Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (397 page)

CHAPTER VII.

MR. SORRELL, walking now somewhat gingerly on the warm turf and descending into the valley which lower down appeared much more full of trees, perceived a living being approaching him with singular speed. It resembled a crocodile. It resembled a snake; it was brown and earthy; it filled him at once with repulsion and with dislike for the fact that he was so scantily clothed. For, immediately afterwards, he perceived that it had the face of a very dirty man. scuttling towards him at a great speed and on all fours, Upon its knees and its elbows it had things like the clogs that women use when they are hanging out washing in wet weather, and in one of its hands, which were disengaged because it used its elbows instead of feet, it held a large earthenware dish with a metal lid. It came quite close to him; it placed itself before him; it snapped the lid of the dish with loud sounds, and uttered words of which Mr. Sorrell could not make head or tail. He imagined that this must be some kind of beggar, but he could not make out how it put its clothes on. Its clothes were made up of bundles of rags, of wisps of dried grass, of straw bands; and all these things seemed to be tied around its body with old cords. It filled Mr. Sorrell with an indescribable loathing. It had always been one of his principles never to relieve beggars, and he had always considered that beggars ought to be reasonably clean. He did not, that is to say, object to a man looking like a clerk out of work and standing offering matches for sale just off the kerb-stone in Regent Street. But this creature was grotesque, lamentable, mournful, and moving. It was like a disagreeably conceived picture executed with fantastic skill, and it seemed to bring poverty much too close to Mr. Sorrell. He exclaimed in a sort of gusty panic:

“Go away, go away! No, no! I’ve no change on me. If you don’t go away I shall report you to the police.”

He walked round the beggar and onwards down the path. The beggar pursued him slowly on all fours, uttering mournful sounds, so that Mr. Sorrell felt as if he were being followed by an objectionable and very dirty dog. Very shortly afterwards, coming round an angle of the Down he saw a large, square, stone enclosure which he took to be a workhouse, for it had an unfinished chapel in one corner. Behind this, placed on a great mound resembling a pudding-basin in shape, there rose up an enormous grey, stone, very square castle.

“I shouldn’t have thought,” Mr. Sorrell said to himself, “that they would have been allowed to put the workhouse so near the castle.”

And it struck him as very odd that round this castle there was no park at all. It stood upon its green knoll, with the bottom lines of the walls going straight along the grass. It was quite square, with battlements all round the top, at a height of perhaps a hundred feet. In one corner was a watch-tower, upon whose top Mr. Sorrell could discern quite plainly the figure of a man and the heads of several women. He stopped still to reflect before he got any nearer. He wondered what castle this could be? It was very big, it was very complete, it was obviously inhabited, he thought that he really ought to have known its name. There could not be very many such edifices in England of that date. It was very nearly as big and quite as spick-and-span as Windsor itself.

Mr. Sorrell observed things rather slowly, and one after the other he saw, firstly, a very large cross in front of the workhouse, and then a number of hovels with mud walls and roofs of thick reed thatching. They were scattered here and there amongst trees that ran down to the stream. Then he perceived a grey stone bridge with what he took to be a toll-keeper’s house in the centre of it. Yet it had pointed windows and a large gilt cross on the gable. And then, as his eyes travelled along the valley, he perceived at a distance of perhaps four miles the great towers of another castle.

“By Jove! this is a rum show!” Mr. Sorrell said to himself; “here are two large castles in one little valley. This must be a regular show district.”

And it came into his head that this might very well be exploited commercially. You might run excursions down or start a series of guides to Undiscovered Beauty Spots. And he thought that when he got back to town he would set Mr. Pudden, a hack writer who wrote, popular memoirs for him, to look up the less well-known castles of England, and see what could be done with them. There was almost certainly money in it. But his immediate condition was brought back to him by the fact that the beggar had scuttled from behind his back and was making for the buildings. Mr. Sorrell realised that he was confronted by a castle and by a workhouse. He would certainly have to knock at the door of one or the other. The castle probably contained a motor car; almost certainly it would have two or three, and he very much wanted a motor-car. No doubt if he revealed his identity and the pressing needs of his business, they would lend him a car and run him up to town. On the other hand, he did not wish that, in that guise, his identity should be known. It would cause him to be chaffed for the rest of his life. His fellow publishers could be very nasty, and none of them, he was aware, really liked him. He had better knock at the workhouse door.

But if he did that it would mean delay. He was not certain that he would not be taken into the casual ward and asked to break stones. He stood still rubbing his naked foot upon his naked shin and cursing beneath his breath. He could not see, anyhow, how he was to get out of being a figure of fun for the rest of his life. It would horribly damage him in business. He would not be able to take things with a high hand any more when fellows were laughing at him behind his back. And with a sudden tempestuous vigour he cursed the authorities of the Salisbury Hospital who had let him escape when he must have been mad.

The gate of the workhouse fell back; there came out a white figure carrying on high a crucifix. Then there were several little boys in white, swinging brass censers with brass chains. Some workmen ran out of the adjoining fields, and some women in grey dresses. There came out from the convent a man in purple vestments, and behind him two more in white linen surplices that shook in the breeze. And after that the nuns — a great number of nuns, two and two, in black habits with coifs waving like swans’ wings. The sound of singing came to him, melodious and triumphant.

“God bless my soul!” Mr. Sorrell said, “I thought religious processions were forbidden by law!”

