by Hugh Walpole
Nevertheless beneath that hatred the Archdeacon was compelled to a reluctant admiration. The man was fearless, a fanatic if you please, but devoted to his religion, believing in it with a fervour and sincerity that nothing could shake. An able man too, the best preacher in the diocese, better read in every kind of theology than any clergyman in Glebeshire. It was especially for his open mind about new religious ideas that the Archdeacon mistrusted him. No opinion, however heterodox, shocked him. He welcomed new thought and had himself written a book, Christ and the Gospels, that for its learning and broad-mindedness had created a considerable stir. But he was a dull dog, never laughed, never even smiled, lived by himself and kept to himself. He had, in the past, opposed every plan of the Archdeacon’s, and opposed it relentlessly, but he was always, thanks to the Archdeacon’s efforts, in a minority. The other Canons disliked him; the old Bishop, safely tucked away in his Palace at Carpledon, was, except for his satellite Rogers, his only friend in Polchester.
So much for the Chapter. There was now only one unknown element in the situation — Ronder. Ronder’s position was important because he was Treasurer to the Cathedral. His predecessor, Hart-Smith, now promoted to the Deanery of Norwich, had been an able man, but one of the old school, a great friend of Brandon’s, seeing eye to eye with him in everything. The Archdeacon then had had his finger very closely upon the Cathedral purse, and Hart-Smith’s departure had been a very serious blow. The appointment of the new Canon had been in the hands of the Crown, and Brandon had, of course, had nothing to say to it. However, one glance at Ronder — he had seen him and spoken to him at the Dean’s a few days after his arrival — had reassured him. Here, surely, was a man whom he need not fear — an easy, good-natured, rather stupid fellow by the look of him. Brandon hoped to have his finger on the Cathedral purse as tightly in a few weeks’ time as he had had it before.
And all this was in no sort of fashion for the Archdeacon’s personal advancement or ambition. He was contented with Polchester, and quite prepared to live there for the rest of his days and be buried, with proper ceremonies, when his end came. With all his soul he loved the Cathedral, and if he regarded himself as the principal factor in its good governance and order he did so with a sort of divine fatalism — no credit to him that it was so. Let credit be given to the Lord God who had seen fit to make him what he was and to place in his hands that great charge.
His fault in the matter was, perhaps, that he took it all too simply, that he regarded these men and the other figures in Polchester exactly as he saw them, did not believe that they could ever be anything else. As God had created the world, so did Brandon create Polchester as nearly in his own likeness as might be — there they all were and there, please God, they would all be for ever!
Bending his mind then to this new campaign, he thought that he would go and see the Dean. He knew by this time, he fancied, exactly how to prepare the Dean’s mind for the proper reception of an idea, although, in truth, he was as simple over his plots and plans as a child brick-building in its nursery.
About three o’clock one afternoon he prepared to sally forth. The Dean’s house was on the other side of the Cathedral, and you had to go down the High Street and then to the left up Orange Street to get to it, an irrational roundabout proceeding that always irritated the Archdeacon. Very splendid he looked, his top-hat shining, his fine high white collar, his spotless black clothes, his boots shapely and smart. (He and Bentinck- Major were, I suppose, the only two clergymen in Polchester who used boot- trees.) But his smartness was in no way an essential with him. Clothed in rags he would still have the grand air. “I often think of him,” Miss Dobell once said, “as one of those glorious gondoliers in Venice. How grand he would look!”
However that might be, it is beyond question that the ridiculous clothes that a clergyman of the Church of England is compelled to wear did not make him absurd, nor did he look an over-dressed fop like Bentinck-Major.
Miss Dobell’s gondolier was, on this present occasion, in an excellent temper; and meeting his daughter Joan, he felt very genial towards her. Joan had observed, several days before, that the family crisis might be said to be past, and very thankful she was.
She had, at this time, her own happy dreams, so that father and daughter, moved by some genial impulse, stopped and kissed.
