FINIS CORONAT OPUS.
The great day dawned at last: the day to which all Merchester had
looked forward for months, for which so many hundreds had been
working, on which all must now pin their hopes: the opening day of
Pageant Week.
I suppose that never in Merchester's long history had her citizens so
frequently or so nervously studied their weather-glasses.
"Tarbolt, of all people!" murmured Brother Copas one afternoon in the
Venables Free Library.
He had just met the Canon coming down the stairs, and turned to watch
the retreating figure to the doorway.
"I am suffering from a severe shock," he announced five minutes later
to Mr. Simeon, whom he found at work in Paradise. "Did you ever know
your friend Tarbolt patronise this institution before?"
"Never," answered Mr. Simeon, flushing.
"Well, I met him on the stairs just now. For a moment I knew not
which alternative to choose--whether your desertion had driven him to
the extreme course of reading a book or two for himself, or he had
come desperately in search of you to promise that if you returned,
all should be forgiven. . . . No, you need not look alarmed. He came
in search of a newspaper."
"But there are no newspapers in the Library."
"Quite so: he has just made that discovery. Thereupon, since an
animal of that breed cannot go anywhere without leaving his scent
behind him, he has scrawled himself over half a page of the
Suggestion' Book. He wants this Library to take in _The Times_
newspaper, 'if only for the sake of its foreign correspondence and
its admirable weather-charts.' Signed, 'J. Tarbolt.' What part is
the humbug sustaining, that so depends on the weather?"
"He takes Bishop Henry of Blois in the Fourth Episode. He wears a
suit of complete armour, and you cannot conceive how much
it--it--improves him. I helped him to try it on the other day,"
Mr. Simeon explained with a smile.
"Maybe," suggested Brother Copas, "he fears the effect of rain upon
his 'h's.'"
But the glass held steady, and the great day dawned without a cloud.
Good citizens of Merchester, arising early to scan the sky, were
surprised to find their next-door neighbours already abroad, and in
consultation with neighbours opposite over strings of flags to be
suspended across the roadway. Mr. Simeon, for example, peeping out,
with an old dressing-gown cast over his night-shirt, was astounded to
find Mr. Magor, the contiguous pork-seller, thus engaged with Mr.
Sillifant, the cheap fruiterer across the way. He had accustomed
himself to think of them as careless citizens and uncultured, and
their unexpected patriotism gave him perhaps less of a shock than the
discovery that they must have been moving faster than he with the
times, for they both wore pyjamas.
They were kind to him, however: and, lifting no eyebrow over his
antiquated night-attire, consulted him cheerfully over a string of
flags which (as it turned out) Mr. Magor had paid yesterday a visit
to Southampton expressly to borrow.
I mention this because it was a foretaste, and significant, of the
general enthusiasm.
At ten in the morning Fritz, head waiter of that fine old English
coaching-house, "The Mitre," looked out from the portico where he
stood surrounded by sporting prints, and announced to the young lady
in the bar that the excursion trains must be "bringing them in
hundreds."
By eleven o'clock the High Street was packed with crowds that whiled
away their time with staring at the flags and decorations. But it
was not until 1.0 p.m. that there began to flow, always towards the
Pageant Ground, a stream by which that week, among the inhabitants of
Merchester, will always be best remembered; a stream of folk in
strange dresses--knights in armour, ladies in flounces and ruffs,
ancient Britons, greaved Roman legionaries, monks, cavaliers,
Georgian beaux and dames.
It appeared as if all the dead generations of Merchester had
arisen from their tombs and reclaimed possession of her streets.
They shared it, however, with throngs of modern folk, in summer
attire, hurrying from early luncheons to the spectacle.
In the roadway near the Pageant Ground crusaders and nuns jostled
amid motors and cabs of commerce.
For an hour this mad medley poured through the streets of Merchester.
Come with them to the Pageant Ground, where all is arranged now and
ready, waiting the signal!
Punctually at half-past two, from his box on the roof of the Grand
Stand, Mr. Isidore gave the signal for which the orchestra waited.
With a loud outburst of horns and trumpets and a deep rolling of
drums the overture began.
