The Cathedral Part 36

"I've got to earn my own living, haven't I?" said Falk.

"There!" said Brandon, stepping back a little, so that he nearly overbalanced. "_That's_ better. But it won't stay like that for five minutes. It never does."

He climbed down again, his face rosy with his exertions. "You leave it to me, Falk," he said, nodding his head. "I've got plans for you."

A sudden sense of the contrast between Ronder and his father smote Falk.

His father! What an infant! How helpless against that other! Moved by the strangest mixture of tenderness, regret, pity, he did what he had never in all his life before dreamed of doing, what he would have died of shame for doing, had any one else been there--put his hands on his father's shoulders and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

He laughed as he did so, to carry off his embarra.s.sment.

"I don't hold myself bound, you know, father," he said. "I shall go off just when I want to."

But Brandon was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words.

He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself well out of danger, he moved back to the window, humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers."

He looked out upon the Green. "There are two of those choir-boys on the gra.s.s again," he said. "If Ryle doesn't keep them in better order, I'll let him know what I think of him. He's always promising and never does anything."

The last talk of their lives alone together was ended.

He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood, and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm.

The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects, having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition.

He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the younger publis.h.i.+ng houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems.

Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of cla.s.s.

He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....

That last luncheon was the strangest meal that he had ever known. So strange because it was so usual--so ordinary! Roast chicken and apple tart; his mother sitting at the end of the table, watching, as she had watched through so many years, that everything went right, her little, tight, expressionless face, the mouth set to give the right answers to the right questions, her eyes veiled.... His mind flew back to that strange talk in the dark room across the candle-lit table. She had been hysterical that night, over-tired, had not known what she was saying. Well, she could never leave his father now, now when he was gone. His flight settled that.

"What are you doing this afternoon, Falk?"

"Why, mother?"

"I only wondered. I have to go to the Deanery about this Jubilee committee. I thought you might walk up there with me. About four."

"I don't think I'll be back in time, mother; I'm going out Salis Coombe way to see a fellow."

He saw Joan, looking so pretty, sitting opposite to him. How she had grown lately! Putting her hair up made her seem almost a woman. But what a child in the grown-up dress with the high puffed sleeves, her baby-face laughing at him over the high stiff collar; a pretty dress, though, that dark blue stuff with the white stripes.... Why had he never considered Joan? She had never meant anything to him at all. Now, when he was going, it seemed to him suddenly that he might have made a friend of her during all these years. She was a good girl, kind, good-natured, jolly.

She, too, was talking about the Jubilee--about some committee that she was on and some flags that they were making. How exciting to them all the Jubilee was, and how unimportant to him!

Some book she was talking about. "...the new woman at the Library is so nice. She let me have it at once. It's _The Ma.s.sarenes_, mother, darling, by Ouida. The girls say it's lovely."

"I've heard of it, dear. Mrs. Sampson was talking about it. She says it's not a nice book at all. I don't think father would like you to read it."

"Oh, you don't mind, father, do you?"

"What's that?"

The Archdeacon was in a good humour. He loved apple tart.

"_The Ma.s.sarenes_, by Ouida."

"Trashy novels. Why don't you girls ever read anything but novels?" and so on.

The little china clock with the blue mandarin on the mantelpiece struck half past two. He must be going. He threw a last look round the room as though he were desperately committing everything to memory--the shabby, comfortable chairs, the Landseer "Dignity and Impudence," the warm, blue carpet, the round silver biscuit-tin on the sideboard.

"Well, I must be getting along."

"You'll be back to dinner, Falk dear, won't you? It's early to-night.

Quarter past seven. Father has a meeting."

He looked at them all. His father was sitting back in his chair, a satisfied man.

"Yes, I'll be back," he said, and went out.

It seemed to him incredible that departure should be so simple. When you are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman under the green umbrella, the toy-man with the clockwork monkeys, the flower-stalls and the vegetable-sellers, all these were here; in the centre of the square, sheep and pigs were penned. Dogs were barking, stout farmers in corduroy breeches walked about arguing and expectorating, and suddenly, above all the clamour and bustle, the Cathedral chimes struck the hour.

He hastened then, striding up Orange Street, past the church and the monument on the hill, through hedges thick with flowers, until he struck off into the Drymouth Road. With every step that he took he stirred child memories. He reached the signpost that pointed to Drymouth, to Clinton St.

Mary, to Polchester. This was the landmark that he used to reach with his nurse on his walks. Further than this she, a stout, puffing woman, would never go. He had known that a little way on there was Rocket Wood, a place beloved by him ever since they had driven there for a picnic in the jingle, and he had found it all spotted gold under the fir-trees, thick with moss and yellow with primroses. How many fights with his nurse he had had over that! he clinging to the signpost and screaming that he _would_ go on to the Wood, she picking him up at last and carrying him back down the road.

He went on into the wood now and found it again spotted with gold, although it was too late for primroses. It was all soft and dark with pillars of purple light that struck through the fretted blue, and the dark shadows of the leaves. All hushed and no living thing--save the hesitating patter of some bird among the fir-cones. He struck through the wood and came out on to the Common. You could smell the sea finely here--a true Glebes.h.i.+re smell, fresh and salt, full of sea-pinks and the westerly gales. On the top of the Common he paused and looked back. He knew that from here you had your last view of the Cathedral.

Often in his school holidays he had walked out here to get that view. He had it now in its full glory. When he was a boy it had seemed to him that the Cathedral was like a giant lying down behind the hill and leaning his face on the hill-side. So it looked now, its towers like ears, the great East window s.h.i.+ning, a stupendous eye, out over the bending wind-driven country. The sun flashed upon it, and the towers rose grey and pearl- coloured to heaven. Mightily it looked across the expanse of the moor, staring away and beyond Falk's little body into some vast distance, wrapped in its own great dream, secure in its mighty memories, intent upon its secret purposes.

Indifferent to man, strong upon its rock, hiding in its heart the answer to all the questions that tortured man's existence--and yet, perhaps, aware of man's immortality, scornful of him for making so slight a use of that--but admiring him, too, for the tenacity of his courage and the undying resurgence of his hope.

Falk, a black dot against the sweep of sky and the curve of the dark soil, vanished from the horizon.

Chapter VII

Brandon Puts on His Armour

Brandon was not surprised when, on the morning after Falk's escape, his son was not present at family prayers. That was not a ceremony that Falk had ever appreciated. Joan was there, of course, and just as the Archdeacon began the second prayer Mrs. Brandon slipped in and took her place.

After the servants had filed out and the three were alone, Mrs. Brandon, with a curious little catch in her voice, said:

"Falk has been out all night; his bed has not been slept in."

Brandon's immediate impulse, before he had even caught the import of his wife's words, was: "There's reason for emotion coming; see that you show none."