Walter Besant
The inner house
"We have a little company of twenty or thirty, who meet together in the evening after the dinner is over. No one else ever comes to the Museum. As soon as it is dark, you know very well, the People all creep home and go to bed; but my friends come here. It was Christine who began it. She found or made the dresses for us; she beguiled us into forgetting the Present and going back to the Past. Now we have succeeded in caring nothing at all about the Present. We began by pretending. It is no longer pretence. The Past lives again, and we hate the Present. Oh, we hate and loathe it!"
"Yes, yes. But how do you revive the Past?"
"We have dances. You used to dance very well formerly, my dear Harry. That was before you walked every day in a grand Procession, and took the highest place in the Public Hall. I wonder if you could dance again? Nature's secrets are not so heavy that they would clog your feet, are they? We sing and play: the old music has been found, and we are beginning to play it properly again. We talk; we act little drawing-room plays; sometimes we draw or paint; and – oh, Harry! – the men have begun again to make Love – real, ardent Love! All the dear old passions are reviving. We are always finding other poor creatures like ourselves, who were once ladies and gentlemen, and now are aimless and soulless; and we recruit them."
"What will Grout say when he finds it out?"
"He can never make us go back to the Present again. So far, I defy Grout, Harry."
The Arch Physician sighed.
"The old life!" he said; "the old life! I will confess, Mildred, that I have never forgotten it – not for a day; and I have never ceased to regret that it was not continued."
"Grout pulled it to pieces; but we will revive it."
"If it could be revived; but that is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible to you – nothing – to you. Consider, Harry," she whispered. "You have the Secret."
He started and changed color.
"Yes, yes," he said; "but what then?"
"Come and see the old life revived. Come this evening; come, dear Harry." She laid a hand upon his arm. "Come, for auld lang syne. Can the old emotions revive again, even in the breast of the Arch Physician?"
His eyes met hers. He trembled – a sure sign that the old spirit was reviving in him. Then he spoke in a kind of murmur:
"I have been living alone so long – so long – that I thought there was nothing left but solitude forever. Grout likes it. He will have it that loneliness belongs to the Higher Life."
"Come to us," she replied, her hand still on his arm, her eyes turned so as to look into his. Ah, shameless Witch! "We are not lonely; we talk; we exchange looks and smiles. We have begun again to practise the old arts; we have begun to read in each other's souls. Old thoughts that we had long forgotten are pouring back into our minds; it is strange to find them there again. Come, Harry; forget the laboratory for a while, and come with us; but come without Grout. The mere aspect of Grout would cause all our innocent joys to take flight and vanish. Come! Be no more the Sacred Head of the Holy College, but my dear old friend and companion, Harry Linister, who might have been but for the Great Discovery – but that is foolish. Come, Harry; come this evening."
CHAPTER VIII
THE ARCH TRAITOR
I dismissed John Lax, charging him with the most profound secrecy. I knew, and had known for a long time, that this man, formerly the avowed enemy of aristocrats, nourished an extraordinary hatred for the Arch Physician, and therefore I was certain that he would keep silence.
I resolved that I would myself keep a watch, and, if possible, be present at the meeting of this evening. What would happen I knew not, nor could I tell what to do; there are no laws in our community to prevent such meetings. If the Arch Physician chooses to attend such a play-acting, how is he to be prevented? But I would myself watch. You shall hear how I was rewarded.
Dr. Linister was, as usual, melancholy and preoccupied at Supper. He said nothing of what he intended. As for me, I looked about the Hall to see if there were any whom I could detect, from any unnatural restlessness, as members of this dangerous company; but I could see none, except the girl Christine, whose vivacity might be allowed on the score of youth. The face of John Lax, it is true, as he sat at the lowest place of our table, betokened an ill-suppressed joy and an eagerness quite interesting to one who understood the meaning of these emotions. Poor John Lax! Never again shall we find one like unto him for zeal and strength and courage.
I waited until half-past nine o'clock; then I sallied forth.
It was a dark night and still. There was no moon; the sky was cloudy; no wind was in the air, and from time to time there were low rumblings of distant thunder.
I made my way cautiously and noiselessly through the dark Garden to the entrance of the Picture Gallery, which the faithful John Lax had left open for me. I ventured, with every precaution, into the Gallery. It seemed quite empty, but at the end there was a door opening into the Museum, which poured a narrow stream of light straight down the middle of the Gallery. I crept along the dark wall, and presently found myself at the end close to this door. And here I came upon the group of statuary of which John Lax had told me where I could crouch and hide in perfect safety, unseen myself, yet able to see everything that went on within.