“There! my dear!” said the Archdeacon. “And what are you doing this afternoon, Joan?”
“I’m going with mother,” she said, “to see Miss Ronder. It’s time we called, you know.”
“I suppose it is.” Brandon patted her cheek. “Everything you want?”
“Yes, father, thank you.”
“That’s right.”
He left the house, humming a little tune. On the second step he paused, as he was in the habit of doing, and surveyed the Precincts — the houses with their shining knockers, their old-fashioned bow-windows and overhanging portals, the Cathedral Green, and the towering front of the Cathedral itself. He was, for a moment, a kind of presiding deity over all this. He loved it and believed in it and trusted it exactly as though it had been the work of his own hands. Halfway towards the Arden Gate he overtook poor old shambling Canon Morphew, who really ought, in the Archdeacon’s opinion, to have died long ago. However, as he hadn’t died the Archdeacon felt kindly towards him, and he had, when he talked to the old man, a sense of beneficence and charity very warming to the heart.
“Well, Morphew, enjoying the sun?”
Canon Morphew always started when any one spoke to him, being sunk all day deep in dreams of his own, dreams that had their birth somewhere in the heart of the misty dirty rooms where his books were piled ceiling-high and papers blew about the floor.
“Good afternoon...good afternoon, Archdeacon. Pray forgive me. You came upon me unawares.”
Brandon moderated his manly stride to the other’s shuffling steps.
“Hope you’ve had none of that tiresome rheumatism troubling you again.”
“Rheumatism? Just a twinge — just a twinge.... It belongs to my time of life.”
“Oh, don’t say that!” The Archdeacon laughed his hearty laugh. “You’ve many years in front of you yet.”
“No, I haven’t — and you don’t mean it, Archdeacon — you know you don’t. A few months perhaps — that’s all. The Lord’s will be done. But there’s a piece of work...a piece of work....”
He ran off into incoherent mumblings. Suddenly, just as they reached the dark shadows of the Arden Gate, he seemed to wake up. His voice was quite vigorous, his eyes, tired and worn as they were, bravely scanned Brandon’s health and vigour.
“We all come to it, you know. Yes, we do. The very strongest of us. You’re a young man, Archdeacon, by my years, and I hope you may long live to continue your good work in this place. All the same, you’ll be old yourself one day. No one escapes.... No one escapes....”
“Well, good-day to you,” said the Archdeacon hurriedly. “Good-day to you.... Hope this bright weather continues,” and started rather precipitately down the hill, leaving Morphew to find his way by himself.
His impetuosity was soon restrained. He tumbled immediately into a crowd, and pulling himself up abruptly and looking down the High Street he saw that the pavement on both sides of the street was black with people. He was not a man who liked to be jostled, and he was the more uncomfortable in that he discovered that his immediate neighbour was Samuel Hogg, the stout and rubicund landlord of the “Dog and Pilchard” of Seatown. With him was his pretty daughter Annie. Near to them were Mr. John Curtis and Mr. Samuel Croppet, two of the Town Councillors. With none of these gentlemen did the Archdeacon wish to begin a conversation.
And yet it was difficult to know what to do. The High Street pavements were narrow, and the crowd seemed continually to increase. There was a good deal of pushing and laughter and boisterous good-humour. To return up the street again seemed to have something ignominious about it. Brandon decided to satisfy his curiosity, support his dignity and ind
ulge his amiability by staying where he was.
“Good afternoon, Hogg,” he said. “What’s the disturbance for?”
“Markisses Circus, sir,” Hogg lifted his face like a large round sun. “Surely you’d ‘eard of it, Archdeacon?”
“Well, I didn’t know,” said Brandon in his most gracious manner, “that it was this afternoon.... Of course, how stupid of me!”
He smiled round good-naturedly upon them all, and they all smiled back upon him. He was a popular figure in the town; it was felt that his handsome face and splendid presence did the town credit. Also, he always knew his own mind. And he was no coward.
