THE QUESTION OF STYRIA
My half-promise to Mrs Edwards that the miracle should not shorten the
stay of the Langlers at Goodford was too soon given, for on the Tuesday
both Langler and Miss Emily begged me to return at once to Swandale with
them; in fact, quite a number of departures was already proving the
spirit of dissolution at work in the house-party.
"I do pity Aubrey," Miss Emily said aside to me on the Tuesday night:
"there he stands smiling like a statue, but I know that he is tasting
bitterness in the very valley. To any scholar of forty years it must be
no fun to have to change his scheme of thought and life on a sudden; so
what this miracle, or whatever you call it, must mean to Aubrey's touchy
intellect and tremulous piety is more than I care to think on. Anyway it
is certain that he must be in agony in his present company, and longing
to be alone."
"Yes, that must be so," I agreed. "Well, let us go away, for we all need
time and solitude to find room in ourselves for this new thing."
"Oh, as for me," she said, "I am in no rage to adjust myself to it: my
soul can wait till _his_ has won back to rest. Being a woman, I am less
sensitive to evidence, you see, and tougher in the nerve; but poor
Aubrey's elements are delicately mixed, and ah, he suffers."
"I understand that," I said; "perhaps it would be even well if I
returned to London for the present."
She looked at me, saying: "don't say that; he needs you now, and wishes
you to stay."
"And you?" I asked.
"Not what I will," she answered softly in Greek, "but what he."
We accordingly returned to Swandale from Goodford on the Thursday
morning. But something of the old Sabbath was soon known now to have
departed from our habit of life in the cottage, for the roar of the age
reached even into our cloister, hampering the mood of that old world
which we wished to inhabit. The very servants had new looks of unrest.
Langler smiled doggedly, but was as one who ruminates bitterish herbage.
He was much alone, questioning the oracles in the dells or in his study;
and Miss Emily and I were much with each other.
She at least knew little quietness in those days, I think: I would spy
her hanging about the door behind which her brother paced, and her fever
about his state of mind became chronic. "The visits of this man must be
terrible to him," she said of some sort of police-official from London
who called about the happenings at Hallam Castle on the Sunday night of
the miracle; Robinson had left no trace behind: so poor Langler was
plied with questions, without having the least faith probably that the
man with the note-book would see light where he himself saw none. And
"it is so distressing," Miss Emily said to me during the third of the
visits; "he keeps Aubrey closeted an hour, and he is not pretty, his
boots creak. I only wish that Aubrey could be coaxed into some change of
scene; you ought to be able to get him to Paris, if you try. Have you
noticed that for four days he has burned no incense at all in his
rooms?"
"I wonder why?" I said.
"Perhaps he thinks it unbecoming now--I don't know; and he hasn't once
played the usual chants since we have been back from Goodford. The old
attitude to everything has to be all changed, twisted, readjusted, now.
Deus meus! in what foreign world have we suddenly waked up?"
"Patience!" I said: "in time the new way will be seen to be the best."
"But the old pleases Cato all the same," she muttered, with a nod of
stubbornness which belonged to her; "it is to be desired at least that
the new way was not complicated by officers of the law."
As to this officer, Langler himself spoke to me that same evening when I
happened to be in his study, saying: "you saw, Arthur, the officer who
called to-day?"
"Yes," I answered, "I am afraid he must have bored you to death."
"Well, he means well," he answered, "and we are none of us perfect in
grace and wisdom. This man in particular must be very impressed just now
with the limitations of our human intelligence, for he stands almost
ludicrously dumfoundered before the facts which we know about Robinson;
dumfoundered, above all, before the fact that Robinson should have been
shown to me in an unconscious state at Hallam Castle at the hour of
seven-fifteen, and in that state should have been conveyed away through
a peopled countryside without being seen, though by eight P.M. the
constabulary had been warned by me, and have been searching for him ever
since. Before the failure to find _some_ trace the mind stands as
staggered as if in the presence of unearthly agents. To the questions
Where is Robinson now? in a house? in the grave? conscious? still
unconscious? why can he contrive to give no sign? our minds can begin to
form no guess. Well, we are a small infantry, just wise enough to learn
to be meek, and of few days, and full of trouble. But what I wanted to
tell you as to this officer is that I took occasion to lay before him
all we know about Father Max Dees in his Styrian dungeon, and to ask
what I could do for this poor man."
