Kitabı oku: «A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time», sayfa 20

CHAPTER XVIII

The cab that drove Mrs. Drayton into London carried with it a world of memories. Thought in her old head was like the dip of a sea-bird in the sea – now here, now there, now a straight flight, and now a backward swirl. As she rattled over the dark roads of Child Hill and the New End, she puzzled her confused brain to understand the business on which she had been sent. Why had the gentleman been brought out to Hendon? Why, being ill, was he so soon to be removed? Why, being removed, was he not put back into this cab, and driven to the station for Cumberland? What purpose could be served by sending her to the convent for the gentleman's wife, when the gentleman himself might have been driven there? Why was the lady in a convent? The landlady pursed up her lips and contracted her wrinkled brows in a vain endeavor to get light out of the gloom of these mysteries.

The thought of the gentleman lying ill at her house suggested many thoughts concerning her son. Paul was not her son, and his name was not Drayton. Whose son he was she never knew, and what his name was she had never heard. But she had fixed and done for him since he was a baby, and no mother could have loved a son more than she had loved her Paul. What a poor, puling little one he was, and how the neighbors used to shake their heads and say:

"You'll never rear it; there's a fate on it, poor, misbegotten mite!"

That was thirty long years ago, and now Paul was the lustiest young man in Hendon. Ah! it was not Hendon then, but London, and her husband, the good man, was alive and hearty.

"It'll thrive yet, Martha," he would say, and the little one would seem to know him, and would smile and crow when he cracked his fingers over its cot.

Then the landlady thought of the dark days that followed, when bread was scarce and the gossips would say:

"Serve you right. What for do you have an extra mouth to feed? – take the brat to the foundling."

But her husband, God bless him, had always said:

"What's bite and sup for a child? Keep him, Martha; he'll be a comfort to ye yet, old woman."

Mrs. Drayton wiped her eyes as she drove in the dark.

Then the bad times changed, and they left the town and took the inn at Hendon, and then the worst times of all came on them, for as soon as they were snug and comfortable the good man himself died. He lay dying a week, and when the end came he cried for the child.

"Give me the boy," he said, and she lifted the child into his arms in bed. Then he raised his thin white hand to stroke the wavy hair, but the poor hand fell into the little one's face.

Mrs. Drayton shifted in her seat, and tried to drive away the memories that trod on the heels of these recollections; but the roads were still dark, and nothing but an empty sky was to be seen, and the memories would not be driven away. She recalled the days when young Paul grew to be a lusty lad – daring, reckless, the first in mischief, the deepest in trouble. And there was no man's hand to check him, and people shook their heads and whispered, "He'll come to a bad end; he has the wickedness in his blood." Poor lad, it was not his fault if he had turned out a little wild and wayward and rough, and cruel to his own mother, as you might say, jostling her when he had a drop to drink, and maybe striking her when he didn't know what he was doing, and never turning his hand to honest work, but always dreaming of fortunes coming some day, and betting and racing, and going here and there, and never resting happy and content at home. It was not his fault: he had been led astray by bad companions. And then she didn't mind a blow – not she. Every woman had to bear the like of that. You want a world of patience if you have men creatures about you – that's all.

Thinking of bad companions suggested to the landlady's mind, by some strange twist of which she was never fully conscious, the idea of Hugh Ritson. The gentleman who had come so strangely among them appeared to have a curious influence over Paul. He seemed to know something of Paul's mother. Paul himself rummaged matters up long ago, and found that the lady had escaped from the asylum, and been lost. And now the strange gentleman came with her portrait and said she was dead.

Poor soul, how well Mrs. Drayton remembered her! And that was thirty years ago! She had never afterward set eyes on the lady, and never heard of her but once, and even that once must be five-and-twenty years since. One day she went for coal to the wharf at Pimlico, and there she met an old neighbor, who said: "Mrs. Drayton, your lodger, she that drowned herself, came back for the babby, but your man and you were shifted away." And to think that the poor young thing was dead and gone now, and she herself, who had thought she was old even in those days, was alive and hearty still!

By this time the cab was rattling through the busy streets of London, and the train of the landlady's thoughts was broken. Only in a vague way did she know where she was going. The cab was taking her there, and it would take her back again. When they reached the convent she had to ask for Mrs. Ritson, and say she was sent to take her to St. Pancras Station to meet her husband there, and return to Cumberland by the train at midnight. That was all.

