Kitabı oku: «The Betrayal of John Fordham», sayfa 7

I did not go home that day or night. Dazed and forlorn, I wandered, an outcast, through the streets and over the bridges.

CHAPTER XV

It was well on in the afternoon when I entered my house. I had been to my chambers, and having transacted some business which the change in my affairs seemed to me to render imperative, I gave up the keys, and turned my back forever upon the brighter side of my existence. I had also visited a clergyman and a barrister with whom I had a slight acquaintance; it was waste power, time thrown away, and I must have paid the visits without the least hope of deriving any good from them.

As I walked towards my home I was overcome with faintness, and I reeled like a drunken man. Then I recollected that food had not passed my lips since breakfast yesterday morning. I entered the nearest restaurant – it happened to be a public-house – and standing at the counter ate some sandwiches and hard boiled eggs. The barmaid asked what I would take to drink and for a moment I thought of calling for brandy, but it was not on that occasion I broke my vow never to touch spirituous liquor. I drank a glass of lemonade, and pursued my homeward way.

As I entered the house I heard Barbara moaning and gibbering upstairs. The sounds were familiar to me, and it was with a sickening feeling that I entered the sitting-room. Maxwell was there and my stepmother. Maxwell was quite composed; my stepmother looked rather scared at my sudden entrance and wild appearance. They did not welcome me with effusion. Maxwell made the remark that they had been wondering what had become of me, and he inquired why I had not come home last night. I did not answer him. My stepmother volunteered the information that poor Barbara was very ill.

"You had better not go up to her," she said. "The sight of you will make her worse."

Neither did I reply to her. Their presence was so hateful to me that I left the room unceremoniously. They followed me into the passage, and, my foot on the stairs, some words of what passed between them reached my ears.

"Mad, I think," said my stepmother.

"Looks remarkably like it," responded Maxwell, pulling at his mustache. "Or, let us be charitable, and put it down to drink."

"Supposing," she said, and finished the sentence in a whisper.

I stepped back.

"Supposing you drove me mad between you," I said, "there would be an end of me, and you and my wife would have control of my property. Is that it, dear friends?"

They looked at each other, and my stepmother said, boldly: "Decidedly mad. Not a doubt of it."

"No, dear stepmother," I said, my voice and manner expressing detestation of her, "not yet mad. Sane as yourselves. You remind me of an omission which I must repair. I have not made my will; it is a thing that ought not to be neglected. Not one of you shall profit by it, I promise you. Pray let me know what you are in my house for."

"We are here to protect my sister from your brutality," said Maxwell, and it pleased me to see that I had disconcerted them.

"Indeed! From my brutality? Of which you have already given evidence in your secret court of inquiry. And your sister, too. There was a time when I fancied there was no great love on either side. You pair of scheming devils! I will show you that I am master here. Out! the pair of you! Out of my house!" And I advanced towards them with so threatening an air that they began to retreat.

"We will see what the law says to this," blustered Maxwell. "We have witnesses enough."

"False witnesses – false testimony. When you come to consider the matter it may not suit your purpose to appeal to the law. Establish that my wife lives in fear of me, and that I am systematically cruel to her, and you will succeed in obtaining a judicial separation. I shall not thwart you, for it is what I pray for. The Courts award her maintenance, the income of a third of what I am worth. Then I am free, and you and she can trouble me no more. Free! Can you understand what that means to me? Fools! I have offered her more than a third, and she has refused. Why, if I gave her cause for a complete divorce she would not avail herself of it. She is too good a wife, too pure, too mindful of her wifely duties to desert the husband she loves so well."

Had it not been that I was apprehensive of falling into deeper public disgrace I should not have spoken so openly, for it was speaking against my own interests; but, indeed, I might have spared myself this small duplicity, for nothing was farther from their wishes than to sever the bonds which bound me to Barbara. While those held firm they had, through her, some power over my purse; loosen them, and the power was gone. It was only through my enforced bondage that they could hope to gain.

"When you were a child," said my stepmother, white to the lips, "I foresaw what you would grow into."

"You did your best for me," I retorted. "You made my home a paradise – not much worse than this home is to me – you showed me daily how you loved me. I remember well your tender care of me. Truly there are men and women who are baser than beasts."

