by Hugh Walpole
Her nose, when she talked, twinkled at the nostrils apprehensively, and many of her visitors found this fascinating, so that they suddenly, with hot confusion, realised that they too had been staring in a most offensive manner. Joan had not been out in the world long enough to enable her to save a difficult situation by brilliant talk, and she very quickly found herself staring at Miss Burnett’s nose and longing to say something about it, as, for instance, “What a stronge nose you’ve got, Miss Burnett — see how it twitches!” or, “If you’ll allow me, Miss Burnett, I’d just like to study your nose for a minute.” When she realised this horrible desire in herself she blushed crimson and gazed about the untidy and entangled drawing-room in real desperation. She could see nothing in the room that was likely to save her. She was about to rise and depart, although she had only been there five minutes, when Mr. Morris came in.
Joan realised at once that this man was quite different from any one whom she had ever known. He was a stranger to her Polchester world in body, soul and spirit, as though, a foreigner from some far-distant country, he had been shipwrecked and cast upon an inhospitable shore. So strangely did she feel this that she was quite surprised when he did not speak with a foreign accent. “Oh, he must be a poet!” was her second thought about Mr. Morris, not because he dressed oddly or had long hair. She could not tell whence the impression came, unless it were in his strange, bewildered, lost blue eyes. Lost, bewildered — yes, that was what he was! With every movement of his slim, straight body, the impulse with which he brushed back his untidy fair hair from his forehead, he seemed like a man only just awake, a man needing care and protection, because he simply would not be able to look after himself. So ridiculously did she have this impression that she almost cried “Look out!” when he moved forward, as though he would certainly knock himself against a chair or a table.
“How strange,” she thought, “that this man should live with Miss Burnett! What does he think of her?” She was excited by her discovery of him, but that meant very little, because just now she was being excited by everything. She found at once that talking to him was the easiest thing in the world. Mr. Morris did not say very much; he smiled gently, and when Miss Burnett, awaking suddenly from her torpor, said, “You’ll have some tea, Miss Brandon, won’t you?” he, smiling, softly repeated the invitation.
“Thank you,” said Joan. “I will. How strange it is,” she went on, “that you are so close to the market and, even on market-day, you don’t hear a sound!”
And it was strange! as though the house were bewitched and had suddenly, even as Joan entered it, gathered around it a dark wood for its protection.
“Yes,” said Mr. Morris. “We found it strange at first. But it’s because we are the last house, and the three others protect us. We get the wind and rain, though. You should hear this place in a storm. But the house is strong enough; it’s very stoutly built; not a board creaks in the wildest weather. Only the windows rattle and the wind comes roaring down the chimneys.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Joan.
“Nearly a year — and we still feel strangers. We were near Ashford in Kent for twelve years, and the Glebeshire people are very different.”
“Well,” said Joan, who was a little irritated because she felt that his voice was a little sadder than it ought to be, “I think you’ll like Polchester. I’m sure you will. And you’ve come in a good year, too. There’s sure to be a lot going on this year because of the Jubilee.”
Mr. Morris did not seem to be as thrilled as he should be by the thought of the Jubilee, so Joan went on:
“It’s so lucky for us that it comes just at the Polchester Feast time. We always have a tremendous week at the Feast — the Horticultural Show and a Ball in the Assembly Rooms, and all sorts of things. It’s going to be my first ball this year, although I’ve really come out already.” She laughed. “Festivities start to-morrow with the arrival of Marquis.”
“Marquis?” repeated Mr. Morris politely.
“Oh, don’t you know Marquis? His is the greatest Circus in England. He comes to Polchester every year, and they have a procession through the town — elephants and camels, and Britannia in her chariot, and sometimes a cage with the lions and the tigers. Last year they had the sweetest little ponies — four of them, no higher than St. Bernards — and there are the clowns too, and a band.”
She was suddenly afraid that she was talking too much — silly too, in her childish enthusiasms. She remembered that she was in reality deputising for her mother, who would never have talked about the Circus. Fortunately at that moment the tea came in; it was brought by a flushed and contemptuous maid, who put the tray down on a little table with a bang, tossed her head as though she despised them all, and slammed the door behind her.
Miss Burnett was upset by this, and her nose twitched more violently than ever. Joan saw that her hand trembled as she poured out the tea, and she was at once sorry for her.
