'Don't go putting humbug into my child's head now, Mr. Falconer—'ticing her away from her home. Everybody knows my Nell's been an idiot since ever she was born. Poor child!'
'I ain't your child,' cried the girl, passionately. 'I ain't nobody's child.'
'You are God's child,' said Falconer, who stood looking on with his eyes shining, but otherwise in a state of absolute composure.
'Am I? Am I? You won't forget to send for me, sir?'
'That I won't,' he answered.
She turned instantly towards the woman, and snapped her fingers in her face.
'I don't care that for you,' she cried. 'You dare to touch me now, and I'll bite you.'
'Come, come, Nelly, you mustn't be rude,' said Falconer.
'No, sir, I won't no more, leastways to nobody but she. It's she makes me do all the wicked things, it is.'
She snapped her fingers in her face again, and then burst out crying.
'She will leave you alone now, I think,' said Falconer. 'She knows it will be quite as well for her not to cross me.'
This he said very significantly, as he turned to the door, where he bade them a general good-night. When we reached the street, I was too bewildered to offer any remark. Falconer was the first to speak.
'It always comes back upon me, as if I had never known it before, that women like some of those were of the first to understand our Lord.'
'Some of them wouldn't have understood him any more than the Pharisee, though.'
'I'm not so sure of that. Of course there are great differences. There are good and bad amongst them as in every class. But one thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.'
'I am afraid you will not get society to agree with you,' I said, foolishly.
'I have no wish that society should agree with me; for if it did, it would be sure to do so upon the worst of principles. It is better that society should be cruel, than that it should call the horrible thing a trifle: it would know nothing between.'
Through the city—though it was only when we crossed one of the main thoroughfares that I knew where we were—we came into the region of Bethnal Green. From house to house till it grew very late, Falconer went, and I went with him. I will not linger on this part of our wanderings. Where I saw only dreadful darkness, Falconer always would see some glimmer of light. All the people into whose houses we went knew him. They were all in the depths of poverty. Many of them were respectable. With some of them he had long talks in private, while I waited near. At length he said,
'I think we had better be going home, Mr. Gordon. You must be tired.'
'I am, rather,' I answered. 'But it doesn't matter, for I have nothing to do to-morrow.'
'We shall get a cab, I dare say, before we go far.'
'Not for me. I am not so tired, but that I would rather walk,' I said.
'Very well,' he returned. 'Where do you live?'
I told him.
'I will take you the nearest way.'
'You know London marvellously.'
'Pretty well now,' he answered.
We were somewhere near Leather Lane about one o'clock. Suddenly we came upon two tiny children standing on the pavement, one on each side of the door of a public-house. They could not have been more than two and three. They were sobbing a little—not much. The tiny creatures stood there awfully awake in sleeping London, while even their own playmates were far off in the fairyland of dreams.
'This is the kind of thing,' I said, 'that makes me doubt whether there be a God in heaven.'
'That is only because he is down here,' answered Falconer, 'taking such good care of us all that you can't see him. There is not a gin-palace, or yet lower hell in London, in which a man or woman can be out of God. The whole being love, there is nothing for you to set it against and judge it by. So you are driven to fancies.'
The house was closed, but there was light above the door. We went up to the children, and spoke to them, but all we could make out was that mammie was in there. One of them could not speak at all. Falconer knocked at the door. A good-natured-looking Irishwoman opened it a little way and peeped out.
'Here are two children crying at your door, ma'am,' said Falconer.
'Och, the darlin's! they want their mother.'
'Do you know her, then?'
'True for you, and I do. She's a mighty dacent woman in her way when the drink's out uv her, and very kind to the childher; but oncet she smells the dhrop o' gin, her head's gone intirely. The purty craytures have waked up, an' she not come home, and they've run out to look after her.'
Falconer stood a moment as if thinking what would be best. The shriek of a woman rang through the night.
'There she is!' said the Irishwoman. 'For God's sake don't let her get a hould o' the darlints. She's ravin' mad. I seen her try to kill them oncet.'
The shrieks came nearer and nearer, and after a few moments the woman appeared in the moonlight, tossing her arms over her head, and screaming with a despair for which she yet sought a defiant expression. Her head was uncovered, and her hair flying in tangles; her sleeves were torn, and her gaunt arms looked awful in the moonlight. She stood in the middle of the street, crying again and again, with shrill laughter between, 'Nobody cares for me, and I care for nobody! Ha! ha! ha!'
'Mammie! mammie!' cried the elder of the children, and ran towards her.
The woman heard, and rushed like a fury towards the child. Falconer too ran, and caught up the child. The woman gave a howl and rushed towards the other. I caught up that one. With a last shriek, she dashed her head against the wall of the public-house, dropped on the pavement, and lay still.
Falconer set the child down, lifted the wasted form in his arms, and carried it into the house. The face was blue as that of a strangled corpse. She was dead.
'Was she a married woman?' Falconer asked.
'It's myself can't tell you sir,' the Irishwoman answered. 'I never saw any boy with her.'
'Do you know where she lived?'
'No, sir. Somewhere not far off, though. The children will know.'
But they stood staring at their mother, and we could get nothing out of them. They would not move from the corpse.
'I think we may appropriate this treasure-trove,' said Falconer, turning at last to me; and as he spoke, he took the eldest in his arms. Then, turning to the woman, he gave her a card, saying, 'If any inquiry is made about them, there is my address.—Will you take the other, Mr. Gordon?'
I obeyed. The children cried no more. After traversing a few streets, we found a cab, and drove to a house in Queen Square, Bloomsbury.
Falconer got out at the door of a large house, and rung the bell; then got the children out, and dismissed the cab. There we stood in the middle of the night, in a silent, empty square, each with a child in his arms. In a few minutes we heard the bolts being withdrawn. The door opened, and a tall graceful form wrapped in a dressing-gown, appeared.
'I have brought you two babies, Miss St. John,' said Falconer. 'Can you take them?'
'To be sure I can,' she answered, and turned to lead the way. 'Bring them in.'