"If I were a man I would thrash you," she hissed.

"Ask your son Louis, my loving half-brother, to do it for you. Ask that reptile by your side to undertake the task. Cunning and malice have had their day. Let us try brute force."

I laughed in their faces. In this encounter we were more like animals snarling at one another than human beings. Meanwhile Barbara continued her moaning and gibbering upstairs.

"That is my work, is it not?" I went on. "It is I who have made her what she is, a living shame to decency. Before our marriage she never touched strong drink – is that the way it goes? She was an innocent, simple child of nature, and it is I who have debased and contaminated her. That is what you have made my friends believe. If it is any satisfaction to you, hear from my lips that your cowardly plot has succeeded, and that the honorable career I had mapped out for myself is at an end. Has my wife told you that on the first night of our marriage she locked herself in her room in Paris and drank herself into such a filthy state of intoxication that we were turned out of our hotel? But doubtless she kept this delectable piece of information to herself."

"Another of your abominable inventions," cried my stepmother, "as true as all the rest."

"Exactly. As true as all the rest. Women such as she, and you, should be whipped daily for the public good."

"Oh!" cried my stepmother, digging her nails into her palms. If she could have killed me with a look she would have done it – and with shame I admit that I should have deserved a greater punishment than that for expressing myself as I did. But I was stung to utter recklessness, to utter forgetfulness of what was due to one's own sense of self-respect.

"Come, come, John," said Maxwell, trying another tack, "you are over-excited. You will be sorry for this to-morrow."

"I am sorry for it to-day. It was not to be expected when I courted your sister that you should warn me of the pit into which I was falling – you were too anxious to be rid of her. I see now, but did not see then, the meaning of your covert sneers when you spoke of our married life. By the way, from time to time you borrowed money of me in those days. Are you prepared to repay it?"

"What I owe you," he replied, with a dark look, "I will repay – with interest. As for money, I never had one farthing from you." He turned to my stepmother. "He is good at invention, this John of ours."

"He is good at anything low and vile," she said. "Mark my words – one of these days he will commit murder."

"You nurse your hatred well," I responded. "And now, quit my house."

They retreated before me, and I drove them, as though they were cattle, to the street door.

"John," said Maxwell, with a sudden show of amiability, "this is all nonsense, you know. Let us be friends."

He held out his hand, and the impulse was upon me to strike it down, but I merely gave him a contemptuous look, and threw open the street door. As they stood on the threshold Louis came up, and I think for a moment that Maxwell, with this reinforcement, had an idea of forcing his way in again.

"Do you see what he is doing?" cried my stepmother to her son. "The low wretch is turning us out of the house."

"What else can you expect?" asked Louis, the scar on his forehead becoming blood-red in my frowning glance.

"We shall come back," said Maxwell, and I slammed the door in his face.

My conduct was brutal; I admit it. It would have been manlier had I behaved with dignity, but during that evil time all my impulses were evil. There is an element of savagery in every human being, and it leaped forth and mastered me, and robbed sorrow of its crown. It led me into further excesses, and had not an angel appeared and rescued me, I might have deserved all the obloquy that had been thrown upon me, and have become utterly, irretrievably lost.

It was evening, and I lingered in the passage outside Barbara's door, which was locked against me. Then I called aloud:

"Annette, are you there?"

At first no answer; then, the question repeated, the reply:

"Yes, monsieur."

"Open the door."

"But, monsieur, it is madame's orders," she began, but I did not allow her to finish.

"Open the door."

"I dare not disobey madame."

"Open the door."

This time she did not answer. I put my shoulder to the door, and exerted all my strength. It is not a thing to boast of that I am a man of great muscular power, and that on this occasion I exulted in it. The evil spirit within me urged me on. As I strained my muscles there was silence in the room; for a little while Barbara's voice was not heard. The door creaked, yielded, then burst open with a crash.

Annette stood upright, her cold, gray eyes fixed upon me. She was a woman of indomitable firmness, and in my knowledge of her she never showed the least trace of fear. My wife cowered on the floor, clad only in her nightdress, and in a more disgraceful condition than when I found her lying at the door of my chambers in the Strand. Her body was trembling and convulsed, her features twitched, there was a nameless terror in her eyes. The atmosphere of the apartment reeked with the fumes of liquor.