Mr. Morris talked about Kent and London, and tea was drunk and the saffron cake praised, and Joan thought it was time to go. At the last, however, she turned to Mr. Morris and said:
“Do you like the Cathedral?”
“It’s wonderful,” he answered. “You should see it from our window upstairs.”
“Oh, I hate it—” said Joan.
“Why?” Morris asked her.
There was a curious challenge in his voice. They were both standing facing one another.
“I suppose that’s a silly thing to say. Only you don’t live as close to it as we do, and you haven’t lived here so long as we have. It seems to hang right over you, and it never changes, and I hate to think it will go on just the same, years after we’re dead.”
“Have you seen the view from our window?” Morris asked her.
“No,” said Joan, “I was never in this house before.”
“Come and see it,” he said.
“I’m sure,” said Miss Burnett heavily, “Miss Brandon doesn’t want to be bothered — when she’s seen the Cathedral all her life, too.”
“Of course I’d love to see it,” said Joan, laughing. “To tell you the truth, that’s what I’ve always wanted. I looked at this house again and again when old Canon Burroughs was here, and thought there must be a wonderful view.”
She said good-bye to Miss Burnett.
“My mother does hope you will soon come and see us,” she said.
“I have just met Mrs. Brandon for a moment at Mrs. Combermere’s,” said Mr. Morris. “We’ll be very glad to come.”
She went out with him.
“It’s up these stairs,” he said. “Two flights. I hope you don’t mind.”
They climbed on to the second landing. At the end of the passage there was a window. The evening was grey and only little faint wisps of blue still lingered above the dusk, but the white sky threw up the Cathedral towers, now black and sharp-edged in magnificent relief. Truly it was a view!
The window was in such a position that through it you gazed behind the neighbouring houses, above some low roofs, straight up the twisting High Street to the Cathedral. The great building seemed to be perched on the very edge of the rock, almost, you felt, swinging in mid-air, and that so precariously that with one push of the finger you might send it staggering into space. Joan had never seen it so dominating, so commanding, so fierce in its disregard of the tiny clustered world beneath it, so near to the stars, so majestic and alone.
“Yes — it’s wonderful,” she said.
“Oh, but you should see it,” he cried, “as it can be. It’s dull to-day, the sky’s grey and there’s no sunset, — but when it’s flaming red with all the windows shining, or when all the stars are out or in moonlight... it’s like a great ship sometimes, and sometimes like a cloud, and sometimes like a fiery palace. Sometimes it’s in mist and you can only see just the top of the towers....”
“I don’t like it,” said Joan, turning away. “It doesn’t care what happens to us.”
“
Why should it?” he answered. “Think of all it’s seen — the battles and the fights and the plunder — and it doesn’t care! We can do what we like and it will remain just the same.”
“People could come and knock it down,” Joan said.
“I believe it would still be there if they did. The rock would be there and the spirit of the Cathedral.... What do people matter beside a thing like that? Why, we’re ants...!”
He stopped suddenly.
“You’ll think me foolish, Miss Brandon,” he said. “You have known the Cathedral so long — —” He paused. “I think I know what you mean about fearing it — —”
He saw her to the door.
“Good-bye,” he said, smiling. “Come again.”
“I like him,” she thought as she walked away. What a splendid day she had had!
Chapter IV
The Impertinent Elephant
Archdeacon Brandon had surmounted with surprising celerity the shock of Falk’s unexpected return. He was helped to this firstly by his confident belief in a God who had him especially in His eye and would, on no account, do him any harm. As God had decided that Falk had better leave Oxford, it was foolish to argue that it would have been wiser for him to stay there. Secondly, he was helped by his own love for, and pride in, his son. The independence and scorn that were so large a part of Falk’s nature were after his own heart. He might fight and oppose them (he often did), but always behind the contest there was appreciation and approbation. That was the way for a son of his to treat the world — to snap his fingers at it! The natural thing to do, the good old world being as stupid as it was. Thirdly, he was helped by his family pride. It took him only a night’s reflection to arrive at the decision that Falk had been entirely right in this affair and Oxford entirely in the wrong. Two days after Falk’s return he wrote (without saying anything to the boy) Falk’s tutor a very warm letter, pointing out that he was sure the tutor would agree with him that a little more tact and diplomacy might have prevented so unfortunate an issue. It was not for him, Brandon, to suggest that the authorities in Oxford were perhaps a little behind the times, a little out of the world. Nevertheless it was probably true that long residence in Oxford had hindered the aforesaid authorities from realising the trend of the day, from appreciating the new spirit of independence that was growing up in our younger generation. It seemed obvious to him, Archdeacon Brandon, that you could no longer treat men of Falk’s age and character as mere boys and, although he was quite sure that the authorities at Oxford had done their best, he nevertheless hoped that this unfortunate episode would enable them to see that we were not now living in the Middle Ages, but rather in the last years of the nineteenth century. It may seem to some a little ironical that the Archdeacon, who was the most conservative soul alive, should write thus to one of the most conservative of our institutions, but— “Before Oxford the Brandons were....”
