Thorne Guy
When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy

CHAPTER IX
AT WALKTOWN AGAIN

The news came to Walktown, the final confirmation of what had been so long suspected, in a short telegram from Basil, dispatched immediately he had left Downing Street.

Mr. Byars and Helena had been kept well acquainted with every step in the progress of the investigation.

Ever since Gortre had left Walktown, after his holiday visit, his suspicions had been ringing in the vicar's ears.

Then, when the matter had been communicated to Sir Michael and Father Ripon, when Spence had started, and Mr. Byars knew that all the powers of wealth and intellect were at work, his hopes revived.

The vicar's faith had never for a single moment wavered.

In the crash of the creeds his deep conviction never wavered.

The light burned steadily before the altar.

He had been one of the faithful thousands, learned, simple, Methodist, ritualist, who knew that this thing could not be.

Nevertheless his courage had been failing him. Life seemed to have lost its sweetness, and often he humbly wondered when he should die, hoping that the time was not too long – not without a tremulous belief that God would recognise that he had fought the good fight and kept the faith.

In his own immediate neighbourhood the consequences of the "Discovery" nearly broke his heart. He had no need to look beyond Walktown. Even the great political events which were stirring the world had left him unmoved. His own small corner of the vineyard, now, alas! so choked with rank, luxuriant growth, was enough for this faithful pastor. Here he saw nothing but vice suddenly rearing its head and threatening to overwhelm all else. He heard the Holy Names blasphemed with all the inventions of obscene imaginations, assailed with all the wit of full-blooded men amazed and rejoiced that they could stifle their consciences at last. And this after all his life-work among these folk! He had given them of his best. His prayers, his intellect, much of his money had been theirs.

How insolently they had exulted over him, these coarse and vulgar hearts!

When Basil had first told Mr. Byars of his suspicions the vicar can hardly have been blamed for regarding them sadly as the generous effects of a young and ardent soul seeking to find an immediate way out of the impasse.

The elder man knew that fraud had been at work, but he suspected no such modern and insolent attempt as Basil indicated. It was too much to believe. Gortre had left him most despondent.

But his interest had soon become quickened and alive, as the private reports from London reached him.

When he knew that great people were moving quietly, that the weight of Sir Michael was behind Gortre, he knew at once that in all probability Basil's suspicions were right.

A curious change came over the vicar's public appearances and utterances. His sermons were full of fire, almost Pauline in their strength. People began to flow and flock into the great empty church at Walktown. Mr. Byars's fame spread.

Then, swiftly, after the first week or two, had come the beginning of the great financial depression.

It was felt acutely in Manchester.

All the wealthy, comfortable, easy-going folk who grudgingly paid a small pew-rent out of their superfluity became alarmed, horribly alarmed. The Christianity which had sat so lightly upon them that at first opportunity they had rushed into the Unitarian meeting-houses became suddenly a very desirable thing.

In the fall of Christianity they saw their own fortunes falling. And these self-deceivers would be swept back upon the tide of this reaction into the arms of the Anglican mother they had despised.

The vicar saw all this. He was a keen expert in, and student of, human affairs, and withal a psychologist. He saw his opportunity.

His words lashed and stung these renegades. They were made to see themselves as they were; the preacher cut away all the ground from under them. They were left face to face with naked shame.

What puzzled and yet uplifted the congregation at St. Thomas's was their vicar's extraordinary certainty that the spiritual darkness over the land was shortly to be removed.

It was commented on, keenly observed, greatly wondered at.

"Mr. Byars speaks," said Mr. Pryde, a wealthy solicitor, "as if he had some private information about this Palestine discovery. He is so confident that he magnetises one into his own state of mind, and Byars is not a very emotional man either. His conviction is real. It's not hysteria."

And, being a shrewd, silent man, the solicitor formed his own conclusions, but said nothing of them.

The church continued full of worshippers.

When the news from Basil came, the vicar was sitting before the fire in his lighted study. He had been expecting the telegram all day.

His brain had been haunted by the picture of that distinguished figure with the dark red hair he had so often met.

Again he saw the millionaire standing in his drawing-room proffering money for scholarships. And in Dieppe also!

How well and clearly he saw the huge figure of the savant in his coat of astrachan, with his babble of soups and entrée!

Try as he would, the vicar could not hate these two men. The sin, the awful sin, yes, a thousand times. Horror could not be stretched far enough, no hatred could be too great for such immensity of crime.

But in his great heart, in his large, human nature there was a Divine pity for this wretched pair. He could not help it. It was part of him. He wondered if he were not erring in feeling pity. Was not this, indeed, that mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost for which there was no forgiveness? Was it not said of Judas that for his deed he should lie for ever in hell?

The telegram was brought in by a neat, unconcerned housemaid.

Then the vicar got up and locked the inner door of his study. He knelt in prayer and thanksgiving.

