and had a general impression of whirling figures, of suns and roofs
and shining faces and, finally, the high winds of heaven blowing upon his
bare head.

In another moment the incident was closed. The courtier of Charles II. had
rushed up; the elephant was pulled and hustled and kicked; for him swiftly
the vision of power and glory and vengeance was over, and once again he
was the tied and governed prisoner of modern civilisation. The top-hat
lay, a battered and hapless remnant, beneath the feet of the now advancing
procession.

Once the crowd realised that the danger was over a roar of laughter went
up to heaven. There were shouts and cries. The Archdeacon tried to smile.
He heard in dim confusion the cheery laugh of Samuel Hogg, he caught the
comment of Croppet and the rest.

With only one thought that he must hide himself, indignation, humiliation,
amazement that such a thing could be in his heart, he backed, turned,
almost ran, finding at last sudden refuge in Bennett's book-shop. How
wonderful was the dark rich security of that enclosure! The shop was
always in a half-dusk and the gas burnt in its dim globes during most of
the day. All the richer and handsomer gleamed the rows of volumes, the
morocco and the leather and the cloth. Old Mr. Bennett himself, the son of
the famous man who had known Scott and Byron, was now a prodigious age (in
the town his nickname was Methusalem), but he still liked to sit in the
shop in a high chair, his white beard in bright contrast with the chaste
selection of the newest works arranged in front of him. He might himself
have been the Spirit of Select Literature summoned out of the vasty deep
by the Cultured Spirits of Polchester.

Into this splendid temple of letters the Archdeacon came, halted,
breathless, bewildered, tumbled. He saw at first only dimly. He was aware
that old Mr. Bennett, with an exclamation of surprise, rose in his chair.
Then he perceived that two others were in the shop; finally, that these
two were the Dean and Ronder, the men of all others in Polchester whom he
least wished to find there.

"Archdeacon!" cried the Dean.

"Yes--om--ah--an extraordinary thing has occurred--I really--oh, thank
you, Mr. Wilton...."

Mr. Frank Wilton, the young assistant, had offered a chair.

"You'll scarcely believe me--really, I can hardly believe myself." Here
the Archdeacon tried to laugh. "As a matter of fact, I was coming out to
see you...on my way...and the elephant..."

"The elephant?" repeated the Dean, who, in the way that he had, was
nervously rubbing one gaitered leg against the other.

"Yes--I'm a little incoherent, I'm afraid. You must forgive me...
breathless too.... It's too absurd. So many people..."

"A little glass of water, Mr. Archdeacon?" said young Wilton, who had a
slight cast in one eye, and therefore gave the impression that he was
watching round the corner to see that no one ran off with the books.

"No, thank you, Wilton.... No, thank you.... Very good of you, I'm sure.
But really it was a monstrous thing. I was coming to see you, as I've just
said, Dean, having forgotten all about this ridiculous procession. I was
held up by the crowd just below the shop here. Then suddenly, as the
animals were passing, the elephant made a lurch towards me--positively,
I'm not exaggerating--seized my hat and--ran off with it!"

The Archdeacon had, as I have already said, a sense of fun. He saw, for
the first time, the humour of the thing. He began to laugh; he laughed
more loudly; laughter overtook him altogether, and he roared and roared
again, sitting there, his hands on his knees, until the tears ran down his
cheek.

"Oh dear...my hat...an elephant...Did you ever hear----? My best hat...!"
The Dean was compelled to laugh too, although, being a shy and hesitating
man, he was not able to do it very heartily. Young Mr. Wilton laughed,
but in such a way as to show that he knew his place and was ready to be
serious at once if his superiors wished it. Even old Mr. Bennett laughed
as distantly and gently as befitted his great age.

Brandon was conscious of Ronder. He had, in fact, been conscious of him
from the very instant of his first perception of him. He was giving
himself away before their new Canon; he thought that the new Canon,
although he was smiling pleasantly and was standing with becoming modesty
in the background, looked superior....

The Archdeacon pulled himself up with a jerk. After all, it was nothing of
a joke. A multitude of townspeople had seen him in a most ludicrous
position, had seen him start back in terror before a tame elephant, had
seen him frightened and hatless. No, there was nothing to laugh about.

"An elephant?" repeated the Dean, still gently laughing.

"Yes, an elephant," answered Brandon rather testily. That was enough of
the affair, quite enough. "Well, I must be getting back. See you to-
morrow, Dean."

"Anything important you wanted to see me about?" asked the Dean,
perceiving that he had laughed just a little longer than was truly
necessary.

"No, no...nothing. Only about poor Morrison. He's very bad, they tell
me...a week at most."

"Dear, dear--is that so?" said the Dean. "Poor fellow, poor fellow!"

Brandon was now acutely conscious of Ronder. Why didn't the fellow say
something instead of standing silently there with that superior look
behind his glasses? In the ordinary way he would have greeted him with his
usual hearty patronage. Now he was irritated. It was really most
unfortunate that Ronder should have witnessed his humiliation. He rose,
abruptly turning his back upon him. The fellow was laughing at him--he was
sure of it.

"Well--good-day, good-day." As he advanced to the door and looked out into
the street he was aware of the ludicrousness of going even a few steps up
the street without a hat.

Confound Ronder!

But there was scarcely any one about now. The street was almost deserted.
He peered up and down.

In the middle of the road was a small, shapeless, black object.

...His hat!




Chapter V

Mrs. Brandon Goes Out to Tea



Mrs. Brandon hated her husband. No one in Polchester had the slightest
suspicion of this; certainly her husband least of all. She herself had
been first aware of it one summer afternoon some five or six years ago
when, very pleasantly and in the kindest way, he had told her that she
knew nothing about primroses. They had been having tea at the Dean's, and,
as was often the case then, the conversation had concerned itself with
flowers and ferns. Mrs. Brandon was quite ready to admit that she knew
nothing about primroses--there were for her yellow ones and other ones,
and that was all. The Archdeacon had often before told her that she was
ignorant, and she had acquiesced without a murmur. Upon this afternoon,
just as Mrs. Sampson was asking her whether she liked sugar, revelation
came to her. That little scene was often afterwards vividly in front of
her--the Archdeacon, with his magnificent legs spread apart in front of
the fireplace; Miss Dobell trying to look with wisdom upon a little bundle
of primulas that the Dean was showing to her; the sunlight upon the lawn
beyond the window; the rooks in the high elms busy with their nests; the
May warmth striking through the misty air--all was painted for ever
afterwards upon her mind.

"My dear, you may as well admit at once that you know nothing whatever
about primroses."

"No, I'm afraid I don't--thank you, Mrs. Sampson. One lump, please."

She had been coming to it. Of course, a very long time before this--very,
very far away, now an incredible memory, seemed the days when she had
loved him so passionately that she almost died with anxiety if he left her
for a single night. Almost too passionate it had been, perhaps. He himself
was not capable of passionate love, or, at any rate, had been quite
satisfied to be _not_ passionately in love with _her_. He pursued
other things--his career, his religion, his simple beneficence, his
health, his vigour. His love for his son was the most passionately
personal thing in him, and over that they might have met had he been able
to conceive her as a passionate being. Her ignorance of life--almost
complete when he had met her--had been but little diminished by her time
with him. She knew now, after all those years, little more of the world
and its terrors and blessings than she had known then. But she did know
that nothing in her had been satisfied. She knew now of what she was
capable, and it was perhaps the thought that he had, by taking her,
prevented her fulfilment and complete experience that caused her, more
than anything else, to hate him.

She very quickly discovered that he had married her for certain things--to
have children, to have a companion. He had soon found that the latter of
these he was not to obtain. She had in her none of the qualities that he
needed in a companion, and so he had, with complete good-nature and
kindliness, ceased to consider her. He should have married a bold
ambitious woman who would have wanted the things, that he wanted--a woman
something like Falk, his son. On the rare occasions when he analysed the
situation he realised this. He did not in any way vent his disappointment
upon, her--he was only slightly disappointed. He treated her with real
kindness save on the occasions of his violent loss of temper, and gave her
anything that she wanted. He had, on the whole, a great contempt for women
save when, as for instance with Mrs. Combermere, they were really men.

It was to her most humiliating of all, that nothing in their relations
worried him. He was perfectly at ease about it all, and fancied that she
was the same. Meanwhile her real life was not dead, only dormant. For some
years she tried to change the situation; she made little appeals to him,
endeavoured timidly to force him to need her, even on one occasion
threatened to sleep in a separate room. The memory of _that_ little
episode still terrified her. His incredulity had only been equalled by his
anger. It was just as though some one had threatened to deprive him of his
morning tub....

Then, when she saw that this was of no avail, she had concentrated herself
upon her children, and especially upon Falk. For a while she had fancied
that she was satisfied. Suddenly--and the discovery was awful--she was
aware that Falk's affection all turned towards his father rather than
towards her. Her son despised her and disregarded her as his father had
done. She did not love Falk the less, but she ceased to expect anything
from him--and this new loss she put down to her husband's account.

It was shortly after she made this discovery that the affair of the
primroses occurred.

Many a woman now would have shown her hostility, but Mrs. Brandon was, by
nature, a woman who showed nothing. She did not even show anything to
herself, but all the deeper, because it found no expression, did her
hatred penetrate. She scored now little marks against him for everything
that he did. She did not say to herself that a day of vengeance was
coming, she did not think of anything so melodramatic, she expected
nothing of her future at all--but the marks were there.

The situation was developed by Falk's return from Oxford. When he was away
her love for him seemed to her simply all in the world that she possessed.
He wrote to her very seldom, but she made her Sunday letters to him the
centre of her week, and wrote as though they were a passionately devoted
mother and son. She allowed herself this little gentle deception--it was
her only one.

But when he returned and was in the house it was more difficult to cheat
herself. She saw at once that he had something on his mind, that he was
engaged in some pursuit that he kept from every one. She discovered, too,
that she was the one of whom he was afraid, and rightly so, the Archdeacon
being incapable of discovering any one's pursuits so long as he was
engaged on one of his own. Falk's fear of her perception brought about a
new situation between them. He was not now oblivious of her presence as he
had been. He tried to discover whether she knew anything. She found him
often watching her, half in fear and half in defiance.

The thought that he might be engaged now upon some plan of his own in
which she might share excited her and gave her something new to live for.
She did not care what his plan might be; however dangerous, however
wicked, she would assist him. Her moral sense had never been very deeply
developed in her. Her whole character was based on her relations with
individuals; for any one she loved she would commit murder, theft or
blasphemy. She had never had any one to love except Falk.

She despised the Archdeacon the more because he now perceived nothing.
Under his very nose the thing was, and he was sublimely contented. How she
hated that content, and how she despised it!

About a week after the affair of the elephants, Mrs. Combermere asked her
to tea. She disliked Mrs. Combermere, but she went to tea there because it
was easier than not going. She disliked Mrs. Combermere especially because
it was in her house that she heard silly, feminine praise of her husband.
It amused her, however, to think of the amazed sensation there would be,
did she one day burst out before them all and tell them what she really
thought of the Archdeacon.

Of course she would never do that, but she had often outlined the speech
in her mind.

Mrs. Combermere also lived in the Precincts, so that Mrs. Brandon had not
far to go. Before she arrived there a little conversation took place
between the lady of the house, Miss Stiles, Miss Dobell and Dr. Puddifoot,
that her presence would most certainly have hindered. Mrs. Combermere was
once described by some one as "constructed in concrete"; and that was not
a bad description of her, so solid, so square and so unshakable and
unbeatable was she. She wore stiff white collars like a man's, broad thick
boots, short skirts and a belt at her waist. Her black hair was brushed
straight back from her forehead, she had rather small brown eyes, a large
nose and a large mouth. Her voice was a deep bass. She had some hair on
her upper lip, and thick, strong, very white hands. She liked to walk down
the High Street, a silver-topped cane in her hand, a company of barking
dogs at her heels, and a hat, with large hat-pins, set a little on one
side of her head. She had a hearty laugh, rather like the Archdeacon's.
Dr. Puddifoot was our doctor for many years and brought many of my
generation into the world. He was a tall, broad, loose-set man, who always
wore tweeds of a bright colour.

Mrs. Combermere cared nothing for her surroundings, and her house was
never very tidy. She bullied her servants, but they liked her because she
gave good wages and fulfilled her promises. She was the first woman in
Polchester to smoke cigarettes. It was even said that she smoked cigars,
but no one, I think, ever saw her do this.

On this afternoon she subjected Miss Stiles to a magisterial inquiry; Miss
Stiles had on the preceding evening given a little supper party, and no
one in Polchester did anything of the kind without having to render
account to Mrs. Combermere afterwards. They all sat round the fire,
because it was a cold day. Mrs. Combermere sat on a straight-backed chair,
tilting it forward, her skirt drawn up to her knees, lier thick-stockinged
legs and big boots for all the world to see.

"Well, Ellen, whom did you have?"

"Ronder and his aunt, the Bentinck-Majors, Charlotte Ryle and Major
Drake."

"Sorry I couldn't have been there. What did you give them?"

"Soup, fish salad, cutlets, chocolate soufflé, sardines on toast."

"What drink?"

"Sherry, claret, lemonade for Charlotte, whisky."

"Any catastrophes?"

"No, I don't think so. Bentinck-Major sang afterwards."

"Hum--not sorry I missed _that_. When was it over?"

"About eleven."

"What did you ask them for?"

"For the Ronders."

Mrs. Combermere, raising one foot, kicked a coal into blaze.

"Tea will be in in a minute.... Now, I'll tell you for your good, my dear
Ellen, that I don't like your Ronder."

Miss Stiles laughed. "Oh, you needn't mind me, Betsy. You never have. Why
don't you?"

"In the first place, he's stupid."

Miss Stiles laughed again.

"Never wronger in your life. I thought you were smarter than that."

Mrs. Combermere smacked her knee. "I may be wrong. I often am. I take
prejudices, I know. Secondly, he's fat and soft--too like the typical
parson."

"It's an assumed disguise--however, go on."

"Third, I hear he agrees with everything one says."

"You hear? You've not talked to him yourself, then?"

Mrs. Combermere raised her head as the door opened and the tea came in.

"No. I've only seen him in Cathedral. But I've called, and he's coming to-
day."

Miss Stiles smiled in her own dark and mysterious way.

"Well, Betsy, my dear, I leave you to find it all out for yourself.... I
keep my secrets."

"If you do," said Mrs. Combermere, getting up and going to the tea-table,
"it's the first time you ever have. _And_ Ellen," she went on, "I've
a bone to pick. I won't have you laughing at my dear Archdeacon."

"Laughing at your Archdeacon?" Miss Stiles' voice was softer and slower
than any complaining cow's.

"Yes. I hear you've all been laughing about the elephant. That was a thing
that might have happened to any one."

Puddifoot laughed. "The point is, though, that it happened to Brandon.
That's the joke. _And_ his new top hat."

"Well, I won't have it. Milk, doctor? Miss Dobell and I agree that it's a
shame."

Miss Dobell, who was in appearance like one of those neat silk umbrellas
with the head of a parrot for a handle, and whose voice was like the
running brook both for melody and monotony, thus suddenly appealed to,
blushed, stammered, and finally admitted that the Archdeacon was, in her
opinion, a hero.

"That's not exactly the point, dear Mary," said Miss Stiles. "The point
is, surely, that an elephant straight from the desert ate our best
Archdeacon's best hat in the High Street. You must admit that that's a
laughable circumstance in this the sixtieth year of our good Queen's
reign. I, for one, intend to laugh."

"No, you don't, Ellen," and, to every one's surprise, Mrs. Combermere's
voice was serious. "I mean what I say. I'm not joking at all. Brandon may
have his faults, but this town and everything decent in it hangs by him.
Take him away and the place drops to pieces. I suppose you think you're
going to introduce your Ronders as up-to-date rivals. We prefer things as
they are, thank you."

Miss Stiles' already bright colouring was a little brighter. She knew her
Betsy Combermere, but she resented rebukes before Puddifoot.

"Then," she said, "if he means all that to the place, he'd better look
after his son more efficiently."

"_And_ exactly what do you mean by that?" asked Mrs. Combermere.

"Oh, everybody knows," said Miss Stiles, looking round to Miss Dobell and
the doctor for support, "that young Brandon is spending the whole of his
time down in Seatown, and that Miss Annie Hogg is not entirely unconnected
with his visits."

"Really, Ellen," said Mrs. Combermere, bringing her fist down upon the
table, "you're a disgusting woman. Yes, you are, and I won't take it back,
however much you ask me to. All the worst scandal in this place comes from
you. If it weren't for you we shouldn't be so exactly like every
novelist's Cathedral town. But I warn you, I won't have you talking about
Brandon. His son's only a boy, and the handsomest male in the place by the
way--present company, of course, excepted. He's only been home a few
months, and you're after him already with your stories. I won't have
it----"

Miss Stiles rose, her fingers trembling as she drew on her gloves.

"Well, I won't stay here to be insulted, anyway. You may have known me a
number of years, Betsy, but that doesn't allow you _all_ the
privileges. The only matter with me is that I say what I think. You
started the business, I believe, by insulting my friends."

"Sit down, Ellen," said Mrs. Combermere, laughing. "Don't be a fool. Who's
insulting your friends? You'd insult them yourself if they were only
successful enough. You can have your Ronder."

The door opened and the maid announced: "Canon Ronder."

Every one was conscious of the dramatic fitness of this, and no one more
so than Mrs. Combermere. Ronder entered the room, however, quite unaware
of anything apparently, except that he was feeling very well and expected
amusement from his company. He presented precisely the picture of a nice
contented clergyman who might be baffled by a school treat but was
thoroughly "up" to afternoon tea. He seemed a little stouter than when he
had first come to Polchester, and his large spectacles were as round as
two young moons.

"How do you do, Mrs. Combernere? I do hope you will forgive my aunt, but
she has a bad headache. She finds Polchester a little relaxing."

Mrs. Combermere did not get up, but stared at him from, behind her tea-
table. That was a stare that has frightened many people in its time, and
to-day it was especially challenging. She was annoyed with Ellen Stiles,
and here, in front of her, was the cause of her annoyance.

They faced one another, and the room behind them was aware that Mrs.
Combermere, at any rate, had declared battle. Of what Ronder was aware no
one knew.

"How do you do, Canon Ronder? I'm delighted that you've honoured my poor
little house. I hear that you're a busy man. I'm all the more proud that
you can spare me half an hour."

She kept him standing there, hoping, perhaps, that he would be consciously
awkward and embarrassed. He was completely at his ease.

"Oh, no, I'm not busy. I'm a very lazy man." He looked down at her,
smiling, aware, apparently, of no one else in the room. "I'm always
meaning to pull myself up. But I'm too old for improvement"

"We're all busy people here, although you mayn't think it, Canon Ronder.
But I'm afraid you're giving a false account of yourself. I've heard of
you."

"Nothing but good, I hope."

"Well, I don't know. That depends. I expect you're going to shake us all
up and teach us improvement."

"Dear me, no! I come to you for instruction. I haven't an idea in the
world."

"Too much modesty is a dangerous thing. Nobody's modest in Polchester."

"Then I shall be Polchester's first modest man. But I'm not modest. I
simply speak the truth."

Mrs. Combermere smiled grimly. "There, too, you will be the exception. We
none of us speak the truth here."

"Really, Mrs. Combermere, you're giving Polchester a dreadful character."
He laughed, but did not take his eyes away from her. "I hope that you've
been here so long that you've forgotten what the place is like. I believe
in first impressions."

"So do I," she said, very grimly indeed.

"Well, in a year's time we shall see which of us is right. I'll be quite
willing to admit defeat."

"Oh, a year's time!" She laughed more pleasantly. "A great deal can happen
in a year. You may be a bishop by then, Canon Ronder,"

"Ah, that would be more than I deserve," he answered quite gravely.

The little duel was over. She turned around, introduced him to Miss Dobell
and Puddifoot, both of whom, however, he had already met. He sat down,
very happily, near the fire and listened to Miss Dobell's shrill
proclamation of her adoration of Browning. Conversation became general,
and was concerned first with the Jubilee and the preparations for it,
afterwards with the state of South Africa, Lord Penrhyn's quarries, and
bicycling. Every one had a good deal to say about this last topic, and the
strange costumes which ladies, so the papers said, were wearing in
Battersea Park when out on their morning ride.

Miss Dobell said that "it was too disgraceful," to which Mrs. Combermere
replied "Fudge! As though every one didn't know by this time that women
had legs!"

Everything, in fact, went very well, although Ellen Stiles observed to
herself with a certain malicious pleasure that their hostess was not
entirely at her ease, was "a little ruffled, about something."

Soon two more visitors arrived--first Mr. Morris, then Mrs. Brandon. They
came close upon one another's heels, and it was at once evident that they
would, neither of them, alter very considerably the room's atmosphere. No
one ever paid any attention to Mrs. Brandon in Polchester, and although
Mr. Morris had been some time now in the town, he was so shy and retiring
and quiet that no one was, as yet, very distinctly aware of him. Mrs.
Combermere was occupied with her own thoughts and the others were talking
very happily beside the fire, so it soon happened that Morris and Mrs.
Brandon were sitting by themselves in the window.

There occurred then a revelation.... That is perhaps a portentous word,
but what else can one call it? It is a platitude, of course, to say that
there is probably no one alive who does not remember some occasion of a
sudden communion with another human being that was so beautiful, so
touching, so transcendentally above human affairs that a revelation was
the only definition for it. Afterwards, when analysis plays its part, one
may talk about physical attractions, about common intellectual interests,
about spiritual bonds, about what you please, but one knows that the
essence of that meeting is undefined.

It may be quite enough to say about Morris and Mrs. Brandon, that they
were both very lonely people. You may say, too, that there was in both of
them an utterly unsatisfied longing to have some one to protect and care
for. Not her husband nor Falk nor Joan needed Mrs. Brandon in the least--
and the Archdeacon did not approve of dogs in the house. Or you may say,
if you like, that these two liked the look of one another, and leave it at
that. Still the revelation remains--and all the tragedy and unhappiness
and bitterness that that revelation involved remains too....

This was, of course, not the first time that they had met. Once before at
Mrs. Combermere's they had been introduced and talked together for a
moment; but on that occasion there had been no revelation.

They did not say very much now. Mrs. Brandon asked Morris whether he liked
Polchester and he said yes. They talked about the Cathedral and the coming
Jubilee. Morris said that he had met Falk. Mrs. Brandon, colouring a
little, asked was he not handsome? She said that he was a remarkable boy,
very independent, that was why he had not got on very well at Oxford....
He was a tremendous comfort to her, she said. When he went away...but
she stopped suddenly.

Not looking at him, she said that sometimes one felt lonely even though
there was a great deal to do, as there always was in a town like
Polchester.

Yes, Morris said that he knew that. And that was really all. There were
long pauses in their conversation, pauses that were like the little wooden
hammerings on the stage before the curtain rises.

Mrs. Brandon said that she hoped that he would come and see her, and he
said that he would. Their hands touched, and they both felt as though the
room had suddenly closed in upon them and become very dim, blotting the
other people out.

Then Mrs. Brandon got up to go. Afterwards, when she looked back to this,
she remembered that she had looked, for some unknown reason, especially at
Canon Ronder, as she stood there saying good-bye.

She decided that she did not like him. Then she went away, and Mrs.
Combermere was glad that she had gone.

Of all the dull women....




Chapter VI

Seatown Mist and Cathedral Dust



Falk Brandon knew quite well that his mother was watching him.

It was a strange truth that until this return of his from Oxford he had
never considered his mother at all. It was not that he had grown to
disregard her, as do many sons, because of the monotonous regularity of
her presence. Nor was it that he despised her because he seemed so vastly
to have outgrown her. He had not been unkind nor patronising nor
contemptuous--he had simply not yet thought about her. The circumstances
of his recent return, however, had forced him to consider every one in the
house. He had his secret preoccupation that seemed so absorbing and
devastating to him that he could not believe that every one around him
would not guess it. He soon discovered that his father was too cock-sure
and his sister too innocent to guess anything. Now he was not himself a
perceptive man; he had, after all, seen as yet very little of the world,
and he had a great deal of his father's self-confidence; nevertheless, he
was just perceptive enough to perceive that his mother was thinking about
him, was watching him, was waiting to see what he would do....

His secret was quite simply that, for the last year, he had been
devastated by the consciousness of Annie Hogg, the daughter of the
landlord of "The Dog and Pilchard." Yes. devastated was the word. It would
not be true to say that he was in love with her or, indeed, had any
analysed emotion for her--he was aware of her always, was disturbed by her
always, could not keep away from her, wanted something in connection with
her far deeper than mere love-making--

What he wanted he did not know. He could not keep away from her, and yet
when he was with her nothing occurred. She did not apparently care for
him; he was not even sure that he wanted her to. At Oxford during his last
term he had thought of her--incessantly, a hot pain at his heart. He had
not invited the disturbance that had sent him down, but he had welcomed
it.

Every day he went to "The Dog and Pilchard." He drank but little and
talked to no one. He just leaned up against the wall and looked at her.
Sometimes he had a word with her. He knew that they must all be speaking
of it. Maybe the whole town was chattering. He could not think of that. He
had no plans, no determination, no resolve--and he was desperately
unhappy....

Into this strange dark confusion the thought of his mother drove itself.
He had from the very beginning been aware of his father in this
connection. In his own selfish way he loved his father, and he shared in
his pride and self-content. He was proud of his father for being what he
was, for his good-natured contempt of other people, for his handsome body
and his dominance of the town. He could understand that his father should
feel as he did, and he did honestly consider him a magnificent man and far
above every one else in the place. But that did not mean that he ever
listened to anything that his father said. He pleased himself in what he
did, and laughed at his father's temper.

He had perceived from the first that this connection of his with Annie
Hogg might do his father very much harm, and he did not want to harm him.
The thought of this did not mean that for a moment he contemplated
dropping the affair because of his father--no, indeed--but the thought of
the old man, as he termed him, added dimly to his general unhappiness. He
appreciated the way that his father had taken his return from Oxford. The
old man was a sportsman. It was a great pity that he should have to make
him unhappy over this business. But there it was--you couldn't alter
things.

It was this fatalistic philosophy that finally ruled everything with him.
"What must be must." If things went wrong he had his courage, and he was
helped too by his contempt for the world....

He knew his father, but he was aware now that he knew nothing at all about
his mother.

"What's _she_ thinking about?" he asked himself.

One afternoon he was about to go to Seatown when, in the passage outside
his bedroom, he met his mother. They both stopped as though they had
something to say to one another. He did not look at all like her son, so
fair, tall and aloof, as though even in his own house he must be on his
guard, prepared to challenge any one who threatened his private plans.

"She's like a little mouse," he thought to himself, as though he were
seeing her for the first time, "preparing to run off into the wainscot" He
was conscious, too, of her quiet clothes and shy preoccupied timidity--all
of it he seemed to see for the first time, a disguise for some purpose as
secret, perhaps, as his own.

"Oh, Falk," she said, and stopped, and then went on with the question that
she so often asked him:

"Is there anything you want?"

"No, mother, thank you. I'm just going out."

"Oh, yes...." She still stayed there nervously looking up at him.

"I was wondering----Are you going into the town?"

"Yes, mother. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, thank you." Still she did not move.

"Joan's out," she said. Then she went on quickly, "I wish you'd tell me if
there were anything----"

"Why, of course." He laughed. "What exactly do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear. Only I like to know about your plans."

"Plans? I haven't any."

"No, but I always think you may be going away suddenly. Perhaps I could
help you. I know it isn't very much that I can do, but anything you told
me I think I could help you about.... I'd like to help you."

He could see that she had been resolving for some time to speak to him,
and that this little appeal was the result of a desperate determination.
He was touched.

"That's all right, mother. I suppose father and you think I oughtn't to be
hanging around here doing nothing."

"Oh, your father hasn't said anything to me. I don't know what he thinks.
But I should miss you if you went. It is nice for us having you, although,
of course, it must seem slow to you here."

He stood back against the wall, looking past her out through the window
that showed the grey sky of a misty day.

"Well, it's true that I've got to settle about doing something soon. I
can't be home like this for ever. There's a man I know in London wants me
to go in for a thing with him...."

"What kind of a thing, dear?"

"It's to do with the export trade. Travelling about. I should like that.
I'm a bit restless, I'm afraid. I should want to put some money into it,
of course, but the governor will let me have something.... He wants me to
go into Parliament."

"Parliament?"

"Yes," Falk laughed. "That's his latest idea. He was talking about it the
other night. Of course, that's foolishness. It's not my line at all. I
told him so."

"I wouldn't like you to go away altogether," she repeated. "It would make
a great difference to me."

"Would it really?" He had a strange mysterious impulse to speak to her
about Annie Hogg. The thought of his mother and Annie Hogg together showed
him at once how impossible that was. They were in separate worlds. He was
suddenly angry at the difficulties that life was making for him without
his own wish. "Oh, I'll be here some time yet, mother," he said. "Well, I
must get along now. I've got an appointment with a fellow."

She smiled and disappeared into her room.

All the way into Seatown he was baffled and irritated by this little
conversation. It seemed that you could not disregard people by simply
determining to disregard them. All the time behind you and them some force
was insisting on places being taken, connections being formed. One was
simply a bally pawn...a bally pawn....

But what was his mother thinking? Had some one been talking to her?
Perhaps already she knew about Annie. But what could she know? Girls like
Annie were outside her ken. What could his mother know about life? The day
did not help his dissatisfaction. The fog had not descended upon the town,
but it had sent as its forerunner a wet sea mist, dim and intangible,
depressing because it removed all beauty and did not leave even
challenging ugliness in its place.

On the best of days Seatown was not beautiful. I have read in books
romantic descriptions of Glebeshire coves, Glebeshire towns with the
romantic Inn, the sanded floor, fishermen with gold rings in their ears
and strange oaths upon their lips. In one book I remember there was a fine
picture of such a place, with beautiful girls dancing and mysterious old
men telling mysterious tales about ghosts and goblins, and, of course,
somewhere in the distance some one was singing a chanty, and the moon was
rising, and there was a nice little piece of Glebeshire dialect thrown in.
All very pretty.... Seatown cannot claim such prettiness. Perhaps once
long ago, when there were only the Cathedral, the Castle, the Rock, and a
few cottages down by the river, when, at night-tide, strange foreign ships
came up from the sea, when the woods were wild forest and the downs were
bare and savage, Seatown had its romance, but that was long ago. Seatown,
in these latter days, was a place of bad drainage, bad drinking, bad
living and bad dying. The men who haunted its dirty, narrow little streets
were loafers and idlers and castaways. The women were, most of them, no
better than they should be, and the children were the most slatternly and
ill-bred in the whole of Glebeshire. Small credit to the Canons and the
Town Councillors and the prosperous farmers that it was so, but in their
defence it might be urged that it needed a very valiant Canon and the most
fearless of Town Councillors to disturb that little nest. And the time
came when it was disturbed....

Even the Pol, a handsome river enough out beyond the town in the reaches
of the woods, was no pretty sight at low tide when there was nothing to
see but a thin, sluggish grey stream filtering through banks of mud to its
destination, the sea. At high tide the river beat up against the crazy
stone wall that bordered Pennicent Street; and on the further side there
were green fields and a rising hill with a feathery wood to crown it. From
the river, coming up through the green banks, Seatown looked picturesque,
with its disordered cottages scrambling in confusion at the tail of the
rock and the Cathedral and Castle nobly dominating it. That distant view
is the best thing to be said for Seatown.

To-day, in the drizzling mist, the place was horribly depressing. Falk
plunged down into Bridge Street as into a damp stuffy well. Here some of
the houses had once been fine; there were porticoes and deep-set doors and
bow-windows, making them poor relations of the handsome benevolent
Georgian houses in Orange Street. The street, top-tilting down to the
river, was slovenly with dirt and carelessness. Many of the windows were
broken, their panes stuffed with paper; washing hung from house to house.
The windows that were not broken were hermetically sealed and filled with
grimy plants and ferns, and here and there a photograph of an embarrassed
sailor or a smiling married couple or an overdressed young woman placed
face outward to the street. Bridge Street tumbled with a dirty absent-
mindedness into Pennicent Street. This, the main thoroughfare of Seatown,
must have been once a handsome cobbled walk by the river-side. The houses,
more than in Bridge Street, showed by their pillared doorways and their
faded red brick that they had once been gentlemen's residences, with
gardens, perhaps, running to the river's edge and a fine view of the
meadows and woods beyond. To-day all was shrouded in a mist that was never
stationary, that seemed alive in its shifting movement, revealing here a
window, there a door, now a chimney-pot, now steps that seemed to lead
into air, and the river, now at full tide and lapping the stone wall,
seemed its drunken bewildered voice.

"Bally pawns, that's what we are," Falk muttered again. It seemed to be
the logical conclusion of the thoughts that had worried him, like flies,
during his walk. Some one lurched against him as he stayed for a moment to
search for the inn. A hot spasm of anger rose in him, so sudden and fierce
that he was frightened by it, as though he had seen his own face in a
mirror. But he said nothing. "Sorry," said a voice, and shadow faded into
shadow.

He found the "Dog and Pilchard" easily enough. Just beyond it the river
was caught into a kind of waterfall by a ridge of stone that projected
almost into mid-stream. At high tide it tumbled over this obstruction with
an astonished splash and gurgle. Even when the river was at its lowest
there was a dim chattering struggle at this point. Falk always connected
this noise with the inn and the power or enchantment of the inn that held
him--"Black Enchantment," perhaps. He was to hear that struggling chatter
of the river until his dying day.

He pushed through the passage and turned to the right into the bar. A damp
day like this always served Hogg's trade. The gas was lit and sizzled
overhead with a noise as though it commented ironically on the fatuity of
the human beings beneath it. The room was full, but most of the men--
seamen, loafers, a country man or two--crowded up to the bar. Falk crossed
to a table in the corner near the window, his accustomed seat. No one
seemed to notice him, but soon Hogg, stout and smiling, came over to him.
No one had ever seen Samuel Hogg out of temper--no, never, not even when
there had been fighting in the place and he had been compelled to eject
men, by force of arms, through the doors and windows. There had not been
many fights there. Men were afraid of him, in spite of his imperturbable
good temper. Men said of him that he would stick at nothing, although what
exactly was meant by that no one knew.

He had a good word for every one; no crime or human failing could shock
him. He laughed at everything. And yet men feared him. Perhaps for that
very reason. The worst sinner has some kind of standard of right and
wrong. Himself he may not keep it, but he likes to see it there. "Oh, he's
deep," was Seatown's verdict on Samuel Hogg, and it is certain that the
late Mrs. Hogg had not been, in spite of her husband's good temper, a
happy woman.

He came up to Falk now,--smiling, and asked him what he would have. "Nasty
day," he said. Falk ordered his drink. Dimly through the mist and
thickened air the Cathedral chimes recorded the hour. Funny how you could
hear them in every nook and corner of Polchester.

"Likely turn to rain before night," Hogg said, as he turned back to the
bar. Falk sat there watching. Some of the men he knew, some he did not,
but to-day they were all shadows to him. Strange how, from the moment that
he crossed the threshold of that place, hot, burning excitement and
expectation lapped him about, swimming up to him, engulfing him, swamping
him body and soul. He sat there drowned in it, not stirring, his eyes
fixed upon the door. There was a good deal of noise, laughter, swearing,
voices raised and dropped, forming a kind of skyline, and above this a
voice telling an interminable tale.

Annie Hogg came in, and at once Falk's throat contracted and his heart
hammered in the palms of his hands. She moved about, talking to the men,
fetching drinks, unconcerned and aloof as she always was. Seen there in
the mist of the overcrowded and evil-smelling room, there was nothing very
remarkable about her. Stalwart and resolute and self-possessed she looked;
sometimes she was beautiful, but not now. She was a woman at whom most men
would have looked twice. Her expression was not sullen nor disdainful; in
that, perhaps, there was something fine, because there was life, of its
own kind, in her eyes, and independence in the carriage of her head.

Falk never took his eyes from her. At that moment she came down the room
and saw him. She did not come over to him at once, but stopped and talked
to some one at another table. At last she was beside him, standing up
against his table and looking over his head at the window behind him.

"Nasty weather, Mr. Brandon," she said. Her voice was low and not
unpleasant; although she rolled her r's her Glebeshire accent was not very
strong, and she spoke slowly, as though she were trying to choose her
words.

"Yes," Falk answered. "Good for your trade, though."

"Dirty weather always brings them in," she said.

He did not look at her.

"Been busy to-day?"

"Nothing much this morning," she answered. "I've been away at my aunt's,
out to Borheddon, these last two days."

"Yes. I saw you were not here," he said. "Did you have a good time?"

"Middling," she answered. "My aunt's been terrible bad with bronchitis
this winter. Poor soul, it'll carry her off one of these days, I reckon."

"What's Borheddon like?" he asked.

"Nothing much. Nothing to do, you know. But I like a bit of quiet just for
a day or two. How've you been keeping, Mr. Brandon?"

"Oh, I'm all right. I shall be off to London to look for a job one of
these days."

He looked up at her suddenly, sharply, as though he wanted to catch her
interest. But she showed no emotion.

"Well, I expect this is slow for you, a little place like this. Plenty
going on in London, I expect."

"Yes. Do you ever think you'd like to go there?"

"Daresay I shall one of these days. Never know your luck. But I'm not
terrible anxious.... Well, I must be getting on."

He caught her eyes and held them.

"Come back for a moment when you're less busy. I've got something I want
to say to you."

Very slightly the colour rose in her dark cheek.

"All right," she said.

When she had gone he drew a deep breath, as though he had surmounted some
great and sudden danger. He felt that if she had refused to come he would
have risen and broken everything in the place. Now, as though he had, by
that little conversation with her, reassured himself about her, he looked
around the room. His attention was at once attracted by a man who was
sitting in the further corner, his back against the wall, opposite to him.

This was a man remarkable for his extreme thinness, for the wild lock of
black hair that fell over his forehead and almost into his eyes, and for a
certain sort of threadbare and dissolute distinction which hung about him.
Falk knew him slightly. His name was Edmund Davray, and he had lived in
Polchester now for a considerable number of years. He was an artist, and
had arrived in the town one summer on a walking tour through Glebeshire.
He had attracted attention at once by the quality of his painting, by the
volubility of his manner, and by his general air of being a person of
considerable distinction. His surname was French, but no one knew anything
with any certainty about him. Something attracted him in Polchester, and
he stayed. He soon gave it out that it was the Cathedral that fascinated
him; he painted a number of remarkable sketches of the nave, the choir,
Saint Margaret's Chapel, the Black Bishop's Tomb. He had a "show" in
London and was supposed to have done very well out of it. He disappeared
for a little, but soon returned, and was to be found in the Cathedral most
days of the week.

At first he had a little studio at the top of Orange Street. At this time
he was rather popular in Polchester society. Mrs. Combermere took him up
and found him audacious and amusing. His French name gave a kind of
piquancy to his audacity; he was unusual; he was striking. It was right
for Polchester to have an artist and to stick him up in the very middle of
the town as an emblem of taste and culture. Soon, however, he began to
decline. It was whispered that he drank, that his morals were "only what
you'd expect of an artist," and that he was really "too queer about the
Cathedral." One day he told Miss Dobell that the amount that she knew
about literature would go inside a very small pea, and he was certainly
"the worse for liquor" at one of Mrs. Combermere's tea-parties. He did
not, however, give them time to drop him; he dropped himself, gave up his
Orange Street studio, lived, no one knew where, neglected his appearance,
and drank quite freely whenever he could get anything to drink. He now cut
everybody, rather than allowed himself to be cut.

He was in the Cathedral as often as ever, and Lawrence and Cobbett, the
Vergers, longed to have an excuse for expelling him, but he always behaved
himself there and was in nobody's way. He was finally regarded as "quite
mad," and was seen to talk aloud to himself as he walked about the
streets.

"An unhappy example," Miss Dobell said, "of the artistic temperament, that
wonderful gift, gone wrong."

Falk had seen him often before at the "Dog and Pilchard," and had wondered
at first whether Annie Hogg was the attraction. It was soon clear,
however, that there was nothing in that. He never looked at the girl nor,
indeed, at any one else in the place. He simply sat there moodily staring
in front of him and drinking.

To-day it was clear that Falk had caught his attention. He looked across
the room at him with a queer defiant glance, something like Falk's own.
Once it seemed that he had made up his mind to come over and speak to him.

He half rose in his seat, then sank back again. But his eyes came round
again and again to the corner where Falk was sitting.

The Cathedral chimes had whispered twice in the room before Annie
returned.

"What is it you're wanting?" she asked.

"Come outside and speak to me."

"No, I can't do that. Father's watching."

"Well, will you meet me one evening and have a talk?"

"What about?"

"Several things."

"It isn't right, Mr. Brandon. What's a gentleman like you want with a girl
like me?"

"I only want us to get away a little from all this noise and filth."

Suddenly she smiled.

"Well, I don't mind if I do. After supper's a good time. Father goes up
the town to play billiards. After eight."

"When?"

"What about to-morrow evening?"

"All right. Where?"

"Up to the Mill. Five minutes up from here."

"I'll be there," he said.

"Don't let father catch 'ee--that's all," she smiled down at him. "You'm a
fule, Mr. Brandon, to bother with such as I." He said nothing and she
walked away. Very shortly after, Davray got up from his seat and came over
to Falk's corner. It was obvious that he had been drinking rather heavily.
He was a little unsteady on his feet.

"You're young Brandon, aren't you?" he asked.

In ordinary times Falk would have told him to go to the devil, and there
would have been a row, but to-day he was caught away so absolutely into
his own world that any one could speak to him, any one laugh at him, any
one insult him, and he would not care. He had been meditating for weeks
the advance that he had just taken; always when one meditates for long
over a risk it swells into gigantic proportions. So this had been; that
simple sentence asking her to come out and talk to him had seemed an
impossible challenge to every kind of fate, and now, in a moment, the gulf
had been jumped...so easy, so strangely easy....

From a great distance Davray's words came to him, and in the dialogue that
followed he spoke like a somnambulist.

"Yes," he said, "my name's Brandon."

"I knew, of course," said Davray. "I've seen you about." He spoke with
great swiftness, the words tumbling over one another, not with eagerness,
but rather with a kind of supercilious carelessness. "Beastly hole, isn't
this? Wonder why one comes here. Must do something in this rotten town.
I've drunk enough of this filthy beer. What do you say to moving out?"

Falk looked up at him.

"What do you say?" he asked.

"Let's move out of this. If you're walking up the town I'll go with you."

Falk was not conscious of the man, but it was quite true that he wanted to
get out of the place now that his job in it was done. He got up without a
word and began to push through the room. He was met near the door by Hogg.

"Goin', Mr. Brandon? Like to settle now or leave it to another day?"

"What's that?" said Falk, stopping as though some one had touched him on
the shoulder. He seemed to see the large smiling man suddenly in front of
him outlined against a shifting wall of mist.

"Payin' now or leavin' it? Please yourself, Mr. Brandon."

"Oh--paying!" He fumbled in his pocket, produced half-a-crown, gave it to
Hogg without looking at him and went out. Davray followed, slouching
through the room and passage with the conceited over-careful walk of a man
a little tipsy.

Outside, as they went down the street still obscured with the wet mist,
Davray poured out a flow of words to which he seemed to want no answer.

"I hope you didn't mind my speaking to you like that--a bit
unceremonious. But to tell you the truth I'm lonely sometimes. Also, if
you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I'm a bit
tipsy too. Generally am. This air makes one feel queer after that stinking
hole, doesn't it? If you can call this air. I've seen you there a lot
lately and often thought I'd like to talk to you. You're the only decent-
looking fellow in the whole of this town, if you'll forgive my saying so.
Isn't it a bloody hole? But of course you think so too. I can see it in
your face. I suppose you go to that pub after that girl. I saw you talking
to her. Well, each man to his taste. I'd never interfere with any man's
pleasure. I loathe women myself, always have. They never appealed to me a
little bit. In Paris the men used to wonder what I was after. I was after
Ambition in those days. Funny thing, but I thought I was going to be a
great painter once. Queer what one can trick oneself into believing--so I
might have been if I hadn't come to this beastly town. Hope I'm not boring
you...."

He stopped as though he had suddenly realised that his companion had not
said a word. They were pushing now up the hill into the market-place and
the mist was now so thick that they could scarcely see one another's face.
Falk was thinking. "To-morrow evening.... What do I want? What's going to
happen? What do I want?"

The silence made him conscious of his companion.

"What do you say?" he asked.

"Hope I'm not boring you."

"No, that's all right. Where are we?"

"Just coming into the market."

"Oh, yes."

"If I talk a lot it's because I haven't had any one to talk to for weeks.
Not that I want to talk to any one. I despise the lot of them. Conceited
set of ignorant parrots.... Whole place run by women and what can you
expect? You're not staying here, I suppose. I heard you'd had enough of
Oxford and I don't wonder. No place for a man, beautiful enough but spoilt
by the people. _Damn_ people--always coming along and spoiling
places. Now there's the Cathedral, most wonderful thing in England, but
does any one know it? Not a bit of it. You'd think they fancied that the
Cathedral _owes_ them something--about as much sense of beauty as a
cockroach."

They were pressing up the High Street now. There was no one about. It was
a town of ghosts. By the Arden Gate Falk realised where he was and halted.

"Hullo! we're nearly home.... Well...good afternoon, Mr. Davray."

"Come into the Cathedral for a moment," Davray seemed to be urgent about
this. "Have you ever been up into the King Harry Tower? I bet you
haven't."

"King Harry Tower?..." Falk stared at the man. What did the fellow want
him to do? Go into the Cathedral? Well, why not? Stupid to go home just
now--nothing to do there but think, and people would interrupt.... Think
better out of doors. But what was there to think about? He was not
thinking, simply going round and round.... Who was this fellow anyway?

"As you like," he said.

They crossed the Precincts and went through the West door into the
Cathedral. The nave was full of dusky light and very still. Candles
glimmered behind the great choir-screen and there were lamps by the West
door. Seen thus, in its half-dark, the nave bore full witness to the fact
that Polchester has the largest Cathedral in Northern Europe. It is
certainly true that no other building in England gives the same
overwhelming sense of length.

In full daylight the nave perhaps, as is the case with all English
Cathedrals, lacks colour and seems cold and deserted. In the dark of this
spring evening it was full of mystery, and the great columns of the nave's
ten bays, rising unbroken to the roof groining, sprang, it seemed, out of
air, superbly, intolerably inhuman.

The colours from the tombs and the brasses glimmered against the grey, and
the great rose-coloured circle of the West window flung pale lights across
the cold dark of the flags and pillars.

The two men were held by the mysterious majesty of the place. Falk was
lifted right out of his own preoccupied thoughts.

He had never considered the Cathedral except as a place to which he was
dragged for services against his will, but to-night, perhaps because of
his own crisis, he seemed to see it all for the first time. He was
conscious now of Davray and was aware that he did not like him and wished
to be rid of him--"an awful-looking tout" he thought him, "with his greasy
long hair and his white long face and his spindle legs."

"Now we'll go up into King Harry," Davray said. But at that moment old
Lawrence came bustling along. Lawrence, over seventy years of age, had
grown stout and white-haired in the Cathedral's service. He was a fine
figure in his purple gown, broad-shouldered, his chest and stomach of a
grand protuberance, his broad white flowing beard a true emblem of his
ancient dignity. He was the most autocratic of Vergers and had been
allowed now for many years to do as he pleased. The only thorn in his
flesh was Cobbett, the junior Verger, who, as he very well realised, was
longing for him to die, that he might step into his shoes. "I do believe,"
he was accustomed to say to Mrs. Lawrence, a little be-bullied woman,
"that that man will poison me one of these fine days."

His autocracy had grown on him with the size and the whiteness of his
beard, and there were many complaints--rude to strangers, sycophantic to
the aristocracy, greedy of tips, insolent and conceited, he was an
excellent example of the proper spirit of the Church Militant. He had,
however, his merits. He loved small children and would have allowed them
to run riot on the Cathedral greens had he not been checked, and he had a
pride in the Cathedral that would drive him to any sacrifice in his
defence of it.

It was natural enough that he should hate the very sight of Davray, and
when that gentleman appeared he hung about in the background hoping that
he might catch him in some crime. At first he thought him alone.

"Oh, Verger," Davray said, as though he were speaking to a beggar who had
asked of him alms. "I want to go up into King Harry. You have the key, I
think."

"Well, you can't, sir," said Lawrence, with considerable satisfaction.
"'Tis after hours." Then he saw Falk.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Brandon, sir. I didn't realise. Do you want to
go up the Tower, sir?"

"We may as well," said Falk.

"Of course for you, sir, it's different. Strangers have to keep certain
hours. This way, sir."

They followed the pompous old man across the nave, up the side aisle, past
"tombs and monuments and gilded knights," until they came to the King
Harry Chapel. This was to the right of the choir, and before the screen
that railed it off from the rest of the church there was a notice saying
that this Chapel had been put aside for private prayer and it was hoped
that no one would talk or make any noise, were some one meditating or
praying there. The little place was infinitely quiet, with a special air
of peace and beauty as though all the prayers and meditations that had
been offered there had deeply sanctified it; Lawrence pushed open the door
of the screen and they crossed the flagged floor. Suddenly into the heart
of the hush there broke the Cathedral chimes, almost, as it seemed,
directly above their heads, booming, echoing, dying with lingering music
back into the silence. At the corner of the Chapel there was a little
wooden door; Lawrence unlocked it and pushed it open. "Mind how you go,
sir," he said, speaking to Falk as though Davray did not exist. "'Tis a
bit difficult with the winding stair."

The two men went forward into the black darkness, leaving the dusky light
behind them. Davray led the way and Falk followed, feeling with his arms
the black walls on either side of him, knocking with his legs against the
steps above him. Here there was utter darkness and no sound. He had
suddenly a half-alarmed, half-humorous suspicion that Davray was suddenly
going to turn round upon him and push him down the stair or stick a knife
into him--the fear of the dark. "After all, what am I doing with this
fellow?" he thought. "I don't know him. I don't like him. I don't want to
be with him."

"That's better," he heard Davray say. There was a glimmer, then a shadow
of grey light, finally they had stepped out into what was known as the
Whispering Gallery, a narrow railed platform that ran the length of the
Chapel and beyond to the opposite Tower. They did not stop there. They
pushed up again by more winding stairs, black for a space, then lit by a
window, then black again. At last, after what had seemed a long journey,
they were in a little, spare, empty room with a wooden floor. One side of
this little room was open and railed in. Looking down, the floor of the
nave seemed a vast distance below. You seemed here to be flying in glory.
The dim haze of the candles just touched the misty depth with golden
colour. Above them the great roof seemed close and menacing. Everywhere
pillars and buttresses rose out of space. The great architect of the
building seemed here to have his true kingdom, so vast was the depth and
the height and the grandeur. The walls and the roof and the pillars that
supported it were alive with their own greatness, scornful of little men
and their little loves. The hush was filled with movement and stir and a
vast business....

The two men leaned on the rails and looked down. Far below, the white
figured altar, the brass of the Black Bishop's tomb, the glitter of Saint
Margaret's screen struck in little points of dull gold like stars upon a
grey inverted sky.

Davray turned suddenly upon his companion. "And it's men like your
father," he said, "who think that this place is theirs.... Theirs!
Presumption! But they'll get it in the neck for that. This place can bide
its time. Just when you think you're its master it turns and stamps you
out."

Falk said nothing. Davray seemed irritated by his silence. "You wait and
see," he said. "It amuses me to see your governor walking up the choir on
Sundays as though he owned the place. Owned it! Why, he doesn't realise a
stone of it! Well, he'll get it. They all have who've tried his game.
Owned it!"

"Look here," said Falk, "don't you say anything about my father--that's
none of your business. He's all right. I don't know what the devil I came
up here for--thinking of other things."

Davray too was thinking of other things.

"You wonderful place!" he whispered. "You beautiful place! You've ruined
me, but I don't care. You can do what you like with me. You wonder! You
wonder!"

Falk looked at him. The man was mad. He was holding on to the railing,
leaning forward, staring....

"Look here, it isn't safe to lean like that. You'll be tumbling over and
breaking your neck if you're not careful."

But Davray did not hear him. He was lost in his own dreams. Falk despised
dreams although just now he was himself in the grip of one. Besides the
fellow was drunk.

A sudden disgust of his companion overtook him.

"Well, so long," he said. "I must be getting home!"

He wondered for a moment whether it were safe to leave the fellow there.
"It's his own look-out," he thought, and as Davray said no more he left
him.

Back once more in the King Harry Chapel, he looked up. But he could see no
one and could hear no sound.




Chapter VII

Ronder's Day



Ronder had now spent several months in Polchester and was able to come to
an opinion about it, and the opinion that he had come to was that he could
be very comfortable there. His aunt, who, in spite of her sharpness, never
was sure how he would take anything, was a little surprised when he told
her this. But then she was never certain what were the secret springs from
which he derived that sense of comfort that was the centre of his life.
She should have known by now that he derived it from two things--luxury
and the possibility of intrigue.

Polchester could not have appeared to any casual observer a luxurious
town, but it had for Ronder exactly that combination of beauty and mystery
that obtained for him his sensation.

He did not analyse it as yet further than that--he knew that those two
things were there; he might investigate them at his leisure.

In that easy, smiling fashion that he had developed from his earliest days
as the surest protection for his own security and ease, he arranged
everything around him to assure his tranquillity. Everything was not as
yet arranged; it might take him six months, a year, two years for that
arrangement...but he knew now that it would be done.

The second element in his comfort, his love of intrigue, would be
satisfied here simply because everything was not, as yet, as he would have
it. He would have hated to have tumbled into the place and found it just
as he required it.

He liked to have things to move, to adjust, to arrange, just as when he
entered a room he always, if he had the power, at once altered the chairs,
the cushions. It was towards this final adjustment that his power of
intrigue always worked. Once everything was adjusted he sank back
luxuriously and surveyed it--and then, in all probability, was quickly
tired of it and looked for new fields to conquer.

He could not remember a time when he had not been impelled to alter things
for his comfort. He did not wish to be selfish about this, he was quite
willing for every one else to do the same--indeed, he watched them with
geniality and wondered why on earth they didn't. As a small boy at Harrow
he had, with an imperturbable smile and a sense of humour that, in spite
of his rotund youth and a general sense amongst his elders that he was
"cheeky," won him popularity, worked always for his own comfort.

He secured it and, first as fag and afterwards as House-prefect, finally
as School-prefect, did exactly what he wanted with everybody.

He did it by being, quite frankly, all things to all men, although never
with sycophancy nor apparent falseness. He amused the bored, was
confidential with the wicked, upright with the upright, and sympathetic
with the unfortunate.

He was quite genuine in all these things. He was deeply interested in
humanity, not for humanity's sake but his own. He bore no man any grudge,
but if any one was in his way he worked hard until they were elsewhere.
That removal attained, he wished them all the luck in the world.

He was ordained because he thought he could deal more easily with men as a
parson. "Men always take clergymen for fools," he told his aunt, "and so
they sometimes are...but not always." He knew he was not a fool, but he
was not conceited. He simply thought that he had hit upon the one secret
of life and could not understand why others had not done the same. Why do
people worry so? was the amused speculation. "Deep emotions are simply not
worth while," he decided on his coming of age. He liked women but his
sense of humour prevented him from falling in love. He really did
understand the sensual habits and desires of men and women but watched
them from a distance through books and pictures and other men's stories.
He was shocked by nothing--nor did he despise mankind. He thought that
mankind did on the whole very well considering its difficulties. He was
kind and often generous; he bore no man alive or dead any grudge. He
refused absolutely to quarrel--"waste of time and temper."

His one danger was lest that passion for intrigue should go deeper than he
allowed anything to go. Playing chess with mankind was to him, he
declared, simply a means to an end. Perhaps once it had been so. But, as
he grew older, there was a danger that the end should be swallowed by the
means.

This danger he did not perceive; it was his one blindness. Finally he
believed with La Rochefoucauld that "Pity is a passion which is wholly
useless to a well-constituted mind."

At any rate he discovered that there was in Polchester a situation exactly
suited to his powers. The town, or the Cathedral part of it, was dominated
by one man, and that man a stupid, autocratic, retrogressive, good-natured
child. He bore that child not the slightest ill-will, but it must go or,
at any rate, its authority must be removed. He did, indeed, like Brandon,
and through most of this affair he did not cease to like him, but he,
Ronder, would never be comfortable so long as Brandon was there, he would
never be free to take the steps that seemed to him good, he would be
interfered with and patronised. He was greatly amused by Brandon's
patronage, but it really was not a thing that could be allowed to remain.

If he saw, as he made his plans, that the man's heart and soul, his life,
physical and spiritual, were involved--well he was sorry. It simply proved
how foolish it was to allow your heart and soul to be concerned in
anything.

He very quickly perceived that the first thing to be done was to establish
relations with the men who composed the Chapter. He watched, he listened,
he observed, then, at the end of some months, he began to move.

Many men would have considered him lazy. He never took exercise if he
could avoid it, and it was Polchester's only fault that it had so many
hills. He always had breakfast in bed, read the papers there and smoked a
cigarette. Every morning he had a bath as hot as he could bear it--and he
could bear it very hot indeed. Much of his best thinking was done there.

When he came downstairs he reserved the first hour for his own reading,
reading, that is, that had nothing to do with any kind of work, that was
purely for his own pleasure. He allowed nothing whatever to interfere with
this--Gautier and Flaubert, La Bruyère and Montaigne were his favourite
authors, but he read a great deal of English, Italian, and Spanish, and
had a marvelous memory. He enjoyed, too, erotic literature and had a fine
collection of erotic books and prints shut away in a cabinet in his study.
He found great fascination in theological books: he laughed at many of
them, but kept an open mind--atheistic and materialistic dogmas seemed to
him as absurd as orthodox ones. He read too a great deal of philosophy
but, on the whole, he despised men who gave themselves up to philosophy
more than any other human beings. He felt that they lost their sense of
humour so quickly, and made life unpleasant for themselves.

After his hour of reading he gave himself up to the work of the day. He
was the most methodical of men: the desk in his study was full of little
drawers and contrivances for keeping things in order. He had a thin vase
of blue glass filled with flowers, a small Chinese image of green jade, a
photograph of the Blind Homer from the Naples Museum in a silver frame,
and a little gold clock; all these things had to be in their exactly
correct positions. Nothing worried him so much as dust or any kind of
disorder. He would sometimes stop in the middle of his work and cross the
room, in the soft slippers of brown kid that he always wore in his study,
and put some picture straight or move some ornament from one position to
another. The books that stretched along one wall from floor to ceiling
were arranged most carefully according to their subjects. He disliked to
see some books projecting further from the shelf than others, and, with a
little smile of protest, as though he were giving them a kindly scolding,
he would push them into their right places.

Let it not be supposed, however, that he was idle during these hours. He
could accomplish an astonishing amount of work in a short time, and he was
never idle except by deliberate intention.

When luncheon time arrived he was ready to be charming to his aunt, and
charming to her he was. Their relations were excellent. She understood him
so well that she left his schemes alone. If she did not entirely approve
of him--and she entirely approved of nobody--she loved him for his good
company, his humour, and his common-sense. She liked it too that he did
not mind when she chose to allow her irony to play upon him. He cared
nothing for any irony.

At luncheon they felt a very agreeable intimacy. There was no need for
explanations; half allusions were enough. They could enjoy their joke
without emphasising it and sometimes even without expressing it. Miss
Ronder knew that her nephew liked to hear all the gossip. He collected it,
tied it into little packets, and put them away in the little mechanical
contrivances with which his mind was filled. She told him first what she
heard, then her authorities, finally her own opinions. He thoroughly
enjoyed his meal.

He had, by now, very thoroughly mastered the Cathedral finances. They were
not complicated and were in good order, because Hart-Smith had been a man
of an orderly mind. Ronder very quickly discovered that Brandon had had
his fingers considerably in the old pie. "And now there'll be a new pie,"
he said to himself, "baked by me."...He traced a number of stupid and
conservative decisions to Brandon's agency. There was no doubt but that
many things needed a new urgency and activity.

People had had to fight desperately for money when they should have been
given it at once; on the other hand, the Cathedral had been well looked
after--it was rather dependent bodies like the School, the Almshouses, and
various livings in the Chapter grant that had suffered.

Anything that could possibly be considered a novelty had been fought and
generally defeated. "There will be a lot of novelties before I've finished
with them," Ronder said to himself.

He started his investigations by paying calls on Bentinck-Major and Canon
Foster. Bentinck-Major lived at the top of Orange Street, in a fine house
with a garden, and Foster lived in one of four tumble-down buildings
behind the Cathedral, known from time immemorial as Canon's Yard.

The afternoon of his visit was about three days after a dinner-party at
the Castle. He had seen and heard enough at that dinner to amuse him for
many a day; he considered it to have been one of the most entertaining
dinners at which he had ever been present. It had been here that he had
heard for the first time of the Pybus St. Anthony living. Brandon had been
present, and he observed Brandon's nervousness, and gathered enough to
realise that this would be a matter of considerable seriousness. He was to
know a great deal more about it before the afternoon was over.

As he walked through the town on the way to Orange Street he came upon
Ryle, the Precentor. Ryle looked the typical clergyman, tall but not too
tall, here a smile and there a smile, with his soft black hat, his
trousers too baggy at the knees, his boots and his gold watch-chain both
too large.

He cared, with serious devotion, for the Cathedral music and sang the
services beautifully, but he would have been able to give more time to his
work were he not so continuously worrying as to whether people were vexed
with him or no. His idea of Paradise was a place where he could chant
eternal services and where everybody liked him. He was a good man, but
weak, and therefore driven again and again into insincerity. It was as
though there was for ever in front of him the consciousness of some secret
in his past life that must on no account be discovered; but, poor man, he
had no secret at all.

"Well, Precentor, and how are you?" said Ronder, beaming at him over his
spectacles.

Ryle started. Ronder had come behind him. He liked the look of Ronder. He
always preferred fat men to thin; they were much less malicious, he
thought.

"Oh, thank you, Canon Ronder--very well, thank you. I didn't see you.
Quite spring weather. Are you going my way?"

"I'm off to see Bentinck-Major."

"Oh, yes, Bentinck-Major...."

Ryle's first thought was--"Now is Bentinck-Major likely to have anything
to say against me this afternoon?"

"I'm going up Orange Street too. It's the High School Governors' meeting,
you know."

"Oh, yes, of course."

The two men started up the hill together. Ronder surveyed the scene around
him with pleasure. Orange Street always satisfied his aesthetic sense. It
was the street of the doctors, the solicitors, the dentists, the bankers,
and the wealthier old maids of Polchester. The grey stone was of a
charming age, the houses with their bow-windows, their pillared porches,
their deep-set doors, their gleaming old-fashioned knockers, spoke
eloquently of the day when the great Jane's Elizabeths and D'Arcys, Mrs.
Morrises and Misses Bates found the world in a tea-cup, when passions were
solved by matrimony and ambitions by the possession of a carriage and a
fine pair of bays. But more than this was the way that the gardens and
lawns and orchards ran unchecked in and out, up and down, here breaking
into the street, there crowding a church with apple-trees, seeming to
speak, at every step, of leisure and sunny days and lives free of care.

Ronder had never seen anything so pretty; something seemed to tell him
that he would never see anything so pretty again.

Ryle was not a good conversationalist, because he had always before him
the fear that some one might twist what he said into something really
unpleasant, but, indeed, he found Ronder so agreeable that, as he told
Mrs. Ryle when he got home, he "never noticed the hill at all."

"I hope you won't think me impertinent," said Ronder, "but I must tell you
how charmed I was with the way that you sang the service on Sunday. You
must have been complimented often enough before, but a stranger always has
the right, I think, to say something. I'm a little critical, too, of that
kind of thing, although, of course, an amateur...but--well, it was
delightful."

Ryle flushed with pleasure to the very tips of his over-large ears.

"Oh, really, Canon...But indeed I hardly know what to say. You're too
good. I do my poor best, but I can't help feeling that there is danger of
one's becoming stale. I've been here a great many years now and I think
some one fresh...."

"Well, often," said Ronder, "that _is_ a danger. I know several cases
where a change would be all for the better, but in your case there wasn't
a trace of staleness. I do hope you won't think me presumptuous in saying
this. I couldn't help myself. I must congratulate you, too, on the choir.
How do you find Brockett as an organist?"

"Not quite all one would wish," said Ryle eagerly--and then, as though he
remembered that some one might repeat this to Brockett, he added
hurriedly, "Not that he doesn't do his best. He's an excellent fellow.
Every one has their faults. It's only that he's a _little_ too fond
of adventures on his own account, likes to add things on the spur of the
moment...a little _fantastic_ sometimes."

"Quite so," said Ronder gravely. "That's rather what I'd thought myself.
I noticed it once or twice last Sunday. But that's a fault on the right
side. The boys behave admirably. I never saw better behaviour."

Ryle was now in his element. He let himself go, explaining this, defending
that, apologising for one thing, hoping for another. Before he knew where
he was he found himself at the turning above the monument that led to the
High School.

"Here we part," he said.

"Why, so we do," cried Ronder.

"I do hope," said Ryle nervously, "that you'll come and see us soon. Mrs.
Ryle will be delighted...."

"Why, of course I will," said Ronder. "Any day you like. Good-bye. Good-
bye," and he went to Bentinck-Major's.

One look at Bentinck-Major's garden told a great deal about Bentinck-
Major. The flower-beds, the trim over-green lawn, the neat paths, the
trees in their fitting places, all spoke not only of a belief in material
things but a desire also to demonstrate that one so believed....

One expected indeed to see the Bentinck-Major arms over the front-door.
They were there in spirit if not in fact.

"Is the Canon in?" Ronder asked of a small and gaping page-boy.

He was in, it appeared. Would he see Canon Ronder? The page-boy
disappeared and Ronder was able to observe three family trees framed in
oak, a large china bowl with visiting-cards, and a huge round-faced clock
that, even as he waited there, pompously announced that half-hour.
Presently the Canon, like a shining Ganymede, came flying into the hall.

"My dear Ronder! But this is delightful. A little early for tea, perhaps.
Indeed, my wife is, for the moment, out. What do you say to the library?"

Ronder had nothing to say against the library, and into it they went. A
fine room with books in leather bindings, high windows, an oil painting of
the Canon as a smart young curate, a magnificent writing-table, _The
Spectator_ and _The Church Times_ near the fireplace, and two deep
leather arm-chairs. Into these last two the clergymen sank.

Bentinck-Major put his fingers together, crossed his admirable legs, and
looked interrogatively at his visitor.

"I'm lucky to catch you at home," said Ronder. "This isn't quite the time
to call, I'm afraid. But the fact is that I want some advice."

"Quite so," said his host.

"I'm not a very modest man," said Ronder, laughing. "In fact, to tell you
the truth, I don't believe very much in modesty. But there _are_
times when it's just as well to admit one's incompetence. This is one of
them--"

"Why, really, Canon," said Bentinck-Major, wishing to give the poor man
encouragement.

"No, but I mean what I say. I don't consider myself a stupid man, but when
one comes fresh into a place like this there are many things that one
_can't_ know, and that one must learn from some one wiser than
oneself if one's to do any good."

"Oh, really, Canon," Bentinck-Major repeated. "If there's anything I can
do--".

"There is. It isn't so much about the actual details of the work that I
want your advice. Hart-Smith has left things in excellent condition, and I
only hope that I shall be able to keep everything as straight as he has
done. What I really want from you is some sort of bird's-eye view as to
the whole situation. The Chapter, for instance. Of course, I've been here
for some months now and have a little idea as to the people in the place,
but you've been here so long that there are many things that you can tell
me."

"Now, for instance," said Bentinck-Major, looking very wise and serious.
"What kind of things?"

"I don't want you to tell me any secrets," said Ronder. "I only want your
opinion, as a man of the world, as to how things stand--what really wants
doing, who, Beside yourself, are the leading men here and in what
directions they work. I needn't say that this conversation is
confidential."

