The Cathedral Part 67

When he said _best_ did he meant _most suitable? Suitable_ was not perhaps exactly the word for Forsyth. It was something other than a question of mere suitability. It was a keeping out of the _bad_, as well as a bringing in of the _good_. _Suitable_ was not the word that he wanted. What did he want? The words began to jump about on the paper, and suddenly out of the centre of his table there stretched and extended the figure of Miss Milton. Yes, there she was in her shabby clothes and hat, smirking.... He dashed his hand at her and she vanished.

He sprang up. This was too bad. He must not let these fancies get hold of him. He went into the hall.

He called out loudly, his voice echoing through the house, "Joan! Joan!"

Almost at once she came. Strange the relief that he felt! But he wouldn't show it. She must notice nothing at all out of the ordinary.

She sat close to him at their evening meal and talked to him about everything that came into her young head. Sometimes he wished that she wouldn't talk so much; she hadn't talked so much in earlier days, had she?

But he couldn't remember what she had done in earlier days.

He was very particular now about his food. Always he had eaten whatever was put in front of him with hearty and eager appreciation; now he seemed to have very little appet.i.te. He was always complaining about the cooking.

The potatoes were hard, the beef was underdone, the pastry was heavy. And sometimes he would forget altogether that he was eating, and would sit staring in front of him, his food neglected on his plate.

It was not easy for Joan. Not easy to choose topics that were not dangerous. And so often he was not listening to her at all. Perhaps at no other time did she pity him so much, and love him so much, as when she saw him staring in front of him, his eyes puzzled, bewildered, piteous, like those of an animal caught in a trap. All her old fear of him was gone, but a new fear had come in its place. Sometimes, in quite the old way, he would rap out suddenly, "Nonsense--stuff and nonsense!...As though _he_ knew anything about it!" or would once again take the whole place, town and Cathedral and all of them, into his charge with something like, "I knew how to manage the thing. What they would have done without-- " But these defiances never lasted.

They would fade away into bewilderment and silence.

He would complain continually of his head, putting his hand suddenly up to it, and saying, like a little child:

"My head's so bad. Such a headache!" But he would refuse to see Puddifoot; had seen him once, and had immediately quarrelled with him, and told him that he was a silly old fool and knew nothing about anything, and this when Puddifoot had come with the n.o.blest motives, intending to patronise and condole.

After dinner to-night Joan and he went into the drawing-room. Often, after dinner, he vanished into the study "to work"--but to-night he was "tired, very tired--my dear. So much effort in connection with this Pybus business. What'a come to the town I don't know. A year ago the matter would have been simple enough...anything so obvious...."

He sat in his old arm-chair, whence for so many years he had delivered his decisive judgments. No decisive judgments tonight! He was really tired, lying back, his eyes closed, his hands twitching ever so slightly on his knees.

Joan sat near to him, struggling to overcome her fear. She felt that if only she could grasp that fear, like a nettle, and hold it tightly in her hand it would seem so slight and unimportant. But she could not grasp it.

It was compounded of so many things, of the silence and the dulness, of the Precincts and the Cathedral, of whispering trees and steps on the stairs, of her father and something strange that now inhabited him like a new guest in their house, of her loneliness and of her longing for some friend with whom she could talk, of her ache for Johnny and his comforting, loving smile, but most of all, strangely, of her own love for her father, and her desire, her poignant desire, that he should be happy again. She scarcely missed her mother, she did not want her to come back; but she ached and ached to see once again that happy flush return to her father's cheek, that determined ring to his voice, that buoyant confident movement to his walk.

To-night she could not be sure whether he slept or no. She watched him, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Suddenly an absurd fancy seized her. She fought against it for a time, sitting there, her hands tightly clenched. Then suddenly it overcame her. Some one was listening outside the window; she fancied that she could see him--tall, dark, lean, his face pressed against the pane.

She rose very softly and stole across the floor, very gently drew back one of the curtains and looked out. It was dark and she could see nothing-- only the Cathedral like a grey web against a sky black as ink. A lamp, across the Green, threw a splash of orange in the middle distance--no other light. The Cathedral seemed to be very close to the house.

She closed the curtain and then heard her father call her.

"Joan! Joan! Where are you?"

She came back and stood by his chair. "I was only looking out to see what sort of a night it was, father dear," she said.

He suddenly smiled. "I had a pleasant little nap then," he said; "my head's better. There. Sit down close to me. Bring your chair nearer. We're all alone here now, you and I. We must make a lot of one another."

He had paid so little attention to her hitherto that she suddenly realised now that her loneliness had, during these last weeks, been the hardest thing of all to bear. She drew her chair close to his and he took her hand.

"Yes, yes, it's quite true. I don't know what I should have done without you during these last weeks. You've been very good to your poor, stupid, old father!"

She murmured something, and he burst out, "Oh, yes, they do! That's what they say! I know how they talk. They want to get me out of the way and change the place--put in unbelievers and atheists. But they shan't--not while I have any breath in my body--" He went on more gently, "Why just think, my dear, they actually want to have that man Wistons here. An atheist! A denier of Christ's divinity! Here worshipping in the Cathedral!

And when I try to stop it they say I'm mad. Oh, yes! They do! I've heard them. Mad. Out-of-date. They've laughed at me--ever since--ever since...

that elephant, you know, dear...that began it...the Circus...."

She leaned over him.

