Falk's Flight
Ronder sat in his study waiting for young Falk Brandon. The books smiled
down upon him from their white shelves; because the spring evening was
chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn.
Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As
he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his
chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the
very symbol of satisfied happy and kind-hearted prosperity.
He was really touched by young Falk's approach towards friendship. He had
in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too
delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once
or twice women and men younger than himself _had_ made such urgent
demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had he then run from
them!
But the more tranquil, easy and unexacting aspects of sentiment he
enjoyed. He liked his heart to be warmed, he liked to feel that the
pressure of his hand, the welcome of the eye, the smile of the lip were
genuine in him and natural; he liked to put his hand through the arm of a
young eager human being who was full of vitality and physical strength. He
disliked so deeply sickness and decay; he despised them.
Falk was young, handsome and eager, something of a rebel--the greater
compliment then that he should seek out Ronder. He was certainly the most
attractive young man in Polchester and, although that was not perhaps
saying very much, after all Ronder lived in Polchester and wished to share
in the best of every side of its life.
There were, however, further, more actual reasons that Ronder should
anticipate Falk's visit with deep interest. He had heard, of course, many
rumours of Falk's indiscretions, rumours that naturally gained greatly in
the telling, of how he had formed some disgraceful attachment for the
daughter of a publican down in the river slums, that he drank, that he
gambled, that he was the wickedest young man in Polchester, and that he
would certainly break his father's heart.
It was this relation of the boy to his father that interested him most of
all. He continued to remark to the little god who looked after his affairs
and kept an eye upon him that the last thing that he wanted was to
interfere in Brandon's family business, and yet to the same little god he
could not but comment on the curious persistency with which that same
business would thrust itself upon his interest. "If Brandon's wife, son,
and general _ménage_ will persist in involving themselves in absurd
situations it's not my fault," he would say. But he was not exactly sorry
that they should.
Indeed, to-night, in the warm security of his room, with all his plans
advancing towards fulfillment, and life developing just as he would have
it, he felt so kindly a pity towards Brandon that he was warm with the
desire to do something for him, make him a present, or flatter his vanity,
or give way publicly to him about some contested point that was of no
particular importance.
When young Falk was ushered in by the maid-servant, Ronder, looking up at
him, thought him the handsomest boy he'd ever seen. He felt ready to give
him all the advice in the world, and it was with the most genuine warmth
of heart that he jumped up, put his hand on his shoulder, found him
tobacco, whisky and soda, and the easiest chair in the room.
It was apparent at once that the boy was worked up to the extremity of his
possible endurance. Ronder felt instantly the drama that he brought with
him, filling the room with it, charging every word and every movement with
the implication of it.
He turned about in his chair, struck many matches, pulled desperately at
his pipe, stared at Ronder with a curious mixture of shyness and eagerness
that betrayed his youth and his sense of Ronder's importance. Ronder began
by talking easily about nothing at all, a diversion for which he had an
especial talent. Falk suddenly broke upon him:
"Look here. You don't care about that stuff--nor do I. I didn't come round
to you for that. I want you to help me."
"I'll be very glad to," Ronder said, smiling. "If I can."
"Perhaps you can--perhaps you can't. I don't know you really, of course--I
only have my idea of you. But you seem to me much older than I am. Do you
know what I mean? Father's as young or younger and so are so many of the
others. But you must have made your mind up about life. I want to know
what you think of it."
"That's a tall order," said Ronder, smiling. "What one thinks of life!
Well, one can't say all in a moment, you know."
And then, as though he had suddenly decided to take his companion
seriously, his face was grave and his round shining eyes wide open.
Falk coloured. "Perhaps you think me impertinent," he said. "But I don't
care a damn if you do. After all, isn't it an absurd thing that there
isn't another soul in this town you could ask such a question of? And yet
there's nothing else so important. A fellow's thought an impossible prig
if he mentions such a thing. I expect I seem in a hurry too, but I can
tell you I've been irritated for years by not being able to get at it--the
truth, you know. Why we're here at all, whether there is some kind of a
God somewhere or no. Of course you've got to pretend you think there is,
but I want to know what you _really_ think and I promise it shan't go
a step farther. But most of all I want to know whether you don't think
we're meant all of us to be free, and why being free should be the hardest
thing of all."