I had forgotten Max Dees in the excitement of what had lately happened!
"Well, what did the officer advise?" I asked.
"He seemed unreceptive of the whole matter," was the answer: "to people
of stolid minds the unique is apt to seem unreal; and the mere fact that
our knowledge of Dees was brought us by a wren appeared to obstruct this
man's concern in the case. However, he remarked with truth that we had
no evidence that, of the three Barons Gregor, the one whom we suspect is
really the gaoler of Dees; that, in any case, the English police have
nothing to do with the incident; but that, with regard to the Austrian
authorities, my best course before approaching them is to 'make sure of
the facts.' In truth, he doesn't half believe in Dees--the wren being to
blame. The man actually recommended me, with a smile, to go myself to
Styria in order to 'make sure of the facts.'"
"Well, that might be done," I said: "by all means let us go, for I would
go, too."
Langler looked at me, and smiled, hardly taking me seriously, I fancy.
But this question of "going to Styria" was destined, alas, to arise
again. The very next (Sunday) morning, in the breakfast-room, Miss
Emily, to my surprise, said to me: "who, then, is Max Dees?"
As I knew that nothing had been told her of the wren's message, I could
only think that she had overheard Langler's talk with me on the
Saturday evening, and, anyway, had now to tell her all--of Dees'
imprisonment, of his prayer "_for God's sake_," of our almost certainty
that Baron Kolár was his gaoler, of the paper found at the inn at Mins
stating that "Dr Burton is another Max Dees," of the disappearances,
like Robinson's, which Langler had found to have been going on over
Europe, and so on. That morning Langler had not risen from bed--he had
flutters of the heart--so I had time to tell a long tale, to which Miss
Emily listened without comment, and remained museful throughout the day.
In the evening we were all at Ritching church to hear Dr Burton's
farewell before his departure for Lincoln, and I don't know who took
care of Swandale during the office, for Langler was now most strict in
having every soul about the place at each church-service. He had risen
from bed, and we three walked somewhat ahead, with the knot of retainers
following. I have an idea that in some recess of Miss Emily's mind these
church-goings were not regarded with emotions quite utterly saintly; but
whatever resentment rankled in her she breathed no word of it, but went
meekly in the pilgrimages with her brother.
We had started out early, so as to secure seats, and far off, as we
walked down the road to Ritching, out broke the shambling brogue of the
chimes. I thought then how, when Langler and I last heard those bells
together, he had said that we heard them for "about the last time," and
thenceforth all the evening there were ringing in my head like a
sing-song the words: "[Greek: kai pulai adou, kai pulai adou]--and gates
of hell shall not prevail against it." When we reached the church it was
already full; but in the end I fancy that seats were found for all the
Swandale party, though we were all separated throughout the office.
Dr Burton was assisted in the duty by his diocesan and two others, but
spoke the address in person. His manner, I judged, was most meek, his
throat choked, as of a man who has been struck dumb and has not yet
recovered himself: I, in a seat far back, could hardly hear his words,
though once, twice, as it were, the lion's voice lifted and vaunted a
little, threatening wraths. However, one had little need to hear, in
order to feel, Dr Burton that night, for his holiness by itself was as a
focus of fire, pouring forth its power into all.
When it was ended, and our set met once more beyond the crowd, Miss
Emily said to me: "three-quarters of these folk have never seen Ritching
before; half are from London: I saw Lady Agnew, the President of the
Academy, and Dr Gootch, who has Aubrey's heart in his keeping. What do
you say brought all these good people here?"
