Cathedral — Bk 1 Prelude: Ch 7 Ronder's Day
Ronder's Day Ronder had now spent several months in Polchester and was able to come to an opinion about it, and the opinion that he had come to was that he could be very comfortable there.
His aunt, who, in spite of her sharpness, never was sure how he would take anything, was a little surprised when he told her this.
But then she was never certain what were the secret springs from which he derived that sense of comfort that was the centre of his life.
She should have known by now that he derived it from two things--luxury and the possibility of intrigue.
Polchester could not have appeared to any casual observer a luxurious town, but it had for Ronder exactly that combination of beauty and mystery that obtained for him his sensation.
He did not analyse it as yet further than that--he knew that those two things were there; he might investigate them at his leisure.
In that easy, smiling fashion that he had developed from his earliest days as the surest protection for his own security and ease, he arranged everything around him to assure his tranquillity.
Everything was not as yet arranged; it might take him six months, a year, two years for that arrangement...
but he knew now that it would be done.
The second element in his comfort, his love of intrigue, would be satisfied here simply because everything was not, as yet, as he would have it.
He would have hated to have tumbled into the place and found it just as he required it.
He liked to have things to move, to adjust, to arrange, just as when he entered a room he always, if he had the power, at once altered the chairs, the cushions.
It was towards this final adjustment that his power of intrigue always worked.
Once everything was adjusted he sank back luxuriously and surveyed it--and then, in all probability, was quickly tired of it and looked for new fields to conquer.
He could not remember a time when he had not been impelled to alter things for his comfort.
He did not wish to be selfish about this, he was quite willing for every one else to do the same--indeed, he watched them with geniality and wondered why on earth they didn't. As a small boy at Harrow he had, with an imperturbable smile and a sense of humour that, in spite of his rotund youth and a general sense amongst his elders that he was "cheeky," won him popularity, worked always for his own comfort.
He secured it and, first as fag and afterwards as House-prefect, finally as School-prefect, did exactly what he wanted with everybody.
He did it by being, quite frankly, all things to all men, although never with sycophancy nor apparent falseness.
He amused the bored, was confidential with the wicked, upright with the upright, and sympathetic with the unfortunate.
He was quite genuine in all these things.
He was deeply interested in humanity, not for humanity's sake but his own.
He bore no man any grudge, but if any one was in his way he worked hard until they were elsewhere.
That removal attained, he wished them all the luck in the world.
He was ordained because he thought he could deal more easily with men as a parson.
"Men always take clergymen for fools," he told his aunt, "and so they sometimes are...
but not always."
He knew he was not a fool, but he was not conceited.
He simply thought that he had hit upon the one secret of life and could not understand why others had not done the same.
Why do people worry so?
was the amused speculation.
"Deep emotions are simply not worth while," he decided on his coming of age.
He liked women but his sense of humour prevented him from falling in love.
He really did understand the sensual habits and desires of men and women but watched them from a distance through books and pictures and other men's stories.
He was shocked by nothing--nor did he despise mankind.
He thought that mankind did on the whole very well considering its difficulties.
He was kind and often generous; he bore no man alive or dead any grudge.
He refused absolutely to quarrel--"waste of time and temper."
His one danger was lest that passion for intrigue should go deeper than he allowed anything to go.
Playing chess with mankind was to him, he declared, simply a means to an end.
Perhaps once it had been so.
But, as he grew older, there was a danger that the end should be swallowed by the means.
This danger he did not perceive; it was his one blindness.
Finally he believed with La Rochefoucauld that "Pity is a passion which is wholly useless to a well-constituted mind."
At any rate he discovered that there was in Polchester a situation exactly suited to his powers.
The town, or the Cathedral part of it, was dominated by one man, and that man a stupid, autocratic, retrogressive, good-natured child.
He bore that child not the slightest ill-will, but it must go or, at any rate, its authority must be removed.
He did, indeed, like Brandon, and through most of this affair he did not cease to like him, but he, Ronder, would never be comfortable so long as Brandon was there, he would never be free to take the steps that seemed to him good, he would be interfered with and patronised.
He was greatly amused by Brandon's patronage, but it really was not a thing that could be allowed to remain.