"Oh, of course, of course."

"Now, I don't know if I'm wrong, but it seems from what I've seen during
the short time that I've been here that the general point of view is
inclined to be a little too local. I believe you rather feel that
yourself, although I may be prejudiced, coming straight as I have from
London."

"It's odd that you should mention that, Canon," said Bentinck-Major.
"You've put your finger on the weak spot at once. You're only saying what
I've been crying aloud for the last ever so many years. A voice in the
wilderness I've been, I'm afraid--a voice in the wilderness, although
perhaps I _have_ managed to do a little something. But there's no doubt
that the men here, excellent though they are, are a _little_ provincial.
What else can you expect? They've been here for years. They have not had,
most of them, the advantage of mingling with the great world. That I
should have had a little more of that opportunity than my fellows here is
nothing to my credit, but it does, beyond question, give one a wider view
--a wider view. There's our dear Bishop for instance--a saint, if ever
there was one. A saint, Ronder, I assure you. But there he is, hidden away
at Carpledon--out of things, I'm afraid, although of course he does his
best. Then there's Sampson. Well, I hardly need to tell you that he's not
quite the man to make things hum. _Not_ by his own fault I assure
you. He does his best, but we are as we're made...yes. We can only use
the gifts that God has given us, and God has not, undoubtedly, given the
Dean _quite_ the gifts that we need here."

He paused and waited. He was a cautious man and weighed his words.

"Then there's Brandon," said Ronder smiling. "There, if I may say so, is a
splendid character, a man who gives his whole life and energy for the good
of the place--who spares himself nothing."

There was a little pause. Bentinck-Major took advantage of it to look
graver than ever.

"He strikes you like that, does he?" he said at last. "Well, in many ways
I think you're right. Brandon is a good friend of mine--I may say that he
thoroughly appreciates what I've done for this place. But he is--
_quite_ between ourselves--how shall I put it?--just a _little_
autocratic. Perhaps that's too strong a word, but he _is_, some
think, a little too inclined to fancy that he runs the Cathedral! That,
mind you, is only the opinion of some here, and I don't know that I should
entirely associate myself with it, but perhaps there is _something_
in it. He is, as you can see, a man of strong will and, again between
ourselves, of a considerable temper. This will not, I'm sure, go further
than ourselves?"

"Absolutely not," said Ronder.

"Things have been a little slack here for several years, and although I've
done my own little best, what is one against so many, if you understand
what I mean?"

"Quite," said Ronder.

"Well, nobody could call Brandon an unenergetic man--quite the reverse.
And, to put it frankly, to oppose him one needs courage. Now I may say
that I've opposed him on a number of occasions but have had no backing.
Brandon, when he's angry, is no light opponent, and the result has been
that he's had, I'm afraid, a great deal of his own way."

"You're afraid?" said Ronder.

Bentinck-Major seemed a little nervous at being caught up so quickly. He
looked at Ronder suspiciously. His voice was sharper than it had been.

"Oh, I like Brandon--don't make any mistake about that. He and I together
have done some excellent things here. In many ways he's admirable. I don't
know what I'd have done sometimes without his backing. All I mean is that
he is perhaps a little hasty sometimes."

"Quite," said Ronder. "I can't tell you how you've helped me by what
you've told me. I'm sure you're right in everything you've said. If you
were to give me a tip then, you'd say that I couldn't do better than
follow Brandon. I'll remember that."

"Well, no," said Bentinck-Major rather hastily. "I don't know that I'd
quite say that either. Brandon is often wrong. I'm not sure either that he
has quite the influence he had. That silly little incident of the elephant
the other day--you heard that, didn't you?--well, a trivial thing, but one
saw by the way that the town took it that the Archdeacon isn't
_quite_ where he was. I agree with him entirely in his policy--to
keep things as they always have been. That's the only way to save our
Church, in my opinion. As soon as they tell me an idea's new, that's
enough for me...I'm down on it at once. But what I _do_ think is
that his diplomacy is often faulty. He rushes at things like a bull--
exactly like a bull. A little too confident always. No, if you won't think
me conceited--and I believe I'm a modest man--you couldn't do better than
come to me--talk things over with me, you know. I'm sure we'll see alike
about many things."

"I'm sure we will," said Ronder. "Thank you very much. As you've been so
kind I'm sure you won't mind my asking you a few questions. I hope I'm not
keeping you from anything."

"Not at all. Not at all," said Bentinck-Major very graciously, and
stretching his plump little body back into the arm-chair. "Ask as many
questions as you like and I'll do my best to answer them."

Ronder did then, during the next half-hour, ask a great many questions,
and he received a great many answers. The answers may not have told him
overmuch about the things that he wanted to know, but they did tell him a
great deal about Bentinck-Major.

The clock struck four.

Ronder got up.

"You don't know how you've helped me," he said. "You've told me exactly
what I wanted to know. Thank you so very much."

Bentinck-Major looked gratified. He had, in fact, thoroughly enjoyed
himself.

"Oh, but you'll stay and have some tea, won't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I've got a pretty busy afternoon still in
front of me."

"My wife will be so disappointed."

"You'll let me come another day, won't you?"

"Of course. Of course."

The Canon himself accompanied his guest into the hall and opened the front
door for him.

"Any time--any time--that I can help you."

"Thank you so very much. Good-bye."

"Good-bye. Good-bye."

So far so good, but Ronder was aware that his next visit would be quite
another affair--and so indeed it proved.

To reach Canon's Yard from Orange Street, Ronder had to go down through
Green Lane past the Orchards, and up by a steep path into Bodger's Street
and the small houses that have clustered for many years behind the
Cathedral. Here once was Saint Margaret's Monastery utterly swept away,
until not a stone remained, by Henry VIII.'s servants. Saint Margaret's
only memory lingers in the Saint Margaret's Hostel for Women at the top of
Bodger's Street, and even that has now a worn and desolate air as though
it also were on the edge of departure. In truth, this part of Polchester
is neglected and forgotten; it has not sunk like Seatown into dirt and
degradation, it has still an air of romance and colour, but the life is
gone from it.

Canon's Yard is behind the Hostel and is a little square, shut-in, cobbled
place with tall thin houses closing it in and the Cathedral towers
overhanging it. Rooks and bells and the rattle of carts upon the cobbles
make a perpetual clatter here, and its atmosphere is stuffy and begrimed.
When the Cathedral chimes ring they echo from house to house, from wall to
wall, so that it seems as though the bells of a hundred Cathedrals were
ringing here. Nevertheless from the high windows of the Yard there is a
fine view of orchards and hills and distant woods--a view not to be
despised.

The house in which Canon Foster had his rooms is one of the oldest of all
the houses. The house was kept by one Mrs. Maddis, who had "run" rooms for
the clergy ever since her first marriage, when she was a pretty blushing
girl of twenty. She was now a hideous old woman of eighty, and the house
was managed by her married daughter, Mrs. Crumpleton. There were three
floors and there should have been three clergymen, but for some time the
bottom floor had been empty and the middle apartments were let to
transient tenants. They were at this moment inhabited by a retired sea-
captain.

Foster reigned on the top floor and was quite oblivious of neighbours,
landladies, tidiness, and the view--he cared, by nature, for none of these
things. Ronder climbed up the dirty dark staircase and knocked on the old
oak door that had upon it a dirty visiting card with Foster's name. When
he ceased his climb and the noise of his footsteps fell away there was a
great silence. Not a sound could be heard. The bells were not chiming, the
rooks were not cawing (it was not as yet their time) nor was the voice of
Mrs. Crumpleton to be heard, shrill and defiant, as was too often the
case. The house was dead; the town was dead; had the world itself suddenly
died, like a candle whose light is put out, Foster would not have cared.

Ronder knocked three times with the knob of his walking-stick. The man
must be out. He was about to turn away and go when the door suddenly
opened, as though by a secret life of its own, and the pale face and
untidy person of the Canon, like the apparition of a surprised and
indignant _revenant_, was apparent.

"May I come in for a moment?" said Ronder. "I won't keep you long."

Foster stared at his visitor, said nothing, opened the door a little
wider, and stood aside. Ronder accepted this as an invitation and came in.

"You'd better come into the other room," said Foster, looking about him as
though he had been just ruthlessly awakened from an important dream. They
passed through a little passage and an untidy sitting-room into the study.
This was a place piled high with books and its only furniture was a deal
table and two straw-bottomed chairs. At the table Foster had obviously
been working. Books lay about it and papers, and there was also a pile of
manuscript. Foster looked around him, caught his large ears in his fingers
and cracked them, and then suddenly said:

"You'd better sit down. What can I do for you?"

Ronder sat down. It was at once apparent that, whatever the state of the
rooms might be, his reluctant host was suddenly very wide awake indeed. He
felt, what he had known from the very first meeting, that he was in
contact here with a man of brain, of independence, of character. His
capacity for amused admiration that was one of the strongest things in
him, was roused to the full. Another thing that he had also by now
perceived was that Foster was not that type, by now so familiar to us in
the pages of French and English fiction, of the lost and bewildered old
clergyman whose long nose has been for so many years buried in dusty books
that he is unable to smell the real world. Foster was neither lost nor
bewildered. He was very much all there.

What could he do for Ronder? Ronder was, for a moment, uncertain. Here, he
was happy to think, he must go with the greatest care. He did not smile as
he had smiled upon Bentinck-Major. He spoke to Foster as to an equal.

"I can see you're busy," he said. "All the same I'm not going to apologise
for coming. I'll tell you frankly that I want your help. At the same time
I'll tell you that I don't care whether you give it me or no."

"In what way can I help you?" asked Foster coldly.

"There's to be a Chapter Meeting in a few days' time, isn't there?
Honestly I haven't been here quite long enough yet to know how things
stand. Questions may come up, although there's nothing very important this
time, I believe. But there may be important things brewing. Now you've
been here a great many years and you have your opinion of how things
should go. I want your idea of some of the conditions."

"You've come to spy out the land, in fact?"

"Put it that way if you like," said Ronder seriously, "although I don't
think spying is exactly the word. You're perfectly at liberty, I mean, to
tell anybody that I've been to see you and to repeat to anybody what I
say. It simply is that I don't care to take on all the work that's being
shoved on to my shoulders without getting the views of those who know the
place well."

"Oh, if it's my views you want," cried Foster, suddenly raising his voice
and almost shouting, "they're easy enough to discover. They are simply
that everything here is abominable, going to wrack and ruin...Now you
know what _I_ think."

He looked down at his manuscript as much as to say, "Well, good
afternoon."

"Going to ruin in what way?" asked Ronder.

"In the way that the country is going to ruin--because it has turned its
back upon God."

There was a pause. Suddenly Foster flung out, "Do you believe in God,
Canon Ronder?"

"I think," said Ronder, "the fact that I'm in the position I'm in----"

"Nonsense," interrupted Foster. "That's anybody's answer. You don't look
like a spiritual man."

"I'm fat, if that's what you mean," said Ronder smiling. "That's my
misfortune."

"If I've been rude," said Foster more mildly, "forgive me. I _am_
rude these days. I've given up trying not to be. The truth is that I'm
sick to the heart with all their worldliness, shams, lies, selfishness,
idleness. You may be better than they. You may not. I don't know. If
you've come here determined to wake them all up and improve things, then I
wish you God-speed. But you won't do it. You needn't think you will. If
you've come like the rest to get what you can out of it, then I don't
think you'll find my company good for you."

"I certainly haven't come to wake them up," said Ronder. "I don't believe
that to be my duty. I'm not made that way. Nor can I honestly believe
things to be as bad as you say. But I do intend, with God's help, to do my
best. If that's not good enough for you, then you must abandon me to my
fate."

Foster seemed to appreciate that. He nodded his head.

"That's honest at any rate," he said. "It's the first honest thing I've
heard here for a long time except from the Bishop. To tell you the truth,
I had thought you were going to work in with Brandon. One more of his
sheep. If that were to be so the less we saw of one another the better."

"I have not been here long enough," said Ronder, "to think of working in
with anybody. And I don't wish to take sides. There's my duty to the
Cathedral. I shall work for that and let the rest go."

"There's your duty to God," said Foster vehemently. "That's the thing that
everybody here's forgotten. But you don't sound as though you'd go
Brandon's way. That's something in your favour."

"Why should one go Brandon's way?" Ronder asked.

"Why? Why? Why? Why do sheep huddle together when the dog barks at their
heels?...But I respect him. Don't you mistake me. He's a man to be
respected. He's got courage. He cares for the Cathedral. He's a hundred
years behind, that's all. He's read nothing, he knows nothing, he's a
child--and does infinite harm...." He looked up at Ronder and said quite
mildly, "Is there anything more you want to know?"

"There's talk," said Ronder, "about the living at Pybus St. Anthony. It's
apparently an important place, and when there's an appointment I should
like to be able to form an opinion about the best man----"

"What! is Morrison dead?" said Foster eagerly.

"No, but very ill, I believe."

"Well, there's only one possible appointment for that place, and that is
Wistons."

"Wistons?" repeated Ronder.

"Yes, yes," said Foster impatiently, "the author of _The New
Apocalypse_--the rector of St. Edward's, Hawston."

Ronder remembered. "A stranger?" he said. "I thought that it would have to
be some one in the diocese."

Foster did not hear him. "I've been waiting for this--to get Wistons here
--for years," he said. "A wonderful man--a great man. He'll wake the place
up. We _must_ have him. As to local men, the more strangers we let in
here the better."

"Brandon said something about a man called Forsyth--Rex Forsyth?"

Foster smiled grimly. "Yes--he would," he said, "that's just his kind of
appointment. Well, if he tries to pull that through there'll be such a
battle as this place has never seen."

Ronder said slowly. "I like your idea of Wistons. That sounds
interesting."

Foster looked at him with a new intensity.

"Would you help me about that?" he asked.

"I don't know quite where I am yet," said Ronder, "but I think you'll find
me a friend rather than an enemy, Foster."

"I don't care what you are," said Foster. "So far as my feelings or
happiness go, nothing matters. But to have Wistons here--in this place....
Oh, what we could do! What we could do!"

He seemed to be lost in a dream. Five minutes later he roused himself to
say good-bye. Ronder once more at the top of the stairs felt about him
again the strange stillness of the house.




Chapter VIII

Son--Father



Falk Brandon was still, in reality, a boy. He, of course, did not know
this and would have been very indignant had any one told him so; it was
nevertheless the truth.

There is a kind of confidence of youth that has great charm, a sort of
assumption of grown-up manners and worldly ways that is accompanied with
an ingenuous belief in human nature, a naïve trust in human goodness. One
sees it sometimes in books, in stories that are like a charade acted by
children dressed in their elders' clothes, and although these tales are
nothing but fairy stories in their actual relation to life, the sincerity
of their belief in life, and a kind of freshness that come from ignorance,
give them a power of their own.

Falk had some of this charm and power just as his father had, but whereas
his father would keep it all his days, Falk would certainly lose it as he
learnt more and went more into the world. But as yet he had not lost it.

This emotion that had now gained such control over him was the first real
emotion of his life, and he did not know in the least how to deal with it.
He was like a man caught in a baffling fog. He did not know in the least
whether he were in love with this girl, he did not know what he wanted to
do with her, he sometimes fancied that he hated her, he could not see her
clearly either mentally or physically; he only knew that he could not keep
away from her, and that with every meeting he approached more nearly the
moment when he would commit some desperate action that he would probably
regret for the rest of his life.

But although he could not see her clearly he could see sharply enough the
other side of the situation--the practical, home, filial side. It was
strange how, as the affair advanced, he was more and more conscious of his
father. It was as though he were an outsider, a friend of his father's,
but no relation to the family, who watched a calamity approach ever more
closely and was powerless to stop it. Although he was only a boy he
realised very sufficiently his father's love for him and pride in him. He
realized, too, his father's dependence upon his dignity and position in
the town, and, last and most important of all, his father's passionate
devotion to the Cathedral. All these things would be bruised were he,
Falk, involved in any local scandal. Here he saw into himself and, with a
bitterness and humility that were quite new to him, despised himself. He
knew, as though he saw future events passing in procession before him,
that if such a scandal did break out he would not be able to stay in the
place and face it--not because he himself feared any human being alive,
but because he could not see his father suffer under it.

Well, then, since he saw so clearly, why not abandon it all? Why not run
away, obtain some kind of work in London and leave Polchester until the
madness had passed away from him?

He could not go.

He would have been one of the first to scorn another man in such a
position, to mock his weakness and despise him. Well, let that be so. He
despised himself but--he could not go.

He was always telling himself that soon the situation would clear and that
he would then know how to act. Until that happened he must see her, must
talk to her, must be with her, must watch her. They had had, by now, a
number of meetings, always in the evening by the river, when her father
was away, up in the town.

He had kissed her twice. She had been quite passive on each occasion,
watching him ironically with a sort of dry amusement. She had given him no
sign that she cared for him, and their conversation had always been bare
and unsatisfactory. Once she had said to him with sudden passion:

"I want to get away out of this." He had asked her where she wanted to go.

"Anywhere--London." He had asked her whether she would go with him.

"I would go with any one," she had said. Afterwards she added: "But you
won't take me."

"Why not?" he had asked.

"Because I'm not in love with you."

"You may be--yet."

"I'd be anything to get away," she had replied.

On a lovely evening he went down to see her, determined that this time he
would give himself some definite answer. Just before he turned down to the
river he passed Samuel Hogg. That large and smiling gentleman, a fat cigar
between his lips, was sauntering, with a friend, on his way to Murdock's
billiard tables.

"Evenin', Mr. Brandon."

"Good evening, Hogg."

"Lovely weather."

"Lovely."

The shadows, faintly pink on the rise of the hill, engulfed his fat body.
Falk wondered as he had before now done many times, How much does he know?
What's he thinking? What's he want?...The river, at high tide, very
gently lapped the side of the old wall. Its colour to-night was pure
crystal green, the banks and the hills smoky grey behind it. Tiny pink
clouds ran in little fleets across the sky, chasing one another in and out
between the streamers of smoke that rose from the tranquil chimneys.
Seatown was at rest this evening, scarcely a sound came from the old
houses; the birds could be heard calling from the meadows beyond the
river. The pink clouds faded into a rosy shadow, then that in its turn
gave way to a sky faintly green and pointed with stars. Grey mist
enveloped the meadows and the river, and the birds cried no longer. There
was a smell of onions and rank seaweed in the air.

Falk's love-story pursued at first its usual realistic course. She was
there near the waterfall waiting for him; they had very little to say to
one another. She was depressed to-night, and he fancied that she had been
crying. She was not so attractive to him in such a mood. He liked her best
when she was intolerant, scornful, aloof. To-night, although she showed no
signs of caring for him, she surrendered herself absolutely. He could do
what he liked with her. But he did not want to do anything with her.

She leaned over the Seatown wall looking desolately in front of her.

At last she turned round to him and asked him what she had asked him
before:

"What do you come after me for?"

"I don't know," he said.

"It isn't because you love me."

"I don't know."

"_I_ know--there's no mistakin' it when it's there. I've lain awake a
lot o' nights wondering what you're after. You must have your reasons. You
take a deal o' trouble."

Then she put her hand on his. It was the first time that she had ever, of
her own accord, touched him.

"I'm gettin' to like you," she said. "Seein' so much of you, I suppose.
You're only a boy when all's said. And then, somehow or another, men don't
go after me. You're the only one that ever has. They say I'm stuck up...
Oh, man, but I'm unhappy here at home!"

"Well, then--you'd better come away with me--to London."

Even as he said it he would have caught the words back. What use for them
to go? Nothing to live on, no true companionship ...there could be only
one end to that.

But she shook her head.

"No--if you cared for me enough, mebbe I'd go. But I don't know that we'd
be together long if we did. I want my own life, my own, own, own life! I
can look after myself all right...I'll be off by myself alone one day."

Then suddenly he wanted her as urgently as he had ever done.

"No, you must never do that," he said. "If you go it must be with me. You
must have some one to look after you. You don't know what London's like."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately, and she seemed to
him a new woman altogether, created by her threat that she would go away
alone.

She passively let him kiss her, then with a little turn in his arms and a
little sigh she very gently kissed him of her own will.

"I believe I could care for 'ee," she said softly. "And I want to care for
some one terrible bad."

They were nearer in spirit than they had ever been before; an emotion of
simple human companionship had crept into the unsettled disturbance and
quieted it and deepened it. She wore in his eyes a new aspect, something
wise and reasonable and comfortable. She would never be quite so
mysterious to him again, but her hold on him now was firmer. He was
suddenly sorry for her as well as for himself.

For the first time he left her that night with a sense that comradeship
might grow between them.

But as he went back up the hill he was terribly depressed and humiliated.
He hated and despised himself for longing after something that he did not
really want. He had always, he fancied, done that, as though there would
never be time enough in life for all the things that he would wish to test
and to reject.

When he went to bed that night he was in rebellion with all the world, but
before he fell asleep Annie Hogg seemed to come to him, a gentler, kinder
spirit, and to say to him, "It'll be all right.... I'll look after 'ee....
I'll look after 'ee," and he seemed to sink to sleep in her arms.

Next morning Falk and Joan had breakfast alone with their father, a
headache having laid Mrs. Brandon low. Falk was often late for breakfast,
but to-day had woken very early, had got up and gone out and walked
through the grey mist, turning his own particular trouble over and over in
his mind. To-day Annie had faded back from him again; that tenderness that
he had felt for her last night seemed to have vanished, and he was aware
only of a savage longing to shake himself free of his burden. He had
visions this morning of going up to London and looking for work....

Joan saw that to-day was a "Chapter morning" day. She always knew by her
father's appearance when there was to be a Chapter Meeting. He had then an
extra gloss, an added splendour, and also an added importance. He really
was the smartest old thing, she thought, looking at him this morning with
affectionate pride. He looked as though he spent his time in springing in
and out of cold baths.

The importance was there too. He had the _Glebshire Morning News_
propped up in front of him, and every now and then he would poke his fine
head up over it and look at his children and the breakfast-table and give
them a little of the world's news. In former days it had been only at the
risk of their little lives that they had spoken to one another. Now,
although restrictions had broken down, they would always hear, if their
voices were loud:

"Come, children...come, come. Mayn't your father read the newspaper in
quiet? Plenty of time to chatter during the rest of the day."

He would break forth into little sentences and exclamations as he read.
"Well, that's settled Burnett's hash.--Serve him right, too.... Dear,
dear, five shillings a hundred now. Phillpott's going to St. Lummen! What
an appointment!..." and so on.

Sometimes he would grow so deeply agitated that he would push the paper
away from him and wave vaguely about the table with his hands as though he
were learning to swim, letting out at the same time little snorts of
indignation and wonder:

"The fools! The idiots! Savage, of all men! Fancy listening to him! Well,
they'll only get what they deserve for their weakness. I wrote to Benson,
too--might as well have written to a rhinoceros. Toast, please, Joan!--
Toast, toast. Didn't you hear me? Savage! What can they be thinking of?
Yes, and butter.... Of course I said butter."

But on "Chapter Days" it was difficult for the newspaper to disturb him.
His mind was filled with thoughts for the plan and policy of the morning.
It was unfortunately impossible for him ever to grasp two things at the
same time, and this made his reasoning and the development of any plan
that he had rather slow. When the Chapter was to be an important one he
would not look at the newspaper at all and would eat scarcely any
breakfast. To-day, because the Chapter was a little one, he allowed
himself to consider the outside world. That really was the beginning of
his misfortune, because the paper this morning contained a very vivid
picture of the loss of the _Drummond Castle_. That was an old story
by this time, but here was some especial account that provided new details
and circumstances, giving a fresh vivid horror to the scene even at this
distance of time.

Brandon tried not to read the thing. He made it a rule that he would not
distress himself with the thought of evils that he could not cure. That is
what he told himself, but indeed his whole life was spent in warding off
and shutting out and refusing to listen.

He had told himself many years ago that it was a perfect world and that
God had made it and that God was good. To maintain this belief it was
necessary that one should not be "Presumptuous." It was "Presumptuous" to
imagine for a moment about any single thing that it was a "mistake." If
anything _were_ evil or painful it was there to "try and test" us....
A kind of spring-board over the waters of salvation.

Once, some years ago, a wicked atheist had written an article in a
magazine manifesting how evil nature was, how the animals preyed upon one
another, how everything from the tiniest insect to the largest elephant
suffered and suffered and suffered. How even the vegetation lived a short
life of agony and frustration, and then fell into foul decay.... Brandon
had read the article against his will, and had then hated the writer of it
with so deep a hatred that he would have had him horse-whipped, had he had
the power. The article upset him for days, and it was only by asserting to
himself again and again that it was untrue, by watching kittens at play
and birds singing on the branches and roses bursting from bud to bloom,
that he could reassure himself.

Now to-day here was the old distress back again. There was no doubt but
that those men and women on the _Drummond Castle_ had suffered in
order to win quite securely for themselves a crown of glory. He ought to
envy them, to regret that he had not been given the same chance, and yet--
and yet----

He pushed the paper impatiently away from him. It was good that there was
nothing important to be discussed at Chapter this morning, because really
he was not in the mood to fight battles. He sighed. Why was it always he
that had to fight battles? He had indeed the burden of the whole town upon
his shoulders. And at that secretly he felt a great joy. He was glad--yes,
he was glad that he had....

As he looked over at Joan and Folk he felt tenderly towards them. His
reading then about the _Drummond Castle_ made him anxious that they
should have a good time and be happy. It might be better for them that
they should suffer; nevertheless, if they _could_ be sure of heaven
and at the same time not suffer too badly he would be glad.

Suddenly then, across the breakfast-table, a picture drove itself in front
of him--a picture of Joan with her baby-face, struggling in the water....
She screamed; she tried to catch on to the side of a boat with her hand.
Some one struck her....

With a shudder of disgust he drove it from him.

"Pah!" he cried aloud, getting up from the table.

"What is it, father?" Joan asked.

"People oughtn't to be allowed to write such things," he said, and went to
his study.

When an hour later he sallied forth to the Chapter Meeting he had
recovered his equanimity. His mind now was nailed to the business on hand.
Most innocently as he crossed the Cathedral Green he strutted, his head
up, his brow stern, his hands crossed behind his back. The choristers
coming in from the choir-school practice in the Cathedral passed him in a
ragged line. They all touched their mortar-boards and he smiled benignly
upon them, reserving a rather stern glance for Brockett, the organist, of
whose musical eccentricities he did not at all approve.

Little remained now of the original Chapter House which had once been a
continuation of Saint Margaret's Chapel. Some extremely fine Early Norman
arches which were once part of the Chapter House are still there and may
be seen at the southern end of the Cloisters. Here, too, are traces of the
dormitory and infirmary which formerly stood there. The present Chapter
House consists of two rooms adjoining the Cloisters, once a hall used by
the monks as a large refectory. There is still a timber roof of late
thirteenth century work, and this is supposed to have been once part of
the old pilgrims' or strangers' hall. The larger of the two rooms is
reserved for the Chapter Meetings, the smaller being used for minor
meetings and informal discussions.

The Archdeacon was a little late as, I am afraid, he liked to be when he
was sure that others would be punctual. Nothing, however, annoyed him more
than to find others late when he himself was in time. There they all were
and how exactly he knew how they would all be!

There was the long oak table, blotting paper and writing materials neatly
placed before each seat, there the fine walls in which he always took so
great a pride, with the portraits of the Polchester Bishops in grand
succession upon them. At the head of the table was the Dean, nervously
with anxious smiles looking about him. On the right was Brandon's seat; on
the left Witheram, seriously approaching the business of the day as though
his very life depended upon it; then Bentinck-Major, his hands looking as
though they had been manicured; next to him Ryle, laughing obsequiously at
some fashionable joke that Bentinck-Major had delivered to him; opposite
to him Foster, looking as though he had not had a meal for a week and
badly shaved with a cut on his chin; and next to _him_ Ronder.

At the bottom of the table was little Bond, the Chapter Clerk, sucking his
pencil.

Brandon took his place with dignified apologies for his late arrival.

"Let us ask God for His blessing on our work to-day," said the Dean.

A prayer followed, then general rustling and shuffling, blowing of noses,
coughing and even, from the surprised and consternated Ryle, a sneeze--
then the business of the day began. The minutes of the last meeting were
read, and there was a little amiable discussion. At once Brandon was
conscious of Ronder. Why? He could not tell and was the more
uncomfortable. The man said nothing. He had not been present at the last
meeting and could therefore have nothing to say to this part of the
business. He sat there, his spectacles catching the light from the
opposite windows so that he seemed to have no eyes. His chubby body, the
position in which he was sitting, hunched up, leaning forward on his arms,
spoke of perfect and almost sleepy content. His round face and fat cheeks
gave him the air of a man to whom business was a tiresome and unnecessary
interference with the pleasures of life.

Nevertheless, Brandon was so deeply aware of Ronder that again and again,
against his will, his eyes wandered in his direction. Once or twice
Brandon said something, not because he had anything really to say, but
because he wanted to impress himself upon Ronder. All agreed with him in
the complacent and contented way that they had always agreed....

Then his consciousness of Ronder extended and gave him a new consciousness
of the other men. He had known for so long exactly how they looked and the
words that they would say, that they were, to him, rather like the stone
images of the Twelve Apostles in the niches round the West Door. Today
they jumped in a moment into new life. Yesterday he could have calculated
to a nicety the attitude that they would have; now they seemed to have
been blown askew with a new wind. Because he noticed these things it does
not mean that he was generally perceptive. He had always been very sharp
to perceive anything that concerned his own position.

Business proceeded and every one displayed his own especial
characteristics. Nothing arose that concerned Ronder. Every one's personal
opinion about every one else was clearly apparent. It was a fine thing,
for instance, to observe Foster's scorn and contempt whilst Bentinck-Major
explained his little idea about certain little improvements that he, as
Chancellor, might naturally suggest, or Ryle's attitude of goodwill to all
and sundry as he apologised for certain of Brockett's voluntaries and
assured Brandon on one side that "something should be done about it," and
agreed with Bentinck-Major on the other that it was indeed agreeable to
hear sometimes music a little more advanced and original than one usually
found in Cathedrals.

Brandon sniffed something of incipient rebellion in Bentinck-Major's
attitude and looked across the table severely. Bentinck-Major blinked and
nervously examined his nails.

"Of course," said the Archdeacon in his most solemn manner, "there may be
people who wish to turn the Cathedral into a music-hall. I don't say there
_are_, but there _may_ be. In these strange times nothing would
astonish me. In my own humble opinion what was good enough for our fathers
is good enough for us. However, don't let my opinion influence any one."

"I assure you, Archdeacon," said Bentinck-Major. Witheram earnestly
assured every one that he was certain there need be no alarm. They could
trust the Precentor to see.... There was a general murmur. Yes, they
_could_ trust the Precentor.

This little matter being settled, the meeting was very near an agreeable
conclusion and the Dean was beginning to congratulate himself on the early
return to his botany--when, unfortunately, there cropped up the question
of the garden-roller.

This matter of the garden-roller was a simple one enough. The Cathedral
School had some months ago requested the Chapter to allow it to purchase
for itself a new garden-roller. Such an article was seriously needed for
the new cricket-field. It was true that the School already possessed two
garden-rollers, but one of these was very small--"quite a baby one,"
Dennison, the headmaster, explained pathetically--and the other could not
possibly cover all the work that it had to do. The School grounds were
large ones.

The matter, which was one that mainly concerned the Treasury side of the
Chapter, had been discussed at the last meeting, and there had been a good
deal of argument about it.

Brandon had then vetoed it, not because he cared in the least whether or
no the School had a garden-roller, but because, Hart-Smith having left and
Ronder being not yet with them, he was in charge, for the moment, of the
Cathedral funds. He liked to feel his power, and so he refused as many
things as possible. Had it not been only a temporary glory--had he been
permanent Treasurer--he would in all probability have acted in exactly the
opposite way and allowed everybody to have everything.

"There's the question of the garden-roller," said Witheram, just as the
Dean was about to propose that they should close with a prayer.

"I've got it here on the minutes," said the Chapter Clerk severely.

"Oh, dear, yes," said the Dean, looking about him rather piteously. "Now
what shall we do about it?"

"Let 'em have it," said Foster, glaring across at Brandon and shutting his
mouth like a trap.

This was a direct challenge. Brandon felt his breast charged with the
noble anger that always filled it when Foster said anything.

"I must confess," he said, covering, as he always did when he intended
something to be final, the Dean with his eye, "that I thought that this
was quite definitely settled at last Chapter; I understood--I may of
course have been mistaken--that we considered that we could not afford the
thing and that the School must wait."

"Well, Archdeacon," said the Dean nervously (he knew of old the danger-
signals in Brandon's flashing eyes), "I must confess that I hadn't thought
it _quite_ so definite as that. Certainly we discussed the expense of
the affair."

"I think the Archdeacon's right," said Bentinck-Major, who wanted to win
his way back to favour after the little mistake about the music. "It was
settled, I think."

"Nothing of the kind," said Foster fiercely. "We settled nothing."

"How does it read on the minutes?" asked the Dean nervously.

"Postponed until the next meeting," said the Clerk.

"At any rate," said Brandon, feeling that this absurd discussion had gone
on quite long enough, "the matter is simple enough. It can be settled
immediately. Any one who has gone into the matter at all closely will have
discovered first that the School doesn't _need_ a roller--they've
enough already--secondly, that the Treasury cannot possibly at the present
moment afford to buy a new one."

"I really must protest, Archdeacon," said Foster, "this is going too far.
In the first place, have you yourself gone into the case?"

Brandon paused before he answered. He felt that all eyes were upon him. He
also felt that Foster had been stirred to a new strength of hostility by
some one--he fancied he knew by whom. Moreover, _had_ he gone into
it? He was aware with a stirring of impatience that he had not. He had
intended to do so, but time had been short, the matter had not seemed of
sufficient importance....

"I certainly have gone into it," he said, "quite as far as the case
deserves. The facts are clear."

"The facts are _not_ clear," said Foster angrily. "I say that the
School should have this roller and that we are behaving with abominable
meanness in preventing it"; and he banged his fist upon the table.

"If that charge of meanness is intended personally,..." said Brandon
angrily.

"I assure you, Archdeacon,..." said Ryle. The Dean raised a hand in
protest.

"I don't think," he said, "that anything here is ever intended personally.
We must never forget that we are in God's House. Of course, this is an
affair that really should be in the hands of the Treasury. But I'm afraid
that Canon Ronder can hardly be expected in the short time that he's been
with us to have investigated this little matter."

Every one looked at Ronder. There was a pleasant sense of drama in the
affair. Brandon was gazing at the portraits above the table and pretending
to be outside the whole business; in reality, his heart beat angrily. His
word should have been enough, in earlier days _would_ have been.
Everything now was topsy-turvy.

"As a matter of fact," said Ronder, "I _have_ gone into the matter. I
saw that it was one of the most urgent questions on the Agenda.
Unimportant though it may sound, I believe that the School cricket will be
entirely held up this summer if they don't secure their roller. They
intend, I believe, to get a roller by private subscription if we refuse it
to them, and that, gentlemen, would be, I cannot help feeling, rather
ignominious for us. I have been into the question of prices and have
examined some catalogues. I find that the expense of a good garden-roller
is really _not_ a very great one. One that I think the Treasury could
sustain without serious inconvenience...."

"You think then, Canon, that we should allow the roller?" said the Dean.

"I certainly do," said Ronder.

Brandon felt the impression that had been created. He knew that they were
all thinking amongst themselves: "Well, _here's_ an efficient man!"

He burst out:

"I'm afraid that I cannot agree with Canon Ronder. If he will allow me to
say so, he has not been, as yet, long enough in the place to know how
things really stand. I have nothing to say against Dennison, but he has
obviously put his case very plausibly, but those who have known the School
and its methods for many years have perhaps a prior right of judgment over
Canon Ronder, who's known it for so short a time."

"Absurd. Absurd," cried Foster. "It isn't a case of knowing the School.
It's simply a question of whether the Chapter can afford it. Canon Ronder,
who is Treasurer, says that it can. That ought to be enough for anybody."

The atmosphere was now very warm indeed. There was every likelihood of
several gentlemen speaking at once. Witheram looked anxious, Bentinck-
Major malicious, Ryle nervous, Foster triumphant, and Brandon furious.
Only Ronder seemed unconcerned.

The Dean, distress in his heart, raised his hand.

"As there seems to be some difference of opinion in this matter," he said,
"I think we had better vote upon it. Those in favour of the roller being
granted to the School please signify."

Ronder, Foster and Witheram raised their hands.

"And those against?" said the Dean.

Brandon, Ryle and Bentinck-Major were against.

"I'm afraid," said the Dean, smiling anxiously, "that it will be for me to
give the casting vote." He paused for a moment. Then, looking straight
across the table at the Clerk, he said:

"I think I must decide _for_ the roller. Canon Ronder seems to me to
have proved his case."

Every one, except possibly Ronder, was aware that this was the first
occasion for many years that any motion of Brandon's had been defeated....

Without waiting for any further business the Archdeacon gathered together
his papers and, looking neither to right nor left, strode from the room.





Book II

The Whispering Gallery




Chapter I

Five O'Clock--The Green Cloud



The cloud seemed to creep like smoke from the funnel of the Cathedral
tower. The sun was setting in a fiery wreath of bubbling haze, shading in
rosy mist the mountains of grey stone. The little cloud, at first in the
shadowy air light green and shaped like a ring, twisted spirally, then,
spreading, washed out and lay like a pool of water against the smoking
sunset.

Green like the Black Bishop's ring.... Lying there, afterwards, until the
orange had faded and the sky, deserted by the sun, was milk-white. The
mists descended. The Cathedral chimes struck five. February night, cold,
smoke-misted, enwrapped the town.

       *       *       *       *       *

At a quarter to five Evensong was over and Cobbett was putting out the
candles in the choir. Two figures slowly passed down the darkening nave.

Outside the west door they paused, gazing at the splendour of the fiery
sky.

"It's cold, but there'll be stars," Ronder said.

Stars. Cold. Brandon shivered. Something was wrong with him. His heart had
clap-clapped during the Anthem as though a cart with heavy wheels had
rumbled there. He looked suspiciously at Ronder. He did not like the man,
confidently standing there addressing the sky as though he owned it. He
would have liked the sunset for himself.

"Well, good-night, Canon," brusquely. He moved away.

But Ronder followed him.

"One moment, Archdeacon.... Excuse me.... I have been wanting an
opportunity...."

Brandon paused. The man was nervous. Brandon liked that.

"Yes?" he said.

The rosy light was fading. Strange that little green cloud rising like
smoke from the tower....

"At the last Chapter we were on opposite sides. I want to say how greatly
I've regretted that. I feel that we don't know one another as we should. I
wonder if you would allow me..."

The light was fading--Ronder's spectacles shone, his body in shadow.

"...to see something more of you--to have a real talk with you?"

Brandon smiled grimly to himself in the dusk. This fool! He was afraid
then. He saw himself hatless in Bennett's shop; outside, the jeering
crowd.

"I'm afraid, Canon Ronder, that we shall never see eye to eye here about
many things. If you will allow me to say so, you have perhaps not been
here quite long enough to understand the real needs of this diocese. You
must go slowly here--more slowly than perhaps you are prepared for. We are
not Modernists here."

The spectacles, alone visible, answered: "Well, let us discuss it then.
Let us talk things over. Let me ask you at once, Have you something
against me, something that I have done unwittingly? I have fancied lately
a personal note.... I am absurdly sensitive, but if there _is_
anything that I have done, please let me apologise for it. I want you to
tell me."

Anything that he had done? The Archdeacon smiled grimly to himself in the
dusk.

"I really don't think, Canon, that talking things over will help us. There
is really nothing to discuss.... Good-night."

The green cloud was gone. Ronder, invisible now, remained in the shadow of
the great door.


II

Beside the river, above the mill, a woman's body was black against the
gold-crested water. She leaned over the little bridge, her body strong,
confident in its physical strength, her hands clasped, her eyes
meditative.

No need for secrecy to-night. Her father was in Drymouth for two days.
Quarter to five. The chimes struck out clear across the town. Hearing them
she looked back and saw the sky a flood of red behind the Cathedral. She
longed for Falk to-night, a new longing. He was better than she had
supposed, far, far better. A good boy, tender and warm-hearted. To be
trusted. Her friend. At first he had stood to her only for a means of
freedom. Freedom from this horrible place, from this horrible man, her
father, more horrible than any others knew. Her mother had known. She
shivered, seeing that body, heavy-breasted, dull white, as, stripped to
the waist, he bent over the bed to strike. Her mother's cry, a little
moan.... She shivered again, staring into the sunset for Falk....

He was with her. They leant over the bridge together, his arm around her.
They said very little.

She looked back.

"See that strange cloud? Green. Ever seen a green cloud before? Ah, it's
peaceful here."

She turned and looked into his face. As the dusk came down she stroked his
hair. He put his arm round her and held her close to him.


III

 The lamps in the High Street suddenly flaring beat out the sky. There
above the street itself the fiery sunset had not extended; the fair watery
space was pale egg-blue; as the chimes so near at hand struck a quarter to
five the pale colour began slowly to drain away, leaving ashen china
shades behind it, and up to these shades the orange street-lights
extended, patronising, flaunting.

But Joan, pausing for a moment under the Arden Gate before she turned
home, saw the full glory of the sunset. She heard, contending with the
chimes, the last roll of the organ playing the worshippers out of that
mountain of sacrificial stone.

She looked up and saw a green cloud, faintly green like early spring
leafage, curl from the tower smoke-wise; and there, lifting his hat,
pausing at her side, was Johnny St. Leath.

She would have hurried on; she was not happy. Things were _not_ right
at home. Something wrong with father, with mother, with Falk. Something
wrong, too, with herself. She had heard in the town the talk about this
girl who was coming to the Castle for the Jubilee time, coming to marry
Johnny. Coming to marry him because she was rich and handsome. Lovely.
Lady St. Leath was determined....

So she would hurry on, murmuring "Good evening." But he stopped her. His
face was flushed. Andrew heaved eagerly, hungrily, at his side.

"Miss Brandon. Just a moment. I want to speak to you. Lovely evening,
isn't it?...You cut me the other day. Yes, you did. In Orange Street."

"Why?"

She tried to speak coldly.

"We're friends. You know we are. Only in this beastly town no one can be
free.... I only want to tell you if I go away--suddenly--I'm coming back.
Mind that. You're not to believe anything they say--anything that any one
says. I'm coming back. Remember that. We're friends. You must trust me. Do
you hear?"

And he was gone, striding off towards the Cathedral, Andrew panting at his
heels.

The light was gone too--going, going, gone.

She stayed for a moment. As she reached her door the wind rose, sifting
through the grass, rising to her chin.


IV

The two figures met, unconsciously, without spoken arrangement, pushed
towards one another by destiny, as they had been meeting now continuously
during the last weeks.

Almost always at this hour; almost always at this place. On the sandy path
in the green hollow below the Cathedral, above the stream, the hollow
under the opposite hill, the hill where the field was, the field where
they had the Fair.

Down into this green depth the sunset could not strike, and the chimes,
telling over so slowly and so sweetly the three-quarters, filtered down
like a memory, a reiteration of an old promise, a melody almost forgotten.
But above her head the woman, looking up, could see the rose change to
orange and could watch the cloud, like a pool of green water, extend and
rest, lying like a sheet of glass behind which the orange gleamed.

They met always thus, she coming from the town as though turning upwards
through the tangled path to her home in the Precincts, he sauntering
slowly, his hands behind his back, as though he had been wandering there
to think out some problem....

Sometimes he did not come, sometimes she could not. They never stayed more
than ten minutes there together. No one from month to month at that hour
crossed that desolate path.

To-day he began impetuously. "If you hadn't come to-night, I think I would
have gone to find you. I had to see you. No, I had nothing to say. Only to
see you. But I am so lonely in that house. I always knew I was lonely--
never more than when I was married--but now.... If I hadn't these ten
minutes most days I'd die, I think...."

They didn't touch one another, but stood opposite gazing, face into face.

"What are we to do?" he said. "It can't be wicked just to meet like this
and to talk a little."

"I'd like you to know," she answered, "that you and my son--you are all I
have in the world. The two of you. And my son has some secret from me.

"I have been so lonely too. But I don't feel lonely any more. Your
friendship for me...."

"Yes, I am your friend. Think of me like that. Your friend from the first
moment I saw you--you so quiet and gentle and unhappy. I realized your
unhappiness instantly. No one else in this place seemed to notice it. I
believe God meant us to be friends, meant me to bring you happiness--a
little...."

"Happiness?" she shivered. "Isn't it cold to-night? Do you see that
strange green cloud? Ah, now it is gone. All the light is going.... Do you
believe in God?"

He came closer to her. His hand touched her arm.

"Yes," he answered fiercely. "And He means me to care for you." His hand,
trembling, stroked her arm. She did not move. His hand, shaking, touched
her neck. He bent forward and kissed her neck, her mouth, then her eyes.

She leant her head wearily for an instant on his shoulder, then,
whispering good-night, she turned and went quietly up the path.




Chapter II

Souls on Sunday



I must have been thirteen or fourteen years of age--it may have been
indeed in this very year '97--when I first read Stevenson's story of
_Treasure Island_. It is the fashion, I believe, now with the Clever
Solemn Ones to despise Stevenson as a writer of romantic Tushery,

All the same, if it's realism they want I'm still waiting to see something
more realistic than Pew or Long John Silver. Realism may depend as truly
on a blind man's tap with his stick upon the ground as on any number of
adulteries.

In those young years, thank God, I knew nothing about realism and read the
tale for what it was worth. And it was worth three hundred bags of gold.
Now, on looking back, it seems to me that the spirit that overtook our
town just at this time was very like the spirit that seized upon Dr.
Livesey, young Hawkins and the rest when they discovered the dead
Buccaneer's map. This is no forced parallel. It was with a real sense of
adventure that the Whispering began about the Brandons and Ronder and the
Pybus St. Anthony living and the rest of it. Where did the Whispering
start? Who can ever tell?

Our Polchester Whispering was carried on and fostered very largely by our
servants. As in every village and town in Glebeshire, the intermarrying
that had been going on for generations was astonishing. Every servant-
maid, every errand-boy, every gardener and coachman in Polchester was
cousin, brother or sister to every other servant-maid, errand-boy,
gardener and coachman. They made, these people, a perfect net about our
town.

The things that they carried from house to house, however, were never the
actual things; they were simply the material from which the actual things
were made. Nor was the construction of the actual tale positively
malicious; it was only that our eyes were caught by the drama of life and
we could not help but exclaim with little gasps and cries at the wonderful
excitement of the history that we saw. Our treasure-hunting was simply for
the fun of the thrill of the chase, not at all that we wished harm to a
soul in the world. If, on occasion, a slight hint of maliciousness did
find its place with us, it was only because in this insecure world it is
delightful to reaffirm our own security as we watch our neighbours topple
over. We do not wish them to "topple," but if somebody has got to fall we
would rather it were not ourselves.

Brandon had been for so long so remarkable a figure in our world that the
slightest stir of the colours in his picture was immediately noticeable.
From the moment of Falk's return from Oxford it was expected that
something "would happen."

It often occurs that a situation between a number of people is vague and
indefinite, until a certain moment, often quite undramatic and negative in
itself, arrives, when the situation suddenly fixes itself and stands
forward, set full square to the world, as a definite concrete fact. There
was a certain Sunday in the April of this year that became for the
Archdeacon and a number of other people such a definite crisis--and yet it
might quite reasonably have been said at the end of it that nothing very
much had occurred.

Everything seemed to happen in Polchester on Sundays. For one thing more
talking was done on Sunday than on all the other days of the week
together. Then the Cathedral itself came into its full glory on that day.
Every one gathered there, every one talked to every one else before
parting, and the long spaces and silences and pauses of the day allowed
the comments and the questions and the surmises to grow and swell and
distend into gigantic images before night took every one and stretched
them upon their backs to dream.

What the Archdeacon liked was an "off" Sunday, when he had nothing to do
save to walk majestically into his place in the choir stall, to read,
perhaps, a Lesson, to talk gravely to people who came to have tea with him
after the Sunday Evensong, to reflect lazily, after Sunday supper, his
long legs stretched out in front of him, a pipe in his mouth, upon the
goodness and happiness and splendour of the Cathedral and the world and
his own place in it. Such a Sunday was a perfect thing--and such a Sunday
April 18 ought to have been...alas! it was not so.

It began very early, somewhere about seven in the morning, with a horrible
incident. The rule on Sundays was that the maid knocked at half-past six
on the door and gave the Archdeacon and his wife their tea. The Archdeacon
lay luxuriously drinking it until exactly a quarter to seven, then he
sprang out of bed, had his cold bath, performed his exercises, and shaved
in his little dressing-room. At about a quarter past seven, nearly
dressed, he returned into the bedroom, to find Mrs. Brandon also nearly
dressed. On this particular day while he drank his tea his wife appeared
to be sleeping; that did not make him bound out of bed any the less
noisily-after twenty years of married life you do not worry about such
things; moreover it was quite time that his wife bestirred herself. At a
quarter past seven he came into the bedroom in his shirt and trousers,
humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers." It was a fine spring morning, so he
flung up the window and looked out into the Precinct, fresh and dewy in
the morning sun, silent save for the inquisitive reiteration of an early
jackdaw. Then he turned back, and, to his amazement, saw that his wife was
lying, her eyes wide open, staring in front of her.

"My dear!" he cried. "Aren't you well?"

"I'm perfectly well," she answered him, her eyes maintaining their fixed
stare. The tone in which she said these words was quite new--it was not
submissive, it was not defensive, it was indifferent.

She must be ill. He came close to the bed.

"Do you realise the time?" he asked. "Twenty minutes past seven. I'm sure
you don't want to keep me waiting."

She didn't answer him. Certainly she must be ill. There was something
strange about her eyes.

"You _must_ be ill," he repeated. "You look ill. Why didn't you say
so? Have you got a headache?"

"I'm not ill. I haven't got a headache, and I'm not coming to Early
Service."

"You're not ill, and you're not coming..." he stammered in his amazement.
"You've forgotten. There isn't late Celebration."

She gave him no answer, but turned on her side, closing her eyes.

He came right up to the bed, frowning down upon her.

"Amy--what does this mean? You're not ill, and yet you're not coming to
Celebration? Why? I insist upon an answer."

She said nothing.

He felt that anger, of which he had tried now for many years to beware,
flooding his throat.

With tremendous self-control he said quietly: "What is the matter with
you, Amy? You must tell me at once."

She did not open her eyes but said in a voice so low that he scarcely
caught the words:

"There is nothing the matter. I am not ill, and I'm not coming to Early
Service."

"Why?"

"Because I don't wish to go."

For a moment he thought that he was going to bend down and lift her bodily
out of bed. His limbs felt as though they were prepared for such an
action.

But to his own surprised amazement he did nothing, he said nothing. He
looked at the bed, at the hollow where his head had been, at her head with
her black hair scattered on the pillow, at her closed eyes, then he went
away into his dressing-room. When he had finished dressing he came back
into the bedroom, looked across at her, motionless, her eyes still closed,
lying on her side, felt the silence of the room, the house, the Precincts
broken only by the impertinent jackdaw.

He went downstairs.

Throughout the Early Celebration he remained in a condition of amazed
bewilderment. From his position just above the altar-rails he could see
very clearly the Bishop's Tomb; the morning sun reflected in purple
colours from the East window played upon its blue stone. It caught the
green ring and flashed splashes of fire from its heart. His mind went back
to that day, not so very long ago, when, with triumphant happiness, he had
seemed to share in the Bishop's spirit, to be dust of his dust, and bone
of his bone. That had been the very day, he remembered, of Falk's return
from Oxford. Since that day everything had gone wrong for him--Falk, the
Elephant, Ronder, Foster, the Chapter. And now his wife! Never in all the
years of his married life had she spoken to him as she had done that
morning. She must be on the edge of a serious illness, a very serious
illness. Strangely a new concern for her, a concern that he had never felt
in his life before, arose in his heart. Poor Amy--and how tiresome if she
were ill, the house all at sixes and sevens! With a shock he realised that
his mind was not devotional. He swung himself back to the service, looking
down benevolently upon the two rows of people waiting patiently to come in
their turn to the altar steps.

At breakfast, however, there Mrs. Brandon was, looking quite her usual
self, in the Sunday dress of grey silk, making the tea, quiet as she
always was, answering questions submissively, patiently, "as the wife of
an Archdeacon should." He tried to show her by his manner that he had been
deeply shocked, but, unfortunately, he had been shocked, annoyed,
indignant on so many occasions when there had been no real need for it,
that to-day, when there was the occasion, he felt that he made no
impression.

The bells pealed for morning service, the sun shone; as half-past ten
approached, little groups of people crossed the Precincts and vanished
into the mouth of the great West door. Now were Lawrence and Cobbett in
their true glory--Lawrence was in his fine purple robe, the Sunday silk
one. He stood at the far end of the nave, just under the choir-screen,
waiting for the aristocracy, for whom the front seats were guarded with
cords which only he might untie. How deeply pleased he was when some
unfortunate stranger, ignorant in the ways of the Cathedral, walked, with
startling clatter, up the whole length of the shining nave and endeavoured
to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically--staff in hand, he
came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive
one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity
back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back,
clatter, clatter, blushing and confused, the stranger retreated, watched,
as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells
slipped from their jangling peal into a solemn single note. The Mere
People were in their places at the back of the nave, the Great Ones
leaving their entrance until the very last moment. There was a light in
the organ-loft; very softly Brockett began his voluntary--clatter,
clatter, clatter, and the School arrived, the small boys, swallowed by
their Eton collars, first, filing into their places to the right of the
screen, then the middle boys, a little indifferent and careless, then the
Fifth and Sixth in their "stick-up" collars, haughty and indifferent
indeed.

Dimly, on the other side of the screen, the School boys in their surplices
could be seen settling into their places between the choir and the altar.

A rustling of skirts, and the aristocracy entered in ones and twos from
the side doors that opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them--for a
very few--Lawrence had his confidential smile. For Mrs. Sampson, for
instance--for Mrs. Combermere, for Mrs. Ryle and Mrs. Brandon.

A very special one for Mrs. Brandon because of his high opinion of her
husband. She was nothing very much--"a mean little woman," he thought her
--but the Archdeacon had married her. That was enough.

Joan was with her, conscious that every one must be noticing her--the
D'Arcy girls and Cynthia Ryle and Gladys Sampson, they would all be
looking and criticising. Hustle, rustle, rustle--here was an event indeed!
Lady St. Leath was come, and with her in attendance Johnny and Hetty.
Lawrence hurried forward, disregarding Mrs. Brandon, who was compelled to
undo her cord for herself. He led Lady St. Leath forward with a ceremony,
a dignity, that was marvellous to see. She moved behind him as though she
owned the Cathedral, or rather could have owned it had she thought it
worth her while. All the little boys in the Upper Third and Lower Fourth
turned their necks in their Eton collars and watched. What a bonnet she
was wearing! All the colours of the rainbow, odd, indeed, perched there on
the top of her untidy white hair!

Every one settled down; the voluntary was louder, the single note of the
bell suddenly more urgent. Ladies looked about them. Ellen Stiles saw Miss
Dobell--smile, smile. Joan saw Cynthia Ryle--smile, smile. Lawrence, with
the expression of the Angel Gabriel waiting to admit into heaven a new
troop of repentant sinners, stood expectant. The sun filtered in dusty
ladders of coloured light and fell in squares upon the empty spaces of the
nave.

The bell suddenly ceased, a long melodious and melancholy "Amen" came from
somewhere far away in the purple shadow. Every one moved; a noise like a
little uncertain breeze blew through the Cathedral as the congregation
rose; then the choir filed through, the boys, the men, the Precentor, old
Canon Morphew and older Canon Batholomew, Canon Rogers, his face bitter
and discontented, Canon Foster, Bentinck-Major, last of all, Archdeacon
Brandon. They had filed into their places in the choir, they were
kneeling, the Precentor's voice rang out....

The familiar sound of Canon Ryle's voice recalled Mrs. Brandon to time and
place. She was kneeling, her gloved hands pressed close to her face. She
was looking into thick dense darkness, a darkness penetrated with the
strong scent of Russia leather and the faint musty smell that always
seemed to rise from the Cathedral hassocks and the woodwork upon which she
leant. Until Ryle's voice roused her she had been swimming in space and
eternity; behind her, like a little boat bobbing distressfully in her
track, was the scene of that early morning with which that day had opened.
She saw herself, as it were, the body of some quite other woman, lying in
that so familiar bedroom and saying "No"--saying it again and again and
again. "No. No. No."

Why had she said "No," and was it not in reality another woman who had
said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way. There had been
no storm. She shivered a little behind her gloves.

"Dearly beloved brethren," began the Precentor, pleading, impersonal.

Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green
waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most
surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a
quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked
downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the
precipitances of jagged black rock. It was "jagged black rock" over which
she was now peering.

The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms,
hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said:
"Here's the ball. Catch. Oh, you _are_ slow!"

In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon's consciousness two
voices were shouting at one another.

One cried: "See what she's in for, the foolish woman! She's not up to it.
It will finish her."

And the other answered: "Well, she is in for it! So it's no use warning
her any longer. She wants it. She's going to have it."

And the first repeated: "It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!"

And the second replied: "No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!"

Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart's most
elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and little shivers of
apprehension, she fought a poor little battle.

"We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord...."

"The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee...." A boy's voice
rose, "Thou did'st not abhor the Virgin's womb...."

Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She
had Falk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her
side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral
services. Ah, it wasn't fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved
her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her!

Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of
the "Te Deum" rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and
solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now,
as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the
Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and
asked one another who that fine-looking man was. They craned their necks
into the aisle. And he _did_ look fine, his head up, his shoulders
back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and
God's.

The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as
though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not
seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending
over her bed in his shirt and trousers. That movement that he had made as
though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.

She closed her eyes. His fine rich voice came to her from a long way off.
Let him boom as loudly as he pleased, he could not touch her any more. She
had escaped, and for ever. She saw, then, Morris as she had seen him at
that tea-party months ago. She recovered that strange sense that she had
had (and that he had had too, as she knew) of being carried out right away
from one's body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They
had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they
had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted
nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was
hungry, starving for it. She _must_ see him often, continually. She
must be able to look at him, touch the sleeve of his coat, hear his voice.
She must be able to do things for him, little simple things that no one
else could do. She wanted no more than that. Only to be near to him and to
see that he was cared for...looked after. Surely that was not wrong. No
one could say....

Little shivers ran continually about her body, and her hands, clenched
tightly, were damp within her gloves.

The Precentor gave out the words of the Anthem, "Little children, love one
another."

Every one rose--save Lady St. Leath, who settled herself magnificently in
her seat and looked about her as though she challenged anybody to tell her
that she was wrong to do so.

Yes, that was all Amy Brandon wanted. Who could say that she was wrong to
want it? The little battle was concluded.

Old Canon Foster was preaching to-day. Always at the conclusion of the
Anthem certain ruffians, visitors, tourists, clattered out. No sermon for
them. They did not matter very greatly because they were far away at the
back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster's preaching
days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting
because their seats were prominent ones and their dresses were of silk.
Often Lady St. Leath was one of these, but to-day she was sunk into a kind
of stupor and did not move. Mrs. Combermere, Ellen Stiles and Mrs. Sampson
were the guilty ones.

Rustle of their dresses, the heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it
closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of
Canon Foster, "Let us pray."

Out in the grey Cloisters it was charming. The mild April sun flooded the
square of grass that lay in the middle of the thick rounded pillars like a
floor of bright green glass.

The ladies stood for a moment looking out into the sunny silence. The
Cathedral was hushed behind them; Ellen Stiles was looking very gay and
very hideous in a large hat stifled with flowers, set sideways on her
head, and a bright purple silk dress pulled in tightly at the waist,
rising to high puffed shoulders. Her figure was not suited to the fashion
of the day.

Mrs. Sampson explained that she was suffering from one of the worst of her
nervous headaches and that she could not have endured the service another
moment. Miss Stiles was all eager solicitude.

"I _am_ so sorry. I know how you are when you get one of those
things. Nothing does it any good, does it? I know you've tried everything,
and it simply goes on for days and days, getting worse and worse. And the
really terrible part of them is that, with you, they seem to be
constitutional. No doctors can do anything--when they're constitutional.
There you are for the rest of your days!"

Mrs. Sampson gave a little shiver.

"I must say, Dr. Puddifoot seems to be very little use," she moaned.

"Oh! Puddifoot!" Miss Stiles was contemptuous. "He's past his work. That's
one comfort about this place. If any one's ill he dies. No false hopes. At
least, we know where we are."

They walked through the Martyr's Passage out into the full sunlight of the
Precincts.

"What a jolly day!" said Mrs. Combermere, "I shall take my dogs for a
walk. By the way, Ellen," she turned round to her friend, "how did Miss
Burnett's tea-party go? I haven't seen you since."

"Oh, it was too funny!" Miss Stiles giggled. "You never saw such a
mixture, and I don't think Miss Burnett knew who any one was. Not that she
had much time to think, poor dear, she was so worried with the tea. Such a
maid as she had you never saw!"

"A mixture?" asked Mrs. Combermere. "Who were they?"

"Oh, Canon Ronder and Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Brandon and--Oh, yes!
actually Falk Brandon!"

"Falk Brandon there?"

"Yes, wasn't it the strangest thing. I shouldn't have thought he'd have
had time--However, you told me not to, so I won't--"

"Who did you talk to?"

"I talked to Miss Burnett most of the time. I tried to cheer her up. No
one else paid the least attention to her."

"She's a very stupid person, it seems to me," Mrs. Sampson murmured. "But
of course I know her very slightly."

"Stupid!" Miss Stiles laughed. "Why, she hasn't an idea in her head. I
don't believe that she knows it's Jubilee Year. Positively!"

A little wind blew sportively around Miss Stiles' large hat. They all
moved forward.

"The funny thing was--" Miss Stiles paused and looked apprehensively at
Mrs. Combermere. "I know you don't like scandal, but of course this isn't
scandal--there's nothing in it--"

"Come on, Ellen. Out with it," said Mrs. Combermere.

"Well, Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris. I caught the oddest look between
them."

"Look! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Combermere sharply. Mrs. Sampson
stood still, her mouth a little open, forgetting her neuralgia.

"Of course it was nothing. All the same, they were standing at the window
saying something, looking at one another, well, positively as though they
had known one another intimately for years. I assure you--"

Mrs. Combermere turned upon her. "Of all the nasty minds in this town,
Ellen, you have the nastiest. I've told you so before. People can't even
look at one another now. Why, you might as well say that I'd been gazing
at your Ronder when he came to tea the other day."

"Perhaps I shall," said Miss Stiles, laughing. "It would be a delightful
story to spread. Seriously, why not make a match of it? You'd just suit
one another."

"Once is enough for me in a life-time," said Mrs. Combermere grimly. "Now,
Ellen, come along. No more mischief. Leave poor little Morris alone."

"Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris!" repeated Mrs. Sampson, her eyes wide open.
"Well, I do declare."

The ladies separated, and the Precincts was abandoned for a time to its
beautiful Sunday peace and calm.




Chapter III

The May-day Prologue



May is the finest month of all the year in Glebeshire. The days are warm
but not too hot; the sky is blue but not too blue, the air is soft but
with a touch of sharpness The valleys are pressed down and overflowing
with flowers; the cuckoo cries across the glassy waters of blue harbours,
and the gorse is honey-scented among the rocks.

May-day in Polchester this year was warm and bright, with a persistent
cuckoo somewhere in the Dean's garden, and a very shrill-voiced canary in
Miss Dobell's open window. The citizens of Polchester were suddenly aware
that summer was close upon them. Doors were flung open and the gardens
sinuously watered, summer clothes were dragged from their long confinement
and anxiously overlooked, Mr. Martin, the stationer, hung a row of his
coloured Polchester views along a string across his window, the dark,
covered ways of the market-place quivered and shone with pots of spring
flowers, and old Simon's water-cart made its first trembling and shaking
appearance down the High Street.

All this was well enough and customary enough, but what marked this spring
from any other spring that had ever been was that it was Jubilee Year. It
was on this warm May-day that Polchester people realised suddenly that the
Jubilee was not far away. The event had not quite the excitement and
novelty that the Jubilee of 1887 had had; there was, perhaps, in London
and the larger towns, something of a sense of repetition. But Polchester
was far from the general highway and, although the picture of the
wonderful old lady, now nearly eighty years of age, was strong before
every one's vision, there was a deep determination to make this year's
celebration a great Polchester affair, to make it the celebration of
Polchester men and Polchester history and Polchester progress.

The programme had been long arranged--the great Service in the Cathedral,
the Ball in the Assembly Rooms, the Flower Show in the St. Leath Castle
grounds, the Torchlight Procession, the Croquet Tournament, the School-
children's Tea and the School Cricket-match. A fine programme, and the
Jubilee Committee, with the Bishop, the Mayor, and the Countess of St.
Leath for its presidents, had already held several meetings.

Nevertheless, Glebeshire has a rather languishing climate. Polchester has
been called by its critics "a lazy town," and it must be confessed that
everything in connection with the Jubilee had been jogging along very
sleepily until of a sudden this warm May-day arrived, and every one sprang
into action. The Mayor called a meeting of the town branch of the
Committee, and the Bishop out at Carpledon summoned his ecclesiastics, and
Joan found a note from Gladys Sampson beckoning her to the Sampson house
to do her share of the glorious work. It had been decided by the Higher
Powers that it would be a charming thing for some of the younger
Polchester ladies to have in charge the working of two of the flags that
were to decorate the Assembly Room walls on the night of the Ball. Gladys
Sampson, who, unlike her mother, never suffered from headaches, and was a
strong, determined, rather masculine girl, soon had the affair in hand,
and the party was summoned.

I would not like to say that Polchester had a more snobbish spirit than
other Cathedral towns, but there is no doubt that, thirty years ago, the
lines were drawn very clearly indeed between the "Cathedral" and the
"Others."

"Cathedral" included not only the daughters of the Canons and what Mr.
Martin, in his little town guide-book, called "General Ecclesiastical
Phenomena," but also the two daughters of Puddifoot's sister, Grace and
Annie Trudon; the three daughters of Roger McKenzie, the town lawyer;
little Betty Callender, the only child of old, red-faced Major Callender;
Mary and Amy Forrester, daughters of old Admiral Forrester; and, of
course, the St. Leath girls.

When Joan arrived, then, in the Deanery dining-room there was a fine
gathering. Very unsophisticated they would all have been considered by the
present generation. Lady Rose and Lady Mary, who were both of them nearer
forty than thirty, had of course had some experience of London, and had
been even to Paris and Rome. Of the "Others," at this time, only Betty
Callender, who had been born in India, and the Forresters had been
farther, in all their lives, than Drymouth. Their lives were bound, and
happily bound, by the Polchester horizon. They lived in and for and by the
local excitements, talks, croquet, bicycling (under proper guardianship),
Rafiel or Buquay or Clinton in the summer, and the occasional (very, very
occasional) performances of amateur theatricals in the Assembly Rooms.

Moreover, they were happy and contented and healthy. For many of them
_Jane Eyre_ was still a forbidden book and a railway train a
remarkable adventure.

Polchester was the world and the world was Polchester. They were at least
a century nearer to Jane Austen's day than they were to George the
Fifth's.

Joan saw, with relief, so soon as she entered the room, that the St. Leath
women were absent. They overawed her and were so much older than the
others there that they brought constraint with them and embarrassment.

Any stranger, coming suddenly into the room, must have felt its light and
gaiety and happiness. The high wide dining-room windows were open and
looked, over sloping lawns, down to the Pol and up again to the woods
beyond. The trees were faintly purple in the spring sun, daffodils were
nodding on the lawn and little gossamer clouds of pale orange floated like
feathers across the sky. The large dining-room table was cleared for
action, and Gladys Sampson, very serious and important, stood at the far
end of the room under a very bad oil-painting of her father, directing
operations. The girls were dressed for the most part in white muslin
frocks, high in the shoulders and pulled in at the waist and tight round
the neck--only the McKenzie girls, who rode to hounds and played tennis
beautifully and had, all three of them, faces of glazed red brick, were
clad in the heavy Harris tweeds that were just then beginning to be so
fashionable.

