The May-day Prologue
May is the finest month of all the year in Glebeshire. The days are warm
but not too hot; the sky is blue but not too blue, the air is soft but
with a touch of sharpness The valleys are pressed down and overflowing
with flowers; the cuckoo cries across the glassy waters of blue harbours,
and the gorse is honey-scented among the rocks.
May-day in Polchester this year was warm and bright, with a persistent
cuckoo somewhere in the Dean's garden, and a very shrill-voiced canary in
Miss Dobell's open window. The citizens of Polchester were suddenly aware
that summer was close upon them. Doors were flung open and the gardens
sinuously watered, summer clothes were dragged from their long confinement
and anxiously overlooked, Mr. Martin, the stationer, hung a row of his
coloured Polchester views along a string across his window, the dark,
covered ways of the market-place quivered and shone with pots of spring
flowers, and old Simon's water-cart made its first trembling and shaking
appearance down the High Street.
All this was well enough and customary enough, but what marked this spring
from any other spring that had ever been was that it was Jubilee Year. It
was on this warm May-day that Polchester people realised suddenly that the
Jubilee was not far away. The event had not quite the excitement and
novelty that the Jubilee of 1887 had had; there was, perhaps, in London
and the larger towns, something of a sense of repetition. But Polchester
was far from the general highway and, although the picture of the
wonderful old lady, now nearly eighty years of age, was strong before
every one's vision, there was a deep determination to make this year's
celebration a great Polchester affair, to make it the celebration of
Polchester men and Polchester history and Polchester progress.
The programme had been long arranged--the great Service in the Cathedral,
the Ball in the Assembly Rooms, the Flower Show in the St. Leath Castle
grounds, the Torchlight Procession, the Croquet Tournament, the School-
children's Tea and the School Cricket-match. A fine programme, and the
Jubilee Committee, with the Bishop, the Mayor, and the Countess of St.
Leath for its presidents, had already held several meetings.
Nevertheless, Glebeshire has a rather languishing climate. Polchester has
been called by its critics "a lazy town," and it must be confessed that
everything in connection with the Jubilee had been jogging along very
sleepily until of a sudden this warm May-day arrived, and every one sprang
into action. The Mayor called a meeting of the town branch of the
Committee, and the Bishop out at Carpledon summoned his ecclesiastics, and
Joan found a note from Gladys Sampson beckoning her to the Sampson house
to do her share of the glorious work. It had been decided by the Higher
Powers that it would be a charming thing for some of the younger
Polchester ladies to have in charge the working of two of the flags that
were to decorate the Assembly Room walls on the night of the Ball. Gladys
Sampson, who, unlike her mother, never suffered from headaches, and was a
strong, determined, rather masculine girl, soon had the affair in hand,
and the party was summoned.
I would not like to say that Polchester had a more snobbish spirit than
other Cathedral towns, but there is no doubt that, thirty years ago, the
lines were drawn very clearly indeed between the "Cathedral" and the
"Others."
"Cathedral" included not only the daughters of the Canons and what Mr.
Martin, in his little town guide-book, called "General Ecclesiastical
Phenomena," but also the two daughters of Puddifoot's sister, Grace and
Annie Trudon; the three daughters of Roger McKenzie, the town lawyer;
little Betty Callender, the only child of old, red-faced Major Callender;
Mary and Amy Forrester, daughters of old Admiral Forrester; and, of
course, the St. Leath girls.
When Joan arrived, then, in the Deanery dining-room there was a fine
gathering. Very unsophisticated they would all have been considered by the
present generation. Lady Rose and Lady Mary, who were both of them nearer
forty than thirty, had of course had some experience of London, and had
been even to Paris and Rome. Of the "Others," at this time, only Betty
Callender, who had been born in India, and the Forresters had been
farther, in all their lives, than Drymouth. Their lives were bound, and
happily bound, by the Polchester horizon. They lived in and for and by the
local excitements, talks, croquet, bicycling (under proper guardianship),
Rafiel or Buquay or Clinton in the summer, and the occasional (very, very
occasional) performances of amateur theatricals in the Assembly Rooms.
