The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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"Had you heard, before he came to you, gossip about my son?"

"I had heard some silly talk--"

"Very well, then."

"But you _shall_ listen to me, Archdeacon. I scarcely knew your son.
I had met him only once before, at some one's house, and talked to him
then only for five minutes. He himself asked to come and see me. I could
not refuse him when he asked me. I did not, of course, wish to refuse him.
I liked the look of him, and simply for his own sake wished to know him
better. When he came he was not with me for very long and our talk was
entirely about religion, belief, faith in God, the meaning of life,
nothing more particular than such things."

"Did he say, when he left you, that what you had told him had helped him
to make up his mind?"

"Yes."

"Were you, when he talked to you, quite unconscious that he was my son,
and that any action that he took would at once affect my life, my
happiness?"

"Of course I was aware that he was your son. But----"

"There is another question that I wish to ask you, Canon Ronder. Did some
one come to you not long ago with a letter that purported to be written by
my wife?"

Again Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said.

"Did she show you that letter?"

"She did."

"Did she ask your advice as to what she should do with it?"

"She did--I told her----"

"Did you tell her to come with it to me?"

"No. On my life, Archdeacon, no. I told her to destroy it and that she was
behaving with the utmost wickedness."

"Did you believe that that letter was written by my wife."

"No."

"Then why, if you believed that this woman was going about the town with a
forged letter directed against my happiness and my family's happiness, did
you not come to me and tell me of it?"

"You must remember, Archdeacon, that we were not on good terms. We had had
a ridiculous quarrel that had, by some means or another, become public
property throughout the whole town. I will not deny that I felt sore about
that. I did not know what sort of reception I might get if I came to you."

"Very well. There is a further question that I wish to ask you. Will you
deny that from the moment that you set foot in this town you have been
plotting against me in respect to the Pybus living? You found out on which
side I was standing and at once took the other. From that moment you went
about the town, having secret interviews with every sort of person,
working them by flattery and suggestion round to your side. Will you deny
that?"

Against his will and his absolute determination Ronder's anger began to
rise: "That I have been plotting as you call it," he said, "I absolutely
and utterly deny. That is an insulting word. That I have been against you
in the matter of Pybus from the first has, of course, been known to every
one here. I have been against you because of what I believe to be the
future good of our Church and of our work here. There has been nothing
personal in that matter at all."

"You lie," said Brandon, suddenly raising his voice. "Every word that you
have spoken to me this morning has been a lie. You are an enemy of myself
and of my Church, and with God's help your plots and falsehoods shall yet
be defeated. You may take from me my wife and my children, you may ruin my
career here that has been built up through ten years of unfaltering
loyalty and work, but God Himself is stronger than your inventions--and
God will see to it. I am your enemy, Canon Ronder, to the end, as you are
mine. You had better look to yourself. You have been concerned in certain
things that the Law may have something to say about. Look to yourself!
Look to yourself!"

He strode off down the Cloisters.

People came to luncheon; there had been an invitation of some weeks
before. He scarcely recognised them; one was Mr. Martin, another Dr.
Trudon, an old Mrs. Purley, a well-established widow, an ancient resident,
a Miss Barrester. He scarcely recognised them although he talked so
exactly in his accustomed way that no one noticed anything at all. Mrs.
Brandon also talked in her accustomed way; that is, she scarcely spoke.
Only that afternoon, at tea at the Dean's, Dr. Trudon confided to Julia
Preston that he could assure her that all the rumours were false; the
Archdeacon had never seemed better...funny for him afterwards to
remember!

Shadows of a shade! When they left Brandon it was as though they had never
been; the echo of their voices died away into the ticking of the clock,
the movement of plates, the shifting of chairs.

He shut himself into his study. Here was his stronghold, his fortress. He
settled into his chair and the things in the room gathered around him with
friendly consoling gestures.

"We are still here, we are your old friends. We know you for what you
truly are. We do not change like the world."

