Ray had read the letter standing by the table, and with his back to the chair into which Bramwell had sunk. When he finished he turned slowly round and fixed his gaze on the child. A feeling of delicacy and profound sympathy made him avoid the eyes of the other man. The dying woman was his sister, but she was this man's wife. A little while ago he had said that death would well befit her; and yet now, when, as in answer to his words, he read her own account of the death sentence passed upon her, he felt a pang of pity for her and remorse for his words. For a moment his mind went back to their orphaned childhood, and his love and admiration of his sister Kate's beauty. He had to banish the pictures ruthlessly from his mind, or he would have broken down. Silence any longer preserved would only afford a gateway to such thoughts; so he said, as he placed his hand once more on the head of the boy:
"She was delirious, or half-delirious, when she wrote this."
"Philip, she was dying."
"Yes. What do you propose to do?"
"Nothing. The boy said he came a long way, and that whoever brought him ran away. It is plain she has taken precautions to conceal her hiding-place. Let things be as they are. They are best so."
He spoke like a man in a dream. He was half stunned. It seemed to him that all this had passed in some dreary long ago, and that he was only faintly recalling old experiences, not living among words and facts and surroundings subsisting to-day.
"And what about----?" Ray finished the sentence by pointing with his free hand at the boy.
"Eh? About what?"
Bramwell's eyes were looking straight before him far away.
"About our young friend here?"
"She has been careful to remind me of my legal responsibility. I have no choice. Besides, putting the question of legality aside, I have no desire to escape from the charge, though I am ill-suited to undertake it, and do not know how I shall manage. He is, of course, a stranger to me. He was a mere baby when last I saw him. I cannot think of this matter now. I am thick-blooded and stupid with memories and sorrows."
Ray groaned, and began pacing up and down the room. The child, always self-possessed, had now gathered courage and was slowly making the circuit of the table, holding on by the rim, and now and then turning over some of the papers: plainly a child accustomed to amuse himself.
Neither of the men spoke. Bramwell sat stupefied in his chair. Ray strode up and down the room with hasty steps.
The child pursued his course round the table. On the table was nothing but papers, and the lamp inaccessible in the middle, the pens and an ink-bottle unattainable near the lamp. When the circuit of the table was completed, and was found to afford nothing but dull papers, with not even one picture among them, the little feet ceased to move. One hand laid hold of the leaf, the white blue-veined temple was rested on the soft pad made by the plump tiny hand, and the young voice said with a weary yawn, "Frank's tired. Frank wants to go to mother." As the boy spoke he sank down to the floor, overcome by drowsiness and fatigue.
Ray hastened to the child and raised him from the ground, and held him tenderly in his arms. "Poor little man! Poor tired little motherless man!"
"Mother!" murmured the boy, "I want to go to mother!" The child smiled, and nestled into the breast of the tall powerful man. "Frank wants mother and wants to go to bed."
"Hush, my boy: Frank has no mother."
Then a sudden impulse seized Ray. He crossed the room with the little lad in his arms, and placed him in the arms of Bramwell, saying to the child:
"You cannot go to your mother: you have no mother any longer. But you have a father. Take him, Frank; he is not to blame."
Bramwell caught the boy to his breast, and stooped and kissed his round soft young cheek, and pressed him again to his bosom, and then all at once handed him back to Ray, saying, in a choking voice:
"I am distracted, overwhelmed. I cannot stand this. What do I want here--alive?"
He rose and began stumbling about the room as if on the point of falling. Suddenly something heavy in his coat struck the table and shook it. A gleam of joy shot over his face, illumining it as though he stood within the light of deliverance.
Swift as thought he drew the revolver from his pocket and placed it against his forehead. With a cry of horror, Ray struck his arm up, dropped the child, and seizing Bramwell's wrist, wrenched the weapon from his grasp.
"It isyouwho are mad now!" he cried angrily. "What do you mean? Does all your fine morality vanish at the contact with pain and disgrace? For shame, Frank! for shame! You were always a man. What unmans you now? This," he added, dropping the revolver into his own pocket, "is safer in my keeping than in yours. I intended to do only justice with it; you would commit a crime."