Moreover, they were happy and contented and healthy. For many of them
_Jane Eyre_ was still a forbidden book and a railway train a
remarkable adventure.
Polchester was the world and the world was Polchester. They were at least
a century nearer to Jane Austen's day than they were to George the
Fifth's.
Joan saw, with relief, so soon as she entered the room, that the St. Leath
women were absent. They overawed her and were so much older than the
others there that they brought constraint with them and embarrassment.
Any stranger, coming suddenly into the room, must have felt its light and
gaiety and happiness. The high wide dining-room windows were open and
looked, over sloping lawns, down to the Pol and up again to the woods
beyond. The trees were faintly purple in the spring sun, daffodils were
nodding on the lawn and little gossamer clouds of pale orange floated like
feathers across the sky. The large dining-room table was cleared for
action, and Gladys Sampson, very serious and important, stood at the far
end of the room under a very bad oil-painting of her father, directing
operations. The girls were dressed for the most part in white muslin
frocks, high in the shoulders and pulled in at the waist and tight round
the neck--only the McKenzie girls, who rode to hounds and played tennis
beautifully and had, all three of them, faces of glazed red brick, were
clad in the heavy Harris tweeds that were just then beginning to be so
fashionable.
Joan, who only a month or two ago would have been devoured with shyness at
penetrating the fastnesses of the Sampson dining-room, now felt no shyness
whatever but nodded quite casually to Gladys, smiled at the McKenzies, and
found a place between Cynthia Ryle and Jane D'Arcy.
They all sat, bathed in the sunshine, and looked at Gladys Sampson. She
cleared her throat and said in her pounding heavy voice--her voice was
created for Committees: "Now all of you know what we're here for. We're
here to make two banners for the Assembly Rooms and we've got to do our
very best. We haven't got a great deal of time between now and June the
Twentieth, so we must work, and I propose that we come here every Tuesday
and Friday afternoon, and when I say _here_ I mean somebody or
other's house, because of course it won't be always here. There's cutting
up to do and sewing and plenty of work really for everybody, because when
the banners are done there are the flags for the school-children. Now if
any one has any suggestions to make I shall be very glad to hear them."
There was at first no reply to this and every one smiled and looked at the
portrait of the Dean. Then one of the McKenzie girls remarked in a deep
bass voice:
"That's all right, Gladys. But who's going to decide who does what? Very
decent of you to ask us but we're not much in the sewing line--never have
been."
"Oh," said Gladys, "I've got people's names down for the different things
they're to do and any one whom it doesn't suit has only got to speak up."
Soon the material was distributed and groups were formed round the room. A
chatter arose like the murmur of bees. The sun as it sank lower behind the
woods turned them to dark crimson and the river pale grey. The sun fell
now in burning patches and squares across the room and the dim yellow
blinds were pulled half-way across the windows. With this the room was
shaded into a strong coloured twilight and the white frocks shone as
though seen through glass. The air grew cold beyond the open windows, but
the room was warm with the heat that the walls had stolen and stored from
the sun.
Joan sat with Jane D'Arcy and Betty Callender. She was very happy to be at
rest there; she felt secure and safe. Because in truth during these last
weeks life had been increasingly difficult--difficult not only because it
had become, of late, so new and so strange, but also because she could not
tell what was happening. Family life had indeed become of late a mystery,
and behind the mystery there was a dim sense of apprehension, apprehension
that she had never felt in all her days before. As she sank into the
tranquillity of the golden afternoon glow, with the soft white silk
passing to and fro in her bands, she tried to realise for herself what had
been occurring. Her father was, on the whole, simple enough. He was
beginning to suffer yet again from one of his awful obsessions. Since the
hour of her earliest childhood she had watched these obsessions and
dreaded them.
There had been so many, big ones and little ones. Now the Government, now
the Dean, now the Town Council, now the Chapter, now the Choir, now some
rude letter, now some impertinent article in a paper. Like wild fierce
animals these things had from their dark thickets leapt out upon him, and
he had proceeded to wrestle with them in the full presence of his family.
Always, at last, he had been, victorious over them, the triumph had been
publicly announced, "Te Deums" sung, and for a time there had been peace.
