Through the soft summer seas the great ship moved into the mouth of the English Channel. The early dawn had revealed the faint mist-folded promontories of the Cornish coast well to westward. Red-sailed fishing-boats hung like a flight of birds upon the lucid floors of ocean; coasting steamers snorted past with an air of insular importance; here and there a white-sailed brig glimmered in the early sunlight; and, coming after the long loneliness of open seas, these signs of life impressed the mind like the stir and tumult of a city. Plymouth would be reached by noon.
Letters, telegrams, and papers had already come aboard with the pilot—the first friendly overtures of a land slowly rising out of the thinning morning bank. Men and women, with laughing eyes and gladdened faces, stood in little groups reading their correspondence, exchanging jests, commenting upon scraps of news which they had gathered from the papers. It seemed the tide of war had turned at last. It was to a madly joyous land the great ship made its slow approach. Suddenly upon the deck the band clashed with the animating music of the National Anthem. The English stood uncovered as the first familiar bar vibrated on the quiet air; the Americans watched them with a half-sympathetic amusement; even the steerage passengers, foreigners for the most part, without part or lot in British victories, smiled cheerfully. So joyous was the hour that private grief appeared a contradiction, an impertinence.
There was neither telegram nor letter for Arthur, and he had been unable to secure a paper. To him England extended no welcome.
During the long trans-continental journey, and the longer ocean voyage, he had beaten out all the conditions of his situation with an iteration that had finally exhausted the possibilities of vehement emotion. It is happily not within the power of the human organism to feel and suffer intensely except for short periods; agony begets lethargy. It is one of the mercies of pain that it thus dies of its own excess, that in its intensity it becomes coma. Arthur had reached the point of moral coma. The red-hot iron had ploughed through his soul, but it had also seared it into brief insensibility.
In his first extremity of consternation it had seemed a thing impossible to survive the horror that possessed him. The image of his father rose before him, sad-browed, accusing, spent with mortal struggle, pale with immortal defeat—it travelled with him like a face painted in the air. It evoked in him an anguish of commiseration, and even of remorse. He remembered every slighting thought that he had cherished, as men recollect wrongs done to the dead, magnifying errors into cruelties, faults into crimes. With a sudden burning of the blood he had realised how singular and strong is that bond of flesh which unites the parent to the child, how sacred and how incapable of all annulment. At the root of his own life lay a force stronger than justice, stronger than religion, a thing bare, irrational, primeval—the awful sanctity of kinship. And he knew in that moment that, for good or ill, his place was beside his father. There he must needs stand, even though it were at the gallows' foot. Whatever burden crushed those strong shoulders he must share, even though the load were shameful. From that obligation there was no discharge.
From New York he had cabled both to his father and to Bundy, but no reply had come from either. He had had to wait two days for the sailing of a ship, the first of which was a day of infinite misery, aimless wandering, languid revisitation of familiar scenes. On the second day he met Horner. He found the little artist re-established in his studio, and from him received a boisterous welcome.
"Have you seen my book?" he cried.
"What book?"
"Well, I like that. Didn't you write it for me? And don't you recollect we were to share profits? Look at those"—and he pushed toward him an immense bundle of press-cuttings.
From these it appeared that the book had achieved notoriety, if not fame.
"You didn't let me know where you went, and you've never written me, or I would have posted these things to you. Ripping, aren't they?"
"They appear excellent."
"And there's something else that's still better. Read that!"
It was a letter bearing the well-known office address of Mr. Wilbur M. Legion, and enclosing a substantial cheque.
"It only came yesterday. I guess we'll cash it. Half of it is yours, you know, and if you're going to England it may come in handy."
Arthur looked up at that, fixing his eyes on Horner's cheerful face with a long, searching gaze.
Did Horner know the miserable truth about his father? But of course he did. It was being shouted round the world. And this reference to the money being handy on a voyage to England was no doubt the little artist's indirect, and indeed delicate, way of communicating his knowledge.
"O Horner!" he cried. "I am very miserable!" And he bowed his head upon his hands, and wept the first tears he had shed since the blow had fallen on him.
There was a kindly arm round his shoulders in a moment. "Why, look 'ere, what's the matter?" And before he knew it he was telling Horner everything.
"Well," said Horner, when he finished. "I guess things aren't as bad as you think. They never are, you know."
"They couldn't be much worse."
"Oh yes, they could," he went on philosophically. "The jury hasn't convicted yet, and perhaps they won't. But that's neither here nor there. The thing you've got to do is to buck up. And look 'ere, about this cheque—you take it all. I don't want it. I'm in funds. And, besides, there's more to come."
"No, I can't do that."
"Yes, you can, and you will. Call the half of it a loan, if you like, but you've got to take it. You know my motto, 'Englishmen ought to help each other,' and you've just got to let me help you."