"I am calmer now," said Bramwell; "it was only the impulse of a moment. Forgive me, Philip! forgive me, Heaven! I was frenzied. I hardly remember what passed since--since the boy came and I read that letter, and saw her ruin and death, and tasted the ashes of my own life upon my lips. I am calm--quite calm now. I will do my duty by the child. Trust me, I will not give way again; although I am not much safer without the revolver than with it. I have as deadly a weapon always at hand."
"What is that? I did not know you kept any weapon in the place."
"I keep no weapon in the place; but," he went to the window looking south along the canal, "all around me is--the water."
Shortly after this Philip Ray left, promising to call next evening. It was after this interview that Layard and Crawford saw him emerge from the gloom of the arch of Welford Bridge, the night that Crawford entered upon the tenancy of his rooms in Crawford's House, on Crawford's Bay, opposite Boland's Ait, and hard by the flooded ice-house, Mrs. Crawford's property.
The third and last day of William Crawford's visit to Welford was devoted to the business of his wife's property. The rents had not been collected for a couple of months, and before he returned in the evening he had upwards of a hundred pounds in his possession. Some of the tenants paid quarterly; the rents of the smaller ones were due weekly, but it had been the custom of the estate not to apply for the latter until four weeks outstanding. The neighbourhood, though poor, was for a place of its class eminently solvent, owing to the gas-house and the railway. Of course these was no difficulty with the stores, or wharves, or yards, or better class of houses; and even the poorer tenants could not afford to get into arrears or treat a landlord unjustly, for such matters might come to the ears of either of the great companies, and do the delinquent harm.
It was almost sundown when Crawford reached his lodgings. Layard had come in and gone out again, and Hetty was alone in their sitting-room. She had just come down from little Freddie, who, after a valiant fight against Billy Winkers, had at last succumbed. Crawford saw Hetty at the window, and motioned that he wished to speak with her.
"Mr. Layard out?" asked he, after greetings.
"Yes," said the girl; "the evening was so lovely, he said he'd go for a walk."
"The evening is lovely, no doubt," said he; "but is there such a thing as a tolerable walk within reasonable distance?"
Hetty had opened the sitting-room door, and now stood on the threshold.
"There is no nice walk quite close, but Alfred often goes for a stroll to Greenwich Park. That is not far off, you know, and the air there is so sweet and pure after the heat and unpleasantness of the works all day."
She thought he was speaking merely out of politeness, and, believing he wished to be gone, drew back a little into the room.
He was in no great hurry to go upstairs. He knew what her movement indicated, but he construed it differently.
"Am I invited to enter?" he asked suavely, bowing slightly, and making a gesture of gallant humility with his arms and shoulders.
"Certainly," she said, smiling and making way for him. He did look a powerful man, she thought, who could dare danger, and rescue and carry out of the flames an invalid woman. He was not very handsome, it was true, and there was something unusual about his restless eyes. But perhaps that might be quite usual with heroes. She had never before met a man who had rescued any one from death. She had not, that she could remember, ever met a man, either, who had married a widow. According to plays and satirists, the man who married a widow had more courage than the man who would do no more than face death in a burning house.
"I am sorry to have to trouble you about a little business matter--no, thank you, I will not sit down, I shall run away in a minute--but, as your brother is out, I fear I must intrude on your good nature, if you will allow me."
His voice and manner were exceedingly soft and pleasant and insinuating; not in the least like his voice and manner of the former evening, when his manner was abrupt and his voice hard, if not harsh. This speech somewhat disconcerted the girl. She felt sure he was going to ask her to do something altogether beyond her abilities.
"Anything in my power, Mr. Crawford, I shall be very happy to do for you."
"Thank you extremely. It is exceedingly kind of you to say so." He spoke as though weighed down by a sense of his own unworthiness.
The girl began to feel embarrassed. Such profuse thanks rendered in anticipation placed the obligation of gratitude on her shoulders. His words and manner and gestures had already thanked her more than sufficiently for anything she could do for him.
"I am going out this evening," he said, "and shall not be back until very late--an hour too late even to mention to any well-ordered person--and I do not wish to disturb any one when I come back."
"We, Alfred and I, always sit up very late."