I confess that even the revelations of John Lax had not prepared me for the scene which met my eyes. There were thirty or forty men and women present; the room was lit up; there were flowers in vases set about; there was a musical instrument, at which one sat down and sang. When she had finished, everybody began to laugh and talk. Then another sat down and began to play, and then they went out upon the floor two by two, in pairs, and began to twirl round like teetotums. As for their dresses, I never saw the like; for the women were dressed in frocks of silk – white, pink, cream-colored, trimmed with lace; with jewels on their arms and necks, and long white gloves, and flowers in their hair. In their hands they carried fans, and their dresses were low, exposing their necks, and so much of their arms as was not covered up with gloves. And they looked excited and eager. The expression which I had striven so long to impart to their faces, that of tranquillity, was gone. The old unhappy eagerness, with flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and panting breath, was come back to them again. Heavens! what could be done? As for the men, they wore a black-cloth dress – all alike – why, then, did they dislike the regulation blue flannel? – with a large white shirt-front and white ties and white gloves. And they, too, were full of the restless eagerness and excitement. So different were they all from the men and women whom I had observed day after day in the Public Hall, that I could remember not one except the girl Christine, and – and – yes, among them there was none other than the Arch Physician himself, laughing, talking, dancing among the rest.
I could see perfectly well through the open door, and I was quite certain that no one could see me; but I crouched lower behind the marble group when they began to come out two by two, and to talk together in the dark Gallery.
First came the girl Christine and the sailor, Jack Carera. Him at all events I remembered. They took each other's hands and began to kiss each other, and to talk the greatest nonsense imaginable. No one would ever believe that sane people could possibly talk such nonsense. Then they went back and another pair came out, and went on in the same ridiculous fashion. One has been to a Theatre in the old time and heard a couple of lovers talking nonsense on the stage; but never on any stage did I ever hear such false, extravagant, absurd stuff talked as I did when I lay hidden behind that group in marble.
Presently I listened with interest renewed, because the pair which came into the Gallery was none other than the pair I had that morning watched in the Garden – the Arch Physician and the woman he called Mildred, though now I should hardly have known her, because she was so dressed up and disguised. She looked, indeed, a very splendid creature; not in the least like a plain woman. And this, I take it, was what these would-be great ladies desired – not to be taken as plain women. Yet they were, in spite of their fine clothes, plain and simple women just as much as any wench of Whitechapel in the old time.
"Harry," she said, "I thank you from my very heart for coming. Now we shall have hope."
"What hope?" he replied, "what hope? What can I do for you while the majority of the College continue to side with Grout? What hope can I bring you?"
"Never mind the Majority. Consider, Harry. You have the Great Secret. Let us all go away together and found a new colony, where we will have no Grout; and we will live our own lives. Do you love me, Harry?"
"Love you, Mildred? Oh" – he sighed deeply – "it is a stream that has been dammed up all these years!"
"What keeps us here?" asked the girl. "It is that in your hands lies the Great Secret. Our people would be afraid to go without it. If we have it, Jack will take us to some island that he knows of across the seas. But we cannot go without the Secret. You shall bring it with you."
"When could we go?" he asked, whispering.
"We could go at any time – in a day – in a week – when you please. Oh, Harry, will you indeed rescue us? Will you come with us? Some of us are resolved to go – Secret or not. I am one of those. Will you let me go – alone?"
"Is it impossible," he said, "that you should go without the Secret?"
"Yes," she said; "the people would be afraid. But oh, to think of a new life, where we shall no longer be all the same, but different! Every one shall have his own possessions again – whatever he can win; every one his own profession; the women shall dress as they please; we shall have Art – and Music – and Poetry again. And – oh, Harry!" – she leaned her head upon his shoulder – "we shall have Love again. Oh, to think of it! Oh, to think of it! Love once more! And with Love, think of all the other things that will come back. They must come back, Harry – the old Faith which formerly made us happy – " Her voice choked, and she burst into tears.
I crouched behind the statues, listening. What did she cry about? The old Faith? She could have that if she wanted, I suppose, without crying over it. No law whatever against it.
Dr. Linister said nothing, but I saw that he was shaking – actually shaking – and trembling all over. A most remarkable person! Who would have believed that weakness so lamentable could lie behind so much science?
"I yield," he said – "I yield, Mildred. The Present is so horrible that it absolves me even from the most solemn oath. Love has been killed – we will revive it again. All the sweet and precious things that made life happy have been killed; Art and Learning and Music, all have been killed – we will revive them. Yes, I will go with you, my dear; and – since you cannot go without – I will bring the Secret with me."
