Leaven of Malice Read online

  “Yes, of course, Professor Vambrace, that was what I called you about.”

  “And what do you know about this outrage, eh?”

  “I know nothing about it. I wished to know more.”

  “What? Explain yourself.”

  “That is what I intended to do, but you rudely rang off.”

  “Never mind that. What do you know of this?”

  “I saw the notice. I had heard nothing of any such wedding, and I called to make inquiries.”

  “What about?”

  “Well, I am Dean of St. Nicholas’ and when a wedding is announced there I feel that I should be informed first.”

  “The whole thing is an outrage!”

  “To what do you refer, Professor Vambrace?”

  “My daughter is not engaged to anyone. Least of all is she engaged to that yahoo of a Bridgetower.”

  “Indeed. Then how do you explain the notice?”

  “I don’t explain it! How do you explain it?”

  “What have I to do with it?”

  “Isn’t your church mentioned?”

  “Yes, and that is what I called you about in the first place.”

  “I have nothing to do with it, I tell you!”

  “You need not shout, Professor.”

  “I do well to shout. What do you know about this? Answer me! What do you know?”

  “I only know that if you did not authorize the announcement, and it is dated for an impossible date, it looks as though the whole thing were a practical joke.”

  “Joke? Joke! You dare to call this dastardly action a joke?”

  “Professor, I must ask you to moderate your tone in speaking to me.”

  There was an angry howl from the other end of the line, and the communication was cut for the third time, presumably because the Professor had slammed his telephone down in its cradle. Dean Knapp’s evening was ruined; for an hour he expostulated with his wife, whom he tried to cast in the role of Professor Vambrace, but she sustained it so poorly that he sank into silence and pretended to read a book. But all the while he was thinking up crushing retorts which he should have made when the opportunity served. There is nothing worse for the digestion than this, and before he went to bed the Dean took a glass of hot milk and two bismuth tablets.

  HE WAS IN his first sleep when the telephone bell rang, and after a little prodding from his wife the Dean trudged downstairs to answer it, sleepily counting over in his mind those among his parishioners who were so near death that they might need him at this hour. But the voice on the telephone was tremulous with life and excitement.

  “Mr. Dean! Mr. Dean!”

  “Dean Knapp speaking. Who is it?”

  “It is I, Mr. Dean. Laura Pottinger.”

  “What is the matter, Miss Pottinger?”

  “Something terribly wrong is going on at the Cathedral, I know it. Lights are flashing on and off. And I am sure that I can hear the organ.”

  “The organ, Miss Pottinger? Surely not.”

  “Yes, the organ; I went out on my steps, and I am sure I heard it. And shouting. A dreadful, unholy sound.”

  “Not from the Cathedral, Miss Pottinger. You must have been mistaken.”

  “Indeed I am not mistaken. And I have called you so that you may take proper action at once.”

  “What do you expect me to do, Miss Pottinger?”

  “Do, Mr. Dean? It is not for me to tell you what you should do. But if something is wrong at the Cathedral, do you not know what you should do?”

  “But I am sure that you must have been deluded in some way, Miss Pottinger.”

  “Deluded, Mr. Dean? Do you suppose that because I am no longer young I do not know what I hear with my own ears? Do you mean to disregard this matter? Who knows what it may be—sacrilege of some sort, or robbery. There is a lot of fine plate in the Cathedral, Mr. Dean, and it is not in the safe, as you know.”

  This was a telling thrust. The Dean liked to have the Communion plate laid out at night, ready for the morning, and many of his parishioners, of whom Miss Pottinger was one, felt that it should be kept in the safe until it was needed. If anything were stolen, this quirk of the Dean’s would not be forgotten, so he said, “Very well, Miss Pottinger. I shall go over and see that everything is all right.”

  “I shall meet you at the West Door.”

  “No, no; you must not think of venturing out.”

  “Yes, I shall. I want to know what is happening.”

  “If there is anything amiss there might be trouble, and you must not be in any danger.”

  “I am a soldier’s daughter, Mr. Dean.”