He fell into a deep sleep; he was desperately tired; he had not slept at
all last night. He was sunk into deep fathomless unconsciousness. Then he
rose from that, climbing up, up, seeing before him a high, black, snow-
tipped mountain. The ascent of this he must achieve, his life depended
upon it. He seemed to be naked, the wind lashing his body, icy cold, so
cold that his breath stabbed him. He climbed, the rocks cut his knees and
hands; then, on every side his enemies appeared, Bentinck-Major and
Foster, the Bishop's Chaplain, women, even children, laughing, and behind
them Hogg and that drunken painter. Their hands were on him, they pulled
at his flesh, they beat on his face--then, suddenly, rising like a full
moon behind the hill--Ronder!

He woke with a cry; the sun was flooding the room, and at the joy of that
great light and of finding himself alone he could have burst into tears of
relief.

His thoughts came to him quickly, his brain had been clarified by that
sleep, horrible though it had been. He thought steadily now, the facts all
arranged before him. His wife had told him, almost with vindictive pride,
that she had been guilty of adultery. He did not at present think of
Morris at all.

To him adultery was an awful, a terrible sin. He himself had been
physically faithful to his wife, although he had perhaps never, in the
true sense of the word, loved her. Because he had been a man of splendid
physique and great animal spirits he had, of course, and especially in his
earlier days, known what physical temptation was, but the extreme
preoccupation of his time with every kind of business had saved him from
that acutest lure that idleness brings. Nevertheless, it may confidently
be said that, had temptation been of the sharpest and the most
aggravating, he would never have, even for a moment, dwelt upon the
possibility of yielding to it. To him this was the "sin against the Holy
Ghost."

He had not indeed the purity of the Saint to whom these sins are simply
not realisable; he had the confidence of one who had made his vows to God
and, having made them, could not conceive that they should be broken.

And yet, strangely enough, with all the horror that his wife's confession
had raised in him there was mingled, against his will, the strangest fear
for her. She had lived with him during all these years, he had been her
guard, protector, husband.

Her immortal soul now was lost unless in some way he could save it for
her. And it was he who should save it. She had suddenly a new poignant
importance for him that she had never had before. Her danger was as deadly
and as imminent to him as though she had been in peril from wild beasts.

In peril? But she had fallen. He could not save her. Nothing that he could
do now could prevent her sin. At that realisation utter despair seized
him; he moaned aloud, shutting out the light from his eyes with his hands.

There followed then wild disbelief; what she had told him was untrue, she
had said it to anger him, to spite him. He sprang from his chair and moved
towards the door. He would find her and tell her that he knew that she had
been lying to him, that he did not believe----

Mid-way he stopped. He knew that she had spoken the truth, that last
moment when they had looked at one another had been compounded, built up,
of truth. Both a glass and a wall--a glass to reveal absolutely, a wall to
divide them, the one from the other, for ever.

His brain, active now like a snake coiling and uncoiling within the
flaming spaces of his mind, darted upon Morris. He must find Morris at
once--no delay--at once--at once. What to do? He did not know. But he must
be face to face with him and deal with him--that wretched, miserable,
whining, crying fool. That he--!--HE!...But the picture stopped there.
He saw now neither Morris nor his wife. Only a clerical hat, a high white
collar like a wall, a sniggering laugh, a door closing.

And his headache was upon him again, his heart pounding and leaping. No
matter. He must find Morris. Nothing else. He went to the door, opened it,
and walked cautiously into the hall as though he had intruded into some
one else's house and was there to rob.

As he came into the hall Mrs. Brandon was crossing it, also furtively.
They saw one another and stood staring. She would have spoken, but
something in his face terrified her, terrified her so desperately that she
suddenly turned and stumbled upstairs, repeating some words over and over
to herself. He did not move, but stayed there watching until she had gone.

Something made him change his clothes. He put on trousers and an old
overcoat and a shabby old clerical hat. He was a long time in his
dressing-room, and he was a while before his looking-glass in his shirt
and drawers, staring as though he were trying to find himself.

While he looked he fancied that some one was behind him, and he searched
for his shadow in the glass, but could find nothing. He moved cautiously
out of the house, closing the heavy hall-door very softly behind him; the
afternoon was advanced, and the faint fair shadows of the summer evening
were stealing from place to place.

