The Black Fox A Novel Of The Seventies (9 page)

Canon Throcton was wary enough to avoid a meeting. Certainly, whatever the queer coincidence might mean or develop into, his clearly was a waiting game. And in two days the Archdeacon had left on his visitation circuit. Dr. Wilkes was of course not a little pleased at the recovery but also a little more puzzled than usual. So, as the Canon had evidently been interested by his diagnosis—if it could be so called—when they next passed in the street, he made to stop, and the Canon consented to be brought to a stand-still.

Further, to the Doctor's 'Well, we had an even swifter recovery than we hoped!" the antiphon, "And no further outbreaks— the plague seems to have been stayed, satisfied with one victim?" He showed an obvious agreeability, even a certain lightness of humour. 

Dr. Wilkes therefore added, "I let him go on his rounds. He was so anxious not to begin ill—as one might say—the first step, you know, how often it sets the pace, free or halting. But. . . ."

By the speed of the rapid reply question, "But what?" the Doctor saw it was safe to add, "I confess I would like him to go carefully. I am inclined now to think—you will recall it was one of the links in the sequence as I diagnosed it—that there may be a general blood condition. There so often is—and in this case perhaps—a potential anaemia of a none too benignant aspect, aggravating, if not causing such a severe and, I fear, final alopecia. The relationship of the hair to the general vitality—well the extravagancies of folk-lore have frightened off investigation. The fact however remains, there's no better criterion of the curve of vitality than the condition of the hair"

The Doctor pushed back his high black hat and rubbed his temple on which like a sundial his age was well marked by the retreating shadow of his hair line. "Yes, he must take care. That's my prognosis and prescription, reasonable care. Yes, I believe in the old adage, 'After forty a fool or a physician.' We are rightly called medical advisers—as you are spiritual directors."

Pleased with his reception and that he had been able to close the interview leaving the Canon in no doubt of the precedence that medicine was prepared to grant theology, he did not attempt to hold his honoured guest longer. But when left, the Canon walked away with no symptom of relief at being set free for his own reflections.

By the time that the Archdeacon returned from his circuit the Doctor had ventured to speak in the same tone to the Bishop. Dr. Wilkes had been summoned to the Palace for the humble duty of examining the inflamed throat of the second kitchen maid. Mrs. Bendwell, ample, kind and shrewd, wisely did not like infected throats bending over food to be served shortly after at the high episcopal board. She asked that the Doctor be told to wait on her when he left after his visit to the patient. As he left her salon, after reassuring her that it was no more than a slight catarrh that had affected the larynx, the lord of the Palace entered.

Bishop Bendwell was rightly more popular with the laity than with his clergy, for the latter he had to control while the former it was his duty, as well as his taste, to persuade. Sure of his own position with all but the nobility he was kindness itself, affability incarnate to the professional classes. "They are our problem and our objective," he used to remark to the Chapter meetings when discussing diocesan strategy. "Hold them, or at least do not alienate them, and then there is nothing to fear from the masses going Socialist or Catholic. Always, my brethren, you will perceive throughout history it is because the clergy and the aristocracy lost touch with, lost the respect of, the professional classes—that now like to call themselves the intelligentsia, as we once liked to call ourselves the spirituals and still are called divines—always it was that loss of contact that was the first and the irretrievable step toward revolution.

So finding the Doctor in the door leaving conference with his wife, the Bishop took him by the arm bringing him back into the drawing room. His wife remarked, "Dr. Wilkes has reassured me about Emma's throat. There is no danger of infection."

"Good, good," the Bishop replied perfunctorily and then thinking how he might leave an impression of friendliness on the summoned visitor, who otherwise would not be invited to the Palace, he thought of Archdeacon Simpkins.

"Well, Dr. Wilkes, we owe another piece of competent repairing—if I may so phrase it—to your skill. I am glad to hear that our new Archdeacon was so soon on his feet again and hard at his new work so soon after the strange little upset that somewhat inauspiciously marked his initiation into his overseer-office."

