The Cathedral. Hugh Walpole
Joan had never before been asked by any young man to meet him again. She had told herself that this was nothing but the merest, most obvious politeness; nevertheless the look that he had given her remained.
Now, as she saw him advancing towards her, there was the thought, was it not on that very morning that her new courage and self-confidence had come to her? The thought was so absurd that she flung it at Miss Milton. But the blush remained.
Johnny was an ungainly young man, with a red face, freckles, a large mouth, and a bull-terrier--a conventional British type, I suppose, saved, nevertheless, from conventionality by his affection for his three plain sisters, his determination to see things as they were, and his sense of humour, the last of these something quite his own, and always appearing in unexpected places. The bull-terrier, in spite of the notice on the Library door that no dogs were admitted, advanced breathlessly and dribbling with excitement for Miss Milton's large black felt slippers.
"Here, Andrew, old man. Heel! Heel!" said Johnny. Andrew, however, quite naturally concluded that this was only an approval of his intentions, and there might have followed an awkward scene had his master not caught him by the collar and held him suspended in mid-air, to his own indignant surprise and astonishment.
Joan laughed, and Miss Milton, quivering between indignation, fear and snobbery, dropped the stocking that she was knitting.
Andrew burst from his master's clutches, rushed the stocking into the farthest recesses of the Library, and proceeded there to enjoy it.
Johnny apologised.
"Oh, it's quite all right, Lord St. Leath," said Miss Milton. "What a fine animal!"
"Yes, he is," said Johnny, rescuing the stocking. "He's as strong as Lucifer. Here, Andrew, you devil, I'll break every bone in your body."
During this little scene Johnny had smiled at Joan, and in so pleasant a way that she was compelled to smile back at him.
"How do you do, Miss Brandon?" He had recalled Andrew now, and the dog was slobbering happily at his feet. "Jolly day, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Joan, and stood there awkwardly, feeling that she ought to go but not knowing quite how to do so. He also seemed embarrassed, and turned abruptly to Miss Milton.
"I say, look here. … Mother asked me to come in and get that book you promised her. What's the name of the thing? … I've got it written down."
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a bit of paper.
"Here it is. Sentimental Tommy, by a man called Barrie. Silly name, but mother's always reading the most awful stuff."
Joan turned towards Miss Milton.
"How funny!" she said. "That's the book I've just been asking for. It's out."
Miss Milton's face was a curious purple.
"Well, that's odd," said Johnny. "Mother told me that you'd sent her a line to say it was in whenever she sent for it."
"It's been out three months," said Joan, staring now straight into Miss Milton's angry eyes.
"I've been keeping … " said Miss Milton. "That is, there's a special copy. … Lady St. Leath specially asked----"
"Is it in, or isn't it?" asked Johnny.
"There is a copy, Lord St. Leath----" With confused fingers Miss Milton searched in a drawer. She produced the book.
"You told me," said Joan, forgetting now in her anger St. Leath and all the world, "that there wouldn't he a copy for weeks. If you'd told me you were keeping one for St. Leath, that would have been different. You shouldn't have told me a lie."
"Do you mean to say," said Johnny, opening his eyes very widely indeed, "that you refused this copy to Miss Brandon?"
"Certainly," said Miss Milton, breathing very hard as though she had been running a long distance. "I was keeping it for your mother."
"Well, I'm damned," said Johnny. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brandon, … but I never heard such a thing. Does my mother pay a larger subscription than other people?"
"Certainly not."
"Then what right had you to tell Miss Brandon a lie?"
Miss Milton, in spite of long training in the kind of warfare attaching, of necessity, to Circulating Libraries, was very near to tears--also murder. She would have been delighted to pierce Joan's heart with a bright stiletto, had such a weapon been handy. She saw the softest, easiest, idlest job in the world slipping out of her fingers; she saw herself, a desolate and haggard virgin, begging her bread on the Polchester streets. She saw … but never mind her visions. They were terrible ones. She had recourse to her only defence.
"If I have misunderstood my duty," she said in a trembling voice, "there is the Library Committee."
"Oh, never mind," said Joan whose anger had disappeared. "It doesn't matter a bit. We'll have the book after Lady St. Leath."
"Indeed you won't," said Johnny, seizing the volume and forcing it upon Joan. "Mother can wait. I never heard of such a thing." He turned fiercely upon Miss Milton. "My mother shall know exactly what has happened. I'm sure she'd be horrified if she understood that you were keeping books from other subscribers in order that she might have them. … Good afternoon."
He strode from the room. At the door he paused.
"Can I--Shall we--Are you going down the High Street, Miss Brandon?"
"Yes," said Joan. They went out of the room and down the Library steps together.
In the shiny, sunny street they paused. The dark cobwebs of the Library hung behind Joan's consciousness like the sudden breaking of a mischievous spell.
She was so happy that she could have embraced Andrew, who was, however, already occupied with the distant aura of a white poodle on the other side of the street.
Johnny was driven by the impulse of his indignation down the hill. Joan, rather breathlessly, followed him.
"I say!" said Johnny. "Did you ever hear of such a woman! She ought to be poisoned. She ought indeed. No, poisoning's too good for her. Hung, drawn and quartered. That's what she ought to be. She'll get into trouble over that."
"Oh no," said Joan. "Please, Lord St. Leath, don't say any more about it. She has a difficult time, I expect, everybody wanting the same books. After all a promise is a promise."
"But she'd promised your mother----"
"No, she never really did. She always said that it would be in in a day or two. She never properly promised. I expect we'd have had it next."
"The snob, the rotten snob!" Johnny paused and raised his stick. "I hate women like that. No, she's not doing her job properly. She oughtn't to be there."
So swift had been their descent that they arrived in a moment at the market.
Because to-day was market-day there was a fine noise, confusion and splendour--carts rattling in and out, sheep and cows driven hither and thither, the wooden stalls bright with flowers and vegetables, the dim arcades looming behind the square filled with mysterious riches. They could not talk very much here, and Joan was glad. She was too deeply excited to talk. At one moment St. Leath took her arm to guide her past a confused mob of bewildered sheep. The Glebeshire peasant on marketing-day has plenty of conversation. Old wrinkled women, stout red-faced farmers, boys and girls all shouted together, and above the scene the light driving clouds flung their transparent shadows, like weaving shuttles across the sun.
"Oh, do let's stop here a moment," said Joan, peering into one of the arcades. "I've always loved this one all my life. I've never been able to resist it."
This was the Toy Arcade, now, I'm afraid, gone the way of so many other romantic things. It had been to all of us the most wonderful spot in Polchester from the very earliest days, this partly because of the toys themselves,