The shadow cast by the great apse of the cathedral slanted over the
end of the Deanery garden, leaving the house in the blaze of the
afternoon sun, and divided the old red-brick wall into a vivid
contrast of tones. The peace of centuries brooded over the place. No
outside convulsions could ever cause a flutter of her calm wings. As
it was thirty years ago, when the Dean first came to Durdlebury, as it
was three hundred, six hundred years ago, so it was now; and so it
would be hundreds of years hence as long as that majestic pile housing
the Spirit of God should last.
Thus thought, thus, in some such words, proclaimed the Dean, sitting
in the shade, with his hands clasped behind his head. Tea was over.
Mrs. Conover, thin and faded, still sat by the little table, wondering
whether she might now blow out the lamp beneath the silver kettle. Sir
Archibald Bruce, a neighbouring landowner, and his wife had come,
bringing their daughter Dorothy to play tennis. The game had already
started on the court some little distance off--the players being
Dorothy, Peggy and a couple of athletic, flannel-clad parsons.
Marmaduke Trevor reposed on a chair under the lee of Lady Bruce. He
looked very cool and spick and span in a grey cashmere suit, grey
shirt, socks and tie, and grey _suede_ shoes. He had a weak,
good-looking little face and a little black moustache turned up at the
ends. He was discoursing to his neighbour on Palestrina.
The Dean's proclamation had been elicited by some remark of Sir
Archibald.
"I wonder how you have stuck it for so long," said the latter. He had
been a soldier in his youth and an explorer, and had shot big game.
"I haven't your genius, my dear Bruce, for making myself
uncomfortable," replied the Dean.
"You were energetic enough when you first came here," said Sir
Archibald. "We all thought you a desperate fellow who was going to
rebuild the cathedral, turn the Close into industrial dwellings, and
generally play the deuce."
The Dean sighed pleasantly. He had snowy hair and a genial, florid,
clean-shaven face.
"I was appointed very young--six-and-thirty--and I thought I could
fight against the centuries. As the years went on I found I couldn't.
The grey changelessness of things got hold of me, incorporated me into
them. When I die--for I hope I shan't have to resign through doddering
senility--my body will be buried there"--he jerked his head slightly
towards the cathedral--"and my dust will become part and parcel of the
fabric--like that of many of my predecessors."
"That's all very well," said Sir Archibald, "but they ought to have
caught you before this petrification set in, and made you a bishop."
It was somewhat of an old argument, for the two were intimates. The
Dean smiled and shook his head.
"You know I declined----"
"After you had become petrified."
"Perhaps so. It is not a place where ambitions can attain a riotous
growth."
"I call it a rotten place," said the elderly worldling. "I wouldn't
live in it myself for twenty thousand a year."
"Lots like you said the same in crusading times--Sir Guy de Chevenix,
for instance, who was the Lord, perhaps, of your very Manor, and an
amazing fire-eater--but--see the gentle irony of it--there his bones
lie, at peace for ever, in the rotten place, with his effigy over them
cross-legged and his dog at his feet, and his wife by his side. I
think he must sometimes look out of Heaven's gate down on the
cathedral and feel glad, grateful--perhaps a bit wistful--if the
attribution of wistfulness, which implies regret, to a spirit in
Paradise doesn't savour of heresy----"
"I'm going to be cremated," interrupted Sir Archibald, twirling his
white moustache.