If he saw, as he made his plans, that the man's heart and soul, his life, physical and spiritual, were involved--well he was sorry.
It simply proved how foolish it was to allow your heart and soul to be concerned in anything.
He very quickly perceived that the first thing to be done was to establish relations with the men who composed the Chapter.
He watched, he listened, he observed, then, at the end of some months, he began to move.
Many men would have considered him lazy.
He never took exercise if he could avoid it, and it was Polchester's only fault that it had so many hills.
He always had breakfast in bed, read the papers there and smoked a cigarette.
Every morning he had a bath as hot as he could bear it--and he could bear it very hot indeed.
Much of his best thinking was done there.
When he came downstairs he reserved the first hour for his own reading, reading, that is, that had nothing to do with any kind of work, that was purely for his own pleasure.
He allowed nothing whatever to interfere with this--Gautier and Flaubert, La Bruyère and Montaigne were his favourite authors, but he read a great deal of English, Italian, and Spanish, and had a marvelous memory.
He enjoyed, too, erotic literature and had a fine collection of erotic books and prints shut away in a cabinet in his study.
He found great fascination in theological books: he laughed at many of them, but kept an open mind--atheistic and materialistic dogmas seemed to him as absurd as orthodox ones.
He read too a great deal of philosophy but, on the whole, he despised men who gave themselves up to philosophy more than any other human beings.
He felt that they lost their sense of humour so quickly, and made life unpleasant for themselves.
After his hour of reading he gave himself up to the work of the day.
He was the most methodical of men: the desk in his study was full of little drawers and contrivances for keeping things in order.
He had a thin vase of blue glass filled with flowers, a small Chinese image of green jade, a photograph of the Blind Homer from the Naples Museum in a silver frame, and a little gold clock; all these things had to be in their exactly correct positions.
Nothing worried him so much as dust or any kind of disorder.
He would sometimes stop in the middle of his work and cross the room, in the soft slippers of brown kid that he always wore in his study, and put some picture straight or move some ornament from one position to another.
The books that stretched along one wall from floor to ceiling were arranged most carefully according to their subjects.
He disliked to see some books projecting further from the shelf than others, and, with a little smile of protest, as though he were giving them a kindly scolding, he would push them into their right places.
Let it not be supposed, however, that he was idle during these hours.
He could accomplish an astonishing amount of work in a short time, and he was never idle except by deliberate intention.
When luncheon time arrived he was ready to be charming to his aunt, and charming to her he was.
Their relations were excellent.
She understood him so well that she left his schemes alone.
If she did not entirely approve of him--and she entirely approved of nobody--she loved him for his good company, his humour, and his common-sense.
She liked it too that he did not mind when she chose to allow her irony to play upon him.
He cared nothing for any irony.
At luncheon they felt a very agreeable intimacy.
There was no need for explanations; half allusions were enough.
They could enjoy their joke without emphasising it and sometimes even without expressing it.
Miss Ronder knew that her nephew liked to hear all the gossip.
He collected it, tied it into little packets, and put them away in the little mechanical contrivances with which his mind was filled.
She told him first what she heard, then her authorities, finally her own opinions.
He thoroughly enjoyed his meal.
He had, by now, very thoroughly mastered the Cathedral finances.
They were not complicated and were in good order, because Hart-Smith had been a man of an orderly mind.
Ronder very quickly discovered that Brandon had had his fingers considerably in the old pie.
"And now there'll be a new pie," he said to himself, "baked by me."
He traced a number of stupid and conservative decisions to Brandon's agency.
There was no doubt but that many things needed a new urgency and activity.
People had had to fight desperately for money when they should have been given it at once; on the other hand, the Cathedral had been well looked after--it was rather dependent bodies like the School, the Almshouses, and various livings in the Chapter grant that had suffered.
Anything that could possibly be considered a novelty had been fought and generally defeated.
"There will be a lot of novelties before I've finished with them," Ronder said to himself.
He started his investigations by paying calls on Bentinck-Major and Canon Foster.
Bentinck-Major lived at the top of Orange Street, in a fine house with a garden, and Foster lived in one of four tumble-down buildings behind the Cathedral, known from time immemorial as Canon's Yard.
