The year 1907 had four more days of life: it crept to its grave through a web and tangle of fog. It was not one of the regular yellow devils who come and eat up London, first this part, and then that, then disgorge a little, choking it all up only to snap at it and swallow it down all bewildered a quarter of an hour after. This was a cobweb fog spun, as it might be, by some malignant central spider hidden darkly in his lair. The vapouring-like filmy threads twisted and twined their way all over London, and for four days and nights the town was a city of ghosts. Buildings loomed dimly behind their masks of silver tissue, streets seemed unsubstantial, pavements had no foundation, streams of water appeared to hang glittering in mid-air, men and horses would suddenly plunge into grey abysses and vanish from sight, church-bells would ring peals high up in air, and there would be, it seemed, no steeple there for them to ring from. As the sun behind the fog rose and set so the mist would catch gold and red and purple into the vapours, strange gleams of brass and silver as though behind its web armies flaunting their colours were marching through the sky; down on the very earth itself horses staggered and stumbled on the thin coating of greasy mud that covered everything; men opened their doors to look out on to the world, and instantly into the passages there floated such strange forms and shadows in misty shape that it seemed as though the rooms were suddenly invaded by a flock of spirits.
Sometimes for half an hour the fog lifted and bright blue sky gleamed like a miraculous lake suddenly discovered in the heart of the boundless waste, then vanished again. Suddenly, with a whisk of the immortal broom, the web was torn, the spider slain, the world clear once more—but, in the obscurity and dusk, 1907 had seen his chance and vanished.
Warlock, long before this, had lost consciousness of external sights and sounds. He could not have told any one when it was that the two worlds had parted company. For many many years he had been conscious of both existences, but during his youth and middle-age they had seemed to mingle and go along together. He had believed in both equally and had been a citizen of both. Then gradually, as time passed, he had seemed to have less and less hold upon the actual physical world. He saw it suddenly with darkened vision; his wife and daughter, and indeed all human beings, except in so far as they were souls to be saved for the Lord, became less and less realities. Only Martin was flesh and blood, to be loved and longed for and feared for just as he had always been. All the physical properties of life—clothes, food, household possessions, money—became of less and less importance to him. Had Amy not watched over him he would have been many days without any food at all, and one day he come into the living-room at breakfast-time clothed in a towel. All this had come upon him with vastly increased power during the last months. In Chapel, and whenever he had work to do in connection with the Chapel, he was clear-headed and practical, but in things to do with this world he was now worse than a child.
He was conscious of this increasing difficulty to deal with both worlds. It was because one world—the world of God—was opening out before him so widely and with so varied and thrilling a beauty that there was less and less time to be spared for the drab realities of physical things.
All his life he had been preparing, and then suddenly the call had come. Shortly after Martin's return he had known in Chapel, one evening, that God was approaching. It had happened that that day, owing to his absorption in his work, he had eaten nothing, and there had come to him, whilst praying to the congregation, a sensation of faintness so strong that for a moment he thought he would fall from his seat. Then it had passed, to give way to a strange, thrilling sense of expectancy. It was as though a servant had opened the door and had announced: "My master is coming, sir—" He had felt, indeed, as though he had been lifted up, in the sheet of Paul the Apostle, to meet his God. There had been the most wonderful sense of elevation, a clearing of light, a gentler freshness in the air, a sudden sinking to remoteness of human voices and mundane sounds. From that moment in the Chapel life had been changed for him. He never seemed to come down again from that mysterious elevation. Human voices sounded far away from him; he could be urged, only with the greatest difficulty, to take his food, and he frequently did not recognise members of his own congregation when they came to see him. He waited now, waited, waited, for this visitation that was approaching him. He could have no doubts of it.
Then one night he woke from a deep sleep. He was conscious that his room was filled with a smoky light; in his heart was such an ecstasy that he would have thought that the joy would kill him.
Something spoke to him, telling him to prepare, that he had been chosen, and that further signs would come to him. He fell on his knees beside the bed and remained there in a trance until daylight. He had heard the voice of God, he had seen His light, he had been chosen as His servant. Some weeks later a second visitation came to him, similar to the first, but telling him that at the last hour of the present year God would come in His own person to save the world, and that he must make this known to a few chosen spirits that they might prepare ...
The whole brotherhood then was at length justified; they alone, out of all men in the world, had believed in the Second Coming of the Lord, and so God had chosen them. He had no doubt at all about his visions at this time. They seemed to him as real and sure as the daily traffic of the streets and the monotonous progress of the clock.
