by Hugh Walpole
The crowd, with screams and cries, fell back in agitated confusion. The Archdeacon, caught by surprise, scarcely realising what had occurred, blinded a little by the sun, stood where he was. In another movement his top-hat was snatched from his head and tossed into air....
He felt the animal’s hot breath upon his face, heard the shouts and cries around him, and, in very natural alarm, started back, caught at anything for safety (he had tumbled upon the broad and protective chest of Samuel Hogg), and had a general impression of whirling figures, of suns and roofs and shining faces and, finally, the high winds of heaven blowing upon his bare head.
In another moment the incident was closed. The courtier of Charles II. had rushed up; the elephant was pulled and hustled and kicked; for him swiftly the vision of power and glory and vengeance was over, and once again he was the tied and governed prisoner of modern civilisation. The top-hat lay, a battered and hapless remnant, beneath the feet of the now advancing procession.
Once the crowd realised that the danger was over a roar of laughter went up to heaven. There were shouts and cries. The Archdeacon tried to smile. He heard in dim confusion the cheery laugh of Samuel Hogg, he caught the comment of Croppet and the rest.
With only one thought that he must hide himself, indignation, humiliation, amazement that such a thing could be in his heart, he backed, turned, almost ran, finding at last sudden refuge in Bennett’s book-shop. How wonderful was the dark rich security of that enclosure! The shop was always in a half-dusk and the gas burnt in its dim globes during most of the day. All the richer and handsomer gleamed the rows of volumes, the morocco and the leather and the cloth. Old Mr. Bennett himself, the son of the famous man who had known Scott and Byron, was now a prodigious age (in the town his nickname was Methusalem), but he still liked to sit in the shop in a high chair, his white beard in bright contrast with the chaste selection of the newest works arranged in front of him. He might himself have been the Spirit of Select Literature summoned out of the vasty deep by the Cultured Spirits of Polchester.
Into this splendid temple of letters the Archdeacon came, halted, breathless, bewildered, tumbled. He saw at first only dimly. He was aware that old Mr. Bennett, with an exclamation of surprise, rose in his chair. Then he perceived that two others were in the shop; finally, that these two were the Dean and Ronder, the men of all others in Polchester whom he least wished to find there.
“Archdeacon!” cried the Dean.
“Yes — om — ah — an extraordinary thing has occurred — I really — oh, thank you, Mr. Wilton....”
Mr. Frank Wilton, the young assistant, had offered a chair.
“You’ll scarcely believe me — really, I can hardly believe myself.” Here the Archdeacon tried to laugh. “As a matter of fact, I was coming out to see you...on my way...and the elephant...”
“The elephant?” repeated the Dean, who, in the way that he had, was nervously rubbing one gaitered leg against the other.
“Yes — I’m a little incoherent, I’m afraid. You must forgive me... breathless too.... It’s too absurd. So many people...”
“A little glass of water, Mr. Archdeacon?” said young Wilton, who had a slight cast in one eye, and therefore gave the impression that he was watching round the corner to see that no one ran off with the books.
“No, thank you, Wilton.... No, thank you.... Very good of you, I’m sure. But really it was a monstrous thing. I was coming to see you, as I’ve just said, Dean, having forgotten all about this ridiculous procession. I was held up by the crowd just below the shop here. Then suddenly, as the animals were passing, the elephant made a lurch towards me — positively, I’m not exaggerating — seized my hat and — ran off with it!”
The Archdeacon had, as I have already said, a sense of fun. He saw, for the first time, the humour of the thing. He began to laugh; he laughed more loudly; laughter overtook him altogether, and he roared and roared again, sitting there, his hands on his knees, until the tears ran down his cheek.
“Oh dear...my hat...an elephant...Did you ever hear —— ? My best hat...!” The Dean was compelled to laugh too, although, being a shy and hesitating man, he was not able to do it very heartily. Young Mr. Wilton laughed, but in such a way as to show that he knew his place and was ready to be serious at once if his superiors wished it. Even old Mr. Bennett laughed as distantly and gently as befitted his great age.
Brandon was conscious of Ronder. He had, in fact, been conscious of him from the very instant of his first perception of him. He was giving himself away before their new Canon; he thought that the new Canon, although he was smiling pleasantly and was standing with becoming modesty in the background, looked superior....
The Archdeacon pulled himself up with a jerk. After all, it was nothing of a joke. A multitude of townspeople had seen him in a most ludicrous position, had seen him start back in terror before a tame elephant, had seen him frightened and hatless. No, there was nothing to laugh about.
“An elephant?” repeated the Dean, still gently laughing.
“Yes, an elephant,” answered Brandon rather testily. That was enough of the affair, quite enough. “Well, I must be getting back. See you to- morrow, Dean.”
“Anything important you wanted to see me about?” asked the Dean, perceiving that he had laughed just a little longer than was truly necessary.
“No, no...nothing. Only about poor Morrison. He’s very bad, they tell me...a week at most.”
