Quite early in the morning arrivals began--visitors from the country most likely, sitting there at the back of the nave, bathed in the great silence and the dim light, just looking and wondering and expecting. Some of them wanted to move about and examine the bra.s.ses and the tombs and the windows--yes, move about with their families, and their bags of sandwiches, and their oranges. But not this morning, oh, dear, no! They could come in or go out, but if they came in they must stay quiet. Did they but subterraneously giggle, Cobbet was on their tracks in no time.
The light flooded in, throwing great splashes and lakes of blue and gold and purple on to flag and pillar. Great in its strength, magnificent in its beauty, the Cathedral prepared....
Mrs. Combermere walked rather solemnly that morning from her house to the Cathedral. In spite of the lovely morning she was feeling suddenly old.
Things like Jubilees do date you--no doubt about it. Nearly fifty. Three- quarters of life behind her and what had she to show for it? An unlucky marriage, much physical health and fun, some friends--but, at the last, lonely--lonely as perhaps every human being in this queer world was. That old woman now preparing to ride in fantastic procession before her worshipping subjects, she was lonely too. Poor, little, lonely, old woman!
Well, then, Charity to all and sundry--Charity, kindliness, the one and only thing. Aggie Combermere was not a sentimental woman, nor did she see life falsely, but she was suddenly aware, walking under the blazing blue sky, that she had been unkind, for amus.e.m.e.nt"s sake, more often than she need.... Well, why not? She was ready to allow people to have a shy at herself--any one who liked.... ""Ere you are! Old Aunt Sally! Three shies a penny!" And she _was_ an Aunt Sally, a ludicrous creature, caring for her dogs more than for any living creature, shovelling food into her mouth for no particular purpose, doing physical exercises in the morning, and _nearly_ fifty!
She found then, just as she reached the Arden Gate, that, to her own immense surprise, it was not of herself that, all this time, she had been thinking, but rather of Brandon and the Brandon family. The Brandons! What an extraordinary affair! The Town was now bursting its fat sides with excitement over it all! The Town was now generally aware (but how it was aware no one quite knew) that there was a mysterious letter that Mrs.
Brandon had written to Morris, and that Miss Milton, librarian who was, had obtained this letter and had taken it to Ronder. And the next move, the next! the next! Oh, tell us! Tell us! The Town stands on tiptoe; its hair on end. Let us see! Let us see! Let us not miss the tiniest detail of this extraordinary affair!
And really how extraordinary! First the boy runs off with that girl; then Mrs. Brandon, the quietest, dullest woman for years and years, throws her cap over the mill and behaves like a madwoman; and Johnny St. Leath, they say, is in love with the daughter, and his old mother is furious; and Brandon, they say, wants to cut Ronder"s throat. Ronder! Mrs. Combermere paused, partly to get her breath, partly to enjoy for an instant the shining, glittering gra.s.s, dotted with figures, stretching like a carpet from the vast greyness of the Cathedral. Ronder! There was a remarkable man! Mrs. Combermere was conquered by him, in spite of herself. How, in seven short months, he had conquered everybody! What an amusing talker, what a good preacher, what a clever business head! And yet she did not really like him. His praises now were in every one"s mouth, but she did not _really_ like him. Old Brandon was still her favourite, her old friend of ten years; but there was no doubt that he _was_ behind the times, Ronder had shown them that! No use living in the "Eighties any longer. But she was fond of him, she did not want him to be unhappy--and unhappy he was, that any one could see. Most of all, she did not want him to do anything foolish--and he might, his temper was strange, he was not so strong as he looked; he had felt his son"s escapade terribly--and now his wife!
"Well, if I had a wife like that," was Mrs. Combermere"s conclusion before she joined Ellen Stiles and Julia Preston, "I"d let her go off with any one! Pay any one to take her!"
Ellen was, of course, full of it all. "My dear, _what_ do you think is the latest! They say that the Archdeacon threatens to poison the whole of the Chapter if they don"t let Forsyth have Pybus, and that Boadicea has ordered Johnny to take a voyage to the Canary Islands for his health, and that he says he"ll see her shot first! And Miss Milton is selling the letter for a thousand pounds to the first comer!"
Mrs. Combermere stopped her sharply--"Mind your own business, Ellen. The whole thing now is past a joke. And as to Johnny St. Leath, he shows his good taste. There isn"t a sweeter, prettier girl in England than Joan Brandon, and he"s lucky if he gets her."
"I don"t want to be ill-natured," said Ellen Stiles rather plaintively, "but that family would test anybody"s reticence. We"d better go in or old Lawrence will be letting some one have our seats."
Joan came with her mother slowly across the gra.s.s. In her dress was this letter:
Dearest, dearest, _dearest_ Joan--The first thing you have thoroughly to realise is that it doesn"t matter _what_ you say or what mother says or what any one says. Mother"s angry. Of course she is. She"s been angry a thousand million times before and will be a thousand million times again. But it doesn"t _mean_ anything.
