What had formerly been the dwelling of the foreman of Boland's Ait consisted of four rooms, all on the ground floor. It stood at the southern extremity of the islet, the end windows looking south, in the direction of Camberwell. There were three of these windows: one in what had been the kitchen, now used by Bramwell as a sitting-room, dining-room and study; another in what had been the sitting-room, now empty; and one in what had been and was a bedroom. The present study and the room now unfurnished ran right through the cottage, were oblong, and comparatively large. The room used as a bedroom was small, being only half the depth of the cottage and the same width as the study and empty room, and only half the length. The other half of the length was occupied by what had been a bedroom, now used by Bramwell as a kitchen.
There was no passage in the house. The door from the study opened directly upon an open space lying between the cottage and the old sawmill. Out of the study a door opened into the unfurnished room, and from that one door opened into the kitchen, another into the bedroom. Thus the two larger rooms ran side by side from north to south, and the two smaller, each being half the size of one of the larger, lay at the western end.
Up to this time Bramwell had spent nearly all his waking hours in the study. Now and then he went into the yard, and there, concealed from observation, walked up and down for exercise. Once in a month, perhaps, he left the islet to buy something he needed. Otherwise he lived in the study from month's end to month's end, retiring to the bedroom to rest, when sleep overcame him, far in the night.
This was the last day of May. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky, and shone out of a heaven of nameless blue from dawn to dusk.
When Bramwell entered the cottage with his boy in his arms it was getting late in the afternoon. The Layards did not breakfast early, and Hetty and the boy had dinner at three o'clock. It was to assist at that indispensable function that Freddie had been recalled from the timber-yard. Bramwell had not thought of dinner until Mrs. Grainger had summoned Freddie to his. Then the father was seized with sudden panic at his own forgetfulness, and the possible peril to his son's life. He knew from books that young children should eat more frequently than grown-up people; but whether a child of his son's age should be fed every hour, or every two hours, or every half-hour, or every four, he could not decide. In the kitchen was an oil-stove which he had taught himself to manage. Mrs. Treleaven left everything ready for dinner on a small tray. All he had to do was to light his stove and wait half-an-hour, and dinner would be ready for him and the child. A tray stood on the kitchen table, and on the tray all things necessary for the meal, saving such as were awaiting the genial offices of the stove.
Mrs. Treleaven never carried that tray to the study. She had orders not to do so, lest she might reduce the papers on the table to irretrievable confusion.
There was the half-hour to wait, and Bramwell, having ascertained by inquiry that the boy was in no immediate danger of death from hunger, cast about him to find something to do which would fill up the time and interest Frank, who was hot and tired after his harassing labours in the yard.
"It is fine to-day," he thought, "but it will not be fine every day, all the year round. On the wet days, and in the winter, where are Frank and Freddie to play? In this room, of course." He went into the empty one next his own. "Here they will be under cover, and will not interfere with my work. I can look in on them now and then, and in case they want me I shall be near at hand."
"Frank," said he aloud to the child, "I shall make this room into a play-room for you."
"What's a play-room?" asked the boy. He had had no experience of any kind of life but that spent in poor lodgings.
"Where you and little Freddie can play if the weather is wet or cold."
"And may we bring in our steamboat?" asked the boy anxiously.
"We shall see about that. You would like a ball to play with in this room and in the yard?"
"O, yes! I have a ball at home."
"Frank, my boy, this is your home. You are to live here now. You are not going back."
"But I want my ball, and I want mother."
"You shall have a ball; but your mother is gone away for ever."
"Will the ball be all red and blue?" His own had been dull white, unrelieved by colour.
"I think so," said the father gravely, and grateful for the suggestion contained in the boy's words. He had forgotten that splendid balls such as are never used in fives, or tennis, or cricket, or racket could be got in the toy-shops.
The boy was satisfied.
Then Bramwell took a brush and began sweeping the empty room with great vigour and determination, chatting all the while to the boy about the wonderful adventures encountered by Frank and Freddie that day in their many journeys by sea and land.
By the time the room was swept the dinner was ready, and Bramwell, who had learned to wait upon himself, carried in the tray, cleared away half the table of papers, spread the folded-up cloth, and the two sat down.
Moment by moment the father was waking up to a sense of his new position. He felt already a great change in the conditions of his life. He was no longer free to read and muse all day long, eating his solitary meals when he pleased. He must now adopt some sort of regularity in his management. The hours of breakfast, dinner, and tea should be fixed; and it would be advisable to tell Mrs. Treleaven to bring all things necessary and advantageous for children Mrs. Treleaven had a large family, and would know what was proper to be done.
When dinner was over, he gave Frank the run of the house, carried the tray back to the kitchen, and sat down in his chair to think.
Yes, he should have to work now in earnest. He would no longer dawdle away his time in fancying he was preparing for the beginning. He would begin at once. He should add to his income by his pen. When he had more money than he needed years ago, he had always told himself that he would write a book--books. Now, perhaps, he could hardly spare time for so long an undertaking as a book. He should write articles, essays, poems, perhaps; anything to which he could turn his hand, and which would bring in money.
The change of name he had adopted two years ago would be convenient. He had then used it to obliterate his identity; he should now use it to establish a new identity. He had no practical experience of writing for magazines or newspapers, but he believed many men made good incomes by the pen of an occasional contributor. Of course, he could take no permanent appointment, even if one offered, for it would separate him from his boy.
The afternoon glided into evening. Philip Ray had been at the island every night of late. He was coming again this evening.
Between the news of Ainsworth and the arrival of the boy he could not keep away. He was strangely excited and wild. Philip was the best fellow in the world, but very excitable--much too excitable. No doubt he would quiet down in time.
If it should chance Philip met a good, quiet, sensible girl, it would be well for him to marry. The sense of responsibility would steady him. He was one of those men to whom cares would be an advantage. Not cares, of course, in the sense of troubles. Heaven keep Philip from all such miseries! but it would do Philip good to be obliged to share his confidences and his thoughts with a prudent woman whom he loved, and upon whose disinterested solicitude for his welfare he could rely.
