The Dean's Watch

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “Yes, I saw that,” said Job. “The same craftsman must have carved both and you can see, sir, that he loved the man.”

  They walked toward the south door in silence but the Dean was well aware of the strong confident vow that Job had made. They thought, these young creatures, that they could bind their passions with their vows and did not know the appalling strength of human passion. Yet it was good that they made them, for under the midday sun the vows were bit and bridle upon the wild horses, and as the day drew on to evening the creatures quieted.

  “I shall endeavor to wait upon Mr. Peabody during the course of the day,” said the Dean, “but meanwhile I beg that you will keep him from grieving over the loss of the clock. And before going to the shop will you take a message from me to Miss Peabody? Will you present my compliments and say what pleasure it would give me if she would come to the carol service tonight? And Mr. Peabody, too, and yourself and Polly. I must explain that the Christmas services this year have for me a special significance. I am deeply thankful to Almighty God that I have been spared to attend them, and it will give me deep pleasure to have my friends about me to share in my thanksgiving.”

  “Miss Peabody may not let me into the house, sir,” said Job doubtfully. “And if she does she’s not very likely to listen to what I say.”

  The Dean thought for a moment and then he sat down on a bench and taking a notebook and his gold pencil from his pocket wrote a few words on a page, tore it out and folded it, addressing the note to Miss Peabody. “I have written down what I said to you, Job. And I beg that before giving her this you will apologize for the hastiness of your behavior last night.”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” said Job, flushing scarlet. “And thank you for showing me the Cathedral.”

  “I have shown you only a fraction of its glory. You will come here many times by yourself, I trust. It is your own, as the city is your own, and all its citizens alive or dead. You have an inheritance to be proud of, but when you are named one of the great men of the city remember that the poorest boy possesses all that you possess and yourself into the bargain. You have borne patiently with my prosing. Much obliged.”

  The Dean seemed to Job not so much to move away as so to unite with the shadows of the Cathedral that he could no longer be recognized as a separate entity. Job walked out through the south door smiling at Tom Hochicorn as he passed, his head up, his whole air confident and happy. Yet Tom Hochicorn was not conscious of arrogance as he passed by, indeed he received an impression so much to the contrary that it caused him to change his opinion of the boy he had thought up to no good. Here was another of them, akin to the Dean and himself. You could always tell when the Cathedral had got them by the way they left it, not proud of themselves but proud of what had got them.

  2.

  The Dean went back to the chantry of the Duchess Blanche and knelt down. The breaking of a pretty clock was such a small disaster, scarcely noticeable among the vast tragedies that wrenched the world, yet this small happening, he did not doubt, had wrenched the world of Isaac Peabody and his sister. All that was vile in Emma had contributed to the breaking of Isaac’s clock, and Isaac would find it as hard to forgive her as Job had done. He did not know what would come of it all and there was nothing he could do, he who had come into their humble lives seeking his own comfort at the cost of theirs. And now he had no Christmas present for Elaine. He had found the perfect gift for her and it was broken. He would not now see on her face that look of delight that he had pictured so often but never seen.

  With horror he realized that he was pitying himself. For that, prayer was the only cure but when he tried to pray he could find nothing in the thick darkness which enclosed him except all the things to do. He had better get up and do them. There was one more now, that brazier for old Hochicorn. For six years the old man had sat there shivering through the winter and he had never given it a thought. “I have ta’en too little care of this.” Where did one buy a small brazier? In the town somewhere. He must go to the town. He stumbled to his knees, walked past Hochicorn, the object of his concern, without noticing him, and set out for the town. Under the Porta he collided with the Archdeacon, and so blindly that when they had recovered themselves the Archdeacon made so bold as to ask him where he was going.

  “To buy a small brazier,” said the Dean.

  “A brazier?” ejaculated the Archdeacon.

  “For Hochicorn. It is too cold for him outside the south door and he won’t go inside. He must have a brazier but I do not know where to acquire one.”

