The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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"I don't think I ever have them," said Falk.

"I'm not going to stuff myself up with all their medicines and things.
I've never taken medicine in my life if I was strong enough to prevent
them giving it to me, and I'm not going to start it now."

"Father," Falk said very earnestly, "don't let yourself get so easily
irritated. You usedn't to be. Everybody finds things go badly sometimes.
It's bad for you to allow yourself to be worried. Everything's all right
and going to be all right." (The hypocrite that he felt himself as he said
this!)

"You know that every one thinks the world of you here. Don't take things
too seriously."

Brandon nodded his head.

"You're quite right, Falk. It's very sensible of you to mention it, my
boy. I usedn't to lose my temper as I do. I must keep control of myself
better. But when a lot of chattering idiots start gabbling about things
that they understand as much about as----"

"Yes, I know," said Falk, putting his hand upon his father's arm. "But let
them talk. They'll soon find their level."

"Yes, and then there's your mother," went on Brandon. "I'm bothered about
her. Have you noticed anything odd about her this last week or two?"

That his father should begin to worry about his mother was certainly
astonishing enough! Certainly the first time in all these years that
Brandon had spoken of her.

"Mother? No; in what way?"

"She's not herself. She's not happy. She's worrying about something."

"_You're_ worrying, father," Falk said, "that's what's the matter.
_She's_ just the same. You've been allowing yourself to worry about
everything. Mother's all right." And didn't he know, in his own secret
heart, that she wasn't?

Brandon shook his head. "You may he right. All the same----"

Falk said slowly: "Father, what would you say if I went up to London?"
This was a close approach to the subject of their quarrel of the other
evening.

"When? What for?"

"Oh, at once--to get something to do."

"No, not now. After the summer we might talk of it."

He spoke with utter decision, as he had always done to Falk, as though he
were five years old and could naturally know nothing about life.

"But, father--don't you think it's bad for me, hanging round here doing
nothing?"

Brandon got up, went across to the little ladder, hesitated a moment, then
climbed up.

"I've had this picture twenty years," he said, "and it's never hung
straight yet."

"No, but, father," said Falk, coming across to him, "I'm a man now, not a
boy. I can't hang about any longer--I can't really."

"We'll talk about it in the autumn," said Brandon, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers," as he always did, a little out of tune.

"I've got to earn my own living, haven't I?" said Falk.

"There!" said Brandon, stepping back a little, so that he nearly
overbalanced. "_That's_ better. But it won't stay like that for five
minutes. It never does."

He climbed down again, his face rosy with his exertions. "You leave it to
me, Falk," he said, nodding his head. "I've got plans for you."

A sudden sense of the contrast between Ronder and his father smote Falk.
His father! What an infant! How helpless against that other! Moved by the
strangest mixture of tenderness, regret, pity, he did what he had never in
all his life before dreamed of doing, what he would have died of shame for
doing, had any one else been there--put his hands on his father's
shoulders and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

He laughed as he did so, to carry off his embarrassment.

"I don't hold myself bound, you know, father," he said. "I shall go off
just when I want to."

But Brandon was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words.
He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself
well out of danger, he moved back to the window, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers."

He looked out upon the Green. "There are two of those choir-boys on the
grass again," he said. "If Ryle doesn't keep them in better order, I'll
let him know what I think of him. He's always promising and never does
anything."

The last talk of their lives alone together was ended.

* * * * *

He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he
would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there
he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she
could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four
o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at
midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood,
and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything
else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he
was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free
as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one
who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm.

The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through
the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever
the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come
to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and
simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to
living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects,
having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition.

He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and
Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the
younger publishing houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that
he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a
supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that
question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems.

Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for
the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of
class.

He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after
him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see
himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of
the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father
with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of
course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a
visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that
vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set
his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....

That last luncheon was the strangest meal that he had ever known. So
strange because it was so usual--so ordinary! Roast chicken and apple
tart; his mother sitting at the end of the table, watching, as she had
watched through so many years, that everything went right, her little,
tight, expressionless face, the mouth set to give the right answers to the
right questions, her eyes veiled.... His mind flew back to that strange
talk in the dark room across the candle-lit table. She had been hysterical
that night, over-tired, had not known what she was saying. Well, she could
never leave his father now, now when he was gone. His flight settled that.

"What are you doing this afternoon, Falk?"

"Why, mother?"

"I only wondered. I have to go to the Deanery about this Jubilee
committee. I thought you might walk up there with me. About four."

"I don't think I'll be back in time, mother; I'm going out Salis Coombe
way to see a fellow."

