The Black Fox A Novel Of The Seventies (17 page)

When Throcton went back through the shrubbery, the laurels had once more become ornamental foliage. All suggestion of the dank and the sepulchral had gone from them. They were the proper background for dignified buildings and for the dignitaries that dwell in them, suggesting, too, a classical overtone or flavour of that literary recognition which laurel and bay naturally propose. The Bishop, his cigar finished, had strolled to his big bay window. His eye was caught by the retreating figure down below.

"He's not an easy man—proud as the devil. But a good scholar. And considering his pride, he showed some strength in swallowing it. Yes, for him, he took his disappointment well. Of course he thinks I'm a fool. That's the weakness of the scholar—no power to recognize knowledge unless it comes out of a book. He thinks we 'prelatic preachers' are simply big tongues that have free play because pivoted upon narrow brains. But there's more in good administration—yes and in a good sermon—than can be put in a book or a series of text-book propositions. What did 'Anglican's big loss' say?"

He strolled over and found the volume of J. H. Newman that was lying on his desk. "Yes, that's it: We are not saved by a smart syllogism.' Still less by an impeccable style." He shut the book and drew his chair to his work-table. 'Tes, I'm glad the P. M. will pretty certainly give it him. He was never cut out to be a reporter on country church structural repairs. Well, I must find someone who is."

As he turned over his files his mind still, however, lingered on the metaphysical problem. "I wonder what he believes? Well, we are in a state of transition and after all Anglicanism has always been more a transit than a stasis—perhaps that is why it lasts, because it can always compromise with the present and at die same time is never quite happy in it. The perfectly successful is the perfectly finished, isn't it?"

Then seeing that his private speculations were tending to sound deep enough to be in danger of fouling with submerged theological rocks, the Bishop coiled up the line of his unravelled thought and turned his mind to its real business—finding and fitting men that were fit, good middle men, into posts that required a double duty, spiritual and temporal.

HE WAS ALWAYS CALLED THE P. S. BY ALL THE OTHER secretaries, that rose above him to the towering Secretaries of State. The P. S., they said, deserved his name because everyone in the know knew one of the P.M.'s ways of ending certain of his political letters—"P.S. the following piece of Church Preferment is now available: suggest someone sound." For the P.S. was, of course, the Patronage Secretary. But the P.S. did not share the contempt for his office nearly all his colleagues showed. Nor for that matter did the P.M. Both of them had a sense of humour and also a sense of romance, an uncommon blend that made a common bond.

This was the P.S.'s morning. Once a fortnight—if the political sky was not too lowering—he had his hour, or at least thirty minutes, alone with the Magician. And today the Wizard, as he did when in high expansive humour, dressed for the part. The Patronage Secretary in the Whitehall uniform of black frock-coat, rose, as there entered a flowered silk dressing gown and a scarlet fez. Between these two splashes of Oriental colour, looked out the half mummified features of the most powerful face in Europe. But it looked no more formidable than the fez that

crowned it. Besides, even the eyes, that could not hide their penetration, were now wrinkled round with humour.

"Her Majesty's Chief Minister"—he swept a bow to the standing Secretary and the fez nearly fell off—"soon may be saluted as Grand Vizier by far more subjects than have ever hailed him under the dubious title of First Lord of the Treasury. The Royal Titles Bill is now assured of its passage into Law, when, May the Queen Live Forever!"—the fez bobbed its tassel again— "the long, thin line seen by Macbeth extending down the centuries will suddenly 'conglobulate' (as the Great Lexicographer has phrased it) and produce—if I may be forgiven, under the stress of emotion for mixing my metaphors—and produce, as a crowning pendant, an Oriental empress!" The fez was whipped off, revealing for a moment a skull so bare and wrinkled that it seemed more like a fossilized brain than an ordinary head. Then the scarlet cone resumed its uneasy seat at an even jauntier angle.

"That, my young friend, is neither rhetoric nor irrelevance but a very pertinent introduction to our business. Let us be seated. What fare have you for me today?"