Joan, who only a month or two ago would have been devoured with shyness at
penetrating the fastnesses of the Sampson dining-room, now felt no shyness
whatever but nodded quite casually to Gladys, smiled at the McKenzies, and
found a place between Cynthia Ryle and Jane D'Arcy.

They all sat, bathed in the sunshine, and looked at Gladys Sampson. She
cleared her throat and said in her pounding heavy voice--her voice was
created for Committees: "Now all of you know what we're here for. We're
here to make two banners for the Assembly Rooms and we've got to do our
very best. We haven't got a great deal of time between now and June the
Twentieth, so we must work, and I propose that we come here every Tuesday
and Friday afternoon, and when I say _here_ I mean somebody or
other's house, because of course it won't be always here. There's cutting
up to do and sewing and plenty of work really for everybody, because when
the banners are done there are the flags for the school-children. Now if
any one has any suggestions to make I shall be very glad to hear them."

There was at first no reply to this and every one smiled and looked at the
portrait of the Dean. Then one of the McKenzie girls remarked in a deep
bass voice:

"That's all right, Gladys. But who's going to decide who does what? Very
decent of you to ask us but we're not much in the sewing line--never have
been."

"Oh," said Gladys, "I've got people's names down for the different things
they're to do and any one whom it doesn't suit has only got to speak up."

Soon the material was distributed and groups were formed round the room. A
chatter arose like the murmur of bees. The sun as it sank lower behind the
woods turned them to dark crimson and the river pale grey. The sun fell
now in burning patches and squares across the room and the dim yellow
blinds were pulled half-way across the windows. With this the room was
shaded into a strong coloured twilight and the white frocks shone as
though seen through glass. The air grew cold beyond the open windows, but
the room was warm with the heat that the walls had stolen and stored from
the sun.

Joan sat with Jane D'Arcy and Betty Callender. She was very happy to be at
rest there; she felt secure and safe. Because in truth during these last
weeks life had been increasingly difficult--difficult not only because it
had become, of late, so new and so strange, but also because she could not
tell what was happening. Family life had indeed become of late a mystery,
and behind the mystery there was a dim sense of apprehension, apprehension
that she had never felt in all her days before. As she sank into the
tranquillity of the golden afternoon glow, with the soft white silk
passing to and fro in her bands, she tried to realise for herself what had
been occurring. Her father was, on the whole, simple enough. He was
beginning to suffer yet again from one of his awful obsessions. Since the
hour of her earliest childhood she had watched these obsessions and
dreaded them.

There had been so many, big ones and little ones. Now the Government, now
the Dean, now the Town Council, now the Chapter, now the Choir, now some
rude letter, now some impertinent article in a paper. Like wild fierce
animals these things had from their dark thickets leapt out upon him, and
he had proceeded to wrestle with them in the full presence of his family.
Always, at last, he had been, victorious over them, the triumph had been
publicly announced, "Te Deums" sung, and for a time there had been peace.
It was some while since the last obsession, some ridiculous action about
drainage on the part of the Town Council. But the new one threatened to
make up in full for the length of that interval.

Only just before Falk's unexpected return from Oxford Joan had been
congratulating herself on her father's happiness and peace of mind. She
might have known the omens of that dangerous quiet. On the very day of
Falk's arrival Canon Ronder had arrived too.

Canon Ronder! How Joan was beginning to detest the very sound of the name!
She had hated the man himself as soon as she had set eyes upon him. She
had scented, in some instinctive way, the trouble that lay behind those
large round glasses and that broad indulgent smile. But now! Now they were
having the name "Ronder" with their breakfast, their dinner, and their
tea. Into everything apparently his fat fingers were inserted; her father
saw his rounded shadow behind every door, his rosy cheeks at every window.

And yet it was very difficult to discover what exactly it was that he had
done! Now, whatever it might be that went wrong in the Brandon house, in
the Cathedral, in the town, her father was certain that Ronder was
responsible,--but proof. Well, there wasn't any. And it was precisely
this absence of proof that built up the obsession.

Everywhere that Ronder went he spoke enthusiastically about the
Archdeacon. These compliments came back to Joan again and again. "If
there's one man in this town I admire----" "What would this town be
without----" "We're lucky, indeed, to have the Archdeacon----" And yet was
there not behind all these things a laugh, a jest, a mocking tone,
something that belonged in spirit to that horrible day when the elephant
had trodden upon her father's hat?

She loved her father, and she loved him twice as dearly since one night
when on driving up to the Castle he had held her hand. But now the
obsession had killed the possibility of any tenderness between them; she
longed to be able to do something that would show him how strongly she was
his partisan, to insult Canon Ronder in the market-place, to turn her back
when he spoke to her--and, at the same time, intermingled with this hot
championship was irritation that her father should allow himself to be
obsessed by this. He who was so far greater than a million Ronders!

The situation in the Brandon family had not been made any easier by Falk's
strange liking for the man. Joan did not pretend that she understood her
brother or had ever been in any way close to him. When she had been little
he had seemed to be so infinitely above her as to be in another world, and
now that they seemed almost of an age he was strange to her like some one
of foreign blood. She knew that she did not count in his scheme of life at
all, that he never thought of her nor wanted her. She did not mind that,
and even now she would have been tranquil about him had it not been for
her mother's anxiety. She could not but see how during the last weeks her
mother had watched every step that Falk took, her eyes always searching
his face as though he were keeping some secret from her. To Joan, who
never believed that people could plot and plan and lead double lives, this
all seemed unnatural and exaggerated.

But she knew well enough that her mother had never attempted to give her
any of her confidence. Everything at home, in short, was difficult and
confused. Nobody was happy, nobody was natural. Even her own private
history, if she looked into it too closely, did not show her any very
optimistic colours. She had not seen Johnny St. Leath now for a fortnight,
nor heard from him, and those precious words under the Arden Gate one
evening were beginning already to appear a dim unsubstantial dream.
However, if there was one quality that Joan Brandon possessed in excess of
all others, it was a simple fidelity to the cause or person in front of
her.

Her doubts came simply from the wonder as to whether she had not concluded
too much from his words and built upon them too fairy-like a castle.

With a gesture she flung all her wonders and troubles out upon the gold-
swept lawn and trained all her attention to the chatter among the girls
around her. She admired Jane D'Arcy very much; she was so "elegant."
Everything that Jane wore became her slim straight body, and her pale
pointed face was always a little languid in expression, as though daily
life were an exhausting affair and not intended for superior persons. She
had been told, from a very early day, that her voice was "low and
musical," so she always spoke in whispers which gave her thoughts an
importance that they might not otherwise have possessed. Very different
was little Betty Callender, round and rosy like an apple, with freckles on
her nose and bright blue eyes. She laughed a great deal and liked to agree
with everything that any one said.

"If you ask me," said Jane in her fascinating whisper, "there's a lot of
nonsense about this old Jubilee."

"Oh, do you think so?" said Joan.

"Yes. Old Victoria's been on the throne long enough, 'Tis time we had
somebody else."

Joan was very much shocked by this and said so.

"I don't think we ought to be governed by _old_ people," said Jane.
"Every one over seventy ought to be buried whether they wish it or no."

Joan laughed aloud.

"Of course they wouldn't wish it," she said.

Laughter came, now here, now there, from different parts of the room.
Every one was very gay from the triple sense that they were the elect of
Polchester, that they were doing important work, and that summer was
coming.

Jane D'Arcy tossed her head.

"Father says that perhaps he'll be taking us to London for it," she
whispered.

"I wouldn't go if any one offered me," said Joan. "It's Polchester I want
to see it at, not London. Of course I'd love to see the Queen, but it
would probably be only for a moment, and all the rest would be horrible
crowds with nobody knowing you. While here! Oh! it will be lovely!"

Jane smiled. "Poor child. Of course you know nothing about London. How
should you? Give me a week in London and you can have your old Polchester
for ever. What ever happens in Polchester? Silly old croquet parties and a
dance in the Assembly Rooms. And _never_ any one new."

"Well, there _is_ some one new," said Betty Callender, "I saw her
this morning."

"Her? Who?" asked Jane, with the scorn of one who has already made up her
mind to despise.

"I was with mother going through the market and Lady St. Leath came by in
an open carriage. She was with her. Mother says she's a Miss Daubeney from
London--and oh! she's perfectly lovely! and mother says she's to marry
Lord St. Leath----"

"Oh! I heard she was coming," said Jane, still scornfully. "How silly you
are, Betty! You think any one lovely if she comes from London."

"No, but she was," insisted Betty, "mother said so too, and she had a blue
silk parasol, and she was just sweet. Lord St. Leath was in the carriage
with them."

"Poor Johnny!" said Jane. "He always has to do just what that horrible old
mother of his tells him."

Joan had listened to this little dialogue with what bravery she could.
Doom then had been pronounced? Sentence had fallen? Miss Daubeney had
arrived. She could hear the old Countess' voice again. "Claire Daubeney-
Monteagle's daughter--such, a nice girl--Johnny's friend-----"

Johnny's friend! Of course she was. Nothing could show to Joan more
clearly the difference between Joan's world and the St. Leath world than
the arrival of this lovely stranger. Although Mme. Sarah Grand and others
were at this very moment forcing that strange figure, the New Woman, upon
a reluctant world, Joan belonged most distinctly to the earlier
generation. She trembled at the thought of any publicity, of any thrusting
herself forward, of any, even momentary, rebellion against her position.
Of course Johnny belonged to this beautiful creature; she had always
known, in her heart, that her dream was an impossible one. Nevertheless
the room, the sunlight, the white dresses, the long shining table, the
coloured silks and ribbons, swam in confusion around her. She was suddenly
miserable. Her hands shook and her upper lip trembled. She had a strange
illogical desire to go out and find Miss Daubeney and snatch her blue
parasol from her startled hands and stamp upon it.

"Well," said Jane, "I don't envy any one who marries Johnny--to be shut up
in that house with all those old women!"

Betty shook her head very solemnly and tried to look older than her years.

The afternoon was drawing on. Gladys came across and closed the windows.

"I think that's about enough to-day," she said. "Now we'll have tea."

Joan's great desire was to slip away and go home. She put her work on the
table, fetched her coat from the other end of the room.

Gladys stopped her. "Don't go, Joan. You must have tea."

"I promised mother-----" she said.

The door opened. She turned and found herself close to the Dean and Canon
Ronder.

The Dean came forward, nervously rubbing his hands together as was his
custom. "Well, children," he said, blinking at them. Ronder stood,
smiling, in the doorway. At the sight of him Joan was filled with hatred--
vehement, indignant hatred; she had never hated any one before, unless
possibly it was Miss St. Clair, the French mistress. Now, from what source
she did not know, fear and passion flowed into her. Nothing could have
been more amiable and genial than the figure that he presented.

As always, his clothes were beautifully neat and correct, his linen
spotless white, his black boots gleaming.

He beamed upon them all, and Joan felt, behind her, the response that the
whole room made to him. They liked him; she knew it. He was becoming
popular.

He had towards them all precisely the right attitude; he was not amiable
and childish like the Dean, nor pompous like Bentinck-Major, nor
sycophantic like Ryle. He did not advance to them but became, as it were,
himself one of them, understanding exactly the way that they wanted him.

And Joan hated him; she hated his red face and his neatness and his broad
chest and his stout legs--everything, everything! She also feared him. She
had never before, although for long now she had been conscious of his
power, been so deeply aware of his connection with herself. It was as
though his round shadow had, on this lovely afternoon, crept forward a
little and touched with its dim grey for the first time the Brandon house.

"Canon Ronder," Gladys Sampson cried, "come and see what we've done."

He moved forward and patted little Betty Callender on the head as he
passed. "Are you all right, my dear, and your father?"

It appeared that Betty was delighted. Suddenly he saw Joan.

"Oh, good evening, Miss Brandon." He altered his tone for her, speaking as
though she were an equal.

Joan looked at him; colour flamed in her cheeks. She did not reply, and
then feeling as though in an instant she would do something quite
disgraceful, she slipped from the room.

Soon, after gently smiling at the parlourmaid, who was an old friend of
hers because she had once been in service at the Brandons, she found
herself standing, a little lost and bewildered, at the corner of Green
Lane and Orange Street. Lost and bewildered because one emotion after
another seemed suddenly to have seized upon her and taken her captive.
Lost and bewildered almost as though she had been bewitched, carried off
through the shining skies by her captor and then dropped, deserted, left,
in some unknown country.

Green Lane in the evening light had a fairy air. The stumpy trees on
either side with the bright new green of the spring seemed to be
concealing lamps within their branches. So thick a glow suffused the air
that it was as though strangely coloured fruit, purple and orange and
amethyst, hung glittering against the pale yellow sky, and the road
running up the hill was like pale wax.

On the other side Orange Street tumbled pell-mell into the roofs of the
town. The monument of the fierce Georgian citizen near which Joan was
standing guarded with a benevolent devotion the little city whose lights,
stealing now upon the air, sprinkled the evening sky with a jewelled haze.
No sound broke the peace; no one came nor went; only the trees of the Lane
moved and stirred very faintly as though assuring the girl of their
friendly company.

Never before had she so passionately loved her town. It seemed to-night
when she was disturbed by her new love, her new fear, her new worldly
knowledge, to be eager to assure her that it was with her in all her
troubles, that it understood that she must pass into new experiences, that
it knew, none better indeed, how strange and terrifying that first
realisation of real life could be, that it had itself suffered when new
streets had been thrust upon it and old loved houses pulled down and the
river choked and the hills despoiled, but that everything passes and love
remains and homeliness and friends.

Joan felt more her own response to the town than the town's reassurance to
her, but she was a little comforted and she felt a little safer.

She argued as she walked home through the Market Place and up the High
Street and under the Arden Gate into the quiet sheltered Precincts, why
should she think that Ronder mattered? After all might not he be the good
fat clergyman that he appeared? It was more perhaps a kind of jealousy
because of her father that she felt. She put aside her own little troubles
in a sudden rush of tenderness for her family. She wanted to protect them
all and make them happy. But how could she make them happy if they would
tell her nothing? They still treated her as a child but she was a woman
now. Her love for Johnny. She had admitted that to herself. She stopped on
the path outside the decorous strait-laced houses and put her cool gloved
hand up to her burning cheek.

She had known for a long time that she loved him, but she had not told
herself. She must conquer that, stamp upon it. It was foolish,
hopeless.... She ran up the steps of their house as though something
pursued her.

She let herself in and found the hall dusky and obscure. The lamp had not
yet been lit. She heard a voice:

"Who's that?"

She looked up and saw her mother, a little, slender figure, standing at
the turn of the stairs holding in her hand a lighted candle.

"It's I, mother, Joan. I've just come from Gladys Sampson's."

"Oh! I thought it would be Falk. You didn't pass Falk on your way?"

"No, mother dear."

She went across to the little cupboard where the coats were hung. As she
poked her head into the little, dark, musty place, she could feel that her
mother was still standing there, listening.




Chapter IV

The Genial Heart



Ronder was never happier than when he was wishing well to all mankind.

He could neither force nor falsify this emotion. If he did not feel it he
did not feel it, and himself was the loser. But it sometimes occurred that
the weather was bright, that his digestion was functioning admirably, that
he liked his surroundings, that he had agreeable work, that his prospects
were happy--then he literally beamed upon mankind and in his fancy
showered upon the poor and humble largesse of glittering coin. In such a
mood he loved every one, would pat children on the back, help old men
along the road, listen to the long winnings of the reluctant poor. Utterly
genuine he was; he meant every word that he spoke and every smile that he
bestowed.

Now, early in May and in Polchester he was in such a mood. Soon after his
arrival he had discovered that he liked the place and that it promised to
suit him well, but he had never supposed that it could develop into such
perfection. Success already was his, but it was not success of so swift a
kind that plots and plans were not needed. They were very much needed. He
could remember no time in his past life when he had had so admirable a
combination of difficulties to overcome. And they were difficulties of the
right kind. They centred around a figure whom he could really like and
admire. It would have been very unpleasant had he hated Brandon or
despised him. Those were uncomfortable emotions in which he indulged as
seldom as possible.

What he liked, above everything, was a fight, when he need have no
temptation towards anger or bitterness. Who could be angry with poor
Brandon? Nor could he despise him. In his simple blind confidence and
self-esteem there was an element of truth, of strength, even of nobility.

Far from despising or hating Brandon, he liked him immensely--and he was
on his way utterly to destroy him.

Then, as he approached nearer the centre of his drama, he noticed, as he
had often noticed before, how strangely everything played into his hands.
Without undue presumption it seemed that so soon as he determined that
something ought to occur and began to work in a certain direction, God
also decided that it was wise and pushed everything into its right place.
This consciousness of Divine partnership gave Ronder a sense that his
opponents were the merest pawns in a game whose issue was already decided.

Poor things, they were helpless indeed! This only added to his kindly
feelings towards them, his sense of humour, too, was deeply stirred by
their own unawareness of their fate--and he always liked any one who
stirred his sense of humour.

Never before had he known everything to play so immediately into his hands
as in this present case. Brandon, for instance, had just that stupid
obstinacy that was required, the town had just that ignorance of the outer
world and cleaving to old traditions.

And now, how strange that the boy Falk had on several occasions stopped to
speak to him and had at last asked whether he might come and see him!

How lucky that Brandon should be making this mistake about the Pybus St.
Anthony living!

Finally, although he was completely frank with himself and knew that he
was working, first and last, for his own future comfort, it did seem to
him that he was also doing real benefit to the town. The times were
changing. Men of Brandon's type were anachronistic; the town had been
under Brandon's domination too long. New life was coming--a new world--a
new civilisation.

Ronder, although no one believed less in Utopias than he, did believe in
the Zeitgeist--simply for comfort's sake if for no stronger reason. Well,
the Zeitgeist was descending upon Polchester, and Ronder was its agent.
Progress? No, Ronder did not believe in Progress. But in the House of Life
there are many rooms; once and again the furniture is changed.

One afternoon early in May he was suddenly aware that everything was
moving more swiftly upon its appointed course than he, sharp though he
was, had been aware. Crossing the Cathedral Green he encountered Dr.
Puddifoot. He knew that the Doctor had at first disliked him but was
quickly coming over to his side and was beginning to consider him as
"broad-minded for a parson and knowing a lot more about life than you
would suppose." He saw precisely into Puddifoot's brain and watched the
thoughts dart to and fro as though they had been so many goldfish in a
glass bowl. He also liked Puddifoot for himself; he always liked stout,
big, red-faced men; they were easier to deal with than the thin severe
ones. He knew that the time would very shortly arrive when Puddifoot would
tell him one of his improper stories. That would sanctify the friendship.

"Ha! Canon!" said Puddifoot, puffing like a seal. "Jolly day!"

They stood and talked, then, as they were both going into the town, they
turned and walked towards the Arden Gate. Puddifoot talked about his
health; like many doctors he was very timid about himself and eager to
reassure himself in public. "How are you, Canon? But I needn't ask--
looking splendid. I'm all right myself--never felt better really. Just a
twinge of rheumatics last night, but it's nothing. Must expect something
at my age, you know--getting on for seventy."

"You look as though you'll live for ever," said Ronder, beaming upon him.

"You can't always tell from us big fellows. There's Brandon now, for
instance--the Archdeacon."

"Surely there isn't a healthier man in the kingdom," said Ronder, pushing
his spectacles back into the bridge of his nose.

"Think so, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. A sudden shock, and that man
would be nowhere. Given to fits of anger, always tried his system too
hard, never learnt control. Might have a stroke any day for all he looks
so strong!"

"Really, really! Dear me!" said Ronder.

"Course these are medical secrets in a way. Know it won't go any farther.
But it's curious, isn't it? Appearances are deceptive--damned deceptive.
That's what they are. Brandon's brain's never been his strong point. Might
go any moment."

"Dear me, dear me," said Ronder. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Oh, I don't mean," said Puddifoot, puffing and blowing out his cheeks
like a cherub in a picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that he'll die to-
morrow, you know--or have a stroke either. But he ain't as secure as he
looks. And he don't take care of himself as he should."

Outside the Library Ronder paused.

"Going in here for a book, doctor. See you later."

"Yes, yes," said Puddifoot, his eyes staring up and down the street, as
though they would burst out of his head. "Very good--very good. See you
later then," and so went blowing down the hill.

Ronder passed under the gloomy portals of the Library and found his way,
through faith rather than vision, up the stone stairs that smelt of mildew
and blotting-paper, into the high dingy room. He had had a sudden desire
the night before to read an old story by Bage that he had not seen since
he was a boy--the violent and melancholy _Hermsprong_.

It had come to him, as it were, in his dreams--a vision of himself rocking
in a hammock in his uncle's garden on a wonderful summer afternoon, eating
apples and reading _Hermsprong_, the book discovered, he knew not by
what chance, in the dusty depths of his uncle's library. He would like to
read it again. _Hermsprong_! the very scent of the skin of the apple,
the blue-necked tapestry of light between the high boughs came back to
him. He was a boy again.... He was brought up sharply by meeting the
little red-rimmed eyes of Miss Milton. Red-rimmed to-day, surely, with
recent weeping. She sat humped up on her chair, glaring out into the room.

"It's all right, Miss Milton," he said, smiling at her. "It's an old book
I want. I won't bother you. I'll look for myself."

He passed into the further dim secrecies of the Library, whither so few
penetrated. Here was an old ladder, and, mounted upon it, he confronted
the vanished masterpieces of Holcroft and Radcliffe, Lewis and Jane
Porter, Clara Reeve and MacKenzie, old calf-bound ghosts who threw up
little clouds of sighing dust as he touched them with his fingers. He was
happily preoccupied with his search, balancing his stout body precariously
on the trembling ladder, when he fancied that he heard a sigh.

He stopped and listened; this time there could be no mistake. It was a
sigh of prodigious intent and meaning, and it came from Miss Milton.
Impatiently he turned back to his books; he would find his Bage as quickly
as possible and go. He was not at all in the mood for lamentations from
Miss Milton. Ah! there was _Barham Downs. Hermsprong_ could not be
far away. Then suddenly there came to him quite unmistakably a sob, then
another, then two more, finally something that horribly resembled
hysterics. He came down from his ladder and crossed the room.

"My dear Miss Milton!" he exclaimed. "Is there anything I can do?"

She presented a strange and unpoetic appearance, huddled up in her wooden
arm-chair, one fat leg crooked under her, her head sinking into her ample
bosom, her whole figure shaking with convulsive grief, the chair creaking
sympathetically with her.

Ronder, seeing that she was in real distress, hurried up to her.

"My dear Miss Milton, what is it?"

For a while she could not speak; then raised a face of mottled purple and
white, and, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief not of the cleanest,
choked out between her sobs:

"My last week--Saturday--Saturday I go--disgrace--ugh, ugh--dismissed--
Archdeacon."

"But I don't understand," said Ronder, "who goes? Who's disgraced?"

"I go!" cried Miss Milton, suddenly uncurling her body and her sobs
checked by her anger. "I shouldn't have given way like this, and before
you, Canon Ronder. But I'm ruined--ruined!--and for doing my duty!"

Her change from the sobbing, broken woman to the impassioned avenger of
justice was so immediate that Ronder was confused. "I still don't
understand, Miss Milton," he said. "Do you say you are dismissed, and, if
so, by whom?"

"I _am_ dismissed! I _am_ dismissed!" cried Miss Milton. "I
leave here on Saturday. I have been librarian to this Library, Canon
Ronder, for more than twenty years. Yes, twenty years. And now I'm
dismissed like a dog with a month's notice."

She had collected her tears and, with a marvellous rapidity, packed them
away. Her eyes, although red, were dry and glittering; her cheeks were of
a pasty white marked with small red spots of indignation. Ronder, looking
at her and her dirty hands, thought that he had never seen a woman whom he
disliked more.

"But, Miss Milton," he said, "if you'll forgive me, I still don't
understand. Under whom do you hold this appointment? Who have the right to
dismiss you? and, whoever it was, they must have given some reason."

Miss Milton, was now the practical woman, speaking calmly, although her
bosom still heaved and her fingers plucked confusedly with papers on the
table in front of her. She spoke quietly, but behind her words there were
so vehement a hatred, bitterness and malice that Ronder observed her with
a new interest.

"There is a Library Committee, Canon Ronder," she said. "Lady St. Leath is
the president. It has in its hands the appointment of the librarian. It
appointed me more than twenty years ago. It has now dismissed me with a
month's notice for what it calls--what it _calls_, Canon Ronder--
'abuse and neglect of my duties.' Abuse! Neglect! Me! about whom there has
never been a word of complaint until--until----"

Here again Miss Milton's passions seemed to threaten to overwhelm her. She
gathered herself together with a great effort.

"I know my enemy, Canon Ronder. Make no mistake about that. I know my
enemy. Although, what I have ever done to him I cannot imagine. A more
inoffensive person----"

"Yes.--But," said Canon Ronder gently, "tell me, if you can, exactly with
what they charge you. Perhaps I can help you. Is it Lady St. Leath
who----"

"No, it is _not_ Lady St. Leath," broke in Miss Milton vehemently. "I
owe Lady St. Leath much in the past. If she has been a little imperious at
times, that after all is her right. Lady St. Leath is a perfect lady. What
occurred was simply this: Some months ago I was keeping a book for Lady
St. Leath that she especially wished to read. Miss Brandon, the daughter
of the Archdeacon, came in and tried to take the book from me, saying that
her mother wished to read it. I explained to her that it was being kept
for Lady St. Leath; nevertheless, she persisted and complained to Lord St.
Leath, who happened to be in the Library at the time; he, being a perfect
gentleman, could of course do nothing but say that she was to have the
book.

"She went home and complained, and it was the Archdeacon who brought up
the affair at a Committee meeting and insisted on my dismissal. Yes, Canon
Ronder, I know my enemy and I shall not forget it."

"Dear me," said Canon Ronder benevolently, "I'm more than sorry. Certainly
it sounds a little hasty, although the Archdeacon is the most honourable
of men."

"Honourable! Honourable!" Miss Milton rose in her chair. "Honourable! He's
so swollen with pride that he doesn't know what he is. Oh! I don't measure
my words. Canon Ronder, nor do I see any reason why I should.

"He has ruined my life. What have I now at my age to go to? A little
secretarial work, and less and less of that. But it's not _that_ of
which I complain. I am hurt in the very depths of my being, Canon Ronder.
In my pride and my honour. Stains, wounds that I can never forget!"

It was so exactly as though Miss Milton had just been reading
_Hermsprong_ and was quoting from it that Ronder looked about him,
almost expecting to see the dusty volume.

"Well, Miss Milton, perhaps I can put a little work in your way."

"You're very kind, sir," she said. "There's more than I in this town, sir,
who're glad that you've come among us, and hope that perhaps your presence
may lead to a change some day amongst those in high authority."

"Where are you living, Miss Milton?" he asked.

"Three St. James' Lane," she answered. "Just behind the Market and St.
James' Church. Opposite the Rectory. Two little rooms, my windows looking
on to Mr. Morris'."

"Very well, I'll remember."

"Thank you, sir, I'm sure. I'm afraid I've forgotten myself this morning,
but there's nothing like a sense of injustice for making you lose your
self-control. I don't care who hears me. I shall not forgive the
Archdeacon."

"Come, come, Miss Milton," said Ronder. "We must all forgive and forget."

Her eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared.

"I don't wish to be unfair, Canon Ronder," she said. "But I've worked for
more than twenty years like an honourable woman, and to be turned out.--
Not that I bear Mrs. Brandon any grudge, coming down to see Mr. Morris so
often as she does. I daresay she doesn't have too happy a time if all were
known."

"Now, now," said Ronder. "This won't do, Miss Milton. You won't make your
case better by talking scandal, you know. I have your address. If I can
help you I will. Good afternoon."

Forgetting _Hermsprong_, having now more important things to
consider, he found his way down the steps and out into the air.

On every side now it seemed that the Archdeacon was making some blunder.
Little unimportant blunders perhaps, but nevertheless cumulative in their
effect! The balance had shifted. The Powers of the Air, bored perhaps with
the too-extended spectacle of an Archdeacon successful and triumphant, had
made a sign....

Ronder, as he stood in the spring sunlight, glancing up and down the High
Street, so full of colour and movement, had an impulse as though it were
almost a duty to go and warn the Archdeacon. "Look out! Look out! There's
a storm coming!" Warn the Archdeacon! He smiled. He could imagine to
himself the scene and the reception his advice would have. Nevertheless,
how sad that undoubtedly you cannot make an omelette without first
breaking the eggs! And this omelette positively must be made!

He had intended to do a little shopping, an occupation in which he
delighted because of the personal victories to be won, but suddenly now,
moved by what impulse he could not tell, he turned back towards the
Cathedral. He crossed the Green, and almost before he knew it he had
pushed back the heavy West door and was in the dark, dimly coloured
shadow. The air was chill. The nave was scattered with lozenges of purple
and green light. He moved up the side aisle, thinking that now he was here
he would exchange a word or two with old Lawrence. No harm would be done
by a little casual amiability in that direction.

Before he realised, he was close to the Black Bishop's Tomb. The dark grim
face seemed to-day to wear a triumphant smile beneath the black beard. A
shaft of sunlight played upon the marble like a searchlight upon water;
the gold of the ironwork and the green ring and the tracery on the
scrolled borders jumped under the sunlight like living things.

Ronder, moved as always by beauty, smiled as though in answer to the dead
Bishop.

"Why! you're the most alive thing in this Cathedral," he thought to
himself.

"Pretty good bit of work, isn't it?" he heard at his elbow. He turned and
saw Davray, the painter. The man had been pointed out to him in the
street; he knew his reputation. He was inclined to be interested in the
man, in any one who had a wider, broader view of life than the citizens of
the town. Davray had not been drinking for several weeks; and always
towards the end of one of his sober bouts he was gentle, melancholy, the
true artist in him rising for one last view of the beauty that there was
in the world before the inevitable submerging.

He had, on this occasion, been sober for a longer period than usual; he
felt weak and faint, as though he had been without food, and his favourite
vice, that had been approaching closer and closer to him during these last
days, now leered at him, leaning towards him from the other side of the
gilded scrolls of the tomb.

"Yes, it's a very fine thing." He cleared his throat. "You're Canon
Ronder, are you not?"

"Yes, I am."

"My name's Davray. You probably heard of me as a drunkard who hangs about
the town doing no good. I'm quite sure you don't want to speak to me or
know me, but in here, where it's so quiet and so beautiful, one may know
people whom it wouldn't be nice to know outside."

Ronder looked at him. The man's face, worn now and pinched and sharp, must
once have had its fineness.

"You do yourself an injustice, Mr. Davray," Ronder said. "I'm very glad
indeed to know you."

"Well, of course, you parsons have got to know everybody, haven't you? And
the sinners especially. That's your job. But I'm not a sinner to-day. I
haven't drunk anything for weeks, although don't congratulate me, because
I'm certainly not going to hold out much longer. There's no hope of
redeeming me, Canon Ronder, even if you have time for the job."

Ronder smiled.

"I'm not going to preach to you," he said, "you needn't be afraid."

"Well, let's forget all that. This Cathedral is the very place, if you
clergymen had any sense of proportion, where you should be ashamed to
preach. It laughs at you."

"At any rate the Bishop does," said Ronder, looking down at the tomb.

"No, but all of it," said Davray. Instinctively they both looked up. High
above them, in the very heart of the great Cathedral tower, a mist,
reflected above the windows until it was coloured a very faint rose,
trembled like a sea about the black rafters and rounded pillars. Even as
they looked some bird flew twittering from corner to corner.

"When I'm worked up," said Davray, "which I'm not to-day, I just long to
clear all you officials out of it. I laugh sometimes to think how
important you think yourselves and how unimportant you really are. The
Cathedral laughs too, and once and again stretches out a great lazy finger
and just flicks you away as it would a spider's web. I hope you don't
think me impertinent."

"Not in the least," said Ronder; "some of us even may feel just as you do
about it."

"Brandon doesn't." Davray moved away. "I sometimes think that when I'm
properly drunk one day I'll murder that man. His self-sufficiency and
conceit are an insult to the Cathedral. But the Cathedral knows. It bides
its time."

Ronder looked gravely at the melancholy, ineffective figure with the pale
pointed beard, and the weak hands. "You speak very confidently, Mr.
Davray," he said. "As with all of us, you judge others by yourself. When
you know what the Cathedral's attitude to yourself is, you'll be able to
see more clearly."

"To myself!" Davray answered excitedly. "It has none! To myself? Why, I'm
nobody, nothing. It doesn't have to begin to consider me. I'm less than
the dung the birds drop from the height of the tower. But I'm humble
before it. I would let its meanest stone crush the life out of my body,
and be glad enough. At least I know its power, its beauty. And I adore it!
I adore it!"

He looked up as he spoke; his eyes seemed to be eagerly searching for some
expected face.

Ronder disliked both melodrama and sentimentality. Both were here.

"Take my advice," he said smiling. "Don't think too much about the
place...I'm glad that we met. Good afternoon."

Davray did not seem to have noticed him; he was staring down again at the
Bishop's Tomb. Ronder walked away. A strange man! A strange day! How
different people were! Neither better nor worse, but just different. As
many varieties as there were particles of sand on the seashore.

How impossible to be bored with life. Nevertheless, entering his own home
he was instantly bored. He found there, having tea with his aunt and
sitting beneath the Hermes, so that the contrast made her doubly
ridiculous, Julia Preston. Julia Preston was to him the most boring woman
in Polchester. To herself she was the most important. She was a widow and
lived in a little green house with a little green garden in the Polchester
outskirts. She was as pretty as she had been twenty years before, exactly
the same, save that what nature had, twenty years ago, done for the
asking, it now did under compulsion. She believed the whole world in love
with her and was therefore a thoroughly happy woman. She had a healthy
interest in the affairs of her neighbours, however small they might be,
and believed in "Truth, Beauty, and the Improvement of the Lower Classes."

"Dear Canon Ronder, how nice this is!" she exclaimed. "You've been hard at
work all the afternoon, I know, and want your tea. How splendid work is! I
often think what would life be without it'."

Ronder, who took trouble with everybody, smiled, sat down near to her and
looked as though he loved her.

"Well, to be quite honest, I haven't been working very hard. Just seeing a
few people."

"Just seeing a few people!" Mrs. Preston used a laugh that was a favourite
of hers because she had once been told that it was like "a tinkling bell."
"Listen to him! As though that weren't the hardest thing in the world.
Giving out! Giving out! What is so exhausting, and yet what so worth while
in the end? Unselfishness! I really sometimes feel that is the true secret
of life."

"Have one of those little cakes, Julia," said Miss Ronder drily. She,
unlike her nephew, bothered about very few people indeed. "Make a good
tea."

"I will, as you want me to, dear Alice," said Mrs. Preston. "Oh, thank
you, Canon Ronder! How good of you; ah, there! I've dropped my little bag.
It's under that table. Thank you a thousand times! And isn't it strange
about Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris?"

"Isn't what strange?" asked Miss Ronder, regarding her guest with grim
cynicism.

"Oh well--nothing really, except that every one's asking what they can
find in common. They're always together. Last Monday Aggie Combermere met
her coming out of the Rectory, then Ellen Stiles saw them in the Precincts
last Sunday afternoon, and I saw them myself this morning in the High
Street."

"My dear Mrs. Preston," said Ronder, "why _shouldn't_ they go about
together?"

"No reason at all," said Mrs. Preston, blushing very prettily, as she
always did when she fancied that any one was attacking her. "I'm sure that
I'm only too glad that poor Mrs. Brandon has found a friend. My motto in
life is, 'Let us all contribute to the happiness of one another to the
best of our strength.'

"Truly, that's a thing we can _all_ do, isn't it? Life isn't too
bright for some people, I can't help thinking. And courage is the thing.
After all, it isn't life that is important but simply how brave you are.

"At least that's my poor little idea of it. But it does seem a little odd
about Mrs. Brandon. She's always kept so much to herself until now."

"You worry too much about others, dear Julia," said Miss Ronder.

"Yes, I really believe I do. Why, there's my bag gone again! Oh, how good
of you, Canon! It's under that chair. Yes. I do. But one can't help one's
nature, can one? I often tell myself that it's really no credit to me
being unselfish. I was simply born that way. Poor Jack used to say that he
wished I _would_ think of myself more! I think we were meant to share
one another's burdens. I really do. And what Mrs. Brandon can see in Mr.
Morris is so odd, because _really_ he isn't an interesting man."

"Let me get you some more tea," said Ronder.

"No, thank you. I really must be going. I've been here an unconscionable
time. Oh! there's my handkerchief. How silly of me! Thank you so much!"

She got up and prepared to depart, looking so pretty and so helpless that
it was really astonishing that the Hermes did not appreciate her.

"Good-bye, dear Canon. No, I forbid you to come out. Oh, well, if you
will. I hear everywhere of the splendid work you're doing. Don't think it
flattery, but I do think we needed you here. What we have wanted is a
message--something to lift us all up a little. It's so easy to see nothing
but the dreary round, isn't it? And all the time the stars are shining....
At least that's how it seems to me."

The door closed; the room was suddenly silent. Miss Ronder sat without
moving, her eyes staring in front of her.

Soon Ronder returned.

Miss Ronder said nothing. She was the one human being who had power to
embarrass him. She was embarrassing him now.

"Aren't things strange?" he said. "I've seen four different people this
afternoon. They have all of their own accord instantly talked about
Brandon, and abused him. Brandon is in the air. He's in danger."

Miss Ronder looked her nephew straight between the eyes.

"Frederick," she said, "how much have you had to do with this?"

"To do with this? To do with what?"

"All this talk about the Brandons."

"I! Nothing at all."

"Nonsense. Don't tell me. Ever since you set foot in this town you've been
determined that Brandon should go. Are you playing fair?"

He got up, stood opposite her, legs apart, his hands crossed behind his
broad back.

"Fair? Absolutely."

Her eyes were full of distress. "Through all these years," she said, "I've
never truly known you. All I know is that you've always got what you
wanted. You're going to get what you want now. Do it decently."

"You needn't be afraid," he said.

"I _am_ afraid," she said. "I love you, Fred; I have always loved
you. I'd hate to lose that love. It's one of my most precious
possessions."

He answered her slowly, as though he were thinking things out. "I've
always told you the truth," he said; "I'm telling you the truth now. Of
course I want Brandon to go, and of course he's going. But I haven't to
move a finger in the matter. It's all advancing without my agency. Brandon
is ruining himself. Even if he weren't, I'm quite square with him. I
fought him openly at the Chapter Meeting the other day. He hates me for
it."

"And you hate _him_."

"_Hate_ him? Not the least in the world. I admire and like him. If
only he were in a less powerful position and were not in my way, I'd be
his best friend. He's a fine fellow--stupid, blind, conceited, but finer
made than I am. I like him better than any man in the town."

"I don't understand you"; she dropped her eyes from his face. "You're
extraordinary."

He sat down again as though he recognised that the little contest was
closed.

"Is there anything in this, do you think? This chatter about Mrs. Brandon
and Morris."

"I don't know. There's a lot of talk beginning. Ellen Stiles is largely
responsible, I fancy."

"Mrs. Brandon and Morris! Good Lord! Have you ever heard of a man called
Davray?"

"Yes, a drunken painter, isn't he? Why?"

"I talked to him in the Cathedral this afternoon. He has a grudge against
Brandon too...Well, I'm going up to the study."

He bent over, kissed her forehead tenderly and left the room.

Throughout that evening he was uncomfortable, and when he was
uncomfortable he was a strange being. His impulses, his motives, his
intentions were like a sheaf of corn bound tightly about by his sense of
comfort and well-being. When that sense was disturbed everything fell
apart and he seemed to be facing a new world full of elements that he
always denied. His aunt had a greater power of disturbing him than had any
other human being. He knew that she spoke what she believed to be the
truth; he felt that, in spite of her denials, she knew him. He was often
surprised at the eagerness with which he wanted her approval.

As he sat back in his chair that evening in Bentinck-Major's comfortable
library and watched the other, this sense of discomfort persisted so
strongly that he found it very difficult to let his mind bite into the
discussion. And yet this meeting was immensely important to him. It was
the first obvious result of the manoeuvring of the last months. This was
definitely a meeting of Conspirators, and all of those engaged in it, with
one exception, knew that that was so. Bentinck-Major knew it, and Foster
and Ryle and Rogers. The exception was Martin, a young Minor Canon, who
had the living of St. Joseph's-in-the-Fields, a slum parish in the lower
part of the town.

Martin had been invited because he was the best clergyman in Polchester.
Young though he was, every one was already aware of his strength,
integrity, power with the men of the town, sense of humour and
intelligence. There was, perhaps, no man in the whole of Polchester whom
Ronder was so anxious to have on his side.

He was a man with a scorn of any intrigue, deeply religious, but human and
impatient of humbug.

Ronder knew that he was the Polchester clergyman beyond all others who
would in later years come to great power, although at present he had
nothing save his Minor Canonry and small living. He was not perhaps a
deeply read man, he was of no especial family nor school and had graduated
at Durham University. In appearance he was common-place, thin, tall, with
light sandy hair and mild good-tempered eyes. It had been Ronder's
intention that he should be invited. Foster, who was more responsible for
the meeting than any one, had protested.

"Martin--what's the point of Martin?"

"You'll see in five years' time," Ronder had answered.

Now, as Ronder looked round at them all, he moved restlessly in his chair.

Was it true that his aunt was changing her opinion of him? Would he have
to deal, during the coming months, with persistent disapproval and
opposition from her? And it was so unfair. He had meant absolutely what he
said, that he liked Brandon and wished him no harm. He _did_ believe
that it was for the good of the town that Brandon should go....

He was pulled up by Foster, who was asking him to tell them exactly what
it was that they were to discuss. Instinctively he looked at Martin as he
spoke. As always, with the first word there came over him a sense of
mastery and happiness, a desire to move people like pawns, a readiness to
twist any principle, moral and ethical, if he might bend it to his
purpose. Instinctively he pitched his voice, formed his mouth, spread his
hands upon the broad arms of his chair exactly as an actor fills in his
part.

"I object a little," he said, laughing, "to Foster's suggestion that I am
responsible for our talking here. I've no right to be responsible for
anything when I've been in the place so short a time. All the same, I
don't want to pretend to any false modesty. I've been in Polchester long
enough to be fond of it, and I'm going to be fonder of it still before
I've done. I don't want to pretend to any sentimentality either, but there
are broader issues than merely the fortunes of this Cathedral in danger.

"Because I feel the danger, I intend to speak out about it, and get any
one on my side I can. When I find that Canon Foster who has been here so
long and loves the Cathedral so passionately and so honestly, if I may say
so, feels as I do, then I'm only strengthened in my determination. I don't
care who says that I've no right to push myself forward about this. I'm
not pushing myself forward.

"As soon as some one else will take the cause in hand I'll step back, but
I'm not going to see the battle lost simply because I'm afraid of what
people will say of me.... Well, this is all fine words. The point simply
is that, as every one knows, poor Morrison is desperately ill and the
living of Pybus St. Anthony may fall vacant at any moment. The appointment
is a Chapter appointment. The living isn't anything very tremendous in
itself, but it has been looked upon for years as _the_ jumping-off
place for preferment in the diocese. Time after time the man who has gone
there has become the most important influence here. Men are generally
chosen, as I understand it, with that in view. These are, of course, all
commonplaces to you, but I'm recapitulating them because it makes my point
the stronger. Morrison with all his merits was not out of the way
intellectually. This time we want an exceptional man.

"I've only been here a few months, but I've noticed many things, and I
will definitely say that the Cathedral is at a crisis in its history.
Perhaps the mere fact that this is Jubilee Year makes us all more ready to
take stock than we would otherwise have been. But it is not only that. The
Church is being attacked from all sides. I don't believe that there has
ever been a time when the west of England needed new blood, new thought,
new energy more than it does at this time. The vacancy at Pybus will offer
a most wonderful opportunity to bring that force among us. I should have
thought every one would realise that.

"It happens, however, that I have discovered on first-hand evidence that
there is a strong resolve on the part of most important persons in this
town (I will mention no names) to fill the living with the most
unsatisfactory, worthless and conservative influence that could possibly
be found anywhere. If that influence succeeds I don't believe I'm
exaggerating when I say that the progress of the religious life here is
flung back fifty years. One of the greatest opportunities the Chapter can
ever have had will have been missed. I don't think we can regard the
crisis as too serious."

Foster broke in: "Why _not_ mention names, Canon? We've no time to
waste. It's all humbug pretending we don't know whom you mean. It's
Brandon who wants to put young Forsyth into Pybus whom we're fighting.
Let's be honest."

"No. I won't allow that," Ronder said quickly. "We're fighting no
personalities. Speaking for myself, there's no one I admire more in this
town than Brandon. I think him reactionary and opposed to new ideas, and a
dangerous influence here, but there's no personal feeling in any of this.
We've got to keep personalities out of this. There's something bigger than
our own likes and dislikes in this."

"Words! Words," said Foster angrily. "I hate Brandon. You hate him,
Ronder, for all you're so circumspect. It's true enough that we don't want
young Forsyth at Pybus, but it's truer still that we want to bring the
Archdeacon's pride down. And we're going to."

The atmosphere was electric. Rogers' thin and bony features were flushed
with pleasure at Foster's denunciation. Bentinck-Major rubbed his soft
hands one against the other and closed his eyes as though he were
determined to be a gentleman to the last; Martin sat upright in his chair,
his face puzzled, his gaze fixed upon Ronder; Ryle, the picture of nervous
embarrassment, glanced from one face to another, as though imploring every
one not to be angry with him--all these sharp words were certainly not his
fault.

Ronder was vexed with himself. He was certainly not at his best to-night.
He had realised the personalities that were around him, and yet had not
steered his boat among them with the dexterous skill that was usually his.

In his heart he cursed Foster for a meddling, cantankerous fanatic.

Rogers broke in. "I must say," he exclaimed in a strange shrill voice like
a peacock's, "that I associate myself with every word of Canon Foster's.
Whatever we may pretend in public, the great desire of our hearts is to
drive Brandon out of the place. The sooner we do it the better. It should
have been done long ago."

Martin spoke. "I'm sorry," he said. "If I had known that this meeting was
to be a personal attack on the Archdeacon, I never would have come. I
don't think the diocese has a finer servant than Archdeacon Brandon. I
admire him immensely. He has made mistakes. So do we all of course. But I
have the highest opinion of his character, his work and his importance
here, and I would like every one in the room to know that before we go any
further."

"That's right. That's right," said Ryle, smiling around nervously upon
every one. "Canon Martin is right, don't you think? I hope nobody here
will say that I have any ill feeling against the Archdeacon. I haven't,
indeed, and I shouldn't like any one to charge me with it."

Ronder struck in then, and his voice was so strong, so filled with
authority, that every one looked up as though some new figure had entered
the room.

"I should like to emphasise at once," he said, "so that no one here or
anywhere else can be under the slightest misapprehension, that I will take
part in nothing that has any personal animus towards anybody. Surely this
is a question of Pybus and Forsyth and of nothing else at all. I have not
even anything against Mr. Forsyth; I have never seen him--I wish him all
the luck in life. But we are fighting a battle for the Pybus living and
for nothing more nor less than that.

"If my own brother wanted that living and was not the right man for it I
would fight him. The Archdeacon does not see the thing at present as we
do; it is possible that very shortly he may. As soon as he does I'm behind
him."

Foster shook his head. "Have it your own way," he said. "Everything's the
same here--always compromise. Compromise! Compromise! I'm sick of the
cowardly word. We'll say no more of Brandon for the moment then. He'll
come up again, never fear. He's not the sort of man to avoid spoiling his
own soup."

"Very good," said Bentinck-Major in his most patronising manner. "Now we
are all agreed, I think. You will have noticed that I've been waiting for
this moment to suggest that we should come to business. Our business, I
believe, is to obtain what support we can against the gift of the living
to Mr. Forsyth and to suggest some other candidate...hum, haw...yes,
other candidate."

"There's only one possible candidate," Foster brought out, banging his
lean fist down upon the table near to him. "And that's Wistons of Hawston.
It's been the wish of my heart for years back to bring Wistons here. We
don't know, of course, if he would come, but I think he could be
persuaded. And then--then there'd be hope once more! God would be served!
His Church would be a fitting Tabernacle!..."

He broke off. Amazing to see the rapt devotion that now lighted up his
ugly face until it shone with saintly beauty. The harsh lines were
softened, the eyes were gentle, the mouth tender. "Then indeed," he almost
whispered, "I might say my 'Nunc Dimittis' and go."

It was not he alone who was stirred. Martin spoke eagerly: "Is that the
Wistons of the _Four Creeds_?--the man who wrote _The New Apocalypse_?"

Foster smiled. "There's only one Wistons," he said, pride ringing in his
voice as though he were speaking of his favourite son, "for all the
world."

"Why, that would be magnificent," Martin said, "if he'd come. But would
he? I should think that very doubtful."

"I think he would," said Foster softly, still as though he were speaking
to himself.

"Why, that, of course, is wonderful!" Martin looked round upon them all,
his eyes glowing. "There isn't a man in England----" He broke off. "But
surely if there's a _real_ chance of getting Wistons nobody on the
Chapter would dream of proposing a man like Forsyth. It's incredible!"

"Incredible!" burst in Foster. "Not a bit of it! Do you suppose Brandon--I
beg pardon for mentioning his name, as we're all so particular--do you
suppose Brandon wouldn't fight just such a man? He regards him as
dangerous, modern, subversive, heretical, anything you please. Wistons!
Why, he'd make Brandon's hair stand on end!"

"Well," said Martin gravely, "if there's any real chance of getting
Wistons into this diocese I'll work for it with my coat off."

"Good," said Bentinck-Major, tapping with a little gold pencil that he had
been fingering, on the table. "Now we are all agreed. The next question
is, what steps are we to take?"

They all looked instinctively at Ronder. He felt their glances. He was
happy, assured, comfortable once more. He was master of them. They lay in
his hand for him to do as he would with them. His brain now moved clearly,
smoothly, like a beautiful shining machine. His eyes glowed.

"Now, it's occurred to me----" he said. They all drew their chairs closer.




Chapter V

Falk by the River



Upon that same evening when the conspirators met in Bentinck-Major's
handsome study Mrs. Brandon had a ridiculous fit of hysterics.

She had never had hysterics before; the fit came upon her now when she was
sitting in front of her glass brushing her hair. She was dressing for
dinner and could see her reflection, white and thin, in the mirror before
her. Suddenly the face in the glass began to smile and it became at that
same instant another face that she had never seen before.

It was a horrid smile and broke suddenly into laughter. It was as though
the face had been hit by something and cracked then into a thousand
pieces.

She laughed until the tears poured down her cheeks, but her eyes
protested, looking piteously and in dismay from the studied glass. She
knew that she was laughing with shrill high cries, and behind her horror
at her collapse there was a desperate protesting attempt to calm herself,
driven, above all, upon her agitated heart by the fear lest her husband
should come in and discover her.

The laughter ceased quite suddenly and was followed by a rush of tears.
She cried as though her heart would break, then, with trembling steps,
crossed to her bed and lay down. Very shortly she must control herself
because the dinner-bell would ring and she must go. To stay and send the
conventional excuse of a headache would bring her husband up to her, and
although he was so full of his own affairs that the questions that he
would ask her would be perfunctory and absent-minded, she felt that she
could not endure, just now, to be alone with him.

She lay on her bed shivering and wondering what malign power it was that
had seized her. Malign it was, she did not for an instant doubt. She had
asked, did ask, for so little. Only to see Morris for a moment every day.
To see him anywhere in as public a place as you please, but to see him, to
hear his voice, to look into his eyes, to touch his hand (soft and gentle
like a woman's hand)--that had been now for months an absolute necessity.
She did not ask more than that, and yet she was aware that there was no
pause in the accumulating force of the passion that was seizing her. She
was being drawn along by two opposite powers--the tenderness of protective
maternal love and the ruthlessness of the lust for possession.

She wanted to care for him, to watch over him, to guard him, to do
everything for him, and also she wanted to feel her hold over him, to see
him move, almost as though he were hypnotised, towards her.

The thought of him, the perpetual incessant thought of him, ruled out the
thought of every one else in the world--save only Falk. She scarcely now
considered her husband at all; she never for an instant wondered whether
people in the town were talking. She saw only Morris and her future with
Morris--only that and Falk.

Upon Falk now everything hung. She had made a kind of bargain. If Falk
stayed and loved her and cared for her she would resist the power that was
drawing her towards Morris. Now, a million times more than before she had
met Morris, she must have some one for whom she could care. It was as
though a lamp had been lit and flung a great track of light over those
dark, empty earlier years. How could she ever have lived as she did? The
hunger, the desperate, eager, greedy hunger was roused in her. Falk could
satisfy it, but, if he would not, then she would hesitate no longer.

She would seize Morris as a tiger seizes its prey. She did not disguise
that from herself. As she lay now, trembling, upon her bed, she never
hesitated to admit to herself that the thought of her domination over
Morris was her great glory. She had never dominated any one before. He
followed her like a man in a dream, and she was not young, she was not
beautiful, she was not clever....

It was her own personal, personal, personal triumph. And then, on that,
there swept over her the flood of her tenderness for him, how she longed
to be good to him, to care for him, to mend and sew and cook and wash for
him, to perform the humblest tasks for him, to nurse him and protect him.
She knew that the end of this might be social ruin for both of them!...
Ah, well, then, he would only need her the more! She was quieter now--the
trembling ceased. How strange the way that during these months they had
been meeting, so often without their own direct agency at all! She
recalled every moment, every gesture, every word. He seemed already to be
part of herself, moving within herself.

She sat up on her bed; moved back to her glass. She bathed her face,
slipped on her dress, and went downstairs.

They were a family party at dinner, but, of course, without Falk. He was
always out in the evening now.

Joan talked, chattered on. The meal was soon over. The Archdeacon went to
his study, and the two women sat in the drawing-room, Joan by the window,
Mrs. Brandon, hidden in a high arm-chair, near the fireplace. The clock
ticked on and the Cathedral bells struck the quarters. Joan's white dress,
beyond the circle of lamp-light was a dim shadow. Mrs. Brandon turned the
pages of her book, her ears straining for the sound of Falk's return.

As she sat there, so inattentively turning the pages of her book, the
foreboding sense of some approaching drama flooded the room. For how many
years had she lived from day to day and nothing had occurred--so long that
life had been unconscious, doped, inert. Now it had sprung into vitality
again with the sudden frantic impertinence of a Jack-in-the-Box. For
twenty years you are dry on the banks, half-asleep, stretching out lazy
fingers for food, slumbering, waking, slumbering again. Suddenly a wave
comes and you are swept off--swept off into what disastrous sea?

She did not think in pictures, it was not her way, but to-night, half-
terrified, half-exultant, in the long dim room she waited, the pressure of
her heart beating up into her throat, listening, watching Joan furtively,
seeing Morris, his eternal shadow, itching with its long tapering fingers
to draw her away with him beyond the house. No, she would be true with
herself. It was he who would be drawn away. The power was in her, not in
him....

She looked wearily across at Joan. The child was irritating to her as she
had always been. She had never, in any case, cared for her own sex, and
now, as so frequently with women who are about to plunge into some
passionate situation, she regarded every one she saw as a potential
interferer. She despised women as most women in their secret hearts do,
and especially she despised Joan.

"You'd better go up to bed, dear. It's half-past ten."

Without a word Joan got up, came across the room, kissed her mother, went
to the door. Then she paused.

"Mother," she said, hesitating, and then speaking timidly, "is father all
right?"

"All right, dear?"

"Yes. He doesn't look well. His forehead is all flushed, and I overheard
some one at the Sampsons' say the other day that he wasn't well really,
that he must take great care of himself. Ought he to?"

"Ought he what?"

"To take great care of himself."

"What nonsense!" Mrs. Brandon turned back to her book impatiently. "There
never was any one so strong and healthy."

"He's always worrying about something. It's his nature."

"Yes, I suppose so."

Joan vanished. Mrs. Brandon sat, staring before her, her mind running with
the clock--tick-tick-tick-tick--and then suddenly jumping at the mellow
liquid gurgle that it sometimes gave. Would her husband come in and say
good-night?

How she had grown, during these last weeks, to loathe his kiss! He would
stand behind her chair, bending his great body over her, his red face
would come down, then the whiff of tobacco, then the rough pressure on her
cheek, the hard, unmeaning contact of his lips and hers. His beautiful
eyes would stare beyond her, absently into the room. Beautiful! Why, yes,
they were famous eyes, famous the diocese through. How well she remembered
those years, long ago, when they had seemed to speak to her of every
conceivable tenderness and sweetness, and how, when he thus had bent over
her, she had stretched up her hand and found the buttons of his waistcoat
and pushed her fingers in, stroking his shirt and feeling his heart thump,
thump, and so warm beneath her touch.

Life! Life! What a cheat! What a cheat! She jumped from her chair, letting
the book drop upon the floor, and began to pace the room. And why should
not this, too, cheat her once again? With the tenderness, the poignancy
with which she now looked upon Morris so once she had looked upon Brandon.
Yes, that might be. She would cheat herself no longer. But she was older
now. This was the last chance to live--definitely, positively the last. It
was not the desire to be loved, this time, that drove her forward so
urgently as the desire to love. She knew that, because Falk would do. If
Falk would stay, would let her care for him and mother him and be with
him, she would drive Morris from her heart and brain.

Yes, she almost cried aloud in the dark room. "Give me Falk and I will
leave the other. Give me my own son. That's my right--every mother's
right. If I am refused it, it is just that I should take what I can get
instead."

"Give him to me! Give him to me!" One thing at least was certain. She
could never return to the old lethargy. That first meeting with Morris had
fired her into life. She could not go back and she was glad that she could
not....

She stopped in the middle of the room to listen. The hall-door closed
softly; suddenly the line of light below the door vanished. Some one had
turned down the hall-lamp. She went to the drawing-room door, opened it,
looked out, crying softly:

"Falk! Falk!"

"Yes, mother." He came across to her. He was holding a lighted candle in
his hand. "Are you still up?"

"Yes, it isn't very late. Barely eleven. Come into the drawing-room."

They went back into the room. He closed the door behind him, then put the
candle down on to a small round table; they sat in the candle-light, one
on either side of the table.

He looked at her and thought how small and fragile she looked and how
little, anyway, she meant to him.

How much most mothers meant to their sons, and how little she had ever
meant to him! He had always taken his father's view of her, that it was
necessary for her to be there, that she naturally did her best, but that
she did not expect you to think about her.

"You ought to be in bed," he said, wishing that she would release him.

For the first time in her life she spoke to him spontaneously, losing
entirely the sense that she had always had, that both he and his father
would go away and leave her if she were tiresome.

To-night he would _not_ go away--not until she had struck her bargain
with him.

"What have you been up to all these weeks, Falk?" she asked.

"Up to?" he repeated. Her challenge was unexpected.

"Yes; of course I know you're up to something, and you _know_ that I
know. You must tell me. I'm your mother and I ought to be told."

He knew at once as soon as she spoke that she was the very last person in
the world to whom he wished to tell anything. He was tired, dead tired,
and wanted to go to bed, but he was arrested by the urgency in her voice.
What was the matter with her? So intent had he been, for the past months,
on his own affairs that he had not thought of his mother at all. He looked
across the table at her--a little insignificant woman, colourless, with no
personality. And yet to-night something was happening to her. He felt all
the impatience of a man who is closely occupied with his own drama but is
forced, quite against his will, to consider some one else.

"There isn't anything to tell you, mother. Really there is not. I've just
been kicking my heels round this blasted town for the last few months and
I'm restless. I'll be going up to London very shortly."

"Why need you?" she asked him. The candle flame seemed to jump with the
sharpness of her voice.

"Why need I? But of course I must. I ask you, is this a place for _any
one_ to settle down in?"

"I don't know why it shouldn't be. I should have thought you could be very
happy here. There are so many things you could do."

"What, for instance?"

"You could be a solicitor, or go into business, or--or--why, you'd soon
find something."

He got up, taking the candle in his hand.

"Well, if that's your idea, mother, I'm sorry, but you can just put it out
of your head once and for all. I'd rather be buried alive than stay in
this hole. I _would_ be buried alive if I stayed."

She looked up at him. He was so tall, so handsome, _and so distant_--
some one who had no connection with her at all. She too got up, putting
her little hand on his arm.

"Then are we, all of us, to count for nothing at all?"

"Of course you count," he answered impatiently, irritated by the pressure
of her fingers on his coat. "You'll see plenty of me. But you can't
possibly expect me to live here. I've completely wasted my beautiful young
life so far--now apparently you want me to waste the rest of it."

"Then," she said, coming nearer to him and dropping her voice, "take me
with you."

"Take you with me!" He stepped back from her. He could not believe that he
had heard her correctly. "Take _you_ with me?"

"Yes."

"Take you with me?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

It was the greatest surprise of his life. He stared at her in his
amazement, putting the candle back upon the table.

"But why?"

"Why?...Why do you think?...Because I love you and want to be with you."

"Be with me? Leave this? Leave Polchester?...Leave father?"

"Yes, why not? Your father doesn't need me any longer. Nobody wants me
here. Why shouldn't I go?"

He came close to her, giving her now all his attention, staring at her as
though he were seeing her for the first time in his life.

"Mother, aren't you well?...Aren't you happy?"

She laughed. "Happy? Oh, yes, so happy that I'd drown myself to-night if
that would do any good."

"Here, sit down." He almost pushed her back into her chair. "We've got to
have this out. I don't know what you're talking about. You're unhappy?
Why, what's the matter?"

"The matter? Oh, nothing!" she answered. "Nothing at all, except for the
last ten years I've hated this place, hated this house, hated your
father."

"Hated father?"

He stared at her as though she had in a moment gone completely mad.

"Yes, why not?" she answered quietly. "What has he ever done that I should
feel otherwise? What attention has he ever paid to me? When has he ever
considered me except as a sort of convenient housekeeper and mistress whom
he pays to keep near him? Why shouldn't I hate him? You're very young,
Falk, and it would probably surprise you to know how many quiet stay-at-
home wives there are who hate their good, honest, well-meaning husbands."

He drew a deep breath.

"What's father ever done," he said, "to make you hate him?"

She should have realised then, from the sound in his voice, that she was,
in her preoccupation with her own affairs, forgetting one of the principal
elements in the whole case, his love for his father.

"It isn't what he's done," she answered. "It's what he hasn't done. Whom
has he ever considered but himself? Isn't his conceit so big that he can't
see any one but himself. Why should we go on pretending that he's so great
and wonderful? Do you suppose that any one can live for twenty years and
more with your father and not see how small and selfish and mean he is?
How he----"

"You're not to say that," Falk interrupted her angrily. "Father may have
his faults--so has every one--but we've got worse ones. He isn't mean and
he isn't small. He may seem conceited, but that's only because he cares so
for the Cathedral and knows what he's done for it. He's the finest man I
know anywhere. He doesn't see things as I do--I don't suppose that father
and son ever do see alike--but that needn't prevent me from admiring him.
Why, mother, what's come over you? You can't be well. Leave father! Why,
it would be terrible! Think of the talk there'd be! Why, it would ruin
father here. He'd never get over it."

She saw then the mistake that she had made. She looked across at him
beseechingly.

"You're right, Falk. I didn't mean that, I don't mean that. But I'm so
unhappy that I don't know what I'm saying. All I want is to be with you.
It wouldn't hurt father if I went up to London with you for a little. What
I really want is a holiday. I could come back after a month or two
refreshed. I'm tired."

Suddenly while she was speaking the ironical contrast hit him. Here was he
amazed at his mother for daring to contemplate a step that would do his
father harm, while he, he who professed to love his father, was about to
do something that would cause the whole town to talk for a year. But that
was different. Surely it was different. He was young and must make his own
life. He must be allowed to marry whom he would. It was not as though he
were intending to ruin the girl....

Nevertheless, this sudden comparison bewildered and shocked him.

He leant across the table to her. "You must never leave father--never," he
said. "You mustn't think of it. He wants you badly. He mayn't show it
exactly as you want it. Men aren't demonstrative as women are, but he'd be
miserable if you went away. He loves you in his own fashion, which is just
as good as yours, only different. You must _never_ leave him, mother,
do you hear?"

She saw that she was defeated, entirely and completely. She cried to the
Powers:

"You've refused me what I ask. I go my own way, then."

She got up, kissed him on the forehead and said: "I daresay you're right,
Falk. Forget what I've said. I didn't mean most of it. Good-night, dear."

She went out, quietly closing the door behind her.

 Falk did not sleep at all that night. This was only one of many sleepless
nights, but it was the worst of them. The night was warm, and a faint dim
colour lingered behind the treetops of the garden beyond his open window.
First he lay under the clothes, then upon the top of his bed, then
stripped, plunging his head into a basin of water, then naked save for his
soft bedroom slippers, paced his room...His head was a flaming fire. The
pale light seemed for an instant to vanish, and the world was dark and
silent. Then, at the striking of the Cathedral clock, as though it were a
signal upon some stage, the light slowly crept back again, growing ever
stronger and stronger. The birds began to twitter; a cock crew. A bar of
golden light broken by the squares and patterns of the dark trees struck
the air.

The shock of his mother's announcement had been terrific. It was not only
the surprise of it, it was the sudden light that it flung upon his own
case. He had gone, during these last weeks, so far with Annie Hogg that it
was hard indeed to see how there could be any stepping back. They had
achieved a strange relationship together: one not of comradeship, nor of
lust, nor of desire, nor of affection, having a little of all these things
but not much of any of them, and finally resembling the case of two
strangers, shipwrecked, hanging on to a floating spar of wood that might
bring them into safety.

She was miserable; he was miserable; whether she cared for him he could
not tell, nor whether he cared for her. The excitement that she created in
him was intense, all-devouring, but it was not an excitement of lust. He
had never done more than kiss her, and he was quite ready that it should
remain so. He intended, perhaps, to marry her, but of that he could not be
sure.

But he could not leave her; he could not keep away from her although he
was seldom happy when he was with her. Slowly, gradually, through their
meetings there had grown a bond. He was more naturally himself with her
than with any other human being. Although she excited him she also
tranquillised him. Increasingly he admired and respected her--her honesty,
independence, reserve, pride. Perhaps it was upon that that their alliance
was really based--upon mutual respect and admiration. There had been
never, from the very first moment, any deception between them. He had
never been so honest with any one before--certainly not with himself. His
desire, beyond everything else in life, was to be honest: to pretend to no
emotion that he did not truly feel, to see exactly how he felt about life,
and to stand up before it unafraid and uncowed. Honesty seemed to him the
greatest quality in life; that was why he had been attracted to Ronder.
And yet life seemed to be for ever driving him into false positions. Even
now he was contemplating running away with this girl. Until to-night he
had fancied that he was only contemplating it, but his conversation with
his mother had shown him how near he was to a decision. Nevertheless, he
would talk to Ronder and to his father, not, of course, telling them
everything, but catching perhaps from them some advice that would seem to
him so true that it would guide him.

Finally, when the gold bar appeared behind the trees he forced himself
into honesty with his father. How could he have meant so sincerely that
his mother must not hurt his father when he himself was about to hurt him?

And this discovery had not lessened his determination to take the step.
Was he, then, utterly hypocritical? He knew he was not.

He could look ahead of his own affair and see that in the end his father
would admit that it had been best for him. They all knew--even his mother
must in her heart have known--that he was not going to live in Polchester
for ever. His departure for London was inevitable, and it simply was that
he would take Annie with him. That would be for a moment a blow to his
father, but it would not be so for long. And in the town his father would
win sympathy; he, Falk, would be condemned and despised. They would say:
"Ah, that young Brandon. He never was any good. His father did all he
could, but it was no use...." And then in a little time there would come
the news that he was doing well in London, and all would be right.

