Various - "Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870"

Mrs. Harriet A. Adams - "Dawn"

Eugene Labiche and Edouard Martin - "Le Voyage De Monsieur Perrichon"

Franz Grillparzer - "Koenig Ottokars Glueck und Ende"

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The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

H >> Hugh Walpole >> The Cathedral




Nevertheless the transition to-night was not quite so complete as usual.
He was unhappy, lonely, and in spite of himself afraid, afraid of he knew
not what, as a child might be when its candle is blown out. And with this
unhappiness his thoughts turned to home. Falk's departure had caused him
to consider his wife more seriously than he had ever done in all their
married life before. She had loved Falk; she must be lonely without him,
and during these weeks he had been groping in a clumsy baffled kind of way
towards some expression to her of the kindness and sympathy that he was
feeling.

But those emotions do not come easily after many years of disuse; he was
always embarrassed and self-conscious when he expressed affection. He was
afraid of her, too, thought that if he showed too much kindness she might
suddenly become emotional, fling her arms around him and cover his face
with kisses--something of that kind.

Then of late she had been very strange; ever since that Sunday morning
when she had refused to go to Communion.... Strange! Women are strange! As
different from men as Frenchmen are from Englishmen!

But he would like to-night to come closer to her. Dimly, far within him,
something was stirring that told him that it had been his own fault that
during all these years she had drifted away from him. He must win her
back! A thing easily done. In the Archdeacon's view of life any man had
only got to whistle and fast the woman came running!

But to-night he wanted some one to care for him and to tell him that all
was well and that the many troubles that seemed to be crowding about him
were but imaginary after all.

When he reached the house he found that he had only just time to dress for
dinner. He ran upstairs, and then, when his door was closed and he was
safely inside his bedroom, he had to pause and stand, his hand upon his
heart. How it was hammering! like a beast struggling to escape its cage.
His knees, too, were trembling. He was forced to sit down. After all, he
was not so young as he had been.

These recent months had been trying for him. But how humiliating! He was
glad that there had been no one there to see him. He would need all his
strength for the battle that was in front of him. Yes, he was glad that
there had been no one to see him. He would ask old Puddifoot to look at
him, although the man _was_ an ass. He drank a glass of water, then
slowly dressed.

He came downstairs and went into the drawing-room. His wife was there,
standing in the shadow by the window, staring out into the Precincts. He
came across the room softly to her, then gently put his hand on her
shoulder.

She had not heard his approach. She turned round with a sharp cry and then
faced him, staring, her eyes terrified. He, on his side, was so deeply
startled by her alarm that he could only stare back at her, himself
frightened and feeling a strange clumsy foolishness at her alarm.

Broken sentences came from her: "What did you--? Who--? You shouldn't have
done that. You frightened me."

Her voice was sharply angry, and in all their long married life together
he had never before felt her so completely a stranger; he felt as though
he had accosted some unknown woman in the street and been attacked by her
for his familiarity. He took refuge, as he always did when he was
confused, in pomposity.

"Really, my dear, you'd think I was a burglar. Hum--yes. You shouldn't be
so easily startled."

She was still staring at him as though even now she did not realise his
identity. Her hands were clenched and her breath came in little hurried
gasps as though she had been running.

"No--you shouldn't...silly...coming across the room like that."

"Very well, very well," he answered testily. "Why isn't dinner ready? It's
ten minutes past the time."

She moved across the room, not answering him.

Suddenly his pomposity was gone. He moved over to her, standing before her
like an overgrown schoolboy, looking at her and smiling uneasily.

"The truth is, my dear," he said, "that I can't conceive my entering a
room without everybody hearing it. No, I can't indeed," he laughed
boisterously. "You tell anybody that I crossed a room without your hearing
it, and they won't believe you. No, they wont."

He bent down and kissed her. His touch tickled her cheek, but she made no
movement. He felt, as his hand rested on her shoulder, that she was still
trembling.

"Your nerves must be in a bad way," he said. "Why, you're trembling still!
Why don't you see Puddifoot?"

"No--no," she answered hurriedly. "It was silly of me----" Making a great
effort, she smiled up at him.

"Well, how's everything going?"

"Going?"

"Yes, for the great day. Is everything settled?"

