The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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

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

"No, dear."

"You see what I mean?"

"Yes, dear."

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

"No, dear."

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

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

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

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

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

"No, dear."

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

"What could there be wrong, dear?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sits on them?"

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

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

"Oh no! father!..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sent down!"

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

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

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

Falk turned and went.

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

Chapter II

Ronders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Archdeacon Brandon's, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Ronder very slightly flushed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He always handled books as though they were human beings.

He came and sat down by the fire.

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

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

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

"And you hated the very idea of it."

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

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

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

She looked steadily back at him.

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

The door was opened by Mrs. Clay.

"Miss Stiles," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And who is Falk Brandon?" asked Ronder.

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

"When did this happen?"

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

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

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

Ronder said nothing.

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

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

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

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

"Peace, perfect peace...."

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

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

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

Chapter III

One of Joan's Days

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

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

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