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 God'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 Kolár," 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.
Below I was at once struck by a difference in the tone of the house. I
did not see Mr Edwards, and Baron Kolár too was missing. Langler told me
that the baron was at Ritching Vicarage with Dr Burton, and when I
mentioned to him what Mrs Edwards had whispered me as to Burton's
probable rise, his answer was: "well, that will be only fitting:
moreover, Baron Kolár prophesied it, you remember."
The afternoon passed into twilight, and still I saw no sign of the
Styrian, but an hour before dinner, as I happened to be strolling alone
in one of the home-coverts separated by a path from the park, Mr
Edwards, without any hat, broke through the bushes, dashing back his
hair, and looking pestered. "Oh, Mr Templeton," he said, "have you seen
anything of Baron Kolár?"
I said no.
"Hang the man," said he, "I have had four men out on his trail for an
hour...."
I said that I had understood earlier in the day that the baron was at Dr
Burton's.
"He was," answered Edwards, "but he isn't now. It is precisely about Dr
Burton that I want to see him, for the Bishop of Lincoln offers Burton
the nomination to the vacant Chancellorship and Residentiary Canonry, on
condition that I accept at once. Properly speaking, you know, the whole
job lies miles outside my interest, and I only wish----God forgive me."
"But why all the flurry?" I asked.
"Well," he answered, "the country, of course, looks to me now to rush Dr
Burton into some Grand Lamaship--as though one could at a moment's
notice like this! I assure you, Mr Templeton, soft isn't the word for
the hundreds of unpractical suggestions that have been made me this day
by leading men in the country, so what we are coming to from a business
point of view is rather hard to say. Oxford is a place up in the clouds!
and Cambridge isn't far below.... I don't seem to have even a spare
deanery into which to fit Burton, and the whole to-do is rather hard on
me--all extraneous work and worry--for _I_ haven't studied
Church-organisation! if anyone were to ask me who is the real head of it
all as things are, the King or the Pope, I believe I'd be put to it to
give him a straight answer. However, there's this Lincoln
Chancellorship, and I'm hunting down Baron Kolár to see whether or not
he'll have it for Dr Burton just for the time being...."
At this I could not help exclaiming: "but what voice has Baron Kolár in
the matter of the career of Dr Burton?"
"Oh, well," said Mr Edwards, "you would hardly see the inwardness of it
off-hand by the light of nature, for it is delicate in a diplomatic way.
You know that Baron Kolár fills such a place both in and out of the
Reichsrath that he is one of the four men who really have the world's
peace in the hollow of their hand, but perhaps you don't know by how far
he is probably the most dangerous of the four, for the bottom meanings
of that man's polity remain an unknown quantity, and in order to get at
them you would have first of all to draw his teeth, for his mind lurks
in a stronghold of which his teeth are the ramparts, and it takes a
pretty tricky one to see much that's behind 'em. Anyway, the Foreign
Minister of a country whose chief asset is peace would rather stand
personally well with Baron Kolár with a view to sound sleep at night
than with, I was going to say his--own--wife."
"Quite so," said I; "but still, what can be the grounds of this
interest of the baron in Dr Burton? not political?"
"It is, somehow," said Edwards, "though I don't pretend quite to fathom
the lees of this particular mind; but from the first he adopted Burton,
and, of course, when a man like him chooses to chaperon a parish-priest
up the mountains of preferment----"
At this point a clerk ran up to deliver some message to Mr Edwards, who
went off with him, I, for my part, continuing my stroll through the
covert till I came out upon a road, where the first thing which I saw
was Baron Kolár's valet reclining in a meadow, smoking. I went through a
gate to him, and asked where his master was. His answer was in the
words: "perhaps can you that house there under see? there is he."
I knew the house to which he pointed: it is called Dale Manor, and was
then the home of two old maids whom I had long known as "Miss Jane" and
"Miss Lizzie" (Chambers), for they were visitors at Swandale. How Baron
Kolár had come to know them, why he was there, I couldn't guess; but, in
good nature to Mr Edwards, I walked down three very steep fields, then
down two lanes, to Dale Manor, in order to tell the baron that he was
being sought.