To be held in conference by the Bishop in the Palace was of course even a higher pleasure, considerably higher than to be seen in the street talking at some length to one of his Canons. Besides there was no reason why he should not tell the Bishop what he thought of the case. Perhaps it was his duty. 

"Yes, My Lord, a very encouraging beginning of convalescence. . . ,"

"Beginning? But then was it wise to let him go out so soon?"

"Often, My Lord, to restrain a man who is fretting under a nervous condition brought on by some strain, is a mistake. The balance between the rest of work and the rest of lassitude—I mean, the doctor's task is very difficult when he has to judge whether stimulant or sedative is the right course. It all depends on the diagnosis."

Bishop Bendwell was listening—he generally did—as human beings really interested him. But now he.pricked his inner ear. This little leach was no fool. Perhaps he might not be able to diagnose—who really could?—where was spiritual direction in the Church, but he could observe. A few moments more would not be wasted. Anyhow he would see some of his alien intimates —as to his wife he sometimes called the Chapter—from another angle. The appointment of Simpkins to the Archdeaconry was of course right. Still he did not enjoy the fact that he was sure of Canon Throcton's resentment and the otter fact that Simp-kins, though with a perfectly good case, had influenced things in his own favour.

"And the diagnosis in this case? If, of course, you choose to confide in me to what might be taken to be a professional limit of discretion. , . ."

"Oh no, My Lord. In any case are you not the Shepherd of all of us in this county and to whom should the veterinary report but to the guide and overseer of the flock? Archdeacon Simpkins is undoubtedly tired and the little trouble is lurking, possibly, still in the system. But change of place, of air, of occupation— these three so often can rouse the organism, turn it as it were, on another facet. No, My Lord, you will never find me among the materialists—as long as I observe human beings as they actually behave and respond. . . ."

"Well then?"

"Well, my Lord, I wish you could see our patient on his return. I would value highly your impression. I still stick to my faith that exercise in this case is the thing, change and meeting new people and—if I may put it that way—the evidence that he is at work and"—he hesitated—"is respected. I mean everything that tells against introversion, against moping, and takes his mind off himself. These nervous conditions, and I still think this at base is one, these nerve-ending irritations, they are such delicate adjustments, responses. Often I feel that something—how shall I put it?—is being balked in the patient and that this blind invisible force can find expression either in outward activity or in some inward and, in the end, morbid frustration." 

The Bishop had been increasingly interested. But though he gave quite a handsome share of his attention to anyone who gained his ear and was giving over-weight in this case, like all born administrators he never became engrossed. He had two perspectives out over which he was looking as he spoke and listened: as a preacher he knew you must never forget the clock, and as a discreet holder of confidences he knew the need to remember where you are. While they had talked he had steered Dr. Wilkes out from his wife's presence chamber and down the broad stairs. Both the time-table and the area of private conference were being kept in view and observed.

"Well"—they had now reached the big hall and were by its massive door—"you would like me to have a conference with Archdeacon Simpkins as soon as he returns? Yes, I think I can just manage it."

And with that the two wary men parted each pleased with each other and with what he had gained and given.

Bishop Bendwell kept his word without any reluctance. He postponed a couple of days his going to London and to his fellow Lords Spiritual in order that he might have the promised interview with his new Archdeacon. True, he did not suffer much from intuitions but in this case he could not help feeling that there was present some element of potential conflict which he himself had not yet even to diagnose. His kindliness was more composed of a native sense of kinship and insight into human motive than of the theological virtue of pure charity, but it too was roused when he saw his lieutenant. The man looked undeniably tired. Of course sudden total calvine baldness does give an effect of rapid aging. Further, no doubt, to go straight from a sick-bed to a full round of new work might easily prove severely fatiguing. But the man's colour didn't look right: his lips were a grey only subtinged with red; his skin a curious waxen tint and his teeth—he still had as fine teeth as once hair—were still as even. But they looked more as though made of dull glass than of ivory.

"Yes, you must take my advice and go quietly, for a little."

"Hardly possible, My Lord, when you rightly put me in because my predecessor had gone too quietly for too long."