We followed her into a little back room. She put down her candle, and went straight to the cupboard, whence she brought a sponge-cake, from which she cut a large piece for each of the children.
'What a mercy they are, Robert,—those little gates in the face! Red Lane leads direct to the heart,' she said, smiling, as if she rejoiced in the idea of taming the little wild angelets. 'Don't you stop. You are tired enough, I am sure. I will wake my maid, and we'll get them washed and put to bed at once.'
She was closing the door, when Falconer turned.
'Oh! Miss St. John,' he said, 'I was forgetting. Could you go down to No. 13 in Soap Lane—you know it, don't you?'
'Yes. Quite well.'
'Ask for a girl called Nell—a plain, pock-marked young girl—and take her away with you.'
'When shall I go?'
'To-morrow morning. But I shall be in. Don't go till you see me. Good-night.'
We took our leave without more ado.
'What a lady-like woman to be the matron of an asylum!' I said.
Falconer gave a little laugh.
'That is no asylum. It is a private house.'
'And the lady?'
'Is a lady of private means,' he answered, 'who prefers Bloomsbury to Belgravia, because it is easier to do noble work in it. Her heaven is on the confines of hell.'
'What will she do with those children?'
'Kiss them and wash them and put them to bed.'
'And after that?'
'Give them bread and milk in the morning.'
'And after that?'
'Oh! there's time enough. We'll see. There's only one thing she won't do.'
'What is that?'
'Turn them out again.'
A pause followed, I cogitating.
'Are you a society, then?' I asked at length.
'No. At least we don't use the word. And certainly no other society would acknowledge us.'
'What are you, then?'
'Why should we be anything, so long as we do our work?'
'Don't you think there is some affectation in refusing a name?'
'Yes, if the name belongs to you? Not otherwise.'
'Do you lay claim to no epithet of any sort?'
'We are a church, if you like. There!'
'Who is your clergyman?'
'Nobody.'
'Where do you meet?'
'Nowhere.'
'What are your rules, then?'
'We have none.'
'What makes you a church?'
'Divine Service.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'The sort of thing you have seen to-night.'
'What is your creed?'
'Christ Jesus.'
'But what do you believe about him?'
'What we can. We count any belief in him—the smallest—better than any belief about him—the greatest—or about anything else besides. But we exclude no one.'
'How do you manage without?'
'By admitting no one.'
'I cannot understand you.'
'Well, then: we are an undefined company of people, who have grown into human relations with each other naturally, through one attractive force—love for human beings, regarding them as human beings only in virtue of the divine in them.'
'But you must have some rules,' I insisted.
'None whatever. They would cause us only trouble. We have nothing to take us from our work. Those that are most in earnest, draw most together; those that are on the outskirts have only to do nothing, and they are free of us. But we do sometimes ask people to help us—not with money.'
'But who are the we?'
'Why you, if you will do anything, and I and Miss St. John and twenty others—and a great many more I don't know, for every one is a centre to others. It is our work that binds us together.'
'Then when that stops you drop to pieces.'
'Yes, thank God. We shall then die. There will be no corporate body—which means a bodied body, or an unsouled body, left behind to simulate life, and corrupt, and work no end of disease. We go to ashes at once, and leave no corpse for a ghoul to inhabit and make a vampire of. When our spirit is dead, our body is vanished.'
'Then you won't last long.'
'Then we oughtn't to last long.'
'But the work of the world could not go on so.'
'We are not the life of the world. God is. And when we fail, he can and will send out more and better labourers into his harvest-field. It is a divine accident by which we are thus associated.'
'But surely the church must be otherwise constituted.'
'My dear sir, you forget: I said we were a church, not the church.'
'Do you belong to the Church of England?'
'Yes, some of us. Why should we not? In as much as she has faithfully preserved the holy records and traditions, our obligations to her are infinite. And to leave her would be to quarrel, and start a thousand vermiculate questions, as Lord Bacon calls them, for which life is too serious in my eyes. I have no time for that.'
'Then you count the Church of England the Church?'
'Of England, yes; of the universe, no: that is constituted just like ours, with the living working Lord for the heart of it.'
'Will you take me for a member?'
'No.'
'Will you not, if—?'
'You may make yourself one if you will. I will not speak a word to gain you. I have shown you work. Do something, and you are of Christ's Church.'
We were almost at the door of my lodging, and I was getting very weary in body, and indeed in mind, though I hope not in heart. Before we separated, I ventured to say,
'Will you tell me why you invited me to come and see you? Forgive my presumption, but you seemed to seek acquaintance with me, although you did make me address you first.'
He laughed gently, and answered in the words of the ancient mariner:—
'The moment that his face I see,I know the man that must hear me:To him my tale I teach.'
Without another word, he shook hands with me, and left me. Weary as I was, I stood in the street until I could hear his footsteps no longer.
One day, as Falconer sat at a late breakfast, Shargar burst into his room. Falconer had not even known that he was coming home, for he had outstripped the letter he had sent. He had his arm in a sling, which accounted for his leave.
'Shargar!' cried Falconer, starting up in delight.
'Major Shargar, if you please. Give me all my honours, Robert,' said Moray, presenting his left hand.
'I congratulate you, my boy. Well, this is delightful! But you are wounded.'
'Bullet—broken—that's all. It's nearly right again. I'll tell you about it by and by. I am too full of something else to talk about trifles of that sort. I want you to help me.'
He then rushed into the announcement that he had fallen desperately in love with a lady who had come on board with her maid at Malta, where she had been spending the winter. She was not very young, about his own age, but very beautiful, and of enchanting address. How she could have remained so long unmarried he could not think. It could not be but that she had had many offers. She was an heiress, too, but that Shargar felt to be a disadvantage for him. All the progress he could yet boast of was that his attentions had not been, so far as he could judge, disagreeable to her. Robert thought even less of the latter fact than Shargar himself, for he did not believe there were many women to whom Shargar's attentions would be disagreeable: they must always be simple and manly. What was more to the point, she had given him her address in London, and he was going to call upon her the next day. She was on a visit to Lady Janet Gordon, an elderly spinster, who lived in Park-street.
