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. "Youdoalarm 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.Theyliked 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 wasnotimpossible, 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.
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?"
"Whoishappy 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."
"Itdoesmatter. 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. Whatwerethey 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--heiskind--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.
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 shewasan 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, andnearlyfifty!
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 notreallylike him. Old Brandon was still her favourite, her old friend of ten years; but there was no doubt that hewasbehind 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,whatdo 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,dearestJoan--The first thing you have thoroughly to realise is that it doesn't matterwhatyou 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'tmeananything. 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
Dearest, dearest,dearestJoan--The first thing you have thoroughly to realise is that it doesn't matterwhatyou 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'tmeananything. 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 theremustbe 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 shehadnoticed, 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."
"Itishot!"
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 peoplereallydid, 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. Howextraordinary!
"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.Hewas lonely, but then he deserved to be, with hisdrinkand all.Wickedman! 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!"
"Readsbeautiful!" 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.