The vicar looked shocked. "Surely this cannot be coincidence," he said quietly.
"I don't believe so. She told me Sir Robert had been for some time in Palestine. While we were talking, Sir Robert actually entered the room, fresh from his journey. We had a fearful row, of course, and he wouldn't go until I threatened to use force, and then only because he was afraid of the scandal. But before he went he seemed filled with a sort of coarse triumph even in a moment of what must have been great humiliation for him. I told him frankly that Miss Hunt -- that's the woman's name -- was, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, about to lead a new and different life. Then this sort of triumph burst forth. He said that in a short time meddling priests would lose all their power over the minds of others. He said Christ, 'the pale dreamer of Palestine,' would be revealed to all men at last. And it was said with a great confidence and certainty."
Basil stopped, worn out, and glanced inquiringly at Mr. Byars.
The vicar was evidently much moved and agitated by the narrative. "The most curious point of all," he said, "in what you tell me is the fact of Sir Robert's private and secret visit to Palestine some months before the discovery was made. Such a recent visit is surely unknown to the public. The newspapers have said nothing of it. Otherwise, I suggest that in some way or other, Mr. Schuabe and Sir Robert may have already known of this tomb, and their hints of a catastrophe to faith may have simply been because of this knowledge which they were unwilling to publish."
Basil shook his head. "No, it is not that," he said. "It is not that. They would never have kept the knowledge secret. You have not been through the scenes with these men that I have. There are a hundred objections to that theory. I'm absolutely persuaded that this 'discovery' is a forgery, executed with the highest skill, by the one man living capable of doing it, at the instigation of the one man evil enough to suggest it. The hand of God is leading me towards the truth."
"But the proof!" said the vicar. "The proof! Think of the tremendous forces arrayed against us. What can we do? No one would listen to what you have told me."
"God will show a way," said Basil. "I know it. I had a letter from Harold Spence this morning. His work is done, and he's now returned. At the end of the week the doctor says I'll be able to get back to Lincoln's Inn. I'll take counsel with Harold. He's brilliant, and a man with his feet firmly planted on the ground. Together we'll work to overthrow these devils."
"And meanwhile," answered Mr. Byars, with a despairing gesture, "meanwhile hope and faith are dying out of millions of hearts. Men are turning to sinful pleasures, unafraid, hopeless, desolate."
The strain had been too great, he was growing older. He bent his head on his hands while the darkness crept into his soul.
Chapter 20
The long Manchester station was full of the sullen and almost unbearable roar of escaping steam. Every now and again the noise ceased with a suddenness that seemed painful, and the groups of people waiting to see the London train start on its four hours' rush could hear each other's voices strange and thin after the mighty vibration.
The feast of Christmas was over. Throughout the world the festival had fallen chill and cold on the hearts of mankind. The Adeste Fideles had summoned few to worship, and the praise had sounded thin and hollow.
Basil, Helena, and Mr. Byars stood together by the train. Basil still looked pale and worn, but visibly better and stronger. His face was fixed and resolute. The vicar seemed much older, shrunken somewhat, and his manner was more unsteady than before. His arm was in Helena's.
"Basil," said the vicar, "you're going from us into what must be the unknown. May God grant a happy issue out of the perils and difficulties before you. For my part, I seem to be in an unhappy and doubting state. It may be that you have the key to this dark mystery and will one day dispel the clouds. I will pray daily that it may be soon. It is now in the hands of God."
He sighed heavily as he gripped Basil's hand in farewell. In truth, he had but little hope, and had hardly been able to absorb the young man's story. It was almost inconceivable to him that the possibility of this great cloud could come on the world at the action of two men he had known. He had found Schuabe and Llwellyn pleasant, cultured people, and he rather liked them. The thought confused and stunned him. This good man could still believe in the eternal truths of the Gospel, despite this apparent contrary evidence, but could not believe in the malignancy which Basil's story had seemed to indicate.
