Miss Stiles rose, her fingers trembling as she drew on her gloves.
"Well, I won"t stay here to be insulted, anyway. You may have known me a number of years, Betsy, but that doesn"t allow you _all_ the privileges. The only matter with me is that I say what I think. You started the business, I believe, by insulting my friends."
"Sit down, Ellen," said Mrs. Combermere, laughing. "Don"t be a fool. Who"s insulting your friends? You"d insult them yourself if they were only successful enough. You can have your Ronder."
The door opened and the maid announced: "Canon Ronder."
Every one was conscious of the dramatic fitness of this, and no one more so than Mrs. Combermere. Ronder entered the room, however, quite unaware of anything apparently, except that he was feeling very well and expected amus.e.m.e.nt from his company. He presented precisely the picture of a nice contented clergyman who might be baffled by a school treat but was thoroughly "up" to afternoon tea. He seemed a little stouter than when he had first come to Polchester, and his large spectacles were as round as two young moons.
"How do you do, Mrs. Combernere? I do hope you will forgive my aunt, but she has a bad headache. She finds Polchester a little relaxing."
Mrs. Combermere did not get up, but stared at him from, behind her tea- table. That was a stare that has frightened many people in its time, and to-day it was especially challenging. She was annoyed with Ellen Stiles, and here, in front of her, was the cause of her annoyance.
They faced one another, and the room behind them was aware that Mrs.
Combermere, at any rate, had declared battle. Of what Ronder was aware no one knew.
"How do you do, Canon Ronder? I"m delighted that you"ve honoured my poor little house. I hear that you"re a busy man. I"m all the more proud that you can spare me half an hour."
She kept him standing there, hoping, perhaps, that he would be consciously awkward and embarra.s.sed. He was completely at his ease.
"Oh, no, I"m not busy. I"m a very lazy man." He looked down at her, smiling, aware, apparently, of no one else in the room. "I"m always meaning to pull myself up. But I"m too old for improvement"
"We"re all busy people here, although you mayn"t think it, Canon Ronder.
But I"m afraid you"re giving a false account of yourself. I"ve heard of you."
"Nothing but good, I hope."
"Well, I don"t know. That depends. I expect you"re going to shake us all up and teach us improvement."
"Dear me, no! I come to you for instruction. I haven"t an idea in the world."
"Too much modesty is a dangerous thing. n.o.body"s modest in Polchester."
"Then I shall be Polchester"s first modest man. But I"m not modest. I simply speak the truth."
Mrs. Combermere smiled grimly. "There, too, you will be the exception. We none of us speak the truth here."
"Really, Mrs. Combermere, you"re giving Polchester a dreadful character."
He laughed, but did not take his eyes away from her. "I hope that you"ve been here so long that you"ve forgotten what the place is like. I believe in first impressions."
"So do I," she said, very grimly indeed.
"Well, in a year"s time we shall see which of us is right. I"ll be quite willing to admit defeat."
"Oh, a year"s time!" She laughed more pleasantly. "A great deal can happen in a year. You may be a bishop by then, Canon Ronder,"
"Ah, that would be more than I deserve," he answered quite gravely.
The little duel was over. She turned around, introduced him to Miss Dobell and Puddifoot, both of whom, however, he had already met. He sat down, very happily, near the fire and listened to Miss Dobell"s shrill proclamation of her adoration of Browning. Conversation became general, and was concerned first with the Jubilee and the preparations for it, afterwards with the state of South Africa, Lord Penrhyn"s quarries, and bicycling. Every one had a good deal to say about this last topic, and the strange costumes which ladies, so the papers said, were wearing in Battersea Park when out on their morning ride.
Miss Dobell said that "it was too disgraceful," to which Mrs. Combermere replied "Fudge! As though every one didn"t know by this time that women had legs!"
Everything, in fact, went very well, although Ellen Stiles observed to herself with a certain malicious pleasure that their hostess was not entirely at her ease, was "a little ruffled, about something."
Soon two more visitors arrived--first Mr. Morris, then Mrs. Brandon. They came close upon one another"s heels, and it was at once evident that they would, neither of them, alter very considerably the room"s atmosphere. No one ever paid any attention to Mrs. Brandon in Polchester, and although Mr. Morris had been some time now in the town, he was so shy and retiring and quiet that no one was, as yet, very distinctly aware of him. Mrs.