Eagerly, with the confident resolution of a child, he told his news to the leaders of the Chapel, Thurston, Miss Avies, and one or two others. Then a special meeting of the Inside Saints was called and, in the simplest language, he described exactly what had occurred. He did not at first perceive the effect that his news had. Then, dimly, through the mist of his prayers and ecstasies, he realised that his message had created confusion. There was in the first place the question as to whether the whole congregation should be told. He found that he could not decide about this, and when he left the judgment to Thurston, Thurston told him that, in his opinion, "the less that they knew about it the better." It was then that the first suspicion came to him as to whether some of the Saints "doubted." He questioned Thurston as to the effect of this message upon the Saints. Thurston explained to him that "many of them had been very troubled. They had not expected It to come so soon." Thurston explained that they were, after all, only poor human clay like the rest of mankind, and to prepare for a Second Coming in general, something that might descend upon the world, say, in a hundred years' time, was very different from a Judgment that might be expected, definitely, in about three weeks. One or two of them, in fact, had left the Chapel. Others begged for some clearer direction: "Give it them a bit more clearly, Master. Tell 'em a few facts what the Lord God looked like and 'ow He spoke and in what kind of way He was coming. Supposing He wasn't to come after all ..."
It was then that the trouble that had been smouldering for so long between Thurston and the Master burst into flame. For half an hour the Master lost his temper like an ordinary human being. Thurston said very little but listened with a quiet and sarcastic smile. Then he went away. Warlock was left in a torment of doubt and misery. That night he was in his room, until the dawn, on his knees, wrestling with God. He accused himself because, during these latter months, he had removed himself from human contact with his congregation. He had been so intent upon God that he had forgotten his flock. Now he hardly knew how to approach them. The thought of a personal interview with the Miss Cardinals, or Miss Pyncheon, or Mr. Smith filled him with a strange shy terror. He seemed to have nothing more to say to them, and he blamed himself bitterly because he had been intent upon his own salvation rather than theirs.
Thurston's words sent him groping back through the details of the visions. And there were no details. For himself there had been enough in the light, the ecstasy, the contact, but these others who had not themselves felt this, nor seen its glory, demanded more.
He began then, in an agony of distress, to question himself as to whether he had not dreamt his visions. He wrestled with God, beseeching Him to come again and give him a clearer message. Night after night passed and he waited for some further vision, but nothing was granted him. Then he thought that perhaps he himself was now cursed for leaving God. God had come to him and revealed Himself to him in unmistakable signs, and yet he was doubting Him and demanding further help.
As the weeks passed he perceived more and more clearly that there was every kind of division and trouble in the Chapel. Many members left and wrote to him telling him why they had done so. In his own household he felt that Amy no longer gave him any confidence. She attended to him more carefully than before, watched over him as though he were a baby, but made no allusion to the services or the Chapel or any meeting. He seemed, as the weeks passed, to be lonelier and lonelier, and he looked upon this as punishment for his own earlier selfishness. He was pulled then two ways. On the one hand it seemed to him that he would only hear God's full message if he withdrew further and further from the world, on the other he felt that he was letting his followers slip away from him now at the very moment when he should be closest to them, advising, helping, encouraging. This divided impulse was a torture, and as the weeks went on he ate less and less and slept scarcely at all. He had been for a long time past in delicate health owing to the weakness of his heart, and now he began to look strange indeed, with his bright gaunt face with its prominent cheek-bones, his eyes straining to see beyond his actual vision, his flowing white beard. His doctor, a cheerful, commonplace little man, a member of the Chapel, although not a Saint, tried to do his best with him, but his visits only led to scenes of irritation, and Warlock obeyed none of his commands. After a visit on the afternoon of Christmas Eve he took Amy aside:
"Look here," he said, "unless you keep a stricter eye on your father than you have been doing he'll be leaving you altogether."
She looked up at him with that odd dark impassivity that seemed to remove her so deliberately from her fellow-beings.
"It's very well to talk like that," she said. "But how is any one to have any control over him? He listens to nothing that we say, and if we insist he's in a frenzy of irritation."
"Can your mother do nothing?" the doctor asked.
"Mother?" Amy smiled. "No, mother can do nothing."
"Well," said the doctor, "any sudden shock will kill him—I warn you."