"You must tell me one thing," said Ronder. "Is the impulse that brought
you in to see me simply a general one, just because you are interested in
life, or is there some immediate crisis that you have to settle? I ask
that," he added, smiling gently, "because I've noticed that people don't
as a rule worry very urgently about life unless they have to make up their
minds about which turn in the road they're going to take."
Falk hesitated; then he said, speaking slowly, "Yes, there is something.
It's what you'd call a crisis in my life, I suppose. It's been piling up
for months--for years if you like. But I don't see why I need bother you
with that--it's nobody's business but my own. Although I won't deny that
things you say may influence me. You see, I felt the first moment I met
you that you'd speak the truth, and speaking the truth seems to me more
important than anything else in the world."
"But," said Ronder, "I don't want to influence you blindly. You've no
right to ask me to advise you when I don't know what it is I am advising
you about."
"Well, then," said Falk, "it's simply this--that I want to go up to London
and live my own life. But I love my father--it would all be easy enough if
I didn't--and he doesn't see things as I do. There are other things too--
it's all very complicated. But I don't want you to tell me about my own
affairs! I just want you to say what you think this is all about, what
we're here for anyway. You must have thought it all through and come out
the other side. You look as though you had."
Ronder hesitated. He really wished that this had not occurred. He could
defeat Brandon without being given this extra weapon. His impulse was to
put the boy off with some evasion and so to dismiss him. But the
temptation that was always so strong in him to manipulate the power placed
in his hands was urging him; moreover, why should he not say what he
thought about life? It was sincere enough. He had no shame of it....
"I couldn't advise you against your father's wishes," he said. "I'm very
fond of your father. I have the highest opinion of him."
Falk moved uneasily in his chair: "You needn't advise me against him," he
said; "you can't have a higher opinion of him than I have. I'm fonder of
him than of any one in the world; I wouldn't be hesitating at all
otherwise. And I tell you I don't want you to advise me on my particular
case. It just interests me to know whether you believe in a God and
whether you think life means anything. As soon as I saw you I said to
myself, 'Now I'd like to know what _he_ thinks.' That's all."
"Of course I believe in a God," said Ronder, "I wouldn't be a clergyman
otherwise."
"Then if there's a God," said Falk quickly, "why does He let us down, make
us feel that we must be free, and then make us feel that it's wrong to be
free because, if we are, we hurt the people we're fond of? Do we live for
ourselves or for others? Why isn't it easier to see what the right thing
is?"
"If you want to know what I think about life," said Ronder, "it's just
this--that we mustn't take ourselves too seriously, that we must work our
utmost at the thing we're in, and give as little trouble to others as
possible."
Falk nodded his head. "Yes, that's very simple. If you'll forgive my
saying so, that's the sort of thing any one says to cover up what he
really feels. That's not what _you_ really feel. Anyway it accounts
for simply nothing at all. If that's all there is in life----"
"I don't say that's all there is in life," interrupted Ronder softly, "I
only say that that does for a start--for one's daily conduct I mean. But
you've got to rid your head of illusions. Don't expect poetry and magic
for ever round the corner. Don't dream of Utopias--they'll never come.
Mind your own daily business."
"Play for safety, in fact," said Falk.
Ronder coloured a little. "Not at all. Take every kind of risk if you
think your happiness depends upon it. You're going to serve the world best
by getting what you want and resting contented in it. It's the
discontented and disappointed who hang things up."
Falk smiled. "You're pushing on to me the kind of philosophy that I'd like
to follow," he said. "I don't believe in it for a moment nor do I believe
it's what you really think, but I think I'm ready to cheat myself if you
give me encouragement enough. I don't want to do any one any harm, but I
must come to a conclusion about life and then follow it so closely that I
can never have any doubt about any course of action again. When I was a
small boy the Cathedral used to terrify me and dominate me too. I believed
in God then, of course, and I used to creep in and listen, expecting to
hear Him speak. That tomb of the Black Bishop seemed to me the place where
He'd most likely be, and I used to fancy sometimes that He did speak from
the heart of that stone. But I daresay it was the old Bishop himself.
"Anyway, I determined long ago that the Cathedral has a life of its own,
quite apart from any of us. It has more immortality in one stone of its
nave than we have in all our bodies."
