The Last Miracle Part 9

Below I was at once struck by a difference in the tone of the house. I did not see Mr Edwards, and Baron Kolar too was missing. Langler told me that the baron was at Ritching Vicarage with Dr Burton, and when I mentioned to him what Mrs Edwards had whispered me as to Burton's probable rise, his answer was: "well, that will be only fitting: moreover, Baron Kolar prophesied it, you remember."

The afternoon pa.s.sed into twilight, and still I saw no sign of the Styrian, but an hour before dinner, as I happened to be strolling alone in one of the home-coverts separated by a path from the park, Mr Edwards, without any hat, broke through the bushes, das.h.i.+ng back his hair, and looking pestered. "Oh, Mr Templeton," he said, "have you seen anything of Baron Kolar?"

I said no.

"Hang the man," said he, "I have had four men out on his trail for an hour...."

I said that I had understood earlier in the day that the baron was at Dr Burton's.

"He was," answered Edwards, "but he isn't now. It is precisely about Dr Burton that I want to see him, for the Bishop of Lincoln offers Burton the nomination to the vacant Chancellors.h.i.+p and Residentiary Canonry, on condition that I accept at once. Properly speaking, you know, the whole job lies miles outside my interest, and I only wish----G.o.d forgive me."

"But why all the flurry?" I asked.

"Well," he answered, "the country, of course, looks to me now to rush Dr Burton into some Grand Lamas.h.i.+p--as though one could at a moment's notice like this! I a.s.sure you, Mr Templeton, soft isn't the word for the hundreds of unpractical suggestions that have been made me this day by leading men in the country, so what we are coming to from a business point of view is rather hard to say. Oxford is a place up in the clouds!

and Cambridge isn't far below.... I don't seem to have even a spare deanery into which to fit Burton, and the whole to-do is rather hard on me--all extraneous work and worry--for _I_ haven't studied Church-organisation! if anyone were to ask me who is the real head of it all as things are, the King or the Pope, I believe I'd be put to it to give him a straight answer. However, there's this Lincoln Chancellors.h.i.+p, and I'm hunting down Baron Kolar to see whether or not he'll have it for Dr Burton just for the time being...."

At this I could not help exclaiming: "but what voice has Baron Kolar in the matter of the career of Dr Burton?"

"Oh, well," said Mr Edwards, "you would hardly see the inwardness of it off-hand by the light of nature, for it is delicate in a diplomatic way.

You know that Baron Kolar fills such a place both in and out of the Reichsrath that he is one of the four men who really have the world's peace in the hollow of their hand, but perhaps you don't know by how far he is probably the most dangerous of the four, for the bottom meanings of that man's polity remain an unknown quant.i.ty, and in order to get at them you would have first of all to draw his teeth, for his mind lurks in a stronghold of which his teeth are the ramparts, and it takes a pretty tricky one to see much that's behind 'em. Anyway, the Foreign Minister of a country whose chief a.s.set is peace would rather stand personally well with Baron Kolar with a view to sound sleep at night than with, I was going to say his--own--wife."

"Quite so," said I; "but still, what can be the grounds of this interest of the baron in Dr Burton? not political?"

"It is, somehow," said Edwards, "though I don't pretend quite to fathom the lees of this particular mind; but from the first he adopted Burton, and, of course, when a man like him chooses to chaperon a parish-priest up the mountains of preferment----"

At this point a clerk ran up to deliver some message to Mr Edwards, who went off with him, I, for my part, continuing my stroll through the covert till I came out upon a road, where the first thing which I saw was Baron Kolar's valet reclining in a meadow, smoking. I went through a gate to him, and asked where his master was. His answer was in the words: "perhaps can you that house there under see? there is he."

I knew the house to which he pointed: it is called Dale Manor, and was then the home of two old maids whom I had long known as "Miss Jane" and "Miss Lizzie" (Chambers), for they were visitors at Swandale. How Baron Kolar had come to know them, why he was there, I couldn't guess; but, in good nature to Mr Edwards, I walked down three very steep fields, then down two lanes, to Dale Manor, in order to tell the baron that he was being sought.

This Dale Manor, certainly, was a very charming home. I pulled the bell-chain at the wall which surrounds the place, and, on being let in, caught sight of Miss Jane pacing, with gloves and scissors, among her flowers. I think that the sun had already set, and the scene in there was all one of bowery shades and peace and well-being. Miss Jane, I suppose, thought that I had come on a visit, and after asking some questions about the Langlers and the miracle invited me in. I then asked if Baron Kolar was in the house, to which she replied, with a smile: "yes--_fast asleep_."