When the fog came down upon the city Warlock was already in too thick a fog of his own to perceive it.
He was sure now of nothing. It seemed as though all the spirits of the other world now were taunting him, but he felt that this was the work of the Devil, who wished to destroy his faith before the Great Day arrived. He thought now that the Devil was closely pursuing him, and he seemed to hear first his taunting whisper and then the voice of God encouraging him: "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
He had lost now almost all consciousness of what he really expected to happen when the Day arrived, but he was dimly aware that if nothing happened at all his whole influence with his people would be gone. Nevertheless this did not trouble him very greatly; the congregation of the Chapel seemed now dimly remote. The only human being who was not remote was Martin; his love for his son had not been touched by his other struggles, it had been even intensified. But the love had grown a terror, ever increasing, lest Martin should leave him. He seemed to hear dimly, beyond the wall of the mysterious world into whose regions he was ever more deeply passing, sentences, vague, without human agency, accusing Martin of sins and infidelities and riotous living. Sometimes he was tempted to go further into this and challenge Martin's accusers, but fear held him back. Martin had been a good son since his return to England, yes, he had, and he had forsaken his evil ways and was going to be with his father now until the end, his last refuge against loneliness. Every one else had left him or was leaving him, but Martin was there. Martin hadn't deceived him, Martin was a good boy ... a good boy ... and then, as it seemed to him, with Martin's hand in his own he would pass off into his world of strange dreams and desperate prayer and hours of waiting, listening, straining for a voice ...
During that last night before New Year's Eve an hour came to him when he seemed to be left utterly alone. Exhausted, faint, dizzy with want of sleep and food, he knelt before his bed; his room seemed to be filled with devils, taunting him, tempting him, bewildering and blinding him. He rose suddenly in a frenzy, striking out, rushing about his room, crying ... then at last, exhausted, creeping back to his bed, falling down upon it and sinking into a long dreamless sleep.
They found him sleeping when they came to call him and they left him. He did not wake until the early afternoon; his brain seemed clear and his body so weak that it was with the greatest difficulty that he washed and put on some clothes.
The room was dark with the fog; lamps in the street below glimmered uncertainly, and voices and the traffic of the street were muffled. He opened his door and, looking out, heard in the room below Martin's voice raised excitedly. Slowly he went down to meet him.
Martin also had reached, on that last day of the year, the very end of his tether. During the last ten days he had been fighting against every weakness to which his character was susceptible. With the New Year he felt that everything would be well; he could draw a new breath then, find work somewhere away from London, have Maggie perhaps with him, and drive a way out of all the tangle of his perplexities. But even then he did not dare to face the future thoroughly. Would his father let him go? Was he, after all his struggles, to give way and ruin Maggie's position and future? Could he be sure, if he look her away with him, that then he would keep straight, and that his old temptations of women and drink and general restlessness would be conquered? Perhaps. There had never been a surer proof that his love for Maggie was a real and unselfish love than his hesitation on that wretched day when he seemed utterly deserted by mankind, when Maggie seemed the only friend he had in the world.
Everything was just out of reach, and some perverse destiny prevented him from realising any desire that had a spark of honesty and decency in it. It was not wonderful that in the midst of his loneliness and unhappiness he should have been tempted back to the old paths again, men, women, places that for more than three months now he had been struggling to abandon.
All that day he struggled with temptation. He had not seen Maggie for a week, and during the last three days he had not heard from her, the adventurous Jane having defied the aunts and left.
At luncheon he asked about his father, whom he had not seen for two days.
"Father had a very bad night. He's asleep now."
"There's something on to-night, isn't there?" he asked.
"There's a service," Amy answered shortly.
"Father oughtn't to go," he went on. "I suppose your friend Thurston can manage."
Amy looked at him. "Father's got to go. It's very important."
"Oh, of course, if you want to kill father with all your beastly services—" he broke in furiously.
"It won't be—" Amy began, and then, as though she did not trust herself to continue, got up and left the room.
"Mother," he said, "why on earth don't you do something?"
"I, dear?" she looked at him placidly. "In what way?"
"They're killing father between them with all these services and the rest of the nonsense."
"Your father doesn't listen to anything I say, dear."
"He ought to go away for a long rest."
"Well, dear, perhaps he will soon. You know I have nothing to do with the Chapel. That was settled years ago. I wouldn't interfere for a great deal."
Martin turned fiercely upon her saying:
"Mother, don't you care?"