"Don't be too sure of that," Ronder said. "We have our immortality--a tiny
flame, but I believe that it never dies. Beauty comes from it and dwells
in it. We increase it or diminish it as we live."
"And yet," said Falk eagerly, "you were urging, just now, a doctrine of
what, if you'll forgive my saying so, was nothing but selfishness. How do
you reconcile that with immortality?"
Ronder laughed. "There have only been four doctrines in the history of the
world," he answered, "and they are all Pursuits. One is the pursuit of
Unselfishness. 'Little children, love one another. He that seeks to save
his soul shall lose it.' The second is the opposite of the first--
Individualism. 'I am I. That is all I know, and I will seek out my own
good always because that at least I can understand.' The third is the
pursuit of God and Mysticism. 'Neither I matter nor my neighbour. I give
up the world and every one and everything in it to find God.' And the
fourth is the pursuit of Beauty. 'Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty. That
is all we need to know.' Every man and woman alive or dead has chosen one
of those four or a mixture of them. I would say that there is something in
all of them, Charity, Individualism, Worship, Beauty. But finally, when
all is said and done, we remain ourselves. It is our own life that we must
lead, our own goal for which we are searching. At the end of everything we
remain alone, of ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves. Life is, finally,
a lonely journey to a lonely bourne, let us cheat ourselves as we may."
Ronder sat back in his chair, his eyes half closed. There was nothing that
he enjoyed more than delivering his opinions about life to a fit audience
--and by fit he meant intelligent and responsive. He liked to be truthful
without taking risks, and he was always the audience rather than the
speaker in company that might be dangerous. He almost loved Falk as he
looked across at him and saw the effect that his words had made upon him.
There was, Heaven knew, nothing very original in what he had said, but it
had been apparently what the boy had wanted to hear.
He jumped up from his chair: "You're right," he said. "We've got to lead
our own lives. I've known it all along. When I've shown them what I can
do, then I'll come back to them. I love my father, you know, sir; I
suppose some people here think him tiresome and self-opinionated, but he's
like a boy, you always know where you are with him. He's no idea what
deceit means. He looks on this Cathedral as his own idea, as though he'd
built it almost, and of course that's dangerous. He'll have a shock one of
these days and see that he's gone too far, just as the Black Bishop did.
But he's a fine man; I don't believe any one knows how proud I am of him.
And it's much better I should go my own way and earn my own living than
hang around him, doing nothing--isn't it?"
At that direct appeal, at the eager gaze that Falk fixed upon him,
something deep within Ronder stirred.
Should he not even now advise the boy to stay? One word just then might
effect much. Falk trusted him. He was the only human being in Polchester
to whom the boy perhaps had come. Years afterwards he was to look back to
that moment, see it crystallised in memory, see the books, piled row upon
row, gleam down upon him, see the blue curtain and hear the crackling
fire...a crisis perhaps to himself as well as to Falk.
He went across to the boy and put his hands on his shoulders.
"Yes," he said, "I think it's better for you to go."
"And about God and Beauty?" Falk said, staring for a moment into Ronder's
eyes, smiling shyly, and then turning away. "It's a long search, isn't it?
But as long as there's something there, beyond life, and I know there is,
the search is worth it."
He looked rather wistfully at Ronder as though he expected him to confirm
him again. But Ronder said nothing.
Falk went to the door: "Well, I must go. I'll show them that I was right
to go my own way. I want father to be proud of me. This will shock him for
a moment, but soon he'll see. I think you'll like to know, sir," he said,
suddenly turning and holding out his hand, "that this little talk has
meant a lot to me. It's just helped me to make up my mind."
When he had gone Ronder sat in his chair, motionless, for a while; he
jumped up, went to the shelves, and found a book. Before he sat down again
he said aloud, as though he were answering some accuser, "Well, I told him
nothing, anyway."
Falk had, from the moment he left Ronder's door, his mind made up, and now
that it _was_ made up he wished to act as speedily as possible. And
instantly there followed an appeal of the Town, so urgent and so poignant
that he was taken by surprise. He had lived there most of his days and
never seen it until now, but every step that he took soon haunted him. He
made his plans decisively, irrevocably, but he found himself lingering at
doors and at windows, peering over walls, hanging over the Pol bridge,
waiting suddenly as though he expected some message was about to be given
to him.
