Kitabı oku: «The Ivory Gate, a new edition», sayfa 21

CHAPTER XXIV
CAN HE REMEMBER?

It was past ten o'clock that Sunday evening when Elsie arrived home. Athelstan and George were waiting up for her. 'Again the mysterious appointment?' asked the former. 'Are we to know anything yet?' – Elsie shook her head. – 'Not to-night? Very good. You look tired, Elsie.'

'I am tired, thank you. And – and I think I would rather not talk to-night. I will go to my own room. – Have patience, both of you, for a day or two longer. Believe me, everything is going well. The only reason why I cannot tell you what I have been doing is that it is so strange – so wonderful – that I have not been able even to shape it into words in my own mind. – What is to-day? The 1st of August.'

'Only eleven days yet – eleven long days,' said George, 'but also eleven short days.'

'I do not forget. Well – you may both of you sit down – go about your business – you need do nothing more. As for me, I think you will have to get on without me every evening this week. But be quite easy. The thing is done.' And with that, nodding and laughing, she ran out of the room.

'It is done,' repeated George. 'The thing is done. Which thing?'

'It is done,' repeated Athelstan. 'What is done? How was it done? Who did it? When was it done?'

'Since Elsie says it is done, I am bound to accept her assurance. Presumably, she has caught old Checkley at South Square, in the very act. Never mind; I am quite sure that Elsie knows what she says.'

In her own retreat Elsie sat down to consider.

If you think of it, she had a good deal to consider. She had, in fact, a tremendous weapon, an eighty-ton Woolwich, in her possession; a thing which had to be handled so that when it was fired it should not produce a general massacre. All those who had maligned and spoken and thought evil of her brother and her lover should, she thought, be laid prostrate by the mere puff and whiff of the discharge. Checkley should fall backwards, and raise a bump at the back of his head as big as an egg. Sir Samuel and Hilda should be tumbled down in the most ignominious fashion, just as if they had no money at all. And her mother should be forced to cry out that she had been wrong and hasty.

She held in her own hands nothing less than the complete demolition of all this erection of suspicion and malignity. Nothing less. She could restore to her brother that which he had never lost, save in the eyes of his own people, who should have been the most jealous to preserve it. No greater service could be rendered to him. And she could clear from her lover's name whatever shreds and mists had been gathered round it by the industrious breath of Checkley – that humble Cloud Compeller. You see, we all have this much of Zeus in us, even in the compelling of Clouds: every man by the exercise of a little malignity, a little insinuation and a few falsehoods, can raise quite a considerable mist about the head or the name or the figure or the reputation of anyone. Women – some women, that is – are constantly engaged in this occupation; and after they have been at their work, it is sometimes hard for the brightest sunshine to melt those mists away.

To be able to clear away clouds is a great thing. Besides this, Elsie had found out what the rest had failed to find out – and by the simplest method. She had learned from the only person who knew at what hour she should be most likely to find the mysterious Edmund Gray, and she had then waited on the stairs until he came. No method more direct – yet nobody thought of it except herself. She had done it. As the result, there was no longer any mystery. The man who forged the first cheque: the man who wrote those letters and conducted their transfer: was, as they all thought at first, Edmund Gray. No other. And Edmund Gray was Edward Dering, one and the same person – and Edward Dering was a Madman, and this discovery it was which so profoundly impressed her. There were no confederates: there was no one wanted to intercept the post: no one had tampered with the safe: the Chief himself had received the letters and conducted the correspondence alternately as Edmund Gray himself, or Edmund Gray acting unconsciously for Edward Dering.

Perfectly impossible – Perfectly simple – Perfectly intelligible. As for the impossibility, a fact may remain when its impossibility is established. Elsie was not a psychologist or a student of the brain. She knew nothing about mental maladies. She only said after what she had seen and heard: 'The man is mad.'

Then she thought how she should best act. To establish the identity of Mr. Dering and Edmund Gray must be done. It was the one thing necessary. Very well. That could easily be done, and in a simple way. She had only to march into his office at the head of a small band of witnesses and say: 'You wanted us to find out Edmund Gray! I have found him. And thou art the man!'