He looked to his talk with Ronder. Ronder would advise well. Ronder knew
life. He was not provincial like these others....

Suddenly he was cold. He went back to bed and slept dreamlessly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next evening, as half-past eight was striking, he was at his customary
post by the river, above the "Dog and Pilchard."

A heavy storm was mounting up behind the Cathedral, black clouds being
piled tier on tier as though some gigantic shopman were shooting out rolls
of carpet for the benefit of some celestial purchaser. The Cathedral shone
in the last flash of the fleeing light with a strange phantasmal silver
sheen; once more it was a ship sailing high before the tempest.

Down by the river the dusk was grey and sodden. The river, flowing
sullenly, was a lighter dark between the line of houses and the bending
fields. The air was so heavy that men seemed to walk with bending backs as
though the burden was more than they could sustain. This section of the
river had become now to Falk something that was part of himself. The old
mill, the group of trees beside it, the low dam over which the water fell
with its own peculiar drunken gurgle, the pathway with its gritty stony
surface, so that it seemed to grind its teeth in protest at every step
that you took, on the left the town piled high behind you with the
Cathedral winged and dominant and supreme, the cool sloping fields beyond
the river, the dark bend of the wood cutting the horizon--these things
were his history and he was theirs.

There were many other places to which they might have gone, other times
that they might have chosen, but circumstances and accident had found for
them always this same background. He had long ago ceased to consider
whether any one was watching them or talking about them. They were,
neither of them, cowards, although to Annie her father was a figure of
sinister power and evil desire. She hated her father, believed him capable
of infinite wickedness, but did not fear him enough to hesitate to face
him. Nevertheless, it was from him that she was chiefly escaping, and she
gave to Falk a curious consciousness of the depths of malice and vice that
lay hidden behind that smiling face, in the secret places of that fat
jolly body. Falk was certain now that Hogg knew of their meetings; he
suspected that he had known of them from the first. Hogg had his faults
but they did not frighten Falk, who was, indeed, afraid of no man alive
save only himself.

The other element in the affair that increased as the week passed was
Falk's consciousness of the strange spirit of nobility that there was in
Annie. Although she stirred him so deeply she did not blind him as to her
character. He saw her exactly for what she was--uneducated, ignorant,
limited in all her outlook, common in many ways, sometimes surly, often
superstitious; but through all these things that strain of nobility ran,
showing itself in many unexpected places, calling to him like an echo from
some high, far-distant source. Because of it he was beginning to wonder
whether after all the alliance that was beginning to spring up between
them might not be something more permanent and durable than at first he
had ever supposed it could be. He was beginning to wonder whether he had
not been fortunate far beyond his deserts....

On this thunder-night they met like old friends who had known one another
for many years and between whom there had never been anything but
comradeship. They did not kiss, but simply touched hands and moved up
through the gathering dark to the little bridge below the mill. From here
they felt the impact of the chattering water rising to them and falling
again like a comment on their talk.

"It'll not be many more times," Annie said, "we'll be coming here."

"Why?" Falk asked.

"Because I'm going up to London whether you come or no--and _soon_
I'm going."

He admired nothing in her more than the clear-cut decision of her mind,
which moved quietly from point to point, asking no advice, allowing no
regrets when the decision was once made.

"What has happened since last time?"

"Happened? Nothing. Only father and the 'Dog,' and drink. I'm through with
it."

"And what would you do in London if you went up alone?"

She flung up her head suddenly, laughing. "You think I'm helpless, don't
you? Well, I'm not."

"No, I don't--but you don't know London."

"A fearsome place, mebbe, but not more disgustin' than father."

There was irritation in his voice as he said:

"Then it doesn't matter to you whether I come with you or not?"

Her reply was soft. She suddenly put out her hand and took his.

"Of course it matters. We're friends. The best friend I'm likely to find,
I reckon. What would I be meeting you for all these months if I didn't
care for you? Just to be admiring the scenery?--shouldn't like."

She laughed softly.

She went on: "I'm ready to go with you or without you. If we go together
I'm independent, just as though I went without you. I'm independent of
every one--father and you and all. I'll marry you if you want me, or I'll
live with you without marrying, or I'll live without you and never see you
again. I won't say that leaving you wouldn't hurt. It would, after being
with you all these weeks; but I'd rather be hurt than be dependent."

He held her hand tightly between his two.

"Folks 'ud say," she went on, "that I had no right to be talkin' of going
away with you--that I'd be ruining your future and making people look down
on you, and all that. Well, that's for you to say. If you think it harms
your prospects being with me you needn't see me. I've my own prospects to
think of. I'm not going to have any man ashamed of me."

"You're right to speak of it, and we're right to think of it," said Falk.
"It isn't my prospects that I've got to think about, but it's my father I
wouldn't like to hurt. If we go away together there'll be a great deal of
talk here, and it will all fall on my father."

"Well, then," she said, tossing her head and taking her hand away from
his, "don't come. _I'm_ not asking you. As for your father, he's that
proud----" She stopped suddenly. "No. I'm saying nothing about that. You
care for him, and you're right to. As far as that goes, we needn't go
together; you can come up later and join me."

When she said that, he knew that he couldn't bear the thought of her going
alone, and that he had all along been determined in his thought that she
should not go alone.

"If you'd say you loved me," he said, suddenly bending towards her, "I'd
never let you out of my sight again."

"Oh, yes, you would," she said; "you don't know whether you _do_ love
me. Many's the time you think you don't. And I don't know whether I love
you. Sometimes I think I do. What's love, anyway? I dunno. I think
sometimes I'm not made to feel that way towards any one. But what I really
meant to say to-night is, that I'm dead sick of this hanging-on. I'm going
up to a cousin I've got Blackheath way a week from to-night. If you're
coming, I'm glad. If you're not--well, I reckon I'll get over it."

"A week from to-day--" He looked out over the water.

"Aye. That's settled."

Then, unexpected, as she so often was, she put her arms round his neck and
drew his head down to her bosom and let her hand rest on his hair.

"I like to feel you there," she said. "It's more a mother I feel to you
than a lover."

She would not let him kiss her, but suddenly moved away from him, into the
dark, leaving him where he stood.

When he was half-way home the storm that had been slowly, during the last
hour and a half, climbing up above the town, broke. As he was crossing the
market-place the rain came down in torrents, dancing upon the uneven
cobbles with a kind of excited frenzy, and thickening the air with a
curtain of mist. He climbed the High Street, his head down, feeling a
physical satisfaction in the fierce soaking that the storm was giving him.
The town was shining and deserted. Not a soul about. No sound except the
hissing, sneering, chattering whisper of the deluge. He went up to his
room and changed, putting on a dinner jacket, and came down to his
father's study. It was too late for dinner, but he was not hungry; he did
not know how long it was since he had felt hungry last.

He knocked and went in. He felt a desperate urgency that he must somehow
reconcile the interests and happiness of the two people who were then
filling all his thoughts--his father and Annie. There must _be_ a
way. He could feel still the touch of Annie's hand upon his head; he was
more deeply bound to her by that evening's conversation than he had ever
been before, but he longed to be able to reassure himself by some contact
with his father that he was not going to hurt the old man, that he would
be able to prove to him that his loyalty was true and his affection deep.

Small causes produce lasting results, and the lives of many people would
have been changed had Falk caught his father that night in another mood.

The Archdeacon did not look up at the sound of the closing door. He was
sitting at his big table writing letters, the expression of his face being
that of a boy who has been kept in on a fine afternoon to write out the
first fifty lines of the _Iliad_. His curly hair was ruffled, his
mouth was twisted with disgust, and he pushed his big body about in his
chair, kicked out his legs and drew them in as though beneath his
concentration on his letters he was longing to spring up, catch his enemy
by the throat, roll him over on to the ground and kick him.

"Hullo, governor!" Falk said, and settled down into one of the big leather
arm-chairs, produced a pipe from his pocket and slowly filled it.

The Archdeacon went on writing, muttering to himself, biting the end of
his quill pen. He had not apparently been aware of his son's entrance, but
suddenly he sprang up, pushed back his chair until it nearly fell over,
and began to stride up and down the room. He was a fine figure then,
throwing up his head, flinging out his arms, apostrophising the world.

"Gratitude! They don't know what it means. Do you think I'll go on working
for them, wearing myself to a shadow, staying up all night--getting up at
seven in the morning, and then to have this sort of return? I'll leave the
place. I'll let them make their own mistakes and see how they like that.
I'll teach them gratitude. Here am I; for ten years I've done nothing but
slave for the town and the Cathedral. Who's worked for them as I have?"

"What's the matter, father?" Falk asked, watching him from the chair.
Every one knows the irritation of coming to some one with matters so
urgent that they occupy the whole of your mind, and then discovering that
your audience has its own determined preoccupation. "Always thinking of
himself," Falk continued. "Fusses about nothing."

"The matter?" His father turned round upon him. "Everything's the matter.
Everything! Here's this Jubilee business coming on and everything going to
ruin. Here am I, who know more about the Cathedral and what's been done in
the Cathedral for the last ten years than any one, and they are letting
Ryle have a free hand over all the Jubilee Week services without another
word to anybody."

"Well, Ryle is the Precentor, isn't he?" said Falk.

"Of course he is," the Archdeacon answered angrily. "And what a Precentor!
Every one knows he isn't capable of settling anything by himself. That's
been proved again and again. But that's only one thing. It's the same all
the way round. Opposition everywhere. It'll soon come to it that I'll have
to ask permission from the Chapter to walk down the High Street."

"All the same, father," Falk said, "you can't be expected to have the
whole of the Jubilee on your shoulders. It's more than any one man can
possibly do."

"I know that. Of course I know that. Ryle's case is only one small
instance of the way the wind's blowing. Every one's got to do their share,
of course. But in the last three months the place is changed--the
Chapter's disorganised, there's rebellion in the Choir, among the Vergers,
everywhere. The Cathedral is in pieces. And why? Who's changed everything?
Why is nothing as it was three months ago?"

"Oh, Lord! what a bore the old man is!" thought Falk. He was in the last
possible mood to enter into any of his father's complaints. They seemed
now, as he looked across at him, to be miles apart. He felt, suddenly, as
though he did not care what happened to his father, nor whether his
feelings were hurt or no----

"Well, tell me!" said the Archdeacon, spreading his legs out, putting his
hands behind his back and standing over his son. "Who's responsible for
the change?"

"Oh, I don't know!" said Falk impatiently.

"You don't know? No, of course you don't know, because you've taken no
interest in the Cathedral nor in anything to do with it. All the same, I
should have thought it impossible for any one to be in this town half an
hour and _not_ know who's responsible. There's only one man, and that
man is Ronder."

Unfortunately Falk liked Ronder. "I think Ronder's rather a good sort," he
said. "A clever fellow, too."

The Archdeacon stared at him.

"You like him?"

"Yes, father, I do."

"And of course it matters nothing to you that he should be your father's
persistent enemy and do his best to hinder him in everything and every way
possible."

Falk smiled, one of those confident, superior smiles that are so justly
irritating to any parent.

"Oh, come, father," he said. "Aren't you rather exaggerating?"

"Exaggerating? Yes, of course you would take the other side. And what do
you know about it? There you are, lolling about in your chair, idling week
after week, until all the town talks about it----"

Falk sprang up.

"And whose fault is it if I do idle? What have I been wanting except to go
off and make a decent living? Whose fault----?"

"Oh, mine, of course!" the Archdeacon shouted. "Put it all down to me! Say
that I begged you to leave Oxford, that I want you to laze the rest of
your life away. Why shouldn't you, when you have a mother and sister to
support you?"

"Stop that, father." Falk also was shouting. "You'd better look out what
you're saying, or I'll take you at your word and leave you altogether."

"You can, for all I care," the Archdeacon shouted back. They stood there
facing one another, both of them red in the face, a curious family
likeness suddenly apparent between them.

"Well, I will then," Falk cried, and rushed from the room, banging the
door behind him.




Chapter VI

Falk's Flight



Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled
down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was
chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn.
Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As
he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his
chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the
very symbol of satisfied happy and kind-hearted prosperity.

He was really touched by young Falk's approach towards friendship. He had
in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too
delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once
or twice women and men younger than himself _had_ made such urgent
demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run from
them!

But the more tranquil, easy and unexacting aspects of sentiment he
enjoyed. He liked his heart to be warmed, he liked to feel that the
pressure of his hand, the welcome of the eye, the smile of the lip were
genuine in him and natural; he liked to put his hand through the arm of a
young eager human being who was full of vitality and physical strength. He
disliked so deeply sickness and decay; he despised them.

Falk was young, handsome and eager, something of a rebel--the greater
compliment then that he should seek out Ronder. He was certainly the most
attractive young man in Polchester and, although that was not perhaps
saying very much, after all Ronder lived in Polchester and wished to share
in the best of every side of its life.

There were, however, further, more actual reasons that Ronder should
anticipate Falk's visit with deep interest. He had heard, of course, many
rumours of Falk's indiscretions, rumours that naturally gained greatly in
the telling, of how he had formed some disgraceful attachment for the
daughter of a publican down in the river slums, that he drank, that he
gambled, that he was the wickedest young man in Polchester, and that he
would certainly break his father's heart.

It was this relation of the boy to his father that interested him most of
all. He continued to remark to the little god who looked after his affairs
and kept an eye upon him that the last thing that he wanted was to
interfere in Brandon's family business, and yet to the same little god he
could not but comment on the curious persistency with which that same
business would thrust itself upon his interest. "If Brandon's wife, son,
and general _ménage_ will persist in involving themselves in absurd
situations it's not my fault," he would say. But he was not exactly sorry
that they should.

Indeed, to-night, in the warm security of his room, with all his plans
advancing towards fulfillment, and life developing just as he would have
it, he felt so kindly a pity towards Brandon that he was warm with the
desire to do something for him, make him a present, or flatter his vanity,
or give way publicly to him about some contested point that was of no
particular importance.

When young Falk was ushered in by the maid-servant, Ronder, looking up at
him, thought him the handsomest boy he'd ever seen. He felt ready to give
him all the advice in the world, and it was with the most genuine warmth
of heart that he jumped up, put his hand on his shoulder, found him
tobacco, whisky and soda, and the easiest chair in the room.

It was apparent at once that the boy was worked up to the extremity of his
possible endurance. Ronder felt instantly the drama that he brought with
him, filling the room with it, charging every word and every movement with
the implication of it.

He turned about in his chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at
his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness
that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder's importance. Ronder began
by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an
especial talent. Falk suddenly broke upon him:

"Look here. You don't care about that stuff--nor do I. I didn't come round
to you for that. I want you to help me."

"I'll be very glad to," Ronder said, smiling. "If I can."

"Perhaps you can--perhaps you can't. I don't know you really, of course--I
only have my idea of you. But you seem to me much older than I am. Do you
know what I mean? Father's as young or younger and so are so many of the
others. But you must have made your mind up about life. I want to know
what you think of it."

"That's a tall order," said Ronder, smiling. "What one thinks of life!
Well, one can't say all in a moment, you know."

And then, as though he had suddenly decided to take his companion
seriously, his face was grave and his round shining eyes wide open.

Falk coloured. "Perhaps you think me impertinent," he said. "But I don't
care a damn if you do. After all, isn't it an absurd thing that there
isn't another soul in this town you could ask such a question of? And yet
there's nothing else so important. A fellow's thought an impossible prig
if he mentions such a thing. I expect I seem in a hurry too, but I can
tell you I've been irritated for years by not being able to get at it--the
truth, you know. Why we're here at all, whether there is some kind of a
God somewhere or no. Of course you've got to pretend you think there is,
but I want to know what you _really_ think and I promise it shan't go
a step farther. But most of all I want to know whether you don't think
we're meant all of us to be free, and why being free should be the hardest
thing of all."

"You must tell me one thing," said Ronder. "Is the impulse that brought
you in to see me simply a general one, just because you are interested in
life, or is there some immediate crisis that you have to settle? I ask
that," he added, smiling gently, "because I've noticed that people don't
as a rule worry very urgently about life unless they have to make up their
minds about which turn in the road they're going to take."

Falk hesitated; then he said, speaking slowly, "Yes, there is something.
It's what you'd call a crisis in my life, I suppose. It's been piling up
for months--for years if you like. But I don't see why I need bother you
with that--it's nobody's business but my own. Although I won't deny that
things you say may influence me. You see, I felt the first moment I met
you that you'd speak the truth, and speaking the truth seems to me more
important than anything else in the world."

"But," said Ronder, "I don't want to influence you blindly. You've no
right to ask me to advise you when I don't know what it is I am advising
you about."

"Well, then," said Falk, "it's simply this--that I want to go up to London
and live my own life. But I love my father--it would all be easy enough if
I didn't--and he doesn't see things as I do. There are other things too--
it's all very complicated. But I don't want you to tell me about my own
affairs! I just want you to say what you think this is all about, what
we're here for anyway. You must have thought it all through and come out
the other side. You look as though you had."

Ronder hesitated. He really wished that this had not occurred. He could
defeat Brandon without being given this extra weapon. His impulse was to
put the boy off with some evasion and so to dismiss him. But the
temptation that was always so strong in him to manipulate the power placed
in his hands was urging him; moreover, why should he not say what he
thought about life? It was sincere enough. He had no shame of it....

"I couldn't advise you against your father's wishes," he said. "I'm very
fond of your father. I have the highest opinion of him."

Falk moved uneasily in his chair: "You needn't advise me against him," he
said; "you can't have a higher opinion of him than I have. I'm fonder of
him than of any one in the world; I wouldn't be hesitating at all
otherwise. And I tell you I don't want you to advise me on my particular
case. It just interests me to know whether you believe in a God and
whether you think life means anything. As soon as I saw you I said to
myself, 'Now I'd like to know what _he_ thinks.' That's all."

"Of course I believe in a God," said Ronder, "I wouldn't be a clergyman
otherwise."

"Then if there's a God," said Falk quickly, "why does He let us down, make
us feel that we must be free, and then make us feel that it's wrong to be
free because, if we are, we hurt the people we're fond of? Do we live for
ourselves or for others? Why isn't it easier to see what the right thing
is?"

"If you want to know what I think about life," said Ronder, "it's just
this--that we mustn't take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our
utmost at the thing we're in, and give as little trouble to others as
possible."

Falk nodded his head. "Yes, that's very simple. If you'll forgive my
saying so, that's the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he
really feels. That's not what _you_ really feel. Anyway it accounts
for simply nothing at all. If that's all there is in life----"

"I don't say that's all there is in life," interrupted Ronder softly, "I
only say that that does for a start--for one's daily conduct I mean. But
you've got to rid your head of illusions. Don't expect poetry and magic
for ever round the corner. Don't dream of Utopias--they'll never come.
Mind your own daily business."

"Play for safety, in fact," said Falk.

Ronder coloured a little. "Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you
think your happiness depends upon it. You're going to serve the world best
by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It's the
discontented and disappointed who hang things up."

Falk smiled. "You're pushing on to me the kind of philosophy that I'd like
to follow," he said. "I don't believe in it for a moment nor do I believe
it's what you really think, but I think I'm ready to cheat myself if you
give me encouragement enough. I don't want to do any one any harm, but I
must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I
can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a
small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed
in God then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to
hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where
He'd most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from
the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself.

"Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own,
quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its
nave than we have in all our bodies."

"Don't be too sure of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality--a tiny
flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells
in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live."

"And yet," said Falk eagerly, "you were urging, just now, a doctrine of
what, if you'll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do
you reconcile that with immortality?"

Ronder laughed. "There have only been four doctrines in the history of the
world," he answered, "and they are all Pursuits. One is the pursuit of
Unselfishness. 'Little children, love one another. He that seeks to save
his soul shall lose it.' The second is the opposite of the first--
Individualism. 'I am I. That is all I know, and I will seek out my own
good always because that at least I can understand.' The third is the
pursuit of God and Mysticism. 'Neither I matter nor my neighbour. I give
up the world and every one and everything in it to find God.' And the
fourth is the pursuit of Beauty. 'Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That
is all we need to know.' Every man and woman alive or dead has chosen one
of those four or a mixture of them. I would say that there is something in
all of them, Charity, Individualism, Worship, Beauty. But finally, when
all is said and done, we remain ourselves. It is our own life that we must
lead, our own goal for which we are searching. At the end of everything we
remain alone, of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves. Life is, finally,
a lonely journey to a lonely bourne, let us cheat ourselves as we may."

Ronder sat back in his chair, his eyes half closed. There was nothing that
he enjoyed more than delivering his opinions about life to a fit audience
--and by fit he meant intelligent and responsive. He liked to be truthful
without taking risks, and he was always the audience rather than the
speaker in company that might be dangerous. He almost loved Falk as he
looked across at him and saw the effect that his words had made upon him.
There was, Heaven knew, nothing very original in what he had said, but it
had been apparently what the boy had wanted to hear.

He jumped up from his chair: "You're right," he said. "We've got to lead
our own lives. I've known it all along. When I've shown them what I can
do, then I'll come back to them. I love my father, you know, sir; I
suppose some people here think him tiresome and self-opinionated, but he's
like a boy, you always know where you are with him. He's no idea what
deceit means. He looks on this Cathedral as his own idea, as though he'd
built it almost, and of course that's dangerous. He'll have a shock one of
these days and see that he's gone too far, just as the Black Bishop did.
But he's a fine man; I don't believe any one knows how proud I am of him.
And it's much better I should go my own way and earn my own living than
hang around him, doing nothing--isn't it?"

At that direct appeal, at the eager gaze that Falk fixed upon him,
something deep within Ronder stirred.

Should he not even now advise the boy to stay? One word just then might
effect much. Falk trusted him. He was the only human being in Polchester
to whom the boy perhaps had come. Years afterwards he was to look back to
that moment, see it crystallised in memory, see the books, piled row upon
row, gleam down upon him, see the blue curtain and hear the crackling
fire...a crisis perhaps to himself as well as to Falk.

He went across to the boy and put his hands on his shoulders.

"Yes," he said, "I think it's better for you to go."

"And about God and Beauty?" Falk said, staring for a moment into Ronder's
eyes, smiling shyly, and then turning away. "It's a long search, isn't it?
But as long as there's something there, beyond life, and I know there is,
the search is worth it."

He looked rather wistfully at Ronder as though he expected him to confirm
him again. But Ronder said nothing.

Falk went to the door: "Well, I must go. I'll show them that I was right
to go my own way. I want father to be proud of me. This will shock him for
a moment, but soon he'll see. I think you'll like to know, sir," he said,
suddenly turning and holding out his hand, "that this little talk has
meant a lot to me. It's just helped me to make up my mind."

When he had gone Ronder sat in his chair, motionless, for a while; he
jumped up, went to the shelves, and found a book. Before he sat down again
he said aloud, as though he were answering some accuser, "Well, I told him
nothing, anyway."

Falk had, from the moment he left Ronder's door, his mind made up, and now
that it _was_ made up he wished to act as speedily as possible. And
instantly there followed an appeal of the Town, so urgent and so poignant
that he was taken by surprise. He had lived there most of his days and
never seen it until now, but every step that he took soon haunted him. He
made his plans decisively, irrevocably, but he found himself lingering at
doors and at windows, peering over walls, hanging over the Pol bridge,
waiting suddenly as though he expected some message was about to be given
to him.

The town was humming with life those days. The May weather was lovely,
softly blue with cool airs and little white clouds like swollen pin-
cushions drifting lazily from point to point. The gardens were dazzling
with their flowers, the Cathedral Green shone like glass, and every door-
knob and brass knocker in the Precincts glittered under the sun.

The town was humming with the approaching Jubilee. It seemed itself to
take an active part in the preparations, the old houses smiling to one
another at the plans that they overheard, and the birds, of whom there
were a vast number, flying from wall to wall, from garden to garden, from
chimney to chimney, with the exciting news that they had gathered.

Every shop in the High Street seemed to whisper to Falk as he passed:
"Surely you are not going to leave us. We can offer you such charming
things. We've never been so gay in our lives before as we are going to be
now."

Even the human beings in the place seemed to be nicer to him than they had
ever been before. They had never, perhaps, been very nice to him,
regarding him with a quite definite disapproval even when he was a little
boy, because he would go his own way and showed them that he didn't care
what they thought of him.

Now, suddenly, they were making up to him. Mrs. Combermere, surrounded
with dogs, stopped him in the High Street and, in a deep bass voice, asked
him why it was so long since he had been to see her, and then slapped him
on the shoulder with her heavy gloved hand. That silly woman, Julia
Preston, met him in Bennett's book shop and asked him to help her to
choose a book of poems for a friend.

"Something that shall be both True and Beautiful, Mr. Brandon," she said.
"There's so little real Beauty in our lives, don't you think?" Little
Betty Callender caught him up in Orange Street and chattered to him about
her painting, and that pompous Bentinck-Major insisted on his going into
the Conservative Club with him, where he met old McKenzie and older
Forrester, and had to listen to their golfing achievements.

It may have been simply that every one in the town was beside and above
himself over the Jubilee excitements--but it made it very hard for Falk.
Nothing to the hardness of everything at home. Here at the last moment,
when it was too late to change or alter anything, every room, every old
piece of furniture seemed to appeal to him with some especial claim. For
ten years he had had the same bedroom, an old low-ceilinged room with
queer bulges in the wall, a crooked fireplace and a slanting floor. For
years now he had had a wall-paper with an ever-recurrent scene of a church
tower, a snowy hill, and a large crimson robin. The robins were faded, and
the snowy hill a dingy yellow. There were School groups and Oxford groups
on the walls, and the book-case near the door had his old school prizes
and Henty and a set of the Waverley Novels with dark red covers and paper
labels.

Hardest of all to leave was the view from the window overlooking the
Cathedral Green and the Cathedral. That window had been connected with
every incident of his childhood. He had leant out of it when he had felt
sick from eating too much, he had gone to it when his eyes were brimming
with hot rebellious tears after some scene with his father, he had known
ecstatic joys gazing from it on the first day of his return from school,
he had thrown things out of it on the heads of unsuspecting strangers, he
had gone to it in strange moods of poetry and romance, and watched the
moon like a plate of dull and beaten gold sail above the Cathedral towers,
he had sat behind it listening to the organ like a muffled giant
whispering to be liberated from grey, confining walls, he had looked out
of it on a still golden evening when the stars were silver buttons in the
sky after a meeting with Annie; he went to it and gazed, heart-sick,
across the Green now when he was about to bid fare-well to it for ever.

Heart-sick but resolved, it seemed strange to him that after months of
irresolution his mind should now be so firmly composed. He seemed even,
prophetically, to foretell the future. What had reassured him he did not
know, but for himself he knew that he was taking the right step. For
himself and for Annie--outside that, it was as though a dark cloud was
coming up enveloping all that he was leaving behind. He could not tell how
he knew, but he felt as though he were fleeing from the city of
Polchester, and were being driven forward on his flight by powers far
stronger than he could control.

He fancied, as he looked out of his window, that the Cathedral also was
aware and, aloof, immortal, waited the inevitable hour.

Coming straight upon his final arrangements with Annie, his reconciliation
with his father was ironic. So deeply here were his real affections
stirred that he could not consider deliberately his approaching treachery;
nevertheless he did not for a moment contemplate withdrawal from it. It
was as though two personalities were now in active movement within him,
the one old, belonging to the town, to his father, to his own youth, the
other new, belonging to Annie, to the future, to ambition, to the
challenge of life itself. With every hour the first was moving away from
him, reluctantly, stirring the other self by his withdrawal but inevitably
moving, never, never to return.

He came, late in the afternoon, into the study and found his father,
balanced on the top of a small ladder, putting straight "Christ's Entry
into Jerusalem," a rather faded copy of Benjamin Haydon's picture that had
irritated Falk since his earliest youth by a kind of false theatricality
that inhabited it.

Falk paused at the door, caught up by a sudden admiration of his father.
He had his coat off, and as he bent forward to adjust the cord the vigour
and symmetry of his body was magnificently emphasized. The thick strong
legs pressed against the black cloth of his trousers, the fine rounded
thighs, the broad back almost bursting the shiny stuff of the waistcoat,
the fine neck and the round curly head, these denied age and decay. He was
growing perhaps a little stout, the neck was a little too thick for the
collar, but the balance and energy and strength of the figure belonged to
a man as young as Falk himself....

At the sound of the door closing he turned, and at once the lined
forehead, the mouth a little slack, gave the man his age, but Falk was to
remember that first picture for the rest of his life with a strange
poignancy and deeply affectionate pathos.

They had not met alone since their quarrel; their British horror of any
scene forbade the slightest allusion to it. Brandon climbed down from his
ladder and came, smiling, across to his son.

At his happy times, when he was at ease with himself and the world, he had
the confident gaiety of a child; he was at ease now. He put his hand
through Falk's arm and drew him across to the table by the window.

"I've had a headache," he said, rather as a child might complain to his
elder, "for two days, and now it's suddenly gone. I never used to have
headaches. But I've been irritated lately by some of the tomfoolery that's
been going on. Don't tell your mother; I haven't said a word to her; but
what do you take when you have a headache?"

"I don't think I ever have them," said Falk.

"I'm not going to stuff myself up with all their medicines and things.
I've never taken medicine in my life if I was strong enough to prevent
them giving it to me, and I'm not going to start it now."

"Father," Falk said very earnestly, "don't let yourself get so easily
irritated. You usedn't to be. Everybody finds things go badly sometimes.
It's bad for you to allow yourself to be worried. Everything's all right
and going to be all right." (The hypocrite that he felt himself as he said
this!)

"You know that every one thinks the world of you here. Don't take things
too seriously."

Brandon nodded his head.

"You're quite right, Falk. It's very sensible of you to mention it, my
boy. I usedn't to lose my temper as I do. I must keep control of myself
better. But when a lot of chattering idiots start gabbling about things
that they understand as much about as----"

"Yes, I know," said Falk, putting his hand upon his father's arm. "But let
them talk. They'll soon find their level."

"Yes, and then there's your mother," went on Brandon. "I'm bothered about
her. Have you noticed anything odd about her this last week or two?"

That his father should begin to worry about his mother was certainly
astonishing enough! Certainly the first time in all these years that
Brandon had spoken of her.

"Mother? No; in what way?"

"She's not herself. She's not happy. She's worrying about something."

"_You're_ worrying, father," Falk said, "that's what's the matter.
_She's_ just the same. You've been allowing yourself to worry about
everything. Mother's all right." And didn't he know, in his own secret
heart, that she wasn't?

Brandon shook his head. "You may he right. All the same----"

Falk said slowly: "Father, what would you say if I went up to London?"
This was a close approach to the subject of their quarrel of the other
evening.

"When? What for?"

"Oh, at once--to get something to do."

"No, not now. After the summer we might talk of it."

He spoke with utter decision, as he had always done to Falk, as though he
were five years old and could naturally know nothing about life.

"But, father--don't you think it's bad for me, hanging round here doing
nothing?"

Brandon got up, went across to the little ladder, hesitated a moment, then
climbed up.

"I've had this picture twenty years," he said, "and it's never hung
straight yet."

"No, but, father," said Falk, coming across to him, "I'm a man now, not a
boy. I can't hang about any longer--I can't really."

"We'll talk about it in the autumn," said Brandon, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers," as he always did, a little out of tune.

"I've got to earn my own living, haven't I?" said Falk.

"There!" said Brandon, stepping back a little, so that he nearly
overbalanced. "_That's_ better. But it won't stay like that for five
minutes. It never does."

He climbed down again, his face rosy with his exertions. "You leave it to
me, Falk," he said, nodding his head. "I've got plans for you."

A sudden sense of the contrast between Ronder and his father smote Falk.
His father! What an infant! How helpless against that other! Moved by the
strangest mixture of tenderness, regret, pity, he did what he had never in
all his life before dreamed of doing, what he would have died of shame for
doing, had any one else been there--put his hands on his father's
shoulders and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

He laughed as he did so, to carry off his embarrassment.

"I don't hold myself bound, you know, father," he said. "I shall go off
just when I want to."

But Brandon was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words.
He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself
well out of danger, he moved back to the window, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers."

He looked out upon the Green. "There are two of those choir-boys on the
grass again," he said. "If Ryle doesn't keep them in better order, I'll
let him know what I think of him. He's always promising and never does
anything."

The last talk of their lives alone together was ended.

       *       *       *       *       *

He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he
would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there
he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she
could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four
o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at
midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood,
and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything
else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he
was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free
as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one
who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm.

The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through
the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever
the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come
to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and
simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to
living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects,
having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition.

He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and
Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the
younger publishing houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that
he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a
supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that
question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems.

Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for
the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of
class.

He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after
him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see
himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of
the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father
with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of
course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a
visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that
vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set
his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....

That last luncheon was the strangest meal that he had ever known. So
strange because it was so usual--so ordinary! Roast chicken and apple
tart; his mother sitting at the end of the table, watching, as she had
watched through so many years, that everything went right, her little,
tight, expressionless face, the mouth set to give the right answers to the
right questions, her eyes veiled.... His mind flew back to that strange
talk in the dark room across the candle-lit table. She had been hysterical
that night, over-tired, had not known what she was saying. Well, she could
never leave his father now, now when he was gone. His flight settled that.

"What are you doing this afternoon, Falk?"

"Why, mother?"

"I only wondered. I have to go to the Deanery about this Jubilee
committee. I thought you might walk up there with me. About four."

"I don't think I'll be back in time, mother; I'm going out Salis Coombe
way to see a fellow."

He saw Joan, looking so pretty, sitting opposite to him. How she had grown
lately! Putting her hair up made her seem almost a woman. But what a child
in the grown-up dress with the high puffed sleeves, her baby-face laughing
at him over the high stiff collar; a pretty dress, though, that dark blue
stuff with the white stripes.... Why had he never considered Joan? She had
never meant anything to him at all. Now, when he was going, it seemed to
him suddenly that he might have made a friend of her during all these
years. She was a good girl, kind, good-natured, jolly.

She, too, was talking about the Jubilee--about some committee that she was
on and some flags that they were making. How exciting to them all the
Jubilee was, and how unimportant to him!

Some book she was talking about. "...the new woman at the Library is so
nice. She let me have it at once. It's _The Massarenes_, mother,
darling, by Ouida. The girls say it's lovely."

"I've heard of it, dear. Mrs. Sampson was talking about it. She says it's
not a nice book at all. I don't think father would like you to read it."

"Oh, you don't mind, father, do you?"

"What's that?"

The Archdeacon was in a good humour. He loved apple tart.

"_The Massarenes_, by Ouida."

"Trashy novels. Why don't you girls ever read anything but novels?" and so
on.

The little china clock with the blue mandarin on the mantelpiece struck
half past two. He must be going. He threw a last look round the room as
though he were desperately committing everything to memory--the shabby,
comfortable chairs, the Landseer "Dignity and Impudence," the warm, blue
carpet, the round silver biscuit-tin on the sideboard.

"Well, I must be getting along."

"You'll be back to dinner, Falk dear, won't you? It's early to-night.
Quarter past seven. Father has a meeting."

He looked at them all. His father was sitting back in his chair, a
satisfied man.

"Yes, I'll be back," he said, and went out.

It seemed to him incredible that departure should be so simple. When you
are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be
dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street
people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the
afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman under the green
umbrella, the toy-man with the clockwork monkeys, the flower-stalls and
the vegetable-sellers, all these were here; in the centre of the square,
sheep and pigs were penned. Dogs were barking, stout farmers in corduroy
breeches walked about arguing and expectorating, and suddenly, above all
the clamour and bustle, the Cathedral chimes struck the hour.

He hastened then, striding up Orange Street, past the church and the
monument on the hill, through hedges thick with flowers, until he struck
off into the Drymouth Road. With every step that he took he stirred child
memories. He reached the signpost that pointed to Drymouth, to Clinton St.
Mary, to Polchester. This was the landmark that he used to reach with his
nurse on his walks. Further than this she, a stout, puffing woman, would
never go. He had known that a little way on there was Rocket Wood, a place
beloved by him ever since they had driven there for a picnic in the
jingle, and he had found it all spotted gold under the fir-trees, thick
with moss and yellow with primroses. How many fights with his nurse he had
had over that! he clinging to the signpost and screaming that he
_would_ go on to the Wood, she picking him up at last and carrying
him back down the road.

He went on into the wood now and found it again spotted with gold,
although it was too late for primroses. It was all soft and dark with
pillars of purple light that struck through the fretted blue, and the dark
shadows of the leaves. All hushed and no living thing--save the hesitating
patter of some bird among the fir-cones. He struck through the wood and
came out on to the Common. You could smell the sea finely here--a true
Glebeshire smell, fresh and salt, full of sea-pinks and the westerly
gales. On the top of the Common he paused and looked back. He knew that
from here you had your last view of the Cathedral.

Often in his school holidays he had walked out here to get that view. He
had it now in its full glory. When he was a boy it had seemed to him that
the Cathedral was like a giant lying down behind the hill and leaning his
face on the hill-side. So it looked now, its towers like ears, the great
East window shining, a stupendous eye, out over the bending wind-driven
country. The sun flashed upon it, and the towers rose grey and pearl-
coloured to heaven. Mightily it looked across the expanse of the moor,
staring away and beyond Falk's little body into some vast distance,
wrapped in its own great dream, secure in its mighty memories, intent upon
its secret purposes.

Indifferent to man, strong upon its rock, hiding in its heart the answer
to all the questions that tortured man's existence--and yet, perhaps,
aware of man's immortality, scornful of him for making so slight a use of
that--but admiring him, too, for the tenacity of his courage and the
undying resurgence of his hope.

Falk, a black dot against the sweep of sky and the curve of the dark soil,
vanished from the horizon.




Chapter VII

Brandon Puts on His Armour



Brandon was not surprised when, on the morning after Falk's escape, his
son was not present at family prayers. That was not a ceremony that Falk
had ever appreciated. Joan was there, of course, and just as the
Archdeacon began the second prayer Mrs. Brandon slipped in and took her
place.

After the servants had filed out and the three were alone, Mrs. Brandon,
with a curious little catch in her voice, said:

"Falk has been out all night; his bed has not been slept in."

Brandon's immediate impulse, before he had even caught the import of his
wife's words, was: "There's reason for emotion coming; see that you show
none."

He sat down at the table, slowly unfolding the _Glebeshire Morning
News_ that always waited, neatly, beside his plate. His hand did not
tremble, although his heart was beating with a strange, muffled agitation.

"I suppose he went off somewhere," he said. "He never tells us, of course.
He's getting too selfish for anything."

He put down his newspaper and picked up his letters. For a moment he felt
as though he could not look at them in the presence of his wife. He
glanced quickly at the envelopes. There was nothing there from Falk. His
heart gave a little clap of relief.

"At any rate, he hasn't written," he said. "He can't be far away."

"There's another post at ten-thirty," she answered.

He was angry with her for that. How like her! Why could she not allow
things to be pleasant as long as possible?

She went on: "He's taken nothing with him. Not even a hand-bag. He hasn't
been back in the house since luncheon yesterday."

"Oh! he'll turn up!" Brandon went back to his paper. "Mustard, Joan,
please." Breakfast over, he went into his study and sat at the long
writing-table, pretending to be about his morning correspondence. He could
not settle to that; he had never been one to whom it was easy to control
his mind, and now his heart and soul were filled with foreboding.

It seemed to him that for weeks past he had been dreading some
catastrophe. What catastrophe? What could occur?

He almost spoke aloud. "Never before have I dreaded...."

Meanwhile he would not think of Falk. He would not. His mind flew round
and round that name like a moth round the candle-light. He heard half-past
ten strike, first in the dining-room, then slowly on his own mantelpiece.
A moment later, through his study door that was ajar, he heard the letters
fall with a soft stir into the box, then the sharp ring of the bell. He
sat at his table, his hands clenched.

"Why doesn't that girl bring the letters? Why doesn't that girl bring the
letters?" he was repeating to himself unconsciously again and again.

She knocked on the door, came in and put the letters on his table. There
were only three. He saw immediately that one was in Falk's handwriting. He
tore the envelope across, pulled out the letter, his fingers trembling now
so that he could scarcely hold it, his heart making a noise as of tramping
waves in his ears.

The letter was as follows:

  NORTH ROAD STATION, DRYMOUTH,
  _May_ 23, 1897.

MY DEAR FATHER--I am writing this in the waiting-room at North Road before
catching the London train. I suppose that I have done a cowardly thing in
writing like this when I am away from you, and I can't hope to make you
believe that it's because I can't bear to hurt you that I'm acting like a
coward. You'll say, justly enough, that it looks as though I wanted to
hurt you by what I'm doing. But, father, truly, I've looked at it from
every point of view, and I can't see that there's anything else for it but
this. The first part of this, my going up to London to earn my living, I
can't feel guilty about.

It seems to me, truly, the only thing to do. I have tried to speak to you
about it on several occasions, but you have always put me off, and, as far
as I can see, you don't feel that there's anything ignominious in my
hanging about a little town like Polchester, doing nothing at all for the
rest of my life. I think my being sent down from Oxford as I was gave you
the idea that I was useless and would never be any good. I'm going to
prove to you you're wrong, and I know I'm right to take it into my own
hands as I'm doing. Give me a little time and you'll see that I'm right.
The other thing is more difficult. I can't expect you to forgive me just
yet, but perhaps, later on, you'll see that it isn't too bad. Annie Hogg,
the daughter of Hogg down in Seatown, is with me, and next week I shall
marry her.

I have so far done nothing that you need be ashamed of. I love her, but am
not her lover, and she will stay with relations away from me until I marry
her. I know this will seem horrible to you, father, but it is a matter for
my own conscience. I have tried to leave her and could not, but even if I
could I have made her, through my talk, determined to go to London and try
her luck there. She loathes her father and is unhappy at home. I cannot
let her go up to London without any protection, and the only way I can
protect her is by marrying her.

She is a fine woman, father, fine and honourable and brave. Try to think
of her apart from her father and her surroundings. She does not belong to
them, truly she does not. In all these months she has not tried to
persuade me to a mean and shabby thing. She is incapable of any meanness.
In all this business my chief trouble is the unhappiness that this will
bring you. You will think that this is easy to say when it has made no
difference to what I have done. But all the same it is true, and perhaps
later on, when you have got past a little of your anger with me, you will
give me a chance to prove it. I have the promise of some literary work
that should give me enough to live on. I have taken nothing with me;
perhaps mother will pack up my things and send them to me at 5 Parker
Street, St. John's Wood.

Father, give me a chance to show you that I will make this right.--Your
loving son,

                  FALK BRANDON.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the little morning-room to the right at the top of the stairs Joan and
her mother were waiting. Joan was pretending to sew, but her fingers
scarcely moved. Mrs. Brandon was sitting at her writing-table; her ears
were straining for every sound. The sun flooded the room with a fierce
rush of colour, and through the wide-open windows the noises of the town,
cries and children's voices, and the passing of feet on the cobbles came
up. As half-past ten struck the Cathedral bells began to ring for morning
service.

"Oh, I can't bear those bells," Mrs. Brandon cried. "Shut the windows,
Joan."

Joan went across and closed them. The bells were suddenly removed, but
seemed to be the more insistent in their urgency because they were shut
away.

The door was suddenly flung open, and Brandon stood there.

"Oh, what is it?" Mrs. Brandon cried, starting to her feet.

He was a man convulsed with anger; she had seen him in these rages before,
when his blue eyes stared with an emptiness of vision and his whole body
seemed to be twisted as though he were trying to climb to some height
whence he might hurl himself down and destroy utterly that upon which he
fell.

The letter tumbled from his hand. He caught the handle of the door as
though he would tear it from its socket, but his voice, when at last it
came, was quiet, almost his ordinary voice.

"His name is never to be mentioned in this house again."

"What has he done?"

"That's enough. What I say. His name is never to be mentioned again."

The two women stared at him. He seemed to come down from a great height,
turned and went, very carefully closing the door behind him.

He had left the letter on the floor. Mrs. Brandon went and picked it up.

"Oh, mother, what has Falk done?" Joan asked.

The bells danced all over the room.

Brandon went downstairs, back into his study, closing his door, shutting
himself in. He stayed in the middle of the room, saying aloud:

"Never his name again.... Never his name again." The actual sound of the
words echoing back to him lifted him up as though out of very deep water.
Then he was aware, as one is in the first clear moment after a great
shock, of a number of things at the same time. He hated his son because
his son had disgraced him and his name for ever. He loved his son, never
before so deeply and so dearly as now. He was his only son, and there was
none other. His son had gone off with the daughter of the worst publican
in the place, and so had shamed him before them all. Falk (he arrived in
his mind suddenly at the name with a little shiver that hurt horribly)
would never be there any more, would never be about the house, would never
laugh and be angry and be funny any more. (Behind this thought was a long
train of pictures of Falk as a boy, as a baby, as a child, pictures that
he kept back with a great gesture of the will.) In the town they would all
be talking, they were talking already. They must be stopped from talking;
they must not know. He must lie; they must all lie. But how could they be
stopped from knowing when he had gone off with the publican's daughter?
They would all know.... They would laugh...They would laugh. He would
not be able to go down the street without their laughter.

Dimly on that came a larger question. What had happened lately so that his
whole life had changed? He had been feeling it now for weeks, long before
this terrible blow had fallen, as though he were surrounded by enemies and
mockers and men who wished him ill. Men who wished him ill! Wished HIM
ill! He who had never done any one harm in all his life, who had only
wanted the happiness of others and the good of the place in which he was,
and the Glory of God! God!...His thoughts leapt across a vast gulf. What
was God about, to allow this disaster to fall upon him? When he had served
God so faithfully and had had no thought but for His grandeur? He was in a
new world now, where the rivers, the mountains, the roads, the cities were
new. For years everything had gone well with him, and then, suddenly, at
the lifting of a finger, all had been ill....

Through the mist of his thoughts, gradually, like the sun in his strength,
his anger had been rising. Now it flamed forth. At the first it had been
personal anger because his son had betrayed and deceived him--but now, for
a time, Falk was almost forgotten.

He would show them. They would laugh at him, would they? They would point
at him, would they, as the man whose son had run away with an innkeeper's
daughter? Well, let them point. They would plot to take the power from his
hands, to reduce him to impotence, to make him of no account in the place
where he had ruled for years. He had no doubt, now that he saw farther
into it, that they had persuaded Falk to run away with that girl. It was
the sort of weapon that they would be likely to use, the sort of weapon
that that man, Ronder....

At the sudden ringing of that now hated name in his ears he was calm. Yes,
to fight that enemy he needed all his control. How that man would rejoice
at this that had happened! What a victory to him it would seem to be!
Well, it should not be a victory. He began to stride up and down his
study, his head up, his chest out. It was almost as though he were a great
warrior of old, having his armour put on before he went out to the fight--
the greaves, the breastplate, the helmet, the sword....

He would fight to the last drop of blood in his body and beat the pack of
them, and if they thought that this would cause him to hang his head or
hide or go secretly, they should soon see their mistake.

He suddenly stopped. The pain that sometimes came to his head attacked him
now. For a moment it was so sharp, of so acute an agony, that he almost
staggered and fell. He stood there, his body taut, his hands clenched. It
was like knives driving through his brain; his eyes were filled with blood
so that he could not see. It passed, but he was weak, his knees shook so
that he was compelled to sit down, holding his hands on his knees. Now it
was gone. He could see clearly again. What was it? Imagination, perhaps.
Only the hammering of his heart told him that anything was the matter. He
was a long while there. At last he got up, went into the hall, found his
hat and went out. He crossed the Green and passed through the Cathedral
door.

He went out instinctively, without any deliberate thought, to the
Cathedral as to the place that would most readily soothe and comfort him.
Always when things went wrong he crossed over to the Cathedral and walked
about there. Matins were just concluded and people were coming out of the
great West door. He went in by the Saint Margaret door, crossed through
the Vestry where Rogers, who had been taking the service, was disrobing,
and climbed the little crooked stairs into the Lucifer Room. A glimpse of
Rogers' saturnine countenance (he knew well enough that Rogers hated him)
stirred some voice to whisper within: "He knows and he's glad."

The Lucifer Room was a favourite resort of his, favourite because there
was a long bare floor across which he could walk with no furniture to
interrupt him, and because, too, no one ever came there. It was a room in
the Bishop's Tower that had once, many hundreds of years ago, been used by
the monks as a small refectory. Many years had passed now since it had
seen any sort of occupation save that of bats, owls and mice. There was a
fireplace at the far end that had long been blocked up, but that still
showed curious carving, the heads of monkeys and rabbits, winged birds, a
twisting dragon with a long tail, and the figure of a saint holding up a
crucifix. Over the door was an old clock that had long ceased to tell the
hours; this had a strangely carved wood canopy. Two little windows with
faint stained glass gave an obscure light. The subjects of these windows
were confused, but the old colours, deep reds and blues, blended with a
rich glow that no modern glass could obtain. The ribs and bosses of the
vaulting of the room were in faded colours and dull gold. In one corner of
the room was an old, dusty, long-neglected harmonium. Against the wall
were hanging some wooden figures, large life-sized saints, two male and
two female, once outside the building, painted on the wood in faded
crimson and yellow and gold. Much of the colour had been worn away with
rain and wind, but two of the faces were still bright and stared with a
gentle fixed gaze out into the dim air. Two old banners, torn and thin,
flapped from one of the vaultings. The floor was worn, and creaked with
every step. As Brandon pushed back the heavy door and entered, some bird
in a distant corner flew with a frightened stir across to the window.
Occasionally some one urged that steps should be taken to renovate the
place and make some use of it, but nothing was ever done. Stories
connected with it had faded away; no one now could tell why it was called
the Lucifer Room--and no one cared.

Its dimness and shadowed coloured light suited Brandon to-day. He wanted
to be where no one could see him, where he could gather together the
resistance with which to meet the world. He paced up and down, his hands
behind his back; he fancied that the old saints looked at him with kindly
affection.

And now, for a moment, all his pride and anger were gone, and he could
think of nothing but his love for his son. He had an impulse that almost
moved him to hurry home, to take the next train up to London, to find
Falk, to take him in his arms and forgive him. He saw again and again that
last meeting that they had had, when Falk had kissed him. He knew now what
that had meant. After all, the boy was right. He had been in the wrong to
have kept him here, doing nothing. It was fine of the boy to take things
into his own hands, to show his independence and to fight for his own
individuality. It was what he himself would have done if--then the thought
of Annie Hogg cut across his tenderness and behind Annie her father, that
fat, smiling, red-faced scoundrel, the worst villain in the town. At the
sudden realisation that there was now a link between himself and that man,
and that that link had been forged by his own son, tenderness and
affection fled. He could only entertain one emotion at a time, and
immediately he was swept into such a fury that he stopped in his walk,
lifted his head, and cursed Falk. For that he would never forgive him, for
the public shame and disgrace that he had brought upon the Brandon name,
upon his mother and his sister, upon the Cathedral, upon all authority and
discipline and seemliness in the town.

He suffered then the deepest agony that perhaps in all his life he had
ever known. There was no one there to see. He sank down upon the wooden
coping that protruded from the old wall and hid his face in his hands as
though he were too deeply ashamed to encounter even the dim faces of the
old wooden figures.

There was a stir in the room; the little door opened and closed; the bird,
with a flutter of wings, flew back to its corner. Brandon looked up and
saw a faint shadow of a man. He rose and took some steps towards the door,
then he stopped because be saw that the man was Davray the painter.

He had never spoken to this man, but be had hated everything that he had
ever heard about him. In the first place, to be an artist was, in the
Archdeacon's mind, synonymous with being a loose liver and an atheist.
Then this fellow was, as all the town knew, a drunkard, an idler, a
dissolute waster who had brought nothing upon Polchester but disgrace. Had
Brandon had his way he would, long ago, have had him publicly expelled and
forbidden ever to return. The thought that this man should be in the
Cathedral at all was shocking to him and, in his present mood, quite
intolerable. He saw, dim though the light was, that the man was drunk now.

Davray lurched forward a step, then said huskily:

"Well, so your fine son's run away with Hogg's pretty daughter."

The sense that he had had already that his son's action, had suddenly
bound him into company with all the powers of evil and destruction rose to
its full height at the sound of the man's voice; but with it rose, too,
his self-command. The very disgust with which Davray filled him
contributed to his own control and dignity.

"You should feel ashamed, sir," he said quietly, standing still where be
was, "to be in that condition in this building. Or are you too drunk to
know where you are?"

"That's all right, Archdeacon," Davray said, laughing. "Of course I'm
drunk. I generally am--and that's my affair. But I'm not so drunk as not
to know where I am and not to know who you are and what's happened to you.
I know all those things, I'm glad to say. Perhaps I am a little ahead of
yourself in that. Perhaps you don't know yet what your young hopeful has
been doing."

Brandon was as still as one of the old wooden saints.

"Then if you are sober enough to know where you are, leave this place and
do not return to it until you are in a fit state."

"Fit! I like that." The sense that he was alone now for the first time in
his life with the man whom he had so long hated infuriated Davray. "Fit?
Let me tell you this, old cock, I'm twice as fit to be here as you're ever
likely to be. Though I have been drinking and letting myself go, I'm
fitter to be here than you are, you stuck-up, pompous fool."

Brandon did not stir.

"Go home!" he said; "go home! Recover your senses and ask God's
forgiveness."

"God's forgiveness!" Davray moved a step forward as though he would
strike. Brandon made no movement. "That's like your damned cheek. Who
wants forgiveness as you do? Ask this Cathedral--ask it whether I have not
loved it, adored it, worshipped it as I've worshipped no woman. Ask it
whether I have not been faithful, drunkard and sot as I am. And ask it
what it thinks of you--of your patronage and pomposity and conceit. When
have you thought of the Cathedral and its beauty, and not always of
yourself and your grandeur?...Why, man, we're sick of you, all of us
from the top man in the place to the smallest boy. And the Cathedral is
sick of you and your damned conceit, and is going to get rid of you, too,
if you won't go of yourself. And this is the first step. Your son's gone
with a whore to London, and all the town's laughing at you."

Brandon did not flinch. The man was close to him; he could smell his
drunken breath--but behind his words, drunken though they might be, was a
hatred so intense, so deep, so real, that it was like a fierce physical
blow. Hatred of himself. He had never conceived in all his life that any
one hated him--and this man had hated him for years, a man to whom he had
never spoken before to-day.

Davray, as was often his manner, seemed suddenly to sober. He stood aside
and spoke more quietly, almost without passion.

"I've been waiting for this moment for years," he said; "you don't know
how I've watched you Sunday after Sunday strutting about this lovely
place, happy in your own conceit. Your very pride has been an insult to
the God you pretend to serve. I don't know whether there's a God or no--
there can't be, or things wouldn't happen as they do--but there _is_
this place, alive, wonderful, beautiful, triumphant, and you've dared to
put yourself above it....

"I could have shouted for joy last night when I heard what your young
hopeful had done. 'That's right,' I said; 'that'll bring him down a bit.
That'll teach him modesty.' I had an extra drink on the strength of it.
I've been hanging about all the morning to get a chance of speaking to
you. I followed you up here. You're one of us now, Archdeacon. You're down
on the ground at last, but not so low as you will be before the Cathedral
has finished with you."

"Go," said Brandon, "or, House of God though this is, I'll throw you out."

"I'll go. I've said my say for the moment. But we'll meet again, never
fear. You're one of us now--one of us. Good-night."

He passed through the door, and the dusky room was still again as though
no one had been there....

There is an old German tale, by De la Motte Fouqué, I fancy, of a young
traveller who asks his way to a certain castle, his destination. He is
given his directions, and his guide tells him that the journey will be
easy enough until he reaches a small wood through which he must pass. This
wood will be dark and tangled and bewildering, but more sinister than
those obstacles will be the inhabitants of it who, evil, malign, foul and
bestial, devote their lives to the destruction of all travellers who
endeavour to reach the castle on the hill beyond. And the tale tells how
the young traveller, proud of his youth and strength, confident in the
security of his armour, nevertheless, when he crosses the dark border of
the wood, feels as though his whole world has changed, as though
everything in which he formerly trusted is of no value, as though the very
weapons that were his chief defence now made him most defenceless. He has
in the heart of that wood many perilous adventures, but worst of them all,
when he is almost at the end of his strength, is the sudden conviction
that he has himself changed, and is himself become one of the foul,
gibbering, half-visioned monsters by whom he is surrounded.

As Brandon left the Cathedral there was something of that strange sense
with him, a sense that had come to him first, perhaps, in its dimmest and
most distant form, on the day of the circus and the elephant, and that
now, in all its horrible vigour and confidence, was there close at his
elbow. He had always held himself immaculate; he had come down to his
fellow-men, loving them, indeed, but feeling that they were of some other
clay than his own, and that through no especial virtue of his, but simply
because God has so wished it. And now he had stood, and a drunken wastrel
had cursed him and told him that he was detested by all men and that they
waited for his downfall.

It was those last words of Davray's that rang in his ears: "You're one of
us now. You're one of us." Drunkard and wastrel though the man was, those
words could not be forgotten, would never be forgotten again.

With his head up, his shoulders back, he returned to his house.

The maid met him in the hall. "There's a man waiting for you in the study,
sir."

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Samuel Hogg, sir."

Brandon looked at the girl fixedly, but not unkindly.

"Why did you let him in, Gladys?"

"He wouldn't take no denial, sir. Mrs. Brandon was out and Miss Joan. He
said you were expecting him and 'e knew you'd soon be back."

"You should never let any one wait, Gladys, unless I have told you
beforehand."

"No, sir."

"Remember that in future, will you?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sure I'm sorry, sir, but----"

Brandon went into his study.

Hogg was standing beside the window, a faded bowler in his hand. He turned
when he heard the opening of the door; he presented to the Archdeacon a
face of smiling and genial, if coarsened, amiability.

He was wearing rough country clothes, brown knickerbockers and gaiters,
and looked something like a stout and seedy gamekeeper fond of the bottle.

"I'm sure you'll forgive this liberty I've taken, Archdeacon," he said,
opening his mouth very wide as he smiled--"waiting for you like this; but
the matter's a bit urgent."

"Yes?" said Brandon, not moving from the door.

"I've come in a friendly spirit, although there are men who might have
come otherwise. You won't deny that, considering the circumstances of the
case."

"I'll be grateful to you if you'll explain," said Brandon, "as quickly as
possibly your business."

"Why, of course," said Hogg, coming away from the window. "Why, of course,
Archdeacon. Now, whoever would have thought that we, you and me, would be
in the same box? And that's putting it a bit mild considering that it's my
daughter that your son has run away with."

Brandon said nothing, not, however, removing his eyes from Hogg's face.

Hogg was all amiable geniality. "I know it must be against the grain,
Archdeacon, having to deal with the likes of me. You've always counted
yourself a strike above us country-folk, haven't you, and quite natural
too. But, again, in the course of nature we've both of us had children and
that, as it turns out, is where we finds our common ground, so to speak--
you a boy and me a lovely girl. _Such_ a lovely girl, Archdeacon, as
it's natural enough your son should want to run away with."

Brandon went across to his writing-table and sat down.

"Mr. Hogg," he said, "it is true that I had a letter from my son this
morning telling me that he had gone up to London with your daughter and
was intending to marry her as soon as possible. You will not expect that I
should approve of that step. My first impulse was, naturally enough, to go
at once to London and to prevent his action at all costs. On thinking it
over, however, I felt that as he had run away with the girl the least that
he could now do was to marry her.

"I'm sure you will understand my feeling when I say that in taking this
step I consider that he has disgraced himself and his family. He has cut
himself off from his family irremediably. I think that really that is all
that I have to say."

Behind Hogg's strange little half-closed eyes some gleam of anger and
hatred passed. There was no sign of it in the geniality of his open smile.

"Why, certainly, Archdeacon, I can understand that you wouldn't care for
what he has done. But boys will be boys, won't they? We've both been boys
in our time, I daresay. You've looked at it from your point of view, and
that's natural enough. But human nature's human nature, and you must
forgive me if I look at it from mine. She's my only girl, and a good girl
she's been to me, keepin' herself _to_ herself and doing her work and
helping me wonderful. Well, your Young spark comes along, likes the look
of her and ruins her...."

The Archdeacon made some movement----

"Oh, you may say what you like, Archdeacon, and he may tell you what
_he_ likes, but you and I know what happens when two young things
with hot blood gets together and there's nobody by. They may _mean_
to be straight enough, but before they knows where they are, nature's took
hold of them, and there they are.... But even supposin' that 'asn't
happened, I don't know as I'm much better off. That girl was the very prop
of my business; she's gone, never to return, accordin' to her own account.
As to this marryin' business, that may seem to you, Archdeacon, to improve
things, but I'm not so sure that it does after all. You may be all very
'igh and mighty in your way, but I'm thinkin' of myself and the business.
What good does my girl marryin' your son do to me? That's what I want to
know."

Brandon's hands were clenched upon the table. Nevertheless he still spoke
quietly.

"I don't think, Mr. Hogg," he said, "that there's anything to be gained by
our discussing this just now. I have only this morning heard of it. You
may be assured that justice will be done, absolute justice, to your
daughter and yourself."

Hogg moved to the door.

"Why, certainly, Archdeacon. It is a bit early to discuss things. I
daresay we shall be havin' many a talk about it all before it's over. I'm
sure I only want to be friendly in the matter. As I said before, we're in
the same box, you and me, so to speak. That ought to make us tender
towards one another, oughtn't it? One losing his son and the other his
daughter.

"Such a good girl as she was too. Certainly I'll be going, Archdeacon;
leave you to think it over a bit. I daresay you'll see my point of view in
time."

"I think, Mr. Hogg, there's nothing to be gained by your coming here. You
shall hear from me."

"Well, as to that, Archdeacon," Hogg turned from the half-opened door,
smiling, "that's as may be. One can get further sometimes in a little talk
than in a dozen letters. And I'm really not much of a letter-writer. But
we'll see 'ow things go on. Good-evenin'."

The talk had lasted but five minutes, and every piece of furniture in the
room, the chairs, the table, the carpet, the pictures, seemed to have upon
it some new stain of disfigurement. Even the windows were dimmed.

Brandon sat staring in front of him. The door opened again and his wife
came in.

"That was Samuel Hogg who has just left you?"

"Yes," he said.

He looked across the room at her and was instantly surprised by the
strangest feeling. He was not, in his daily life, conscious of "feelings"
of any sort--that was not his way. But the events of the past two days
seemed to bring him suddenly into a new contact with real life, as though,
having lived in a balloon all this time, he had been suddenly bumped out
of it with a jerk and found Mother Earth with a terrible bang. He would
have told you a week ago that there was nothing about his wife that he did
not know and nothing about his own feelings towards her--and yet, after
all, the most that he had known was to have no especial feelings towards
her of any kind.

But to-day had been beyond possible question the most horrible day he had
ever known, and it might be that the very horror of it was to force him to
look upon everything on earth with new eyes. It had at least the immediate
effect now of showing his wife to him as part of himself, as some one,
therefore, hurt as he was, smirched and soiled and abused as he, needing
care and kindness as he had never known her to need it before. It was a
new feeling for him, a new tenderness.

He greeted and welcomed it as a relief after the horror of Hogg's
presence. Poor Amy! She was in as bad a way as he now--they were at last
in the same box.

"Yes," he said, "that was Hogg."

Looking at her now in this new way, he was also able to see that she
herself was changed. She figured definitely as an actor now with an odd
white intensity in her face, with some mysterious purpose in her eyes,
with a resolve in the whole poise of her body that seemed to add to her
height.

"Well," she said, "what train are you taking up to London?"

"What train?" he repeated after her.

"Yes, to see Falk."

"I am not going to see Falk."

"You're not going up to him?"

"Why should I go?"

"Why should you go? _You_ can ask me that?...To stop this terrible
marriage."

"I don't intend to stop it."

There was a pause. She seemed to summon every nerve in her body to her
control.

The twitching of her fingers against her dress was her only movement.

"Would you please tell me what you mean to do? After all, I am his
mother."

The tenderness that he had felt at first sight of her was increasing so
strangely that it was all he could do not to go over to her. But his
horror of any demonstration kept him where he was.

"Amy, dear," he said, "I've had a dreadful day--in every way a terrible
day. I haven't had time, as things have gone, to think things out. I want
to be fair. I want to do the right thing. I do indeed. I don't think
there's anything to be gained by going up to London. One thing only now
I'm clear about. He's got to marry the girl now he's gone off with her. To
do him justice he intends to do that. He says that he has done her no
harm, and we must take his word for that. Falk has been many things--
careless, reckless, selfish, but never in all his life dishonourable. If I
went up now we should quarrel, and perhaps something irreparable would
occur. Even though he was persuaded to return, the mischief is done. He
must be just to the girl. Every one in the town knows by now that she went
with him--her father has been busy proclaiming the news even though there
has been no one else."

Mrs. Brandon said nothing. She had made in herself the horrible discovery,
after reading Falk's letter, that her thoughts were not upon Falk at all,
but upon Morris. Falk had flouted her; not only had he not wanted her, but
he had gone off with a common girl of the town. She had suddenly no
tenderness for him, no anger against him, no thought of him except that
his action had removed the last link that held her.

She was gazing now at Morris with all her eyes. Her brain was fastened
upon him with an intensity sufficient almost to draw him, hypnotised,
there to her feet. Her husband, her home, Polchester, these things were
like dim shadows.

"So you will do nothing?" she said.

"I must wait," he said, "I know that when I act hastily I act badly...."
He paused, looked at her doubtfully, then with great hesitation went on:
"We are together in this, Amy. I've been--I've been--thinking of myself
and my work perhaps too much in the past. We've got to see this through
together."

"Yes," she answered, "together." But she was thinking of Morris.




Chapter VIII

The Wind Flies Over the House



Later, that day, she went from the house. It was a strange evening. Two
different weathers seemed to have met over the Polchester streets. First
there was the deep serene beauty of the May day, pale blue faintly fading
into the palest yellow, the world lying like an enchanted spirit asleep
within a glass bell, reflecting the light from the shining surface that
enfolded it. In this light houses, grass, cobbles lay as though stained by
a painter's brush, bright colours like the dazzling pigment of a wooden
toy, glittering under the shining sky.

This was a normal enough evening for the Polchester May, but across it,
shivering it into fragments, broke a stormy and blustering wind, a wind
that belonged to stormy January days, cold and violent, with the hint of
rain in its murmuring voice. It tore through the town, sometimes carrying
hurried and, as it seemed, terrified clouds with it; for a while the May
light would be hidden, the air would be chill, a few drops like flashes of
glass would fall, gleaming against the bright colours--then suddenly the
sky would be again unchallenged blue, there would be no cloud on the
horizon, only the pavements would glitter as though reflecting a glassy
dome. Sometimes it would be more than one cloud that the wind would carry
on its track--a company of clouds; they would appear suddenly above the
horizon, like white-faced giants peering over the world's rim, then in a
huddled confusion they would gather together, then start their flight,
separating, joining, merging, dwindling and expanding, swallowing up the
blue, threatening to encompass the pale saffron of the lower sky, then
vanishing with incredible swiftness, leaving warmth and colour in their
train.

Amy Brandon did not see the enchanted town. She heard, as she left the
house, the clocks striking half-past six. Some regular subconscious self,
working with its accustomed daily duty, murmured to her that to-night her
husband was dining at the Conservative Club and Joan was staying on to
supper at the Sampsons' after the opening tennis party of the season. No
one would need her--as so often in the past no one had needed her. But it
was her unconscious self that whispered this to her; in the wild stream
into whose current during these last strange months she had flung herself
she was carried along she knew not, she cared not, whither.

Enough for her that she was free now to encompass her desire, the only
dominating, devastating desire that she had ever known in all her dead,
well-ordered life. But it was not even with so active a consciousness as
this that she thought this out. She thought out nothing save that she must
see Morris, be with Morris, catch from Morris that sense of appeasement
from the torture of hunger unsatisfied that never now left her.