Once before in his extremity Horner had saved him from starvation; now he saved him from despair. The little artist was not a person of exacting virtues, he made no pretence to religion, and would have appeared a strange sheep indeed in the folds of the elect; but he possessed a simple faith in kindness not always found among persons of immaculate behaviour, and, what is more, he practised his belief. He filled the studio with the echoes of his cheerful laughter, waited on Arthur with a watchful tenderness that was almost womanly, refused encouragement to grief, and finally insisted on a good dinner at Delmonico's, in the pious hope which is common to all Englishmen that the ugliest troubles of the brain are erased by due attention to the stomach. It was Horner who insisted that this should be no second-class voyage on a slow boat; it was he who engaged a berth on a famous liner, drove with Arthur to the dock, and waved a cheerful hand to him as the great ship swung off upon the gray water. When the true apocalyptic books, which record the unknown kindnesses of man, are opened, it is not impossible that the name of this little hare-brained artist may stand higher than the name of kings and conquerors—perhaps also than the names of certain saints, who in their earthly days were less remarkable for warm sympathies than for icy propriety, and a strict attention to the main chance.
And now the voyage was done; the white shaft of the Eddystone lay astern, and the exquisite green bosom of Mount Edgecumbe swelled from the sun-flecked water. The passengers streamed down into the tender, and a few minutes later he stood in the long Custom House sheds of Plymouth.
Here at last he got a daily paper, and the first thing that met his eye was a long account of the Masterman trial.
At the same moment a telegraph-boy went shouting through the crowd, "Masterman! Any one of the name of Masterman?"
He took the telegram in silence, conscious of many eyes suddenly turned toward him. It was from Bundy, and read, "Will meet you at Paddington." He was eager to take immediate refuge in the railway carriage. He was conscious that even the telegraph-boy was looking at him curiously. Suddenly he saw moving toward him through the crowd another figure that he thought he recognized—O joy! it was Vickars!
"Vickars!"
"Yes, I learned from Bundy by what boat you'd come. I've a compartment reserved for you. Let us get into it at once."
"O Vickars! that we should meet like this!"
"Come, come, my fellow—no hysterics. You were always brave. Be brave now."
He put his arm through Arthur's, and moved through the crowd with erect head. They were scarcely seated in the carriage when the train began to move.
"And now," said Vickars, "we can talk. In the first place, let me ask you how much do you know of this unhappy business?"
"Nothing but what the papers tell me. I see the trial is to-day."
"This is the third day. By the time we reach London the verdict may be expected."
Arthur turned eagerly, with a flushed face, to the pile of papers he had purchased.
"I wouldn't trouble over those just now, if I were you," said Vickars. "Suppose you just let me tell you all about it. That is what I came for, you know."
He spoke with such entire calmness that it might have been supposed that what he had to say was of no importance. And this note of calm communicated itself to Arthur, as he meant it should. He knew that the great thing just now was to invigorate the boy's strength, and this must be done by the suppression of active sympathy.
"Very well," said Arthur, "I am ready."
And then Vickars told his story, to the soft thudding accompaniment of the rushing wheels.
The substance of the story was this. The strong point made by the defence was that Masterman had not been aware of the frauds committed by Scales. There was no doubt whatever that Scales would be convicted; but, since the trial began, a great deal of public sympathy had gone out to Masterman. It was proved that he had been too ill to have any knowledge of what Scales was doing. This might be called criminal negligence; it would depend largely on what view the judge took. It was proved that he had not absconded, as was at first supposed; his flight to Paris was an accident. From the hour of his arrest, those who were most inclined to judge him harshly could not but admit a certain magnanimity in his behaviour. He had sacrificed his entire private fortune to his creditors, and as for the Brick Trust, it was very likely indeed that it would weather the gale. The near close of the war was creating a boom in all business. And then, amid the general joyousness, there was perhaps a tendency to lenient judgment; even jurymen were not wholly insensitive to such a tendency.
"Then you don't think father will be convicted?"
"I don't think so. But of course he will be ruined. You know what I have thought of your father's business methods, and my opinion is unchanged. But I have learned more charitable judgments than I used to have. I see now that men may be criminals without the least suspicion that they are acting criminally. When a man has done wrong for a long course of years, he gets to believe that his wrong is right—the light that is in him becomes darkness. He simply steers his life by an untrue compass, and no one is more amazed than himself when shipwreck happens. That is your father's case, I honestly believe. He is the victim of the force that he has helped to create."
"But you say he has not been dishonest in this affair?"
"No, not explicitly—perhaps not implicitly. That is something which no one will ever know. The fault lies deeper. It lies in greed. A man wants more than he has a just right to have, is not content with honest returns for honest work, becomes unscrupulous, comes to believe that business is warfare, in which the spoils are for the victor, and by the time he reaches this point his sense of right and wrong is fatally confused. He does not really know what is his and what is another's. And the worst of it is that the world in which he moves is no wiser. He finds himself applauded for acts which in a juster system of society would cover him with shame. Ah, Arthur! 'beware of covetousness'—no deeper word than that was ever uttered."
