When It Was Dark/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
POWERS OF GOOD AND EVIL
GORTRE felt certain that his vicar stood without. His knocking was full of militant Christianity. The tumultuous energy of the man without communicated its own stir and disturbance to Basil's brain by the most subtle of all forms of telepathy — that "telepathy" which, in a few more years, will have its definite recipes and formulae.
Father Ripon refused to live by any standard of measured time. He refused — so he said — to believe that a wretched little clock really knew what the great golden sun was doing. He had found it impossible to call on Gortre before this late hour, and he came regardless of it now. He wished to see Basil, and he came now with a supreme and simple carelessness of conventional time.
As usual, the worthy man was hungry, and the débris of supper on the table reminded him of that. He sat down at once and began to eat rapidly, telling his story between mouthfuls.
"I bring you news of a famous opportunity," he said. "If you go to work in the right way you may win a soul. It's a poor demi-mondaine creature, a dancer at the theatres. She came to me in her brougham, her furs, and finery, and had a chat in my study. I gave her tea and a cigarette — you know I always keep some cigarettes for the choir-men or teachers when they call. All these women smoke. It's a great thing to treat these people with understanding and knowledge, Gortre. Don't 'come the priest' over them, as a coster said to me last week. When they realise that one is a man, then they are fifty times more willing to allow the other and more important thing.
"Well, this poor girl told me all about it, the same very sordid story one is always hearing. She is a favourite burlesque actress, and she lives very expensively in those gorgeous new flats — Bloomsbury Court. Some wealthy scoundrel pays for it all. A man 'in a very high position,' as she said with a pathetic little touch of pride which made me want to weep. Oh, my dear fellow, if the world only knew what I know! Great and honoured names in the senate, the forum, the Court, unsullied before the eyes of men. And then these hideous establishments and secret ties! This is a wicked city. The deadly lusts which war against the soul are great, powerful, and militant all around us.
"This poor woman has been coming regularly to church on Sundays. The first time was when you preached your capital sermon on the Resurrection. Now, she is dying from a slow complaint. She will live a year or two, the doctors think, and that is all. It does not prevent her from living her ordinary life, but it will strike her down suddenly some day.
"She has expressed a wish to see you to talk things over with you. She thinks you can help her. Go to her and save her. We must."
He handed Gortre a visiting-card, on which he saw the name of Gertrude Hunt with a curious lack of surprise.
"Well, I must be off," said Father Ripon, rising from the table with a large hunk of bread and cheese in one hand.
"Go and see this poor woman to-morrow evening. She tells me she isn't acting for a week or two, — rehearsing some new play. Isn't it wonderful to think of the things that are going on every day? Just think of the Holy Spirit pouring into this sinning creature's heart, catching her in the middle of her champagne and frivolity, and just turning her, almost compelling her towards Christ! And men like John Morley or Constantine Schuabe say there is no truth in Christianity! — I'll take one of these apples — poor fools! Now I must go and write my sermon."
He was gone in a clattering rush.
For a long time Basil sat thinking. The mysterious links of some great chain were being revealed inch by inch. Wonderful as these circumstances already seemed to him, he felt sure there was far more behind them than he knew as yet. There was some unseen tie, some influence that drew his thoughts ever more and more towards the library in the palace at Manchester.
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The next evening a maid showed Gortre into the hall of the flat of Bloomsbury Court Mansions, eyeing him curiously as she did so.
He passed down the richly carpeted passage with a quickening of all his pulses, noticing the Moorish lamps of copper studded with turquoise which threw a dim crimson light over everything, marking the ostentatious luxury of the place with wonder.
Gertrude Hunt lay back in a low arm-chair. She was dressed in a long, dull red teagown of cashmere, with a broad white band round the neck opening of white Indian needlework, embroidered with dark green leaves.
Her face was pale and tired.
Despite the general warmth of the time, a fire burnt steadily on the hearth.
Gortre sat down at her invitation, and they fell into a desultory conversation. He waited for her to open on the real subjects that had brought him there.
He watched the tired, handsome face. Coarse it certainly was, in expression rather than feature, but that very coarseness gave it power. This woman, who lived the life of a doll, had character. One saw that. Perhaps, he thought, as he looked at her, that the very eagerness and greed for pleasure marked in her face, the passionate determination to tear the heart and core out of life, might still be directed to purer and nobler ends.
Then she began to talk to him quite frankly, and with no disguise or slurring over the facts of her life.
