CHAPTER XVAWAITING DEVELOPMENTS
THE period of waiting for news of Edmund, of what was really the opening of a campaign against Jakoub, and the persons whom he so largely controlled, was necessarily for me a very irksome time.
I tried to thrust all these affairs into the background of my thoughts and to wait on events in a spirit of philosophic curiosity. In this laudable attempt I was much helped by my necessary preoccupation with parochial affairs.
I had left a peaceful community of Christian souls, most of them doing their duty in life more or less successfully, a few of them refusing or shirking their responsibilities, and some behaving really badly.
I returned to find a population of whom practically all were members of committees, all competing for chairmanships and secretaryships, and nearly all imbued with an acrid jealousy of each other. Bee-hives and even gardens were being neglected in this new enthusiasm for the redemption of everybody by the formation of committees, and envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness stalked the parish in the wake of poor Snape, just as though he had been some emissary of that Potentate of the Manicheans to whose destruction he had devoted his harmless, ineffectual life. Evenin the public-house I found that the old academic discussions about prices in the local markets, and their influence on Imperial stability, had given place to acrimonious wrangles as to the personality and conduct of competitors for prominence in the new hierarchy of committees.
The publican said to me, “I’m selling less beer and more whisky, sir. I’m making a bit extra, but I don’t like it. They’d be better on beer and the old-fashioned doctrines, and we’d all be more comfortable. Whisky makes them quarrelsome, and the new teetotallers as comes in for ginger is mostlyrancorous, sir. They says things as I won’t have said to me or my missus in my bar. And your reverence knows how my house has been conducted ever since you was here.”
I departed, leaving my verbal certificate as to his conduct, and pondering over his word “rancorous.” It was the just word. It described exactly the new spirit that I had to combat in my parish. It appeared to me that christianity had had a definite set-back in the village.
With a confidence newly born in me as the result of my recent victories over Jakoub and Van Ermengen, I asserted myself for the first time as vicar of the parish.
As though they had been wasps’ nests, I stamped out every committee that had been inaugurated by Snape, and so restored to my parishioners their natural good feeling and loving-kindness.
These preoccupations helped to divert my mind from the more pressing anxieties of life while I waited for news of Edmund, and it was not until I had been home a month that I received a wire from London telling me to expect him on the same afternoon.
My first impulse when he arrived was to tell him of the bishop’s offer and of his new prospects, but I felt I ought perhaps to leave that to the bishop himself.
In any case the announcement would perforce have been postponed, for Edmund arrived full of anxieties. He had an alert and vigorous air which I was glad to see, but it was clear that he was harassed and anxious. He cut my greetings rather short and asked me to come straight into the study.
“I must tell you the worst of it at once,” he said, as he closed the door; “Van Ermengen and Jakoub are on the move already.”
“I know that,” I told him; “I have had a letter from Van Ermengen.”
“You have? Confound his cheek! What does he say?”
I took Van Ermengen’s letter from my desk and handed it to him. He read it carefully, standing on the hearthrug with one arm resting on the mantelpiece.
Watching him from my desk chair I noticed his face flush and the frown deepen on his forehead. He looked older than I had ever seen him look before, and it struck me that Edmund might be a very dangerous man to an enemy.
“Yes,” he said as he replaced the letter in the envelope; “of course you have sent him no money?”
“Of course not. I have not answered the letter at all.”
“Good. Well, it is not an idle threat about Jakoub. Jakoub is on board a tramp which is due in Southampton to-morrow. If he is not arrested he will make straight for here. Welfare has gone to Southampton to see what happensand to keep an eye on him. If necessary, he will follow him here. Then we shall have to decide on the best means of keeping him quiet.”
“I do hope he won’t be arrested,” I said; “why do you think he may be? Tell me how you know all this.”
“Welfare heard it all from Van Ermengen. But I had better tell you the story right through. Have you got any of those cigars left?”
I produced the cigar box, and as Edmund settled himself to smoke comfortably in an arm-chair, I could see that he was tired and short of sleep.