The town was humming with life those days. The May weather was lovely,
softly blue with cool airs and little white clouds like swollen pin-
cushions drifting lazily from point to point. The gardens were dazzling
with their flowers, the Cathedral Green shone like glass, and every door-
knob and brass knocker in the Precincts glittered under the sun.
The town was humming with the approaching Jubilee. It seemed itself to
take an active part in the preparations, the old houses smiling to one
another at the plans that they overheard, and the birds, of whom there
were a vast number, flying from wall to wall, from garden to garden, from
chimney to chimney, with the exciting news that they had gathered.
Every shop in the High Street seemed to whisper to Falk as he passed:
"Surely you are not going to leave us. We can offer you such charming
things. We've never been so gay in our lives before as we are going to be
now."
Even the human beings in the place seemed to be nicer to him than they had
ever been before. They had never, perhaps, been very nice to him,
regarding him with a quite definite disapproval even when he was a little
boy, because he would go his own way and showed them that he didn't care
what they thought of him.
Now, suddenly, they were making up to him. Mrs. Combermere, surrounded
with dogs, stopped him in the High Street and, in a deep bass voice, asked
him why it was so long since he had been to see her, and then slapped him
on the shoulder with her heavy gloved hand. That silly woman, Julia
Preston, met him in Bennett's book shop and asked him to help her to
choose a book of poems for a friend.
"Something that shall be both True and Beautiful, Mr. Brandon," she said.
"There's so little real Beauty in our lives, don't you think?" Little
Betty Callender caught him up in Orange Street and chattered to him about
her painting, and that pompous Bentinck-Major insisted on his going into
the Conservative Club with him, where he met old McKenzie and older
Forrester, and had to listen to their golfing achievements.
It may have been simply that every one in the town was beside and above
himself over the Jubilee excitements--but it made it very hard for Falk.
Nothing to the hardness of everything at home. Here at the last moment,
when it was too late to change or alter anything, every room, every old
piece of furniture seemed to appeal to him with some especial claim. For
ten years he had had the same bedroom, an old low-ceilinged room with
queer bulges in the wall, a crooked fireplace and a slanting floor. For
years now he had had a wall-paper with an ever-recurrent scene of a church
tower, a snowy hill, and a large crimson robin. The robins were faded, and
the snowy hill a dingy yellow. There were School groups and Oxford groups
on the walls, and the book-case near the door had his old school prizes
and Henty and a set of the Waverley Novels with dark red covers and paper
labels.
Hardest of all to leave was the view from the window overlooking the
Cathedral Green and the Cathedral. That window had been connected with
every incident of his childhood. He had leant out of it when he had felt
sick from eating too much, he had gone to it when his eyes were brimming
with hot rebellious tears after some scene with his father, he had known
ecstatic joys gazing from it on the first day of his return from school,
he had thrown things out of it on the heads of unsuspecting strangers, he
had gone to it in strange moods of poetry and romance, and watched the
moon like a plate of dull and beaten gold sail above the Cathedral towers,
he had sat behind it listening to the organ like a muffled giant
whispering to be liberated from grey, confining walls, he had looked out
of it on a still golden evening when the stars were silver buttons in the
sky after a meeting with Annie; he went to it and gazed, heart-sick,
across the Green now when he was about to bid fare-well to it for ever.
Heart-sick but resolved, it seemed strange to him that after months of
irresolution his mind should now be so firmly composed. He seemed even,
prophetically, to foretell the future. What had reassured him he did not
know, but for himself he knew that he was taking the right step. For
himself and for Annie--outside that, it was as though a dark cloud was
coming up enveloping all that he was leaving behind. He could not tell how
he knew, but he felt as though he were fleeing from the city of
Polchester, and were being driven forward on his flight by powers far
stronger than he could control.
He fancied, as he looked out of his window, that the Cathedral also was
aware and, aloof, immortal, waited the inevitable hour.