He would deny it. He certainly knew nothing about it. Then she would call upon her witnesses. First, Athelstan's commissionaire, who declared that he should remember, even after eight years or eighty years, the gentleman who sent him to cash that cheque. 'Who is this man, commissionaire?'

'That is Mr. Edmund Gray.'

Next the landlord of his chambers. 'Who is this man?'

'That is Mr. Edmund Gray, my tenant for nine years.'

Then she would call the eminent Barrister, Mr. Langhorne. 'Do you know this man?'

'He is my neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray.'

And Freddy Carstone the Coach.

'He is my neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray.'

And the laundress, and she would say: 'I have done for the gentleman for nine years. He's a very good gentleman, and generous – and his name is Mr. Edmund Gray.'

And the people from the Hall – and they would make answer, with one consent: 'That is Mr. Edmund Gray, our preacher and our teacher.'

And she herself would give her testimony: 'I have sat with you in your Chambers. I have heard you lecture in your Hall, surrounded by these good people, and you are Edmund Gray.'

The thing was quite easy to do. She could bring forward all this evidence at once, and it would be unanswerable and convincing even to Sir Samuel.

Except for one thing which made it difficult.

The discovery would be a most dreadful – a most terrible – revelation to one who believed himself to be the most respectable solicitor in the whole of London; the most trustworthy; the clearest in mind; the keenest in vision; the coldest in judgment. He would learn without the least previous suspicion or preparation, or any softening of the blow, that for many years he had been – What? Is there any other word – any kinder word – any word less terrifying or less humiliating by which the news could be conveyed to him that he had been Mad – Mad – Mad? Heavens! what a word it is! How terrible to look at with its three little letters which mean so much! All the words that mean much are monosyllables: God – Love – Joy – Hate – Fear – Glad – Sad – Mad – Bad – Hell – Home – Wife – Child – House – Song – Feast – Wine – Kiss – everything – they are the oldest words, you see; they have been used from time immemorial by prehistoric man as well as by ourselves.

Mr. Dering had to be told that he was Mad. Somehow or other, he must be told that. It seemed at first the only way out of the difficulty. How could this girl communicate the dreadful news to her guardian, who had always been to her considerate, and even affectionate? She shrank from the task. Then she thought she would hand it over to her brother Athelstan. But he was far more concerned about clearing up the hateful business than about softening the blow for Mr. Dering. Or of communicating it to George. What should she do? Mr. Dering was mad. Not mad all the time, but mad now and then, sometimes every day, sometimes with intervals. This kind of madness, I believe, takes many forms – a fact which should make the strongest men tremble. Sometimes it lasts a long time before it is found out. Sometimes even it is never found out at all. Solicitors and doctors tell queer stories about it. For instance, that story – quite a common story – of an old gentleman of irreproachable reputation, a speaker and leader in religious circles, a man enormously respected by all classes, concerning whom not his bitterest enemy had a word of scandal – yet, after his death, things deplorable, things incredible, things to be suppressed at any cost, were brought to the knowledge of his lawyers. At certain times he went mad, you see. Then he forgot who he was: he forgot his reputation, his place in the world, and the awful penalties of being found out: he went down: he lived among people of the baser sort, and became an inferior man with another name, and died without ever knowing his own dreadful record. Another of whom I have heard was mad for fifteen years, yet the Chief of a great House, who all the time conducted the business with great ability. He was found out at last because he began to buy things. Once he sent home six grand pianos: another time he bought all the cricket bats that were in stock in a certain shop; and another time he bought all the hats that fitted him at all the hatters' shops within a circle whose centre was Piccadilly Circus and the radius a mile long. After this they gave him a cheerful companion, who took walks abroad with him, and he retired from active business.

Some philosophers maintain that we are all gone mad on certain points. In that case, if one does not know it or suspect it, and if our friends neither know nor suspect it, what does it matter? There are also, we all know, points on which some of us are mad, and everybody knows it. There is the man who believes that he is a great poet, and publishes volume after volume, all at his own expense, to prove it: there is the man – but he ought to be taken away and put on a treadmill – who writes letters to the papers on every conceivable subject with the day before yesterday's wisdom: there is the man who thinks he can paint – we all know plenty of men mad like unto these, and we are for the most part willing to tolerate them. Considerations, however, on the universality of the complaint fail to bring consolation to any except those who have it not. In the same way, nobody who dies of any disease is comforted with the thought of the rarity or the frequency of that disease; its interesting character has no charm for him. Nor is the man on his way to be hanged consoled by the reminder that thousands have trodden that flowery way before him. To Mr. Dering, proud of his own intellect, self-sufficient and strong, the discovery of these things would certainly bring humiliation intolerable, perhaps – even – shame unto Death itself. How – oh! how could things be managed so as to spare him this pain?