“Welfare and I only met in London yesterday,” he said. “We met by appointment, after parting at Marseilles. We thought we could cover up our tracks better by taking different ways. I think you may take it that Montgomery and Ringrose have finally disappeared from the knowledge of mankind. We have evaporated, volatilised in fact. I ought first to tell you that we had to sell the poor littleAstarteall standing for about a third of her value. It was a nasty jar parting with her to a Dago Jew anyhow, but of course it was a forced sale. There was no time to bargain. Apart from the loss, we both felt that our accepting such a price looked fishy. But that could not be helped, and in any case, as Montgomery and Ringrose, our number was up! We had to get rid of her quickly and clear out.”
“Of course,” I said as he paused in his narrative, “you know how sorry I am to have parted with theAstarte. The price cannot be helped. The loss does not matter as long as you do get clear in the end.”
“Well, I hope to,” Edmund replied dubiously, eyeing his cigar. “It all depends on Jakoub. As long as he is free we can manage him. Oncearrested he would of course try to drag us all in. He would do that out of spite, anyhow; besides, it would be his last card, his only hope of pardon. And we are not sure how much he knows about us. But he knows you in your proper name.”
I felt the perspiration break out all over my body as I thus saw clearly for the first time all the possible consequences of Jakoub’s arrest, of his turning informer. I knew for the first time what it meant to have one’s “heart sink,” for it seemed as though my heart actually became a weight in my body of which I was conscious, and a horrible sensation of weakness spread downwards to my thighs. For a few moments I am sure I could not have risen from my chair as I realised that everything that social man holds dear was, in my case, in the keeping of a rascally Arab whom the Law was seeking to attack. And the Law was on the side for which I had sacrificed so much! I was as anxious as the Law to stop the atrocious conspiracy that was poisoning a race. And I had actually achieved my object—illegally. The bishop’s phrase recurred to me. “Surely,” I thought, “here was a case where the Law became an organised stupidity.”
“I hate upsetting you like this,” Edmund continued, “but you simply must be told.”
“Of course,” I said; “go on.”
“Fortunately,” he continued, “you have done nothing wrong. You will have no difficulty in clearing yourself. But obviously Welfare and I would become your essential witnesses, and nothing you could say, nothing in heaven or earth, would stop us giving evidence on your behalf. But I know, I understand. Everything you have worked so hard for, would be, well—simply donein! You wanted to save me, to save the family name. You cannot save me if Jakoub is a prisoner, but surely you see, every straight man must see, that my disgrace, as far as the family honour goes, would be far more than balanced by your—your infernal decency.”
I found myself out of my chair and tottering foolishly about the room.
“It can’t happen! It must not happen!” I exclaimed.
“It may not happen,” Edmund said, “but you and I must be ready for it if it does happen.”
“Tell me,” I said, calming myself with an effort, “tell me just what the risks are. How did Welfare hear? What did Van Ermengen say?”
“Welfare picked up his letters in London yesterday, and among them were two from Van Ermengen. You probably don’t realise that Van Ermengen is convinced that you have collared the whole cargo in order to sell it yourself. What puzzles him is that there should have been anyone in the trade unknown to himself; especially anyone capable of controlling Welfare. He is not sure now where Welfare stands in the matter, and his first letter simply appeals to him to remain ‘loyal’ and assist in squeezing you. The second letter was to say that he had smuggled Jakoub on to this tramp as a stoker, partly to get him out of Egypt where he is no longer safe, and partly to help in blackmailing you. His fear is that the police may trace Jakoub to the ship and get him arrested at this end. You see Van Ermengen is naturally as anxious as we are to keep Jakoub out of the grip of the law. Van Ermengen is more hopelessly compromised than any of us, and he knows Jakoub.”
Edmund’s apparent imperturbability, his calm exposition of the situation, did a great deal to restore my nervous equilibrium. I sat down opposite to him, and for a time there was silence as we both thought out the probabilities. Edmund’s meditations had evidently reached the same point as mine when he broke the silence.
“It is about five to one,” he remarked, “that the police here will have been warned and will try to arrest him.”
“Do you think there is any chance of their failing?” I asked.
“Lots of chances. Jakoub has been warned himself, and he is not an easy man to catch. He has spent most of his life dodging the police or somebody else. He will probably get away from them at Southampton, but there, in a strange country, he will be handicapped. Welfare may be able to help him. If he makes his way here we shall have to hide him—that is, if you are willing to.”
This proposition startled me. It seemed somehow quite a different thing for me at home, as vicar of the parish and a county magistrate, to join in evading English law and English policemen, and for that other self of mine who had wandered across the high seas in a little sailing boat, and across the desert on the back of a camel, to take part in outwitting Egyptian laws and Egyptian police.