Coming straight upon his final arrangements with Annie, his reconciliation
with his father was ironic. So deeply here were his real affections
stirred that he could not consider deliberately his approaching treachery;
nevertheless he did not for a moment contemplate withdrawal from it. It
was as though two personalities were now in active movement within him,
the one old, belonging to the town, to his father, to his own youth, the
other new, belonging to Annie, to the future, to ambition, to the
challenge of life itself. With every hour the first was moving away from
him, reluctantly, stirring the other self by his withdrawal but inevitably
moving, never, never to return.
He came, late in the afternoon, into the study and found his father,
balanced on the top of a small ladder, putting straight "Christ's Entry
into Jerusalem," a rather faded copy of Benjamin Haydon's picture that had
irritated Falk since his earliest youth by a kind of false theatricality
that inhabited it.
Falk paused at the door, caught up by a sudden admiration of his father.
He had his coat off, and as he bent forward to adjust the cord the vigour
and symmetry of his body was magnificently emphasized. The thick strong
legs pressed against the black cloth of his trousers, the fine rounded
thighs, the broad back almost bursting the shiny stuff of the waistcoat,
the fine neck and the round curly head, these denied age and decay. He was
growing perhaps a little stout, the neck was a little too thick for the
collar, but the balance and energy and strength of the figure belonged to
a man as young as Falk himself....
At the sound of the door closing he turned, and at once the lined
forehead, the mouth a little slack, gave the man his age, but Falk was to
remember that first picture for the rest of his life with a strange
poignancy and deeply affectionate pathos.
They had not met alone since their quarrel; their British horror of any
scene forbade the slightest allusion to it. Brandon climbed down from his
ladder and came, smiling, across to his son.
At his happy times, when he was at ease with himself and the world, he had
the confident gaiety of a child; he was at ease now. He put his hand
through Falk's arm and drew him across to the table by the window.
"I've had a headache," he said, rather as a child might complain to his
elder, "for two days, and now it's suddenly gone. I never used to have
headaches. But I've been irritated lately by some of the tomfoolery that's
been going on. Don't tell your mother; I haven't said a word to her; but
what do you take when you have a headache?"
"I don't think I ever have them," said Falk.
"I'm not going to stuff myself up with all their medicines and things.
I've never taken medicine in my life if I was strong enough to prevent
them giving it to me, and I'm not going to start it now."
"Father," Falk said very earnestly, "don't let yourself get so easily
irritated. You usedn't to be. Everybody finds things go badly sometimes.
It's bad for you to allow yourself to be worried. Everything's all right
and going to be all right." (The hypocrite that he felt himself as he said
this!)
"You know that every one thinks the world of you here. Don't take things
too seriously."
Brandon nodded his head.
"You're quite right, Falk. It's very sensible of you to mention it, my
boy. I usedn't to lose my temper as I do. I must keep control of myself
better. But when a lot of chattering idiots start gabbling about things
that they understand as much about as----"
"Yes, I know," said Falk, putting his hand upon his father's arm. "But let
them talk. They'll soon find their level."
"Yes, and then there's your mother," went on Brandon. "I'm bothered about
her. Have you noticed anything odd about her this last week or two?"
That his father should begin to worry about his mother was certainly
astonishing enough! Certainly the first time in all these years that
Brandon had spoken of her.
"Mother? No; in what way?"
"She's not herself. She's not happy. She's worrying about something."
"_You're_ worrying, father," Falk said, "that's what's the matter.
_She's_ just the same. You've been allowing yourself to worry about
everything. Mother's all right." And didn't he know, in his own secret
heart, that she wasn't?
Brandon shook his head. "You may he right. All the same----"
Falk said slowly: "Father, what would you say if I went up to London?"
This was a close approach to the subject of their quarrel of the other
evening.
"When? What for?"
"Oh, at once--to get something to do."
"No, not now. After the summer we might talk of it."
He spoke with utter decision, as he had always done to Falk, as though he
were five years old and could naturally know nothing about life.
"But, father--don't you think it's bad for me, hanging round here doing
nothing?"
Brandon got up, went across to the little ladder, hesitated a moment, then
climbed up.
"I've had this picture twenty years," he said, "and it's never hung
straight yet."
"No, but, father," said Falk, coming across to him, "I'm a man now, not a
boy. I can't hang about any longer--I can't really."
"We'll talk about it in the autumn," said Brandon, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers," as he always did, a little out of tune.