'Are you quite sure she's not an adventuress, Shargar?'
'It's o' no mainner o' use to tell ye what I'm sure or no sure o', Robert, in sic a case. But I'll manage, somehoo, 'at ye sall see her yersel', an' syne I'll speir back yer ain queston at ye.'
'Weel, hae ye tauld her a' aboot yersel'?'
'No!' answered Shargar, growing suddenly pale. 'I never thocht aboot that. But I had no richt, for a' that passed, to intrude mysel' upo' her to that extent.'
'Weel, I reckon ye're richt. Yer wounds an' yer medals ought to weigh weel against a' that. There's this comfort in 't, that gin she bena richt weel worthy o' ye, auld frien', she winna tak ye.'
Shargar did not seem to see the comfort of it. He was depressed for the remainder of the day. In the morning he was in wild spirits again. Just before he started, however, he said, with an expression of tremulous anxiety,
'Oucht I to tell her a' at ance—already—aboot—aboot my mither?'
'I dinna say that. Maybe it wad be equally fair to her and to yersel' to lat her ken ye a bit better afore ye do that.—We'll think that ower.—Whan ye gang doon the stair, ye'll see a bit brougham at the door waitin' for ye. Gie the coachman ony orders ye like. He's your servant as lang 's ye're in London. Commit yer way to the Lord, my boy.'
Though Shargar did not say much, he felt strengthened by Robert's truth to meet his fate with something of composure. But it was not to be decided that day. Therein lay some comfort.
He returned in high spirits still. He had been graciously received both by Miss Hamilton and her hostess—a kind-hearted old lady, who spoke Scotch with the pure tone of a gentlewoman, he said—a treat not to be had once in a twelvemonth. She had asked him to go to dinner in the evening, and to bring his friend with him. Robert, however, begged him to make his excuse, as he had an engagement in—a very different sort of place.
When Shargar returned, Robert had not come in. He was too excited to go to bed, and waited for him. It was two o'clock before he came home. Shargar told him there was to be a large party at Lady Patterdale's the next evening but one, and Lady Janet had promised to procure him an invitation.
The next morning Robert went to see Mary St. John, and asked if she knew anything of Lady Patterdale, and whether she could get him an invitation. Miss St. John did not know her, but she thought she could manage it for him. He told her all about Shargar, for whose sake he wished to see Miss Hamilton before consenting to be introduced to her. Miss St. John set out at once, and Falconer received a card the next day. When the evening came, he allowed Shargar to set out alone in his brougham, and followed an hour later in a hansom.
When he reached the house, the rooms were tolerably filled, and as several parties had arrived just before him, he managed to enter without being announced. After a little while he caught sight of Shargar. He stood alone, almost in a corner, with a strange, rather raised expression in his eyes. Falconer could not see the object to which they were directed. Certainly, their look was not that of love. He made his way up to him and laid his hand on his arm. Shargar betrayed no little astonishment when he saw him.
'You here, Robert!' he said.
'Yes, I'm here. Have you seen her yet? Is she here?'
'Wha do ye think 's speakin' till her this verra minute? Look there!' Shargar said in a low voice, suppressed yet more to hide his excitement.
Following his directions, Robert saw, amidst a little group of gentlemen surrounding a seated lady, of whose face he could not get a peep, a handsome elderly man, who looked more fashionable than his years justified, and whose countenance had an expression which he felt repulsive. He thought he had seen him before, but Shargar gave him no time to come to a conclusion of himself.
'It's my brither Sandy, as sure 's deith!' he said; 'and he's been hingin' aboot her ever sin' she cam in. But I dinna think she likes him a'thegither by the leuk o' her.'
'What for dinna ye gang up till her yersel', man? I wadna stan' that gin 'twas me.'
'I'm feared 'at he ken me. He's terrible gleg. A' the Morays are gleg, and yon marquis has an ee like a hawk.'
'What does 't maitter? Ye hae dune naething to be ashamed o' like him.'
'Ay; but it's this. I wadna hae her hear the trowth aboot me frae that boar's mou' o' his first. I wad hae her hear 't frae my ain, an' syne she canna think I meant to tak her in.'
At this moment there was a movement in the group. Shargar, receiving no reply, looked round at Robert. It was now Shargar's turn to be surprised at his expression.
'Are ye seein' a vraith, Robert?' he said. 'What gars ye leuk like that, man?'
'Oh!' answered Robert, recovering himself, 'I thought I saw some one I knew. But I'm not sure. I'll tell you afterwards. We've been talking too earnestly. People are beginning to look at us.'
So saying, he moved away towards the group of which the marquis still formed one. As he drew near he saw a piano behind Miss Hamilton. A sudden impulse seized him, and he yielded to it. He made his way to the piano, and seating himself, began to play very softly—so softly that the sounds could scarcely be heard beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the instrument. There was no change on the storm of talk that filled the room. But in a few minutes a face white as a shroud was turned round upon him from the group in front, like the moon dawning out of a cloud. He stopped at once, saying to himself, 'I was right;' and rising, mingled again with the crowd. A few minutes after, he saw Shargar leading Miss Hamilton out of the room, and Lady Janet following. He did not intend to wait his return, but got near the door, that he might slip out when he should re-enter. But Shargar did not return. For, the moment she reached the fresh air, Miss Hamilton was so much better that Lady Janet, whose heart was as young towards young people as if she had never had the unfortunate love affair tradition assigned her, asked him to see them home, and he followed them into her carriage. Falconer left a few minutes after, anxious for quiet that he might make up his mind as to what he ought to do. Before he had walked home, he had resolved on the next step. But not wishing to see Shargar yet, and at the same time wanting to have a night's rest, he went home only to change his clothes, and betook himself to a hotel in Covent Garden.
He was at Lady Janet's door by ten o'clock the next morning, and sent in his card to Miss Hamilton. He was shown into the drawing-room, where she came to him.