"Oh, Harry! Harry!" She flung herself into his arms. "You have made me more happy than words can tell. Oh, you are mine – you are mine, and I am yours!"
"As for the Secret," he went on, "it belongs, if it is to be used at all, to all mankind. Why did the College of Physicians guard it in their own jealous keeping, save to make themselves into a mysterious and separate Caste? Must men always appoint sacred guardians of so-called mysteries which belong to all? My dear, since the Great Discovery, Man has been sinking lower and lower. He can go very little lower now. You have been rescued from the appalling fate which Grout calls the Triumph of Science. Yes – yes – " he repeated, as if uncertain, "the Secret belongs to all or none. Let all have it and work out their destiny in freedom, or let none have it, and so let us go back to the old times, when such great things were done against the fearful odds of so short and uncertain a span. Which would be the better?"
"Only come with us, my lover. Oh, can a simple woman make you happy? Come with us; but let our friends know – else they will not come with us – that whenever we go, we have the Secret."
"It belongs to all," he repeated. "Come with me, then, Mildred, to the House of Life. You shall be the first to whom the Secret shall be revealed. And you, if you please, shall tell it to all our friends. It is the Secret, and that alone, which keeps up the Authority of the College. Come. It is dark; but I have a key to the North Postern. Come with me. In the beginning of this new Life which lies before us, I will, if you wish, give the Secret to all who share it. Come, my Love, my Bride."
He led her by the hand quickly down the Picture Gallery and out into the Garden.
I looked round. The silly folk in the Museum were going on with their masquerade – laughing, singing, dancing. The girl Christine ran in and out among them with bright eyes and eager looks. And the eyes of the sailor, Jack Carera, followed her everywhere. Oh yes. I knew what those eyes meant – the old selfishness – the subjection of the Woman. She was to be his Property. And yet she seemed to like it. Forever and anon she made some excuse to pass him, and touched his hand as she passed and smiled sweetly. I dare say that she was a beautiful girl – but Beauty has nothing at all to do with the Administration of the people. However, there was no time to be lost. The Arch Physician was going to betray the Great Secret.
Happily he would have to go all the way round to the North Postern. There was time, if I was quick, to call witnesses, and to seize him in the very act. And then – the Penalty. Death! Death! Death!
CHAPTER IX
IN THE INNER HOUSE
The House of Life, you have already learned, is a great and venerable building. We build no such houses now. No one but those who belong to the Holy College – viz., the Arch Physician, the Suffragan, the Fellows or Physicians, and the Assistants – are permitted to enter its doors or to witness the work that is carried on within these walls. It is, however, very well understood that this work concerns the prolongation of the Vital Forces first, the preservation of Health next, and the enlargement of scientific truth generally. The House is, in fact, the great laboratory in which the Fellows conduct those researches of which it is not permitted to speak outside. The prevention of disease, the cure of hereditary and hitherto incurable diseases, the continual lowering of the hours of labor, by new discoveries in Chemistry and Physics, are now the principal objects of these researches. When, in fact, we have discovered how to provide food chemically out of simple matter, and thereby abolish the necessity for cultivation, no more labor will be required, and Humanity will have taken the last and greatest step of all – freedom from the necessity of toil. After that, there will be no more need for labor, none for thought, none for anxiety. At stated intervals food, chemically prepared, will be served out; between those intervals man will lie at rest – asleep, or in the torpor of unthinking rest. This will be, as I have said before, the Triumph of Science.
The House, within, is as magnificent as it is without; that is to say, it is spacious even beyond our requirements, and lofty even beyond the wants of a laboratory. All day long the Fellows and the Assistants work at their tables. Here is everything that Science wants – furnaces, electric batteries, retorts, instruments of all kinds, and collections of everything that may be wanted. Here – behind the Inner House – is a great workshop where our glass vessels are made, where our instruments are manufactured and repaired. The College contains two or three hundred of Assistants working in their various departments. These men, owing to the restlessness of their intellect, sometimes give trouble, either because they want to learn more than the Fellows think sufficient for them, or because they invent something unexpected, or because they become dissatisfied with the tranquil conditions of their life. Some of them from time to time have gone mad. Some, who threatened more trouble, have been painlessly extinguished.
Within the House itself is the Inner House, to enter which is forbidden, save to the Arch Physician, the Suffragan, and the Fellows.