He spoke with a certain sad quietness, very different from his old clamant vehemence. Arthur could not but notice it, and he found himself looking with a kind of wonder on the face of his friend. The face seemed to have taken on a new aspect. It was paler and thinner, with an increased loftiness of brow; there were new lines round the mouth, deeper shadows underneath the eyes, and the lock of hair that fell across the forehead was almost white; but the most striking thing was that a certain subtle fire that once lit the face had disappeared. The keen prophetic look was still there, but it was veiled, dulled, no longer edged with expectancy; a prophet's face, but no more the face of a prophet who saw the morning. And in the slow, quiet voice there was an accent of wearied hope, almost of despair.
Vickars caught the look of wonder on Arthur's face, and said, "Ah! I see you are surprised that I should speak so tolerantly. I used to say that I could make the world a paradise if I were sole despot of the world for a single year, didn't I?
"And now?"
"Now I see that I spoke foolishly. The world is not so easily transformed."
"Is it you that are transformed?"
"Yes. I used to hate men for being evil; and the only weapon I had to attack them with was hatred. I have come to see that hatred is the wrong weapon. You must love men, if you are to change them. You must love even the vile, and those most bitterly opposed to you. You cannot even understand them unless you love them. I hated your father once, because I did not understand the kind of temptations he endured. Now I have come to understand these temptations, and I find it in my heart to pity him."
"O Vickars!" cried Arthur. "You are teaching me a hard lesson. I also have hated.... I have never made allowances. I have indulged contempt, I have behaved like the worst kind of prig. But do you know, since this happened ... well, how can I put it? ... I have seen my father in a new light. And now it seems to me a wonderful thing that he is as good as he is."
"Yes, that is precisely true, and not only of your father, but of all men. The truly divine thing about man is that he is always better than you might expect him to be. It is not the depravity of human nature that is its outstanding feature—it is the goodness. And you find the goodness in the very heart of the depravity, like the pearl in the oyster. But I'm preaching—it's an old habit of mine: forgive me."
"It's a sermon I much needed," said Arthur humbly.
"We all need it, and those who think themselves the best need it most." And then, with a touch of the old whimsical humour, he added, "Whenever you hear a man preaching very earnestly against a vice, you may be sure he has it. I am a case in point."
After that there was little said for a long time. Arthur sat gazing from the window at the flying scroll of country, the dear desirable green land, with its ancient parks, clear shallow streams, trim cottages, level lawns, and wealth of flowers—all so different from that majestic, half-barbaric vastness which he had left. The tears filled his eyes, as they have filled the eyes of many a returning exile. Why did men ever leave it, this land which in every detail was a finished picture, created by the art of centuries? Where else could they expect to find such "haunts of ancient peace," dreamy nooks, gray towers and spires, leisurely, modest happiness, infinite, calm security? And, as he looked, there came to him again the old thought that the only life worth living was one remote from cities. Had his father lived here, earning modest competence, how different the story! It was the city that had snared him, killed the best in him, infected him with its fierce, unnatural greed. O damnable, dreadful London! how many hast thou slain, thou Harlot of the Nations, with thy skirts full of blood! And yet men went on building new and even worse Londons, undeterred by past warnings—New York, with its roaring tides of greed and clang of gold; Chicago, with its naked barbarism, the pure seas evermore polluted, the fair landscapes blackened, the skies stained with pestilence. O! it was horrible! If he could but save his father from this—it might not yet be too late. And there sprang up in his mind that pathetic fallacy, so often asserted by religion, but so seldom true, that all suffering purifies; that from wounded pride and overthrown ambition there must needs come the nobler heart: whereas every one knows that suffering more often has its issue in bitter stoicism, and injured pride clamours for revenge, and there is no more deadly force than defeated ambition, which draws a new strength from rage.
It was a hard problem for a youth of twenty-three to grapple: no wonder that he failed.
But that desirable green land spoke its message all the same. "Man walketh in a vain show and disquieteth himself in vain"—so ran the message. Even Vickars had found that message true. He had beaten himself weary against the strong bastions of the world, and in vain. Had he also learned the difficult lesson that the most one man can do is to live his own life the best way he can, satisfied that nothing really perishes in the vast sum of things, content if he can add his insignificant unit of effort to a growing righteousness? Perhaps he had. Perhaps also that was the only real lesson life had to teach us.
He was aroused from his reverie by the hand of Vickars on his shoulder.
"My dear fellow," he said, "there's something else I have to say to you, something I find it very difficult to say."
"About my father?"
"No; I have told you all there is to tell. Believe me, I have kept nothing back."
"What then?"
"Have you thought of what this calamity has meant for others beside your father? Have you thought what effect it might have upon your mother?"
"She is not ill?"
"No," said Vickars solemnly, "she is not ill. She is ill no longer. She is at rest."
"O Vickars!—not dead?"
"Let us use a better word—at rest. She is where she has wished to be these many weary years."
"And I did not know it. O mother!—mother!"
