The Last Miracle

by M. P. Shiel

We sat under a tree within sound of the band, and had a long talk that afternoon, for this servant-girl seemed to know everybody of any importance in Europe and the secret history of all that was going on, so she not only kept me amused, but posted me anew as to things and men in an astonishing way. Her mistress was, of course, the great lady in English politics, and had a habit, Rosie said, of making her her messenger, and even of "consulting her opinion"! Speaking of Ambrose Rivers, she said that he had now won a following of over eight hundred, and had opened a church in Kensington, to which she had once gone: "it is a kind of a cross between a theatre and a gymnasium," said she, "but the duchess regards him more as a crank than as a serious force in religious politics, and he only owes it to Dr Burton's illness that he has not been already brought under the consistory court. Ah!" she added in her bright way, "I saw that fit of Dr Burton's!" "What, you were present?" said I. "I alone," said she: "I was even the cause of it." "How do you mean—the cause of it?" I asked. "I'll tell you," said she, "but, of course, it is between us, sir. Never was so frightened in my life! It was about nine in the evening, at the palace, the duchess had sent me with a note, I was to wait for an answer, and was led into a room in that Blore part. The Archbishop, who was at a table covered with papers, laid the note by his side, said 'take a chair' to me, and went on writing. I noticed that he was not looking well: every two minutes he heaved a sigh, twice got up to look for something, but seemed to forget what, and sat down again without, and he would press his hand to his brow, as if he had a headache. Presently he sprang up, and began to pace about: all this time, mind you, he hadn't opened the duchess's note, nor seemed to be aware that I was anywhere, and I, of course, sat quite mum, taking stock of my archbishop. But, all at once, he saw me, looked at me—didn't say anything, went on pacing, but I noticed that he turned pale, and several times after that he looked at me, growing paler and paler, till at last, making up his mind, he came to me: I never saw anyone so ghastly gaunt! he frightened me! And what do you think his Grace said, sir? 'Well, pretty, do you love me?'"

"Dr Burton? said that? 'well, pretty, do you love me?'"

"Yes, he said it—in such a secret voice; and he was pale, pale...."

"But—what did you say?"

"My answer was a scream, sir, for the words had hardly passed his lips when he was on the ground in a fit. The doctors say, by the way, that if ever he has another, he will slip his cable."

Some of Rosie's phrases were not utterly pretty, and her anecdotes so numerous that one doubted whether they could be all quite true; but, assuming this of Dr Burton to have at least some truth, I was very shocked, very deeply moved, and I got from her a promise not again to mention it during the doctor's lifetime.

When I asked her what was the big thing at the moment in England, "Oh, still Education," she answered in her off-hand manner: "it is nearly through the Commons now, but the Church isn't going to hear of it. This bill puts an Eton education within the reach of every boy, as in France and elsewhere, and it does seem hard that the Church should stand in the way when anyone can see that England is perishing for lack of just this thing: but that is the Church all over—the old enemy of light." "Why, Rosie, you are not a good Catholic!" I said. "Oh, well," said she, "one must submit one's reason to God, of course; but still, one's private thoughts will peep through. However, the Church was defeated over Diseased Persons, and she may be over Education, too: Mr Edwards, I know, means fight, and so does the duchess." "But Diseased Persons was won through the discovery of that body and cross in Bayeux," said I: "do people, by the way, still discuss that discovery?" "Nothing has ever been made of it that I know of," she answered: "but some queer things were said, as some queer things were said of the disappearance of Dr Todhunter, and it gave a shock to the Church somehow, till two more of the visions were seen, and that turned people's minds away."

On the whole, the girl proved a mine of modernity: but what causes me to mention her here is a criticism of some of her words made by Langler, and a meditation which occurred in my mind in consequence of that criticism, not without definite result.

On the night of our meeting I mentioned her in my usual letter to Langler, and in his next to me were the following words:—"This Rosie, you tell me, says that Baron Kolár is not at Schweinstein: but you and I believe differently! That voice and those two English words which you heard on the night when we were saved from drowning, and that light in (?) the castle laboratory on the night when we saw Max Dees—these, indeed, are hardly proofs; yet we do have a feeling that he is there: and I have asked myself what can be his reason for hiding his presence there, if he is there, even from political people like the Duchess of St Albans. The reason suggested to my mind is that he may really mean to do Max Dees some harm, with the odium of which he does not wish to be afterwards pestered. Dees, it seems, has somehow wronged him, and vengeance is to be taken. But why, then, one might ask, does the man not take his vengeance and be done? It seems to be because Dees is being reserved till something else first happens, till (according to Dees himself) 'the downfall of the Church.' But, in that case, why is the baron at present lurking in Schweinstein? Perhaps it is in order to hurt Dees prematurely, before 'the downfall,' in case you and I should make serious headway in the matter of effecting Dees' release. But if this be so, it would seem to show that the baron must have some real fear of our power to release Dees. Indeed, he has such a fear: why else did he hurry hither the moment he saw that we could no longer be kept away from Styria? How sensitive he must be of the least chance of Dees' escaping him! Yet he is not a nervous man; one would imagine that he might securely have left Dees to the care of the watch-dog Tschudi! But no, he flies to the spot in person. And those two outrages upon the innocent hands—how sensitive, how frightfully in earnest he must have been to keep us from meddling! But that earnestness certainly implies a fear of our power—of our power, which seems to be nil. It must be, then, that the baron perceives that we have some power of which we ourselves are not aware."

There Langler's discernment seems to have stopped short; but his words so struck me, that I could not forget them, and after a sleepless night, which I shall ever remember, towards morning this thought was born in my head: "but Max Dees is a churchman! this is the heyday of the Church, so it is through the Church perhaps that his release may be wrought; and the baron, more far-seeing than we, has long seen this, and has feared our power, because it seemed certain to him that we, too, must see it! Here have I been tossed from Herr to Herr and from pillar to post; but the Prince-bishop of Seckau is in Gratz, and it is to him perhaps that I should have gone."