It was some while since the last obsession, some ridiculous action about
drainage on the part of the Town Council. But the new one threatened to
make up in full for the length of that interval.
Only just before Falk's unexpected return from Oxford Joan had been
congratulating herself on her father's happiness and peace of mind. She
might have known the omens of that dangerous quiet. On the very day of
Falk's arrival Canon Ronder had arrived too.
Canon Ronder! How Joan was beginning to detest the very sound of the name!
She had hated the man himself as soon as she had set eyes upon him. She
had scented, in some instinctive way, the trouble that lay behind those
large round glasses and that broad indulgent smile. But now! Now they were
having the name "Ronder" with their breakfast, their dinner, and their
tea. Into everything apparently his fat fingers were inserted; her father
saw his rounded shadow behind every door, his rosy cheeks at every window.
And yet it was very difficult to discover what exactly it was that he had
done! Now, whatever it might be that went wrong in the Brandon house, in
the Cathedral, in the town, her father was certain that Ronder was
responsible,--but proof. Well, there wasn't any. And it was precisely
this absence of proof that built up the obsession.
Everywhere that Ronder went he spoke enthusiastically about the
Archdeacon. These compliments came back to Joan again and again. "If
there's one man in this town I admire----" "What would this town be
without----" "We're lucky, indeed, to have the Archdeacon----" And yet was
there not behind all these things a laugh, a jest, a mocking tone,
something that belonged in spirit to that horrible day when the elephant
had trodden upon her father's hat?
She loved her father, and she loved him twice as dearly since one night
when on driving up to the Castle he had held her hand. But now the
obsession had killed the possibility of any tenderness between them; she
longed to be able to do something that would show him how strongly she was
his partisan, to insult Canon Ronder in the market-place, to turn her back
when he spoke to her--and, at the same time, intermingled with this hot
championship was irritation that her father should allow himself to be
obsessed by this. He who was so far greater than a million Ronders!
The situation in the Brandon family had not been made any easier by Falk's
strange liking for the man. Joan did not pretend that she understood her
brother or had ever been in any way close to him. When she had been little
he had seemed to be so infinitely above her as to be in another world, and
now that they seemed almost of an age he was strange to her like some one
of foreign blood. She knew that she did not count in his scheme of life at
all, that he never thought of her nor wanted her. She did not mind that,
and even now she would have been tranquil about him had it not been for
her mother's anxiety. She could not but see how during the last weeks her
mother had watched every step that Falk took, her eyes always searching
his face as though he were keeping some secret from her. To Joan, who
never believed that people could plot and plan and lead double lives, this
all seemed unnatural and exaggerated.
But she knew well enough that her mother had never attempted to give her
any of her confidence. Everything at home, in short, was difficult and
confused. Nobody was happy, nobody was natural. Even her own private
history, if she looked into it too closely, did not show her any very
optimistic colours. She had not seen Johnny St. Leath now for a fortnight,
nor heard from him, and those precious words under the Arden Gate one
evening were beginning already to appear a dim unsubstantial dream.
However, if there was one quality that Joan Brandon possessed in excess of
all others, it was a simple fidelity to the cause or person in front of
her.
Her doubts came simply from the wonder as to whether she had not concluded
too much from his words and built upon them too fairy-like a castle.
With a gesture she flung all her wonders and troubles out upon the gold-
swept lawn and trained all her attention to the chatter among the girls
around her. She admired Jane D'Arcy very much; she was so "elegant."
Everything that Jane wore became her slim straight body, and her pale
pointed face was always a little languid in expression, as though daily
life were an exhausting affair and not intended for superior persons. She
had been told, from a very early day, that her voice was "low and
musical," so she always spoke in whispers which gave her thoughts an
importance that they might not otherwise have possessed. Very different
was little Betty Callender, round and rosy like an apple, with freckles on
her nose and bright blue eyes. She laughed a great deal and liked to agree
with everything that any one said.
"If you ask me," said Jane in her fascinating whisper, "there's a lot of
nonsense about this old Jubilee."
"Oh, do you think so?" said Joan.
"Yes. Old Victoria's been on the throne long enough, 'Tis time we had
somebody else."