Vickars turned his face away from that sacred grief. After a few moments he said, "Can you bear that I should tell you about it?"
"Yes. Tell me."
"I think she was never the same after you left, Arthur. I told you she came to see us, didn't I? After that first visit she came often. She honoured us with her confidence. Little by little we learned her story—the story of a saintly heart at war with circumstance. I believe the one supreme force that enabled her to live was the purpose to redeem you from the kind of life that threatened you. She summed herself up in that purpose. When it was once achieved, her hold on life gradually relaxed. She had no wish to live longer, composed herself for the grave, and spoke cheerfully of her departure. Let this be your great comfort, my dear boy—she was absolutely sure of you, of your ability, I mean, to live the high life she had always coveted for you. Her joy in dying was that you were safe."
"When ... when did it happen?"
"On the day your father was arrested. She never knew that, God be thanked. She went quite quietly, without pain. She simply slept, and woke—somewhere else."
"O my poor father!"
"Yes. It is right you should think of him. All his life fell at one blow. There is a sweetness in your grief—you had been the one happiness of her closing years; but think of the bitterness that was in his."
"Why was I not told?" he cried fiercely.
"You had enough to bear. We knew you would come home, and we waited."
"But you terrify me. How much more are you keeping back? Is Elizabeth safe? Is there any other cup that I must drink?"
"Hush! hush! I give you my word I have told you everything. Don't make it hard for me, Arthur. It sounds a poor thing to say that I have acted for the best, but it is the only thing left to say."
"Forgive me. I know you have."
So that inner voice which had told him that he would see his mother's face no more had spoken truly. How vividly he recalled that night of moonlight, that earnest pleading voice, that solemn farewell! But, as the anguish of the shock subsided, he found nothing left but softened thought, and the beginnings of a sad pathetic gratitude. She had never known the worst, for which he, too, could say, "God be thanked!" One significant phrase of Vickars vibrated through his mind like a chord of music—"she composed herself for the grave." He could see the tired hands meekly folded, the threads of life dropping one by one from the weary fingers, a holy softness on her face, the first wave of the Eternal peace rippling round the heart. That was not death—no, mere rest. And there came to him, too, like a sudden revelation, a thought which he was never to forget, the divine essential sacrifice in the lives of all good women. To live not only for others but in others, to toil and be forgotten, to be content that something fashioned from her own mind and flesh by prayer and tears and humble renunciation would live when she was gone, a flower drawing strength and loveliness from her own buried life—that was woman's lot, a thing divine as the Cross itself, and like the Cross, the expression of the eternal sacrifice of self.
"God help me to be worthy of such a sacrifice," he prayed. "But there never yet lived a man who was worthy of what a mother does for him. God help me to remember, and to see in all women something holy, for her dear sake."
The train was rapidly nearing Paddington. The blue sky was tinged with smoky grayness, the green fields were discoloured, and long rows of mean, shabby houses took the place of white cottages under hanging woods.
"And now, pull yourself together," Vickars said. "God help you in the next few hours."
"I think He will," said Arthur simply.
"I forgot to tell you, Bundy expects you to stay with him. He has a kind of palace somewhere in Kensington, I believe."
"I don't think I can do that."
"No, I don't think I would. You should be with your father to-night."
"If..." and the rest he dared not utter.
"You mustn't think of that. I feel morally sure that he will be acquitted. And then he will want you badly. You understand?"
"Yes. I understand."
The train glided into Paddington. Bundy saw him at once as he stepped from the train. His honest face was flushed, his eyes bright with excitement.
"I have a carriage ready!" he cried. "Be quick!"
"Where are we going?"
"To the Old Bailey. The jury are now considering their verdict. If we drive fast, we shall be just in time."
The carriage rolled out of Paddington into the familiar London streets. The gaiety of summer clothed the city. High white clouds sailed in a sea of blue, houses were gay with window flowers, women in bright clothing, themselves like flowers, gave colour to the streets. In Oxford Street flags were flying, the signals of a recent victory in Africa. There was an indescribable sense of resurrection in the air, as if not alone the earth, but the hearts of men and women had won release from some deep grave of fear. Arthur watched the scene with dull, unseeing eyes; and to his morbid sensitiveness it seemed as though London laughed in mockery of his grief.
Vickars sat beside him in silence; Bundy watched the two anxiously, his eyes full of tears. He wished to say something comforting; and from time to time made some casual remark, but uttered it hesitatingly, with an apologetic smile. It was precisely like the action of a good friendly dog, who lays his warm head on his master's unresponsive hand, and watches him with wistful eyes, delicately fearful of intrusion on a grief he cannot comprehend. It was evident, however, that Bundy had something which he really wished to say, and at last it came.
"You'll be wondering, after what I said to you in New York, why I haven't helped your father?"
"No. I've never thought about it, except to know you would be as good as your word."
"And so I would have been. But——"
"You needn't explain. There is too much love between us for that."