It was a moment of intense spiritual communion with the Unseen.

This good man, who had given his vigorous life and active intellect to God, knelt humbly at his study table while a joy and happiness not of this earth filled all his soul.

At that supreme moment, when the sense of the glorious vindication of Christ flooded the priest's whole being with ecstasy, he knew, perhaps, a faint foreshadowing of the life the Blessed live in Heaven.

For a few brief moments that imperfect instrument, the human body, was permitted a glimpse, a flash of the eternal joy prepared for the saints of God.

The vicar drew very near the Veil.

Helena beat at the door; he opened to her, the tall, gracious lady.

She saw the news in her father's face.

They embraced with deep and silent emotion.

Two hours later the vicarage was full of people.

The news had arrived.

Special editions of the evening papers were being shouted through the streets. Downing Street had spoken, and in Manchester – as in almost every great city in England – the Truth was pulsing and throbbing in the air, spreading from house to house, from heart to heart.

Every one knew it in Walktown now.

There was a sudden unanimous rush of people to the vicarage.

Each big, luxurious house all round sent out its eager owners into the night.

They came to show the pastor, who had not failed them in the darkness, their joy and gratitude now that light had come at last.

How warm and hearty these North-country people were! Mr. Byars had never penetrated so deeply beneath the somewhat forbidding crust of manner and surface-hardness before.

Mingled with the sense of shame and misery at their own lukewarmness, there was a fine and genuine desire to show the vicar how they honoured him for his steadfastness.

"You've been an example to all of us, vicar," said a hard-faced, brassy-voiced cotton-spinner, a kindly light in his eyes, his lips somewhat tremulous.

"We haven't done as we ought to by t' church," said another, "but you'll see that altered, Mr. Byars. Eh! but our faith has been weak! There'll be many a Christian's heart full of shame and sorrow for the past months this night, I'm thinking."

They crowded round him, this knot of expensively dressed people, hard-faced and harsh-spoken, with a warmth and contrition which moved the old man inexpressibly.

Never before had he been so near to them. Dimly he began to think he saw a wise and awful purpose of God, who had allowed this iniquity and calamity that the faith of the world might be strengthened.

"We'll never forget what you've done for us, Mr. Byars."

"If we've been lukewarm before, vicar, 't will be all boiling now!"

"Praise God that He has spoken at last, and God forgive us for forgetting Him."

The air was electric with love and praise.

"Will you say a prayer, vicar?" asked one of the churchwardens. "It seems the time for prayer and a word or two like."

The company knelt down.

It was a curious scene. In the richly furnished drawing-room the group of portly men and matrons knelt at chairs and sofas, stolid, respectable, and middle-aged.

But here and there a shoulder shook with suppressed emotion, a faint sob was heard. This, to many of them there, was the greatest spiritual moment they had ever known. Confirmation, communion, all the episodic mile-stones of the professing Christian's life had been experienced and passed decorously enough. But the inward fire had not been there. The deep certainty of God's mysterious commune with the brain, the deep love for Christ which glows so purely and steadfastly among the saints still on earth – these were coming to them now.

And, even as the fires of the Paraclete had descended upon the Apostles many centuries before, so now the Holy Spirit began to stir and move these Christians at Walktown.

The vicar offered up the joy and thanks of his people. He prayed that, in His mercy, God would never again let such extreme darkness descend upon the world. Even as He had said, "Neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."

He prayed that all those who had been cast into spiritual darkness, or who had left the fold of Christ, might now return to it with contrite hearts and be in peace.

Finally, they said the Lord's Prayer with deep feeling, and the vicar blessed them.

And for each one there that night became a precious, helpful memory which remained with them for many years.

Afterwards, while servants brought coffee, always the accompaniment to any sort of function in Walktown, the talk broke out into a hushed amazement.

The news which had been telegraphed everywhere consisted of a statement signed by the Secretary of State and the archbishops that the discovery in Palestine was a forgery executed by Sir Robert Llwellyn at the instigation of Constantine Schuabe.

"Ample and completely satisfying evidence is in our possession," so the wording ran. "We render heartfelt gratitude to Almighty God that He has in His wisdom caused this black conspiracy to be discovered. The thanks of the whole world, the gratitude of all Christians, must be for those devoted and faithful men who have been the instruments of Providence in discovering the Truth. Sir Michael Manichoe, the Rev. Basil Gortre, the Rev. Arthur Ripon, and Mr. Harold Spence have alone dispelled the clouds that have hung over the Christian world."

It was a frightful shock to these people to know how a great magnate among them, a business confrère, the member for their own division, an intimate, should have done this thing.

As long as the world lasted the Owner of Mount Prospect who had spoken on their platforms would be accursed. It was too startling to realise at once; the thought only became familiar gradually, in little jerks, as one aspect after another presented itself to their minds.

