The Cathedral. Hugh Walpole

The Archdeacon knew that he could not trust him, but a masterful policy of terrorism had always been very successful. Ryle was frankly frightened by the Archdeacon, and a very good thing too! Might he long remain so! Lastly there was Foster, the Diocesan Missioner. Let it be said at once that the Archdeacon hated Foster. Foster had been a thorn in the Archdeacon's side ever since his arrival in Polchester--a thin, shambly-kneed, untidy, pale-faced prig, that was what Foster was! The Archdeacon hated everything about him--his grey hair, his large protruding ears, the pimple on the end of his nose, the baggy knees to his trousers, his thick heavy hands that never seemed to be properly washed.

      Nevertheless beneath that hatred the Archdeacon was compelled to a reluctant admiration. The man was fearless, a fanatic if you please, but devoted to his religion, believing in it with a fervour and sincerity that nothing could shake. An able man too, the best preacher in the diocese, better read in every kind of theology than any clergyman in Glebeshire. It was especially for his open mind about new religious ideas that the Archdeacon mistrusted him. No opinion, however heterodox, shocked him. He welcomed new thought and had himself written a book, Christ and the Gospels, that for its learning and broad-mindedness had created a considerable stir. But he was a dull dog, never laughed, never even smiled, lived by himself and kept to himself. He had, in the past, opposed every plan of the Archdeacon's, and opposed it relentlessly, but he was always, thanks to the Archdeacon's efforts, in a minority. The other Canons disliked him; the old Bishop, safely tucked away in his Palace at Carpledon, was, except for his satellite Rogers, his only friend in Polchester.

      So much for the Chapter. There was now only one unknown element in the situation--Ronder. Ronder's position was important because he was Treasurer to the Cathedral. His predecessor, Hart-Smith, now promoted to the Deanery of Norwich, had been an able man, but one of the old school, a great friend of Brandon's, seeing eye to eye with him in everything. The Archdeacon then had had his finger very closely upon the Cathedral purse, and Hart-Smith's departure had been a very serious blow. The appointment of the new Canon had been in the hands of the Crown, and Brandon had, of course, had nothing to say to it. However, one glance at Ronder--he had seen him and spoken to him at the Dean's a few days after his arrival--had reassured him. Here, surely, was a man whom he need not fear--an easy, good-natured, rather stupid fellow by the look of him. Brandon hoped to have his finger on the Cathedral purse as tightly in a few weeks' time as he had had it before.

      And all this was in no sort of fashion for the Archdeacon's personal advancement or ambition. He was contented with Polchester, and quite prepared to live there for the rest of his days and be buried, with proper ceremonies, when his end came. With all his soul he loved the Cathedral, and if he regarded himself as the principal factor in its good governance and order he did so with a sort of divine fatalism--no credit to him that it was so. Let credit be given to the Lord God who had seen fit to make him what he was and to place in his hands that great charge.

      His fault in the matter was, perhaps, that he took it all too simply, that he regarded these men and the other figures in Polchester exactly as he saw them, did not believe that they could ever be anything else. As God had created the world, so did Brandon create Polchester as nearly in his own likeness as might be--there they all were and there, please God, they would all be for ever!

      Bending his mind then to this new campaign, he thought that he would go and see the Dean. He knew by this time, he fancied, exactly how to prepare the Dean's mind for the proper reception of an idea, although, in truth, he was as simple over his plots and plans as a child brick-building in its nursery.

      About three o'clock one afternoon he prepared to sally forth. The Dean's house was on the other side of the Cathedral, and you had to go down the High Street and then to the left up Orange Street to get to it, an irrational roundabout proceeding that always irritated the Archdeacon. Very splendid he looked, his top-hat shining, his fine high white collar, his spotless black clothes, his boots shapely and smart. (He and Bentinck- Major were, I suppose, the only two clergymen in Polchester who used boot- trees.) But his smartness was in no way an essential with him. Clothed in rags he would still have the grand air. "I often think of him," Miss Dobell once said, "as one of those glorious gondoliers in Venice. How grand he would look!"

      However that might be, it is beyond question that the ridiculous clothes that a clergyman of the Church of England is compelled to wear did not make him absurd, nor did he look an over-dressed fop like Bentinck-Major.

      Miss Dobell's gondolier was, on this present occasion, in an excellent temper; and meeting his daughter Joan, he felt very genial towards her. Joan had observed, several days before, that the family crisis might be said to be past, and very thankful she was.

      She had, at this time, her own happy dreams, so that father and daughter, moved by some genial impulse, stopped and kissed.

      "There! my dear!" said the Archdeacon. "And what are you doing this afternoon, Joan?"

      "I'm going with mother," she said, "to see Miss Ronder. It's time we called, you know."

      "I suppose it is." Brandon patted her cheek. "Everything you want?"

      "Yes, father, thank you."

      "That's right."

      He left the house, humming a little tune. On the second step he paused, as he was in the habit of doing, and surveyed the Precincts--the houses with their shining knockers, their old-fashioned bow-windows and overhanging portals, the Cathedral Green, and the towering front of the Cathedral itself. He was, for a moment, a kind of presiding deity over all this. He loved it and believed in it and trusted it exactly as though it had been the work of his own hands. Halfway towards the Arden Gate he overtook poor old shambling Canon Morphew, who really ought, in the Archdeacon's opinion, to have died long ago. However, as he hadn't died the Archdeacon felt kindly towards him, and he had, when he talked to the old man, a sense of beneficence and charity very warming to the heart.

      "Well, Morphew, enjoying the sun?"

      Canon Morphew always started when any one spoke to him, being sunk all day deep in dreams of his own, dreams that had their birth somewhere in the heart of the misty dirty rooms where his books were piled ceiling-high and papers blew about the floor.

      "Good afternoon … good afternoon, Archdeacon. Pray forgive me. You came upon me unawares."

      Brandon moderated his manly stride to the other's shuffling steps.

      "Hope you've had none of that tiresome rheumatism troubling you again."

      "Rheumatism? Just a twinge--just a twinge. … It belongs to my time of life."

      "Oh, don't say that!" The Archdeacon laughed his hearty laugh. "You've many years in front of you yet."

      "No, I haven't--and you don't mean it, Archdeacon--you know you don't. A few months perhaps--that's all. The Lord's will be done. But there's a piece of work … a piece of work. … "

      He ran off into incoherent mumblings. Suddenly, just as they reached the dark shadows of the Arden Gate, he seemed to wake up. His voice was quite vigorous, his eyes, tired and worn as they were, bravely scanned Brandon's health and vigour.

      "We all come to it, you know. Yes, we do. The very strongest of us. You're a young man, Archdeacon, by my years, and I hope you may long live to continue your good work in this place. All the same, you'll be old yourself one day. No one escapes. … No one escapes. … "

      "Well, good-day to you," said the Archdeacon hurriedly. "Good-day to you. … Hope this bright weather continues," and started rather precipitately down the hill, leaving Morphew to find his way by himself.

      His impetuosity was soon restrained. He tumbled immediately into a crowd, and pulling himself up abruptly and looking down the High Street he saw that the pavement on both sides of the street was black with people. He was not a man who liked to be jostled, and he was the more uncomfortable in that he discovered that his immediate neighbour was Samuel Hogg, the stout and rubicund landlord of the "Dog and Pilchard" of Seatown. With him was his pretty daughter Annie. Near to them were Mr. John Curtis and Mr. Samuel Croppet, two of the Town Councillors. With none of these gentlemen did the Archdeacon wish to begin a conversation.