  “Miss Pottinger, as your priest, I forbid you to come to the Cathedral. Now please go back to bed and do not worry any more.” And with that the Dean hung up his telephone, hoping that he had quelled her. Miss Pottinger, who was over eighty, and very High in her religious opinions, rather liked to be ordered about by clergymen, and was always impressed by the word “priest”.

  By this time the Dean was thoroughly awake, and cold and miserable. His stomach was churning within him and he wanted to go back to bed. But unless he went to the Cathedral he would never hear the end of it. The chances were that Miss Pottinger was mistaken, and his journey would be for nothing: but on the other hand there might be something wrong, and he would face—what? The Dean had been through the 1914-18 war and he felt that his brave days were over. All he wanted now was a quiet life. But the service of the Church was terribly unquiet, sometimes. So he went back to his bedroom, and put on a pullover, and his socks and shoes, and drew on his cassock over his pyjamas. His wife, who was accustomed to night calls, did not stir. He found the large cloak which he wore for winter funerals in the coat-cupboard in the hall, and set forth.

  It was only a block from the Deanery to the Cathedral, and the night was bright with moonlight, and mysterious with a film of mist. As the Dean drew near to the Cathedral his heart sank, for unmistakably there was music on the air, a loud and merry tune played upon the organ, mingled with singing voices and an occasional shout of laughter. And unquestionably there was light in the large church, not much, but some. As he approached the West Door the Dean thought that he saw a lurking figure, but when he drew near it had vanished. St. Nicholas’ Cathedral in Salterton is not one of your common Canadian cathedrals, in sham Gothic; it is a reproduction, on a much smaller scale, of St. Paul’s, and it has a periwigged dignity of its own. The West Door was under a columned portico, darkly shadowed at this time of night.

  The Dean took out his key, and listened. The music and the laughter were not so plainly to be heard here as in the street, but they were plain enough, and eerie. The Dean admitted to himself that he was frightened. He was a devout man, and while devotion undoubtedly brings its spiritual rewards it brings its spiritual terrors too. This was All Hallow’s Eve, and if he truly believed in All Saints on the morrow, why should he not believe in the Powers of Darkness tonight? He had never been the sort of Christian who wants to have things all his own way—to preach the love of God and to deny the existence of the Devil. Well, if he had to meet the Devil in the line of duty, he would do so like a man. He muttered a prayer, unlocked the door and tiptoed into the vast shadows of the church.

  At first it seemed to him that the chancel was filled with people, but when his astonishment subsided he judged the number to be six or seven. In his own stall—the Dean’s stall!—a man was standing on his cushion, waving his arms in time to the music of the organ and the voice of the organist. It was a good tenor voice, and it was singing:

  Man, Man, Man,

  Is for the woman made,

  And the woman for the man!

  On the chancel steps a group of people, hand in hand, were circling in a dance, a sort of reel, and now and then one of them would cry “Heigh!” in the high voice used by Highland dancers.

  As the spur is for the jade

  As the scabbard for the blade,

  As for digging is the spade

  As for li
quor is the can,

  So Man, Man, Man,

  Is for the woman made.

  The voice was full and joyous and the accompaniment skirled and whistled from the reed pipes of the organ. The Dean stood amazed for a time—it could not have been long, but he was so astonished that he was unable to make any estimate of it—and then wondered what he should do. These were no devils, and as people they did not look very frightening. Indeed, he realized with astonishment at himself that he had been looking at their antics with admiration, thinking what a pretty sight they made, dancing there, and how beautiful his Cathedral looked in this light, with this music and with these inhabitants. Such thoughts would never do. He strode forward and shouted in a loud voice: “What is the meaning of this?”

  The effect was everything that he could have desired, except that the music did not stop. The men roared, and scurried for cover behind the choir stalls; the women—or girls, he judged them to be—shrieked and hid themselves; one leapt into the Bishop’s throne and slammed the little door behind her, and another dived into a pew where, on the principle supposed to be favoured by ostriches, she hid her head, but left a great deal of silk-stockinged leg and some inches of thigh in clear view.

  Be she widow, wife or maid,

  Be she wanton, be she staid

  Be she well or ill array’d

  Whore, bawd or harridan,

  So Man, Man, Man,

  Is for the woman made,

  And the woman for the man!