The clock of the abbey was marking the half-hour after eleven as the cab passed into Parliament Square. In another minute they drew up before the convent in Abbey Gardens.

The cabman jumped from the box, rang the bell, and helped Mrs. Drayton to alight. The iron gate and the door in the portico swung open together, and a nun stood on the threshold, holding a lamp in her hand. Mrs. Drayton hobbled up the steps and entered the hall. A deep gloom pervaded the wide apartment, in which there were but two wicker chairs and a table. The nun wore a gray serge gown, with a wimple cut square on her chest, a girdle about her waist, and a rosary hanging by her side.

"Can I see a lady boarder – Mrs. Ritson?" said the landlady.

The nun started a little, and then answered in a low, melancholy voice, in which the words she spoke were lost. Mrs. Drayton's eyes were now accustomed to the gloom, and she looked into the nun's face. It was a troubled and clouded face, and when it was lifted for an instant to her own, Mrs. Drayton felt chilled, as if a death's-hand had touched her.

It was the face of the mother of Paul! Older, sadder, calmer, but the same face still.

The nun dropped her eyes, and made the sign of the cross. Then she walked with a quick and noiseless step to the other end of the hall, and sounded a deep gong. In a moment this summoned a sister – a novice, dressed like the first, except all in white. Mrs. Drayton was now trembling from head to foot, but she repeated her question, and was led into a bare, chill room, and left alone.

CHAPTER XIX

When Greta parted from Hugh Ritson three hours before, she was in an agony of suspense. Another strange threat had terrified her. She had been asked to make choice of one of two evils; refusing to believe in Hugh Ritson's power, she had rejected both. But the uncertainty was terrible. To what lengths might not passion, unrequited passion, defeated passion, outraged passion, lead a man like Hugh Ritson? Without pity, without remorse, with a will that was relentless and a heart that never knew truth, he was a man to flinch at no extremity. What had he meant?

Greta's first impulse had been to go in search of her husband, but this was an idle and a foolish thought. Where should she look? Besides this, she had promised to remain in the convent until her husband should come for her, and she must keep her word. She did not go to supper when the gong sounded, but crept up to her room. The bell rang for vespers, and Greta did not go to the chapel. She lay down in anguish and wept scalding tears. The vesper hymn floated up to her where she lay, and she was still weeping. There was no light in this dark place; there was no way out of this maze but to wait and suffer.

And slowly the certainty stole upon her that Hugh Ritson had made no idle threat. He was a resolute man; he had given her a choice of two courses, and had she not taken a selfish part? If Paul, her husband, were indeed in danger, no matter from what machination of villainy – was it much to ask that she, his wife, should rescue him by a sacrifice that fell heaviest upon herself? Hugh Ritson had been right – her part had been a selfish one. Oh, where was Mr. Christian? She had telegraphed for him, and he had answered that he would come; yet hour had followed hour, and still he had not arrived.

Three hours she tossed in agony. She heard the sisters pass up the echoing stone staircase to their dormitories, and then the silent house became as dumb as a vault. Not a ripple flowed into this still tarn from the great stream of the world that rushed and surged and swelled with the clangor of a million voices around its incrusted sides.

Her window overlooked the Abbey Gardens. All was quiet beneath. Not a step sounded on the pavement. Before her the blank wall was black, and the dark, leafless trees stood out from the vague green of the grass beyond. Against the sky were the dim outlines of the two towers of the old abbey – by day a great rock for the pigeons that wheeled above the tumbling sea of the city, by night a skull of stone from which the voice of the bell told of the flight of time.

Out of the calm of a moment's stupefaction Greta was awakened by a knock at her door. The novice entered and told her that a woman waited below to speak with her. Greta betrayed no surprise, and she was beyond the reach of fresh agitation. Without word or question she followed the novice to the room where Mrs. Drayton sat.

She recognized the landlady and heard her story. Greta's heart leaped up at the thought of rejoining her husband. Here was the answer to the prayer that had gone up she knew not how often from her troubled heart. Soon she would be sure that Hugh Ritson's threat was vain. Soon she would be at Paul's side and hold his hand, and no earthly power should separate them again. Ah, thank God, the merciful Father, who healed the wounded hearts of His children, she should very soon be happy once more, and all the sorrows of these past few days would fade away into a dim memory.