What the tutor remarked when he read this letter is not recorded. Brandon said nothing to Falk about all this. Indeed, during the first weeks after Falk’s return he preserved a stern and dignified silence. After all, the boy must learn that authority was authority, and he prided himself that he knew, better than any number of Oxford Dons, how to train and educate the young. Nevertheless light broke through. Some of Falk’s jokes were so good that his father, who had a real sense of fun if only a slight sense of humour, was bound to laugh. Very soon father and son resumed their old relations of sudden tempers and mutual admiration, and a strange, rather pathetic, quite uneloquent love that was none the less real because it was, on either side, completely selfish.
But there was a fourth reason why Falk’s return caused so slight a storm. That reason was that the Archdeacon was now girding up his loins before he entered upon one of his famous campaigns. There had been many campaigns in the past. Campaigns were indeed as truly the breath of the Archdeacon’s nostrils as they had been once of the great Napoleon’s — and in every one of them had the Archdeacon been victorious.
This one was to be the greatest of them all, and was to set the sign and seal upon the whole of his career.
It happened that, three miles out of Polchester, there was a little village known as Pybus St. Anthony. A very beautiful village it was, with orchards and a stream and old-world cottages and a fine Norman church. But not for its orchards nor its stream nor its church was it famous. It was famous because for many years its listing had been regarded as one of the most important in the whole diocese of Polchester. It was the tradition that the man who went to Pybus St. Anthony had the world in front of him. When likely men for preferment were looked for it was to Pybus St. Anthony that men looked. Heaven alone knows how many Canons and Archdeacons had made their first bow there to the Glebeshire world! Three Deans and a Bishop had, at different times, made it their first stepping-stone to fame. Canon Morrison (Honorary Canon of the Cathedral) was its present incumbent. Less intellectual than some of the earlier incumbents, he was nevertheless a fine fellow. He had been there only three years when symptoms of cancer of the throat had appeared. He had been operated on in London, and at first it had seemed that he would recover. Then the dreaded signs had reappeared; he had wished, poor man, to surrender the living, but because there was yet hope the Chapter, in whose gift the living was, had insisted on his remaining.
A week ago, however, he had collapsed. It was feared now that at any moment he might die. The Archdeacon was very sorry for Morrison. He liked him, and was deeply touched by his tragedy; nevertheless one must face facts; it was probable that at any moment now the Chapter would be forced to make a new appointment.
He had been aware — he did not disguise it from himself in the least — for some time now of the way that the appointment must go. There was a young man, the Rev. Rex Forsyth by name, who, in his judgment, could be the only possible man. Young Forsyth was, at the present moment, chaplain to the Bishop of St. Minworth. St. Minworth was only a Suffragan Bishopric, and it could not honestly be said that there was a great deal for Mr. Forsyth to do there. But it was not because the Archdeacon thought that the young man ought to have more to do that he wished to move him to Pybus St. Anthony. Far from it! The Archdeacon, in the deep secrecy of his own heart, could not honestly admit that young Forsyth was a very hard worker — he liked hunting and whist and a good bottle of wine...he was that kind of man.
Where, then, were his qualifications as Canon Morrison’s successor? Well, quite honestly — and the Archdeacon was one of the honestest men alive — his qualifications belonged more especially to his ancestors rather than to himself. In the Archdeacon’s opinion there had been too many clever men of Pybus. Time now for a normal man. Morrison was normal and Forsyth would be more normal still.
