by Hugh Walpole
“I like to feel you there,” she said. “It’s more a mother I feel to you than a lover.”
She would not let him kiss her, but suddenly moved away from him, into the dark, leaving him where he stood.
When he was half-way home the storm that had been slowly, during the last hour and a half, climbing up above the town, broke. As he was crossing the market-place the rain came down in torrents, dancing upon the uneven cobbles with a kind of excited frenzy, and thickening the air with a curtain of mist. He climbed the High Street, his head down, feeling a physical satisfaction in the fierce soaking that the storm was giving him. The town was shining and deserted. Not a soul about. No sound except the hissing, sneering, chattering whisper of the deluge. He went up to his room and changed, putting on a dinner jacket, and came down to his father’s study. It was too late for dinner, but he was not hungry; he did not know how long it was since he had felt hungry last.
He knocked and went in. He felt a desperate urgency that he must somehow reconcile the interests and happiness of the two people who were then filling all his thoughts — his father and Annie. There must be a way. He could feel still the touch of Annie’s hand upon his head; he was more deeply bound to her by that evening’s conversation than he had ever been before, but he longed to be able to reassure himself by some contact with his father that he was not going to hurt the old man, that he would be able to prove to him that his loyalty was true and his affection deep.
Small causes produce lasting results, and the lives of many people would have been changed had Falk caught his father that night in another mood.
The Archdeacon did not look up at the sound of the closing door. He was sitting at his big table writing letters, the expression of his face being that of a boy who has been kept in on a fine afternoon to write out the first fifty lines of the Iliad. His curly hair was ruffled, his mouth was twisted with disgust, and he pushed his big body about in his chair, kicked out his legs and drew them in as though beneath his concentration on his letters he was longing to spring up, catch his enemy by the throat, roll him over on to the ground and kick him.
“Hullo, governor!” Falk said, and settled down into one of the big leather arm-chairs, produced a pipe from his pocket and slowly filled it.
The Archdeacon went on writing, muttering to himself, biting the end of his quill pen. He had not apparently been aware of his son’s entrance, but suddenly he sprang up, pushed back his chair until it nearly fell over, and began to stride up and down the room. He was a fine figure then, throwing up his head, flinging out his arms, apostrophising the world.
“Gratitude! They don’t know what it means. Do you think I’ll go on working for them, wearing myself to a shadow, staying up all night — getting up at seven in the morning, and then to have this sort of return? I’ll leave the place. I’ll let them make their own mistakes and see how they like that. I’ll teach them gratitude. Here am I; for ten years I’ve done nothing but slave for the town and the Cathedral. Who’s worked for them as I have?”
“What’s the matter, father?” Falk asked, watching him from the chair. Every one knows the irritation of coming to some one with matters so urgent that they occupy the whole of your mind, and then discovering that your audience has its own determined preoccupation. “Always thinking of himself,” Falk continued. “Fusses about nothing.”
“The matter?” His father turned round upon him. “Everything’s the matter. Everything! Here’s this Jubilee business coming on and everything going to ruin. Here am I, who know more about the Cathedral and what’s been done in the Cathedral for the last ten years than any one, and they are letting Ryle have a free hand over all the Jubilee Week services without another word to anybody.”
“Well, Ryle is the Precentor, isn’t he?” said Falk.
“Of course he is,” the Archdeacon answered angrily. “And what a Precentor! Every one knows he isn’t capable of settling anything by himself. That’s been proved again and again. But that’s only one thing. It’s the same all the way round. Opposition everywhere. It’ll soon come to it that I’ll have to ask permission from the Chapter to walk down the High Street.”
“All the same, father,” Falk said, “you can’t be expected to have the whole of the Jubilee on your shoulders. It’s more than any one man can possibly do.”
“I know that. Of course I know that. Ryle’s case is only one small instance of the way the wind’s blowing. Every one’s got to do their share, of course. But in the last three months the place is changed — the Chapter’s disorganised, there’s rebellion in the Choir, among the Vergers, everywhere. The Cathedral is in pieces. And why? Who’s changed everything? Why is nothing as it was three months ago?”
“Oh, Lord! what a bore the old man is!” thought Falk. He was in the last possible mood to enter into any of his father’s complaints. They seemed now, as he looked across at him, to be miles apart. He felt, suddenly, as though he did not care what happened to his father, nor whether his feelings were hurt or no ——
“Well, tell me!” said the Archdeacon, spreading his legs out, putting his hands behind his back and standing over his son. “Who’s responsible for the change?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Falk impatiently.
“You don’t know? No, of course you don’t know, because you’ve taken no interest in the Cathedral nor in anything to do with it. All the same, I should have thought it impossible for any one to be in this town half an hour and not know who’s responsible. There’s only one man, and that man is Ronder.”
Unfortunately Falk liked Ronder. “I think Ronder’s rather a good sort,” he said. “A clever fellow, too.”
The Archdeacon stared at him.