This Dale Manor, certainly, was a very charming home. I pulled the
bell-chain at the wall which surrounds the place, and, on being let in,
caught sight of Miss Jane pacing, with gloves and scissors, among her
flowers. I think that the sun had already set, and the scene in there
was all one of bowery shades and peace and well-being. Miss Jane, I
suppose, thought that I had come on a visit, and after asking some
questions about the Langlers and the miracle invited me in. I then asked
if Baron Kolár was in the house, to which she replied, with a smile:
"yes--_fast asleep_."
"Asleep!"
"_Sh-h-h!_" she whispered, "he is just under that window there: my
sister is watching over him; it must be nearly time for me to relieve
her...."
I was too astonished to speak! My knowledge of the manner of life of
these ladies, its English primness and reclusion, made all the keener my
feeling of the oddity here, for certainly they would have consented to
take turns in watching over the slumbers of no other male person, and I
thought to myself: "well! such miracles are wrought by great men."
"I didn't know that you even knew the baron," I said at last.
"We have known him for five afternoons," answered Miss Jane in a hushed,
but animated, manner--"since last Thursday! In passing by the Manor he
fell in love with it, and rang the gate-bell. I happened to be in the
gardens, and, being _naturally_ startled, contrived to send for my
sister, who after examining him through the spyglass from a window came
down to us. It was _so_ embarrassing at first! we had no _notion_ what
to make of the man suddenly sprung upon us, with his great satin jacket
and stream of talk, we _couldn't_, of course, know who he might be, for
it was only after a long while that he let out that he was staying at
Goodford. He led us round the grounds, criticising and admiring
_everything_, then had the head gardener brought to suggest certain
changes to him--and there is no doubt that he _must_ be a past master of
horticulture, forestry, and landscape gardening, you know--then he said
that he was tired and thirsty, and had a headache, so we _had_ finally
to decide to ask him in."
"It must have been an event!"
"Well, we were certainly put out," answered Miss Jane, "and poor Lizzie
has been taking lavender-water; for Barons Kolár do not grow on every
bush, and it all came upon us like any thunderclap. He sat by that
window in the drawing-room, talking, talking in his long-drawn way, and
looking sleepy, while Lizzie and I glanced at each other, wondering what
next, for my sister and I of course know what each other is thinking
without needing to speak. Now, as it happened, Fanny, our between-maid,
was ill, and Lizzie had been making some special milk-toast for her, so
it occurred to Lizzie to give him some of it, with tea; she had made
quite a pile, and never _dreamt_--anyway, it was brought in. Well, he
began to eat languidly, but he kept on eating and talking, and, Mr
Templeton, he ate up every scrap--yes, every scrap."
"Poor Fanny!"
"Yes, indeed. My sister and I glanced at each other when we saw the pile
of milk toast going, going, and then gone. But he consoled poor Lizzie,
who, if she has just a touch of vanity, is to be condoned on the score
of her youth--you know, of course, Mr Templeton, that my sister is my
junior by three years--he consoled her by saying that he had never
tasted _any_thing so nice; and it is only just to my sister to admit
that she _can_ make milk-toast. But he had hardly finished the
milk-toast when he began to nod, and before we knew where we were we had
him fast asleep on our hands. He muttered afresh that he had a headache,
that he wished to be allowed to sleep on the sofa, and that he would
like his hair to be brushed while he slept! then he threw himself down,
and was instantly asleep. Imagine our plight! What _could_ we do, Mr
Templeton? Lizzie, who was quite distracted, put a chair under his feet,
and proposed to _me_ to brush his hair! I simply _would_ not! She
maintained that it was my duty to assume the initiative, since I am the
elder, but I _could_ not see eye to eye with her, and at last, after a
great deal _too_ many words, she decided that, since it had to be done,
and I _would_ not, then she _must_, being the younger----"
"That was brave and charming of Miss Lizzie," I said.