And he remembered very strongly now that when the Roman Catholics had attempted to carry the Sacrament through the streets of London, there had been a great outcry some years before, and the thing was stopped — quite rightly, as he thought. He must be upon the territory of the Duke of Norfolk, and the castle must be one of the many castles of His Grace, whom Mr. Sorrell had once met at a dinner of the Publishers’, Booksellers’, and Newsvendors’ Association. Thinking himself at a moderately safe distance, Mr. Sorrell remained still, and watched whilst the procession came slowly towards him. He imagined that they would be going to walk slowly round the large cross. And again the idea came into his head that they must be practising for a large pageant. Perhaps the whole county of Wiltshire was going to be engaged in it. They certainly could not find a more picturesque place; but, on the other hand, what in the world was the connection between a pageant and a workhouse?

In any case, his road towards either this castle or the workhouse was barred for the moment. He certainly was not going to walk through all that crowd. Men from the fields were turning up one by one, and, as the end of the procession left the gate, belated nuns came running out after it by ones and twos to take their station in its ranks. They had not, Mr. Sorrell thought, managed the organising very well, and very shortly afterwards he noticed that oddly-dressed figures were coming by ones and twos from the gate of the castle, an enormous arch between two high square towers. And then he realised that the procession was making straight towards him, the confounded beggar scuttling along on his elbows and knees as if to show them the way. Mr. Sorrell wanted to turn back and run along the path by which he had descended into the valley — but he felt hopelessly tired. He could not face the ascent. On the other hand, just behind him there were some high mounds of gorse. If he slipped behind these and knelt down he would be fairly out of sight till they had passed. He found a nearly circular hollow. It had the disadvantage that the spines of the gorse pricked him through his nightshirt, but when he knelt down he was certainly quite hidden from view. He could not any longer see the procession, but he supposed he would be able to hear it when it went past. He knelt, therefore, in some tranquillity. The sun poured its warm rays down into the motionless air; great bees buzzed sleepily above his head. The sound of the singing died away, and in his intense weariness Mr. Sorrell dropped asleep.

He was always very dizzy and stupid upon awakening, so that when he was gently shaken he had not the least idea where he was. Then he saw the dirty face of the beggar peering at him through the bushes, whilst an old man in priest’s robes was gently shaking his shoulder, and trying to remove from his finger the ring of the Egerton cross.

Mr. Sorrell started to his feet and recoiled. The spines of the gorse bushes ran very sharply into his back.

“Look here,” he said, “for goodness’ sake give me something to put on.”

For, standing up, he perceived that all round the little ring of bushes were nuns, priests, thurifers, and a small crowd of rather dirty people in rather dirty fancy dress. The priest shook his head as if he did not very well understand Mr. Sorrell, and once more he extended his hand towards the cross.

“Oh no! I can’t let that go out of my keeping,” Mr. Sorrell said; “it isn’t my property. I believe it is immensely valuable.”

But when he placed the hand with the cross behind his back, the old priest grasped his other wrist, and said “Come!” in French.

“But I’m not coming,” Mr. Sorrell ejaculated. “I can’t come like this before all these women.”

The old priest gently forged ahead, pulling Mr. Sorrell after him, and Mr. Sorrell’s bare feet made resistance an impracticable affair. Besides, he thought that it only rendered the episode all the more ridiculous. And it flashed into his head that they must think that that was his fancy costume, and that he had been coming to take part in the pageant. Perhaps they had mistaken him for someone else who had not turned up.

“But I’m hanged,” Mr. Sorrell said, “if I should have come walking in this costume, even if I’d had to wear it in the pageant. I’d have come in a motor, jolly well wrapped up.”

And then once more a new flash of inspiration came to him. They must be acting the legend of the Greek Slave, the simple, faithful soul who had brought the cross to Tamworth. For all he knew, that was Tamworth Castle just in front of him, and, indeed, what could be more appropriate than they should there act that simple and touching story?

“By Jove!” he said to himself, “what will the other chap think if he turns up?”

But in spite of this comparatively rational explanation, Mr. Sorrell, when he came out from the shelter of the bushes, could not help a feeling of abashment. He was surrounded by nuns; they called out with expressions of delight. He heard words like “Glory, glory!” They raised their hands on high ecstatically, and one and another of them tried to take the cross from him. But he was not going to let it go. They might be quite respectable people in the show, but they seemed to be nearly all foreigners, and in the large crowd that they had got to act, there must be some members of the lower classes.

Then the other priest in his vestments shouldered his way unceremoniously through the women. He was a beetle-browed, dark man. He took hold of the cross with no faltering grasp.

“Look here,” Mr. Sorrell said, “if you think I am the chap that’s acting in this pageant you’re mistaken,” and he pulled the cross sharply from the priest. “This is not an imitation thing, and I’m not going to let it out of my keeping.”

The priest said some harsh words in a French dialect.

“Puisque je vous dis que je ne la rendrai pas!” Mr. Sorrell exclaimed.

The priest appeared to consider. Then he shrugged his shoulders. He turned round and addressed some angry words to the nuns. They began to fall into ranks again. The procession was re-forming itself. The priest appeared to be a very impatient and dictatorial creature. He struck a knock-kneed and palsied old man who got in his way such a blow behind the ear that he fell down into the bushes. He wore an odd sort of cape, with an old hood that went down like a funnel far below his twisted leather belt. This, however, did not divert any of the glances from Mr. Sorrell. The procession had formed itself, the nuns stretching out in a long double file. The old priest elevated the cross, the two thurifers held their censers ready, and the priest in vestments motioned with his hand for Mr. Sorrell to stand behind them.

“I am not really the chap who belongs to this show,” Mr. Sorrell said.