“You like him?”
“Yes, father, I do.”
“And of course it matters nothing to you that he should be your father’s persistent enemy and do his best to hinder him in everything and every way possible.”
Falk smiled, one of those confident, superior smiles that are so justly irritating to any parent.
“Oh, come, father,” he said. “Aren’t you rather exaggerating?”
“Exaggerating? Yes, of course you would take the other side. And what do you know about it? There you are, lolling about in your chair, idling week after week, until all the town talks about it — —”
Falk sprang up.
“And whose fault is it if I do idle? What have I been wanting except to go off and make a decent living? Whose fault —— ?”
“Oh, mine, of course!” the Archdeacon shouted. “Put it all down to me! Say that I begged you to leave Oxford, that I want you to laze the rest of your life away. Why shouldn’t you, when you have a mother and sister to support you?”
“Stop that, father.” Falk also was shouting. “You’d better look out what you’re saying, or I’ll take you at your word and leave you altogether.”
“You can, for all I care,” the Archdeacon shouted back. They stood there facing one another, both of them red in the face, a curious family likeness suddenly apparent between them.
“Well, I will then,” Falk cried, and rushed from the room, banging the door behind him.
Chapter VI
Falk’s Flight
Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn. Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the very symbol of satisfied happy and kind-hearted prosperity.
He was really touched by young Falk’s approach towards friendship. He had in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once or twice women and men younger than himself had made such urgent demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run fro
m them!
But the more tranquil, easy and unexacting aspects of sentiment he enjoyed. He liked his heart to be warmed, he liked to feel that the pressure of his hand, the welcome of the eye, the smile of the lip were genuine in him and natural; he liked to put his hand through the arm of a young eager human being who was full of vitality and physical strength. He disliked so deeply sickness and decay; he despised them.
Falk was young, handsome and eager, something of a rebel — the greater compliment then that he should seek out Ronder. He was certainly the most attractive young man in Polchester and, although that was not perhaps saying very much, after all Ronder lived in Polchester and wished to share in the best of every side of its life.
There were, however, further, more actual reasons that Ronder should anticipate Falk’s visit with deep interest. He had heard, of course, many rumours of Falk’s indiscretions, rumours that naturally gained greatly in the telling, of how he had formed some disgraceful attachment for the daughter of a publican down in the river slums, that he drank, that he gambled, that he was the wickedest young man in Polchester, and that he would certainly break his father’s heart.
It was this relation of the boy to his father that interested him most of all. He continued to remark to the little god who looked after his affairs and kept an eye upon him that the last thing that he wanted was to interfere in Brandon’s family business, and yet to the same little god he could not but comment on the curious persistency with which that same business would thrust itself upon his interest. “If Brandon’s wife, son, and general ménage will persist in involving themselves in absurd situations it’s not my fault,” he would say. But he was not exactly sorry that they should.
Indeed, to-night, in the warm security of his room, with all his plans advancing towards fulfillment, and life developing just as he would have it, he felt so kindly a pity towards Brandon that he was warm with the desire to do something for him, make him a present, or flatter his vanity, or give way publicly to him about some contested point that was of no particular importance.
When young Falk was ushered in by the maid-servant, Ronder, looking up at him, thought him the handsomest boy he’d ever seen. He felt ready to give him all the advice in the world, and it was with the most genuine warmth of heart that he jumped up, put his hand on his shoulder, found him tobacco, whisky and soda, and the easiest chair in the room.
It was apparent at once that the boy was worked up to the extremity of his possible endurance. Ronder felt instantly the drama that he brought with him, filling the room with it, charging every word and every movement with the implication of it.
He turned about in his chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder’s importance. Ronder began by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an especial talent. Falk suddenly broke upon him:
“Look here. You don’t care about that stuff — nor do I. I didn’t come round to you for that. I want you to help me.”
“I’ll be very glad to,” Ronder said, smiling. “If I can.”
“Perhaps you can — perhaps you can’t. I don’t know you really, of course — I only have my idea of you. But you seem to me much older than I am. Do you know what I mean? Father’s as young or younger and so are so many of the others. But you must have made your mind up about life. I want to know what you think of it.”
“That’s a tall order,” said Ronder, smiling. “What one thinks of life! Well, one can’t say all in a moment, you know.”
And then, as though he had suddenly decided to take his companion seriously, his face was grave and his round shining eyes wide open.
Falk coloured. “Perhaps you think me impertinent,” he said. “But I don’t care a damn if you do. After all, isn’t it an absurd thing that there isn’t another soul in this town you could ask such a question of? And yet there’s nothing else so important. A fellow’s thought an impossible prig if he mentions such a thing. I expect I seem in a hurry too, but I can tell you I’ve been irritated for years by not being able to get at it — the truth, you know. Why we’re here at all, whether there is some kind of a God somewhere or no. Of course you’ve got to pretend you think there is, but I want to know what you really think and I promise it shan’t go a step farther. But most of all I want to know whether you don’t think we’re meant all of us to be free, and why being free should be the hardest thing of all.”
