by Hugh Walpole
At breakfast, however, there Mrs. Brandon was, looking quite her usual self, in the Sunday dress of grey silk, making the tea, quiet as she always was, answering questions submissively, patiently, “as the wife of an Archdeacon should.” He tried to show her by his manner that he had been deeply shocked, but, unfortunately, he had been shocked, annoyed, indignant on so many occasions when there had been no real need for it, that to-day, when there was the occasion, he felt that he made no impression.
The bells pealed for morning service, the sun shone; as half-past ten approached, little groups of people crossed the Precincts and vanished into the mouth of the great West door. Now were Lawrence and Cobbett in their true glory — Lawrence was in his fine purple robe, the Sunday silk one. He stood at the far end of the nave, just under the choir-screen, waiting for the aristocracy, for whom the front seats were guarded with cords which only he might untie. How deeply pleased he was when some unfortunate stranger, ignorant in the ways of the Cathedral, walked, with startling clatter, up the whole length of the shining nave and endeavoured to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically — staff in hand, he came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back, clatter, clatter, blushing and confused, the stranger retreated, watched, as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells slipped from their jangling peal into a solemn single note. The Mere People were in their places at the back of the nave, the Great Ones leaving their entrance until the very last moment. There was a light in the organ-loft; very softly Brockett began his voluntary — clatter, clatter, clatter, and the School arrived, the small boys, swallowed by their Eton collars, first, filing into their places to the right of the screen, then the middle boys, a little indifferent and careless, then the Fifth and Sixth in their “stick-up” collars, haughty and indifferent indeed.
Dimly, on the other side of the screen, the School boys in their surplices could be seen settling into their places between the choir and the altar.
A rustling of skirts, and the aristocracy entered in ones and twos from the side doors that opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them — for a very few — Lawrence had his confidential smile. For Mrs. Sampson, for instance — for Mrs. Combermere, for Mrs. Ryle and Mrs. Brandon.
A very special one for Mrs. Brandon because of his high opinion of her husband. She was nothing very much— “a mean little woman,” he thought her — but the Archdeacon had married her. That was enough.
Joan was with her, conscious that every one must be noticing her — the D’Arcy girls and Cynthia Ryle and Gladys Sampson, they would all be looking and criticising. Hustle, rustle, rustle — here was an event indeed! Lady St. Leath was come, and with her in attendance Johnny and Hetty. Lawrence hurried forward, disregarding Mrs. Brandon, who was compelled to undo her cord for herself. He led Lady St. Leath forward with a ceremony, a dignity, that was marvellous to see. She moved behind him as though she owned the Cathedral, or rather could have owned it had she thought it worth her while. All the little boys in the Upper Third and Lower Fourth turned their necks in their Eton collars and watched. What a bonnet she was wearing! All the colours of the rainbow, odd, indeed, perched there on the top of her untidy white hair!
Every one settled down; the voluntary was louder, the single note of the bell suddenly more urgent. Ladies looked about them. Ellen Stiles saw Miss Dobell — smile, smile. Joan saw Cynthia Ryle — smile, smile. Lawrence, with the expression of the Angel Gabriel waiting to admit into heaven a new troop of repentant sinners, stood expectant. The sun filtered in dusty ladders of coloured light and fell in squares upon the empty spaces of the nave.
The bell suddenly ceased, a long melodious and melancholy “Amen” came from somewhere far away in the purple shadow. Every one moved; a noise like a little uncertain breeze blew through the Cathedral as the congregation rose; then the choir filed through, the boys, the men, the Precentor, old Canon Morphew and older Canon Batholomew, Canon Rogers, his face bitter and discontented, Canon Foster, Bentinck-Major, last of all, Archdeacon Brandon. They had filed into their places in the choir, they were kneeling, the Precentor’s voice rang out....
The familiar sound of Canon Ryle’s voice recalled Mrs. Brandon to time and place. She was kneeling, her gloved hands pressed close to her face. She was looking into thick dense darkness, a darkness penetrated with the strong scent of Russia leather and the faint musty smell that always seemed to rise from the Cathedral hassocks and the woodwork upon which she leant. Until Ryle’s voice roused her she had been swimming in space and eternity; behind her, like a little boat bobbing distressfully in her track, was the scene of that early morning with which that day had opened. She saw herself, as it were, the body of some quite other woman, lying in that so familiar bedroom and saying “No” — saying it again and again and again. “No. No. No.”
Why had she said “No,” and was it not in reality another woman who had said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way. There had been no storm. She shivered a little behind her gloves.
“Dearly beloved brethren,” began the Precentor, pleading, impersonal.
Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the precipitances of jagged black rock. It was “jagged black rock” over which she was now peering.
The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said: “Here’s the ball. Catch. Oh, you are slow!”
In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon’s consciousness two voices were shouting at one another.
One cried: “See what she’s in for, the foolish woman! She’s not up to it. It will finish her.”
And the other answered: “Well, she is in for it! So it’s no use warning her any longer. She wants it. She’s going to have it.”
And the first repeated: “It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!”
And the second replied: “No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!”
Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart’s most elaborate “Te Deums,” with clenched hands and little shivers of apprehension, she fought a poor little battle.
“We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord....”
“The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee....” A boy’s voice rose, “Thou did’st not abhor the Virgin’s womb....”
Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She had Falk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it wasn’t fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her!
Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of the “Te Deum” rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who that fine-looking man was. They craned their necks into the aisle. And he did look fine, his head up, his shoulders back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and God’s.
The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her bed in his shirt and trousers. That movement that he had made as though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.
S
he closed her eyes. His fine rich voice came to her from a long way off. Let him boom as loudly as he pleased, he could not touch her any more. She had escaped, and for ever. She saw, then, Morris as she had seen him at that tea-party months ago. She recovered that strange sense that she had had (and that he had had too, as she knew) of being carried out right away from one’s body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was hungry, starving for it. She must see him often, continually. She must be able to look at him, touch the sleeve of his coat, hear his voice. She must be able to do things for him, little simple things that no one else could do. She wanted no more than that. Only to be near to him and to see that he was cared for...looked after. Surely that was not wrong. No one could say....
Little shivers ran continually about her body, and her hands, clenched tightly, were damp within her gloves.
The Precentor gave out the words of the Anthem, “Little children, love one another.”
Every one rose — save Lady St. Leath, who settled herself magnificently in her seat and looked about her as though she challenged anybody to tell her that she was wrong to do so.
Yes, that was all Amy Brandon wanted. Who could say that she was wrong to want it? The little battle was concluded.
Old Canon Foster was preaching to-day. Always at the conclusion of the Anthem certain ruffians, visitors, tourists, clattered out. No sermon for them. They did not matter very greatly because they were far away at the back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster’s preaching days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting because their seats were prominent ones and their dresses were of silk. Often Lady St. Leath was one of these, but to-day she was sunk into a kind of stupor and did not move. Mrs. Combermere, Ellen Stiles and Mrs. Sampson were the guilty ones.
Rustle of their dresses, the heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, “Let us pray.”
Out in the grey Cloisters it was charming. The mild April sun flooded the square of grass that lay in the middle of the thick rounded pillars like a floor of bright green glass.
The ladies stood for a moment looking out into the sunny silence. The Cathedral was hushed behind them; Ellen Stiles was looking very gay and very hideous in a large hat stifled with flowers, set sideways on her head, and a bright purple silk dress pulled in tightly at the waist, rising to high puffed shoulders. Her figure was not suited to the fashion of the day.
Mrs. Sampson explained that she was suffering from one of the worst of her nervous headaches and that she could not have endured the service another moment. Miss Stiles was all eager solicitude.
“I am so sorry. I know how you are when you get one of those things. Nothing does it any good, does it? I know you’ve tried everything, and it simply goes on for days and days, getting worse and worse. And the really terrible part of them is that, with you, they seem to be constitutional. No doctors can do anything — when they’re constitutional. There you are for the rest of your days!”
Mrs. Sampson gave a little shiver.
“I must say, Dr. Puddifoot seems to be very little use,” she moaned.
“Oh! Puddifoot!” Miss Stiles was contemptuous. “He’s past his work. That’s one comfort about this place. If any one’s ill he dies. No false hopes. At least, we know where we are.”
They walked through the Martyr’s Passage out into the full sunlight of the Precincts.
“What a jolly day!” said Mrs. Combermere, “I shall take my dogs for a walk. By the way, Ellen,” she turned round to her friend, “how did Miss Burnett’s tea-party go? I haven’t seen you since.”
“Oh, it was too funny!” Miss Stiles giggled. “You never saw such a mixture, and I don’t think Miss Burnett knew who any one was. Not that she had much time to think, poor dear, she was so worried with the tea. Such a maid as she had you never saw!”
“A mixture?” asked Mrs. Combermere. “Who were they?”
“Oh, Canon Ronder and Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Brandon and — Oh, yes! actually Falk Brandon!”
“Falk Brandon there?”
“Yes, wasn’t it the strangest thing. I shouldn’t have thought he’d have had time — However, you told me not to, so I won’t—”
“Who did you talk to?”