'May I presume on old acquaintance?' he asked, holding out his hand.
She looked in his face quietly, took his hand, pressed it warmly, and said,
'No one has so good a right, Mr. Falconer. Do sit down.'
He placed a chair for her, and obeyed.
After a moment's silence on both sides:
'Are you aware, Miss—?' he said and hesitated.
'Miss Hamilton,' she said with a smile. 'I was Miss Lindsay when you knew me so many years ago. I will explain presently.'
Then with an air of expectation she awaited the finish of his sentence.
'Are you aware, Miss Hamilton, that I am Major Moray's oldest friend?'
'I am quite aware of it, and delighted to know it. He told me so last night.'
Somewhat dismayed at this answer, Falconer resumed,
'Did Major Moray likewise communicate with you concerning his own history?'
'He did. He told me all.'
Falconer was again silent for some moments.
'Shall I be presuming too far if I venture to conclude that my friend will not continue his visits?'
'On the contrary,' she answered, with the same delicate blush that in old times used to overspread the lovely whiteness of her face, 'I expect him within half-an-hour.'
'Then there is no time to be lost,' thought Falconer.
'Without presuming to express any opinion of my own,' he said quietly, 'a social code far less severe than that which prevails in England, would take for granted that an impassable barrier existed between Major Moray and Miss Hamilton.'
'Do not suppose, Mr. Falconer, that I could not meet Major Moray's honesty with equal openness on my side.'
Falconer, for the first time almost in his life, was incapable of speech from bewilderment. But Miss Hamilton did not in the least enjoy his perplexity, and made haste to rescue both him and herself. With a blush that was now deep as any rose, she resumed,
'But I owe you equal frankness, Mr. Falconer. There is no barrier between Major Moray and myself but the foolish—no, wicked—indiscretion of an otherwise innocent and ignorant girl. Listen, Mr. Falconer: under the necessity of the circumstances you will not misjudge me if I compel myself to speak calmly. This, I trust, will be my final penance. I thought Lord Rothie was going to marry me. To do him justice, he never said so. Make what excuse for my folly you can. I was lost in a mist of vain imaginations. I had had no mother to teach me anything, Mr. Falconer, and my father never suspected the necessity of teaching me anything. I was very ill on the passage to Antwerp, and when I began to recover a little, I found myself beginning to doubt both my own conduct and his lordship's intentions. Possibly the fact that he was not quite so kind to me in my illness as I had expected, and that I felt hurt in consequence, aided the doubt. Then the thought of my father returning and finding that I had left him, came and burned in my heart like fire. But what was I to do? I had never been out of Aberdeen before. I did not know even a word of French. I was altogether in Lord Rothie's power. I thought I loved him, but it was not much of love that sea-sickness could get the better of. With a heart full of despair I went on shore. The captain slipped a note into my hand. I put it in my pocket, but pulled it out with my handkerchief in the street. Lord Rothie picked it up. I begged him to give it me, but he read it, and then tore it in pieces. I entered the hotel, as wretched as girl could well be. I began to dislike him. But during dinner he was so kind and attentive that I tried to persuade myself that my fears were fanciful. After dinner he took me out. On the stairs we met a lady whose speech was Scotch. Her maid called her Lady Janet. She looked kindly at me as I passed. I thought she could read my face. I remembered afterwards that Lord Rothie turned his head away when we met her. We went into the cathedral. We were standing under that curious dome, and I was looking up at its strange lights, when down came a rain of bell-notes on the roof over my head. Before the first tune was over, I seemed to expect the second, and then the third, without thinking how I could know what was coming; but when they ended with the ballad of the Witch Lady, and I lifted up my head and saw that I was not by my father's fireside, but in Antwerp Cathedral with Lord Rothie, despair filled me with a half-insane resolution. Happily Lord Rothie was at some little distance talking to a priest about one of Rubens's pictures. I slipped unseen behind the nearest pillar, and then flew from the church. How I got to the hotel I do not know, but I did reach it. 'Lady Janet,' was all I could say. The waiter knew the name, and led me to her room. I threw myself on my knees, and begged her to save me. She assured me no one should touch me. I gasped 'Lord Rothie,' and fainted. When I came to myself—but I need not tell you all the particulars. Lady Janet did take care of me. Till last night I never saw Lord Rothie again. I did not acknowledge him, but he persisted in talking to me, behave as I would, and I saw well enough that he knew me.'
Falconer took her hand and kissed it.
'Thank God,' he said. 'That spire was indeed the haunt of angels as I fancied while I played upon those bells.'
'I knew it was you—that is, I was sure of it when I came to think about it; but at the time I took it for a direct message from heaven, which nobody heard but myself.'
'It was such none the less that I was sent to deliver it,' said Falconer. 'I little thought during my imprisonment because of it, that the end of my journey was already accomplished.'
Mysie put her hand in his.
'You have saved me, Mr. Falconer.'
'For Ericson's sake, who was dying and could not,' returned Falconer.
'Ah!' said Mysie, her large eyes opening with wonder. It was evident she had had no suspicion of his attachment to her.
'But,' said Falconer, 'there was another in it, without whom I could have done nothing.'
'Who was that?'
'George Moray.'
'Did he know me then?'
'No. Fortunately not. You would not have looked at him then. It was all done for love of me. He is the truest fellow in the world, and altogether worthy of you, Miss Hamilton. I will tell you the whole story some day, lest he should not do himself justice.'
'Ah, that reminds me. Hamilton sounds strange in your voice. You suspected me of having changed my name to hide my history?'
It was so, and Falconer's silence acknowledged the fact.
'Lady Janet brought me home, and told my father all. When he died a few years after, she took me to live with her, and never rested till she had brought me acquainted with Sir John Hamilton, in favour of whom my father had renounced his claim to some disputed estates. Sir John had lost his only son, and he had no daughter. He was a kind-hearted old man, rather like my own father. He took to me, as they say, and made me change my name to his, leaving me the property that might have been my father's, on condition that whoever I married should take the same name. I don't think your friend will mind making the exchange,' said Mysie in conclusion, as the door opened and Shargar came in.