“Dear, dear — is that so?” said the Dean. “Poor fellow, poor fellow!”
Brandon was now acutely conscious of Ronder. Why didn’t the fellow say something instead of standing silently there with that superior look behind his glasses? In the ordinary way he would have greeted him with his usual hearty patronage. Now he was irritated. It was really most unfortunate that Ronder should have witnessed his humiliation. He rose, abruptly turning his back upon him. The fellow was laughing at him — he was sure of it.
“Well — good-day, good-day.” As he advanced to the door and looked out into the street he was aware of the ludicrousness of going even a few steps up the street without a hat.
Confound Ronder!
But there was scarcely any one about now. The street was almost deserted. He peered up and down.
In the middle of the road was a small, shapeless, black object.
...His hat!
Chapter V
Mrs. Brandon Goes Out to Tea
Mrs. Brandon hated her husband. No one in Polchester had the slightest suspicion of this; certainly her husband least of all. She herself had been first aware of it one summer afternoon some five or six years ago when, very pleasantly and in the kindest way, he had told her that she knew nothing about primroses. They had been having tea at the Dean’s, and, as was often the case then, the conversation had concerned itself with flowers and ferns. Mrs. Brandon was quite ready to admit that she knew nothing about primroses — there were for her yellow ones and other ones, and that was all. The Archdeacon had often before told her that she was ignorant, and she had acquiesced without a murmur. Upon this afternoon, just as Mrs. Sampson was asking her whether she liked sugar, revelation came to her. That little scene was often afterwards vividly in front of her — the Archdeacon, with his magnificent legs spread apart in front of the fireplace; Miss Dobell trying to look with wisdom upon a little bundle of primulas that the Dean was showing to her; the sunlight upon the lawn beyond the window; the rooks in the high elms busy with their nests; the May warmth striking through the misty air — all was painted for ever afterwards upon her mind.
“My dear, you may as well admit at once that you know nothing whatever about primroses.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t — thank you, Mrs. Sampson. One lump, please.”
She had been coming to it. Of course, a very long time before this — very, very far away, now an incredible memory, seemed the days when she had loved him so passionately that she almost died with anxiety if he left her for a single night. Almost too passionat
e it had been, perhaps. He himself was not capable of passionate love, or, at any rate, had been quite satisfied to be not passionately in love with her. He pursued other things — his career, his religion, his simple beneficence, his health, his vigour. His love for his son was the most passionately personal thing in him, and over that they might have met had he been able to conceive her as a passionate being. Her ignorance of life — almost complete when he had met her — had been but little diminished by her time with him. She knew now, after all those years, little more of the world and its terrors and blessings than she had known then. But she did know that nothing in her had been satisfied. She knew now of what she was capable, and it was perhaps the thought that he had, by taking her, prevented her fulfilment and complete experience that caused her, more than anything else, to hate him.
She very quickly discovered that he had married her for certain things — to have children, to have a companion. He had soon found that the latter of these he was not to obtain. She had in her none of the qualities that he needed in a companion, and so he had, with complete good-nature and kindliness, ceased to consider her. He should have married a bold ambitious woman who would have wanted the things, that he wanted — a woman something like Falk, his son. On the rare occasions when he analysed the situation he realised this. He did not in any way vent his disappointment upon, her — he was only slightly disappointed. He treated her with real kindness save on the occasions of his violent loss of temper, and gave her anything that she wanted. He had, on the whole, a great contempt for women save when, as for instance with Mrs. Combermere, they were really men.
It was to her most humiliating of all, that nothing in their relations worried him. He was perfectly at ease about it all, and fancied that she was the same. Meanwhile her real life was not dead, only dormant. For some years she tried to change the situation; she made little appeals to him, endeavoured timidly to force him to need her, even on one occasion threatened to sleep in a separate room. The memory of that little episode still terrified her. His incredulity had only been equalled by his anger. It was just as though some one had threatened to deprive him of his morning tub....
Then, when she saw that this was of no avail, she had concentrated herself upon her children, and especially upon Falk. For a while she had fancied that she was satisfied. Suddenly — and the discovery was awful — she was aware that Falk’s affection all turned towards his father rather than towards her. Her son despised her and disregarded her as his father had done. She did not love Falk the less, but she ceased to expect anything from him — and this new loss she put down to her husband’s account.
It was shortly after she made this discovery that the affair of the primroses occurred.
Many a woman now would have shown her hostility, but Mrs. Brandon was, by nature, a woman who showed nothing. She did not even show anything to herself, but all the deeper, because it found no expression, did her hatred penetrate. She scored now little marks against him for everything that he did. She did not say to herself that a day of vengeance was coming, she did not think of anything so melodramatic, she expected nothing of her future at all — but the marks were there.
The situation was developed by Falk’s return from Oxford. When he was away her love for him seemed to her simply all in the world that she possessed. He wrote to her very seldom, but she made her Sunday letters to him the centre of her week, and wrote as though they were a passionately devoted mother and son. She allowed herself this little gentle deception — it was her only one.
