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 youshalllisten 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 thatwasa 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 ofthiswalk, 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.
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 whathewas, 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 sayanythingabout 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 theCornhill Magazineand 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 theCornhillserial, 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'dbetter 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.
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 inThe 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 didnotrun 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.Hewas 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,whatoccurred at the Jubilee Fair?HadBrandon 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. Itdidmark 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. Itisn'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 questionwasimpertinent. 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.