Edmund noticed my hesitation and took me up in the old quick way of his boyish sensitiveness.
“Of course I know it would be a horrible risk for you in your position. Personally I advise you to have nothing to do with the business.”
He spoke in the hurt tone I remembered sowell in old days when I had refused to countenance some wild cat scheme of his.
“I am not calculating the risk,” I said; “I see and understand it clearly, and for myself I do not fear the consequences. To get us all out of this wretched tangle I am willing to do anything that is just and honourable. Would this be just and honourable? For myself I think it would; but then am I a competent judge of my own actions in a thing like this! I don’t know. I don’t know!”
I was thinking aloud, forgetful of Edmund.
“My dear old man!” he cried, getting up and taking my hands, “you are straining your conscience until you’ll dislocate the poor old thing, just for my sake. Don’t do it. I cannot stand it! Welfare and I can evaporate again. The world is round and one can go round it. Hand over Jakoub and let him get what he deserves. I shall be glad of it, and I will let you do anything else you like for my sake. And we shall find ways of seeing each other again. But don’t do this. I hate myself for suggesting it. I simply had not thought.”
“Thanks, dear lad,” I said, returning the pressure of his hands, “but don’t let us exaggerate things. I repeat that I think your proposal is the right one, right from every point of view. Even Jakoub was a straight man once, until he was defrauded by stupid official people. Why should he not have a chance to become straight again? I was thinking he might be worked into the bishop’s scheme for you and Welfare. By the way, you have heard nothing about that. But I do feel that we both need guidance. I have sent word to the bishop that you are here. I promised himto do that, and I know he will join us as soon as he can.”
“The bishop coming here?” Edmund asked, shying from the idea like a nervous horse. “But must he be told all this?”
“He has been told everything. That is, everything I knew up to now.”
“And he would still meet me?”
“He is most anxious to meet you, and Welfare too for that matter. He has a project that he will tell you of himself. He knows that Jakoub is our one danger.”
“But surely,” Edmund exclaimed, “he would not approve of our sheltering Jakoub?”
“If he does not approve, I cannot consent to do it. I don’t know, but I think he would approve. I am sure he would if he had any reason to think that so we might save Jakoub. ‘Save’ him I mean in the only true sense, which is to make a true man of him again.”
“Nothing would make a true man of Jakoub,” said Edmund.
“To refuse to believe that is the real meaning of what we call Faith,” I answered.
There was another long pause between us, and then Edmund said very thoughtfully, “I cannot understand this bishop of yours.”
“It is not to be expected that you should,” I assured him. “I doubt if anyone understands him. Probably I understand more of him than anyone else, and I know only a little of him. But I know this, that he sees men as they are, not as ‘trees walking.’ He is not half-blinded like so many of us parsons. He knows the residuum of decency there is in all human nature, and how it is buried under the silt of mere majorities. Butnever mind all that. I hope he will be here to-morrow, and he will tell us what to do.”
“I am in your hands, of course, and therefore it seems in the bishop’s. I shall certainly do what you and he think right, only first I must tell him everything myself.”
“That is exactly what I want you to do.”
I had greatly dreaded the possibility of Edmund’s refusing to meet the bishop at all. I knew how intensely his pride must be wounded by the prospect of such a meeting, of such a confession. But I knew, too, how necessary it was for the healing of his soul. I regarded it as his penance, and for him the way of salvation. I was accordingly careful to conceal my knowledge of his feelings and to treat the bishop’s visit as a matter of course.
“With all your news,” I said, “I have had no time to tell you that the bishop is coming mainly to offer you an appointment abroad under the Colonial Office. He will tell you the details, but I think it is one you would like.”
“Like it!” he exclaimed, “I am sure I should ‘like it.’ I should like it better than going to prison as the accomplice of a set of particularly unclean Dagoes. But don’t you see I am much more in the hands of Jakoub than of the bishop? I can decide nothing until Jakoub is muzzled or—dead. And if Jakoub is taken—well, the matter is settled as far as I am concerned.”
I saw it very clearly, and there was nothing to reply.
We spent the evening under a cloud of anxiety trying to calculate the chances of Jakoub’s evading the police at Southampton and the probable time of his arrival at the vicarage if he succeeded.