War in Heaven by Charles Williams (books to read for self improvement txt) 📕

let’s go over and see if we can drop across him.” He jumped up and went to the door.

Rather to relieve their irritation than because they wanted to, they set out to walk, after the Duke had flung abroad a general warning that he might have to go to London that night, and came at last to where a private road entered the grounds of Cully and, a little farther on, passed near the cottage of the Rackstraws. Nothing, as the Duke pointed out, was more natural than that Kenneth should wish to see his friend or should hesitate to call at the front doors of Cully. But, as they passed the private road, they saw Lionel and Barbara in the lane before them.

“Hallo,” Kenneth said, “this is surprising and delightful. I didn’t expect you to be rambling round like this. Is all well again?”

“I’m rather tired and rather lazy,” Barbara said happily. “But otherwise I’m very comfortable, thank you.”

“The devil you are!” Kenneth said, staring at her, with a smile. “I expected you to be in bed at least.”

“I seem to have slept on cushions in Mr. Persimmons’s hall till about four, but I woke up feeling quite normal,” Barbara answered. “But what a business!” She spoke lightly, but her face grew whiter as she referred to it.

“It’s all over, anyhow,” Lionel said hastily. “I shall screw another’s week’s holiday out of Stephen, Kenneth, and we’ll go to the seaside or something for a few days—without Adrian.”

“What’s going to happen to Adrian?” Kenneth asked.

“He’s going to stop here,” Lionel answered. “He’s got very fond of one of the maids here, and he adores Gregory, and his motors and telephones and Chinese masks and things.”

“And Gregory’s willing to have him?” Kenneth asked.

“Loves him, he says,” Lionel answered. “Good luck to them both. I don’t want another twenty-four hours like the last. Of course, we must see this doctor fellow again first; that will be the day after to-morrow.”

“Do you really think it was he that helped you, Babs?” Kenneth said.

Lionel looked at his wife. “Well, Babs doesn’t know,” he said, “not being in a state then to notice such things. And I don’t know. If it wasn’t him, what was it? And yet he was some way off and didn’t seem to have a chance to do anything.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” Barbara said gravely, “for I don’t know. There was nothing but a darkness of the most dreadful pressure—and the edge of the pit I was falling towards. Nothing could stop me and just as I fell—no, it’s all right, Lionel; I don’t mind this part—just as I fell I was entirely all right. I fell into safety. I was just quite happy. I can’t tell you—it was just being swallowed up by peace. And like—I don’t know—like recognizing someone; when one says, ‘Oh, joy! there’s—someone or other. I knew him at once.’”

The three young men considered her gravely. After a minute she went on: “So that now to look back on it’s like having had a tooth out, unpleasant but small. I don’t mind talking of it. But when I was there it seemed as if things so wicked I could never have thought of them had got their claws into me.”

“You could never have thought of them!” Lionel scoffed tenderly.

She smiled at him, and then, as she leaned against the gate of the Cully grounds she unconsciously stretched her arms out along the top bar on either side. So, her feet close together, her palms turned upward, her face towards the evening sky, she seemed to hang remote, till Kenneth said sharply, “Don’t, Babs; you look as if you were crucified.”

She brought her eyes down to meet his without otherwise moving, then, looking past him, she came together suddenly, took a step forward, and cried out: “Oh, joy! it’s—” and stopped, laughing and embarrassed.

Her companions looked round in surprise. Behind them, as they stood clustered by the gate, stood an ordinary looking young man smiling recognition at Barbara. She blushed as she shook hands, but, with her usual swiftness, raced into an apology. “It’s extraordinarily silly, but I can’t remember your name. But I’m so pleased you’re here. Do forgive me and tell me.”

“My name is John,” the other said, “though I don’t think you ever heard it. But we’ve certainly met several times.”

“I know, I know,” Barbara said. “Stop a moment and I shall remember. It was… it was just before I was married, surely… No, since then, too. Somewhere only the other day. How stupid! Lionel, can’t you help?” She turned a face crimson with surprise, delight, and shame to her husband.

But Lionel shook his head firmly. “I do seem to have seen you before,” he said to the stranger, “but I haven’t the ghost of a notion where.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” the other said. “To be remembered is the chief thing. I think I have met these other gentlemen too.”

“It’s too absurd,” Kenneth said, laughing outright, “but for a minute when I saw you I thought you were a priest I’d seen somewhere. But I couldn’t at all fix where, so I suppose I haven’t.”

“It was certainly in church somewhere,” the stranger said, and glanced at the Duke.

“At Oriel,” the Duke said, “in—whose rooms was it? But not lately, I think.”

“Not so very much lately,” answered the other. “But you haven’t quite forgotten me, I’m glad to see.”

“I don’t understand it at all,” Barbara, still flushed and excited, answered. “I feel as if it were only to-day. You weren’t at… the house, were you?” she asked doubtfully.