"Care, dear?"
"Yes, about father—his living and getting well again and being happy as he used to be. What's happened to this place?"
She looked at him in the strangest way. He suddenly felt that he'd never seen her before.
"There are a number of things, Martin, that you don't understand—a number of things. You are away from us for years, you come back to us and expect things to be the same."
"You and Amy," he said, "both of you, have kept me out of everything since I came back. I believe you both hate me!"
She got up slowly from her seat, slowly put her spectacles away in their case, rubbed her fat little hands together, then suddenly licked inquisitively one finger as an animal might do. She spoke to him over her shoulder as she went to the door:
"Oh no, Martin, you speak too strongly."
Left then to his own devices he, at last, wandered out into the foggy streets. After a while he found himself outside a public-house and, after a moment's hesitation, he went in. He asked the stout, rubicund young woman behind the counter for a whisky. She gave him one; he drank that, and then another.
Afterwards he had several more, leaning over the bar, speaking to no one, seeing no one, hearing nothing, and scarcely tasting the drink. When he came out into the street again he knew that he was half drunk—not so drunk that he didn't know what he was doing. Oh dear, no. HE could drink any amount without feeling it. Nevertheless he had drunk so little during these last weeks that even a drop ... How foggy the streets were ... made it difficult to find your way home. But he was all right, he could walk straight, he could put his latch-key into the door at one try, HE was all right.
He was at home again. He didn't stop to hang up his hat and coat but went straight into the dining-room, leaving the door open behind him. He saw that the meal was still on the table just as they'd left it. Amy was there too.
He saw her move back when he came in as though she were afraid to touch him.
"You're drunk!" she said.
"I'm not. You're a liar, Amy. You've always been a liar all your life."
She tried to pass him, but he stood in the middle of the door.
"No, you don't," he said. "We've got to have this out. What have you been spreading scandal about me and Maggie Cardinal for?"
"Let me go," she said again.
"Tell me that first. You've always tried to do me harm. Why?"
"Because I hate the sight of you," she answered quickly. "As you've asked me, you shall have a truthful answer. You've never been anything but a disgrace to us ever since you were a little boy. You disgraced us at home and then abroad; now you've come back to disgrace us here again."
"That's a lie," he repeated. "I've not disgraced anybody."
"Well, it won't be very long before you finish ruining that wretched girl. The best you can do now is to marry her."
"I can't do that," he said. "I'm married already." She did not answer that hut stared at him with amazement.
"But never mind that," he went on. "What if I am a bad lot? I don't know what a bad lot is exactly, but if you mean that I've lived with women and been drunk, and lost jobs because I didn't do the work, and been generally on the loose, it's true, of course. But I meant to live decently when I came home. Yes, I did. You can sneer as much as you like. Why didn't you help me? You're my sister, aren't you? And now I don't care what I do. You've all given me up. Well, give me up, and I'll just go to bits as fast as I can go! If you don't want me there are others who do, or at any rate the bit of money I've got. You've kept me from the only decent girl I've ever known, the one I could have been straight with—"
"Straight with!" Amy broke in. "How were you going to be straight if you're married already?"
He would have answered her but a sound behind him made him turn. He wheeled round and saw his father standing almost up against him. He had only time for a horrified vision of the ghostlike figure, the staring eyes, the open mouth, the white cheeks. The old man caught his coat.
"Martin, what was that? What did you say? ... No, no ... I can't bear that now. I can't, I can't."
He turned and made as though he would run up the stairs, catching about him like a child the shabby old dressing-gown that he was wearing. At the first step he stumbled, clutching the bannister to save himself.
Martin rushed to him, putting his arms round him, holding him close to him. "It's all right, father ... It's not true what you heard ... It's all right."
His father turned, putting his arms round his neck.
Martin half helped, half carried him up to his bedroom. He laid him on his bed and then, holding his hand, sat by his side all through the long dim afternoon.
About, five Warlock suddenly revived, sat up, arid with the assistance of Martin dressed properly, had some tea, and went down to his study. He sat down in his chair, then suddenly looking up at his son he said:
"Did you and Amy have a quarrel this afternoon?"
"No, father," said Martin.
"That's right. I thought—I thought ... I don't know ... My head's confused. You've been a good boy, Martin, haven't you? There's no need for me to worry, is there?"
"None, father," Martin said.
After a while Martin said:
"Father, don't go to Chapel to-night."