  “Just at this moment, neither do I, Mr. Dean,” said the Archdeacon. “After Christmas perhaps.”

  “It is today it is so cold,” said the Dean sadly. “Much obliged to you, Archdeacon, much obliged. I remember that I have to see Havelock. He will perhaps know where I can acquire a brazier,” and raising his hat he turned away up Worship Street. The Archdeacon looked after him anxiously, for he did not think he looked very steady on his feet. The mind too seemed a little disturbed. What did Hochicorn want with a brazier? The poor did not feel the cold.

  In Mr. Havelock’s office the Dean sat down gratefully by the fire and said he wanted to add a codicil to his will. Mr. Havelock felt as uneasy as the Archdeacon, for the Dean had added a number of codicils to his will during the last week and each had seemed to him slightly crazier than the last; excepting only the little legacy for Bella when she came of age; that he considered both gratifying and sensible. But the others he feared all indicated a mind disturbed. There had been, for instance, the annuity for Garland, and the gift of the Dean’s gold pencil. The man had had good wages, sufficient to have something laid by, and what would a butler want with a gold pencil? And then that large sum of money left to Josiah Turnbull the mayor, his avowed enemy, to be used for the good of the city in whatever way the mayor thought fit. What an extraordinary thing to do. An annuity for Mr. Penny’s housekeeper seemed as pointless as the sum left in his charge for the purchase of a pony and cart for that scoundrel Lee. What next?

  “Just one more, Havelock,” said the Dean, as though reading Mr. Havelock’s agitated mind. “I leave to my friend Isaac Peabody my watch and my faith in God.” Mr. Havelock’s head went around. He picked up his pen and laid it down again. “I beg that you will write out the codicil exactly as I have dictated it,” said the Dean with some asperity. “Thank you, Havelock. Much obliged.”

  The codicil was added to the will and witnessed by Mr. Havelock’s son and the clerk. Then the Dean rose to leave. He had a little difficulty in getting to his feet and Mr. Havelock assisted him with a slight irritability, caused by the queer sense of desolation that came over him whenever he had to bring his mind to bear upon the Dean’s will. “You should not come to the office in this way, Mr. Dean,” he said curtly. “You must send for me to the Deanery when you wish to see me.”

  “Poor men must come to your office,” said the Dean, “And I in the dereliction of my days am the poorest of the poor. Do you know, Havelock, where I can buy a small brazier?”

  Now Mr. Havelock was quite sure about the mental disturbance and he spoke gently and persuasively as to a child. “It is time for your luncheon, Mr. Dean. I beg that you will go straight home to luncheon.” As he opened the office door and ushered the Dean out into the market place he laid his hand for a moment on his arm. “God bless you, sir,” he said.

  To be blessed by Havelock of all people so astonished the Dean that he felt stronger, and the walk down through the city to Swithin’s Lane did not seem so impossibly far as it had seemed to him when he had thought of it during matins. The dark clouds had parted now and a cold silver sunlight illumined the city, catching in its net all the color and gaiety of the Christmas shops and shoppers. The Dean had not walked through the city since his illness and he looked at it as a man looks at the spring after a long hard winter. He had forgotten how beautiful it was, he had forgotten how poignantly he loved it, and he wanted to stretch out a hand to hold it lest its beauty pass awa
y from him before he had had time fully to feast his eyes and heart upon it. But he could not do that, and the streets and the happy crowds seemed to flow past him like a quick bright river, these Christmas streets and people, and the streets and people that he remembered on spring and autumn days in past years, and summer nights of moon and stars. He did not distinguish very clearly between the past and the present, between this century or another. Some of the men and women who passed by, smiling at him, seemed to him to be not of this age. But he was not surprised to see them and he returned each shy greeting with a smile and a courteous lifting of his tall hat. People spoke for many days afterward of the way the Dean had walked down through the city that morning, not forging along in his usual fiercely abstracted state but looking at them with great kindness, smiling and lifting his hat even though many who greeted him were strangers to him. But when he reached Swithin’s Lane the Dean smiled at no one, so dreadful did it seem to him after the gay and happy streets that had flowed past him up above in the city. The silver sunlight did not seem to penetrate to Swithin’s Lane and there were no decorated Christmas trees in the dark and dirty windows. And he had failed to cleanse this place. The men and woman and children who rotted and died here must continue to rot and die because he had failed. The crash of the celestial clock falling to pieces was in his ears as he entered the fish shop and lifted his hat to Keziah.