"I'm sick and tired of it all, Mr. Gortre," she said bitterly. "You can't know what it means a bit — lucky for you. Imagine spending all your life in a room painted bright yellow, eating nothing but chocolate creams, with a band playing comic songs for ever and ever. And even then you won't get it."
Basil shuddered. There was something so poignant and forceful in her words that they hurt, stung like a whip-lash. He was being brought into terrible contact not only with sin and the satiety of sin, but with its results. The hideous staleness and torture of it all appalled him as he looked at this human personification of it in the crimson gown.
"That's how it was at first," she continued. "I knew there was something more than this in life, though. I could read it in people's faces. So I came to the service at your church one Sunday evening. I'd never made fun of religion and all that at any time. I simply couldn't believe it, that was all. Then I heard you preach on the Resurrection. I heard all the proofs for the first time. Of course, I could see there wasn't any doubt about the matter at all. Then, curiously, directly I began to believe in it. I began to hate the way I was going on, so I went to Father Ripon, who was very nice, and he said you'd call."
"I quite understand you, Miss Hunt," said Gortre. "That's the beauty of faith. When once you believe, then you've got to change. It's a great pity, a very great pity, that clergymen don't attempt to explain things more than they do. If one isn't built in a cer-tain way, I can quite understand and sympathise with any one who isn't able to take a parson's mere statement on trust, so to speak. But that's beside the way. You believe at any rate. And now what are you going to do? I'm here to help you in every possible way. I want to hear your views, just as you have thought them out."
"I like that," she said. "That's practical and sensible. I've never cared very much for sentimental ways of looking at things. You know I can't live very long. I've got enough to live quietly on for some years, put away in a bank, money I've made acting. I haven't spent a penny of my salary for years — I've made the men pay for everything. I shall go quietly away to the country and be alone with my thoughts, close to a little quiet church. You'll find a place for me, won't you? That's what I want to do. But there's something in the way, and a big something, too."
"I'm here to help that," said Basil.
"It's Bob," she answered. "The man that keeps me. I'm afraid of him. He's been away for months, out of England, but he's coming back at once. Tomorrow as likely as not, he couldn't say to a day. I had a letter from Brindisi last week. He's been to Palestine, via Alexandria."
A quick premonition took hold of the young man.
"Who is he?" he asked.
She took a photograph from the mantel-shelf and gave it to him. It was one of the Stereoscopic Company's series of "celebrities." Under the portrait was printed — "Sir Robert Llwellyn."
Gortre started violently.
"I know him," he said thickly. "I felt when I met him — What does it all mean?"
He dropped his head into his hands, filled with the old, nameless, unreasoning fear.
She looked steadily at him, wondering at his manner.
There was a tense silence for a time.
In the silence suddenly they heard a sound, clear and distinct. A key was being inserted into the door of the flat.
They waited breathlessly. Gertrude Hunt grew very white. Without any words from her, Basil knew whose fingers were even now upon the handle of the door. Llwellyn entered. His huge form was dressed in a light grey suit and he carried a straw hat in his hand. His face was burned a deep brown.
He stopped suddenly as he saw Gortre and an ugly look flashed out on the sensual, intellectual face. Some swift intuition seemed to give him the key of the situation or something near it.
"The curate of Dieppe!" he said in a cold, mirthless voice. "And what, Mr. Gortre, may I ask, are you doing here?"
"Miss Hunt has asked me to come and see her," answered Basil.
"Consoling yourself with the Church, Gertie, while your proprietor is away?" Llwellyn said with a sneer.
Then his manner changed suddenly.
He turned to Gortre. "Now then, my man," he snarled, "get out of this place at once. You may not know that I pay the rent and other expenses of this establishment. It is mine, I know all about you. Your reputation has reached me from sources you have little idea of. And I saw you at Dieppe. I don't propose to resume our acquaintance in London; kindly go at once."
Basil looked at the woman. He saw pleading, a terrible entreaty in her eyes. If he left her now, the power of this man, his strength of will, might drag her back for ever into hell. He could see the girl regarded him with terror. There was a great surprise in her face also. The man seemed so strong and purposeful. Even Gortre remembered that he had worn no such indefinable air of confidence and triumph six months ago in France.
"Miss Hunt wants me to stay, sir," he answered quietly, "and so I 'm going to stay. But perhaps you had better be given an explanation at once. Miss Hunt is going to leave you to-morrow. She will never see you again."
"And may I ask," the big man answered, "why you have interfered in my private affairs and why you think — for she is going to do nothing of the sort — Miss Hunt is going from here?"
