The bell clanged and she started up. Who was it? No one she knew well, for intimate friends did not ring the bell. She heard Sarah’s voice, and the opening and shutting of the door, and then Sarah’s footsteps coming up the stairs, but the woman who followed her trod so lightly that she did not hear her step. Half asleep as she had been the absurd thought came to her: It is the Duchess Blanche.
Sarah opened the door and stood back. “Mrs. Ayscough, ma’am,” she said.
Miss Montague struggled up from her chair, scattering the cat. She had never been more astonished in her life. “Elaine!” she exclaimed, though she had never called Elaine by her Christian name before. “My dear, I am very glad to see you.”
She sat down again, for her knees refused to support her. Elaine, ignoring the armchair behind her, stood in front of the fire, her hands held out to it. She seemed to have forgotten to put on her gloves but otherwise she was exquisitely and correctly dressed in deep mourning. She raised her hands and lifted her crepe veil back over her bonnet. The gesture was so graceful that Miss Montague was sure she was witnessing a dramatic performance. Then Elaine turned around to her and she realized with a shock that she was looking into the face of grief. The lovely gestures were merely automatic.
“Do you think I am doing right about Adam’s grave?” Elaine asked sharply.
“Sit down, dear,” said Miss Montague. “What are you doing about Adam’s grave?”
“It’s in the south aisle of the nave,” said Elaine with that same abruptness. “Close to the other Dean with a book held between his hands.”
“Peter Rollard,” said Miss Montague. “He flung the book at Cromwell.”
“And the chapter and the city want an elaborate tomb with a sculptured effigy lying on it.”
“And you are against that?”
“I think it should be a plain stone slab, like the one Adam showed me once up by the altar where some other Dean is buried.”
“Abbot William de la Torre,” said Miss Montague.
“I want that because Adam liked it. I remember now that he liked it. But he never said what he wanted himself.”
“He was not the type of man to be interested in his own tomb. What would you like inscribed on the stone?”
“Just his name, and that he was Dean, and the text of his Christmas sermon. It was ‘God is the Lord by whom we escape death.’ I liked that sermon.”
“What does Garland think?” asked Miss Montague.
“Garland is no help,” said Elaine. “That’s why I’ve come to you, because you knew Adam so well. Garland just says that the Dean would have wished what I wish.”
“So he would,” said Miss Montague. “And how lovely it is, my dear, that the insight of your love has chosen the thing that is perfect and right.”
A moment later she said to herself that experience should have taught her to avoid that type of remark. At this stage it broke a woman down. What was she to do with this wildly sobbing creature kneeling beside her? “Take off your bonnet, my dear,” she said. “It is impossible to cry comfortably in a tight bonnet.” Elaine pulled at the velvet strings and flung the bonnet from her. Then she cried herself exhausted with her head in Miss Montague’s lap. Now and then Mary Montague could distinguish words of bitter lamentation.
“Now that will do, Elaine,” she said at last. “Self-reproach is always inevitable and perhaps for a short while right. To continue to indulge it is futile and wicked, especially in your case, for you were your husband’s pride and delight, and always will be. Go to my room and wash your face, dear. It is the second on the landing. Then come back to me again.”
When Elaine had come back, quiet and composed, and they had talked for a little, Miss Montague asked, “Will you live in London, Elaine?”
“I shall stay here. There is a little house in Worship Street that’s empty now.”
“Stay here?” ejaculated Miss Montague, for Elaine’s dislike of the city was well known.
“Yes. What’s that old word you see on tombstones? Relict. I am Adam’s relict. I shall stay here.”
“Well, my dear, that will be a pleasure for me,” said Miss Montague, and meant what she said. She would come to love Elaine, she believed. By dying and leaving her Adam Ayscough appeared to have been the making of her. Or else through the years he had formed something in her that only the shock of his loss could have brought to fruition. “Will Garland stay with you?”
“Yes, Garland with come with me.”
“Does he like the house?”
“He thinks it is too small.”
The difficulty of adapting large furniture to small rooms occupied them until Elaine rose to go. Then they kissed each other quietly and she went away.
