The Cathedral: A Novel

by Hugh Walpole

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.