"You are a faithful servant," I said to Annette, "to encourage your mistress in these disgusting orgies. You have a human excuse, I suppose. It pays you."

"I am paid with ingratitude," she answered, composedly. "To keep this" – pointing to my wife – "from the other servants in the house – is not that faithful service?"

"And to give false evidence against your master," I retorted, "that also is faithful service, is it not? I know you for what you are, Annette – a panderer to vice and infamy."

"That is defamation, monsieur, I can make you pay for it."

"Do so. It will rid me of you. I am willing to pay the price."

This bickering was stopped by a piercing scream from Barbara.

"See there – see there!" the wretched creature shrieked. "Those devils are creeping in again! Keep them off – keep them off! Save me – save me!"

She bit, she snarled, she tore at the phantoms.

I cannot describe the scene. My pen halts, my fingers refuse to trace the words. I remember helping Annette to lift my wife to the bed; I remember noting with morbid curiosity the singular phase in her delirium that she clung to Annette for protection while she clawed at me; I remember her falling from the bed, and creeping under it to hide herself from the imaginary terrors which afflict the dipsomaniac; I recall her delirious entreaties for more brandy, her shrieks for mercy, her ribald utterances when, for a brief space, these terrors ceased, her shuddering paroxysms, her tears, her hysterical sobs. Good God! Can we call such beings human? Should there not be a law to put them under restraint, to treat them as we treat the mad, to free the innocent partners of their unspeakable degradation from the horrible curse which weighs like a blight upon despairing hearts?

So the night passed, and I paced the passages, the rooms, the stairs, in a frame of mind the memory of which even now, after a lapse of years, sends a shudder through me. For the time being I lost faith in human goodness. Purity and sweetness were delusions – they had no existence. Charity, virtue, kindliness, our holiest sentiments, the spiritual instinct which lifts our thoughts above sordid cares and rewards, all were mockeries, and he who believed in them was a fool. Nothing was real but corruption. Beneath the lying mask on the world's face lurked treachery and foul desire, and over this mass of impurity reigned the Spirit of Evil.

At the end of the succeeding week I broke the vow I had made never to touch spirituous liquor. To my shame be it recorded.

I had eaten scarcely anything the previous two days, and was suffering from terrible depression. It was while I was in this state, pacing the dining-room, up and down, up and down, with nerves so sensitively attuned that any sudden noise made me start, that my eyes fell upon a bottle of brandy which had just been uncorked, and inadvertently left upon the sideboard. It fascinated me. I turned from it, was drawn to it again, and for several minutes gazed fixedly at it. Here was rest, here was forgetfulness, here was at least a transient relief. An enticing devil lurked in that bottle, inviting me, tempting me, luring me on. I laid my hand upon it.

My conscience smote me, but my moral strength was sapped. Character, reputation, happiness, all were lost. Let the last remnants of self-respect go with them. In all the wide world there was not one man or woman who cared what became of me, not one human being who entertained for me a spark of affection. Whether I died the death of a dog or a martyr would not affect the judgment which had been passed upon me. My epitaph was already written, and nothing could alter it. The fiend Insomnia held me in his grip. During the past week I had not had two consecutive hours' sleep. To save myself from going mad I must have a few hours' oblivion from the misery which encompassed me.

I poured the liquor into a tumbler, and drank it neat. It burnt my throat, but almost immediately I was conscious of a riotous revulsion of spirits. Again and again I drank, forcing the liquor down my throat till the bottle was empty, when I must have fallen to the ground in a drunken stupor. I recall that it was broad daylight when I yielded to the temptation, and put the final touch to my sorrows by this act of self-degradation.

CHAPTER XVI

When I awoke all was dark. My throat was parched, there was a horrible racking pain in my head, a nauseating faintness at my heart. But worse than this was the torment of remorse which weighed me down. I had placed myself on a level with my curse, had proved myself worthy of it. There was no excuse for the shameful excess in which I had indulged. A hypocrite, self-convicted, I had become a willing slave to the vice I had condemned, and I could now take rank with the abandoned creatures from whom I had shrank in horror.