  The voice concluded triumphantly. Then as the notes of the organ seemed to fly away into the shadows at the roof of the chancel it cried again: “How was that?”

  “Mr. Cobbler, what is the meaning of this?” called the Dean sternly.

  “Oh, my God!” said the voice, dismayed, and from the organ console emerged the figure of Humphrey Cobbler, the Cathedral organist, dishevelled and ill-dressed, badly in want of a haircut, plainly drunk, but with an air of invincible cheerfulness which shone through even his present discomfiture.

  “Mr. Dean,” he said, fatuously, “this is an unexpected pleasure.”

  “Mr. Cobbler,” said the Dean, now fully in command of the situation, “answer my question: What is going on here?”

  “Well, Mr. Dean, it isn’t altogether easy to explain. Very odd, on the face of it. As I shall be the first to admit. But when taken in the light of everything that has gone before, and viewed historically, if I may so express myself, quite inevitable and defensible and not in the least reprehensible, if I make myself clear.”

  Cobbler delivered this speech with a fine rhetorical air, and there was an appreciative snigger from one of the hidden figures.

  “Who are these people?” said the Dean, gesturing broadly. When he had entered the Cathedral he had suffered from the sense of insufficiency which afflicts a man who is wearing no trousers under his cassock: now he was free of that disability, and had indeed acquired the spacious and authoritative manner of a man who is wearing, and has a right to wear, a handsome cloak. “Come out, all of you, at once,” he cried.

  “If you please, Mr. Dean,” said Cobbler, “don’t ask that. This is entirely my fault, and I accept the full responsibility. Don’t ask them to come out. Not fair to them. My fault.”

  “Be silent, Mr. Cobbler,” said the Dean sternly. “Come out, all of you, and be quick.”

  Shuffling and scraping, they came out. And the Dean was amazed to see, not a pack of middle-aged roisterers, but four boys and three girls of university age, plainly students at Waverley, and all looking shame-faced enough to melt a harder heart than his.

  “Students, I see,” said the Dean, because he could think of nothing better to say.

  “My students, Mr. Dean, and here entirely because of me,” said Cobbler. “I hope that you will allow me to send them away, now, for they are really not to blame for what has happened.”

  “You must all go away, at once,” said the Dean. “And I shall see you, Mr. Cobbler, at the Deanery at half-past ten tomorrow morning. Now go.” And he herded them toward the West Door.

  But as they drew near to it, he had a sudden thought, and pushing past the boys and girls he opened the door a crack and peeped out. Yes, there was a figure, lurking, which could only be Miss Pottinger. The Dean was annoyed. He wanted time to make up his mind about this matter, and he did not want any interference. He was angry with Miss Pottinger for snooping around the Cathedral when he had told her to stay at home. Perhaps unreasonably, he was angrier with her than with the sheepish students who had been making merry in his Cathedral. So he turned, and without explanation, drove them before him to a door which communicated with the Church House and Sunday School annex of the Cathedral, and from there he dismissed them into a street far from where Miss Pottinger kept her vigil. When they had been gone a few minutes he followed them, and went back to the Deanery wrapped in thought.

  Miss Pottinger, shivering with cold and disappointed curiosity, hung about the West Door until Archie Blaine, The Bellman reporter, returning late from the office, approached her and asked if anything was wrong. And, as often happens when something is wrong, Miss Pottinger denied it vehemently and scampered across the street to her own house.

  IT WOULD PROBABLY be unjust to Miss Laura Pottinger to describe her as a busybody; she preferred to think of herself as one who possessed a strong sense of her responsibility toward others. She was a soldier’s daughter, as she had told the Dean; her father had for many years been a colonel of militia, and if he had not been somewhat too busy for service when the first Boer War broke out, and somewhat too old for it when the second Boer War came along, he would undoubtedly have distinguished himself in the field. He was a very successful wholesale grocer, and his business yielded the means to support his military dignity on the highest level; indeed, in his household it was possible to maintain the most idealistic concepts of military honour, of good breeding and of Victorian Anglicanism, without ever being troubled about such base considerations as money. Miss Pottinger, in her advanced years, had yielded nothing to the spirit of the times; two world wars had beaten vainly against her sense of propriety, and the reduction of her means (though she was very comfortably off) had only served to increase her devotion to what she believed to be the public good.