"Yes; it would be well for Philip, dear, good, unselfish Philip, to marry, even if he and his wife had to pinch and scrape on his small income."
Some one was drawing the stage across the canal. Here was Philip himself.
"I was just thinking of you, Philip," said Bramwell. "I want you to do something for me."
The other looked at him in blank astonishment. This was the first admission for two years made by Bramwell that anything could be done for him.
"What is it?"
He was almost afraid to speak lest he should make the other draw back. He would have done anything on earth for Frank--anything on earth except forgive John Ainsworth, otherwise William Goddard, otherwise William Crawford.
Thealiasesof Mrs. Crawford's husband were known to neither of these men. These twoaliaseswere unknown asaliasesto any one in the world.
"You need not be afraid. It is not anything very dreadful or very difficult."
"If it were impossible and infamous, I'd do it for you, Frank."
"Fortunately it is neither. To-day that little boy came to play with Frank again, and his aunt asked me to go over to-night and chat for an hour with her brother. In a moment of thoughtlessness and confusion I promised to go. Of course I can't, and I want you to walk round and apologise, and explain matters to the aunt and father of Freddie. You see, I would not like to seem rude or inconsiderate. I don't know what I should do if they withdrew their leave from the coming over of their boy."
"But why won't you go?" asked Philip eagerly. "It would do you all the good in the world."
"My dear Philip, I am astonished at you. Out of this place I have not gone into a house for two years."
"So much the more reason why you should go. I suppose you do not intend living the same life now as during those two years?"
"No. I intend making a great change in my manner of life. But I can't do it all at once, you know."
"But surely there is nothing so terrible in spending an hour with a neighbour. That would seem to me the very way of all others in which you might break the ice most easily. Do go."
"I can't, for two reasons."
"When a man says he has two reasons, one of them is always insincere. He advances it merely as a blind. The likelihood is that both those he gives are insincere, and that he keeps back the real one. What are your two reasons for not going?" Ray did not say this in bitterness, but in supposed joy. It delighted him beyond measure to see how alert and bright Bramwell's mind had become already after only a few days' contact with the boy. In his inmost heart he had come to believe that his brother-in-law's emancipation from the Cimmerian gloom in which he had dwelt was at hand, and would be complete.
"Which reason would you like to have: my real or invented one? Or would you like both, in order that you may select?" asked Bramwell, with a look of faint amusement.
"Both," said Ray.
"In the first place, Frank can't be left alone."
"I'll stay here and see that he is all right; so that needn't keep you here. Number two?"
"Look at me; am I in visiting trim? and I have no better coat."
"You don't mean to say thatyoucare what kind of a coat you wear. This is grossly absurd--pure imposture. It does not weigh the millionth of a grain in my mind.Youcare about your coat?"
"But they may. How can I tell that they are not accustomed to the finest cloth and the latest fashion?"
"And live in that ramshackle old house down that blind alley? O, yes! I am sure they are fearfully stuck-up people. Does the aunt take in washing or make up ladies' own materials? Ladies who look after their brothers' children generally wear blue spectacles or make up ladies' own materials, when they live in a place like Crawford's House."
"Besides, Philip, I'd rather not leave the child behind me. I feel I could not rest there a moment. I should be certain something had happened to him."
"What did I tell you a moment ago about men with two reasons? You see I was right. It wasn't because you won't leave Frank alone, since my offer obviates that, and it wasn't because you aren't clothed in purple and fine linen. Your real reason for not going is a woman's reason--you won't go, because you won't go."
"Well, let it stand at that, if you will."
"But really, Frank, you must change all this."
"I engage to reform, but you do not expect a revolution. You will call and apologise for me, Philip? I can't go, and I don't want to seem ungracious to them. You need only say that when I promised to see them this afternoon I completely forgot that there would be no one here with the boy. Of course, I could not have foreseen your offer to stay with him."
Ray muttered and growled, but on the whole was well satisfied. Bramwell had not been at any time since he came to the islet so lively as this evening. If he progressed at this rate he would soon be as well as ever--ay, better than ever.
He said he would take the message round to Crawford's House.
As he was leaving the room Bramwell said gravely:
"Don't be unkind to little Freddie's aunt, even if she does make up ladies' own materials and wear glasses. All people have not their fate in their own hands."
"Pooh!" cried Ray scornfully, as he disappeared.
Bramwell got up and began pacing the room. Of old he used to sit and brood over the past, when he could no longer busy himself with his papers and books. This evening he walked up and down and thought of the future.
"Now that I recall the girl to my mind, Miss Layard is very beautiful. I do wish Philip would get married. That would get all this murderous vengeance out of his head. A single man may be willing to risk his own neck to avenge a wrong; but a man with a wife whom he loved would think twice before handing himself over to the hangman, and leaving the woman he loved desolate.
"I do hope he will fall in love with this girl. I know his present contempt for the sex, and I know the source from which that contempt springs. But all women are not alike. I have known only my mother and my sister and another, and out of the three, two are the salt of the earth and the glory of Heaven. A good woman is life's best gift, and there are a thousand good women for the one bad. It was my misfortune to--But let me not think of that.
"I know Philip would scout the idea of falling in love and marrying. Two facts now keep him from any chance of love or marriage. First, his revulsion from the whole sex because of the fault of one; and, second, because he does not meet any young girl who might convert him to particular exemption from his general scorn.
"And yet, although I have had little opportunity of judging, for I saw this girl only twice, perhaps she is not exactly the kind of wife that would be best for him. She is bright and gay, and beautiful enough, in all conscience. What a brilliant picture she made at that window! I seem to see her now more distinctly than I did at the time. There is such a thing as the collodion of the eye. And now that I think of the day, of the time she brought down the little fellow to the brink of the bay and handed him to me, how charming she looked! There was such colour in her face and hair, and such light in her eyes, and her voice is so clear and sympathetic! Ah, there are many, many, many good women in the world who are beautiful, supremely beautiful also, and she, I am sure, is one of them!