With difficulty I rose from the floor, upsetting furniture in the effort, and felt my way to my bedroom, where I plunged my head into a basin of cold water, keeping it there for some time, and sucking in the water like a dog. As I stood dripping, in the darkness, I heard a kind of sing-song proceeding from Barbara's room. Stealing into the passage, I listened to the drivel. "Beast John is drunk – dead, dead drunk! He preaches, preaches, preaches – Oh, the good man! Maxwell knows, his mother knows, Louis knows. Ha, ha, ha! How funny! Beast John is drunk – dead, dead drunk! Now let him preach – now let him write to the papers." There was no method in her singing, no rythmical arrangement of the insane song. The words dropped from her lips in disjointed fashion, and there was a taunting exultation in her utterance of them.

A frightful temptation assailed me – to kill her and myself, and be done with the world. "What matter?" I muttered. "There is no God! If there were He would not permit such women to live." Even at this distance of time – yes, even though I know that my days are numbered – I am thankful that some mysterious force within me leaped up to fight the demon that would have damned my soul. I was conscious of the inward conflict, the conflict of the two spirits, the good and the evil, which are said to be forever warring for supremacy in a man's heart. I hope I may say now (though I did not believe so then) that my suffering had not crushed all the good out of me, and that there was still some vitality in the better impulses of my being. I did not openly recant the impious words I had muttered; my mood was too sullen for that. I was ready for sin, but not for crime. My life was mine, and I could do with it as I pleased, but it was not within my right to dispose of the life of another mortal. Brooding upon this I fled from the house as from a pestilence.

Intent upon self-destruction, I bent my steps riverwards. It was a wretched night. Rain was falling heavily, and there was no light in the sky. The spirit of black death brooded over the city. It was as if nature favored my sinful purpose – or so I chose to interpret the signs.

There were but few persons about; I took no notice of them, nor they of me. Small incidents became unduly magnified. I had walked some three or four miles, and was in the immediate vicinity of Westminster Abbey when the cathedral clock began to strike. I paused and listened with extreme attention, standing quite motionless and counting the strokes till the hour was fully announced. It appeared to me a singular and unusual thing that it should be three o'clock; singular, also, that the rain should have ceased, and that a fog was creeping over the streets.

It was only when I was again in motion that the significance of time, in relation to the purpose I had in view, impressed me. "Three o'clock," I thought. "At four I shall be dead." Crossing the road at the top of Parliament Street a man, passing hastily, stumbled against me. In a spirit of fury I grappled and threw him to the ground – and stood over him, ready to stamp on him if he showed resistance. All my senses were alert for evil. The man did not stir, and I passed on. But I had not proceeded far before I stopped to consider whether I had killed him. I groped my way back to the spot upon which I had left him. The man was gone. I was neither glad nor sorry.

A woman – one of the misery's children – accosted me; appealed to me, for the love of God, to give her a penny for a cup of coffee. The coffee stall, which I had not seen, was within a dozen yards of us; its lights shone dim through the fog, and shadowy, ghost-like forms hung about it. I gave the woman a shilling, and continued on my way. I was now on Westminster Bridge. The fog was thickening. I could scarcely see the water. The dull reflection of the lamps on the Embankment added to the general despondency of the scene. I was enwrapped in gloom and silence. I walked to the end of the bridge, and stood on the steps leading down to the river.

Upon what a slight foundation rests a man's fate! A chance turning this way or that, a moment's hesitation, may make or mar, may lead to destruction or salvation. I heard the muffled tread of a policeman, and fearing that I had been seen, and my purpose discovered, I did not descend the steps, but crossing the road, walked slowly towards Kennington, intending presently to return and carry out my sinful design. The probability is that I had not been seen, and should not have been interrupted, for the policeman did not follow me, and the echo of his footsteps gradually died away. When I was assured of this I should have turned again towards the river had not a simple incident changed the whole current of my life. The sound of a woman's suppressed sobs fell upon my ear.

