The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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He put his hands on her thin bony shoulders and pushed her back into the
bed. His hands moved to her throat. His whole weight, he now kneeling on
the bed, was on top of her.

"Kill me! Kill me!" she whispered. "I'll be glad."

All the while their eyes stared at one another inquisitively, as though
they were strangers meeting for the first time.

His hands met round her throat. His knees were over her. He felt her thin
throat between his hands and a voice in his ear whispered, "That's right,
squeeze tighter. Splendid! Splendid!"

Suddenly his eyes recognised hers. His hands dropped. He crawled from the
bed. Then he felt his way, blindly, out of the room.

Chapter V

Tuesday, June 22: I. The Cathedral

The Great Day arrived, escorted sumptuously with skies of burning blue.
How many heads looked out of how many windows, the country over, that
morning! In Polchester it was considered as only another proof of the
esteem in which that city was held by the Almighty. The Old Lady might
deserve and did unquestionably obtain divinely condescending weather for
her various excursions, but it was nothing to that which the Old Town got
and deserved.

Deserved or no, the town rose to the occasion. The High Street was
swimming in flags and bunting; even in Seatown most of the grimy windows
showed those little cheap flags that during the past week hawkers had been
so industriously selling. From quite early in the morning the squeak and
scream of the roundabouts in the Fair could be heard dimly penetrating the
sanctities and privacies of the Precincts. But it was the Cathedral bells,
pealing, crashing, echoing, rocking, as early as nine o'clock in the
morning, that first awoke the consciousness of most of the Polcastrians to
the glories of the day.

I suppose that nearly all souls that morning subconsciously divided the
order of the festival into three periods; in the morning the Cathedral and
its service, in the afternoon the social, friendly, man-to-man
celebration, and in the evening, torch-light, bonfire, skies ablaze, drink
and love.

Certain it is that many eyes turned towards the Cathedral accustomed for
many years to look in quite other directions. There was to be a grand
service, they said, with "trumpets and shawms" and the big drum, and the
old Bishop preaching, making, in all probability, his very last public
appearance. Up from the dark mysteries of Seatown, down from the chaste
proprieties of the villas above Orange Street, from the purlieus of the
market, from the shops of the High Street, sailors and merchantmen,
traders and sea-captains and, from the wild fastness of the Fair, gipsies
with silver rings in their ears and, perhaps, who can tell? bells on their
dusky toes.

Very early were Lawrence and Cobbett about their duties. This was, in all
probability, Lawrence's last Great Day before the final and all-judging
one, and well both he and Cobbett were aware of it. Cobbett could see
himself that morning almost stepping into the old man's shoes, and the old
man himself was not well this morning--not well at all. Rheumatism, gout,
what hadn't he got?--and, above all, that strange, mysterious pain
somewhere in his very vitals, a pain that was not precisely a pain, too
dull and homely for that, but a warning, a foreboding.

On an ordinary day, in spite of his dislike of allowing Cobbett any of
those duties that were so properly his own, he would have stayed in bed,
but to-day?--no, thank you! On such a day as this he would defy the Devil
himself and all his red-hot pincers! So there he was in his long purple
gown, with his lovely snow-white beard, and his gold-topped staff,
patronising Mrs. Muffit (who superintended the cleaning) and her ancient
servitors, seeing that the places for the Band (just under the choir-
screen) and for the extra members of the choir were all in order, and,
above all, that the Bishop's Throne up by the altar was guiltless of a
speck of dust, of a shadow of a shadow of disorder. Cobbett saw, beyond
any question or doubt, death in the old man's face, and suddenly, to his
own amazement, was sorry. For years now he had been waiting for the day
when he should succeed the tiresome old fool, for years he had cursed him
for a thousand pomposities, blunders, tedious garrulities, and now,
suddenly, he was sorry. What had come over him? But he wasn't a bad old
man; plucky, too; you could see how he was suffering. They had, after all,
been companions together for so many years....

Quite early in the morning arrivals began--visitors from the country most
likely, sitting there at the back of the nave, bathed in the great silence
and the dim light, just looking and wondering and expecting. Some of them
wanted to move about and examine the brasses and the tombs and the
windows--yes, move about with their families, and their bags of
sandwiches, and their oranges. But not this morning, oh, dear, no! They
could come in or go out, but if they came in they must stay quiet. Did
they but subterraneously giggle, Cobbet was on their tracks in no time.