"But I fancy the wife for Philip ought to be more sedate. He is too excitable, and this Miss Layard is bright and quick. His excitement almost invariably takes a gloomy turn; hers, I should fancy, a gay direction. They would be fire and tow to one another. He ought to marry a woman of calm and sober mind, and she a man of sad and melancholy disposition like----"
He did not finish the sentence, even in his mind. He had almost said "like me."
"No, I don't think she would be the wife for him. But there! How calmly and solemnly I am disposing of the fate of two people! I had better do that thing which our race are so noted for doing well--mind my own business."
His meditations were broken in upon by a voice hailing the island from the tow-path.
"Boland's Ait, ahoy!" sang the voice.
Bramwell rose and left the cottage by the door from the study. Abroad it was growing dark. "Philip has been gone a long time," he thought. "But this cannot be he, for he knows how to come over."
In the dusk he saw a man on the opposite side of the canal, with a canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. The man wore a peaked cap, and was in uniform.
"A newspaper for you, Mr. Bramwell," sang out the man.
Bramwell, in great surprise, hastened to the floating stage, and, seizing the chain, pulled the stage athwart the water.
He took the newspaper from the postman's hand. It was too dark to read the superscription.
He hastened back to the study, where the lamp was burning.
He examined the cover in the light of the lamp.
He could not recognise the writing. He had never seen it before.
He broke the cover and spread the paper out before him. It was a copy of theDaily Telegraph, dated that day.
On the front page a place was marked. It was in the column devoted to births, marriages, and deaths. The mark was against an item among the deaths.
With a shudder and a sick feeling of sinking, he read:
"On the 28th inst., at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (néeRay), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex."
He raised his head slowly from the table, threw himself into a chair, and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.
While the owner of Boland's Ait was weeping over the brief announcement of his wife's death in the newspaper, the owner of a house in Singleton Terrace, Richmond, was sitting in his wife's drawing-room in a comfortable easy-chair, reading a novel. Mrs. Crawford, in her invalid's wheeled chair, sat at the other side of the table, languidly looking over a newspaper.
Mr. Crawford was a model of domestic virtue. He spent most of his time in the house, and the greater part of the hours he was at home were passed in the society of his wife. He did not drink, or smoke, or swear, or indulge in any other vice--in Richmond. As to gambling, or anything worse, the good people of the town would as soon think of hearing the rector accused of such practices. He went to church once on Sunday regularly; but made not the least claim to piety, not to say anything of godliness. The few claims that charity or religion had made upon his purse had been responded to with alacrity and modest gifts; but the most censorious could not accuse him of ostentation.
In fact there was a complete absence of anything approaching ostentation in the man. He seemed to care nothing for society, except the society of his elderly ailing wife. The conduct of the man was inexpressibly meritorious. He afforded many estimable matrons with an exemplar of what a good husband ought to be.
"Henever goes out anywhere," they said. "He does not even want company at his own house (though that is not only harmless, but advantageous), for the society of the woman he loves is enough forhim. Of course, he has to go up to town every now and then to see the workmen who are preparing his wonderful machine for making cotton out of dock-leaves, or something of that kind; but, then, that is only for a day, and when he returns does he come empty-handed? Not he! He always thinks of his wife even in the little while he is away, and brings her some pretty present to show his love. Ah, if every husband were only likehim!"
Of course, an inventor who is taking out a patent and getting models of machinery made must often see the artificers employed, and before, as well as after, his marriage, Crawford ran up to London for one day in the week; that is, he went up on the evening of one day, and returned in the morning of the next. Indeed, it was not, when put together, quite a whole day of four-and-twenty hours; for he did not leave until late in the afternoon, and was back next morning.
Now, an inventor is known to be a dreadful bore, for he is always trying to explain how the machine works, and no woman that ever lived could take a particle of interest in machinery, or even understand how one cogwheel moves another, or how a leather band can make an iron wheel revolve. Crawford did not make his house odious with plans of his models and disquisitions on his plans. If you asked him a question he answered it in the most explicit and kindest manner possible, and said no more about the thing, but told you that the moment it was in working order you should come and see his model at work. The kindness of the man's manner almost made people think they understood him.
On the table between the husband and wife lay a lot of papers, but they had nothing to do with the great invention. They related to the Crawford property in the neighbourhood of the South London Canal. Some of them were in Mr. Blore's handwriting, some of them in Crawford's. Mrs. Crawford had, at her husband's request, been looking over them before taking up the newspaper. She had glanced at the sheets, and when her brief inspection was finished put them down, and, seeing him deeply absorbed in his book, said nothing, but took up the newspaper to look at it, so that he might not think she had been waiting for him.
At last his chapter was finished. He put away his book and glanced across the table. "Well, Nellie, isn't it very extraordinary these people were so backward in paying?"
"It is a little strange," she said with a gentle smile; "but you must not be disheartened by it. They are sure to pay next month." She took up the list of the tenants and ran her eyes over it, that he might not fancy she under-estimated his efforts and anxiety respecting the rents.
"I'll tell you what I think, Nellie. I fancy that, although we issued the circular about my collecting instead of Blore, and although I had full credentials with me, they did not believe they would be quite safe in paying me."
"But they knew you were my husband," she said softly, "did they not? Was not that enough for them? It is more than enough for me." There were infinite confidence and tenderness in her voice and look.
"Of course, dear. But they could not be certain of my identity. How were they to be sure the man who called on them was the William Crawford of the notice. The man who called upon them might be an impostor, who obtained the credentials by fraud. Don't you see?"
"O, yes. That's it. Quite plainly they were afraid to pay you, lest there might be something wrong about you. Fancy something wrong aboutyou, William!" and she leaned back in her chair and laughed with her eyes closed, as if the thought was too deliciously droll to be contemplated with open eyes. After a brief period of enjoying the absurdity of these people, she looked at her husband and said, "But I hope you are not angry with those people, William? They are mostly poor and ignorant."