"Twelve o'clock at St. Pancras, and you have the luggage in a cab at the door, you say?"

"Yes; and there's no time to lose, for, to be sure, the night is going fast," said Mrs. Drayton.

"And he will be there to meet me?" asked Greta. Her eyes, still wet with recent tears, danced with a new-found joy.

"Yes, at St. Pancras," said the landlady.

Greta's happiness overflowed. She took the old woman in her arms and kissed her wizened cheeks.

"Wait a minute – only a minute," she said, and tripped off with the swift glide of a lapwing. But when she was half-way up the stairs her ardor was arrested, and she returned with drooping face and steps of lead.

"But why did he not come for me himself?" she asked.

"The gentleman is not well – he is ill," said Mrs. Drayton.

"Ill? You say he is ill? Then he could not come. And I blamed him for not coming!"

"The gentleman is weak, but noways worse; belike he will go straight off and meet you at the station."

Greta turned away once again, and went upstairs slowly. At a door on the first landing she tapped lightly, and when a voice answered from within she entered the room.

The superior was on her knees at a table. She lifted a calm and spiritual face as Greta approached.

"Reverend mother," said Greta, "I am leaving you this moment."

"So soon, my daughter?"

"My husband has sent for me; he will meet me at the railway station at twelve."

"Why did he not come himself?"

"He is ill; he has gone direct."

"The hour is late and the message is sudden. Are you satisfied?"

"I am anxious, reverend mother – "

"What is it, my daughter?"

"An old gentleman, a clergyman, Mr. Christian, is coming from Cumberland. I have expected him hourly, but he is not yet arrived. I cannot wait; I must rejoin my husband. Will you order that a message be left for the clergyman?"

"What is the message, my child?"

"Simply that I have returned with my husband by the train leaving St. Pancras at midnight."

"The lay sister in the hall shall deliver it."

"Who is the sister?"

"Sister Grace."

There was a silence.

"Reverend mother, has Sister Grace ever spoken of the past?"

The superior told a few beads.

"The past is as nothing to us here, my daughter. Within these walls the world does not enter. In the presence of the Cross the past and the future are one."

Greta drew a long breath. Then she stooped and kissed the hand of the superior, and turned softly away.

Greta and the landlady passed out through the deep portico, and the same nun who had opened the door closed it behind them. Mrs. Drayton clung to Greta's arm as they went through, and her hand trembled perceptibly.

"Who is she?" whispered the landlady, when they were seated in a cab.

"Sister Grace," said Greta, and turned her head aside.

"I could ha' sworn as she were the mother of my Paul," murmured Mrs. Drayton.

Greta faced about, but the landlady saw nothing of the look of inquiry; her eyes, like her thoughts, were far away.

CHAPTER XX

Though the hour was late, the streets were thronged. The people were trooping home from the theaters; and the Strand, as Greta and the landlady crossed it, was choked with cabs and omnibuses. The cab drove through the Seven Dials, and there the public-houses were disgorging at every corner their poor ruins of men and women. Shouts, curses, quarreling, and laughter struck upon the ear above the whir of the wheels. Unshaven men and unwashed women, squalid children running here and there among the oyster and orange stalls, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of all conditions, not a few honest people withal, and among them the dark figures of policemen.

Greta's heart beat high that night. Her spirit was full of a new alacrity. Every inch of the way, as they flew over the busy streets, seemed to awake in her soul some fresh sensibility. She wondered where the multitudes of people came from, and whither they were going – vast oceans on oceans of humanity, flowing and ebbing without tide.

She wanted to alight a hundred times, and empty her pockets of all her money. A blind man, playing a tin whistle, and leading a small dog held by a long string, awoke her special pity; the plaintive look in the eye of the cur was an object of peculiar sympathy. A filthy woman, reeling drunk and bareheaded across the street, almost under the feet of the horses, her discolored breast hanging bare, and a puny infant crying feebly in her arms, was another occasion for solicitude. A tiny mite that might have been a dirty boy, coiled up in a ball on a doorstep like a starved cat, was an object of all but irresistible attraction. But she dare not stop for an instant; and, at last, with this certainty, she lay back and shut her eyes very resolutely, and wondered whether, after all, it were not very selfish to be very happy.

The cab stopped with a jolt; they were at St. Pancras station.

