Dawn of All - Robert Hugh Benson (the read aloud family txt) 📗

with extraordinary fervour. Around the pulpit, beyond it, and on all sides to an immense distance, so far as he could see, stretched the heads of an incalculable multitude, dead silent, and beyond them again trees, green against a blue summer sky.

He looked on all this, but it meant nothing to him. It fitted on nowhere with his experience; he knew neither where he was, nor at what he was assisting, nor who these people were, nor who the friar was, nor who he was himself. He simply looked at his surroundings, then back at his hands and down his figure.

He gained no knowledge there, for he was dressed as he had never been dressed before. His caped cassock was black, with purple buttons and a purple cincture. He noticed that his shoes shone with gold buckles; he glanced at his breast, but no cross hung there. He took off his biretta, nervously, lest some one should notice, and perceived that it was black with a purple tassel. He was dressed then, it seemed, in the costume of a Domestic Prelate. He put on his biretta again.

Then he closed his eyes and tried to think; but he could remember nothing. There was, it seemed, no continuity anywhere. But it suddenly struck him that if he knew that he was a Domestic Prelate, and if he could recognize a Franciscan, he must have seen those phenomena before. Where? When?

Little pictures began to form before him as a result of his intense mental effort, but they were far away and minute, like figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope; and they afforded no explanation. But, as he bent his whole mind upon it, he remembered that he had been a priest--he had distinct memories of saying mass. But he could not remember where or when; he could not even remember his own name.

This last horror struck him alert again. He did not know who he was. He opened his eyes widely, terrified, and caught the eye of an old priest in cotta and cassock who was looking back at him over his shoulder. Something in the frightened face must have disturbed the old man, for he detached himself from the group and came up the two steps to his side.

"What is it, Monsignor?" he whispered.

"I am ill . . . I am ill . . . father," he stammered.

The priest looked at him doubtfully for an instant.

"Can you . . . can you hold out for a little? The sermon must be nearly---"

Then the other recovered. He understood that at whatever cost he must not attract attention. He nodded sharply.

"Yes, I can hold out, father; if he isn't too long. But you must take me home afterwards."

The priest still looked at him doubtfully.

"Go back to your place, father. I'm all right. Don't attract attention. Only come to me afterwards."

The priest went back, but he still glanced at him once or twice.

Then the man who did not know himself set his teeth and resolved to remember. The thing was too absurd. He said to himself he would begin by identifying where he was. If he knew so much as to his own position and the dresses of those priests, his memory could not be wholly gone.

In front of him and to the right there were trees, beyond the heads of the crowd. There was something vaguely familiar to him about the arrangement of these, but not enough to tell him anything. He craned forward and stared as far to the right as he could. There were more trees. Then to the left; and here, for the first time, he caught sight of buildings. But these seemed very odd buildings--neither houses nor arches--but something between the two. They were of the nature of an elaborate gateway.

And then in a flash he recognized where he was. He was sitting, under this canopy, just to the right as one enters through Hyde Park Corner; these trees were the trees of the Park; that open space in front was the beginning of Rotten Row; and Something Lane--Park Lane--(that was it!)--was behind him.

Impressions and questions crowded upon him quickly now--yet in none of them was there a hint as to how he got here, nor who he was, nor what in the world was going on. This friar! What was he doing, preaching in Hyde Park? It was ridiculous--ridiculous and very dangerous. It would cause trouble. . . .

He leaned forward to listen, as the friar with a wide gesture swept his hand round the horizon. "Brethren," he cried, "Look round you! Fifty years ago this was a Protestant country, and the Church of God a sect among the sects. And to-day--to-day God is vindicated and the truth is known. Fifty years ago we were but a handful among the thousands that knew not God, and to-day we rule the world. 'Son of man, can these dry bones live?' So cried the voice of God to the prophet. And behold! they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. If then He has done such things for us, what shall He not do for those for whom I speak? Yet He works through man. 'How shall they hear without a preacher?' Do you see to it then that there are not wanting labourers in that vineyard of which you have heard. Already the grapes hang ready to pluck, and it is but we that are wanting. . . . Send forth then labourers into My vineyard, cries the Lord of all."

The words were ill-chosen and commonplace enough, and uttered in an accent indefinably strange to the bewildered listener, but the force of the man was tremendous, as he sent out his personality over the enormous crowd, on that high vibrant voice that controlled, it seemed, even those on the outskirts far up the roads on either side. Then with a swift sign of the cross, answered generally by those about the pulpit, he ended his sermon and disappeared down the steps, and a great murmur of talk began.