It was the work of a young musician, ambitious to seize his
opportunity. After stating its theme largely, simply, in sixteen
strong chords, it broke into variations in which the audience for a
few moments might read nothing but cacophonous noise, until a gateway
opened in the old wall, and through it a band of white-robed Druids
came streaming towards the stone altar which stood--the sole stage
"property"--in the centre of the green area. Behind them trooped a
mob of skin-clothed savages, yelling as they dragged a woman to the
sacrifice. It was these yells that the music interpreted.
The Pageant had opened, and was chanting in high wild notes to its
own prelude.
Almost before the spectators realised this, the Arch-Druid had
mounted his altar. He held a knife to the victim's throat.
But meanwhile the low beat of a march had crept into the music, and
was asserting itself more and more insistently beneath the
disconnected outcries. It seemed to grow out of distance, to draw
nearer and nearer, as it were the tramp of an armed host. . . .
It _was_ the tramp of a host. . . . As the Arch-Druid, holding his
knife aloft, dragged back the woman's head to lay her throat the
barer, all turned to a sudden crash of cymbals; and, to the stern
marching-tune now silencing all clamours, the advance-guard of
Vespasian swung in through the gateway. . . .
So for an hour Saxon followed Roman, Dane followed Saxon, Norman
followed both. Alfred, Canute, William--all controlled (as Brother
Copas cynically remarked to Brother Warboise, watching through the
palings from the allotted patch of sward which served them for
green-room) by one small Jew, perspiring on the roof and bawling
orders here, there, everywhere, through a gigantic megaphone; bawling
them in a _lingua franca_ to which these mighty puppets moved
obediently, weaving English history as upon a tapestry swiftly,
continuously unrolled. "Which things," quoted Copas mischievously,
"are an allegory, Philip."
To the waiting performers it seemed incredible that to the audience,
packed by thousands in the Grand Stand, this scolding strident voice
immediately above their heads should be inaudible. Yet it was.
All those eyes beheld, all those ears heard, was the puppets as they
postured and declaimed. The loud little man on the roof they saw not
nor heard.
"Which things again are an allegory," said Brother Copas.
The Brethren of St. Hospital had no Episode of their own. But from
the time of the Conquest downward they had constantly to take part in
the moving scenes as members of the crowd, and the spectators
constantly hailed their entry.
"Our coat of poverty is the wear to last, after all," said Copas,
regaining the green-room and mopping his brow. "We have just seen
out the Plantagenets."
In this humble way, when the time came, he looked on at the Episode
of Henry the Eighth's visit to Merchester, and listened to the blank
verse which he himself had written. The Pageant Committee had ruled
out the Reformation, but he had slyly introduced a hint of it.
The scene consisted mainly of revels, dances, tournays, amid which a
singing man had chanted, in a beautiful tenor, Henry's own song of
_Pastime with good Companye_.--
"Pastime with good Companye,
I love and shall until I die:
Grudge who lust, but none deny,
So God be pleased, thus live will I.
For my pastance,
Hunt, sing and dance,
My heart is set.
All goodly sport
For my comfort
Who shall me let?"
With its chorus--
"For Idleness
Is chief mistress
Of vices all.
Then who can say
But mirth and play
Is best of all?"
As to the tune of it their revels ended, Henry and Catherine of
Aragon and Charles the Emperor passed from the sunlit stage, one
solitary figure--the blind Bishop of Merchester--lingered, and
stretched out his hands for the monks to come and lead him home,
stretched out his hands towards the Cathedral behind the green elms.
"Being blind, I trust the Light.
Ah, Mother Church! If fire must purify,
If tribulation search thee, shall I plead
_Not in my time, O Lord_? Nay let me know
All dark, yet trust the dawn--remembering
The order of thy services, thy sweet songs,
Thy decent ministrations--Levite, priest
And sacrifice--those antepasts of heaven.
We have sinn'd, we have sinn'd! But never yet went out
The flame upon the altar, day or night;
And it shall save thee, O Jerusalem!
Jerusalem!"
"And I stole that straight out of Jeremy Taylor," murmured Brother
Copas, as the monks led off their Bishop, chanting--
"Crux, in caelo lux superna,
Sis in carnis hac taberna
Mihi pedibus lucerna--
"Quo vexillum Dux cohortis
Sistet, super flumen mortis,
Te, flammantibus in portis!"