"I've got to earn my own living, haven't I?" said Falk.
"There!" said Brandon, stepping back a little, so that he nearly
overbalanced. "_That's_ better. But it won't stay like that for five
minutes. It never does."
He climbed down again, his face rosy with his exertions. "You leave it to
me, Falk," he said, nodding his head. "I've got plans for you."
A sudden sense of the contrast between Ronder and his father smote Falk.
His father! What an infant! How helpless against that other! Moved by the
strangest mixture of tenderness, regret, pity, he did what he had never in
all his life before dreamed of doing, what he would have died of shame for
doing, had any one else been there--put his hands on his father's
shoulders and kissed him lightly on his cheek.
He laughed as he did so, to carry off his embarrassment.
"I don't hold myself bound, you know, father," he said. "I shall go off
just when I want to."
But Brandon was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words.
He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself
well out of danger, he moved back to the window, humming "Onward,
Christian Soldiers."
He looked out upon the Green. "There are two of those choir-boys on the
grass again," he said. "If Ryle doesn't keep them in better order, I'll
let him know what I think of him. He's always promising and never does
anything."
The last talk of their lives alone together was ended.
* * * * *
He had made all his plans. He had decided that on the day of escape he
would walk over to Salis Coombe station, a matter of some two miles; there
he would be joined by Annie, whose aunt lived near there, and to whom she
could go on a visit the evening before. They would catch the slow four
o'clock train to Drymouth and then meet the express that reached London at
midnight. He would go to an Oxford friend who lived in St. John's Wood,
and he and Annie would be married as soon as possible. Beyond everything
else he wanted this marriage to take place quickly; once that was done he
was Annie's protector, so long as she should need him. She should be free
as she pleased, but she would have some one to whom she might go, some one
who could legally provide for her and would see that she came to no harm.
The thing that he feared most was lest any ill should come to her through
the fact of his caring for her; he felt that he could let her go for ever
the very day after his marriage, so that he knew that she would never come
to harm. A certain defiant courage in her, mingled with her ignorance and
simplicity, made his protection of her the first thing in his life. As to
living, his Oxford friend was concerned with various literary projects,
having a little money of his own, and much self-confidence and ambition.
He and Falk had already, at Oxford, edited a little paper together, and
Falk had been promised some reader's work in connection with one of the
younger publishing houses. In after years he looked back in amazement that
he should have ventured on the great London attack with so slender a
supply of ammunition--but now, looking forward in Polchester, that
question of future livelihood seemed the very smallest of his problems.
Perhaps, deepest of all, something fiercely democratic in him longed for
the moment when he might make his public proclamation of his defiance of
class.
He meant to set off, simply as he was; they could send his things after
him. If he indulged in any pictures of the future, he did, perhaps, see
himself returning to Polchester in a year's time or so, as the editor of
the most remarkable of London's new periodicals, received by his father
with enthusiasm, and even Annie admitted into the family with approval. Of
course, they could not return here to live...it would be only a
visit.... At that sudden vision of Annie and his father face to face, that
vision faded; no, this was the end of the old life. He must face that, set
his shoulders square to it, steel his heart to it....
That last luncheon was the strangest meal that he had ever known. So
strange because it was so usual--so ordinary! Roast chicken and apple
tart; his mother sitting at the end of the table, watching, as she had
watched through so many years, that everything went right, her little,
tight, expressionless face, the mouth set to give the right answers to the
right questions, her eyes veiled.... His mind flew back to that strange
talk in the dark room across the candle-lit table. She had been hysterical
that night, over-tired, had not known what she was saying. Well, she could
never leave his father now, now when he was gone. His flight settled that.
"What are you doing this afternoon, Falk?"
"Why, mother?"
"I only wondered. I have to go to the Deanery about this Jubilee
committee. I thought you might walk up there with me. About four."
"I don't think I'll be back in time, mother; I'm going out Salis Coombe
way to see a fellow."
He saw Joan, looking so pretty, sitting opposite to him. How she had grown
lately! Putting her hair up made her seem almost a woman. But what a child
in the grown-up dress with the high puffed sleeves, her baby-face laughing
at him over the high stiff collar; a pretty dress, though, that dark blue
stuff with the white stripes.... Why had he never considered Joan? She had
never meant anything to him at all. Now, when he was going, it seemed to
him suddenly that he might have made a friend of her during all these
years. She was a good girl, kind, good-natured, jolly.