He nodded to Curtis and Croppet and then stared in front of him, a fixed genial smile on his face, his fine figure triumphant in the sun. He looked as though he were enjoying himself and was happy because he liked to see his fellow-creatures happy; in reality he was wondering how he could have been so foolish as to forget Marquis’ Circus. Why had not Joan said something to him about it? Very careless of her to place him in this unfortunate position.
He looked around him, but he could see no other dignitary of the Church close at hand. How tiresome — really, how tiresome! Moreover, as the timed moment of the procession arrived the crowd increased, and he was now most uncomfortably pressed against other people. He felt a sharp little dig in his stomach, then, turning, found close beside him the flushed anxious, meagre little face of Samuel Bond, the Clerk of the Chapter. Bond’s struggle to reach his dignified position in the town had been a severe one, and had only succeeded because of a multitude of self-submissions and abnegations, humilities and contempts, flatteries and sycophancies that would have tired and defeated a less determined soul. But, in the background, there were the figures of Mrs. Bond and four little Bonds to spur him forward. He adored his family. “Whatever I am, I’m a family man,” was one of his favourite sayings. In so worthy a cause much sycophancy may be forgiven him. To no one, however, was he so completely sycophantic as to the Archdeacon. He was terrified of the Archdeacon; he would wake up in the middle of the night and think of him, then tremble and cower under the warm protection of Mrs. Bond until sleep rescued him once more.
It was natural, therefore, that however numerous the people in Polchester might be whom the Archdeacon despised, he despised little Bond most of all. And here was little Bond pressed up against him, with the large circumference of the cheerful Mr. Samuel Hogg near by, and the ironical town smartness of Messrs. Curtis and Croppet close at hand. Truly a horrible position.
“Ah, Archdeacon! I didn’t see you — indeed I didn’t!” The little breathless voice was like a child’s penny whistle blown ignorantly. “Just fancy! — meeting you like this! Hot, isn’t it, although it’s only February. Yes.... Hot indeed. I didn’t know you cared for processions, Archdeacon — —”
“I don’t,” said Brandon. “I hadn’t realised that there was a procession. Stupidly, I had forgotten — —”
“Well, well,” came the good-natured voice of Mr. Hogg. “It’ll do us no harm, Archdeacon — no harm at all. I forget whether you rightly know my little girl. This is Annie — come out to see the procession with her father.”
The Archdeacon was compelled to shake hands. He did it very graciously. She was certainly a fine girl — tall, strong, full-breasted, with dark colour and raven black hair; curious, her eyes, very large and bright. They stared full at you, but past you, as though they had decided that you were of insufficient interest.
Annie thus gazed at the Archdeacon and said no word. Any further intimacies were prevented by approach of the procession. To the present generation Marquis’ Circus would not appear, I suppose, very wonderful. To many of us, thirty years ago, it seemed the final expression of Oriental splendour and display.
There were murmurs and cries of “Here they come! Here they come! ’Ere they be!” Every one pressed forward; Mr. Bond was nearly thrown off his feet and caught at the lapel of the Archdeacon’s coat to save himself. Only the huge black eyes of Annie Hogg displayed no interest. The procession had started from the meadows beyond the Cathedral and, after discreetly avoiding the Precincts, was to plunge down the High Street, pass through the Market-place and vanish up Orange Street — to follow, in fact, the very path that the Archdeacon intended to pursue.
A band could be heard, there was an astounded hush (the whole of the High Street holding its breath), then the herald appeared.