The Dean smiled and did not take up the cue. The talk died. It was a
drowsy day. The Dean went off into a little reverie. Perhaps his old
friend's reproach was just. Dean of a great cathedral at thirty-six,
he had the world of dioceses at his feet. Had he used to the full the
brilliant talents with which he started? He had been a good Dean, a
capable, business-like Dean. There was not a stone of the cathedral
that he did not know and cherish. Under his care the stability of
every part of the precious fabric had been assured for a hundred
years. Its financial position, desperate on his appointment, was now
sound. He had come into a scene of petty discords and jealousies; for
many years there had been a no more united chapter in any cathedral
close in England. As an administrator he had been a success. The
devotion of his life to the cathedral had its roots deep in spiritual
things. For the greater glory of God had the vast edifice been
erected, and for the greater glory of God had he, its guardian,
reverently seen to its preservation and perfect appointment. Would he
have served God better by pursuing the ambitions of youth? He could
have had his bishopric; but he knew that the choice lay between him
and Chanways, a flaming spirit, eager for power, who hadn't the sacred
charge of a cathedral, and he declined. And now Chanways was a force
in the Church and the country, and was making things hum. If he,
Conover, after fifteen years of Durdlebury, had accepted, he would
have lost the power to make things hum. He would have made a very
ordinary, painstaking bishop, and his successor at Durdlebury might
possibly have regarded that time-worn wonder of spiritual beauty
merely as a stepping-stone to higher sacerdotal things. Such a man, he
considered, having once come under the holy glamour of the cathedral,
would have been guilty of the Unforgivable Sin. He had therefore saved
two unfortunate situations.
"You are quite an intelligent man, Bruce," he said, with a sudden
whimsicality, "but I don't think you would ever understand."
The set of tennis being over, Peggy, flushed and triumphant, rushed
into the party in the shade.
"Mr. Petherbridge and I have won--six--three," she announced. The old
gentlemen smiled and murmured their congratulations. She swung to the
tea-table some paces away, and plucked Marmaduke by the sleeve,
interrupting him in the middle of an argument. He rose politely.
"Come and play."
"My dear," he said, "I'm such a duffer at games."
"Never mind; you'll learn in time."
He drew out a grey silk handkerchief as if ready to perspire at the
first thought of it. "Tennis makes one so dreadfully hot," said he.
Peggy tapped the point of her foot irritably, but she laughed as she
turned to Lady Bruce.
"What's the good of being engaged to a man if he can't play tennis
with you?"
"There are other things in life besides tennis, my dear," replied Lady
Bruce.
The girl flushed, but being aware that a pert answer turneth away
pleasant invitations, said nothing. She nodded and went off to her
game, and informing Mr. Petherbridge that Lady Bruce was a
platitudinous old tabby, flirted with him up to the nice limits of his
parsonical dignity. But Marmaduke did not mind.
"Games are childish and somewhat barbaric. Don't you think so, Lady
Bruce?"
"Most young people seem fond of them," replied the lady. "Exercise
keeps them in health."
"It all depends," he argued. "Often they get exceedingly hot, then
they sit about and catch their death of cold."
"That's very true," said Lady Bruce. "It's what I'm always telling Sir
Archibald about golf. Only last week he caught a severe chill in that
very way. I had to rub his chest with camphorated oil."
"Just as my poor dear mother used to do to me," said Marmaduke.
There followed a conversation on ailments and their treatment, in
which Mrs. Conover joined. Marmaduke was quite happy. He knew that the
two elderly ladies admired the soundness of his views and talked to
him as to one of themselves.
"I'm sure, my dear Marmaduke, you're very wise to take care of
yourself," said Lady Bruce, "especially now, when you have the
responsibilities of married life before you."