"Angry with them! Good gracious, no! The only thing that put me out was that I could not bring the money home to you, dear."
"But I don't want any money just now."
"You never want anything for yourself, dear," he said in a tone of affectionate admiration; "yet a little money would be very handy at present. We have only a few pounds at the bank."
"But we don't want more than pocket-money until next month. There is nothing of any consequence to pay; the monthly bills have been all settled as usual." It was a great comfort to her to feel that he need not bother himself about anything so insignificant as money.
"Yes, but----" and he paused, and a look of pain and perplexity came over his face. He leaned his elbow on the table and his head upon his hand.
For a moment there was no word spoken, but a dull, heavy, low, continuous noise filled the room.
The noise ceased, and then her infinitely sympathetic voice said, "Dear, what is it?"
She was at his side. She had wheeled her invalid's chair round to him and had taken his hand in hers.
"Those workmen," he said. "They have swallowed up all I had." He did not take down his hand. He sighed heavily.
"But you are not grieving about that? It will all come back a hundredfold one day."
"Ay," he said in a tone of oppression and care, "a thousandfold--ten thousandfold. But there is the present----" He paused.
Suddenly a light broke in upon her.
"O," she cried, "how stupid I was not to guess! Why did you not speak out at once? William, dear, excuse me for not guessing. You will pardon me, dear, won't you, for not seeing what depressed you? If you want money, and there is none at the bank, why did you not sell out Consols? Mr. Brereton told me that all my Consols were as much my own as the income of the property, since they are my savings."
"No, no! I could not think of doing such a thing as take your savings."
"But yes, William, dear, yes. For my sake sell out whatever you want. Why not? They are not mine. They became yours on our marriage, dear. Why did you not sellout?"
"No, they were yours, and are yours. There is a new law."
"Then it is a bad law. Take down your hand and look at me and say you will sell what you want to-morrow. Do it to oblige me--for my sake. I cannot bear to see you in this state. I'll sign anything this foolish law obliges me to sign. If they are mine I surely can give them to you. You must take what you want if you won't take all. If they are mine I surely can give them to my husband as well as to any other person. If you do not consent to take what you want, I'll sell all out and give you the money."
She was pleading for the highest favour he could do her--to let her help him.
"No," he said in a tone of authority, "I will not allow you to dothat."
"Well, take what you want. How much do you want?"
"Two hundred would be enough. But I can't--I can't."
"I'll write to Mr. Brereton to-morrow and ask him to sell out two hundred for myself, and tell him I want the money for a private purpose of my own. Take down your hand, dear, and let us go on with the accounts. I have looked over the list and the remarks." She cared nothing for the accounts, but she wanted the husband whom she loved to be his old self again.
He took down his hand and pressed hers, and stroked her smooth hair.
"I am sorry and ashamed," he said, "but I am awfully hard pressed, and you have delivered me."
"Let us go on with the list now, William, and say no more of this matter. Give me the list."
He handed her the papers without a word. Before sitting down he bent over and patted her hair and kissed her forehead.
"I know nearly all the names," she said, "but, of course, I have never seen any of the people."
"You have not missed much by that, Nellie," he said in tremulous tones, as though rendered almost tearful by her generosity. "They are a rough lot."
At the same time he was thinking how much more delightful it would be to have Hetty Layard, with all her buoyant youth, sitting by his side than this faded elderly invalid. But then Hetty had no money. A man ought to be allowed two wives: one with money, who need not be young or beautiful, and one with beauty, who need not be rich.
Mrs. Crawford ran her finger down the names of her tenants, and the houses which were tenantless, commenting as she went, and trying to make her own remarks bear out his theory that the tenants did not pay because they were not sure he was her husband.
"Mrs. Pemberton has not paid, I see. I don't wonder at all at that. Poor soul, she has had a great struggle for years, ever since her husband's death. She has tried to help herself along by letting lodgings, Mr. Blore told me, but that won't come to much in such a poor neighbourhood. I'm sure I don't know what could induce any one to lodge in such a district."
"People are often obliged to lodge near their place of business, no matter how objectionable their place of business may be," said he sententiously. Then he added with a smile, "Why, recollect, Nellie, that I myself am a lodger for business purposes in the locality."
"Of course you are, dear. I quite forgot that. And what kind of people are you lodging with?" she asked cheerfully, anxious to get his mind as far away as possible from those wretched Consols and rapacious artificers.
"O, they seem to be quiet respectable people enough. A little slow, you know, but perhaps none the worse for that when they have for a lodger such a gay young spark as I." He smiled.
She looked lovingly at him, and laughed at the enormity of the joke of his calling himself gay and fancying any society could harmhim. "And now you must tell me what your landlord and landlady are like." He seemed to have forgotten about the wretched Consols and rapacious artificers.
"Well, Layard is a man who has something to do in the gas-house. The chief thing about him is a long beard. He's rather like a monkey with a beard."
"And what is Miss Layard like?"
"She's like a monkey without a beard," he said, with one of his short quick laughs. "As I thought before I went there, she's about ten or twelve years older than he. She's one of those dowdy little women, don't you know, dear, whose new clothes always look second-hand." Again came his short quick laugh. "She belongs to what geologists would call the antimacassar era. There's a dreadful Phyllis, or somebody else, in tapestry, framed over their sitting-room mantelshelf. She told me she worked it when she was young. But I ought not to laugh at the worthy soul. It is ungrateful of me; for I never tasted a more delicious omelette than she made for my breakfast. I must get her next time to give me the recipe for you, Nellie." He put his arms round his wife's shoulder and pressed his lips upon her smooth hair.
"I think, William," said she, "we are the happiest couple in England."
"And I'm sure of it," said he in a tone of full conviction.
She sighed a sigh of perfect contentment.
He sighed, thinking of Hetty Layard and her golden hair and luminous blue eyes, and her lithe round figure, and her fresh young voice, and the sweet red young lips through which that voice came to make sunshine and joy in the air.
"Shall I go on with the list, dear?" she asked.