He began to tell her in the old familiar, so boring way, every detail of
the events of the last few hours.

"I was just by Sharps' when I remembered that I'd said nothing to Nixon
about those extra seats at the back off the nave, so I had to go all the
way round----"

Joan came in. His especial need of some one that night, rejected as it had
been at once by his wife, turned to his daughter. How pretty she was, he
thought, as she came across the room sunlit with the deep evening gold
that struck in long paths of light into the darkest shadows and corners.

That moment seemed suddenly the culmination of the advance that they had
been making towards one another during the last six months. When she came
close to him, he, usually so unobservant, noticed that she, too, was in
distress.

She was smiling but she was unhappy, and he suddenly felt that he had been
neglecting her and letting her fight her battles alone, and that she
needed his love as urgently as he needed hers. He put his arm around her
and drew her to him. The movement was so unlike him and so unexpected that
she hesitated a little, then happily came closer to him, resting her head
on his shoulder. They had both, for a moment, forgotten Mrs. Brandon.

"Tired?" he asked Joan.

"Yes. I've been working at those silly old flags all the afternoon. Two of
them are not finished now. We've got to go again to-morrow morning."

"Everything ready for the Ball?"

"Yes, my dress is lovely. Oh, mummy, Mrs. Sampson says will you let two
relations of theirs sit in our seat on Sunday morning? She hadn't known
that they were coming, and she's very bothered about it, and I'll tell her
whether they can in the morning."

They both turned and saw Mrs. Brandon, who had gone back to the window and
again was looking at the Cathedral, now in deep black shadow.

"Yes, dear. There'll be room. There's only you and I----"

Joan had in the pocket of her dress a letter. As they went in to dinner
she could hear its paper very faintly crackle against her hand. It was
from Falk and was as follows:

DEAR JOAN--I have written to father but he hasn't answered. Would you
find out what he thought about my letter and what he intends to do? I
don't mind owning to you that I miss him terribly, and I would give
anything just to see him for five minutes. I believe that if he saw me
I could win him over. Otherwise I am very happy indeed. We are married
and live in two little rooms just off Baker Street. You don't know
where that is, do you? Well, it's a very good place to be, near the
park, and lots of good shops and not very expensive. Our landlady is a
jolly woman, as kind as anything, and I'm getting quite enough work to
keep the wolf from the door. I know more than ever now that I've done
the right thing, and father will recognise it, too, one day. How is
he? Of course my going like that was a great shock to him, but it was
the only way to do it. When you write tell me about his health. He
didn't seem so well just before I left. Now, Joan, write and tell me
everything. One thing is that he's got so much to do that he won't
have much time to think about me.--Your affectionate brother,

FALK.

This letter, which had arrived that morning, had given Joan a great deal
to think about. It had touched her very deeply. Until now Falk had never
shown that he had thought about her at all, and now here he was depending
on her and needing her help. At the same time, she had not the slightest
guide as to her father's attitude. Falk's name had not been mentioned in
the house during these last weeks, and, although she realised that a new
relationship was springing up between herself and her father, she was
still shy of him and conscious of a deep gulf between them. She had, too,
her own troubles, and, try as she might to beat them under, they came up
again and again, confronting her and demanding that she should answer
them.

Now she put the whole of that aside and concentrated on her father.
Watching him during dinner, he seemed to her suddenly to have become
older; there was a glow in her heart as she thought that at last he really
needed her. After all, if through life she were destined to be an old
maid--and that, in the tragic moment of her youth that was now upon her,
seemed her inevitable destiny--here was some one for whom at last she
could care.

She had felt before she came down to dinner that she was old and ugly and
desperately unattractive. Across the dinner-table she flung away, as she
imagined for ever, all hopes for beauty and charm; she would love her
father and he should love her, and every other man in the world might
vanish for all that she cared. And had she only known it, she had never
before looked so pretty as she did that night. This also she did not know,
that her mother, catching a sudden picture of her under the candle-light,
felt a deep pang of almost agonising envy. She, making her last desperate
bid for love, was old and haggard; the years for her could only add to
that age. Her gambler's throw was foredoomed before she had made it.

After dinner, Brandon, as always, retired into the deepest chair in the
drawing-room and buried himself in yesterday's _Times_. He read a
little, but the words meant nothing to him. Jubilee! Jubilee! Jubilee! He
was sick of the word. Surely they were overdoing it. When the great day
itself came every one would be so tired....