  The old crone was in a flutter of pleasure at seeing him and Lee wrung his hand so strongly that he could have cried out with the pain of it. The great lout of a boy whom he had procured from the workhouse was grinning in the background and it was obvious to the Dean that he was in a state of well-being, and that one blow of his huge red fist would have felled a tipsy Albert instantly to the ground, and probably had already done so. The warmth of the greeting he received took the Dean entirely by surprise. He had prayed much for this man and woman but his humility never expected, or even much desired, to have the answer to prayer presented to him like the head of John the Baptist on a plate. Yet in this place there was undoubtedly a change. The atmosphere was less dark and evil. Giving thanks to God alone he said to Albert, “I have come to thank you, Mr. Lee, for your faithful service to the Deanery. During my recent illness I fancied only a light diet and was much obliged to you for the delicious fish with which I was served.” A pang of guilt went through him, for he seldom noticed what he ate and did not suppose that Garland had allowed the Swithin’s Lane fish to penetrate to his sickroom, but the pleasure of Albert and Keziah seemed almost to justify a probable lie, and Keziah muttered something about business being better now it was known they supplied the Deanery.

  “I wish you and your son could have a shop in a better locality, ma’am,” said the Dean. “And I would like to see Mr. Lee driving out to the villages with a pony and trap. Were you born in the fen, Mr. Lee?”

  Albert looked at him with stupefaction. How did the old codger know about him wanting a pony and trap? He said, “I was born in the fen, sir. Out beyond Willowthorn.” Old Keziah began to mumble something about the smart painted van she’d had out in the drove and Albert chimed in with reminiscences of varied types of horseflesh, and the dog Pharaoh. He’d fancy a dog again, to run behind the trap. Even with his hand behind his ear the Dean was not very sure what they said but was most happy that they should be saying it. “Much obliged,” he murmured gratefully when it was time to say good-by. “A happy Christmas to you.” He went to the back of the shop and shook hands with the lout of a boy and pressed a five-shilling piece into his huge red palm. At the door, replacing his hat after bowing to Keziah, he suddenly remembered something else and said anxiously, “Do you know, Mr. Lee, where I can procure a small brazier?”

  Lee and Keziah shook their heads doubtfully but the lout of a boy remarked hoarsely from behind them, “There’s one out the back.” Lee slapped his thigh, remembering that he’d come by it two years ago when old Cobb, the roast chestnut man, had been took to the workhouse. He’d put it in the shed and forgot it. He and the boy went out to the shed and the sound of crashing ironmongery told of its exhumation from beneath a heap of scrap iron and empty tins. Back in the shop it was dusted down and bent back into shape and emerged as a very nice little brazier indeed.

  “What would you be wanting to do with it, sir?” asked Albert.

  The Dean explained about Hochicorn, and also remarked anxiously that he did not know to whom he should apply for charcoal. “I am not a practical man, I fear,” he said sadly. “I should have informed myself as to these matters earlier in life.”

  “Leave it to me, sir,” said Albert. “I knew old ’Ochicorn when I was a boy. I used to go around sellin’ clothes pegs with me poor grannie and ’e’d always buy a few. I’ll take it up to ’im and get it goin’. I can come by a bit of charcoal.”

  “I am much obliged to you,” said the Dean with profound relief, and took his purse from his pocket. But Albert shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you. An’ I didn’t pay nothin’ for that brazier. I come by it.”

