I must have been thirteen or fourteen years of age--it may have been indeed in this very year '97--when I first read Stevenson's story of Treasure Island. It is the fashion, I believe, now with the Clever Solemn Ones to despise Stevenson as a writer of romantic Tushery,

All the same, if it's realism they want I'm still waiting to see something more realistic than Pew or Long John Silver. Realism may depend as truly on a blind man's tap with his stick upon the ground as on any number of adulteries.

In those young years, thank God, I knew nothing about realism and read the tale for what it was worth. And it was worth three hundred bags of gold. Now, on looking back, it seems to me that the spirit that overtook our town just at this time was very like the spirit that seized upon Dr. Livesey, young Hawkins and the rest when they discovered the dead Buccaneer's map. This is no forced parallel. It was with a real sense of adventure that the Whispering began about the Brandons and Ronder and the Pybus St. Anthony living and the rest of it. Where did the Whispering start? Who can ever tell?

Our Polchester Whispering was carried on and fostered very largely by our servants. As in every village and town in Glebeshire, the intermarrying that had been going on for generations was astonishing. Every servant- maid, every errand-boy, every gardener and coachman in Polchester was cousin, brother or sister to every other servant-maid, errand-boy, gardener and coachman. They made, these people, a perfect net about our town.

The things that they carried from house to house, however, were never the actual things; they were simply the material from which the actual things were made. Nor was the construction of the actual tale positively malicious; it was only that our eyes were caught by the drama of life and we could not help but exclaim with little gasps and cries at the wonderful excitement of the history that we saw. Our treasure-hunting was simply for the fun of the thrill of the chase, not at all that we wished harm to a soul in the world. If, on occasion, a slight hint of maliciousness did find its place with us, it was only because in this insecure world it is delightful to reaffirm our own security as we watch our neighbours topple over. We do not wish them to "topple," but if somebody has got to fall we would rather it were not ourselves.

Brandon had been for so long so remarkable a figure in our world that the slightest stir of the colours in his picture was immediately noticeable. From the moment of Falk's return from Oxford it was expected that something "would happen."

It often occurs that a situation between a number of people is vague and indefinite, until a certain moment, often quite undramatic and negative in itself, arrives, when the situation suddenly fixes itself and stands forward, set full square to the world, as a definite concrete fact. There was a certain Sunday in the April of this year that became for the Archdeacon and a number of other people such a definite crisis--and yet it might quite reasonably have been said at the end of it that nothing very much had occurred.

Everything seemed to happen in Polchester on Sundays. For one thing more talking was done on Sunday than on all the other days of the week together. Then the Cathedral itself came into its full glory on that day. Every one gathered there, every one talked to every one else before parting, and the long spaces and silences and pauses of the day allowed the comments and the questions and the surmises to grow and swell and distend into gigantic images before night took every one and stretched them upon their backs to dream.

What the Archdeacon liked was an "off" Sunday, when he had nothing to do save to walk majestically into his place in the choir stall, to read, perhaps, a Lesson, to talk gravely to people who came to have tea with him after the Sunday Evensong, to reflect lazily, after Sunday supper, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a pipe in his mouth, upon the goodness and happiness and splendour of the Cathedral and the world and his own place in it. Such a Sunday was a perfect thing--and such a Sunday April 18 ought to have been...alas! it was not so.

It began very early, somewhere about seven in the morning, with a horrible incident. The rule on Sundays was that the maid knocked at half-past six on the door and gave the Archdeacon and his wife their tea. The Archdeacon lay luxuriously drinking it until exactly a quarter to seven, then he sprang out of bed, had his cold bath, performed his exercises, and shaved in his little dressing-room. At about a quarter past seven, nearly dressed, he returned into the bedroom, to find Mrs. Brandon also nearly dressed. On this particular day while he drank his tea his wife appeared to be sleeping; that did not make him bound out of bed any the less noisily-after twenty years of married life you do not worry about such things; moreover it was quite time that his wife bestirred herself. At a quarter past seven he came into the bedroom in his shirt and trousers, humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers." It was a fine spring morning, so he flung up the window and looked out into the Precinct, fresh and dewy in the morning sun, silent save for the inquisitive reiteration of an early jackdaw. Then he turned back, and, to his amazement, saw that his wife was lying, her eyes wide open, staring in front of her.

"My dear!" he cried. "Aren't you well?"

"I'm perfectly well," she answered him, her eyes maintaining their fixed stare. The tone in which she said these words was quite new--it was not submissive, it was not defensive, it was indifferent.

