Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles Williams
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what else?”
“But what else is there?” Chloe said.
“The Hajji talked of the Transcendence,” Lord Arglay answered. “But who
knows what he meant or if what he meant is so?”
Chloe said, almost with pain, “But what do you think he meant?”
“Child,”’ Lord Arglay said, “I am an old man and I have known nothing
all my life farther or greater than the work I have taken to do. I have
never seen a base for any temple nor found an excuse to believe in the
myths that are told there. I will not say believe or do not believe.
But there is one thing only at which I have wondered at times, and yet
it seemed foolish to think of it. It will happen sometimes when one has
worked hard and done all that one can for the purpose before one—it has
happened then that I have stood up and been content
with the world of things and with what has been done there through me.
And this may be pride, or it may be the full stress of the whole being
and delight in labour—there are a hundred explanations. But I have
wondered whether that profound repose was not communicated from some
far source and whether the life that is in it was altogether governed
by time. And I am sure that state never comes while I am concerned with
myself, and I have thought to-day that in some strange way that state
was itself the Stone. But if so then assuredly none of these men shall
find its secret.”
“Is that the end of desire?” Chloe said.
“I have no desire left at all,” Lord Arglay said, “but I think that
other is the better ending of desire. And though I cannot tell how you
should seek for it, I think it waits for everyone who will have it.
Also I think that perhaps the Stone chooses more than we know; and yet
that is a fantasy, is it not?”
“Was there a stone in the Crown of Suleiman?” she said, “and was
Suleiman the wisest of men?”
“So they say,” Lord Arglay answered. “And will you seek for wisdom in
the Stone?”
“What is wisdom?” Chloe said.
“And that, child,” Lord Arglay answered again, “though I am an
interpreter of all the laws of England, I do not know.”
THE MIRACLES AT RICH
Halfway down the stairs Mrs. Pentridge and Oliver Doncaster began to
realize that someone was knocking, loudly and continuously, at the
door. But the spectacle of Mrs. Ferguson in front of them, progressing,
in the dressing gown which she had put on, from stair to stair with an
alertness which her age, to say nothing of her paralysis, would have
seemed to forbid, so occupied and distracted them that it was with
reluctance that Mrs. Pentridge at last rushed to open, and with delight
that she said, hastily returning, “It’s for you, sir.”
“Eh?” said Oliver, “me? O nonsense! O damn!” He remembered the lunatic
who wanted the stone, and strode across. “Hallo,” he said, “O it is
you! Well, yes; yes, I’m sorry, but we’re in a bit of a confusion just
now owing to a paralyzed old lady suddenly skipping like the high
hills. Could you wait a few minutes or go and have a drink or
something?”
“No, I couldn’t,” Sheldrake said. “You’ve made me come all this way and
given me all this trouble, and now you talk to me about an old woman.
An old woman won’t stop you giving me my stone.”
“By the way, what did I do with it?” Doncaster asked vaguely. “I know I
had it a few minutes ago. Now what—I remember, I was showing it to Mrs.
Ferguson when she began to curvet. I wonder if she dropped it
somewhere.”
Sheldrake swore under his breath, then ceased as an incredible idea
came into his mind. “Who’s Mrs. Ferguson?” he asked.
“Mrs. Ferguson is my landlady’s mother,” Doncaster said.
“Who having been in bed to my knowledge since just before
I came last year is now jazzing like a two-year-old. Peep round the
door. Well, you don’t suppose I’m going to interrupt her by asking for
my—I mean your—at least I mean you said your—pebble, do you? Bless her,
she’s like a child at a Sunday school treat.”
Sheldrake became more and more uneasy. If this infernal old woman—if
the Stone could curt—if it got about… “Look here,” he said quite untruly
to Oliver, “I’ve got to get on to London and I want to take my property
with me. A joke’s a joke, but-”
“And a jubilee’s a jubilee,” Oliver said. “Still, I see your point.
Well, wait a minute—Good heavens, she’s going out.” Mrs. Ferguson
indeed was coming straight to the door.
When she reached it Oliver pulled Sheldrake aside. “Still feeling
better, Mrs, Ferguson?” he asked.
“Much better, thank you, Sir,” the old lady said. “But I feel as if I
could do with a little fresh air, and if it looked a nice evening, I
was thinking I’d just pop along and see my sister Annie. I haven’t seen
much of her this year owing to her asthma and my not being able to get
out. Mary, my dear,” she added to Mrs. Pentridge, “I think I’ll dress.”
“O mother,” said Mrs, Pentridge, “do you think you ought to go out?
Suppose you were taken bad again?”
Mrs. Ferguson smiled serenely. “I shan’t be taken bad,” she said, “I
never felt better in all my life. And I owe it all to you, Mr.
Doncaster,” she added.
“Me?” said the surprised Oliver.
“I felt the strength just pouring into me from that stone you gave me,
Sir,” Mrs. Ferguson assured him. “I’ve got it tight. You don’t want it
back this minute, do you, Sir?”
