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."