The Cathedral Part 23

"You _must_ be ill," he repeated. "You look ill. Why didn't you say so? Have you got a headache?"

"I'm not ill. I haven't got a headache, and I'm not coming to Early Service."

"You're not ill, and you're not coming..." he stammered in his amazement.

"You've forgotten. There isn't late Celebration."

She gave him no answer, but turned on her side, closing her eyes.

He came right up to the bed, frowning down upon her.

"Amy--what does this mean? You're not ill, and yet you're not coming to Celebration? Why? I insist upon an answer."

She said nothing.

He felt that anger, of which he had tried now for many years to beware, flooding his throat.

With tremendous self-control he said quietly: "What is the matter with you, Amy? You must tell me at once."

She did not open her eyes but said in a voice so low that he scarcely caught the words:

"There is nothing the matter. I am not ill, and I'm not coming to Early Service."

"Why?"

"Because I don't wish to go."

For a moment he thought that he was going to bend down and lift her bodily out of bed. His limbs felt as though they were prepared for such an action.

But to his own surprised amazement he did nothing, he said nothing. He looked at the bed, at the hollow where his head had been, at her head with her black hair scattered on the pillow, at her closed eyes, then he went away into his dressing-room. When he had finished dressing he came back into the bedroom, looked across at her, motionless, her eyes still closed, lying on her side, felt the silence of the room, the house, the Precincts broken only by the impertinent jackdaw.

He went downstairs.

Throughout the Early Celebration he remained in a condition of amazed bewilderment. From his position just above the altar-rails he could see very clearly the Bishop's Tomb; the morning sun reflected in purple colours from the East window played upon its blue stone. It caught the green ring and flashed splashes of fire from its heart. His mind went back to that day, not so very long ago, when, with triumphant happiness, he had seemed to share in the Bishop's spirit, to be dust of his dust, and bone of his bone. That had been the very day, he remembered, of Falk's return from Oxford. Since that day everything had gone wrong for him--Falk, the Elephant, Ronder, Foster, the Chapter. And now his wife! Never in all the years of his married life had she spoken to him as she had done that morning. She must be on the edge of a serious illness, a very serious illness. Strangely a new concern for her, a concern that he had never felt in his life before, arose in his heart. Poor Amy--and how tiresome if she were ill, the house all at sixes and sevens! With a shock he realised that his mind was not devotional. He swung himself back to the service, looking down benevolently upon the two rows of people waiting patiently to come in their turn to the altar steps.

At breakfast, however, there Mrs. Brandon was, looking quite her usual self, in the Sunday dress of grey silk, making the tea, quiet as she always was, answering questions submissively, patiently, "as the wife of an Archdeacon should." He tried to show her by his manner that he had been deeply shocked, but, unfortunately, he had been shocked, annoyed, indignant on so many occasions when there had been no real need for it, that to-day, when there was the occasion, he felt that he made no impression.

The bells pealed for morning service, the sun shone; as half-past ten approached, little groups of people crossed the Precincts and vanished into the mouth of the great West door. Now were Lawrence and Cobbett in their true glory--Lawrence was in his fine purple robe, the Sunday silk one. He stood at the far end of the nave, just under the choir-screen, waiting for the aristocracy, for whom the front seats were guarded with cords which only he might untie. How deeply pleased he was when some unfortunate stranger, ignorant in the ways of the Cathedral, walked, with startling clatter, up the whole length of the s.h.i.+ning nave and endeavoured to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically--staff in hand, he came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back, clatter, clatter, blus.h.i.+ng and confused, the stranger retreated, watched, as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells slipped from their jangling peal into a solemn single note. The Mere People were in their places at the back of the nave, the Great Ones leaving their entrance until the very last moment. There was a light in the organ-loft; very softly Brockett began his voluntary--clatter, clatter, clatter, and the School arrived, the small boys, swallowed by their Eton collars, first, filing into their places to the right of the screen, then the middle boys, a little indifferent and careless, then the Fifth and Sixth in their "stick-up" collars, haughty and indifferent indeed.

Dimly, on the other side of the screen, the School boys in their surplices could be seen settling into their places between the choir and the altar.

A rustling of skirts, and the aristocracy entered in ones and twos from the side doors that opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them--for a very few--Lawrence had his confidential smile. For Mrs. Sampson, for instance--for Mrs. Combermere, for Mrs. Ryle and Mrs. Brandon.

A very special one for Mrs. Brandon because of his high opinion of her husband. She was nothing very much--"a mean little woman," he thought her --but the Archdeacon had married her. That was enough.