'Robert, ye're a' gait (everywhere)!' he exclaimed as he entered. Then, stopping to ask no questions, 'Ye see I'm to hae a name o' my ain efter a',' he said, with a face which looked even handsome in the light of his gladness.
Robert shook hands with him, and wished him joy heartily.
'Wha wad hae thocht it, Shargar,' he added, 'that day 'at ye pat bonnets for hose upo' Black Geordie's huves?'
The butler announced the Marquis of Boarshead. Mysie's eyes flashed. She rose from her seat, and advanced to meet the marquis, who entered behind the servant. He bowed and held out his hand. Mysie retreated one step, and stood.
'Your lordship has no right to force yourself upon me. You must have seen that I had no wish to renew the acquaintance I was unhappy enough to form—now, thank God, many years ago.'
'Forgive me, Miss Hamilton. One word in private,' said the marquis.
'Not a word,' returned Mysie.
'Before these gentlemen, then, whom I have not the honour of knowing, I offer you my hand.'
'To accept that offer would be to wrong myself even more than your lordship has done.'
She went back to where Moray was standing, and stood beside him. The evil spirit in the marquis looked out at its windows.
'You are aware, madam,' he said, 'that your reputation is in the hand I offer you?'
'The worse for it, my lord,' returned Mysie, with a scornful smile. 'But your lordship's brother will protect it.'
'My brother!' said the marquis. 'What do you mean? I have no brother!'
'Ye hae mair brithers than ye ken o', Lord Sandy, and I'm ane o' them,' said Shargar.
'You are either a liar or a bastard, then,' said the marquis, who had not been brought up in a school of which either self-restraint or respect for women were prominent characteristics.
Falconer forgot himself for a moment, and made a stride forward.
'Dinna hit him, Robert,' cried Shargar. 'He ance gae me a shillin', an' it helpit, as ye ken, to haud me alive to face him this day.—No liar, my lord, but a bastard, thank heaven.' Then, with a laugh, he instantly added, 'Gin I had been ain brither to you, my lord, God only knows what a rascal I micht hae been.'
'By God, you shall answer for your damned insolence,' said the marquis, and, lifting his riding-whip from the table where he had laid it, he approached his brother.
Mysie rang the bell.
'Haud yer han', Sandy,' cried Shargar. 'I hae faced mair fearsome foes than you. But I hae some faimily-feelin', though ye hae nane: I wadna willin'ly strike my brither.'
As he spoke, he retreated a little. The marquis came on with raised whip. But Falconer stepped between, laid one of his great hands on the marquis's chest, and flung him to the other end of the room, where he fell over an ottoman. The same moment the servant entered.
'Ask your mistress to oblige me by coming to the drawing-room,' said Mysie.
The marquis had risen, but had not recovered his presence of mind when Lady Janet entered. She looked inquiringly from one to the other.
'Please, Lady Janet, will you ask the Marquis of Boarshead to leave the house,' said Mysie.
'With all my hert,' answered Lady Janet; 'and the mair that he's a kin' o' a cousin o' my ain. Gang yer wa's, Sandy. Ye're no fit company for decent fowk; an' that ye wad ken yersel', gin ye had ony idea left o' what decency means.'
Without heeding her, the marquis went up to Falconer.
'Your card, sir.'
Lady Janet followed him.
''Deed ye s' get nae cairds here,' she said, pushing him aside.
'So you allow your friends to insult me in your own house as they please, cousin Janet?' said the marquis, who probably felt her opposition the most formidable of all.
''Deed they canna say waur o' ye nor I think. Gang awa', an' repent. Consider yer gray hairs, man.'
This was the severest blow he had yet received. He left the room, 'swearing at large.'
Falconer followed him; but what came of it nobody ever heard.
Major and Miss Hamilton were married within three months, and went out to India together, taking Nancy Kennedy with them.
Before many months had passed, without the slightest approach to any formal recognition, I found myself one of the church of labour of which Falconer was clearly the bishop. As he is the subject, or rather object of my book, I will now record a fact which may serve to set forth his views more clearly. I gained a knowledge of some of the circumstances, not merely from the friendly confidences of Miss St. John and Falconer, but from being a kind of a Scotch cousin of Lady Janet Gordon, whom I had taken an opportunity of acquainting with the relation. She was old-fashioned enough to acknowledge it even with some eagerness. The ancient clan-feeling is good in this, that it opens a channel whose very existence is a justification for the flow of simply human feelings along all possible levels of social position. And I would there were more of it. Only something better is coming instead of it—a recognition of the infinite brotherhood in Christ. All other relations, all attempts by churches, by associations, by secret societies—of Freemasons and others, are good merely as they tend to destroy themselves in the wider truth; as they teach men to be dissatisfied with their limitations. But I wander; for I mentioned Lady Janet now, merely to account for some of the information I possess concerning Lady Georgina Betterton.
I met her once at my so-called cousin's, whom she patronized as a dear old thing. To my mind, she was worth twenty of her, though she was wrinkled and Scottishly sententious. 'A sweet old bat,' was another epithet of Lady Georgina's. But she came to see her, notwithstanding, and did not refuse to share in her nice little dinners, and least of all, when Falconer was of the party, who had been so much taken with Lady Janet's behaviour to the Marquis of Boarshead, just recorded, that he positively cultivated her acquaintance thereafter.
Lady Georgina was of an old family—an aged family, indeed; so old, in fact, that some envious people professed to think it decrepit with age. This, however, may well be questioned if any argument bearing on the point may be drawn from the person of Lady Georgina. She was at least as tall as Mary St. John, and very handsome—only with somewhat masculine features and expression. She had very sloping shoulders and a long neck, which took its finest curves when she was talking to inferiors: condescension was her forte. Of the admiration of the men, she had had more than enough, although either they were afraid to go farther, or she was hard to please.