"Well, better a little now than nothing soon!"

"My Lord, it is not for us to say, as the Scriptures put it, 'I shall go softly all my days."

His wife asked the Bishop how he had found the new Archdeacon. "Oh, a bit tired, but, as I suppose one of your household staff would say, A new broom is bound to lose a few of its hairs at the first attack it makes on what the old one has neglected." She smiled and seeing that he was not going to tell her more, nor feeling much wish to do more herself than express a casual interest, she changed the subject.

8

RETIRING TO WORK IN HIS STUDY BISHOP BENDWELL FOUND HIS Chaplain-Secretary. "Just a few papers, Sir, for your work in London. May I run through them with you?"

"Halliwell, you serve the unleavened bread of legality and politics made palatable by efficient sympathy!"

The young confidant smiled. The Bishop had picked him as his squire because he saw that he was one of those boys who under a cheerful healthiness disguised uncommon adaptability and method. In the ancient atmosphere of a Close it was good to have at least one contact with the energy of youth.

The Bishop's mind was still running on his last interview. He was not unnaturally concerned that his sympathy should have been judicious, kind, of course, but stimulating not enervating.

"The main aim of my policy," he remarked to Chaplain Halliwell, "is to keep the Diocese up to average."

"Yes, Sir, and the average is rising all over England."

"It should, of course, it should. Ecclesiastical efficiency has been scandalously low. You can have little idea of the laxity in many parts when I was your age. But we must advance on a

balanced front: efficient organization, sound scholarship, sane devotion—that is the triad the Church should aim at."

"And the order in which they should be achieved?"

"Well ours is the great Church of the Middle Way and IVe always held that our service and our forte is to appeal to the educated through reason. Emotion lies at either end—social reform and its fanatics—and private salvation and the fanatics of the extreme low and the extreme high. Yes, it is a nice problem of balance, of balanced advance."

"One of the problems, is it not, Sir, is that of the wonderful longevity of Chapters?" Young Halliwell ventured the slight pleasantry and seeing that it was well received added, "It sometimes looks, doesn't it, Sir, as though the Church of the Via Media was rewarded by heaven for its faithfulness in avoiding extremes by being granted an uncommon extension of life in this world?"

"Yes, I suppose that would have been the blessing that the saints of the Old Testament would have asked and as the school of thought we serve does not stress either heaven or hell, magic or mysticism, perhaps you are right. An eminent vital statistician whom I met at the Athenaeum when last up in London, was certain of it. Maybe we have the reward of longevity granted specifically to us. Beneficed Clerks in Holy Orders, he told me, had far the longest of all the expectations of life."

Their minds were running on the same example. "I don't think there will be any change in the Dean's condition, while you are away," the Chaplain remarked.

"His condition is just the same, isn't it?" questioned the Bishop.

"I have a feeling, Sir, that his family is a little more concerned for his health. Of course one has now to judge of his condition almost entirely in the mirror of their looks. I don't know who saw him last."

"I confess I have not. They have not asked me to call. And you will find when you reach a station like mine that you never have time to make any casual visits. Besides, even when I last called on him, which was some time ago, it was like using that new notion, a speaking tube, you shout something down and then switch your ear round trying to catch an answer as incomprehensible to you as your shout was to the distant listener."

Another couple in the Close was also discussing the Dean and his scarcely measurable decline from decrepitude, through bed-riddenness, to final decease. "A perfect example of suspended animation." Canon Throcton was remarking to his sister. "He has now achieved the pace of that problematical tortoise which swift-footed Achilles himself is supposed to have striven in vain to overtake. Time himself seems now to be unable to gain for good on the Dean."

But in point of fact the Canon, as the Chaplain, had been equally observant of the minute "signs of the times." though not equally communicative of what he believed was to be perceived. He was sure that the Deanery family was not as much at its ease as is the habit of those who fear no disturbance. The replies to the constant convention of inquiry as to the Dean's health had a slight overtone of defensiveness. That tone confirmed the Canon's suspicions, suspicions tinged like the eastern horizon of late night with the first faint hint and hope of dawn.