The Cathedral Part 42

"I don't wonder." Joan's eyes sparkled. "Even if one never saw him at all it would be better than somebody else. He's _such_ an old darling."

"Well, I don't believe myself in men going on when they're past their work. However, I hear he's going to insist on resigning at the end of this year."

"How old is he, daddy?"

"Eighty-seven."

There was always a tinge of patronage in the Archdeacon's voice when he spoke of his Bishop. He knew that he was a saint, a man whose life had been of so absolute a purity, a simplicity, an unfaltering faith and courage, that there were no flaws to be found in him anywhere. It was possibly this very simplicity that stirred Brandon's patronage. After all, we were living in a workaday world, and the Bishop's confidence in every man's word and trust in every man's honour had been at times a little ludicrous. Nevertheless, did any one dare to attack the Bishop, he was immediately his most ardent and ferocious defender.

It was only when the Bishop was praised that he felt that a word or two of caution was necessary.

However, he was just now not thinking of the Bishop; he was thinking of his daughter. As he looked across the table at her he wondered. What had Falk's betrayal of the family meant to her? Had she been fond of him? She had given no sign at all as to how it had affected her. She had her friends and her life in the town, and her family pride like the rest of them. How pretty she looked this morning! He was suddenly aware of the love and devotion that she had given him for years and the small return that he had made. Not that he had been a bad father--he hurriedly rea.s.sured himself; no one could accuse him of that. But he had been busy, preoccupied, had not noticed her as he might have done. She was a woman now, with a new independence and self-a.s.surance! And yet such a child at the same time! He recalled the evening in the cab when she had held his hand. How few demands she ever made upon him; how little she was ever in the way!

He went back to his paper, but found that he could not fix his attention upon it. When he had finished his breakfast he went across to her. She looked up at him, smiling. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Um--yes.... And what are you going to do to-day, dear?"

"I've heaps to do. There's the Jubilee work-party in the morning. Then there are one or two things in the town to get for mother." She paused.

He hesitated, then said:

"Has any one--have your friends in the town--said anything about Falk?"

She looked up at him.

"No, daddy--not a word."

Then she added, as though to herself, with a little sigh, "Poor Falk!"

He took his hand from her shoulder.

"So you're sorry for him, are you?" he said angrily.

"Not sorry, exactly," she answered slowly. "But--you will forgive him, won't you?"

"You can be sure," Brandon said, "that I shall do what is right."

She sprang up and faced him.

"Daddy, now that Falk is gone, it's more necessary than ever for you to realise _me_."

"Realise you?" he said, looking at her.

"Yes, that I'm a woman now and not a child any longer. You don't realise it a bit. I said it to mother months ago, and told her that now I could do all sorts of things for her. She _has_ let me do a few things, but she hasn't changed to me, not been any different, or wanted me any more than she did before. But you must. You _must_, daddy. I can help you in lots of ways. I can----"

"What ways?" he asked her, smiling.

"I don't know. You must find them out. What I mean is that you've got to count on me as an element in the family now. You can't disregard me any more."

"Have I disregarded you?"

"Of course you have," she answered, laughing.

"Well, we'll see," he said. He bent down and kissed her, then left the room.

He left to catch the train to Carpledon in a self-satisfied mind. He was tired, certainly, and had felt ever since the shock of three days back a certain "warning" sensation that hovered over him rather like hot air, suggesting that sudden agonizing pain...but so long as the pain did not come...He had thought, half derisively, of seeing old Puddifoot, even of having himself overhauled--but Puddifoot was an a.s.s. How could a man who talked the nonsense Puddifoot did in the Conservative Club be anything of a doctor? Besides, the man was old. There was a young man now, Newton. But Brandon distrusted young men.

He was amused and pleased at the station. He strode up and down the platform, his hands behind his broad back, his head up, his top-hat shining, his gaiters fitting superbly his splendid calves. The station- master touched his hat, smiled, and stayed for a word or two. Very deferential. Good fellow, Curtis. Knew his business. The little, stout, rosy-faced fellow who guarded the book-stall touched his hat. Brandon stopped and looked at the papers. Advertis.e.m.e.nts already of special Jubilee supplements--"Life of the Good Queen," "History of the Empire, 1837-1897." Piles of that trashy novel Joan had been talking about, _The Ma.s.sarenes_, by Ouida. Pah! Stuff and nonsense. How did people have time for such things? "Yes, Mr. Waller. Fine day. Very fine May we're having. Ought to be fine for the Jubilee. Hope so, I'm sure. Disappoint many people if it's wet...."

He bought the _Church Times_ and crossed to the side-line. No one here but a farmer, a country-woman and her little boy. The farmer's side- face reminded him suddenly of some one. Who was it? That fat cheek, the faint sandy hair beneath the shabby bowler. He was struck as though, standing on a tight-rope in mid-air, he felt it quiver beneath him.

Hogg.... He turned abruptly and faced the empty line and the dusty neglected boarding of a railway-shed. He must not think of that man, must not allow him to seize his thoughts. Hogg--Davray. Had he dreamt that horrible scene in the Cathedral? Could that have been? He lifted his hand and, as it were, tore the scene into pieces and scattered it on the line.