In the last weeks she had grown so regardless of the town's opinion that
she did not care how many people saw her pass Morris' door. She had,
perhaps, been always regardless, only in the dull security of her life
there had been no need to regard them. She despised them all; she had
always despised them, for the deference and admiration that they paid her
husband if for no other reason. Despised them too, it might be, because
they had not seen more in herself, had thought her the dull, lifeless
nonentity in whose soul no fires had ever burned.

She had never chattered nor gossiped with them, did not consider gossip a
factor in any one's day; she had never had the least curiosity about any
one else, whether about life or character or motive.

There is no egoist in the world so complete as the disappointed woman
without imagination.

She hurried through the town as though she were on a business of the
utmost urgency; she saw nothing and she heard nothing. She did not even
see Miss Milton sitting at her half-opened window enjoying the evening
air.

Morris himself opened the door. He was surprised when he saw her; when he
had closed the door and helped her off with her coat he said as they
walked into the drawing-room:

"Is there anything the matter?"

She saw at once that the room was cheerless and deserted.

"Is Miss Burnett here?" she asked.

"No. She went off to Rafiel for a week's holiday. I'm being looked after
by the cook."

"It's cold." She drew her shoulders and arms together, shivering.

"Yes. It _is_ cold. It's these showers. Shall I light the fire?"

"Yes, do."

He bent down, putting a match to the paper; then when the fire blazed he
pushed the sofa forwards.

"Now sit down and tell me what's the matter."

She could see that he was extremely nervous.

"Have you heard nothing?"

"No."

She laughed bitterly. "I thought all the town knew by this time."

"Knew what?"

"Falk has run away to London with the daughter of Samuel Hogg."

"Samuel Hogg?"

"Yes, the man of the 'Dog and Pilchard' down in Seatown."

"Run away with her?"

"Yesterday. He sent us a letter saying that he had gone up to London to
earn his own living, had taken this girl with him, and would marry her
next week."

Morris was horrified.

"Without a word of warning? Without speaking to you? Horrible! The
daughter of that man.... I know something about him...the worst man in the
place."

Then followed a long silence. The effect on Morris was as it had been on
Mrs. Brandon--the actual deed was almost lost sight of in the sudden light
that it threw on his passion. From the very first the most appealing
element of her attraction to him had been her loneliness, the neglect from
which she suffered, the need she had of comfort.

He saw her as a woman who, for twenty years, had had no love, although in
her very nature she had hungered for it; and if she had not been treated
with actual cruelty, at least she had been so basely neglected that
cruelty was not far away. It was not true to say that during these months
he had grown to hate Brandon, but he had come, more and more, to despise
and condemn him. The effeminacy in his own nature had from the first both
shrunk from and been attracted by the masculinity in Brandon.

He could have loved that man, but as the situation had forbidden that, his
feeling now was very near to hate.

Then, as the weeks had gone by, Mrs. Brandon had made it clear enough to
him that Falk was all that she had left to her--not very much to her even
there, perhaps, but something to keep her starved heart from dying. And
now Falk was gone, gone in the most brutal, callous way. She had no one in
the world left to her but himself. The rush of tenderness and longing to
be good to her that now overwhelmed him was so strong and so sudden that
it was with the utmost difficulty that he had held himself from going to
the sofa beside her.

She looked so weak there, so helpless, so gentle.

"Amy," he said, "I will do anything in the world that is in my power."

She was trembling, partly with genuine emotion, partly with cold, partly
with the drama of the situation.

"No," she said, "I don't want to do a thing that's going to involve you.
You must be left out of this. It is something that I must carry through by
myself. It was wrong of me, I suppose, to come to you, but my first
thought was that I must have companionship. I was selfish----"

"No," he broke in, "you were not selfish. I am prouder that you came to me
than I can possibly say. That is what I'm here for. I'm your friend. You
know, after all these months, that I am. And what is a friend for?" Then,
as though he felt that he was advancing too dangerously close to emotion,
he went on more quietly:

"Tell me--if it isn't impertinent of me to ask--what is your husband doing
about it?"

"Doing? Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No. I thought that he would go up to London and see Falk, but he doesn't
feel that that is necessary. He says that, as Falk has run away with the
girl, the most decent thing that he can do is to marry her. He seems very
little upset by it. He is a most curious man. After all these years, I
don't understand him at all."

Morris went on hesitatingly. "I feel guilty myself. Weeks ago I overheard
gossip about your son and some girl. I wondered then whether I ought to
say something to you. But it's so difficult in these cases to know what
one ought to do. There's so much gossip in these little Cathedral towns. I
thought about it a good deal. Finally, I decided that it wasn't my place
to meddle."

"I heard nothing," she answered. "It's always the family that hears the
talk last. Perhaps my husband's right. Perhaps there is nothing to be
done. I see now that Falk never cared anything for any of us. I cheated
myself. I had to cheat myself, otherwise I don't know what I'd have done.
And now his doing this has made me suspicious of everything and of every
one. Yes, even of a friendship like ours--the greatest thing in my life--
now--the only thing in my life."

Her voice trembled and dropped. But still he would not let himself pass on
to that other ground. "Is there _nothing_ I can do?" he asked. "I
suppose it would do no good if I were to go up to London and see him? I
knew him a little--"

Vehemently she shook her head.

"You're not to be involved in this. At least I can do that much--keep you
out of it."

"How is he going to live, then?"

"He talks about writing. He's utterly confident, of course. He always has
been. Looking back now, I despise myself for ever imagining that _I_
was of any use to him. I see now that he never needed me--never at all."

Suddenly she looked across at him sharply.

"How is your sister-in-law?" His colour rose.

"My sister-in-law?"

"Yes."

"She isn't well."

"What--?"

"It's hard to say. The doctor looked at her and said she needed quiet and
must go to the sea. It's her nerves."

"Her nerves?"

"Yes, they got very queer. She's been sleeping badly."

"You quarrelled."

"She and I?--yes."

"What about?"

"Oh, I don't know. She's getting a little too much for me, I think."

She looked him in the face.

"No, you know it isn't that. You quarrelled about me."

He said nothing.

"You quarrelled about me," she repeated. "She always disliked me from the
beginning."

"No."

"Oh, yes, she did. Of course I saw that. She was jealous of me. She saw,
more quickly than any one else, how much--how much we were going to mean
to one another. Speak the truth. You know that is the best."

"She didn't understand," Morris answered slowly. "She's stupid in some
things."

"So I've been the cause of your quarrelling, of your losing the only
friend you had in your life?"

"No, not of my losing it. I haven't lost her. Our relationship has
shifted, that's all."

"No. No. I know it is so. I've taken away the only person near you."

And suddenly turning from him to the back of the sofa, hiding her face in
her hands, she broke into passionate crying.

He stood for a moment, taut, controlled, as though he was fighting his
last little desperate battle. Then he was beaten. He knelt down on the
floor beside the sofa. He touched her hair, then her cheek. She made a
little movement towards him. He put his arms around her.

"Don't cry. Don't cry. I can't bear that. You mustn't say that you've
taken anything from me. It isn't true. You've given me everything...
everything. Why should we struggle any longer? Why shouldn't we take what
has been given to us? Your husband doesn't care. I haven't anybody. Has
God given me so much that I should miss this? And has He put it in our
hearts if He didn't mean us to take it? I love you. I've loved you since
first I set eyes on you. I can't keep away from you any longer. It's
keeping away from myself. We're one. We are one another--not alone,
either of us--any more...."

She turned towards him. He drew her closer and closer to him. With a
little sigh of happiness and comfort she yielded to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was only one cloud in the dim green sky, a cloud orange and crimson,
shaped like a ship. As the sun was setting, a little wind stirred, the
faint aftermath of the storm of the day, and the cloud, now all crimson,
passed over the town and died in fading ribbons of gold and orange in the
white sky of the far horizon.

Only Miss Milton, perhaps, among all the citizens of the town, waiting
patiently behind her open window, watched its career.




Chapter IX

The Quarrel



Every one has known, at one time or another in life, that strange
unexpected calm that always falls like sudden snow on a storm-tossed
country, after some great crisis or upheaval. The blow has seemed so
catastrophic that the world must be changed with the force of its fall--
but the world is _not_ changed; hours pass and days go by, and no one
seems to be aware that anything has occurred...it is only when months
have gone, and perhaps years, that one looks back and sees that it was,
after all, on such and such a day that life was altered, values shifted,
the face of the world turned to a new angle.

This is platitudinous, but platitudes are not platitudes when we first
make our personal experience of them. There seemed nothing platitudinous
to Brandon in his present experiences. The day on which he had received
Falk's letter had seemed to fling him neck and crop into a new world--a
world dim and obscure and peopled with new and terrifying devils. The
morning after, he was clear again, and it was almost as though nothing at
all had occurred. He went about the town, and everybody behaved in a
normal manner. No sign of those strange menacing figures, the drunken
painter, the sinister, smiling Hogg; every one as usual.

Ryle complacent and obedient; Bentinck-Major officious but subservient;
Mrs. Combermere jolly; even, as he fancied, Foster a little more amiable
than usual. It was for this open, outside world that he had now for many
years been living; it was not difficult to tell himself that things here
were unchanged. Because he was no psychologist, he took people as he found
them; when they smiled they were pleased and when they frowned they were
angry.

Because there was a great deal of pressing business he pushed aside Falk's
problem. It was there, it was waiting for him, but perhaps time would
solve it.

He concentrated himself with a new energy, a new self-confidence, upon
the Cathedral, the Jubilee, the public life of the town.

Nevertheless, that horrible day had had its effect upon him. Three days
after Falk's escape he was having breakfast alone with Joan.

"Mother has a headache," Joan said. "She's not coming down."

He nodded, scarcely looking up from his paper.

In a little while she said: "What are you doing to-day, daddy? I'm very
sorry to bother you, but I'm housekeeping to-day, and I have to arrange
about meals----"

"I'm lunching at Carpledon," he said, putting his paper down.

"With the Bishop? How nice! I wish I were. He's an old dear."

"He wants to consult me about some of the Jubilee services," Brandon said
in his public voice.

"Won't Canon Ryle mind that?"

"I don't care if he does. It's his own fault, for not managing things
better."

"I think the Bishop must be very lonely out there. He hardly ever comes
into Polchester now. It's because of his rheumatism, I suppose. Why
doesn't he resign, daddy?"

"He's wanted to, a number of times. But he's very popular. People don't
want him to go."

"I don't wonder." Joan's eyes sparkled. "Even if one never saw him at all
it would be better than somebody else. He's _such_ an old darling."

"Well, I don't believe myself in men going on when they're past their
work. However, I hear he's going to insist on resigning at the end of this
year."

"How old is he, daddy?"

"Eighty-seven."

There was always a tinge of patronage in the Archdeacon's voice when he
spoke of his Bishop. He knew that he was a saint, a man whose life had
been of so absolute a purity, a simplicity, an unfaltering faith and
courage, that there were no flaws to be found in him anywhere. It was
possibly this very simplicity that stirred Brandon's patronage. After all,
we were living in a workaday world, and the Bishop's confidence in every
man's word and trust in every man's honour had been at times a little
ludicrous. Nevertheless, did any one dare to attack the Bishop, he was
immediately his most ardent and ferocious defender.

It was only when the Bishop was praised that he felt that a word or two of
caution was necessary.

However, he was just now not thinking of the Bishop; he was thinking of
his daughter. As he looked across the table at her he wondered. What had
Falk's betrayal of the family meant to her? Had she been fond of him? She
had given no sign at all as to how it had affected her. She had her
friends and her life in the town, and her family pride like the rest of
them. How pretty she looked this morning! He was suddenly aware of the
love and devotion that she had given him for years and the small return
that he had made. Not that he had been a bad father--he hurriedly
reassured himself; no one could accuse him of that. But he had been busy,
preoccupied, had not noticed her as he might have done. She was a woman
now, with a new independence and self-assurance! And yet such a child at
the same time! He recalled the evening in the cab when she had held his
hand. How few demands she ever made upon him; how little she was ever in
the way!

He went back to his paper, but found that he could not fix his attention
upon it. When he had finished his breakfast he went across to her. She
looked up at him, smiling. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Um--yes.... And what are you going to do to-day, dear?"

"I've heaps to do. There's the Jubilee work-party in the morning. Then
there are one or two things in the town to get for mother." She paused.

He hesitated, then said:

"Has any one--have your friends in the town--said anything about Falk?"

She looked up at him.

"No, daddy--not a word."

Then she added, as though to herself, with a little sigh, "Poor Falk!"

He took his hand from her shoulder.

"So you're sorry for him, are you?" he said angrily.

"Not sorry, exactly," she answered slowly. "But--you will forgive him,
won't you?"

"You can be sure," Brandon said, "that I shall do what is right."

She sprang up and faced him.

"Daddy, now that Falk is gone, it's more necessary than ever for you to
realise _me_."

"Realise you?" he said, looking at her.

"Yes, that I'm a woman now and not a child any longer. You don't realise
it a bit. I said it to mother months ago, and told her that now I could do
all sorts of things for her. She _has_ let me do a few things, but
she hasn't changed to me, not been any different, or wanted me any more
than she did before. But you must. You _must_, daddy. I can help you
in lots of ways. I can----"

"What ways?" he asked her, smiling.

"I don't know. You must find them out. What I mean is that you've got to
count on me as an element in the family now. You can't disregard me any
more."

"Have I disregarded you?"

"Of course you have," she answered, laughing.

"Well, we'll see," he said. He bent down and kissed her, then left the
room.

He left to catch the train to Carpledon in a self-satisfied mind. He was
tired, certainly, and had felt ever since the shock of three days back a
certain "warning" sensation that hovered over him rather like hot air,
suggesting that sudden agonizing pain...but so long as the pain did not
come...He had thought, half derisively, of seeing old Puddifoot, even of
having himself overhauled--but Puddifoot was an ass. How could a man who
talked the nonsense Puddifoot did in the Conservative Club be anything of
a doctor? Besides, the man was old. There was a young man now, Newton. But
Brandon distrusted young men.

He was amused and pleased at the station. He strode up and down the
platform, his hands behind his broad back, his head up, his top-hat
shining, his gaiters fitting superbly his splendid calves. The station-
master touched his hat, smiled, and stayed for a word or two. Very
deferential. Good fellow, Curtis. Knew his business. The little, stout,
rosy-faced fellow who guarded the book-stall touched his hat. Brandon
stopped and looked at the papers. Advertisements already of special
Jubilee supplements--"Life of the Good Queen," "History of the Empire,
1837-1897." Piles of that trashy novel Joan had been talking about, _The
Massarenes_, by Ouida. Pah! Stuff and nonsense. How did people have
time for such things? "Yes, Mr. Waller. Fine day. Very fine May we're
having. Ought to be fine for the Jubilee. Hope so, I'm sure. Disappoint
many people if it's wet...."

He bought the _Church Times_ and crossed to the side-line. No one
here but a farmer, a country-woman and her little boy. The farmer's side-
face reminded him suddenly of some one. Who was it? That fat cheek, the
faint sandy hair beneath the shabby bowler. He was struck as though,
standing on a tight-rope in mid-air, he felt it quiver beneath him.
Hogg.... He turned abruptly and faced the empty line and the dusty
neglected boarding of a railway-shed. He must not think of that man, must
not allow him to seize his thoughts. Hogg--Davray. Had he dreamt that
horrible scene in the Cathedral? Could that have been? He lifted his hand
and, as it were, tore the scene into pieces and scattered it on the line.
He had command of his thoughts, shutting down one little tight shutter
after another upon the things he did not want to see. _That_ he did
not want to see, did not want to know.

The little train drew in, slowly, regretfully. Brandon got into the
solitary first-class carriage and buried himself in his paper. Soon,
thanks to his happy gift of attending only to one question at a time, the
subjects that that paper brought up for discussion completely absorbed
him. Anything more absurd than such an argument!--as though the validity
of Baptism did not absolutely depend...

He was happily lost; the little train steamed out. He saw nothing of the
beautiful country through which they passed--country, on this May
morning, so beautiful in its rich luxuriant security, the fields bending
and dipping to the tree-haunted streams, the hedges running in lines of
blue and dark purple like ribbons to the sky, that, blue-flecked, caught
in light and shadow a myriad pattern as a complement to its own sun-warmed
clouds. Rich and English so utterly that it was almost scornful in its
resentment of foreign interference. In spite of the clouds the air was now
in its mid-day splendour, and the cows, in clusters of brown, dark and
clay-red, sought the cool grey shadows of the hedges.

The peace of centuries lay upon this land, and the sun with loving hands
caressed its warm flanks as though here, at least, was some one of whom it
might be sure, some one known from old time.

The little station at Carpledon was merely a wooden shed. Woods running
down the hill threatened to overwhelm it; at its very edge beyond the
line, thick green fields slipped to the shining level waters of the Pol.
Brandon walked up the hill through the wood, past the hedge and on through
the Park to the Palace drive. The sight of that old, red, thick-set
building with its square comfortable windows, its bell-tower, its
dovecots, its graceful, stolid, happy lines, its high old doorway, its
tiled roof rosy-red with age, respectability and comfort, its square
solemn chimneys behind and between whose self-possession the broad
branches of the oaks, older and wiser than the house itself, uplifted
their clustered leaves with the protection of their conscious dignity--
this house thrilled all that was deepest and most superstitious in his
soul.

To this building he would bow, to this house surrender. Here was something
that would command all his reverence, a worthy adjunct to the Cathedral
that he loved; without undue pride he must acknowledge to himself that,
had fate so willed it, he would himself have occupied this place with a
worthy and fitting appropriateness. It seemed, indeed, as he pulled the
iron bell and heard its clang deep within the house, that he understood
what it needed so well that it must sigh with a dignified relief when it
saw him approach.

Appleford the butler, who opened the door, was an old friend of his--an
aged, white-locked man, but dignity itself.

"His lordship will be down in a moment," he said, showing him into the
library. Some one else was there, his back to the door. He turned round;
it was Ronder.

When Brandon saw him he had again that sense that came now to him so
frequently, that some plot was in process against him and gradually, step
by step, hedging him in. That is a dangerous sense for any human being to
acquire, but most especially for a man of Brandon's simplicity, almost
naïveté of character.

Ronder! The very last man whom Brandon could bear to see in that place and
at that time! Brandon's visit to-day was not entirely unengineered. To be
honest, he had not spoken quite the truth to his daughter when he had said
that the Bishop had asked him out there for consultation. Himself had
written to the Bishop a very strong letter, emphasising the inadequacy
with which his Jubilee services were being prepared, saying something
about the suitability of Forsyth for the Pybus living, and hinting at
certain carelessnesses in the Chapter "due to new and regrettable
influences." It was in answer to this letter that Ponting, the Resident
Chaplain, had written saying that the Bishop would like to give Brandon
luncheon. It may be said, therefore, that Brandon wished to consult the
Bishop rather than the Bishop Brandon. The Archdeacon had pictured to
himself a cosy _tête-à-tête_ with the Bishop lasting for an hour or
two, and entirely uninterrupted. He flattered himself that he knew his
dear Bishop well enough by this time to deal with him exactly as he ought
to be dealt with. But, for that dealing, privacy was absolutely essential.
Any third person would have been, to the last extent, provoking. Ronder
was disastrous. He instantly persuaded himself, as he looked at that
rubicund and smiling figure, that Ronder had heard of his visit and
determined to be one of the party. He could only have heard of it through
Ponting.... The Archdeacon's fingers twisted within one another as he
considered how pleasant it would be to wring Ponting's long, white and
ecclesiastical neck.

And, of course, behind all this immediate situation was his sense of the
pleasure and satisfaction that Ronder must be feeling about Falk's
scandal. Licking his thick red lips about it, he must be, watching with
his little fat eyes for the moment when, with his round fat fingers, he
might probe that wound.

Nevertheless the Archdeacon knew, by this time, Ronder's character and
abilities too well not to realise that he must dissemble. Dissembling was
the hardest thing of all that a man of the Archdeacon's character could be
called upon to perform, but dissemble he must.

His smile was of a grim kind.

"Ha! Ronder; didn't expect to see you here."

"No," said Ronder, coming forward and smiling with the utmost geniality.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't expect to find myself here. It was only
last evening that I got a note from the Bishop asking me to come out to
luncheon to-day. He said that you would be here."

Oh, so Ponting was not to blame. It was the Bishop himself. Poor old man!
Cowardice obviously, afraid of some of the home-truths that Brandon might
find it his duty to deliver. A coward in his old age....

"Very fine day," said Brandon.

"Beautiful," said Ronder. "Really, looks as though we are going to have
good weather for the Jubilee."

"Hope we do," said Brandon. "Very hard on thousands of people if it's
wet."

"Very," said Ronder. "I hope Mrs. Brandon is well."

"To-day she has a little headache," said Brandon. "But it's really
nothing."

"Well," said Ronder. "I've been wondering whether there isn't some thunder
in the air. I've been feeling it oppressive myself."

"It does get oppressive," said Brandon, "this time of the year in
Glebeshire--especially South Glebeshire. I've often noticed it."

"What we want," said Ronder, "is a good thunderstorm to clear the air."

"Just what we're not likely to get," said Brandon. "It hangs on for days
and days without breaking."

"I wonder why that is," said Ronder; "there are no hills round about to
keep it. There's hardly a hill of any size in the whole of South
Glebeshire."

"Of course, Polchester's in a hollow," said Brandon. "Except for the
Cathedral, of course. I always envy Lady St. Leath her elevation."

"A fine site, the Castle," said Ronder. "They must get a continual breeze
up there."

"They do," said Brandon. "Whenever I'm up there there's a wind."

This most edifying conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the
Reverend Charles Ponting. Mr. Ponting was very long, very thin and very
black, his cadaverous cheeks resembling in their colour nothing so much as
good fountain-pen ink. He spoke always in a high, melancholy and chanting
voice. He was undoubtedly effeminate in his movements, and he had an air
of superior secrecy about the affairs of the Bishop that people sometimes
found very trying. But he was a good man and a zealous, and entirely
devoted to his lord and master.

"Ha! Archdeacon.... Ha! Canon. His lordship will be down in one moment. He
has asked me to make his apologies for not being here to receive you. He
is just finishing something of rather especial importance."

The Bishop, however, entered a moment later. He was a little, frail man,
walking with the aid of a stick. He had snow-white hair, rather thick and
long, pale cheeks and eyes of a bright china-blue. He had that quality,
given to only a few in this world of happy mediocrities, of filling, at
once, any room into which he entered with the strength and fragrance of
his spirit. So strong, fearless and beautiful was his soul that it shone
through the frail compass of his body with an unfaltering light. No one
had ever doubted the goodness and splendour of the man's character. Men
might call his body old and feeble and past the work that it was still
called upon to perform. They might speak of him as guileless, as too
innocent of this world's slippery ways, as trusting where no child of six
years of age would have trusted; these things might have been, and were,
said, but no man, woman, nor child, looking upon him, hesitated to realise
that here was some one who had walked and talked with God and in whom
there was no shadow of deceit nor evil thought. Old Glasgow Parmiter, the
lawyer, the wickedest old man Polchester had ever known, said once of him,
"If there's a hell, I suppose I'm going to it, and I'm sure I don't care.
There may be one and there may not. I know there's a heaven. Purcell lives
there."

His voice, which was soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer
which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm. As
he stood there, leaning on his stick, smiling at them, there did seem a
great deal of the child about him, and Brandon, Ponting and Ronder
suddenly seemed old, wicked and soiled in the world's ways.

"Please forgive me," he said, "for not being down when you came. I move
slowly now.... Luncheon is ready, I know. Shall we go in?"

The four men crossed the stone-flagged hall into the diningroom where
Appleford stood, devoutly, as one about to perform a solemn rite. The
dining-room was high-ceilinged with a fireplace of old red brick fronted
with black oak beams. The walls were plain whitewash, and they carried
only one picture, a large copy of Dürer's "Knight and the Devil." The
high, broad windows looked out on to the sloping lawn whose green now
danced and sparkled under the sun. The trees that closed it in were purple
shadowed.

They sat, clustered together, at the end of a long oak refectory table.
The Bishop himself was a teetotaler, but there was good claret and, at the
end, excellent port. The only piece of colour on the table was a bowl of
dark-blue glass piled with fruit. The only ornament in the room was a
beautifully carved silver crucifix on the black oak mantelpiece. The sun
danced across the stained floor with every pattern and form of light.

Brandon could not remember a more unpleasant meal in that room; he could
not, indeed, remember ever having had an unpleasant meal there before. The
Bishop talked, as he always did, in a most pleasant and easy fashion. He
talked about the nectarines and plums that were soon to glorify his garden
walls, about the pears and apples in his orchard, about the jokes that old
Puddifoot made when he came over and examined his rheumatic limbs. He
gently chaffed Ponting about his punctuality, neatness and general dislike
of violent noises, and he bade Appleford to tell the housekeeper, Mrs.
Brenton, how especially good to-day was the fish soufflé. All this was all
it had ever been; nothing could have been easier and more happy. But on
other days it had always been Brandon who had thrown back the ball for the
Bishop to catch. Whoever the other guest might be, it was always Brandon
who took the lead, and although he might be a little ponderous and slow in
movement, he supplied the Bishop's conversational needs quite adequately.

And to-day it was Ronder; from the first, without any ostentation or
presumption, with the utmost naturalness, he led the field. To understand
the full truth of this occasion it must be known that Mr. Ponting had, for
a considerable number of years past, cherished a deep but private
detestation of the Archdeacon. It was hard to say wherein that hatred had
had it inception--probably in some old, long-forgotten piece of cheerful
patronage on Brandon's part; Mr. Ponting was of those who consider and
dwell and dwell again, and he had, by this time, dwelt upon the Archdeacon
so long and so thoroughly that he knew and resented the colour of every
one of the Archdeacon's waistcoat buttons. He was, perhaps, quick to
perceive to-day that a mightier than the Archdeacon was here; or it may
have been that he was well aware of what had been happening in Polchester
during the last weeks, and was even informed of the incidents of the last
three days.

However that may be, he did from the first pay an almost exaggerated
deference to Ronder's opinion, drew him into the conversation at every
possible opportunity, with such, interjections as "How true! How very
true! Don't you think so, Canon Ronder?" or "What has been your experience
in such a case, Canon Ronder?" or "I think, my lord, that Canon Ronder
told me that he knows that place well," and disregarding entirely any
remarks that Brandon might happen to make.

No one could have responded more brilliantly to this opportunity than did
Ronder; indeed the Bishop, who was his host at the Palace to-day for the
first time, said after his departure, "That's a most able man, most able.
Lucky indeed for the diocese that it has secured him...a delightful
fellow."

No one in the world could have been richer in anecdotes than Ronder,
anecdotes of precisely the kind for the Bishop's taste, not too worldly,
not too clerical, amusing without being broad, light and airy, but showing
often a fine scholarship and a wise and thoughtful experience of foreign
countries. The Bishop had not laughed so heartily for many a day. "Oh,
dear! Oh, dear!" he cried at the anecdote of the two American ladies in
Siena. "That's good, indeed...that's very good. Did you get that,
Ponting? Dear me, that's perfectly delightful!" A little tear of shining
pleasure trickled down his cheek. "Really, Canon, I've never heard
anything better."

Brandon thought Ronder's manners outrageous. Poor Bishop! He was indeed
failing that he could laugh so heartily at such pitiful humour. He tried,
to show his sense of it all by grimly pursuing his food and refusing even
the ghost of a chuckle, but no one was perceiving him, as he very bitterly
saw. The Bishop, it may be, saw it too, for at last he turned to Brandon
and said:

"But come, Archdeacon. I was forgetting. You wrote to me s-something about
that Jubilee-music in the Cathedral. You find that Ryle is making rather a
m-mess of things, don't you?"

Brandon was deeply offended. Of what was the Bishop thinking that he could
so idly drag forward the substance of an entirely private letter, without
asking permission, into the public air? Moreover, the last thing that he
wanted was that Ronder should know that he had been working behind Ryle's
back. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he had done, but here
was precisely the thing that Ronder would like to use and make something
of. In any case, it was the principle of the thing. Was Ronder henceforth
to be privy to everything that passed between himself and the Bishop?

He never found it easy to veil his feelings, and he looked now, as Ponting
delightedly perceived, like an overgrown, sulky schoolboy.

"No, no, my lord," he said, looking across at Ponting, as though he would
love to set his heel upon that pale but eager visage. "You have me wrong
there. I was making no complaint. The Precentor knows his own business
best."

"You certainly said something in your letter," said the Bishop vaguely.
"There was s-something, Ponting, was there not?"

"Yes, my lord," said Ponting. "There was. But I expect the Archdeacon did
not mean it very seriously."

"Do you mean that you find the Precentor inefficient?" said the Bishop,
looking at the coffee with longing and then shaking his head. "Not to-day,
Appleford, alas--not to-day."

"Oh, no," said Brandon, colouring. "Of course not. Our tastes differ a
little as to the choice of music, that's all. I've no doubt that I am old-
fashioned."

"How do you find the Cathedral music, Canon?" he asked, turning to Ronder.

"Oh, I know very little about it," said Ronder, smiling. '"Nothing in
comparison with the Archdeacon. I'm sure he's right in liking the old
music that people have grown used to and are fond of. At the same time, I
must confess that I haven't thought Ryle too venturesome. But then I'm
very ignorant, having been here so short a time."

"That's right, then," said the Bishop comfortably. "There doesn't seem
much wrong."

At that moment Appleford, who had been absent from the room for a minute,
returned with a note which he gave to the Bishop.

"From Pybus, my lord," he said; "some one has ridden over with it."

At the word "Pybus" there was an electric silence in the room. The Bishop
tore open the letter and read it. He half started from his chair with a
little exclamation of distress and grief.

"Please excuse me," he said, turning to them. "I must leave you for a
moment and speak to the bearer of this note. Poor Morrison...at last...
he's gone!--Pybus!..."

The Archdeacon, in spite of himself, half rose and stared across at
Ronder. Pybus! The living at last was vacant.

A moment later he felt deeply ashamed. In that sunlit room the bright
green of the outside world quivering in pools of colour upon the pure
space of the white walls spoke of life and beauty and the immortality of
beauty.

It was hard to think of death there in such a place, but one must think of
it and consider, too, Morrison, who had been so good a fellow and loved
the world, and all the things in it, and had thought of heaven also in the
spare moments that his energy left him.

A great sportsman he had been, with a famous breed of bull-terrier, and
anxious to revive the South Glebeshire Hunt; very fine, too, in that last
terrible year when the worst of all mortal diseases had leapt upon his
throat and shaken him with agony and the imminent prospect of death--
shaken him but never terrified him. Brandon summoned before him that
broad, jolly, laughing figure, summoned it, bowed to its fortitude and
optimism, then, as all men must, at such a moment, considered his own end;
then, having paid his due to Morrison, returned to the great business of
the--Living.

They were gathered together in the hall now. The Bishop had known Morrison
well and greatly liked him, and he could think of nothing but the man
himself. The question of the succession could not come near him that day,
and as he stood, a little white-haired figure, tottering on his stick in
the flagged hall, he seemed already to be far from the others, to be
caught already half-way along the road that Morrison was now travelling.

Both Brandon and Ronder felt that it was right for them to go, although on
a normal day they would have stayed walking in the garden and talking for
another three-quarters of an hour until it was time to catch the three-
thirty train from Carpledon. Mr. Ponting settled the situation.

"His lordship," he said, "hopes that you will let Bassett drive you into
Polchester. There is the little wagonette; Bassett must go, in any case,
to get some things. It is no trouble, no trouble at all."

They, of course, agreed, although for Brandon at any rate there would be
many things in the world pleasanter than sitting with Ronder in a small
wagonette for more than an hour. He also had no liking for Bassett, the
Bishop's coachman for the last twenty years, a native of South Glebeshire,
with all the obstinacy, pride and independence that that definition
includes.

There was, however, no other course, and, a quarter of an hour later, the
two clergymen found themselves opposite one another in a wagonette that
was indeed so small that it seemed inevitable that Ronder's knees must
meet Brandon's and Brandon's ankles glide against Ronder's.

The Archdeacon's temper was, by this time, at its worst. Everything had
been ruined by Ronder's presence. The original grievances were bad enough
--the way in which his letter had been flouted, the fashion in which his
conversation had been disregarded at luncheon, the sanctified pleasure
that Ponting's angular countenance had expressed at every check that he
had received; but all these things mattered nothing compared with the fact
that Ronder was present at the news of Morrison's death.

Had he been alone with the Bishop then, what an opportunity he would have
had! How exactly he would have known how to comfort the Bishop, how
tactful and right he would have been in the words that he used, and what
an opportunity finally for turning the Bishop's mind in the way it should
go, namely, towards Rex Forsyth!

As his knees, place them where he would, bumped against Ronder's, wrath
bubbled in his heart like boiling water in a kettle. The very immobility
of Bassett's broad back added to the irritation.

"It's remarkably small for a wagonette," said Ronder at last, when some
minutes had passed in silence. "Further north this would not, I should
think, be called a wagonette at all, but in Glebeshire there are special
names for everything. And then, of course, we are both big men."

This comparison was most unfortunate. Ronder's body was soft and plump,
most unmistakably fat. Brandon's was apparently in magnificent condition.
It is well known that a large man in good athletic condition has a deep,
overwhelming contempt for men who are fat and soft. Brandon made no reply.
Ronder was determined to be pleasant.

"Very difficult to keep thin in this part of the world, isn't it? Every
morning when I look at myself in the glass I find myself fatter than I was
the day before. Then I say to myself, 'I'll give up bread and potatoes and
drink hot water.' Hot water! Loathsome stuff. Moreover, have you noticed,
Archdeacon, that a man who diets himself is a perfect nuisance to all his
friends and neighbours? The moment he refuses potatoes his hostess says to
him, 'Why, Mr. Smith, not one of our potatoes! Out of our own garden!' And
then he explains to her that he is dieting, whereupon every one at the
table hurriedly recites long and dreary histories of how they have dieted
at one time or another with this or that success. The meal is ruined for
yourself and every one else. Now, isn't it so? What do you do for yourself
when you are putting on flesh?"

"I am not aware," said Brandon in his most haughty manner, "that I
_am_ putting on flesh."

"Of course I don't mean just now," answered Ronder, smiling. "In any case,
the jolting of this wagonette is certain to reduce one. Anyway, I agree
with you. It's a tiresome subject. There's no escaping fate. We stout men
are doomed, I fancy."

There was a long silence. After Brandon had moved his legs about in every
possible direction and found it impossible to escape Ronder's knees, he
said:

"Excuse my knocking into you so often, Canon."

"Oh, that's all right," said Ronder, laughing. "This drive comes worse on
you than myself, I fancy. You're bonier.... What a splendid figure the
Bishop is! A great man--really, a great man. There's something about a man
of that simplicity and purity of character that we lesser men lack.
Something out of our grasp altogether."

"You haven't known him very long, I think," said Brandon, who considered
himself in no way a lesser man than the Bishop.

"No, I have not," said Ronder, pleasantly amused at the incredible ease
with which he was able to make the Archdeacon rise. "I've never been to
Carpledon before to-day. I especially appreciated his inviting me when he
was having so old a friend as yourself."

Another silence. Ronder looked about him; the afternoon was hot, and
little beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. One trickled down his
forehead, another into his eye. The road, early in the year though it was,
was already dusty, and the high Glebeshire hedges hid the view. The
irritation of the heat, the dust and the sense that they were enclosed and
would for the rest of their lives jog along, thus, knee to knee, down an
eternal road, made Ronder uncomfortable; when he was uncomfortable he was
dangerous. He looked at the fixed obstinacy of the Archdeacon's face and
said:

"Poor Morrison! So he's gone. I never knew him, but he must have been a
fine fellow. And the Pybus living is vacant."

Brandon said nothing.

"An important decision that will be--I beg your pardon. That's my knee
again.

"It's to be hoped that they will find a good man."

"There can be only one possible choice," said Brandon, planting his hands
flat on his knees.

"Really!" said Ronder, looking at the Archdeacon with an air of innocent
interest. "Do tell me, if it isn't a secret, who that is."

"It's no secret," said Brandon in a voice of level defiance. "Rex Forsyth
is the obvious man."

"Really!" said Ronder. "That is interesting. I haven't heard him
mentioned. I'm afraid I know very little about him."

"Know very little about him!" said Brandon indignantly. "Why, his name has
been in every one's mouth for months!"

"Indeed!" said Ronder mildly. "But then I am, in many ways, sadly out of
things. Do tell me about him."

"It's not for me to tell you," said Brandon, looking at Ronder with great
severity. "You can find out anything you like from the smallest boy in the
town." This was not polite, but Ronder did not mind. There was a little
pause, then he said very amiably:

"I have heard some mention of that man Wistons."

"What!" cried Brandon in a voice not very far from a shout. "The fellow
who wrote that abnominable book, _The Four Creeds_?"

"I suppose it's the same," said Ronder gently, rubbing his knee a little.

"That man!" The Archdeacon bounced in his seat. "That atheist! The leading
enemy of the Church, the man above any who would destroy every institution
that the Church possesses!"

"Come, come! Is it as bad as that?"

"As bad as that? Worse! Much worse! I take it that you have not read any
of his books."

"Well, I have read one or two!"

"You _have_ read them and you can mention his name with patience?"

"There are several ways of looking at these things----"

"Several ways of looking at atheism? Thank you, Canon. Thank you very much
indeed. I am delighted to have your opinion given so frankly."

("What an ass the man is!" thought Ronder. "He's going to lose his temper
here in the middle of the road with that coachman listening to every
word.")

"You must not take me too literally, Archdeacon," said Ronder. "What I
meant was that the question whether Wistons is an atheist can be argued
from many points of view."

"It can not! It can not!" cried Brandon, now shaking with anger. "There
can be no two points of view. 'He that is not with me is against me'----"

"Very well, then," said Ronder. "It can not. There is no more to be said."

"There _is_ more to be said. There is indeed. I am glad, Canon, that
at last you have come out into the open. I have been wondering for a long
time past when that happy event was to take place. Ever since you came
into this town, you have been subverting doctrine, upsetting institutions,
destroying the good work that the Cathedral has been doing for many years
past. I feel it my duty to tell you this, a duty that no one else is
courageous enough to perform----"

"Really, is this quite the place?" said Ronder, motioning with his hand
towards Bassett's broad back, and the massive sterns of the two horses
that rose and fell, like tubs on a rocking sea.

But Brandon was past caution, past wisdom, past discipline. He could see
nothing now but Ronder's two rosy cheeks and the round gleaming spectacles
that seemed to catch his words disdainfully and suspend them there in
indifference. "Excuse me. It is time indeed. It is long past the time. If
you think that you can come here, a complete stranger, and do what you
like with the institutions here, you are mistaken, and thoroughly
mistaken. There are those here who have the interests of the place at
heart and guard and protect them. Your conceit has blinded you, allow me
to tell you, and it's time that you had a more modest estimate of yourself
and doings."

"This really isn't the place," murmured Ronder, struggling to avoid
Brandon's knees.

"Yes, atheism is nothing to you!" shouted the Archdeacon. "Nothing at all!
You had better be careful! I warn you!"

"_You_ had better be careful," said Ronder, smiling in spite of
himself, "or you will be out of the carriage."

That smile was the final insult. Brandon, jumped up, rocking on his feet.
"Very well, then. You may laugh as you please. You may think it all a very
good joke. I tell you it is not. We are enemies, enemies from this moment.
You have never been anything _but_ my enemy."

"Do take care, Archdeacon, or you really _will_ be out of the
carriage."

"Very well. I will get out of it. I refuse to drive with you another step.
I refuse. I refuse."

"But you can't walk. It's six miles."

"I will walk! I will walk! Stop and let me get out! Stop, I say!"

But Bassett who, according to his back, was as innocent of any dispute as
the small birds on the neighbouring tree, drove on.

"Stop, I say. Can't you hear?" The Archdeacon plunged forward and pulled
Bassett by the collar. "Stop! Stop!" The wagonette abruptly stopped.

Bassett's amazed face, two wide eyes in a creased and crumpled surface,
peered round.

"It's war, I tell you. War!" Brandon climbed out.

"But listen, Archdeacon! You can't!"

"Drive on! Drive on!" cried Brandon, standing in the road and shaking his
umbrella.

The wagonette drove on. It disappeared over the ledge of the hill.

There was a sudden silence. Brandon's anger pounded up into his head in
great waves of constricting passion. These gradually faded. His knees were
trembling beneath him. There were new sounds--birds singing, a tiny breeze
rustling the hedges. No living soul in sight. He had suddenly a strange
impulse to shed tears. What had he been saying? What had he been doing? He
did not know what he had said. Another of his tempers....

The pain attacked his head--like a sword, like a sword.

He found a stone and sat down upon it. The pain invaded him like an active
personal enemy. Down the road it seemed to him figures were moving--Hogg,
Davray--that other world--the dust rose in little clouds.

What had he been doing? His head! Where did this pain come from?

He felt old and sick and weak. He wanted to be at home. Slowly he began to
climb the hill. An enemy, silent and triumphant, seemed to step behind
him.





Book III

Jubilee




Chapter I

June 17, Thursday: Anticipation



It must certainly be difficult for chroniclers of contemporary history to
determine significant dates to define the beginning and end of succeeding
periods. But I fancy that any fellow-citizen of mine, if he thinks for a
moment, will agree with me that that Jubilee Summer of 1897 was the last
manifestation in our town of the separate individual Polchester spirit, of
the old spirit that had dwelt in its streets and informed its walls and
roofs for hundreds of years past, something as separate and distinct as
the smells of Seatown, the chime of the Cathedral bells, the cawing of the
Cathedral rooks in the Precinct Elms.

An interesting and, to one reader at least, a pathetic history might be
written of the decline and death of that same spirit--not in Polchester
alone, but in many another small English town. From the Boer War of 1899
to the Great War of 1914 stretches that destructive period; the agents of
that destruction, the new moneyed classes, the telephone, the telegram,
the motor, and last of all, the cinema.

Destruction? That is, perhaps, too strong a word. We know that that is
simply the stepping from one stage to another of the eternal, the immortal
cycle. The little hamlet embowered in its protecting trees, defended by
its beloved hills, the Rock rising gaunt and naked in its midst; then the
Cathedral, the Monks, the Baron's Castle, the feudal rule; then the mighty
Bishops and the vast all-encircling power of the Church; then the new
merchant age, the Elizabethan salt of adventure; then the cosy seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, with their domesticities, their little cultures,
their comfortable religion, their stay-at-home unimaginative festivities.

Throughout the nineteenth century that spirit lingers, gently repulsing
the outside world, reproving new doctrine, repressing new movement...and
the Rock and the Cathedral wait their hours, watching the great sea that,
far on the horizon, is bathing its dykes and flooding the distant fields,
knowing that the waves are rising higher and higher, and will at last,
with full volume, leap upon these little pastures, these green-clad
valleys, these tiny hills. And in that day only the Cathedral and the Rock
will stand out above the flood.

And this was a Polchester Jubilee. There may have been some consciousness
of that little old woman driving in her carriage through the London
streets, but in the main the Town suddenly took possession, cried aloud
that these festivities were for Herself, that for a week at least the Town
would assert Herself, bringing into Her celebration the Cathedral that was
her chief glory, but of whom, nevertheless, she was afraid; the Rock upon
which she was built, that never changed, the country that surrounded and
supported her, the wild men who had belonged to her from time immemorial,
the River that encircled her.

That week seemed to many, on looking back, a strangely mad time, days
informed with a wildness for which there was no discernible reason--men
and women and children were seized that week with some licence that they
loved while it lasted, but that they looked back upon with fear when it
was over. What had come over them? Who had been grinning at them?

The strange things that occurred that week seemed to have no individual
agent. No one was responsible. But life, after that week, was for many
people in the town never quite the same again.

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 17, Ronder stood at the window of his
study and looked down upon the little orchard, the blazing flowers, the
red garden-wall, and the tree-tops on the descending hill, all glazed and
sparkling under the hot afternoon sun. As he looked down, seeing nothing,
sunk deeply in his own thoughts, he was aware of extreme moral and
spiritual discomfort. He moved back from the window, making with his
fingers a little gesture of discontent and irritation. He paced his room,
stopping absent-mindedly once and again to push in a book that protruded
from the shelves, staying to finger things on his writing-table, jolting
against a chair with his foot as he moved. At last he flung himself into
his deep leather chair and stared fixedly at an old faded silk fire-guard,
with its shadowy flowers and dim purple silk, seeing it not at all.

He was angry, and of all things in the world that he hated, he hated most
to be that. He had been angry now for several weeks, and, as though it had
been a heavy cold that had descended upon him, he woke up every morning
expecting to find that his anger had departed--but it had not departed; it
showed no signs whatever of departing.

As he sat there he was not thinking of the Jubilee, the one thought at
that time of every living soul in Polchester, man, woman and child--he was
thinking of no one but Brandon, with whom, to his own deep disgust, he was
at last implacably, remorselessly, angry. How many years ago now he had
decided that anger and hatred were emotions that every wise man, at all
cost to his pride, his impatience, his self-confidence, avoided.
Everything could be better achieved without these weaknesses, and for many
years he had tutored and trained himself until, at last, he had reached
this fine height of superiority. From that height he had suddenly fallen.

It was now three weeks since that luncheon at Carpledon, and in one way or
another the quarrel on the road home--the absurd and ludicrous quarrel--
had become known to the whole town. Had Brandon revealed it? Or possibly
the coachman? Whoever it was, every one now knew and laughed. Laughed! It
was that for which Ronder would never forgive Brandon. The man with his
childish temper and monstrous conceit had made him into a ludicrous
figure. It was true that they were laughing, it seemed, more at Brandon
than at himself, but the whole scene was farcical. But beyond this, that
incident, trivial though it might be in itself, had thrown the
relationship of the two men into dazzling prominence. It was as though
they had been publicly announced as antagonists, and now, stripped and
prepared, ringed in by the breathless Town, must vulgarly afford the
roughs of the place the fistic exhibition of their lives. It was the
publicity that Ronder detested. He had not disliked Brandon--he had merely
despised him, and he had taken an infinite pleasure in furthering schemes
and ambitions, a little underground maybe, but all for the final benefit
of the Town.

And now the blundering fool had brought this blaze down upon them, was
indeed rushing round and screaming at his antagonist, shouting to any one
who would hear that Ronder was a blackguard and a public menace. It had
been whispered--from what source again Ronder did not know--that it was
through Ronder's influence that young Falk Brandon had run off to Town
with Hogg's daughter. The boy thought the world of Ronder, it was said,
and had been to see him and ask his advice. Ronder knew that Brandon had
heard this story and was publicly declaring that Ronder had ruined his
son.

Finally the two men were brought into sharp rivalry over the Pybus living.
Over that, too, the town, or at any rate the Cathedral section of it, was
in two camps. Here, too, Brandon's vociferous publicity had made privacy
impossible.

Ronder was ashamed, as though his rotund body had been suddenly exposed in
all its obese nakedness before the assembled citizens of Polchester. In
this public quarrel he was not in his element; forces were rising in him
that he distrusted and feared.

People were laughing...for that he would never forgive Brandon so long
as he lived.

On this particular afternoon he was about to close the window and try to
work at his sermon when some one knocked at his door.

"Come in," he said impatiently. The maid appeared.

"Please, sir, there's some one would like to speak to you."

"Who is it?"

"She gave her name as Miss Milton, sir."

He paused, looking down at his papers. "She said she wouldn't keep you
more than a moment, sir."

"Very well. I'll see her."

Fate pushing him again. Why should this woman come to him? How could any
one say that any of the steps that he had taken in this affair had been
his fault? Why, he had had nothing whatever to do with them!

The sight of Miss Milton in his doorway filled him with the same vague
disgust that he had known on the earlier occasions at the Library. To-day
she was wearing a white cotton dress, rather faded and crumpled, and grey
silk gloves; in one of the fingers there was a hole. She carried a pink
parasol, and wore a large straw hat overtrimmed with roses. Her face with
its little red-rimmed eyes, freckled and flushed complexion, her clumsy
thick-set figure, fitted ill with her youthful dress.

It was obvious enough that fate had not treated her well since her
departure from the Library; she was running to seed very swiftly, and was
herself bitterly conscious of the fact.

Ronder, looking at her, was aware that it was her own fault that it was
so. She was incompetent, utterly incompetent. He had, as he had promised,
given her some work to do during these last weeks, some copying, some
arranging of letters, and she had mismanaged it all. She was a muddle-
headed, ill-educated, careless, conceited and self-opinionated woman, and
it did not make it any the pleasanter for Ronder to be aware, as he now
was, that Brandon had been quite right to dismiss her from her Library
post which she had retained far too long.

She looked across the room at him with an expression of mingled obstinacy
and false humility. Her eyes were nearly closed.

"Good-afternoon, Canon Ronder," she said. "It is very good of you to see
me. I shall not detain you very long."

"Well, what is it, Miss Milton?" he said, looking over his shoulder at
her. "I am very busy, as a matter of fact. All these Jubilee affairs--
however, if I can help you."

"You can help me, sir. It is a most serious matter, and I need your
advice."

"Well, sit down there and tell me about it."

The sun was beating into the room. He went across and pulled down the
blind, partly because it was hot and partly because Miss Milton was less
unpleasant in shadow.

Miss Milton seemed to find it hard to begin. She gulped in her throat and
rubbed her silk gloves nervously against one another.

"I daresay I've done wrong in this matter," she began--"many would think
so. But I haven't come here to excuse myself. If I've done wrong, there
are others who have done more wrong--yes, indeed."

"Please come to the point," said Ronder impatiently.

"I will, sir. That is my desire. Well, you must know, sir, that after my
most unjust dismissal from the Library I took a couple of rooms with Mrs.
Bassett who lets rooms, as perhaps you know, sir, just opposite St. James'
Rectory, Mr. Morris's."

"Well?" said Ronder.

"Well, sir, I had not been there very long before Mrs. Bassett herself,
who is the least interfering and muddling of women, drew my attention to a
curious fact, a most curious fact."

Miss Milton paused, looking down at her lap and at a little shabby black
bag that lay upon it.

"Well?" said Ronder again.

"This fact was that Mrs. Brandon, the wife of Archdeacon Brandon, was in
the habit of coming every day to see Mr. Morris!"

Ronder got up from his chair.

"Now, Miss Milton," he said, "let me make myself perfectly clear. If you
have come here to give me a lot of scandal about some person, or persons,
in this town, I do not wish to hear it. You have come to the wrong place.
I wonder, indeed, that you should care to acknowledge to any one that you
have been spying at your window on the movements of some people here. That
is a disgraceful action. I do not think there is any need for this
conversation to continue."

"Excuse me, Canon Ronder, there _is_ need." Miss Milton showed no
intention whatever of moving from her chair. "I was aware that you would,
in all probability, rebuke me for what I have done. I expected that. At
the same time I may say that I was _not_ spying in any sense of the
word. I could not help it if the windows of my sitting-room looked down
upon Mr. Morris's house. You could not expect me, in this summer weather,
not to sit at my window.

"At the same time, if these visits of Mrs. Brandon's were all that had
occurred I should certainly not have come and taken up your valuable time
with an account of them; I hope that I know what is due to a gentleman of
your position better than that. It is on a matter of real importance that
I have come to you to ask your advice. Some one's advice I must have, and
if you feel that you cannot give it me, I must go elsewhere. I cannot but
feel that it is better for every one concerned that you should have this
piece of information rather than any one else."

He noticed how she had grown in firmness and resolve since she had begun
to speak. She now saw her way to the carrying out of her plan. There was a
definite threat in the words of her last sentence, and as she looked at
him across the shadowy light he felt as though he saw down into her mean
little soul, filled now with hatred and obstinacy and jealous
determination.

"Of course," he said severely, "I cannot refuse your confidence if you are
determined to give it me."

"Yes," she said, nodding her head. "You have always been very kind to me,
Canon Ronder, as you have been to many others in this place. Thank you."
She looked at him almost as severely as he had looked at her. "I will be
as brief as possible. I will not hide from you that I have never forgiven
Archdeacon Brandon for his cruel treatment of me. That, I think, is
natural. When your livelihood is taken away from you for no reason at all,
you are not likely to forget it--if you are human. And I do not pretend to
be more nor less than human. I will not deny that I saw these visits of
Mrs. Brandon's with considerable curiosity. There was something hurried
and secret in Mrs. Brandon's manner that seemed to me odd. I became then,
quite by chance, the friend of Mr. Morris's cook-housekeeper, Mrs. Baker,
a very nice woman. That, I think, was quite natural as we were neighbours,
so to speak, and Mrs. Baker was herself a friend of Mrs. Bassett's.

"I asked no indiscreet questions, but at last Mrs. Baker confessed to both
Mrs. Bassett and myself that she did not like what was going on in Mr.
Morris's house, and that she thought of giving notice. When we asked her
what she meant she said that Mrs. Brandon was the trouble, that she was
always coming to the house, and that she and the reverend gentleman were
shut up for hours together by themselves. She told us, too, that Mr.
Morris's sister-in-law, Miss Burnett, had also made objections. We advised
Mrs. Baker that it was her duty to stay, at any rate for the present."

Miss Milton paused. Ronder said nothing.

"Well, sir, things got so bad that Miss Burnett went away to the sea.
During her absence Mrs. Brandon came to the house quite regularly, and
Mrs. Baker told us that they scarcely seemed to mind who saw them."

As Ronder looked at her he realised how little he knew about women. He
hated to realise this, as he hated to realise any ignorance or weakness in
himself, but in the face of the woman opposite to him there was a mixture
of motives--of greed, revenge, yes, and strangely enough, of a virgin's
outraged propriety--that was utterly alien to his experience. He felt his
essential, his almost inhuman, celibacy more at that moment, perhaps, than
he had ever felt it before.

"Well, sir, this went on for some weeks. Miss Burnett returned, but, as
Mrs. Baker said, the situation remained very strained. To come to my
point, four days ago I was in one evening paying Mrs. Baker a visit. Every
one was out, although Mr. Morris was expected home for his dinner. There
was a ring at the bell and Mrs. Baker said, 'You go, my dear.' She was
busy at the moment with the cooking. I went and opened the hall-door and
there was Mrs. Brandon's parlourmaid that I knew by sight. 'I have a note
for Mr. Morris,' she said. 'You can give it to me,' I said. She seemed to
hesitate, but I told her if she didn't give it to me she might as well
take it away again, because there was no one else in the house. That
seemed to settle her, so telling me it was something special, and was to
be given to Mr. Morris as soon as possible, she left it with me and went.
She'd never seen me before, I daresay, and didn't know I didn't belong to
the house." She paused, then opening her little eyes wide and staring at
Ronder as though she were seeing him for the first time in her life she
said softly, "I have the note here."

She opened her black bag slowly, peered into it, produced a piece of paper
out of it, and shut it with a sharp little click.

"You've kept it?" asked Ronder.

"I've kept it," she repeated, nodding her head. "I know many would say I
was wrong. But was I? That's the question. In any case that is another
matter between myself and my Maker."

"Please read this, sir?" She held out the paper to him, He took it and
after a moment's hesitation read it. It had neither date nor address. It
ran as follows:

  DEAREST--I am sending this by a safe hand to tell you that I cannot
  possibly get down to-night. I am so sorry and most dreadfully
  disappointed, but I will explain everything when we meet to-morrow.
  This is to prevent your waiting on when I'm not coming.

There was no signature.

"You had no right to keep this," he said to her angrily. As he spoke he
looked at the piece of paper and felt again how strange and foreign to him
the whole nature of woman was. The risks that they would take! The foolish
mad things that they would do to satisfy some caprice or whim!

"How do you know that this was written by Mrs. Brandon?" he asked.

"Of course I know her handwriting very well," Miss Milton answered. "She
often wrote to me when I was at the Library."

He was silent. He was seeing those two in the new light of this letter. So
they were really lovers, the drab, unromantic, plain, dull, middle-aged
souls! What had they seen in one another? What had they felt, to drive
them to deeds so desperate, yes, and so absurd? Was there then a world
right outside his ken, a world from which he had been since his birth
excluded?

Absent-mindedly he had put the letter down on his table. Quickly she
stretched out her gloved hand and took it. The bag clicked over it.

"Why have you brought this to me?" he asked, looking at her with a disgust
that he did not attempt to conceal.

"You are the first person to whom I have spoken about the matter," she
answered. "I have not said anything even to Mrs. Baker. I have had the
letter for several days and have not known what is right to do about it."

"There is only one thing that is right to do about it," he answered
sharply. "Burn it."

"And say nothing to anybody about it? Oh, Canon Ronder, surely that would
not be right. I should not like people to think that you had given me such
advice. To allow the Rector of St. James' to continue in his position,
with so many looking up to him, and he committing such sins. Oh, no, sir,
I cannot feel that to be right!"

"It is not our business," he answered angrily. "It is not our affair."

"Very well, sir." She got up. "It's good of you to give me your opinion.
It is not our affair. Quite so. But it is Archdeacon Brandon's affair. He
should see this letter. I thought that perhaps you yourself might like to
speak to him----" she paused.

"I will have nothing to do with it," he answered, getting up and standing
over her. "You did very wrong to keep the letter. You are cherishing evil
passions in your heart, Miss Milton, that will bring you nothing but harm
and sorrow in the end. You have come to me for advice, you say. Well, I
give it to you. Burn that letter and forget what you know."

Her complexion had changed to a strange muddy grey as he spoke.

"There are others in this town, Canon Ronder," she said, "who are
cherishing much the same passions as myself, although they may not realise
it. I thought it wise to tell you what I know. As you will not help me, I
know now what to do. I am grateful for your advice--which, however, I do
not think you wish me to follow."

With one last look at him she moved softly to the door and was gone. She
seemed to him to leave some muddy impression of her personality upon the
walls and furniture of the room. He flung up the window, walked about
rubbing his hands against one another behind his back, hating everything
around him.

The words of the note repeated themselves again and again in his head.

"Dearest...safe hand...dreadfully disappointed.... Dearest."

Those two! He saw Morris, with his weak face, his mild eyes, his rather
shabby clothes, his hesitating manner, his thinning hair--and Mrs.
Brandon, so mediocre that no one ever noticed her, never noticed anything
about her--what she wore, what she said, what she did, anything!

Those two! Ghosts! and in love so that they would risk loss of everything
--reputation, possessions, family--that they might obtain their desire! In
love as he had never been in all his life!

His thoughts turned, with a little shudder, to Miss Milton. She had come
to him because she thought that he would like to share in her revenge.
That, more than anything, hurt him, bringing him down to her base, sordid
level, making him fellow-conspirator with her, plotting...ugh! How
cruelly unfair that he, upright, generous, should be involved like this so
meanly.

He washed his hands in the little dressing-room near the study, scrubbing
them as though the contact with Miss Milton still lingered there. Hating
his own company, he went downstairs, where he found Ellen Stiles, having
had a very happy tea with his aunt, preparing to depart.

"Going, Ellen?" he asked.

She was in the highest spirits and a hat of vivid green.

"Yes, I must go. I've been here ever so long. We've had a perfectly lovely
time, talking all about poor Mrs. Maynard and her consumption. There's
simply no hope for her, I'm afraid; it's such a shame when she has four
small children; but as I told her yesterday, it's really best to make up
one's mind to the worst, and there'll be no money for the poor little
things after she's gone. I don't know what they'll do."

"You must have cheered her up," said Ronder.

"Well, I don't know about that. Like all consumptives she will persist in
thinking that she's going to get well. Of course, if she had money enough
to go to Davos or somewhere...but she hasn't, so there's simply no hope
at all."

"If you are going along I'll walk part of the way with you," said Ronder.

"That _will_ be nice." Ellen kissed Miss Ronder very affectionately.
"Good-bye, you darling. I have had a nice time. Won't it be awful if it's
wet next week? Simply everything will be ruined. I don't see much chance
of its being fine myself. Still you never can tell."

They went out together. The Precincts was quiet and deserted; a bell,
below in the sunny town, was ringing for Evensong. "Morris's church,
perhaps," thought Ronder. The light was stretched like a screen of
coloured silk across the bright green of the Cathedral square; the great
Church itself was in shadow, misty behind the sun, and shifting from shade
to shade as though it were under water.

When they had walked a little way Ellen said: "What's the matter?"

"The matter?" Ronder echoed.

"Yes. You're looking worried, and that's so rare with you that when it
happens one's interested."

He hesitated, looking at her and almost stopping in his walk. An infernal
nuisance if Ellen Stiles were to choose this moment for the exercise of
her unfortunate curiosity! He had intended to go down High Street with her
and then to go by way of Orange Street to Foster's rooms; but one could
reach Foster more easily by the little crooked street behind the
Cathedral. He would say good-bye to her here.... Then another thought
struck him. He would go on with her.

"Isn't your curiosity terrible, Ellen!" he said, laughing. "If you didn't
happen to have a kind heart hidden somewhere about you, you'd be a
perfectly impossible woman. As it is, I'm not sure that you're not."

"I think perhaps I am," Ellen answered, laughing. "I do take a great
interest in other people's affairs. Well, why not? It prevents me from
being bored."

"But not from being a bore," said Ronder. "I hate to be unpleasant, but
there's nothing more tiresome than being asked why one's in a certain
mood. However, leave me alone and I will repay your curiosity by some of
my own. Tell me, how much are people talking about Mrs. Brandon and
Morris?"

This time she was genuinely surprised. On so many occasions he had checked
her love of gossip and scandal and now he was deliberately provoking it.
It was as though he had often lectured her about drinking too much and
then had been discovered by her, secretly tippling.

"Oh, everybody's talking, of course," she said. "Although you pretend
never to talk scandal you must know enough about the town to know that.
They happen to be talking less just at the moment because nobody's
thinking of anything but the Jubilee."

"What I want to know," said Ronder, "is how much Brandon is supposed to be
aware of--and does he mind?"

"He's aware of nothing," said Ellen decisively. "Nothing at all. He's
always looked upon his wife as a piece of furniture, neither very
ornamental nor very useful, but still his property, and therefore to be
reckoned on as stable and submissive. I don't think that in any case he
would ever dream that she could disobey him in anything, but, as it
happens, his son's flight to London and his own quarrel with you entirely
possess his mind. He talks, eats, thinks, dreams nothing else."

"What would he do, do you think," pursued Ronder, "if he were to discover
that there really _was_ something wrong, that she had been
unfaithful?"

"Why, is there proof?" asked Ellen Stiles, eagerly, pausing for a moment
in her excitement.

The sharp note of eagerness in her voice checked him.

"No--nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. Of course not. And how should I
know if there were?"

"You're just the person who would know," answered Ellen decisively.
"However many other people you've hoodwinked, you haven't taken _me_
in all these years. But I'll tell you this as from one friend to another,
that you've made the first mistake in your life by allowing this quarrel
with Brandon to become so public."

He marvelled again, as he had often marvelled before, at her unerring
genius for discovering just the thing to say to her friends that would
hurt them most. And yet with that she had a kind heart, as he had had
reason often enough to know. Queer things, women!

"It's not my fault if the quarrel's become public," he said. They were
turning down the High Street now and he could not show all the vexation
that he felt. "It's Brandon's own idiotic character and the love of gossip
displayed by this town."

"Well, then," she said, delighted that she had annoyed him and that he was
showing his annoyance, "that simply means that you've been defeated by
circumstances. For once they've been too strong for you. If you like that
explanation you'd better take it."

"Now, Ellen," he said, "you're trying to make me lose my temper in revenge
for my not satisfying your curiosity; give up. You've tried before and
you've always failed."

She laughed, putting her hand through his arm.

"Yes, don't let's quarrel," she said. "Isn't it delightful to-night with
the sunlight and the excitement and every one out enjoying themselves? I
love to see them happy, poor things. It's only the successful and the
self-important and the patronising that I want to pull down a little. As
soon as I find myself wanting to dig at somebody, I know it's because
they're getting above themselves. You'd better be careful. I'm not at all
sure that success isn't going to your head."

"Success?" he asked.

"Yes. Don't look so innocent. You've been here only a few months and
already you're the only man here who counts. You've beaten Brandon in the
very first round, and it's absurd of you to pretend to an old friend like
myself that you don't know that you have. But be careful."

The street was shining, wine-coloured, against the black walls that hemmed
it in, black walls scattered with sheets of glass, absurd curtains of
muslin, brown, shabby, self-ashamed backs of looking-glasses, door-knobs,
flower-pots, and collections of furniture, books and haberdashery.

"Suppose you leave me alone for a moment, Ellen," said Ronder, "and think,
of somebody else. What I really want to know is, how intimate are you with
Mrs. Brandon?"

"Intimate?"

"Yes. I mean--could you speak to her? Tell her, in some way, to be more
careful, that she's in danger. Women know how to do these things. I want
to find somebody."

He paused. _Did_ he want to find somebody? Why this strange
tenderness towards Mrs. Brandon of which he was quite suddenly conscious?
Was it his disgust of Miss Milton, so that he could not bear to think of
any one in the power of such a woman?

"Warn her?" said Ellen. "Then she _is_ in danger."

"Only if, as you say, every one is talking. I'm sorry for her."

They had come to the parting of their ways. "No. I don't know her well
enough for that. She wouldn't take it from me. She wouldn't take it from
anybody. She's prouder than you'd think. And it's my belief she doesn't
care if she is in danger. She'd rather welcome it. That's my belief."

"Good-bye then. I won't ask you to keep our talk quiet. I don't suppose
you could if you wanted to. But I will ask you to be kind."

"Why should I be kind? And you know you don't want me to be, really."

"I do want you to be."

"No, it's part of the game you're playing. Or if it isn't, you're changing
more than you've ever changed before. Look out! Perhaps it's you that's in
danger!"

As he turned up Orange Street he wondered again what impulse it was that
was making him sorry for Mrs. Brandon. He always wished people to be
happy--life was easier so--but had he, even yesterday, been told that he
would ever feel concern for Mrs. Brandon, that supreme symbol of feminine
colourless mediocrity, he would have laughed derisively.

Then the beauty of the hour drove everything else from him. The street
climbed straight into the sky, a broad flat sheet of gold, and on its
height the monument, perched against the quivering air, was a purple
shaft, its gesture proud, haughty, exultant. Suddenly he saw in front of
him, moving with quick, excited steps, Mrs. Brandon, an absurdly
insignificant figure against that splendour.

He felt as though his thoughts had evoked her out of space, and as though
she was there against her will. Then he felt that he, too, was there
against his will, and that he had nothing to do with either the time or
the place.

He caught her up. She started nervously when he said, "Good evening, Mrs.
Brandon," and raised her little mouse-face with its mild, hesitating,
grey eyes to his. He knew her only slightly and was conscious that she did
not like him. That was not his affair; she had become something quite new
to him since he had gained this knowledge of her--she was provocative,
suggestive, even romantic.

"Good evening, Canon Ronder." She did not smile nor slacken her steps.

"Isn't this a lovely evening?" he said. "If we have this weather next week
we shall be lucky indeed."

"Yes, shan't we--shan't we?" she said nervously, not considering him, but
staring straight at the street in front of her.

"I think all the preparations are made," Ronder went on in the genial easy
voice that he always adopted with children and nervous women. "There
should be a tremendous crowd if the weather's fine. People already are
pouring in from every part of the country, they tell me--sleeping
anywhere, in the fields and the hedges. This old town will be proud of
herself."

"Yes, yes," Mrs. Brandon looked about her as though she were trying to
find a way of escape. "I'm so glad you think that the weather will be
fine. I'm so glad. I think it will myself. I hope Miss Ronder is well."

"Very well, thank you." What _could_ Morris see in her, with her ill-
fitting clothes, her skirt trailing a little in the dust, her hat too big
and heavy for her head, her hair escaping in little untidy wisps from
under it? She looked hot, too, and her nose was shiny.

"You're coming to the Ball of course," he went on, relieved that now they
were near the top of the little hill. "It's to be the best Ball the
Assembly Rooms have seen since--since Jane Austen."

"Jane Austen?" asked Mrs. Brandon vaguely.

"Well, her time, you know, when dancing was all the rage. We ought to have
more dances here, I think, now that there are so many young people about."

