Many Dimensions by Charles Williams (namjoon book recommendations txt) 📕

Chapter Seven

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