Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (255 page)
Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
And
thus
Secretan
Jones,
though
his
main
interests
were
liturgical, was
able
to
secure
a
few
newspaper
paragraphs
when
he
disappeared— rather
more
than
a
year
after
his
great
campaign
in
the
Press,
which was
not
quite
forgotten,
but
not
very
clearly
remembered.
A
few
paragraphs,
I
said,
and
stowed
away,
most
of
them,
in
out-of-the-way
corners
of
the
papers.
It
seemed
that
Mrs.
Sedger,
the
woman who
shared
with
her
husband
the
business
of
looking
after
Secretan
Jones,
brought
in
tea
on
a
tray
to
his
study
at
four
o'clock
as
usual, and
came,
again
as
usual,
to
take
it
away
at
five.
And,
a
good
deal
to her
astonishment,
the
study
was
empty.
She
concluded
that
her
master
had
gone
out
for
a
stroll,
though
he
never
went
out
for
strolls
between
tea
and
dinner.
He
didn't
come
back
for
dinner;
and
Sedger, inspecting
the
hall,
pointed
out
that
the
master's
hats
and
coats
and sticks
and
umbrellas
were
all
on
their
pegs
and
in
their
places.
The Sedgers
conjectured
this,
that,
and
the
other,
waited
a
week,
and
then went
to
the
police,
and
the
story
came
out
and
perturbed
a
few learned
friends
and
correspondents:
Prebendary
Lincoln,
author
of The
Roman
Canon
in
the
Third
Century;
Dr.
Brightwell,
wise
on
the Rite
of
Malabar;
and
Stokes,
the
Mozarabic
man.
The
rest
of
the
populace
did
not
take
very
much
interest
in
the
affair,
and
when,
at
the end
of
six
weeks,
there
was
a
line
or
two
stating
that
"the
Rev.
Secretan
Jones,
whose
disappearance
at
the
beginning
of
last
month
from his
house
in
Tollit
Square,
Canonbury,
caused
some
anxiety
to
his friends,
returned
yesterday,"
there
was
neither
enthusiasm
nor
curiosity.
The
last
line
of
the
paragraph
said
that
the
incident
was
supposed
to
be
the
result
of
a
misunderstanding;
and
nobody
even
asked
what that
statement
meant.
And
there
would
have
been
the
end
of
it—if
Sedger
had
not
gossiped
to
the
circle
in
the
private
bar
of
The
King
of
Prussia.
Some mysterious
and
unofficial
person,
in
touch
with
this
circle,
insinuated himself
into
the
presence
of
my
news
editor
and
told
him
Sedger's tale.
Mrs.
Sedger,
a
careful
woman,
had
kept
all
the
rooms
tidy
and well
dusted.
On
the
Tuesday
afternoon
she
had
opened
the
study door
and
saw,
to
her
amazement
and
delight,
her
master
sitting
at
his table
with
a
great
book
open
beside
him
and
a
pencil
in
his
hand.
She exclaimed:
"Oh,
sir,
I
am
glad
to
see
you
back
again!"
"Back
again?"
said
the
clergyman.
"What
do
you
mean?
I
think
I should
like
some
more
tea."
"I
don't
know
in
the
least
what
it's
all
about,"
said
the
news
editor, "but
you
might
go
and
see
Secretan
Jones
and
have
a
chat
with
him. There
may
be
a
story
in
it."
There
was
a
story
in
it,
but
not
for
my paper,
or
any
other
paper.
I
got
into
the
house
in
Tollit
Square
on
some
unhandsome
pretext connected
with
Secretan
Jones's
traffic
scare
of
the
year
before.
He looked
at
me
in
a
dim,
abstracted
way
at
first—the
"great
book"
of
his servant's
story,
and
other
books,
and
many
black
quarto
notebooks were
about
him—but
my
introduction
of
the
proposed
design
for
a "mammoth
carrier"
clarified
him,
and
he
began
to
talk
eagerly,
and
as it
seemed
to
me
lucidly,
of
the
grave
menace
of
the
new
mechanical transport.
"But
what's
the
use
of
talking?"
he
ended.
"I
tried
to
wake
people up
to
the
certain
dangers
ahead.
I
seemed
to
succeed
for
a
few
weeks; and
then
they
forgot
all
about
it.
You
would
really
say
that
the
great majority
are
like
dreamers,
like
sleepwalkers.
Yes;
like
men
walking
in a
dream;
shutting
out
all
the
actualities,
all
the
facts
of
life.
They know
that
they
are,
in
fact,
walking
on
the
edge
of
a
precipice;
and
yet they
are
able
to
believe,
it
seems,
that
the
precipice
is
a
garden
path; and
they
behave
as
if
it
were
a
garden
path,
as
safe
as
that
path
you
see down
there,
going
to
the
door
at
the
bottom
of
my
garden."
The
study
was
at
the
back
of
the
house,
and
looked
on
the
long garden,
heavily
overgrown
with
shrubs
run
wild,
mingling
with
one another,
some
of
them
flowering
richly,
and
altogether
and
happily obscuring
and
confounding
the
rigid
grey
walls
that
doubtless
separated
each
garden
from
its
neighbours.
Above
the
tall
shrubs,
taller elms
and
planes
and
ash
trees
grew
unlopped
and
handsomely
neglected;
and
under
this
deep
concealment
of
green
boughs
the
path went
down
to
a
green
door,
just
visible
under
a
cloud
of
white
roses.
