The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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"What we want," said Ronder, "is a good thunderstorm to clear the air."

"Just what we're not likely to get," said Brandon. "It hangs on for days
and days without breaking."

"I wonder why that is," said Ronder; "there are no hills round about to
keep it. There's hardly a hill of any size in the whole of South
Glebeshire."

"Of course, Polchester's in a hollow," said Brandon. "Except for the
Cathedral, of course. I always envy Lady St. Leath her elevation."

"A fine site, the Castle," said Ronder. "They must get a continual breeze
up there."

"They do," said Brandon. "Whenever I'm up there there's a wind."

This most edifying conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the
Reverend Charles Ponting. Mr. Ponting was very long, very thin and very
black, his cadaverous cheeks resembling in their colour nothing so much as
good fountain-pen ink. He spoke always in a high, melancholy and chanting
voice. He was undoubtedly effeminate in his movements, and he had an air
of superior secrecy about the affairs of the Bishop that people sometimes
found very trying. But he was a good man and a zealous, and entirely
devoted to his lord and master.

"Ha! Archdeacon.... Ha! Canon. His lordship will be down in one moment. He
has asked me to make his apologies for not being here to receive you. He
is just finishing something of rather especial importance."

The Bishop, however, entered a moment later. He was a little, frail man,
walking with the aid of a stick. He had snow-white hair, rather thick and
long, pale cheeks and eyes of a bright china-blue. He had that quality,
given to only a few in this world of happy mediocrities, of filling, at
once, any room into which he entered with the strength and fragrance of
his spirit. So strong, fearless and beautiful was his soul that it shone
through the frail compass of his body with an unfaltering light. No one
had ever doubted the goodness and splendour of the man's character. Men
might call his body old and feeble and past the work that it was still
called upon to perform. They might speak of him as guileless, as too
innocent of this world's slippery ways, as trusting where no child of six
years of age would have trusted; these things might have been, and were,
said, but no man, woman, nor child, looking upon him, hesitated to realise
that here was some one who had walked and talked with God and in whom
there was no shadow of deceit nor evil thought. Old Glasgow Parmiter, the
lawyer, the wickedest old man Polchester had ever known, said once of him,
"If there's a hell, I suppose I'm going to it, and I'm sure I don't care.
There may be one and there may not. I know there's a heaven. Purcell lives
there."

His voice, which was soft and strong, had at its heart a tiny stammer
which came out now and then with a hesitating, almost childish, charm. As
he stood there, leaning on his stick, smiling at them, there did seem a
great deal of the child about him, and Brandon, Ponting and Ronder
suddenly seemed old, wicked and soiled in the world's ways.

"Please forgive me," he said, "for not being down when you came. I move
slowly now.... Luncheon is ready, I know. Shall we go in?"

The four men crossed the stone-flagged hall into the diningroom where
Appleford stood, devoutly, as one about to perform a solemn rite. The
dining-room was high-ceilinged with a fireplace of old red brick fronted
with black oak beams. The walls were plain whitewash, and they carried
only one picture, a large copy of Dürer's "Knight and the Devil." The
high, broad windows looked out on to the sloping lawn whose green now
danced and sparkled under the sun. The trees that closed it in were purple
shadowed.

They sat, clustered together, at the end of a long oak refectory table.
The Bishop himself was a teetotaler, but there was good claret and, at the
end, excellent port. The only piece of colour on the table was a bowl of
dark-blue glass piled with fruit. The only ornament in the room was a
beautifully carved silver crucifix on the black oak mantelpiece. The sun
danced across the stained floor with every pattern and form of light.

Brandon could not remember a more unpleasant meal in that room; he could
not, indeed, remember ever having had an unpleasant meal there before. The
Bishop talked, as he always did, in a most pleasant and easy fashion. He
talked about the nectarines and plums that were soon to glorify his garden
walls, about the pears and apples in his orchard, about the jokes that old
Puddifoot made when he came over and examined his rheumatic limbs. He
gently chaffed Ponting about his punctuality, neatness and general dislike
of violent noises, and he bade Appleford to tell the housekeeper, Mrs.
Brenton, how especially good to-day was the fish soufflé. All this was all
it had ever been; nothing could have been easier and more happy. But on
other days it had always been Brandon who had thrown back the ball for the
Bishop to catch. Whoever the other guest might be, it was always Brandon
who took the lead, and although he might be a little ponderous and slow in
movement, he supplied the Bishop's conversational needs quite adequately.