Combermere was occupied with her own thoughts and the others were talking very happily beside the fire, so it soon happened that Morris and Mrs.
Brandon were sitting by themselves in the window.
There occurred then a revelation.... That is perhaps a portentous word, but what else can one call it? It is a plat.i.tude, of course, to say that there is probably no one alive who does not remember some occasion of a sudden communion with another human being that was so beautiful, so touching, so transcendentally above human affairs that a revelation was the only definition for it. Afterwards, when a.n.a.lysis plays its part, one may talk about physical attractions, about common intellectual interests, about spiritual bonds, about what you please, but one knows that the essence of that meeting is undefined.
It may be quite enough to say about Morris and Mrs. Brandon, that they were both very lonely people. You may say, too, that there was in both of them an utterly unsatisfied longing to have some one to protect and care for. Not her husband nor Falk nor Joan needed Mrs. Brandon in the least-- and the Archdeacon did not approve of dogs in the house. Or you may say, if you like, that these two liked the look of one another, and leave it at that. Still the revelation remains--and all the tragedy and unhappiness and bitterness that that revelation involved remains too....
This was, of course, not the first time that they had met. Once before at Mrs. Combermere"s they had been introduced and talked together for a moment; but on that occasion there had been no revelation.
They did not say very much now. Mrs. Brandon asked Morris whether he liked Polchester and he said yes. They talked about the Cathedral and the coming Jubilee. Morris said that he had met Falk. Mrs. Brandon, colouring a little, asked was he not handsome? She said that he was a remarkable boy, very independent, that was why he had not got on very well at Oxford....
He was a tremendous comfort to her, she said. When he went away...but she stopped suddenly.
Not looking at him, she said that sometimes one felt lonely even though there was a great deal to do, as there always was in a town like Polchester.
Yes, Morris said that he knew that. And that was really all. There were long pauses in their conversation, pauses that were like the little wooden hammerings on the stage before the curtain rises.
Mrs. Brandon said that she hoped that he would come and see her, and he said that he would. Their hands touched, and they both felt as though the room had suddenly closed in upon them and become very dim, blotting the other people out.
Then Mrs. Brandon got up to go. Afterwards, when she looked back to this, she remembered that she had looked, for some unknown reason, especially at Canon Ronder, as she stood there saying good-bye.
She decided that she did not like him. Then she went away, and Mrs.
Combermere was glad that she had gone.
Of all the dull women....
Chapter VI
Seatown Mist and Cathedral Dust
Falk Brandon knew quite well that his mother was watching him.
It was a strange truth that until this return of his from Oxford he had never considered his mother at all. It was not that he had grown to disregard her, as do many sons, because of the monotonous regularity of her presence. Nor was it that he despised her because he seemed so vastly to have outgrown her. He had not been unkind nor patronising nor contemptuous--he had simply not yet thought about her. The circ.u.mstances of his recent return, however, had forced him to consider every one in the house. He had his secret preoccupation that seemed so absorbing and devastating to him that he could not believe that every one around him would not guess it. He soon discovered that his father was too c.o.c.k-sure and his sister too innocent to guess anything. Now he was not himself a perceptive man; he had, after all, seen as yet very little of the world, and he had a great deal of his father"s self-confidence; nevertheless, he was just perceptive enough to perceive that his mother was thinking about him, was watching him, was waiting to see what he would do....
His secret was quite simply that, for the last year, he had been devastated by the consciousness of Annie Hogg, the daughter of the landlord of "The Dog and Pilchard." Yes. devastated was the word. It would not be true to say that he was in love with her or, indeed, had any a.n.a.lysed emotion for her--he was aware of her always, was disturbed by her always, could not keep away from her, wanted something in connection with her far deeper than mere love-making--
What he wanted he did not know. He could not keep away from her, and yet when he was with her nothing occurred. She did not apparently care for him; he was not even sure that he wanted her to. At Oxford during his last term he had thought of her--incessantly, a hot pain at his heart. He had not invited the disturbance that had sent him down, but he had welcomed it.
Every day he went to "The Dog and Pilchard." He drank but little and talked to no one. He just leaned up against the wall and looked at her.