The light flooded in, throwing great splashes and lakes of blue and gold
and purple on to flag and pillar. Great in its strength, magnificent in
its beauty, the Cathedral prepared....

* * * * *

Mrs. Combermere walked rather solemnly that morning from her house to the
Cathedral. In spite of the lovely morning she was feeling suddenly old.
Things like Jubilees do date you--no doubt about it. Nearly fifty. Three-
quarters of life behind her and what had she to show for it? An unlucky
marriage, much physical health and fun, some friends--but, at the last,
lonely--lonely as perhaps every human being in this queer world was. That
old woman now preparing to ride in fantastic procession before her
worshipping subjects, she was lonely too. Poor, little, lonely, old woman!
Well, then, Charity to all and sundry--Charity, kindliness, the one and
only thing. Aggie Combermere was not a sentimental woman, nor did she see
life falsely, but she was suddenly aware, walking under the blazing blue
sky, that she had been unkind, for amusement's sake, more often than she
need.... Well, why not? She was ready to allow people to have a shy at
herself--any one who liked.... "'Ere you are! Old Aunt Sally! Three shies
a penny!" And she _was_ an Aunt Sally, a ludicrous creature, caring
for her dogs more than for any living creature, shovelling food into her
mouth for no particular purpose, doing physical exercises in the morning,
and _nearly_ fifty!

She found then, just as she reached the Arden Gate, that, to her own
immense surprise, it was not of herself that, all this time, she had been
thinking, but rather of Brandon and the Brandon family. The Brandons! What
an extraordinary affair! The Town was now bursting its fat sides with
excitement over it all! The Town was now generally aware (but how it was
aware no one quite knew) that there was a mysterious letter that Mrs.
Brandon had written to Morris, and that Miss Milton, librarian who was,
had obtained this letter and had taken it to Ronder. And the next move,
the next! the next! Oh, tell us! Tell us! The Town stands on tiptoe; its
hair on end. Let us see! Let us see! Let us not miss the tiniest detail of
this extraordinary affair!

And really how extraordinary! First the boy runs off with that girl; then
Mrs. Brandon, the quietest, dullest woman for years and years, throws her
cap over the mill and behaves like a madwoman; and Johnny St. Leath, they
say, is in love with the daughter, and his old mother is furious; and
Brandon, they say, wants to cut Ronder's throat. Ronder! Mrs. Combermere
paused, partly to get her breath, partly to enjoy for an instant the
shining, glittering grass, dotted with figures, stretching like a carpet
from the vast greyness of the Cathedral. Ronder! There was a remarkable
man! Mrs. Combermere was conquered by him, in spite of herself. How, in
seven short months, he had conquered everybody! What an amusing talker,
what a good preacher, what a clever business head! And yet she did not
really like him. His praises now were in every one's mouth, but she did
not _really_ like him. Old Brandon was still her favourite, her old
friend of ten years; but there was no doubt that he _was_ behind the
times, Ronder had shown them that! No use living in the 'Eighties any
longer. But she was fond of him, she did not want him to be unhappy--and
unhappy he was, that any one could see. Most of all, she did not want him
to do anything foolish--and he might, his temper was strange, he was not
so strong as he looked; he had felt his son's escapade terribly--and now
his wife!

"Well, if I had a wife like that," was Mrs. Combermere's conclusion before
she joined Ellen Stiles and Julia Preston, "I'd let her go off with any
one! Pay any one to take her!"

Ellen was, of course, full of it all. "My dear, _what_ do you think
is the latest! They say that the Archdeacon threatens to poison the whole
of the Chapter if they don't let Forsyth have Pybus, and that Boadicea has
ordered Johnny to take a voyage to the Canary Islands for his health, and
that he says he'll see her shot first! And Miss Milton is selling the
letter for a thousand pounds to the first comer!"

Mrs. Combermere stopped her sharply--"Mind your own business, Ellen. The
whole thing now is past a joke. And as to Johnny St. Leath, he shows his
good taste. There isn't a sweeter, prettier girl in England than Joan
Brandon, and he's lucky if he gets her."

"I don't want to be ill-natured," said Ellen Stiles rather plaintively,
"but that family would test anybody's reticence. We'd better go in or old
Lawrence will be letting some one have our seats."