He was in fact first cousin to young Johnny St. Leath and therefore a very near relation of the Countess herself. His father was the fourth son of the Earl of Trewithen, and, as every one knows, the Trewithens and the St. Leaths are, for all practical purposes, one and the same family, and divide Glebeshire between them. No one ever quite knew what young Rex Forsyth became a parson for. Some people said he did it for a wager; but however true that might be, he was not very happy with dear old Bishop Clematis and very ready for preferment.
Now the Archdeacon was no snob; he believed in men and women who had long and elaborate family-trees simply because he believed in institutions and because it had always seemed to him a quite obvious fact that the longer any one or anything remained in a place the more chance there was of things being done as they always had been done. It was not in the least because she was a Countess that he thought the old Lady St. Leath a wonderful woman; not wonderful for her looks certainly — no one could call her a beautiful woman — and not wonderful for her intelligence; the Archdeacon had frequently been compelled to admit to himself that she was a little on the stupid side — but wonderful for her capacity for staying where she was like a rock and allowing nothing whatever to move her. In these dangerous days — and what dangerous days they wer
e! — the safety of the country simply depended on a few such figures as the Countess. Queen Victoria was another of them, and for her the Archdeacon had a real and very touching devotion. Thank God he would be able to show a little of it in the prominent part he intended to play in the Polchester Jubilee festivals this year!
Any one could see then that to have young Rex Forsyth close at hand at Pybus St. Anthony was the very best possible thing for the good of Polchester. Lady St. Leath saw it, Mrs. Combermere saw it, Mrs. Sampson saw it, and young Forsyth himself saw it. The Archdeacon entirely failed to understand how there could be any one who did not see it. However, he was afraid that there were one or two in Polchester.... People said that young Forsyth was stupid! Perhaps he was not very bright; all the easier then to direct him in the way that he should go, and throw his forces into the right direction. People said that he cared more for his hunting and his whist than for his work — well, he was young and, at any rate, there was none of the canting hypocrite about him. The Archdeacon hated canting hypocrites!
There had been signs, once and again, of certain anarchists and devilish fellows, who crept up and down the streets of Polchester spreading their wicked mischief, their lying and disintegrating ideas. The Archdeacon was determined to fight them to the very last breath in his body, even as the Black Bishop before him had fought his enemies. And the Archdeacon had no fear of his victory.
Rex Forsyth at Pybus St. Anthony would be a fine step forward. Have one of these irreligious radicals there, and Heaven alone knew what harm he might wreak. No, Polchester must be saved. Let the rest of the world go to pieces, Polchester would be preserved.
On how many earlier occasions had the Archdeacon surveyed the Chapter, considered it in all its details and weighed up judiciously the elements, good and bad, that composed it. How well he knew them all! First the Dean, mild and polite and amiable, his mind generally busy with his beloved flora and fauna, his flowers and his butterflies, very easy indeed to deal with. Then Archdeacon Witheram, most nobly conscientious, a really devout man, taking his work with a seriousness that was simply admirable, but glued to the details of his own half of the diocese, so that broader and larger questions did not concern him very closely. Bentinck-Major next. The Archdeacon flattered himself that he knew Bentinck-Major through and through — his snobbery, his vanity, his childish pleasure in his position and his cook, his vanity in his own smart appearance! It would be difficult to find words adequate for the scorn with which the Archdeacon regarded that elegant little man. Then Byle, the Precentor. He was, to some extent, an unknown quantity. His chief characteristic perhaps was his hatred of quarrels — he would say or do anything if only he might not be drawn into a “row.” “Peace at any price” was his motto, and this, of course, as with the famous Vicar of Bray, involved a good deal of insincerity. The Archdeacon knew that he could not trust him, but a masterful policy of terrorism had always been very successful. Ryle was frankly frightened by the Archdeacon, and a very good thing too! Might he long remain so! Lastly there was Foster, the Diocesan Missioner. Let it be said at once that the Archdeacon hated Foster. Foster had been a thorn in the Archdeacon’s side ever since his arrival in Polchester — a thin, shambly-kneed, untidy, pale-faced prig, that was what Foster was! The Archdeacon hated everything about him — his grey hair, his large protruding ears, the pimple on the end of his nose, the baggy knees to his trousers, his thick heavy hands that never seemed to be properly washed.