Lord of the World 6

Lord of the World 6

III

 

Oliver was in a panic of terror as his mother, half an hour later, ran

in with the news that one of the Government volors had fallen in the

station square at Brighton just after the 14-1/2 train had discharged

its passengers. He knew quite well what that meant, for he remembered

one such accident ten years before, just after the law forbidding

private volors had been passed. It meant that every living creature in

it was killed and probably many more in the place where it fell--and

what then? The message was clear enough; she would certainly be in the

square at that time.

 

He sent a desperate wire to her aunt asking for news; and sat, shaking

in his chair, awaiting the answer. His mother sat by him.

 

"Please God---" she sobbed out once, and stopped confounded as he turned

on her.

 

But Fate was merciful, and three minutes before Mr. Phillips toiled up

the path with the answer, Mabel herself came into the room, rather pale

and smiling.

 

"Christ!" cried Oliver, and gave one huge sob as he sprang up.

 

She had not a great deal to tell him. There was no explanation of the

disaster published as yet; it seemed that the wings on one side had

simply ceased to work.

 

She described the shadow, the hiss of sound, and the crash.

 

Then she stopped.

 

"Well, my dear?" said her husband, still rather white beneath the eyes

as he sat close to her patting her hand.

 

"There was a priest there," said Mabel. "I saw him before, at the

station."

 

Oliver gave a little hysterical snort of laughter.

 

"He was on his knees at once," she said, "with his crucifix, even before

the doctors came. My dear, do people really believe all that?"

 

"Why, they think they do," said her husband.

 

"It was all so--so sudden; and there he was, just as if he had been

expecting it all. Oliver, how can they?"

 

"Why, people will believe anything if they begin early enough."

 

"And the man seemed to believe it, too--the dying man, I mean. I saw his

eyes."

 

She stopped.

 

"Well, my dear?"

 

"Oliver, what do you say to people when they are dying?"

 

"Say! Why, nothing! What can I say? But I don't think I've ever seen any

one die."

 

"Nor have I till to-day," said the girl, and shivered a little. "The

euthanasia people were soon at work."

 

Oliver took her hand gently.

 

"My darling, it must have been frightful. Why, you're trembling still."

 

"No; but listen.... You know, if I had had anything to say I could have

said it too. They were all just in front of me: I wondered; then I knew

I hadn't. I couldn't possibly have talked about Humanity."

 

"My dear, it's all very sad; but you know it doesn't really matter. It's

all over."

 

"And--and they've just stopped?"

 

"Why, yes."

 

Mabel compressed her lips a little; then she sighed. She had an agitated

sort of meditation in the train. She knew perfectly that it was sheer

nerves; but she could not just yet shake them off. As she had said, it

was the first time she had seen death.

 

"And that priest--that priest doesn't think so?"

 

"My dear, I'll tell you what he believes. He believes that that man whom

he showed the crucifix to, and said those words over, is alive

somewhere, in spite of his brain being dead: he is not quite sure where;

but he is either in a kind of smelting works being slowly burned; or, if

he is very lucky, and that piece of wood took effect, he is somewhere

beyond the clouds, before Three Persons who are only One although They

are Three; that there are quantities of other people there, a Woman in

Blue, a great many others in white with their heads under their arms,

and still more with their heads on one side; and that they've all got

harps and go on singing for ever and ever, and walking about on the

clouds, and liking it very much indeed. He thinks, too, that all these

nice people are perpetually looking down upon the aforesaid

smelting-works, and praising the Three Great Persons for making them.

That's what the priest believes. Now you know it's not likely; that kind

of thing may be very nice, but it isn't true."

 

Mabel smiled pleasantly. She had never heard it put so well.

 

"No, my dear, you're quite right. That sort of thing isn't true. How can

he believe it? He looked quite intelligent!"

 

"My dear girl, if I had told you in your cradle that the moon was green

cheese, and had hammered at you ever since, every day and all day, that

it was, you'd very nearly believe it by now. Why, you know in your heart

that the euthanatisers are the real priests. Of course you do."

 

Mabel sighed with satisfaction and stood up.

 

"Oliver, you're a most comforting person. I do like you! There! I must

go to my room: I'm all shaky still."

 

Half across the room she stopped and put out a shoe.

 

"Why---" she began faintly.

 

There was a curious rusty-looking splash upon it; and her husband saw

her turn white. He rose abruptly.

 

"My dear," he said, "don't be foolish."

 

She looked at him, smiled bravely, and went out.

 

* * * * *

 

When she was gone, he still sat on a moment where she had left him. Dear

me! how pleased he was! He did not like to think of what life would have

been without her. He had known her since she was twelve--that was seven

years ago-and last year they had gone together to the district official

to make their contract. She had really become very necessary to him. Of

course the world could get on without her, and he supposed that he could

too; but he did not want to have to try. He knew perfectly well, for it

was his creed of human love, that there was between them a double

affection, of mind as well as body; and there was absolutely nothing

else: but he loved her quick intuitions, and to hear his own thought

echoed so perfectly. It was like two flames added together to make a

third taller than either: of course one flame could burn without the

other--in fact, one would have to, one day--but meantime the warmth and

light were exhilarating. Yes, he was delighted that she happened to be

clear of the falling volor.

 

He gave no more thought to his exposition of the Christian creed; it was

a mere commonplace to him that Catholics believed that kind of thing; it

was no more blasphemous to his mind so to describe it, than it would be

to laugh at a Fijian idol with mother-of-pearl eyes, and a horse-hair

wig; it was simply impossible to treat it seriously. He, too, had

wondered once or twice in his life how human beings could believe such

rubbish; but psychology had helped him, and he knew now well enough that

suggestion will do almost anything. And it was this hateful thing that

had so long restrained the euthanasia movement with all its splendid

mercy.

 

His brows wrinkled a little as he remembered his mother's exclamation,

"Please God"; then he smiled at the poor old thing and her pathetic

childishness, and turned once more to his table, thinking in spite of

himself of his wife's hesitation as she had seen the splash of blood on

her shoe. Blood! Yes; that was as much a fact as anything else. How was

it to be dealt with? Why, by the glorious creed of Humanity--that

splendid God who died and rose again ten thousand times a day, who had

died daily like the old cracked fanatic Saul of Tarsus, ever since the

world began, and who rose again, not once like the Carpenter's Son, but

with every child that came into the world. That was the answer; and was

it not overwhelmingly sufficient?

 

Mr. Phillips came in an hour later with another bundle of papers.

 

"No more news from the East, sir," he said.

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

I

 

Percy Franklin's correspondence with the Cardinal-Protector of England

occupied him directly for at least two hours every day, and for nearly

eight hours indirectly.

 

For the past eight years the methods of the Holy See had once more been

revised with a view to modern needs, and now every important province

throughout the world possessed not only an administrative metropolitan

but a representative in Rome whose business it was to be in touch with

the Pope on the one side and the people he represented on the other. In

other words, centralisation had gone forward rapidly, in accordance with

the laws of life; and, with centralisation, freedom of method and

expansion of power. England's Cardinal-Protector was one Abbot Martin, a

Benedictine, and it was Percy's business, as of a dozen more bishops,

priests and laymen (with whom, by the way, he was forbidden to hold any

formal consultation), to write a long daily letter to him on affairs that came under his notice.