--"While I wrote that dog-Latin myself," said Brother Copas, musing,
forgetful that he, the author, was lingering on the stage from which
he ought to have removed himself three minutes ago with the rest of
the crowd.
"Ger' out! Get off, zat olt fool! What ze devil you mean by
doddling!"
It was the voice of Mr. Isidore screeching upon him through the
megaphone. Brother Copas turned about, uplifting his face to it for
a moment with a dazed stare. . . . It seemed that, this time,
everyone in the Grand Stand must have heard. He fled: he made the
most ignominious exit in the whole Pageant.
The afternoon heat was broiling. . . . He had no sooner gained the
green-room shade of his elm than the whole of the Brethren were
summoned forth anew; this time to assist at the spousals of Queen
Mary of England with King Philip of Spain. And this Episode
(Number VII on the programme) was Corona's.
He had meant--and again he cursed his forgetfulness--to seek her out
at the last moment and whisper a word of encouragement. The child
must needs be nervous. . . .
He had missed his chance now. He followed the troop of Brethren back
into the arena and dressed rank with the others, salaaming as the
mock potentates entered, uttering stage cheers, while inwardly
groaning in spirit. His eye kept an anxious sidewise watch on the
gateway by which Corona must make her entrance.
She came. But before her, leading the way, strewing flowers, came
score upon score of children in regiments of colour--pale blue, pale
yellow, green, rose, heliotrope. They conducted her to the May
Queen's throne, hung it with wreaths, and having paid their homage,
ranged off, regiment by regiment, to take their station for the
dance. And she, meanwhile? . . . If she were nervous, no sign of it
betrayed her. She walked to her throne with the air of a small
queen. . . . _Vera incessu patuit--Corona_; walked, too, without airs
or _minauderies_, unconscious of all but the solemn glory. This was
the pageant of her beloved England, and hers for the moment was this
proud part in it. Brother Copas brushed his eyes. In his ears
buzzed the verse of a psalm--
She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needle-work:
the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company . . .
The orchestra struck up a quick-tripping minuet. The regiments
advanced on curving lines. They interwove their ranks, making
rainbows of colour; they rayed out in broadening bands of colour from
Corona's footstool. Through a dozen of these evolutions she sat, and
took all the homage imperially. It was not given to her, but to the
idea for which she was enthroned; and sitting, she nursed the idea in
her heart.
The dance over--and twice or thrice as it proceeded the front of the
Grand Stand shook with the clapping of thousands of hands, all
agitated together as when a wind passes over a wheatfield--Corona had
to arise from her throne, a wreath in either hand, and deliver a
speech before Queen Mary. The length of it was just a line and
three-quarters--
"Lady, accept these perishable flowers
Queen May brings to Queen Mary. . . ."
She spoke them in a high, clear voice, and all the Grand Stand
renewed its clapping as the child did obeisance.
"First-class!" grunted Brother Warboise at Copas's elbow.
"Pity old Bonaday couldn't be here to see the girl!"
"Aye," said Copas; but there was that in his throat which forbade his
saying more.
So the Pageant went on unfolding its scenes. Some of them were
merely silly: all of them were false to fact, of course, and a few
even false to sentiment. No entry, for example, received a heartier
round of British applause than did Nell Gwynn's (Episode IX).
Tears actually sprang to many eyes when an orange-girl in the
crowd pushed forward offering her wares, and Nell with a gay laugh
bought fruit of her, announcing "_I_ was an orange-girl once!"
Brother Copas snorted, and snorted again more loudly when Prebendary
Ken refused to admit the naughty ex-orange-girl within his episcopal
gates. For the audience applauded the protest almost as effusively,
and again clapped like mad when the Merry Monarch took the rebuke
like a sportsman, promising that "the next Bishopric that falls
vacant shall be at this good old man's disposal!"