She must be ill. He came close to the bed.

"Do you realise the time?" he asked. "Twenty minutes past seven. I'm sure you don't want to keep me waiting."

She didn't answer him. Certainly she must be ill. There was something strange about her eyes.

"You must be ill," he repeated. "You look ill. Why didn't you say so? Have you got a headache?"

"I'm not ill. I haven't got a headache, and I'm not coming to Early Service."

"You're not ill, and you're not coming..." he stammered in his amazement. "You've forgotten. There isn't late Celebration."

She gave him no answer, but turned on her side, closing her eyes.

He came right up to the bed, frowning down upon her.

"Amy--what does this mean? You're not ill, and yet you're not coming to Celebration? Why? I insist upon an answer."

She said nothing.

He felt that anger, of which he had tried now for many years to beware, flooding his throat.

With tremendous self-control he said quietly: "What is the matter with you, Amy? You must tell me at once."

She did not open her eyes but said in a voice so low that he scarcely caught the words:

"There is nothing the matter. I am not ill, and I'm not coming to Early Service."

"Why?"

"Because I don't wish to go."

For a moment he thought that he was going to bend down and lift her bodily out of bed. His limbs felt as though they were prepared for such an action.

But to his own surprised amazement he did nothing, he said nothing. He looked at the bed, at the hollow where his head had been, at her head with her black hair scattered on the pillow, at her closed eyes, then he went away into his dressing-room. When he had finished dressing he came back into the bedroom, looked across at her, motionless, her eyes still closed, lying on her side, felt the silence of the room, the house, the Precincts broken only by the impertinent jackdaw.

He went downstairs.

Throughout the Early Celebration he remained in a condition of amazed bewilderment. From his position just above the altar-rails he could see very clearly the Bishop's Tomb; the morning sun reflected in purple colours from the East window played upon its blue stone. It caught the green ring and flashed splashes of fire from its heart. His mind went back to that day, not so very long ago, when, with triumphant happiness, he had seemed to share in the Bishop's spirit, to be dust of his dust, and bone of his bone. That had been the very day, he remembered, of Falk's return from Oxford. Since that day everything had gone wrong for him--Falk, the Elephant, Ronder, Foster, the Chapter. And now his wife! Never in all the years of his married life had she spoken to him as she had done that morning. She must be on the edge of a serious illness, a very serious illness. Strangely a new concern for her, a concern that he had never felt in his life before, arose in his heart. Poor Amy--and how tiresome if she were ill, the house all at sixes and sevens! With a shock he realised that his mind was not devotional. He swung himself back to the service, looking down benevolently upon the two rows of people waiting patiently to come in their turn to the altar steps.

At breakfast, however, there Mrs. Brandon was, looking quite her usual self, in the Sunday dress of grey silk, making the tea, quiet as she always was, answering questions submissively, patiently, "as the wife of an Archdeacon should." He tried to show her by his manner that he had been deeply shocked, but, unfortunately, he had been shocked, annoyed, indignant on so many occasions when there had been no real need for it, that to-day, when there was the occasion, he felt that he made no impression.

The bells pealed for morning service, the sun shone; as half-past ten approached, little groups of people crossed the Precincts and vanished into the mouth of the great West door. Now were Lawrence and Cobbett in their true glory--Lawrence was in his fine purple robe, the Sunday silk one. He stood at the far end of the nave, just under the choir-screen, waiting for the aristocracy, for whom the front seats were guarded with cords which only he might untie. How deeply pleased he was when some unfortunate stranger, ignorant in the ways of the Cathedral, walked, with startling clatter, up the whole length of the shining nave and endeavoured to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically--staff in hand, he came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back, clatter, clatter, blushing and confused, the stranger retreated, watched, as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells slipped from their jangling peal into a solemn single note. The Mere People were in their places at the back of the nave, the Great Ones leaving their entrance until the very last moment. There was a light in the organ-loft; very softly Brockett began his voluntary--clatter, clatter, clatter, and the School arrived, the small boys, swallowed by their Eton collars, first, filing into their places to the right of the screen, then the middle boys, a little indifferent and careless, then the Fifth and Sixth in their "stick-up" collars, haughty and indifferent indeed.

Dimly, on the other side of the screen, the School boys in their surplices could be seen settling into their places between the choir and the altar.

A rustling of skirts, and the aristocracy entered in ones and twos from the side doors that opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them--for a very few--Lawrence had his confidential smile. For Mrs. Sampson, for instance--for Mrs. Combermere, for Mrs. Ryle and Mrs. Brandon.