“Certainly not, Mrs. Ferguson,” Doncaster said promptly. “Keep it an
hour or two and see how you feel.”
“O nonsense,” Sheldrake broke in,—“look here, Mrs.—”
“Shut up,” said Oliver. “That’s all right, Mrs. Ferguson. Carry on.”
“I won’t shut up,” Sheldrake shouted. “What the hell do you think
you’re doing, throwing other people’s property about?
“How do I know it’s your property?” Oliver shouted back. “I pick a bit
of stone out of a hedge and you pop up out of a sound sleep and say
your wife threw it there and will I give it back? Who are you,
anyhow?“s
“My name is Sheldrake, Angus M. Sheldrake,” the other answered. “I’m
the chairman of Atlantic Airways and half a dozen other things. I gave
seventy thousand pounds for that stone and I want it back at once.”
“Then you won’t get it back at once,” Oliver retorted, “not if you were
the chairman of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic
air, sea, and land ways, and the Tube railways too. Not if you offered
me another seventy thousand—at least, you might then. I don’t know, so
don’t tempt me. Or rather do, so that I can say, ‘Keep your dross.’
Start with ffty thousand, and go up by fives.”
“By God,” Sheldrake said, “I’ll have you all in prison for this.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Oliver answered crossly. “Go and wake up job
Ricketts and tell him to arrest old Mrs. Ferguson for stealing your
stone. I should like to see you explaining.”
The quarrel raged in this manner until Mrs. Ferguson, cloak and bonnet
on, came to the door to start. “Is it the gentleman’s stone, sir?” she
asked anxiously.
“He doesn’t know, I don’t know,” Oliver told her. “Get you along, Mrs.
Ferguson, but don’t let it go out of your possession. I call everybody
to witness,” he said loudly, addressing Mrs. Ferguson, Mrs. Pentridge,
Sheldrake, the chauffeur, and the villagers who were beginning to
collect, “that Mrs. Ruth Ferguson retains the property in question—
namely, a stone—on my instructions until I am satisfied of the
bonafides of the claimant, one Angus M. Sheldrake on his own
confession. There,” he added to Sheldrake.
“What the devil do you suppose is the good of that?” Sheldrake said
furiously.
“I don’t really know,” Oliver said comfortably, “but it creates a right
impression, don’t you think?”
“But do you expect me to prove the whole bally thing to any fool who
stops me in the street or any pickpocket who sneaks it?” Sheldrake
raged.
“To be accurate, it was you who stopped me and wanted to pick my
pocket—in effect,” Oliver said. “And we might as well spend the next
two or three hours proving your bonafides as not, don’t you think?”
“I’m not going to let that woman out of my sight,” Sheldrake said.
“Where she goes I go.”
“Her people shall be thy people and her gods thy gods,” Oliver
murmured. “Sudden conversion of a millionaire. The call of the old
home. Way down on the Swanee River. O Dixie, my Dixie, our fearful trip
is done.”
“O go to the devil,” Sheldrake said, leaping back to his car. “Barnes,
follow that damned old woman in the black bonnet.”
“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur said obediently, and the procession started—
Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Pentridge in front, Oliver strolling a few paces
behind, the car rolling along in the road, parallel to him, and an
increasing crowd of villagers, dissolving, reforming, chattering and
exclaiming as the astonishing news spread. Rather owing to this
tumultuous concourse than to any weakness on Mrs. Ferguson’s part it
took them an hour to reach the mile-distant town of Rich-by-the-Mere,
commonly called Rich, where Mrs. Ferguson’s asthmatic sister lived. By
the time they reached her street the crowd was a mob, the car was doing
the best it could among the excited groups, and Oliver had been pushed
forward on to Mrs. Ferguson’s heels. The old lady knocked at the door,
which was opened in a minute, and there followed immediately a loud
scream.
“All right, Annie,” Mrs. Ferguson was heard to protest and the
excitement in the crowd grew louder.
Sheldrake felt almost off his head with anger, despair, and doubt. He
had realized during the slow crawl that to go to the police would be to
broadcast the rumours of the Stone, but what was to happen he could not
guess. That he would recover it he had no real doubt, but he wanted to
recover it quietly and get out of England with it at the earliest
possible moment. He peered out of the car to see Oliver, his back
against the door of the house, giving a dramatic description of Mrs.
Ferguson’s recovery to as many of the crowd as could hear him; he saw,
remotely, the helmets of one or two policemen approaching slowly; he
saw windows and doors open all round and new conversations leaping up
every moment; he even discerned one or two members of the crowd
scribbling in small note books, and dropped back with an oath. But he
sat up again in a moment and managed to attract Oliver’s attention, who
slid through the crowd to the car.
“Look here,” he said, “this is past a joke. I apologize if I was rude.
I can prove anything you want me to. But as a matter of fact the stone
does belong to me, and I must rely on you to get it back. You believe
me, don’t you?”
“I do really,” Oliver said. “You were a bit uppish, you know, but I
don’t understand what’s happened. Of course, it’s all nonsense about
the stone healing her, but as things have turned out we shall have
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