"Evening, Archdeacon," said Hogg.
Brandon said, his voice shaking with anger: "What are you following me for?"
"Following you, Archdeacon?"
"Yes, following me. I have noticed it often lately. If you have anything to say to me write to me."
"Following you? Lord, no! What makes you think of such a thing, Archdeacon? Can"t a feller enjoy the evenin" air on such a lovely night as this without being accused of following a gentleman?"
"You know that you are trying to annoy me." Brandon, had pulled himself up, but his hatred of that grinning face with its purple veins, its piercing eyes, was working strongly upon his nerves, so that his hands seemed to move towards it without his own impulsion. "You have been trying to annoy me for weeks now. I"ll stand you no longer. If I have any more of this nuisance I"ll put it into the hands of the police."
Hogg spat out complacently over the gra.s.s. "Now, that _is_ an absurd thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man"s tired and wants some air after his day"s work he"s accused of being a nuisance. It"s a bit thick, that"s what it is. Now, tell, Archdeacon, do you happen to have bought this "ere town, because if so I should be glad to know it--and so would a number of others too."
"Very well, then," said Brandon, moving away. "If you won"t go, I will."
"There"s no need for temper that I can see," said Hogg. "No call for it at all, especially that we"re a sort of relation now. Almost brothers, seeing as how your son has married my daughter."
Lower and lower! Lower and lower!
He was moving in a world now where figures, horrible, obscene and foul, could claim him, could touch him, had their right to follow him.
"You will get nothing from me," Brandon answered. "You are wasting your time."
"Wasting my time?" Hogg laughed. "Not me! I"m enjoying myself. I don"t want anything from you except just to see you sometimes and have a little chat. That"s quite enough for me! I"ve taken quite a liking to you, Archdeacon, which is as it should be between relations, and, often enough, it isn"t so. I like to see a proud gentleman like yourself mixing with such as me. It"s good for both of us, as you might say."
Brandon"s anger--always dangerously uncontrolled--rose until it seemed to have the whole of his body in his grasp, swaying it, ebbing and flowing with swift powerful current through his heart into his brain. Now he could only see the flushed, taunting face, the little eyes....
But Hogg"s hour was not yet. He suddenly touched his cap, smiling.
"Well, good evening, Archdeacon. We"ll be meeting again,"--and he was gone.
As swiftly as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling, shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated, desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place.
Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all and show them that he was above and beyond their power.
But the peace of the evening and the glory of the stars gradually stole into his heart. He had been wrong, terribly wrong. His pride, his conceit, had been destroying him. With a sudden flash of revelation he saw it. He had trusted in his own power, put himself on a level with the G.o.d whom he served. A rush of deep and sincere humility overwhelmed him. He bowed his head and prayed.
Some while later he turned up the path towards home. The whole sky now burnt with stars; fires were a dull glow across the soft gulf of grey, the gipsy fires. Once and again a distant voice could be heard singing. As he reached the corner of the Cathedral, and was about to turn up towards the Precincts, a strange sound reached his ears. He stood where he was and listened. At first he could not define what he heard--then suddenly he realised. Quite close to him a man was sobbing.
There is something about the sounds of a man"s grief that is almost indecent. This sobbing was pitiful in its abandonment and in its effort to control and stifle.
Brandon, looking more closely, saw the dark shadow of a man"s body pressed against the inside b.u.t.tress of the corner of the Cathedral wall. The shadow crouched, the body all drawn together as though folding in upon itself to hide its own agony.
Brandon endeavoured to move softly up the path, but his step crunched on some twigs, and at the sharp noise the sobbing suddenly ceased. The figure turned.
It was Morris. The two men looked at one another for an instant, then Morris, still like a shadow, vanished swiftly into the dusk.
Chapter III
Sat.u.r.day, June 19: The Ball
Joan was in her hedroom preparing for the Ball. It was now only half-past six and the Ball was not until half-past nine, but Mr. Mumphit, the be-curled, the be-scented young a.s.sistant from the hairdresser"s in the High Street had paid his visit very early because he had so many other heads of so many other young ladies to dress in Polchester that evening.
So Joan sat in front of the long looking-gla.s.s, a towel still over her shoulders, looking at herself in a state of ecstasy and delight.
It was wrong of her, perhaps, to feel so happy--she felt that deep in her consciousness; wrong, with all the trouble in the house, Falk gone in disgrace, her father unhappy, her mother so strange; but to-night she could not help herself. The excitement was spluttering and crackling all over the town, the wonderful week upon which the whole country was entering, the Ball, her own coming-out Ball, and the consciousness that He would be there, and, even though He did love another, would be sure to give her at least one dance; these things were all too strong for her--she was happy, happy, happy--her eyes danced, her toes danced, her very soul danced for sheer delirious joy. Had any one been behind her to look over her shoulder into the gla.s.s, he would have seen the reflection in that mirror of one of the prettiest children the wide world could show; especially childish she looked to-night with her dark hair piled high on her head, her eyes wide with wonder, her neck and shoulders so delicately white and soft. Behind her, on the bed, was the dress, on the dingy carpet a pair of shoes of silver tissue, the loveliest things she had ever had.
