The Black Fox A Novel Of The Seventies (12 page)

"Oh no. We have time, certainly. It was because I wished that you, My Lord, should have the earliest advices that I ventured to call. Thank you for granting me this consultation when we can see ahead."

But they could not. There was not time. True, the Archdeacon remained much the same. But not the Dean. Without word or warning while one of his great-nieces was reading to him—or to be more exact reading in the presence of the body on the bed— for the hundredth time Jane Austen's Emma, she noticed as she rose quietly at the ending of the usual evening portion that the coverlet was no longer being raised and let fall however slightly.

The Dean was at last undeniably, certifiably dead.

The Archdeacon was naturally back in the Close for the funeral, and, as at such times the worthies of the city liked to make prophecies as to who would go next, his pale appearance gained him quite a few votes for this ultimate preferment The Bishop eyed him too, and solicitously agreed, when asked to give an interview. "Come over at once," he replied, as they unrobed in the vestry, and Canon Throcton had gone out to see to those minutiae of routine which everyone now took for granted were his concern.

In the Palace the younger man turned to his superior, "I should never have taken the post. I have tried to do my duty..."

"You have; you have," The Bishop was both concerned and embarrassed. Was there going to be a nervous breakdown? As were most of those men who survived to reach the higher levels of Anglicanism, he was bland. Blandness is a curious and rather fine glaze which to the casual eye is assumed to have a base of dullness or indifference. The reverse is the truth. It is generally the patina or exprecipitation produced by a sensitive and waxy nature exposed to situations in which a frank response is impossible. It is their defence against "the corrosion of the world's dull stain." A double price is paid: the bright, clear response to events is lost—that unguarded reaction of the innocent—and also, under this crust of circumspect culture, the repressed sensitiveness hurts the man, making him dread any show of emotion. The tougher the nail, the quicker the quick. Perhaps then the Bishop's only passionate revulsion was for what he called with a monosyllabic emphasis, alien to his pulpit style, "Scenes." But he was not to be spared.

"I should never have taken it," the voice rose to that thin whine that in a dog's distress immediately precedes the full howl.

"But you have done well. YouVe simply strained yourself a little too much—that's all—the willing horse, you know. Just learn to take it in your stride. You'll get the pace...."

"No, no, I must tell you; you are our Father-in-God. Do you, My Lord, remember that night last year when I dared to counsel you against making the appointment which you thought might be required of you. I was wrong, very wrong. The office belonged to him by a certain prescriptive right—and you were right...."

"I don't think I can enter into that now." The Bishop felt that he might and should let his immunity of position he known unmistakably. Health was one thing; policy quite another. "Besides"—as he saw the poor man's face draw into an even deeper mope—"Besides, I can assure you that the person to whom I presume you are referring bears not the slightest hard feeling. I cannot of course infringe even on the frontiers of confidence but I must ask you with my authority to believe that."

The appeal for faith was not well received; indeed it led to something like a resumption of the storm. Perhaps the man was going to have a real bout of hysteria, here in his study. It was the incongruousness of the thing that made Bishop Bendwell feel something like gooseflesh under his gaiters. He could meet crises as well as any man provided he felt himself on familiar ground. But Anglicanism has naturally never thought of having an answer to insanity. Its success, and it was not inconsiderable, lay in its power to disregard the abnormal.

The voice rose in its thin intensity, "I beg you, My Lord, I beg you to let him have what I know he desired, this wretched office."

"But what of you?" the Bishop asked with that kind of kindliness that is at the edge of exasperation. The Canonry that Simp-kins had evacuated when he took the archidiaconal stall was already filled by one of the deserving diocesan clergy. The other man simply hung his head. He looked like a chased animal completely spent, not caring whether it is caught or no. After a pause he did speak but mainly in a mutter and to himself.

"It all started the moment I took office. I had a guilty conscience, I could feel his resentment and had to own I deserved it—a guilty conscience, fatal for any religious work. I am ready to resign."