"My dear Miss Layard, you could have no conception of the time at which I may return. It may be three, four, five o'clock. I have to go to see an old friend in the West End, and he will, in all likelihood, keep me until the cocks have crowed themselves hoarse in full daylight."
"Well," said she, gathering her brows and looking very uncomfortable as she felt how helpless she was in a case of such mystery and difficulty, "what can Alfred or I do for you?"
The grave aspect and manner of apology left his face and gestures all at once, and he smiled, and with a light airy, humorous manner said, "If there is such a thing as a latchkey, and your brother hasn't it with him, will you lend it to me?"
The girl burst out laughing, partly from relief and partly from enjoyment of this elaborate joke, and, going to the chimney piece, handed him from it a key. "We had to get a new latch. Alfred has one key. This is for you."
"Thank you. Good-night." And he went, shutting the door softly after him.
William Crawford went to his own room and took off the quiet, sedate, and somewhat shabby clothes in which he had arrived at Welford. He washed, put on a fresh shirt and elegant laced boots, of much finer make and more shiny than he had worn all day. He substituted a coloured tie for the one of sober black, a blue frock-coat of exquisite make, and over this a dark summer topcoat. When he surveyed himself in the glass he looked ten years younger than when he came in after the arduous labours of the day.
Of the money he had collected that day most was in notes or gold. He dropped all the notes and gold into his pocket, and, having locked a few cheques in his portmanteau, left the house quietly, as though not wishing to attract attention.
When he reached Welford Road he looked up and down for a minute, and muttering, "Pooh! No hope of a hansom in this place, of course!" turned his face west, and began walking rapidly with his quick step. Now and then he twitched his shoulders with suppressed energy; constantly he swung his eyes from left to right, as though it would not suit him to miss seeing anything on either side.
After a quarter-of-an-hour's walking he came to the beginning of a tram line. He got into a car about to move. He took no notice of the destination of the car. The car was going west--that was enough for him.
In half-an-hour he reached a busy crossing where hansoms were plentiful. He alighted here, hailed a cab, and was driven to a quiet street off Piccadilly. He got down here, and proceeded on foot to a still quieter cross street, finally entering a modest, unpretentious house, the home of the Counter Club, a club which had nothing whatever to do with the yard-stick or scales and weights, but where members might amuse themselves at games in which no money changed hands at the table, and was therefore blameless. All a member had to do before beginning to play was to provide himself with counters, to be obtained of the secretary for--a consideration. The reason why these counters were used and not money, was because the games played here were games of chance, and it is illegal to play games of chance for money. Very elaborate precautions were taken by the committee to avoid any confusion between the counters whose use, after the formality of paying, was sanctioned by the secretary, and counters not issued by him.
It was, as Crawford had predicted, long after sunrise when he opened Layard's door with his latchkey. A good deal of the briskness and energy of his manner a few hours ago was abated. When he found himself in his sitting-room he flung his overcoat and hat on the table. "Cleaned out, by Heavens!" he cried. "Is this accursed luck to last for ever?"
Then he changed his clothes, putting on those he had worn the day before, and took a chair at the open window of his sitting-room, overlooking the canal.
Here he remained motionless, brooding gloomily until six o'clock. Then he got up, wrote a line to Layard saying he had to go away early, and would be back again on June 27. He left the house noiselessly, and made his way partly on foot, partly by tramcar (for here the tramcars run early), and partly by cab to Ludgate Hill, whence by train he reached Richmond.
It was still early, about eight o'clock, when Crawford gained his own home and let himself in. The servants were stirring. "Tell Mrs. Crawford when she rings," said he to the housemaid, "that I have been up all night, and have gone to lie down. Do not call me for breakfast." Then he went to his dressing-room, kicked off his boots with a curse, threw himself on the bed, and was asleep in five minutes.
Noon came and went, and still he slept peacefully. Just as one o'clock struck he awoke with a start, and sprang from the bed, threw off his coat and waistcoat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, washed his face and hands, brushed his hair, and, when his coat and waistcoat were once more on, opened the door leading to his wife's room and went in.