He saw Joan, looking so pretty, sitting opposite to him. How she had grown
lately! Putting her hair up made her seem almost a woman. But what a child
in the grown-up dress with the high puffed sleeves, her baby-face laughing
at him over the high stiff collar; a pretty dress, though, that dark blue
stuff with the white stripes.... Why had he never considered Joan? She had
never meant anything to him at all. Now, when he was going, it seemed to
him suddenly that he might have made a friend of her during all these
years. She was a good girl, kind, good-natured, jolly.

She, too, was talking about the Jubilee--about some committee that she was
on and some flags that they were making. How exciting to them all the
Jubilee was, and how unimportant to him!

Some book she was talking about. "...the new woman at the Library is so
nice. She let me have it at once. It's _The Massarenes_, mother,
darling, by Ouida. The girls say it's lovely."

"I've heard of it, dear. Mrs. Sampson was talking about it. She says it's
not a nice book at all. I don't think father would like you to read it."

"Oh, you don't mind, father, do you?"

"What's that?"

The Archdeacon was in a good humour. He loved apple tart.

"_The Massarenes_, by Ouida."

"Trashy novels. Why don't you girls ever read anything but novels?" and so
on.

The little china clock with the blue mandarin on the mantelpiece struck
half past two. He must be going. He threw a last look round the room as
though he were desperately committing everything to memory--the shabby,
comfortable chairs, the Landseer "Dignity and Impudence," the warm, blue
carpet, the round silver biscuit-tin on the sideboard.

"Well, I must be getting along."

"You'll be back to dinner, Falk dear, won't you? It's early to-night.
Quarter past seven. Father has a meeting."

He looked at them all. His father was sitting back in his chair, a
satisfied man.

"Yes, I'll be back," he said, and went out.

It seemed to him incredible that departure should be so simple. When you
are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be
dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street
people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the
afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman under the green
umbrella, the toy-man with the clockwork monkeys, the flower-stalls and
the vegetable-sellers, all these were here; in the centre of the square,
sheep and pigs were penned. Dogs were barking, stout farmers in corduroy
breeches walked about arguing and expectorating, and suddenly, above all
the clamour and bustle, the Cathedral chimes struck the hour.

He hastened then, striding up Orange Street, past the church and the
monument on the hill, through hedges thick with flowers, until he struck
off into the Drymouth Road. With every step that he took he stirred child
memories. He reached the signpost that pointed to Drymouth, to Clinton St.
Mary, to Polchester. This was the landmark that he used to reach with his
nurse on his walks. Further than this she, a stout, puffing woman, would
never go. He had known that a little way on there was Rocket Wood, a place
beloved by him ever since they had driven there for a picnic in the
jingle, and he had found it all spotted gold under the fir-trees, thick
with moss and yellow with primroses. How many fights with his nurse he had
had over that! he clinging to the signpost and screaming that he
_would_ go on to the Wood, she picking him up at last and carrying
him back down the road.

He went on into the wood now and found it again spotted with gold,
although it was too late for primroses. It was all soft and dark with
pillars of purple light that struck through the fretted blue, and the dark
shadows of the leaves. All hushed and no living thing--save the hesitating
patter of some bird among the fir-cones. He struck through the wood and
came out on to the Common. You could smell the sea finely here--a true
Glebeshire smell, fresh and salt, full of sea-pinks and the westerly
gales. On the top of the Common he paused and looked back. He knew that
from here you had your last view of the Cathedral.

Often in his school holidays he had walked out here to get that view. He
had it now in its full glory. When he was a boy it had seemed to him that
the Cathedral was like a giant lying down behind the hill and leaning his
face on the hill-side. So it looked now, its towers like ears, the great
East window shining, a stupendous eye, out over the bending wind-driven
country. The sun flashed upon it, and the towers rose grey and pearl-
coloured to heaven. Mightily it looked across the expanse of the moor,
staring away and beyond Falk's little body into some vast distance,
wrapped in its own great dream, secure in its mighty memories, intent upon
its secret purposes.

Indifferent to man, strong upon its rock, hiding in its heart the answer
to all the questions that tortured man's existence--and yet, perhaps,
aware of man's immortality, scornful of him for making so slight a use of
that--but admiring him, too, for the tenacity of his courage and the
undying resurgence of his hope.

Falk, a black dot against the sweep of sky and the curve of the dark soil,
vanished from the horizon.

Chapter VII

Brandon Puts on His Armour

Brandon was not surprised when, on the morning after Falk's escape, his
son was not present at family prayers. That was not a ceremony that Falk
had ever appreciated. Joan was there, of course, and just as the
Archdeacon began the second prayer Mrs. Brandon slipped in and took her
place.

After the servants had filed out and the three were alone, Mrs. Brandon,
with a curious little catch in her voice, said:

"Falk has been out all night; his bed has not been slept in."

Brandon's immediate impulse, before he had even caught the import of his
wife's words, was: "There's reason for emotion coming; see that you show
none."