The Bishop's concern became acute enough to overcome his

suppressed fear of emotion. Something must be done. The man couldn't be let drift till he was no use to himself and had gone outside any help that the Bishop would be at liberty to grant. There was one thing that could be done. It was really not out of the question and this crisis made it necessary to break through conventions—after all David did eat the shewbread and the Highest Authority condoned the breach of ecclesiastical order. He got up and put his hand on the huddled shoulder of the man who was still crouching in his chair. His sympathy grew as he felt the thinness of the muscle and the poor tone of the sinews. "Believe me, it will come all right and trust me as your Father-in-God. I will do all I can to get the matter settled satisfactorily."

As the Archdeacon had gone into the Palace his wife had called at the Throcton residence. When brother and sister had come in from the funeral the Canon had gone straight to his study saying that he would not be down to tea as he must now settle a number of pressing details. He was already having to give a considerable part of his time to the Cathedral's agenda and the actual death of the Dean had rapidly increased the dependency that the staff now put on the accepted successor, The organist, naturally the last of the crew to be reduced to obedience, had now—as often happens—become a constant asker for interviews. Indeed Canon Throcton was discovering that it may be less fatiguing to carry on campaigns against rebels than to manage every detail for slaves. Now, however, that it must be a matter of no more than a fortnight before the prize was awarded him, he was determined to finish with finish. Once appointed, once de jure, then let who will manage the finicking detail. Till then if the sub-verger couldn't light a candle or mark the right Lesson without the match being lit for him or the marker put in the proper page—well he would be at every underling's shoulder. He would oversee every detail right up to the

day on which, with the effrontery of Absolute Power, "The Crown" (whose real name happened to be Benjamin ben Israel) informed the Chapter that it was free to elect the person chosen for them to choose.

The organist proved as long-winded as his Voluntaries. The Canon began to wish quite strongly for his tea. He would not, and by his social station was indeed forbidden to, offer the organist any refreshment. Miss Throcton was, however, on this occasion relieved that he was detained. She felt determined to remedy the unkindness into which at the last visit she felt she had drifted. Besides, surely Mrs. Simpkins would not have called again in so short a time and after so "short'' a parting, had there not been a sufficiently unusual reason. Perhaps she needed help. The putty-coloured face of the Archdeacon came into her mind—not an attractive impression but not without appeal. In her resolution to do better she was, however, more than taken at her word. Miss Throcton began to find that she was losing sight of her objective, indeed really losing sight of her guest, as she became involved with herself, contemptuous of her own contempt. Why did the poor Archdeaconess (what.a dismal tide and yet no doubt her guest would like it), why did the poor woman grate qn her? From the moment her ill-shaped button-boots squeaked across the floor to that other equally protracted moment when she had equally noisy trouble with her veil and the tea, those small, wordless contretemps that feed contempt and prepare us for overt acts of ill will, followed without relief. So when the visitor —the preliminary speech-conventions exhausted—volunteered a remark it was inevitably unhappy.

"What strange tea!—almost like stale pepper. It quite caught my breath!"

"It's China."

"I always say to my husband, 'If we have been given an Empire and have given India the Gospel, we owe it to them to drink their tea."

"I don't quite see the inference?"

The subacid reply-question led to a succession of ever-widening exchanges. From tea to theology the steps were short and swift. "My husband has found a shocking state of affairs in the diocese. It has worn him down. It seems that we who live a sheltered life can't have any notion. . . ."

"Of what?"

"Why, Romanism among the clergy and, in consequence, open infidelity among the laity. That is what we pay, for letting our Protestantism go out of our preaching. Scholarship may have its place, but it can't win souls. What then is it doing in the pulpit!"

"I thought that SL Paul said we were to give a reason for the faith that is in us?"

"If we have one!" The Archdeaconess ruffled her magenta plumes. Her taste in colour was aniline. Her hostess preferred Pre-Raphaelite tones. Suddenly Miss Throcton's sense of humour won respite from complete break-down. The nodding purple bonnet—giving a culmination of apoplectic colouring to the flushed face from which it reared—the poor Archdeaconess looked like a cornered hen. A hen with its back to the wall loses a great deal of its normal silliness for it is usually defending its chicks. Humour often rouses interest and interest may warm into charity.