Mrs. Crawford was sitting in an armchair by the open window. She was a pale, fragile, beautiful woman of seven-and-forty. Her eyes were large, luminous, violet, and full of gentleness and love. Her lips were remarkably beautiful and red for an invalid of her years. Her smile was the softest and most engaging and endearing in all the world. Nothing could exceed the tender loveliness of her face, or the sweet cheerful resignation of her disposition. The mitigation of her symptoms following the shock at the fire had not been permanent, and, although on the day of her second marriage she had been well enough to walk up the whole length of the church, she was now once more incapable of moving across the room without help.
Upon the entrance of Crawford she turned her head quickly and smiled, holding out her hands, saying:
"O, William, I am glad you're back! I am glad to see you once more. I have been lonely. This is the longest time we have been separated since our marriage."
He went to her and kissed her affectionately, first her lips and then her forehead, and then her hair, now thickly shot with grey, but abundant still. He drew a chair beside hers, and sat down, taking one of her thin transparent hands in both his, and stroking it as though it was made of the most fragile and precious material.
"And how has my Nellie been since?" he asked in a low caressing voice, very different from the one Red Jim or Alfred Layard had heard, but somewhat akin to the one in which he had apologised to Hetty the evening before.
"Well--very well; but lonely. I hoped you would be able to get home, dear, last night," she said, lying back in her chair and looking at him out of her gentle violet eyes with an expression of absolute rest and joy.
"So did I. So, indeed, I should, only for my ill luck. I am greatly put out by my first visit to Welford, Nellie," he said, lowering his brows and looking troubled.
"Put out, dear! Put out by your visit to Welford! What put you out, William? I am very sorry you went. I am very sorry I let you go. I am sorry we ever got rid of Blore, if the thing is going to be a bother to you." Blore had been the agent before the advent of William Crawford.
"O, no! You need not be sorry. I was not put out on account of myself, but on account of you." He said this very tenderly, and with a gentle pressure on the transparent wax-like fingers between his hands.
"On my account, William?" she said, with a smile rich in love and satisfaction. "Why on my account, dear?"
"Well, because I have been disappointed in the results of my own efforts. I could get very little money. Out of over two hundred pounds overdue, upwards of a hundred of which is arrears, I got no more than twenty pounds." He said this ruefully, keeping his gaze fixed out of the window, as though ashamed to meet her eyes.
His wife laughed.
"Is that all? I thought you had met some unpleasantness to yourself there. My dear William, don't let that trouble you. They will pay next month or the month after. They are excellent tenants, taking them all together."
"I daresay theywillpay next month. But I could not help feeling disappointed and depressed in having to come back to you almost empty-handed. This is all I succeeded in getting--twenty-seven pounds ten."
He held out a little bundle to her.
With a laugh she pushed it away.
"It is yours, William, not mine. What have I to do with money now? You know more about money than I do. You take care of me and of the money for us. No, no; I will not touch it! Put it in the bank, or do what you like with it. I and all that was mine is yours, love."
There was a rapture of self-sacrifice and devotion in the woman's voice and manner. There was a prodigal richness of love and faith in her eyes. She had not loved her first husband when she married him, and during the years they had spent together no passionate love had arisen in her heart, though she was fond of her husband and an excellent wife. She had passed not only the morning, but the zenith of life when she met this man; but to him she had given all that remained to her of love and hope and all her faith, never shaken by any shock.
Crawford winced slightly. Even he drew the line somewhere. He would rather battle stubbornly against odds for his way than sit still and be overwhelmed with free and lavish gifts. He liked to win, but he also liked to contend. He was passionately fond of money, and would sacrifice almost anything to get it. He would not work for it, but he would rather win it at cards than get it for nothing. If he had not gambled away those eighty pounds last night, she would have given them to him now. He felt a perverse gratitude that he was not beholden to her for the eighty pounds. He had, as it were, earned those eighty pounds by the deceit he had practised. But this money, which she had refused to receive, burnt his fingers.
He took the money, however, and kissed her thin fragile hand, and pressed it against his broad powerful chest.
"You are the best woman in the world, Nellie, and the dearest. These fellows will, no doubt, pay next month. I wonder, if I asked Blore about them, would he give me some information?"
"I always found Mr. Blore the most courteous and honest and straightforward of men. If I were you I should see him."
