第81章 HAMLET WAITS(3)
"She's a beastly woman anyway"thought Jeremy."I wish I'd found something to say to her.I wonder whether she knows I knocked Ernest down in the summer and trod on him?"But the sight of the High Street soon restored his equanimity.On other occasions he had been pushed through it,either by the Jampot or Miss Jones,so rapidly that he could gather only the most fleeting impressions.To-day he could linger and linger;he did.The two nicest shops were Mannings'the hairdressers and Ponting's the book-shop,but Rose the grocer's,and Coulter's the confectioner's were very good.Mr.Manning was an artist.He did not simply put a simpering bust with an elaborate head of hair in his window and leave it at that--he did,indeed,place there a smiling lady with a wonderful jewelled comb and a radiant row of teeth,but around this he built up a magnificent world of silver brushes,tortoise-shell combs,essences and perfumes and powders,jars and bottles and boxes.Manning was the finest artist in the town.Ponting,at the top of the street just at the corner of the Close,was an artist too,but in quite another fashion.Ponting was the best established,most sacred and serious bookseller in the county.In the days when the new "Waverley"was the sensation of the moment Mr.Ponting,grandfather of the present Mr.Ponting,had been in quite constant correspondence with Mr.Southey,and Mr.Coleridge,and had once,when on a visit to London,spoken to the great Lord Byron himself.
This tradition of aristocracy remained,and the present Mr.Pouting always advised the Bishop what to read and was consulted by Mrs.Lamb,our only authoress,on questions of publishers and editions and such technical points.For all this Jeremy,at his present stage of interest,would have cared nothing even had he known it,but what he did care for were the rows of calf-bound books with little ridges of gold,that made a fine wall across the window with an old print of the Cathedral and the Close in the middle of them.Inside Pontings there was a hush as of the study and the church combined.
It was a rather dark shop with rows and rows of books disappearing into the ceiling,and one grave and unnaturally old young man behind the counter.Jeremy did not know what he should do about Hamlet,so he brought him inside,only to discover to his horror that the fiercest of all the Canons,Canon Waterbury,held the floor of the shop.Canon Waterbury had a black beard and a biting tongue.He had once warned Jeremy off the Cathedral grass in a voice of thunder,and Jeremy had never forgotten it.He glared now and pulled his beard,but Hamlet fortunately behaved well,and the old young man discovered Jeremy's notepaper within a very short period.
Then suddenly the Canon spoke.
"Dogs should not be inside shops,"He said,as though he were condemning someone to death.
"I know,"said Jeremy frankly."I wanted to tie him up to something and there was nothing to tie him up to.""What did you bring him out for at all?"said the Canon.
"Because he's got to have exercise,"said Jeremy,discovering,to his own delighted surprise,that he was not frightened in the least.
"Oh,has he?I don't know what people keep dogs for."And then he stamped out of the shop.
Jeremy regarded this in the light of a victory and marched away,his head more in the air than ever.He should now have hurried home.The midday chimes had rung out and Jeremy's duties were performed.But he lingered,listening to the last notes of the chimes,hearing the cries of the Cathedral choir-boys as they moved across the green to the choir-school,watching all the people hurry up and down the street.Ah,there was the Castle carriage!Perhaps the old Countess was inside it.He had only seen her once,at some service in the Cathedral to which his mother had taken him,but she had made a great impression on him with her snow-white hair.He had heard people speak of her as "a wicked old woman."Perhaps she was inside the carriage .but he only saw the Castle coachman and footman and the coronet on the door.It rolled slowly up the hill with its fine air of commanding the whole world--then it disappeared around the corner of the Close.
Jeremy decided then that he would go home across the green and down Orchard Lane.He had a wish to enter the Cathedral for a moment;such a visit would,after all,complete the round of his experiences.He had never entered the Cathedral alone,and now,as he saw it facing him,so vast and majestic and quiet,across the sun-drenched green,he felt a sudden fear and awe.He found a ring in a stone near the west end through which he might fasten Hamlet's lead,then,slowly pushing back the heavy door,he passed inside.
The Cathedral was utterly quiet.The vast nave,stained with reflections of purple and green and ruby,was vague and unsubstantial,all the little wooden chairs huddled together to the right and left,leaving a great path that swept up to the High Altar under shafts of light that fell like searchlights from the windows.
The tombs and the statues peered dimly from the shadow,and the great east end window,with its deep purple light,seemed to draw the whole nave up into its heart and hold it there.All was space and silence,light and dusk;a little doll of a verger moved in the far distance,an old woman,so quiet that she seemed only a shadow,passed him,wiping the little chairs with a duster.