She, too, was talking about the Jubilee--about some committee that she was
on and some flags that they were making. How exciting to them all the
Jubilee was, and how unimportant to him!
Some book she was talking about. "...the new woman at the Library is so
nice. She let me have it at once. It's _The Massarenes_, mother,
darling, by Ouida. The girls say it's lovely."
"I've heard of it, dear. Mrs. Sampson was talking about it. She says it's
not a nice book at all. I don't think father would like you to read it."
"Oh, you don't mind, father, do you?"
"What's that?"
The Archdeacon was in a good humour. He loved apple tart.
"_The Massarenes_, by Ouida."
"Trashy novels. Why don't you girls ever read anything but novels?" and so
on.
The little china clock with the blue mandarin on the mantelpiece struck
half past two. He must be going. He threw a last look round the room as
though he were desperately committing everything to memory--the shabby,
comfortable chairs, the Landseer "Dignity and Impudence," the warm, blue
carpet, the round silver biscuit-tin on the sideboard.
"Well, I must be getting along."
"You'll be back to dinner, Falk dear, won't you? It's early to-night.
Quarter past seven. Father has a meeting."
He looked at them all. His father was sitting back in his chair, a
satisfied man.
"Yes, I'll be back," he said, and went out.
It seemed to him incredible that departure should be so simple. When you
are taking the most momentous step of your life, surely there should be
dragons in the way! Here were no dragons. As he went down the High Street
people smiled at him and waved hands. The town sparkled under the
afternoon sun. It was market-day, and the old fruit-woman under the green
umbrella, the toy-man with the clockwork monkeys, the flower-stalls and
the vegetable-sellers, all these were here; in the centre of the square,
sheep and pigs were penned. Dogs were barking, stout farmers in corduroy
breeches walked about arguing and expectorating, and suddenly, above all
the clamour and bustle, the Cathedral chimes struck the hour.
He hastened then, striding up Orange Street, past the church and the
monument on the hill, through hedges thick with flowers, until he struck
off into the Drymouth Road. With every step that he took he stirred child
memories. He reached the signpost that pointed to Drymouth, to Clinton St.
Mary, to Polchester. This was the landmark that he used to reach with his
nurse on his walks. Further than this she, a stout, puffing woman, would
never go. He had known that a little way on there was Rocket Wood, a place
beloved by him ever since they had driven there for a picnic in the
jingle, and he had found it all spotted gold under the fir-trees, thick
with moss and yellow with primroses. How many fights with his nurse he had
had over that! he clinging to the signpost and screaming that he
_would_ go on to the Wood, she picking him up at last and carrying
him back down the road.
He went on into the wood now and found it again spotted with gold,
although it was too late for primroses. It was all soft and dark with
pillars of purple light that struck through the fretted blue, and the dark
shadows of the leaves. All hushed and no living thing--save the hesitating
patter of some bird among the fir-cones. He struck through the wood and
came out on to the Common. You could smell the sea finely here--a true
Glebeshire smell, fresh and salt, full of sea-pinks and the westerly
gales. On the top of the Common he paused and looked back. He knew that
from here you had your last view of the Cathedral.
Often in his school holidays he had walked out here to get that view. He
had it now in its full glory. When he was a boy it had seemed to him that
the Cathedral was like a giant lying down behind the hill and leaning his
face on the hill-side. So it looked now, its towers like ears, the great
East window shining, a stupendous eye, out over the bending wind-driven
country. The sun flashed upon it, and the towers rose grey and pearl-
coloured to heaven. Mightily it looked across the expanse of the moor,
staring away and beyond Falk's little body into some vast distance,
wrapped in its own great dream, secure in its mighty memories, intent upon
its secret purposes.
Indifferent to man, strong upon its rock, hiding in its heart the answer
to all the questions that tortured man's existence--and yet, perhaps,
aware of man's immortality, scornful of him for making so slight a use of
that--but admiring him, too, for the tenacity of his courage and the
undying resurgence of his hope.
Falk, a black dot against the sweep of sky and the curve of the dark soil,
vanished from the horizon.