“You must tell me one thing,” said Ronder. “Is the impulse that brought you in to see me simply a general one, just because you are interested in life, or is there some immediate crisis that you have to settle? I ask that,” he added, smiling gently, “because I’ve noticed that people don’t as a rule worry very urgently about life unless they have to make up their minds about which turn in the road they’re going to take.”
Falk hesitated; then he said, speaking slowly, “Yes, there is something. It’s what you’d call a crisis in my life, I suppose. It’s been piling up for months — for years if you like. But I don’t see why I need bother you with that — it’s nobody’s business but my own. Although I won’t deny that things you say may influence me. You see, I felt the first moment I met you that you’d speak the truth, and speaking the truth seems to me more important than anything else in the world.”
“But,” said Ronder, “I don’t want to influence you blindly. You’ve no right to ask me to advise you when I don’t know what it is I am advising you about.”
“Well, then,” said Falk, “it’s simply this — that I want to go up to London and live my own life. But I love my father — it would all be easy enough if I didn’t — and he doesn’t see things as I do. There are other things too — it’s all very complicated. But I don’t want you to tell me about my own affairs! I just want you to say what you think this is all about, what we’re here for anyway. You must have thought it all through and come out the other side. You look as though you had.”
Ronder hesitated. He really wished that this had not occurred. He could defeat Brandon without being given this extra weapon. His impulse was to put the boy off with some evasion and so to dismiss him. But the temptation that was always so strong in him to manipulate the power placed in his hands was urging him; moreover, why should he not say what he thought about life? It was sincere enough. He had no shame of it....
“I couldn’t advise you against your father’s wishes,” he said. “I’m very fond of your father. I have the highest opinion of him.”
Falk moved uneasily in his chair: “You needn’t advise me against him,” he said; “you can’t have a higher opinion of him than I have. I’m fonder of him than of any one in the world; I wouldn’t be hesitating at all otherwise. And I tell you I don’t want you to advise me on my particular case. It just interests me to know whether you believe in a God and whether you think life means anything. As soon as I saw you I said to myself, ‘Now I’d like to know what he thinks.’ That’s all.”
“Of course I believe in a God,” said Ronder, “I wouldn’t be a clergyman otherwise.”
“Then if there’s a God,” said Falk quickly, “why does He let us down, make us feel that we must be free, and then make us feel that it’s wrong to be free because, if we are, we hurt the people we’re fond of? Do we live for ourselves or for others? Why isn’t it easier to see what the right thing is?”
“If you want to know what I think about life,” said Ronder, “it’s just this — that we mustn’t take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our utmost at the thing we’re in, and give as little trouble to others as possible.”
Falk nodded his head. “Yes, that’s very simple. If you’ll forgive my saying so, that’s the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he really feels. That’s not what you really feel. Anyway it accounts for simply nothing at all. If that’s all there is in life — —”
“I don’t say that’s all there is in life,” interrupted Ro
nder softly, “I only say that that does for a start — for one’s daily conduct I mean. But you’ve got to rid your head of illusions. Don’t expect poetry and magic for ever round the corner. Don’t dream of Utopias — they’ll never come. Mind your own daily business.”
“Play for safety, in fact,” said Falk.
Ronder coloured a little. “Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you think your happiness depends upon it. You’re going to serve the world best by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It’s the discontented and disappointed who hang things up.”
Falk smiled. “You’re pushing on to me the kind of philosophy that I’d like to follow,” he said. “I don’t believe in it for a moment nor do I believe it’s what you really think, but I think I’m ready to cheat myself if you give me encouragement enough. I don’t want to do any one any harm, but I must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed in God then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where He’d most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself.
“Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own, quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its nave than we have in all our bodies.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Ronder said. “We have our immortality — a tiny flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live.”
“And yet,” said Falk eagerly, “you were urging, just now, a doctrine of what, if you’ll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do you reconcile that with immortality?”
Ronder laughed. “There have only been four doctrines in the history of the world,” he answered, “and they are all Pursuits. One is the pursuit of Unselfishness. ‘Little children, love one another. He that seeks to save his soul shall lose it.’ The second is the opposite of the first — Individualism. ‘I am I. That is all I know, and I will seek out my own good always because that at least I can understand.’ The third is the pursuit of God and Mysticism. ‘Neither I matter nor my neighbour. I give up the world and every one and everything in it to find God.’ And the fourth is the pursuit of Beauty. ‘Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That is all we need to know.’ Every man and woman alive or dead has chosen one of those four or a mixture of them. I would say that there is something in all of them, Charity, Individualism, Worship, Beauty. But finally, when all is said and done, we remain ourselves. It is our own life that we must lead, our own goal for which we are searching. At the end of everything we remain alone, of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves. Life is, finally, a lonely journey to a lonely bourne, let us cheat ourselves as we may.”