"Simply because the Holy Spirit wills it so," said the clergyman.
Llwellyn looked steadily at him and then at the woman.
Something he saw in their faces told him the truth.
He laughed shortly. "Let me tell you," he said in a voice which quivered with ugly passion, "that in a short time all meddling priests will lose their power over the minds of others for ever. Your Christ, your God, the pale dreamer of the East, shall be revealed to you and all men at last!"
His manner had changed once more. Fierce as it was, there was an intense meaning and power in it. He spoke as one having authority, with also a concentrated hate in his words, so real and bitter that it gave them a certain fineness.
"Yes!" he continued, lifting his arm with a sudden gesture:
Gortre answered him:
"You lie and you know you lie! and by the powers given to me I'll tell you so from God Himself. Christ is risen! And as the day follows the night so the Spirit of God remains upon the earth God once visited, and works upon the hearts of men."
"Are you going?" said Llwellyn, stepping towards Gortre.
"No," the young man answered in sharp, angry tones. "It 's you that are going, Sir Robert. You know as well as I do that I can do exactly as I like with you if it comes to force. And really I am not at all disinclined to do so, despite my parson's coat. Then you will have your remedy, you know. The newly made knight fighting a clergyman under such very curious circumstances! If this thing is to become open talk, then let us have it so. You can do me no harm. I came here at my vicar's request and Miss Hunt's. You know best if you can stand a scandal of this kind in your position. Now I'm going to use my last argument. Are you going at once or shall I knock you down and kick you out?"
He could not help a note of exultation in his voice, try as he would. He was still a young man, full of power and virility. His life had brought no trace of effeminacy with it. And as he saw this splendid lying intellect, the slave of evil, and rejoicing in it, as he heard the arrogant denial of Christ's Godhead coming sonorously from those polluted lips, a wild longing flared up in him. Like a sudden flame, the impulse to strike a clean, hard blow fired all his blood. The old Oxford days of athletic triumphs on field, flood, and river came back to him.
He measured the man scientifically with his eyes, judging his distance, alert to strike.
But Llwellyn made no further movement of aggression and uttered no word of menace. He did not seem in the least afraid of Gortre or in any way intimidated by him. Indeed, he laughed, a laugh which was very hollow, mirthless, and cold.
"Ah, my boy," he said, "I have a worse harm to work you than you can dream of yet. You will remember me some day. You can't frighten me now. I will go. I want no scandal. Good-bye, Gertrude. You also will remember and regret some day. Good-bye."
He went noiselessly out of the room, still with the strange flickering smile of prescience and fate upon his evil face.
When he had gone, Gertrude fell into a passion of weeping. The strain had been too great. Basil comforted her as well as he could, and before he went promised to see Father Ripon that night and make arrangements that she should quietly disappear the next day to some distant undiscoverable haven.
Then he also went out into the night, through the silent squares of sleeping houses towards the Clergy House of St. Mary's. Once more his nerves were unstrung and the old fears and the sense of waiting — Damocles-like for some blow to fall — poured over him.
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Sir Robert walked swiftly to Oxford Street, where he found a cab. He ordered the man to drive him to the Sheridan Club. On the way he stopped at Charing Cross Station and ordered his luggage to be sent home at once to his house in Upper Berkeley Street. He had only been in London two or three hours, having crossed from Calais that afternoon.
He washed when he had arrived at the famous club, and then went up-stairs to the grill-room for some supper. It was the hour when the Sheridan is full of the upper Bohemian world. Great actors and musicians, a judge on his way through town from one watering-place to another, — for it was now the long vacation, — a good many well-known journalists, all sorts and conditions of men. All were eminent in their work, for that was a condition of membership.
Llwellyn was welcomed on all sides, though men noticed that he seemed preoccupied. His healthy appearance was commented on, his face browned, as was supposed, by the sun of the Riviera, his general fitness of manner and carriage.
He took supper by himself at a small table, choosing the menu with his usual extreme care, and more than once summoning the head waiter to conference. Although he kept glancing at his watch, as if expecting an arrival, he made a good meal, mixing his own salad of crisp white lettuce with deliberation.
He had sent a page early on his arrival to find out if Mr. Constantine Schuabe was in the club.
He was standing at the desk in the middle of the room, paying his bill, when the iltwing-doors were pushed open and Schuabe entered. He was in evening dress and carried a light overcoat on his arm.
