Part 6 (1/2)
How _utter_ at this moment must be his loss to understand by what marvel _I_ could ever have learned that name. I expected at least to see him start, to look abashed a little. But no; his eyes rested serenely on my face: he seemed to be sorry for me, to deplore my indiscretion. Here, then, is a man mighty in ma.s.s and stature, all self-a.s.sured, whose will, whether it be bent upon good or upon ill, is hardly to be withstood.
Such a person is, apart from special considerations, inherently formidable; but how if this person be found trying to convert another to enmity against the Church, and at the same time be found striking up a friends.h.i.+p with a churchman who in certain particulars resembles another churchman imprisoned in his castle? Certainly, one's mind can't reject a notion of danger; and it has appeared to me that I ought not to hold my peace in the matter, in spite of the _outre_ warning of the card which Baron Kolar has been kind enough to forward me.”
We had now arrived before Ritching church, which stands well back from the village street in a large piece of land--”park” one may call it--well timbered and dark. The building itself is big, modern, and ugly--one of those churches with huge roofs, red bricks, red s.h.i.+ngles, which rather suggest the cult of some latter-day Moloch than of the Carpenter. It is built, however, over some old vaults in which repose generations of the Hamps.h.i.+re branch of the Bellasis family, once of Goodford, now extinct.
We got into the grounds by a gateway in a wall of rubble before the church, and thence, by a path which winds inward through the park some quarter of a mile towards the vicarage, pa.s.sed on to the vicarage garden. The night was now dark, and we found the house in darkness.
”It looks,” said Langler in a low voice, ”as if the baron's visit to the doctor has been quite a long one--two hours at the least--for he seems to be still here, if one may divine by the darkness in this front part, which, no doubt, the doctor would have lighted on seeing his visitor through. The baron must have left his trap at the Calf's Head, for I don't see it here. Let us wait outside, then, a little. The doctor, by the way, has the good taste to look out from his study window behind yonder upon a patch of that white vetch which s.h.i.+mmers so bridally in all shades of twilight. Come softly, and I will show it you.”
I tracked his tread through thicket towards the back of the old manse, till we began to catch sight of a glow of light emanating from a cas.e.m.e.nt behind, and a moment later Langler whispered me: ”There, you see, is the growth of vetch.”
Five feet farther, and from an angle of a lean-to, we could peer through ivy and rose-bush into a lighted room: in it were Baron Kolar and Dr Burton, standing. Langler laid hold of my arm, and we stood breathless, looking.
The two in the room were deep in converse, the rumour of which reached us, but none of the words.
Presently the baron took his hand from the doctor's shoulder, took up a book from a table, held it uplifted a minute, kissed it.
He then tendered the book to the doctor, who seemed to us to draw back rather, and I felt Langler's grasp tighten on my arm, but the baron seemed to press and reason with the doctor; then the doctor took the book, lifted it to his lips, kissed it: and at once the hands of the two men met in a clasp.
Langler whispered into my ear: ”but what agreement hath Christ with Belial? Isn't it written that he who is a friend of the world is the enemy of G.o.d?”
CHAPTER VIII
THE FACE OF ROBINSON
Two minutes after that clasp of the hands the doctor pa.s.sed out of the room with the baron; two minutes later he returned to the room alone, and stood at the cas.e.m.e.nt, with his brow drooped toward his breast, in a brown study.
Langler whispered to me: ”you will wait outside. I am going to speak to him now.”
We walked round to the front of the manse, where Langler rapped, Dr Burton presently came to him, and I from outside looked on at the two standing together in lamplight in a parlour.
Langler, I think, was not asked to sit. I heard the brogue of Dr Burton, then in Langler's hand beheld the piece of paper on which Dr Burton was spoken of as a ”union of Becket and Savonarola.” Dr Burton did not look at it, but began to lower angrily, Langler to bow, till at last Dr Burton frowned towards the doorway. Langler bowed, and withdrew.
When angry he had a habit of lowering the eyelids in an expression of hissing disdain, and the street-lamps, as we trudged through Ritching, revealed him so to me. For some time he was silent, but finally, when we were climbing towards Goodford village, he said: ”Dr Burton has insulted me, Arthur, and for the moment I find it difficult to speak of him in a Christian spirit. However, he is a good man--I really need just now to repeat that fact to myself--though mewed up in cra.s.sness.