Warlock smiled.
"I must go. That's all right ... Nothing to worry about."
For some while he sat there, Martin's hand in his; Martin did not know whether he were asleep or not.
At about ten he ate and drank. At eleven he started with Amy and Thurston for the Chapel.
When Jane, scolded by Aunt Anne for an untidy appearance, gave notice and at once departed, Maggie felt as though the ground was giving way under her feet.
A week until the New Year, and no opportunity of hearing from Martin during that time. Then she laughed at herself:
"You're losing your sense of proportion, my dear, over this. Laugh at yourself. What's a week?"
She did laugh at herself, but she had not very much to base her laughter upon. Martin's last letters had been short and very uneasy. She had already, in a surprising fashion for one so young, acquired a very wise and just estimate of Martin's character.
"He's only a boy," she used to say to herself and feel his elder by at least twenty years. Nevertheless the thought of his struggling on there alone was not a happy one. She longed, even though she might not advise him, to comfort him. She was beginning to realise something of her own power over him and to see, too, the strange mixture of superstition and self-reproach and self-distrust that overwhelmed him when she was not with him. She had indeed her own need of struggle against superstition. Her aunts continued to treat her with a quiet distant severity. Aunt Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to have been kind to her, but she was entirely under the influence of her sister, and there, too, Maggie was generous enough to see that Aunt Anne behaved as she did rather from a stern sense of duty than any real unkindness. Aunt Anne could not feel unkindly; she was too far removed from human temper and discontent and weakness. Nevertheless she had been deeply shocked at the revelation of Maggie's bad behaviour, and it was a shock from which, in all probability she would never recover.
"WE'LL never be friends again." Maggie thought, watching her aunt's austere composure from the other side of the dining-table. She was sad at the thought of that, remembering moments—that first visit to St. Dreot's, the departure in the cab, the night when she had sat at her aunt's bedside—that had given glimpses of the kind human creature Aunt Anne might have been had she never heard of the Inside Saints.
Maggie, during these last days, did everything that her aunts told her. She was as good and docile as she could be. But, oh! there were some dreary hours as she sat, alone, in that stuffy drawing-room, trying to sew, her heart aching with loneliness, her needle always doing the wrong thing, the clock heavily ticking, Thomas watching her from the mat in front of the fire, and the family group sneering at her from the wall-paper.
It was during these hours that superstitious terrors gained upon her. Could it be possible that all those women whom she had seen gathered together in Miss Avies's room really expected God to come when the clock struck twelve on the last night of the year? It was like some old story of ghosts and witches that her nurse used to tell her when she was a little girl at St. Dreot's. And yet, in that dark dreary room, almost anything seemed possible. After all, if there was a God, why should He not, one day, suddenly appear? And if He wished to spare certain of His servants, why should He not prepare them first before He came? There were things just as strange in the Old and New Testament. But if He did come, what would His Coming be like? Would every one be burnt to death or would they all be summoned before some judgment and punished for the wicked things they had done? Would her father perhaps return and give evidence against her? And poor Uncle Mathew, how would he fare with all his weaknesses? Her efforts at laughing at herself rescued her from some of the more incredible of these pictures. Nevertheless the uncertainty remained and only increased her loneliness. Had Martin been there in five minutes they would, together, have chased all these ghosts away. But he was not there. And at the thought of him she would have to set her mouth very firmly, indeed, to prevent her lips from trembling. She took out her ring and kissed it, and looked at the already tattered copy of the programme of the play to which they had been, and recalled every minute of their walks together.
Christmas Day was a very miserable affair. There were no presents and no festivities. They went to Chapel and Mr. Thurston preached the sermon. Maggie did, however, receive one letter. It was from Uncle Mathew. He wrote to her from some town in the north. He didn't seem very happy, and asked her whether she could possibly lend him five pounds. Alluding with a characteristic vagueness to "business plans of the first importance that were likely to mature very shortly."
She told Aunt Anne that she wanted five pounds of her money, but she did not say for what she needed them.
Aunt Anne gave her the money at once without a word—as though she said: "We have given up all control of you except to see that you behave decently whilst you are still with us."