He had intended to go at once to Morris's house, but his head was now
aching so violently that he thought he would walk a little first so that
he might have more control. That was what he wanted, self-control! self-
control! That was their plot, to make him lose command of himself, so that
he should show to every one that he was unfit to hold his position. He
must have perfect control of everything--his voice, his body, his
thoughts. And that was why, just now, he must walk in the darker places,
in the smaller streets, until soon he would be, outwardly, himself again.
So he chose for his walk the little dark winding path that runs steeply
from the Cathedral, along behind Canon's Yard and Bodger's Street, down to
the Pol. It was dark here, even on this lovely summer evening, and no one
was about, but sounds broke through, cries and bells and the distant bray
of bands, and from the hill opposite the clash of the Fair.

At the bottom of the path he stood for a while looking down the bank to
the river; here the Pol runs very quietly and sweetly, like a little
country river. He crossed it and, still moving like a man in a dream,
started up the hill on the other side. He was not, now, consciously
thinking of anything at all; he was aware only of a great pain at his
heart and a terrible loneliness. Loneliness! What an agony! No one near
him, no one to speak to him, every eye mocking him--God as well, far, far
away from him, hidden by walls and hills.

As he climbed upward the Fair came nearer to him. He did not notice it. He
crossed a path and was at a turnstile. A man asked him for money. He paid
a shilling and moved forward. He liked crowds; he wanted crowds now.
Either crowds or no one. Crowds where he would be lost and not noticed.

So many thousands were there, but nevertheless he was noticed. That was
the Archdeacon. Who would have thought that he would come to the Fair? Too
grand. But there he was. Yes, that was the Archdeacon. That tall man in
the soft black hat. Yes, some noticed him. But many thousands did not. The
Fair was packed; strangers from all the county over, sailors and gipsies
and farmers and tramps, women no better than they should be, and shop-
girls and decent farmers' wives, and village girls--all sorts! Thousands,
of course, to whom the Archdeacon meant nothing.

And that _was_ a Fair, the most wonderful our town had ever seen, the
most wonderful it ever was to see! As with many other things, that Jubilee
Fair marked a period. No Fairs again like the good old Fairs--general
education has seen to that.

It was a Fair, as there are still some to remember, that had in it a
strange element of fantasy. All the accustomed accompaniments of Fairs
were there--The Two Fat Sisters (outside whose booth a notice was posted
begging the public not to prod with umbrellas to discover whether the Fat
were Fat or Wadding); Trixie, the little lady with neither arms nor legs,
sews and writes with her teeth; the Great Albert, the strongest man in
Europe, who will lift weights against all comers; Battling Edwardes, the
Champion Boxer of the Southern Counties; Hippo's World Circus, with six
monkeys, two lions, three tigers and a rhino; all the pistol-firing, ball-
throwing, coconut contrivances conceivable, and roundabouts at every turn.

All these were there, but behind them, on the outskirts of them and yet in
the very heart of them, there were other unaccustomed things.

Some said that a ship from the East had arrived at Drymouth, and that
certain jugglers and Chinese and foreign merchants, instead of going on to
London as they had intended, turned to Polchester. How do I know at this
time of day? How do we, any of us, know how anything gets here, and what
does it matter? But there is at this very moment, living in the
magnificently renovated Seatown, an old Chinaman, who came in Jubilee
Year, and has been there ever since, doing washing and behaving with
admirable propriety, no sign of opium about him anywhere. One element that
they introduced was Colour. Our modern Fairs are not very strong in the
element of Colour. It is true that one of the roundabouts was ablaze with
gilt and tinsel, and in the centre of it, whence comes the music, there
were women with brazen faces and bosoms of gold. It is true also that
outside the Circus and the Fat Sisters and Battling Edwardes there were
flaming pictures with reds and yellows thrown about like temperance
tracts, but the modern figures in these pictures spoilt the colour, the
photography spoilt it--too much reality where there should have been
mystery, too much mystery where realism was needed.

But here, only two yards from the Circus, was a booth hung with strange
cloths, purple and yellow and crimson, and behind the wooden boards a man
and a woman with brown faces and busy, twirling, twisting, brown hands,
were making strange sweets which they wrapped into coloured packets, and
on the other side of the Fat Sisters there was a tent with Li Hung above
it in letters of gold and red, and inside the tents, boards on trestles,
and on the boards a long purple cloth, and on the cloth little toys and
figures and images, all of the gayest colours and the strangest shapes,
and all as cheap as nothing.

