Lord of the World 13
What a strange and beautiful thing death was, she told herself--this
resolution of a chord that had hung suspended for thirty, fifty or
seventy years--back again into the stillness of the huge Instrument that
was all in all to itself. Those same notes would be struck again, were
being struck again even now all over the world, though with an infinite
delicacy of difference in the touch; but that particular emotion was
gone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding eternally elsewhere,
for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease one day, let
her see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.
* * * * *
Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual, just as Mabel had left
the old lady's room, and asked news of her.
"She is a little better, I think," said Mabel. "She must be very quiet
all day."
The secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver's room, where a heap of
letters lay to be answered.
A couple of hours later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr.
Phillips coming down. He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.
"Mrs. Brand sent for me," he said. "She wished to know whether Mr.
Oliver would be back to-night."
"He will, will he not? You have not heard?"
"Mr. Brand said he would be here for a late dinner. He will reach London
at nineteen."
"And is there any other news?"
He compressed his lips.
"There are rumours," he said. "Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago."
He seemed moved at something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.
"It is not Eastern news?" she asked.
His eyebrows wrinkled a little.
"You must forgive me, Mrs. Brand," he said. "I am not at liberty to say
anything."
She was not offended, for she trusted her husband too well; but she went
on into the sick-room with her heart beating.
The old lady, too, seemed excited. She lay in bed with a clear flush in
her white cheeks, and hardly smiled at all to the girl's greeting.
"Well, you have seen Mr. Phillips, then?" said Mabel.
Old Mrs. Brand looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.
"Don't excite yourself, mother. Oliver will be back to-night."
The old lady drew a long breath.
"Don't trouble about me, my dear," she said. "I shall do very well now.
He will be back to dinner, will he not?"
"If the volor is not late. Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast?"
* * * * *
Mabel passed an afternoon of considerable agitation. It was certain that
something had happened. The secretary, who breakfasted with her in the
parlour looking on to the garden, had appeared strangely excited. He had
told her that he would be away the rest of the day: Mr. Oliver had given
him his instructions. He had refrained from all discussion of the
Eastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention;
he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back that night. Then he had
gone of in a hurry half-an-hour later.
The old lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel
did not like to disturb her. Neither did she like to leave the house; so
she walked by herself in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing,
till the long shadow lay across the path, and the tumbled platform of
roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze from the west.
As she came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no news
there except to the effect that the Convention would close that
afternoon.
* * * * *
Twenty o'clock came, but there was no sign of Oliver. The Paris volor
should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring out into the
darkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels one by one,
but no slender winged fish pass overhead. Of course she might have
missed it; there was no depending on its exact course; but she had seen
it a hundred times before, and wondered unreasonably why she had not
seen it now. But she would not sit down to dinner, and paced up and
down in her white dress, turning again and again to the window,
listening to the soft rush of the trains, the faint hoots from the
track, and the musical chords from the junction a mile away. The lights
were up by now, and the vast sweep of the towns looked like fairyland
between the earthly light and the heavenly darkness. Why did not Oliver
come, or at least let her know why he did not?
Once she went upstairs, miserably anxious herself, to reassure the old
lady, and found her again very drowsy.
"He is not come," she said. "I dare say he may be kept in Paris."
The old face on the pillow nodded and murmured, and Mabel went down
again. It was now an hour after dinner-time.
Oh! there were a hundred things that might have kept him. He had often
been later than this: he might have missed the volor he meant to catch;
the Convention might have been prolonged; he might be exhausted, and
think it better to sleep in Paris after all, and have forgotten to wire.
He might even have wired to Mr. Phillips, and the secretary have
forgotten to pass on the message.
She went at last, hopelessly, to the telephone, and looked at it. There
it was, that round silent month, that little row of labelled buttons.
She half decided to touch them one by one, and inquire whether anything
had been heard of her husband: there was his club, his office in
Whitehall, Mr. Phillips's house, Parliament-house, and the rest. But she
hesitated, telling herself to be patient. Oliver hated interference, and
he would surely soon remember and relieve her anxiety.
Then, even as she turned away, the bell rang sharply, and a white label
flashed into sight.--WHITEHALL.
She pressed the corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much that
she could scarcely hold the receiver to her ear, she listened.
"Who is there?"
Her heart leaped at the sound of her husband's voice, tiny and minute
across the miles of wire.
"I--Mabel," she said. "Alone here."
"Oh! Mabel. Very well. I am back: all is well. Now listen. Can you
hear?"
"Yes, yes."
"The best has happened. It is all over in the East. Felsenburgh has done
it. Now listen. I cannot come home to-night. It will be announced in
Paul's House in two hours from now. We are communicating with the Press.
Come up here to me at once. You must be present.... Can you hear?"
"Oh, yes."
"Come then at once. It will be the greatest thing in history. Tell no
one. Come before the rush begins. In half-an-hour the way will be
stopped."
"Oliver."
"Yes? Quick."
"Mother is ill. Shall I leave her?"
"How ill?"
"Oh, no immediate danger. The doctor has seen her."
There was silence for a moment.
"Yes; come then. We will go back to-night anyhow, then. Tell her we
shall be late."
"Very well."
"... Yes, you must come. Felsenburgh will be there."
CHAPTER IV
I
On the same afternoon Percy received a visitor.
There was nothing exceptional about him; and Percy, as he came
downstairs in his walking-dress and looked at him in the light from the
tall parlour-window, came to no conclusion at all as to his business and
person, except that he was not a Catholic.
"You wished to see me," said the priest, indicating a chair.
"I fear I must not stop long."
"I shall not keep you long," said the stranger eagerly. "My business is
done in five minutes."
Percy waited with his eyes cast down.
"A--a certain person has sent me to you. She was a Catholic once; she
wishes to return to the Church."
Percy made a little movement with his head. It was a message he did not
very often receive in these days.
"You will come, sir, will you not? You will promise me?"
The man seemed greatly agitated; his sallow face showed a little shining
with sweat, and his eyes were piteous.
"Of course I will come," said Percy, smiling.
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