When the fog arrived it seemed to penetrate every nook and corner of the house. The daily afternoon walk that Maggie took with Aunt Elizabeth was cancelled because of the difficulty of finding one's way from street to street and "because some rude man might steal one's money in the darkness," and Maggie was not sorry. Those walks had not been amusing, Aunt Elizabeth having nothing to say and being fully occupied with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and helpless and ignorant of the world! "My dear," said Maggie to herself, "you're a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you're nothing to what they are, poor dears." She tried to improve herself in every way for their benefit, but her memory was no better. She forgot all the things that were, in their eyes, the most important—closing doors, punctuality for meals, neat stitches, careful putting away of books and clothes.
Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth:
"I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth. Do you think Aunt Anne sees any improvement?"
And all Aunt Elizabeth said was:
"It was a great shock to her, what you did. Maggie—a great shock indeed!"
When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the strange excitement that she felt. It was excitement, not only because of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of herself and Martin. After this they would know where they stood and what they must do. Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very arbiter of her destiny. On his action everything turned. Oh! if only after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that he had made for her. Then her mind went back to that first day long ago when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as often as she could. How little she had known then what the future held for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own fate but that of every one else seemed to hang. Her aunts, Amy, Miss Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with them all his destiny was involved and they with his.
As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream. "It can't be like this really," she told herself. "If I were to go to tea now with Mrs. Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman I wouldn't believe a word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it. As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St. Dreot's dentist, a fearsome man with red hair and hands like a dog's paws. She saw him now standing over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure in a short untidy frock. She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle Mathew had once told her: "This time next year you'll have forgotten all about this," but when it was a question of facing the immensities of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt. It was dusk very early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp.
At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Anne had not appeared all day. Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that hours again until ten o'clock.
She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to take her to the service with them. She had supposed that her introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies's meant that they intended to include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her. If the end of the world were coming she would like to meet it in her bed. To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a horrible thing to do. If this were to be the end of the world how she did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it. And those others—Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the event—how were they passing these last hours?
"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true!" she said to herself. "It's a shame to frighten them so!"
By eleven o'clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire. She woke to find Aunt Anne standing over her.
"It's a quarter past eleven. It's time to put on your things," she said. So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs were trembling and her teeth chattered. To her surprise Aunt Anne bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.
"Maggie," she said, "if I've been harsh to you during these weeks I'm sorry. I've done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn't wish on this night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one another."
"Oh, that's all right," Maggie said awkwardly.
She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into the dark foggy street together.
Because it was New Year's Eve there were many people about, voices laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus. The aunts said nothing as they went. Maggie's thoughts were given now to wondering whether Martin would be there. She tied her mind to that, but behind it was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal should.
As they entered the Chapel the hoarse ugly clock over the door grunted out half-past eleven. The Chapel seemed on Maggie's entering it to be half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the centre of the building was a shadowy pool. Only a few were present, gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a hundred persons. Of these three-quarters were women. The aunts and Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front. When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at once that only the Inside Saints were here.
Amongst the men she recognised Mr. Smith, Caroline's father, two old men, brothers, who had followed Mr. Warlock from their youth, and a young pale man who had once been to tea with her aunts. Martin she saw at once was not there.
For some time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was with a start of surprise that she suddenly realised: "Oh, but they don't believe in this any more than I do!" The faces around her were agitated, with odd humble beseeching looks, as though they were helpless utterly and were hoping that some one would suddenly come and lead them somewhere that they might be comfortable again and at ease.
There was not to-night, as there had been on other occasions (and especially during that service that Mr. Crashaw had conducted), any sign of religious and mystical excitement. The people seemed huddled together in the cold and draughty place against their will, and the very fact that the Chapel was only half full chilled the blood. No drama of exultation here, no band of God's servants gloriously preparing to meet Him, only the frightened open-mouthed gaze of a little gathering of servant girls and old maids. That was Maggie's first impression; then, when the service began, when the first hymn had been sung and Thurston had stumbled into his extempore prayer. Maggie found herself caught into a strange companionship with the people around her. Not now ecstasy nor the excitement of religious fanaticism nor the superstitious preparation for some awful events—none of these emotions now lifted her into some strained unnatural sphere—no, nothing but a strange sympathy and kindness and understanding that she had never known in all her life before. She felt the hunger, the passionate appeal: "Oh God come! Prove Thyself! We have waited so long. We have resisted unbelievers, we have fought our own doubts and betrayals, give us now a Sign! something by which we may know Thee!" and with that appeal the conviction in the hearts of almost all present that nothing would happen, that God would give no sign, that the age of miracles was past.