"Asleep!"

"_Sh-h-h!_" she whispered, "he is just under that window there: my sister is watching over him; it must be nearly time for me to relieve her...."

I was too astonished to speak! My knowledge of the manner of life of these ladies, its English primness and reclusion, made all the keener my feeling of the oddity here, for certainly they would have consented to take turns in watching over the slumbers of no other male person, and I thought to myself: "well! such miracles are wrought by great men."

"I didn't know that you even knew the baron," I said at last.

"We have known him for five afternoons," answered Miss Jane in a hushed, but animated, manner--"since last Thursday! In pa.s.sing by the Manor he fell in love with it, and rang the gate-bell. I happened to be in the gardens, and, being _naturally_ startled, contrived to send for my sister, who after examining him through the spygla.s.s from a window came down to us. It was _so_ embarra.s.sing at first! we had no _notion_ what to make of the man suddenly sprung upon us, with his great satin jacket and stream of talk, we _couldn't_, of course, know who he might be, for it was only after a long while that he let out that he was staying at Goodford. He led us round the grounds, criticising and admiring _everything_, then had the head gardener brought to suggest certain changes to him--and there is no doubt that he _must_ be a past master of horticulture, forestry, and landscape gardening, you know--then he said that he was tired and thirsty, and had a headache, so we _had_ finally to decide to ask him in."

"It must have been an event!"

"Well, we were certainly put out," answered Miss Jane, "and poor Lizzie has been taking lavender-water; for Barons Kolar do not grow on every bush, and it all came upon us like any thunderclap. He sat by that window in the drawing-room, talking, talking in his long-drawn way, and looking sleepy, while Lizzie and I glanced at each other, wondering what next, for my sister and I of course know what each other is thinking without needing to speak. Now, as it happened, f.a.n.n.y, our between-maid, was ill, and Lizzie had been making some special milk-toast for her, so it occurred to Lizzie to give him some of it, with tea; she had made quite a pile, and never _dreamt_--anyway, it was brought in. Well, he began to eat languidly, but he kept on eating and talking, and, Mr Templeton, he ate up every sc.r.a.p--yes, every sc.r.a.p."

"Poor f.a.n.n.y!"

"Yes, indeed. My sister and I glanced at each other when we saw the pile of milk toast going, going, and then gone. But he consoled poor Lizzie, who, if she has just a touch of vanity, is to be condoned on the score of her youth--you know, of course, Mr Templeton, that my sister is my junior by three years--he consoled her by saying that he had never tasted _any_thing so nice; and it is only just to my sister to admit that she _can_ make milk-toast. But he had hardly finished the milk-toast when he began to nod, and before we knew where we were we had him fast asleep on our hands. He muttered afresh that he had a headache, that he wished to be allowed to sleep on the sofa, and that he would like his hair to be brushed while he slept! then he threw himself down, and was instantly asleep. Imagine our plight! What _could_ we do, Mr Templeton? Lizzie, who was quite distracted, put a chair under his feet, and proposed to _me_ to brush his hair! I simply _would_ not! She maintained that it was my duty to a.s.sume the initiative, since I am the elder, but I _could_ not see eye to eye with her, and at last, after a great deal _too_ many words, she decided that, since it had to be done, and I _would_ not, then she _must_, being the younger----"

"That was brave and charming of Miss Lizzie," I said.

"You think so?" asked Miss Jane, with a weighing look at me: "to tell the truth, we here are not much in favour of adventures and new departures, and rather affect the quiet old monotonies; but since you think so----At any rate, he slept for an hour; and every afternoon since then he comes, eats a pile of milk-toast, sleeps an hour, and has his hair brushed. What _can_ we do or say? We are in the maze of an enchantment! Punctually as the clock strikes four his ring is heard at the gate, and in he comes, happy and smiling."

"It is an idyll," I said; "but I have an urgent message for him, if one may venture to disturb his Excellency's siesta."

"I fear he would hardly approve of being awakened," said Miss Jane; "but he won't sleep long now, I know. We might go in softly, and see them...."

On this we went in, to find Miss Lizzie, all brown silk and mitts, sitting in patient vigil over the Styrian, from whom came a note of slumber. To me nothing could have been funnier than this casting of his gross weight by Baron Kolar upon these dainty ladies, and at the sight of it I was afresh pierced with laughter. Miss Jane now took Miss Lizzie's place as watcher, while Miss Lizzie came to ply me with hushed questions about the miracle, till at last the baron opened his eyes, showed his teeth in a smile, moaned for happiness, and sat up.