She took no interest on her own part in this list; but then the interest of him and her was bound together in it, and there was a charm for her in the bond--not the thing binding them.
"Yes, dear," he answered, wishing the list at the bottom of the Red Sea among the chariots of Pharaoh.
She ran threw a few more items on the paper, and then paused, and said with a laugh:
"Here is one store, I see, from which you got neither money nor promise."
"What is that?"
"Ice-house, Crawford's Bay."
"O, ay. I examined the place with much interest. I believe it is in ruins. The gates are off, the lower part of it is full of water. I am told there are eight or ten feet of water in it."
"The place has not been let for ever so many years. I never saw an ice-house. I wonder what one is like."
"I'll tell you. It's exactly like a huge room of brick, lined with thick boards, and one-third below the ground. I examined this one very closely, thoroughly. There are no floors in it but the one at the bottom of the tank--no ladders--nothing. It is like a great empty tank lined with wood."
"And you say the one at Crawford's Bay is full of water?" she asked.
"Yes."
She shuddered and drew the light shawl she wore tightly round her shoulders.
"How dreadfully dark and cold it must be there, William?"
"Yes; but bless me, Nellie, no onelivesin an ice-house, and this one isn't even let!" he cried in surprise.
"I know. But suppose some one should fall into it? Don't you think the doors ought to be put up?"
"My dear Nellie, there isn't the least occasion to waste money on a useless place like that. Of course if we should let it we would be only too happy to put it into good repair. But what is the good of throwing money away?"
"But the danger?"
"Well, as far as that goes, you may make your mind perfectly easy. No one has access to the little quay or wharf but the people in Crawford's House. The rest of the property is lying idle, and from what I have seen of the Layards they are not the people to go wandering about on the wharf after dark. Besides, they know that the ice-house is full of water. It was Layard's maiden sister first told me."
He laughed at the idea of calling blooming young Hetty Layard's maiden sister.
"But the child, William--the child!" persisted the invalid. "Suppose by some misfortune the child should stray that way and fall in?"
"Nellie, no person with an atom of sense would think of permitting a child out on that wharf. Why, the canal, the waters of Crawford's Bay, are only a few steps from the back door of Crawford's House, and who would let a child play on the banks of a canal? I mean, of course, no people like the Layards would allow their child to play there."
"But this awful dark huge tank you tell me of is a thousand times worse than the open canal. If a child fell into the open canal people would see him, but if he fell into that dreadful tank he would be drowned, poor little fellow, before any one missed him. I do wish, William, you would get the doors put up. You see, as you tell me, there was no danger up to this, for no one could get near it; but now there is a child."
She pleaded with gestures and her eyes and her voice, as though a child of her own were menaced.
He held out his hand to her and took hers in his.
"There, Nellie, I will. I'll see the place made quite safe. Of course I'll go down and arrange about it if you wish it."
She raised the hand she held and kissed it.
He thought what a chance this would give him of meeting the Layards--Hetty--before the month was out!
"Shall I roll you round to your own place now, and you can go on with your paper and I with my book?"
"Thank you, dear."
He took up the volume, but he did not read. He fell into a profound reverie. First of all, he began to think of how pleasant it would be to tell Hetty that he had become alarmed for the safety of her little nephew, and had come back before his time to see about putting doors upon the ice-house. Hetty and he would go out on the quay, and look at the place and talk the matter over.
There was one good thing, the quay on which the icehouse stood was not visible from the tow-path, so that even if Philip Ray should chance to pass by he could not be seen.
Then his thoughts took another turn, and became concentrated on Philip Ray. He mused a long time upon his sworn enemy. Suddenly he shook all over, as if a chill had struck him. His blood seemed to thicken in his veins. His eyes stood in his head, staring straight out before him, perceiving nothing present in that room, but seeing a ghastly awful sight in that dim dark ice-house.
On the surface of the cold secret waters of the huge tank he saw a hideous object: the upturned face of a dead man, the face of Philip Ray.
Crawford's breath came short, and he panted. His mouth opened, his eyes dilated.
Philip Ray, lying drowned in that hideous lonely water where no one would ever think of looking for him! It was a perfect way out of the terror of Philip Ray's anger which beset him. It was a thing to think upon for ever.A thing that might come to pass!
"William," said the sweet low voice of his wife, "here is a strange thing in the paper to-day. You remember the awful nightmare you had, in which you thought two of your schoolfellows long ago were going to shoot you?"
"Yes," he answered hoarsely, but he did not know what she had said. He knew she had asked a question, and he answered "Yes." He was in a trance.
"Well, here in to-day'sTelegraphare the two names together. Listen: 'On the 28th inst, at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (néeRay), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex.'"
"Eh?" he cried, suddenly starting up from his chair and looking wildly at his wife. "Read that again."
In dire alarm at his manner she read again: "'On the 28th inst, at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (néeRay), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex.'"
"What is the good of your playing with me, you fool Her death is no good to me. I am done with her. It's his life I want, and, by ----, I shall have it too!"
"William!" cried the terrified wife. "My William! Come to me. I cannot go to you. What is the matter? You look strange, and you are saying dreadful things, and you have sworn an awful oath. What is the matter? Are you unwell? Come to me."
A sudden tremor passed through him, and with a dazed expression he looked round him.
With his short laugh he said, "I hope I didn't frighten you, Nellie, dear. I was only going over a passage of a play we used to act at school. I was always good at private theatricals."
It was now the second week in June. The weather had been without a flaw. From dawn to evening the sun had moved through almost cloudless skies. It was a splendid time for children to enjoy themselves out of doors, and every day Freddie was carried from the back door of Crawford's House by his Aunt Hetty, handed into the arms of Francis Bramwell, and borne across to Boland's Ait, there to spend his time in riotous fancy and boisterous play with Frank Bramwell till the dinner hour.
