Lord of the World - Robert Hugh Benson (superbooks4u .TXT) 📗

carriage took it very seriously; he could hear, after a moment's silence, the talking recommence beyond the partition.

Then there came, echoed by the walls, the sound of shouting from far away, mingled with hoots and chords; it grew louder. The talking in the carriage stopped. He heard a window thrown up, and the next instant a car tore past, going back to the station although on the down line. This must be looked into, thought Percy: something certainly was happening; so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There was a jerk--a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as the carriage in which he was seated itself began to move backwards.

There was a clamour now in the next compartment, and Percy made his way there through the door, only to find half-a-dozen men with their heads thrust from the windows, who paid absolutely no attention to his inquiries. So he stood there, aware that they knew no more than himself, waiting for an explanation from some one. It was disgraceful, he told himself, that any misadventure should so disorganise the line.

Twice the car stopped; each time it moved on again after a hoot or two, and at last drew up at the platform whence it had started, although a hundred yards further out.

Ah! there was no doubt that something had happened! The instant he opened the door a great roar met his ears, and as he sprang on to the platform and looked up at the end of the station, he began to understand.

* * * * *


From right to left of the huge interior, across the platforms, swelling every instant, surged an enormous swaying, roaring crowd. The flight of steps, twenty yards broad, used only in cases of emergency, resembled a gigantic black cataract nearly two hundred feet in height. Each car as it drew up discharged more and more men and women, who ran like ants towards the assembly of their fellows. The noise was indescribable, the shouting of men, the screaming of women, the clang and hoot of the huge machines, and three or four times the brazen cry of a trumpet, as an emergency door was flung open overhead, and a small swirl of crowd poured through it towards the streets beyond. But after one look Percy looked no more at the people; for there, high up beneath the clock, on the Government signal board, flared out monstrous letters of fire, telling in Esperanto and English, the message for which England had grown sick. He read it a dozen times before he moved, staring, as at a supernatural sight which might denote the triumph of either heaven or hell.

"EASTERN CONVENTION DISPERSED.

PEACE, NOT WAR.

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD ESTABLISHED.

FELSENBURGH IN LONDON TO-NIGHT."

* * * * *


III


It was not until nearly two hours later that Percy was standing at the house beyond the Junction.

He bad argued, expostulated, threatened, but the officials were like men possessed. Half of them had disappeared in the rush to the City, for it had leaked out, in spite of the Government's precautions, that Paul's House, known once as St. Paul's Cathedral, was to be the scene of Felsenburgh's reception. The others seemed demented; one man on the platform had dropped dead from nervous exhaustion, but no one appeared to care; and the body lay huddled beneath a seat. Again and again Percy had been swept away by a rush, as he struggled from platform to platform in his search for a car that would take him to Croydon. It seemed that there was none to be had, and the useless carriages collected like drift-wood between the platforms, as others whirled up from the country bringing loads of frantic, delirious men, who vanished like smoke from the white rubber-boards. The platforms were continually crowded, and as continually emptied, and it was not until half-an-hour before midnight that the block began to move outwards again.

Well, he was here at last, dishevelled, hatless and exhausted, looking up at the dark windows.

He scarcely knew what he thought of the whole matter. War, of course, was terrible. And such a war as this would have been too terrible for the imagination to visualise; but to the priest's mind there were other things even worse. What of universal peace--peace, that is to say, established by others than Christ's method? Or was God behind even this? The questions were hopeless.

Felsenburgh--it was he then who had done this thing--this thing undoubtedly greater than any secular event hitherto known in civilisation. What manner of man was he? What was his character, his motive, his method? How would he use his success?... So the points flew before him like a stream of sparks, each, it might be, harmless; each, equally, capable of setting a world on fire. Meanwhile here was an old woman who desired to be reconciled with God before she died....

* * * * *


He touched the button again, three or four times, and waited. Then a light sprang out overhead, and he knew that he was heard.

"I was sent for," he exclaimed to the bewildered maid. "I should have been here at twenty-two: I was prevented by the rush."

She babbled out a question at him.

"Yes, it is true, I believe," he said. "It is peace, not war. Kindly take me upstairs."

He went through the hall with a curious sense of guilt. This was Brand's house then--that vivid orator, so bitterly eloquent against God; and here was he, a priest, slinking in under cover of night. Well, well, it was not of his appointment.

