The Cathedral Part 34

"You can, for all I care," the Archdeacon shouted back. They stood there facing one another, both of them red in the face, a curious family likeness suddenly apparent between them.

"Well, I will then," Falk cried, and rushed from the room, banging the door behind him.

Chapter VI

Falk's Flight

Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn.

Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the very symbol of satisfied happy and kind-hearted prosperity.

He was really touched by young Falk's approach towards friends.h.i.+p. He had in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once or twice women and men younger than himself _had_ made such urgent demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run from them!

But the more tranquil, easy and unexacting aspects of sentiment he enjoyed. He liked his heart to be warmed, he liked to feel that the pressure of his hand, the welcome of the eye, the smile of the lip were genuine in him and natural; he liked to put his hand through the arm of a young eager human being who was full of vitality and physical strength. He disliked so deeply sickness and decay; he despised them.

Falk was young, handsome and eager, something of a rebel--the greater compliment then that he should seek out Ronder. He was certainly the most attractive young man in Polchester and, although that was not perhaps saying very much, after all Ronder lived in Polchester and wished to share in the best of every side of its life.

There were, however, further, more actual reasons that Ronder should antic.i.p.ate Falk's visit with deep interest. He had heard, of course, many rumours of Falk's indiscretions, rumours that naturally gained greatly in the telling, of how he had formed some disgraceful attachment for the daughter of a publican down in the river slums, that he drank, that he gambled, that he was the wickedest young man in Polchester, and that he would certainly break his father's heart.

It was this relation of the boy to his father that interested him most of all. He continued to remark to the little G.o.d who looked after his affairs and kept an eye upon him that the last thing that he wanted was to interfere in Brandon's family business, and yet to the same little G.o.d he could not but comment on the curious persistency with which that same business would thrust itself upon his interest. "If Brandon's wife, son, and general _menage_ will persist in involving themselves in absurd situations it's not my fault," he would say. But he was not exactly sorry that they should.

Indeed, to-night, in the warm security of his room, with all his plans advancing towards fulfillment, and life developing just as he would have it, he felt so kindly a pity towards Brandon that he was warm with the desire to do something for him, make him a present, or flatter his vanity, or give way publicly to him about some contested point that was of no particular importance.

When young Falk was ushered in by the maid-servant, Ronder, looking up at him, thought him the handsomest boy he'd ever seen. He felt ready to give him all the advice in the world, and it was with the most genuine warmth of heart that he jumped up, put his hand on his shoulder, found him tobacco, whisky and soda, and the easiest chair in the room.

It was apparent at once that the boy was worked up to the extremity of his possible endurance. Ronder felt instantly the drama that he brought with him, filling the room with it, charging every word and every movement with the implication of it.

He turned about in his chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder's importance. Ronder began by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an especial talent. Falk suddenly broke upon him:

"Look here. You don't care about that stuff--nor do I. I didn't come round to you for that. I want you to help me."

"I'll be very glad to," Ronder said, smiling. "If I can."

"Perhaps you can--perhaps you can't. I don't know you really, of course--I only have my idea of you. But you seem to me much older than I am. Do you know what I mean? Father's as young or younger and so are so many of the others. But you must have made your mind up about life. I want to know what you think of it."

"That's a tall order," said Ronder, smiling. "What one thinks of life!

Well, one can't say all in a moment, you know."

And then, as though he had suddenly decided to take his companion seriously, his face was grave and his round s.h.i.+ning eyes wide open.

Falk coloured. "Perhaps you think me impertinent," he said. "But I don't care a d.a.m.n if you do. After all, isn't it an absurd thing that there isn't another soul in this town you could ask such a question of? And yet there's nothing else so important. A fellow's thought an impossible prig if he mentions such a thing. I expect I seem in a hurry too, but I can tell you I've been irritated for years by not being able to get at it--the truth, you know. Why we're here at all, whether there is some kind of a G.o.d somewhere or no. Of course you've got to pretend you think there is, but I want to know what you _really_ think and I promise it shan't go a step farther. But most of all I want to know whether you don't think we're meant all of us to be free, and why being free should be the hardest thing of all."

"You must tell me one thing," said Ronder. "Is the impulse that brought you in to see me simply a general one, just because you are interested in life, or is there some immediate crisis that you have to settle? I ask that," he added, smiling gently, "because I've noticed that people don't as a rule worry very urgently about life unless they have to make up their minds about which turn in the road they're going to take."

Falk hesitated; then he said, speaking slowly, "Yes, there is something.

It's what you'd call a crisis in my life, I suppose. It's been piling up for months--for years if you like. But I don't see why I need bother you with that--it's n.o.body's business but my own. Although I won't deny that things you say may influence me. You see, I felt the first moment I met you that you'd speak the truth, and speaking the truth seems to me more important than anything else in the world."

"But," said Ronder, "I don't want to influence you blindly. You've no right to ask me to advise you when I don't know what it is I am advising you about."

"Well, then," said Falk, "it's simply this--that I want to go up to London and live my own life. But I love my father--it would all be easy enough if I didn't--and he doesn't see things as I do. There are other things too-- it's all very complicated. But I don't want you to tell me about my own affairs! I just want you to say what you think this is all about, what we're here for anyway. You must have thought it all through and come out the other side. You look as though you had."