Joan was very much shocked by this and said so.
"I don't think we ought to be governed by _old_ people," said Jane.
"Every one over seventy ought to be buried whether they wish it or no."
Joan laughed aloud.
"Of course they wouldn't wish it," she said.
Laughter came, now here, now there, from different parts of the room.
Every one was very gay from the triple sense that they were the elect of
Polchester, that they were doing important work, and that summer was
coming.
Jane D'Arcy tossed her head.
"Father says that perhaps he'll be taking us to London for it," she
whispered.
"I wouldn't go if any one offered me," said Joan. "It's Polchester I want
to see it at, not London. Of course I'd love to see the Queen, but it
would probably be only for a moment, and all the rest would be horrible
crowds with nobody knowing you. While here! Oh! it will be lovely!"
Jane smiled. "Poor child. Of course you know nothing about London. How
should you? Give me a week in London and you can have your old Polchester
for ever. What ever happens in Polchester? Silly old croquet parties and a
dance in the Assembly Rooms. And _never_ any one new."
"Well, there _is_ some one new," said Betty Callender, "I saw her
this morning."
"Her? Who?" asked Jane, with the scorn of one who has already made up her
mind to despise.
"I was with mother going through the market and Lady St. Leath came by in
an open carriage. She was with her. Mother says she's a Miss Daubeney from
London--and oh! she's perfectly lovely! and mother says she's to marry
Lord St. Leath----"
"Oh! I heard she was coming," said Jane, still scornfully. "How silly you
are, Betty! You think any one lovely if she comes from London."
"No, but she was," insisted Betty, "mother said so too, and she had a blue
silk parasol, and she was just sweet. Lord St. Leath was in the carriage
with them."
"Poor Johnny!" said Jane. "He always has to do just what that horrible old
mother of his tells him."
Joan had listened to this little dialogue with what bravery she could.
Doom then had been pronounced? Sentence had fallen? Miss Daubeney had
arrived. She could hear the old Countess' voice again. "Claire Daubeney-
Monteagle's daughter--such, a nice girl--Johnny's friend-----"
Johnny's friend! Of course she was. Nothing could show to Joan more
clearly the difference between Joan's world and the St. Leath world than
the arrival of this lovely stranger. Although Mme. Sarah Grand and others
were at this very moment forcing that strange figure, the New Woman, upon
a reluctant world, Joan belonged most distinctly to the earlier
generation. She trembled at the thought of any publicity, of any thrusting
herself forward, of any, even momentary, rebellion against her position.
Of course Johnny belonged to this beautiful creature; she had always
known, in her heart, that her dream was an impossible one. Nevertheless
the room, the sunlight, the white dresses, the long shining table, the
coloured silks and ribbons, swam in confusion around her. She was suddenly
miserable. Her hands shook and her upper lip trembled. She had a strange
illogical desire to go out and find Miss Daubeney and snatch her blue
parasol from her startled hands and stamp upon it.
"Well," said Jane, "I don't envy any one who marries Johnny--to be shut up
in that house with all those old women!"
Betty shook her head very solemnly and tried to look older than her years.
The afternoon was drawing on. Gladys came across and closed the windows.
"I think that's about enough to-day," she said. "Now we'll have tea."
Joan's great desire was to slip away and go home. She put her work on the
table, fetched her coat from the other end of the room.
Gladys stopped her. "Don't go, Joan. You must have tea."
"I promised mother-----" she said.
The door opened. She turned and found herself close to the Dean and Canon
Ronder.
The Dean came forward, nervously rubbing his hands together as was his
custom. "Well, children," he said, blinking at them. Ronder stood,
smiling, in the doorway. At the sight of him Joan was filled with hatred--
vehement, indignant hatred; she had never hated any one before, unless
possibly it was Miss St. Clair, the French mistress. Now, from what source
she did not know, fear and passion flowed into her. Nothing could have
been more amiable and genial than the figure that he presented.
As always, his clothes were beautifully neat and correct, his linen
spotless white, his black boots gleaming.
He beamed upon them all, and Joan felt, behind her, the response that the
whole room made to him. They liked him; she knew it. He was becoming
popular.