The afternoon of his visit was about three days after a dinner-party at the Castle.
He had seen and heard enough at that dinner to amuse him for many a day; he considered it to have been one of the most entertaining dinners at which he had ever been present.
It had been here that he had heard for the first time of the Pybus St. Anthony living.
Brandon had been present, and he observed Brandon's nervousness, and gathered enough to realise that this would be a matter of considerable seriousness.
He was to know a great deal more about it before the afternoon was over.
As he walked through the town on the way to Orange Street he came upon Ryle, the Precentor.
Ryle looked the typical clergyman, tall but not too tall, here a smile and there a smile, with his soft black hat, his trousers too baggy at the knees, his boots and his gold watch-chain both too large.
He cared, with serious devotion, for the Cathedral music and sang the services beautifully, but he would have been able to give more time to his work were he not so continuously worrying as to whether people were vexed with him or no. His idea of Paradise was a place where he could chant eternal services and where everybody liked him.
He was a good man, but weak, and therefore driven again and again into insincerity.
It was as though there was for ever in front of him the consciousness of some secret in his past life that must on no account be discovered; but, poor man, he had no secret at all.
"Well, Precentor, and how are you?"
said Ronder, beaming at him over his spectacles.
Ryle started.
Ronder had come behind him.
He liked the look of Ronder.
He always preferred fat men to thin; they were much less malicious, he thought.
"Oh, thank you, Canon Ronder--very well, thank you.
I didn't see you.
Quite spring weather.
Are you going my way?"
"I'm off to see Bentinck-Major."
"Oh, yes, Bentinck-Major...."
Ryle's first thought was--"Now is Bentinck-Major likely to have anything to say against me this afternoon?"
"I'm going up Orange Street too.
It's the High School Governors' meeting, you know."
"Oh, yes, of course."
The two men started up the hill together.
Ronder surveyed the scene around him with pleasure.
Orange Street always satisfied his aesthetic sense.
It was the street of the doctors, the solicitors, the dentists, the bankers, and the wealthier old maids of Polchester.
The grey stone was of a charming age, the houses with their bow-windows, their pillared porches, their deep-set doors, their gleaming old-fashioned knockers, spoke eloquently of the day when the great Jane's Elizabeths and D'Arcys, Mrs. Morrises and Misses Bates found the world in a tea-cup, when passions were solved by matrimony and ambitions by the possession of a carriage and a fine pair of bays.
But more than this was the way that the gardens and lawns and orchards ran unchecked in and out, up and down, here breaking into the street, there crowding a church with apple-trees, seeming to speak, at every step, of leisure and sunny days and lives free of care.
Ronder had never seen anything so pretty; something seemed to tell him that he would never see anything so pretty again.
Ryle was not a good conversationalist, because he had always before him the fear that some one might twist what he said into something really unpleasant, but, indeed, he found Ronder so agreeable that, as he told Mrs. Ryle when he got home, he "never noticed the hill at all."
"I hope you won't think me impertinent," said Ronder, "but I must tell you how charmed I was with the way that you sang the service on Sunday.
You must have been complimented often enough before, but a stranger always has the right, I think, to say something.
I'm a little critical, too, of that kind of thing, although, of course, an amateur...
but--well, it was delightful."
Ryle flushed with pleasure to the very tips of his over-large ears.
"Oh, really, Canon...
But indeed I hardly know what to say.
You're too good.
I do my poor best, but I can't help feeling that there is danger of one's becoming stale.
I've been here a great many years now and I think some one fresh...."
"Well, often," said Ronder, "that _is_ a danger.
I know several cases where a change would be all for the better, but in your case there wasn't a trace of staleness.
I do hope you won't think me presumptuous in saying this.
I couldn't help myself.
I must congratulate you, too, on the choir.
How do you find Brockett as an organist?"
"Not quite all one would wish," said Ryle eagerly--and then, as though he remembered that some one might repeat this to Brockett, he added hurriedly, "Not that he doesn't do his best.
He's an excellent fellow.
Every one has their faults.
It's only that he's a _little_ too fond of adventures on his own account, likes to add things on the spur of the moment...
a little _fantastic_ sometimes."
"Quite so," said Ronder gravely.