They were reflected in the mirror, little blobs of silver, and as she saw them the colour mounted still higher in her cheeks. She had no right to them; she had not paid for them. They were the first things that she had ever, in all her life, bought on credit. Neither her father nor her mother knew anything about them, but she had seen them in Harriott"s shop-window and had simply not been able to resist them.
If, after all, she was to dance with Him, that made anything right. Were she sent to prison because she could not pay for them it would not matter.
She had done the only possible thing.
And so she looked into the mirror and saw the dark glitter in her hair and the red in her cheeks and the whiteness of her shoulders and the silver blobs of the little shoes, and she was happy--happy with an almost fearful ecstasy.
Mrs. Brandon also was in her bedroom. She was sitting on a high stiff- backed chair, staring in front of her. She had been sitting there now for a long time without making any movement at all. She might have been a dead woman. Her thin hands, with the sharply marked blue veins, were clasped tightly on her lap. She was feeding, feverishly, eagerly feeding upon the thought of Morris.
She would see him that evening, they would talk together, dance together, their hands would burn as they touched; they would say very little to one another; they would long, agonize for one another, to be alone together, to be far, far away from everybody, and they would be desperately unhappy.
She wondered, in her strange kind of mouse-in-the-trap trance, about that unhappiness. Was there to be no happiness, for her anywhere? Was she always to want more than she got, was all this pa.s.sion now too late? Was it real at all? Was it not a fever, a phantom, a hallucination? Did she see Morris? Did she not rather see something that she must seize to slake her burning feverish thirst? For one moment she had known happiness, when her arms had gone around him and she had been able to console and comfort him. But comfort him for how long? Was he not as unhappy as she, and would they not always be unhappy? Was he not weighed down by the sin that he had committed, that he, as he thought, had caused her to commit?...At that she sprang up from the chair and paced the room, murmuring aloud: "No, no, I did it. My sin, not his. I will care for him, watch over him--watch over him, care for him. He must be glad."...She sank down by the bed, burying her face in her hands.
Brandon was in his study finishing his letters. But behind his application to the notes that he was writing his brain was moving like an animal steathily investigating an unlighted house. He was thinking of his wife-- and of himself. Even as he was writing "And therefore it seems to me, my dear Ryle, that with regard to the actual hour of the service, eight o"clock----" his inner consciousness was whispering to him. "How you miss Falk! How lonely the house seems without him! You thought you could get along without love, didn"t you? or, at least, you were not aware that it played any very great part in your life. But now that the one person whom you most sincerely loved is gone, you see that it was not to be so simply taken for granted, do you not? Love must be worked for, sacrificed for, cared for, nourished and cherished. You want some one to cherish now, and you are surprised that you should so want...yes, there is your wife-- Amy...Amy.... You had taken her also for granted. But she is still with you. There is time."
His wife was illuminated with tenderness. He put down his pen and stared in front of him. What he wanted and what she wanted was a holiday. They had been too long here in this place. That was what he needed, that was the explanation of his headaches, of his tempers, of his obsession about Ronder.
As soon as this Pybus St. Anthony affair was settled he would take his wife abroad. Just the two of them. Another honeymoon after all these years. Greece, Italy...and who knows? Perhaps he would see Falk on his way through London returning...Falk....
He had forgotten his letters, staring in front of him, tapping the table with his pen.
There was a knock on the door. The maid said, "A lady to see you, sir. She says it"s important"--and, before he could ask her name, some one else was in the room with him and the door was closed behind her.
He was puzzled for a moment as to her ident.i.ty, a rather seedy, down-at- heels-looking woman. She was wearing a rather crumpled white cotton dress.
She carried a pink parasol, and on her head was a large straw hat overburdened with bright red roses. Ah, yes! Of course! Miss Milton--who was the Librarian. Shabby she looked. Come down in the world. He had always disliked her. He resented now the way in which she had almost forced her way into his room.
She looked across at him through her funny half-closed eyes.
"I beg your pardon, Archdeacon Brandon," she said, "for entering like this at what must be, I fear, an unseemly time. My only excuse must be the urgency of my business."
"I am very sorry, Miss Milton," he said sternly; "it is quite impossible for me to see you just now on any business whatever. If you will make an appointment with me in writing, I will see what can be done."
At the sound of his voice her eyes closed still further. "I"m very sorry, Archdeacon," she said. "I think you would do well to listen to what I am going to tell you."