Before, however, the P.S. could settle on the chair he drew up beside the couch on which the tired garish figure had sunk, the voice crowed again, "'The Imponderables'—as my 'opposite number,' the Kurfurst Kanzler calls them—they decide, he knows, not arms nor battles but, as he's finding, Kulturkampfs. So, young sir, to the Church, to the Church. 'No Bishop, No King' as the 'British Solomon' so wisely remarked. But, as he and his son didn't know, if the monarch should become an Oriental empress, then the episcopus must become equally spacious, equally latitudinarian to embrace East as well as West, now that a mightier Venice once again holds 'the Gorgeous East in Fee!' Now to business!"

"The See of ... um ... a bishopric, though a small one. What peer, who could give us trouble in the Lords, might want a minimal mitre for one of his wife's poorer but scholarly relatives? Yes, that must wait. Give us something simpler to start on."

'The Deanery of Norminster?"

"Yes, that will do. Yes, surely I recall Norminster. Surely it was vacant only a matter of months ago?"

"Yes, Sir, after a generation of quiescence now the turn-over in that small 'negotium' seems to have become brisk."

"The Law of Averages. One long reign and human optimism cries, 'Longevity has come at long last. But wait and see. It's just wishful thinking, indeed hardly that! Why, do you know the best opening you can employ when you meet anyone you want to please? I always use it. 'How well you look'? Not a bit of it! I ask invariably, 'And how is that little trouble?' Of course I don't know what the poor fellow is fussing over. But I do know that, because he's a man, he's fussing over something. And I know he'll like me better for my condolences than for my congratulations! But back to Norminster. Yes, I have it—surely an Arabic scholar there . . .? That's it, one of the Canons?"

"Yes, he's 'in the line of succession,' too, Sir. I mean he's conservative and people would expect it. Indeed I thought he would have been suggested to you last time. But, you may recall, the Bishop of Norminster was particularly anxious that his Archdeacon should have it."

'Well, it didn't delay things much. But this scholar—he isn't a Ritualist is he? I and the Empress Designate, 'Ego et Kegma Mea,' wont stand for that 'man millinery' church costuming! Naturally a Lady doesn't like men competing in the choir with flounces and trains. Sunday bonnets and shawls put out of countenance by mitres, albs and copes! And, mark my words, neither do I, young man! The British like theatricals, but they like them in their proper place—Parliament, not in the pulpit or at the altar. 'Mr. G. Cotton-and-Phrase-spinning Bright and your humble servant, we give them their variety show. They go to church, as I do, for peace, seemliness, to hear and see what their fathers have always heard and seen. There's more than a little in the Poet Laureate's summing up of a proper service, the Parson said what he oughta said And then I coomed awa'.

These posturing young papalists will break up the Establishment, and I won't have it!"

"Oh, Archdeacon Throcton is certainly a weight on the other side."

"Anything against him?"

"Innocence itself, Sir. You know the Epitaph (I understand he may himself earn a repetition of it):

" 'Sacred to the Memory of the Very Reverend Dean . . . of this Cathedral, who, in this Place, pursued the Cure of Souls, for Forty Years, without the least suspicion of Enthusiasm.'"

A loud, appreciative cackle came from the horizontal master of the Empire.

"You've read your Talleyrand, my boy— 'pas de zele, yets de zele.' No danger of this Arabian flirting with Mr. G.'s penchant, 'Greek Orthodox,' or finding affinities and 'union of hearts' with the Balkan Bishoprics and Archimandrites?"

"None, Sir, I'll wager."

"He's our man. Let him have it."

A small clock tingled discretely but peremptorily from the mantelpiece.

"Allah be merciful! Why cannot The Eternal extend Time when it is pleasant. Here, give me a hand."

As he was raised to his tottering feet he snatched the fez from his head. "In that wardrobe, there, get me out my frock-coat. Here, take this dressing gown. Help me into my prison garb."

He turned to a large mirror and touched carefully a strand of hair, dead black and coiled, like a withered root over a rock, that snaked along his skull till it just reached his forehead. He pulled at the black coat as he trod stiffly to the door. His squire had it opened.

"The disguise is convincing?" he asked, as he passed through. "I look the part, do I?" The P.S. felt all the enthusiasm that his loyal "dresser" feels for the grand old master of "the boards" about to face one of his last performances.

"You're grand." he dared smile. The old mask, already facing the stairs, was fixed; only the eye that his attendant was watching, drooped for a moment. "You can write that Deanery note," was the final instruction.