"Has he come?" asked Greta, eagerly, and looked about her with eyes that comprehended everything at a glance.

She could not see Paul, and when a porter opened the cab and helped her to alight, it was on her tongue to ask the man if he had seen her husband. But no, she would not do that. She must look for him herself, so that she might be the first to see him. Oh, yes, she must be the very first to see him, and she was now obstinately determined to ask no one.

The porter brought round the truck, and wheeled the luggage onto the platform, and Greta and Mrs. Drayton followed it. Then the wide eyes that half smiled and looked half afraid beneath their trembling lids glanced anxiously around. No, Paul was not there.

"What is the time?" she asked, her eyes still wandering over the bustling throng about her.

"Ten to twelve, miss," announced the porter.

"Oh," she said, with a sigh of relief, "then he will soon be here."

"Will you sit in the waiting-room, miss?" asked the porter; and almost unconsciously she followed him when he led the way. Mrs. Drayton hobbled behind her.

"What did he say about being ill?" she asked, when they were left together.

"That he was only a bit dizzy. Mayhap he's noways 'customed to illness," said the landlady.

"That is true. And what did you say then?"

"I coaxed him to rest him a bit, and take a drop o' summat, and he smiled and said, 'Thank you, my good woman.'

"You were in the right, you dear old soul," said Greta. And she put her arms about the landlady and hugged her. "I'm sure you've been very good to my husband, and watched him tenderly, while I, who should have nursed him, have been away. Thank you, thank you!"

Mrs. Drayton was feeling uneasy. "Well, d'ye know, I can't bear to see a fellow creatur' suffer. It goes agen me someways."

Greta had risen to her feet. "Stay here, Mrs. Drayton – Drayton, isn't it? – stay here while I go on to the platform. He might come and not see me. Ah, yes, he may be looking everywhere for me now."

She went out and elbowed her way among the people who were hurrying to and fro; she dodged between the trucks that were sliding luggage on to the weighing machine and off to the van. The engines were puffing volumes of smoke and steam up to the great glass roof, where the whistle of the engine-man echoed sharp and shrill. Presently she returned to the waiting-room.

"Oh, Mrs. Drayton," she said, "I dreamed a fearful dream last night. What do you think? Will he be well enough to come?"

"Coorse, coorse, my dear. 'Tell her to meet her husband at twelve.' Them's the gentleman's own words."

"How happy I shall be when we are safe at home! And if he is ill, it will be for me to nurse him then."

The light in the dove-like eyes at that moment told plainly that to the poor soul even illness might bring its compensating happiness.

"And as to dreams, to be sure, they are on'y dreams; and what's dreams, say I?"

"You are right, Mrs. Drayton," said Greta, and once more she shot away toward the platform. Her mind had turned to Parson Christian. Could it be possible that he had arrived? The porter who had brought in her luggage was still standing beside it, and with him there was another porter. Their backs were toward Greta as she came out of the waiting-room, and, tripping lightly behind them, she overheard a part of their conversation before they were aware that she was near.

"See the old file in the gaiters by the eleven up?" said one.

"Rather. A reg'lar grandmother's great-grandfather just out of the year one. Talk about swallows, eh? – and the buckles – and the stockings!"

"Good sort, how-an'-ever."

"Good for a tip, eh? Wouldn't ha' thought it."

"No, but a real good-hearted 'un an' if he is a Pape."

"Never?"

"To be sure. Got me to put him in a fly for the Catholic Convent up Westminster way."

Greta could restrain herself no longer, but burst in upon them with twenty questions. When had the parson arrived? When had he left? Was it in a fly? Would it go quickly? Could there be time for it to get back?

"What's your train, miss – twelve to the north?"

"Yes; will he catch it?"

"Scarce get back at twelve," said the porter. But, in spite of this discouraging prophecy, Greta was so elated at the fresh intelligence that she drew out her purse and gave the man five shillings. She had no other change than two half crowns and two pennies, and in her present elevation of soul there could be no choice, between the silver and the copper, as to which the bearer of such news deserved.

The man stared, and then smiled, but he quickly reconciled himself to the unexpected. With extraordinary alacrity he labeled the luggage, and bowled off to the north train, which was already at the platform.

It was now within three minutes of midnight, and Mrs. Drayton had joined Greta in the bustling throng on the platform.