He had towards them all precisely the right attitude; he was not amiable
and childish like the Dean, nor pompous like Bentinck-Major, nor
sycophantic like Ryle. He did not advance to them but became, as it were,
himself one of them, understanding exactly the way that they wanted him.
And Joan hated him; she hated his red face and his neatness and his broad
chest and his stout legs--everything, everything! She also feared him. She
had never before, although for long now she had been conscious of his
power, been so deeply aware of his connection with herself. It was as
though his round shadow had, on this lovely afternoon, crept forward a
little and touched with its dim grey for the first time the Brandon house.
"Canon Ronder," Gladys Sampson cried, "come and see what we've done."
He moved forward and patted little Betty Callender on the head as he
passed. "Are you all right, my dear, and your father?"
It appeared that Betty was delighted. Suddenly he saw Joan.
"Oh, good evening, Miss Brandon." He altered his tone for her, speaking as
though she were an equal.
Joan looked at him; colour flamed in her cheeks. She did not reply, and
then feeling as though in an instant she would do something quite
disgraceful, she slipped from the room.
Soon, after gently smiling at the parlourmaid, who was an old friend of
hers because she had once been in service at the Brandons, she found
herself standing, a little lost and bewildered, at the corner of Green
Lane and Orange Street. Lost and bewildered because one emotion after
another seemed suddenly to have seized upon her and taken her captive.
Lost and bewildered almost as though she had been bewitched, carried off
through the shining skies by her captor and then dropped, deserted, left,
in some unknown country.
Green Lane in the evening light had a fairy air. The stumpy trees on
either side with the bright new green of the spring seemed to be
concealing lamps within their branches. So thick a glow suffused the air
that it was as though strangely coloured fruit, purple and orange and
amethyst, hung glittering against the pale yellow sky, and the road
running up the hill was like pale wax.
On the other side Orange Street tumbled pell-mell into the roofs of the
town. The monument of the fierce Georgian citizen near which Joan was
standing guarded with a benevolent devotion the little city whose lights,
stealing now upon the air, sprinkled the evening sky with a jewelled haze.
No sound broke the peace; no one came nor went; only the trees of the Lane
moved and stirred very faintly as though assuring the girl of their
friendly company.
Never before had she so passionately loved her town. It seemed to-night
when she was disturbed by her new love, her new fear, her new worldly
knowledge, to be eager to assure her that it was with her in all her
troubles, that it understood that she must pass into new experiences, that
it knew, none better indeed, how strange and terrifying that first
realisation of real life could be, that it had itself suffered when new
streets had been thrust upon it and old loved houses pulled down and the
river choked and the hills despoiled, but that everything passes and love
remains and homeliness and friends.
Joan felt more her own response to the town than the town's reassurance to
her, but she was a little comforted and she felt a little safer.
She argued as she walked home through the Market Place and up the High
Street and under the Arden Gate into the quiet sheltered Precincts, why
should she think that Ronder mattered? After all might not he be the good
fat clergyman that he appeared? It was more perhaps a kind of jealousy
because of her father that she felt. She put aside her own little troubles
in a sudden rush of tenderness for her family. She wanted to protect them
all and make them happy. But how could she make them happy if they would
tell her nothing? They still treated her as a child but she was a woman
now. Her love for Johnny. She had admitted that to herself. She stopped on
the path outside the decorous strait-laced houses and put her cool gloved
hand up to her burning cheek.
She had known for a long time that she loved him, but she had not told
herself. She must conquer that, stamp upon it. It was foolish,
hopeless.... She ran up the steps of their house as though something
pursued her.
She let herself in and found the hall dusky and obscure. The lamp had not
yet been lit. She heard a voice:
"Who's that?"
She looked up and saw her mother, a little, slender figure, standing at
the turn of the stairs holding in her hand a lighted candle.
"It's I, mother, Joan. I've just come from Gladys Sampson's."
"Oh! I thought it would be Falk. You didn't pass Falk on your way?"
"No, mother dear."
She went across to the little cupboard where the coats were hung. As she
poked her head into the little, dark, musty place, she could feel that her
mother was still standing there, listening.