The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

H >> Hugh Walpole >> The Cathedral

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

E-book prepared by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE CATHEDRAL

_A Novel_

by HUGH WALPOLE

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

TO
JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD
WITH MUCH LOVE

[Illustration: Sonore sans dureto]

CONTENTS

BOOK I: Prelude

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

BOOK II: The Whispering Gallery

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

Book III: The Jubilee

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

Book IV: The Last Stand

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

Book I

Prelude

"Thou shalt have none other gods but Me."

Chapter I

Brandons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32