"Oh, why did He want to be so definite," she thought. "Why couldn't He have left them as they were without forcing them to this."
They were sitting down now, and Thurston, with his cheap sense of the dramatic and false emphasis, was reading from the New Testament. Maggie looked to where Mr. Warlock was, a little to the right of Thurston, in his black gown, his head a little lowered, his hands on his lap.
When she saw him she was touched to the very heart. Why, he had aged in the last month a hundred years! He looked, sitting there, so frail and helpless that it seemed wonderful that he should have been able to get there at all.
His hair seemed to have an added intensity of whiteness to-night, and his beard lay against the black cloth of his gown with a contrast so sharp that it was unreal. Maggie fancied, as she watched him, that he was bewildered and scarcely knew where he was. Once he looked up and round about him; he put his hand to his brow and then let it fall as though he had no longer any control over it.
She was now so touched by the pathos of his helplessness that she could think of nothing else and longed to go to him and comfort him. Time stole on and it was now ten minutes to twelve. They sang another hymn, but the voices were very weak and feeble and the words quivered round the building in a ghostly whisper. Then Thurston came to the Master and gave him his arm and led him to the reading-desk. The old man seemed for a moment as though he would fall, then, holding to the front of the desk, he spoke in a very weak and faltering voice. Maggie could not catch many of his words: "My children—only a little time—Our preparation now is finished ... God has promised ... Not the least of these His little ones shall perish ... Let us not fear but be ready to meet Him as our Friend ... our Friend ... God our Father ..." Then in a stronger voice: "Now during these last minutes let us kneel in silent prayer."
They all knelt down. Maggie had no thoughts, no desire except that the time might pass; she seemed to kneel there asleep waiting for the moment when some one should tell her that the time had gone and she was safe. The moments dragged eternally; a thrilling suspense like a flood of water pouring into an empty space had filled the Chapel. No one moved. Suddenly into the heart of the silence there struck the first note of the clock tolling the hour. With Maggie it was as though that sound liberated her from the spell that had been upon her. She looked up; she saw the master standing, his hands stretched out, his face splendid with glory and happiness.
He looked beyond them all, beyond the Chapel, beyond the world. He gave one cry:
"My God, Thou art come." Some other words followed but were caught up and muffled. He fell forward, collapsing in a heap against the desk. His head struck the wood and then he lay there perfectly still.
Maggie could only dimly gather what happened after the sound of that fall. There seemed to her to be a long and terrible silence during which the clock continued remorselessly to strike. The Chapel appeared to be a place of shadows as though the gas had suddenly died to dim haloes; she was conscious that people moved about her, that Aunt Anne had left them, and that Aunt Elizabeth was saying to her again and again: "How terrible! How terrible! How terrible!"
Then as though it were some other person, Maggie found herself very calmly speaking to Aunt Elizabeth.
"Are we to wait for Aunt Anne?" she whispered.
"Anne said we were to go home."
"Then let's go," whispered Maggie.
They went to the door, pushing, it seemed, through shadows who whispered and forms that vanished as soon as one looked at them.
Out in the open air Maggie was aware that she was trembling from head to foot, but a determined idea that she must get Aunt Elizabeth home at once drove her like a goad. Very strange it was out here, the air ringing with the clamour of bells. The noise seemed deafening, whistles blowing from the river, guns firing and this swinging network of bells echoing through the fog. Figures, too, ran with lights, men singing, women laughing, all mysteriously in the tangled darkness.
They were joined at once by Aunt Anne, who said:
"God has called him home," by which Maggie understood that Mr. Warlock was dead.
They went home in silence. Inside the hall Aunt Elizabeth began to cry. Aunt Anne put her arm around her and led her away; they seemed completely to forget Maggie, leaving her standing in the dark hall by herself.
She found a candle and went up to her room. The noise in the streets had ceased quite suddenly as though some angry voice had called the world to order.
Maggie undressed and lay down in her bed. She lay there staring in front of her without closing her eyes. She watched the grey dawn, then the half-light, then, behind her blind, bright sunshine. The fog was no more.
The strangest fancies and visions passed through her brain during that time. She saw Mr. Warlock hanging forward like a sack of clothes, the blood trickling stealthily across his beard. Poor old man! What were the others all thinking now? Were they sorry or glad? Were they disappointed or relieved? After all, he had, perhaps, spoken the truth so far as he was himself concerned. God had come for him. He was now it might be happy somewhere at peace and at rest. Then like a flash of lightning across the darkness came the thought of Martin. What had he said? "If anything happened to his father—"
The terror of that made her heart stop beating. She wanted instantly to go to him and see what he was doing. She even rose from her bed, stumbled in the darkness towards her dressing-table, then remembered where she was and what time and went back and sat upon her bed.