"I will. And now let us drop business and talk about something more interesting. Tell me to begin with, all that my good wife has been doing while I have been away." He slipped his arm round her waist and drew her head down upon his shoulder. His ways with men and women were widely different. With the former he was quick, or abrupt, or peremptory, or combative. He seemed to value his time at a price so high that the speech of other men caused him an intolerable loss, by reason of his having to listen to it.
With women he was soft and gentle, and even quietly humorous at times. He never was restless or impatient. His manner was that of one who had found out the condition of existence in which life could be most delightfully passed, that of his companion's society; and if he did not absolutely make love to a woman when alone with her, and this was but seldom with one under fifty, he invariably implied that he would rather have her society than the society of all the men on this earth. He varied the details of his style according to the age, condition, and disposition of his companion.
He could adopt the melancholic, the enthusiastic, the poetic manner, according as circumstances and the subject demanded. Without any striking physical advantages, he was a most fascinating man to women. There was no false polish, no lacquer about him. He had no airs and graces. He did not groan or simper. He never laid aside his manhood for a moment. He did not beg so much as expostulate for love. His love-making took the form of an irresistible argument. He thought no mere about women than he did about hares or rabbits, or flowers. He liked most women when they were not a trouble to him. They amused him. He liked their graceful ways and their simple loyal hearts. He liked their dainty raiment and their soft delicate hands. He liked the perfumes they used and the flowers they wore. He liked most women, but he had a contempt for all of them.
He hated all men.
He did not repudiate or despise principles, but he had none himself. He nourished no theories as to what a man ought or ought not to do. He troubled himself about no other men at all. He always did exactly what he liked best, or believed to be best for his own interest. He had banished everything like religion from his mind long ago. He did not bother himself to ask whether there might or might not be a Hereafter. He was quite certain there was a Here, and he had made up his mind to make the best of it. In some senses of the word, he was no coward. He would face a danger, even a risk, so long as he could see his way, and all was in the full light of day and commonplace. But he was afraid of the unseen: of the dagger or the bullet, of ghosts and supernatural manifestations. He was a gambler, and, like all gamblers, superstitious.
Twenty years ago he had been placed in the counting-house of a first-class Liverpool place of business. His mother was then dead, his father living. John Ainsworth--that was the name with which he started in life--was an only child. His father had saved a few thousand pounds as manager of a line of steamboats.
Young Ainsworth went to the bad before he was twenty-five, and was kicked out of his situation. The shock killed his father, who was an old man. There was no will, and young Ainsworth got his father's money and went betting on the turf, and when there were no races he devoted his energies to cards. It was on his way back from a great Sussex race-meeting that he came upon the quiet little town of Beechley, and first met Kate Ray. He was then past thirty years of age, and had been moderately successful on the turf and on the board of green cloth. In Beechley he concealed the nature of his occupation, stayed there a month or two, and won the giddy heart of the beautiful Kate Ray. But her brother would not listen to him, and Kate, who would have a little money when she came of age, was a minor and in the hands of guardians, who would have nothing to do with him either. So Ainsworth, being by no means insensible to the money Kate would come into at twenty-one, drew off for a while, promising Kate to come back later.
Two whole years passed before John Ainsworth again appeared at Beechley. By this time the flighty and beautiful girl had married Frank Mellor, who had just inherited a considerable fortune upon the death of an old miserly bachelor grand-uncle, that had lived all his life in London, and made money in the Baltic trade.
Then, out of a spirit of pure revenge, Ainsworth secretly pursued Kate, and worked upon her fickle and weak nature until she fled with him, taking her baby boy, Frank Mellor's child.
After three years that child had been restored to his father, while the mother lay dying at good Mrs. Pemberton's, a rifle-shot from Boland's Ait and the office of John Ainsworth, who had assumed the name of Crawford.
Of all the men in London, there was scarcely one less qualified to take charge of a young child than Francis Bramwell, living alone on his tiny island in the South London Canal. He was not used to children. He had had only one sister, and no brother. His sister, twelve years older than himself, had married and gone away to Australia before he was eight years of age. His father had been a successful attorney in Shoreham, where he died ten years ago, when his son was just twenty years old. His mother had been dead many years at that time.