“I talked to Miss Burnett most of the time. I tried to cheer her up. No one else paid the least attention to her.”
“She’s a very stupid person, it seems to me,” Mrs. Sampson murmured. “But of course I know her very slightly.”
“Stupid!” Miss Stiles laughed. “Why, she hasn’t an idea in her head. I don’t believe that she knows it’s Jubilee Year. Positively!”
A little wind blew sportively around Miss Stiles’ large hat. They all moved forward.
“The funny thing was—” Miss Stiles paused and looked apprehensively at Mrs. Combermere. “I know you don’t like scandal, but of course this isn’t scandal — there’s nothing in it—”
“Come on, Ellen. Out with it,” said Mrs. Combermere.
“Well, Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris. I caught the oddest look between them.”
“Look! What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Combermere sharply. Mrs. Sampson stood still, her mouth a little open, forgetting her neuralgia.
“Of course it was nothing. All the same, they were standing at the window saying something, looking at one another, well, positively as though they had known one another intimately for years. I assure you—”
Mrs. Combermere turned upon her. “Of all the nasty minds in this town, Ellen, you have the nastiest. I’ve told you so before. People can’t even look at one another now. Why, you might as well say that I’d been gazing at your Ronder when he came to tea the other day.”
“Perhaps I shall,” said Miss Stiles, laughing. “It would be a delightful story to spread. Seriously, why not make a match of it? You’d just suit one another.”
“Once is enough for me in a life-time,” said Mrs. Combermere grimly. “Now, Ellen, come along. No more mischief. Leave poor little Morris alone.”
“Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris!” repeated Mrs. Sampson, her eyes wide open. “Well, I do declare.”
The ladies separated, and the Precincts was abandoned for a time to its beautiful Sunday peace and calm.
Chapter III
The May-day Prologue
May is the finest month of all the year in Glebeshire. The days are warm but not too hot; the sky is blue but not too blue, the air is soft but with a touch of sharpness The valleys are pressed down and overflowing with flowers; the cuckoo cries across the glassy waters of blue harbours, and the gorse is honey-scented among the rocks.
May-day in Polchester this year was warm and bright, with a persistent cuckoo somewhere in the Dean’s garden, and a very shrill-voiced canary in Miss Dobell’s open window. The citizens of Polchester were suddenly aware that summer was close upon them. Doors were flung open and the gardens sinuously watered, summer clothes were dragged from their long confinement and anxiously overlooked, Mr. Martin, the stationer, hung a row of his coloured Polchester views along a string across his window, the dark, covered ways of the market-place quivered and shone with pots of spring flowers, and old Simon’s water-cart made its first trembling and shaking appearance down the High Street.
All this was well enough and customary enough, but what marked this spring from any other spring that had ever been was that it was Jubilee Year. It was on this warm May-day that Polchester people realised suddenly that the Jubilee was not far away. The event had not quite the excitement and novelty that the Jubilee of 1887 had had; there was, perhaps, in London and the larger towns, something of a sense of repetition. But Polchester was far from the general highway and, although the picture of the wonderful old lady, now nea
rly eighty years of age, was strong before every one’s vision, there was a deep determination to make this year’s celebration a great Polchester affair, to make it the celebration of Polchester men and Polchester history and Polchester progress.
The programme had been long arranged — the great Service in the Cathedral, the Ball in the Assembly Rooms, the Flower Show in the St. Leath Castle grounds, the Torchlight Procession, the Croquet Tournament, the School- children’s Tea and the School Cricket-match. A fine programme, and the Jubilee Committee, with the Bishop, the Mayor, and the Countess of St. Leath for its presidents, had already held several meetings.
Nevertheless, Glebeshire has a rather languishing climate. Polchester has been called by its critics “a lazy town,” and it must be confessed that everything in connection with the Jubilee had been jogging along very sleepily until of a sudden this warm May-day arrived, and every one sprang into action. The Mayor called a meeting of the town branch of the Committee, and the Bishop out at Carpledon summoned his ecclesiastics, and Joan found a note from Gladys Sampson beckoning her to the Sampson house to do her share of the glorious work. It had been decided by the Higher Powers that it would be a charming thing for some of the younger Polchester ladies to have in charge the working of two of the flags that were to decorate the Assembly Room walls on the night of the Ball. Gladys Sampson, who, unlike her mother, never suffered from headaches, and was a strong, determined, rather masculine girl, soon had the affair in hand, and the party was summoned.
I would not like to say that Polchester had a more snobbish spirit than other Cathedral towns, but there is no doubt that, thirty years ago, the lines were drawn very clearly indeed between the “Cathedral” and the “Others.”