Marmaduke curled himself up comfortably in his chair. If he had been a
cat, he would have purred. The old butler, grown as grey in the
service of the Deanery as the cathedral itself--he had been page and
footman to Dr. Conover's predecessor--removed the tea-things and
brought out a tray of glasses and lemonade with ice clinking
refreshingly against the sides of the jug. When the game was over, the
players came and drank and sat about the lawn. The shadow of the apse
had spread over the garden to the steps of the porch. Anyone looking
over the garden wall would have beheld a scene typical of the heart of
England--a scene of peace, ease and perfectly ordered comfort. The two
well-built young men, one a minor canon, the other a curate, lounging
in their flannels, clever-faced, honest-eyed, could have been bred
nowhere but in English public schools and at Oxford or Cambridge. The
two elderly ladies were of the fine flower of provincial England; the
two old men, so different outwardly, one burly, florid, exquisitely
ecclesiastical, the other thin, nervous, soldierly, each was an
expression of high English tradition. The two young girls, unerringly
correct and dainty, for all their modern abandonment of attitude,
pretty, flushed of cheek, frank of glance, were two of a hundred
thousand flowers of girlhood that could have been picked that
afternoon in lazy English gardens. And Marmaduke's impeccable grey
costume struck a harmonizing English note of Bond Street and the
Burlington Arcade. The scent of the roses massed in delicate splendour
against the wall, and breathing now that the cool shade had fallen on
them, crept through the still air to the flying buttresses and the
window mullions and traceries and the pinnacles of the great English
cathedral. And in the midst of the shaven lawn gleamed the old
cut-glass jug on its silver tray.
Some one did look over the wall and survey the scene: a man,
apparently supporting himself with tense, straightened arms on the
coping; a man with a lean, bronzed, clean-shaven face, wearing an old
soft felt hat at a swaggering angle; a man with a smile on his face
and a humorous twinkle in his eyes. By chance he had leisure to survey
the scene for some time unobserved. At last he shouted:
"Hello! Have none of you ever moved for the last ten years?"
At the summons every one was startled. The young men scrambled to
their feet. The Dean rose and glared at the intruder, who sprang over
the wall, recklessly broke through the rose-bushes and advanced with
outstretched hand to meet him.
"Hello, Uncle Edward!"
"Goodness gracious me!" cried the Dean. "It's Oliver!"
"Right first time," said the young man, gripping him by the hand.
"You're not looking a day older. And Aunt Sophia----" He strode up to
Mrs. Conover and kissed her. "Do you know," he went on, holding her at
arm's length and looking round at the astonished company, "the last
time I saw you all you were doing just the same! I peeped over the
wall just before I went away, just such a summer afternoon as this,
and you were all sitting round drinking the same old lemonade out of
the same old jug--and, Lady Bruce, you were here, and you, Sir
Archibald"--he shook hands with them rapidly. "You haven't changed a
bit. And you--good Lord! Is this Peggy?" He put his hand on the Dean's
shoulder and pointed at the girl.
"That's Peggy," said the Dean.
"You're the only thing that's grown. I used to gallop with you on my
shoulders all round the lawn. I suppose you remember? How do you do?"
And without waiting for an answer he kissed her soundly. It was all
done with whirlwind suddenness. The tempestuous young man had
scattered every one's wits. All stared at him. Releasing Peggy----
"My holy aunt!" he cried, "there's another of 'em. It's Doggie! You
were in the old picture, and I'm blessed if you weren't wearing the
same beautiful grey suit. How do, Doggie?"
He gripped Doggie's hand. Doggie's lips grew white.
"I'm glad to welcome you back, Oliver," he said. "But I would have you
to know that my name is Marmaduke."
"Sooner be called Doggie myself, old chap," said Oliver.
He stepped back, smiling at them all--a handsome devil-may-care
fellow, tall, tough and supple, his hands in the pockets of a
sun-stained double-breasted blue jacket.
"We're indeed glad to see you, my dear boy," said the Dean, recovering
equanimity; "but what have you been doing all this time? And where on
earth have you come from?"
"I've just come from the South Seas. Arrived in London last evening.
This morning I thought I'd come and look you up."
"But if you had let us know you were coming, we should have met you at
the station with the car. Where's your luggage?"
He jerked a hand. "In the road. My man's sitting on it. Oh, don't
worry about him," he cried airily to the protesting Dean. "He's well
trained. He'll go on sitting on it all night."
"You've brought a man--a valet?" asked Peggy.
"It seems so."
"Then you must be getting on."
"I don't think he turns you out very well," said Doggie.
