The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole

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The two men went forward into the black darkness, leaving the dusky light
behind them. Davray led the way and Falk followed, feeling with his arms
the black walls on either side of him, knocking with his legs against the
steps above him. Here there was utter darkness and no sound. He had
suddenly a half-alarmed, half-humorous suspicion that Davray was suddenly
going to turn round upon him and push him down the stair or stick a knife
into him--the fear of the dark. "After all, what am I doing with this
fellow?" he thought. "I don't know him. I don't like him. I don't want to
be with him."

"That's better," he heard Davray say. There was a glimmer, then a shadow
of grey light, finally they had stepped out into what was known as the
Whispering Gallery, a narrow railed platform that ran the length of the
Chapel and beyond to the opposite Tower. They did not stop there. They
pushed up again by more winding stairs, black for a space, then lit by a
window, then black again. At last, after what had seemed a long journey,
they were in a little, spare, empty room with a wooden floor. One side of
this little room was open and railed in. Looking down, the floor of the
nave seemed a vast distance below. You seemed here to be flying in glory.
The dim haze of the candles just touched the misty depth with golden
colour. Above them the great roof seemed close and menacing. Everywhere
pillars and buttresses rose out of space. The great architect of the
building seemed here to have his true kingdom, so vast was the depth and
the height and the grandeur. The walls and the roof and the pillars that
supported it were alive with their own greatness, scornful of little men
and their little loves. The hush was filled with movement and stir and a
vast business....

The two men leaned on the rails and looked down. Far below, the white
figured altar, the brass of the Black Bishop's tomb, the glitter of Saint
Margaret's screen struck in little points of dull gold like stars upon a
grey inverted sky.

Davray turned suddenly upon his companion. "And it's men like your
father," he said, "who think that this place is theirs.... Theirs!
Presumption! But they'll get it in the neck for that. This place can bide
its time. Just when you think you're its master it turns and stamps you
out."

Falk said nothing. Davray seemed irritated by his silence. "You wait and
see," he said. "It amuses me to see your governor walking up the choir on
Sundays as though he owned the place. Owned it! Why, he doesn't realise a
stone of it! Well, he'll get it. They all have who've tried his game.
Owned it!"

"Look here," said Falk, "don't you say anything about my father--that's
none of your business. He's all right. I don't know what the devil I came
up here for--thinking of other things."

Davray too was thinking of other things.

"You wonderful place!" he whispered. "You beautiful place! You've ruined
me, but I don't care. You can do what you like with me. You wonder! You
wonder!"

Falk looked at him. The man was mad. He was holding on to the railing,
leaning forward, staring....

"Look here, it isn't safe to lean like that. You'll be tumbling over and
breaking your neck if you're not careful."

But Davray did not hear him. He was lost in his own dreams. Falk despised
dreams although just now he was himself in the grip of one. Besides the
fellow was drunk.

A sudden disgust of his companion overtook him.

"Well, so long," he said. "I must be getting home!"

He wondered for a moment whether it were safe to leave the fellow there.
"It's his own look-out," he thought, and as Davray said no more he left
him.

Back once more in the King Harry Chapel, he looked up. But he could see no
one and could hear no sound.

Chapter VII

Ronder's Day

Ronder had now spent several months in Polchester and was able to come to
an opinion about it, and the opinion that he had come to was that he could
be very comfortable there. His aunt, who, in spite of her sharpness, never
was sure how he would take anything, was a little surprised when he told
her this. But then she was never certain what were the secret springs from
which he derived that sense of comfort that was the centre of his life.
She should have known by now that he derived it from two things--luxury
and the possibility of intrigue.

Polchester could not have appeared to any casual observer a luxurious
town, but it had for Ronder exactly that combination of beauty and mystery
that obtained for him his sensation.

He did not analyse it as yet further than that--he knew that those two
things were there; he might investigate them at his leisure.

In that easy, smiling fashion that he had developed from his earliest days
as the surest protection for his own security and ease, he arranged
everything around him to assure his tranquillity. Everything was not as
yet arranged; it might take him six months, a year, two years for that
arrangement...but he knew now that it would be done.

The second element in his comfort, his love of intrigue, would be
satisfied here simply because everything was not, as yet, as he would have
it. He would have hated to have tumbled into the place and found it just
as he required it.