This place is a kind of House within a House. Those who enter from the South Porch see before them, more than half-way up the immense building, steps, upon which stands a high screen of wood-work. This screen, which is very ancient, protects the Inner House from entrance or observation. It runs round the whole enclosure, and is most profusely adorned with carved-work representing all kinds of things. For my own part, I have never examined into the work, and I hardly know what it is that is here figured. What does it advance science to carve bunches of grapes (which everybody understands not to be grapes) in wood? All these things in the House of Life – the carved wood, the carved stone, the carved marble, the lofty pillars, the painted windows – irritate and offend me. Yet the Arch Physician, who loved to sit alone in the Inner House, would contemplate these works of Art with a kind of rapture. Nay, he would wellnigh weep at thinking that now there are no longer any who can work in that useless fashion.
As for what is within the Inner House, I must needs speak with caution. Suffice it, therefore, to say that round the sides of the screen are ancient carved seats under carved canopies, which are the seats of the Fellows; and that on a raised stone platform, approached by several steps, is placed the Coffer which contains the Secret of the Great Discovery. The Arch Physician alone had the key of the Coffer; he and his Suffragan alone possessed the Secret; the Fellows were only called into the Inner House when a Council was held on some new Discovery or some new adaptation of Science to the wants of Mankind.
Now, after overhearing the intended treason of the Arch Physician, and witnessing his degradation and fall, I made haste to act; for I plainly perceived that if the miraculous Prolongation of the Vital Force should be allowed to pass out of our own hands, and to become public property, an end would at once be put to the Order and Discipline now so firmly established; the Authority of the College would be trampled under foot; everybody would begin to live as they pleased; the old social conditions might be revived; and the old social inequalities would certainly begin again, because the strong would trample on the weak. This was, perhaps, what Dr. Linister designed. I remembered, now, how long it was before he could forget the old distinctions; nay, how impossible it was for him ever to bring himself to regard me, though his Suffragan – whom he had formerly made his serving-man – as his equal. Thinking of that time, and of those distinctions, strengthened my purpose. What I did and how I prevented the treachery will approve itself to all who have the best interests of mankind at heart.
The House of Life after nightfall is very dark; the windows are high, for the most part narrow, and, though there are a great many of them, most are painted, so that even on a clear and bright day there is not more light than enough to carry on experiments, and, if I had my way, I would clear out all the painted glass. It is, of course, provided with the electric light; but this is seldom used except in the short and dark days of winter, when work is carried on after nightfall. In the evening the place is absolutely empty. John Lax, the Porter, occupies the South Porch and keeps the keys. But there is another and smaller door in the north transept. It leads to a Court of Cloisters, the ancient use of which has long been forgotten, the key of which is kept by the Arch Physician himself.
It was with this key – at this entrance – that he came into the House. He opened the door and closed it behind him. His footstep was not the only one; a lighter step was heard on the stones as well. In the silence of the place and time the closing of the door rumbled in the roof overhead like distant thunder, and the falling of the footsteps echoed along the walls of the great building.
The two companions did not speak.
A great many years ago, in the old times, there was a Murder done here – a foul murder by a band of soldiers, who fell upon a Bishop or Saint or Angel – I know not whom. The memory of the Murder has survived the name of the victim and the very religion which he professed – it was, perhaps, that which was still maintained among the aristocracy when I was a boy. Not only is the memory of the murder preserved, but John Lax – who, soon after the Great Discovery, when we took over the building from the priests of the old religion, was appointed its Porter and heard the old stories – would tell all those who chose to listen how the Murderers came in at that small door and how the murder was committed on such a spot, the stones of which are to this day red with the blood of the murdered man. On the spot, however, stands now a great electrical battery.
The Arch Physician, now about to betray his trust, led his companion, the woman Mildred Carera, by the hand past this place to the steps which lead to the Inner House. They ascended those steps. Standing there, still outside the Inner House, Dr. Linister bade the woman turn round and look upon the Great House of Life.
The clouds had dispersed, and the moonlight was now shining through the windows of the South, lighting up the colored glass, painting bright pictures and patterns upon the floor, and pouring white light through those windows, which are not painted, upon the clustered pillars and old monuments of the place. Those who were now gathered in the Inner House listened, holding their breath in silence.
"Mildred," said Dr. Linister, "long, long years ago we stood together upon this spot. It was after a Service of Praise and Prayer to the God whom then the world worshipped. We came from town with a party to see this Cathedral. When service was over, I scoffed at it in the light manner of the time, which questioned everything and scoffed at everything."
"I remember, Harry; and all through the service my mind was filled with – you."