"Yes, I agree with you. My daughter is coming out at the Ball."

"Oh, is she? I'm sure she'll have a good time. She's so pretty. Every
one's fond of her."

He waited, but apparently Mrs. Brandon had nothing more to say. There was
a pause, then Mrs. Brandon, as though she had been suddenly pushed to it
by some one behind her, held out her hand....

"Good evening, Canon Ronder."

He said good-bye and watched her for a moment as she went up past the neat
little villas, her dress trailing behind her, her hat bobbing with every
step. He looked up at the absurd figure on the top of the monument, the
gentleman in frock-coat and tall hat commemorated there. The light had
left him. He was not purple now but a dull grey. He, too, had doubtless
had his romance, blood and tears, anger and agony for somebody. How hard
to keep out of such things, and yet one must if one is to achieve
anything. Keep out of it, detached, observant, comfortable. Strange that
in life comfort should be so difficult to attain!

Climbing Green Lane he was surprised to feel how hot it was. The trees
that clustered over his head seemed to have gathered together all the heat
of the day. Everything conspired to annoy him! Bodger's Street, when he
turned into it, was, from his point of view, at its very worst, crowded
and smelly and rocking with noise. The fields behind Bodger's Street and
Canon's Yard sloped down the hill then up again out into the country
beyond.

It was here on this farther hill that the gipsies had been allowed to
pitch their caravans, and that the Fair was already preparing its
splendours. It was through these gates that the countrymen would penetrate
the town's defences, just as on the other side, low down in Seatown on the
Pol's banks, the seafaring men, fishermen and sailors and merchantmen,
were gathering. Bodger's Street was already alive with the anticipation of
the coming week's festivities. Gas-jets were flaming behind hucksters'
booths, all the population of the place was out on the street enjoying the
fine summer evening, shouting, laughing, singing, quarrelling. The effect
of the street illumined by these uncertain flares that leapt unnaturally
against the white shadow of the summer sky was of something mediaeval, and
that impression was deepened by the overhanging structure of the Cathedral
that covered the faint blue and its little pink clouds like a swinging
spider's web.

Ronder, however, was not now thinking of the town. His mind was fixed upon
his approaching interview with Foster. Foster had just paid a visit, quite
unofficial and on a private personal basis, to Wistons, to sound him about
the Pybus living and his action if he were offered it.

Ronder understood men very much better than he understood women. He
understood Foster so long as ambition and religion were his motives, but
there was something else in play that he did not understand. It was not
only that Foster did not like him--he doubted whether Foster liked anybody
except the Bishop--it was rather perhaps that Foster did not like himself.
Now it is the first rule of fanaticism that you should be so lost in the
impulse of your inspiration that you should have no power left with which
to consider yourself at all. Foster was undoubtedly a fanatic, but he did
consider himself and even despised himself. Ronder distrusted self-
contempt in a man simply because nothing made him so uncomfortable as
those moments of his own when he wondered whether he were all that he
thought himself. Those moments did not last long, but he hated them so
bitterly that he could not bear to see them at work in other people.
Foster was the kind of fanatic who might at any minute decide to put peas
in his shoes and walk to Jerusalem; did he so decide, he would abandon,
for that decision, all the purposes for which he might at the time be
working. Ronder would certainly never walk to Jerusalem.

The silence and peace of Canon's Yard when he left Bodger's Street was
almost dramatic. All that penetrated there was a subdued buzz with an
occasional shrill note as it might be on a penny whistle. The Yard was
dark, lit only by a single lamp, and the cobbles uneven. Lights here and
there set in the crooked old windows were secret and uncommunicative: the
Cathedral towers seemed immensely tall against the dusk. It would not be
dark for another hour and a half, but in those old rooms with their small
casements light was thin and uncertain.

He climbed the rickety stairs to Foster's rooms. As always, something made
him pause outside Foster's door and listen. All the sounds of the old
building seemed to come up to him; not human voices and movements, but the
life of the old house itself, the creaking protests of stairways, the
sighs of reluctant doors, the harping groans of ill-mannered window-
frames, the coughs and wheezes of trembling walls, the shudders of ill-
boding banisters.

"This house will collapse, the first gale," he thought, and suddenly the
Cathedral chimes, striking the half-hour, crashed through the wall,
knocking and echoing as though their clatter belonged to that very house.

The echo died, and the old place recommenced its murmuring.

Foster, blinking like an old owl, came to the door and, without a word,
led the way into his untidy room. He cleared a chair of papers and books
and Ronder sat down.

"Well?" said Ronder.

Foster was in a state of overpowering excitement, but he looked to Ronder
older and more worn than a week ago. There were dark pouches under his
eyes, his cheeks were drawn, and his untidy grey hair seemed thin and
ragged--here too long, there showing the skull gaunt and white beneath
it. His eyes burnt with a splendid flame; in them there was the light of
eternal life.

"Well?" said Ronder again, as Foster did not answer his first question.

"He's coming," Foster cried, striding about the room, his shabby slippers
giving a ghostly tip-tap behind him. "He's coming! Of course I had never
doubted it, but I hadn't expected that he would be so eager as he is. He
let himself go to me at once. Of course he knew that I wasn't official,
that I had no backing at all. He's quite prepared for things to go the
other way, although I told him that I thought there would be little chance
of that if we all worked together. He didn't ask many questions. He knows
all the conditions well. Since I saw him last he's gained in every way--
wiser, better disciplined, more sure of himself--everything that I have
never been...." Foster paused, then went on. "I think never in all my life
have I felt affection so go out to another human being. He is a man after
my own heart--a child of God, an inheritor of Eternal Life, a leader of
men----"

Ronder interrupted him.

"Yes, but as to detail. Did you discuss that? He knew of the opposition?"

Foster waved his hand contemptuously. "Brandon? What does that amount to?
Why, even in the week that I have been away his power has lessened. The
hand of God is against him. Everything is going wrong with him. I loathe
scandal, but there is actually talk going on in the town about his wife. I
could feel pity for the man were he not so dangerous."

"You are wrong there, Foster," Ronder said eagerly. "Brandon isn't
finished yet--by no manner of means. He still has most of the town behind
him and a big majority with the Cathedral people. He stands for what they
think or _don't_ think--old ideas, conservatism, every established
dogma you can put your hand on, bad music, traditionalism, superstition
and carelessness. It is not Brandon himself we are fighting, but what he
stands for."

Foster stopped and looked down at Ronder. "You'll forgive me if I speak my
mind," he said. "I'm an older man than you are, and in any case it's my
way to say what I think. You know that by this time. You've made a mistake
in allowing this quarrel with Brandon to become so personal a matter."

Ronder flushed angrily.

"Allowing!" he retorted. "As though that were not the very thing that I've
tried to prevent it from becoming. But the old fool has rushed out and
shouted his grievances to everybody. I suppose you've heard of the
ridiculous quarrel we had coming away from Carpledon. The whole town knows
of it. There never was a more ridiculous scene. He stood in the middle of
the road and screamed like a madman. It's my belief he _is_ going
mad! A precious lot I had to do with that. I was as amiable as possible.
But you can't deal with him. His conceit and his obstinacy are monstrous."

Nothing was more irritating in Foster than the way that he had of not
listening to excuses; he always brushed them aside as though they were
beneath notice.

"You shouldn't have made it a personal thing," he repeated. "People will
take sides--are already doing so. It oughtn't to be between you two at
all."

"I tell you it is not!" Ronder answered angrily. Then with a great effort
he pulled himself in. "I don't know what has been happening to me lately,"
he said with a smile. "I've always prided myself on keeping out of
quarrels, and in any case I'm not going to quarrel with you. I'm sure
you're right. It _is_ a pity that the thing's become personal. I'll
see what I can do."

But Foster paid as little attention to apologies as to excuses.

"That's been a mistake," he said; "and there have been other mistakes. You
are too personally ambitious, Ronder. We are working for the glory of God
and for no private interests whatever."

Ronder smiled. "You're hard on me," he said; "but you shall think what you
like. I won't allow that I've been personally ambitious, but it's
difficult sometimes when you're putting all your energies into a certain
direction not to seem to be serving your own ends. I like power--who
doesn't? But I would gladly sacrifice any personal success if that were
needed to win the main battle."

"Win!" Foster cried. "Win! But we've got to win! There's never been such a
chance for us! If Brandon wins now our opportunity is gone for another
generation. What Wistons can do here if he comes! The power that he will
be!"

Suddenly there came into Ronder's mind for the first time the thought that
was to recur to him very often in the future. Was it wise of him to work
for the coming of a man who might threaten his own power? He shook that
from him. He would deal with that when the time came. For the present
Brandon was enough....

"Now as to detail..." Ronder said.

They sat down at the paper-littered table. For another hour and a half
they stayed there, and it would have been curious for an observer to see
how, in this business, Ronder obtained an absolute mastery. Foster, the
fire dead in his eyes, the light gone, followed him blindly, agreeing to
everything, wondering at the clearness, order and discipline of his plans.
An hour ago, treading the soil of his own country, he had feared no man,
and his feeling for Ronder had been one half-contempt, half-suspicion. Now
he was in the other's hands. This was a world into which he had never won
right of entry.

The Cathedral chimes struck nine. Ronder got up and put his papers away
with a little sigh of satisfaction. He knew that his work had been good.

"There's nothing that we've forgotten. Bentinck-Major will be caught
before he knows where he is. Ryle too. Let us get through this next week
safely and the battle's won."

Foster blinked.

"Yes, yes," he said hurriedly. "Yes, yes. Good-night, good-night," and
almost pushed Ronder from the room.

"I don't believe he's taken in a word of it," Ronder thought, as he went
down the creaking stairs.

At the top of Badger's Street he paused. The street was still; the sky was
pale green on the horizon, purple overhead. The light was still strong,
but, to the left beyond the sloping fields, the woods were banked black
and sombre. From the meadow in front of the woods came the sounds of an
encampment--women shouting, horses neighing, dogs barking. A few lights
gleamed like red eyes. The dusky forms of caravans with their thick-set
chimneys, ebony-coloured against the green sky, crouched like animals
barking. A woman was singing, men's voices took her up, and the song came
rippling across the little valley.

All the stir of an invading world was there.




Chapter II

Friday, June 18: Shadow Meets Shadow



On that Friday evening, about half-past six o'clock, Archdeacon Brandon,
just as he reached the top of the High Street, saw God.

There was nothing either strange or unusual about this. Having had all his
life the conviction that he and God were on the most intimate of terms,
that God knew and understood himself and his wants better than any other
friend that he had, that just as God had definitely deputed him to work
out certain plans on this earth, so, at times, He needed his own help and
advice, having never wavered for an instant in the very simplest tenets of
his creed, and believing in every word of the New Testament as though the
events there recorded had only a week ago happened in his own town under
his own eyes--all this being so, it was not strange that he should
sometimes come into close and actual contact with his Master.

It may be said that it was this very sense of contact, continued through
long years of labour and success, that was the original foundation of the
Archdeacon's pride. If of late years that pride had grown from the seeds
of the Archdeacon's own self-confidence and appreciation, who can blame
him?

We translate more easily than we know our gratitude to God into our
admiration of ourselves.

Over and over again in the past, when he had been labouring with especial
fervour, he was aware that, in the simplest sense of the word, God was
"walking with him." He was conscious of a new light and heat, of a fresh
companionship; he could almost translate into physical form that
comradeship of which he was so tenderly aware. How could it be but that
after such an hour he should look down from those glorious heights upon
his other less favoured fellow-companions? No merit of his own that he had
been chosen, but the choice had been made.

On this evening he was in sad need of comfort. Never in all his past years
had life gone so hardly with him as it was going now. It was as though,
about three or four months back, he had, without knowing it, stepped into
some new and terrible country. One feature after another had changed, old
familiar faces wore new unfamiliar disguises, every step that he took now
seemed to be dangerous, misfortune after misfortune had come to him, at
first slight and even ludicrous, at last with Falk's escape, serious and
bewildering. Bewildering! That was the true word to describe his case! He
was like a man moving through familiar country and overtaken suddenly by a
dense fog. Through it all, examine it as minutely as he might, he could
not see that he had committed the slightest fault.

He had been as he had always been, and yet the very face of the town was
changed to him, his son had left him, even his wife, to whom he had been
married for twenty years, was altered. Was it not natural, therefore, that
he should attribute all of this to the only new element that had been
introduced into his life during these last months, to the one human being
alive who was his declared enemy, to the one man who had openly, in the
public road, before witnesses, insulted him, to the man who, from the
first moment of his coming to Polchester, had laughed at him and mocked
and derided him?

To Ronder! To Ronder! The name was never out of his brain now, lying
there, stirring, twisting in his very sleep, sneering, laughing even in
the heart of his private prayers.

He was truly in need of God that evening, and there, at the top of the
High Street, he saw Him framed in all the colour and glow and sparkling
sunlight of the summer evening, filling him with warmth and new courage,
surrounding him, enveloping him in love and tenderness.

Cynics might say that it was because the Archdeacon, no longer so young as
he had been, was blown by his climb of the High Street and stood,
breathing hard for a moment before he passed into the Precincts, lights
dancing before his eyes as they will when one is out of breath, the ground
swaying a little under the pressure of the heart, the noise of the town
rocking in the ears.

That is for the cynics to say. Brandon knew; his experiences had been in
the past too frequent for him, even now, to make a mistake.

Running down the hill went the High Street, decorated now with flags and
banners in honour of the great event; cutting the sky, stretching from
Brent's the haberdasher's across to Adams' the hairdresser's, was a vast
banner of bright yellow silk stamped in red letters with "Sixty Years Our
Queen. God Bless Her!"

Just beside the Archdeacon, above the door of the bookshop where he had
once so ignominiously taken refuge, was a flag of red, white and blue, and
opposite the bookseller's, at Gummridge's the stationer's, was a little
festoon of flags and a blue message stamped on a white ground: "God Bless
Our Queen: Long May She Reign!"

All down the street flags and streamers were fluttering in the little
summer breeze that stole about the houses and windows and doors as though
anxiously enquiring whether people were not finding the evening just a
little too warm.

People were not finding it at all too warm. Every one was out and
strolling up and down, laughing and whistling and chattering, dressed,
although it was only Friday, in nearly their Sunday best. The shops were
closing, one by one, and the throng was growing thicker and thicker. So
little traffic was passing that young men and women were already marching
four abreast, arm-in-arm, along the middle of the street. It was a long
time--ten years, in fact--since Polchester had seen such gaiety.

This was behind the Archdeacon; in front of him was the dark archway in
which the grass of the Cathedral square was framed like the mirrored
reflection of evening light where the pale blue and pearl white are
shadowed with slanting green. The peace was profound--nothing stirred.
There in the archway God stood, smiling upon His faithful servant, only as
Brandon approached Him passing into shadow and sunlight and the intense
blue of the overhanging sky.

Brandon tried then, as he had often tried before, to keep that contact
close to himself, but the ecstatic moment had passed; it had lasted, it
seemed, on this occasion a shorter time than ever before. He bowed his
head, stood for a moment under the arch offering a prayer as simple and
innocent as a child offers at its mother's knee, then with an
instantaneous change that in a more complex nature could have meant only
hypocrisy, but that with him was perfectly sincere, he was in a moment the
hot, angry, mundane priest again, doing battle with his enemies and
defying them to destroy him.

Nevertheless the transition to-night was not quite so complete as usual.
He was unhappy, lonely, and in spite of himself afraid, afraid of he knew
not what, as a child might be when its candle is blown out. And with this
unhappiness his thoughts turned to home. Falk's departure had caused him
to consider his wife more seriously than he had ever done in all their
married life before. She had loved Falk; she must be lonely without him,
and during these weeks he had been groping in a clumsy baffled kind of way
towards some expression to her of the kindness and sympathy that he was
feeling.

But those emotions do not come easily after many years of disuse; he was
always embarrassed and self-conscious when he expressed affection. He was
afraid of her, too, thought that if he showed too much kindness she might
suddenly become emotional, fling her arms around him and cover his face
with kisses--something of that kind.

Then of late she had been very strange; ever since that Sunday morning
when she had refused to go to Communion.... Strange! Women are strange! As
different from men as Frenchmen are from Englishmen!

But he would like to-night to come closer to her. Dimly, far within him,
something was stirring that told him that it had been his own fault that
during all these years she had drifted away from him. He must win her
back! A thing easily done. In the Archdeacon's view of life any man had
only got to whistle and fast the woman came running!

But to-night he wanted some one to care for him and to tell him that all
was well and that the many troubles that seemed to be crowding about him
were but imaginary after all.

When he reached the house he found that he had only just time to dress for
dinner. He ran upstairs, and then, when his door was closed and he was
safely inside his bedroom, he had to pause and stand, his hand upon his
heart. How it was hammering! like a beast struggling to escape its cage.
His knees, too, were trembling. He was forced to sit down. After all, he
was not so young as he had been.

These recent months had been trying for him. But how humiliating! He was
glad that there had been no one there to see him. He would need all his
strength for the battle that was in front of him. Yes, he was glad that
there had been no one to see him. He would ask old Puddifoot to look at
him, although the man _was_ an ass. He drank a glass of water, then
slowly dressed.

He came downstairs and went into the drawing-room. His wife was there,
standing in the shadow by the window, staring out into the Precincts. He
came across the room softly to her, then gently put his hand on her
shoulder.

She had not heard his approach. She turned round with a sharp cry and then
faced him, staring, her eyes terrified. He, on his side, was so deeply
startled by her alarm that he could only stare back at her, himself
frightened and feeling a strange clumsy foolishness at her alarm.

Broken sentences came from her: "What did you--? Who--? You shouldn't have
done that. You frightened me."

Her voice was sharply angry, and in all their long married life together
he had never before felt her so completely a stranger; he felt as though
he had accosted some unknown woman in the street and been attacked by her
for his familiarity. He took refuge, as he always did when he was
confused, in pomposity.

"Really, my dear, you'd think I was a burglar. Hum--yes. You shouldn't be
so easily startled."

She was still staring at him as though even now she did not realise his
identity. Her hands were clenched and her breath came in little hurried
gasps as though she had been running.

"No--you shouldn't...silly...coming across the room like that."

"Very well, very well," he answered testily. "Why isn't dinner ready? It's
ten minutes past the time."

She moved across the room, not answering him.

Suddenly his pomposity was gone. He moved over to her, standing before her
like an overgrown schoolboy, looking at her and smiling uneasily.

"The truth is, my dear," he said, "that I can't conceive my entering a
room without everybody hearing it. No, I can't indeed," he laughed
boisterously. "You tell anybody that I crossed a room without your hearing
it, and they won't believe you. No, they wont."

He bent down and kissed her. His touch tickled her cheek, but she made no
movement. He felt, as his hand rested on her shoulder, that she was still
trembling.

"Your nerves must be in a bad way," he said. "Why, you're trembling still!
Why don't you see Puddifoot?"

"No--no," she answered hurriedly. "It was silly of me----" Making a great
effort, she smiled up at him.

"Well, how's everything going?"

"Going?"

"Yes, for the great day. Is everything settled?"

He began to tell her in the old familiar, so boring way, every detail of
the events of the last few hours.

"I was just by Sharps' when I remembered that I'd said nothing to Nixon
about those extra seats at the back off the nave, so I had to go all the
way round----"

Joan came in. His especial need of some one that night, rejected as it had
been at once by his wife, turned to his daughter. How pretty she was, he
thought, as she came across the room sunlit with the deep evening gold
that struck in long paths of light into the darkest shadows and corners.

That moment seemed suddenly the culmination of the advance that they had
been making towards one another during the last six months. When she came
close to him, he, usually so unobservant, noticed that she, too, was in
distress.

She was smiling but she was unhappy, and he suddenly felt that he had been
neglecting her and letting her fight her battles alone, and that she
needed his love as urgently as he needed hers. He put his arm around her
and drew her to him. The movement was so unlike him and so unexpected that
she hesitated a little, then happily came closer to him, resting her head
on his shoulder. They had both, for a moment, forgotten Mrs. Brandon.

"Tired?" he asked Joan.

"Yes. I've been working at those silly old flags all the afternoon. Two of
them are not finished now. We've got to go again to-morrow morning."

"Everything ready for the Ball?"

"Yes, my dress is lovely. Oh, mummy, Mrs. Sampson says will you let two
relations of theirs sit in our seat on Sunday morning? She hadn't known
that they were coming, and she's very bothered about it, and I'll tell her
whether they can in the morning."

They both turned and saw Mrs. Brandon, who had gone back to the window and
again was looking at the Cathedral, now in deep black shadow.

"Yes, dear. There'll be room. There's only you and I----"

Joan had in the pocket of her dress a letter. As they went in to dinner
she could hear its paper very faintly crackle against her hand. It was
from Falk and was as follows:

  DEAR JOAN--I have written to father but he hasn't answered. Would you
  find out what he thought about my letter and what he intends to do? I
  don't mind owning to you that I miss him terribly, and I would give
  anything just to see him for five minutes. I believe that if he saw me
  I could win him over. Otherwise I am very happy indeed. We are married
  and live in two little rooms just off Baker Street. You don't know
  where that is, do you? Well, it's a very good place to be, near the
  park, and lots of good shops and not very expensive. Our landlady is a
  jolly woman, as kind as anything, and I'm getting quite enough work to
  keep the wolf from the door. I know more than ever now that I've done
  the right thing, and father will recognise it, too, one day. How is
  he? Of course my going like that was a great shock to him, but it was
  the only way to do it. When you write tell me about his health. He
  didn't seem so well just before I left. Now, Joan, write and tell me
  everything. One thing is that he's got so much to do that he won't
  have much time to think about me.--Your affectionate brother,

     FALK.

This letter, which had arrived that morning, had given Joan a great deal
to think about. It had touched her very deeply. Until now Falk had never
shown that he had thought about her at all, and now here he was depending
on her and needing her help. At the same time, she had not the slightest
guide as to her father's attitude. Falk's name had not been mentioned in
the house during these last weeks, and, although she realised that a new
relationship was springing up between herself and her father, she was
still shy of him and conscious of a deep gulf between them. She had, too,
her own troubles, and, try as she might to beat them under, they came up
again and again, confronting her and demanding that she should answer
them.

Now she put the whole of that aside and concentrated on her father.
Watching him during dinner, he seemed to her suddenly to have become
older; there was a glow in her heart as she thought that at last he really
needed her. After all, if through life she were destined to be an old
maid--and that, in the tragic moment of her youth that was now upon her,
seemed her inevitable destiny--here was some one for whom at last she
could care.

She had felt before she came down to dinner that she was old and ugly and
desperately unattractive. Across the dinner-table she flung away, as she
imagined for ever, all hopes for beauty and charm; she would love her
father and he should love her, and every other man in the world might
vanish for all that she cared. And had she only known it, she had never
before looked so pretty as she did that night. This also she did not know,
that her mother, catching a sudden picture of her under the candle-light,
felt a deep pang of almost agonising envy. She, making her last desperate
bid for love, was old and haggard; the years for her could only add to
that age. Her gambler's throw was foredoomed before she had made it.

After dinner, Brandon, as always, retired into the deepest chair in the
drawing-room and buried himself in yesterday's _Times_. He read a
little, but the words meant nothing to him. Jubilee! Jubilee! Jubilee! He
was sick of the word. Surely they were overdoing it. When the great day
itself came every one would be so tired....

He pushed the paper aside and picked up _Punch_. Here, again, that
eternal word--"How to see the Procession. By one who has thought it out.
Of course you must be out early. As the traffic...."

JOKE--Jinks: Don't meet you 'ere so often as we used to, Binks, eh?

Binks: Well--no. It don't run to Hopera Box _this_ Season, because,
you see, we've took a Window for this 'ere Jubilee.

Then, on one page, "The Walrus and the Carpenter: Jubilee Version." "In
Anticipation of the Naval Review." "Two Jubilees?" On the next page an
illustration of the Jubilee Walrus. On the next--"Oh, the Jubilee!" On the
next, Toby M.P.'s "Essence of Parliament," with a "Reed" drawing of "A
Naval Field Battery for the Jubilee."

The paper fell from his hand. During these last days he had had no time to
read the paper, and he had fancied, as perhaps every Polcastrian was just
then fancying, that the Jubilee was a private affair for Polchester's own
private benefit. He felt suddenly that Polchester was a small out-of-the-
way place of no account; was there any one in the world who cared whether
Polchester celebrated the Jubilee or not? Nobody....

He got up and walked across to the window, pulling the curtains aside and
looking out at the deep purple dusk that stained the air like wine. The
clock behind him struck a quarter past nine. Two tiny stars, like
inquisitive mocking eyes, winked at him above the high Western tower.
Moved by an impulse that was too immediate and peremptory to be
investigated, he went into the hall, found his hat and stick, opened
softly the door as though he were afraid that some one would try to stop
him, and was soon on the grass in front of the Cathedral, staring about
him as though he had awakened from a bewildering dream.

He went across to the little side-door, found his key, and entered the
Cathedral, leaving the gargoyle to grin after him, growing more alive, and
more malicious too, with every fading moment of the light.

Within the Cathedral there was a strange shadowy glow as though behind the
thick cold pillars lights were burning. He found his way, stumbling over
the cane-bottomed chairs that were piled in measured heaps in the side
aisle, into the nave. Even he, used to it as he had been for so many
years, was thrilled to-night. There was a movement of preparation abroad;
through all the stillness there was the stir of life. It seemed to him
that the armoured knights and the high-bosomed ladies, and the little
cupids with their pursed lips and puffing cheeks, and the angels with
their too solid wings were watching him and breathing round him as he
passed. Late though it was, a dim light from the great East window fell in
broad slabs of purple and green shadow across the grey; everything was
indistinct; only the white marble of the Reredos was like a figured sheet
hanging from wall to wall, and the gilded trumpets of the angels on the
choir-screen stood out dimly like spider pattern. He felt a longing that
the place should return his love and tenderness. The passion of his life
was here; he knew to-night, as he had never before, the life of its own
that this place had, and as he stayed there, motionless in the centre of
the nave, some doubt stole into his heart as to whether, after all, he and
it were one and indivisible, as for so long he had believed. Take this
away, and what was left to him? His son had gone, his wife and daughter
were strange to him; if this, too, went....

The sudden chill sense of loneliness was awful to him. All those naked and
sightless eyes staring from those embossed tombs were menacing, scornful,
deriding.

He had never known such a mood, and he wondered suddenly whether these
last months had affected his brain.

He had never doubted during the last ten years his power over this and its
gratitude to him for what he had done: now, in this chill and green-hued
air, it seemed not to care for him at all.

He moved up into the choir and sat down in his familiar stall; all that he
could see--his eyes seemed to be drawn by some will stronger than his own
--was the Black Bishop's Tomb. The blue stone was black behind the gilded
grating, the figure was like a moulded shell holding some hidden form. The
light died; the purple and green faded from the nave--the East window was
dark--only the white altar and the whiter shadows above it hovered,
thinner light against deeper grey. As the light was withdrawn the
Cathedral seemed to grow in height until Brandon felt himself minute, and
the pillars sprang from the floor beneath him into unseen canopied
distance. He was cold; he longed suddenly, with a strange terror quite new
to him, for human company, and stumbled up and hurried down the choir,
almost falling over the stone steps, almost running through the long,
dark, deserted nave. He fancied that other steps echoed his own, that
voices whispered, and that figures thronged beneath the pillars to watch
him go. It was as though he were expelled.

Out in the evening air he was in his own world again. He was almost
tempted to return into the Cathedral to rid himself of the strange fancies
that he had had, so that they might not linger with him. He found himself
now on the farther side of the Cathedral, and after walking a little way
he was on the little narrow path that curved down through the green banks
to the river. Behind him was the Cathedral, to his right Bodger's Street
and Canon's Yard, in front of him the bending hill, the river, and then
the farther slips where the lights of the gipsy encampment sparkled and
shone. Here the air was lovely, cool and soft, and the stars were crowding
into the summer sky in their myriads. But his depression did not leave
him, nor his loneliness. He longed for Falk with a great longing. He could
not hold out against the boy for very much longer; but even then, were the
quarrel made up, things would not now he the same. Falk did not need him
any more. He had new life, new friends, new work.

"It's my nerves," thought Brandon. "I will go and see Puddifoot." It
seemed to him that some one, and perhaps more than one, had followed him
from the Cathedral. He turned sharply round as though he would catch
somebody creeping upon him. He turned round and saw Samuel Hogg standing
there.

"Evening, Archdeacon," said Hogg.

Brandon said, his voice shaking with anger: "What are you following me
for?"

"Following you, Archdeacon?"

"Yes, following me. I have noticed it often lately. If you have anything
to say to me write to me."

"Following you? Lord, no! What makes you think of such a thing,
Archdeacon? Can't a feller enjoy the evenin' air on such a lovely night as
this without being accused of following a gentleman?"

"You know that you are trying to annoy me." Brandon, had pulled himself
up, but his hatred of that grinning face with its purple veins, its
piercing eyes, was working strongly upon his nerves, so that his hands
seemed to move towards it without his own impulsion. "You have been trying
to annoy me for weeks now. I'll stand you no longer. If I have any more of
this nuisance I'll put it into the hands of the police."

Hogg spat out complacently over the grass. "Now, that _is_ an absurd
thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man's tired and wants some air after
his day's work he's accused of being a nuisance. It's a bit thick, that's
what it is. Now, tell, Archdeacon, do you happen to have bought this 'ere
town, because if so I should be glad to know it--and so would a number of
others too."

"Very well, then," said Brandon, moving away. "If you won't go, I will."

"There's no need for temper that I can see," said Hogg. "No call for it at
all, especially that we're a sort of relation now. Almost brothers, seeing
as how your son has married my daughter."

Lower and lower! Lower and lower!

He was moving in a world now where figures, horrible, obscene and foul,
could claim him, could touch him, had their right to follow him.

"You will get nothing from me," Brandon answered. "You are wasting your
time."

"Wasting my time?" Hogg laughed. "Not me! I'm enjoying myself. I don't
want anything from you except just to see you sometimes and have a little
chat. That's quite enough for me! I've taken quite a liking to you,
Archdeacon, which is as it should be between relations, and, often enough,
it isn't so. I like to see a proud gentleman like yourself mixing with
such as me. It's good for both of us, as you might say."

Brandon's anger--always dangerously uncontrolled--rose until it seemed to
have the whole of his body in his grasp, swaying it, ebbing and flowing
with swift powerful current through his heart into his brain. Now he could
only see the flushed, taunting face, the little eyes....

But Hogg's hour was not yet. He suddenly touched his cap, smiling.

"Well, good evening, Archdeacon. We'll be meeting again,"--and he was
gone.

As swiftly as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling,
shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to
leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy
thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated,
desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place.
Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all
and show them that he was above and beyond their power.

But the peace of the evening and the glory of the stars gradually stole
into his heart. He had been wrong, terribly wrong. His pride, his conceit,
had been destroying him. With a sudden flash of revelation he saw it. He
had trusted in his own power, put himself on a level with the God whom he
served. A rush of deep and sincere humility overwhelmed him. He bowed his
head and prayed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some while later he turned up the path towards home. The whole sky now
burnt with stars; fires were a dull glow across the soft gulf of grey, the
gipsy fires. Once and again a distant voice could be heard singing. As he
reached the corner of the Cathedral, and was about to turn up towards the
Precincts, a strange sound reached his ears. He stood where he was and
listened. At first he could not define what he heard--then suddenly he
realised. Quite close to him a man was sobbing.

There is something about the sounds of a man's grief that is almost
indecent. This sobbing was pitiful in its abandonment and in its effort to
control and stifle.

Brandon, looking more closely, saw the dark shadow of a man's body pressed
against the inside buttress of the corner of the Cathedral wall. The
shadow crouched, the body all drawn together as though folding in upon
itself to hide its own agony.

Brandon endeavoured to move softly up the path, but his step crunched on
some twigs, and at the sharp noise the sobbing suddenly ceased. The figure
turned.

It was Morris. The two men looked at one another for an instant, then
Morris, still like a shadow, vanished swiftly into the dusk.




Chapter III

Saturday, June 19: The Ball



Joan was in her hedroom preparing for the Ball. It was now only half-past
six and the Ball was not until half-past nine, but Mr. Mumphit, the
be-curled, the be-scented young assistant from the hairdresser's in the
High Street had paid his visit very early because he had so many other
heads of so many other young ladies to dress in Polchester that evening.
So Joan sat in front of the long looking-glass, a towel still over her
shoulders, looking at herself in a state of ecstasy and delight.

It was wrong of her, perhaps, to feel so happy--she felt that deep in her
consciousness; wrong, with all the trouble in the house, Falk gone in
disgrace, her father unhappy, her mother so strange; but to-night she
could not help herself. The excitement was spluttering and crackling all
over the town, the wonderful week upon which the whole country was
entering, the Ball, her own coming-out Ball, and the consciousness that He
would be there, and, even though He did love another, would be sure to
give her at least one dance; these things were all too strong for her--she
was happy, happy, happy--her eyes danced, her toes danced, her very soul
danced for sheer delirious joy. Had any one been behind her to look over
her shoulder into the glass, he would have seen the reflection in that
mirror of one of the prettiest children the wide world could show;
especially childish she looked to-night with her dark hair piled high on
her head, her eyes wide with wonder, her neck and shoulders so delicately
white and soft. Behind her, on the bed, was the dress, on the dingy carpet
a pair of shoes of silver tissue, the loveliest things she had ever had.
They were reflected in the mirror, little blobs of silver, and as she saw
them the colour mounted still higher in her cheeks. She had no right to
them; she had not paid for them. They were the first things that she had
ever, in all her life, bought on credit. Neither her father nor her mother
knew anything about them, but she had seen them in Harriott's shop-window
and had simply not been able to resist them.

If, after all, she was to dance with Him, that made anything right. Were
she sent to prison because she could not pay for them it would not matter.
She had done the only possible thing.

And so she looked into the mirror and saw the dark glitter in her hair and
the red in her cheeks and the whiteness of her shoulders and the silver
blobs of the little shoes, and she was happy--happy with an almost fearful
ecstasy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Brandon also was in her bedroom. She was sitting on a high stiff-
backed chair, staring in front of her. She had been sitting there now for
a long time without making any movement at all. She might have been a dead
woman. Her thin hands, with the sharply marked blue veins, were clasped
tightly on her lap. She was feeding, feverishly, eagerly feeding upon the
thought of Morris.

She would see him that evening, they would talk together, dance together,
their hands would burn as they touched; they would say very little to one
another; they would long, agonize for one another, to be alone together,
to be far, far away from everybody, and they would be desperately unhappy.

She wondered, in her strange kind of mouse-in-the-trap trance, about that
unhappiness. Was there to be no happiness, for her anywhere? Was she
always to want more than she got, was all this passion now too late? Was
it real at all? Was it not a fever, a phantom, a hallucination? Did she
see Morris? Did she not rather see something that she must seize to slake
her burning feverish thirst? For one moment she had known happiness, when
her arms had gone around him and she had been able to console and comfort
him. But comfort him for how long? Was he not as unhappy as she, and would
they not always be unhappy? Was he not weighed down by the sin that he had
committed, that he, as he thought, had caused her to commit?...At that
she sprang up from the chair and paced the room, murmuring aloud: "No, no,
I did it. My sin, not his. I will care for him, watch over him--watch over
him, care for him. He must be glad."...She sank down by the bed, burying
her face in her hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

Brandon was in his study finishing his letters. But behind his application
to the notes that he was writing his brain was moving like an animal
steathily investigating an unlighted house. He was thinking of his wife--
and of himself. Even as he was writing "And therefore it seems to me, my
dear Ryle, that with regard to the actual hour of the service, eight
o'clock----" his inner consciousness was whispering to him. "How you miss
Falk! How lonely the house seems without him! You thought you could get
along without love, didn't you? or, at least, you were not aware that it
played any very great part in your life. But now that the one person whom
you most sincerely loved is gone, you see that it was not to be so simply
taken for granted, do you not? Love must be worked for, sacrificed for,
cared for, nourished and cherished. You want some one to cherish now, and
you are surprised that you should so want...yes, there is your wife--
Amy...Amy.... You had taken her also for granted. But she is still with
you. There is time."

His wife was illuminated with tenderness. He put down his pen and stared
in front of him. What he wanted and what she wanted was a holiday. They
had been too long here in this place. That was what he needed, that was
the explanation of his headaches, of his tempers, of his obsession about
Ronder.

As soon as this Pybus St. Anthony affair was settled he would take his
wife abroad. Just the two of them. Another honeymoon after all these
years. Greece, Italy...and who knows? Perhaps he would see Falk on his
way through London returning...Falk....

He had forgotten his letters, staring in front of him, tapping the table
with his pen.

There was a knock on the door. The maid said, "A lady to see you, sir. She
says it's important"--and, before he could ask her name, some one else was
in the room with him and the door was closed behind her.

He was puzzled for a moment as to her identity, a rather seedy, down-at-
heels-looking woman. She was wearing a rather crumpled white cotton dress.
She carried a pink parasol, and on her head was a large straw hat
overburdened with bright red roses. Ah, yes! Of course! Miss Milton--who
was the Librarian. Shabby she looked. Come down in the world. He had
always disliked her. He resented now the way in which she had almost
forced her way into his room.

She looked across at him through her funny half-closed eyes.

"I beg your pardon, Archdeacon Brandon," she said, "for entering like this
at what must be, I fear, an unseemly time. My only excuse must be the
urgency of my business."

"I am very sorry, Miss Milton," he said sternly; "it is quite impossible
for me to see you just now on any business whatever. If you will make an
appointment with me in writing, I will see what can be done."

At the sound of his voice her eyes closed still further. "I'm very sorry,
Archdeacon," she said. "I think you would do well to listen to what I am
going to tell you."

He raised his head and looked at her. At those words of hers he had once
again the sensation of being pushed down by strong heavy hands into some
deep mire where he must have company with filthy crawling animals--Hogg,
Davray, and now this woman....

"What do you mean?" he asked, disgust thickening his voice. "What can
_you_ have to tell _me_?"

She smiled. She crossed the floor and came close to his desk. Her fingers
were on the shabby bag that hung over her arm.

"I was greatly puzzled," she said, "as to what was the right thing to do.
I am a good and honest woman, Archdeacon, although I was ejected from my
position most wrongfully by those that ought to have known better. I have
come down in the world through no fault of my own, and there are some who
should be ashamed in their hearts of the way they've treated me. However,
it's not of them I've to speak to-day." She paused.

Brandon drew back into his chair. "Please tell me, Miss Milton, your
business as soon as possible. I have much to do."

"I will." She breathed hard and continued. "Certain information was placed
in my hands, and I found it very difficult to decide on the justice of my
course. After some hesitation I went to Canon Ronder, knowing him to be a
just man."

At the name "Ronder" the Archdeacon's lips moved, but he said nothing.

"I showed him the information I had obtained. I asked him what I should
do. He gave me advice which I followed."

"He advised you to come to me."

Miss Milton saw at once that a lie here would serve her well. "He advised
me to come to you and give you this letter which in the true sense of the
word belongs to you."

She fumbled with her bag, opened it, took out a piece of paper.

"I must tell you," she continued, her eyes never for an instant leaving
the Archdeacon's face, "that this letter came into my hands by an
accident. I was in Mr. Morris's house at the time and the letter was
delivered to me by mistake."

"Mr. Morris?" Brandon repeated. "What has he to do with this affair?"

Miss Milton rubbed her gloved hands together. "Mrs. Brandon," she said,
"has been very friendly with Mr. Morris for a long time past. The whole
town has been talking of it."

The clock suddenly began to strike the hour. No word was spoken.

Then Brandon said very quietly, "Leave this house, Miss Milton, and never
enter it again. If I have any further trouble with you, the police will be
informed."

"Before I go, Archdeacon," said Miss Milton, also very quietly, "you
should see this letter. I can assure you that I have not come here for
mere words. I have my conscience to satisfy like any other person. I am
not asking for anything in return for this information, although I should
be perfectly justified in such an action, considering how monstrously I
have been treated. I give you this letter and you can destroy it at once.
My conscience will be satisfied. If, on the other hand, you don't read it
--well, there are others in the town who must see it."

He took the letter from her.

DEAREST--I am sending this by a safe hand to tell you that I cannot
possibly get down to-night. I am so sorry and most dreadfully
disappointed, but I will explain everything when we meet to-morrow. This
is to prevent your waiting on when I'm not coming.

It was in his wife's handwriting.

"Dearest...cannot possibly get down tonight...." In his wife's
handwriting. Certainly. Yes. His wife's. And Ronder had seen it.

He looked across at Miss Milton. "This is not my wife's handwriting," he
said. "You realise, I hope, in what a serious matter you have become
involved--by your hasty action," he added.

"Not hasty," she said, moistening her lips with her tongue. "Not hasty,
Archdeacon. I have taken much thought. I don't know if I have already told
you that I took the letter myself at the door from the hand of your own
maid. She has been to the Library with books. She is well known to me."

He must exercise enormous, superhuman, self-control. That was his only
thought. The tide of anger was rising in him so terribly that it pressed
against the skin of his forehead, drawn tight, and threatened to split it.
What he wanted to do was to rise and assault the woman standing in front
of him. His hands longed to take her! They seemed to have life and
volition of their own and to move across the table of their own accord.

He was aware, too, once more, of some huge plot developing around him,
some supernatural plot in which all the elements too were involved--earth,
sun and sky, and also every one in the town, down to the smallest child
there.

He seemed to see behind him, just out of his sight, a tall massive figure
directing the plot, a figure something like himself, only with a heavy
black beard, cloudy, without form....

They would catch him in their plot as in a net, but he would escape them,
and he would escape them by wonderful calm, and self-control, and the
absence of all emotion.

So that, although his voice shook a little, it was quietly that he
repeated:

"This is not in my wife's handwriting. You know the penalties for
forgery." Then, looking her full in the face, he added, "Penal servitude."

She smiled back at him.

"I am sure, Archdeacon, that all I require is a full investigation. These
wickednesses are going on in this town, and those principally concerned
should know. I have only done what I consider my duty."

Her eyes lingered on his face. She savoured now during these moments the
revenge for which, in all these months, she had ceaselessly longed. He had
moved but little, he had not raised his voice, but, watching his face, she
had seen the agony pass, like an entering guest, behind his eyes. That
guest would remain. She was satisfied.

"I have done my duty, Archdeacon, and now I will wish you good-evening."

She gave a little bow and retired from the room, softly closing the door
behind her.

He sat there, looking at the letter....

       *       *       *       *       *

The Assembly Rooms seemed to move like a ship on a sunset sea. Hanging
from the ceiling were the two great silver candelabra, in some ways the
most famous treasure that the town possessed. Fitted now with gas, they
were nevertheless so shaded that the light was soft and mellow. Round the
room, beneath the portraits of the town's celebrities in their heavy gold
frames, the lights were hidden with shields of gold. The walls were ivory
white. From the Minstrels' Gallery flags with the arms of the Town, of the
Cathedral, of the St. Leath family fluttered once and again faintly. In
the Minstrels' Gallery the band was playing just as it had played a
hundred years ago. The shining floor was covered with moving figures.
Every one was there. Under the Gallery, surveying the world like Boadicea
her faithful Britons, was Lady St. Leath, her white hair piled high above
her pink baby face, that had the inquiring haughty expression of a
cockatoo wondering whether it is being offered a lump of sugar or an
insult. On either side of her sat two of her daughters, Lady Rose and Lady
Mary, plain and patient.

Near her, in a complacent chattering row, were some of the more important
of the Cathedral and County set. There were the Marriotts from Maple
Durham, fat, sixty, and amiable; old Colonel Wotherston, who had fought in
the Crimea; Sir Henry Byles with his large purple nose; little Major
Garnet, the kindest bachelor in the County; the Marquesas, who had more
pedigree than pennies; Mrs. Sampson in bright lilac, and an especially bad
attack of neuralgia; Mrs. Combermere, sheathed in cloth of gold and very
jolly; Mrs. Ryle, humble in grey silk; Ellen Stiles in cherry colour; Mrs.
Trudon, Mrs. Forrester and Mrs. D'Arcy, their chins nearly touching over
eager confidences; Dr. Puddifoot, still breathless from his last dance;
Bentinick-Major, tapping with his patent-leather toe the floor, eager to
be at it again; Branston the Mayor and Mrs. Branston, uncomfortable in a
kind of dog-collar of diamonds; Mrs. Preston, searching for nobility;
Canon Martin; Dennison, the head-master of the School; and many others.

It was just then a Polka, and the tune was so alluring, so entrancing,
that the whole world rose and fell with its rhythm.

And where was Joan? Joan was dancing with the Reverend Rex Forsyth, the
proposed incumbent of Pybus St. Anthony. Had any one told her a week ago
that she would dance with the elegant Mr. Forsyth before a gathering of
all the most notable people of Polchester and Southern Glebeshire, and
would so dance without a tremor, she would have derided her informant. But
what cannot excitement and happiness do?

She knew that she was looking nice, she knew that she was dancing as well
as any one else in the room--and Johnny St. Leath had asked her for two
dances and _then_ wanted more, and wanted these with the beautiful
Claire Daubeney, all radiant in silver, standing close beside him. What,
then, could all the Forsyths in the world matter? Nevertheless he
_was_ elegant. Very smart indeed. Rather like a handsome young horse,
groomed for a show. His voice had a little neigh in it; as he talked over
her shoulder he gave a little whinny of pleasure. She found it very
difficult to think of him as a clergyman at all.

  You should SEE me DANCE the POLKA,
  Ta-ram-te-tum-te-TA.

Yes, she should. And _he_ should. And he was very pleasant when he
did not talk.

"You dance--very well--Miss Brandon."

"Thank you. This is my first Ball."

"Who would--think that? Ta-ram-te-tum-te-TA.... Jolly tu-une!"

She caught glimpses of every one as they went round. Mrs. Combermere's
cloth of gold, Lady St. Leath's white hair. Poor Lady Mary--such a pity
that they could not do something for her complexion. Spotty. Joan liked
her. She did much good to the poor in Seatown, and it must be agony to
her, poor thing, to go down there, because she was so terribly shy. Her
next dance was with Johnny. She called him Johnny. And why should she not,
secretly to herself? Ah, there was mother, all alone. And there was Mr.
Morris coming up to speak to her. Kind of him. But he _was_ a kind
man. She liked him. Very shy, though. All the nicest people seemed to be
shy--except Johnny, who wasn't shy at all.

The music stopped and, breathless, they stayed for a moment before finding
two chairs. Now was coming the time that she so greatly disliked. Whatever
to say to Mr. Forsyth?

They sat down in the long passage outside the ballroom. The floor ran like
a ribbon from under their feet into dim shining distance. Or rather, Joan
thought, it was like a stream, and on either side the dancers were
sitting, dabbling their toes and looking self-conscious.

"Do you like it where you are?" Joan asked of the shining black silk
waistcoat that gleamed beside her.

"Oh, you know...." neighed Mr. Forsyth. "It's all right, you know. The old
Bishop's kind enough."

"Bishop Clematis?" said Joan.

"Yes. There ain't enough to do, you know. But I don't expect I'll be there
long. No, I don't.... Pity poor Morrison at Pybus dying like that."

Joan of course at once understood the allusion. She also understood that
Mr. Forsyth was begging her to bestow upon him any little piece of news
that she might have obtained. But that seemed to her mean--spying--spying
on her own father. So she only said:

"You're very fond of riding, aren't you?"

"Love it," said Mr. Forsyth, whinnying so exactly like a happy pony that
Joan jumped. "Don't you?"

"I've never been on horseback in my life," said Joan. "I'd like to try."

"Never in your life?" Mr. Forsyth stared. "Why, I was on a pony before I
was three. Fact. Good for a clergyman, riding----"

"I think it's nearly time for the next dance," said Joan. "Would you
kindly take me back to my mother?"

She was conscious, as they plunged down-stream, of all the burning
glances. She held her head high. Her eyes flashed. She was going to dance
with Johnny, and they could look as much as they liked.

Mr. Forsyth delivered her to her mother and went cantering off. Joan sat
down, smoothed her dress and stared at the vast shiny lake of amber in
which the silver candelabra were reflected like little islands. She looked
at her mother and was suddenly sorry for her. It must be dull, when you
were as old as mother, coming to these dances--and especially when you had
so few friends. Her mother had never made many friends.

"Wasn't that Mr. Morris who was talking to you just now?"

"Yes, dear."

"I like him. He looks kind."

"Yes, dear."

"And where's father?"

"Over there, talking to Lady St. Leath."

She looked across, and there he was, so big and tall and fine, so splendid
in his grand clothes. Her heart swelled with pride.

"Isn't he splendid, mother, dear?"

"Who?"

"Father!"

"Splendid?"

"Yes; doesn't he look splendid to-night? Better looking than all the rest
of the room put together?" (Johnny wasn't _good-looking_. Better than
_good-looking_.)

"Oh--look splendid. Yes. He's a very handsome man."

Joan felt once again that little chill with which she was so often
familiar when she talked with her mother--a sudden withdrawal of sympathy,
a pushing Joan away with her hand.

But never mind--there was the music again, and here, oh, here, was Johnny!
Someone had once called him Tubby in her hearing, and how indignant she
had been! He was perhaps a little on the fat side, but strong with it....
She went off with him. The waltz began.

She sank into sweet delicious waters--waters that rocked and cradled her,
hugged her and caressed her. She was conscious of his arm. She did not
speak nor did he. Years of utter happiness passed....

He did not take her, as Mr. Forsyth had done, into the public glare of the
passage, but up a crooked staircase behind the Minstrels' Gallery into a
little room, cool and shaded, where, in easy-chairs, they were quite
alone.

He was shy, fingering his gloves. She said (just to make conversation):

"How beautiful Miss Daubeney is looking!"

"Do you think so?" said Johnny. "I don't. I'm sick of that girl. She's the
most awful bore. Mother's always shoving her at my head. She's been
staying with us for months. She wants me to marry her because she's rich.
But we've got plenty, and I wouldn't marry her anyway, not if we hadn't a
penny. Because she's a bore, and because"--his voice became suddenly loud
and commanding--"I'm going to marry you."

Something--some lovely bird of Paradise, some splendid coloured breeze,
some carpet of magic pattern--came and swung Joan up to a high tree loaded
with golden apples. There she swung--singing her heart out. Johnny's voice
came up to her.

"Because I'm going to marry you."

"What?" she called down to him.

"I'm going to marry you. I knew it from the very first second I saw you,
that day after Cathedral--from the very first moment I knew it. I wanted
to ask you right away at once, but I thought I'd do the thing properly, so
I went away, and I've been in Paris and Rome and all over the place, and
I've thought of you the _whole_ time--every minute. Then mother made
a fuss about this Daubeney girl--my not being here and all that--so I
thought I'd come home and tell you I was going to marry you."

"Oh, but you can't." Joan swung down from her appletree. "You and me? Why,
what _would_ your mother say?"

"It isn't a case of _would_ but _will_" Johnny said. "Mother
will be very angry--and for a considerable time. But that makes no
difference. Mother's mother and I'm myself."

"It's impossible," said Joan quickly, "from every point of view. Do you
know what my brother has done? I'm proud of Falk and love him; but you're
Lord St. Leath, and Falk has married the daughter of Hogg, the man who
keeps a public-house down in Seatown."

"I heard of that," said Johnny. "But what does that matter? Do you know
what I did last year? I crossed the Atlantic as a stoker in a Cunard boat.
Mother never knew until I got back, and _wasn't_ she furious! But the
world's changing. There isn't going to be any class difference soon--none
at all. You take my word. Look at the Americans! They're the people! We'll
be like them one day.... But what's all this?" he suddenly said. "I'm
going to marry you and you're going to marry me. You love me, don't you?"

"Yes," said Joan faintly.

"Well, then. I knew you did. I'm going to kiss you." He put his arms
around her and kissed her very gently.

"Oh, how I love you!" he said, "and how good I'll be to you!"

"But we must be practical," said Joan wildly. "How can we marry?
Everything's against it. I've no money. I'm nobody. Your mother----"

"Now you just leave my mother alone. Leave me to manage her--I know all
about that----"

"I won't be engaged to you," Joan said firmly, "not for ages and ages--not
for a year anyway."

"That's all right," said Johnny indifferently. "You can settle it any way
you please--but no one's going to marry you but me, and no one's going to
marry me but you."

He would have kissed her again, but Mrs. Preston and a young man came in.

"Now you shall come and speak to my mother," he said to her as they went
out. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Just say 'Bo' to her as you would
to a goose, and she'll answer all right."

"You won't say anything----" began Joan.

"About us? All right. That's a secret for the present; but we shall meet
_every_ day, and if there's a day we don't meet you've got to write.
Do you agree?"

Whether she agreed or no was uncertain, because they were now in a cloud
of people, and, a moment later, were face to face with the old Countess.

She was pleased, it at once appeared. She was in a gracious mood; people
had been pleasant enough--that is, they had been obsequious and
flattering. Also her digestion was behaving properly; those new pills that
old Puddifoot had given her were excellent. She therefore received Joan
very graciously, congratulated her on her appearance, and asked her where
her elder sister was. When Joan explained that she had no sister Lady St.
Leath appeared vexed with her, as though it had been a piece of obvious
impertinence on her part not to produce a sister instantly when she had
asked for one. However, Lady Mary was kind and friendly and made Joan sit
beside her for a little. Joan thought, "I'd like to have you for a sister
one day, if--if--ever----" and allowed her thoughts to go no farther.

Thence she passed into the company of Mrs. Combermere and Ellen Stiles. It
seemd to her--but it was probably her fancy--that as she came to them they
were discussing something that was not for her ears. It seemed to her that
they swiftly changed the conversation and greeted her with quite an
unusual warmth of affection. For the first time that evening a sudden
little chill of foreboding, whence she knew not, seemed to touch her and
shade, for an instant, her marvellous happiness.

Mrs. Combermere was very sweet to her indeed, quite as though she had
been, but now, recovering from an alarming illness. Her bass voice, strong
thick hands and stiff wiry hair went so incongruously with her cloth of
gold that Joan could not help smiling.

"You look very happy, my dear," Mrs. Combermere said.

"Of course I am," said Joan. "How can I help it, my first Ball?"

Mrs. Combermere kicked her trailing garments with her foot, just like a
dame in a pantomime. "Well, enjoy yourself as long as you can. You're
looking very pretty. The prettiest girl in the room. I've just been saying
so to Ellen--haven't I, Ellen?"

Ellen Stiles was at that moment making herself agreeable to the Mayoress,
who was sitting lonely and uncomfortable (weighed down with longing for
sleep) on a little gilt chair.

"I was just saying to Mrs. Branston," Miss Stiles said, turning round,
"that the time one has to be careful with children after whooping-cough is
when they seem practically well. Her little boy has just been ill with it,
and she says he's recovered; but that's the time, as I tell her, when nine
out of ten children die--just when you think you're safe."

"Oh dear," said Mrs. Branston, turning towards them her full anxious eyes.
"You _do_ alarm me, Miss Stiles! And I've been letting Tommy quite
loose, as you may say, these last few days--with his appetite back and
all, there seemed no danger."

"Well, if you find him feverish when you get home tonight," said Ellen,
"don't he surprised. All the excitement of the Jubilee too will be very
bad for him."

At that moment Canon Ronder came up. Joan looked and at once, at the sight
of the round gleaming spectacles, the smiling mouth, the full cheeks
puffed out as though he were blowing perpetual bubbles for his own
amusement, felt her old instinct of repulsion. This man was her father's
enemy, and so hers. All the town knew now that he was trying to ruin her
father so that he might take his place, that he laughed at him and mocked
him.

So fierce did she feel that she could have scratched his cheeks. He was
smiling at them all, and at once was engaged in a wordy duel with Mrs.
Combermere and Miss Stiles. _They_ liked him; every one in the town
liked him. She heard his praises sung by every one. Well, she would never
sing them. She hated him.

And now he was actually speaking to her. He had the impertinence to ask
her for a dance.

"I'm afraid I'm engaged for the next and for the one after that, Canon
Ronder," she said.

"Well, later on then," he said, smiling. "What about an extra?"

Her dark eyes scorned him.

"We are going home early," she said. She pretended to examine her
programme. "I'm afraid I have not one before we go."

She spoke as coldly as she dared. She felt the eyes of Mrs. Combermere and
Ellen Stiles upon her. How stupid of her! She had shown them what her
feelings were, and now they would chatter the more and laugh about her
fighting her father's battles. Why had she not shown her indifference, her
complete indifference?

He was smiling still--not discomfited by her rudeness. He said something--
something polite and outrageously kind--and then young Charles D'Arcy came
up to carry her off for the Lancers.

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour later her cup of happiness was completely filled. She had danced,
during that hour, four times with Johnny; every one must be talking. Lady
St. Leath must be furious (she did not know that Boadicea had been playing
whist with old Colonel Wotherston and Sir Henry Byles for the last ever so
long).

She would perhaps never have such an hour in all her life again. This
thing that he so wildly proposed was impossible--utterly, completely
impossible; but what was _not_ impossible, what was indeed certain
and sure and beyond any sort of question, was that she loved Johnny St.
Leath with all her heart and soul, and would so love him until the day of
her death. Life could never be purposeless nor mean nor empty for her
again, while she had that treasure to carry about with her in her heart.
Meanwhile she could not look at him and doubt but that, for the moment at
any rate, he loved her--and there was something simple and direct about
Johnny as there was about his dog Andrew, that made his words, few and
clumsy though they might be, most strangely convincing.

So, almost dizzy with happiness, she climbed the stair behind the Gallery
and thought that she would escape for a moment into the little room where
Johnny had proposed to her, and sit there and grow calm. She looked in.
Some one was there. A man sitting by himself and staring in front of him.
She saw at once that he was in some great trouble. His hands were
clenched, his face puckered and set with pain. Then she saw that it was
her father.

He did not move; he might have been a block of stone shining in the
dimness. Terrified, she stood, herself not moving. Then she came forward.
She put her hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, father--father, what is it?" She felt his body trembling beneath her
touch--he, the proudest, finest man in the country. She put her arm round
his neck. She kissed him. His forehead was damp with sweat. His body was
shaking from head to foot. She kissed him again and again, kneeling beside
him.

Then she remembered where they were. Some one might come. No one must see
him like that.

She whispered to him, took his hands between hers.

"Let's go home, Joan," he said. "I want to go home."

She put her arm through his, and together they went down the little
stairs.




Chapter IV

Sunday, June 20: In the Bedroom



Brandon had been talking to the Precentor at the far end of the ballroom,
when suddenly Ronder had appeared in their midst. Appeared the only word!
And Brandon, armoured, he had thought, for every terror that that night
might bring to him, had been suddenly seized with the lust of murder. A
lust as dominating as any other, that swept upon him in a hot flaming
tide, lapped him from head to foot. It was no matter, this time, of words,
of senses, of thoughts, but of his possession by some other man who filled
his brain, his eyes, his mouth, his stomach, his heart; one second more
and he would have flung himself upon that smiling face, those rounded
limbs; he would have caught that white throat and squeezed it--
squeezed...squeezed....

The room literally swam in a tide of impulse that carried him against
Ronder's body and left him there, breast beating against breast....

He turned without a word and almost ran from the place. He passed through
the passages, seeing no one, conscious of neither voices nor eyes,
climbing stairs that he did not feel, sheltering in that lonely little
room, sitting there, his hands to his face, shuddering. The lust slowly
withdrew from him, leaving him icy cold. Then he lifted his eyes and saw
his daughter and clung to her--as just then he would have clung to
anybody--for safety.

Had it come to this then, that he was mad? All that night, lying on his
bed, he surveyed himself. That was the way that men murdered. No longer
could he claim control or mastery of his body. God had deserted him and
given him over to devils.

His son, his wife, and now God. His loneliness was terrible. And he could
not think. He must think about this letter and what he should do. He could
not think at all. He was given over to devils.

After Matins in the Cathedral next day one thought came to him. He would
go and see the Bishop. The Bishop had come in from Carpledon for the
Jubilee celebrations and was staying at the Deanery. Brandon spoke to him
for a moment after Matins and asked him whether he might see him for half
an hour in the afternoon on a matter of great urgency. The Bishop asked
him to come at three o'clock.

Seated in the Dean's library, with its old-fashioned cosiness--its book-
shelves and the familiar books, the cases, between the high windows, of
his precious butterflies--Brandon felt, for the first time for many days,
a certain calm descend upon him. The Bishop, looking very frail and small
in the big arm-chair, received him with so warm an affection that he felt,
in spite of his own age, like the old man's son.

"My lord," he began with difficulty, moving his big limbs in his chair
like a restless schoolboy, "it isn't easy for me to come to-day. There's
no one in the world I could speak to except yourself. I find it difficult
even to do that."

"My son," said the Bishop gently, "I am a very, very old man. I cannot
have many more months to live. When one is as near to death as I am, one
loves everything and everybody, because one is going so soon. You needn't
be afraid."

And in his heart he must have wondered at the change in this man who,
through so many years now, had come to him with so much self-confidence
and assurance.

"I have had much trouble lately," Brandon went on. "But I would not have
bothered you with that, knowing as I do all that you have to consider just
now, were it not that for the first time in my life I seem to have lost
control and to be heading toward some great disaster that may bring
scandal not only on myself but on the Church as well."

"Tell me your trouble," said the Bishop.

"Nine months ago I seemed to be at the very height of my powers, my
happiness, my usefulness." Brandon paused. Was it really only nine months
back, that other time? "I had no troubles. I was confident in myself, my
health was good, my family were happy. I seemed to have many friends....
Then suddenly everything changed. I don't want to seem false, my lord, in
anything that I may say, but it was literally as though in the course of a
night all my happiness forsook me.

"It began with my boy being sent down from Oxford. I have only one boy, as
I think your lordship knows. He was--he is, in spite of what has happened
--very dear to me." Brandon paused.

"Yes, I know," said the Bishop.

"After that everything began to go wrong. Little things, little tiny
things--one after another. Some one came to this town who almost at once
seemed to put himself into opposition to me." Brandon paused once more.

The Bishop said again: "Yes, I know."

"At first," Brandon went on, "I didn't realise this. I was preoccupied
with my work. It had never, at any time in my life, seemed to me healthy
to consider about other people's minds, what they were thinking or
imagining. There is quite enough work to do in the world without that. But
soon I was forced to consider this man's opposition to me. It came before
me in a thousand little ways. The attitude of the Chapter changed to me--
especially noticeable at one of the Chapter meetings. I don't want to make
my story so long, my lord, that it will tire you. To cut it short--a day
came when my boy ran off to London with a town girl, the daughter of the
landlord of one of the more disreputable public-houses. That was a
terrible, devastating blow to me. I have quite literally not been the same
man since. I was determined not to allow it to turn me from my proper
work. I still loved the boy; he had not behaved dishonourably to the girl.
He has now married her and is earning his living in London. If that had
been the only blow----" He stopped, cleared his throat, and, turning
excitedly towards the Bishop, almost shouted:

"But it is not! It is not, my lord! My enemy has never ceased his plots
for one instant. It was he who advised my boy to run off with this girl.
He has turned the whole town against me; they laugh at me and mock me! And
now he...now he..." He could not for a moment find breath. He exercised
an impulse of almost superhuman self-control, bringing his body visibly
back into bounds again. He went on more quietly:

"We are in opposite camps over this matter of the Pybus living--we are in
opposition over almost every question that arises here. He is an able man.
I must do him that justice. He can plot...he can scheme...whereas I..."
Brandon beat his hands desperately on his knees.

"It is not only this man!" he cried, "not only this! It is as though there
were some larger conspiracy, something from Heaven itself. God has turned
His face away from me when I have served Him faithfully all my days. No
one has served Him more whole-heartedly than I. He has been my only
thought, His glory my only purpose. Nine months ago I had health, I had
friends, I had honour. I had my family--now my health is going, my friends
have forsaken me, I am mocked at by the lowest men in the town, my son has
left me, my--my..."

He broke off, bending his face in his hands.

The Bishop said: "My dear friend, you are not alone in this. We have all
been tried, like this--tested----"

"Tested!" Brandon broke out. "Why should I be tested? What have I done in
all my life that is not acceptable to God? What sin have I committed! What
disloyalty have I shown? But there is something more that I must tell you,
my lord--the reason why I have come to you to-day. Canon Ronder and I--you
must have known of whom I have been speaking--had a violent quarrel one
afternoon on the way home after luncheon with you at Carpledon. This
quarrel became, in one way or another, the town's property. Ronder
affected to like me, but it was impossible now for him to hide his real
intentions towards me. This thing began to be an obsession with me. I
tried to prevent this. I knew what the danger of such obsessions can be.
But there was something else. My wife--" he paused--went on. "My wife and
I, my lord, have lived together in perfect happiness for twenty years. At
least it had seemed to me to be perfect happiness. She began to behave
strangely. She was not herself. Undoubtedly the affair of our son
disturbed her desperately. She seemed to avoid me, to escape from me when
she could. This, coming with my other troubles, made me feel as though I
were in some horrible dream, as though the very furniture of our home and
the appearance of the streets were changing. I began to be afraid
sometimes that I might be going mad. I have had bad headaches that have
made it difficult for me to think. Then, only last night, a woman brought
me a letter. I wish you most earnestly to believe, my lord, that I believe
my wife to be absolutely loyal to me--loyal in every possible sense of the
word. The letter purported to be in her handwriting. And in this matter
also Canon Ronder had had some hand. The woman admitted that she had been
first to Canon Ronder and that he had advised her to bring it to me."

The Bishop made a movement.

"You will, of course, say nothing of this, my lord, to Canon Ronder. I
have come privately to ask your prayers for me and to have your counsel. I
am making no complaint against Canon Ronder. I must see this thing through
by myself. But last night, when my mind was filled with this letter, I
found myself suddenly next to Canon Ronder, and I had a murderous impulse
that was so fierce and sudden in its power that I--" he broke off,
shuddering. Then cried, suddenly stretching out his hands:

"Oh, my lord, pray for me, pray for me! Help me! I don't know what I do--I
am given over to the powers of Hell!"

A long silence followed. Then the Bishop said:

"You have asked me to say nothing to Canon Ronder, and of course I must
respect your confidence. But the first thing that I would say to you is
that I think that what you feared has happened--that you have allowed this
thought of him to become an obsession to you. The ways of God are
mysterious and past our finding out; but all of us, in our lives, have
known that time when everything was suddenly turned against us--our work,
those whom we love, our health, even our belief in God Himself. My dear,
dear friend, I myself have known that several times in my own life. Once,
when I was a young man, I lost an appointment on which my whole heart was
set, and lost it, as it seemed, through an extreme injustice. It turned
out afterwards that my losing that was one of the most fortunate things
for me. Once my dear wife and I seemed to lose all our love for one
another, and I was assailed with most desperate temptation--and the end of
that was that we loved and understood one another as we had never done
before. Once--and this was the most terrible period of my life, and it
continued over a long time--I lost, as it seemed, completely all my faith
in God. I came out of that believing only in the beauty of Christ's life,
clinging to that, and saying to myself, 'Such a friend have I--then life
is not all lost to me'--and slowly, gradually, I came back into touch with
Him and knew Him as I had never known Him before, and, through Him, once
again God the Father. And now, even in my old age, temptation is still
with me. I long to die. I am tempted often to look upon men and women as
shadows that have no longer any connection with me. I am very weak and
feeble and I wish to sleep.... But the love of God continues, and through
Jesus Christ, the love of men. It is the only truth--love of God, love of
man--the rest is fantasy and unreality. Look up, my son, bear this with
patience. God is standing at your shoulder and will be with you to the
end. This is training for you. To show you, perhaps, that all through life
you have missed the most important thing. You are learning through this
trouble your need of others, your need to love them, and that they should
love you--the only lesson worth learning in life...."

The Bishop came over to Brandon and put his hand on his head. Strange
peace came into Brandon's heart, not from the old man's words, but from
the contact with him, the touch of his thin trembling hand. The room was
filled with peace. Ronder was suddenly of little importance. The Cathedral
faded. For a time he rested.