Elsie's difficulties grew greater the more she pondered over them. It was past midnight when she closed the volume of thought and her eyes at the same moment.

In the morning, Athelstan kissed her gravely.

'Do you remember what you said last night, Elsie? You said that we could rest at peace because the thing was done.'

'Well, Athelstan, the words could only have one meaning, could they? I mean, if you want me to be more explicit, that the thing is actually done. My dear brother, I know all about it now. I know who signed that first cheque – who sent the commissionaire to the Bank – who received the notes – who placed them in the safe – who wrote about the transfers – who received the letters and carried on the whole business. I can place my hand upon him to-day if necessary.'

'Without doubt? With proofs, ample proofs?'

'Without the least doubt – with a cloud of witnesses. My dear brother, do not doubt me. I have done it. Yet – for a reason – to spare one most deeply concerned – for the pity of it – if you knew – give me a few days – a week, perhaps, to find a way if I can. If I cannot, then the cruel truth must be told bluntly, whatever happens.'

'Remember all the mischief the old villain has done.'

'The old villain? Oh! you mean Checkley?'

'Of course; whom should I mean?'

'Nobody – nothing. Brother, if you bid me speak to-day, I will speak. No one has a better right to command. But if this – this person – were to die to-day, my proofs are so ample that there could be no doubt possible. Yes – even my mother – it is dreadful to say it – but she is so hard and so obstinate – even my mother would acknowledge that there is no doubt possible.'

Athelstan stooped and kissed her. 'Order it exactly as you please, my child. If I have waited eight long years, I can wait another week. Another week. Then I shall at last be able to speak of my people at home. I shall go back to California with belongings like other men. I shall be able to make friends; I can even, if it comes in my way, make love, Elsie. Do you think you understand quite what this means to me?'

He left her presently to go about his work.

In the corner of the room stood her easel with the portrait, the fancy portrait, of Mr. Dering the Benevolent – Mr. Dering the Optimist – Mr. Dering as he might be with the same features and the least little change in their habitual setting.

Elsie stood before this picture, looking at it curiously.

'Yes,' she murmured, 'you are a dear, tender-hearted, kindly, benevolent, simple old Thing. You believe in human nature: you think that everybody is longing for the Kingdom of Heaven. You think that everybody would be comfortable in it: that everybody longs for honesty. Before I altered you and improved your face, you were Justice without mercy: you were Law without leniency: you were Experience which knows that all men are wicked by choice when they get the chance: you had no soft place anywhere: you held that Society exists only for the preservation of Property. Oh! you are so much more lovable now, if you would only think so – if you only knew. You believe in men and women: that is a wonderful advance – and you have done well to change your old name to your new name. I think I should like you always to be Edmund Gray. But how am I to tell you? How, in the name of wonder, am I to tell you that you are Edmund Gray? First of all, I must see you – I must break the thing gently – I must force you somehow to recollect, as soon as possible. I must make you somehow understand what has happened.'

She had promised to meet Mr. Edmund Gray at his Chambers that evening at five. He showed his confidence in her by giving her a latch-key, so that she might let herself in if he happened not to be in the Chambers when she called, at five. She would try, then, to bring him back to himself. She pictured his amazement – his shame – at finding himself in strange rooms under another name, preaching wild doctrines. It would be too much for him. Better go to Mr. Dering, the real Mr. Dering, and try to move him in his own office, to recollect what had happened. Because, you see, Elsie, unacquainted with these obscure forms of brain disease, imagined that she might by artful question and suggestion clear that clouded memory, and show the lawyer his double figuring as a Socialist.

She waited till the afternoon. She arrived at New Square about three, two hours before her engagement at Gray's Inn.