He liked to have things to move, to adjust, to arrange, just as when he
entered a room he always, if he had the power, at once altered the chairs,
the cushions. It was towards this final adjustment that his power of
intrigue always worked. Once everything was adjusted he sank back
luxuriously and surveyed it--and then, in all probability, was quickly
tired of it and looked for new fields to conquer.

He could not remember a time when he had not been impelled to alter things
for his comfort. He did not wish to be selfish about this, he was quite
willing for every one else to do the same--indeed, he watched them with
geniality and wondered why on earth they didn't. As a small boy at Harrow
he had, with an imperturbable smile and a sense of humour that, in spite
of his rotund youth and a general sense amongst his elders that he was
"cheeky," won him popularity, worked always for his own comfort.

He secured it and, first as fag and afterwards as House-prefect, finally
as School-prefect, did exactly what he wanted with everybody.

He did it by being, quite frankly, all things to all men, although never
with sycophancy nor apparent falseness. He amused the bored, was
confidential with the wicked, upright with the upright, and sympathetic
with the unfortunate.

He was quite genuine in all these things. He was deeply interested in
humanity, not for humanity's sake but his own. He bore no man any grudge,
but if any one was in his way he worked hard until they were elsewhere.
That removal attained, he wished them all the luck in the world.

He was ordained because he thought he could deal more easily with men as a
parson. "Men always take clergymen for fools," he told his aunt, "and so
they sometimes are...but not always." He knew he was not a fool, but he
was not conceited. He simply thought that he had hit upon the one secret
of life and could not understand why others had not done the same. Why do
people worry so? was the amused speculation. "Deep emotions are simply not
worth while," he decided on his coming of age. He liked women but his
sense of humour prevented him from falling in love. He really did
understand the sensual habits and desires of men and women but watched
them from a distance through books and pictures and other men's stories.
He was shocked by nothing--nor did he despise mankind. He thought that
mankind did on the whole very well considering its difficulties. He was
kind and often generous; he bore no man alive or dead any grudge. He
refused absolutely to quarrel--"waste of time and temper."

His one danger was lest that passion for intrigue should go deeper than he
allowed anything to go. Playing chess with mankind was to him, he
declared, simply a means to an end. Perhaps once it had been so. But, as
he grew older, there was a danger that the end should be swallowed by the
means.

This danger he did not perceive; it was his one blindness. Finally he
believed with La Rochefoucauld that "Pity is a passion which is wholly
useless to a well-constituted mind."

At any rate he discovered that there was in Polchester a situation exactly
suited to his powers. The town, or the Cathedral part of it, was dominated
by one man, and that man a stupid, autocratic, retrogressive, good-natured
child. He bore that child not the slightest ill-will, but it must go or,
at any rate, its authority must be removed. He did, indeed, like Brandon,
and through most of this affair he did not cease to like him, but he,
Ronder, would never be comfortable so long as Brandon was there, he would
never be free to take the steps that seemed to him good, he would be
interfered with and patronised. He was greatly amused by Brandon's
patronage, but it really was not a thing that could be allowed to remain.

If he saw, as he made his plans, that the man's heart and soul, his life,
physical and spiritual, were involved--well he was sorry. It simply proved
how foolish it was to allow your heart and soul to be concerned in
anything.

He very quickly perceived that the first thing to be done was to establish
relations with the men who composed the Chapter. He watched, he listened,
he observed, then, at the end of some months, he began to move.

Many men would have considered him lazy. He never took exercise if he
could avoid it, and it was Polchester's only fault that it had so many
hills. He always had breakfast in bed, read the papers there and smoked a
cigarette. Every morning he had a bath as hot as he could bear it--and he
could bear it very hot indeed. Much of his best thinking was done there.

When he came downstairs he reserved the first hour for his own reading,
reading, that is, that had nothing to do with any kind of work, that was
purely for his own pleasure. He allowed nothing whatever to interfere with
this--Gautier and Flaubert, La Bruyère and Montaigne were his favourite
authors, but he read a great deal of English, Italian, and Spanish, and
had a marvelous memory. He enjoyed, too, erotic literature and had a fine
collection of erotic books and prints shut away in a cabinet in his study.
He found great fascination in theological books: he laughed at many of
them, but kept an open mind--atheistic and materialistic dogmas seemed to
him as absurd as orthodox ones. He read too a great deal of philosophy
but, on the whole, he despised men who gave themselves up to philosophy
more than any other human beings. He felt that they lost their sense of
humour so quickly, and made life unpleasant for themselves.