He sat down at the table, slowly unfolding the _Glebeshire Morning
News_ that always waited, neatly, beside his plate. His hand did not
tremble, although his heart was beating with a strange, muffled agitation.

"I suppose he went off somewhere," he said. "He never tells us, of course.
He's getting too selfish for anything."

He put down his newspaper and picked up his letters. For a moment he felt
as though he could not look at them in the presence of his wife. He
glanced quickly at the envelopes. There was nothing there from Falk. His
heart gave a little clap of relief.

"At any rate, he hasn't written," he said. "He can't be far away."

"There's another post at ten-thirty," she answered.

He was angry with her for that. How like her! Why could she not allow
things to be pleasant as long as possible?

She went on: "He's taken nothing with him. Not even a hand-bag. He hasn't
been back in the house since luncheon yesterday."

"Oh! he'll turn up!" Brandon went back to his paper. "Mustard, Joan,
please." Breakfast over, he went into his study and sat at the long
writing-table, pretending to be about his morning correspondence. He could
not settle to that; he had never been one to whom it was easy to control
his mind, and now his heart and soul were filled with foreboding.

It seemed to him that for weeks past he had been dreading some
catastrophe. What catastrophe? What could occur?

He almost spoke aloud. "Never before have I dreaded...."

Meanwhile he would not think of Falk. He would not. His mind flew round
and round that name like a moth round the candle-light. He heard half-past
ten strike, first in the dining-room, then slowly on his own mantelpiece.
A moment later, through his study door that was ajar, he heard the letters
fall with a soft stir into the box, then the sharp ring of the bell. He
sat at his table, his hands clenched.

"Why doesn't that girl bring the letters? Why doesn't that girl bring the
letters?" he was repeating to himself unconsciously again and again.

She knocked on the door, came in and put the letters on his table. There
were only three. He saw immediately that one was in Falk's handwriting. He
tore the envelope across, pulled out the letter, his fingers trembling now
so that he could scarcely hold it, his heart making a noise as of tramping
waves in his ears.

The letter was as follows:

NORTH ROAD STATION, DRYMOUTH,
_May_ 23, 1897.

MY DEAR FATHER--I am writing this in the waiting-room at North Road before
catching the London train. I suppose that I have done a cowardly thing in
writing like this when I am away from you, and I can't hope to make you
believe that it's because I can't bear to hurt you that I'm acting like a
coward. You'll say, justly enough, that it looks as though I wanted to
hurt you by what I'm doing. But, father, truly, I've looked at it from
every point of view, and I can't see that there's anything else for it but
this. The first part of this, my going up to London to earn my living, I
can't feel guilty about.

It seems to me, truly, the only thing to do. I have tried to speak to you
about it on several occasions, but you have always put me off, and, as far
as I can see, you don't feel that there's anything ignominious in my
hanging about a little town like Polchester, doing nothing at all for the
rest of my life. I think my being sent down from Oxford as I was gave you
the idea that I was useless and would never be any good. I'm going to
prove to you you're wrong, and I know I'm right to take it into my own
hands as I'm doing. Give me a little time and you'll see that I'm right.
The other thing is more difficult. I can't expect you to forgive me just
yet, but perhaps, later on, you'll see that it isn't too bad. Annie Hogg,
the daughter of Hogg down in Seatown, is with me, and next week I shall
marry her.

I have so far done nothing that you need be ashamed of. I love her, but am
not her lover, and she will stay with relations away from me until I marry
her. I know this will seem horrible to you, father, but it is a matter for
my own conscience. I have tried to leave her and could not, but even if I
could I have made her, through my talk, determined to go to London and try
her luck there. She loathes her father and is unhappy at home. I cannot
let her go up to London without any protection, and the only way I can
protect her is by marrying her.

She is a fine woman, father, fine and honourable and brave. Try to think
of her apart from her father and her surroundings. She does not belong to
them, truly she does not. In all these months she has not tried to
persuade me to a mean and shabby thing. She is incapable of any meanness.
In all this business my chief trouble is the unhappiness that this will
bring you. You will think that this is easy to say when it has made no
difference to what I have done. But all the same it is true, and perhaps
later on, when you have got past a little of your anger with me, you will
give me a chance to prove it. I have the promise of some literary work
that should give me enough to live on. I have taken nothing with me;
perhaps mother will pack up my things and send them to me at 5 Parker
Street, St. John's Wood.

Father, give me a chance to show you that I will make this right.--Your
loving son,

FALK BRANDON.

* * * * *

In the little morning-room to the right at the top of the stairs Joan and
her mother were waiting. Joan was pretending to sew, but her fingers
scarcely moved. Mrs. Brandon was sitting at her writing-table; her ears
were straining for every sound. The sun flooded the room with a fierce
rush of colour, and through the wide-open windows the noises of the town,
cries and children's voices, and the passing of feet on the cobbles came
up. As half-past ten struck the Cathedral bells began to ring for morning
service.

