Short Stories 1895-1926

by Walter De la Mare

  ‘Ah, reconciled, sir:’ the old man repeated, turning away. ‘I can well imagine it after that journey on such a day as this. But to live here is another matter.’

  ‘I was thinking of that,’ I replied in a foolish attempt to retrieve the position. ‘It must, as you say, be desolate enough in the winter – for two-thirds of the year, indeed.’

  ‘We have our storms, sir – the bad with the good,’ he agreed, ‘and our position is specially prolific of what they call sea-fog. It comes driving in from the sea for days and nights together – gale and mist, so that you can scarcely see your open hand in front of your eyes even in broad daylight. And the noise of it, sir, sweeping across overhead in that wooliness of mist, if you take me, is most peculiar. It’s shocking to a stranger. No, sir, we are left pretty much to ourselves when the fine-weather birds are flown … You’d be astonished at the power of the winds here. There was a mason – a local man too – not above two or three years ago was blown clean off the roof from under the tower – tossed up in the air like an empty sack. But’ – and the old man at last allowed his eyes to stray upwards to the roof again –‘but there’s not much doing now.’ He seemed to be pondering. ‘Nothing open.’

  ‘I mustn’t detain you,’ I said, ‘but you were saying that services are infrequent now. Why is that? When one thinks of — ’ But tact restrained me.

  ‘Pray don’t think of keeping me, sir. It’s a part of my duties. But from a remark you let fall I was supposing you may have seen something that appeared, I understand, not many months ago in the newpapers. We lost our dean – Dean Pomfrey – last November. To all intents and purposes I mean; and his office has not yet been filled. Between you and me, sir, there’s a hitch – though I should wish it to go no further. They are greedy monsters – those newspapers: no respect, no discretion, no decency, in my view. And they copy each other like cats in a chorus.

  ‘We have never wanted to be a notoriety here, sir: and not of late of all times. We must face our own troubles. You’d be astonished how callous the mere sightseer can be. And not only them from over the water whom our particular troubles cannot concern – but far worse – parties as English as you or me. They ask you questions you wouldn’t believe possible in a civilized country. Not that they care what becomes of us – not one iota, sir. We talk of them masked-up Inquisitors in olden times, but there’s many a human being in our own would enjoy seeing a fellow-creature on the rack if he could get the opportunity. It’s a heartless age, sir.’

  This was queerish talk in the circumstances: and after all myself was of the glorious company of the sightseers. I held my peace. And the old man, as if to make amends, asked me if I would care to see any particular part of the building. ‘The light is smalling,’ he explained, ‘but still if we keep to the ground level there’ll be a few minutes to spare; and we shall not be interrupted if we go quietly on our way.’

  For the moment the reference eluded me: I could only thank him for the suggestion and once more beg him not to put himself to any inconvenience. I explained, too, that though I had no personal acquaintance with Dr Pomfrey, I had read of his illness in the newspapers. ‘Isn’t he,’ I added a little dubiously, ‘the author of The Church and the Folk? If so, he must be an exceedingly learned and delightful man.’

  ‘Ay, sir.’ The old verger put up a hand towards me. ‘You may well say it: a saint if ever there was one. But it’s worse than “illness”, sir – it’s oblivion. And, thank God, the newspapers didn’t get hold of more than a bare outline.’

  He dropped his voice. This way, if you please’; and he led me off gently down the aisle, once more coming to a standstill beneath the roof of the tower. ‘What I mean, sir, is that there’s very few left in this world who have any place in their minds for a sacred confidence – no reverence, sir. They would as lief All Hallows and all it stands for were swept away to-morrow, demolished to the dust. And that gives me the greatest caution with whom I speak. But sharing one’s troubles is sometimes a relief. If it weren’t so, why do those Catholics have their wooden boxes all built for the purpose? What else, I ask you, is the meaning of their fasts and penances?