Llwellyn gathered up his change and went to meet him. Had there been an attentive observer to mark the meeting of the two men he would perhaps have been a little surprised at the fashion of it.
Although Llwellyn was a six-months' stranger to London, and the meeting between the two men was obviously prearranged, neither of the two men smiled as they shook hands. Both were expectant of each other, pale, almost with some apprehension, it might have been fancied; and though the meeting seemed a relief to each, there was little human kindliness in it.
"Come down to the Hotel," said Schuabe; "we can't possibly say anything here, every room is full."
They walked out of the club together, two figures of noticeable distinction, very obviously belonging to the ruling classes of England. The millionaire's pale and beautiful face was worn and lined.
"Schuabe seems a bit done up," one man in the hall said to another as the two friends passed through.
"Heat, I suppose," answered his companion. "Hand- some chap, though; doesn't seem to care for anything worth having, only books and politics and that. Wish I'd his money."
"So do I. But give me Bob Llwellyn of these two. Thoroughly decent sort he is. Invented two new omelettes and a white soup. Forgets all about his thing-um-bobs — old Egyptian or something — they knighted him for directly he leaves the Museum."
"That's the sort," answered a third man who had joined them. "I don't object to a Johnny having a brain, and knowing a devil of a lot, if he'll only jolly well keep it to himself. Bob does that. I'm going up-stairs to have a turn at poker. You fellows coming?"
Schuabe and Llwellyn walked to the Cecil, no great distance, saying little by the way, and presently they were in the millionaire's great room, with its spacious view over the river.
The place was beautifully cool and full of flowers. A great block of ice rose from a copper bowl placed on a pedestal. The carpet had been covered with light matting of rice straw, brought from Rawal-pindi. All the windows leading to the balcony were wide open, and the balcony was covered with striped awning, underneath which the electric lights glowed on the leaves of Japanese palms, seeming as if they had been cunningly lacquered a metallic green colour, and on low chairs of white bleached rushes.
The two men sat down in the centre of the room on light chairs, with a small Turkish table and cool drinks between them.
"You've had all my letters, my last from Jaffa?" asked Sir Robert.
"Yes, all of them," said Schuabe; "each one was carefully destroyed after I had read it and memorialised the contents. Let me say now that you have done your work with extraordinary brilliance. It has been an intellectual pleasure of a high order to follow your proceedings and know your plans. There is not another man in the world who could do what you have done. Everything seems guarded against, all is secure."
"You are right, Schuabe," said Llwellyn, in a matter-of-fact voice. "You bade me make a certain thing possible. You paid me proportionately to the terrible risks and for my unrivalled knowledge. Well, you and I are going to shake the whole world as no two other men have ever done, and what will be the end?"
"The end!" cried Schuabe, in a high, strained, unnatural voice. "Who shall say? What man can know? For ever more the gigantic fable of the Cross and the Man God will be overthrown. The temples of the world will fall into the abomination of desolation, and you and I, latter-day bringers of light — Lucifers! — will kill the pale Nazarene more surely than the Sanhedrists and soldiers of the past."
There was a thin madness in his voice. The great figure of the savant shifted uneasily in its chair.
"That fellow Gortre, that abominable young priest, has been getting in my way to-night," he said with a savage curse. "I found him with Gertrude Hunt, the woman I've spent thousands on! The priests have got her; she's going to 'lead a new life.' She has 'found Christ'!"
Schuabe smiled horribly, a cunning smile of unutterable malice.
"He has crossed my path also," he said; "in some way, by a series of coincidences, he has become slightly involved in our lives. Leave the matter to me. So small a thing as the fanaticism of one obscure youth is nothing to trouble us. I will see to his future. But he shall live to know what is coming to the world. Then — it is easy enough. He thwarted me one night also."
They were silent for a minute or two. Sir Robert lifted a long glass to his lips. His hand shook with passion, and the ice in the liquid clinked and tinkled.
"Everything is now ready," he said at last, glancing at Schuabe. "Every detail. Ionides knows what he has to do when he receives the signal. He is a mere tool, and knows and cares nothing of what will happen. He is to direct the excavators in certain directions, that is all. It will be three months, so I calculate, after we have set the machinery in motion, before the blow will fall. It rests with you now to begin."
"The sign shall go at once," said Schuabe. His eyes glittered, his mouth worked with emotion.
"It is a letter with a single sign on it."
"What is the sign?"
"A drawing of a broken cross."
"Before the day dawns we will send the broken cross to Jerusalem."
END OF BOOK I