Bab Bab 41 · THE INTERDICT

THE INTERDICT

However, my attention was suddenly snatched from such matters;

our child began to lose ground again, and we had to go to sitting

up with her, her case became so serious. We couldn't bear to allow

anybody to help in this service, so we two stood watch-and-watch,

day in and day out. Ah, Sandy, what a right heart she had, how

simple, and genuine, and good she was! She was a flawless wife

and mother; and yet I had married her for no other particular

reasons, except that by the customs of chivalry she was my property

until some knight should win her from me in the field. She had

hunted Britain over for me; had found me at the hanging-bout

outside of London, and had straightway resumed her old place at

my side in the placidest way and as of right. I was a New Englander,

and in my opinion this sort of partnership would compromise her,

sooner or later. She couldn't see how, but I cut argument short

and we had a wedding.

Now I didn't know I was drawing a prize, yet that was what I did

draw. Within the twelvemonth I became her worshiper; and ours

was the dearest and perfectest comradeship that ever was. People

talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same

sex. What is the best of that sort, as compared with the friendship

of man and wife, where the best impulses and highest ideals of

both are the same? There is no place for comparison between

the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine.

In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered thirteen centuries

away, and my unsatisfied spirit went calling and harking all up

and down the unreplying vacancies of a vanished world. Many a

time Sandy heard that imploring cry come from my lips in my sleep.

With a grand magnanimity she saddled that cry of mine upon our

child, conceiving it to be the name of some lost darling of mine.

It touched me to tears, and it also nearly knocked me off my feet,

too, when she smiled up in my face for an earned reward, and played

her quaint and pretty surprise upon me:

“The name of one who was dear to thee is here preserved, here made

holy, and the music of it will abide alway in our ears. Now

thou'lt kiss me, as knowing the name I have given the child.”

But I didn't know it, all the same. I hadn't an idea in the

world; but it would have been cruel to confess it and spoil her

pretty game; so I never let on, but said:

“Yes, I know, sweetheart--how dear and good it is of you, too!

But I want to hear these lips of yours, which are also mine, utter

it first--then its music will be perfect.”

Pleased to the marrow, she murmured:

“HELLO-CENTRAL!”

I didn't laugh--I am always thankful for that--but the strain

ruptured every cartilage in me, and for weeks afterward I could

hear my bones clack when I walked. She never found out her mistake.

The first time she heard that form of salute used at the telephone

she was surprised, and not pleased; but I told her I had given

order for it: that henceforth and forever the telephone must

always be invoked with that reverent formality, in perpetual honor

and remembrance of my lost friend and her small namesake. This

was not true. But it answered.

Well, during two weeks and a half we watched by the crib, and in

our deep solicitude we were unconscious of any world outside of

that sick-room. Then our reward came: the center of the universe

turned the corner and began to mend. Grateful? It isn't the term.

There _isn't_ any term for it. You know that yourself, if you've

watched your child through the Valley of the Shadow and seen it

come back to life and sweep night out of the earth with one

all-illuminating smile that you could cover with your hand.

Why, we were back in this world in one instant! Then we looked

the same startled thought into each other's eyes at the same

moment; more than two weeks gone, and that ship not back yet!

In another minute I appeared in the presence of my train. They

had been steeped in troubled bodings all this time--their faces

showed it. I called an escort and we galloped five miles to a

hilltop overlooking the sea. Where was my great commerce that

so lately had made these glistening expanses populous and beautiful

with its white-winged flocks? Vanished, every one! Not a sail,

from verge to verge, not a smoke-bank--just a dead and empty

solitude, in place of all that brisk and breezy life.

I went swiftly back, saying not a word to anybody. I told Sandy

this ghastly news. We could imagine no explanation that would

begin to explain. Had there been an invasion? an earthquake?

a pestilence? Had the nation been swept out of existence? But

guessing was profitless. I must go--at once. I borrowed the king's

navy--a “ship” no bigger than a steam launch--and was soon ready.

The parting--ah, yes, that was hard. As I was devouring the child

with last kisses, it brisked up and jabbered out its vocabulary!

--the first time in more than two weeks, and it made fools of us

for joy. The darling mispronunciations of childhood!--dear me,

there's no music that can touch it; and how one grieves when it

wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never

visit his bereaved ear again. Well, how good it was to be able

to carry that gracious memory away with me!

I approached England the next morning, with the wide highway of

salt water all to myself. There were ships in the harbor, at

Dover, but they were naked as to sails, and there was no sign

of life about them. It was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets

were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight,

and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear. The mournfulness of

death was everywhere. I couldn't understand it. At last, in

the further edge of that town I saw a small funeral procession

--just a family and a few friends following a coffin--no priest;

a funeral without bell, book, or candle; there was a church there

close at hand, but they passed it by weeping, and did not enter it;

I glanced up at the belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded in

black, and its tongue tied back. Now I knew! Now I understood

the stupendous calamity that had overtaken England. Invasion?

Invasion is a triviality to it. It was the INTERDICT!

I asked no questions; I didn't need to ask any. The Church had

struck; the thing for me to do was to get into a disguise, and

go warily. One of my servants gave me a suit of clothes, and

when we were safe beyond the town I put them on, and from that time

I traveled alone; I could not risk the embarrassment of company.

A miserable journey. A desolate silence everywhere. Even in

London itself. Traffic had ceased; men did not talk or laugh, or

go in groups, or even in couples; they moved aimlessly about, each

man by himself, with his head down, and woe and terror at his heart.

The Tower showed recent war-scars. Verily, much had been happening.

Of course, I meant to take the train for Camelot. Train! Why,

the station was as vacant as a cavern. I moved on. The journey

to Camelot was a repetition of what I had already seen. The Monday

and the Tuesday differed in no way from the Sunday. I arrived

far in the night. From being the best electric-lighted town in

the kingdom and the most like a recumbent sun of anything you ever

saw, it was become simply a blot--a blot upon darkness--that is

to say, it was darker and solider than the rest of the darkness,

and so you could see it a little better; it made me feel as if

maybe it was symbolical--a sort of sign that the Church was going to

_keep_ the upper hand now, and snuff out all my beautiful civilization

just like that. I found no life stirring in the somber streets.

I groped my way with a heavy heart. The vast castle loomed black

upon the hilltop, not a spark visible about it. The drawbridge

was down, the great gate stood wide, I entered without challenge,

my own heels making the only sound I heard--and it was sepulchral

enough, in those huge vacant courts.