Helena had not been told any details of Basil's suspicions, only of his hopes. She knew there was something in his mind which might lead once more to light, and disperse the clouds. The mutual trust between them was absolute. In her love and admiration for Basil, Helena saw nothing incongruous or incredible in the fact that an almost unknown curate, going up to London in a third-class railway carriage, hoped to bring peace back to the world.
Wearing his clerical suit, Basil walked with Helena slowly up and down the platform, saying farewell.
He thought long of her as the train began to gather speed and rush through the smoky Northern towns. He looked at the carriage, noticing for the first time, at least consciously, the people who sat there. He had two fellow passengers, a man and a woman. The man seemed to belong to the skilled artisan class, decently dressed, of sober and quiet manner. The woman was old, past sixty, a little withered creature, insignificant of face, her hair grey, scanty, and ill-nourished.
The man was sitting opposite Basil, and after a time they fell into talk on trivial subjects. The stranger was civil, but somewhat assertive. Suddenly, with a slight smile of anticipation, he seemed to gather himself up for discussion.
"Well," he said, "I don't wish individuals no particular harm, you'll understand, but speaking general, I suppose you realise your job's over. The Church will be swept away for good 'n' all in a few months, and to my way of thinking it'll be the best thing as has ever come to the country. The Church has always failed to reach the labouring man."
"Because the labouring man has generally failed to reach the Church," said Basil, smiling. "But you mean Church and State will separate, I suppose? Disestablishment."
"That's it, mister," said the man. "It must come now, and about time too, after all these centuries of humbug. I used to go to church years back and sing 'The Church's One Foundation.' Its foundation's been proved a pack of lies now, and down it comes. Disestablishment will prove the salvation of England. When religion's swept away by act of Parliament, then men will have an opportunity of talking sense and seeing things clearly."
He spoke without rudeness but with a certain arrogance and an obvious satisfaction at the situation. Here was a parson cornered, literally, forced to listen to him, with no way of escape. Basil imagined the man was congratulating himself that this was not a corridor train.
"I think Disestablishment is very likely to come indeed," said Basil, "and it will come the sooner for recent events. I'm not at all sure it wouldn't be an excellent thing for the Church after all. But you seem to think Disestablishment will destroy the Christian faith. That is an entire mistake, as you will find."
"It is destroyed already," said the man, "let alone what's going to happen. Since what they've found out in Jerusalem, the whole thing's gone puff! Like blowing out a match. You can't get fifty people together in any town what believe in religion anymore. The religion of commonsense has come instead, and it is come to stay."
A voice with a curious singing inflection came from the corner of the carriage, a voice utterly unlike the harsh North-country accent of the workman. The old woman was beginning to speak.
Basil recognised the curious Cornish tones at once, and looked up with sudden interest.
"You'm wrong, my son," said the old woman, "bitter wrong you be, and 'tis carnal vanity that spakes within you. To Lostwithul, where I bide, I could show 'ee different to what you do say."
The workman smiled a superior smile at the odd old thing. The wrinkled face had become animated. Two deep lines ran from her nostrils to th
e corner of her lips, hard and uncompromising. Her eyes were bright.
"Well, mother," he said, "let's hear what you've got to say. Fair do's in argument is only just and proper."
"Ah," she replied, "it is easy to laugh when you've not got love of the Lard in your heart. I be gone sixty years of age, and many as I can mind back-along as have trodden the path of sorrow. There be a lot of fools about."
The workman winked at Basil with huge enjoyment, and settled himself comfortably in his place.
"Then you don't hold with Disestablishing the Church, mother?" he said.
"I do take no stock in Church," she replied, "begging the gentleman's pardon" -- this to Basil. "I was born and bred a Wesleyan and such I'm like to die. How should I know what they'll be doing up to London church town? This here is my first visit to England to see my daughter, and it'll be the last I have a mind to take. You should come to Cornwall, my dear, and then you'll see if our faith is over and done away with."
Basil was quietly amused at the traditional Cornish view that refused to accept that the county of Cornwall was part of England. But he was fascinated by the old woman's words, and stayed quiet.