A very special one for Mrs. Brandon because of his high opinion of her husband. She was nothing very much--"a mean little woman," he thought her --but the Archdeacon had married her. That was enough.

Joan was with her, conscious that every one must be noticing her—the D'Arcy girls and Cynthia Ryle and Gladys Sampson, they would all be looking and criticising. Hustle, rustle, rustle--here was an event indeed! Lady St. Leath was come, and with her in attendance Johnny and Hetty. Lawrence hurried forward, disregarding Mrs. Brandon, who was compelled to undo her cord for herself. He led Lady St. Leath forward with a ceremony, a dignity, that was marvellous to see. She moved behind him as though she owned the Cathedral, or rather could have owned it had she thought it worth her while. All the little boys in the Upper Third and Lower Fourth turned their necks in their Eton collars and watched. What a bonnet she was wearing! All the colours of the rainbow, odd, indeed, perched there on the top of her untidy white hair!

Every one settled down; the voluntary was louder, the single note of the bell suddenly more urgent. Ladies looked about them. Ellen Stiles saw Miss Dobell--smile, smile. Joan saw Cynthia Ryle--smile, smile. Lawrence, with the expression of the Angel Gabriel waiting to admit into heaven a new troop of repentant sinners, stood expectant. The sun filtered in dusty ladders of coloured light and fell in squares upon the empty spaces of the nave.

The bell suddenly ceased, a long melodious and melancholy "Amen" came from somewhere far away in the purple shadow. Every one moved; a noise like a little uncertain breeze blew through the Cathedral as the congregation rose; then the choir filed through, the boys, the men, the Precentor, old Canon Morphew and older Canon Batholomew, Canon Rogers, his face bitter and discontented, Canon Foster, Bentinck-Major, last of all, Archdeacon Brandon. They had filed into their places in the choir, they were kneeling, the Precentor's voice rang out....

The familiar sound of Canon Ryle's voice recalled Mrs. Brandon to time and place. She was kneeling, her gloved hands pressed close to her face. She was looking into thick dense darkness, a darkness penetrated with the strong scent of Russia leather and the faint musty smell that always seemed to rise from the Cathedral hassocks and the woodwork upon which she leant. Until Ryle's voice roused her she had been swimming in space and eternity; behind her, like a little boat bobbing distressfully in her track, was the scene of that early morning with which that day had opened. She saw herself, as it were, the body of some quite other woman, lying in that so familiar bedroom and saying "No"--saying it again and again and again. "No. No. No."

Why had she said "No," and was it not in reality another woman who had said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way. There had been no storm. She shivered a little behind her gloves.

"Dearly beloved brethren," began the Precentor, pleading, impersonal.

Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the precipitances of jagged black rock. It was "jagged black rock" over which she was now peering.

The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said: "Here's the ball. Catch. Oh, you are slow!"

In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon's consciousness two voices were shouting at one another.

One cried: "See what she's in for, the foolish woman! She's not up to it. It will finish her."

And the other answered: "Well, she is in for it! So it's no use warning her any longer. She wants it. She's going to have it."

And the first repeated: "It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!"

And the second replied: "No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!"

Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart's most elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and little shivers of apprehension, she fought a poor little battle.

"We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord...."

"The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee...." A boy's voice rose, "Thou did'st not abhor the Virgin's womb...."

Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She had Falk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it wasn't fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her!

Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of the "Te Deum" rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who that fine-looking man was. They craned their necks into the aisle. And he did look fine, his head up, his shoulders back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and God's.

The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her bed in his shirt and trousers. That movement that he had made as though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.

She closed her eyes. His fine rich voice came to her from a long way off. Let him boom as loudly as he pleased, he could not touch her any more. She had escaped, and for ever. She saw, then, Morris as she had seen him at that tea-party months ago. She recovered that strange sense that she had had (and that he had had too, as she knew) of being carried out right away from one's body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was hungry, starving for it. She must see him often, continually. She must be able to look at him, touch the sleeve of his coat, hear his voice. She must be able to do things for him, little simple things that no one else could do. She wanted no more than that. Only to be near to him and to see that he was cared for...looked after. Surely that was not wrong. No one could say....

Little shivers ran continually about her body, and her hands, clenched tightly, were damp within her gloves.

The Precentor gave out the words of the Anthem, "Little children, love one another."