"You think so?" asked Miss Jane, with a weighing look at me: "to tell
the truth, we here are not much in favour of adventures and new
departures, and rather affect the quiet old monotonies; but since you
think so----At any rate, he slept for an hour; and every afternoon since
then he comes, eats a pile of milk-toast, sleeps an hour, and has his
hair brushed. What _can_ we do or say? We are in the maze of an
enchantment! Punctually as the clock strikes four his ring is heard at
the gate, and in he comes, happy and smiling."
"It is an idyll," I said; "but I have an urgent message for him, if one
may venture to disturb his Excellency's siesta."
"I fear he would hardly approve of being awakened," said Miss Jane; "but
he won't sleep long now, I know. We might go in softly, and see
them...."
On this we went in, to find Miss Lizzie, all brown silk and mitts,
sitting in patient vigil over the Styrian, from whom came a note of
slumber. To me nothing could have been funnier than this casting of his
gross weight by Baron Kolár upon these dainty ladies, and at the sight
of it I was afresh pierced with laughter. Miss Jane now took Miss
Lizzie's place as watcher, while Miss Lizzie came to ply me with hushed
questions about the miracle, till at last the baron opened his eyes,
showed his teeth in a smile, moaned for happiness, and sat up.
I informed him that he was being sought by the Prime Minister, and
presently, after some talk, we two left Dale Manor together for
Goodford.
"Dear beings," he said happily to me of the Misses Chambers, "nice
people, charming people, I like them. These are not women, oh no, they
are angels. It is astonishing to what differentiations the human species
lends itself: here in these ladies you have a type which is not the
highest anthropologically, and yet may be as unapelike as the exactest
genius of our age. Primitive creatures spent their lives in a passion of
earnestness, seeking their food, and defending themselves from violence;
but evolution is toward the appreciation of trifles. The earnestness of
the engineer, of the statesman, is still brutish: he bestrides the world
wild of eye, while to these ladies a parish is the world, tiny
traditions are their life, whatever arises causes them to exchange a
code of glances. Nice people, gracious people: their velvet manners,
their cushions, their shaded interior--everything nice and luxurious,
and, I assure you, they make very good toast--very good. Nor does it
displease me to find them devoid of ideas, oh no, there is no need for
them to say anything: merely as listeners they have a merit. I am only
sorry that this so-called miracle has come to excite and unsettle
them."
"But 'so-called,' Baron Kolár!" I could not help crying out: "surely you
saw the miracle with your own eyes, like the rest of us!"
"Well, yes, I saw it," he said; "oh yes, I saw it, too. But this looks
to me a case in which it would be well not to place too much faith in
the senses. If we know that miracles cannot happen, then, when we see
them, we can only regard them as due to some caprice of our fancy; and
if Providence is warned beforehand that we shall so regard them, it will
be the less tempted to trouble us with any. On the whole, a mood of
impassive aloofness seems to me the wisest with regard to what we
witnessed on Sunday night. Do not permit it to engage or modify you at
all; just say to yourself: 'let the vulgar millions lose their heads,
but let me and my friends watch them with an impregnable eye.' Or do you
not think that my advice is good?"
"On the contrary," I said, while a flush leapt to my face, "I think it
even irreverent, baron--as an eye-witness of such a revelation must
needs think it."
"Oh, you think that: well, you are right, too, in your own way," he
answered. "A religion that was based on the senses would not be
displeasing to me, even though somewhat displeasing to reason. Do not
imagine me an enemy of piety. I only meant to suggest that the senses
are not always sure avenues to knowledge. But you, now, believe that you
have seen a revelation, and the dawn of an epoch: well, you are right,
too, in your own fashion."
As he was thus droning we arrived before Goodford House, and the private
secretary hurried out from a French window where he had been watching,
to hail and greet the baron.