And to-day it was Ronder; from the first, without any ostentation or
presumption, with the utmost naturalness, he led the field. To understand
the full truth of this occasion it must be known that Mr. Ponting had, for
a considerable number of years past, cherished a deep but private
detestation of the Archdeacon. It was hard to say wherein that hatred had
had it inception--probably in some old, long-forgotten piece of cheerful
patronage on Brandon's part; Mr. Ponting was of those who consider and
dwell and dwell again, and he had, by this time, dwelt upon the Archdeacon
so long and so thoroughly that he knew and resented the colour of every
one of the Archdeacon's waistcoat buttons. He was, perhaps, quick to
perceive to-day that a mightier than the Archdeacon was here; or it may
have been that he was well aware of what had been happening in Polchester
during the last weeks, and was even informed of the incidents of the last
three days.

However that may be, he did from the first pay an almost exaggerated
deference to Ronder's opinion, drew him into the conversation at every
possible opportunity, with such, interjections as "How true! How very
true! Don't you think so, Canon Ronder?" or "What has been your experience
in such a case, Canon Ronder?" or "I think, my lord, that Canon Ronder
told me that he knows that place well," and disregarding entirely any
remarks that Brandon might happen to make.

No one could have responded more brilliantly to this opportunity than did
Ronder; indeed the Bishop, who was his host at the Palace to-day for the
first time, said after his departure, "That's a most able man, most able.
Lucky indeed for the diocese that it has secured him...a delightful
fellow."

No one in the world could have been richer in anecdotes than Ronder,
anecdotes of precisely the kind for the Bishop's taste, not too worldly,
not too clerical, amusing without being broad, light and airy, but showing
often a fine scholarship and a wise and thoughtful experience of foreign
countries. The Bishop had not laughed so heartily for many a day. "Oh,
dear! Oh, dear!" he cried at the anecdote of the two American ladies in
Siena. "That's good, indeed...that's very good. Did you get that,
Pouting? Dear me, that's perfectly delightful!" A little tear of shining
pleasure trickled down his cheek. "Really, Canon, I've never heard
anything better."

Brandon thought Ronder's manners outrageous. Poor Bishop! He was indeed
failing that he could laugh so heartily at such pitiful humour. He tried,
to show his sense of it all by grimly pursuing his food and refusing even
the ghost of a chuckle, but no one was perceiving him, as he very bitterly
saw. The Bishop, it may be, saw it too, for at last he turned to Brandon
and said:

"But come, Archdeacon. I was forgetting. You wrote to me s-something about
that Jubilee-music in the Cathedral. You find that Ryle is making rather a
m-mess of things, don't you?"

Brandon was deeply offended. Of what was the Bishop thinking that he could
so idly drag forward the substance of an entirely private letter, without
asking permission, into the public air? Moreover, the last thing that he
wanted was that Ronder should know that he had been working behind Ryle's
back. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he had done, but here
was precisely the thing that Ronder would like to use and make something
of. In any case, it was the principle of the thing. Was Ronder henceforth
to be privy to everything that passed between himself and the Bishop?

He never found it easy to veil his feelings, and he looked now, as Ponting
delightedly perceived, like an overgrown, sulky schoolboy.

"No, no, my lord," he said, looking across at Ponting, as though he would
love to set his heel upon that pale but eager visage. "You have me wrong
there. I was making no complaint. The Precentor knows his own business
best."

"You certainly said something in your letter," said the Bishop vaguely.
"There was s-something, Ponting, was there not?"

"Yes, my lord," said Ponting. "There was. But I expect the Archdeacon did
not mean it very seriously."

"Do you mean that you find the Precentor inefficient?" said the Bishop,
looking at the coffee with longing and then shaking his head. "Not to-day,
Appleford, alas--not to-day."

"Oh, no," said Brandon, colouring. "Of course not. Our tastes differ a
little as to the choice of music, that's all. I've no doubt that I am old-
fashioned."

"How do you find the Cathedral music, Canon?" he asked, turning to Ronder.

"Oh, I know very little about it," said Ronder, smiling. '"Nothing in
comparison with the Archdeacon. I'm sure he's right in liking the old
music that people have grown used to and are fond of. At the same time, I
must confess that I haven't thought Ryle too venturesome. But then I'm
very ignorant, having been here so short a time."