"That's rather what I'd thought myself.
I noticed it once or twice last Sunday.
But that's a fault on the right side.
The boys behave admirably.
I never saw better behaviour."
Ryle was now in his element.
He let himself go, explaining this, defending that, apologising for one thing, hoping for another.
Before he knew where he was he found himself at the turning above the monument that led to the High School.
"Here we part," he said.
"Why, so we do," cried Ronder.
"I do hope," said Ryle nervously, "that you'll come and see us soon.
Mrs. Ryle will be delighted...."
"Why, of course I will," said Ronder.
"Any day you like.
Good-bye.
Good- bye," and he went to Bentinck-Major's. One look at Bentinck-Major's garden told a great deal about Bentinck- Major.
The flower-beds, the trim over-green lawn, the neat paths, the trees in their fitting places, all spoke not only of a belief in material things but a desire also to demonstrate that one so believed....
One expected indeed to see the Bentinck-Major arms over the front-door.
They were there in spirit if not in fact.
"Is the Canon in?"
Ronder asked of a small and gaping page-boy.
He was in, it appeared.
Would he see Canon Ronder?
The page-boy disappeared and Ronder was able to observe three family trees framed in oak, a large china bowl with visiting-cards, and a huge round-faced clock that, even as he waited there, pompously announced that half-hour.
Presently the Canon, like a shining Ganymede, came flying into the hall.
"My dear Ronder!
But this is delightful.
A little early for tea, perhaps.
Indeed, my wife is, for the moment, out.
What do you say to the library?"
Ronder had nothing to say against the library, and into it they went.
A
fine room with books in leather bindings, high windows, an oil painting of the Canon as a smart young curate, a magnificent writing-table, _The Spectator_ and _The Church Times_ near the fireplace, and two deep leather arm-chairs.
Into these last two the clergymen sank.
Bentinck-Major put his fingers together, crossed his admirable legs, and looked interrogatively at his visitor.
"I'm lucky to catch you at home," said Ronder.
"This isn't quite the time to call, I'm afraid.
But the fact is that I want some advice."
"Quite so," said his host.
"I'm not a very modest man," said Ronder, laughing.
"In fact, to tell you the truth, I don't believe very much in modesty.
But there _are_ times when it's just as well to admit one's incompetence.
This is one of them--" "Why, really, Canon," said Bentinck-Major, wishing to give the poor man encouragement.
"No, but I mean what I say.
I don't consider myself a stupid man, but when one comes fresh into a place like this there are many things that one _can't_ know, and that one must learn from some one wiser than oneself if one's to do any good."
"Oh, really, Canon," Bentinck-Major repeated.
"If there's anything I can do--".
"There is.
It isn't so much about the actual details of the work that I want your advice.
Hart-Smith has left things in excellent condition, and I only hope that I shall be able to keep everything as straight as he has done.
What I really want from you is some sort of bird's-eye view as to the whole situation.
The Chapter, for instance.
Of course, I've been here for some months now and have a little idea as to the people in the place, but you've been here so long that there are many things that you can tell me."
"Now, for instance," said Bentinck-Major, looking very wise and serious.
"What kind of things?"
"I don't want you to tell me any secrets," said Ronder.
"I only want your opinion, as a man of the world, as to how things stand--what really wants doing, who, Beside yourself, are the leading men here and in what directions they work.
I needn't say that this conversation is confidential."
"Oh, of course, of course."
"Now, I don't know if I'm wrong, but it seems from what I've seen during the short time that I've been here that the general point of view is inclined to be a little too local.
I believe you rather feel that yourself, although I may be prejudiced, coming straight as I have from London."
"It's odd that you should mention that, Canon," said Bentinck-Major.
"You've put your finger on the weak spot at once.
You're only saying what I've been crying aloud for the last ever so many years.
A voice in the wilderness I've been, I'm afraid--a voice in the wilderness, although perhaps I _have_ managed to do a little something.
But there's no doubt that the men here, excellent though they are, are a _little_ provincial.
What else can you expect?
They've been here for years.
They have not had, most of them, the advantage of mingling with the great world.
That I should have had a little more of that opportunity than my fellows here is nothing to my credit, but it does, beyond question, give one a wider view --a wider view.