Miss Montague’s next visitor was Garland himself. He came by appointment and brought Bella, who had refused to leave her umbrella in the hall. Garland held her firmly by the wrist while he made his prepared speech to Miss Montague.
“It had been the Dean’s wish, madam, to call upon you with Miss Bella on Christmas Eve. I believe he made the appointment but owing to pressure of work it had to be postponed. I felt, madam, that the Dean would not wish Miss Bella to miss the opportunity of your acquaintance.”
“Perhaps it is more the other way around, Garland,” said Miss Montague. “The Dean was anxious, I believe, that I should not miss the happiness of Bella’s friendship while she is still so young. Would you like to have a few words with Sarah? I will ring the bell when Bella is tired of me. And then, if you please, I would like a few words with you.”
“Very good, madam,” said Garland, and let go of Bella, who dived for the cat.
“Never mind, Garland,” said Miss Montague. “I can manage her, and so can the cat. You will be scratched, Bella, if you hold my cat so tightly.”
Garland, as he closed the door behind him, gathered that the cat had already taken action. Bella was not a child to squeal but he heard her slap the cat.
“Cats take care of themselves,” Miss Montague explained to Bella. “Take off your pelisse and bonnet, my dear, and fetch me that little silver box from the table.”
Bella fetched the box. It had small chocolate dragées in it, with white hundreds and thousands on top. Miss Montague had one and Bella had two, and then she was told to open a cupboard door and inside in a box was the baby doll Miss Montague had had when she was a little girl. It was very old, a wooden doll whose hair had come off, not to be compared with Bella’s Marianne that the Dean had given her, but she was content to sit on a footstool and nurse it while Miss Montague nursed the affronted cat. Conversation flowed easily between them and the firelight gleamed on Bella’s hair. In the right company, and once she had asserted herself, Bella could be surprisingly good and gentle. Presently she sang a lullaby to the wooden baby and put it to sleep. Miss Montague watched entranced, storing up pictures in her mind. The back view of Bella, when she was bending over and showing all her lace-trimmed undergarments, was not to be forgotten, nor was the white nape of her neck where the yellow curls lay like spun silk, nor her strong little wrists with their bracelets of fat. There was vitality pressed down and running over in her sturdy beauty, and a few of the years of her great age seemed to drop off Miss Montague. The future, with Bella and Elaine in it, was a less empty thing to face than it had been. When she at last rang the bell it was not because either she or Bella were tired of each other but because she thought Garland must be weary of waiting.
“Give me a kiss and go with Sarah, Bella,” said Miss Montague, when Sarah and Garland appeared. “She will put your bonnet and pelisse on in the hall. Good-by, my dear. I will ask your grandmother if you may come and see me again.” Bella, sitting upon the footstool, adhered, and Garland shot out his cuffs ready for action. “Do you hear me, Bella?” asked Miss Montague gently.
Bella met her eye, rose and kissed her. She knew when she had met her match. She accepted a third chocolate and left the room with dignity.
“She will be a joy to me, Garland,�
� said Miss Montague. “Will you sit down and tell me if there is anything I can do for you?”
Garland pulled forward the most uncomfortable chair he could find and sat stiffly upon its edge. Only his eyes gave any indication that life was now without savor for him. It was not, however, while Elaine lived, or while any one of the Dean’s possessions remained in his care to be dusted or polished, without purpose.
“Nothing, madam, thank you. The Dean left a book he was writing unfinished upon his study table. Mrs. Ayscough is anxious that it should be published though unfinished and she has sent it to the Dean’s publisher. My only fear is that that may not be in accordance with what the Dean would have wished.”
“I am sure Mrs. Ayscough is right, Garland,” said Miss Montague. “The Dean was a very careful and polished writer. As far as he had gone his book would have been as perfect as he could make it. An unfinished book can be like a young life cut short, all the more persuasive because so poignant. Is there anything else that worries you, Garland?”
Garland’s face flushed. “Not that worries me, madam, but that makes me so angry I could do murder.”
“Murder would not be in accordance with the Dean’s wishes, Garland.”