"I scoff no more, Mildred. We have seen to what a depth men can sink when the Hope of the Future is taken from them. The memory of that service comes back to me, and seems to consecrate the place and the time. Mildred," he said, after a pause – oh, the House was very silent – "this is a solemn and a sacred moment for us both. Here, side by side, on the spot once sacred to the service of the God whom we have long forgotten, let us renew the vows which were interrupted so long ago. Mildred, with all my heart, with all my strength, I love thee."
"Harry," she murmured, "I am thine – even to Death itself."
"Even to Death itself," he replied. "Yes, if it comes to that. If the Great Discovery itself must be abandoned; if we find that only at that price can we regain the things we have lost."
"It was Grout who destroyed Religion – not the Great Discovery," said the girl.
We kept silence in the House, but we heard every word. And this was true, and my heart glowed to think how true it was.
"Nay, not Grout, nor a thousand Grouts. Without the certainty of parting, Religion droops and dies. There must be something not understood, something unknown, beyond our power of discovery, or the dependence which is the ground of religion dies away in man's heart. He who is immortal and commands the secrets of Nature, so that he shall neither die, nor grow old, nor become feeble, nor fall into any disease, feels no necessity for any religion. This House, Mildred, is the expression of religion at the time of man's greatest dependence. To the God in whom, short-lived, ignorant, full of disease, he trusted he built this splendid place, and put into it all the beauty that he could command of sculpture and of form. But it speaks no longer to the People for whom it was built. When the Great Discovery was made, it would surely have been better to have found out whither it was going to lead us before we consented to receive it."
"Surely – " said Mildred, but the other interrupted her.
"We did not understand; we were blind – we were blind."
"Yet – we live."
"And you have just now told me how. Remember the things that men said when the Discovery was made. We were to advance continually; we were to scale heights hitherto unapproached; we were to achieve things hitherto unknown in Art as well as in Science. Was it for the Common Meal, the Common Dress, the Common Toil, the vacant face, the lips that never smile, the eyes that never brighten, the tongue that never speaks, the heart that beats only for itself, that we gave up the things we had?"
"We did not expect such an end, Harry."
"No; we had not the wit to expect it. Come, Mildred, I will give you the Secret, and you may give it, if you please, to all the world. Oh, I feel as if the centuries had fallen away! I am full of hope again. I am full of the old life once more; and, Mildred – oh, my sweet! – I am full of Love!"
He stooped and kissed her on the lips. Then he led her into the Inner House.
Now, just before Dr. Linister turned the key of the postern, the door of the South Porch was softly closed, and a company of twenty men walked lightly and noiselessly, in slippers, up the nave of the House. Arrived at the Inner House, they ascended the steps and entered that dark Chapel, every man making straight for his own seat and taking it without a word or a breath. This was the College of Physicians hastily called by me, and gathered together to witness the Great Treachery of the Chief. They sat there silent and breathless listening to their talk.
The Secret was kept in a cipher, intelligible only to the two who then guarded it, in a fire-proof chest upon the stone table which was once the altar of the old Faith.
Dr. Linister stood before the chest, his key in his hand.
"It would be better," he said, "if the new departure could be made without the Secret. It would be far, far better if we could start again under the old conditions; but if they are afraid to go without the Secret, why – " He unlocked the chest. Then he paused again.
"How many years have I been the guardian of this Secret? Mildred, when I think of the magnificent vistas which opened up before our eyes when this Great Discovery was made; when I think of the culture without bound or limit; the Art in which the hand was always to grow more and more dexterous; the Science which was to advance with gigantic strides – my child, I feel inclined to sink into the earth with shame, only to compare that dream with the awful, the terrible, the disgraceful reality! Let us all go away. Let us leave this place, and let us make a new beginning, with sadder minds, yet with this experience of the Present to guide us and to keep us from committing worse follies. See, dear – here is the Secret. The cipher in which it is written has a key which is in this paper. I place all in your hands. If accident should destroy me, you have the Secret still for yourself and friends. Use it well – use it better than we have used it. Kiss me, Mildred. Oh, my dear!"
Then, as they lay in each other's arms, I turned on the electric light and discovered them. The chest stood open; the papers, cipher, key and all, were in the girl's hands; the Arch Physician was caught in the very act of his supreme Treachery!
And lo! the Fellows of the Holy College were in the Inner House; every man in his place, every man looking on, and every man standing upright with eyes and gestures of scorn.
"Traitor!" they cried, one and all.
John Lax appeared at the door, halberd in hand.