He was, perhaps, a rather shabby fellow, wearing the tarnished red and gold of many a procession, but he walked confidently, holding in his hand a tall wooden truncheon gay with paper-gilt, having his round cap of cloth of gold set rakishly on one side of his head. After him came the band, also in tarnished cloth of gold and looking as though they would have been a trifle ashamed of themselves had they not been deeply involved in the intricacies of their music. After the band came four rather shabby riders on horseback, then some men dressed apparently in admiring imitation of Charles II.; then, to the wonder and whispered incredulity of the crowd, Britannia on her triumphal car. The car — an elaborate cart, with gilt wheels and strange cardboard figures of dolphins and Father Neptune — had in its centre a high seat painted white and perched on a kind of box. Seated on this throne was Britannia herself — a large, full-bosomed, flaxen-haired lady in white flowing robes, and having a very anxious expression of countenance, as, indeed, poor thing, was natural enough, because the cart rocked the box and the box yet more violently rocked the chair. At any moment, it seemed, might she be precipitated, a fallen goddess, among the crowd, and the fact that the High Street was on a slope of considerable sharpness did not add to her ease and comfort. Two stout gentlemen, perspiration bedewing their foreheads, strove to restrain the ponies, and their classic clothing, that turned them into rather tattered Bacchuses, did not make them less incongruous.
Britannia and her agony, however, were soon forgotten in the ferocious excitements that followed her. Here were two camels, tired and dusty, with that look of bored and indifferent superiority that belongs to their tribe, two elephants, two clowns, and last, but of course the climax of the whole affair, a cage in which there could be seen behind the iron bars a lion and a lioness, jolted haplessly from side to side, but too deeply shamed and indignant to do more than reproach the crowd with their burning eyes. Finally, another clown bearing a sandwich-board on which was printed in large red letters “Marquis’ Circus — the Finest in the World — Renowned through Europe — Come to the Church Meadows and see the Fun” — and so on.
As this glorious procession passed down the High Street the crowd expressed its admiration in silent whispering. There was no loud applause; nevertheless, Mr. Marquis, were he present, must have felt the air electric with praise. It was murmured that Britannia was Mrs. Marquis, and, if that were true, she must have given her spouse afterwards, in the sanctity of their privacy, a very grateful account of her reception.
When the band had passed a little way down the street and their somewhat raucous notes were modified by distance, the sun came out in especial glory, as though to take his own peep at the show, the gilt and cloth of gold shone and gleamed, the chair of Britannia rocked as though it were bursting with pride, and the Cathedral bells, as though they too wished to lend their dignified blessing to the scene, began to ring for Evensong. A sentimental observer, had he been present, might have imagined that the old town was glad to have once again an excuse for some display, and preened itself and showed forth its richest and warmest colours and wondered, perhaps, whether after all the drab and interesting citizens of to-day were not minded to return to the gayer and happier old times. Quite a noise, too, of chatter and trumpets and bells and laughter. Even the Archdeacon forgot his official smile and laughed like a boy.
It was then that the terrible thing happened. Somewhere at the lower end of the High Street the procession was held up and the chariot had suddenly to pull itself back upon its wheels, and the band were able to breathe freely for a minute, to gaze about them and to wipe
the sweat from their brows; even in February blowing and thumping “all round the town” was a warm business.
Now, just opposite the Archdeacon were the two elephants, checked by the sudden pause. Behind them was the cage with the lions, who, now that the jolting had ceased, could collect their scattered indignities and roar a little in exasperated protest. The elephants, too, perhaps felt the humility of their position, accustomed though they might be to it by many years of sordid slavery. It may be, too, that the sight of that patronising and ignorant crowd, the crush and pack of the High Street, the silly sniggering, the triumphant jangle of the Cathedral bells, thrust through their slow and heavy brains some vision long faded now, but for an instant revived, of their green jungles, their hot suns, their ancient royalty and might. They realised perhaps a sudden instinct of their power, that they could with one lifting of the hoof crush these midgets that hemmed them in back to the pulp whence they came, and so go roaming and bellowing their freedom through the streets and ways of the city. The larger of the two suddenly raised his head and trumpeted; with his dim uplifted eyes he caught sight of the Archdeacon’s rich and gleaming top- hat shining, as an emblem of the city’s majesty, above the crowd. It gleamed in the sun, and he hated it. He trumpeted again and yet again, then, with a heavy lurching movement, stumbled towards the pavement, and with little fierce eyes and uplifted trunk heaved towards his enemies.