Mrs. Combermere, the
Dean, the Archdeacon, Mrs. Sampson, Canon Ronder, moved about the town, to
my young eyes, like gods and goddesses, and it was not until after my
return to Polchester at the end of my first Cambridge year that I saw
clearly how small a town it was and how tiny the figures in it.
Joan Brandon thought her father a marvellous man, as I have already said,
but she had seen him too often lose his temper, too often snub her mother,
too often be upset by trivial and unimportant details, to conceive him
romantically. Falk, her brother, was romantic to her because she had seen
so much less of him; her father she knew too well. For some time after
Falk's return from Oxford nothing happened. Joan did not know what exactly
she had expected to happen, but she had an uneasy sense that more was
going on behind the scenes than she knew.
The Archdeacon did not speak to Falk unless he were compelled, but Falk
did not seem to mind this in the least. His handsome defiant face flashed
scorn at the whole family.
He was out of the house most of the day, came down to breakfast when every
one else had finished, and often was not present at dinner in the evening.
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