After his hour of reading he gave himself up to the work of the day. He
was the most methodical of men: the desk in his study was full of little
drawers and contrivances for keeping things in order. He had a thin vase
of blue glass filled with flowers, a small Chinese image of green jade, a
photograph of the Blind Homer from the Naples Museum in a silver frame,
and a little gold clock; all these things had to be in their exactly
correct positions. Nothing worried him so much as dust or any kind of
disorder. He would sometimes stop in the middle of his work and cross the
room, in the soft slippers of brown kid that he always wore in his study,
and put some picture straight or move some ornament from one position to
another. The books that stretched along one wall from floor to ceiling
were arranged most carefully according to their subjects. He disliked to
see some books projecting further from the shelf than others, and, with a
little smile of protest, as though he were giving them a kindly scolding,
he would push them into their right places.

Let is not be supposed, however, that he was idle during these hours. He
could accomplish an astonishing amount of work in a short time, and he was
never idle except by deliberate intention.

When luncheon time arrived he was ready to be charming to his aunt, and
charming to her he was. Their relations were excellent. She understood him
so well that she left his schemes alone. If she did not entirely approve
of him--and she entirely approved of nobody--she loved him for his good
company, his humour, and his common-sense. She liked it too that he did
not mind when she chose to allow her irony to play upon him. He cared
nothing for any irony.

At luncheon they felt a very agreeable intimacy. There was no need for
explanations; half allusions were enough. They could enjoy their joke
without emphasising it and sometimes even without expressing it. Miss
Ronder knew that her nephew liked to hear all the gossip. He collected it,
tied it into little packets, and put them away in the little mechanical
contrivances with which his mind was filled. She told him first what she
heard, then her authorities, finally her own opinions. He thoroughly
enjoyed his meal.

He had, by now, very thoroughly mastered the Cathedral finances. They were
not complicated and were in good order, because Hart-Smith had been a man
of an orderly mind. Ronder very quickly discovered that Brandon had had
his fingers considerably in the old pie. "And now there'll be a new pie,"
he said to himself, "baked by me."...He traced a number of stupid and
conservative decisions to Brandon's agency. There was no doubt but that
many things needed a new urgency and activity.

People had had to fight desperately for money when they should have been
given it at once; on the other hand, the Cathedral had been well looked
after--it was rather dependent bodies like the School, the Almshouses, and
various livings in the Chapter grant that had suffered.

Anything that could possibly be considered a novelty had been fought and
generally defeated. "There will be a lot of novelties before I've finished
with them," Ronder said to himself.

He started his investigations by paying calls on Bentinck-Major and Canon
Foster. Bentinck-Major lived at the top of Orange Street, in a fine house
with a garden, and Foster lived in one of four tumble-down buildings
behind the Cathedral, known from time immemorial as Canon's Yard.

The afternoon of his visit was about three days after a dinner-party at
the Castle. He had seen and heard enough at that dinner to amuse him for
many a day; he considered it to have been one of the most entertaining
dinners at which he had ever been present. It had been here that he had
heard for the first time of the Pybus St. Anthony living. Brandon had been
present, and he observed Brandon's nervousness, and gathered enough to
realise that this would be a matter of considerable seriousness. He was to
know a great deal more about it before the afternoon was over.

As he walked through the town on the way to Orange Street he came upon
Ryle, the Precentor. Ryle looked the typical clergyman, tall but not too
tall, here a smile and there a smile, with his soft black hat, his
trousers too baggy at the knees, his boots and his gold watch-chain both
too large.

He cared, with serious devotion, for the Cathedral music and sang the
services beautifully, but he would have been able to give more time to his
work were he not so continuously worrying as to whether people were vexed
with him or no. His idea of Paradise was a place where he could chant
eternal services and where everybody liked him. He was a good man, but
weak, and therefore driven again and again into insincerity. It was as
though there was for ever in front of him the consciousness of some secret
in his past life that must on no account be discovered; but, poor man, he
had no secret at all.

"Well, Precentor, and how are you?" said Ronder, beaming at him over his
spectacles.

