DISTRESSED by the interview with his neighbor, the vicar took the first
chance of going to Hart’s Ghyll with the sad news. He had a craving
to unburden his mind. And Brandon, with whom he was now on terms of
complete amity, was the one person likely to share an almost painful
interest in Murdwell’s Law and its discoverer.
Brandon, indeed, was only too ready to discuss the matter. The tenant
of Longwood had loomed large in his thoughts from the hour in which he
had first had the privilege of knowing him. To the mind of a Gervase
Brandon, he was a portent, a phenomenon; in sober truth “the writing
on the wall for the human race.” But the vicar’s news caused Brandon
less concern than might have been the case had he not been able in a
measure to anticipate and therefore to discount it. He recalled his
last glimpse of Professor Murdwell in London, and the prophetic words
of Urban Meyer.
“A terrible nemesis,” said the vicar. “A great tragedy.”
“An intervention of a merciful providence,” was Brandon’s rejoinder.
“No doubt--if his theories are rooted in scientific fact. To me, I
confess, they seem wholly fantastic. They suggest megalomania. How does
Murdwell’s Law stand scientifically?”
“It is accepted by the mathematician, and is said to provide a key to
certain unknown forces in the physical world. It has given rise to
an immense amount of speculation, and for some little time past very
remarkable developments have been predicted.”
“Which may not now materialize?”
“Let us hope not. Murdwell himself is another Newton, but his Law opens
the door to sheer diabolism on a cosmic scale. May its terrible secrets
perish with him!--that’s the best the poor race of humans has to hope
for.”
The vicar fully agreed. “Researches of this kind are surely the
negation of God,” he said.
“I think with you. But heads vastly better than mine think otherwise.
Good and evil are interchangeable terms in our modern world of T. N. T.
and the U-boat.”
“That I shall never believe. Black is black, white is white.” It was
the fighting tone, yet there was somehow a difference.
“I shall not contradict you,” said Brandon, with a smile, which had
none of the old antagonism. “For one thing, the spectrum has shifted
its angle since last we discussed the subject. I see you, my dear
friend, and the views you hold, in a new light. But apart from that I
am simply burning to talk about something else. I think I once told you
that John Smith had written a play.”
“A play, was it?” Almost in spite of himself, there came an odd
constraint to the vicar’s tone. “I was under the impression that it was
a poem.”
“There was a poem. But there was also a play, which I think I once
mentioned.”
“You may have.” Constraint was still there. “But whichever it is--does
it really matter? Poor dear fellow!”
“Yes, it matters intensely.” The sudden gleam of excitement took the
vicar by surprise. “The news has just reached me that the play has been
produced in New York.”
Mr. Perry-Hennington agreed that the fact was remarkable, but far
less so than its production in London would have been. After all, the
Americans were a very curious people.
“But it starts with every augury of world-wide success.”
“Isn’t that the American way? Mustn’t they always be licking creation
over there?”
Brandon was inclined to admit the indictment. “But,” said he, “they
generally have a solid basis of fact to work on before they start doing
that. And in this case they appear to have found it. The man who has
dared to produce this play is convinced that it will prove a landmark
in the history of the drama at any rate.”
“Really!” The vicar pursed cautious, half-incredulous lips. “But I’m
afraid the theater conveys nothing to me--the modern theater, that is.
Of course I’ve read Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies, and I once
saw Irving in Hamlet--very impressive he was--but to me the theater in
general is so much Volapuk.”
“Still,” persisted Brandon, “I hope you will allow it to be truly
remarkable that a people so sagacious, who in works of creative
imagination are better judges than ourselves, should be carried off
their feet by the dramatic genius of our local village idiot.”
An ever-increasing perception of the situation’s irony lured Brandon to
a little intellectual byplay. Perhaps to have resisted it would have
been more than human. And as he had staked all upon the transcendent
powers of his friend, and an impartial court had now declared in
his favor, this moment of self-vindication came to him as the most
delicious of his life.
Somehow it did him good to watch a cloud gather slowly over the
vicar’s craggily unexpressive face. An abyss was opening in Mr.
Perry-Hennington’s mental life. Things were happening which threatened
to undermine his moral and intellectual values. Brandon could almost
have pitied him. And yet it was hardly possible to pity the vicar’s
particular brand of arrogance, or, in this case, to forget the crime it
had wrought.
“Urban Meyer,” Brandon went on in his quiet voice, “is the world’s
foremost theatrical manager. And he writes to say that, were his
theater six times its present size, it could not accommodate the crowds
which flock to it daily.”
“Really!” said the vicar. “A very curious people, the Americans.”
“As you say, a very curious people. And this abnormally shrewd and
far-sighted little German Jew has already arranged for the play’s
production at Stockholm, Christiania, and also at the Hague.”
“Some kind of propaganda, I presume.” There was a sudden stiffening of
the vicar’s tone.
“It may be so. The aim of the play is to heal the wounds of the world,
so I suppose it is a kind of propaganda. But it may interest you to
know that Christiansen, the great Scandinavian poet and dramatist,
has already prepared a version for the Stockholm state theater, that
Hjalmars is doing the same for Denmark, Van Roon for Holland, and that
it has been banned in London.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Perry-Hennington. And then with a show of fight which
amused Brandon, he added, “Wisely, no doubt.”
“In other words, the Censor of Stage Plays has completely justified his
existence.”
“I’m afraid I can’t offer an opinion on that point,” said the vicar,
slowly renewing his dignity.
“Only the pen of a Swift or a Voltaire could do justice to that sublime
individual. Here we have a country whose proud boast is that it alone
among European states is really free, which is sacrificing its young
men by the million in order to overthrow Prussianism, imposing such
fetters upon intellectual liberty that one can only gasp.”
“Rightly no doubt.” Of late deadly blows had been aimed at the vicar’s
mental security, but there was still a kick in the old Adam. “In
intellectual matters absolute freedom becomes anarchy, and that would
be intolerable, even in a democratic country. The state is bound to
devise a means of holding it in check. Of this play I know nothing,
nor am I competent to speak of plays in general, but prima facie the
government is fully justified in suppressing it. No good thing can come
out of Babylon.”
“Or in other words out of Wellwood Asylum.”
“One does not go quite so far as to say that,” said the vicar
thoughtfully.
“An interesting admission!”
“Which perhaps one oughtn’t to make,” said the vicar rather uneasily.
And then, as if a little shocked by his own boldness, he hastened to
quit such perilous ground. “To return to stage plays. Things of that
kind will not help us to win the war.”
“And yet the pen is mightier than the sword.”
“That is a dark saying I have never been able to understand. We live
not by words but by deeds, and never more so than in this stern time.”
“A play may be a great deed.”
“If it be sufficiently inspired. But there is much virtue in an ‘if.’”
Brandon did not continue the argument. Feeling the ground on which he
stood to be impregnable, he could well afford not to do so. Besides
it was scarcely the act of a friend to press the vicar too hard in
the present amazing circumstances. He was no longer intrenched in
self-security. If certain odd changes of manner meant anything,
the walls of his little world were falling in, and a perplexed and
bewildered Thomas Perry-Hennington was now visible amid the ruins.