When his grand-uncle was buried a few years later, Bramwell became rich and left Shoreham. He had been reading for the Bar in a half-hearted and dilatory way.
He gave up all thought of the profession, and resolved to lead a life of lettered ease and contemplation, to be summed up later, probably in a book of one kind or another. In fact, as soon as he found himself independent he determined to devote his attention to poetry, and, as he did not feel certain of possessing a strong vein of genius, he determined to confine himself to translations by way of a beginning.
For quietness he moved out of Shoreham to a cottage a few miles from the dull little town of Beechley, and in Beechley, after the first visit of John Ainsworth, he made the acquaintance of Philip Ray and his beautiful sister Kate.
When he fell in love he threw his books to the winds, and, beyond verses addressed to his mistress, had no dealings with the Muse.
He was then a man to all outward appearance of singularly unemotional temperament. But under a placid demeanour he concealed a sensitive and enthusiastic nature, a nature of fire and spirit, subject to raptures and despairs, and desiring rapture almost as a necessity. Prose would not satisfy him; he must have the wine of poetry. To love was not enough for him; he must adore. Devotion was too tame; he must immolate himself.
He had lived most of his years since adolescence apart, and had never tried to make himself agreeable to any girl, until he told himself that life without Kate Ray would be simply intolerable. After marriage he treated his wife more like the goddess of a temple than the young, pretty, vain, foolish, flighty mistress of a home.
Kate, who loved flattery and fine clothes, and trivial gaiety, could not understand him. She thought him cold and formal at one time; a wild man, a lunatic at another. He did not stoop to flattery, or condescend to simulation. He was worshipful, not gallant. He praised her spirit and her soul, possessions to which she did not attach much importance. He said little about her eyes, or her figure, or her hair, which she knew to be beautiful, and of which she was inordinately vain.
She could not comprehend him. She did not try very hard. She never tried very hard to do anything, except dress well and look pretty. He was, no doubt, very grand, but she loved John Ainsworth all the while. John's ways and manner were perfectly intelligible to her, and when he came to her the second time secretly, and threw a romantic light upon their stolen meetings--when she heard his flattery and sighs and oaths--her weak will gave way, and she fled with him, taking the boy with her.
Now, after three years, and when Bramwell had made up his mind he should never see wife or child again, the boy had come from his wife's death-bed to his door. What was he to do with this helpless being?
He had decreed in his own soul, beyond the reach of appeal, that he would never see his wife again. It was plain she had not contemplated a meeting with him. It was plain she had put such a thing beyond her hopes--beyond, most likely, her desires. For had she not known where he lay hidden? and had she not refrained from seeking him, refrained even from letting him know she was alive? But when she found herself on the point of dissolution, when she had been told she had only a few hours to live, when the delirium of death was upon her, she had sent the child to him. She had at least the grace to feel her shame, and sufficient knowledge of him to be certain that no consideration on earth would induce him once more to look on her, the woman he had loved, who had betrayed his honour and laid his life in ruin.
But the boy? What was to be done with him?
The night before he had been too stupefied to think. When Philip left him he had taken the child to his own room and put him in his own bed, and the little fellow, overcome by fatigue and the lateness of the hour, had fallen asleep.
Now it was bright, clear, unclouded morning, the morning after the boy's advent. The little fellow still slept, but the father was broad awake. He had risen at five, and was sitting in the room where Philip had found him the evening before. His elbows rested on the table; his head leaned upon his hands.
What should he do with the boy? Her child?--the child of the woman who had brought infamy on his name, who had taken the heart out of his life; leaving nothing but a harsh and battered husk behind?
The child was like her, too. He had known the first moment he looked on the little face that this was the baby she had stolen away from his home when he thought she was gradually growing to love him, when he thought she had forgotten for ever the villain who had induced her perfidy!
Like her! Good heavens! was this child to live with him always? Was this child, day after day, hour after hour, to remind him by the look in his eyes of all his youthful dreams of love and happiness, and the wildering blow that for a time drove his reason from him and wrecked his life before the voyage was well begun?
That would be intolerable. No man could bear that. Heaven could not expect him to endure such a hell on earth.
He rose with a groan, and began pacing the room up and down.
