Lord of the World (Dystopian Novel). Robert Hugh BensonЧитать онлайн книгу.
with the three vows of course, and a special clause forbidding utterly and for ever their ownership of corporate wealth. — Every gift received must be handed to the bishop of the diocese in which it was given, who must provide them himself with necessaries of life and travel. Oh! — what could they not do?... He was off in a rhapsody.
Presently he recovered, and called himself a fool. Was not that scheme as old as the eternal hills, and as useless for practical purposes? Why, it had been the dream of every zealous man since the First Year of Salvation that such an Order should be founded!... He was a fool....
Then once more he began to think of it all over again.
Surely it was this which was wanted against the Masons; and women, too. — Had not scheme after scheme broken down because men had forgotten the power of women? It was that lack that had ruined Napoleon: he had trusted Josephine, and she had failed him; so he had trusted no other woman. In the Catholic Church, too, woman had been given no active work but either menial or connected with education: and was there not room for other activities than those? Well, it was useless to think of it. It was not his affair. If Papa Angelicus who now reigned in Rome had not thought of it, why should a foolish, conceited priest in Westminster set himself up to do so?
So he beat himself on the breast once more, and took up his office-book.
He finished in half an hour, and again sat thinking; but this time it was of poor Father Francis. He wondered what he was doing now; whether he had taken off the Roman collar of Christ’s familiar slaves? The poor devil! And how far was he, Percy Franklin, responsible?
When a tap came at his door presently, and Father Blackmore looked in for a talk before going to bed, Percy told him what had happened.
Father Blackmore removed his pipe and sighed deliberately.
“I knew it was coming,” he said. “Well, well.”
“He has been honest enough,” explained Percy. “He told me eight months ago he was in trouble.”
Father Blackmore drew upon his pipe thoughtfully.
“Father Franklin,” he said, “things are really very serious. There is the same story everywhere. What in the world is happening?”
Percy paused before answering.
“I think these things go in waves,” he said.
“Waves, do you think?” said the other.
“What else?”
Father Blackmore looked at him intently.
“It is more like a dead calm, it seems to me,” he said. “Have you ever been in a typhoon?”
Percy shook his head.
“Well,” went on the other, “the most ominous thing is the calm. The sea is like oil; you feel half-dead: you can do nothing. Then comes the storm.”
Percy looked at him, interested. He had not seen this mood in the priest before.
“Before every great crash there comes this calm. It is always so in history. It was so before the Eastern War; it was so before the French Revolution. It was so before the Reformation. There is a kind of oily heaving; and everything is languid. So everything has been in America, too, for over eighty years.... Father Franklin, I think something is going to happen.”
“Tell me,” said Percy, leaning forward.
“Well, I saw Templeton a week before he died, and he put the idea in my head.... Look here, father. It may be this Eastern affair that is coming on us; but somehow I don’t think it is. It is in religion that something is going to happen. At least, so I think.... Father, who in God’s name is Felsenburgh?”
Percy was so startled at the sudden introduction of this name again, that he stared a moment without speaking.
Outside, the summer night was very still. There was a faint vibration now and again from the underground track that ran twenty yards from the house where they sat; but the streets were quiet enough round the Cathedral. Once a hoot rang far away, as if some ominous bird of passage were crossing between London and the stars, and once the cry of a woman sounded thin and shrill from the direction of the river. For the rest there was no more than the solemn, subdued hum that never ceased now night or day.
“Yes; Felsenburgh,” said Father Blackmore once more. “I cannot get that man out of my head. And yet, what do I know of him? What does any one know of him?”
Percy licked his lips to answer, and drew a breath to still the beating of his heart. He could not imagine why he felt excited. After all, who was old Blackmore to frighten him? But old Blackmore went on before he could speak.
“See how people are leaving the Church! The Wargraves, the Hendersons, Sir James Bartlet, Lady Magnier, and then all the priests. Now they’re not all knaves — I wish they were; it would be so much easier to talk of it. But Sir James Bartlet, last month! Now, there’s a man who has spent half his fortune on the Church, and he doesn’t resent it even now. He says that any religion is better than none, but that, for himself, he just can’t believe any longer. Now what does all that mean?... I tell you something is going to happen. God knows what! And I can’t get Felsenburgh out of my head.... Father Franklin —— ”
“Yes?”
“Have you noticed how few great men we’ve got? It’s not like fifty years ago, or even thirty. Then there were Mason, Selborne, Sherbrook, and half-a-dozen others. There was Brightman, too, as Archbishop: and now! Then the Communists, too. Braithwaite is dead fifteen years. Certainly he was big enough; but he was always speaking of the future, not of the present; and tell me what big man they have had since then! And now there’s this new man, whom no one knows, who came forward in America a few months ago, and whose name is in every one’s mouth. Very well, then!”
Percy knitted his forehead.
“I am not sure that I understand,” he said.
Father Blackmore knocked his pipe out before answering.
“Well, this,” he said, standing up. “I can’t help thinking Felsenburgh is going to do something. I don’t know what; it may be for us or against us. But he is a Mason, remember that.... Well, well; I dare say I’m an old fool. Good-night.”
“One moment, father,” said Percy slowly. “Do you mean — ? Good Lord! What do you mean?” He stopped, looking at the other.
The old priest stared back under his bushy eyebrows; it seemed to Percy as if he, too, were afraid of something in spite of his easy talk; but he made no sign.
Percy stood perfectly still a moment when the door was shut. Then he moved across to his prie-dieu.
CHAPTER III
I
Old Mrs. Brand and Mabel were seated at a window of the new Admiralty Offices in Trafalgar Square to see Oliver deliver his speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Poor Laws Reform.
It was an inspiriting sight, this bright June morning, to see the crowds gathering round Braithwaite’s statue. That politician, dead fifteen years before, was represented in his famous attitude, with arms outstretched and down dropped, his head up and one foot slightly advanced, and to-day was decked, as was becoming more and more usual on such occasions, in his Masonic insignia. It was he who had given immense impetus to that secret movement by his declaration in the House that the key of future progress and brotherhood of nations was in the hands of the Order. It was through this alone that the false unity of the Church with its fantastic spiritual fraternity could be counteracted. St. Paul had been right, he declared, in his desire to break down the partition-walls between nations, and wrong only in his exaltation of Jesus Christ. Thus he had preluded his speech on the Poor Law question, pointing to the true charity that