Farther down the lane of booths was the tent of Hayakawa the Juggler. A
little boy in primrose-coloured tights turned, on a board outside the
tent, round and round and round on his head like a teetotum, and inside,
once every half-hour, Hayakawa, in a lovely jacket of gold and silver,
gave his entertainment, eating fire, piercing himself with silver swords,
finding white mice in his toes, and pulling ribbons of crimson and scarlet
out of his ears.

Farther away again there were the Brothers Gomez, Spaniards perhaps, dark,
magnificent in figure, running on one wire across the air, balancing
sunshades on their noses, leaping, jumping, standing pyramid-high, their
muscles gleaming like billiard-balls.

And behind and before and in and out there were strange figures moving
through the Fair, strange voices raised against the evening sky, strange
smells of cooking, strange songs suddenly rising, dying as soon as heard.

Only a breath away the English fields were quietly lying safe behind their
hedges and the English sky changed from blue to green and from green to
mother-of-pearl, and from mother-of-pearl to ivory, and stars stabbed,
like silver nails, the great canopy of heaven, and the Cathedral bells
rang peal after peal above the slowly lighting town.

Brandon was conscious of little of this as he moved on. Even the thought
of Morris had faded from him. He could not think consecutively. His mind
was broken up like a mirror that had been smashed into a thousand pieces.
He was most truly in a dream. Soon he would wake up, out of this noise,
away from these cries and lights, and would find it all as he had for so
many years known it. He would be sitting in his drawing-room, his legs
stretched out, his wife and daughter near to him, the rumble of the organ
coming through the wall to them, thinking perhaps of to-morrow's duties,
the town quiet all around them, friends and well-wishers everywhere, no
terrible pain in his head, happily arranging how everything should be...
happy...happy.... Ah! how happy that real life was! When he awoke from
his dream he would realise that and thank God for it. When he awoke.... He
stumbled over something, and looking up realised that he was in a very
crowded part of the Fair, a fire was blazing somewhere near, gas-jets,
although the evening was bright and clear, were naming, screams and cries
seemed to make the very sky rock above his head.

Where was he? What was he doing here? Why had he come? He would go home.
He turned.

He turned to face the fire that leapt close at his heel. It was burning at
the back of a caravan, in a dark cul-de-sac away from the main
thoroughfare; to its blazing light the bare boards and ugly plankings of
the booth, splashed here and there with torn paper that rustled a little
in the evening breeze, were all that offered themselves. Near by a horse,
untethered, was quietly nosing at the trodden soil.

Behind the caravan the field ran down to a ditch and thick hedging.

Brandon stared at the fire as though absorbed by its light. What did he
see there? Visions perhaps? Did he see the Cathedral, the Precincts, the
quiet circle of demure old houses, his own door, his own bedroom? Did he
see his wife moving hurriedly about the room, opening drawers and shutting
them, pausing for a moment to listen, then coming out, closing the door,
listening again, then stepping downstairs, pausing for a moment in the
hall to lay something on the table, then stepping out into the green
wavering evening light? Or did the flames make pictures for him of the
deserted railway-station, the long platform, lit only by one lamp, two
figures meeting, exchanging almost no word, pacing for a little in silence
the dreary spaces, stepping back as the London express rolled in--such a
safe night to choose for escape--then burying themselves in it like
rabbits in their burrow?

Did his vision lead him back to the deserted house, silent save for its
ticking clocks, black in that ring of lights and bells and shouting
voices?

Or was he conscious only of the warmth and the life of the fire, of some
sudden companionship with the woman bending over it to stir the sticks and
lift some pot from the heart of the flame? He was feeling, perhaps, a
sudden peace here and a silence, and was aware of the stars breaking into
beauty one by one above his head.

But his peace, if for a moment he had found it, was soon interrupted. A
voice that he knew came across to him from the other side of the fire.

"Why, Archdeacon, who would have thought to find you here?"

He looked up and saw, through the fire, the face of Davray the painter.

He turned to go, and at once Davray was at his side.

"No. Don't go. You're in my country now, Archdeacon, not your own. You're
not cock of _this_ walk, you know. Last time we met you thought you
owned the place. Well, you can't think you own this. Fight it out, Mr.
Archdeacon, fight it out."