He was a man slightly below the middle height, somewhat uncouth and awkward in his motions. His shoulders were broad, his figure thin almost to emaciation. He had large and powerful hands, not handsome and soft, but muscular and knotty, like those of a man who had done much physical labour, although he had never performed a day's manual work in all his life. His nose was long and blunt at the end. His cheeks were sunken. There were odd grey streaks in his long, straight hair. He stooped slightly, and was slovenly in his carriage and dress. The colour of his face was dark, almost dusky. His forehead was high and pale.
The mere shell of the man was poor, almost mean. He did not look as though he could fight or work. Beyond the breadth of his shoulders there was no suggestion of bodily strength about him. When he walked his tread lacked firmness. He looked as though the push of a child would knock him down.
But when you had formed a poor opinion of the man, and set him down as a weed, and were prepared to make short work of him morally, or mentally, or physically, and came close to him face to face, and he looked up at you and spoke, you felt confused, abashed. His eyes were dark hazel, large, deep-set, luminous. They seldom moved quickly, they seldom flashed, they seldom laughed. They rarely seemed concerned with the people or things immediately in front of him. They had the awful sadness and far-away look of the Sphinx. They saw not you, nor through you, but beyond you. You became not the object of their gaze, but an interruption in their range. They made you feel that you were in the way. You seemed to be an impertinence interposing between a great spirit in its commune with supernatural and august mysteries.
His voice was slow, deliberate, low in ordinary speech. It was not musical. It had a breathlessness about it which fixed the attention at once of those who heard. It suggested that the words spoken were read from the margin of some mighty page, and that the speaker, if he chose, could decipher the subject of the scroll.
If he raised his voice above this pitch it became uncertain, harsh, grating, discordant. It suggested the unwilling awakening of the man. It seemed to say that he lived at peace, and would that he were left at peace, and that you came unnecessarily, undesired, to rouse and harass him.
But it was when excited beyond this second stage, it was when not only awakened but lifted into the expression of enthusiasm, that the wonderful qualities of his voice were displayed. Then it became full and rich and flexible and organ-toned, at once delicate and powerful. It sounded as though not only the words, but the music also, were written on the great scroll before his eyes, and he was reading both with authority.
It was the spirit in the eyes and the spirit in the voice Philip Ray worshipped. He knew the heart of this man was made of gold, but in the eyes and the voice he found the spirit of a seer, a hero, a prophet.
The spirit of this man Kate Ray never knew, never even perceived. She was too busy with the thought of her own physical beauty to notice anything in the man but his plain appearance and unusual ways. He had more money than ever she had hoped to share with a husband, but he cared nothing for the things she liked or coveted. He would not take a house in London: he would not move into even Beechley. The only value he set upon a competency was because of the power it gave him over books, and because of the privilege it afforded him of living far away from the hurly-burly of men. His union with Kate Ray was an ill-assorted marriage, and the greatest evil that can arise out of an ill-assorted marriage had come of it.
From the day Kate left his house he never opened a volume of verse. At first he plunged into a vortex of excitement, from which he did not emerge until he had lost in gambling everything but Boland's Ait, which brought in no revenue, and an income of about a hundred a year from some property in the neighbourhood of the island.
When he regained his senses, and resolved upon retiring into solitude, he recognised the importance, the necessity of finding some occupation for his mind. He would have nothing which could remind him of the past, nothing which could recall to his mind the peaceful days at Shoreham or the joy and hope that his sweetheart and wife had brought into his life. All that was to be forgotten for ever. His life was over. It was immoral to anticipate the stroke of death. Between him and death there lay nothing to desire but oblivion, and work was the best thing in which to drown thought. He would devote the remainder of his life to history, philosophy, science.
Although he had been on the island now more than two years, he had still no definite idea of turning his studies to practical account. He read and read and made elaborate notes and extracts from books. But his designs were vague and nebulous. He called it all work. It kept his mind off the past: that was the only result of all his labours. He had no object to work for. He shuddered at the bare idea of notoriety or fame, and he did not need money, for his means were sufficient for his simple wants. Work was with him merely a draught of Lethe. He numbed his brain with reading, and when he could read no longer he copied out passages from his books or forced himself to think on subjects which would not have been bearable three years ago. He was not so much conquering himself as dulling his power to feel.