"Father dear, you mustn't pay so much attention to what they say. You imagine so much just because you aren't very well and have those headaches--and--and--because of other things. You imagine things that aren't true. So many people here love you----"

"Love me!" he burst out suddenly, starting up in his chair. "When they set upon me, five of them, from behind and beat me! There in public with the lights and the singing." He caught her hand, gripping it. "There's a conspiracy, Joan. I know it. I've seen it a long time. And I know who started it and who paid them to follow me. Everywhere I go, there they are, following me.

"That old woman with her silly hat, she followed me into my own house.

Yes, she did! 'I'll read you a letter,' she said. 'I hate you, and I'll make you cry out over this.' They're all in it. He's setting them on. But he shan't have his way. I'll fight him yet. Even my own son----" His voice broke.

Joan knelt at his feet, looking up into his face. "Father! Falk wants to come and see you! I've had a letter from him. He wants to come and ask your forgiveness--he loves you so much."

He got up from his chair, almost pushing her away from him. "Falk! Falk! I don't know any one called that. I haven't got a son----"

He turned, looking at her. Then suddenly put his arms around her and kissed her, holding her tight to his breast.

"You're a good girl," he said. "Dear Joan! I'm glad you've not left me too. I love you, Joan, and I've not been good enough to you. Oh, no, I haven't! Many things I might have done, and now it's too late...too late..."

He kissed her again and again, stroking her hair, then he said that he was tired, very tired--he'd sleep to-night. He went slowly upstairs.

He undressed rapidly, flinging off his clothes as though they hurt him. As though some one else had unexpectedly come into the room, he saw himself standing before the long gla.s.s in the dressing-room, naked save for his vest. He looked at himself and laughed.

How funny he looked only in his vest--how funny were he to walk down the High Street like that! They would say he was mad. And yet he wouldn't be mad. He would be just as he was now. He pulled the vest off over his head and continued to stare at himself. It was as though he were looking at some one else's body. The long toes, the strong legs, the thick thighs, the broad hairless chest, the stout red neck--and then those eyes, surely not his, those strange ironical eyes! He pa.s.sed his hand down his side and felt the cool strong marble of his flesh. Then suddenly he was cold and he hurried into his night-shirt and his dressing-gown.

He sat on his bed. Something deep down in him was struggling to come up.

Some thought...some feeling...some name. Falk! It was as though a bell were ringing, at a great distance, in the sleeping town--but ringing only for him. Falk! The pain, the urgent pain, crept closer. Falk! He got up from his bed, opened his door, looked out into the dark and silent house, stepped forward, carefully, softly, his old red dressing-gown close about him, stumbling a little on the stairs, feeling the way to his study door.

He sat in his arm-chair huddled up. "Falk! Falk! Oh, my boy, my boy, come back, come back! I want you, I want to be with you, to see you, to touch you, to hear your voice! I want to love you!

"Love--Love! I never wanted love before, but now I want it, desperately, desperately, some one to love me, some one for me to love, some one to be kind to. Falk, my boy. I'm so lonely. It's so dark. I can't see things as I did. It's getting darker.

"Falk, come back and help me...."

Chapter III

Prelude to Battle

That night he slept well and soundly, and in the morning woke tranquil and refreshed. His life seemed suddenly to have taken a new turn. As he lay there and watched the sunlight run through the lattices like strands of pale-coloured silk, it seemed to him that he was through the worst. He did what he had not done for many days, allowed the thought of his wife to come and dwell with him.

He went over many of their past years together, and, nodding his head, decided that he had been often to blame. Then the further thought of what she had done, of her adultery, of her last letter, these like foul black water came sweeping up and darkened his mind.... No more. No more. He must do as he had done. Think only of Pybus. Fight that, win his victory, and then turn to what lay behind. But the sunlight no longer danced for him, he closed his eyes, turned on his side, and prayed to G.o.d out of his bewilderment.

After breakfast he started out. A restless urgency drove him forth. The Chapter Meeting at which the new inc.u.mbent of Pybus was to be chosen was now only three days distant, and all the work in connection with that was completed--but Brandon could not be still. Some members of the Chapter he had seen over and over again during the last months, and had pressed Rex Forsyth's claims upon them without ceasing, but this thing had become a symbol to him now--a symbol of his fight with Ronder, of his battle for the Cathedral, of his championship, behind that, of the whole cause of Christ's Church.

It seemed to him that if he were defeated now in this thing it would mean that G.o.d Himself had deserted him. At the mere thought of defeat his heart began to leap in his breast and the flags of the pavement to run before his eyes. But it could not be. He had been tested; like Job, every plague had been given to him to prove him true, but this last would shout to the world that his power was gone and that the Cathedral that he loved had no longer a place for him. And then--and then-----

He would not, he must not, look. At the top of the High Street he met Ryle the Precentor. There had been a time when Ryle was terrified by the Archdeacon; that time was not far distant, but it was gone. Nevertheless, even though the Archdeacon were suddenly old and sick and unimportant, you never could tell but that he might say something to somebody that it would be unpleasant to have said. "Politeness all the way round" was Ryle's motto, and a very safe one too. Moreover, Ryle, when he could rise above his alarm for the safety of his own position, was a kindly man, and it really _was_ sad to see the poor Archdeacon so pale and tired, the scratch on his cheek, even now not healed, giving him a strangely battered appearance.