"But I must. And I would rather do it at once and get it over. Your father refused all help. You, know his pride, and he's prouder now than ever he was. One might almost suppose it pleased him to stand alone, to fight with his back to the wall, to defy the world to do its worst on him. And I believe that is what he really does feel."
"I think I can understand."
"Then you'll understand why I could not help him, why no one could. I offered him anything he liked to ask, and this is what he said: 'No, Bundy; I've brewed the cup, and I'll drink it. I don't want any sugar in it. No one shall ever say that Archibold Masterman was a coward.' That was what he said to me, and he said it like a fallen emperor. It was foolish, but there was something great in it too. I felt that it was great."
"I think so too."
"It was great." The phrase was a portrait—vital, indubitable, convincing. During all these miserable days and nights Arthur had laboured to fashion some portrait of his father. He had seen him bent, shame-stricken, prematurely aged; had imagined him leaning on his young strength for succour, acknowledging his errors, voluble in explanation, perhaps fierce in accusation of those who had failed him or betrayed him; had, in fact, seen him in every attitude but the real one; and now, as though a curtain lifted, he saw his father painted at a touch, with an instinctive penetration, an absolute veracity. He was a fighter, and would fight to the last. His pride fed upon defeat. Calamity had given him nerves of steel. He would drink the cup that he had brewed, and drink it with a smile. "No sugar"—that phrase said everything. Pity, sympathy, help, consolation—he was above them, beyond them, indifferent to them; a man who bared his breast to the flight of arrows, thrust his hand in the flame without a shudder, challenged the thunderbolt, upheld while the flame consumed him by a scorn more potent than his anguish. Yes, it was great—a Promethean greatness, which defies the heart-eating vulture. He might have known so much, if he had thought about it. In a sense, he had always known it, for he had always, even as a boy, felt the element of greatness in his father. But now, for the first time, he really measured it, and his heart quailed before it, foreseeing elements in this imminent meeting with his father which he had not so much as guessed.
They had driven fast. The carriage passed rapidly by the old Church of St. Sepulchre, and under the walls of Newgate, stopping at last at the mean, insignificant doors of the Old Bailey.
The pavements were thronged. From the court a great crowd was pouring out. And already, from the neighbouring newspaper offices, men and boys were racing breathlessly, shouting "Verdict!" Above the clamour of the street the shrill cry rose, "Verdict! Verdict!"
Bundy leapt from the carriage, and plunged into the throng. He came back a moment later, waving an evening paper.
"What is it?"
"Scales five years; Masterman acquitted!"
"Thank God!"
And then the tension broke. Arthur found himself sobbing, with the arm of Vickars round his neck.
"Take me to my father at once," he said. "I wish to go home with him."
"Very well," said Bundy. "Wait here till I find him."
The crowd rapidly thinned, till, in a few moments, where a roaring torrent of life had run, but an insignificant ripple flowed and eddied. The tragic bubble, so long watched by thousands of eager eyes, had burst; it was a thing of the past, to be speedily forgotten. The carriage moved unimpeded now to the doors of the court. A few stragglers still hung around, in the hope of seeing once more the protagonists in the finished drama.
A long black van with a grated door at the back drew up against the curb. Two policemen came out of the court-house, looked warily up and down the street, and disappeared again. The man who drove the van nodded to them, and went on reading his evening paper.
The policemen reappeared, with a man walking between them. The man's head was bowed, his coat-collar turned up, his hat drawn down over his eyes.
Arthur had a brief glimpse of a face yellow as wax, a pair of shifty, bloodshot eyes, and he shuddered. It was Scales. The door of the van closed, and, through the barred window, that yellow, awful face looked out, in a last glimpse at liberty. A long, terrible look, gathering up and flashing to the memory things that would be seen no more, unforgetable things that would become the torture of sleep and dreams, little things, such as sunlight flashing on a pool of water, sparrows in the gutter, a broken flower lying in the road, a girl's languorous face turned toward her lover, a beggar gazing into the window of a cook-shop—and then the lids fell upon the bloodshot eyes, and the van rolled away.
"And that might have been my father," thought Arthur. And with the thought came a pang of pity for the man in the black van. Not a good man, not even a lovable man; without grace, without charm, inherently mean-natured—yet, were he a thousandfold worse than he was, to be pitied as a creature going to the torture. And, after all, who should judge even a Scales with justice, who declare how far he was a victim of the evil system which had inflamed his avarice—the victim, too, perhaps of some potency of evil in his own blood, some ghostly hand stretched out of the illimitable past, from whose predestined clutch he could not escape? Ah, God! who should judge?
And now at last he saw him—his father. Archibold Masterman stood in the doorway of the court-house. He came down the steps with a firm tread, looking up and down the street with a calm, defiant glance, his lips compressed in scornful challenge. Yet scorn could not conceal the ravage wrought in him by his misfortunes. The face had lost its colour, it was drawn and haggard, and the hair was nearly white. He was talking with Bundy, and he smiled as he talked. He drew near the waiting carriage, opened the door, and stepped in.
"Father!"