He pushed the paper aside and picked up _Punch_. Here, again, that
eternal word--"How to see the Procession. By one who has thought it out.
Of course you must be out early. As the traffic...."

JOKE--Jinks: Don't meet you 'ere so often as we used to, Binks, eh?

Binks: Well--no. It don't run to Hopera Box _this_ Season, because,
you see, we've took a Window for this 'ere Jubilee.

Then, on one page, "The Walrus and the Carpenter: Jubilee Version." "In
Anticipation of the Naval Review." "Two Jubilees?" On the next page an
illustration of the Jubilee Walrus. On the next--"Oh, the Jubilee!" On the
next, Toby M.P.'s "Essence of Parliament," with a "Reed" drawing of "A
Naval Field Battery for the Jubilee."

The paper fell from his hand. During these last days he had had no time to
read the paper, and he had fancied, as perhaps every Polcastrian was just
then fancying, that the Jubilee was a private affair for Polchester's own
private benefit. He felt suddenly that Polchester was a small out-of-the-
way place of no account; was there any one in the world who cared whether
Polchester celebrated the Jubilee or not? Nobody....

He got up and walked across to the window, pulling the curtains aside and
looking out at the deep purple dusk that stained the air like wine. The
clock behind him struck a quarter past nine. Two tiny stars, like
inquisitive mocking eyes, winked at him above the high Western tower.
Moved by an impulse that was too immediate and peremptory to be
investigated, he went into the hall, found his hat and stick, opened
softly the door as though he were afraid that some one would try to stop
him, and was soon on the grass in front of the Cathedral, staring about
him as though he had awakened from a bewildering dream.

He went across to the little side-door, found his key, and entered the
Cathedral, leaving the gargoyle to grin after him, growing more alive, and
more malicious too, with every fading moment of the light.

Within the Cathedral there was a strange shadowy glow as though behind the
thick cold pillars lights were burning. He found his way, stumbling over
the cane-bottomed chairs that were piled in measured heaps in the side
aisle, into the nave. Even he, used to it as he had been for so many
years, was thrilled to-night. There was a movement of preparation abroad;
through all the stillness there was the stir of life. It seemed to him
that the armoured knights and the high-bosomed ladies, and the little
cupids with their pursed lips and puffing cheeks, and the angels with
their too solid wings were watching him and breathing round him as he
passed. Late though it was, a dim light from the great East window fell in
broad slabs of purple and green shadow across the grey; everything was
indistinct; only the white marble of the Reredos was like a figured sheet
hanging from wall to wall, and the gilded trumpets of the angels on the
choir-screen stood out dimly like spider pattern. He felt a longing that
the place should return his love and tenderness. The passion of his life
was here; he knew to-night, as he had never before, the life of its own
that this place had, and as he stayed there, motionless in the centre of
the nave, some doubt stole into his heart as to whether, after all, he and
it were one and indivisible, as for so long he had believed. Take this
away, and what was left to him? His son had gone, his wife and daughter
were strange to him; if this, too, went....

The sudden chill sense of loneliness was awful to him. All those naked and
sightless eyes staring from those embossed tombs were menacing, scornful,
deriding.

He had never known such a mood, and he wondered suddenly whether these
last months had affected his brain.

He had never doubted during the last ten years his power over this and its
gratitude to him for what he had done: now, in this chill and green-hued
air, it seemed not to care for him at all.

He moved up into the choir and sat down in his familiar stall; all that he
could see--his eyes seemed to be drawn by some will stronger than his own
--was the Black Bishop's Tomb. The blue stone was black behind the gilded
grating, the figure was like a moulded shell holding some hidden form. The
light died; the purple and green faded from the nave--the East window was
dark--only the white altar and the whiter shadows above it hovered,
thinner light against deeper grey. As the light was withdrawn the
Cathedral seemed to grow in height until Brandon felt himself minute, and
the pillars sprang from the floor beneath him into unseen canopied
distance. He was cold; he longed suddenly, with a strange terror quite new
to him, for human company, and stumbled up and hurried down the choir,
almost falling over the stone steps, almost running through the long,
dark, deserted nave. He fancied that other steps echoed his own, that
voices whispered, and that figures thronged beneath the pillars to watch
him go. It was as though he were expelled.