* * * * *

Joan came with her mother slowly across the grass. In her dress was this
letter:

Dearest, dearest, _dearest_ Joan--The first thing you have
thoroughly to realise is that it doesn't matter _what_ you say or
what mother says or what any one says. Mother's angry. Of course she
is. She's been angry a thousand million times before and will be a
thousand million times again. But it doesn't _mean_ anything.
Mother likes to be angry, it does her good, and the longer she's
angry with you the better she'll like you, if you understand what I
mean. What I want to get into your head is that you can't alter
anything. Of course if you didn't love me it would be another matter,
and you tried to tell me you didn't love me yesterday just for my
good, but you did it so badly that you had to admit yourself that it
was a failure. Don't talk about your brother; he's a fine fellow, and
I'm going to look him up when I'm in London next month. Don't talk
about not seeing me, because you can't help seeing me if I'm right in
front of you. I'm no silph. (The way he spelt it.) I'm quite ready to
wait for a certain time anyway. But marry we will, and happy we'll be
for ever and ever!--Your adoring

JOHNNY.

And what was she to do about it? She was certainly very unmodern and
inexperienced by the standards of to-day--on the other hand, she was a
very long way indeed from the Lily Dales and Eleanor Hardings of Mr.
Trollope. She had not told her father--that she was resolved to do so soon
as he seemed a little less worried by his affairs; but say that she did
not love Johnny she had found that she could not, and as to damaging him
by marrying him, his love for her had strengthened her own pride in
herself. She did not understand his love, it was astounding to her after
the indifference with which her own family had always treated her. But
there it was: he, with all his experience of life, loved her more than any
one else in the world, so there _must_ be something in her. And she
knew there was; privately she had always known it. As to his mother--well,
so long as Johnny loved her she could face anybody.

So this wonderful morning she was radiantly happy. Child as she was, she
adored this excitement. It was splendid of it to be this glorious time
just when she was having her own glorious time! Splendid of the weather to
be so beautiful, of the bells to clash, of every one to wear their best
clothes, of the Jubilee to arrange itself so exactly at the right moment!
And could it be only last Saturday that he had spoken to her? And it
seemed centuries, centuries ago!

She chattered eagerly, smiling at Betty Callender, and then at the D'Arcy
girls, and then at Mrs. Bentinck-Major. She supposed that they were all
talking about her. Well, let them. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
Quite the contrary. She did not notice her mother's silence. But she
_had_ noticed, before they left the house, how ill her mother was
looking. A very bad night--another of her dreadful headaches. Her father
had not come in to breakfast at all. Everything had been wrong at home
since that day when Talk had been sent down from Oxford. She longed to put
her arms around her father's neck and hug him. Behind her own happiness,
ever since the night of the Ball, there had been a longing, an aching
urgent longing to pet him, comfort him, make love to him. And she would,
too--as soon as all these festivities were over.

And then suddenly there were Johnny and his mother and his sisters walking
towards the West door! What a situation! And then there was Johnny
breaking away from his own family and hurrying towards them, lifting his
hat, smiling!

How splendid he looked and how happy! And how happy she also was looking
had she only known it!

"Good morning, Mrs. Brandon."

Mrs. Brandon didn't appear to remember him at all. Then suddenly, as
though she had picked her conscience out of her pocket:

"Oh, good morning, Lord St. Leath."

Joan, out of the corner, saw Boadicea, her head with its absurd bonnet
high, striding indignantly ahead.

"What lovely weather, is it not?"

"Yes, aren't we lucky? Good morning, Joan."

"Good morning."

"Isn't it a lovely day?"

"Oh, yes, it is."

"Are you going to see the Torchlight Procession to-night?"

"They come through the Precincts, you know."

"Of course they do. We're going to have five bonfires all around us.
Mother's afraid they'll set the Castle on fire."

They both laughed--much too happy to know what they were laughing at.

Mrs. Sampson joined them. Johnny and Joan walked ahead. Only two steps and
they would be in the Cathedral.

"Did you get my letter?"

"Yes."

"I love you, I love you, I love you." This in a hoarse whisper.

"Johnny--you mustn't--you know--we can't--you know I oughtn't----"

They passed through into the Cathedral.

Mrs. Bentinck-Major came with Miss Ronder, slowly, across the grass. It
was not necessary for them to hurry because they knew that their seats
were reserved for them. Mrs. Bentinck-Major thought Miss Ronder "queer"
because of the clever things that she said and of the odd fashion in which
she always dressed. To say anything clever was, with Mrs. Bentinck-Major,
at once to be classed as "queer."