"Ah, Arthur!"—no other word.
There was a hard grip of the hand, a sudden heat that flushed the haggard face, and then iron-cold composure.
"Won't you come to my house, Masterman? If only for to-night," pleaded Bundy.
"No; I want to go home.... To such a home as I've got," he added bitterly.
"Well, God bless you, my friend!" said Bundy softly.
"I'm not asking anything of God that I know of, and you needn't ask anything for me. I reckon I can look after myself. Tell the driver, Eagle House, Highbourne Gardens."
And the carriage moved off.
They reached the house, and entered it in silence. Masterman went at once to his room—the room in which his wife had died—and remained there. What memories, what remorses met him there, who can say? Arthur, passing that closed door at midnight, could hear his father walking up and down like a caged lion. He stood listening to that slow, continuous footfall; but he dared not knock upon the door. He went downstairs again, knowing sleep impossible, and sat in the deserted dining-room, still pursued by that inevitable footfall. A dreadful thought possessed his mind—his father might be contemplating suicide. When, for an instant, the footfall ceased the sweat of fear stood upon his forehead and his flesh crept. When it commenced again he drew a long breath of relief. So the brief summer night passed, sleepless for both father and son, and at last, through the unshuttered window, the first ray of dawn stole in.
The house appeared both deserted and dismantled. The pictures and much of the furniture had disappeared. Instead of the array of smiling servants, a single sour old woman occupied the kitchen. From her, Arthur learned that the pictures and the more valuable furniture had been sold at some auction rooms in the city; and that Helen had left the house upon the day of her mother's funeral, and had not returned. Did she know where she had gone? To some friend—so she said. But no one knew.
The father and son met at breakfast next morning. It was a miserable meal, ill-cooked and coarsely served—very different from the generous luxury of other days. The cloth was stained and torn, the china broken, the food wretched. Masterman appeared to notice none of these things. He drank the straw-coloured tea and ate the burned toast with complete indifference. He seemed indifferent even to the presence of his son.
When the meal was over, he said, with a mocking abruptness, "So you've come home to pity me, I suppose? Well, you and me have got to have an explanation. As well now as later."
"I came home to help you, father—if I could."
"Ah! did you?" he sneered. "Well, let me tell you I want no man's pity and no man's help. You think I'm done for, don't you? So does everybody. But I'm not. The world has cheated me, but I'm going to get even with the world. I'm going to get my revenge. I've years of work in me—years of work—and I've a dozen schemes for success."
And then he began to talk in a loud, scornful, hectoring voice. Failure? Only fools talked of failure, and they failed themselves because they were fools. He was going to start again. He would start that very day. No sensible man would think the worse of him for what had happened. There were scores of men in the city who had come much nearer a prison than he had; and what were they now? They were rich, honoured, respected. They had succeeded, and no one reminded them of past misfortunes. The very men who had tried to ruin them were now licking their boots. Well, he'd have the world licking his boots, too, before he died. Only he'd kick their lying faces in when the time came, that's what he'd do. He'd teach them. He'd let them know what kind of man Archibold Masterman was.
There was much more of the same kind, a loud outrageous monologue, to which Arthur listened with a sinking heart. It was obviously useless to interrupt or interfere. It was the fierce outcry of a man in torment, the immedicable torment of an injured pride. And, as Arthur looked upon that coldly furious face, he began to suspect, what was indeed the truth, that his father's mind hung upon the verge of madness.
And this impression was confirmed when, without warning, the gust of rage ceased, and was replaced by a pathetic weak humility.
"I somehow don't feel well this morning. I didn't sleep last night. Perhaps I'd better wait a day or two and get my strength built up. O Arthur! I've had lots to try me. I've had a hard life, with very little in it but toil and trouble. And I'm a man that's had sorrows. Your mother's dead. They buried her while I was in gaol. They wouldn't give me bail at first. Did I tell you that? When they let me out on bail, she'd gone. They'd buried her in Highbourne Cemetery. They showed me her grave. And Helen wasn't pleased with me. I did everything I could to please the girl. And yet, when my trouble came, she flew at me like a cat. And she's gone away too—I don't know where. I reckon she thinks me a poor kind of father. Well—well—I'm a man that's had sorrows. And I suppose you'll be going away too? Eh?"
"Father, father, you know I won't go away. I love you, and you used to love me. Don't you love me still?"
"Well, I don't know, Arthur. I don't know that I love any one. It doesn't seem much good loving people, does it? They always go away. Well—well——"
And then he relapsed into a gloomy silence, from which nothing could arouse him. So he sat for hours, gazing out of window, until he fell asleep in his chair.
This scene was but a sample of many similar scenes. Sometimes he would rouse himself, dress, and go down into the city, full of all kinds of schemes to rehabilitate his fortunes. From these excursions he would return late at night, weary, but full of impossible hopes. He would try the Stock Exchange. That was where fortunes were made. Hard work didn't pay; it was the gambler who got both the luck and the money. He had had a tip from some one who knew; such and such a stock was bound to rise. And then, with pen and paper, he would work out his illusory profits, his hands trembling, his face glowing, and reach the most surprising and incredible conclusions.