"That's right, then," said the Bishop comfortably. "There doesn't seem
much wrong."

At that moment Appleford, who had been absent from the room for a minute,
returned with a note which he gave to the Bishop.

"From Pybus, my lord," he said; "some one has ridden over with it."

At the word "Pybus" there was an electric silence in the room. The Bishop
tore open the letter and read it. He half started from his chair with a
little exclamation of distress and grief.

"Please excuse me," he said, turning to them. "I must leave you for a
moment and speak to the bearer of this note. Poor Morrison...at last...
he's gone!--Pybus!..."

The Archdeacon, in spite of himself, half rose and stared across at
Ronder. Pybus! The living at last was vacant.

A moment later he felt deeply ashamed. In that sunlit room the bright
green of the outside world quivering in pools of colour upon the pure
space of the white walls spoke of life and beauty and the immortality of
beauty.

It was hard to think of death there in such a place, but one must think of
it and consider, too, Morrison, who had been so good a fellow and loved
the world, and all the things in it, and had thought of heaven also in the
spare moments that his energy left him.

A great sportsman he had been, with a famous breed of bull-terrier, and
anxious to revive the South Glebeshire Hunt; very fine, too, in that last
terrible year when the worst of all mortal diseases had leapt upon his
throat and shaken him with agony and the imminent prospect of death--
shaken him but never terrified him. Brandon summoned before him that
broad, jolly, laughing figure, summoned it, bowed to its fortitude and
optimism, then, as all men must, at such a moment, considered his own end;
then, having paid his due to Morrison, returned to the great business of
the--Living.

They were gathered together in the hall now. The Bishop had known Morrison
well and greatly liked him, and he could think of nothing but the man
himself. The question of the succession could not come near him that day,
and as he stood, a little white-haired figure, tottering on his stick in
the flagged hall, he seemed already to be far from the others, to be
caught already half-way along the road that Morrison was now travelling.

Both Brandon and Ronder felt that it was right for them to go, although on
a normal day they would have stayed walking in the garden and talking for
another three-quarters of an hour until it was time to catch the three-
thirty train from Carpledon. Mr. Ponting settled the situation.

"His lordship," he said, "hopes that you will let Bassett drive you into
Polchester. There is the little wagonette; Bassett must go, in any case,
to get some things. It is no trouble, no trouble at all."

They, of course, agreed, although for Brandon at any rate there would be
many things in the world pleasanter than sitting with Ronder in a small
wagonette for more than an hour. He also had no liking for Bassett, the
Bishop's coachman for the last twenty years, a native of South Glebeshire,
with all the obstinacy, pride and independence that that definition
includes.

There was, however, no other course, and, a quarter of an hour later, the
two clergymen found themselves opposite one another in a wagonette that
was indeed so small that it seemed inevitable that Ronder's knees must
meet Brandon's and Brandon's ankles glide against Ronder's.

The Archdeacon's temper was, by this time, at its worst. Everything had
been ruined by Ronder's presence. The original grievances were bad enough
--the way in which his letter had been flouted, the fashion in which his
conversation had been disregarded at luncheon, the sanctified pleasure
that Ponting's angular countenance had expressed at every check that he
had received; but all these things mattered nothing compared with the fact
that Ronder was present at the news of Morrison's death.

Had he been alone with the Bishop then, what an opportunity he would have
had! How exactly he would have known how to comfort the Bishop, how
tactful and right he would have been in the words that he used, and what
an opportunity finally for turning the Bishop's mind in the way it should
go, namely, towards Rex Forsyth!

As his knees, place them where he would, bumped against Ronder's, wrath
bubbled in his heart like boiling water in a kettle. The very immobility
of Bassett's broad back added to the irritation.

"It's remarkably small for a wagonette," said Ronder at last, when some
minutes had passed in silence. "Further north this would not, I should
think, be called a wagonette at all, but in Glebeshire there are special
names for everything. And then, of course, we are both big men."

This comparison was most unfortunate. Ronder's body was soft and plump,
most unmistakably fat. Brandon's was apparently in magnificent condition.
It is well known that a large man in good athletic condition has a deep,
overwhelming contempt for men who are fat and soft. Brandon made no reply.
Ronder was determined to be pleasant.

