Shadows of Ecstasy by Charles Williams (best books to read txt) 📖

Chapter Two - SUICIDE WHILE OF UNSOUND MIND

Philip was down the next morning before his father or his godfather,

urged by a very strong anxiety to see the papers. Trouble in Africa,

as it happened, was possibly going to affect not merely high national

and political affairs but his own personal arrangements. Africa, of

course, was a large place, and the Christian missions had been

established he had gathered, somewhere in the centre; he wasn’t much

disturbed over them. But what his father had called “the pressure on

Egypt” was another matter. Philip’s own job was engineering, and he

had not long before come to an arrangement with a business company

known as “The North African Rivers Development Syndicate,” by which he

was to go out to whatever North African Rivers were to be developed as

assistant constructing engineer. His chief, a man named Munro, was

already out there, somewhere in Nigeria, and in a couple of months

Philip was to join him. Meanwhile he was putting in some time at the

London offices of the Syndicate, which was run by two brothers named

Stuyvesant. But though these were the official heads it was generally

understood in the City that the real force behind the company was a

much richer man, a certain Simon Rosenberg, who, among his interests

in railways and periodicals and fisheries and dyeworks, in South

African diamonds and Persian oils and Chinese silks, in textiles and

cereals and patent-medicines, rubber and coffee and wool, among all

these had cast a careless eye on African rivers. In that side of the

business Philip wasn’t very interested. Sir Bernard had satisfied

himself that the company was as sound as could reasonably be expected,

and a year’s work—or perhaps even two years—would give Philip a

start in his profession. Then he would, all being well, come home and

marry Rosamond, and see what jobs were going at home. Munro was a

fairly big man and if Munro gave him a good word…

 

It was consequently something of a shock to him, when he opened the

paper, to find two huge headlines competing. On the left a

three-column space announced “Multi-millionaire Found Dead; Rosenberg

Shot”; “Terrible Discovery in Rich Man’s Library.” On the right a

similar space was filled with: “Africans Still Advancing”; “Hordes in

Nile Valley”; “Rumours of Trouble in South Africa”; “French Defeat in

Tangier.” Philip goggled at the thick type, and instinctively tried to

read both accounts at once. He was still immersed when Caithness came

in, just preceding Sir Bernard.

 

“I say,” Philip cried to them, “Rosenberg’s shot himself.”

 

“Rosenberg!” Sir Bernard exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

 

“It doesn’t say,” Philip answered. “He was found in the study of his

house late last night by the butler, who thought he heard a noise and

went to see.”

 

“And found he had,” Sir Bernard said. “Nasty for the butler.” He

picked up his own paper, and opened it so that he and Caithness could

look at it together. But the priest’s eyes went first to the columns

of African news, and after his first glance Sir Bernard’s followed

them. They read the brief obscure telegrams, the explanatory comments,

the geographical addenda. It seemed that something very unusual was

happening in Africa. To begin with, all communication with the

interior had completely ceased. Telegraphs had ceased to function,

railways had been cut, roads had been blocked. By such roads as had

not been blocked there were emerging against all the outer districts

hostile bodies of natives, some so small as to be less than a raid,

some so large as to mean an invasion, and at that, wherever they

appeared, a victorious invasion. The Egyptian army, which had for some

weeks been moving leisurely south in order to suppress trouble in the

southeast, was now retiring in considerable disorder and even more

considerable haste. The French had “suffered a set-back”; the

Spaniards had fallen back towards the coast. Communications with

Kenya, with Nigeria, with Abyssinia, with Zanzibar, had ceased. Raids

had taken place on the English territories in the South.

Air-investigation was being undertaken. The Powers were in touch and

were taking necessary steps.

 

“But what “, Caithness said, “has happened to the air-investigation of

the last month?”

 

“It hasn’t come back,” Sir Bernard answered. “I was talking to a man

in the War Office the other night, and he told me that they’ve sent

out aeroplanes by the score, and hardly any have returned. Some have,

I suppose, but what they reported is being kept dark. Philip, I think

the African Rivers look like being in too much spate for your

engineering.”

 

“But what about Rosenberg?” Philip asked. “Do you suppose that’s what

made him kill himself?”

 

“Did he kill himself?” Sir Bernard said, turning to the other columns.

“‘Butler hears shot…letter for the Coroner…police satisfied.

Financial comment on page 10’; yes, well, we can wait till after

breakfast for that. Curious, I wonder what decided him. Let’s just see

whether the Archbishop said anything.”

 

It appeared that the previous day had been agitated in both Houses. In

the Commons the Prime Minister had announced that forces were being

dispatched immediately to punish the various tribes guilty of the

abominable massacres at the mission stations. Asked by half a dozen

members of the Opposition at once whether he could promise that these

expeditions should not develop into costly Imperialistic wars, and

whether the action taken was by request of the ecclesiastical

authorities, the Prime Minister said that the Archbishop had naturally

deprecated further bloodshed but that he and other ecclesiastical

authorities had recognized the right of the State to protect its

citizens. Asked whether he would undertake that no further territory

would be seized, he said that no annexations would be made except by

mandate from the League of Nations. Asked whether other Governments

were taking action, he said that the House should have all information

as soon as he received it.

 

This had been in the afternoon. In the evening the Archbishop had

asked the Lord Chancellor for permission to make a statement, and had

then said that—in consultation with such other Bishops as happened to

be in London—he had written at once that morning to the Prime

Minister, definitely stating that the ecclesiastical authorities were

entirely opposed to the dispatch of punitive expeditions, and begging

that none should be sent. The Bishops were of the opinion that no

secular action should be taken to avenge the martyrdom of the

slaughtered missionaries and converts, and wished to dissociate

themselves from any such action. A noble and indignant peer—a lately

returned Governor-General—asked the Archbishop whether he realized

that natives understood nothing but force, and whether he meant that

war and the use of force was a sin; whether in short the Archbishop

were disloyal or merely stupid. The Archbishop had referred the noble

peer to the theologians for discussions and determinations of the use

of force. The use of force was an act which was neither good nor evil

in itself; the use of force in circumstances like the present appeared

to himself and his colleagues a breach of Christian principles.

Another peer demanded whether, if the Government were to dispatch

punitive expeditions, the Archbishop would seriously accuse them of

acting in an unchristian manner? The Archbishop said that the noble

peer would remember that Christianity assumed a readiness for

martyrdom as a mere preliminary to any serious work, and that he was

sure no noble lord who happened to hear him and was a Christian would

be unwilling to suffer tortures and death without wishing a moment’s

pain to his enemies. He apologized to the House for reminding them of