There's our dear Bishop for instance--a saint, if ever there was one.
A saint, Ronder, I assure you.
But there he is, hidden away at Carpledon--out of things, I'm afraid, although of course he does his best.
Then there's Sampson.
Well, I hardly need to tell you that he's not quite the man to make things hum.
_Not_ by his own fault I assure you.
He does his best, but we are as we're made...
yes.
We can only use the gifts that God has given us, and God has not, undoubtedly, given the Dean _quite_ the gifts that we need here."
He paused and waited.
He was a cautious man and weighed his words.
"Then there's Brandon," said Ronder smiling.
"There, if I may say so, is a splendid character, a man who gives his whole life and energy for the good of the place--who spares himself nothing."
There was a little pause.
Bentinck-Major took advantage of it to look graver than ever.
"He strikes you like that, does he?"
he said at last.
"Well, in many ways I think you're right.
Brandon is a good friend of mine--I may say that he thoroughly appreciates what I've done for this place.
But he is-- _quite_ between ourselves--how shall I put it?
--just a _little_ autocratic.
Perhaps that's too strong a word, but he _is_, some think, a little too inclined to fancy that he runs the Cathedral!
That, mind you, is only the opinion of some here, and I don't know that I should entirely associate myself with it, but perhaps there is _something_ in it.
He is, as you can see, a man of strong will and, again between ourselves, of a considerable temper.
This will not, I'm sure, go further than ourselves?"
"Absolutely not," said Ronder.
"Things have been a little slack here for several years, and although I've done my own little best, what is one against so many, if you understand what I mean?"
"Quite," said Ronder.
"Well, nobody could call Brandon an unenergetic man--quite the reverse.
And, to put it frankly, to oppose him one needs courage.
Now I may say that I've opposed him on a number of occasions but have had no backing.
Brandon, when he's angry, is no light opponent, and the result has been that he's had, I'm afraid, a great deal of his own way."
"You're afraid?"
said Ronder.
Bentinck-Major seemed a little nervous at being caught up so quickly.
He looked at Ronder suspiciously.
His voice was sharper than it had been.
"Oh, I like Brandon--don't make any mistake about that.
He and I together have done some excellent things here.
In many ways he's admirable.
I don't know what I'd have done sometimes without his backing.
All I mean is that he is perhaps a little hasty sometimes."
"Quite," said Ronder.
"I can't tell you how you've helped me by what you've told me.
I'm sure you're right in everything you've said.
If you were to give me a tip then, you'd say that I couldn't do better than follow Brandon.
I'll remember that."
"Well, no," said Bentinck-Major rather hastily.
"I don't know that I'd quite say that either.
Brandon is often wrong.
I'm not sure either that he has quite the influence he had.
That silly little incident of the elephant the other day--you heard that, didn't you?
--well, a trivial thing, but one saw by the way that the town took it that the Archdeacon isn't _quite_ where he was.
I agree with him entirely in his policy--to keep things as they always have been.
That's the only way to save our Church, in my opinion.
As soon as they tell me an idea's new, that's enough for me...
I'm down on it at once.
But what I _do_ think is that his diplomacy is often faulty.
He rushes at things like a bull-- exactly like a bull.
A little too confident always.
No, if you won't think me conceited--and I believe I'm a modest man--you couldn't do better than come to me--talk things over with me, you know.
I'm sure we'll see alike about many things."
"I'm sure we will," said Ronder.
"Thank you very much.
As you've been so kind I'm sure you won't mind my asking you a few questions.
I hope I'm not keeping you from anything."
"Not at all.
Not at all," said Bentinck-Major very graciously, and stretching his plump little body back into the arm-chair.
"Ask as many questions as you like and I'll do my best to answer them."
Ronder did then, during the next half-hour, ask a great many questions, and he received a great many answers.
The answers may not have told him overmuch about the things that he wanted to know, but they did tell him a great deal about Bentinck-Major.
The clock struck four.
Ronder got up.
"You don't know how you've helped me," he said.
"You've told me exactly what I wanted to know.
Thank you so very much."
Bentinck-Major looked gratified.
He had, in fact, thoroughly enjoyed himself.
