Prev | Current Page 379 | Next

Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Cathedral"

He crossed the Green and passed through the Cathedral
door.
He went out instinctively, without any deliberate thought, to the
Cathedral as to the place that would most readily soothe and comfort him.
Always when things went wrong he crossed over to the Cathedral and walked
about there. Matins were just concluded and people were coming out of the
great West door. He went in by the Saint Margaret door, crossed through
the Vestry where Rogers, who had been taking the service, was disrobing,
and climbed the little crooked stairs into the Lucifer Room. A glimpse of
Rogers' saturnine countenance (he knew well enough that Rogers hated him)
stirred some voice to whisper within: "He knows and he's glad."
The Lucifer Room was a favourite resort of his, favourite because there
was a long bare floor across which he could walk with no furniture to
interrupt him, and because, too, no one ever came there. It was a room in
the Bishop's Tower that had once, many hundreds of years ago, been used by
the monks as a small refectory. Many years had passed now since it had
seen any sort of occupation save that of bats, owls and mice.


Pages:
367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391