The Cathedral Part 60

Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "he did. But--"

"Did he, or did he not, ask your advice?"

"Yes, he did. But--"

"Did you advise him to take the course which he afterwards followed?"

"No, on my honour, Archdeacon, I did not. I did not know what his personal trouble was. I did not ask him and he did not tell me. We talked of generalities--"

"Had you heard, before he came to you, gossip about my son?"

"I had heard some silly talk--"

"Very well, then."

"But you _shall_ listen to me, Archdeacon. I scarcely knew your son.

I had met him only once before, at some one's house, and talked to him then only for five minutes. He himself asked to come and see me. I could not refuse him when he asked me. I did not, of course, wish to refuse him.

I liked the look of him, and simply for his own sake wished to know him better. When he came he was not with me for very long and our talk was entirely about religion, belief, faith in G.o.d, the meaning of life, nothing more particular than such things."

"Did he say, when he left you, that what you had told him had helped him to make up his mind?"

"Yes."

"Were you, when he talked to you, quite unconscious that he was my son, and that any action that he took would at once affect my life, my happiness?"

"Of course I was aware that he was your son. But----"

"There is another question that I wish to ask you, Canon Ronder. Did some one come to you not long ago with a letter that purported to be written by my wife?"

Again Ronder hesitated.

"Yes," he said.

"Did she show you that letter?"

"She did."

"Did she ask your advice as to what she should do with it?"

"She did--I told her----"

"Did you tell her to come with it to me?"

"No. On my life, Archdeacon, no. I told her to destroy it and that she was behaving with the utmost wickedness."

"Did you believe that that letter was written by my wife."

"No."

"Then why, if you believed that this woman was going about the town with a forged letter directed against my happiness and my family's happiness, did you not come to me and tell me of it?"

"You must remember, Archdeacon, that we were not on good terms. We had had a ridiculous quarrel that had, by some means or another, become public property throughout the whole town. I will not deny that I felt sore about that. I did not know what sort of reception I might get if I came to you."

"Very well. There is a further question that I wish to ask you. Will you deny that from the moment that you set foot in this town you have been plotting against me in respect to the Pybus living? You found out on which side I was standing and at once took the other. From that moment you went about the town, having secret interviews with every sort of person, working them by flattery and suggestion round to your side. Will you deny that?"

Against his will and his absolute determination Ronder's anger began to rise: "That I have been plotting as you call it," he said, "I absolutely and utterly deny. That is an insulting word. That I have been against you in the matter of Pybus from the first has, of course, been known to every one here. I have been against you because of what I believe to be the future good of our Church and of our work here. There has been nothing personal in that matter at all."

"You lie," said Brandon, suddenly raising his voice. "Every word that you have spoken to me this morning has been a lie. You are an enemy of myself and of my Church, and with G.o.d's help your plots and falsehoods shall yet be defeated. You may take from me my wife and my children, you may ruin my career here that has been built up through ten years of unfaltering loyalty and work, but G.o.d Himself is stronger than your inventions--and G.o.d will see to it. I am your enemy, Canon Ronder, to the end, as you are mine. You had better look to yourself. You have been concerned in certain things that the Law may have something to say about. Look to yourself!

Look to yourself!"

He strode off down the Cloisters.

People came to luncheon; there had been an invitation of some weeks before. He scarcely recognised them; one was Mr. Martin, another Dr.

Trudon, an old Mrs. Purley, a well-established widow, an ancient resident, a Miss Barrester. He scarcely recognised them although he talked so exactly in his accustomed way that no one noticed anything at all. Mrs.

Brandon also talked in her accustomed way; that is, she scarcely spoke.

Only that afternoon, at tea at the Dean's, Dr. Trudon confided to Julia Preston that he could a.s.sure her that all the rumours were false; the Archdeacon had never seemed better...funny for him afterwards to remember!

Shadows of a shade! When they left Brandon it was as though they had never been; the echo of their voices died away into the ticking of the clock, the movement of plates, the s.h.i.+fting of chairs.

He shut himself into his study. Here was his stronghold, his fortress. He settled into his chair and the things in the room gathered around him with friendly consoling gestures.

"We are still here, we are your old friends. We know you for what you truly are. We do not change like the world."

He fell into a deep sleep; he was desperately tired; he had not slept at all last night. He was sunk into deep fathomless unconsciousness. Then he rose from that, climbing up, up, seeing before him a high, black, snow- tipped mountain. The ascent of this he must achieve, his life depended upon it. He seemed to be naked, the wind las.h.i.+ng his body, icy cold, so cold that his breath stabbed him. He climbed, the rocks cut his knees and hands; then, on every side his enemies appeared, Bentinck-Major and Foster, the Bishop's Chaplain, women, even children, laughing, and behind them Hogg and that drunken painter. Their hands were on him, they pulled at his flesh, they beat on his face--then, suddenly, rising like a full moon behind the hill--Ronder!

He woke with a cry; the sun was flooding the room, and at the joy of that great light and of finding himself alone he could have burst into tears of relief.

His thoughts came to him quickly, his brain had been clarified by that sleep, horrible though it had been. He thought steadily now, the facts all arranged before him. His wife had told him, almost with vindictive pride, that she had been guilty of adultery. He did not at present think of Morris at all.

To him adultery was an awful, a terrible sin. He himself had been physically faithful to his wife, although he had perhaps never, in the true sense of the word, loved her. Because he had been a man of splendid physique and great animal spirits he had, of course, and especially in his earlier days, known what physical temptation was, but the extreme preoccupation of his time with every kind of business had saved him from that acutest lure that idleness brings. Nevertheless, it may confidently be said that, had temptation been of the sharpest and the most aggravating, he would never have, even for a moment, dwelt upon the possibility of yielding to it. To him this was the "sin against the Holy Ghost."

He had not indeed the purity of the Saint to whom these sins are simply not realisable; he had the confidence of one who had made his vows to G.o.d and, having made them, could not conceive that they should be broken.

And yet, strangely enough, with all the horror that his wife's confession had raised in him there was mingled, against his will, the strangest fear for her. She had lived with him during all these years, he had been her guard, protector, husband.

Her immortal soul now was lost unless in some way he could save it for her. And it was he who should save it. She had suddenly a new poignant importance for him that she had never had before. Her danger was as deadly and as imminent to him as though she had been in peril from wild beasts.

In peril? But she had fallen. He could not save her. Nothing that he could do now could prevent her sin. At that realisation utter despair seized him; he moaned aloud, shutting out the light from his eyes with his hands.

There followed then wild disbelief; what she had told him was untrue, she had said it to anger him, to spite him. He sprang from his chair and moved towards the door. He would find her and tell her that he knew that she had been lying to him, that he did not believe----

Mid-way he stopped. He knew that she had spoken the truth, that last moment when they had looked at one another had been compounded, built up, of truth. Both a gla.s.s and a wall--a gla.s.s to reveal absolutely, a wall to divide them, the one from the other, for ever.

His brain, active now like a snake coiling and uncoiling within the flaming s.p.a.ces of his mind, darted upon Morris. He must find Morris at once--no delay--at once--at once. What to do? He did not know. But he must be face to face with him and deal with him--that wretched, miserable, whining, crying fool. That he--!--HE!...But the picture stopped there.

He saw now neither Morris nor his wife. Only a clerical hat, a high white collar like a wall, a sn.i.g.g.e.ring laugh, a door closing.

And his headache was upon him again, his heart pounding and leaping. No matter. He must find Morris. Nothing else. He went to the door, opened it, and walked cautiously into the hall as though he had intruded into some one else's house and was there to rob.