It was incredible that this antichrist had been long housed among them but a mile from where they stood.

"What will they do to him?"

"Who can say! There's never been a case like it before, you see."

"Well, the paper doesn't say, but I expect they've got them safe enough in London – Mr. Schuabe and the other fellow."

"Just to think of our Mr. Gortre helping to find it out! Pity we ever let him go away from the parish church."

"They can't do less than make him a bishop, I should think."

"Miss Byars, you ought to be proud of your young man. There's many folk blessing him in England this night."

And so on, and so forth; simple, homely speeches, not indeed free from a somewhat hard commercial view, but informed with kindliness and gratitude.

At last, one by one, they went away. It was close upon midnight when the last visitor had departed.

The vicar read a psalm to his daughter:

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people."

Basil was to come to them on the morrow for a long stay.

EPILOGUE
IN THREE PICTURES

Note. —The three pictures all synchronise. The episodes they portray take place five years after the day upon which Sir Robert Llwellyn died.– G. T.

I. The Grave

Two figures walked over the cliffs.

The day was wild and stormy. Huge clouds, bursting with sombre light, sailed over the pewter-coloured sea. The bleak magnificence of the moor stretched away in endless billows, as sad and desolate as the sea on which no sail was to be seen.

The wayfarers turned out of the struggle of the bitter wind into a slight depression. A few scattered cottages began to come into the field of their vision.

Soon they saw the whitewashed buildings of a coast-guard station and the high, square tower of a church.

"So it's all settled, Spence," said one of the men, a tall, noble-faced man, dressed as a clerk in Holy Orders.

"Yes, Father Ripon," Spence said. "They have offered me the paper. It was one of poor Ommaney's last wishes. Of course, we were injured in our circulation by the fact that we were the first to publish the news of the great forgery. But in two years Ommaney had brought the paper to the front again. He was wonderful, the first editor of his age.

"I was there with Folliott Farmer and the doctors when he died. Fancy, it was the first time I had ever been in his flat, though we had worked together all these years! The simplest place you ever saw. Just a couple of rooms, where he slept all the daytime. No luxury, hardly even comfort. Ommaney had no existence apart from his work. He'd saved nearly all his very large salary for many years. I am an executor of his will. He left a legacy to Farmer, and to me also, and the rest to the Institute of Journalists. But I am persuaded that he did not care in the least what happened to his money. He never did. He wasn't mean in any way, but he worked all night and slept all day, and simply hadn't any use for money. A good-hearted man, a very brilliant editor, but utterly detached from any personal contact with life."

Father Ripon's keen face, still as eager and powerful as before, set into lines of thought.

He sighed a little. "A modern product," he said at length. "A modern product, a sign of the times. Well, Spence, a power is entrusted to you now such as no priest can enjoy. I pray that your editorship of this great paper will be fine. Try to be fine always. I believe that the Holy Spirit will be with you."

They rose up towards the moor again. "There's the church," said Spence, "where she lies buried. Gortre sees that the grave is kept beautiful with flowers. It was an odd impulse of yours, Father, to propose this visit."

"I do odd things sometimes," said the priest, simply. "I thought that the sight of this poor woman's resting-place might remind you and me of what has passed, of what she did for the world – though no one knows it but our group of friends. I hope that it will remind us, remind you very solemnly, my friend, in your new responsibility, of what Christ means to the world. The shadows of the time of darkness, 'When it Was Dark' during the 'Horror of Great Darkness,' have gone from us. And this poor sister did this for her Saviour's sake."

They stood by Gertrude Hunt's grave as they spoke.

A slender copper cross rose above it, some six feet high.

"I wonder how the poor girl managed it," said Spence at length; "her letter was wonderfully complete. Sir Michael – Lord Fencastle, I mean – showed it me some years ago. She was wonderfully adroit. I suppose Llwellyn had left papers about or something. But I do wonder how she did it."

"That," said Father Ripon, "was what she would never tell anybody."

"Requiescat in pace," said Spence.

"In Paradise with Saint Mary of Magdala," the priest said softly.

THE SECOND PICTURE

Quem Deus Vult Perdere

The chaplain of the county asylum stood by the castellated red brick lodge at the end of the asylum drive, talking to a group of young ladies.

The drive, which stretched away nearly a quarter of a mile to the enormous buildings of the asylum, with their lofty towers and warm, florid architecture, was edged with rhododendrons and other shrubs.

The gardens were beautifully kept. Everything was mathematically straight and clean, almost luxurious, indeed.

The girls were three in number, young, fashionably dressed. They talked without ceasing in an empty-headed stream of girlish chatter.

They were the daughters of a great ironfounder in the district, and would each have a hundred thousand pounds.

The chaplain was showing them over the asylum.

"How sweet of you, Mr. Pritchard, to show us everything!" said one of the girls. "It's awfully thrilling. I suppose we shall be quite safe from the violent ones?"

