Home > Authors Index > Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch > Brother Copas > This page
Brother Copas, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
||
Chapter 24. Finis Coronat Opus |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXIV. FINIS CORONAT OPUS The great day dawned at last: the day to which all Merchester had looked forward for months, for which so many hundreds had been working, on which all must now pin their hopes: the opening day of Pageant Week. I suppose that never in Merchester's long history had her citizens so frequently or so nervously studied their weather-glasses. "Tarbolt, of all people!" murmured Brother Copas one afternoon in the Venables Free Library. He had just met the Canon coming down the stairs, and turned to watch the retreating figure to the doorway. "I am suffering from a severe shock," he announced five minutes later to Mr. Simeon, whom he found at work in Paradise. "Did you ever know your friend Tarbolt patronise this institution before?" "Never," answered Mr. Simeon, flushing. "Well, I met him on the stairs just now. For a moment I knew not which alternative to choose--whether your desertion had driven him to the extreme course of reading a book or two for himself, or he had come desperately in search of you to promise that if you returned, all should be forgiven. . . . No, you need not look alarmed. He came in search of a newspaper." "But there are no newspapers in the Library." "Quite so: he has just made that discovery. Thereupon, since an animal of that breed cannot go anywhere without leaving his scent behind him, he has scrawled himself over half a page of the Suggestion' Book. He wants this Library to take in _The Times_ newspaper, 'if only for the sake of its foreign correspondence and its admirable weather-charts.' Signed, 'J. Tarbolt.' What part is the humbug sustaining, that so depends on the weather?" "He takes Bishop Henry of Blois in the Fourth Episode. He wears a suit of complete armour, and you cannot conceive how much it--it--improves him. I helped him to try it on the other day," Mr. Simeon explained with a smile. "Maybe," suggested Brother Copas, "he fears the effect of rain upon his 'h's.'"
They were kind to him, however: and, lifting no eyebrow over his antiquated night-attire, consulted him cheerfully over a string of flags which (as it turned out) Mr. Magor had paid yesterday a visit to Southampton expressly to borrow. I mention this because it was a foretaste, and significant, of the general enthusiasm. At ten in the morning Fritz, head waiter of that fine old English coaching-house, "The Mitre," looked out from the portico where he stood surrounded by sporting prints, and announced to the young lady in the bar that the excursion trains must be "bringing them in hundreds." By eleven o'clock the High Street was packed with crowds that whiled away their time with staring at the flags and decorations. But it was not until 1.0 p.m. that there began to flow, always towards the Pageant Ground, a stream by which that week, among the inhabitants of Merchester, will always be best remembered; a stream of folk in strange dresses--knights in armour, ladies in flounces and ruffs, ancient Britons, greaved Roman legionaries, monks, cavaliers, Georgian beaux and dames. It appeared as if all the dead generations of Merchester had arisen from their tombs and reclaimed possession of her streets. They shared it, however, with throngs of modern folk, in summer attire, hurrying from early luncheons to the spectacle. In the roadway near the Pageant Ground crusaders and nuns jostled amid motors and cabs of commerce. For an hour this mad medley poured through the streets of Merchester. Come with them to the Pageant Ground, where all is arranged now and ready, waiting the signal!
It was the work of a young musician, ambitious to seize his opportunity. After stating its theme largely, simply, in sixteen strong chords, it broke into variations in which the audience for a few moments might read nothing but cacophonous noise, until a gateway opened in the old wall, and through it a band of white-robed Druids came streaming towards the stone altar which stood--the sole stage "property"--in the centre of the green area. Behind them trooped a mob of skin-clothed savages, yelling as they dragged a woman to the sacrifice. It was these yells that the music interpreted. The Pageant had opened, and was chanting in high wild notes to its own prelude. Almost before the spectators realised this, the Arch-Druid had mounted his altar. He held a knife to the victim's throat. But meanwhile the low beat of a march had crept into the music, and was asserting itself more and more insistently beneath the disconnected outcries. It seemed to grow out of distance, to draw nearer and nearer, as it were the tramp of an armed host. . . . It _was_ the tramp of a host. . . . As the Arch-Druid, holding his knife aloft, dragged back the woman's head to lay her throat the barer, all turned to a sudden crash of cymbals; and, to the stern marching-tune now silencing all clamours, the advance-guard of Vespasian swung in through the gateway. . . . So for an hour Saxon followed Roman, Dane followed Saxon, Norman followed both. Alfred, Canute, William--all controlled (as Brother Copas cynically remarked to Brother Warboise, watching through the palings from the allotted patch of sward which served them for green-room) by one small Jew, perspiring on the roof and bawling orders here, there, everywhere, through a gigantic megaphone; bawling them in a _lingua franca_ to which these mighty puppets moved obediently, weaving English history as upon a tapestry swiftly, continuously unrolled. "Which things," quoted Copas mischievously, "are an allegory, Philip." To the waiting performers it seemed incredible that to the audience, packed by thousands in the Grand Stand, this scolding strident voice immediately above their heads should be inaudible. Yet it was. All those eyes beheld, all those ears heard, was the puppets as they postured and declaimed. The loud little man on the roof they saw not nor heard. "Which things again are an allegory," said Brother Copas. The Brethren of St. Hospital had no Episode of their own. But from the time of the Conquest downward they had constantly to take part in the moving scenes as members of the crowd, and the spectators constantly hailed their entry. "Our coat of poverty is the wear to last, after all," said Copas, regaining the green-room and mopping his brow. "We have just seen out the Plantagenets." In this humble way, when the time came, he looked on at the Episode of Henry the Eighth's visit to Merchester, and listened to the blank verse which he himself had written. The Pageant Committee had ruled out the Reformation, but he had slyly introduced a hint of it. The scene consisted mainly of revels, dances, tournays, amid which a singing man had chanted, in a beautiful tenor, Henry's own song of _Pastime with good Companye_.-- With its chorus-- "For Idleness