"If I only had the money!" he would cry. "I would buy upon a margin. Bruce and Whitson would be proud to do business for me, for old times' sake. Masterman isn't forgotten in the city, I can tell you. Not by a long chalk. All I want is a chance, just a little money to begin with."
"I have a hundred pounds, father," Arthur replied to one of these appeals. "You can have that."
"A hundred pounds! Yes, that would be enough." And then, with a sudden flare of the old pride, he exclaimed, "No, no. That wouldn't do at all. I'm not sunk so low as to be a pensioner upon my children. I'll get what I want out of the world yet, and I'll get it by myself. I'm not very well yet, but wait till I get my nerve back, and I'll show you. Don't you be afraid about me. I'm playing a waiting game, and I'm going to win—you mind that!"
So a month passed, marked by tragic incalculable alternations of temper in his father. No one came near the house. Bundy had called twice, but Masterman had refused to see him. The church people appeared to have forgotten his existence. When the Sundays came, Masterman drew down the blinds, and sat alone in his office. If Arthur left the house it was but for the briefest absence. He would go round to Lonsdale Road, exchange a few words with Vickars, taste a raptured moment with Elizabeth, and return in haste and often in fear. For he could not calculate his father's moods, he did not know what he might be tempted to do, and he dared not leave him solitary.
And yet, all the time, Masterman's mind was slowly recovering its poise. His anger still burned, but it was now with smouldering rather than with active flame. His boastfulness declined. There were moments, not only of humility, but of extreme gentleness, like the gentleness of a sick child. They were but moments, often followed by gusts of bitter speech. In the bitter moments Arthur was to him the prodigal son who had deserted him; in the tender moments the only human creature on whose love he might repose. It was Arthur's lot to listen in silence to a hundred hurting comments on his conduct, uttered with sardonic scorn, and all the talent for invective which a disordered brain and wounded heart could contrive. And then, just when he was goaded almost beyond endurance, the mood would change, the black squall of rage would pass, and an inimitable softness, like the softness of a rain-washed sky, succeed it.
"I begin to think I'm a fool," he said once, after one of these explosions. "Well, you must forgive me. I'm a new kind of Job, and, like Job, I speak foolishly. I never could make out why they called Job patient. The thing I admire in Job is that he wasn't patient. He let himself rip. He cursed himself tired. Well, that's like me. I've got to do it, or burst."
"But Job trusted God through it all, father. Can't you?"
"Did he? Well, if he did at first, he didn't in the middle, any way. And I'm in the middle of the mess. And, besides, I don't see what God's got to do with it. As I understand it, a man's got to go through with things to the end, and the only satisfaction he'll get out of it is that he hasn't squealed."
It was a poor enough philosophy no doubt, but there was no denying the tonic virtue in it. And perhaps it was the only kind of medicine for this mind diseased, as Arthur came to see. For a nature of such stubborn fibre the commonplaces of religion had no efficacy. And with that stubbornness there was allied a certain indomitable honesty, which perceived their essential falsity. Let it stand to Masterman's credit that he was unwilling to blame God for his own misdoings, or to ask for a release to which he knew he had no right. He would bear his own burden, simply because, in the long run, that was what all men had to do, religion notwithstanding. And, whereas the attempt to shift his burden upon God would have fed his weakness, the very effort to bear it alone increased his strength.
One evening, when the gentler mood was on him, he drew from Arthur his story of his own doings since the day he left London. Up to this time he had not manifested the least interest; it was a subject he had purposely avoided. When Arthur described the life upon the ranch, he had many questions to ask.
"Then you worked with your hands, did you?"
"Of course, father. No day labourer ever worked harder."
"And you liked it?"
"Yes, I liked it. It was hard enough at first; but I soon got used to that, and I liked it."
"Well, I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't told me. It seems sort of queer when you come to think about it."
"What's queer about it?"
"Why, this. I never meant that you should do anything of that kind, schemed to avoid it—sent you to Oxford, made a gentleman of you, as the saying is; and why did I do it? Because I'd had a hard life, and didn't want you to have it. And here you go and do just what I did at your age—work like a common labourer. Seems a kind of destiny in it, as if it had to be."
"Then destiny has been kind, father, for I have never been so truly happy as at Kootenay. I would a thousand times rather work with my hands, and eat the fruit of my labour, than get the softest job a city could offer me."
"Don't you get thinking that living in a city is a soft job, for it isn't. But I know what you mean. There's a kind of satisfaction in working out of doors with your hands; that's what you mean, isn't it? Well, I used to feel that way—once. I can mind how I used to whistle at my work, and had a jest for my mates, and got more real pleasure out of a pot of ale and a plate of bread-and-cheese than I've ever had since, in fine living.... I don't know but what that was the happiest time of my life, after all; though of course I didn't think so then. I can mind the little house I lived in, and the patch of garden. I'd be working in that garden by five o'clock on a summer morning, and again late at night, after work. Seems to me, as I look back, that in those days I hadn't got a real care. It's a queer thing to think about. Makes you feel as if life had fooled you after all. But I reckon that's about what life is for most of us—kind of game of blind hookey. Well, I've lost the game, that's evident; and it seems as if you'd won it."
