The Last Miracle Part 8

He sat beside me, his hand on my arm, and I told him all, word by word, in a husky voice; and he listened with a bent head.

"We are dust and ashes," he murmured when I had finished: "the humiliation of it for us all!"

"Yes, the salvation," said I.

"But the humiliation firstly, I think," said he. "How modern men have taken up and confirmed the seer's word: 'the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' It was the one certain clue which we had to G.o.d. And now that, too, is snapped when we find His way of acting on Sunday night so foreign to His way on Sat.u.r.day and Monday."

"Aubrey, we know nothing," I said.

"So I, too, say," he answered, "and I say that it is in the proof which the vision has given us of this that our humiliation lies. How shall we ever more trust our reason, or enjoy the pleasures of our mind? We were so a.s.sured that His voice is ever small and hinting, that He guides us with His eye; but now on a sudden we seem to find Him glaring and pedagogic----"

"Still, let us not allow ourselves to criticise the vision, Aubrey," I said.

"No, certainly, we mustn't allow ourselves to do that," he replied: "I was rather criticising the paltriness of our reason, and I was thinking of the damper which the vision will undoubtedly put upon the intellect of the Western world before this day is over."

"Well, since our intellect is unreliable, that won't much matter," I said, "and G.o.d's way is best. But I still know nothing of your adventures last night: did you go to Hallam Castle?"

"Yes, I went, and the promise of my unknown correspondent was even duly fulfilled."

"You don't mean that you saw Robinson?"

"At least I saw Robinson's face, according to the promise."

His words struck me dumb.

"I reached the Castle soon after twilight had begun to darken," he went on. "It is a low ruin, you know, stretching along the upper edges of a mound, at the bottom of which, on the north side, runs a road through a sort of dell which they call the 'Castle Dell'; up this road I went in order to get to the 'north-west corner' named in the rendezvous. A few sheep were pasturing on the castle-mound; but no other living thing was to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, and I won't pretend that I was so perfectly collected in mind as I might have been. It is a pity that we should ever breathe shorter than we will, but.... Anyway, I climbed up the dell-road till I came as near the north-west corner of the ruin as I could, for one can't quite get up to it, the mound at that point being rocky and steep; but after waiting on the road some minutes, and seeing no one, I began to climb a path at right angles to the dell-road leading south on the west side of the castle--a path with steps embedded in the soil. I was on these steps when I heard some sound like the echo of a shout, and on glancing to my left I saw Robinson's face at a window of the round-tower which forms the north-west corner of the ruin."

The fact of Robinson's face being seen at last sounded so strange to my ears that I could only breathe: "but are you sure, Aubrey?"

"Well," said he, "he was separated from me by perhaps thirty yards, for between the ma.s.s of ground on which I stood and that west side of the castle is a ravine or dry moat of about that breadth; moreover, it was getting dark in the dell, which is well wooded; but still I saw him pretty well, and it was certainly Robinson and no other."

"But did he see you? Did he speak?" I asked.

"He probably did not see me," Langler answered; "certainly he did not speak. I cried out to him, bending forward over a rail at the edge of the cleft, but he did not answer.... Oh, Arthur, it was a face much marred, believe me! It is my belief that he was unconscious, that he was held at the window for me to see by others whom I could not see. After some seconds he was withdrawn from my sight."

"But this is pitiful," I said. "What did you do?"

"I might perhaps have acted more promptly than I did," he answered: "I see that now, and must confess it to you and to myself. It is certainly to be regretted that the rate of one's breathing should ever have an influence upon the quality of the mental operations or upon the quality of one's mode of acting; and here certainly is a little matter to which, it seems, that I, for my part, will have to give some attention on all future occasions. There is no doubt that I lost some minutes in thinking what I should next do: however, as I am familiar with the castle, I did not lose time in running to the west gate near on my left, for this I knew to be fastened, but I hurried down the dell-road to the east side of the ruin, and there climbed the mound by a path in the sward which leads to the east gate. Here I could gain an entrance, for the wicket of this gate has disappeared, but I see now that I ought to have waited outside, and not gone in: help might have come from some source; at least no one could have come out of the ruin without being seen by me.

However, I went in, for after the delays already made I felt urged to do something energetic, and, no doubt, fidgeted. Some people seem to act aptly without forethought, as the fly flies; others act aptly by forethought; and others again, in using too much forethought here, and none at all there, produce those left-handed, gawky results which seem to guffaw in one's face. I hope that I am not of this last type; but on this particular occasion, I confess, I do rather seem to have been outdone--in fact, I was outdone. I rushed without thought through the wicket into the lowest of the three courtyards, which is now a greensward shaded by two walnut-trees, and ran up some steps in the north-east round-tower, my feet, I fear, making some sounds, and once or twice I slipped in the dark, the stones being very displaced. Near the tower-top I turned west over the castle-wall--the wall is really two walls, you know, filled between with concrete, over which runs a footway between field flowers. This footway brought me into a second tower, where some stairs lead up to a similar path on the wall which runs along the second courtyard. It was quite dark in that tower, and I stopped once to consider whether the course which I was pursuing was quite the best; however, having come to no decision, I was creeping on up when I heard a sound behind me, the creak of a door, then at once another creak of another door somewhere; at the same time both doors were bolted, and I understood that I was in durance."

