I can almost feel again, as I write, the mood of those days. One sometimes lost control of oneself! one had seizures of excitement, could hardly utter one's words! Langler in particular was strongly moved: his cheek at one spot would go pale, and quiver. By the 24th or 25th we at Swandale began to understand that Dr Todhunter would never more be seen; and I said then: "No! he will never more be seen; and in two months from to-day—wait and see!—Dr Burton will be primate of England."
"But will he consent?" asked Langler, pale with excitement: "does he not already—suspect? Will he plug up both his ears against a hundred whispers that already throng in his consciousness?"
What grounds Langler had for assuming these "hundred whispers" in Dr Burton's consciousness I do not know; but, if it was a guess, it may have been a shrewd one, for I have seen a letter of Burton's written about then, in which twice, occurs a certainly very suggestive prayer against "the deceitful man": "ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me"—twice in one letter.
However this was, it was soon beyond doubt that Dr Burton would not only be invited, but would accept the primacy. The rumour grew and grew. The Prime Minister, in fact, must have been under the strongest pressure to invite Burton, and after a struggle with fate, with his hair, and with the wire-pullers, had to give in. Mrs Edwards herself, who drove over one afternoon from Goodford, told us so much; and by the middle of March it began to be taken for granted that Dr Burton would be metropolitan of Canterbury. I remember the date very well, for just about that time Baron Kolár came down to Goodford for one afternoon to repose himself, to eat the Misses Chambers' toast, and sleep on their sofa, and have his hair brushed; and it was that same day—either the 14th or 15th of March—that the weak voice of our friend said to her brother: "you should go to Styria, since it is so." It was a rough evening, before the candles were lit, and we two were sitting beside her cane chair by her fire; and Langler, with his brow bowed over her hand, answered: "yes, I will go, since I should. We have written a letter to the authorities in those parts, and are waiting for their answer, but if it does not come within a week—or two—I shall do as you bid me."
CHAPTER XV
OUR START
Ten more days passed without answer from Styria, and I was daily awaiting Miss Emily's word: "You should start now."
She had left her room on the 22nd, and I can see again in fancy our friend as she was that day, with her hair somewhat lax, and the little wren on her bosom; she was palish, but one would hardly have thought that she had come through a great illness, and more laughter than I could quite account for, than quite pleased me perhaps, was on her lips.
Those were warm days in which much more than the daffodil had blown in Swandale, and on the 25th of the month our friend went out of doors. Towards evening she and I were in the pavilion—for I find that I must tell something as to her and me, and since I must, will tell it more or less verbatim, with reporter's blankness, as well as I can remember. We, then, being in the pavilion (a circular temple at the end of an oblong of water), she said to me: "those groups of lily-leaves on the lake looking like ears must remember the music which Aubrey and I made here most nights last summer. They will never hear us more. We used to sit in that recess there, and this is the cupboard where we put up the violin and harp." (A series of cupboards and old chairs went round the wall, and there were chambers within the thickness of the marble, each with its big window and seat; in one of the cupboards I saw still a harp in a bag.)