"Oh, yes," said the chaplain, "you will only see those from a distance; we keep them well locked up, I assure you."

The girls laughed with him.

The party went laughing through the long, spotless corridors, peeping into the bright, airy living-rooms, where bodies without brains were mumbling and singing to each other.

The imbecile who moved vacantly with slobbering lip, the dementia patient, the log-like, general paralytic – "G. P." —things which must be fed, the barred and dangerous maniac, they saw them all with pleasant thrills of horror, disgust, and sometimes with laughter.

"Oh, Grace, do look at that funny little fat one in the corner – the one with his tongue hanging out! Isn't he weird?"

"There's one actually reading! He must be only pretending!"

A young doctor joined them – a handsome Scotchman with pleasant manners.

For a time the lunatics were forgotten.

"Well, now, have we seen all, Doctor Steward?" one of the girls said. "All the worst cases? It's really quite a new sensation, you know, and I always go in for new sensations."

"Did ye show the young leddies Schuabe?" said the doctor to the chaplain.

"Bless my soul!" he replied, "I must be going mad myself. I'd quite forgotten to show you Schuabe."

"Who is Schuabe?" said the youngest of the sisters, a girl just fresh from school at Saint Leonards.

"Oh, Maisie!" said the eldest. "Surely you remember. Why, it's only five years ago. He was the Manchester millionaire who went mad after trying to blow up the tomb of Christ. I think that was it. It was in all the papers. A young clergyman found out what he'd been trying to do, and then he went mad – this Schuabe creature, I mean, not the clergyman."

"Every one likes to have a look at this patient," said the doctor. "He has a little sleeping-room of his own and a special attendant. His money was all confiscated by order of the Government, but they allow two hundred a year for him. Otherwise he would be among the paupers."

The girls giggled with pleasurable anticipation.

The doctor unlocked a door. The party entered a fairly large room, simply furnished. In an arm-chair a uniformed attendant was sitting, reading a sporting paper.

The man sprang up and saluted as he heard the door open.

On a bed lay the idiot. He had grown very fat and looked healthy. The features were all coarsened, but the hair retained its colour of dark red.

He was sleeping.

"Now, Miss Clegg, ye'd never think that was the fellow that made such a stir in the world but five years since. But there he lies. He always eats as much as he can, and goes to sleep after his meal. He's waking up now, sir. Here, Mr. Schuabe, some ladies have come to see you."

It got up with a foolish grin and began some ungainly capers.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Pritchard," the girls said as they left the building. "We've enjoyed ourselves so much."

"I liked the little man with his tongue hanging out the best," said one.

"Oh, Mabel, you've no sense of humour! That Schuabe creature was the funniest of all!"

THE THIRD PICTURE

A Sunday evensong. The grim old Lancashire church of Walktown is full of people. The galleries are crowded, every seat in the aisles below is packed.

This night, Easter night, the church looks less forbidding. The harsh note is gone, something of the supreme joy of Holy Easter has driven it away.

Old Mr. Byars sits in his stall. He is tired by the long, happy day, and as the choir sings the last verse of the hymn before the sermon he sits down.

The delicate, intellectual face is a little pinched and transparent. Age has come, but it is to this faithful priest but as the rare bloom upon the fruits of peace and quiet.

How the thunderous voices peal in exultation!

Alleluia!

Christ is risen! The old man turned his head. His eyes were full of happy tears. He saw his daughter, a young and noble matron now, standing in a pew close to the chancel steps. He heard her pure voice, full of triumph. Christ is risen!

From his oak chair behind the altar rails Dean Gortre came down towards the pulpit.

Young still – strangely young for the dignity which they had pressed on him for two years before he would accept it – Basil ascended the steps.

Christ is risen!

The organ crashed; there was silence.

All the lights in the church were suddenly lowered to half their height.

The two candles in the pulpit shone brightly on the preacher's face.

They all saw that it was filled with holy fire.

Christ is risen!

"if christ be not risen your faith is vain"

The church was absolutely still as the words of the text rang out into it.

The people were thinking humbly, with contrite hearts, of the shame five years ago.

"Would that our imagination, under the conduct of Christian faith, could even faintly realise the scene when the Human Soul of Our Lord came with myriads of attendant angels to the grave of Joseph, to claim the Body that had hung upon the cross.

"To-night, with the promise and warrant of our own resurrection that His has given us, our thoughts involuntarily turn to those we call the dead. We feel that this Easter is for them also an occasion of rejoicing, and that the happiness of the earthly Church is shared by the loving and beloved choir behind the veil.

"Christ is risen! Away with the illusions which may have kept us from Him. Let us also arise and live. For, as the spouse sings in the Canticles, 'The winter is past, … the time of the singing of birds is come; … arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!'"

Christ is risen!