But when he returned and was in the house it was more difficult to cheat herself. She saw at once that he had something on his mind, that he was engaged in some pursuit that he kept from every one. She discovered, too, that she was the one of whom he was afraid, and rightly so, the Archdeacon being incapable of discovering any one’s pursuits so long as he was engaged on one of his own. Falk’s fear of her perception brought about a new situation between them. He was not now oblivious of her presence as he had been. He tried to discover whether she knew anything. She found him often watching her, half in fear and half in defiance.
The thought that he might be engaged now upon some plan of his own in which she might share excited her and gave her something new to live for. She did not care what his plan might be; however dangerous, however wicked, she would assist him. Her moral sense had never been very deeply developed in her. Her whole character was based on her relations with individuals; for any one she loved she would commit murder, theft or blasphemy. She had never had any one to love except Falk.
She despised the Archdeacon the more because he now perceived nothing. Under his very nose the thing was, and he was sublimely contented. How she hated that content, and how she despised it!
About a week after the affair of the elephants, Mrs. Combermere asked her to tea. She disliked Mrs. Combermere, but she went to tea there because it was easier than not going. She disliked Mrs. Combermere especially because it was in her house that she heard silly, feminine praise of her husband. It amused her, however, to think of the amazed sensation there would be, did she one day burst out before them all and tell them what she really thought of the Archdeacon.
Of course she would never do that, but she had often outlined the speech in her mind.
Mrs. Combermere also lived in the Precincts, so that Mrs. Brandon had not far to go. Before she arrived there a little conversation took place between the lady of the house, Miss Stiles, Miss Dobell and Dr. Puddifoot, that her presence would most certainly have hindered. Mrs. Combermere was once described by some one as “constructed in concrete”; and that was not a bad description of her, so solid, so square and so unshakable and unbeatable was she. She wore stiff white collars like a man’s, broad thick boots, short skirts and a belt at her waist. Her black hair was brushed straight back from her forehead, she had rather small brown eyes, a large nose and a large mouth. Her voice was a deep bass. She had some hair on her upper lip, and thick, strong, very white hands. She liked to walk down the High Street, a silver-topped cane in her hand, a company of barking dogs at her heels, and a hat, with large hat-pins, set a little on one side of her head. She had a hearty laugh, rather like the Archdeacon’s. Dr. Puddifoot was our doctor for many years and brought many of my generation into the world. He was a tall, broad, loose-set man, who always wore tweeds of a bright colour.
Mrs. Combermere cared nothing for her surroundings, and her house was never very tidy. She bullied her servants, but they liked her because she gave good wages and fulfilled her promises. She was the first woman in Polchester to smoke cigarettes. It was even said that she smoked cigars, but no one, I think, ever saw her do this.
On this afternoon she subjected Miss Stiles to a magisterial inquiry; Miss Stiles had on the preceding evening given a little supper party, and no one in Polchester did anything of the kind without having to render account to Mrs. Combermere afterwards. They all sat round the fire, because it was a cold day. Mrs. Combermere sat on a straight-backed chair, tilting it forward, her skirt drawn up to her knees, lier thick-stockinged legs and big boots for all the world to see.
“Well, Ellen, whom did you have?”
“Ronder and his aunt, the Bentinck-Majors, Charlotte Ryle and Major Drake.”
“Sorry I couldn’t have been there. What did you give them?”
“Soup, fish salad, cutlets, chocolate soufflé, sardines on toast.”
“What drink?”
“Sherry, claret, lemonade for Charlotte, whisky.”
“Any catastrophes?”
“No, I don’t think so. Bentinck-Major sang afterwards.”
“Hum — not sorry I missed that. When was it over?”
“About eleven.”
“What did you ask them for?”
“For the Ronders.”
Mrs. Combermere, raising one foot, kicked a coal into blaze.
“Tea will be in in a minute.... Now, I’ll tell you for your good, my dear Ellen, that I don’t like your Ronder.”
&n
bsp; Miss Stiles laughed. “Oh, you needn’t mind me, Betsy. You never have. Why don’t you?”
“In the first place, he’s stupid.”
Miss Stiles laughed again.
“Never wronger in your life. I thought you were smarter than that.”
Mrs. Combermere smacked her knee. “I may be wrong. I often am. I take prejudices, I know. Secondly, he’s fat and soft — too like the typical parson.”
“It’s an assumed disguise — however, go on.”
“Third, I hear he agrees with everything one says.”
“You hear? You’ve not talked to him yourself, then?”
Mrs. Combermere raised her head as the door opened and the tea came in.
“No. I’ve only seen him in Cathedral. But I’ve called, and he’s coming to- day.”
Miss Stiles smiled in her own dark and mysterious way.
“Well, Betsy, my dear, I leave you to find it all out for yourself.... I keep my secrets.”
“If you do,” said Mrs. Combermere, getting up and going to the tea-table, “it’s the first time you ever have. And Ellen,” she went on, “I’ve a bone to pick. I won’t have you laughing at my dear Archdeacon.”