Ryle started. Ronder had come behind him. He liked the look of Ronder. He
always preferred fat men to thin; they were much less malicious, he
thought.

"Oh, thank you, Canon Ronder--very well, thank you. I didn't see you.
Quite spring weather. Are you going my way?"

"I'm off to see Bentinck-Major."

"Oh, yes, Bentinck-Major...."

Ryle's first thought was--"Now is Bentinck-Major likely to have anything
to say against me this afternoon?"

"I'm going up Orange Street too. It's the High School Governors' meeting,
you know."

"Oh, yes, of course."

The two men started up the hill together. Ronder surveyed the scene around
him with pleasure. Orange Street always satisfied his aesthetic sense. It
was the street of the doctors, the solicitors, the dentists, the bankers,
and the wealthier old maids of Polchester. The grey stone was of a
charming age, the houses with their bow-windows, their pillared porches,
their deep-set doors, their gleaming old-fashioned knockers, spoke
eloquently of the day when the great Jane's Elizabeths and D'Arcys, Mrs.
Morrises and Misses Bates found the world in a tea-cup, when passions were
solved by matrimony and ambitions by the possession of a carriage and a
fine pair of bays. But more than this was the way that the gardens and
lawns and orchards ran unchecked in and out, up and down, here breaking
into the street, there crowding a church with apple-trees, seeming to
speak, at every step, of leisure and sunny days and lives free of care.

Ronder had never seen anything so pretty; something seemed to tell him
that he would never see anything so pretty again.

Ryle was not a good conversationalist, because he had always before him
the fear that some one might twist what he said into something really
unpleasant, but, indeed, he found Ronder so agreeable that, as he told
Mrs. Ryle when he got home, he "never noticed the hill at all."

"I hope you won't think me impertinent," said Ronder, "but I must tell you
how charmed I was with the way that you sang the service on Sunday. You
must have been complimented often enough before, but a stranger always has
the right, I think, to say something. I'm a little critical, too, of that
kind of thing, although, of course, an amateur...but--well, it was
delightful."

Ryle flushed with pleasure to the very tips of his over-large ears.

"Oh, really, Canon...But indeed I hardly know what to say. You're too
good. I do my poor best, but I can't help feeling that there is danger of
one's becoming stale. I've been here a great many years now and I think
some one fresh...."

"Well, often," said Ronder, "that _is_ a danger. I know several cases
where a change would be all for the better, but in your case there wasn't
a trace of staleness. I do hope you won't think me presumptuous in saying
this. I couldn't help myself. I must congratulate you, too, on the choir.
How do you find Brockett as an organist?"

"Not quite all one would wish," said Ryle eagerly--and then, as though he
remembered that some one might repeat this to Brockett, he added
hurriedly, "Not that he doesn't do his best. He's an excellent fellow.
Every one has their faults. It's only that he's a _little_ too fond
of adventures on his own account, likes to add things on the spur of the
moment...a little _fantastic_ sometimes."

"Quite so," said Ronder gravely. "That's rather what I'd thought myself.
I noticed it once or twice last Sunday. But that's a fault on the right
side. The boys behave admirably. I never saw better behaviour."

Kyle was now in his element. He let himself go, explaining this, defending
that, apologising for one thing, hoping for another. Before he knew where
he was he found himself at the turning above the monument that led to the
High School.

"Here we part," he said.

"Why, so we do," cried Ronder.

"I do hope," said Ryle nervously, "that you'll come and see us soon. Mrs.
Ryle will be delighted...."

"Why, of course I will," said Ronder. "Any day you like. Good-bye. Good-
bye," and he went to Bentinck-Major's.

One look at Bentinck-Major's garden told a great deal about Bentinck-
Major. The flower-beds, the trim over-green lawn, the neat paths, the
trees in their fitting places, all spoke not only of a belief in material
things but a desire also to demonstrate that one so believed....

One expected indeed to see the Bentinck-Major arms over the front-door.
They were there in spirit if not in fact.

"Is the Canon in?" Ronder asked of a small and gaping page-boy.

He was in, it appeared. Would he see Canon Ronder? The page-boy
disappeared and Ronder was able to observe three family trees framed in
oak, a large china bowl with visiting-cards, and a huge round-faced clock
that, even as he waited there, pompously announced that half-hour.
Presently the Canon, like a shining Ganymede, came flying into the hall.

