The Cathedral. Hugh Walpole
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to wrack and ruin, and if they all leave it to me I can't very well refuse it, can I? Hey?"
"No, dear."
"You see what I mean?"
"Yes, dear."
"Well, then--" (As though Mrs. Brandon had just been overcome in an argument in which she'd shown the greatest obstinacy.) "There you are. It would be false modesty to deny that I've got the Chapter more or less in my pocket And why shouldn't I have? Has any one worked harder for this place and the Cathedral than I have?"
"No, dear."
"Well, then. … There's this new fellow Ronder coming to-day. Don't know much about him, but he won't give much trouble, I expect--trouble in the way of delaying things, I mean. What we want is work done expeditiously. I've just about got that Chapter moving at last. Ten years' hard work. Deserve a V.C. or something. Hey?"
"Yes, dear, I'm sure you do."
The Archdeacon gave one of his well-known roars of laughter--a laugh famous throughout the county, a laugh described by his admirers as "Homeric," by his enemies as "ear-splitting." There was, however, enemies or no enemies, something sympathetic in that laugh, something boyish and simple and honest.
He suddenly pulled himself up, bringing his long legs close against his broad chest.
"No letter from Falk to-day, was there?"
"No, dear."
"Humph. That's three weeks we haven't heard. Hope there's nothing wrong."
"What could there be wrong, dear?"
"Nothing, of course. … Well, Joan, and what have you been doing with yourself all day?"
It was only in his most happy and resplendent moods that the Archdeacon held jocular conversations with his daughter. These conversations had been, in the past, moments of agony and terror to her, but since that morning when she had suddenly woken to a realisation of the marvellous possibilities in life her terror had left her. There were other people in the world besides her father. …
Nevertheless, a little, her agitation was still with her. She looked up at him, smiling.
"Oh, I don't know, father. … I went to the Library this morning to change the books for mother--"
"Novels, I suppose. No one ever reads anything but trash nowadays."
"They hadn't anything that mother put down. They never have. Miss Milton sits on the new novels and keeps them for Mrs. Sampson and Mrs. Combermere."
"Sits on them?"
"Yes--really sits on them. I saw her take one from under her skirt the other day when Mrs. Sampson asked for it. It was one that mother has wanted a long time."
The Archdeacon was angry. "I never heard anything so scandalous. I'll just see to that. What's the use of being on the Library Committee if that kind of thing happens? That woman shall go."
"Oh no! father! … "
"Of course she shall go. I never heard anything so dishonest in my life! … "
Joan remembered that little conversation until the end of her life. And with reason.
The door was flung open. Some one came hurriedly in, then stopped, with a sudden arrested impulse, looking at them. It was Falk.
Falk was a very good-looking man--fair hair, light blue eyes like his father's, slim and straight and quite obviously fearless. It was that quality of courage that struck every one who saw him; it was not only that he feared, it seemed, no one and nothing, but that he went a step further than that, spending his life in defying every one and everything, as a practised dueller might challenge every one he met in order to keep his play in practice. "I don't like young Brandon," Mrs. Sampson said. "He snorts contempt at you. … "
He was only twenty-one, a contemptuous age. He looked as though he had been living in that house for weeks, although, as a fact, he had just driven up, after a long and tiresome journey, in an ancient cab through the pouring rain. The Archdeacon gazed at his son in a bewildered, confused amaze, as though he, a convinced sceptic, were suddenly confronted, in broad daylight, with an undoubted ghost.
"What's the matter?" he said at last. "Why are you here?"
"I've been sent down," said Falk.
It was characteristic of the relationship in that family that, at that statement, Mrs. Brandon and Joan did not look at Falk but at the Archdeacon.
"Sent down!"
"Yes, for ragging! They wanted to do it last term."
"Sent down!" The Archdeacon shot to his feet; his voice suddenly lifted into a cry. "And you have the impertinence to come here and tell me! You walk in as though nothing had happened! You walk in! … "
"You're angry," said Falk, smiling. "Of course I knew you would be. You might hear me out first. But I'll come along when I've unpacked and you're a bit cooler. I wanted some tea, but I suppose that will have to wait. You just listen, father, and you'll find it isn't so bad. Oxford's a rotten place for any one who wants to be on his own, and, anyway, you won't have to pay my bills any more."
Falk turned and went.
The Archdeacon, as he stood there, felt a dim mysterious pain as though an adversary whom he completely despised had found suddenly with his weapon a joint in his armour.
Chapter II
Ronders
The train that brought Falk Brandon back to Polchester brought also the Ronders--Frederick Ronder, newly Canon of Polchester, and his aunt, Miss Alice Ronder. About them the station gathered in a black cloud, dirty, obscure, lit by flashes of light and flame, shaken with screams, rumblings, the crashing of carriage against carriage, the rattle of cab- wheels on the cobbles outside. To-day also there was the hiss and scatter of the rain upon the glass roof. The Ronders stood, not bewildered, for that they never were, but thinking what would be best. The new Canon was a round man, round-shouldered, round-faced, round-stomached, round legged. A fair height, he was not ludicrous, but it seemed that if you laid him down he would roll naturally, still smiling, to the farthest end of the station. He wore large, very round spectacles. His black clerical coat and trousers and hat were scrupulously clean and smartly cut. He was not a dandy, but he was not shabby. He smiled a great deal, not nervously as curates are supposed to smile, not effusively, but simply with geniality. His aunt was a contrast, thin, straight, stiff white collar, little black bow-tie, coat like a man's, skirt with no nonsense about it. No nonsense about her anywhere. She was not unamiable, perhaps, but business came first.
"Well, what do we do?" he asked.
"We collect our bags and find the cab," she answered briskly.
They found their bags, and there were a great many of them; Miss Ronder, having seen that they were all there and that there was no nonsense about the porter, moved off to the barrier followed by her nephew.
As they came into the station square, all smelling of hay and the rain, the deluge slowly withdrew its forces, recalling them gradually so that the drops whispered now, patter-patter--pit-pat. A pigeon hovered down and pecked at the cobbles. Faint colour threaded the thick blotting-paper grey.
Old Fawcett himself had come to the station to meet them. Why had he felt it to be an occasion? God only knows. A new Canon was nothing to him. He very seldom now, being over eighty, with a strange "wormy" pain in his left ear, took his horses out himself. He saved his money and counted it over by his fireside to see that his old woman didn't get any of it. He hated his old woman,