For the rest of that day, until evening, that peace stayed with him. With
it still in his heart he came, late that night, into their bedroom. Mrs.
Brandon was in bed, awake, staring in front of her, not moving. He sat
down in the chair beside the bed, stretched out his hand, and took hers.

"Amy, dear," he said, "I want us to have a little talk."

Her little hand lay still and hot in his large cool one.

"I've been very unhappy," he went on with difficulty, "lately about you--I
have seen that you yourself are not happy. I want you to be. I will do
anything that is in my power to make you so!"

"You would not," she said, without looking at him, "have troubled to think
of me had not your own private affairs gone wrong and--had not Falk left
us!"

The sound of her hostility irritated him against his will; he beat the
irritation down. He felt suddenly very tired, quite exhausted. He had an
almost irresistible temptation to go down into his dressing-room, lie on
his sofa there, and go instantly to sleep.

"That's not quite fair, Amy," he said. "But we won't dispute about that. I
want to know why, after our being happy for twenty years, something now
has come in between us or seems to have done so; I want to clear that away
if I can, so that we can be as we were before."

Be as they were before! At the strange, ludicrous irony of that phrase she
turned on her elbow and looked at him, stared at him as though she could
not see enough of him.

"Why do you think that there is anything the matter?" she asked softly,
almost gently.

"Why, of course I can see," he said, holding her hand more tightly as
though the sudden gentleness in her voice had touched him. "When one has
lived with some one a long time," he went on rather awkwardly, "one
notices things. Of course I've seen that you were not happy. And Falk
leaving us in that way must have made you very miserable. It made me
miserable too," he added, suddenly stroking her hand a little.

She could not bear that and very quietly withdrew her hand.

"Did it really hurt you, Falk's going?" she asked, still staring at him.

"Hurt me?" he cried, staring back at her in utter astonishment. "Hurt me?
Why--why----"

"Then why," she went on, "didn't you go up to London after him?"

The question was so entirely unexpected that he could only repeat:

"Why?..."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter now," she said, wearily turning away.

"Perhaps I did wrong. I think perhaps I've done wrong in many ways during
these last years. I am seeing many things for the first time. The truth is
I have been so absorbed in my work that I've thought of nothing else. I
took it too much for granted that you were happy because I was happy. And
now I want to make it right. I do indeed, Amy. Tell me what's the matter."

She said nothing. He waited for a long time. Her immobility always angered
him. He said at last more impatiently.

"Please tell me, Amy, what you have against me."

"I have nothing against you."

"Then why are things wrong between us?"

"Are things wrong?"

"You know they are--ever since that morning when you wouldn't come to Holy
Communion."

"I was tired that morning."

"It is more than tiredness," he said, with sudden impatience, beating upon
the counterpane with his fist. "Amy--you're not behaving fairly. You must
talk to me. I insist on it."

She turned once more towards him.

"What is it you want me to say?"

"Why you're unhappy."

"But if I am not unhappy?"

"You are."

"But suppose I say that I am not?"

"You are. You are. You are!" he shouted at her.

"Very well, then, I am."

"Why are you?"

"Who _is_ happy really? At any rate for more than a moment. Only very
thoughtless and silly people."

"You're putting me off." He took her hand again. "I'm to blame, Amy--to
blame in many ways. But people are talking."

She snatched her hand away.

"People talking? Who?...But as though that mattered."

"It _does_ matter. It has gone far--much farther than I thought."

She looked at him then, quickly, and turned her face away again.

"Who's talking? And what are they saying?"

"They are saying----" He broke off. What _were_ they saying? Until
the arrival of that horrible letter he had not realised that they were
saying anything at all.

"Don't think for a single moment, Amy, that I pay the slightest attention
to any of their talk. I would not have bothered you with any of this had
it not been for something else--of which I'll speak in a moment. If
everything is right between us--between you and me--then it doesn't matter
if the whole world talks until it's blue in the face."

"Leave it alone, then," she said. "Let them talk."

Her indifference stung him. She didn't care, then, whether things were
right between himself and her or no? It was the same to her. She cared so
little for him.... That sudden realisation struck him so sharply that it
was as though some one had hit him in the back. For so many years he had
taken it for granted...taken something for granted that was not to be so
taken. Very dimly some one was approaching him--that dark, misty, gigantic
figure--blotting out the light from the windows. That figure was becoming
day by day more closely his companion.

Looking at her now more intently, and with a new urgency, he said:

"Some one brought me a letter, Amy. They said it was a letter of yours."

She did not move nor stir. Then, after a long silence, she said, "Let me
see it."

He felt in his pocket and produced it. She stretched out her hand and took
it. She read it through slowly. "You think that I wrote this?" she asked.

"No, I know that you did not."

"To whom was it supposed to be written?"

"To 'Morris of St. James'."

She nodded her head. "Ah, yes. We're friends. That's why they chose him.
Of course it's a forgery," she added--"a very clever one."

"What I don't understand," he said eagerly, at his heart the strangest
relief that he did not dare to stop to analyse, "is why any one should
have troubled to do this--the risk, the danger----"

"You have enemies," she said. "Of course you know that. People who are
jealous."

"One enemy," he answered fiercely. "Ronder. The woman had been to him with
this letter before she came to me."

"The woman! What woman?

"The woman who brought it to me was a Miss Milton--a wretched creature who
was once at the Library."

"And she had been with this to Canon Ronder before she came to you?"

"Yes."

"Ah!"

Then she said very quietly:

"And what do you mean to do about the letter?"

"I will do whatever you wish me to do. What I would like to do is to leave
no step untaken to bring the authors of this forgery to justice. No step.
I will----"

"No," she broke in quickly. "It is much better to leave it alone. What
good can it do to follow it up? It only tells every one about it. We
should despise it. The thing is so obviously false. Why you can see,"
suddenly holding the letter towards him, "it isn't even like my writing.
My s's, my m's--they're not like that----"

"No, no," he said eagerly. "I see that they are not. I saw that at once."

"You knew at once that it was a forgery?"

"I knew at once. I never doubted for an instant."

She sighed; then settled back into the pillow with a little shudder.

"This town," she said; "the things they do. Oh! to get away from it, to
get away!"

"And we will!" he cried eagerly. "That's what we need, both of us--a
holiday. I've been thinking it over. We're both tired. When this Jubilee
is over we'll go abroad--Italy, Greece. We'll have a second honeymoon. Oh,
Amy, we'll begin life again. I've been much to blame--much to blame. Give
me that letter. I'll destroy it. I know my enemy, but I'll not think of
him or of any one but our two selves. I'll be good to you now if you'll
let me."

She gave him the letter.

"Look at it before you tear it up," she said, staring at him as though she
would not miss any change in his features. "You're sure that it is a
forgery?"

"Why, of course."

"It's nothing like my handwriting?"

"Nothing at all."

"You know that I am devoted to you, that I would never be untrue to you in
thought, word or deed?"

"Why, of course, of course. As though I didn't know----"

"And that I'll love to come abroad with you?"

"Yes, yes."

"And that we'll have a second honeymoon?"

"Yes, yes. Indeed, Amy, we will."

"Look well at that letter. You are wrong. It is not a forgery. I did write
it."

He did not answer her, but stayed staring at the letter like a boy
detected in a theft. She repeated:

"The woman was quite right. I did write that letter."

Brandon said, staring at her, "Don't laugh at me. This is too serious."

"I'm not laughing. I wrote it. I sent it down by Gladys. If you recall the
day to her she'll remember."

She watched his face. It had turned suddenly grey, as though some one had
slipped a grey mask over the original features.

She thought, "Now perhaps he'll kill me. I'm not sorry."

He whispered, leaning quite close to her as though he were afraid she
would not hear.

"You wrote that letter to Morris?"

"I did." Then suddenly springing up, half out of bed, she cried, "You're
not to touch him. Do you hear? You're not to touch him! It's not his
fault. He's had nothing to do with this. He's only my friend. I love him,
but he doesn't love me. Do you hear? He's had nothing to do with this!"

"You love him!" whispered Brandon.

"I've loved him since the first moment I saw him. I've wanted some one to
love for years--years and years and years. You didn't love me, so then I
hoped Falk would, and Falk didn't, so then I found the first person--any
one who would be kind to me. And he was kind--he _is_ kind--the
kindest man in the world. And he saw that I was lonely, so he let me talk
to him and go to him--but none of this is his doing. He's only been kind.
He--"

"Your letter says 'Dearest'," said Brandon. "If you wrote that letter it
says 'Dearest'."

"That was my foolishness. It was wrong of me. He told me that I mustn't
say anything affectionate. He's good and I'm bad. And I'm bad because
you've made me."

Brandon took the letter and tore it into little pieces; they scattered
upon the counterpane.

"You've been unfaithful to me?" he said, bending over her.

She did not shrink back, although that strange, unknown, grey face was
very close to her. "Yes. At first he wouldn't. He refused anything. But I
would.... I wanted to be. I hate you. I've hated you for years."

"Why?" His hand closed on her shoulder.

"Because of your conceit and pride. Because you've never thought of me.
Because I've always been a piece of furniture to you--less than that.
Because you've been so pleased with yourself and well-satisfied and
stupid. Yes. Yes. Most because you're so stupid. So stupid. Never seeing
anything, never knowing anything and always--so satisfied. And when the
town was pleased with you and said you were so fine I've laughed, knowing
what you were, and I thought to myself, 'There'll come a time when they'll
find him out'--and now they have. They know what you are at last. And I'm
glad! I'm glad! I'm glad!" She stopped, her breast rising and falling
beneath her nightdress, her voice shrill, almost a scream.

He put his hands on her thin bony shoulders and pushed her back into the
bed. His hands moved to her throat. His whole weight, he now kneeling on
the bed, was on top of her.

"Kill me! Kill me!" she whispered. "I'll be glad."

All the while their eyes stared at one another inquisitively, as though
they were strangers meeting for the first time.

His hands met round her throat. His knees were over her. He felt her thin
throat between his hands and a voice in his ear whispered, "That's right,
squeeze tighter. Splendid! Splendid!"

Suddenly his eyes recognised hers. His hands dropped. He crawled from the
bed. Then he felt his way, blindly, out of the room.




Chapter V

Tuesday, June 22: I. The Cathedral



The Great Day arrived, escorted sumptuously with skies of burning blue.
How many heads looked out of how many windows, the country over, that
morning! In Polchester it was considered as only another proof of the
esteem in which that city was held by the Almighty. The Old Lady might
deserve and did unquestionably obtain divinely condescending weather for
her various excursions, but it was nothing to that which the Old Town got
and deserved.

Deserved or no, the town rose to the occasion. The High Street was
swimming in flags and bunting; even in Seatown most of the grimy windows
showed those little cheap flags that during the past week hawkers had been
so industriously selling. From quite early in the morning the squeak and
scream of the roundabouts in the Fair could be heard dimly penetrating the
sanctities and privacies of the Precincts. But it was the Cathedral bells,
pealing, crashing, echoing, rocking, as early as nine o'clock in the
morning, that first awoke the consciousness of most of the Polcastrians to
the glories of the day.

I suppose that nearly all souls that morning subconsciously divided the
order of the festival into three periods; in the morning the Cathedral and
its service, in the afternoon the social, friendly, man-to-man
celebration, and in the evening, torch-light, bonfire, skies ablaze, drink
and love.

Certain it is that many eyes turned towards the Cathedral accustomed for
many years to look in quite other directions. There was to be a grand
service, they said, with "trumpets and shawms" and the big drum, and the
old Bishop preaching, making, in all probability, his very last public
appearance. Up from the dark mysteries of Seatown, down from the chaste
proprieties of the villas above Orange Street, from the purlieus of the
market, from the shops of the High Street, sailors and merchantmen,
traders and sea-captains and, from the wild fastness of the Fair, gipsies
with silver rings in their ears and, perhaps, who can tell? bells on their
dusky toes.

Very early were Lawrence and Cobbett about their duties. This was, in all
probability, Lawrence's last Great Day before the final and all-judging
one, and well both he and Cobbett were aware of it. Cobbett could see
himself that morning almost stepping into the old man's shoes, and the old
man himself was not well this morning--not well at all. Rheumatism, gout,
what hadn't he got?--and, above all, that strange, mysterious pain
somewhere in his very vitals, a pain that was not precisely a pain, too
dull and homely for that, but a warning, a foreboding.

On an ordinary day, in spite of his dislike of allowing Cobbett any of
those duties that were so properly his own, he would have stayed in bed,
but to-day?--no, thank you! On such a day as this he would defy the Devil
himself and all his red-hot pincers! So there he was in his long purple
gown, with his lovely snow-white beard, and his gold-topped staff,
patronising Mrs. Muffit (who superintended the cleaning) and her ancient
servitors, seeing that the places for the Band (just under the choir-
screen) and for the extra members of the choir were all in order, and,
above all, that the Bishop's Throne up by the altar was guiltless of a
speck of dust, of a shadow of a shadow of disorder. Cobbett saw, beyond
any question or doubt, death in the old man's face, and suddenly, to his
own amazement, was sorry. For years now he had been waiting for the day
when he should succeed the tiresome old fool, for years he had cursed him
for a thousand pomposities, blunders, tedious garrulities, and now,
suddenly, he was sorry. What had come over him? But he wasn't a bad old
man; plucky, too; you could see how he was suffering. They had, after all,
been companions together for so many years....

Quite early in the morning arrivals began--visitors from the country most
likely, sitting there at the back of the nave, bathed in the great silence
and the dim light, just looking and wondering and expecting. Some of them
wanted to move about and examine the brasses and the tombs and the
windows--yes, move about with their families, and their bags of
sandwiches, and their oranges. But not this morning, oh, dear, no! They
could come in or go out, but if they came in they must stay quiet. Did
they but subterraneously giggle, Cobbet was on their tracks in no time.

The light flooded in, throwing great splashes and lakes of blue and gold
and purple on to flag and pillar. Great in its strength, magnificent in
its beauty, the Cathedral prepared....

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Combermere walked rather solemnly that morning from her house to the
Cathedral. In spite of the lovely morning she was feeling suddenly old.
Things like Jubilees do date you--no doubt about it. Nearly fifty. Three-
quarters of life behind her and what had she to show for it? An unlucky
marriage, much physical health and fun, some friends--but, at the last,
lonely--lonely as perhaps every human being in this queer world was. That
old woman now preparing to ride in fantastic procession before her
worshipping subjects, she was lonely too. Poor, little, lonely, old woman!
Well, then, Charity to all and sundry--Charity, kindliness, the one and
only thing. Aggie Combermere was not a sentimental woman, nor did she see
life falsely, but she was suddenly aware, walking under the blazing blue
sky, that she had been unkind, for amusement's sake, more often than she
need.... Well, why not? She was ready to allow people to have a shy at
herself--any one who liked.... "'Ere you are! Old Aunt Sally! Three shies
a penny!" And she _was_ an Aunt Sally, a ludicrous creature, caring
for her dogs more than for any living creature, shovelling food into her
mouth for no particular purpose, doing physical exercises in the morning,
and _nearly_ fifty!

She found then, just as she reached the Arden Gate, that, to her own
immense surprise, it was not of herself that, all this time, she had been
thinking, but rather of Brandon and the Brandon family. The Brandons! What
an extraordinary affair! The Town was now bursting its fat sides with
excitement over it all! The Town was now generally aware (but how it was
aware no one quite knew) that there was a mysterious letter that Mrs.
Brandon had written to Morris, and that Miss Milton, librarian who was,
had obtained this letter and had taken it to Ronder. And the next move,
the next! the next! Oh, tell us! Tell us! The Town stands on tiptoe; its
hair on end. Let us see! Let us see! Let us not miss the tiniest detail of
this extraordinary affair!

And really how extraordinary! First the boy runs off with that girl; then
Mrs. Brandon, the quietest, dullest woman for years and years, throws her
cap over the mill and behaves like a madwoman; and Johnny St. Leath, they
say, is in love with the daughter, and his old mother is furious; and
Brandon, they say, wants to cut Ronder's throat. Ronder! Mrs. Combermere
paused, partly to get her breath, partly to enjoy for an instant the
shining, glittering grass, dotted with figures, stretching like a carpet
from the vast greyness of the Cathedral. Ronder! There was a remarkable
man! Mrs. Combermere was conquered by him, in spite of herself. How, in
seven short months, he had conquered everybody! What an amusing talker,
what a good preacher, what a clever business head! And yet she did not
really like him. His praises now were in every one's mouth, but she did
not _really_ like him. Old Brandon was still her favourite, her old
friend of ten years; but there was no doubt that he _was_ behind the
times, Ronder had shown them that! No use living in the 'Eighties any
longer. But she was fond of him, she did not want him to be unhappy--and
unhappy he was, that any one could see. Most of all, she did not want him
to do anything foolish--and he might, his temper was strange, he was not
so strong as he looked; he had felt his son's escapade terribly--and now
his wife!

"Well, if I had a wife like that," was Mrs. Combermere's conclusion before
she joined Ellen Stiles and Julia Preston, "I'd let her go off with any
one! Pay any one to take her!"

Ellen was, of course, full of it all. "My dear, _what_ do you think
is the latest! They say that the Archdeacon threatens to poison the whole
of the Chapter if they don't let Forsyth have Pybus, and that Boadicea has
ordered Johnny to take a voyage to the Canary Islands for his health, and
that he says he'll see her shot first! And Miss Milton is selling the
letter for a thousand pounds to the first comer!"

Mrs. Combermere stopped her sharply--"Mind your own business, Ellen. The
whole thing now is past a joke. And as to Johnny St. Leath, he shows his
good taste. There isn't a sweeter, prettier girl in England than Joan
Brandon, and he's lucky if he gets her."

"I don't want to be ill-natured," said Ellen Stiles rather plaintively,
"but that family would test anybody's reticence. We'd better go in or old
Lawrence will be letting some one have our seats."

       *       *       *       *       *

Joan came with her mother slowly across the grass. In her dress was this
letter:

  Dearest, dearest, _dearest_ Joan--The first thing you have
  thoroughly to realise is that it doesn't matter _what_ you say or
  what mother says or what any one says. Mother's angry. Of course she
  is. She's been angry a thousand million times before and will be a
  thousand million times again. But it doesn't _mean_ anything.
  Mother likes to be angry, it does her good, and the longer she's
  angry with you the better she'll like you, if you understand what I
  mean. What I want to get into your head is that you can't alter
  anything. Of course if you didn't love me it would be another matter,
  and you tried to tell me you didn't love me yesterday just for my
  good, but you did it so badly that you had to admit yourself that it
  was a failure. Don't talk about your brother; he's a fine fellow, and
  I'm going to look him up when I'm in London next month. Don't talk
  about not seeing me, because you can't help seeing me if I'm right in
  front of you. I'm no silph. (The way he spelt it.) I'm quite ready to
  wait for a certain time anyway. But marry we will, and happy we'll be
  for ever and ever!--Your adoring

        JOHNNY.

And what was she to do about it? She was certainly very unmodern and
inexperienced by the standards of to-day--on the other hand, she was a
very long way indeed from the Lily Dales and Eleanor Hardings of Mr.
Trollope. She had not told her father--that she was resolved to do so soon
as he seemed a little less worried by his affairs; but say that she did
not love Johnny she had found that she could not, and as to damaging him
by marrying him, his love for her had strengthened her own pride in
herself. She did not understand his love, it was astounding to her after
the indifference with which her own family had always treated her. But
there it was: he, with all his experience of life, loved her more than any
one else in the world, so there _must_ be something in her. And she
knew there was; privately she had always known it. As to his mother--well,
so long as Johnny loved her she could face anybody.

So this wonderful morning she was radiantly happy. Child as she was, she
adored this excitement. It was splendid of it to be this glorious time
just when she was having her own glorious time! Splendid of the weather to
be so beautiful, of the bells to clash, of every one to wear their best
clothes, of the Jubilee to arrange itself so exactly at the right moment!
And could it be only last Saturday that he had spoken to her? And it
seemed centuries, centuries ago!

She chattered eagerly, smiling at Betty Callender, and then at the D'Arcy
girls, and then at Mrs. Bentinck-Major. She supposed that they were all
talking about her. Well, let them. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
Quite the contrary. She did not notice her mother's silence. But she
_had_ noticed, before they left the house, how ill her mother was
looking. A very bad night--another of her dreadful headaches. Her father
had not come in to breakfast at all. Everything had been wrong at home
since that day when Falk had been sent down from Oxford. She longed to put
her arms around her father's neck and hug him. Behind her own happiness,
ever since the night of the Ball, there had been a longing, an aching
urgent longing to pet him, comfort him, make love to him. And she would,
too--as soon as all these festivities were over.

And then suddenly there were Johnny and his mother and his sisters walking
towards the West door! What a situation! And then there was Johnny
breaking away from his own family and hurrying towards them, lifting his
hat, smiling!

How splendid he looked and how happy! And how happy she also was looking
had she only known it!

"Good morning, Mrs. Brandon."

Mrs. Brandon didn't appear to remember him at all. Then suddenly, as
though she had picked her conscience out of her pocket:

"Oh, good morning, Lord St. Leath."

Joan, out of the corner, saw Boadicea, her head with its absurd bonnet
high, striding indignantly ahead.

"What lovely weather, is it not?"

"Yes, aren't we lucky? Good morning, Joan."

"Good morning."

"Isn't it a lovely day?"

"Oh, yes, it is."

"Are you going to see the Torchlight Procession to-night?"

"They come through the Precincts, you know."

"Of course they do. We're going to have five bonfires all around us.
Mother's afraid they'll set the Castle on fire."

They both laughed--much too happy to know what they were laughing at.

Mrs. Sampson joined them. Johnny and Joan walked ahead. Only two steps and
they would be in the Cathedral.

"Did you get my letter?"

"Yes."

"I love you, I love you, I love you." This in a hoarse whisper.

"Johnny--you mustn't--you know--we can't--you know I oughtn't----"

They passed through into the Cathedral.

Mrs. Bentinck-Major came with Miss Ronder, slowly, across the grass. It
was not necessary for them to hurry because they knew that their seats
were reserved for them. Mrs. Bentinck-Major thought Miss Ronder "queer"
because of the clever things that she said and of the odd fashion in which
she always dressed. To say anything clever was, with Mrs. Bentinck-Major,
at once to be classed as "queer."

"It _is_ hot!"

Miss Ronder, thin and piky above her stiff white collar, looked
immaculately cool. "A lovely day," she said, sniffing the colour and the
warmth, and loving it.

Mrs. Bentinck-Major was thinking of the Brandon scandal, but it was one of
her habits never to let her left-hand voice know what her right-hand brain
was doing. Secretly she often wondered about sexual things--what people
_really_ did, whether they enjoyed what they did, and whether she
would have enjoyed the same things had life gone that way with her instead
of leading her to Bentinck-Major.

But she never, never spoke of such things. She was thinking now of Mrs.
Brandon and Morris. They said that some one had found a letter, a
disgraceful letter. How _extraordinary_!

"It's loneliness," suddenly said Miss Ronder, "that drives people to do
the things they do."

Mrs. Bentinck-Major started as though some one had struck her in the small
of her back. Was the woman a witch? How amazing!

"I beg your pardon," she said nervously.

"I was speaking," said Miss Ronder in her clear incisive voice, "of one of
our maids, who has suddenly engaged herself to the most unpleasing-looking
butcher's assistant you can imagine--all spots and stammer. Quite a pretty
girl, too. But it's fear of loneliness that does it. Wanting affection."

Dear me! Mrs. Bentinck-Major had never had very much affection from Mr.
Bentinck-Major, and had not very consciously missed it, but then she had a
dog, a spaniel, whom she loved most dearly.

"We're all lonely--all of us--to the very end," said Miss Ronder, as
though she was thinking of some one in especial. And she was. She was
thinking of her nephew. "I shouldn't wonder if the Queen isn't feeling
more lonely to-day than she has ever felt in all her life before."

And then they saw that dreadful man, Davray, lurching along. _He_ was
lonely, but then he deserved to be, with his _drink_ and all.
_Wicked_ man! Mrs. Bentinck-Major shivered. She didn't know how he
dared to go to church. He shouldn't be allowed. On such a day, too. What
would the Queen herself think, did she know?

The two ladies and Davray passed through the door at the same time.

       *       *       *       *       *

And now every one was inside. The great bell dropped notes like heavy
weights into a liquid well. For the cup of the Cathedral swam in colour,
the light pouring through the great Rose window, and that multitude of
persons seeming to sway like shadows beneath a sheet of water from amber
to purple, from purple to crimson, from crimson to darkest green.

Individuality was lost. The Cathedral, thinking nothing of Kings and
Queens, of history, of movement forward and retrograde, but only of itself
and of the life that it had been given, that it now claimed for its own,
with haughty confidence assumed its Power...the Power of its own
Immortality that is neither man's nor God's.

The trumpets began. They rang out the Psalm that had been given them, and
transformed it into a cry of exultant triumph. Their notes rose, were
caught by the pillars, acclaimed, tossed higher, caught again in the eaves
and corners of the great building, swinging backwards and forwards....

"Now listen to My greatness! You created Me for the Worship of your God!

"And now I am your God! Out of your forms and ceremonies you have made a
new God! And I, thy God, am a jealous God...."

Ronder read the First Lesson.

"That's Ronder," the town-people whispered, "the new Canon. Oh! he's
clever. You should hear him preach!"

"Reads _beautiful!_" Gladys, the Brandons' maid, whispered to Annie,
the kitchen-maid. "I do like a bit of fine reading."

By those accustomed to observe it was noticed that Ronder read with very
much more assurance than he had done three months ago. It was as though he
knew now where he was, as though he were settled down now and had his
place--and it would take some very strong people to shift him from that
place. Oh, yes. It would!

And Brandon read the Second Lesson. As usual, when he stepped down from
the choir, slowly, impressively, pausing for a moment before he turned to
the Lectern, strangers whispered to one another, "That's a handsome
parson, that is." He seemed to hesitate again before going up as though he
had stumbled over a step. Very slowly he read the opening words; slowly he
continued.

Puddifoot, looking up across from his seat in the side aisle, thought,
"There's something the matter with him." Suddenly he paused, looked about
him, stared over the congregation as though he were searching for
somebody, then slowly again went on and finished:

"Here endeth--the Second Lesson."

Then, instead of turning, he leaned forward, gripping the Lectern with
both hands, and seemed again to be searching for some one.

"Looks as though he were going to have a stroke," thought Puddifoot. Then
very carefully, as though he were moving in darkness, he turned and groped
his way downwards. With bent head he walked back into the choir.

Soon they were scattered--every one according to his or her own
individuality--the prayers had broken them up, too many of them, too long,
and the wooden kneelers so hard. Minds flew like birds about the
Cathedral--ideas, gold and silver, black and grey, soapy and soft, hard as
iron. The men yawned behind their trumpets, the School played Noughts and
Crosses--the Old Lady and her Triumph stepped away into limbo.

And then suddenly it was time for the Bishop's sermon. Every one hoped
that it would not be long; passing clouds veiled the light behind the East
window and the Roses faded to ashes. The organ rumbled in its crotchety
voice as the old man slowly disentangled himself from his throne, and
slowly, slowly, slowly advanced down the choir. When he appeared above the
nave, and paused for an instant to make sure of the step, all the minds in
the Cathedral suddenly concentrated again, the birds flew back, the air
was still. At the sight of that very old man, that little bag of shaking
bones, all the brief history of the world was suddenly apparent. Greater
than Alexander, more beautiful than Helen of Troy, wiser than Gamaliel,
more powerful than Artaxerxes, he made the secret of immortal life visible
to all.

His hair was white, and his face was ashen grey, and his hands were like
bird's claws. Like a child finding its way across its nursery floor he
climbed to the pulpit, being now so far distant in heaven that earth was
dark to him.

"The Lord be with you."

"And with Thy Spirit."

His voice was clear and could be heard by all. He spoke for a very short
time. He told them about the Queen, and that she had been good to her
people for sixty years, and that she had feared God; he told them that
that goodness was the only secret of happiness; he told them that Jesus
Christ came nearer and nearer, and ever more near, did one but ask Him.

He said, "I suppose that I shall never speak to you in this place again. I
am very old. Some of you have thought, perhaps, that I was too old to do
my work here--others have wanted me to stay. I have loved you all very
much, and it is lonely to go away from you. Our great and good Queen also
is old now, and perhaps she, too, in the middle of her triumph, is feeling
lonely. So pray for her, and then pray for me a little, that when I meet
God He may forgive me my sins and help me to do better work than I have
done here. Life is sad sometimes, and often it is dark, but at the end it
is beautiful and wonderful, for which we must thank God."

He knelt down and prayed, and every one, Davray and Mrs. Combermere, Ellen
Stiles and Morris, Lady St. Leath and Mrs. Brandon, Joan and Lawrence,
Ronder and Foster, prayed too.

And then they all, all for a moment utterly united in soul and body and
spirit, knelt down and the old man blessed them from the pulpit.

Then they sang "Now Thank We All Our God."

Afterwards came the Benediction.




Chapter VI

Tuesday, June 22: II. The Fair



As Brandon left the Cathedral Ronder came up to him. Brandon, with bowed
head, had turned into the Cloisters, although that was not the quickest
way to his home. The two men were alone in the greyness lit from without
by the brilliant sun as though it had been a stage setting.

"I beg your pardon, Archdeacon, I must speak to you."

Brandon raised his head. He stared at Ronder, then said:

"I have nothing to say to you. I do not wish to speak to you."

"I know that you do not." Ronder's face was really troubled; there was an
expression in his eyes that his aunt had never seen.

Brandon moved on, looking neither to right nor left.

Ronder continued: "I know how you feel about me. But to-day--somehow--this
service--I feel that I can't allow our quarrel to continue without
speaking. It isn't easy for me----" He broke off.

Brandon's voice shook.

"I have nothing to say to you. I do not wish to say anything to you. You
have been my enemy since you first came to this town. My work--my
family----"

"I am not your enemy. Indeed, indeed I am not. I won't deny that when I
came here I found that you, who were the most important man in the place,
thought differently from myself on every important question. You,
yourself, who are an honest man, would not have had me back out from what
I believed to be my duty. I could do no other. But this personal quarrel
between us was most truly not of my own seeking. I have liked and admired
you from the beginning. Such a matter as the Pybus living has forced us
into opposition, but I am convinced that there are many views that we have
in common, that we could be friends working together--"

Brandon stopped.

"Did my son, or did he not, come to see you before he went up to London?"

Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "he did. But--"

"Did he, or did he not, ask your advice?"

"Yes, he did. But--"

"Did you advise him to take the course which he afterwards followed?"

"No, on my honour, Archdeacon, I did not. I did not know what his personal
trouble was. I did not ask him and he did not tell me. We talked of
generalities--"

"Had you heard, before he came to you, gossip about my son?"

"I had heard some silly talk--"

"Very well, then."

"But you _shall_ listen to me, Archdeacon. I scarcely knew your son.
I had met him only once before, at some one's house, and talked to him
then only for five minutes. He himself asked to come and see me. I could
not refuse him when he asked me. I did not, of course, wish to refuse him.
I liked the look of him, and simply for his own sake wished to know him
better. When he came he was not with me for very long and our talk was
entirely about religion, belief, faith in God, the meaning of life,
nothing more particular than such things."

"Did he say, when he left you, that what you had told him had helped him
to make up his mind?"

"Yes."

"Were you, when he talked to you, quite unconscious that he was my son,
and that any action that he took would at once affect my life, my
happiness?"

"Of course I was aware that he was your son. But----"

"There is another question that I wish to ask you, Canon Ronder. Did some
one come to you not long ago with a letter that purported to be written by
my wife?"

Again Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said.

"Did she show you that letter?"

"She did."

"Did she ask your advice as to what she should do with it?"

"She did--I told her----"

"Did you tell her to come with it to me?"

"No. On my life, Archdeacon, no. I told her to destroy it and that she was
behaving with the utmost wickedness."

"Did you believe that that letter was written by my wife."

"No."

"Then why, if you believed that this woman was going about the town with a
forged letter directed against my happiness and my family's happiness, did
you not come to me and tell me of it?"

"You must remember, Archdeacon, that we were not on good terms. We had had
a ridiculous quarrel that had, by some means or another, become public
property throughout the whole town. I will not deny that I felt sore about
that. I did not know what sort of reception I might get if I came to you."

"Very well. There is a further question that I wish to ask you. Will you
deny that from the moment that you set foot in this town you have been
plotting against me in respect to the Pybus living? You found out on which
side I was standing and at once took the other. From that moment you went
about the town, having secret interviews with every sort of person,
working them by flattery and suggestion round to your side. Will you deny
that?"

Against his will and his absolute determination Ronder's anger began to
rise: "That I have been plotting as you call it," he said, "I absolutely
and utterly deny. That is an insulting word. That I have been against you
in the matter of Pybus from the first has, of course, been known to every
one here. I have been against you because of what I believe to be the
future good of our Church and of our work here. There has been nothing
personal in that matter at all."

"You lie," said Brandon, suddenly raising his voice. "Every word that you
have spoken to me this morning has been a lie. You are an enemy of myself
and of my Church, and with God's help your plots and falsehoods shall yet
be defeated. You may take from me my wife and my children, you may ruin my
career here that has been built up through ten years of unfaltering
loyalty and work, but God Himself is stronger than your inventions--and
God will see to it. I am your enemy, Canon Ronder, to the end, as you are
mine. You had better look to yourself. You have been concerned in certain
things that the Law may have something to say about. Look to yourself!
Look to yourself!"

He strode off down the Cloisters.

People came to luncheon; there had been an invitation of some weeks
before. He scarcely recognised them; one was Mr. Martin, another Dr.
Trudon, an old Mrs. Purley, a well-established widow, an ancient resident,
a Miss Barrester. He scarcely recognised them although he talked so
exactly in his accustomed way that no one noticed anything at all. Mrs.
Brandon also talked in her accustomed way; that is, she scarcely spoke.
Only that afternoon, at tea at the Dean's, Dr. Trudon confided to Julia
Preston that he could assure her that all the rumours were false; the
Archdeacon had never seemed better...funny for him afterwards to
remember!

Shadows of a shade! When they left Brandon it was as though they had never
been; the echo of their voices died away into the ticking of the clock,
the movement of plates, the shifting of chairs.

He shut himself into his study. Here was his stronghold, his fortress. He
settled into his chair and the things in the room gathered around him with
friendly consoling gestures.

"We are still here, we are your old friends. We know you for what you
truly are. We do not change like the world."

He fell into a deep sleep; he was desperately tired; he had not slept at
all last night. He was sunk into deep fathomless unconsciousness. Then he
rose from that, climbing up, up, seeing before him a high, black, snow-
tipped mountain. The ascent of this he must achieve, his life depended
upon it. He seemed to be naked, the wind lashing his body, icy cold, so
cold that his breath stabbed him. He climbed, the rocks cut his knees and
hands; then, on every side his enemies appeared, Bentinck-Major and
Foster, the Bishop's Chaplain, women, even children, laughing, and behind
them Hogg and that drunken painter. Their hands were on him, they pulled
at his flesh, they beat on his face--then, suddenly, rising like a full
moon behind the hill--Ronder!

He woke with a cry; the sun was flooding the room, and at the joy of that
great light and of finding himself alone he could have burst into tears of
relief.

His thoughts came to him quickly, his brain had been clarified by that
sleep, horrible though it had been. He thought steadily now, the facts all
arranged before him. His wife had told him, almost with vindictive pride,
that she had been guilty of adultery. He did not at present think of
Morris at all.

To him adultery was an awful, a terrible sin. He himself had been
physically faithful to his wife, although he had perhaps never, in the
true sense of the word, loved her. Because he had been a man of splendid
physique and great animal spirits he had, of course, and especially in his
earlier days, known what physical temptation was, but the extreme
preoccupation of his time with every kind of business had saved him from
that acutest lure that idleness brings. Nevertheless, it may confidently
be said that, had temptation been of the sharpest and the most
aggravating, he would never have, even for a moment, dwelt upon the
possibility of yielding to it. To him this was the "sin against the Holy
Ghost."

He had not indeed the purity of the Saint to whom these sins are simply
not realisable; he had the confidence of one who had made his vows to God
and, having made them, could not conceive that they should be broken.

And yet, strangely enough, with all the horror that his wife's confession
had raised in him there was mingled, against his will, the strangest fear
for her. She had lived with him during all these years, he had been her
guard, protector, husband.

Her immortal soul now was lost unless in some way he could save it for
her. And it was he who should save it. She had suddenly a new poignant
importance for him that she had never had before. Her danger was as deadly
and as imminent to him as though she had been in peril from wild beasts.

In peril? But she had fallen. He could not save her. Nothing that he could
do now could prevent her sin. At that realisation utter despair seized
him; he moaned aloud, shutting out the light from his eyes with his hands.

There followed then wild disbelief; what she had told him was untrue, she
had said it to anger him, to spite him. He sprang from his chair and moved
towards the door. He would find her and tell her that he knew that she had
been lying to him, that he did not believe----

Mid-way he stopped. He knew that she had spoken the truth, that last
moment when they had looked at one another had been compounded, built up,
of truth. Both a glass and a wall--a glass to reveal absolutely, a wall to
divide them, the one from the other, for ever.

His brain, active now like a snake coiling and uncoiling within the
flaming spaces of his mind, darted upon Morris. He must find Morris at
once--no delay--at once--at once. What to do? He did not know. But he must
be face to face with him and deal with him--that wretched, miserable,
whining, crying fool. That he--!--HE!...But the picture stopped there.
He saw now neither Morris nor his wife. Only a clerical hat, a high white
collar like a wall, a sniggering laugh, a door closing.

And his headache was upon him again, his heart pounding and leaping. No
matter. He must find Morris. Nothing else. He went to the door, opened it,
and walked cautiously into the hall as though he had intruded into some
one else's house and was there to rob.

As he came into the hall Mrs. Brandon was crossing it, also furtively.
They saw one another and stood staring. She would have spoken, but
something in his face terrified her, terrified her so desperately that she
suddenly turned and stumbled upstairs, repeating some words over and over
to herself. He did not move, but stayed there watching until she had gone.

Something made him change his clothes. He put on trousers and an old
overcoat and a shabby old clerical hat. He was a long time in his
dressing-room, and he was a while before his looking-glass in his shirt
and drawers, staring as though he were trying to find himself.

While he looked he fancied that some one was behind him, and he searched
for his shadow in the glass, but could find nothing. He moved cautiously
out of the house, closing the heavy hall-door very softly behind him; the
afternoon was advanced, and the faint fair shadows of the summer evening
were stealing from place to place.

He had intended to go at once to Morris's house, but his head was now
aching so violently that he thought he would walk a little first so that
he might have more control. That was what he wanted, self-control! self-
control! That was their plot, to make him lose command of himself, so that
he should show to every one that he was unfit to hold his position. He
must have perfect control of everything--his voice, his body, his
thoughts. And that was why, just now, he must walk in the darker places,
in the smaller streets, until soon he would be, outwardly, himself again.
So he chose for his walk the little dark winding path that runs steeply
from the Cathedral, along behind Canon's Yard and Bodger's Street, down to
the Pol. It was dark here, even on this lovely summer evening, and no one
was about, but sounds broke through, cries and bells and the distant bray
of bands, and from the hill opposite the clash of the Fair.

At the bottom of the path he stood for a while looking down the bank to
the river; here the Pol runs very quietly and sweetly, like a little
country river. He crossed it and, still moving like a man in a dream,
started up the hill on the other side. He was not, now, consciously
thinking of anything at all; he was aware only of a great pain at his
heart and a terrible loneliness. Loneliness! What an agony! No one near
him, no one to speak to him, every eye mocking him--God as well, far, far
away from him, hidden by walls and hills.

As he climbed upward the Fair came nearer to him. He did not notice it. He
crossed a path and was at a turnstile. A man asked him for money. He paid
a shilling and moved forward. He liked crowds; he wanted crowds now.
Either crowds or no one. Crowds where he would be lost and not noticed.

So many thousands were there, but nevertheless he was noticed. That was
the Archdeacon. Who would have thought that he would come to the Fair? Too
grand. But there he was. Yes, that was the Archdeacon. That tall man in
the soft black hat. Yes, some noticed him. But many thousands did not. The
Fair was packed; strangers from all the county over, sailors and gipsies
and farmers and tramps, women no better than they should be, and shop-
girls and decent farmers' wives, and village girls--all sorts! Thousands,
of course, to whom the Archdeacon meant nothing.

And that _was_ a Fair, the most wonderful our town had ever seen, the
most wonderful it ever was to see! As with many other things, that Jubilee
Fair marked a period. No Fairs again like the good old Fairs--general
education has seen to that.

It was a Fair, as there are still some to remember, that had in it a
strange element of fantasy. All the accustomed accompaniments of Fairs
were there--The Two Fat Sisters (outside whose booth a notice was posted
begging the public not to prod with umbrellas to discover whether the Fat
were Fat or Wadding); Trixie, the little lady with neither arms nor legs,
sews and writes with her teeth; the Great Albert, the strongest man in
Europe, who will lift weights against all comers; Battling Edwardes, the
Champion Boxer of the Southern Counties; Hippo's World Circus, with six
monkeys, two lions, three tigers and a rhino; all the pistol-firing, ball-
throwing, coconut contrivances conceivable, and roundabouts at every turn.

All these were there, but behind them, on the outskirts of them and yet in
the very heart of them, there were other unaccustomed things.

Some said that a ship from the East had arrived at Drymouth, and that
certain jugglers and Chinese and foreign merchants, instead of going on to
London as they had intended, turned to Polchester. How do I know at this
time of day? How do we, any of us, know how anything gets here, and what
does it matter? But there is at this very moment, living in the
magnificently renovated Seatown, an old Chinaman, who came in Jubilee
Year, and has been there ever since, doing washing and behaving with
admirable propriety, no sign of opium about him anywhere. One element that
they introduced was Colour. Our modern Fairs are not very strong in the
element of Colour. It is true that one of the roundabouts was ablaze with
gilt and tinsel, and in the centre of it, whence comes the music, there
were women with brazen faces and bosoms of gold. It is true also that
outside the Circus and the Fat Sisters and Battling Edwardes there were
flaming pictures with reds and yellows thrown about like temperance
tracts, but the modern figures in these pictures spoilt the colour, the
photography spoilt it--too much reality where there should have been
mystery, too much mystery where realism was needed.

But here, only two yards from the Circus, was a booth hung with strange
cloths, purple and yellow and crimson, and behind the wooden boards a man
and a woman with brown faces and busy, twirling, twisting, brown hands,
were making strange sweets which they wrapped into coloured packets, and
on the other side of the Fat Sisters there was a tent with Li Hung above
it in letters of gold and red, and inside the tents, boards on trestles,
and on the boards a long purple cloth, and on the cloth little toys and
figures and images, all of the gayest colours and the strangest shapes,
and all as cheap as nothing.

Farther down the lane of booths was the tent of Hayakawa the Juggler. A
little boy in primrose-coloured tights turned, on a board outside the
tent, round and round and round on his head like a teetotum, and inside,
once every half-hour, Hayakawa, in a lovely jacket of gold and silver,
gave his entertainment, eating fire, piercing himself with silver swords,
finding white mice in his toes, and pulling ribbons of crimson and scarlet
out of his ears.

Farther away again there were the Brothers Gomez, Spaniards perhaps, dark,
magnificent in figure, running on one wire across the air, balancing
sunshades on their noses, leaping, jumping, standing pyramid-high, their
muscles gleaming like billiard-balls.

And behind and before and in and out there were strange figures moving
through the Fair, strange voices raised against the evening sky, strange
smells of cooking, strange songs suddenly rising, dying as soon as heard.

Only a breath away the English fields were quietly lying safe behind their
hedges and the English sky changed from blue to green and from green to
mother-of-pearl, and from mother-of-pearl to ivory, and stars stabbed,
like silver nails, the great canopy of heaven, and the Cathedral bells
rang peal after peal above the slowly lighting town.

Brandon was conscious of little of this as he moved on. Even the thought
of Morris had faded from him. He could not think consecutively. His mind
was broken up like a mirror that had been smashed into a thousand pieces.
He was most truly in a dream. Soon he would wake up, out of this noise,
away from these cries and lights, and would find it all as he had for so
many years known it. He would be sitting in his drawing-room, his legs
stretched out, his wife and daughter near to him, the rumble of the organ
coming through the wall to them, thinking perhaps of to-morrow's duties,
the town quiet all around them, friends and well-wishers everywhere, no
terrible pain in his head, happily arranging how everything should be...
happy...happy.... Ah! how happy that real life was! When he awoke from
his dream he would realise that and thank God for it. When he awoke.... He
stumbled over something, and looking up realised that he was in a very
crowded part of the Fair, a fire was blazing somewhere near, gas-jets,
although the evening was bright and clear, were naming, screams and cries
seemed to make the very sky rock above his head.

Where was he? What was he doing here? Why had he come? He would go home.
He turned.

He turned to face the fire that leapt close at his heel. It was burning at
the back of a caravan, in a dark cul-de-sac away from the main
thoroughfare; to its blazing light the bare boards and ugly plankings of
the booth, splashed here and there with torn paper that rustled a little
in the evening breeze, were all that offered themselves. Near by a horse,
untethered, was quietly nosing at the trodden soil.

Behind the caravan the field ran down to a ditch and thick hedging.

Brandon stared at the fire as though absorbed by its light. What did he
see there? Visions perhaps? Did he see the Cathedral, the Precincts, the
quiet circle of demure old houses, his own door, his own bedroom? Did he
see his wife moving hurriedly about the room, opening drawers and shutting
them, pausing for a moment to listen, then coming out, closing the door,
listening again, then stepping downstairs, pausing for a moment in the
hall to lay something on the table, then stepping out into the green
wavering evening light? Or did the flames make pictures for him of the
deserted railway-station, the long platform, lit only by one lamp, two
figures meeting, exchanging almost no word, pacing for a little in silence
the dreary spaces, stepping back as the London express rolled in--such a
safe night to choose for escape--then burying themselves in it like
rabbits in their burrow?

Did his vision lead him back to the deserted house, silent save for its
ticking clocks, black in that ring of lights and bells and shouting
voices?

Or was he conscious only of the warmth and the life of the fire, of some
sudden companionship with the woman bending over it to stir the sticks and
lift some pot from the heart of the flame? He was feeling, perhaps, a
sudden peace here and a silence, and was aware of the stars breaking into
beauty one by one above his head.

But his peace, if for a moment he had found it, was soon interrupted. A
voice that he knew came across to him from the other side of the fire.

"Why, Archdeacon, who would have thought to find you here?"

He looked up and saw, through the fire, the face of Davray the painter.

He turned to go, and at once Davray was at his side.

"No. Don't go. You're in my country now, Archdeacon, not your own. You're
not cock of _this_ walk, you know. Last time we met you thought you
owned the place. Well, you can't think you own this. Fight it out, Mr.
Archdeacon, fight it out."

Brandon answered:

"I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Davray. Nor have I anything to say to
you."

"No quarrel? I like that. I'd knock your face in for two-pence, you
blasted hypocrite. And I will too. All free ground here."

Davray's voice was shrill. He was swaying on his legs. The woman looked up
from the fire and watched them.

Brandon turned his back to him and saw, facing him, Samuel Hogg and some
men behind him.

"Why, good evening, Mr. Archdeacon," said Hogg, taking off his hat and
bowing. "What a delightful place for a meeting!"

Brandon said quietly, "Is there anything you want with me?" He realised at
once that Hogg was drunk.

"Nothing," said Hogg, "except to give you a damned good hiding. I've been
waiting for that these many weeks. See him, boys," he continued, turning
to the men behind him. "'Ere's this parson who ruined my daughter--as fine
a girl as ever you've seen--ruined 'er, he did--him and his blasted son.
What d'you say, boys? Is it right for him to be paradin' round here as
proud as a peacock and nobody touchin' him? What d'you say to givin' him a
damned good hiding?"

The men smiled and pressed forward. Davray from the other side suddenly
lurched into Brandon. Brandon struck out, and Davray fell and lay where he
fell.

Hogg cried, "Now for 'im, boys----", and at once they were upon him.
Hogg's face rose before Brandon's, extended, magnified in all its details.
Brandon hit out and then was conscious of blows upon his face, of some one
kicking him in the back, of himself hitting wildly, of the fire leaping
mountains-high behind him, of a woman's cry, of something trickling down
into his eye, of sudden contact with warm, naked, sweating flesh, of a
small pinched face, the eyes almost closed, rising before him and falling
again, of a shout, then sudden silence and himself on his knees groping in
darkness for his hat, of his voice far from him murmuring to him, "It's
all right.... It's my hat...it's my hat I must find."

He wiped his forehead. The back of his hand was covered with blood.

He saw once again the fire, low now and darkly illumined by some more
distant light, heard the scream of the merry-go-round, stared about him
and saw no living soul, climbed to his feet and saw the stars, then very
slowly, like a blind man in the dark, felt his way to the field's edge,
found a gate, passed through and collapsed, shuddering in the hedge's
darkness.




Chapter VII

Tuesday, June 22:  III. Torchlight



Joan came home about seven o'clock that evening. Dinner was at half-past
seven, and after dinner she was going to the Deanery to watch the
Torchlight Procession from the Deanery garden. She had had the most
wonderful afternoon. Mrs. Combermere, who had been very kind to her
lately, had taken her up to the Flower Show in the Castle grounds, and
there she had had the most marvellous and beautiful talk with Johnny. They
had talked right under his mother's nose, so to speak, and had settled
everything. Yes--simply everything! They had told one another that their
love was immortal, that nothing could touch it, nor lessen it, nor twist
it--nothing!

Joan, on her side, had stated that she would never be engaged to Johnny
until his mother consented, and that until they were engaged they must
behave exactly as though they were not engaged, that is, never see one
another alone, never write letters that might not be read by any one; but
she had also asserted that no representations on the part of anybody that
she was ruining Johnny, or that she was a nasty little intriguer, or that
nice girls didn't behave "so," would make the slightest difference to her;
that she knew what she was and Johnny knew what _he_ was, and that
was enough for both of them.

Johnny on his side had said that he would be patient for a time under this
arrangement, but that the time would not be a very long one, and that she
couldn't object to accepting a little ring that he had bought for her,
that she needn't wear it, but just keep it beside her to remind her of
him.

But Joan had said that to take the ring would be as good as to be engaged,
and that therefore she would not take it, but that he could keep it ready
for the day of their betrothal.

She had come home, through the lovely evening, in such a state of
happiness that she was forced to tell Mrs. Combermere all about it, and
Mrs. Combermere had been a darling and assured her that she was quite
right in all that she had done, and that it made her, Mrs. Combermere,
feel quite young again, and that she would help them in every way that she
could, and parting at the Arden Gate, she had kissed Joan just as though
she were her very own daughter.

So Joan, shining with happiness, came back to the house. It seemed very
quiet after the sun and glitter and laughter of the Flower Show. She went
straight up to her room at the top of the house, washed her face and
hands, brushed her hair and put on her white frock.

As she came downstairs the clock struck half-past seven. In the hall she
met Gladys.

"Please, miss," said Gladys, "is dinner to be kept back?"

"Why," said Joan, "isn't mother in?"

"No, miss, she went out about six o'clock and she hasn't come in."

"Isn't father in?"

"No, miss."

"Did she say that she'd be late?"

"No, miss."

"Oh, well--we must wait until mother comes in."

"Yes, miss."

She saw then a letter on the hall-table. She picked it up. It was
addressed to her father, a note left by somebody. She thought nothing of
that--notes were so often left; the hand-writing was exactly like her
mother's, but of course it could not be hers. She went into the drawing-
room.

Here the silence was oppressive. She walked up and down, looking out of
the long windows at the violet dusk. Gladys came in to draw the blinds.

"Didn't mother say _anything_ about when she'd be in?"

"No, miss."

"She left no message for me?"

"No, miss. Your mother seemed in a hurry like."

"She didn't ask where I was?"

"No, miss."

"Did she go out with father?"

"No, miss--your father went out a quarter of an hour earlier."

Gladys coughed. "Please, miss, Cook and me's wanting to go out and see the
Procession."

"Oh, of course you must. But that won't be until half-past nine. They come
past here, you know."

"Yes, miss."

Joan picked up the new number of the _Cornhill Magazine_ and tried to
settle down. But she was restless. Her own happiness made her so. And then
the house was "queer." It had the sense of itself waiting for some effort,
and holding its breath in expectation.

As Joan sat there trying to read the _Cornhill_ serial, and most
sadly failing, it seemed to her stranger and stranger that her mother was
not in. She had not been well lately; Joan had noticed how white she had
looked; she had always a "headache" when you asked her how she was. Joan
had fancied that she had never been the same since Falk had been away. She
had a letter in her dress now from Falk. She took it out and read it over
again. As to himself it had only good news; he was well and happy, Annie
was "splendid." His work went on finely. His only sadness was his breach
with his father; again and again he broke out about this, and begged,
implored Joan to do something. If she did not, he said, he would soon come
down himself and risk a row. There was one sentence towards the end of the
letter which read oddly to Joan just now. "I suppose the old man's in his
proper element over all the Jubilee celebrations. I can see him strutting
up and down the Cathedral as though he owned every stone in it, bless his
old heart! I tell you, Joan, I just ache to see him. I do really. Annie's
father hasn't been near us since we came up here. Funny! I'd have thought
he'd have bothered me long before this. I'm ready for him if he comes. By
the way, if mother shows any signs of wanting to come up to town just now,
do your best to prevent her. Father needs her, and it's her place to look
after him. I've special reasons for saying this...."

What a funny thing for Falk to say! and the only allusion to his mother in
the whole of the letter.

Joan smiled to herself as she read it. What did Falk think her power was?
Why, her mother and father had never listened to her for a single moment,
nor had he, Falk, when he had been at home. She had never counted at all--
to any one save Johnny. She put down the letter and tried to lose herself
in the happy country of her own love, but she could not. Her honesty
prevented her; its silence was now oppressive and heavy-weighted. Where
could her mother be? And dinner already half an hour late in that so
utterly punctual house! What had Falk meant about mother going to London?
Of course she would not go to London--at any rate without father. How
could Falk imagine such a thing? More than an hour passed.

She began to walk about the room, wondering what she should do about the
dinner. She must give up the Sampsons, and she was very hungry. She had
had no tea at the Flower Show and very little luncheon.

She was about to go and speak to Gladys when she heard the hall door open.
It closed. Something--some unexpressed fear or foreboding--kept her where
she was. Steps were in the hall, but they were not her father's; he always
moved with determined stride to his study or the stairs. These steps
hesitated and faltered as though some one were there who did not know the
house.

At last she went into the hall and saw that it was indeed her father now
going slowly upstairs.

"Father!" she cried; "I'm so glad you're in. Dinner's been waiting for
hours. Shall I tell them to send it up?"

He did not answer nor look back. She went to the bottom of the stairs and
said again:

"Shall I, father?"

But still he did not answer. She heard him close his door behind him.

She went back into the drawing-room terribly frightened. There was
something in the bowed head and slow steps that terrified her, and
suddenly she was aware that she had been frightened for many weeks past,
but that she had never owned to herself that it was so.

She waited for a long time wondering what she should do. At last, calling
her courage, she climbed the stairs, waited, and then, as though compelled
by the overhanging silence of the house, knocked on his dressing-room
door.

"Father, what shall we do about dinner? Mother hasn't come in yet." There
was no answer.

"Will you have dinner now?" she asked again.

A voice suddenly answered her as though he were listening on the other
side of the door. "No, no. I want no dinner."

She went down again, told Gladys that she would eat something, then sat in
the lonely dining-room swallowing her soup and cutlet in the utmost haste.

Something was terribly wrong. Her father was covering all the rest of her
view--the Jubilee, her mother, even Johnny. He was in great trouble, and
she must help him, but she felt desperately her youth, her inexperience,
her inadequacy.

She waited again, when she had finished her meal, wondering what she had
better do. Oh! how stupid not to know instantly the right thing and to
feel this fear when it was her own father!

She went half-way upstairs, and then stood listening. No sound. Again she
waited outside his door. With trembling hand she turned the handle. He
faced her, staring at her. On his left temple was a big black bruise, on
his forehead a cut, and on his left cheek a thin red mark that looked like
a scratch.

"Father, you're hurt!"

"Yes, I fell down--stumbled over something, coming up from the river." He
looked at her impatiently. "Well, well, what is it?"

"Nothing, father--only they're still keeping some dinner--"

"I don't want anything. Where is your mother?"

"She hasn't come back."

"Not come back? Why, where did she go to?"

"I don't know. Gladys says she went out about six."

He pushed past her into the passage. He went down into the hall; she
followed him timidly. From the bottom of the stairs he saw the letter on
the table, and he went straight to it. He tore open the envelope and read:

       *       *       *       *       *

I have left you for ever. All that I told you on Sunday night was true,
and you may use that information as you please. Whatever may come to me,
at least I know that I am never to live under the same roof with you
again, and that is happiness enough for me, whatever other misery there
may be in store for me. Now, at last, perhaps, you will realise that
loneliness is worse than any other hell, and that's the hell you've made
me suffer for twenty years. Look around you and see what your selfishness
has done for you. It will be useless to try to persuade me to return to
you. I hope to God that I shall never see you again.

AMY.

       *       *       *       *       *

He turned and said in his ordinary voice, "Your mother has left me."

He came across to her, suddenly caught her by the shoulders, and said:
"Now, _you'd_ better go, do you hear? They've all left me, your
mother, Falk, all of them. They've fallen on me and beaten me. They've
kicked me. They've spied on me and mocked me. Well, then, you join them.
Do you hear? What do you stay for? Why do you remain with me? Do you hear?
Do you hear?"

She understood nothing. Her terror caught her like the wind. She crouched
back against the bannisters, covering her face with her hand.

"Don't hit me, father. Please, please don't hit me."

He stood over her, staring down at her.

"It's a plot, and you must be in it with the others.... Well, go and tell
them they've won. Tell them to come and kick me again. I'm down now. I'm
beaten; go and tell them to come in--to come and take my house and my
clothes. Your mother's gone--follow her to London, then."

He turned. She heard him go into the drawing-room.

Suddenly, although she still did not understand what had happened, she
knew that she must follow him and care for him. He had pulled the curtains
aside and thrown up the windows.

"Let them come in! Let them come in! I--I----"

Suddenly he turned towards her and held out his arms.

"I can't--I can't bear any more." He fell on his knees, burying his face
in the shoulder of the chair. Then he cried:

"Oh, God, spare me now, spare me! I cannot bear any more. Thou hast
chastised me enough. Oh, God, don't take my sanity from me--leave me that.
Oh, God, leave me that! Thou hast taken everything else. I have been
beaten and betrayed and deserted. I confess my wickedness, my arrogance,
my pride, but it was in Thy service. Leave me my mind. Oh, God, spare me,
spare me, and forgive her who has sinned so grievously against Thy laws.
Oh, God, God, save me from madness, save me from madness."

In that moment Joan became a woman. Her love, her own life, she threw
everything away.

She went over to him, put her arms around his neck, kissed tim, fondled
him, pressing her cheek against his.

"Dear, dear father. I love you so. I love you so. No one shall hurt you.
Father dear, father darling."

Suddenly the room was blazing with light. The Torchlight Procession
tumbled into the Precincts. The Cathedral sprang into light; on all the
hills the bonfires were blazing.

Black figures scattered like dwarfs, pigmies, giants about the grass. The
torches tossed and whirled and danced.

The Cathedral rose from the darkness, triumphant in gold and fire.





Book IV

The Last Stand




Chapter I

In Ronder's House: Ronder, Wistons



Every one has, at one time or another, known the experience of watching
some friend or acquaintance moved suddenly from the ordinary atmosphere of
every day into some dramatic region of crisis where he becomes, for a
moment, far more than life-size in his struggle against the elements; he
is lifted, like Siegmund in _The Valkyrie_, into the clouds for his
last and most desperate duel.

There was something of this feeling in the attitude taken in our town
after the Jubilee towards Archdeacon Brandon. As Miss Stiles said (not
meaning it at all unkindly), it really was very fortunate for everybody
that the town had the excitement of the Pybus appointment to follow
immediately the Jubilee drama; had it not been so, how flat would every
one have been! And by the Pybus appointment she meant, of course, the
Decline and Fall of Archdeacon Brandon, and the issue of his contest with
delightful, clever Canon Ronder.

The disappearance of Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris would have been
excitement enough quite by itself for any one year. As every one said, the
wives of Archdeacons simply did _not_ run away with the clergymen of
their town. It was not done. It had never, within any one's living memory,
been done before, whether in Polchester or anywhere else.

Clergymen were, of course, only human like any one else, and so were their
wives, but at least they did not make a public declaration of their
failings; they remembered their positions, who they were and what they
were.

In one sense there had been no public declaration. Mrs. Brandon had gone
up to London to see about some business, and Mr. Morris also happened to
be away, and his sister-in-law was living on in the Rectory exactly as
though nothing had occurred. However, that disguise could not hold for
long, and every one knew exactly what had happened--well, if not exactly,
every one had a very good individual version of the whole story.

And through it all, above it, behind it and beyond it, towered the figure
of the Archdeacon. _He_ was the question, he the centre of the drama.
There were a hundred different stories running around the town as to what
exactly had happened to him during those Jubilee days. Was it true that he
had taken Miss Milton by the scruff of her long neck and thrown her out of
the house? Was it true that he had taken his coat off in the Cloisters and
given Ronder two black eyes? (The only drawback to this story was that
Ronder showed no sign of bruises.) Had he and Mrs. Brandon fought up and
down the house for the whole of a night, Joan assisting? And, above all,
_what_ occurred at the Jubilee Fair? _Had_ Brandon been set upon
by a lot of ruffians? Was it true that Samuel Hogg had revenged himself
for his daughter's abduction? No one knew. No one knew anything at all.
The only certain thing was that the Archdeacon had a bruise on his temple
and a scratch on his cheek, and that he was "queer," oh, yes, very queer
indeed!

It was finally about this "queerness" that the gossip of the town most
persistently clung. Many people said that they had watched him "going
queer" for a long while back, entirely forgetting that only a year ago he
had been the most vigorous, healthiest, sanest man in the place. Old
Puddifoot, with all sorts of nods, winks and murmurs, alluded to
mysterious medical secrets, and "how much he could tell an' he would," and
that "he had said years ago about Brandon...." Well, never mind what he
had said, but it was all turning out exactly as, for years, he had
expected.

Nothing is stranger (and perhaps more fortunate) than the speed with which
the past is forgotten. Brandon might have been all his days the odd,
muttering, eye-wandering figure that he now appeared. Where was the Viking
now? Where the finest specimen of physical health in all Glebeshire? Where
the King and Crowned Monarch of Polchester?

In the dust and debris of the broken past. "Poor old Archdeacon." "A bit
queer in the upper storey." "Not to be wondered at after all the trouble
he's had." "They break up quickly, those strong-looking men." "Bit too
pleased with himself, he was." "Ah, well, he's served his time; what we
need are more modern men. You can't deny that he was old-fashioned."

People were not altogether to be blamed for this sudden sense that they
were stepping into a new period, out of one room into another, so to
speak. The Jubilee was responsible for that. It _did_ mark a period,
and looking back now after all these years one can see that that
impression was a true one. The Jubilee of '97, the Boer War, the death of
Queen Victoria--the end of the Victorian Era for Church as well as for
State.

And there were other places beside Polchester that could show their
typical figures doomed, as it were, to die for their Period--no mean nor
unworthy death after all.

But no Polcastrian in '97 knew that that service in the Cathedral, that
scratch on the Archdeacon's cheek, that visit of Mrs. Brandon to London--
that these things were for them the Writing on the Wall. June 1897 and
August 1914 were not, happily for them, linked together in immortal
significance--their eyes were set on the personal history of the men and
women who were moving before them. Had Brandon in the pride of his heart
not claimed God as his ally, would men have died at Ypres? Can any bounds
be placed to one act of love and unselfishness, to a single deed of mean
heart and malicious tongue?

It was enough for our town that "Brandon and his ways" were out-of-date,
and it was a lucky thing that as modern a man as Ronder had come amongst
us.

And yet not altogether. Brandon in prosperity was one thing, Brandon in
misfortune quite another. He had been abominably treated. What had he ever
done that was not actuated absolutely by zeal for the town and the
Cathedral?

And, after all, had that man Ronder acted straight? He was fair and genial
enough outwardly, but who could tell what went on behind those round
spectacles? There were strange stories of intrigue about. Had he not
determined to push Brandon out of the place from the first moment of his
arrival? And as far as this Pybus living went, it was all very well to be
modern and advanced, but wasn't Ronder advocating for the appointment a
man who laughed at the Gospels and said that there were no such things as
snakes and apples in the Garden of Eden? After all, he was a foreigner,
and Brandon belonged to them. Poor old Brandon!

Ronder was in his study, waiting for Wistons. Wistons had come to
Polchester for a night to see his friend Foster. It was an entirely
private visit, unknown to anybody save two or three of his friends among
the clergy. He had asked whether Ronder could spare him half an hour.
Ronder was delighted to spare it....

Ronder was in the liveliest spirits. He hummed a little chant to himself
as he paced his study, stopping, as was his habit, to touch something on
his table, to push back a book more neatly into its row on the shelf, to
stare for an instant out of the window into the green garden drenched with
the afternoon sun.

Yes, he was in admirable spirits. He had known some weeks of acute
discomfort. That phase was over, his talk with Brandon in the Cloisters
after the Cathedral service had closed it. On that occasion he had put
himself entirely in the right, having been before that, under the eye of
his aunt and certain critics in the town, ever so slightly in the wrong.
Now he was justified. He had humbled himself before Brandon (when really
there was no reason to do so), apologised (when truly there was not the
slightest need for it)--Brandon had utterly rejected his apology, turned
on him as though he were a thief and a robber--he had done all that he
could, more, far more, than his case demanded.

So his comfort, his dear consoling comfort, had returned to him
completely. And with it had returned all his affection, his tenderness for
Brandon. Poor man, deserted by his wife, past his work, showing as he so
obviously did in the Jubilee week that his brain (never very agile) was
now quite inert, poor man, poor, poor man! Ronder, as he walked his study,
simply longed to do something for Brandon--to give him something, make him
a generous present, to go to London and persuade his poor weak wife to
return to him, anything, anything to make him happy again.

Too sad to see the poor man's pale face, restless eyes, to watch his
hurried, uneasy walk, as though he were suspicious of every man.
Everywhere now Ronder sang Brandon's praises--what fine work he had done
in the past, how much the Church owed him; where would Polchester have
been in the past without him?

"I assure you," Ronder said to Mrs. Preston, meeting her in the High
Street, "the Archdeacon's work may be over, but when I think of what the
Church owes him----"

To which Mrs. Preston had said: "Ah, Canon, how you search for the Beauty
in human life! You are a lesson to all of us. After all, to find Beauty in
even the meanest and most disappointing, that is our task!"

There was no doubt but that Ronder had come magnificently through the
Jubilee week. It had in every way strengthened and confirmed his already
strong position. He had been everywhere; had added gaiety and sunshine to
the Flower Show; had preached a most wonderful sermon at the evening
service on the Tuesday; had addressed, from the steps of his house, the
Torchlight Procession in exactly the right words; had patted all the
children on the head at the Mayor's tea for the townspeople; had enchanted
everywhere. That for which he had worked had been accomplished, and
accomplished with wonderful speed.

He was firmly established as the leading Churchman in Polchester; only now
let the Pybus living go in the right direction (as it must do), and he
would have nothing more to wish for.

He loved the place. As he looked down into the garden and thought of the
years of pleasant comfort and happiness now stretching in front of him,
his heart swelled with love of his fellow human beings. He longed, here
and now, to do something for some one, to give some children pennies, some
poor old men a good meal, to lend some one his pounds, to speak a good
word in public for some one maligned, to------

"Mr. Wistons, sir," said the maid. When he turned round only his exceeding
politeness prevented him from a whistle of astonishment. He had never seen
a photograph of Wistons, and the man had never been described to him.