She sat there, her fingers tightly pressed together, staring in front of her until the morning came. She felt at her heart a foreboding worse than any pain that she had ever known. She determined that, directly after breakfast, whatever the aunts would say, she would go to his house and demand to see him. She did not mind who might try to prevent her, she would fight her way through them all. Only one look, one word of assurance from him, and then she could endure anything. That she must have or she would die.
At last Martha knocked on the door; she had her bath, dressed, still with this terrible pain at her heart.
She was alone at breakfast, she drank some coffee, then went up to the drawing-room to think for a moment what course she should pursue. The room was flooded with sunlight that struck the fire into a dead, lifeless yellow.
As she stood there she heard through the open door voices in the hall. But before she had heard the voices she knew that it was Martin.
Martha was expostulating, her voice following his step up the hall.
"I shall go and tell my mistress," Maggie heard.
Then Martin came in.
When she saw him she stood speechless where she was. The change in him terrified her so that her heart seemed to leap into her throat choking her. The colour had drained from his face, leaving it dry and yellow. He had an amazing resemblance to his father, his eyes had exactly the same bewildered expression as though he were lost and yet he seemed quite calm, his only movement was one hand that wandered up and down his waistcoat feeling the buttons one after the other.
He looked at her as though he did not know her, and yet he spoke her name.
"Maggie," he said, "I've come to say good-bye. You know what I said before. Well, it's come true. Father is dead, and I killed him."
With a terrible effort, beating down a terror that seemed personally to envelop her, she said:
"No, Martin. I saw him die. It wasn't you, Martin dear."
"It was I," he answered. "You don't know. I came into the house drunk and he heard what I said to Amy. He nearly died then. The doctor in the evening said he must have had some shock."
She tried to come to him then. She was thinking: "Oh, if I've only got time I can win this. But I must have time. I must have time."
He moved away from her, as he had done once before.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said. "I've killed him by the way I've been behaving to him all these months. I'm going away where I can't do any harm."
She desperately calmed herself, speaking very quietly.
"Listen, Martin. You haven't done him any harm. He's happier now than he's been for years. I know he is. And that doesn't touch us. You can't leave me now. Where you go I must go."
"No," he answered. "No, Maggie. I ought to have gone before. I knew it then, but I know it absolutely now. Everything I touch I hurt, so I mustn't touch anything I care for."
She put her hands out towards him; words had left her. She would have given her soul for words and she could say nothing.
She was surrounded with a hedge of fright and terror and she could not pass it.
He seemed to see then in her eyes her despair. For an instant he recognised her. Their eyes met for the first time; she felt that she was winning. She began eagerly to speak: "Listen, Martin dear. You can't do me any harm. You can only hurt me by leaving me. I've told you before. Just think of that and only that."
The door opened and Aunt Anne came in.
He turned to her very politely. "I beg your pardon for coming, Miss Cardinal," he said. "I know what you must think of me, but it's all right. I've only come to say good-bye to Maggie. It's all right. Neither you nor Maggie will be bothered with me again."
He turned to the open door. Aunt Anne stood aside to let him pass. Maggie said:
"Martin, don't go! Martin, don't leave me! Don't leave me, Martin!"
He seemed to break then in his resolution.
"It's better. It's better," he cried, as though he were shouting himself down, and then pushing Aunt Anne with his arm he hurried out almost running, his steps stumbling down the stairs.
Maggie ran to the door. Her aunt stopped her, holding her back.
"It's better, Maggie dear," she said very gently, repeating Martin's words.
The sound of the hall door closing echoed through the house.
Maggie struggled, crying again and again: "Let me go! Let me go! I must go with him! I can't live without him! Let me go!"
She fought then, and with one hand free hit Aunt Anne's face, twisting her body. Then, suddenly weak, so that she saw faintness coming towards her like a cloak, she whispered:
"Oh, Aunt Anne, let me go! Oh, Aunt Anne, let me go! Please, please, let me go!"
Suddenly the house was darkened, at her feet was a gulf of blackness, and into it she tumbled, down, far down, with a last little gasping sigh of distress.