It was a curious confession from such a man. Arthur recollected that Bundy had said much the same thing. He also had spoken of a little house with mignonette under the window, with its unforgetable memories of content and peace, and had summed up his life in one little bit of dearly bought wisdom—"We don't know what we want, and, with all our trying, get the wrong thing after all." Had his father also made that sad discovery, and made it too late?
All that evening Masterman was very quiet and subdued. He talked at intervals, and in snatches, of various things in his own past life, speaking of them with ironic sad composure, as of things which lay a long way off, in which he had ceased to be interested. And yet there appeared to be some method in this vague reminiscent talk, some point toward which his thoughts were working, something that he found it difficult to say.
At last he reached his point. "When you and me parted—" He stopped, as though swallowing something bitter, and began again. "When you went away, do you remember you said something to me? You said I was dishonest. You didn't ought to have said that."
"O father! don't speak of that!"
"I reckon it's got to be spoke of. I want to know what you think of me now."
"Father, you have no need to defend yourself to me."
"Haven't I? Well, I suppose that's kindly meant, and I ought to be grateful. Only I'm not; and I'll tell you why. Do you know why I'm sitting in this empty house, feeding on the pig's swill that old lady in the kitchen calls food? Perhaps you think I like it? Well, I don't. Do you know why there's no furniture in the rooms? Do you know why I'm a beggar? Do you know why the men I knew in the city turn their faces away when I pass, why the men I used to lunch with won't speak to me and are too busy to see me when I call? Well, I'll tell you. It's just because I've been too honest. I had no call to give my fortune to the creditors of the Amalgamated. They hadn't a pretence of right to it. It was mine, every penny of it. But I did it, just because I was honest, and proud of my honesty. There's not half a dozen men in the city would have done that. Those jeering scoundrels who pass me in the street as if I was dirt, and laugh and whisper to one another, 'That's poor old Masterman, poor old bankrupt Masterman; and lucky he ain't in gaol'—there's not one of them as would have done it. But bankrupt Masterman did it, and he knew he had no call to do it. He was too proud to let any man call him a thief. If he hadn't done it, he'd be riding in his carriage now, and folk would ha' said, 'Mighty smart man, that Masterman,' and they'd have thought the better of me. Well, that's what I want you to remember. No, I don't want you to answer me. I'm not concerned to know what you think about it. I know I'm down, but I've got my pride still, and I don't care what people think about me. I've been robbed of almost everything, and I needn't have been but for this—that I'm honest!"
He spoke with extraordinary heat, striding up and down the room, his face dark and harsh. He was again the Masterman of the old days, full of fierce passion, proud, strong, not to be contradicted. But amid all the harshness of that strong face there shone something new, something never seen there before, like light flashed fitfully through dark clouds—an element of dignity that was almost nobleness. Arthur gazed upon that spectacle in a sort of silent wonder. And once more the sense of elemental bigness in his father came to him with vivid force. Here was a nature that overtopped his own at all points. It was great even in its faultiness, and who could estimate its crude astounding virtues?
There was no return of this mood. The next day Masterman spent several hours out of doors, coming home late at night, weary and silent.
On the morning following, Arthur heard him moving up and down a little-visited garret of the house.
He was there a long time. Presently he called, "Arthur!"
Arthur obeyed eagerly, his ever-active fear that his father might be tempted to some dreadful act giving wings to his feet.
He found his father kneeling beside a common deal box, the contents of which were flung upon the floor. These contents appeared to consist of old discarded clothing, among which were discernible a blue cloth cap, a rough jacket, and a pair of stained corduroy trousers.
"Do you know what these are, Arthur?"
"No. What are they, father?"
"They're the clothes I used to wear when I was a workman. I've always kept them by me—sort of souvenir, you know. Well, I'm going to wear them again."
"But, father, I don't understand,"
"Don't you?" he said grimly. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm going to work again. Going back to what I was forty years ago. It's as good as a story, isn't it?"
"But you're not going to be a common workman. You surely don't mean that, father."
"That's just what I do mean. You can work with your hands, and so can I. I reckon it's our destiny. Grimes has given me a job—you remember Grimes, don't you? He's a bit of a builder at Tottenham nowadays, and calls himself a contractor. Well, he's given me a job, sort of foreman, at two quid a week, and good pay, too. It's a sight more than I'd have done for an old bankrupt fellow, close on sixty. I'm going to work for Grimes. I begin to-morrow, and you'll have to put up with the fact the best way you can that your father's no longer Archibold Masterman, Esq., as might have been Sir Archibold, but just a common workman."