"Oh, I feel as if a thousand hearts were all swelling and beating in my breast at once," said Greta. "Mrs. Drayton, is it certain that he will come? Porter, have you put the luggage in the van? Which is the train – the left?"

"No, miss, the left's going out to make room for the local train up from Kentish Town and Hendon. The right's your train, miss. Got your ticket, miss?"

"Not yet. Must I get it, think you? Is the time short? Yes, I will get two tickets myself," she added, turning to the landlady. "Then when he comes he will have nothing to do but step into the carriage."

"You'll have to be quick, miss – train's nigh due out – only a minute," said the porter.

Greta's luminous eyes were peering over the heads of the people that were about her. Then they brightened, with a flash more swift than lightning, and all her face wore in an instant a heavenly smile. "Ah, he is there – there at the back – at the booking-office – run to him, run my good, dear creature; run and tell him I am here! I'll find a compartment and have the door open."

Greta tripped along the platform with the foot of a deer. In another moment she had a carriage door open, and she stood there with the handle in her hand. She saw him coming who was more than all the world to her. But she did not look twice. No, she would not look twice. She would wait until they were within, alone, together.

Side by side with him walked Hugh Ritson. Could it be possible? And was it he who had brought her husband? Ah! he had repented, and it was only she who had been bitter to the end. How generous of him! how cruel of her!

Her eyes fell, and a warm flush overspread her cheeks as he who came first stepped into the carriage. She did not look again at him, nor did he look again at her. She knew he did not, though her eyes were down. "Oh, when we are alone!" she thought, and then she turned to Hugh Ritson.

The heavenly smile was still on her beautiful face, and the deep light in her eyes spoke of mingled joy and grief.

"Hugh, I fear, I fear," she faltered, "I have been hard and cruel. Let us be friends; let me be your dearest sister."

He looked at her in silence. His infirm foot trailed a pace. He saw what was in her heart, and he knew well what was in his own heart, too; he thought of the blow that he was about to strike her.

She held out her hand, and took in hers his own unresisting fingers. Ay, he knew that there and then he was about to break that forgiving heart forever. He knew who had stepped into that carriage.

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. The man in him could bear up no longer. He broke down; he could not speak; he was choked with emotion.

She turned to the landlady, who stood near, twitching at the ribbons of her bonnet and peering into the carriage.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Drayton, and God bless you for what you have done for my husband!"

The landlady muttered something that was inaudible; she was confused; she stammered, and then was silent.

Greta stepped into the carriage. The guard was standing at the door. The bell had been rung. The train had been signaled. The whistle had sounded. The clocks were striking midnight.

"Wait! Wait!"

It was a voice from the end of the platform. The guard turned with a smile to see who called on a train to wait. An old gentleman in silk stockings and gaiters, with long white hair flowing under the broad brim of a low-crowned hat, came panting to the only door that was still open.

"Quick, sir, it's moving; in with you!"

"Mr. Christian!" cried Greta, and throwing her arms about him, she drew him into the carriage. Then the train began to move away.

At that instant another train – the local train from Kentish Town and Hendon – steamed up to the opposite side of the platform. Before it had stopped two men leaped out. They were the two police-sergeants. Instantly – simultaneously – a man burst through the barrier and ran on to the platform from the street. He was bareheaded, and his face was ghastly white. In one moment the police-sergeants had laid hands upon him. The train to the north had not yet cleared the platform. He saw it passing out. He took hold of the hands by which he was held and threw them off, as if their grasp had been the grasp of a child. Then he bounded away toward the retreating train. It was now moving rapidly. It was gone; it was swallowed up in the dark mouth beyond, and the man stood behind, bareheaded, dripping with perspiration, yet white as ashes, his clothes awry, the collar of his frieze ulster torn away, and a strip of red flannel lining exposed.

It was Paul Ritson.

The police-sergeants hurried up with the re-enforcement of two porters to recover their man. But he was quiet enough now. He did not stir a muscle when they handcuffed him. He looked around with vague, vacant eyes, hardly seeming to realize where he was or what was being done with him. His frenzy was gone.

They led him down the platform. Hugh Ritson was standing on the spot where Greta had left him one minute before. When the company neared that spot the prisoner stopped. He looked across at Hugh Ritson in silence, and for an instant the dazed look died off his face. Then he turned his head aside, and allowed himself to be led quietly away.