  ‘You see, sir, I am myself, and have been for upwards of twelve years now, the dean’s verger. In the sight of no respecter of persons – of offices and dignities, that is, I take it – I might claim to be even an elder brother. And our dean, sir, was a man who was all things to all men. No pride of place, no vauntingness, none of your apron-and-gaiter high-and-mightiness whatsoever, sir. And then that! And to come on us without warning; or at least without warning as could be taken as such.’ I followed his eyes into the darkening stony spaces above us; a light like tarnished silver lay over the soundless vaultings. But so, of course, dusk, either of evening or daybreak, would affect the ancient stones. Nothing moved there.

  ‘You must understand, sir,’ the old man was continuing, ‘the procession for divine service proceeds from the vestry over yonder out through those wrought-iron gates and so under the rood-screen and into the chancel there. Visitors are admitted on showing a card or a word to the verger in charge; but not otherwise. If you stand a pace or two to the right, you will catch a glimpse of the altar-screen – fourteenth-century work, Bishop Robert de Beaufort – and a unique example of the age. But what I was saying is that when we proceed for the services out of here into there, it has always been our custom to keep pretty close together; more seemly and decent, sir, than straggling in like so many sheep.

  ‘Besides, sir, aren’t we at such times in the manner of an array; “marching as to war”, if you take me: it’s a lesson in objects. The third verger leading: then the choristers, boys and men, though sadly depleted; then the minor canons; then any other dignitaries who may happen to be present, with the canon in residence; then myself, sir, followed by the dean.

  ‘There hadn’t been much amiss up to then, and on that afternoon, I can vouch – and I’ve repeated it ad naushum – there was not a single stranger out in this beyond here, sir – nave or transepts. Not within view, that is: one can’t be expected to see through four feet of Norman stone. Well, sir, we had gone on our way, and I had actually turned about as usual to bow Dr Pomfrey into his stall, when I found to my consternation, to my consternation, I say, he wasn’t there! It alarmed me, sir, and as you might well believe if you knew the full circumstances.

  ‘Not that I lost my presence of mind. My first duty was to see all things to be in order and nothing unseemly to occur. My feelings were another matter. The old gentleman had left the vestry with us: that I knew: I had myself robed ‘im as usual, and he in his own manner, smiling with his “Well, Jones, another day gone; another day gone.” He was always an anxious gentleman for time, sir. How we spend it and all.

  ‘As I say, then, he was behind me when we swepp out of the gates. I saw him coming on out of the tail of my eye – we grow accustomed to it, to see with the whole of the eye, I mean. And then – not a vestige; and me -well, sir, nonplussed, as you may imagine. I gave a look and sign at Canon Ockham, and the service proceeded as usual, while I hurried back to the vestry thinking the poor gentleman must have been taken suddenly ill. And yet, sir, I was not surprised to find the vestry vacant, and him not there. I had been expecting matters to come to what you might call a head.

  ‘As best I could I held my tongue, and a fortunate thing it was that Canon Ockham was then in residence and not Canon Leigh Shougar, though perhaps I am not the one to say it. No, sir, our beloved dean – as pious and unworldly a gentleman as ever graced the Church – was gone for ever. He was not to appear in our midst again. He had been’ – and the old man with elevated eyebrows and long lean mouth nearly whispered the words into my ear – ‘he had been absconded – abducted, sir.’

  ‘Abducted!’ I murmured.

  The old man closed his eyes, and with trembling lids added, ‘He was found, sir, late that night up there in what they call the Trophy Room – sitting in a corner there, weeping. A child. Not a word of what had persuad
ed him to go or misled him there, not a word of sorrow or sadness, thank God. He didn’t know us, sir – didn’t know me. Just simple; harmless; memory all gone. Simple, sir.’

  It was foolish to be whispering together like this beneath these enormous spaces with not so much as a clothes-moth for sign of life within view. But I even lowered my voice still further: ‘Were there no premonitory symptoms? Had he been failing for long?’

  The spectacle of grief in any human face is afflicting, but in a face as aged and resigned as this old man’s – I turned away in remorse the moment the question was out of my lips; emotion is a human solvent and a sort of friendliness had sprung up between us.

  ‘If you will just follow me,’ he whispered, ‘there’s a little place where I make my ablutions that might be of service, sir. We would converse there in better comfort. I am sometimes reminded of those words in Ecclesiastes: “And a bird of the air shall tell of the matter.” There is not much in our poor human affairs, sir, that was not known to the writer of that book.’