He had command of his thoughts, shutting down one little tight shutter after another upon the things he did not want to see. _That_ he did not want to see, did not want to know.

The little train drew in, slowly, regretfully. Brandon got into the solitary first-cla.s.s carriage and buried himself in his paper. Soon, thanks to his happy gift of attending only to one question at a time, the subjects that that paper brought up for discussion completely absorbed him. Anything more absurd than such an argument!--as though the validity of Baptism did not absolutely depend...

He was happily lost; the little train steamed out. He saw nothing of the beautiful country through which they pa.s.sed--country, on this May morning, so beautiful in its rich luxuriant security, the fields bending and dipping to the tree-haunted streams, the hedges running in lines of blue and dark purple like ribbons to the sky, that, blue-flecked, caught in light and shadow a myriad pattern as a complement to its own sun-warmed clouds. Rich and English so utterly that it was almost scornful in its resentment of foreign interference. In spite of the clouds the air was now in its mid-day splendour, and the cows, in cl.u.s.ters of brown, dark and clay-red, sought the cool grey shadows of the hedges.

The peace of centuries lay upon this land, and the sun with loving hands caressed its warm flanks as though here, at least, was some one of whom it might be sure, some one known from old time.

The little station at Carpledon was merely a wooden shed. Woods running down the hill threatened to overwhelm it; at its very edge beyond the line, thick green fields slipped to the shining level waters of the Pol.

Brandon walked up the hill through the wood, past the hedge and on through the Park to the Palace drive. The sight of that old, red, thick-set building with its square comfortable windows, its bell-tower, its dovecots, its graceful, stolid, happy lines, its high old doorway, its tiled roof rosy-red with age, respectability and comfort, its square solemn chimneys behind and between whose self-possession the broad branches of the oaks, older and wiser than the house itself, uplifted their cl.u.s.tered leaves with the protection of their conscious dignity-- this house thrilled all that was deepest and most superst.i.tious in his soul.

To this building he would bow, to this house surrender. Here was something that would command all his reverence, a worthy adjunct to the Cathedral that he loved; without undue pride he must acknowledge to himself that, had fate so willed it, he would himself have occupied this place with a worthy and fitting appropriateness. It seemed, indeed, as he pulled the iron bell and heard its clang deep within the house, that he understood what it needed so well that it must sigh with a dignified relief when it saw him approach.

Appleford the butler, who opened the door, was an old friend of his--an aged, white-locked man, but dignity itself.

"His lordship will be down in a moment," he said, showing him into the library. Some one else was there, his back to the door. He turned round; it was Ronder.

When Brandon saw him he had again that sense that came now to him so frequently, that some plot was in process against him and gradually, step by step, hedging him in. That is a dangerous sense for any human being to acquire, but most especially for a man of Brandon's simplicity, almost navete of character.

Ronder! The very last man whom Brandon could bear to see in that place and at that time! Brandon's visit to-day was not entirely unengineered. To be honest, he had not spoken quite the truth to his daughter when he had said that the Bishop had asked him out there for consultation. Himself had written to the Bishop a very strong letter, emphasising the inadequacy with which his Jubilee services were being prepared, saying something about the suitability of Forsyth for the Pybus living, and hinting at certain carelessnesses in the Chapter "due to new and regrettable influences." It was in answer to this letter that Ponting, the Resident Chaplain, had written saying that the Bishop would like to give Brandon luncheon. It may be said, therefore, that Brandon wished to consult the Bishop rather than the Bishop Brandon. The Archdeacon had pictured to himself a cosy _tete-a-tete_ with the Bishop lasting for an hour or two, and entirely uninterrupted. He flattered himself that he knew his dear Bishop well enough by this time to deal with him exactly as he ought to be dealt with. But, for that dealing, privacy was absolutely essential.

Any third person would have been, to the last extent, provoking. Ronder was disastrous. He instantly persuaded himself, as he looked at that rubicund and smiling figure, that Ronder had heard of his visit and determined to be one of the party. He could only have heard of it through Ponting.... The Archdeacon's fingers twisted within one another as he considered how pleasant it would be to wring Ponting's long, white and ecclesiastical neck.

And, of course, behind all this immediate situation was his sense of the pleasure and satisfaction that Ronder must be feeling about Falk's scandal. Licking his thick red lips about it, he must be, watching with his little fat eyes for the moment when, with his round fat fingers, he might probe that wound.

Nevertheless the Archdeacon knew, by this time, Ronder's character and abilities too well not to realise that he must dissemble. Dissembling was the hardest thing of all that a man of the Archdeacon's character could be called upon to perform, but dissemble he must.

His smile was of a grim kind.

"Ha! Ronder; didn't expect to see you here."

"No," said Ronder, coming forward and smiling with the utmost geniality.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't expect to find myself here. It was only last evening that I got a note from the Bishop asking me to come out to luncheon to-day. He said that you would be here."

Oh, so Ponting was not to blame. It was the Bishop himself. Poor old man!

Cowardice obviously, afraid of some of the home-truths that Brandon might find it his duty to deliver. A coward in his old age....

"Very fine day," said Brandon.