"Oh, I can't bear those bells," Mrs. Brandon cried. "Shut the windows,
Joan."

Joan went across and closed them. The bells were suddenly removed, but
seemed to be the more insistent in their urgency because they were shut
away.

The door was suddenly flung open, and Brandon stood there.

"Oh, what is it?" Mrs. Brandon cried, starting to her feet.

He was a man convulsed with anger; she had seen him in these rages before,
when his blue eyes stared with an emptiness of vision and his whole body
seemed to be twisted as though he were trying to climb to some height
whence he might hurl himself down and destroy utterly that upon which he
fell.

The letter tumbled from his hand. He caught the handle of the door as
though he would tear it from its socket, but his voice, when at last it
came, was quiet, almost his ordinary voice.

"His name is never to be mentioned in this house again."

"What has he done?"

"That's enough. What I say. His name is never to be mentioned again."

The two women stared at him. He seemed to come down from a great height,
turned and went, very carefully closing the door behind him.

He had left the letter on the floor. Mrs. Brandon went and picked it up.

"Oh, mother, what has Falk done?" Joan asked.

The bells danced all over the room.

Brandon went downstairs, back into his study, closing his door, shutting
himself in. He stayed in the middle of the room, saying aloud:

"Never his name again.... Never his name again." The actual sound of the
words echoing back to him lifted him up as though out of very deep water.
Then he was aware, as one is in the first clear moment after a great
shock, of a number of things at the same time. He hated his son because
his son had disgraced him and his name for ever. He loved his son, never
before so deeply and so dearly as now. He was his only son, and there was
none other. His son had gone off with the daughter of the worst publican
in the place, and so had shamed him before them all. Falk (he arrived in
his mind suddenly at the name with a little shiver that hurt horribly)
would never be there any more, would never be about the house, would never
laugh and be angry and be funny any more. (Behind this thought was a long
train of pictures of Falk as a boy, as a baby, as a child, pictures that
he kept back with a great gesture of the will.) In the town they would all
be talking, they were talking already. They must be stopped from talking;
they must not know. He must lie; they must all lie. But how could they be
stopped from knowing when he had gone off with the publican's daughter?
They would all know.... They would laugh...They would laugh. He would
not be able to go down the street without their laughter.

Dimly on that came a larger question. What had happened lately so that his
whole life had changed? He had been feeling it now for weeks, long before
this terrible blow had fallen, as though he were surrounded by enemies and
mockers and men who wished him ill. Men who wished him ill! Wished HIM
ill! He who had never done any one harm in all his life, who had only
wanted the happiness of others and the good of the place in which he was,
and the Glory of God! God!...His thoughts leapt across a vast gulf. What
was God about, to allow this disaster to fall upon him? When he had served
God so faithfully and had had no thought but for His grandeur? He was in a
new world now, where the rivers, the mountains, the roads, the cities were
new. For years everything had gone well with him, and then, suddenly, at
the lifting of a finger, all had been ill....

Through the mist of his thoughts, gradually, like the sun in his strength,
his anger had been rising. Now it flamed forth. At the first it had been
personal anger because his son had betrayed and deceived him--but now, for
a time, Falk was almost forgotten.

He would show them. They would laugh at him, would they? They would point
at him, would they, as the man whose son had run away with an innkeeper's
daughter? Well, let them point. They would plot to take the power from his
hands, to reduce him to impotence, to make him of no account in the place
where he had ruled for years. He had no doubt, now that he saw farther
into it, that they had persuaded Falk to run away with that girl. It was
the sort of weapon that they would be likely to use, the sort of weapon
that that man, Ronder....

At the sudden ringing of that now hated name in his ears he was calm. Yes,
to fight that enemy he needed all his control. How that man would rejoice
at this that had happened! What a victory to him it would seem to be!
Well, it should not be a victory. He began to stride up and down his
study, his head up, his chest out. It was almost as though he were a great
warrior of old, having his armour put on before he went out to the fight--
the greaves, the breastplate, the helmet, the sword....

He would fight to the last drop of blood in his body and beat the pack of
them, and if they thought that this would cause him to hang his head or
hide or go secretly, they should soon see their mistake.

He suddenly stopped. The pain that sometimes came to his head attacked him
now. For a moment it was so sharp, of so acute an agony, that he almost
staggered and fell. He stood there, his body taut, his hands clenched. It
was like knives driving through his brain; his eyes were filled with blood
so that he could not see. It passed, but he was weak, his knees shook so
that he was compelled to sit down, holding his hands on his knees. Now it
was gone. He could see clearly again. What was it? Imagination, perhaps.
Only the hammering of his heart told him that anything was the matter. He
was a long while there. At last he got up, went into the hall, found his
hat and went out. He crossed the Green and passed through the Cathedral
door.

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