Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

remember you this morning now-Miss

Burnett, if you remember Miss Burnett, remembered you before. Do sit

down.”

 

“Thank you very much, Lord Arglay,” Oliver said, obeying.

 

“An extraordinary business, isn’t it?” the Chief Justice went on. “How

goes your end?-whichever is your end. For I’m ashamed to say I am not

quite clear what party you are of, so to speak. Mr. Sheldrake’s, wasn’t

it?”

 

Oliver crossed his legs. “I represent,” he said gravely, “the people. I

am the autos of their autocratic mouth. I am the sovereign will. I am

…… The solemn tone of his mock proclamation faded, and he ended,

lamely and seriously, “the people.”

 

Lord Arglay observed the change of tone and looked at him carefully.

“And how do the people come in?” he asked.

 

Oliver, as best he could, explained. As he began he felt a fool, but

his eyes lit on the strip of black silk across Chloe’s hand—she had

declined to attempt to heal it by the Stone and he derived therefrom a

certain strength. After all, this girl had knocked the Professor over

and attacked Sir Giles; she had thrust herself across the will of that

unpleasant little beast. And Sir Giles had been left with Sheldrake at

the Foreign Office when the rest of them were turned out. And the

people were clamouring for life and health from that Mystery which the

police, on behalf of the American, had pouched.

 

“I don’t quite see,” Lord Arglay said when he had done, “on what

grounds you asserted so strongly that I disapproved Of the Government.”

 

“Well, sir,” Oliver said, “I thought you approved of Miss Burnett.”

 

` “I always approve of Miss Burnett,” Arglay answered. “It would be

temperamentally impossible to me to have a secretary of whom I

disapproved. But approving of Miss Burnett has not, from the beginning,

been necessarily equivalent to disapproving of the Government.”

 

“But in this case, sir… ?” Oliver suggested.

 

The Chief Justice shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “In the first

place I don’t know what they are doing; in the second, I neither

approve nor disapprove of governments, but of men and that only

according to the order and decision of the laws. I am a chair, Mr.

Doncaster, not a horse—not even Rosinante.”

 

“But if Don Quixote came before the chair?” Oliver asked.

 

“I should think he is very likely to, if he goes on as he is at

present,” Arglay said drily. “But even then-Don Quixote or Don Juan or

the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador—it is all one. I have not eyes to see

nor mouth to speak but as the laws shall direct me.”

 

“But if it is a case beyond any law?” Oliver said.

 

“There is no case beyond law,” the Chief justice answered. “We may

mistake in the ruling, we may be deceived by outward things and cunning

talk, but there is no dispute between men which cannot be resolved in

equity. And in its nature equity is from those between whom it exists:

it is passion acting in lucidity.”

 

“Mr. Lindsay,” the maid said, opening the door. Chloe stood up stiftly

and went forward to meet him, and as she did so it seemed to Oliver as

if Arglay’s last phrase took on a sudden human meaning. A vivid

presence passed him, and he found himself gravely reconstructing the

meaning of those words. On a sudden impulse he turned to Lord Arglay.

“Is that what you would call Miss Burnett’s action this morning?” he

asked.

 

For a moment the Chief Justice frowned; it appeared to him unnecessary

that this Mr. Doncaster should remark on anything Chloe had chosen to

do. But the neatness of the phrase placated him; he looked at Oliver

with cautious but appreciative eyes. “I will admit, at least,” he said,

“that, entirely as a private man, I regard Giles Tumulty as something

very nearly without the law.” He stepped forward to meet Frank.

 

The half-hour which followed was not one on which Chloe looked back,

for some time, without growing hot. It was largely she felt, Mr.

Doncaster’s fault for arriving so late; it was largely Frank’s for

arriving so soon. He had been dragged from his surveyor’s studies to

take her home, and she didn’t want to go—not until she knew whether

this Mayor was coming. But if she didn’t go at once she must explain,

and how could she explain in front of Mr. Doncaster? And why did Frank

look so dull? And why, in an effort to be conversational, must he ask

her at once if she had hurt her hand? And why was the Chief Justice

displaying a remote intention of leaving her to talk to Frank while he

went back to Mr. Doncaster? She managed to introduce them, in order (by

the exercise of a certain dexterity which she was uneasily conscious

Lord Arglay patiently humoured), to move the conversation—it was no

more lightly done—on to the common subject of Mr. Sheldrake. But it

continually showed signs of breaking into two halves, and at the end of

about a quarter of an hour she began wretchedly to make the first

preparations for departure. She put one or two papers together, she

opened her handbag, and saw within it the white silk handkerchief in

which her Type of the Stone had been wrapped. Under cover of a

monologue of Lord Arglay’s she pushed aside the soft opaqueness and

gazed at the Mystery. Nothing, she thought, had ever looked more feebly

useless, more dull and dead, than that bit of white stone. The flakings

were not gold, they were yellow; they were obviously merely accidental

and it was only a perverse fancy that could see in the black smudges

the tracing of the Divine Name. She put her hand down sharply to cover

it again, and found that her fingers were unwilling to move. Dared she

so, in action, deny the Stone? Thought was multitudinous but action

single. A pushing aside or a ritual veiling?–one it must be. Nobody

could see or know what she did, yet she felt as if an expectancy lay

around, as if something waited, docile but immortal, the consequences

of her choice. “Cowardly fool!” Chloe said to herself and, so

protesting against her own action, drew Lord Arglays handkerchief

ceremonially over the Stone.

 

In spite of her delay, she had reluctantly gone, attended by Mr.

Lindsay, before the Mayor of Rich arrived at Lancaster Gate. He was

shown in at once and Oliver, hastily presenting him to the Chief

Justice, said urgently: “Well, what happened?”

 

The Mayor answered slowly: “I have had to remind the Home Secretary

that the office of Mayor is filled, not by the decision of the

Government, but by the choice of the people.”

 

“Have you indeed?” Oliver said.

 

“I had some difficulty in getting to see him,” the Mayor went on, “and

when I did he was bent on assuring me that the matter was being dealt

with. I pressed him to tell me more. I pointed out that I was

responsible for order in the town, and that the effect of maintaining

secrecy would be highly damaging. We had a long discussion and in the

end I was compelled to point out to him that, if no satisfactory

statement were made, I should be driven to place the resources of the

mayoralty at the disposal of any constitutional agitation that might

arise. I was very careful to say ‘constitutional.’ It was then that he

threatened me with removal and I reminded him that the Mayors came by

vote of the Town Council who are chosen by the people.”