"Yes," Miss Throcton found herself saying, "faith is the crux, isn't it? St. James says faith can heal not only the soul but the body also, doesn't he?" Her surface mind felt that she must have said this to lead her ruffled guest off controversy and to ground on which they could agree. For the Close had lately closed ranks when one of the most troublesome of the ritualistic parish clergy had begun to anoint his sick with consecrated oils. Her deep

mind was signalling up to her some stranger significance when she was distracted by a sudden change in the fat homely face confronting her. It wasn't relaxation: it was increased tension. Fuss had been replaced by fear. Through the show of defiance was now emerging the real reason for the visit.

"You don't believe that stuff!" Then feeling that this Anglo-Saxon brevity was crude, "I mean—oh I don't know!"

The fat face went into a third phase and by far the most surprising of the three it had registered. It actually became dignified. Miss Throcton stared. Some basically powerful emotion had risen and, as the tide floods the shore, all the petty confusions were gone. Further it was evident that the emotional tide was a double one, a blend of the two most powerful feelings, love and fear. Mrs. Simpkins was not going to break down or up. Under some extreme pressure the commonplace carbon of her normal temperament was becoming crystal.

"Can I be of any help?" Mrs. Simpkins' call had been so clear though unspoken that her hostess felt no hesitation.

"Thank you, and forgive my being so upset. I don't know why I came to you. I don't know about healing but I do feel sometimes sure about guidance. I had to come here—as you see against my will, I don't know if you can help, help . . . but you could, maybe, help me."

Miss Throcton went over and put her hand on her guest's shoulder. The other looked up and Miss Throcton was struck by the dignity of the face raised to hers. True, the eyes had tears in them and pouches under them. But the lifting up of the head removed all heaviness from cheek, jaw and chin. It was not beautiful but it was tragic. And the whole cast and turn of feature expressed a real strength—all the more convincing because quite unsuspected. The voice, too, agreed now with the expression, "I am sure my husband is gravely ill. That is what I came to say last time but hadn't the courage. And now it's worse. I haven't

any doubts about it. His father died—some mysterious condition of the blood—at his age. He won't face it yet but I know he knows. I love him but I'm frightened, too. I know it's wrong. I mean I'm frightened in the wrong way—about the wrong thing. We're poor. He made his way. His father was a carpenter, I was, I was a small governess, I mean I went to poor families who could pay very little. We have no savings. My mother was ill a long time before she died. . . ."

Miss Throcton knelt beside her guest's chair. Mrs. Simpkins now looked down at her own hands in her lap. They were finer, more descriptive and more worn than her face. She had taken off her gloves. The fingers had been well and strongly shaped and also well and heavily used. "If my husband fails now we have nowhere to go. I am sorry, but it frightens me. The Close has always despised us. My husband, if he is to recover, needs my faith, I know, and it's going. I have no friends."

Miss Throcton put her hand on the hands that lay folded before her.

"You are wondering why I came to you. Perhaps it's harder to tell you than it would be to ask for, for help. Of course it's an appeal for help but not for the kind of help people usually ask for. I came here because I was sure I had to. I didn't want to. I knew you could help. But, you see, I wasn't sure you would. No, listen to me now and then judge. I've said, my husband's ill—more ill than he dare face. But also more ill—ill in a different way than he knows. He had, you may remember, a very nasty attack in the early winter. He was more ill than the doctor knew. The skin trouble was only a symptom. I know. I slept with him—at least he slept and I was kept awake by his talking in his sleep."

The speaker's voice, too, had become thin, monotonous as though reciting aloud a reverie rather than addressing a listener. But at this point Mrs. Simpkins roused herself, withdrew her hands from under the other's and looking sideways at her asked, "Do you know what he said again and again. 'He hates me: he will have his revenge. Skin for skin. Perhaps I'm wrong but I was frightened. For the words, though they sound silly, oh they were said with such fear. So I asked him, What's wrong?' I thought at first he might he awake. But you know sleep-talkers answer if you speak to them. He rambled on, 'He hates me. He won't forgive me. He always despised me. I took what he claimed. And now he'll be revenged!"