Mother likes to be angry, it does her good, and the longer she"s angry with you the better she"ll like you, if you understand what I mean. What I want to get into your head is that you can"t alter anything. Of course if you didn"t love me it would be another matter, and you tried to tell me you didn"t love me yesterday just for my good, but you did it so badly that you had to admit yourself that it was a failure. Don"t talk about your brother; he"s a fine fellow, and I"m going to look him up when I"m in London next month. Don"t talk about not seeing me, because you can"t help seeing me if I"m right in front of you. I"m no silph. (The way he spelt it.) I"m quite ready to wait for a certain time anyway. But marry we will, and happy we"ll be for ever and ever!--Your adoring
JOHNNY.
And what was she to do about it? She was certainly very unmodern and inexperienced by the standards of to-day--on the other hand, she was a very long way indeed from the Lily Dales and Eleanor Hardings of Mr.
Trollope. She had not told her father--that she was resolved to do so soon as he seemed a little less worried by his affairs; but say that she did not love Johnny she had found that she could not, and as to damaging him by marrying him, his love for her had strengthened her own pride in herself. She did not understand his love, it was astounding to her after the indifference with which her own family had always treated her. But there it was: he, with all his experience of life, loved her more than any one else in the world, so there _must_ be something in her. And she knew there was; privately she had always known it. As to his mother--well, so long as Johnny loved her she could face anybody.
So this wonderful morning she was radiantly happy. Child as she was, she adored this excitement. It was splendid of it to be this glorious time just when she was having her own glorious time! Splendid of the weather to be so beautiful, of the bells to clash, of every one to wear their best clothes, of the Jubilee to arrange itself so exactly at the right moment!
And could it be only last Sat.u.r.day that he had spoken to her? And it seemed centuries, centuries ago!
She chattered eagerly, smiling at Betty Callender, and then at the D"Arcy girls, and then at Mrs. Bentinck-Major. She supposed that they were all talking about her. Well, let them. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
Quite the contrary. She did not notice her mother"s silence. But she _had_ noticed, before they left the house, how ill her mother was looking. A very bad night--another of her dreadful headaches. Her father had not come in to breakfast at all. Everything had been wrong at home since that day when Talk had been sent down from Oxford. She longed to put her arms around her father"s neck and hug him. Behind her own happiness, ever since the night of the Ball, there had been a longing, an aching urgent longing to pet him, comfort him, make love to him. And she would, too--as soon as all these festivities were over.
And then suddenly there were Johnny and his mother and his sisters walking towards the West door! What a situation! And then there was Johnny breaking away from his own family and hurrying towards them, lifting his hat, smiling!
How splendid he looked and how happy! And how happy she also was looking had she only known it!
"Good morning, Mrs. Brandon."
Mrs. Brandon didn"t appear to remember him at all. Then suddenly, as though she had picked her conscience out of her pocket:
"Oh, good morning, Lord St. Leath."
Joan, out of the corner, saw Boadicea, her head with its absurd bonnet high, striding indignantly ahead.
"What lovely weather, is it not?"
"Yes, aren"t we lucky? Good morning, Joan."
"Good morning."
"Isn"t it a lovely day?"
"Oh, yes, it is."
"Are you going to see the Torchlight Procession to-night?"
"They come through the Precincts, you know."
"Of course they do. We"re going to have five bonfires all around us.
Mother"s afraid they"ll set the Castle on fire."
They both laughed--much too happy to know what they were laughing at.
Mrs. Sampson joined them. Johnny and Joan walked ahead. Only two steps and they would be in the Cathedral.
"Did you get my letter?"
"Yes."
"I love you, I love you, I love you." This in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
"Johnny--you mustn"t--you know--we can"t--you know I oughtn"t----"
They pa.s.sed through into the Cathedral.
Mrs. Bentinck-Major came with Miss Ronder, slowly, across the gra.s.s. It was not necessary for them to hurry because they knew that their seats were reserved for them. Mrs. Bentinck-Major thought Miss Ronder "queer"
because of the clever things that she said and of the odd fashion in which she always dressed. To say anything clever was, with Mrs. Bentinck-Major, at once to be cla.s.sed as "queer."
"It _is_ hot!"
Miss Ronder, thin and piky above her stiff white collar, looked immaculately cool. "A lovely day," she said, sniffing the colour and the warmth, and loving it.
Mrs. Bentinck-Major was thinking of the Brandon scandal, but it was one of her habits never to let her left-hand voice know what her right-hand brain was doing. Secretly she often wondered about s.e.xual things--what people _really_ did, whether they enjoyed what they did, and whether she would have enjoyed the same things had life gone that way with her instead of leading her to Bentinck-Major.
But she never, never spoke of such things. She was thinking now of Mrs.
Brandon and Morris. They said that some one had found a letter, a disgraceful letter. How _extraordinary_!
"It"s loneliness," suddenly said Miss Ronder, "that drives people to do the things they do."
Mrs. Bentinck-Major started as though some one had struck her in the small of her back. Was the woman a witch? How amazing!