"Very difficult to keep thin in this part of the world, isn't it? Every
morning when I look at myself in the glass I find myself fatter than I was
the day before. Then I say to myself, 'I'll give up bread and potatoes and
drink hot water.' Hot water! Loathsome stuff. Moreover, have you noticed,
Archdeacon, that a man who diets himself is a perfect nuisance to all his
friends and neighbours? The moment he refuses potatoes his hostess says to
him, 'Why, Mr. Smith, not one of our potatoes! Out of our own garden!' And
then he explains to her that he is dieting, whereupon every one at the
table hurriedly recites long and dreary histories of how they have dieted
at one time or another with this or that success. The meal is ruined for
yourself and every one else. Now, isn't it so? What do you do for yourself
when you are putting on flesh?"

"I am not aware," said Brandon in his most haughty manner, "that I
_am_ putting on flesh."

"Of course I don't mean just now," answered Ronder, smiling. "In any case,
the jolting of this wagonette is certain to reduce one. Anyway, I agree
with you. It's a tiresome subject. There's no escaping fate. We stout men
are doomed, I fancy."

There was a long silence. After Brandon had moved his legs about in every
possible direction and found it impossible to escape Ronder's knees, he
said:

"Excuse my knocking into you so often, Canon."

"Oh, that's all right," said Ronder, laughing. "This drive comes worse on
you than myself, I fancy. You're bonier.... What a splendid figure the
Bishop is! A great man--really, a great man. There's something about a man
of that simplicity and purity of character that we lesser men lack.
Something out of our grasp altogether."

"You haven't known him very long, I think," said Brandon, who considered
himself in no way a lesser man than the Bishop.

"No, I have not," said Ronder, pleasantly amused at the incredible ease
with which he was able to make the Archdeacon rise. "I've never been to
Carpledon before to-day. I especially appreciated his inviting me when he
was having so old a friend as yourself."

Another silence. Ronder looked about him; the afternoon was hot, and
little beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. One trickled down his
forehead, another into his eye. The road, early in the year though it was,
was already dusty, and the high Glebeshire hedges hid the view. The
irritation of the heat, the dust and the sense that they were enclosed and
would for the rest of their lives jog along, thus, knee to knee, down an
eternal road, made Ronder uncomfortable; when he was uncomfortable he was
dangerous. He looked at the fixed obstinacy of the Archdeacon's face and
said:

"Poor Morrison! So he's gone. I never knew him, but he must have been a
fine fellow. And the Pybus living is vacant."

Brandon said nothing.

"An important decision that will be--I beg your pardon. That's my knee
again.

"It's to be hoped that they will find a good man."

"There can be only one possible choice," said Brandon, planting his hands
flat on his knees.

"Really!" said Ronder, looking at the Archdeacon with an air of innocent
interest. "Do tell me, if it isn't a secret, who that is."

"It's no secret," said Brandon in a voice of level defiance. "Rex Forsyth
is the obvious man."

"Really!" said Ronder. "That is interesting. I haven't heard him
mentioned. I'm afraid I know very little about him."

"Know very little about him!" said Brandon indignantly. "Why, his name has
been in every one's mouth for months!"

"Indeed!" said Ronder mildly. "But then I am, in many ways, sadly out of
things. Do tell me about him."

"It's not for me to tell you," said Brandon, looking at Ronder with great
severity. "You can find out anything you like from the smallest boy in the
town." This was not polite, but Ronder did not mind. There was a little
pause, then he said very amiably:

"I have heard some mention of that man Wistons."

"What!" cried Brandon in a voice not very far from a shout. "The fellow
who wrote that abnominable book, _The Four Creeds_?"

"I suppose it's the same," said Ronder gently, rubbing his knee a little.

"That man!" The Archdeacon bounced in his seat. "That atheist! The leading
enemy of the Church, the man above any who would destroy every institution
that the Church possesses!"

"Come, come! Is it as bad as that?"

"As bad as that? Worse! Much worse! I take it that you have not read any
of his books."

"Well, I have read one or two!"

"You _have_ read them and you can mention his name with patience?"

"There are several ways of looking at these things----"

"Several ways of looking at atheism? Thank you, Canon. Thank you very much
indeed. I am delighted to have your opinion given so frankly."

("What an ass the man is!" thought Ronder. "He's going to lose his temper
here in the middle of the road with that coachman listening to every
word.")

"You must not take me too literally, Archdeacon," said Ronder. "What I
meant was that the question whether Wistons is an atheist can be argued
from many points of view."