Mr. Dering received her with his usual kindness. He was austerely benignant.

'I tried to see you last night,' she said, untruthfully, because the words conveyed the impression that she had called upon him.

'No – no. I was – I suppose I was out. I went out – ' His face clouded, and he stopped.

'Yes – you were saying, Mr. Dering, that you went out.'

'Last night was Sunday, wasn't it? Yes; I went out. – Where did I go?' He drummed the table with his fingers irritably. 'Where did I go? Where? – What does it matter?'

'Nothing at all. Only it is strange that you should not remember.'

'I told you once before, Elsie,' he said, 'I suffer – I labour – under curious fits of forgetfulness. Now, at this moment, I – it really is absurd – I cannot remember where I was last night. I am an old man. It is the privilege of age to forget yesterday, and to remember fifty years ago.'

'I was talking last night to an old gentleman who said much the same. He has Chambers where he goes to write: he has a Lecture Hall – where he preaches to the people – '

Mr. Dering looked at her in mild surprise. What did she mean? Elsie coloured.

'Of course,' she said, 'this has nothing to do with you.'

'How I spent the evening I know very well,' Mr. Dering went on. 'Yet I forget. That is the trouble with me. My housekeeper will not give me dinner on Sunday evening, and on that day I go to my Club. I get there about five or six: I read the magazines till seven. Sometimes I drop off to sleep – we old fellows will drop off, you know – about seven I have dinner. After dinner I take my coffee, and read or talk if there is any one I know. About nine I walk home. That has been my custom for many years. Therefore, that is how I spent the evening of yesterday. – But, you see, I cannot remember it. Breakfast I remember, and the Church service afterwards. Luncheon I remember: getting home at ten I remember. But the interval between I cannot remember.'

'Do you forget other things? Do you remember Saturday afternoon, for instance?'

'Yes – perfectly. I left the office about five. I walked straight home. – No – no – that isn't right. It was nearly eight when I got home. I remember. The dinner was spoiled. – No – I did not go straight home.'

'Perhaps you stayed here till past seven?'

'No – no. I remember looking at the clock as I put on my hat. It was half-past five when I went out – Five. What did I do between half-past five o'clock and eight? I forget. You see, my trouble, Elsie – I forget. Perhaps I went to the Club: perhaps I strolled about: perhaps I came back here. There are three hours to account for – and I have forgotten them all.'

CHAPTER XXV
WILL HE REMEMBER?

Should she tell him? She could not. The way must somehow be prepared. No – she could not tell him just so – in cold blood. How would he look if she were to begin: 'I have found out the mystery. You are Edmund Gray. During the hours that you cannot recall, you are playing the part of a Socialist teacher and leader: you are actively propagating the doctrines that you hold to be dangerous and misleading'? What would he say? What would he feel when he realised the truth?

On the table lay a copy of the Times– a fortnight-old copy – open at the place where there was a certain letter from a certain Edmund Gray. Elsie pointed to it. Mr. Dering sighed. 'Again,' he said, 'they persecute me. Now it is a letter addressed to Edmund Gray, lying on my table: now it is the bill of a pernicious lecture by Edmund Gray: to-day it is this paper with the letter that appeared a week or two ago. Who brought it here? Checkley says he didn't. Who put it on my table?'

Elsie made no reply. It was useless to test her former theory of the boy under the table.

'As for the man who wrote this letter,' Mr. Dering went on, 'he bears the name of our forger and writes from the same address. Yet he is not the man. Of that I am convinced. This man is a fool because he believes in the honesty of mankind: he is a generous fool, because he believes that people would rather be good than bad. Nonsense! They would rather be stealing from each other's plates, like the monkeys, than dividing openly. He has what they call a good heart – that is, he is a soft creature – and he is full of pity for the poor. Now, in my young days, I was taught – what after-experience has only brought more home to me – that the poor are poor in consequence of their vices. We used to say to them: "Go away – practise thrift. Be sober – work hard. By exercising these virtues we rose out of your ranks. By continuing to exercise them we remain on these levels. Go away. There is no remedy for disease contracted by vice. Go away and suffer." That's what we said formerly. What they say now is: "Victims of greed! You are filled with every virtue possible to humanity. You are down-trodden by the Capitalist. You are oppressed. Make and produce for others to enjoy. We will change all this. We will put the fruits – the harvest – of your labour in your own hands, and you shall show the world your justice, your noble disinterestedness, your generosity, your love of the common weal." That's the new gospel, Elsie, and I prefer the old.'