"It _is_ hot!"

Miss Ronder, thin and piky above her stiff white collar, looked
immaculately cool. "A lovely day," she said, sniffing the colour and the
warmth, and loving it.

Mrs. Bentinck-Major was thinking of the Brandon scandal, but it was one of
her habits never to let her left-hand voice know what her right-hand brain
was doing. Secretly she often wondered about sexual things--what people
_really_ did, whether they enjoyed what they did, and whether she
would have enjoyed the same things had life gone that way with her instead
of leading her to Bentinck-Major.

But she never, never spoke of such things. She was thinking now of Mrs.
Brandon and Morris. They said that some one had found a letter, a
disgraceful letter. How _extraordinary_!

"It's loneliness," suddenly said Miss Ronder, "that drives people to do
the things they do."

Mrs. Bentinck-Major started as though some one had struck her in the small
of her back. Was the woman a witch? How amazing!

"I beg your pardon," she said nervously.

"I was speaking," said Miss Ronder in her clear incisive voice, "of one of
our maids, who has suddenly engaged herself to the most unpleasing-looking
butcher's assistant you can imagine--all spots and stammer. Quite a pretty
girl, too. But it's fear of loneliness that does it. Wanting affection."

Dear me! Mrs. Bentinck-Major had never had very much affection from Mr.
Bentinck-Major, and had not very consciously missed it, but then she had a
dog, a spaniel, whom she loved most dearly.

"We're all lonely--all of us--to the very end," said Miss Ronder, as
though she was thinking of some one in especial. And she was. She was
thinking of her nephew. "I shouldn't wonder if the Queen isn't feeling
more lonely to-day than she has ever felt in all her life before."

And then they saw that dreadful man, Davray, lurching along. _He_ was
lonely, but then he deserved to be, with his _drink_ and all.
_Wicked_ man! Mrs. Bentinck-Major shivered. She didn't know how he
dared to go to church. He shouldn't be allowed. On such a day, too. What
would the Queen herself think, did she know?

The two ladies and Davray passed through the door at the same time.

* * * * *

And now every one was inside. The great bell dropped notes like heavy
weights into a liquid well. For the cup of the Cathedral swam in colour,
the light pouring through the great Rose window, and that multitude of
persons seeming to sway like shadows beneath a sheet of water from amber
to purple, from purple to crimson, from crimson to darkest green.

Individuality was lost. The Cathedral, thinking nothing of Kings and
Queens, of history, of movement forward and retrograde, but only of itself
and of the life that it had been given, that it now claimed for its own,
with haughty confidence assumed its Power...the Power of its own
Immortality that is neither man's nor God's.

The trumpets began. They rang out the Psalm that had been given them, and
transformed it into a cry of exultant triumph. Their notes rose, were
caught by the pillars, acclaimed, tossed higher, caught again in the eaves
and corners of the great building, swinging backwards and forwards....

"Now listen to My greatness! You created Me for the Worship of your God!

"And now I am your God! Out of your forms and ceremonies you have made a
new God! And I, thy God, am a jealous God...."

Ronder read the First Lesson.

"That's Ronder," the town-people whispered, "the new Canon. Oh! he's
clever. You should hear him preach!"

"Reads _beautiful!_" Gladys, the Brandons' maid, whispered to Annie,
the kitchen-maid. "I do like a bit of fine reading."

By those accustomed to observe it was noticed that Ronder read with very
much more assurance than he had done three months ago. It was as though he
knew now where he was, as though he were settled down now and had his
place--and it would take some very strong people to shift him from that
place. Oh, yes. It would!

And Brandon read the Second Lesson. As usual, when he stepped down from
the choir, slowly, impressively, pausing for a moment before he turned to
the Lectern, strangers whispered to one another, "That's a handsome
parson, that is." He seemed to hesitate again before going up as though he
had stumbled over a step. Very slowly he read the opening words; slowly he
continued.

Puddifoot, looking up across from his seat in the side aisle, thought,
"There's something the matter with him." Suddenly he paused, looked about
him, stared over the congregation as though he were searching for
somebody, then slowly again went on and finished:

"Here endeth--the Second Lesson."

Then, instead of turning, he leaned forward, gripping the Lectern with
both hands, and seemed again to be searching for some one.

"Looks as though he were going to have a stroke," thought Puddifoot. Then
very carefully, as though he were moving in darkness, he turned and groped
his way downwards. With bent head he walked back into the choir.