Out in the evening air he was in his own world again. He was almost
tempted to return into the Cathedral to rid himself of the strange fancies
that he had had, so that they might not linger with him. He found himself
now on the farther side of the Cathedral, and after walking a little way
he was on the little narrow path that curved down through the green banks
to the river. Behind him was the Cathedral, to his right Bodger's Street
and Canon's Yard, in front of him the bending hill, the river, and then
the farther slips where the lights of the gipsy encampment sparkled and
shone. Here the air was lovely, cool and soft, and the stars were crowding
into the summer sky in their myriads. But his depression did not leave
him, nor his loneliness. He longed for Falk with a great longing. He could
not hold out against the boy for very much longer; but even then, were the
quarrel made up, things would not now he the same. Falk did not need him
any more. He had new life, new friends, new work.

"It's my nerves," thought Brandon. "I will go and see Puddifoot." It
seemed to him that some one, and perhaps more than one, had followed him
from the Cathedral. He turned sharply round as though he would catch
somebody creeping upon him. He turned round and saw Samuel Hogg standing
there.

"Evening, Archdeacon," said Hogg.

Brandon said, his voice shaking with anger: "What are you following me
for?"

"Following you, Archdeacon?"

"Yes, following me. I have noticed it often lately. If you have anything
to say to me write to me."

"Following you? Lord, no! What makes you think of such a thing,
Archdeacon? Can't a feller enjoy the evenin' air on such a lovely night as
this without being accused of following a gentleman?"

"You know that you are trying to annoy me." Brandon, had pulled himself
up, but his hatred of that grinning face with its purple veins, its
piercing eyes, was working strongly upon his nerves, so that his hands
seemed to move towards it without his own impulsion. "You have been trying
to annoy me for weeks now. I'll stand you no longer. If I have any more of
this nuisance I'll put it into the hands of the police."

Hogg spat out complacently over the grass. "Now, that _is_ an absurd
thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man's tired and wants some air after
his day's work he's accused of being a nuisance. It's a bit thick, that's
what it is. Now, tell, Archdeacon, do you happen to have bought this 'ere
town, because if so I should be glad to know it--and so would a number of
others too."

"Very well, then," said Brandon, moving away. "If you won't go, I will."

"There's no need for temper that I can see," said Hogg. "No call for it at
all, especially that we're a sort of relation now. Almost brothers, seeing
as how your son has married my daughter."

Lower and lower! Lower and lower!

He was moving in a world now where figures, horrible, obscene and foul,
could claim him, could touch him, had their right to follow him.

"You will get nothing from me," Brandon answered. "You are wasting your
time."

"Wasting my time?" Hogg laughed. "Not me! I'm enjoying myself. I don't
want anything from you except just to see you sometimes and have a little
chat. That's quite enough for me! I've taken quite a liking to you,
Archdeacon, which is as it should be between relations, and, often enough,
it isn't so. I like to see a proud gentleman like yourself mixing with
such as me. It's good for both of us, as you might say."

Brandon's anger--always dangerously uncontrolled--rose until it seemed to
have the whole of his body in his grasp, swaying it, ebbing and flowing
with swift powerful current through his heart into his brain. Now he could
only see the flushed, taunting face, the little eyes....

But Hogg's hour was not yet. He suddenly touched his cap, smiling.

"Well, good evening, Archdeacon. We'll be meeting again,"--and he was
gone.

As swiftly as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling,
shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to
leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy
thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated,
desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place.
Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all
and show them that he was above and beyond their power.

But the peace of the evening and the glory of the stars gradually stole
into his heart. He had been wrong, terribly wrong. His pride, his conceit,
had been destroying him. With a sudden flash of revelation he saw it. He
had trusted in his own power, put himself on a level with the God whom he
served. A rush of deep and sincere humility overwhelmed him. He bowed his
head and prayed.

* * * * *

Some while later he turned up the path towards home. The whole sky now
burnt with stars; fires were a dull glow across the soft gulf of grey, the
gipsy fires. Once and again a distant voice could be heard singing. As he
reached the corner of the Cathedral, and was about to turn up towards the
Precincts, a strange sound reached his ears. He stood where he was and
listened. At first he could not define what he heard--then suddenly he
realised. Quite close to him a man was sobbing.