CHAPTER XVII

She was standing at the door of a chemist's shop, endeavoring to arouse the proprietor by repeated pulling of the night bell, pausing between each summons, and vainly endeavoring to choke back her tears. I could not see her face, but so keen and poignant was her grief that I should have been less than human had I passed by without a word. The note of suffering in her voice touched a sympathetic chord in my heart, and awoke the dormant sense of good within me.

"What are you crying for?" I inquired, stepping to her side.

My question seemed to terrify her, and she made a movement as if about to fly. But the duty upon which she was bent gave her courage.

"Don't speak to me!" she implored. "For heaven's sake, leave me!"

I knew what she intended to convey by this appeal. She mistook me for one of the human ghouls who prowl the streets in the belief that every woman is frail.

"I will not harm you," I said, and I repeated my question. "What are you crying for?"

My sad voice reassured her – so she subsequently informed me – and after a pause she answered timidly. "I have been trying for a quarter of an hour to make the chemist hear, but he will not come down. It is life or death, and he will not come down!"

"Your life or death?" I asked.

"No," she replied, "not mine; my mother's – my dear mother's!"

"Let me see what I can do," I said, and I pulled the bell, and listened, with my ear close to the door.

There was no response, and I pulled again, and failed to hear the ring. I discovered then that the night bell was broken. There was another bell on the other side of the door, and this I pulled vigorously, and beat on the door with my fist.

"What is the matter with your mother?"

"She is very ill – she has been ill for months. Are you a doctor, sir?"

"No. What does the doctor who is attending her say?"

"We have none, sir."

"But why? Surely in a matter of life or death one is necessary." I continued to ring and beat on the door.

"I know, I know," she murmured. "Oh, will he never come?"

I gathered from this mournful reply that they were poor and could not afford a doctor, which was presently confirmed. My vigorous summons was successful in arousing the chemist, who, with a sleepy and unwilling air, opened the door and admitted us. Now, by the light in the shop, I saw that the woman was young, hardly yet out of her teens, and though grief was stamped too plainly upon her countenance, that she was fair and prepossessing. So modest and gentle was she that I was filled with pity for her. Her eyes were dim with tears, her hair had become loosened and hung in lovely disorder upon her white neck, her features bore traces of exhausting vigil. With a trembling hand she held out a prescription, saying in a wistful tone:

"I am sorry to disturb you, but my mother is much worse to-night. I will pay you to-morrow – I have some work to take back."

He grumbled a little and hesitated, and I, stepping back so that the young woman could not see my action, nodded to him and held up my purse. Understanding from this that I intended to pay him he made up the medicine and gave her the bottle, with which, after expressing her gratitude, she was about to depart, when I said to her:

"Will you wait for me a moment at the door? You may trust me."

The sincerity I felt must have made itself manifest in my voice, for she bent her head slightly, and waited for me outside.

"What is the matter with her mother?" I asked.

"I cannot say," replied the chemist. "She has been ill a long time and ought to have a doctor. This is an old prescription; I have made it up several times."

"Am I right in supposing that they cannot afford 'a doctor?"

"That is evident. They are very poor. They owe me for three bottles already."

"She appears to be respectable," I said, as I paid him what was due.

"No doubt of it. She works day and night, and I should say it is as much as she can do to keep body and soul together."

At my request he wrote the address of a doctor in the neighborhood, and instructed me how to find him. Then I joined the young woman.

"You must accept my escort," I said. "It is hardly safe for you to be out on such a night. I am sincerely sorry for your trouble. I may be able to lighten it."

She trembled so violently that I feared she would fall, but she did not accept my arm. We walked side by side, in silence, till we reached one of the poorest houses in one of the poorest streets. There she stopped, and wished me good night, and thanked me for my services.

"I am going to fetch a doctor to your mother," I said. "How shall we obtain admittance?"

"I am afraid I must refuse, sir," she said. "We are not in a position to pay him."

"Leave that to me," I replied. "When one dear to you is in peril you cannot refuse to accept assistance even from a stranger. I can sympathize with honest pride, but surely this would be carrying it too far. Your mother needs a doctor. She shall see one." I looked up at the windows, and in one at the top of the house I could faintly distinguish a glimmer of light. "Is that your room?"

"Yes, sir."

"Shall I knock or ring when I come back with the doctor?"