Soon they were scattered--every one according to his or her own
individuality--the prayers had broken them up, too many of them, too long,
and the wooden kneelers so hard. Minds flew like birds about the
Cathedral--ideas, gold and silver, black and grey, soapy and soft, hard as
iron. The men yawned behind their trumpets, the School played Noughts and
Crosses--the Old Lady and her Triumph stepped away into limbo.

And then suddenly it was time for the Bishop's sermon. Every one hoped
that it would not be long; passing clouds veiled the light behind the East
window and the Roses faded to ashes. The organ rumbled in its crotchety
voice as the old man slowly disentangled himself from his throne, and
slowly, slowly, slowly advanced down the choir. When he appeared above the
nave, and paused for an instant to make sure of the step, all the minds in
the Cathedral suddenly concentrated again, the birds flew back, the air
was still. At the sight of that very old man, that little bag of shaking
bones, all the brief history of the world was suddenly apparent. Greater
than Alexander, more beautiful than Helen of Troy, wiser than Gamaliel,
more powerful than Artaxerxes, he made the secret of immortal life visible
to all.

His hair was white, and his face was ashen grey, and his hands were like
bird's claws. Like a child finding its way across its nursery floor he
climbed to the pulpit, being now so far distant in heaven that earth was
dark to him.

"The Lord be with you."

"And with Thy Spirit."

His voice was clear and could be heard by all. He spoke for a very short
time. He told them about the Queen, and that she had been good to her
people for sixty years, and that she had feared God; he told them that
that goodness was the only secret of happiness; he told them that Jesus
Christ came nearer and nearer, and ever more near, did one but ask Him.

He said, "I suppose that I shall never speak to you in this place again. I
am very old. Some of you have thought, perhaps, that I was too old to do
my work here--others have wanted me to stay. I have loved you all very
much, and it is lonely to go away from you. Our great and good Queen also
is old now, and perhaps she, too, in the middle of her triumph, is feeling
lonely. So pray for her, and then pray for me a little, that when I meet
God He may forgive me my sins and help me to do better work than I have
done here. Life is sad sometimes, and often it is dark, but at the end it
is beautiful and wonderful, for which we must thank God."

He knelt down and prayed, and every one, Davray and Mrs. Combermere, Ellen
Stiles and Morris, Lady St. Leath and Mrs. Brandon, Joan and Lawrence,
Ronder and Foster, prayed too.

And then they all, all for a moment utterly united in soul and body and
spirit, knelt down and the old man blessed them from the pulpit.

Then they sang "Now Thank We All Our God."

Afterwards came the Benediction.

Chapter VI

Tuesday, June 22: II. The Fair

As Brandon left the Cathedral Ronder came up to him. Brandon, with bowed
head, had turned into the Cloisters, although that was not the quickest
way to his home. The two men were alone in the greyness lit from without
by the brilliant sun as though it had been a stage setting.

"I beg your pardon, Archdeacon, I must speak to you."

Brandon raised his head. He stared at Ronder, then said:

"I have nothing to say to you. I do not wish to speak to you."

"I know that you do not." Ronder's face was really troubled; there was an
expression in his eyes that his aunt had never seen.

Brandon moved on, looking neither to right nor left.

Ronder continued: "I know how you feel about me. But to-day--somehow--this
service--I feel that I can't allow our quarrel to continue without
speaking. It isn't easy for me----" He broke off.

Brandon's voice shook.

"I have nothing to say to you. I do not wish to say anything to you. You
have been my enemy since you first came to this town. My work--my
family----"

"I am not your enemy. Indeed, indeed I am not. I won't deny that when I
came here I found that you, who were the most important man in the place,
thought differently from myself on every important question. You,
yourself, who are an honest man, would not have had me back out from what
I believed to be my duty. I could do no other. But this personal quarrel
between us was most truly not of my own seeking. I have liked and admired
you from the beginning. Such a matter as the Pybus living has forced us
into opposition, but I am convinced that there are many views that we have
in common, that we could be friends working together--"

Brandon stopped.

"Did my son, or did he not, come to see you before he went up to London?"

Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "he did. But--"

"Did he, or did he not, ask your advice?"

"Yes, he did. But--"

"Did you advise him to take the course which he afterwards followed?"

"No, on my honour, Archdeacon, I did not. I did not know what his personal
trouble was. I did not ask him and he did not tell me. We talked of
generalities--"

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