Strange that a man should at one time hold and preach with so much fervour and earnestness the very creed which at another time he denounced as fiercely!

'This man, and such as he,' continued Mr. Dering, lifted out of his anxieties by that subject, 'would destroy Property in order to make the workman rich. Wonderful doctrine! He would advance the world by destroying the only true incentive and stimulant for work, invention, civilisation, association, and every good and useful thing. He would destroy Property. And then? Can he not see what would follow? Why, these people do not know the very alphabet of the thing. By Property they mean the possession by individuals of land or money. But that is only a part of Property. Take that away, and the individual remains. And he has got – what you cannot take away – the rest of his Property, by which he will speedily repair the temporary loss. Consider, child, if you can, what does a man possess? He has, I say, Property – all his own – which cannot be taken from him or shared with another – Property in his brain, his trade, his wit, his craft, his art, his skill, his invention, his enterprise, his quickness to grip an opportunity. Again, he has his wife and children – sometimes a very valuable Property: he has, besides, his memories, his knowledge, his experience, his thoughts, his hopes, his projects, and intentions: he has his past and he has his future: he has, or thinks he has, his inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven. Take away all these things bit by bit, what is left? Nothing. Not even the shadow of a man. Not even a naked figure. This, Elsie, is Property. These things separate the individual from the mass, and each man from his neighbour. A shallow fanatic, like this Edmund Gray, thinks that wealth is the whole of Property. Why, I say, it is only a part of Property: it is the external and visible side of certain forms of Property. Take all the wealth away to-day – even if you make ten thousand laws, the same qualities – the same forms of Property – the same lack of those qualities will produce like results to-morrow. – Do you now understand, child, what is meant by Property? It is everything which makes humanity. Wealth is only the symbol or proof of society so organised that all these qualities – the whole Property of a man, can be exercised freely and without injustice.'

'I see,' said Elsie, gazing with wonder undisguised. Was this last night's Prophet? Could the same brain hold two such diverse views'?

'You are surprised, child. That is because you have never taken or understood this larger view of Property. It is new to you. Confess, however, that it lends sacredness to things which we are becoming accustomed to have derided. Believe me, it is not without reason that some of us venerate the laws which have been slowly, very slowly, framed: and the forms which have been slowly, very slowly, framed: as experience has taught us wisdom for the protection of man – working man, not loafing, lazy man. It is wise and right of us to maintain all those institutions which encourage the best among us to work and invent and distribute. By these forms alone is industry protected and enterprise encouraged. Then such as this Edmund Gray' – he laid his hand again upon the letter – 'will tell you that Property – Property – causes certain crimes – ergo, Property must be destroyed. Everything desirable causes its own peculiar class of crime. Consider the universal passion of Love. It daily causes crimes innumerable. Yet no one has yet proposed the abolition of Love – eh?'

'I believe not,' Elsie replied, smiling. 'I hope no one will – yet.'

'No. But the desire for Property, which is equally universal – which is the most potent factor in the cause of Law and Order – they desire and propose to destroy. I have shown you that it is impossible. Let the companies pay no dividends, let all go to the working men: let the lands pay no rent: the houses no rent: let the merchants' capital yield no profit: to-morrow the clever man will be to the front again, using for his own purposes the dull and the stupid and the lazy. That is my opinion. – Forgive this sermon, Elsie. You started me on the subject. It is one on which I have felt very strongly for a long time. In fact, the more I think upon it the more I am convinced that the most important thing in any social system is the protection of the individual – personal liberty: freedom of contract: right to enjoy in safety what his ability, his enterprise, and his dexterity may gain for him.'