"If you will give a gentle knock, so as not to disturb the other lodgers, I will come down." Then, after a momentary pause, "I did not believe there was such goodness in the world."

"You overrate my services. If you knew what you have saved me from – " I did not finish, but asked her to give me the name of the street and the number of the house, which she did. "And your name?"

"Cameron, sir."

"Thank you. The trust you repose in me shall not be abused."

I waited till she had let herself in with a latch-key, and then I departed on my errand.

By this time the fog was so thick that I doubt whether I should have found the street to which I had been directed had it not been for the assistance of a policeman, who accompanied me to the doctor's house. The doctor himself answered my summons, an elderly gentleman, with a careworn, benignant face, who, when he learned what was required of him, said he would come with me at once. We conversed on the way, and he informed me that he had some knowledge of the Camerons, who had called him two or three months ago to prescribe for the mother. They were respectable people, he told me, who had, like numbers of others in the locality, a hard fight to keep the wolf from the door. They belonged to the class who slaved and suffered patiently and silently; everybody spoke well of them, and the daughter was specially modest and gentle in her manners. Except that they appeared to be superior in point of conduct and education, to their neighbors, he knew nothing more of them. He was surprised, the mother being so ill, that the daughter had not come to him; but yet, on second thoughts, he was not surprised, their peculiar delicacy in money matters stopping the way. It was often so with the poor, who were hyper-sensitive in their pride.

I then explained what it was I wished him to do – to attend to the sick woman regularly, and to prescribe what was necessary in the shape of food and medicine. He was to relieve their minds in respect of his fees, which, with all other expenses, I would pay. In token of my sincerity and ability to carry out my desire I begged him to accept a couple of sovereigns in advance, to which he very willingly consented.

"My patients are not quite regular in their payments," he said in a gentle tone, "and it is not in my nature to press them. So far as gratitude goes, I am richly repaid. You are, perhaps, a relative of the Camerons."

"I am not in any way related to them," I replied.

"A friend of long standing, then."

"I have never seen the mother, and scarcely an hour ago I saw Miss Cameron for the first time – by chance," I added.

"A singular hour," he observed, "and a strange night for a chance meeting."

"Yes – but so it happened." And I related how it came about, saying nothing of myself or of the circumstances which caused me to be perambulating the streets at such a time.

He was silent for a little while, and I fancied I heard him sigh. Then he said, "You are a gentleman."

"I hope I may lay claim to the title."

"In station, by which I mean worldly circumstances, far above the Camerons – at least, so I judge."

"Well?"

"They are poor and lowly. Miss Cameron is young, and not unattractive."

"I understand you. My motives are open to suspicion."

"Is it not natural?"

"Quite, and I do not blame you for doubting me, but you must not do Miss Cameron an injustice. She is absolutely blameless. I have related the simple truth, and were you acquainted with my story – which I do not consider myself free to disclose – your doubts would vanish. Can you not credit me with a sincere desire to serve two poor and deserving persons without harboring a base thought towards them?"

As my sad voice had won Miss Cameron's confidence, so it now won the confidence of the good doctor.

"It is a censorious world," he said, "and I spoke out of its mouth. Forgive me."

Miss Cameron must have been keeping watch for us, for my soft tap on the street door was almost immediately answered. Standing in the passage, her hand shading the candle from the night air, she seemed to hesitate whether to invite me in, and I, divining – which was the case – that she and her mother occupied but one room, resolved the difficulty by saying, "I will see you bye and bye, doctor," and pulling the street door to.

Left alone in the dark street, I fell to musing upon the events of the last twenty-four hours. I could scarcely see a dozen yards before me, and even at that distance a moving form would have presented the semblance of a shadow created by the spreading fog; not a sound but that of my own footsteps disturbed the stillness of the dreary scene. And yet, dismal as were my surroundings, I was conscious that my spirits had assumed a more healthy tone. I was devoutly grateful for the change that had come over me, and I did not stop to consider whether it was due to chance or to a merciful interposition of Providence at the most critical period in my life. A heavy weight was lifted from my heart. I had been saved by a woman's face, a woman's voice; she had set free the sealed springs of sympathy and pity – I once was more human.