"But you've heard of all they've just found out Jerusalem, surely?" said the young workman. "It is known now that Christ never was what He made Himself out to be. He won't save no more sinners. It is all false what the Bible says. It has been proved. I suppose you've heard about that in Cornwall?"
"I was down to the shop," said the old lady, with the gentle contempt of one speaking to a foolish child. "I was down to the shop December month, and Mrs. Baragwaneth showed me the Western Morning News with a picture and a lot of talk saying the Bible was ontrue, and Captain Billy Peters, of Treurthian mine, he was down-along too. How he did laugh at 'un! 'My dear,' he says, 'tis like the coastguards going mackerel-seining. Night after night have they been out, and shot the nets, too, for they be alwass seein' something briming, thinking it a school of fish, and not knowing 'tis but moonshine. It is want of experience that do make folk talk so.'"
"That's all very well, mother," answered the man, slightly nettled by the placid assurance of her tone. "That's all pretty enough, and though I don't understand your fishing terms I can guess at your meaning. But here's the proof on one side and nothing at all on the other. Here's all the learned men of all countries as says the Bible isn't true, and proving it, and here's you with no learning at all just saying it is, with no proof whatever!"
"Do 'ee want proof, then?" she answered eagerly, the odd see-saw of her voice becoming more and more accentuated in her excitement. "I tell 'ee ther's as many proofs as there is pilchards in the say. Ever since the Lard died -- ah! 'twas a bitter nailing, a bitter nailing, my dear!" She paused, almost with tears in her voice, and the whole atmosphere of the little compartment seemed to Basil to be irradiated, glorified by the shining faith of the old woman. "Ever since that time the proofs have been going on. Now I'll tell 'ee as some as I have see'd, my son. Samson Trevorrow to Carbiswater married my sister, May Rosewarne, forty years ago. He would drink something terrible bad, and swear like a foreigner. He'd a half-share in a trawler, three cottages, and money in the bank. First his money went, then his cottages, and he led a life of sin and brawling. He were a bad man, my dear. Everyone were at 'un for an ongodly wastrel, but 'a kept on. An' the Lard gave him no children. My sister May could not make a child to him, for she were onfruitful, but he would not change. All that folk with sense could do was done, but 'twere no use."
"Well, I know the sort of man," said the workman, with conviction. His interest was roused.
"Then you do know that nothing won't turn them from their evil ways?"
"When a chap gets the drink in him like that," replied the artisan, "there's no power that will take him from it. He'd go through sheet iron for it."
"And so would Samson Trevorrow, my dear," she continued. "One night he came home from Penzance market, market-peart, as the saying is -- drunk if you will. My sister said something to 'un, what 'twas I couldn't say, but he struck her, for the first time. Next morning was the Sunday, and when she told him of what he'd done overnight, he was shamed of himself, and she got him to come along with her to chapel. 'Twas a minister from Bodmin as prached, and 'ee did prache the Lard at Sam until the Word got hold on 'un and the man shook with repentance at his bad life. He did kneel down before them all and prayed for forgiveness, and for the Lard to help 'un to lead a new life. From that Sabbath till he died, many years after, Sam never took anything of liquor. He stopped his sweering and carrying on, and he lived as a good man should. And in a year the Lard sent 'un a son, and if God wills, I'll see the boy this afternoon, for he's to meet the train. There now, my son, that be Gospel truth what I tell 'ee. After that, can you expect anyone with a grain of sense to listen to such foolish truck as you do tell? The Lard did that for Samson Trevorrow: changed 'un from evil to pure, 'a did. If the Queen herself were to tell me the Lard Jesus wasn't He, I wouldn't believe her."
As Basil took a cab from Euston through the thronged veins of London towards the Inn, he thought much and with great thankfulness of the little episode in the train. Such simple faith, such supreme conviction, was, he knew, the precious possession of thousands still. What did it matter to these sturdy Nonconformists in the lone West that scholars denied Christ?