“No, madam. It’s this memorial to the Dean. Sir Archibald Gervase, the architect who, if you remember, madam, was of assistance to the Dean in the work done in the Cathedral when the Dean first came to the city, is here and was with the mayor all yesterday, I’m told. All those new houses on the high ground where it’s healthy. The North Gate slums to come down. The garden by the river, that’s to be called the Ayscough Memorial Garden. It’s all to cost a mint of money.” Garland gripped his hands together and the words poured from him. “For years, madam, the Dean fought for these improvements for the city, and what happened? A campaign of vilification against him carried on by certain persons in this city whose names, madam, I will not mention in your presence, as not fit to be spoken in the presence of a good lady. Scum, madam, that’s what they are. Scum. And now these same persons pose as benefactors to the city. It’s they who will get the credit for what’s done, not the Dean. Had they done what they’re doing in the Dean’s lifetime he’d have had the joy of it. And now the Dean’s dead. They should have done what they’re doing while he lived.” He stopped and the fury went out of him. His hands dropped limply between his knees.
“They would never have done it while he lived,” said Miss Montague. “Men are so obstinate. They run on in the course they have chosen until some shock jolts them out of it. Only then do they change course. Garland, believe me when I tell you that nothing stems and turns wickedness more certainly than the death of a good man. I have seen it happen again and again. Sometimes it seems to me that the only thing we really know about death is that it is creative.”
“That’s true, madam,” said Garland thoughtfully. “There’s the saying about a grain of wheat. I don’t remember it rightly but you’ll know what I mean.” He got up stiffly. “I must be going, madam. Thank you.”
“I am so glad you are staying with Mrs. Ayscough. That would please the Dean.”
“Thank you, madam.”
“Mrs. Ayscough tells me that you fear the new house in Worship Street will prove to be too small?”
“Yes, madam,” said Garland, “and it is at the wrong end of Worship Street. It is not the kind of establishment that the Dean would have wished for Mrs. Ayscough. I trust her residence there will be merely temporary.”
Miss Montague was thoughtful for a few moments and then she said, “Garland, you can help me come to a decision. I have been thinking of the matter ever since Mrs. Ayscough came to see me the other evening. It is about Fountains. I have not known to whom to leave it at my death, for none of my nephews wants it. They do not want to live in the city. Shall I leave it to Mrs. Ayscough? If you remember, Garland, a duchess once lived here, the Duchess Blanche, the widow of Duke Jocelyn who was one of the builders of the Cathedral. I believe that Mrs. Ayscough would be happy in this house. Do you think it would be a suitable establishment for her?”
Garland looked around the room and she saw that he was mentally arranging the Deanery drawing-room furniture within it. He seemed to fit it in. “Yes, madam, I think this would be suitable. It is a house of dignity, not too large but large enough for Mrs. Ayscough’s position, intimately connected with the Cathedral and within easy walking distance from it. And then, madam, this was a house of which the Dean was very fond. Yes, madam, I think it would do nicely.” Suddenly he checked himself. “But I trust, madam, that you will be spared to us for many years yet.”
Miss Montague laughed as she held out her hand to him. “I trust not, Garland. My body is now so aged that I feel I shall enjoy Mrs. Ayscough in this house far more than I enjoy myself in it. Good-by, Garland. I beg that you will take comfort. Time passes, you know. You will be surprised how the days slip along. Human life, even the longest, is not very long.”
Garland bowed over her hand and went downstairs to find Bella.
4.