From all that he had heard and read of him, he had pictured him a tall,
lean ascetic, a kind of Dante and Savonarola in one, a magnificent figure
of protest and abjuration. This man who now came towards him was little,
thin, indeed, but almost deformed, seeming to have one shoulder higher
than the other, and to halt ever so slightly on one foot. His face was
positively ugly, redeemed only, as Ronder, who was no mean observer, at
once perceived, by large and penetrating eyes. The eyes, indeed, were
beautiful, of a wonderful softness and intelligence.

His hair was jet black and thick; his hand, as it gripped Ronder's, strong
and bony.

"I'm very glad to meet you, Canon Ronder," he said. "I've heard so much
about you." His voice, as Mrs. Combermere long afterwards remarked, "has a
twinkle in it." It was a jolly voice, humorous, generous but incisive, and
exceedingly clear. It had a very slight accent, so slight that no one
could ever decide on its origin. The books said that Wistons had been born
in London, and that his father had been Rector of Lambeth for many years;
it was also quickly discovered by penetrating Polcastrians that he had a
not very distant French ancestry. Was it Cockney? "I expect," said Miss
Stiles, "that he played with the little Lambeth children when he was
small"--but no one really knew...

The two men sat down facing one another, and Wistons looked strange indeed
with his shoulders hunched up, his thin little legs like two cross-bones,
one over the other, his black hair and pale face.

"I feel rather like a thief in the night," he said, "stealing down here.
But Foster wanted me to come, and I confess to a certain curiosity
myself."

"You would like to come to Pybus if things go that way?" Ronder asked him.

"I shall be quite glad to come. On the other hand, I shall not be at all
sorry to stay where I am. Does it matter very much where one is?"

"Except that the Pybus living is generally considered a very important
step in Church preferment. It leads, as a rule, to great things."

"Great things? Yes..." Wistons seemed to be talking to himself. "One thing
is much like another. The more power one seems to have outwardly, the less
very often one has in reality. However, if I'm called I'll come. But I
wanted to see you, Canon Ronder, for a special purpose."

"Yes?" asked Ronder.

"Of course I haven't enquired in any way into the probabilities of the
Pybus appointment. But I understand that there is very strong opposition
to myself; naturally there would be. I also understand that, with the
exception of my friend Foster, you are my strongest supporter in this
matter. May I ask you why?"

"Why?" repeated Ronder.

"Yes, why? You may say, and quite justly, that I have no right at all to
ask you that question. It should be enough for me, I know, to realise that
there are certain people here who want me to come. It ought to be enough.
But it isn't. It _isn't_. I won't--I can't come here under false
pretences."

"False pretences!" cried Ronder. "I assure you, dear Mr. Wistons--"

"Oh, yes, I know. I know what you will naturally tell me. But I have
caught enough of the talk here--Foster in his impetuosity has been perhaps
indiscreet--to realise that there has been, that there still is, a battle
here between the older, more conservative body of opinion and the more
modern school. It seems to me that I have been made the figure-head of
this battle. To that I have no objection. It is not for the first time.
But what I want to ask you, Canon Ronder, with the utmost seriousness, is
just this:

"Have you supported my appointment because you honestly felt that I was
the best man for this particular job, or because--I know you will forgive
me if this question sounds impertinent--you wished to score a point over
some personal adversary?"

The question _was_ impertinent. There could be no doubt of it. Ronder
ought at once to resent any imputation on his honesty. What right had this
man to dip down into Ronder's motives? The Canon stared from behind his
glasses into those very bright and insistent eyes, and even as he stared
there came once again that cold little wind of discomfort, that
questioning, irritating wind, that had been laid so effectively, he
thought, for ever to rest. What was this man about, attacking him like
this, attacking him before, even, he had been appointed? Was it, after
all, quite wise that Wistons should come here? Would that same comfort, so
rightly valued by Ronder, be quite assured in the future if Wistons were
at Pybus? Wouldn't some nincompoop like Forsyth be perhaps, after all, his
best choice?

Ronder suddenly ceased to wish to give pennies to little children or a
present to Brandon. He was, very justly, irritated.

"Do forgive me if I am impertinent," said Wistons quietly, "but I have to
know this."

"But of course," said Ronder, "I consider you the best man for this
appointment. I should not have stirred a finger in your support
otherwise." (Why, something murmured to him, are people always attributing
to you unworthy motives, first your aunt, then Foster, now this man?) "You
are quite correct in saying that there is strong opposition to your
appointment here. But that is quite natural; you have only to consider
some of your published works to understand that. A battle is being fought
with the more conservative elements in the place. You have heard probably
that the Archdeacon is their principal leader, but I think I may say that
our victory is already assured. There was never any real doubt of the
issue. Archdeacon Brandon is a splendid fellow, and has done great work
for the Church here, but he is behind the times, out-of-date, and too
obstinate to change. Then certain, family misfortunes have hit him hard
lately, and his health is not, I fear, what it was. His opposition is as
good as over."

"That's a swift decline," said Wistons. "I remember only some six months
ago hearing of him as by far the strongest man in this place."

"Yes, it has been swift," said Ronder, shaking his head regretfully, "but
I think that his position here was largely based on the fact that there
was no one else here strong enough to take the lead against him.

"My coming into the diocese--some one, however feeble, you understand,
coming in from outside--made an already strong modern feeling yet
stronger."

"I will tell you one thing," said Wistons, suddenly shooting up his
shoulders and darting forward his head. "I think all this Cathedral
intrigue disgusting. No, I don't blame you. You came into the middle of
it, and were doubtless forced to take the part you did. But I'll have no
lot or hold in it. If I am to understand that I gain the Pybus appointment
only through a lot of backstairs intrigue and cabal, I'll let it be known
at once that I would not accept that living though it were offered me a
thousand times."

"No, no," cried Ronder eagerly. "I assure you that that is not so. There
has been intrigue here owing to the old politics of the party who governed
the Cathedral. But that is, I hope and pray, over and done with. It is
because so many of us want to have no more of it that we are asking you to
come here. Believe me, believe me, that is so."

"I should not have said what I did," continued Wistons quietly. "It was
arrogant and conceited. Perhaps you cannot avoid intrigue and party
feeling among the community of any Cathedral body. That is why I want you
to understand, Canon Ronder, the kind of man I am, before you propose me
for this post. I am afraid that you may afterwards regret your advocacy.
If I were invited to a Canonry, or any post immediately connected with the
Cathedral, I would not accept it for an instant. I come, if I come at all,
to fight the Cathedral--that is to fight everything in it, round and about
it, that prevents men from seeing clearly the figure of Christ.

"I believe, Canon Ronder, that before many years are out it will become
clear to the whole world that there are now two religions--the religion of
authority, and the religion of the spirit--and if in such a division I
must choose, I am for the religion of the spirit every time."

The religion of the spirit! Ronder stirred, a little restlessly, his fat
thighs. What had that to do with it? They were discussing the Pybus
appointment. The religion of the spirit! Well, who wasn't for that? As to
dogma, Ronder had never laid very great stress upon it. A matter of words
very largely. He looked out to the garden, where a tree, scooped now like
a great green fan against the blue-white sky, was shading the sun's rays.
Lovely! Lovely! Lovely like the Hermes downstairs, lovely like the piece
of red amber on his writing-table, like the Blind Homer...like a scallop
of green glass holding water that washed a little from side to side, the
sheen on its surface changing from dark shadow to faintest dusk. Lovely!
He stared, transported, his comfort flowing full-tide now into his soul.

"Exactly!" he said, suddenly turning his eyes full on Wistons. "The
Christian Church has made a golden calf of its dogmas. The Calf is
worshipped, the Cathedral enshrines it."

Wistons gave a swift curious stab of a glance. Ronder caught it; he
flushed. "You think it strange of me to say that?" he asked. "I can see
that you do. Let me be frank with you. It has been my trouble all my life
that I can see every side of a question. I am with the modernists, but at
the same time I can understand how dangerous it must seem to the
dogmatists to abandon even an inch of the country that Paul conquered for
them. I'm afraid, Wistons, that I see life in terms of men and women
rather than of creeds. I want men to be happy and at peace with one
another. And if to form a new creed or to abandon an old one leads to
men's deeper religious happiness, well, then...." He waved his hands.

Wistons, speaking again as it were to himself, answered, "I care only for
Jesus Christ. He is overshadowed now by all the great buildings that men
have raised for Him. He is lost to our view; we must recover Him. Him!
Him! Only Him! To serve Him, to be near Him, almost to feel the touch of
His hand on one's head, that is the whole of life to me. And now He is
hard to come to, harder every year...." He got up. "I didn't come to say
more than that.

"It's the Cathedral, Ronder, that I fear. Don't you yourself sometimes
feel that it has, by now, a spirit of its own, a life, a force that all
the past years and all the worship that it has had have given it? Don't
you even feel that? That it has become a god demanding his own rites and
worshippers? That it uses men for its own purposes, and not for Christ's?
That almost it hates Christ? It is so beautiful, so lovely, so haughty, so
jealous!

"For I, thy God, am a jealous God.'..." He broke off. "I could love Christ
better in that garden than in the Cathedral. Tear it down and build it up
again!" He turned restlessly, almost savagely, to Ronder. "Can you be
happy and comfortable and at ease, when you see what Christ might be to
human beings and what He is? Who thinks of Him, who cares for Him, who
loves His sweetness and charity and tenderness? Why is something always in
the way, always, always, always? Love! Charity! Doesn't such a place as
this Cathedral breed hatred and malice and pride and jealousy? And isn't
its very beauty a contempt?...And now what right have you to help my
appointment to Pybus?"

Ronder smiled.

"You are what we need here," he said. "You shall shake some of our comfort
from us--make a new life here for us."

Wistons was suddenly almost timid. He spoke as though he were waking from
some dream.

"Good-bye.... Good-bye. No, don't come down. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Very kind of you. Good-bye."

But Ronder insisted on coming down. They shook hands at his door. The
figure was lost in the evening sun.

Ronder stood there for a moment gazing at the bright grass, the little
houses with their shining knockers, the purple shadow of the Cathedral.

Had he done right? Was Wistons the man? Might he not be more dangerous
than...? No, no, too late now. The fight with Brandon must move to its
appointed end. Poor Brandon! Poor dear Brandon!

He looked across at the house as on the evening of his arrival from that
same step he had looked.

Poor Brandon! He would like to do something for him, some little kindly
unexpected act!

He closed the door and softly padded upstairs, humming happily to himself
that little chant.




Chapter II

Two in the House



A letter from Falk to Joan.

 Dear Joan--Mother has been here. I could get nothing out of her. I had
only one thing to say--that she must go back to father. That was the one
thing that she asserted, over and over again, that she never would. Joan,
she was tragic. I felt that I had never seen her before, never known her.
She was thinking of nothing but Morris. She seemed to see him all the time
that she was in the room with me. She is going abroad with Morris at the
end of this week--to South America, I believe. Mother doesn't seem now to
care what happens, except that she will not go back to father.

She said an odd thing to me at the end--that she had had her time, her
wonderful time, and that she could never be as unhappy or as lonely as she
was, and that she would love him always (Morris, I suppose), and that he
would love her.

The skunk that Morris is! And yet I don't know. Haven't I been a skunk
too? And yet I don't feel a skunk. If only father would be happy! Then
things would be better than they've ever been. You don't know how good
Annie is, Joan. How fine and simple and true! Why are we all such
mixtures? Why can't you ever do what's right for yourself without hurting
other people? But I'm not going to wait much longer. If things aren't
better soon I'm coming down whether he'll see me or no. We _must_
make him happy. We're all that he has now. Once this Pybus thing is
settled I'll come down. Write to me. Tell me everything. You're a brick,
Joan, to take all this as you do. Why did we go all these years without
knowing one another?--Your loving brother,

FALK.

A letter from Joan to Falk.

DEAREST FALK--I'm answering you by return because I'm so frightened. If I
send you a telegram, come down at once. Mr. Morris's sister-in-law is
telling everybody that he only went up to London on business. But she's
not going to stay here, I think. But I can't think much even of mother. I
can think of no one but father. Oh, Falk, it's been terrible these last
three days, and I don't know _what's_ going to happen.

I'll try and tell you how it's been. It's two months now since mother went
away. That night it was dreadful. He walked up and down his room all
night. Indeed he's been doing that ever since she went. And yet I don't
think it's of her that he's thinking most. I'm not sure even that he's
thinking of her at all.

He's concentrating everything now on the Pybus appointment. He talks to
himself. (You can see by that how changed he is.) He is hurrying round to
see people and asking them to the house, and he's so odd with them,
looking at them suddenly, suspiciously, as though he expected that they
were laughing at him. There's always something in the back of his mind--
not mother, I'm sure. Something happened to him that last day of the
Jubilee. He's always talking about some one who struck him, and he puts
his hand up to feel his forehead, where there was a bruise. He told me
that day that he had fallen down, but I'm sure now that he had a fight
with somebody.

He's always talking, too, about a "conspiracy" against him--not only Canon
Ronder, but something more general. Poor dear, the worst of it all is, how
bewildered he is. You know how direct he used to be, the way he went
straight to his point and wasn't afraid of anybody. Now he's always
hesitating. He hesitates before he goes out, before he goes upstairs,
before he comes into my room. It's just as though he was for ever
expecting that there's some one behind the door waiting for him with a
hammer. It's so strange how I've changed my feeling about him. I used to
think him so strong that he could beat down anybody, and now I feel he
wants looking after all the time. Perhaps he never was really strong at
all, but it was all on the outside. All the same he's very brave too. He
knows all the town's been talking about him, but I think he'd face a whole
world of Polchesters if he could only beat Canon Ronder over the Pybus
appointment. If Mr. Forsyth isn't appointed to that I think he'll go to
pieces altogether. You see, a year ago there wouldn't have been any
question about it at all. Of course he would have had his way.

But what makes me so frightened, Falk, is of something happening in the
house. Father is so suspicious that it makes me suspicious too. It doesn't
seem like the house it was at all, but as though there were some one
hiding in it, and at night it is awful. I lie awake listening, and I can
hear father walking up and down, his room's next to mine, you know. And
then if I listen hard enough, I can hear footsteps all over the house--
you know how you do in the middle of the night. And there's always some
one coming upstairs. This will sound silly to you up in London, but it
doesn't seem silly here, I assure you. All the servants feel it, and
Gladys is going at the end of the month.

And oh, Falk! I'm so sorry for him! It does seem so strange that
everything should have changed for him as it has. I feel his own
bewilderment. A year ago he seemed so strong and safe and secure as though
he would go on like that for ever, and hadn't an enemy in the world. How
could he have? He's never meant harm to any one. Your going away I can
understand, but mother, I feel as though I never could speak to her again.
To be so cruel to father and to write him such a letter! (Of course I
didn't see the letter, but the effect of it on father was terrible.)

He's so lonely now. He scarcely realises me half the time, and you see he
never did think very much about me before, so it's very difficult for him
to begin now. I'm so inexperienced. It's hard enough running the house
now, and having to get another servant instead of Gladys--and I daresay
the others will go too now, but that's nothing to waiting all the time for
something to happen and watching father every minute. We _must_ make
him happy again, Falk. You're quite right. It's the only thing that
matters. Everything else is less important than that. If only this Pybus
affair were over! Canon Ronder is so powerful now. I'm so afraid of him. I
do hate him so! The Cathedral, and the town, everything seems to have
changed since he came. A year ago they were like father, settled for ever.
And now every one's talking about new people and being out-of-date, and
changing the Cathedral music and everything! But none of that matters in
comparison with father.

I've written a terribly long letter, but it's done me ever so much good.
I'm sometimes so tempted to telegraph to you at once. I'm almost sure
father would be glad to see you. You were always the one he loved most.
But perhaps we'd better wait a little: if things get worse in any way I'll
telegraph at once.

I'm so glad you're well, and happy. You haven't in your letters told me
anything about the Jubilee in London. Was it very fine? Did you see the
Queen? Did she look very happy? Were the crowds very big? Much love from
your loving sister,

                                               JOAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

Joan, waiting in the shadowy drawing-room for Johnny St. Leath, wondered
whether her father had come in or no.

It wouldn't matter if he had, he wouldn't come into the drawing-room. He
would go directly into his study. She knew exactly what he would do. He
would shut the door, then a minute later would open it, look into the hall
and listen, then close it again very cautiously. He always now did that.
And in any case if he did come into the drawing-room and saw Johnny it
wouldn't matter. His mind was entirely centred on Pybus, and Johnny had
nothing to do with Pybus. Johnny's mother, yes. Had that stout white-
haired cockatoo suddenly appeared, she would be clutched, absorbed,
utilised to her last white feather. But she didn't appear. She stayed up
in her Castle, serene and supreme.

Joan was very nervous. She stood, a little grey shadow in the grey room,
her hands twisting and untwisting. She was nervous because she was going
to say good-bye to Johnny, perhaps for ever, and she wasn't sure that
she'd have the strength to do it.

Suddenly he was there with her in the room, big and clumsy and cheerful,
quite unaware apparently that he was never, after this, to see Joan again.

He tried to kiss her but she prevented him. "No, you must sit over there,"
she said, "and we must never, at least not probably for years and years,
kiss one another again."

He was aware, as she spoke, of quite a new, a different Joan; he had been
conscious of this new Joan on many occasions during these last weeks. When
he had first known her she had been a child and he had loved her for her
childishness; now he must meet the woman and the child together, and
instinctively he was himself more serious in his attitude to her.

"We could talk much better, Joan dear," he said, "if we were close
together."

"No," she said; "then I couldn't talk at all. We mustn't meet alone again
after to-day, and we mustn't write, and we mustn't consider ourselves
engaged."

"Why, please?"

"Can't you see that it's all impossible? We've tried it now for weeks and
it becomes more impossible every day. Your mother's absolutely against it
and always will be--and now at home--here--my mother----"

She broke off. He couldn't leave her like that; he sprang up, went across
to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her. She didn't resist him nor
move from him, but when she spoke again her voice was firmer and more
resolved than before.

"No, Johnny, I mean it, I can think of nothing now but father. So long as
he's alive I must stay with him. He's quite alone now, he has nobody. I
can't even think about you so long as he's like this, so unwell and so
unhappy. It isn't as though I were very clever or old or anything. I've
never until lately been allowed to do anything all my life, not the
tiniest bit of housekeeping, and now suddenly it has all come. And if I
were thinking of you, wanting to see you, having letters from you, I
shouldn't attend to this; I shouldn't be able to think of it----"

"Do you still love me?"

"Why, of course. I shall never change."

"And do you think that I still love you?"

"Yes."

"And do you think I'll change?"

"You may. But I don't want to think so."

"Well, then, the main question is settled. It doesn't matter how long we
wait."

"But it _does_ matter. It may be for years and years. You've got to
marry, you can't just stay unmarried because one day you may marry me."

"Can't I? You wait and see whether I can't."

"But you oughtn't to, Johnny. Think of your family. Think of your mother.
You're the only son."

"Mother can just think of me for once. It will be a bit of a change for
her. It will do her good. I've told her whom I want to marry, and she must
just get used to it. She admits herself that she can't have anything
against you personally, except that you're too young. I asked her whether
she wanted me to marry a Dowager of sixty."

Joan moved away. She walked to the window and looked out at the grey mist
sweeping like an army of ghostly messengers across the Cathedral Green.
She turned round to him.

"No, Johnny, this time it isn't a joke. I mean absolutely what I say.
We're not to meet alone or to write until--father doesn't need me any
more. I can't think, I mustn't think, of anything but father now. Nothing
that you can say, or any one can say, will make me change my mind about
that now.... And please go, Johnny, because it's so hard while you're
here. And we _must_ do it. I'll never change, but you're free to, and
you _ought_ to. It's your duty to find some one more satisfactory
than me."

But Johnny appeared not to have heard her last words. He had been looking
about him, at the walls, the windows, the ceiling--rather as a young dog
sniffs some place new to him.

"Joan, tell me. Are you all right here? You oughtn't to be all alone here
like this, just with your father. Can't you get some one to come and
stay?"

"No," she answered bravely. "Of course it's all right. I've got Gladys,
who's been with us for years."

"There's something funny," he said, still looking about him. "It feels
queer to me--sort of unhappy."

"Never mind that," she said, hurriedly moving towards the door, as though
she had heard footsteps. "You must go, Johnny. Kiss me once, the last
time. And then no letters, no anything, until--until--father's happy
again."

She rested in his arms, suddenly tranquil, safe, at peace. Her hands were
round his neck. She kissed his eyes. They clung together, suddenly two
children, utterly confident in one another and in their mutual faith.

A hand was on the door. They separated. The Archdeacon came in. He peered
into the dusky room.

"Joan! Joan! Are you there?"

She came across to him. "Yes, father, here I am. And this is Lord St.
Leath."

"How do you do, sir?" said Johnny.

"How do you do? I hope your mother is well."

"Very well, thank you, sir."

"That's good, that's good. I have some business to discuss with her.
Rather important business; I may come and see her to-morrow afternoon if
she is disengaged; Will you kindly tell her?"

"Indeed I will, sir."

"Thank you. Thank you. This room is very dark. Why are there no lights?
Joan, you should have lights. There's no one else here, is there?"

"No, father."

Johnny heard their voices echoing in the empty hall as he let himself out.

Brandon shut his study door and looked about him. The lamp on his table
was lit, his study had a warm and pleasant air with the books gleaming in
their shelves and the fire crackling. (You needed a fire on these late
summer evenings.) Nevertheless, although the room looked comfortable, he
did not at once move into it. He stood there beside the door, as though he
was waiting for something. He listened. The house was intensely quiet. He
opened the door and looked into the passage. There was no one there. The
gas hissed ever so slightly, like a whispering importunate voice. He came
back into his room, closing the door very carefully behind him, went
across softly to his writing-table, sat down, and took up his pen. His
eyes were fixed on the door, and then suddenly he would jerk round in his
chair as though he expected to catch some one who was standing just behind
him.

Then began that fight that always now must be waged whenever he sat down
at his desk, the fight to drive his thoughts, like sheep, into the only
pen that they must occupy. He must think now only of one thing; there were
others--pictures, ideas, memories, fears, horrors even--crowding, hovering
close about him, and afterwards--after Pybus--he would attend to them.
Only one thing mattered now. "Yes, you gibbering idiots, do your worst;
knock me down. Come on four to one like the cowards that you are, strike
me in the back, take my wife from me, and ruin my house. I will attend to
all of you shortly, but first--Pybus."

His lips were moving as he turned over the papers. _Was_ there some
one in the room with him? His head was aching so badly that it was
difficult to think. And his heart! How strangely that behaved in these
days! Five heavy slow beats, then a little skip and jump, then almost as
though it had stopped beating altogether.

Another thing that made it difficult to work in that room was that the
Cathedral seemed so close. It was not close really, although you could, so
often, hear the organ, but now Brandon had the strange fancy that it had
drawn closer during these last weeks, and was leaning forward with its ear
to his house, listening just as a man might! Funny how Brandon now was
always thinking of the Cathedral as a person! Stones and bricks and mortar
and bits of glass, that's what the Cathedral was, and yet lately it had
seemed to move and have a being of its own.

Fancies! Fancies! Really Brandon must attend to his business, this
business of Pybus and Forsyth, which in a week now was to be settled. He
talked to himself as he turned the papers over. He had seen the Bishop,
and Ryle (more or less persuaded), and Bentinck-Major (dark horse, never
could be sure of him), Foster, Rogers...Foster? Foster? Had he seen
Foster? Why did the mention of that name suddenly commence the unveiling
for him of a scene upon which, he must not look? The crossing the bridge,
up the hill, at the turnstile, paying your shilling...no, no, no
farther. And Bentinck-Major! That man laughed at him! Positively he dared,
when a year ago he would have bent down and wiped the dust off his shoes!
Positively!

That man! That worm! That mean, sycophantic...He was beginning to get
angry. He must not get angry. That's what Puddifoot had said, that had
been the one thing that old Puddifoot had said correctly. He must not get
angry, not even with--Ronder.

At the mention of that name something seemed to stir in the room, some one
to move closer. Brandon's heart began to race round like a pony in a
paddock. Very bad. Must keep quiet. Never get excited. Then for a moment
his thoughts did range, roaming over that now so familiar ground of
bewilderment. Why? Why? Why?

Why a year ago _that_, and now _this_? When he had done no one
in the world any harm and had served God so faithfully? Why? Why? Why?

Back, back to Pybus. This wasn't work. He had much to do and no time to
lose. That enemy of his was working, you could be sure of that. Only a
week! Only a week!

Was that some one moving in the room? Was there some one stealing behind
him, as they had done once, as...? He turned sharply round, rising in his
chair. No one there. He got up and began stealthily to pace the floor. The
worst of it was that however carefully you went you could never be quite
sure that some one was not just behind you, some one very clever,
measuring his steps by yours. You could never be sure. How still the house
was! He stopped by his door, after a moment's hesitation opened it and
looked out. No one there, only the gas whispering.

What was he doing, staring into the hall? He should be working, making
sure of his work. He went back to his table. He began hurriedly to write a
letter:

  DEAR FOSTER--I cannot help feeling that I did not make myself quite
  clear when I was speaking to you yesterday about Forsyth as the best
  incumbent of the Pybus living. When I say best, I mean, of course, most
  suitable.

When he said _best_ did he mean _most suitable? Suitable_ was
not perhaps exactly the word for Forsyth. It was something other than a
question of mere suitability. It was a keeping out of the _bad_, as
well as a bringing in of the _good_. _Suitable_ was not the word
that he wanted. What did he want? The words began to jump about on the
paper, and suddenly out of the centre of his table there stretched and
extended the figure of Miss Milton. Yes, there she was in her shabby
clothes and hat, smirking.... He dashed his hand at her and she vanished.
He sprang up. This was too bad. He must not let these fancies get hold of
him. He went into the hall.

He called out loudly, his voice echoing through the house, "Joan! Joan!"

Almost at once she came. Strange the relief that he felt! But he wouldn't
show it. She must notice nothing at all out of the ordinary.

She sat close to him at their evening meal and talked to him about
everything that came into her young head. Sometimes he wished that she
wouldn't talk so much; she hadn't talked so much in earlier days, had she?
But he couldn't remember what she had done in earlier days.

He was very particular now about his food. Always he had eaten whatever
was put in front of him with hearty and eager appreciation; now he seemed
to have very little appetite. He was always complaining about the cooking.
The potatoes were hard, the beef was underdone, the pastry was heavy. And
sometimes he would forget altogether that he was eating, and would sit
staring in front of him, his food neglected on his plate.

It was not easy for Joan. Not easy to choose topics that were not
dangerous. And so often he was not listening to her at all. Perhaps at no
other time did she pity him so much, and love him so much, as when she saw
him staring in front of him, his eyes puzzled, bewildered, piteous, like
those of an animal caught in a trap. All her old fear of him was gone, but
a new fear had come in its place. Sometimes, in quite the old way, he
would rap out suddenly, "Nonsense--stuff and nonsense!...As though
_he_ knew anything about it!" or would once again take the whole
place, town and Cathedral and all of them, into his charge with something
like, "I knew how to manage the thing. What they would have done without--
" But these defiances never lasted.

They would fade away into bewilderment and silence.

He would complain continually of his head, putting his hand suddenly up to
it, and saying, like a little child:

"My head's so bad. Such a headache!" But he would refuse to see Puddifoot;
had seen him once, and had immediately quarrelled with him, and told him
that he was a silly old fool and knew nothing about anything, and this
when Puddifoot had come with the noblest motives, intending to patronise
and condole.

After dinner to-night Joan and he went into the drawing-room. Often, after
dinner, he vanished into the study "to work"--but to-night he was "tired,
very tired--my dear. So much effort in connection with this Pybus
business. What'a come to the town I don't know. A year ago the matter
would have been simple enough...anything so obvious...."

He sat in his old arm-chair, whence for so many years he had delivered his
decisive judgments. No decisive judgments tonight! He was really tired,
lying back, his eyes closed, his hands twitching ever so slightly on his
knees.

Joan sat near to him, struggling to overcome her fear. She felt that if
only she could grasp that fear, like a nettle, and hold it tightly in her
hand it would seem so slight and unimportant. But she could not grasp it.
It was compounded of so many things, of the silence and the dulness, of
the Precincts and the Cathedral, of whispering trees and steps on the
stairs, of her father and something strange that now inhabited him like a
new guest in their house, of her loneliness and of her longing for some
friend with whom she could talk, of her ache for Johnny and his
comforting, loving smile, but most of all, strangely, of her own love for
her father, and her desire, her poignant desire, that he should be happy
again. She scarcely missed her mother, she did not want her to come back;
but she ached and ached to see once again that happy flush return to her
father's cheek, that determined ring to his voice, that buoyant confident
movement to his walk.

To-night she could not be sure whether he slept or no. She watched him,
and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Suddenly an absurd fancy
seized her. She fought against it for a time, sitting there, her hands
tightly clenched. Then suddenly it overcame her. Some one was listening
outside the window; she fancied that she could see him--tall, dark, lean,
his face pressed against the pane.

She rose very softly and stole across the floor, very gently drew back one
of the curtains and looked out. It was dark and she could see nothing--
only the Cathedral like a grey web against a sky black as ink. A lamp,
across the Green, threw a splash of orange in the middle distance--no
other light. The Cathedral seemed to be very close to the house.

She closed the curtain and then heard her father call her.

"Joan! Joan! Where are you?"

She came back and stood by his chair. "I was only looking out to see what
sort of a night it was, father dear," she said.

He suddenly smiled. "I had a pleasant little nap then," he said; "my
head's better. There. Sit down close to me. Bring your chair nearer. We're
all alone here now, you and I. We must make a lot of one another."

He had paid so little attention to her hitherto that she suddenly realised
now that her loneliness had, during these last weeks, been the hardest
thing of all to bear. She drew her chair close to his and he took her
hand.

"Yes, yes, it's quite true. I don't know what I should have done without
you during these last weeks. You've been very good to your poor, stupid,
old father!"

She murmured something, and he burst out, "Oh, yes, they do! That's what
they say! I know how they talk. They want to get me out of the way and
change the place--put in unbelievers and atheists. But they shan't--not
while I have any breath in my body--" He went on more gently, "Why just
think, my dear, they actually want to have that man Wistons here. An
atheist! A denier of Christ's divinity! Here worshipping in the Cathedral!
And when I try to stop it they say I'm mad. Oh, yes! They do! I've heard
them. Mad. Out-of-date. They've laughed at me--ever since--ever since...
that elephant, you know, dear...that began it...the Circus...."

She leaned over him.

"Father dear, you mustn't pay so much attention to what they say. You
imagine so much just because you aren't very well and have those
headaches--and--and--because of other things. You imagine things that
aren't true. So many people here love you----"

"Love me!" he burst out suddenly, starting up in his chair. "When they set
upon me, five of them, from behind and beat me! There in public with the
lights and the singing." He caught her hand, gripping it. "There's a
conspiracy, Joan. I know it. I've seen it a long time. And I know who
started it and who paid them to follow me. Everywhere I go, there they
are, following me.

"That old woman with her silly hat, she followed me into my own house.
Yes, she did! 'I'll read you a letter,' she said. 'I hate you, and I'll
make you cry out over this.' They're all in it. He's setting them on. But
he shan't have his way. I'll fight him yet. Even my own son----" His voice
broke.

Joan knelt at his feet, looking up into his face. "Father! Falk wants to
come and see you! I've had a letter from him. He wants to come and ask
your forgiveness--he loves you so much."

He got up from his chair, almost pushing her away from him. "Falk! Falk! I
don't know any one called that. I haven't got a son----"

He turned, looking at her. Then suddenly put his arms around her and
kissed her, holding her tight to his breast.

"You're a good girl," he said. "Dear Joan! I'm glad you've not left me
too. I love you, Joan, and I've not been good enough to you. Oh, no, I
haven't! Many things I might have done, and now it's too late...too
late..."

He kissed her again and again, stroking her hair, then he said that he was
tired, very tired--he'd sleep to-night. He went slowly upstairs.

He undressed rapidly, flinging off his clothes as though they hurt him. As
though some one else had unexpectedly come into the room, he saw himself
standing before the long glass in the dressing-room, naked save for his
vest. He looked at himself and laughed.

How funny he looked only in his vest--how funny were he to walk down the
High Street like that! They would say he was mad. And yet he wouldn't be
mad. He would be just as he was now. He pulled the vest off over his head
and continued to stare at himself. It was as though he were looking at
some one else's body. The long toes, the strong legs, the thick thighs,
the broad hairless chest, the stout red neck--and then those eyes, surely
not his, those strange ironical eyes! He passed his hand down his side and
felt the cool strong marble of his flesh. Then suddenly he was cold and he
hurried into his night-shirt and his dressing-gown.

He sat on his bed. Something deep down in him was struggling to come up.
Some thought...some feeling...some name. Falk! It was as though a bell
were ringing, at a great distance, in the sleeping town--but ringing only
for him. Falk! The pain, the urgent pain, crept closer. Falk! He got up
from his bed, opened his door, looked out into the dark and silent house,
stepped forward, carefully, softly, his old red dressing-gown close about
him, stumbling a little on the stairs, feeling the way to his study door.

He sat in his arm-chair huddled up. "Falk! Falk! Oh, my boy, my boy, come
back, come back! I want you, I want to be with you, to see you, to touch
you, to hear your voice! I want to love you!

"Love--Love! I never wanted love before, but now I want it, desperately,
desperately, some one to love me, some one for me to love, some one to be
kind to. Falk, my boy. I'm so lonely. It's so dark. I can't see things as
I did. It's getting darker.

"Falk, come back and help me...."




Chapter III

Prelude to Battle



That night he slept well and soundly, and in the morning woke tranquil and
refreshed. His life seemed suddenly to have taken a new turn. As he lay
there and watched the sunlight run through the lattices like strands of
pale-coloured silk, it seemed to him that he was through the worst. He did
what he had not done for many days, allowed the thought of his wife to
come and dwell with him.

He went over many of their past years together, and, nodding his head,
decided that he had been often to blame. Then the further thought of what
she had done, of her adultery, of her last letter, these like foul black
water came sweeping up and darkened his mind.... No more. No more. He must
do as he had done. Think only of Pybus. Fight that, win his victory, and
then turn to what lay behind. But the sunlight no longer danced for him,
he closed his eyes, turned on his side, and prayed to God out of his
bewilderment.

After breakfast he started out. A restless urgency drove him forth. The
Chapter Meeting at which the new incumbent of Pybus was to be chosen was
now only three days distant, and all the work in connection with that was
completed--but Brandon could not be still. Some members of the Chapter he
had seen over and over again during the last months, and had pressed Rex
Forsyth's claims upon them without ceasing, but this thing had become a
symbol to him now--a symbol of his fight with Ronder, of his battle for
the Cathedral, of his championship, behind that, of the whole cause of
Christ's Church.

It seemed to him that if he were defeated now in this thing it would mean
that God Himself had deserted him. At the mere thought of defeat his heart
began to leap in his breast and the flags of the pavement to run before
his eyes. But it could not be. He had been tested; like Job, every plague
had been given to him to prove him true, but this last would shout to the
world that his power was gone and that the Cathedral that he loved had no
longer a place for him. And then--and then-----

He would not, he must not, look. At the top of the High Street he met Ryle
the Precentor. There had been a time when Ryle was terrified by the
Archdeacon; that time was not far distant, but it was gone. Nevertheless,
even though the Archdeacon were suddenly old and sick and unimportant, you
never could tell but that he might say something to somebody that it would
be unpleasant to have said. "Politeness all the way round" was Ryle's
motto, and a very safe one too. Moreover, Ryle, when he could rise above
his alarm for the safety of his own position, was a kindly man, and it
really _was_ sad to see the poor Archdeacon so pale and tired, the
scratch on his cheek, even now not healed, giving him a strangely battered
appearance.

And how would Ryle have liked Mrs. Ryle to leave him? And how would he
feel if his son, Anthony (aged at present five), ran away with the
daughter of a publican? And how, above all, would he feel did he know that
the whole town was talking about him and saying "Poor Precentor!"? But
perhaps the Archdeacon did _not_ know. Strange the things that people
did not know about themselves!--and at that thought the Precentor went
goose-fleshy all over, because of the things that at that very moment
people might be saying about _him_ and he knowing none of them!

All this passed very swiftly through Ryle's mind, and was quickly
strangled by hearing Brandon utter in quite his old knock-you-down-if-you-
don't-get-out-of-my-way voice, "Ha! Ryle! Out early this morning! I hope
you're not planning any more new-fangled musical schemes for us!"

Oh, well! if the Archdeacon were going to take that sort of tone with him,
Ryle simply wasn't going to stand it! Why should he? To-day isn't six
months ago.

"That's all right, Archdeacon," he said stiffly. "Ronder and I go through
a good deal of the music together now. He's very musical, you know. Every
one seems quite satisfied." _That_ ought to get him--my mention of
Ronder's name.... At the same time Ryle didn't wish to seem to have gone
over to the other camp altogether, and he was just about to say something
gently deprecatory of Ronder when, to his astonishment, he perceived that
Brandon simply hadn't heard him at all! And then the Archdeacon took his
arm and marched with him down the High Street.

"With regard to this Pybus business, Precentor," he was saying, "the
matter now will be settled in another three days. I hope every one
realises the extreme seriousness of this audacious plot to push a heretic
like this man Wistons into the place. I'm sure that every one _does_
realise it. There can be no two opinions about it, of course. At the same
time----"

How very uncomfortable! There had been a time when the Precentor would
have been proud indeed to walk down the High Street arm-in-arm with the
Archdeacon. But that time was past. The High Street was crowded. Any one
might see them. They would take it for granted that the Precentor was of
the Archdeacon's party. And to be seen thus affectionately linked with the
Archdeacon just now, when his family affairs were in so strange a
disorder, when he himself was behaving so oddly, when, as it was
whispered, at the Jubilee Fair he had engaged in a scuffle of a most
disreputable kind. The word "Drink" was mentioned.

Ryle tried, every so gently, to disengage his arm. Brandon's hand was of
steel.

"This seems to me," the Archdeacon was continuing, "a most critical moment
in our Cathedral's history. If we don't stand together now we--we--"

The Archdeacon's hand relaxed. His eyes wandered. Ryle detached his arm.
How strange the man was! Why, there was Samuel Hogg on the other side of
the street!

He had taken his hat off and was smiling. How uncomfortable! How
unpleasant to be mixed in this kind of encounter! How Mrs. Ryle, would
dislike it if she knew!

But his mind was speedily taken off his own affairs. He was conscious of
the Archdeacon, standing at his full height, his eyes, as he afterwards
described it a thousand times, "bursting from his head." Then, "before you
could count two," the Archdeacon was striding across the street.

It was a sunny morning, people going about their ordinary business, every
one smiling and happy. Suddenly Ryle saw the Archdeacon stop in front of
Hogg; himself started across the street, urged he knew not by what
impulse, saw Hogg's ugly sneering face, saw the Archdeacon's arm shoot
out, catch Hogg one, two terrific blows in the face, saw Hogg topple over
like a heap of clothes falling from their peg, was in time to hear the
Archdeacon crying out, "You dirty spy! You'd set upon me from behind,
would you? Afraid to meet me face to face, are you? Take that, then, and
that!" And then shout, "It's daylight! It's daylight now! Stand up and
face me, you coward!"

The next thing of which the terrified Ryle was conscious was that people
were running up from all sides. They seemed to spring from nowhere. He
saw, too, how Hogg, the blood streaming from his face, lay there on his
back, not attempting to move. Some were bending down behind him, holding
his head, others had their hands about Brandon, holding him back. Errand-
boys were running, people were hurrying from the shops, voices raised on
every side--a Constable slowly crossed the street--Ryle slipped away--

Joan had gone out at once after breakfast that morning to the little shop,
Miss Milligan's, in the little street behind the Precincts, to see whether
she could not get some of that really fresh fruit that only Miss Milligan
seemed able to obtain. She was for some little time in the shop, because
Miss Milligan always had a great deal to say about her little nephew
Benjie, who was at the School as a day-boy and was likely to get a
scholarship, and was just now suffering from boils. Joan was a good
listener and a patient, so that it was quite late--after ten o'clock--as
she hurried back.

Just by the Arden Gate Ellen Stiles met her.

"Oh, you poor child!" she cried; "aren't you at home? I was just hurrying
up to see whether I could be of any sort of help to you!"

"Any help?" echoed Joan, seeing at once, in the nodding blue plume in
Ellen's hat, forebodings of horrible disaster.

"What, haven't you heard?" cried Ellen, pitying from the bottom of her
heart the child's white face and terrified eyes.

"No! What? Oh, tell me quickly! What has happened? To father--"

"I don't know exactly myself," said Ellen. "That's what I was hurrying up
to find out.... Your father...he's had some sort of fight with that
horrible man Hogg in the High Street.... No, I don't know...But wait a
minute...."

Joan was gone, scurrying through the Precincts, the paper bag with the
fruit clutched tightly to her.

Ellen Stiles stared after her; her eyes were dim with kindness. There was
nothing now that she would not do for that girl and her poor father!
Knocked down to the ground they were, and Ellen championed them wherever
she went. And now this! Drink or madness--perhaps both! Poor man! Poor
man! And that child, scarcely out of the cradle, with all this on her
shoulders! Ellen would do anything for them! She would go round later in
the day and see how she could be useful.

She turned away. It was Ronder now who was "up"...and a little pulling-
down would do him no sort of harm. There were a few little things she was
longing, herself, to tell him. A few home-truths. Then, half-way down the
High Street, she met Julia Preston, and didn't they have a lot to say
about it all!

Meanwhile Joan, in another moment, was at her door. What had happened? Oh,
what had happened? Had he been brought back dying and bleeding? Had that
horrible man set upon him, there in the High Street, while every one was
about? Was the doctor there, Mr. Puddifoot? Would there perhaps have to be
an operation? This would kill her father. The disgrace.... She let herself
in with her latch-key and stood in the familiar hall. Everything was just
as it had always been, the clocks ticking. She could hear the Cathedral
organ faintly through the wall. The drawing-room windows were open, and
she could hear the birds, singing at the sun, out there in the Precincts.
Everything as it always was. She could not understand. Gladys appeared
from the kitchen.

"Oh, Gladys, here is the fruit.... Has father come in?"

"I don't know, miss."

"You haven't heard him?"

"No, miss. I've been upstairs, 'elping with the beds."

"Oh--thank you, Gladys."

The terror slipped away from her. Then it was all right. Ellen Stiles had,
as usual, exaggerated. After all, she had not been there. She had heard it
only at second-hand. She hesitated for a moment, then went to the study
door. Outside she hesitated again, then she went in.

To her amazement her father was sitting, just as he had always sat, at his
table. He looked up when she entered, there was no sign upon him of any
trouble. His face was very white, stone-white, and it seemed to her that
for months past the colour had been draining from it, and now at last all
colour was gone. A man wearing a mask. She could fancy that he would put
up his hands and suddenly slip it from him and lay it down upon the table.
The eyes stared through it, alive, coloured, restless.

"Well, Joan, what is it?"

She stammered, "Nothing, father. I only wanted to see--whether--that--"

"Yes? Is any one wanting to see me?"

"No--only some one told me that you...I thought--"

"You heard that I chastised a ruffian in the town? You heard correctly. I
did. He deserved what I gave him."

A little shiver shook her.

"Is that all you want to know?"

"Isn't there anything, father, I can do?"

"Nothing--except leave me just now. I'm very busy. I have letters to
write."

She went out. She stood in the hall, her hands clasped together. What was
she to do? The worst that she had ever feared had occurred. He was mad.

She went into the drawing-room, where the sun was blazing as though it
would set the carpet on fire. What _was_ she to do? What _ought_
she to do? Should she fetch Puddifoot or some older woman like Mrs.
Combermere, who would be able to advise her? Oh, no. She wanted no one
there who would pity him. She felt a longing, urgent desire to keep him
always with her now, away from the world, in some corner where she could
cherish and love him and allow no one to insult and hurt him. But madness!
To her girlish inexperience this morning's acts could be nothing but
madness. There in the middle of the High Street, with every one about, to
do such a thing! The disgrace of it! Why, now, they could never stay in
Polchester.... This was worse than everything that had gone before. How
they would all talk, Canon Ronder and all of them, and how pleased they
would be!

At that she clenched her hands and drew herself up as though she were
defying the whole of Polchester. They should not laugh at him, they should
not dare!...

But meanwhile what immediately was she to do? It wasn't safe to leave him
alone. Now that he had gone so far as to knock some one down in the
principal street, what might he not do? What would happen if he met Canon
Ronder? Oh! why had this come? What had they done to deserve this?

What had _he_ done when he had always been so good?

She seemed for a little distracted. She could not think. Her thoughts
would not come clearly. She waited, staring into the sun and the colour.
Quietness came to her. Her life was now his. Nothing counted in her life
but that. If they must leave Polchester she would go with him wherever he
must go, and care for him. Johnny! For one terrible instant he seemed to
stand, a figure of flame, outside there on the sun-drenched grass.

Outside! Yes, always outside, until her father did not need her any more.
Then, suddenly she wanted Johnny so badly that she crumpled up into one of
the old arm-chairs and cried and cried and cried. She was very young. Life
ahead of her seemed very long. Yes, she cried her heart out, and then she
went upstairs and washed her face and wrote to Falk. She would not
telegraph until she was quite sure that she could not manage it by
herself.

The wonderful morning changed to a storm of wind and rain. Such a storm!
Down in the basement Cook could scarcely hear herself speak! As she said
to Gladys, it was what you must expect now. They were slipping into
Autumn, and before you knew, why, there would be Winter! Nothing odder
than the sudden way the Seasons took you! But Cook didn't like storms in
that house. "Them Precincts 'ouses, they're that old, they'd fall on top
of you as soon as whistle Trefusis! For her part she'd always thought this
'ouse queer, and it wasn't any the less queer since all these things had
been going on in it." It was at this point that the grocery "boy" arrived
and supposed they'd 'eard all about it by that time. All about what? Why,
the Archdeacon knocking Samuel 'Ogg down in the 'Igh Street that very
morning! Then, indeed, you could have knocked Cook down, as she said, with
a whisper. Collapsed her so, that she had to sit down and take a cup of
tea, the kettle being luckily on the boil. Gladys had to sit down and take
one too, and there they sat, the grocer's boy dismissed, in the darkening
kitchen, their heads close together, and starting at every hiss of the
rain upon the coals. The house hung heavy and dark above them. Mad, that's
what he must be, and going mad these past ever so many months. And such a
fine man too! But knocking people down in the street, and 'im such a man
for his own dignity! 'Im an Archdeacon too. 'Ad any one ever heard in
their lives of an Archdeacon doing such a thing? Well, that settled Cook.
She'd been in the house ten solid years, but at the end of the month she'd
be off. To sit in the house with a madman! Not she! Adultery and all the
talk had been enough, but she had risked her good name and all, just for
the sake of that poor young thing upstairs, but madness!--no, that was
another pair of shoes.

Now Gladys was peculiar. She'd given her notice, but hearing this, she
suddenly determined to stay. That poor Miss Joan! Poor little worm! So
young and innocent--shut up all alone with her mad father. Gladys would
see her through--

"Why, Gladys," cried Cook, "what will your young feller you're walkin'
with say?"

"If 'e don't like it 'e can lump it," said Gladys. "Lord, 'ow this house
does rattle!"

All the afternoon of that day Brandon sat, never moving from his study-
table. He sat exultant. Some of the shame had been wiped away. He could
feel again the riotous happiness that had surged up in him as he struck
that face, felt it yield before him, saw it fade away into dust and
nothingness. That face that had for all these months been haunting him, at
last he had banished it, and with it had gone those other leering faces
that had for so long kept him company. His room was dark, and it was
always in the dark that they came to him--Hogg's, the drunken painter's,
that old woman's in the dirty dress.

And to-day they did not come. If they came he would treat them as he had
treated Hogg. That was the way to deal with them!

His heart was bad, fluttering, stampeding, pounding and then dying away.
He walked about the room that he might think less of it. Never mind his
heart! Destroy his enemies, that's what he had to do--these men and women
who were the enemies of himself, his town and his Cathedral.

Suddenly he thought that he would go out. He got his hat and his coat and
went into the rain. He crossed the Green and let himself into the
Cathedral by the Saint Margaret Chapel door, as he had so often done
before.

The Cathedral was very dark, and he stumbled about, knocking against
pillars and hassocks. He was strange here. It was as though he didn't know
the place. He got into the middle of the nave, and positively he didn't
know where he was. A faint green light glimmered in the East end. There
were chairs in his way. He stood still, listening.

He was lost. He would never find his way out again. _His_ Cathedral,
and he was lost! Figures were moving everywhere. They jostled him and said
nothing. The air was thick and hard to breathe. Here was the Black
Bishop's Tomb. He let his fingers run along the metal work. How cold it
was! His hand touched the cold icy beard! His hand stayed there. He could
not remove it. His fingers stuck.

He tried to cry out, and he could say nothing. An icy hand, gauntleted,
descended upon his and held it. He tried to scream. He could not.

He shouted. His voice was a whisper. He sank upon his knees. He fainted,
slipping to the ground like a man tired out.

There, half an hour later, Lawrence found him.




Chapter IV

The Last Tournament



On the morning of the Chapter Meeting Ronder went in through the West
door, intending to cross the nave by the Cloisters. Just as he closed the
heavy door behind him there sprang up, close to him, as though from
nowhere at all, that horrible man Davray. Horrible always to Ronder, but
more horrible now because of the dreadful way in which he had, during the
last few months, gone tumbling downhill. There had been, until lately, a
certain austerity and even nobility in the man's face. That was at last
completely swept away. This morning he looked as though he had been
sleeping out all night, his face yellow, his eyes bloodshot, his hair
tangled and unkempt, pieces of grass clinging to his well-worn grey
flannel suit.

"Good morning, Canon Ronder," he said.

"Good morning," Ronder replied severely, and tried to pass on. But the man
stood in his way.

"I'm not going to keep you," he said. "I know what your business is this
morning. I wouldn't keep you from it for a single moment. I know what
you're going to do. You're going to get rid of that damned Archdeacon.
Finish him for once and all. Stamp on him so that he can never raise up
his beautiful head again. I know. It's fine work you've been doing ever
since you came here, Canon Ronder. But it isn't you that's been doing it.
It's the Cathedral."

"Please let me pass," said Ronder. "I haven't any time just now to spare."

"Ah, that hurts your pride. You like to think it's you who's been the
mighty fine fellow all this time. Well, it isn't you at all. It's the
Cathedral. The Cathedral's jealous, you know--don't like its servants
taking all the credit to themselves. Pride's dangerous, Canon Ronder. In a
year or two's time, when you're feeling pretty pleased with yourself, you
just look back on the Archdeacon's history for a moment and consider it.
It may have a lesson for you. Good morning, Canon Ronder. Pleased to have
met you."

The wretched creature went slithering up the aisle, chuckling to himself.
How miserable to be drunk at that early hour of the morning! Ronder
shrugged his shoulders as though he would like to shake off from them
something unpleasant that was sticking to them. He was not in a good mood
this morning. He was assured of victory--he had no doubt about it at all--
and unquestionably when the affair was settled he would feel more tranquil
about it. But ever since his talk with Wistons he had been unsure of the
fellow. Was it altogether wise that he should come here? His perfect
content seemed to be as far away as ever. Was it always to be so?

And then this horrible affair in the High Street three days ago, how
distressing! The Archdeacon's brain was going, and that was the very last
thing that Ronder had desired. What he had originally seen was the
pleasant picture of Brandon retiring with his wife and family to a nice
Rectory in the diocese and ending his days--many years hence it is to be
hoped--in a charming old garden with an oak-tree on the lawn and pigeons
cooing in the sunny air.

But this! Oh, no! not this! Ronder was a practical man of straight common-
sense, but it did seem to him as though there had been through all the
movement of the last six months some spirit far more vindictive than
himself had ever been. He had never, from the first moment to the last,
been vindictive. With his hand on his heart he could say that. He did not
like the Cathedral that morning, it seemed to him cold, hostile, ugly. The
thick stone pillars were scornful, the glass of the East window was dead
and dull. A little wind seemed to whistle in the roof so far, so far above
his head.

He hurried on, his great-coat hugged about him. All that he could say was
that he did hope that Brandon would not be there this morning. His
presence could alter nothing, the voting could go only one way. It would
be very painful were he there. Surely after the High Street affair he
would not come.

Ronder saw with relief when he came into the Chapter House that Brandon
was not present. They were standing about the room, looking out into the
Cloisters, talking in little groups--the Dean, Bentinck-Major, Ryle,
Foster, and Bond, the Clerk, a little apart from the others as social
decency demanded. When Ronder entered, two things at once were plain--one,
how greatly during these last months he had grown in importance with all
of them and, secondly, how nervous they were all feeling. They all turned
towards him.

"Ah, Ronder," said the Dean, "that's right. I was afraid lest something
should keep you."

"No--no--what a cold damp day! Autumn is really upon us."

They discussed the weather, once and again eyeing the door apprehensively.
Bentinck-Major took Ronder aside:

"My wife and I have been wondering whether you'd honour us by dining with
us on the 25th," he said. "A cousin of my wife's, Lady Caroline Holmesby,
is to be staying with us just then. It would give us such great pleasure
if you and Miss Ronder would join us that evening. My wife is, of course,
writing to Miss Ronder."

"So far as I know, my aunt and I are both free and will be delighted to
come," said Ronder.

"Delightful! That will be delightful! As a matter of fact we were thinking
of having that evening a little Shakespeare reading. We thought of _King
Lear_."

"Ah! That's another matter," said Ronder, laughing. "I'll be delighted to
listen, but as to taking part--"

"But you must! You must!" said Bentinck-Major, catching hold of one of the
buttons on Ronder's waistcoat, a habit that Ronder most especially
disliked. "More culture is what our town needs--several of us have been
thinking so. It is really time, I think, to start a little Shakespeare
reading amongst ourselves--strictly amongst ourselves, of course. The
trouble with Shakespeare is that he is so often a little--a little bold,
for mixed reading--and that restricts us. Nevertheless, we hope...I do
trust that you will join us, Canon Ronder."

"I make no promises," said Ronder. "If you knew how badly I read, you'd
hesitate before asking me."

"We are past our time," said the Dean, looking at his watch. "We are all
here, I think, but Brandon and Witheram. Witheram is away at Drymouth. He
has written to me. How long we should wait----"

"I can hardly believe," said Byle nervously, "that Archdeacon Brandon will
be present. He is extremely unwell. I don't know whether you are aware
that three nights ago he was found by Lawrence the Verger here in the
Cathedral in a fainting fit. He is very unwell, I'm afraid."

The whole group was immensely interested. They had heard.... Fainting?
Here in the Cathedral? Yes, by the Bishop's Tomb. He was better yesterday,
but it is hardly likely that he will come this morning.

"Poor man!" said the Dean, gently distressed. "I heard something...That
was the result, I'm afraid, of his fracas that morning in the High Street;
he must be most seriously unwell."

"Poor man, poor man!" was echoed by everybody; it was evident also that
general relief was felt. He could not now be expected to be present.

The door opened, and he came in. He came hurriedly, a number of papers in
one hand, wearing just the old anxious look of important care that they
knew so well. And yet how changed he was! Instead of moving at once to his
place at the long table he hesitated, looked at Bentinck-Major, at Foster,
then at Bond, half-puzzled, as though he had never seen them before.

"I must apologise, gentlemen," he said, "for being late. My watch, I'm
afraid, was slow."

The Dean then showed quite unexpected qualities.

"Will you sit here on my right, Archdeacon?" he said in a firm and almost
casual voice. "We are a little late, I fear, but no matter--no matter. We
are all present, I think, save Archdeacon Witheram, who is at Drymouth,
and from whom I have received a letter." They all found their places.
Ronder was as usual exactly opposite to Brandon. Foster slouched into his
seat with his customary air of absentmindedness. Ryle tried not to look at
Brandon, but his eyes were fascinated and seemed to swim in their watery
fashion like fish fascinated by a bait.

"Shall we open with a prayer," said the Dean, "and ask God's blessing on
this morning's work?"

They prayed with bent heads. Brandon's head was bent longer than the
others.

When he looked up he stared about him as though completely bewildered.

"As you all know," the Dean said in his softly urgent voice, as though he
were pressing them to give him flowers for his collection, "our meeting
this morning is of the first urgency. I will, with your approval, postpone
general business until the more ordinary meeting of next week. That is if
no one has any objection to such a course?"

No one had any objections.

"Very well, then. As you know, our business this morning is to appoint a
successor to poor Morrison at Pybus St. Anthony. Now in ordinary cases,
such an appointment is not of the first importance, but in the matter of
Pybus, as you all know, there is a difference. Whether rightly or wrongly,
it has been a tradition in the Diocese that the Pybus living should be
given only to exceptional men. It has been fortunate in having a
succession of exceptional men in its service--men who, for the most part,
have come to great position in the Church afterwards. I want you to
remember that, gentlemen, when you are making your decision this morning.
At the same time you must remember that it has been largely tradition that
has given this importance to Pybus, and that the living has been vacant
already too long."

He paused. Then he picked up a piece of paper in front of him.

"There have been several meetings with regard to this living already," he
said, "and certain names have been very thoroughly discussed among us. I
think we were last week agreed that two names stood out from the others.
If to-day we cannot agree on one of those two names, we must then consider
a third. That will not, I hope, be necessary. The two names most
favourably considered by us are those of the Rev. Rex Forsyth, Chaplain to
Bishop Clematis, and the Rev. Ambrose Wistons of St. Edward's Hawston. The
first of these two gentlemen is known to all of us personally, the second
we know chiefly through his writings. We will first, I think, consider Mr.
Wistons. You, Canon Foster, are, I know, a personal friend of his, and can
tell us why, in your opinion, his would be a suitable appointment."

"It depends on what you want," said Foster, frowning around upon every one
present; and then suddenly selecting little Bond as apparently his most
dangerous enemy and scowling at him with great hostility, "if you want to
let the religious life of this place, nearly dead already, pass right
away, choose a man like Forsyth. But I don't wish to be contentious;
there's been contention enough in this place during these last months, and
I'm sick and ashamed of the share I've had in it. I won't say more than
this--that if you want an honest, God-fearing man here, who lives only for
God and is in his most secret chamber as he is before men, then Wistons is
your man. I understand that some of you are afraid of his books. There'll
be worse books than his you'll have to face before you're much older.
_That_ I can tell you! I said to myself before I came here that I
wouldn't speak this morning. I should not have said even what I have,
because I know that in this last year I have grievously sinned, fighting
against God when I thought that I was fighting for Him. The weapons are
taken out of my hands. I believe that Wistons is the man for this place
and for the religious life here. I believe that you will none of you
regret it if you bring him to this appointment. I can say nothing more."

What had happened to Foster? They had, one and all, expected a fighting
speech. The discomfort and uneasiness that was already in the room was now
greatly increased.

The Dean asked Ronder to say something. Ronder leaned forward, pushing his
spectacles back with his fingers. He leaned forward that he might not see
Brandon's face.

By chance he had not seen Brandon for more than a fortnight. He was
horrified and frightened by the change. The grey-white face, the restless,
beseeching, bewildered eyes belonging apparently to some one else, to whom
they were searching to return, the long white fingers ceaselessly moving
among the papers and tapping the table, were those of a stranger, and in
the eyes of the men in that room it was he who had produced him. Yes, and
in the eyes of how many others in that town? You might say that had
Brandon been a man of real spiritual and moral strength, not Ronder, not
even God Himself, could have brought Brandon to this. But was that so?
Which of us knows until he is tried? His wife, his son, his body, all had
failed him. And now this too.... And if Ronder had not come to that town
would it have been so? Had it not been a duel between them from the moment
that Ronder first set his foot in that place? And had not Ronder
deliberately willed it so? What had Ronder said to Brandon's son and to
the woman who would ruin Brandon's wife?

All this passed in the flash of a dream through Ronder's brain, perhaps
never entirely to leave him again. In that long duel there had been
perhaps more than one defeat. He knew that they were waiting for him to
speak, but the thoughts would not come. Wistons? Forsyth?...Forsyth?
Wistons? Who were they? What had they to do with this personal relation of
his with the man opposite?

He flushed. He must say something. He began to speak, and soon his brain,
so beautifully ordered, began to reel out the words in soft and steady
sequence. But his soul watched Brandon's soul.

"My friend, Canon Foster, knows Mr. Wistons so much better than I do," he
said, "that it is absurd for me to try and tell you what he should tell
you.

"I do regard him as the right man for this place, because I think our
Cathedral, that we all so deeply love, is waiting for just such a man.
Against his character no one, I suppose, has anything to say. He is known
before all the world as a God-fearing Christian. He is no youth; he has
had much experience; he is, every one witnesses, lovable and of strong
personal charm. It is not his character, but his ideas, that people have
criticised. He is a modernist, of course, a man of an enquiring,
penetrating mind, who must himself be satisfied of the truth for which he
is searching. Can that do us here any harm? I believe not. I think that
some of us, if I may say so, are too easily frightened of the modern
spirit of enquiry. I believe that we Churchmen should step forward ready
to face any challenge, whether of scientists, psychologists or any one
else--I think that before long, whether we like it or no, we shall have to
do so. Mr. Wistons is, I believe, just the man to help us in such a
crisis. His opinions are not precisely the same as those of some of us in
this diocese, and I've no doubt that if he came here there would be some
disputes from time to time, but I believe those same disputes would do us
a world of good. God did not mean us to sit down twiddling our thumbs and
never using our brains. He gave us our intelligences, and therefore I
presume that He meant us to make some use of them.

"In these matters Mr. Wistons is exactly what we want here. He is a much-
travelled man, widely experienced in affairs, excellent at business. No
one who has ever met him would deny his sweetness and personal charm. I
think myself that we are very fortunate to have a chance of seeing him
here--"

Ronder ceased. He felt as though he had been beating thin air with weak
ineffective hands. They had, none of them, been listening to him or
thinking of him; they had not even been thinking of Wistons. Their minds
had been absorbed, held, dominated by the tall broad figure who sat in
their midst, but was not one of them.

Brandon, in fact, began to speak almost before Ronder had finished. He did
not look up, but stared at his long nervous fingers. He spoke at first
almost in a whisper, so that they did not catch the first few words.
"...Horrified..." they heard him say. "Horrified.... So calmly.... These
present....

"Cannot understand...." Then his words were clearer. He looked up, staring
across at Ronder.

"Horrified at this eager acceptance of a man who is a declared atheist
before God." Then suddenly he flung his head back in his old challenging
way and, looking round upon them all, went on, his voice now clear,
although weak and sometimes faltering:

"Gentlemen, this is perhaps my last appearance at these Chapter Meetings.
I have not been very well of late and, as you all know, I have had
trouble. You will forgive me if I do not, this morning, express myself so
clearly or carefully as I should like.

"But the first thing that I wish to say is that when you are deciding this
question this morning you should do your best, before God, to put my own
personality out of your minds. I have learnt many things, under God's
hand, in the last six months. He has shown me some weaknesses and
failings, and I know now that, because of those weaknesses, there are some
in this town who would act against anything that I proposed, simply
because they would wish me to be defeated. I do implore you this morning
not to think of me, but to think only of what will be best--best--best----
" He looked around him for a moment bewildered, frowning in puzzled
fashion at Ronder, then continued again, "best for God and the work of His
Church.

"I'm not very well, gentlemen; my thoughts are not coming very clearly
this morning, and that is sad, because I've looked forward to this morning
for months past, wishing to fight my very best...." His voice changed.
"Yes, fight!" he cried. "There should be no fight necessary in such a
matter. But what has happened to us all in the last year?

"A year ago there was not one of us who would have considered such an
appointment as I am now disputing. Have you read this man's books? Have
you read in the papers his acknowledged utterances? Do you know that he
questions the Divinity of Christ Himself----"

"No, Archdeacon," Foster broke in, "that is not true. You can have no
evidence of that."

Brandon seemed to be entirely bewildered by the interruption. He looked at
Foster, opened his mouth as though he would speak, then suddenly put his
hand to his head.

"If you will give me time," he said. "Give me time. I will prove
everything, I will indeed. I beg you," he said, suddenly turning to the
Dean, "that you will have this appointment postponed for a month. It is so
serious a matter that to decide hastily----"

"Not hastily," said the Dean very gently. "Morrison died some months ago,
and I'm afraid it is imperative that we should fill the vacancy this
morning."

"Then consider what you do," Brandon cried, now half-rising from his
chair. "This man is breaking in upon the cherished beliefs of our Church.
Give him a little and he will take everything. We must all stand firm upon
the true and Christian ground that the Church has given us, or where shall
we be? This man may be good and devout, but he does not believe what we
believe. Our Church-that we love--that we love----" He broke off again.

"You are against me. Every man's hand now is against me. Nevertheless
what-I say is right and true. What am I? What are you, any of you here in
this room, beside God's truth? I have seen God, I have walked with God, I
shall walk with Him again. He will lead me out of these sore distresses
and take me into green pastures----"

He flushed. "I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I am taking your time. I must
say something for Mr. Forsyth. He is young; he knows this place and loves
it; he cares for and will preserve its most ancient traditions....

"He cares for the things for which we should care. I do commend him to
your attention----"

There was a long silence. The rain that had begun a thick drizzle dripped
on the panes. The room was so dark that the Dean asked Bond to light the
gas. They all waited while this was being done. At last the Dean spoke:

"We are all very grateful to you, Archdeacon, for helping us as you have
done. I think, gentlemen, that unless there is some other name definitely
to be proposed we had better now vote on these two names.

"Is there any further name suggested?"

No one spoke.

"Very well, then. I think this morning, contrary to our usual custom, we
will record our votes on paper. I have Archdeacon Witheram's letter here
advising me of his wishes in this matter."

Paper and pens were before every one. The votes were recorded and sent up
to the Dean. He opened the little pieces of paper slowly.

At last he said:

"One vote has been recorded in favour of Mr. Forsyth, the rest for Mr.
Wistons. Mr. Wistons is therefore appointed to the living of Pybus St.
Anthony."

Brandon was on his feet. His body trembled like a tree tottering. He flung
out his hands.

"No.... No.... Stop one moment. You must. You--all of you----

"Mr. Dean--all of you.... Oh, God, help me now!...You have been
influenced by your feelings about myself. Forget me, turn me away, send me
from the town, anything, anything.... I beseech you to think only of the
good of the Cathedral in this affair. If you admit this man it is the
beginning of the end. Slowly it will all be undermined. Belief in Christ,
belief in God Himself.... Think of the future and your responsibility to
the unborn children when they come to you and say: 'Where is our faith?
Why did you take it from us? Give it back to us!' Oh, stop for a moment!
Postpone this for only a little while. Don't do this thing!...Gentlemen!"

They could see that he was ill. His body swayed as though it were beyond
his control. His hands were waving, turning, beseeching....

Suddenly tears were running down his cheeks.

"Not this shame!" he cried. "Not this shame!--kill me--but save the
Cathedral!"

They were on their feet. Foster and Ryle had come round to him.
"Archdeacon, sit down." "You're ill." "Rest a moment" With a great heave
of his shoulders he flung them off, a chair falling to the ground with the
movement.

He saw Ronder.

"You!...my enemy. Are you satisfied now?" he whispered. He held out his
quivering hand. "Take my hand. You've done your worst."

He turned round as though he would go from the room. Stumbling, he caught
Foster by the shoulder as though he would save himself. He bent forward,
staring into Foster's face.

"God is love, though," he said. "You betray Him again and again, but He
comes back."

He gripped Foster's shoulder more tightly. "Don't do this thing, man," he
said. "Don't do it. Because Ronder's beaten me is no reason for you to
betray your God.... Give me a chair. I'm ill."

He fell upon his knees.

"This...Death," he whispered. Then, looking up again at Foster, "My
heart. That fails me too."

And, bowing his head, he died.










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