"Quo vexillum Dux cohortis
"Ger' out! Get off, zat olt fool! What ze devil you mean by doddling!" It was the voice of Mr. Isidore screeching upon him through the megaphone. Brother Copas turned about, uplifting his face to it for a moment with a dazed stare. . . . It seemed that, this time, everyone in the Grand Stand must have heard. He fled: he made the most ignominious exit in the whole Pageant. The afternoon heat was broiling. . . . He had no sooner gained the green-room shade of his elm than the whole of the Brethren were summoned forth anew; this time to assist at the spousals of Queen Mary of England with King Philip of Spain. And this Episode (Number VII on the programme) was Corona's. He had meant--and again he cursed his forgetfulness--to seek her out at the last moment and whisper a word of encouragement. The child must needs be nervous. . . . He had missed his chance now. He followed the troop of Brethren back into the arena and dressed rank with the others, salaaming as the mock potentates entered, uttering stage cheers, while inwardly groaning in spirit. His eye kept an anxious sidewise watch on the gateway by which Corona must make her entrance. She came. But before her, leading the way, strewing flowers, came score upon score of children in regiments of colour--pale blue, pale yellow, green, rose, heliotrope. They conducted her to the May Queen's throne, hung it with wreaths, and having paid their homage, ranged off, regiment by regiment, to take their station for the dance. And she, meanwhile? . . . If she were nervous, no sign of it betrayed her. She walked to her throne with the air of a small queen. . . . _Vera incessu patuit--Corona_; walked, too, without airs or _minauderies_, unconscious of all but the solemn glory. This was the pageant of her beloved England, and hers for the moment was this proud part in it. Brother Copas brushed his eyes. In his ears buzzed the verse of a psalm--
The dance over--and twice or thrice as it proceeded the front of the Grand Stand shook with the clapping of thousands of hands, all agitated together as when a wind passes over a wheatfield--Corona had to arise from her throne, a wreath in either hand, and deliver a speech before Queen Mary. The length of it was just a line and three-quarters--
"First-class!" grunted Brother Warboise at Copas's elbow. "Pity old Bonaday couldn't be here to see the girl!" "Aye," said Copas; but there was that in his throat which forbade his saying more.
Indeed, much of the Pageant was extremely silly. Yet, as it progressed, Brother Copas was not alone in feeling his heart lift with the total effect of it. Here, after all, thousands of people were met in a common pride of England and her history. Distort it as the performers might, and vain, inadequate, as might be the words they declaimed, an idea lay behind it all. These thousands of people were met for a purpose in itself ennobling because unselfish. As often happens on such occasions, the rite took possession of them, seizing on them, surprising them with a sudden glow about the heart, sudden tears in the eyes. This _was_ history of a sort. Towards the close, when the elm shadows began to stretch across the green stage, even careless spectators began to catch this infection of nobility-- this feeling that we are indeed greater than we know. In the last act all the characters--from early Briton to Georgian dame--trooped together into the arena. In groups marshalled at haphazard they chanted with full hearts the final hymn, and the audience unbidden joined in chorus--
"Where is the child?" asked Brother Copas, glancing through the throng. He found her in the thick of the press, unable to see anything for the crowd about her, and led her off to a corner where, by the southern end of the Grand Stand, some twenty Brethren of St. Hospital stood shouting in company--
By happy chance at the edge of the group stood tall good-natured Alderman Chope, who had impersonated Alfred the Great. The Brethren begged his shield from him and mounted Corona upon it, all holding it by its rim while they chanted-- "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, "O God! our help in ages past,
CONCLUSION.
The sunset breathed benediction. To many who walked homeward that evening it seemed in that benediction to enwrap the centuries of history they had so feverishly been celebrating, and to fold them softly away as a garment. But Brother Copas heeded it not. He was eager to reach St. Hospital and carry report to his old friend.
Brother Bonaday lay panting. He had struggled through an attack sharper than any previous one--so much sharper that he knew the end to be not far distant, and only asked for the next to be swift. "--And she was just splendid," said Brother Copas. "She had that unconscious way of stepping out of the past, with a crown on her head. My God, old friend, if I had that child for a daughter--" Brother Bonaday lay and panted, not seeming to hear, still with his eyes upturned to the ceiling of his narrow cell. They scanned it as if feebly groping a passage through. "I ought to have told you," he muttered.--"More than once I meant-- tried--to tell you." "Hey?" Brother Copas bent lower. "She--Corona--never was my child. . . . Give me your hand. . . . No, no; it's the truth, now. Her mother ran away from me . . . and she, Corona, was born . . . a year after . . . in America . . . Coronation year. The man--her father--died when she was six months old, and the woman . . . knowing that I was always weak--" He panted, very feebly. Brother Copas, still holding his hand, leaned forward. "Then she died, too. . . . What does it matter? Her message. . . . 'Bluff,' you would call it. . . . But she knew me. She was always decided in her dealings . . . to the end. I want to sleep now. . . . That's a good man!" Brother Copas, seeking complete solitude, found it in the dusk of the garden beyond the Ambulatory. There, repelling the benediction of sunset that still lingered in the west, he lifted his face to the planet Jupiter, already establishing its light in a clear space of sky. "Lord!" he ingeminated, "forgive me who counted myself the ironeist of St. Hospital!" [THE END] _ |
||