Brandon answered:

"I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Davray. Nor have I anything to say to
you."

"No quarrel? I like that. I'd knock your face in for two-pence, you
blasted hypocrite. And I will too. All free ground here."

Davray's voice was shrill. He was swaying on his legs. The woman looked up
from the fire and watched them.

Brandon turned his back to him and saw, facing him, Samuel Hogg and some
men behind him.

"Why, good evening, Mr. Archdeacon," said Hogg, taking off his hat and
bowing. "What a delightful place for a meeting!"

Brandon said quietly, "Is there anything you want with me?" He realised at
once that Hogg was drunk.

"Nothing," said Hogg, "except to give you a damned good hiding. I've been
waiting for that these many weeks. See him, boys," he continued, turning
to the men behind him. "'Ere's this parson who ruined my daughter--as fine
a girl as ever you've seen--ruined 'er, he did--him and his blasted son.
What d'you say, boys? Is it right for him to be paradin' round here as
proud as a peacock and nobody touchin' him? What d'you say to givin' him a
damned good hiding?"

The men smiled and pressed forward. Davray from the other side suddenly
lurched into Brandon. Brandon struck out, and Davray fell and lay where he
fell.

Hogg cried, "Now for 'im, boys----", and at once they were upon him.
Hogg's face rose before Brandon's, extended, magnified in all its details.
Brandon hit out and then was conscious of blows upon his face, of some one
kicking him in the back, of himself hitting wildly, of the fire leaping
mountains-high behind him, of a woman's cry, of something trickling down
into his eye, of sudden contact with warm, naked, sweating flesh, of a
small pinched face, the eyes almost closed, rising before him and falling
again, of a shout, then sudden silence and himself on his knees groping in
darkness for his hat, of his voice far from him murmuring to him, "It's
all right.... It's my hat...it's my hat I must find."

He wiped his forehead. The back of his hand was covered with blood.

He saw once again the fire, low now and darkly illumined by some more
distant light, heard the scream of the merry-go-round, stared about him
and saw no living soul, climbed to his feet and saw the stars, then very
slowly, like a blind man in the dark, felt his way to the field's edge,
found a gate, passed through and collapsed, shuddering in the hedge's
darkness.

Chapter VII

Tuesday, June 22: III. Torchlight

Joan came home about seven o'clock that evening. Dinner was at half-past
seven, and after dinner she was going to the Deanery to watch the
Torchlight Procession from the Deanery garden. She had had the most
wonderful afternoon. Mrs. Combermere, who had been very kind to her
lately, had taken her up to the Flower Show in the Castle grounds, and
there she had had the most marvellous and beautiful talk with Johnny. They
had talked right under his mother's nose, so to speak, and had settled
everything. Yes--simply everything! They had told one another that their
love was immortal, that nothing could touch it, nor lessen it, nor twist
it--nothing!

Joan, on her side, had stated that she would never be engaged to Johnny
until his mother consented, and that until they were engaged they must
behave exactly as though they were not engaged, that is, never see one
another alone, never write letters that might not be read by any one; but
she had also asserted that no representations on the part of anybody that
she was ruining Johnny, or that she was a nasty little intriguer, or that
nice girls didn't behave "so," would make the slightest difference to her;
that she knew what she was and Johnny knew what _he_ was, and that
was enough for both of them.

Johnny on his side had said that he would be patient for a time under this
arrangement, but that the time would not be a very long one, and that she
couldn't object to accepting a little ring that he had bought for her,
that she needn't wear it, but just keep it beside her to remind her of
him.

But Joan had said that to take the ring would be as good as to be engaged,
and that therefore she would not take it, but that he could keep it ready
for the day of their betrothal.

She had come home, through the lovely evening, in such a state of
happiness that she was forced to tell Mrs. Combermere all about it, and
Mrs. Combermere had been a darling and assured her that she was quite
right in all that she had done, and that it made her, Mrs. Combermere,
feel quite young again, and that she would help them in every way that she
could, and parting at the Arden Gate, she had kissed Joan just as though
she were her very own daughter.

So Joan, shining with happiness, came back to the house. It seemed very
quiet after the sun and glitter and laughter of the Flower Show. She went
straight up to her room at the top of the house, washed her face and
hands, brushed her hair and put on her white frock.

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