She had never contemplated anything admirable long enough to comprehend it; she had never looked up to man or woman with anything like reverence; she saw too quickly and too keenly into the foibles of all who came near her to care to look farther for their virtues. If she had ever been humbled, and thence taught to look up, she might by this time have been a grand woman, worthy of a great man's worship. She patronized Miss St. John, considerably to her amusement, and nothing to her indignation. Of course she could not understand her. She had a vague notion of how she spent her time; and believing a certain amount of fanaticism essential to religion, wondered how so sensible and ladylike a person as Miss St. John could go in for it.
Meeting Falconer at Lady Janet's, she was taken with him. Possibly she recognized in him a strength that would have made him her master, if he had cared for such a distinction; but nothing she could say attracted more than a passing attention on his part. Falconer was out of her sphere, and her influences were powerless to reach him.
At length she began to have a glimmering of the relation of labour between Miss St. John and him, and applied to the former for some enlightenment. But Miss St. John was far from explicit, for she had no desire for such assistance as Lady Georgina's. What motives next led her to seek the interview I am now about to record, I cannot satisfactorily explain, but I will hazard a conjecture or two, although I doubt if she understood them thoroughly herself.
She was, if not blasée, at least ennuyée, and began to miss excitement, and feel blindly about her for something to make life interesting. She was gifted with far more capacity than had ever been exercised, and was of a large enough nature to have grown sooner weary of trifles than most women of her class. She might have been an artist, but she drew like a young lady; she might have been a prophetess, and Byron was her greatest poet. It is no wonder that she wanted something she had not got.
Since she had been foiled in her attempt on Miss St. John, which she attributed to jealousy, she had, in quite another circle, heard strange, wonderful, even romantic stories about Falconer and his doings among the poor. A new world seemed to open before her longing gaze—a world, or a calenture, a mirage? for would she cross the 'wandering fields of barren foam,' to reach the green grass that did wave on the far shore? the dewless desert to reach the fair water that did lie leagues beyond its pictured sweetness? But I think, mingled with whatever motives she may have had, there must have been some desire to be a nobler, that is a more useful woman than she had been.
She had not any superabundance of feminine delicacy, though she had plenty of good-breeding, and she trusted to her position in society to cover the eccentricity of her present undertaking.
One morning after breakfast she called upon Falconer; and accustomed to visits from all sorts of people, Mrs. Ashton showed her into his sitting-room without even asking her name. She found him at his piano, apologized, in her fashionable drawl, for interrupting his music, and accepted his offer of a chair without a shade of embarrassment. Falconer seated himself and sat waiting.
'I fear the step I have taken will appear strange to you, Mr. Falconer. Indeed it appears strange to myself. I am afraid it may appear stranger still.'
'It is easy for me to leave all judgment in the matter to yourself, Miss—I beg your pardon; I know we have met; but for the moment I cannot recall your name.'
'Lady Georgina Betterton,' drawled the visitor carelessly, hiding whatever annoyance she may have felt.
Falconer bowed. Lady Georgina resumed.
'Of course it only affects myself; and I am willing to take the risk, notwithstanding the natural desire to stand well in the opinion of any one with whom even my boldness could venture such a step.'
A smile, intended to be playful, covered the retreat of the sentence. Falconer bowed again. Lady Georgina had yet again to resume.
'From the little I have seen, and the much I have heard of you—excuse me, Mr. Falconer—I cannot help thinking that you know more of the secret of life than other people—if indeed it has any secret.'
'Life certainly is no burden to me,' returned Falconer. 'If that implies the possession of any secret which is not common property, I fear it also involves a natural doubt whether such secret be communicable.'
'Of course I mean only some secret everybody ought to know.'
'I do not misunderstand you.'
'I want to live. You know the world, Mr. Falconer. I need not tell you what kind of life a girl like myself leads. I am not old, but the gilding is worn off. Life looks bare, ugly, uninteresting. I ask you to tell me whether there is any reality in it or not; whether its past glow was only gilt; whether the best that can be done is to get through with it as fast as possible?'
'Surely your ladyship must know some persons whose very countenances prove that they have found a reality at the heart of life.'
'Yes. But none whose judgment I could trust. I cannot tell how soon they may find reason to change their minds on the subject. Their satisfaction may only be that they have not tried to rub the varnish off the gilding so much as I, and therefore the gilding itself still shines a little in their eyes.'
'If it be only gilding, it is better it should be rubbed off.'
'But I am unwilling to think it is. I am not willing to sign a bond of farewell to hope. Life seemed good once. It is bad enough that it seems such no longer, without consenting that it must and shall be so. Allow me to add, for my own sake, that I speak from the bitterness of no chagrin. I have had all I ever cared—or condescended to wish for. I never had anything worth the name of a disappointment in my life.'
'I cannot congratulate you upon that,' said Falconer, seriously. 'But if there be a truth or a heart in life, assurance of the fact can only spring from harmony with that truth. It is not to be known save by absolute contact with it; and the sole guide in the direction of it must be duty: I can imagine no other possible conductor. We must do before we can know.'
'Yes, yes,' replied Lady Georgina, hastily, in a tone that implied, 'Of course, of course: we know all about that.' But aware at once, with the fine instinct belonging to her mental organization, that she was thus shutting the door against all further communication, she added instantly: 'But what is one's duty? There is the question.'
'The thing that lies next you, of course. You are, and must remain, the sole judge of that. Another cannot help you.'
'But that is just what I do not know.'
I interrupt Lady Georgina to remark—for I too have been a pupil of Falconer—that I believe she must have suspected what her duty was, and would not look firmly at her own suspicion. She added:
'I want direction.'
But the same moment she proceeded to indicate the direction in which she wanted to be directed; for she went on:
'You know that now-a-days there are so many modes in which to employ one's time and money that one does not know which to choose. The lower strata of society, you know, Mr. Falconer—so many channels! I want the advice of a man of experience, as to the best investment, if I may use the expression: I do not mean of money only, but of time as well.'
'I am not fitted to give advice in such a matter.'
'Mr. Falconer!'