The two boys got on famously together. Freddie was the taller and lustier of the two, with plenty of animal spirits and enterprise in him, full of indulgent good-humour and patronising protection for his companion. Frank was more sedate and thoughtful. He had a closer and a keener mind, and as such minds are generally fascinated by the gifts of physical exuberance and mental intrepidity, he gave in to his gayer and more adventurous playmate. Each was the complement of the other. Freddie took after his Aunt Hetty in person and mind, and Frank after his father in disposition and his mother in appearance.
The fortnight had wrought a marvellous change in Francis Bramwell. In his youth he had been a dreamer, a poet. When he met Kate Ray he became a lover of her, at times austere and lofty, at times tempestuous. When he married he remained the lover still. After the flight of his wife he plunged headlong into all the fierce excitement of gambling, and led a completely reckless life. Then all at once he rushed into the direct opposite, took up his abode on the last rod of his property, Boland's Ait, and lived there the severe life of an anchorite, lived face to face with the ruins of the past and possessed his soul in silence, and mused upon the ways of Providence, and broke his spirit to the Christian law of patient endurance.
Now, for the first time in his life, he was confronted with material duties which had to be performed with his own hand. His income he now considered inadequate, and it could be increased only by his own labour. He had already planned and partly written a few articles which he hoped to get accepted by papers or magazines. He had been ashore twice and made some simple additions to the furniture of the cottage, and bought toys for Frank and Freddie to play with. He had levelled and smoothed and swept the old timber-yard for the boys, and put the play-room in order against a rainy day. For the two years he had dwelt alone on the Ait he had lived most frugally, and had not used up all his slender income, so that these little expenses did not come out of revenue.
It cheers the heart to have anything to do, and it soothes and sustains the heart when we have the result of our activity always at hand under our eyes.
Of mornings he had to dress Frank, an operation he at first executed with clumsiness and in despair. He had to get the boy his breakfast and watch him while he ate it. After that he had to fetch Freddie, set the two young people safely in the timber-yard, and, having secured the gate, go back to his sitting-room and write or meditate his articles until it was time for Freddie to go home. The boy's dinner had to be got ready, and then after the departure of Mrs. Treleaven he shut the outer door, gave Frank the run of the house, and sat down to his papers once more till tea. This meal he prepared without the aid of Mrs. Treleaven, and shortly after tea he had to undress little Frank and put him to bed.
He had been a dreamer, a poet, a lover, a gambler, a recluse. Now he was becoming a man. His duties were humanising him. When he lay down at night it was not, as of old, to live over again the hideous past with its vast calamity; but to dwell on the events of the day with restful complacency, and to contemplate with gentle satisfaction the cares and duties of the morrow. In the old days of his isolation his veins seemed filled with acrid juices, with vinegar and gall. In these nights, as he lay feeling the balm of slumber coming down upon him through the bland summer air, the milk of human kindness beat within his pulses.
In the old days his prayers were for deliverance and for a spirit of charity. But he prayed for that spirit of charity because charity was enjoined by the Great Teacher. He did not pray for deliverance in the form of death now. He prayed that he might be spared to look after his boy. He had no need to pray for charity now; for was not his child lying there beside him safe and sound and full of rosy health, and was not the child's mother forgiven by him and by a Greater, and in Heaven?
He never thought of Ainsworth. Why should he? Kate was dead, and he had his child, and what was all the rest of the world to him? Nothing.
To himself he admitted the situation was anomalous, and that he was ill-qualified to take care of so young a child. Of course it would be worse than folly to think of his sister in Australia. She had her husband and her own children, and was prosperous there. It never occurred to him once to send his boy to her. The idea that she might come over to take charge of his Frank had only arisen to his mind in dreams, to be laughed at upon waking. Of course a woman, not a man, was the natural guardian of a child of little Frank's age. Look at the care Miss Layard took of Freddie. What a lucky fellow Layard was to have such a sister to mind his boy!
Then in a dream, just as he had the idea of his sister travelling all the way from Australia to rear Frank, the idea came to him that it would be a good thing if Miss Layard would take charge of Frank; this, too, was only to be laughed at upon waking. Miss Layard was not a servant whom he could employ, or a sister of whom he could expect such a service. The thing was an absurdity worthy of midsummer madness, but what a pity it should be absurd!
He had dreamed the dream only once about his sister. He had dreamed the dream more than once about Miss Layard. This would be accounted for, no doubt, by the fact that he saw and spoke to Miss Layard every day.
The thought of leaving the Ait and taking a lodging ashore had presented itself to his mind, only to be dismissed after a few moments' consideration. By this time, after his two years of solitude, he had become accustomed to attending upon himself, and felt no more awkwardness in this respect than a sailor. He could cook his food and light his fire and make his bed as though he had been accustomed to shift for himself all his life. For two years he had been accustomed to all these services, and now he had the advantage of Mrs. Treleaven's daily visit, which relieved him of much of the drudgery. A lodging such as his present means could command would be unbearable. All his life, until the beginning of his reckless year, he had been accustomed to elegance and refinement. And all his life, until his retirement to the islet, he had lived in comfort, and part of his life in affluence. He could not endure the thought of contact with vulgar grasping landladies, and above all, he could not entertain the idea of exposing this child to the dulling and saddening intercourse with the unrefined folk to be found in such houses. He should be able to afford but one room, and how could he pursue literary studies or labours with little Frank at his very elbow? To let the child consort with those around them would be worse than all the inconveniences of this place.
No. He must stay where he was until he had mended his fortunes with his pen. The old timber-yard was a capital playground for Frank and Freddie in the fine weather, and when it rained there was the room he had prepared for them in the cottage. Besides----
Besides, if he went to live ashore Frank would no longer have so suitable a playmate as Freddie. He himself should certainly miss the cheerful, vivacious little chap who lived at Crawford's House, and--yes, and the brief meetings morning and afternoon with the gay and beautiful and sympathetic girl, Miss Layard. Let things be as they were.