Joan was with her, conscious that every one must be noticing her--the D'Arcy girls and Cynthia Ryle and Gladys Sampson, they would all be looking and criticising. Hustle, rustle, rustle--here was an event indeed!

Lady St. Leath was come, and with her in attendance Johnny and Hetty.

Lawrence hurried forward, disregarding Mrs. Brandon, who was compelled to undo her cord for herself. He led Lady St. Leath forward with a ceremony, a dignity, that was marvellous to see. She moved behind him as though she owned the Cathedral, or rather could have owned it had she thought it worth her while. All the little boys in the Upper Third and Lower Fourth turned their necks in their Eton collars and watched. What a bonnet she was wearing! All the colours of the rainbow, odd, indeed, perched there on the top of her untidy white hair!

Every one settled down; the voluntary was louder, the single note of the bell suddenly more urgent. Ladies looked about them. Ellen Stiles saw Miss Dobell--smile, smile. Joan saw Cynthia Ryle--smile, smile. Lawrence, with the expression of the Angel Gabriel waiting to admit into heaven a new troop of repentant sinners, stood expectant. The sun filtered in dusty ladders of coloured light and fell in squares upon the empty s.p.a.ces of the nave.

The bell suddenly ceased, a long melodious and melancholy "Amen" came from somewhere far away in the purple shadow. Every one moved; a noise like a little uncertain breeze blew through the Cathedral as the congregation rose; then the choir filed through, the boys, the men, the Precentor, old Canon Morphew and older Canon Batholomew, Canon Rogers, his face bitter and discontented, Canon Foster, Bentinck-Major, last of all, Archdeacon Brandon. They had filed into their places in the choir, they were kneeling, the Precentor's voice rang out....

The familiar sound of Canon Ryle's voice recalled Mrs. Brandon to time and place. She was kneeling, her gloved hands pressed close to her face. She was looking into thick dense darkness, a darkness penetrated with the strong scent of Russia leather and the faint musty smell that always seemed to rise from the Cathedral ha.s.socks and the woodwork upon which she leant. Until Ryle's voice roused her she had been swimming in s.p.a.ce and eternity; behind her, like a little boat bobbing distressfully in her track, was the scene of that early morning with which that day had opened.

She saw herself, as it were, the body of some quite other woman, lying in that so familiar bedroom and saying "No"--saying it again and again and again. "No. No. No."

Why had she said "No," and was it not in reality another woman who had said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way. There had been no storm. She s.h.i.+vered a little behind her gloves.

"Dearly beloved brethren," began the Precentor, pleading, impersonal.

Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the precipitances of jagged black rock. It was "jagged black rock" over which she was now peering.

The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said: "Here's the ball. Catch. Oh, you _are_ slow!"

In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon's consciousness two voices were shouting at one another.

One cried: "See what she's in for, the foolish woman! She's not up to it.

It will finish her."

And the other answered: "Well, she is in for it! So it's no use warning her any longer. She wants it. She's going to have it."

And the first repeated: "It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!"

And the second replied: "No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!"

Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart's most elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and little s.h.i.+vers of apprehension, she fought a poor little battle.

"We praise Thee, O G.o.d. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord...."

"The goodly fellows.h.i.+p of the prophets praise Thee...." A boy's voice rose, "Thou did'st not abhor the Virgin's womb...."

Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She had Talk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it wasn't fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her!

Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of the "Te Deum" rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who that fine-looking man was. They craned their necks into the aisle. And he _did_ look fine, his head up, his shoulders back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and G.o.d's.

The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her bed in his s.h.i.+rt and trousers. That movement that he had made as though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.

She closed her eyes. His fine rich voice came to her from a long way off.

Let him boom as loudly as he pleased, he could not touch her any more. She had escaped, and for ever. She saw, then, Morris as she had seen him at that tea-party months ago. She recovered that strange sense that she had had (and that he had had too, as she knew) of being carried out right away from one's body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was hungry, starving for it. She _must_ see him often, continually. She must be able to look at him, touch the sleeve of his coat, hear his voice.

She must be able to do things for him, little simple things that no one else could do. She wanted no more than that. Only to be near to him and to see that he was cared for...looked after. Surely that was not wrong. No one could say....

Little s.h.i.+vers ran continually about her body, and her hands, clenched tightly, were damp within her gloves.

The Precentor gave out the words of the Anthem, "Little children, love one another."

Every one rose--save Lady St. Leath, who settled herself magnificently in her seat and looked about her as though she challenged anybody to tell her that she was wrong to do so.

Yes, that was all Amy Brandon wanted. Who could say that she was wrong to want it? The little battle was concluded.