Indeed, much of the Pageant was extremely silly. Yet, as it
progressed, Brother Copas was not alone in feeling his heart lift
with the total effect of it. Here, after all, thousands of people
were met in a common pride of England and her history. Distort it as
the performers might, and vain, inadequate, as might be the words
they declaimed, an idea lay behind it all. These thousands of people
were met for a purpose in itself ennobling because unselfish.
As often happens on such occasions, the rite took possession of them,
seizing on them, surprising them with a sudden glow about the heart,
sudden tears in the eyes. This _was_ history of a sort. Towards the
close, when the elm shadows began to stretch across the green stage,
even careless spectators began to catch this infection of nobility--
this feeling that we are indeed greater than we know.
In the last act all the characters--from early Briton to Georgian
dame--trooped together into the arena. In groups marshalled at
haphazard they chanted with full hearts the final hymn, and the
audience unbidden joined in chorus--
"O God! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home!"
"Where is the child?" asked Brother Copas, glancing through the
throng.
He found her in the thick of the press, unable to see anything for
the crowd about her, and led her off to a corner where, by the
southern end of the Grand Stand, some twenty Brethren of St. Hospital
stood shouting in company--
"A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun."
"She can't see. Lift her higher!" sang out a voice--Brother Royle's.
By happy chance at the edge of the group stood tall good-natured
Alderman Chope, who had impersonated Alfred the Great. The Brethren
begged his shield from him and mounted Corona upon it, all holding it
by its rim while they chanted--
"The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their hopes and fears,
Are carried downward by the flood
And lost in following years.
"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
"O God! our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Be Thou our guard while troubles last
And our perpetual home!"
Corona lifted her voice and sang with the old men; while among the
excited groups the swallows skimmed boldly over the meadow, as they
had skimmed every summer's evening before and since English History
began.
CONCLUSION.
Brother Copas walked homeward along the river-path, his gaunt hands
gathering his Beauchamp robe behind him for convenience of stride.
Ahead of him and around him the swallows circleted over the
water-meads or swooped their breasts close to the current of Mere.
Beside him strode his shadow, and lengthened as the sun westered in a
haze of potable gold. In the haze swam evening odours of mints,
grasses, herbs of grace and virtue named in old pharmacopoeias as
most medicinal for man, now forgotten, if not nameless.
The sunset breathed benediction. To many who walked homeward that
evening it seemed in that benediction to enwrap the centuries of
history they had so feverishly been celebrating, and to fold them
softly away as a garment. But Brother Copas heeded it not. He was
eager to reach St. Hospital and carry report to his old friend.
"Upon my word, it was an entire success. . . . I have criticised the
Bambergers enough to have earned a right to admit it. In the end a
sort of sacred fury took hold of the whole crowd, and in the midst of
it we held her up--Corona--on a shield--"
Brother Bonaday lay panting. He had struggled through an attack
sharper than any previous one--so much sharper that he knew the end
to be not far distant, and only asked for the next to be swift.
"--And she was just splendid," said Brother Copas. "She had that
unconscious way of stepping out of the past, with a crown on her
head. My God, old friend, if I had that child for a daughter--"
Brother Bonaday lay and panted, not seeming to hear, still with his
eyes upturned to the ceiling of his narrow cell. They scanned it as
if feebly groping a passage through.
"I ought to have told you," he muttered.--"More than once I meant--
tried--to tell you."
"Hey?"
Brother Copas bent lower.
"She--Corona--never was my child. . . . Give me your hand. . . .
No, no; it's the truth, now. Her mother ran away from me . . .
and she, Corona, was born . . . a year after . . . in America . . .
Coronation year. The man--her father--died when she was six months
old, and the woman . . . knowing that I was always weak--"
He panted, very feebly. Brother Copas, still holding his hand,
leaned forward.
"Then she died, too. . . . What does it matter? Her message. . . .
'Bluff,' you would call it. . . . But she knew me. She was always
decided in her dealings . . . to the end. I want to sleep now. . . .
That's a good man!"
Brother Copas, seeking complete solitude, found it in the dusk of the
garden beyond the Ambulatory. There, repelling the benediction of
sunset that still lingered in the west, he lifted his face to the
planet Jupiter, already establishing its light in a clear space of
sky.
"Lord!" he ingeminated, "forgive me who counted myself the ironeist
of St. Hospital!"