Miss Layard had more than once repeated her brother's invitation to Bramwell that he should go over for an hour in the evening. He always pleaded in excuse the reason given for him by Philip Ray on the occasion of his hastily and unthinkingly accepting the first invitation. He could not leave the boy. Then she asked him to bring the boy. This could not be done either. Why? Well, because it would be giving them too much trouble. Nothing of the kind. They would be only too delighted to have Frank. Well, then, if that reason would not serve, it would not be good for the child to keep him up so late; he was always in bed a little after seven o'clock.
But Philip Ray had gone over often, and brought back word that they were very nice people, and he liked to talk a great deal about them, particularly the brother, to Bramwell, and Bramwell thought that when Philip came back from Crawford's House he was always more cool and rational, and so he was always glad when his brother-in-law went.
It is one of the curious regulations of the South London Canal that, while you have to pay toll if you wish to walk along the tow-path by day, you are free to use it by night for nothing. This rule would seem to be made out of a benevolent view to suicides. A more dreary and dangerous and murderous-looking place there is not in all London than that tow-path by night. To think, merely to think, in the daytime of walking under one of those low arches in the dark is enough to make one shudder.
The distance from the base of the arch to the edge of the water is not more than six feet. If you keep near the wall you have to bend towards the water; if you keep near the water it seems as though some hideous and terrifying influence will draw you into the foul, dark, stagnant, sinister flood. It appears to be waiting for you, passively waiting there for you, with the full knowledge that you must come, that you are coming, that you are come. It seems to have a purpose apart from all other things about it, and that purpose is to draw you. It seems to say in an unuttered voice, "I am Death and Silence."
If, as you stood under one of those odious arches, you stooped slowly, slowly until your hand touched the brink, you would have to thrust your fingers down an inch further to touch the water itself. And then you would find it was dead--that it had no motion; that by the sense of touch alone you could not tell which way the canal flows, the current is so slow--so deadly slow. In the plutonian darkness under the bridge you could see nothing, and from the dead water a peculiar and awful silence seems to rise like an exhalation.
You would not utter a word there to save your life. You would feel you had no life to save, that it already belonged to the water. If, then, as you stooped you slipped, you would roll into the water without a splash, for you would be on a level with the surface. You could not utter a cry, for the terrible, the odious influence of the place would be upon you. Even if you called out your voice would be of no avail, for no human being could hear you, and it would only infuriate the obscene genius of the place. Then, if the terror did not kill you instantly, the waters would--slowly--surely, for there is nothing to lay hold of but those flat slippery stones, and you would be in the stagnant water against a perpendicular wall. The sharp pains of the most perfect torture-chamber ever designed would not be equal to dying there alone upright against that wall, holding on by those smooth slippery flat stones on a level with your chin, and as you were gradually pulled down, down, down, inch by inch, by the loathsome genius of these waters.
But the horrors of this place are seldom invaded at night by human foot. Often from summer dark to summer dawn no tread of man beats upon that forlorn tow-path. After nightfall the place has an evil reputation in the neighbourhood. More than a dozen times in the memory of living people cold and clammy things, once men and women, have been drawn slowly, laboriously, with dripping clothes, out of these turbid waters. No man but one sorely pressed by necessity would think of taking that path at midnight: and even when in dire haste he would have need of strong nerves to face it, to set out upon it, to plunge into it. For, unlike the streets and roadways that go by the dwellings of kindly men, once upon it there is no way from it, no crossroad or byway until the stretch of half-a-mile or a mile is accomplished. If any supreme terror or danger menaced the traveller on that path, he has only one refuge, one means of escape, one sanctuary to seek--the canal itself.
In the ditch, on the inner side of the path, you cannot know what may be crouching. Shapes and forms and monsters too hateful for sanity to endure may be lurking in that ditch, and may spring out on you, on your unprotected side, at any moment as you walk along. If this should happen would not it be better for you to seek blindness and extinction in the waters?
Or may there not lie in wait some shapes in human form more appalling than gorgon or chimera dire, some human ghouls who have committed crimes never dreamt of by the soul of affrighted man? May not these come forth and whisper at your ear as you go by, and tell you what they have done in tombs and charnel houses until the flesh falls off your bones with dread, and you take these waters of forgetfulness at your side to be not a river of Orcus, but of blissful deliverance?
And what a place is this for a woman by night!
She has crept cautiously out of Leeham and struck the canal at Leeham Bridge. At that time all Leeham is asleep in bed or at work in the great gasworks. Not a soul is abroad but two or three people moving to or from the Neptune at the end of the Pine Groves.
The woman creeps cautiously from the road down the approach leading to the canal. There is not a soul on the tow-path; the place is as still as a cave. She can hear the beating of her own heart distinctly as she walks along, keeping in the shadow.
But she will have to come out of the shadow in a moment, or rather she will have to enter the sphere of light, for on the tow-path to her left there is a gas-lamp.
She darts quickly through the patch of light and into the cavernous darkness of the bridge.
In that brief period of illumination all that could be seen was that she did not exceed the average height of woman, might be a little below it; that she was poorly clad; that she wore a bonnet and thick impenetrable veil; that she was covered from neck to heel with a long dark cloak, and that the ungloved hand which grasped the cloak in front and held it close was thin and white.
She did not seem conscious of any of the horrors of that dismal arch; while under it she was more free from the chance of observation than on the road or approach. She drew herself more upright, and slackened her pace for a moment. Then with another shudder she walked swiftly from under the arch and set off for Welford Bridge.
On her right lay a ditch neither wet nor dry; on her left the voiceless waters of the canal, and beyond the canal a line of mute, uninhabited, inscrutable wharves which looked like dead parts of a living city which had drifted away, leaving this rack behind.
She sped on, unheeding her surroundings. She did not look to left or right. She kept the edge of the canal, as though the water were the best friend she had there. Now and then with her white ungloved hand she drew her cloak closer round her, rather as though to preserve her own resolution within it, to prevent her purpose from escaping, than to protect her from observation from without.