  He turned and led the way with surprising celerity, gliding along in his thin-soled, square-toed, clerical springside boots; and came to a pause outside a nail-studded door. He opened it with a huge key, and admitted me into a recess under the central tower. We mounted a spiral stone staircase and passed along a corridor hardly more than two feet wide and so dark that now and again I thrust out my fingertips in search of his black velveted gown to make sure of my guide.

  This corridor at length conducted us into a little room whose only illumination I gathered was that of the ebbing dusk from within the cathedral. The old man with trembling rheumatic fingers lit a candle, and thrusting its stick into the middle of an old oak table, pushed open yet another thick oaken door. ‘You will find a basin and a towel in there, sir, if you will be so kind.’

  I entered. A print of the Crucifixion was tin-tacked to the panelled wall, and beneath it stood a tin basin and jug on a stand. Never was water sweeter. I laved my face and hands and drank deep; my throat like a parched river-course after a drought. What appeared to be a tarnished censer lay in one corner of the room; a pair of seven-branched candlesticks shared a recess with a mouse-trap and a book. My eyes passed wearily yet gratefully from one to another of these mute discarded objects while I stood drying my hands.

  When I returned, the old man was standing motionless before the spikebarred grill of the window, peering out and down.

  ‘You asked me, sir,’ he said, turning his lank waxen face into the feeble rays of the candle, ‘you asked me, sir, a question which, if I understood you aright, was this: Was there anything that had occurred previous that would explain what I have been telling you? Well, sir, it’s a long story, and one best restricted to them perhaps that have the goodwill of things at heart. All Hallows, I might say, sir, is my second home. I have been here, boy and man, for close on fifty-five years – have seen four bishops pass away and have served under no less than five several deans, Dr Pomfrey, poor gentleman, being the last of the five.

  ‘If such a word could be excused, sir, it’s no exaggeration to say that Canon Leigh Shougar is a greenhorn by comparison; which may in part be why he has never quite hit it off, as they say, with Canon Ockham. Or even with Archdeacon Trafford, though he’s another kind of gentleman altogether. And he is at present abroad. He had what they call a breakdown in health, sir.

  ‘Now in my humble opinion, what was required was not only wisdom and knowledge but simple common sense. In the circumstances I am about to mention, it serves no purpose for any of us to be talking too much; to be for ever sitting at a table with shut doors and finger on lip, and discussing what to most intents and purposes would hardly be called evidence at all, sir. What is the use of argufying, splitting hairs, objurgating about trifles, when matters are sweeping rapidly on from bad to worse. I say it with all due respect and not, I hope, thrusting myself into what doesn’t concern me: Dr Pomfrey might be with us now in his own self and reason if only common caution had been observed.

  ‘But now that the poor gentleman is gone beyond all that, there is no hope of action or agreement left, none whatsoever. They meet and they meet, and they have now one expert now another down from London, and even from the continent. And I don’t say they are not knowledgeable gentlemen either, nor a pride to their profession. But why not tell all? Why keep back the very secret of what we know? That’s what I am asking. And, what’s the answer? Why simply that what they don’t want to believe, what runs counter to their hopes and wishes and credibilities – and comfort – in this world, that’s what they keep out of sight as long as decency permits.

  ‘Canon Leigh Shougar knows, sir, what I know. And how, I ask, is he going to get to grips with it at this late day if he refuses to acknowledge that such things are what every fragment of evidence goes to prove that they are. It’s we, sir, and not the rest of the heedless world outside, who in the long and the short of it are responsible. And what I say is: no power or principality here or hereunder can take possession of a place while those inside have faith enough to keep them out. But once let that falter – the seas are in. And when I say no power, sir, I mean – with all deference – even Satan himself.’ The lean lank face had set at the word like a wax mask. The black eyes beneath the heavy lids were fixed on mine with an acute intensity and – though more inscrutable things haunted them – with an unfaltering courage. So dense a hush hung about us that the very stones of the walls seemed to be of silence solidified. It is curious what a refreshment of spirit a mere tin basinful of water may be. I stood leaning against the edge of the table so that the candlelight still rested on my companion.