But what in the world was it all about, wondered the man under the canopy. What was this vineyard? and why did he appeal to English people in such words as these? Every one knew that the Catholic Church was but a handful still in this country. Certainly, progress had been made, but. . . .

He broke off his meditations as he saw the group of ecclesiastics coming towards him, and noticed that on all sides the crowd was beginning to disperse. He gripped the arms of the chair fiercely, trying to gain self-command. He must not make a fool of himself before all these people; he must be discreet and say as little as possible.

But there was no great need for caution at present. The old priest who had spoken to him before stepped a little in advance of the rest, and turning, said in a low sentence or two to the Benedictines; and the group stopped, though one or two still eyed, it seemed, with sympathy, the man who awaited him. Then the priest came up alone and put his hand on the arm of the chair.

"Come out this way," he whispered. "There's a path behind, Monsignor, and I've sent orders for the car to be there."

The man rose obediently (he could do nothing else), passed down the steps and behind the canopy. A couple of police stood there in an unfamiliar, but unmistakable uniform, and these drew themselves up and saluted. They went on down the little pathway and out through a side-gate. Here again the crowd was tremendous, but barriers kept them away, and the two passed on together across the pavement, saluted by half a dozen men who were pressed against the barriers--(it was here, for the first time, that the bewildered man noticed that the dresses seemed altogether unfamiliar)--and up to a car of a peculiar and unknown shape, that waited in the roadway, with a bare-headed servant, in some strange purple livery, holding the door open.

"After you, Monsignor," said the old priest.

The other stepped in and sat down. The priest hesitated for an instant, and then leaned forward into the car.

"You have an appointment in Dean's Yard, Monsignor, you remember. It's important, you know. Are you too ill?"

"I can't. . . . I can't. . . ." stammered the man.

"Well, at least, we can go round that way. I think we ought, you know. I can go in and see him for you, if you wish; and we can at any rate leave the papers."

"Anything, anything. . . . Very well."

The priest got in instantly; the door closed; and the next moment, through crowds, held back by the police, the great car, with no driver visible in front through the clear-glass windows, moved off southward.


(II)

It was a moment before either spoke. The old priest broke the silence. He was a gentle-faced old man, not unlike a very shrewd and wide-awake dormouse; and his white hair stood out in a mass beneath his biretta. But the words he used were unintelligible, though not altogether unfamiliar.

"I . . . I don't understand, father," stammered the man.

The priest looked at him sharply.

"I was saying," he said slowly and distinctly, "I was saying that you looked very well, and I was asking you what was the matter."

The other was silent a moment. How, to explain the thing! . . . Then he determined on making a clean breast of it. This old man looked kindly and discreet. "I . . . I think it's a lapse of memory," he said. "I've heard of such things. I . . . I don't know where I am nor what I'm doing. Are you . . . are you sure you're not making a mistake? Have I got any right----?"

The priest looked at him as if puzzled.

"I don't quite understand, Monsignor. What can't you remember?"

"I can't remember anything," wailed the man, suddenly broken down. "Nothing at all. Not who I am, nor where I'm going, or where I come from. . . . What am I? Who am I? Father, for God's sake tell me."

"Monsignor, be quiet, please. You mustn't give way. Surely----"

"I tell you I can remember nothing. . . . It's all gone. I don't know who you are. I don't know what day it is, or what year it is, or anything----"

He felt a hand on his arm, and his eyes met a look of a very peculiar power and concentration. He sank back into his seat strangely quieted and soothed.

"Now, Monsignor, listen to me. You know who I am"--(he broke off). "I'm Father Jervis. I know about these things. I've been through the psychological schools. You'll be all right presently, I hope. But you must be perfectly quiet----"

"Tell me who I am," stammered the man.

"Listen then. You are Monsignor Masterman, secretary to the Cardinal. You are going back to Westminster now, in your own car----"

"What's been going on? What was all that crowd about?"

Still the eyes were on him, compelling and penetrating.

"You have been presiding at the usual midday Saturday sermon in Hyde Park, on behalf of the Missions to the East. Do you remember now? No! Well, it doesn't matter in the least. That was Father Anthony who was preaching. He was a little nervous, you noticed. It was his first sermon