She came within the shadow of the mighty gas-house, which, too, was silent, save now and then a startling and alarming clamour of metal, as though the summons of Titan to witness some overwhelming disaster. Against the blue sky and pallid stars of early summer the huge chimneys, and cranes, and pillars, and tanks, and viaducts, and scaffolding, and shoots, and the enormous and towering masses of the gasometers, stood up in a piece like some prodigious engine of one motive, some monstrous machine used in the building of mountains or hollowing out of seas. Now and then, through apertures low down in this prodigious engine, small living things, no bigger than insects in comparison with the mass, came and stood clearly visible, pricked out in the darkness against the glow within. These were men flying for a moment from the fiery heat of the huge instrument to cool their bodies and their lungs in the open air.
The woman took no more note of all this wonderful work of man than to draw her cloak to her on that side, lest it might distract her from her purpose.
At length, as she kept on her way undismayed, she approached a black mass of shadow, stretching across the canal and tow-path, as though to bar her further progress.
As she drew nearer, an arc of light appeared in the centre of this dark barrier, and beyond, or rather in the middle of the arc a speck of brighter light still.
The dark barrier was Welford Bridge; the larger and duller light in the middle of it was the eye of the bridge; and the central ray, like the light on the pupil of an eye, was the lamp in the bedroom of Boland's Ait.
The woman paused when she saw this latter light, and, leaving the margin of the canal, crossed the tow-path to a low warehouse and leaned against the wall in the shadow to rest.
From the point at which she now stood resting against the wall she could see the light in the open window of the cottage.
Presently the spark formed by the lamp waved. The lamp had been removed from the window-sill. The sash of the window was allowed to remain up. There was a sudden flicker of light, and then all in the cottage was dark. The lamp had been extinguished.
The woman withdrew her shoulder from the wall, gathered her cloak round her, and resumed her way along the edge of the tow-path, going south. She walked more slowly now, as if in thought or to give time. She walked as though she must, because of her inclination, make progress, but must not for some reason make too quick an advance.
Presently she stepped into the profound gloom under Welford Bridge, and in a few seconds emerged upon the other side. Here she made another pause.
Not a soul was in sight. She had met no one since taking the tow-path at Leeham. The night was perfectly still. She looked around at the bridge, and then moved rapidly along the path, as though wishing to get beyond the point at which she might attract the attention of any one looking over the parapet.
When about two hundred yards from the bridge she paused once more. Here was no building against which she could lean, but instead a sharply sloping bank surmounted by a wall. Opposite where she stood a large log of wood reclined against the slope. She crept over and leaned against the bank beside the log. In this position she would be perfectly invisible to any one looking over the parapet, or even passing along the tow-path carelessly. Here the horse-track was more than twice its ordinary width, and between the trodden part of the path and the bank spread a space of grass-grown waste of equal width.
Directly opposite to her stood Crawford's House, and a little further to the left Boland's Ait. She put her hollowed right hand behind her ear, leaned her head towards the islet, and listened intently. Not a sound. She closed her eyes and concentrated all her faculties in the one of hearing. The tranquillity of the cloudless night was unbroken by any murmur but the dull dead murmur that always hangs over the city, and is faintly perceptible even here.
Suddenly a soft gentle sound stole upon her ears, but not from the desired quarter. The voice of a woman singing reached her. She opened her eyes. A light burned now in the top room of Crawford's House.
The wayfarer on the tow-path could make nothing out, owing to the distance and to the light being behind the singer, save that a woman was standing at the open window and humming in a very low voice an old lullaby song. The light of the lamp came through the hair of the singer, and the listener saw that the colour of the hair was golden.
The watcher leaned back against the bank, closed her eyes, and put her hands over her ears. She remained so a considerable time. When she opened her eyes the light had been extinguished. She took her hands down from her ears--all was still once more.
She looked up and down the track carefully, and strained her ear to catch footfalls; but no one was in view, and no noise of feet broke the frozen monotony of the silence. Gathering her cloak around her, she left her resting-place, and, having gained the edge of the water, resumed her way at a rapid rate in a southerly direction until she got opposite the tail of Boland's Ait.
Here she reduced her pace, and kept on with her eyes fixed eagerly on the ground at her feet. She bent forward, and as low as she could. Apparently, she was looking for some mark.
There gleamed the full light of unclouded June night and unsullied faint blue June stars, but no moon aided her search.
At length she stopped and examined the ground very closely. Then she stooped lower still and thrust her hand down, passing it outside the bank until it touched the water.
She seized some object first with one hand, and then with both, and drew back from the bank softly, cautiously, as though her very life depended on the care she took. Something stretched from her hands--a line, a chain. It was fast to the bank, and reached from her hands out into the water a few feet from where she stood.
She had in her hands the chain by which the floating stage was drawn from Boland's Ait across the canal when any one wanted to go from the tow-path to the island. The chain yielded with her a little, and then would come no more. She drew upon it with all her might, but it simply rose out of the water at a slightly increased distance from the bank. She became desperate, and pulled with all her might and main. She dug her heels into the ground, and threw the whole weight of her body backward. To no avail.
She tore off her cloak and flung it on the ground that she might have greater freedom. She dragged at the chain, now pulling it from one side, now from the other. The stage did not move. Her hands were cut and bleeding.
She stooped low and got the chain over her shoulder, and flung the whole weight of her body over and over again into the loop.
The harsh ragged chain tore the skin and flesh of her soft delicate shoulder until it too bled. But the stage remained motionless.
She sank down on the ground half insensible from despair and pain.
She rose up and put the chain on the uninjured shoulder, and wrenched and tore and struggled at it, whispering to herself, "I will--I must--I tell you I must see my child once more before I die. I only want to see him asleep, through the window, any way, once. Do you hear me? Iwillsee my child before I die. A mother has a right to see her child before she dies. Mercy, mercy, mercy! One look, only one before I go away for ever!"
She sank to the ground again. The chain slipped from her shoulder, and with a moan she spread out her torn and bleeding hands on the rugged ground and lay still.
The first faint streaks of dawn were in the sky before she recovered consciousness. She rose, put on her cloak, and with dejected head and tattering steps turned her back upon the Ait and walked in the direction of Leeham.