"My dear Ronder! But this is delightful. A little early for tea, perhaps.
Indeed, my wife is, for the moment, out. What do you say to the library?"

Ronder had nothing to say against the library, and into it they went. A
fine room with books in leather bindings, high windows, an oil painting of
the Canon as a smart young curate, a magnificent writing-table, _The
Spectator_ and _The Church Times_ near the fireplace, and two deep
leather arm-chairs. Into these last two the clergymen sank.

Bentinck-Major put his fingers together, crossed his admirable legs, and
looked interrogatively at his visitor.

"I'm lucky to catch you at home," said Ronder. "This isn't quite the time
to call, I'm afraid. But the fact is that I want some advice."

"Quite so," said his host.

"I'm not a very modest man," said Ronder, laughing. "In fact, to tell you
the truth, I don't believe very much in modesty. But there _are_
times when it's just as well to admit one's incompetence. This is one of
them--"

"Why, really, Canon," said Bentinck-Major, wishing to give the poor man
encouragement.

"No, but I mean what I say. I don't consider myself a stupid man, but when
one comes fresh into a place like this there are many things that one
_can't_ know, and that one must learn from some one wiser than
oneself if one's to do any good."

"Oh, really, Canon," Bentinck-Major repeated. "If there's anything I can
do--".

"There is. It isn't so much about the actual details of the work that I
want your advice. Hart-Smith has left things in excellent condition, and I
only hope that I shall be able to keep everything as straight as he has
done. What I really want from you is some sort of bird's-eye view as to
the whole situation. The Chapter, for instance. Of course, I've been here
for some months now and have a little idea as to the people in the place,
but you've been here so long that there are many things that you can tell
me."

"Now, for instance," said Bentinck-Major, looking very wise and serious.
"What kind of things?"

"I don't want you to tell me any secrets," said Ronder. "I only want your
opinion, as a man of the world, as to how things stand--what really wants
doing, who, Beside yourself, are the leading men here and in what
directions they work. I needn't say that this conversation is
confidential."

"Oh, of course, of course."

"Now, I don't know if I'm wrong, but it seems from what I've seen during
the short time that I've been here that the general point of view is
inclined to be a little too local. I believe you rather feel that
yourself, although I may be prejudiced, coming straight as I have from
London."

"It's odd that you should mention that, Canon," said Bentinck-Major.
"You've put your finger on the weak spot at once. You're only saying what
I've been crying aloud for the last ever so many years. A voice in the
wilderness I've been, I'm afraid--a voice in the wilderness, although
perhaps I _have_ managed to do a little something. But there's no doubt
that the men here, excellent though they are, are a _little_ provincial.
What else can you expect? They've been here for years. They have not had,
most of them, the advantage of mingling with the great world. That I
should have had a little more of that opportunity than my fellows here is
nothing to my credit, but it does, beyond question, give one a wider view
--a wider view. There's our dear Bishop for instance--a saint, if ever
there was one. A saint, Ronder, I assure you. But there he is, hidden away
at Carpledon--out of things, I'm afraid, although of course he does his
best. Then there's Sampson. Well, I hardly need to tell you that he's not
quite the man to make things hum. _Not_ by his own fault I assure
you. He does his best, but we are as we're made...yes. We can only use
the gifts that God has given us, and God has not, undoubtedly, given the
Dean _quite_ the gifts that we need here."

He paused and waited. He was a cautious man and weighed his words.

"Then there's Brandon," said Ronder smiling. "There, if I may say so, is a
splendid character, a man who gives his whole life and energy for the good
of the place--who spares himself nothing."

There was a little pause. Bentinck-Major took advantage of it to look
graver than ever.

"He strikes you like that, does he?" he said at last. "Well, in many ways
I think you're right. Brandon is a good friend of mine--I may say that he
thoroughly appreciates what I've done for this place. But he is--
_quite_ between ourselves--how shall I put it?--just a _little_
autocratic. Perhaps that's too strong a word, but he _is_, some
think, a little too inclined to fancy that he runs the Cathedral! That,
mind you, is only the opinion of some here, and I don't know that I should
entirely associate myself with it, but perhaps there is _something_
in it. He is, as you can see, a man of strong will and, again between
ourselves, of a considerable temper. This will not, I'm sure, go further
than ourselves?"

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