  “I thank you, Mr. Lee,” said the Dean. “I am grateful for your kindness. You know your way to the south door?”

  “No, sir. I ain’t ever been to the Cathedral.”

  The Dean explained the route with sadness. How many of the men and women of the city had never been inside the Cathedral? To some of them it was no more than a great stone mountain in their midst. He said good-by once more and went away wondering how it had happened that in this nineteenth century the poor of the city were not at home in their Cathedral. In past centuries it had not been so. Had he and his kind in some way barred it to them? The shepherds had allowed themselves to become wealthy and the sheep were frightened of the rich man’s house. Nor did they follow a shepherd who did not share with them their own rough weather and hard going.

  He went grieving up through the empty streets of the city, deserted now because the sun had gone in and the weather looked threatening, and did not notice that they were empty. But he knew he had to go to Cockspur Street and presently he found himself inside the little shop, sitting on the customers’ chair and facing Isaac across the counter. Job had gone home and there was no one else in the shop. They looked at each other in mute distress and neither knew what to say.

  “It may be for good,” said the Dean at last. “It has taught Job something. It may prove to be the casting out of evil for your poor sister. I pray so. You must take great care of your sister, Mr. Peabody. Go back now to the point when you took the clock home to give her pleasure, forgive what came after and build up the work of love from there. Think that she is a woman who has had a severe illness. If you do not help her to recovery no one will.”

  “Will you choose another clock for Mrs. Ayscough?” asked Isaac dully, as though he had not heard a word.

  “No,” said the Dean, “I will give her the fret of the two swans.” He had not known until he spoke that this was what he was going to do but now it seemed to him right that he should do so. “It is more beautiful by itself than when it surmounted the clock.”

  There was a flash of anger in Isaac’s blue eyes at the idiocy of this remark, and the Dean was glad to see it, for it brought back life to his miserable sullen old face. “By itself it is nothing but a bit of bent metal, sir,” he said.

  “It is much more than that, Mr. Peabody. The fret of the two swans, creatures who it is said sing for joy at their death, says to me that my affection for you, and yours for me, will always endure.” The Dean put his clasped hands on the counter and to avoid looking at his eyes, for he was not going to be compelled into forgiving Emma against his will, Isaac looked at the hands and remembered suddenly that he had seen them clasped in that way on that Sunday morning that seemed now several centuries ago. They had lain then on the velvet cushion of the Dean’s stall and had been clasped in prayer for the city. Isaac rubbed his nose irritably. There was no escape from that which pursued him in this terrible man.

  “Mr. Peabody
, I beg that you will listen to me and endeavor to believe what I say. The love that created and gave the clock is of more value because the clock is broken. It has entered into eternity, as does the soul when the body fails and dies. If I die before you, Mr. Peabody, I shall find the love that made and gave the clock awaiting me. Perhaps I might not have done so had it not been broken. It will give me welcome.” Isaac was still sullenly silent and after a moment or two the Dean unclasped his hands and got up. “I must go, Mr. Peabody, for I am already late for luncheon and I do not wish to alarm my wife. Will you be at the carol service this evening? It would give me infinite pleasure to see you there with your sister and Job and Polly.”

  Isaac helped him into his cloak, handed him his stick and did not answer. He was not going to live with Emma any more. Why should he live with a woman he hated? Once Christmas was over he would leave Angel Lane and live at the shop.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said politely, opening the shop door. “I trust that you and Mrs. Ayscough will spend a happy Christmas.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Peabody,” said the Dean gently. “Much obliged.”

  Isaac went back to sit behind the counter and his cruelty frightened him. But he was not going to forgive Emma. He sat there hugging his hatred to him.

  The sky had darkened still more while the Dean talked to Mr. Peabody and when he reached the market place a shower of cold sleety rain beat full in his face. Passing St. Peter’s church he stopped a moment, feeling breathless and ill.