At the door of an upstairs room the maid turned to him.

"A doctor, sir?" she said.

"That is my affair," said Percy briefly, and opened the door.

* * * * *


A little wailing cry broke from the corner, before he had time to close the door again.

"Oh! thank God! I thought He had forgotten me. You are a priest, father?"

"I am a priest. Do you not remember seeing me in the Cathedral?"

"Yes, yes, sir; I saw you praying, father. Oh! thank God, thank God!"

Percy stood looking down at her a moment, seeing her flushed old face in the nightcap, her bright sunken eyes and her tremulous hands. Yes; this was genuine enough.

"Now, my child," he said, "tell me."

"My confession, father."

Percy drew out the purple thread, slipped it over his shoulders, and sat down by the bed.

* * * * *


But she would not let him go for a while after that.

"Tell me, father. When will you bring me Holy Communion?"

He hesitated.

"I understand that Mr. Brand and his wife know nothing of all this?"

"No, father."

"Tell me, are you very ill?"

"I don't know, father. They will not tell me. I thought I was gone last night."

"When would you wish me to bring you Holy Communion? I will do as you say."

"Shall I send to you in a day or two? Father, ought I to tell him?"

"You are not obliged."

"I will if I ought."

"Well, think about it, and let me know.... You have heard what has happened?"

She nodded, but almost uninterestedly; and Percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart. After all, the reconciling of a soul to God was a greater thing than the reconciling of East to West.

"It may make a difference to Mr. Brand," he said. "He will be a great man, now, you know."

She still looked at him in silence, smiling a little. Percy was astonished at the youthfulness of that old face. Then her face changed.

"Father, I must not keep you; but tell me this--Who is this man?"

"Felsenburgh?"

"Yes."

"No one knows. We shall know more to-morrow. He is in town to-night."

She looked so strange that Percy for an instant thought it was a seizure. Her face seemed to fall away in a kind of emotion, half cunning, half fear.

"Well, my child?"

"Father, I am a little afraid when I think of that man. He cannot harm me, can he? I am safe now? I am a Catholic--?"

"My child, of course you are safe. What is the matter? How can this man injure you?"

But the look of terror was still there, and Percy came a step nearer.

"You must not give way to fancies," he said. "Just commit yourself to our Blessed Lord. This man can do you no harm."

He was speaking now as to a child; but it was of no use. Her old mouth was still sucked in, and her eyes wandered past him into the gloom of the room behind.

"My child, tell me what is the matter. What do you know of Felsenburgh? You have been dreaming."

She nodded suddenly and energetically, and Percy for the first time felt his heart give a little leap of apprehension. Was this old woman out of her mind, then? Or why was it that that name seemed to him sinister? Then he remembered that Father Blackmore had once talked like this. He made an effort, and sat down once more.

"Now tell me plainly," he said. "You have been dreaming. What have you dreamt?"

She raised herself a little in bed, again glancing round the room; then she put out her old ringed hand for one of his, and he gave it, wondering.

"The door is shut, father? There is no one listening?"

"No, no, my child. Why are you trembling? You must not be superstitious."

"Father, I will tell you. Dreams are nonsense, are they not? Well, at least, this is what I dreamt.

"I was somewhere in a great house; I do not know where it was. It was a house I have never seen. It was one of the old houses, and it was very dark. I was a child, I thought, and I was ... I was afraid of something. The passages were all dark, and I went crying in the dark, looking for a light, and there was none. Then I heard a voice talking, a great way off. Father---"

Her hand gripped his more tightly, and again her eyes went round the room.

With great difficulty Percy repressed a sigh. Yet he dared not leave her just now. The house was very still; only from outside now and again sounded the clang of the cars, as they sped countrywards again from the congested town, and once the sound of great shouting. He wondered what time it was.

"Had you better tell me now?" he asked, still talking with a patient simplicity. "What time will they be back?"

"Not yet," she whispered. "Mabel said not till two o'clock. What time is it now, father?"

He pulled out his watch with his disengaged hand.

"It is not yet one," he said.

"Very well, listen, father.... I was in this house; and I heard that talking; and I ran along the passages, till I saw light below a door; and then I stopped.... Nearer, father."

Percy was a little awed in spite of himself. Her voice had suddenly dropped to a whisper, and her old eyes seemed to hold