There is something about the sounds of a man's grief that is almost
indecent. This sobbing was pitiful in its abandonment and in its effort to
control and stifle.

Brandon, looking more closely, saw the dark shadow of a man's body pressed
against the inside buttress of the corner of the Cathedral wall. The
shadow crouched, the body all drawn together as though folding in upon
itself to hide its own agony.

Brandon endeavoured to move softly up the path, but his step crunched on
some twigs, and at the sharp noise the sobbing suddenly ceased. The figure
turned.

It was Morris. The two men looked at one another for an instant, then
Morris, still like a shadow, vanished swiftly into the dusk.




Chapter III

Saturday, June 19: The Ball



Joan was in her hedroom preparing for the Ball. It was now only half-past
six and the Ball was not until half-past nine, but Mr. Mumphit, the
be-curled, the be-scented young assistant from the hairdresser's in the
High Street had paid his visit very early because he had so many other
heads of so many other young ladies to dress in Polchester that evening.
So Joan sat in front of the long looking-glass, a towel still over her
shoulders, looking at herself in a state of ecstasy and delight.

It was wrong of her, perhaps, to feel so happy--she felt that deep in her
consciousness; wrong, with all the trouble in the house, Falk gone in
disgrace, her father unhappy, her mother so strange; but to-night she
could not help herself. The excitement was spluttering and crackling all
over the town, the wonderful week upon which the whole country was
entering, the Ball, her own coming-out Ball, and the consciousness that He
would be there, and, even though He did love another, would be sure to
give her at least one dance; these things were all too strong for her--she
was happy, happy, happy--her eyes danced, her toes danced, her very soul
danced for sheer delirious joy. Had any one been behind her to look over
her shoulder into the glass, he would have seen the reflection in that
mirror of one of the prettiest children the wide world could show;
especially childish she looked to-night with her dark hair piled high on
her head, her eyes wide with wonder, her neck and shoulders so delicately
white and soft. Behind her, on the bed, was the dress, on the dingy carpet
a pair of shoes of silver tissue, the loveliest things she had ever had.
They were reflected in the mirror, little blobs of silver, and as she saw
them the colour mounted still higher in her cheeks. She had no right to
them; she had not paid for them. They were the first things that she had
ever, in all her life, bought on credit. Neither her father nor her mother
knew anything about them, but she had seen them in Harriott's shop-window
and had simply not been able to resist them.

If, after all, she was to dance with Him, that made anything right. Were
she sent to prison because she could not pay for them it would not matter.
She had done the only possible thing.

And so she looked into the mirror and saw the dark glitter in her hair and
the red in her cheeks and the whiteness of her shoulders and the silver
blobs of the little shoes, and she was happy--happy with an almost fearful
ecstasy.

* * * * *

Mrs. Brandon also was in her bedroom. She was sitting on a high stiff-
backed chair, staring in front of her. She had been sitting there now for
a long time without making any movement at all. She might have been a dead
woman. Her thin hands, with the sharply marked blue veins, were clasped
tightly on her lap. She was feeding, feverishly, eagerly feeding upon the
thought of Morris.

She would see him that evening, they would talk together, dance together,
their hands would burn as they touched; they would say very little to one
another; they would long, agonize for one another, to be alone together,
to be far, far away from everybody, and they would be desperately unhappy.

She wondered, in her strange kind of mouse-in-the-trap trance, about that
unhappiness. Was there to be no happiness, for her anywhere? Was she
always to want more than she got, was all this passion now too late? Was
it real at all? Was it not a fever, a phantom, a hallucination? Did she
see Morris? Did she not rather see something that she must seize to slake
her burning feverish thirst? For one moment she had known happiness, when
her arms had gone around him and she had been able to console and comfort
him. But comfort him for how long? Was he not as unhappy as she, and would
they not always be unhappy? Was he not weighed down by the sin that he had
committed, that he, as he thought, had caused her to commit?...At that
she sprang up from the chair and paced the room, murmuring aloud: "No, no,
I did it. My sin, not his. I will care for him, watch over him--watch over
him, care for him. He must be glad."...She sank down by the bed, burying
her face in her hands.

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