The stranger smiled back. “I know Mr. Persimmons, and he will know me better soon. But don’t worry. How’s Adrian?”

“Very well, thank you,” Lionel said; and rather hesitatingly looked at Barbara. “Babs, don’t you think you ought to get back? My wife’s not been very well,” he added to the stranger, “and I don’t want her to get at all excited. You understand, I’m certain.”

The young man smiled again. “I understand very well indeed,” he answered. “But there is no more danger for her here. Believe certainly that this universe also carries its salvation in its heart.” He looked at Barbara. “We have met in places that shall not easily be forgotten,” he said, “before you were married, and since, and to-day also. Sleep securely tonight, the gates of hell have no more power over you. And you, my lord Duke, because you have loved the thing that is mine, this also shall save you in the end. Only remember that in your heart as well as your house you shall keep vigil and prayer till the Master of the Graal shall come.” He came a step nearer to Kenneth. “But for you I have no message,” he said, “except the message of the Graal ‘Surely I come quickly. Tonight thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.’”

He moved backward, and, as they involuntarily glanced at each other, seemed to step aside, so that no one was quite certain which way he had gone. Or, rather, Lionel and the Duke were not certain. Barbara was gazing at Kenneth with rapt eyes. “It was he that was at the edge of the pit to-day,” she breathed. “Tonight! O Kenneth!”

Kenneth stood silent for a minute or two, then he said only: “Well, good night, Babs,” as she gave him both her hands. “Good night, Lionel: I should certainly screw an extra week out of Stephen.” He laid his hand on the Duke’s arm. “Shall we go straight on to London?” he asked.

The evening had grown darker before the Archdeacon, wandering alone in his garden, saw at the gate the figure of the priest-king. He had been standing still for a moment looking out towards the road, and to his absent eyes it seemed almost as if the form had shaped itself from the sky and the fields and road about it. He came down to it and paused, and words sounded in his mind, but whether from without or from within he no more knew than whether this presence had moved along the road or come forth from the universe which it expressed. “‘The time is at hand,’” it said; “‘I will keep the passover with my disciples.’”

“Ah, fair sweet lord, Thou knowest,” he answered aloud.

“I am a messenger only,” the voice, if voice it were, uttered, “but I am the precursor of the things that are to be. I am John and I am Galahad and I am Mary; I am the Bearer of the Holy One, the Graal, and the keeper of the Graal. I have kept it always, whether I dwelt in the remote places of the world and kings rode after me or whether I removed to the farther parts of man’s mind. All magic and all holiness is through me, and though men stole the Graal from me ages since I have been with it for ever. Brother and friend, the night of His coming is at hand.”

“I have watched many nights,” the Archdeacon answered, “and behold His mercy endureth for ever.”

“Also I have watched with you,” the voice said, “yet not I, but He that sent me. You shall watch yet through a deeper night, and after that I will come to this place on the second morning from now, and I will begin the mysteries of my Lord, and thereafter He shall do what He will, and you shall see the end of these things. Only be strong and of a good courage.”

The form was gone. The Archdeacon looked out over the countryside, and his lips moved in their accustomed psalm.

Chapter Fourteen THE BIBLE OF MRS. HIPPY

As the inspector was carried back to London in the first available train, he found himself slipping from side to side on the smooth ice of his uncertain mind. Impartially he considered that this sudden return was likely to be as futile as any other attempt he had made at solving the problem of the murder. But, on the other hand, there could not be many rather undersized men in the neighbourhood of London who within the last two months had been intimately connected with Wesleyan Methodism and with death. When Mr. Batesby had spoken that morning it had seemed as if two streams of things—actual events and his own meditations— had flowed gently together; as if not he, but Life were solving the problem in the natural process of the world. He reminded himself now that such a simplicity was unlikely; explanations did not lucidly arise from mere accidents and present themselves as all but an ordered whole. He dimly remembered Mrs. Hippy, the occupant of the house next but two to his own; he remembered that she was an acquaintance of his wife, who had gone with her to certain bazaars, sales of work, and even church services. If she had had a lodger who had disappeared, why hadn’t his wife mentioned it before? It was such a failure on the part of his intimates that the inspector always expected, he told himself, and always found.

His wife was staying with her mother, so the inspector lunched near King’s Cross, and then went on to 227 Thobblehurst Road. Mrs. Hippy came to the door, and appeared delighted to see him. “Why, come in, inspector,” she said. “I thought Mrs. Colquhoun said you were going away.”

“So I did,” the inspector said, following her to the drawing-room, as it was solemnly called, which looked on to the street. “But I had some inquiries to make which brought me back.”

“Really?” Mrs. Hippy said, rather absently. “Inspector, can you think of a fish in two syllables?”

“A fish?” the inspector said vaguely. “Walrus? salmon? mackerel?