  She was aggrieved, but not surprised, that Dean Knapp had behaved so oddly in the matter of the midnight disturbance in the Cathedral. She had long ago decided that the Dean lacked those qualities of decision, censoriousness and command which she included under the general heading of “gimp”. But she was devoted to the Cathedral, and was ready to put all her own boundless stock of gimp at its service. Therefore she made her way to early Communion on All Saints’ Day in a martial spirit, and as soon as the service was over she buttonholed Mr. Matthew Snelgrove, the lawyer, as he made his way toward the door.

  “You are not locking up the Communion plate, Mr. Snelgrove?”

  “Surely that is not necessary, Miss Pottinger? There will be another service at eleven.” Mr. Snelgrove was chancellor of the diocese, and although it was not strictly his duty to do so, he usually locked the church valuables in the vault, and made himself responsible for their safe keeping.

  “I hope that there was nothing missing this morning?”

  “Not that I know of. Why would there be?”

  “There was something very odd going on in the Cathedral last night, at midnight and after. A dreadful clamour, as though the place were full of rowdy people. I called the Dean, and I believe he took some action, though of course I don’t know. Naturally I was anxious. After all, there were many fine pieces on the altar all night, including the chalice which father gave to St. Nicholas’ on the successful conclusion of the South African War. I was concerned. And of course I concluded that you, as chancellor, would have news which would be some time in getting down to those of us who are merely parishioners.”

  Simple though this speech appears, it contained many of those qualities of hidden meaning and implication which made Miss
Pottinger a remarkable, if unrecognized, rhetorician. It aroused suspicion in the mind of Mr. Snelgrove, and warmed up his well-developed animosity against the Dean; it suggested sacrilege, which to his lawyer-like mind was deeply repugnant; it brought into the open the old quarrel about whether the altar should be decked with Communion plate at night (which was convenient) or in the morning (which was safe); it reminded Mr. Snelgrove that the Pottingers had been an influential and generous family in Cathedral life for almost a century, and that when Miss Pottinger died her small fortune might come to the Cathedral if she got her way in some Cathedral affairs; its mock humility flattered the chancellor, while goading him, and gave him an excuse to harry the Dean. Mr. Snelgrove’s keen legal mind grasped all these points at once, and after a few more words with Miss Pottinger he hurried off to the vestry, like a ruffled old stork, to tackle the Dean about it.

  IT MUST NOT BE supposed, because Dean Knapp was not in every respect satisfactory to Miss Pottinger, Mr. Snelgrove and some others among his parishioners, that he was less than capable as a clergyman. He was, on the contrary, a man of more than ordinary ability in his profession. But in every church there are people who, for reasons which seem sufficient to them, do not approve of their pastor and who seek to harry him and bully him into some condition more pleasing to themselves. The democracy which the Reformation brought into the Christian Church rages in their bosoms like a fire; they would deny that they regard their clergyman as their spiritual hired hand, whom they boss and oversee for his own good, but that is certainly the impression they give to observers. Dean Knapp attracted this sort of bullying, for he had his share of personal vanity, and it was his desire to be considered urbane. Although he lived in Canada, in the middle of the twentieth century, his clerical ideals were those nineteenth-century clergymen in England who were witty men of the world, as well as men of God. His aptitude for this sort of masquerading was not great, but he tried hard, and often committed innocent follies in pursuit of his urbane goal. He made little literary jokes which people did not understand; he sometimes suggested that certain minor sins were unimportant and rather funny, instead of ignoring them completely as a really tactful Canadian clergyman should; he lacked zeal for the more uproarious sorts of boys’ work, and when it was necessary to raise money for good causes he did not show that whole-hearted reverence for money which is so reassuring to a flock composed predominantly of business people. And, worst of all, he sometimes refused to be serious when dealing with people who were angry. It was this characteristic of the Dean’s which especially annoyed Mr. Matthew Snelgrove, who was often angry and who liked people to share his anger or tremble at it. A surprising amount of Mr. Snelgrove’s time was spent in trying to make the Dean be serious when the Dean wanted to be urbane.