Uppishness, of course, is part of the being of every dominant man, and I don't blame him for his uppishness, but only for the fact that it is so blatant and instant. Still, one must take the thorns with the rose, and I promise by to-morrow morning to love him again. Partly it was my own fault, for I should have felt, after the compact which we witnessed, that my warning would be all too late. Imagine how momentous must have been the matter of that compact, Arthur, when Burton could be brought to confirm it with the Bible at his lips, and imagine the craft and the might of will by which he must have felt himself crimped and mesmerised.
Here is a man who two days ago began by telling Baron Kolar that he had not leisure to listen to him, and already we find him _in genubus_, with (of all things) _the Book_ at his lips. Have you not here a miracle of mind? But given a known individuality, one may deduce certain facts from it. We can a.s.sert, for instance, from our sure knowledge of Burton, that the compact contained nothing dishonouring to _him_, that it was lofty and pure on _his_ part. It must be so. And since it was Kolar who first kissed, and afterwards Burton, we may say, too, that the first terms of the pact are to be fulfilled by Kolar. If Kolar will do certain things, as he says he will, then Burton will do certain things. But what things?
Pity we couldn't catch a few s.n.a.t.c.hes of the talk; yet certainly, even so, I don't think that we are quite in the dark. For Burton's motives were lofty and pure: therefore Kolar's promises of good things did not concern Burton's own self-interests, or not solely. Yet Burton was so enthusiastic as to these promises that he took an oath of repayment: they may very likely, therefore, have concerned his love--the Church.
But the Church where? At Ritching? It is inconceivable that Kolar can be so interested in the Church at Ritching as to wish to exact any oath with regard to it. 'Church,' therefore, as between him and Burton, must mean Church on a larger scale; and in the Church on this scale we know that Kolar is, in fact, interested. But how is Burton, a village priest, to repay services rendered to the Church on so large a scale? Does it not seem as if Kolar's promises do not apply altogether to the Church, but in part to Burton personally, that Burton is not for ever to remain a village priest? Indeed, did not Kolar yesterday volunteer the prophecy that this 'union of Becket and Savonarola' is 'destined to become the greatest priest in Europe'? A singular prophecy, Arthur, from a man whose words in general a.s.suredly have some significance. We may guess, then, that Kolar's undertakings consist in rendering to the Church some good which will include the rise and greatness of the doctor himself, and the doctor swears to use his greatness in some way indicated, or to be indicated, by Kolar. Certainly, such seem the divinations prompted by the facts which we have.”
”Isn't it a strange thing,” I said, ”the interest of Kolar in the doctor, even before he saw him? It is not to be supposed that Kolar is a very regular church-goer, yet he hastened to hear the doctor at once on coming to Goodford. One could be almost certain that the letter describing the doctor as Becket _plus_ Savonarola, and asking someone to 'come down,' was addressed to no other than to Baron Kolar.”
”Very likely,” replied Langler; ”and that was chiefly what I had to say to Burton in our interview just now. I tried to persuade him that the baron is no friend of priests, that he probably has one of them a prisoner in his burg at this moment, but because I could make no certain statements his mind was closed against me. On his part, he used the words 'evil-speaking,' 'presumption,' 'interference'; he said 'dare,' he said 'irreverent.' But I won't speak of that interview--it was _bete_.
The sentiment that now occupies my mind about Dr Burton is this: 'the pity of it!' One cannot touch pitch and go undefiled. I have often had the augury that Burton is a man with a tragedy in his future, and, if I was right, that tragedy now perhaps takes shape: it will consist in his 'defilement.' Baron Kolar has prophesied that the doctor will be the greatest of priests: well, if I, too, may prophesy, I say that from being the greatest of priests, as he now is, he will become no priest at all; that by little and little he will drop from his height, will lose perfection of motive and absoluteness of fibre, till on a day he will find himself fingering the dross of the grosser world.”
By this time we had got into sight of the lights of Goodford House. On our arrival, as we were pa.s.sing through the outer hall, a man handed a letter to Langler, which Langler, after glancing through it, handed to me; and I read the words: ”Charles Robinson, your groom, is certainly in this neighbourhood, and if you have not found him it is because you have not searched enough. If you have the courage to meet the writer at the north-west corner of Hallam Castle alone at seven on Sunday evening, he promises you that at least you shall see the face of the missing man.--A Well-wisher.”