Isaac crept up the steps to the Cathedral like a fly slowly ascending a vast wall. The cold weather was over, and though it was still only early February it was almost warm and the sun shone from a sky like blue silk. But the bright day was not making it any easier for Isaac; it only intensified by contrast the darkness of the Porch of the Angels. It looked like the threshold of a great pit. It was here that long ago he had stopped short and fought with his father rather than go in. But he had to come this way because if he had gone in through the south door he would have got involved in conversation with old Tom Hochicorn, who might have wanted to go in with him. He was not acquainted with the bedesman of the west door, who in any case sat inside and not outside and could be more easily avoided. For this was something he had to do alone. Yesterday Mr. Havelock had given him the Dean’s watch, and with it a piece of paper on which Mrs. Ayscough had written, I leave to my friend Isaac Peabody my watch and my faith in God. Now Job had Isaac’s old watch, and the Dean’s, attached to its fine gold chain, was ticking quietly within Isaac’s waistcoat pocket. And so he had had to do what the Dean had so often wanted him to do, and come to the Cathedral. It was too late, for the Dean was dead, but all the same he had to do it even though the Dean would never know.
He plunged into the darkness of the porch, stumbled through it and fumbled at the great ironbound door. It had a handle but in his fear he did not see it. He had never acquired the adult and saving grace of standing aside from himself and laughing at his own absurdities. Like a child, the experience of each moment absorbed him far too intensely for him to be able to look at it. He was in a panic now because the great door would not yield when he pushed it, and he beat on it with his fists. It was opened quietly from within by the bedesman, and he passed in.
The splendor seemed to fall upon him like a vast weight, but the door had closed behind him and he could not go back. He began to creep up the nave, seeing nothing, for after the first glance he had kept his eyes on the ground. He saw only the ancient paving stones, worn into hills and valleys by the tread of many feet. They were stained with color because the midday sun was shining through the south windows. Veering sideways like a crab he nearly collided with a pillar, its girth greater than that of any tree he had ever seen. To steady himself he leaned his hand against it. The stone felt rough and somehow friendly under his hand and he noticed that just beyond the pillar there was a wooden bench. He let go of the pillar and went to it and sat down, his head on his chest and his hands between his knees. He noticed that the color that lay upon the paving stones was lapping over his old cracked boots. Now and then a small cloud passed over the sun and it faded but a moment later it was back again. His breathing grew a little easier and his sight cleared.
Beyond the toes of his boots was another of the big old paving stones and then a flat black marble slab let into the floor. Words were cut upon it, God is the Lord by whom we escape death, and above that the name of his friend, and the date, and
that he had been Dean. The color was lying on the dark slab just as it was lying on Isaac’s boots. Just that, he thought, only that. He liked the simplicity, but he could not understand why they had put those words. The Dean had not escaped death. His grave was under that stone.
He did not move on any farther, for he was tired, and still he did not look up, but he began to feel less frightened. The pillar and the bench and the humble grave patterned with color began to take on a look of familiarity. Beyond the sunlit patch was the terror of the Cathedral but here there was a comfort. And something more. He had been bitterly cold when he climbed up the steps to the porch but now he was glowing with warmth. He felt as though someone had wrapped him about with a comfortable old coat, yet the glow was within him too and about it he wrapped himself. He had experienced something of the sort so many times before in his good times, but not quite like this. Before he had not known what the warmth was but now he did know.
He took the beautiful watch out of his pocket and looked at it, holding it cradled in both hands. He looked at the monogram A.A. and on the other side of the pair cases the words from the sixty-eighth psalm, “Thy God hath sent forth strength for thee,” encircling the mailed hand holding the sword. He remembered the watch cock inside, with the little man carrying the burden on his back, and the wreath of flowers within the hour ring. And this watch was his. Whatever had made the Dean take such a fancy to him, a cowardly, selfish, obstinate, ugly old fellow like him? He would never understand it. He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at that too. Faith in God. God. A word he had always refused. But the Dean had said, put the word love in its place. He did just that, speaking to this warmth. “Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening, into the house and gate of heaven.” The words had slipped as gently into his mind as the color came and went over his boots. Just lately so many things that the Dean had said to him were coming back to his memory. He had scarcely attended to them at the time but they must have sunk down below the surface of his mind to its deeps, because now they were slowly being given back to him. Sentence by sentence he quietly remembered the whole prayer. Though it said “at our last awakening” he felt himself to be already in the house. It wasn’t any different anywhere else to what it was here. If he moved on through the Cathedral all of it would be as comfortable as it was here because of this warmth, and when the house lights went up the great darkness would be full of friendly faces.
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