"It can not! It can not!" cried Brandon, now shaking with anger. "There
can be no two points of view. 'He that is not with me is against me'----"

"Very well, then," said Ronder. "It can not. There is no more to be said."

"There _is_ more to be said. There is indeed. I am glad, Canon, that
at last you have come out into the open. I have been wondering for a long
time past when that happy event was to take place. Ever since you came
into this town, you have been subverting doctrine, upsetting institutions,
destroying the good work that the Cathedral has been doing for many years
past. I feel it my duty to tell you this, a duty that no one else is
courageous enough to perform----"

"Really, is this quite the place?" said Ronder, motioning with his hand
towards Bassett's broad back, and the massive sterns of the two horses
that rose and fell, like tubs on a rocking sea.

But Brandon was past caution, past wisdom, past discipline. He could see
nothing now but Render's two rosy cheeks and the round gleaming spectacles
that seemed to catch his words disdainfully and suspend them there in
indifference. "Excuse me. It is time indeed. It is long past the time. If
you think that you can come here, a complete stranger, and do what you
like with the institutions here, you are mistaken, and thoroughly
mistaken. There are those here who have the interests of the place at
heart and guard and protect them. Your conceit has blinded you, allow me
to tell you, and it's time that you had a more modest estimate of yourself
and doings."

"This really isn't the place," murmured Ronder, struggling to avoid
Brandon's knees.

"Yes, atheism is nothing to you!" shouted the Archdeacon. "Nothing at all!
You had better be careful! I warn you!"

"_You_ had better be careful," said Ronder, smiling in spite of
himself, "or you will be out of the carriage."

That smile was the final insult. Brandon, jumped up, rocking on his feet.
"Very well, then. You may laugh as you please. You may think it all a very
good joke. I tell you it is not. We are enemies, enemies from this moment.
You have never been anything _but_ my enemy."

"Do take care, Archdeacon, or you really _will_ be out of the
carriage."

"Very well. I will get out of it. I refuse to drive with you another step.
I refuse. I refuse."

"But you can't walk. It's six miles."

"I will walk! I will walk! Stop and let me get out! Stop, I say!"

But Bassett who, according to his back, was as innocent of any dispute as
the small birds on the neighbouring tree, drove on.

"Stop, I say. Can't you hear?" The Archdeacon plunged forward and pulled
Bassett by the collar. "Stop! Stop!" The wagonette abruptly stopped.

Bassett's amazed face, two wide eyes in a creased and crumpled surface,
peered round.

"It's war, I tell you. War!" Brandon climbed out.

"But listen, Archdeacon! You can't!"

"Drive on! Drive on!" cried Brandon, standing in the road and shaking his
umbrella.

The wagonette drove on. It disappeared over the ledge of the hill.

There was a sudden silence. Brandon's anger pounded up into his head in
great waves of constricting passion. These gradually faded. His knees were
trembling beneath him. There were new sounds--birds singing, a tiny breeze
rustling the hedges. No living soul in sight. He had suddenly a strange
impulse to shed tears. What had he been saying? What had he been doing? He
did not know what he had said. Another of his tempers....

The pain attacked his head--like a sword, like a sword.

He found a stone and sat down upon it. The pain invaded him like an active
personal enemy. Down the road it seemed to him figures were moving--Hogg,
Davray--that other world--the dust rose in little clouds.

What had he been doing? His head! Where did this pain come from?

He felt old and sick and weak. He wanted to be at home. Slowly he began to
climb the hill. An enemy, silent and triumphant, seemed to step behind
him.

Book III

Jubilee

Chapter I

June 17, Thursday: Anticipation

It must certainly be difficult for chroniclers of contemporary history to
determine significant dates to define the beginning and end of succeeding
periods. But I fancy that any fellow-citizen of mine, if he thinks for a
moment, will agree with me that that Jubilee Summer of 1897 was the last
manifestation in our town of the separate individual Polchester spirit, of
the old spirit that had dwelt in its streets and informed its walls and
roofs for hundreds of years past, something as separate and distinct as
the smells of Seatown, the chime of the Cathedral bells, the cawing of the
Cathedral rooks in the Precinct Elms.

An interesting and, to one reader at least, a pathetic history might be
written of the decline and death of that same spirit--not in Polchester
alone, but in many another small English town. From the Boer War of 1899
to the Great War of 1914 stretches that destructive period; the agents of
that destruction, the new moneyed classes, the telephone, the telegram,
the motor, and last of all, the cinema.

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