"You must really let one of the servants see about your things,
Oliver," said Mrs. Conover, moving towards the porch. "What will
people say?"
He strode after her, and kissed her. "Oh, you dear old Durdlebury
Aunt! Now I know I'm in England again. I haven't heard those words for
years!"
Mrs. Conover's hospitable intentions were anticipated by the old
butler, who advanced to meet them with the news that Sir Archibald's
car had been brought round. As soon as he recognized Oliver he started
back, mouth agape.
"Yes, it's me all right, Burford," laughed Oliver. "How did I get
here? I dropped from the moon."
He shook hands with Burford, of whose life he had been the plague
during his childhood, proclaimed him as hardy and unchanging as a
gargoyle, and instructed him where to find man and luggage.
The Bruces and the two clerical tennis players departed. Marmaduke was
for taking his leave too. All his old loathing of Oliver had suddenly
returned. His cousin stood for everything he detested--swagger,
arrogance, self-assurance. He hated the shabby rakishness of his
attire, the self-assertive aquiline beak of a nose which he had
inherited from his father, the Rector. He dreaded his aggressive
masculinity. He had come back with the same insulting speech on his
lips. His finger-nails were dreadful. Marmaduke desired as little as
possible of his odious company. But his Aunt Sophia cried out:
"You'll surely dine with us to-night, Marmaduke, to celebrate Oliver's
return?"
And Oliver chimed in, "Do! And don't worry about changing," as Doggie
began to murmur excuses, "I can't. I've no evening togs. My old ones
fell to bits when I was trying to put them on, on board the steamer,
and I had to chuck 'em overboard. They turned up a shark, who went for
'em. So don't you worry, Doggie, old chap. You look as pretty as paint
as you are. Doesn't he, Peggy?"
Peggy, with a slight flush on her cheek, came to the rescue and linked
her arm in Marmaduke's.
"You haven't had time to learn everything yet, Oliver; but I think you
ought to know that we are engaged."
"Holy Gee! Is that so? My compliments." He swept them a low bow. "God
bless you, my children!"
"Of course he'll stay to dinner," said Peggy; and she looked at Oliver
as who should say, "Touch him at your peril: he belongs to me."
So Doggie had to yield. Mrs. Conover went into the house to arrange
for Oliver's comfort, and the others strolled round the garden.
"Well, my boy," said the Dean, "so you're back in the old country?"
"Turned up again like a bad penny."
The Dean's kindly face clouded. "I hope you'll soon be able to find
something to do."
"It's money I want, not work," said Oliver.
"Ah!" said the Dean, in a tone so thoughtful as just to suggest a lack
of sympathy.
Oliver looked over his shoulder--the Dean and himself were preceding
Marmaduke and Peggy on the trim gravel path. "Do you care to lend me a
few thousands, Doggie?"
"Certainly not," replied Marmaduke.
"There's family affection for you, Uncle Edward! I've come half-way
round the earth to see him, and--say, will you lend me a fiver?"
"If you need it," said Marmaduke in a dignified way, "I shall be very
happy to advance you five pounds."
Oliver brought the little party to a halt and burst into laughter.
"I believe you good people think I've come back broke to the world.
The black sheep returned like a wolf to the fold. Only Peggy drew a
correct inference from the valet--wait till you see him! As Peggy
said, I've been getting on." He laid a light hand on the Dean's
shoulder. "While all you folks in Durdlebury, especially my dear
Doggie, for the last ten years have been durdling, I've been doing.
I've not come all this way to tap relations for five-pound notes. I'm
swaggering into the City of London for Capital--with a great big C."
Marmaduke twirled his little moustache. "You've taken to company
promoting," he remarked acidly.
"I have. And a damn--I beg your pardon, Uncle Edward--we poor Pacific
Islanders lisp in damns for want of deans to hold us up--and a jolly
good company too. We--that's I and another man--that's all the company
as yet--two's company, you know--own a trading fleet."