All over England the serene triumph of the Gospel, deep, deep down in the hearts of quiet people, gave the eternal lie to Schuabe and his followers. Never could they overcome the Risen Lord in the human heart. He began to realise more and more the overwhelming wonder of the Incarnation, how God could lower Himself to become Man, to die for the sins of the world.
Before he arrived at Chancery Lane, the London streets began to take hold of him once more with the old familiar grip. It seemed but a day since he had left them. It was impossible at the moment to realise all that had passed since he had gone away.
He was to have an immediate and almost terrifying reminder of it. The door of the chambers was not locked. Pushing it open, he entered.
Always most sensitive to the atmosphere of a room, moral as well as material, Basil was immediately struck by that of the chambers, most unpleasantly so, indeed. Certain indications of what had been going on there were easily seen.
The air was stale with the pungent smell of Turkish tobacco and spirits. It was obvious the windows had not been opened. A litter of theatre programmes lay on one chair. On another was a programme of a Covent Garden ball and a girl's shoe of white satin, into which a fading bouquet of hothouse flowers had been crushed. The table was covered with the remains of a supper, a pâté, some long-necked bottles which had held Niersteiner, a hideous pink satin box with light blue ribbons half full of glacé plums and chocolates.
The little bust of the Hermes of Praxiteles, which stood on one of the bookcases, had been maltreated with a vulgarity which hurt Basil like a blow. The delicate contour of the features, the pure white of the plaster, were soiled and degraded. The cheeks had been rouged up to the eyes, which were picked out in violet ink. The brows were arched with an eyebrow pencil and the lips with a vivid cardinal red, no doubt the deed of a visitor.
Basil put down his portmanteau and looked round on these and many other evidences of sordid and unlovely riot. His heart sank within him. He began to fear for Harold Spence.
Even as he looked round, Spence came into the room, alone, from his bedroom. He was dressed in a smoking jacket and flannel trousers. Basil saw at once he had been drinking heavily. The cheeks were swollen under the pouch of the eye, he was unshaven, and his manner was full of noisy and tremulous geniality.
Basil was astounded at the change, but one thing he had learnt in this London parish was tact. The situation was obvious, it explained itself at once, and he nerved himself to deal with it warily and carefully.
Spence himself was ill at ease at they went through the commonplaces of meeting. Then, when they were both seated by the fire, he began to speak frankly.
"You
can see I'm rather sick, Gortre," he said. "Better have it out and done with, don't you think?"
"Tell me all about it," said Basil.
"Well, there isn't very much to tell; only when I came back from Palestine after all that excitement I felt lost and miserable. Something seemed taken out of my life. There didn't seem much to do, and some of the old set looked me up and I have been racketing about town a good bit."
"I thought you'd got over all that, Harold; because, putting it on no other grounds, you know the game is not worth the candle."
"So I had got over it, Basil, before" ... he swallowed something in his throat ... "before this happened. I didn't believe it at first, of course, or at least not properly when I received Hands's letter. But when I got out to Jerusalem and saw what Hands had found, everything seemed slipping away. Then the Commission came over with Sir Robert Llwellyn, and I was with them all, listening to what they had to say. I know the whole private history of the thing from first to last. It made me feel completely hopeless -- a terrible feeling. Of course, thousands of people must have felt just the same during the past weeks. But to have the one thing I leaned on, the one hope that kept me straight in this life, the hope of another and happier one, cut suddenly out of my consciousness! Is it any wonder I have gone back to the old temptations? I don't think so, Basil."
An enormous pity was in Basil's heart as he saw this friend's weakness and misery. He realised what he had only guessed at before or seen but dimly. He would not have believed this transformation possible. He had thought Harold stronger. But even as he pitied him, he marvelled at the Power which had been able to keep the man pure and straight so long. Even this horrid debacle was but another, if indirect, testimony to the power of Christ.
As Basil listened to his friend's story, a deep anger, a righteous wrath as fierce as flame burned within, as he thought of the two men who, he was now convinced, had brought this ruin on another. In Spence he was able to see but a single case out of thousands which he knew must be similar to it -- all because of the appalling conspiracy of Schuabe and Llwellyn.