  ‘What is wrong here?’ I asked him baldly.

  He seemed not to have expected so direct an inquiry. ‘Wrong, sir? Why, if I might make so bold,’ he replied with a wan, far-away smile and gently drawing his hand down one of the velvet lapels of his gown, ‘if I might make so bold, sir, I take it that you have come as a direct answer to prayer.’

  His voice faltered. ‘I am an old man now, and nearly at the end of my tether. You must realize, if you please, that I can’t get any help that I can understand. I am not doubting that the gentlemen I have mentioned have only the salvation of the cathedral at heart – the cause, sir; and a graver responsibility yet. But they refuse to see how close to the edge of things we are: and how we are drifting.

  ‘Take mere situation. So far as my knowledge tells me, there is no sacred edifice in the whole kingdom – of a piece, that is, with All Hallows not only in mere size and age but in what I might call sanctity and tradition – that is so open – open, I mean, sir, to attack of this peculiar and terrifying nature.’

  ‘Terrifying?’

  ‘Terrifying, sir; though I hold fast to what wits my Maker has bestowed on me. Where else, may I ask, would you expect the powers of darkness to congregate in open besiegement than in this narrow valley? First, the sea out there. Are you aware, sir, that ever since living remembrance flood-tide has been gnawing and mumbling its way into this bay to the extent of three or four feet per annum? Forty inches, and forty inches, and forty inches corroding on and on: Watch it, sir, man and boy as I have these sixty years past and then make a century of it. Not to mention positive leaps and bounds.

  ‘And now, think a moment of the floods and gales that fall upon us autumn and winter through and even in spring, when this valley is liker paradise to young eyes than any place on earth. They make the roads from the nearest towns well-nigh impassable; which means that for some months of the year we are to all intents and purposes clean cut off from the rest of the world – as the Schindels out there are from the mainland. Are you aware, sir, I continue, that as we stand now we are above a mile from traces of the nearest human habitation, and them merely the relics of a burnt-out old farmstead? I warrant that if (and which God forbid) you had been shut up here during the coming night, and it was a near thing but what you weren’t – I warrant you might have shouted yourself dumb out of the nearest window if w
indow you could reach – and not a human soul to heed or help you.’

  I shifted my hands on the table. It was tedious to be asking questions that received only such vague and evasive replies: and it is always a little disconcerting in the presence of a stranger to be spoken to so close, and with such positiveness.

  ‘Well’, I smiled, ‘I hope I should not have disgraced my nerves to such an extreme as that. As a small boy, one of my particular fancies was to spend a night in a pulpit. There’s a cushion, you know!’

  The old man’s solemn glance never swerved from my eyes. ‘But I take it, sir,’ he said, ‘if you had ventured to give out a text up there in the dark hours, your jocular young mind would not have been prepared for any kind of a congregation?’

  ‘You mean,’ I said a little sharply, ‘that the place is haunted?’ The absurd notion flitted across my mind of some wandering tribe of gipsies chancing on a refuge so ample and isolated as this, and taking up its quarters in its secret parts. The old church must be honeycombed with corridors and passages and chambers pretty much like the one in which we were now concealed: and what does ‘cartholic’ imply but an infinite hospitality within prescribed limits? But the old man had taken me at my word.

  ‘I mean, sir,’ he said firmly, shutting his eyes, ‘that there are devilish agencies at work here.’ He raised his hand. ‘Don’t, I entreat you, dismiss what I am saying as the wanderings of a foolish old man.’ He drew a little nearer. ‘I have heard them with these ears; I have seen them with these eyes; though whether they have any positive substance, sir, is beyond my small knowledge to declare. But what indeed might we expect their substance to be? First: “I take it,” says the Book, “to be such as no man can by learning define, nor by wisdom search out.” Is that so? Then I go by the Book. And next: what does the same Word or very near it (I speak of the Apocrypha) say of their purpose? It says – and correct me if I go astray – “Devils are creatures made by God, and that for vengeance.”