I informed him that he was being sought by the Prime Minister, and presently, after some talk, we two left Dale Manor together for Goodford.

"Dear beings," he said happily to me of the Misses Chambers, "nice people, charming people, I like them. These are not women, oh no, they are angels. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to what differentiations the human species lends itself: here in these ladies you have a type which is not the highest anthropologically, and yet may be as unapelike as the exactest genius of our age. Primitive creatures spent their lives in a pa.s.sion of earnestness, seeking their food, and defending themselves from violence; but evolution is toward the appreciation of trifles. The earnestness of the engineer, of the statesman, is still brutish: he bestrides the world wild of eye, while to these ladies a parish is the world, tiny traditions are their life, whatever arises causes them to exchange a code of glances. Nice people, gracious people: their velvet manners, their cus.h.i.+ons, their shaded interior--everything nice and luxurious, and, I a.s.sure you, they make very good toast--very good. Nor does it displease me to find them devoid of ideas, oh no, there is no need for them to say anything: merely as listeners they have a merit. I am only sorry that this so-called miracle has come to excite and unsettle them."

"But 'so-called,' Baron Kolar!" I could not help crying out: "surely you saw the miracle with your own eyes, like the rest of us!"

"Well, yes, I saw it," he said; "oh yes, I saw it, too. But this looks to me a case in which it would be well not to place too much faith in the senses. If we know that miracles cannot happen, then, when we see them, we can only regard them as due to some caprice of our fancy; and if Providence is warned beforehand that we shall so regard them, it will be the less tempted to trouble us with any. On the whole, a mood of impa.s.sive aloofness seems to me the wisest with regard to what we witnessed on Sunday night. Do not permit it to engage or modify you at all; just say to yourself: 'let the vulgar millions lose their heads, but let me and my friends watch them with an impregnable eye.' Or do you not think that my advice is good?"

"On the contrary," I said, while a flush leapt to my face, "I think it even irreverent, baron--as an eye-witness of such a revelation must needs think it."

"Oh, you think that: well, you are right, too, in your own way," he answered. "A religion that was based on the senses would not be displeasing to me, even though somewhat displeasing to reason. Do not imagine me an enemy of piety. I only meant to suggest that the senses are not always sure avenues to knowledge. But you, now, believe that you have seen a revelation, and the dawn of an epoch: well, you are right, too, in your own fas.h.i.+on."

As he was thus droning we arrived before Goodford House, and the private secretary hurried out from a French window where he had been watching, to hail and greet the baron.

CHAPTER XII

THE QUESTION OF STYRIA

My half-promise to Mrs Edwards that the miracle should not shorten the stay of the Langlers at Goodford was too soon given, for on the Tuesday both Langler and Miss Emily begged me to return at once to Swandale with them; in fact, quite a number of departures was already proving the spirit of dissolution at work in the house-party.

"I do pity Aubrey," Miss Emily said aside to me on the Tuesday night: "there he stands smiling like a statue, but I know that he is tasting bitterness in the very valley. To any scholar of forty years it must be no fun to have to change his scheme of thought and life on a sudden; so what this miracle, or whatever you call it, must mean to Aubrey's touchy intellect and tremulous piety is more than I care to think on. Anyway it is certain that he must be in agony in his present company, and longing to be alone."

"Yes, that must be so," I agreed. "Well, let us go away, for we all need time and solitude to find room in ourselves for this new thing."

"Oh, as for me," she said, "I am in no rage to adjust myself to it: my soul can wait till _his_ has won back to rest. Being a woman, I am less sensitive to evidence, you see, and tougher in the nerve; but poor Aubrey's elements are delicately mixed, and ah, he suffers."

"I understand that," I said; "perhaps it would be even well if I returned to London for the present."

She looked at me, saying: "don't say that; he needs you now, and wishes you to stay."

"And you?" I asked.

"Not what I will," she answered softly in Greek, "but what he."

We accordingly returned to Swandale from Goodford on the Thursday morning. But something of the old Sabbath was soon known now to have departed from our habit of life in the cottage, for the roar of the age reached even into our cloister, hampering the mood of that old world which we wished to inhabit. The very servants had new looks of unrest.

Langler smiled doggedly, but was as one who ruminates bitterish herbage.