The P.S. went back into the room. In five minutes the little letter—a life warrant—was written and put out for dispatch.

MISS THROCTON ALWAYS DISTRIBUTED THE MAIL. EVERY morning she was down first; winnowed the weighty letters from the chaff—bills, advertisements, et cetera; then gave to the cook for the servant's hall any missives they might have received. The grain she placed on the left-hand side of her brother's plate.

The morning came when she found among the usual deposits in the mail-box, a neat envelope, unstamped, but having across the top of it four letters, then, and for a further couple of generations, more powerful, and over a wider field than even the other famous four—A.D.M.G. To its initial assertion of an almost world-wide right-of-way—through its superscription O.H.M.S. —this particular envelope had added to its top left-hand corner a couple of words as to its origin—"Patronage Office."

Miss Throcton's cheek had turned quickly pale while the envelope turned slowly in her hands. There were perhaps half a dozen othei; letters—no doubt Archdeaconry business, 'Well." she sighed, "it would save him from work which is really distasteful and really for such a mind wasteful. Perhaps it is all right. But I wish I felt sure." After a slight hesitation she gave the O.H.M.S. its rightful place of precedence at the top of the others.

On his entering her brother glanced at the little pile but she looked away. He had said "Good morning" before reaching the table. She listened during "Prayers" for the tone of his voice. Yes, a certain resonance told her that he was trying by a slight increase of vocal emphasis, if not to attend to the words, to keep his mind off what in a few minutes he would be reading. And when they rose from their knees and took their places at table he continued to show self-control. Not till she had handed him his coffee did he open his letters—all of them, carefully with a knife. Then de-enveloping them, and putting aside their husks, the actual letters were spread one on another. He read each of them in silence while he ate and drank. Then holding out his cup for it to be refilled he looked at her steadily.

'Well, you can move into the Deanery as soon as you wish."

"But surely you would seek guidance?"

"But surely," he replied, using exactly the same question-tone, "you would not have me a hypocrite? You must know the vulgar story—I have heard the Bishop tell it—of preferment: 'Is your father going to accept?' 'I dunno. Father's in his study praying for guidance. Mother's upstairs, packing!'"

Her sense of humour came to her aid. "The story must be apocryphal. No appointment, however important, would require a flight!"

He smiled at her refusal to be shocked and she pointed her persistence with, "Besides, in this case it is the woman who is asking guidance."

His smile became almost genial. It vanished again, however, when she continued, "If guidance isn't to be sought, because there is no doubt as to the step to be taken, then doesn't one give thanks?"

"Laetitia!" His voice was as sharp as when he had chided her for what he held to be superstitious apprehension. "I have

told you already that I will not be a hypocrite. I have had to wait, through a series of frustrations as absurd as they were highly inconvenient for all concerned, that tardily, at an almost unbelievable length, the natural and right thing might happen. What is due to me and to the Chapter has at last eventuated. If I am to thank God for this obvious, inevitable, unavoidable solution then I have to blame Him for hesitations and confusions, muddles, of which I myself, or indeed any rational creature, would be incapable. To have such a view of Deity would be to degrade one's intelligence and conscience to a level at which one would find oneself believing in the Devil!"

His tone and uncharacteristic volubility showed that she had fully roused his resentment. Even had she felt her theology equal to his, her practical anthropology, which was certainly superior, had long taught her that once anger is roused, intelligence, far from aiding understanding, actually invents arguments to show why no reasonableness can be allowed in the case that is being resented.

She did not speak to him on the matter again, nor he to her, till he remarked with careful casualness three days after, at lunch, "The Bishop is pleased. He also tells me Mrs. Simpkins wishes to leave as soon as possible and not to avail herself of the six weeks she could legally remain.- A wise solution in the circumstances. Naturally a woman of her modest station could never have been comfortable in what is almost a mansion. She is to live, I gather, with her brother, a retired accountant, I believe in Cheltenham. It would be wise if you could manage to make the move in ten days or so."

She said nothing, only signalling with a nod that she assented. Her mind was upbraiding her. She had delayed calling on the bereaved woman—only writing a brief note and that, she felt had been stilted, stilted for the same reason that had made her