Ronder hesitated. He really wished that this had not occurred. He could defeat Brandon without being given this extra weapon. His impulse was to put the boy off with some evasion and so to dismiss him. But the temptation that was always so strong in him to manipulate the power placed in his hands was urging him; moreover, why should he not say what he thought about life? It was sincere enough. He had no shame of it....

"I couldn't advise you against your father's wishes," he said. "I'm very fond of your father. I have the highest opinion of him."

Falk moved uneasily in his chair: "You needn't advise me against him," he said; "you can't have a higher opinion of him than I have. I'm fonder of him than of any one in the world; I wouldn't be hesitating at all otherwise. And I tell you I don't want you to advise me on my particular case. It just interests me to know whether you believe in a G.o.d and whether you think life means anything. As soon as I saw you I said to myself, 'Now I'd like to know what _he_ thinks.' That's all."

"Of course I believe in a G.o.d," said Ronder, "I wouldn't be a clergyman otherwise."

"Then if there's a G.o.d," said Falk quickly, "why does He let us down, make us feel that we must be free, and then make us feel that it's wrong to be free because, if we are, we hurt the people we're fond of? Do we live for ourselves or for others? Why isn't it easier to see what the right thing is?"

"If you want to know what I think about life," said Ronder, "it's just this--that we mustn't take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our utmost at the thing we're in, and give as little trouble to others as possible."

Falk nodded his head. "Yes, that's very simple. If you'll forgive my saying so, that's the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he really feels. That's not what _you_ really feel. Anyway it accounts for simply nothing at all. If that's all there is in life----"

"I don't say that's all there is in life," interrupted Ronder softly, "I only say that that does for a start--for one's daily conduct I mean. But you've got to rid your head of illusions. Don't expect poetry and magic for ever round the corner. Don't dream of Utopias--they'll never come.

Mind your own daily business."

"Play for safety, in fact," said Falk.

Ronder coloured a little. "Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you think your happiness depends upon it. You're going to serve the world best by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It's the discontented and disappointed who hang things up."

Falk smiled. "You're pus.h.i.+ng on to me the kind of philosophy that I'd like to follow," he said. "I don't believe in it for a moment nor do I believe it's what you really think, but I think I'm ready to cheat myself if you give me encouragement enough. I don't want to do any one any harm, but I must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed in G.o.d then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where He'd most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself.

"Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own, quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its nave than we have in all our bodies."

"Don't be too sure of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality--a tiny flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live."

"And yet," said Falk eagerly, "you were urging, just now, a doctrine of what, if you'll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do you reconcile that with immortality?"

Ronder laughed. "There have only been four doctrines in the history of the world," he answered, "and they are all Pursuits. One is the pursuit of Unselfishness. 'Little children, love one another. He that seeks to save his soul shall lose it.' The second is the opposite of the first-- Individualism. 'I am I. That is all I know, and I will seek out my own good always because that at least I can understand.' The third is the pursuit of G.o.d and Mysticism. 'Neither I matter nor my neighbour. I give up the world and every one and everything in it to find G.o.d.' And the fourth is the pursuit of Beauty. 'Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That is all we need to know.' Every man and woman alive or dead has chosen one of those four or a mixture of them. I would say that there is something in all of them, Charity, Individualism, Wors.h.i.+p, Beauty. But finally, when all is said and done, we remain ourselves. It is our own life that we must lead, our own goal for which we are searching. At the end of everything we remain alone, of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves. Life is, finally, a lonely journey to a lonely bourne, let us cheat ourselves as we may."

Ronder sat back in his chair, his eyes half closed. There was nothing that he enjoyed more than delivering his opinions about life to a fit audience --and by fit he meant intelligent and responsive. He liked to be truthful without taking risks, and he was always the audience rather than the speaker in company that might be dangerous. He almost loved Falk as he looked across at him and saw the effect that his words had made upon him.

There was, Heaven knew, nothing very original in what he had said, but it had been apparently what the boy had wanted to hear.

He jumped up from his chair: "You're right," he said. "We've got to lead our own lives. I've known it all along. When I've shown them what I can do, then I'll come back to them. I love my father, you know, sir; I suppose some people here think him tiresome and self-opinionated, but he's like a boy, you always know where you are with him. He's no idea what deceit means. He looks on this Cathedral as his own idea, as though he'd built it almost, and of course that's dangerous. He'll have a shock one of these days and see that he's gone too far, just as the Black Bishop did.

But he's a fine man; I don't believe any one knows how proud I am of him.

And it's much better I should go my own way and earn my own living than hang around him, doing nothing--isn't it?"

At that direct appeal, at the eager gaze that Falk fixed upon him, something deep within Ronder stirred.

Should he not even now advise the boy to stay? One word just then might effect much. Falk trusted him. He was the only human being in Polchester to whom the boy perhaps had come. Years afterwards he was to look back to that moment, see it crystallised in memory, see the books, piled row upon row, gleam down upon him, see the blue curtain and hear the crackling fire...a crisis perhaps to himself as well as to Falk.

He went across to the boy and put his hands on his shoulders.