Elsie made no reply for a moment. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn. The vehemence of the upholder of Property overwhelmed her as much as the earnestness of its destroyer. Besides, what chance has a girl of one-and-twenty on a subject of which she knows nothing with a man who has thought upon it for fifty years? Besides, she was thinking all the time of the other man. And now there was no doubt – none whatever – that Mr. Dering knew nothing of Mr. Edmund Gray – nothing at all. He knew nothing and suspected nothing of the truth. And which should she believe? The man who was filled with pity for the poor and saw nothing but their sufferings, or the man who was full of sympathy with the rich, and saw in the poor nothing but their vices? Are all men who work oppressed? Or are there no oppressed at all, but only some lazy and stupid and some clever?

'Tell me more another time,' she said, with a sigh. 'Come back to the case – the robbery. Is anything discovered yet?'

'I have heard nothing. George refuses to go on with the case out of some scruple because – '

'Oh! I know the cause. Very cruel things have been said about him. Do you not intend to stand by your own partner, Mr. Dering?'

'To stand by him? Why, what can I do?'

'You know what has been said of him – what is said of him – why I have had to leave home – '

'I know what is said, certainly. It matters nothing what is said. The only important thing is to find out – and that they cannot do.'

'They want to connect Edmund Gray with the forgeries, and they are trying the wrong way. Checkley is not the connecting link – nor is George.'

'You talk in riddles, child.'

'Perhaps. Do you think, yourself, that George has had anything whatever to do with the business?'

'If you put it so, I do not. If you ask me what I have a right to think – it is that everything is possible.'

'That is what you said about Athelstan. Yet now his innocence is established.'

'That is to say, his guilt is not proved. Find me the man who forged that cheque, and I will acknowledge that he is innocent. Until then, he is as guilty as the other man – Checkley – who was also named in connection with the matter. Mind, I say, I do not believe that my Partner could do this thing. I will tell him so. I have told him so. If it had to be done over again, I would ask him to become my partner. But all things are possible. My brother is hot upon it. Well – let him search as he pleases. In such a case the solution is always the simplest and the most unexpected. I told him only this morning – he had lunch with me – that he was on a wrong scent – but he is obstinate. Let him go on.'

'Yes – let him divide a family – keep up bitterness between mother and son – make a lifelong separation between those who ought to love each other most – Oh! it is shameful! It is shameful! And you make no effort – none at all – to stop it.'

'What can I do? What can I say, more than I have said? If they would only not accuse each other – but find out something!'

'Mr. Dering – forgive me – what I am going to say' – she began with jerks. 'The honour of my brother – of my lover – are at stake.'

'Say, child, what you please.'

'I think that perhaps' – she did not dare to look at him – 'if you could remember sometimes those dropped and forgotten evenings – those hours when you do not know what you have said and done – if you could only remember a little – we might find out more.'

He watched her face blushing, and her eyes confused, and her voice stammering, and he saw that there was something behind – something that she hinted, but would not or could not express. He sat upright, suspicious and disquieted.

'Tell me what you mean, child.'

'I cannot – if you do not remember anything. You come late in the morning – sometimes two hours late. You think it is only ten o'clock when it is twelve. You do not know where you have been for the last two hours. Try to remember that. You were late on Saturday morning. Perhaps this morning. Where were you?'

His face was quite white. He understood that something was going – soon – to happen.

'I know not, Elsie – indeed – I cannot remember. Where was I?'

'You leave here at five. You have ordered dinner, and your housekeeper tells me that you come home at ten or eleven. Where are you all that time?'

'I am at the Club.'

'Can you remember? Think – were you at the Club last night? George went there to find you, but you were not there – and you were not at home. Where were you?'

He tried to speak – but he could not. He shook his head – he gasped twice.

'You cannot remember? Oh! try – Mr. Dering – try – for the sake of everybody – to put an end to this miserable condition – try.'

'I cannot remember,' he said again feebly.

'Is it possible – just possible – that while you are away – during these intervals – you yourself may be actually – in the company – of this Socialist – this Edmund Gray?'

'Elsie – what do you mean?'

'I mean – can you not remember?'

'You mean more, child! Do you know what you mean? If what you suggest is true, then I must be mad – mad. Do you mean it? Do you mean it? Do you understand what you say?'

'Try – try to remember,' she replied. 'That is all I mean. My dear guardian, is there any one to whom I am more grateful than yourself? You have given me a fortune and my lover an income. Try – try to remember.'