He smiled at my look of concern, adding: "don't be alarmed, since you now see me here; in fact, having convinced myself that I was really imprisoned, I, for my part, became easier in mind than I had been, feeling the irksomeness of having to fight out this matter taken off my hands, since, being a prisoner, it was now out of my power to do anything; and I resigned myself to suffer with a calm spirit whatever might be in store for me. Indeed, it seems to be often less of a burden and bore to suffer patiently than to have to run, and wage war, and act; at any rate, I felt that my captors had relieved me of a responsibility in this matter of the rescue of poor Robinson. I stood against the wall on a ledge three feet wide, with a railing at its edge, and the hollow interior of the tower below, and the two doors being grey with age, their surface rough with the carvings of visitors' names, but still stout, I put my arm through some of the holes which have appeared in the oak, trying to reach the bolts, but could not. Then I sat down in a hearthplace, and was sitting there so long, with nothing for the eye to rest on but the bushes at the tower-top ma.s.sed against the dark sky, that I should have fallen asleep if I had not been roused by hearing some shouts, coming, I thought, from the castle-dell----"

"They were _my_ shouts probably," I said; "and you were there all the time!"

"What, were you at Hallam Castle last night?" he asked.

"Why, yes," I answered, "for when Emily disappeared, and it struck me that you had both been inveigled away, I could think of nothing but to go to the castle to look for you. I shouted your name in the castle-dell, I even went up the very stairs--didn't you hear me call out 'Aubrey'? Hearing no answer, I hurried off to Ritching, to see if you were in the church: and you were in the ruins all the time!"

"Your shouts reached me only as echoes," he said, "and when they ceased I composed myself afresh to rest in my hearthplace, but was soon again startled by a sound--the drawing of the bolt of the door by which I had entered. I leapt up, to find the door open: but my liberator, whoever he was, was not to be seen. I hurried down the stair, but neither saw him nor heard his tread."

"Strange proceedings," I said.

"But with a meaning in their strangeness, I am convinced," said Langler.

"What did you do now?"

"What could I do? I walked back to Goodford village, informed the constabulary that I had seen Robinson, then, very tired, trudged up to Goodford House, only to hear that Emily had not gone to the church with the party, but had disappeared. However, I was examining the servants on the matter when Emily herself walked in."

"What had happened?" I asked.

"As she was about to set out with the party," he answered, "a note had been handed her, purporting to come from me, asking her to join me secretly on a matter of urgency at the Cart-and-Horse in Mins. So _outre_ a thing, of course, alarmed her, and she started out in great haste. It was only when she got to the Cart-and-Horse, that, looking again at the note, she saw that the writing was not really mine, but a forgery. She then got a trap, and drove back to Goodford."

"Oh, there is something ominous in all this, Aubrey," I said.

"Well, so it seems," he answered. "The note purporting to come from me was handed to Emily by a still-room girl here named Charlotte, and was handed to Charlotte by a villager named Weeks. Now, I have had Weeks over from Mins this morning, and Weeks declares that the note was handed him by a dapper young gentleman, probably a foreigner, who met him a little outside Mins, and offered him five s.h.i.+llings for taking it to Goodford House. Weeks left the stranger sitting in the gloaming on the roots of a well-known yew on the road between Mins and Up Hatherley."

"But what design," I said, "could this man have had in enticing Emily from Goodford at that particular time?"

"That is hard to say," answered Langler; "but you observe that I, too, was enticed from Goodford at that time by a promise which was kept by men whom we need not suppose to be scrupulous in the matter of keeping their word. What, then, could have been the motive of actually showing me the face of Robinson, as promised? It could only have been to draw me into the tower to his rescue, and so to my imprisonment. But remember that that imprisonment only lasted three-quarters of an hour at most, and during that short detainment it was that Emily was enticed to Mins.

It would seem, then, that with the same motive her absence and mine from Goodford House during that particular three-quarters of an hour was a thing to be desired."

"It wasn't from Goodford that our absence was desired, Aubrey," cried Miss Emily, suddenly looking through the half-opened door, "but from Ritching church: for I was about to go to the church, and so did you mean to go to it from Hallam Castle."

Langler, it seems, had been constrained to tell her something of his adventures at the castle, and he said now, with rather a start: "well, then, it may have been from the church that our absence was desired."

"But for what reason in the world?" I asked.

"Who knows?" he answered. "Still, it does seem now to be so."

"But for what possible reason, do you imagine, Emily?" I asked again.

Miss Emily after a moment's silence answered: "how should I know? But quidquid latet apparebit! we shall know it all some day"--and, saying this, she was gone from us.

CHAPTER XI

BARON KOLAR ON THE MIRACLE

Going down the stair later in the day, I was met by Mrs Edwards hurrying up with her large face flushed, and she stopped a little to give into my ear like a cargo all that was on her mind. Her manner was ever homely, one might say petting and motherly.

"How did you sleep?" she said in a sort of whisper, "I hope you and the Langlers are not going to desert me, too: five of the others are off after lunch, and it is too bad, everything will be spoiled. If the miracle had only waited till--but G.o.d's will be done. What a thing! I haven't got over it yet, have you? Edwards says he will be at the telephone most of the day, and that Dr Burton will have to be a prelate or something. The Queen has been talking with him from Windsor about Burton and the miracle; the whole world seems wild with excitement; they say that no miracle was ever seen by so many reliable witnesses. Poor Edwards is up to the ears in it, I'm afraid he is not very pleased at bottom, and he puts the whole blame of it upon me, as though I had any power to interfere.... I oughtn't to have got up the church-party, he says--as though I could have foreseen.... Anyway, five of the guests are off, and Edwards says that Society will have to moderate its tone in face of what he foresees"--and some more of this kind.

I told her that I didn't think that the Langlers would be shortening their visit. "But as to Baron Kolar," I said, "is he among the departing guests?"

"No," she answered, "the baron stays on till Thursday. He was closeted an hour this morning with Edwards--Oh, that man! he is too incorrigible; he has told Lady Truscott not to be overwhelmed, since the miracle has some explanation--puts it all down to hypnotism--I must go." On this she ran on up, and left me.