Every one rose--save Lady St. Leath, who settled herself magnificently in her seat and looked about her as though she challenged anybody to tell her that she was wrong to do so.

Yes, that was all Amy Brandon wanted. Who could say that she was wrong to want it? The little battle was concluded.

Old Canon Foster was preaching to-day. Always at the conclusion of the Anthem certain ruffians, visitors, tourists, clattered out. No sermon for them. They did not matter very greatly because they were far away at the back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster's preaching days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting because their seats were prominent ones and their dresses were of silk. Often Lady St. Leath was one of these, but to-day she was sunk into a kind of stupor and did not move. Mrs. Combermere, Ellen Stiles and Mrs. Sampson were the guilty ones.

Rustle of their dresses, the heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, "Let us pray."

Out in the grey Cloisters it was charming. The mild April sun flooded the square of grass that lay in the middle of the thick rounded pillars like a floor of bright green glass.

The ladies stood for a moment looking out into the sunny silence. The Cathedral was hushed behind them; Ellen Stiles was looking very gay and very hideous in a large hat stifled with flowers, set sideways on her head, and a bright purple silk dress pulled in tightly at the waist, rising to high puffed shoulders. Her figure was not suited to the fashion of the day.

Mrs. Sampson explained that she was suffering from one of the worst of her nervous headaches and that she could not have endured the service another moment. Miss Stiles was all eager solicitude.

"I am so sorry. I know how you are when you get one of those things. Nothing does it any good, does it? I know you've tried everything, and it simply goes on for days and days, getting worse and worse. And the really terrible part of them is that, with you, they seem to be constitutional. No doctors can do anything--when they're constitutional. There you are for the rest of your days!"

Mrs. Sampson gave a little shiver.

"I must say, Dr. Puddifoot seems to be very little use," she moaned.

"Oh! Puddifoot!" Miss Stiles was contemptuous. "He's past his work. That's one comfort about this place. If any one's ill he dies. No false hopes. At least, we know where we are."

They walked through the Martyr's Passage out into the full sunlight of the Precincts.

"What a jolly day!" said Mrs. Combermere, "I shall take my dogs for a walk. By the way, Ellen," she turned round to her friend, "how did Miss Burnett's tea-party go? I haven't seen you since."

"Oh, it was too funny!" Miss Stiles giggled. "You never saw such a mixture, and I don't think Miss Burnett knew who any one was. Not that she had much time to think, poor dear, she was so worried with the tea. Such a maid as she had you never saw!"

"A mixture?" asked Mrs. Combermere. "Who were they?"

"Oh, Canon Ronder and Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Brandon and--Oh, yes! actually Falk Brandon!"

"Falk Brandon there?"

"Yes, wasn't it the strangest thing. I shouldn't have thought he'd have had time--However, you told me not to, so I won't--"

"Who did you talk to?"

"I talked to Miss Burnett most of the time. I tried to cheer her up. No one else paid the least attention to her."

"She's a very stupid person, it seems to me," Mrs. Sampson murmured. "But of course I know her very slightly."

"Stupid!" Miss Stiles laughed. "Why, she hasn't an idea in her head. I don't believe that she knows it's Jubilee Year. Positively!"

A little wind blew sportively around Miss Stiles' large hat. They all moved forward.

"The funny thing was--" Miss Stiles paused and looked apprehensively at Mrs. Combermere. "I know you don't like scandal, but of course this isn't scandal--there's nothing in it--"

"Come on, Ellen. Out with it," said Mrs. Combermere.

"Well, Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris. I caught the oddest look between them."

"Look! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Combermere sharply. Mrs. Sampson stood still, her mouth a little open, forgetting her neuralgia.

"Of course it was nothing. All the same, they were standing at the window saying something, looking at one another, well, positively as though they had known one another intimately for years. I assure you--"

Mrs. Combermere turned upon her. "Of all the nasty minds in this town, Ellen, you have the nastiest. I've told you so before. People can't even look at one another now. Why, you might as well say that I'd been gazing at your Ronder when he came to tea the other day."

"Perhaps I shall," said Miss Stiles, laughing. "It would be a delightful story to spread. Seriously, why not make a match of it? You'd just suit one another."

"Once is enough for me in a life-time," said Mrs. Combermere grimly. "Now, Ellen, come along. No more mischief. Leave poor little Morris alone."

"Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris!" repeated Mrs. Sampson, her eyes wide open. "Well, I do declare."

The ladies separated, and the Precincts was abandoned for a time to its beautiful Sunday peace and calm.

Chapter III