Her manner of speaking, I must say, seemed to me rather dry, and I
answered shortly: "a pious need, no doubt."
"Not a hope to see in Dr Burton's church a repetition of the 'miracle'?"
she asked: "not the lust of a new thrill?"
"How you can be cruel!" I whispered.
"But what went they out for to _see_?" she laughed. "Wherever Dr Burton
preaches henceforth all England will be squeezing after him in the
secret hope of a peep-show! and I prophesy----" But at that moment
Langler joined us, and she was mum.
It was a gloomy night, without any moonlight, and during our return to
Swandale groups of wayfarers trudged before and behind us, a strange
sight, quite changing the mood of the countryside. Night, however, in
the country merges everything in an enchantment, and in Swandale itself
was once more nothing but fays and black shades. But even there, just as
we were crossing the bridge to enter the cottage, a messenger from the
world intruded to trouble us. It was a boy who brought a telegram--for
me--which on going in I opened, and read the words: "Two fresh visions
reported--one in village-church, Windau, Baltic, one in Bayeux
Cathedral." It had been sent to me from London by a good friend of mine,
the editor of a morning paper, and I handed it to Langler, who, having
read it, handed it to Miss Emily.
It was at that moment that a thing new, I think, to Swandale took
place--a spark of anger, a flush of the cheek: for Miss Emily, tossing
the telegram aside even as she read it, let the heated words escape
her: "oh, I am like Baron Kolár: I don't believe in miracles"; and then
for the first time I saw Langler look with reproof at his sister.
"Emily," said he pointedly, "your words seem to me irreverent."
Miss Emily's cheek blanched. There was silence for a little while.
"Emily," said Langler again, "I ask you to take back those words."
Miss Emily sat down sharply on a chair by the table, having on still her
hat and gloves, the little bird perched on her shoulder, her lips set.
She answered nothing, and another most painful silence followed. I, for
my share, did not know what to say, or where to hide myself away from
such a scene so suddenly sprung upon us. I wished that the unhappy
telegram had never come.
But after a minute of this silence Miss Emily's pallor rushed into pink,
and the words broke from her in a heat not far from choking, and a
strain of tears: "so, then, I am to abase my intellect before the
incredible at your bidding, Aubrey! Then, I will say that I _do_ believe
in miracles, since such is your pleasure, Aubrey, but that I do _not_
believe in this one."
"But this is precisely the only one that was ever well attested," said
Langler, with a puzzled brow.
"Then, it is my whim to believe in the ill-attested, Aubrey, rather than
in this," said Miss Emily, "since we are in the Inquisition, Aubrey, and
expected to believe in miracles." She stopped a moment, and then went
on, pouring out her words chokily, with stoppages: "I did not see the
thing, I am not gainsaying my own senses, and to be charged with
irreverence, Aubrey! Why was I not allowed to see it? Why were not you?
To be charged with irreverence, Aubrey! The thing is not, so to say,
'the work of God'; it is related to the disappearance of Charles
Robinson and of Father Max Dees, and of all the others, and to these two
new 'miracles'--and Baron Kolár foreknew that it would happen in Dr
Burton's church when he foretold Dr Burton's rise. And to be charged
with irreverence, Aubrey! If you wish to find out the meaning of it all,
go to a castle in Styria, for that is where the key lies--" and some
more of this kind: guesses without proof, statements without form, but
so sprung in a pile upon our minds that Langler and I stood dumb before
them.
Thus, at any rate, for the second time in two days, those words: "go to
Styria," were broached in the cottage: a seed of bitter reaping.
Miss Emily went to a casement, and stood there looking out, while upon
me Langler turned a look which I took to imply surprise that I should
have spoken to her of Max Dees. For some minutes nothing was said; but
presently Langler moved to the window, and laid his hand upon his love;
whereat she heaved up to him a smile which beamed with beatitude: and at
this I slipped away.