"You own ships?" cried Peggy.
"Rather. Own 'em, sail 'em, navigate 'em, stoke 'em, clean out the
boilers, sit on the safety valves when we want to make speed, do every
old thing----"
"And what do you trade in?" asked the Dean.
"Copra, beche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl----"
"Mother-of-pearl! How awfully romantic!" cried Peggy.
"We've got a fishery. At any rate, the concession. To work it properly
we require capital. That's why I'm here--to turn the concern into a
limited company."
"And where is this wonderful place?" asked the Dean.
"Huaheine."
"What a beautiful word!"
"Isn't it?" said Oliver. "Like the sigh of a girl in her sleep."
The old Dean shot a swift glance at his nephew; then took his arm and
walked on, and looked at the vast mass of the cathedral and at the
quiet English garden in its evening shadow.
"Copra, beche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl, Huaheine," he murmured. "And
these strange foreign things are the commonplaces of your life!"
Peggy and Marmaduke lagged behind a little. She pressed his arm.
"I'm so glad you're staying for dinner. I shouldn't like to think you
were running away from him."
"I was only afraid of losing my temper and making a scene," replied
Doggie with dignity.
"His manners are odious," said Peggy. "You leave him to me."
Suddenly the Dean, taking a turn that brought him into view of the
porch, stopped short.
"Goodness gracious!" he cried. "Who in the world is that?"
He pointed to a curious object slouching across the lawn; a short
hirsute man wearing a sailor's jersey and smoking a stump of a
blackened pipe. His tousled head was bare; he had very long arms and
great powerful hands protruded at the end of long sinewy wrists from
inadequate sleeves. A pair of bright eyes shone out of his dark shaggy
face, like a Dandy Dinmont's. His nose was large and red. He rolled as
he walked. Such a sight had never been seen before in the Deanery
garden.
"That's my man. Peggy's valet," said Oliver airily. "His name is
Chipmunk. A beauty, isn't he?"
"Like master, like man," murmured Doggie.
Oliver's quick ears caught the words intended only for Peggy. He
smiled brightly.
"If you knew what a compliment you were paying me, Doggie, you
wouldn't have said such a thing."
The man seeing the company stare at him, halted, took his pipe out of
his mouth, and scratched his head.
"But--er--forgive me, my dear Oliver," said the Dean. "No doubt he is
an excellent fellow--but don't you think he might smoke his pipe
somewhere else?"
"Of course he might," said Oliver. "And he jolly well shall." He put
his hand to his mouth, sea-fashion--they were about thirty yards
apart--and shouted: "Here, you! What the eternal blazes are you doing
here?"
"Please don't hurt the poor man's feelings," said the kindly Dean.
Oliver turned a blank look on his Uncle. "His what? Ain't got any. Not
that kind of feelings." He proceeded: "Now then, look lively! Clear
out! Skidoo!"
The valet touched his forehead in salute, and--"Where am I to go to,
Cap'en?"
"Go to----"
Oliver checked himself in time, and turned to the Dean.
"Where shall I tell him to go?" he asked sweetly.
"The kitchen garden would be the best place," replied the Dean.
"I think I'd better go and fix him up myself," said Oliver. "A little
conversation in his own language might be beneficial."
"But isn't he English?" asked Peggy.
"Born and bred in Wapping," said Oliver.
He marched off across the lawn; and, could they have heard it, the
friendly talk that he had with Chipmunk would have made the Saint and
the Divines, and even the Crusader, Sir Guy de Chevenix, who were
buried in the cathedral, turn in their tombs.
Doggie, watching the disappearing Chipmunk, Oliver's knuckles in his
neck, said:
"I think it monstrous of Oliver to bring such a disreputable creature
down here."
Said the Dean: "At any rate, it brings a certain excitement into our
quiet surroundings."
"They must be having the time of their lives in the Servants' Hall,"
said Peggy.