'I assure you I am not. I subscribe to no society myself—not one.'
'Excuse me, but I can hardly believe the rumours I hear of you—people will talk, you know—are all inventions. They say you are for ever burrowing amongst the poor. Excuse the phrase.'
'I excuse or accept it, whichever you please. Whatever I do, I am my own steward.'
'Then you are just the person to help me! I have a fortune, not very limited, at my own disposal: a gentleman who is his own steward, would find his labours merely facilitated by administering for another as well—such labours, I mean.'
'I must beg to be excused, Lady Georgina. I am accountable only for my own, and of that I have quite as much as I can properly manage. It is far more difficult to use money for others than to spend it for yourself.'
'Ah!' said Lady Georgina, thoughtfully, and cast an involuntary glance round the untidy room, with its horse-hair furniture, its ragged array of books on the wall, its side-table littered with pamphlets he never read, with papers he never printed, with pipes he smoked by chance turns. He saw the glance and understood it.
'I am accustomed,' he said, 'to be in such sad places for human beings to live in, that I sometimes think even this dingy old room an absolute palace of comfort.—But,' he added, checking himself, as it were, 'I do not see in the least how your proposal would facilitate an answer to your question.'
'You seem hardly inclined to do me justice,' said Lady Georgina, with, for the first time, a perceptible, though slight shadow crossing the disc of her resolution. 'I only meant it,' she went on, 'as a step towards a further proposal, which I think you will allow looks at least in the direction you have been indicating.'
She paused.
'May I beg of you to state the proposal?' said Falconer.
But Lady Georgina was apparently in some little difficulty as to the proper form in which to express her object. At last it appeared in the cloak of a question.
'Do you require no assistance in your efforts for the elevation of the lower classes?' she asked.
'I don't make any such efforts,' said Falconer.
Some of my lady-readers will probably be remarking to themselves, 'How disagreeable of him! I can't endure the man.' If they knew how Falconer had to beware of the forwardness and annoyance of well-meaning women, they would not dislike him so much. But Falconer could be indifferent to much dislike, and therein I know some men that envy him.
When he saw, however, that Lady Georgina was trying to swallow a lump in her throat, he hastened to add,
'I have only relations with individuals—none with classes.'
Lady Georgina gathered her failing courage. 'Then there is the more hope for me,' she said. 'Surely there are things a woman might be useful in that a man cannot do so well—especially if she would do as she was told, Mr. Falconer?'
He looked at her, inquiring of her whole person what numen abode in the fane. She misunderstood the look.
'I could dress very differently, you know. I will be a sister of charity, if you like.'
'And wear a uniform?—as if the god of another world wanted to make proselytes or traitors in this! No, Lady Georgina, it was not of a dress so easily altered that I was thinking; it was of the habit, the dress of mind, of thought, of feeling. When you laid aside your beautiful dress, could you avoid putting on the garment of condescension, the most unchristian virtue attributed to Deity or saint? Could you—I must be plain with you, Lady Georgina, for this has nothing to do with the forms of so-called society—could your temper endure the mortifications of low opposition and misrepresentation of motive and end—which, avoid intrusion as you might, would yet force themselves on your perception? Could you be rudely, impudently thwarted by the very persons for whom you were spending your strength and means, and show no resentment? Could you make allowances for them as for your own brothers and sisters, your own children?'
Lady Georgina was silent.
'I shall seem to glorify myself, but at that risk I must put the reality before you.—Could you endure the ugliness both moral and physical which you must meet at every turn? Could you look upon loathsomeness, not merely without turning away in disgust, and thus wounding the very heart you would heal, but without losing your belief in the Fatherhood of God, by losing your faith in the actual blood-relationship to yourself of these wretched beings? Could you believe in the immortal essence hidden under all this garbage—God at the root of it all? How would the delicate senses you probably inherit receive the intrusions from which they could not protect themselves? Would you be in no danger of finding personal refuge in the horrid fancy, that these are but the slimy borders of humanity where it slides into, and is one with bestiality? I could show you one fearful baboon-like woman, whose very face makes my nerves shudder: could you believe that woman might one day become a lady, beautiful as yourself, and therefore minister to her? Would you not be tempted, for the sake of your own comfort, if not for the pride of your own humanity, to believe that, like untimely blossoms, these must fall from off the boughs of the tree of life, and come to nothing at all—a theory that may do for the preacher, but will not do for the worker: him it would paralyze?—or, still worse, infinitely worse, that they were doomed, from their birth, to endless ages of a damnation, filthy as that in which you now found them, and must probably leave them? If you could come to this, you had better withhold your hand; for no desire for the betterment of the masses, as they are stupidly called, can make up for a lack of faith in the individual. If you cannot hope for them in your heart, your hands cannot reach them to do them good. They will only hurt them.'
Lady Georgina was still silent. Falconer's eloquence had perhaps made her ashamed.
'I want you to sit down and count the cost, before you do any mischief by beginning what you are unfit for. Last week I was compelled more than once to leave the house where my duty led me, and to sit down upon a stone in the street, so ill that I was in danger of being led away as intoxicated, only the policeman happened to know me. Twice I went back to the room I had left, crowded with human animals, and one of them at least dying. It was all I could do, and I have tolerable nerve and tolerable experience.'
A mist was gathering over Lady Georgina's eyes. She confessed it afterwards to Miss St. John. And through the mist he looked larger than human.
'And then the time you must spend before you can lay hold upon them at all, that is with the personal relation which alone is of any real influence! Our Saviour himself had to be thirty years in the world before he had footing enough in it to justify him in beginning to teach publicly: he had been laying the needful foundations all the time. Not under any circumstances could I consent to make use of you before you had brought yourself into genuine relations with some of them first.'
'Do you count societies, then, of no use whatever?' Lady Georgina asked, more to break the awkwardness of her prolonged silence than for any other reason.