Now, in upon this life had come the boy, bringing with him more potent voices from the past than all the verses of all the poets; and, worst of all, bringing with him the face of his disgraced, dead wife!
What should he do? Either madness or death would be a relief, but neither would come. The two things of which men are most afraid are madness and death, and here was he willing to welcome either with all the joy of which his broken heart was still capable.
When that baby was born he had felt no affection for it on its own account. It seemed inexpressibly dear to her, and therefore it was after her the most precious being in all the world to him. Up to that time he knew his wife's heart had not gone out to him in love as his heart had gone out to her. He believed that the child would be the means of winning his beautiful wife's love for him. He had read in books innumerable that wives who had been indifferent towards their husbands in the early days of marriage grew affectionate when children came. For this reason he welcomed with delight the little stranger. This baby would be a more powerful bond between them than the promises made by her at the altar. It would not only reconcile her to the life-long relations upon which they had entered, but endear him to her.
But she broke her vow, broke the bond between them, and in fleeing from his house took with her the child, the creature that was dearer to her than he! Here was food for hopelessness more bitter than despair.
Now, when hope was buried for ever, and she was dead, the child had come back to remind him every hour of the past, to neutralise the cups of Lethe he felt bound to drink, that his life might not be a life of never-ending misery, to torture him with his wife's eyes, which had closed on him for ever three years ago, and which now were closed for ever on all things in death.
What should he do? Would not merciful Providence take his reason away, or stop these useless pulses in his veins?
He threw himself once more in his chair, and covered his face with his hands.
From abroad stole sounds of the awakening world. The heavy lumbering and grating of wagons and carts came from Welford Road, and from the tow-path the dull heavy thuds of clumsy horses' feet.
The man sat an hour in thought, in reverie.
At length Bramwell took down his hands and raised his large eyes, in which there now blazed the fire of intense excitement. "Light!" he cried aloud; "God grant me light!"
He kept his eyes raised. His lips moved, but no words issued from them. An expression of ecstasy was on his face. His cry had not been a cry for light, but a note of gratitude-giving that light had been vouchsafed to him. He was returning thanks.
At length his lips ceased to move, the look of spiritual exaltation left his face, his eyes were gradually lowered, and he rose slowly from his seat.
He stood a minute with his hand on his forehead, and said slowly, "I was thinking of myself only. I have been thinking of myself only all my life. I have, thank God, something else, some one else to think of now! Who am I, or what am I, that I should have expected happiness, complete happiness, bliss? Who am I, or what am I, that I should repine because I suffer? Who am I, or what am I, that I should murmur? My eyes are open at last. My eyes are open, and my heart too. Let me go and look."
He crept noiselessly out of the room to the one in which the boy lay still sleeping.
The chamber was full of the broad full even light of morning in early summer. The window stood open, the noise of the carts and wagons came from Welford Road, and the dull heavy thuds of the clumsy horses' hoofs from the tow-path. The sparrows were twittering and flickering about the cottage on the island. Dull and grimy as the place usually appeared, there was now an air of health and brightness and vigorous life about it which filled and expanded the heart of the recluse.
For years he had felt that he was dead, that his fellowship with man had ceased for ever. His heart was now opened once more.
Who should cast the first stone, the first stone into an open grave, her grave, Kate's grave? His Kate's grave! Not he; O, not he! His young, his beautiful, his darling Kate's grave! His young Kate's grave!
He turned to the bed on which rested the child.
Yes, there lay young Kate, younger than ever he had known her. The beautiful boy! There was her raven hair, there the sweet strange curve of the mouth, there the little hand under the cheek, as Kate used to lie when she slept.
"God give me life and reason for him who is so like what I have lost!" he cried; and circling his arm round the little head, he kissed the sweet strange curve about the little mouth, and burst into tears, the first he had shed for a dozen long years. In his great agony three years ago he had not wept.
The child awoke, smiled, stretched up his little arms, and caught his father round the neck.
"I want to go mother," whimpered the boy when he saw whom he held.
"You cannot go just now, child. But you and I shall go to her one day--in Heaven."