'In as far as any of the persons they employ fulfil the conditions of which I have spoken, they are useful—that is, just in as far as they come into genuine human relations with those whom they would help. In as far as their servants are incapable of this, the societies are hurtful. The chief good which societies might effect would be the procuring of simple justice for the poor. That is what they need at the hands of the nation, and what they do not receive. But though few can have the knowledge of the poor I have, many could do something, if they would only set about it simply, and not be too anxious to convert them; if they would only be their friends after a common-sense fashion. I know, say, a hundred wretched men and women far better than a man in general knows him with whom he claims an ordinary intimacy. I know many more by sight whose names in the natural course of events I shall probably know soon. I know many of their relations to each other, and they talk about each other to me as if I were one of themselves, which I hope in God I am. I have been amongst them a good many years now, and shall probably spend my life amongst them. When I went first, I was repeatedly robbed; now I should hardly fear to carry another man's property. Two years ago I had my purse taken, but next morning it was returned, I do not know by whom: in fact it was put into my pocket again—every coin, as far as I could judge, as it left me. I seldom pretend to teach them—only now and then drop a word of advice. But possibly, before I die, I may speak to them in public. At present I avoid all attempt at organization of any sort, and as far as I see, am likely of all things to avoid it. What I want is first to be their friend, and then to be at length recognized as such. It is only in rare cases that I seek the acquaintance of any of them: I let it come naturally. I bide my time. Almost never do I offer assistance. I wait till they ask it, and then often refuse the sort they want. The worst thing you can do for them is to attempt to save them from the natural consequences of wrong: you may sometimes help them out of them. But it is right to do many things for them when you know them, which it would not be right to do for them until you know them. I am amongst them; they know me; their children know me; and something is always occurring that makes this or that one come to me. Once I have a footing, I seldom lose it. So you see, in this my labour I am content to do the thing that lies next me. I wait events. You have had no training, no blundering to fit you for such work. There are many other modes of being useful; but none in which I could undertake to direct you. I am not in the habit of talking so much about my ways—but that is of no consequence. I think I am right in doing so in this instance.'
'I cannot misunderstand you,' faltered Lady Georgina.
Falconer was silent. Without looking up from the floor on which her eyes had rested all the time he spoke, Lady Georgina said at last,
'Then what is my next duty? What is the thing that lies nearest to me?'
'That, I repeat, belongs to your every-day history. No one can answer that question but yourself. Your next duty is just to determine what your next duty is.—Is there nothing you neglect? Is there nothing you know you ought not to do?—You would know your duty, if you thought in earnest about it, and were not ambitious of great things.'
'Ah then,' responded Lady Georgina, with an abandoning sigh, 'I suppose it is something very commonplace, which will make life more dreary than ever. That cannot help me.'
'It will, if it be as dreary as reading the newspapers to an old deaf aunt. It will soon lead you to something more. Your duty will begin to comfort you at once, but will at length open the unknown fountain of life in your heart.'
Lady Georgina lifted up her head in despair, looked at Falconer through eyes full of tears, and said vehemently,
'Mr. Falconer, you can have no conception how wretched a life like mine is. And the futility of everything is embittered by the consciousness that it is from no superiority to such things that I do not care for them.'
'It is from superiority to such things that you do not care for them. You were not made for such things. They cannot fill your heart. It has whole regions with which they have no relation.'
'The very thought of music makes me feel ill. I used to be passionately fond of it.'
'I presume you got so far in it that you asked, “Is there nothing more?” Concluding there was nothing more, and yet needing more, you turned from it with disappointment?'
'It is the same,' she went on hurriedly, 'with painting, modelling, reading—whatever I have tried. I am sick of them all. They do nothing for me.'
'How can you enjoy music, Lady Georgina, if you are not in harmony with the heart and source of music?'
'How do you mean?'
'Until the human heart knows the divine heart, it must sigh and complain like a petulant child, who flings his toys from him because his mother is not at home. When his mother comes back to him he finds his toys are good still. When we find Him in our own hearts, we shall find him in everything, and music will be deep enough then, Lady Georgina. It is this that the Brahmin and the Platonist seek; it is this that the mystic and the anchorite sigh for; towards this the teaching of the greatest of men would lead us: Lord Bacon himself says, “Nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God, and the contemplation of God.” It is Life you want. If you will look in your New Testament, and find out all that our Lord says about Life, you will find the only cure for your malady. I know what such talk looks like; but depend upon it, what I am talking about is something very different from what you fancy it. Anyhow to this you must come, one day or other.'
'But how am I to gain this indescribable good, which so many seek, and so few find?'
'Those are not my words,' said Falconer emphatically. 'I should have said—“which so few yet seek; but so many shall at length find.”'
'Do not quarrel with my foolish words, but tell me how I am to find it; for I suppose there must be something in what so many good people assert.'
'You thought I could give you help?'
'Yes. That is why I came to you.'
'Just so. I cannot give you help. Go and ask it of one who can.'
'Speak more plainly.'
'Well then: if there be a God, he must hear you if you call to him. If there be a father, he will listen to his child. He will teach you everything.'
'But I don't know what I want.'
'He does: ask him to tell you what you want. It all comes back to the old story: “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the holy Spirit to them that ask him!” But I wish you would read your New Testament—the Gospels I mean: you are not in the least fit to understand the Epistles yet. Read the story of our Saviour as if you had never read it before. He at least was a man who seemed to have that secret of life after the knowledge of which your heart is longing.'
Lady Georgina rose. Her eyes were again full of tears. Falconer too was moved. She held out her hand to him, and without another word left the room. She never came there again.
Her manner towards Falconer was thereafter much altered. People said she was in love with him: if she was, it did her no harm. Her whole character certainly was changed. She sought the friendship of Miss St. John, who came at length to like her so much, that she took her with her in some of her walks among the poor. By degrees she began to do something herself after a quiet modest fashion. But within a few years, probably while so engaged, she caught a fever from which she did not recover. It was not till after her death that Falconer told any one of the interview he had had with her. And by that time I had the honour of being very intimate with him. When she knew that she was dying, she sent for him. Mary St. John was with her. She left them together. When he came out, he was weeping.