Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 292
As she stepped down the stairs the curtain was drawn up, the auditorium was a void, the stage dark, save for a single gas jet that burned at the prompter’s wing, and a gentleman in evening dress was walking to and fro by the extinguished footlights. She was about to step up to the man when she recognised him, and turning on her heel she hurried away. It was Lord Robert Ure, and the memory that had troubled her at the first sight of Betty was of the woman who had ridden with Polly Love on the day of the Lord Mayor’s show.
Feeling hot and foolish and afraid, she was scurrying through the dark passages when some one called her. It was the stage manager.
“I should like to hear your voice again, my dear. Come down at eleven in the morning, sharp. The leader of the orchestra will be here to play.”
She made some confused answer of assent, and then found herself in the back seat, panting audibly and taking long breaths of the cold night air. She was dizzy and was feeling, as she had never felt before, that she wanted some one to lean upon. If anybody had said to her at that moment, “Come out of the atmosphere of that hot-bed, my child, it is full of danger and the germs of death,” she would have left everything behind her and followed him, whatever the cost or sacrifice. But she had no one, and the pain of her yearning and the misery of her shame were choking her.
Before going home she walked over to the hospital; but no, there was still no letter from John Storm. There was one from Drake, many days overdue:
“Dear Glory: Hearing that you call for your letters, I write to ask if you will not let me know where you are and how the world is using you. Since the day we parted in St. James’s Park I have often spoken of you to my friend Miss Macquarrie, and I am angry with myself when I remember what remarkable talents you have, and that they are only waiting for the right use to be made of them.
“Yours most kindly,
“F. H. N. Drake.”
“Many thanks, good Late-i’-th’-day,” she thought, and she was crushing the latter in her hand when she saw there was a postscript:
“P. S. — This being the Christmas season, I have given myself the pleasure of sending a parcel of Yuletide goodies to your dear old grandfather and his sweet and simple household; but as they have doubtless long forgotten me, and I do not wish to embarrass them with, unnecessary obligations, I will ask you not to help them to the identification of its source.”
She straightened out the letter and folded it, put it in her pocket and returned home. Another letter was waiting for her there. It was from the parson:
“So you sent us a Christmas-box after all! That was just like my runaway, all innocent acting and make-believe. What joy we had of it! — Rachel and myself, I mean, for we had to carry on the fiction that Aunt Anna knew nothing about it, she being vexed at the thought of our spendthrift spending so much money. Chalse brought it into the parlour while Anna was upstairs, and it might have been the ark going up to Jerusalem it entered in such solemn stillness. Oh, dear! oh, dear! The bun-loaf, and the almonds, and the cheese, and the turkey, and the pound of tobacco, and the mull of snuff! On account of Anna everything had to be conducted in great quietness, but it was a terrible leaky sort of silence, I fear, and there were hot and hissing whispers. God bless you for your thought and care of us! Coming so timely, it is like my dear one herself, a gift that cometh from the Lord; and when people ask me if I am not afraid that my granddaughter should be all alone in that great and wicked Babylon, I tell them: ‘No; you don’t know my Glory; she is all courage and nerve and power, a perfect bow of steel, quivering with sympathy and strength.’”
IX.
Christmas had come and gone at the Brotherhood, and yet the project was unfulfilled. John himself had delayed its fulfilment from one trivial cause after another. The night was too dark or not dark enough; the moon shone or was not shining. His real obstacle was his superstitious fear. The scheme was very easy of execution, and the Father himself had made it so. This, and the Father’s trust in him, had almost wrecked the enterprise. Only his own secret anxieties, which were interpreted to his consciousness by the sight of Brother Paul’s wasting face, sufficed to sustain his purpose.
“The man’s dying. It can not be unpleasing to God.”
He said this to himself again and again, as one presses the pain in one’s side to make sure it is still there. Under the shadow of the crisis his character was going to ruin. He grew cunning and hypocritical, and could do nothing that was not false in reality or appearance. When the Father passed him he would drop his head, and it was taken for contrition, and he was commended for humility.
It was now the last day of the year, and therefore the last of his duty at the door.
“It must be to-night,” he whispered, as Paul passed him.
Paul nodded. Since the plan of escape had been projected he had lost all will of his own and become passive and inert.
How the day lingered! And when the night came it dragged along with feet of lead! It seemed as if the hour of evening recreation would never end. Certain of the brothers who had been away on preaching missions throughout the country had returned for the Feast of the Circumcision, and the house was bright with fresh faces and cheerful voices. John thought he had never before heard so much laughter in the monastery.
But the bell rang for Compline, and the brothers passed into church. It was a cold night, the snow was trodden hard, and the wind was rising. The service ended, and the brothers returned to the house with clasped hands and passed up to their cells in silence, leaving Brother Paul at his penance in the church.
Finally the Father put up his hood and went out to lock the gate, and the dog, who took this for his signal, shambled up and followed him. When he returned he shuddered and shrugged his shoulders.
“A bitter night, my son,” he said. “It’s like courting death to go out in it. Heaven help all homeless wanderers on a night like this!”
He was wiping the snow from his slippers.
“So this is the last day of your penance, Brother Storm, and to-morrow morning you will join us in the community room. You have done well; you have fought a good fight and resisted the assaults of Satan. Good-night to you, my son, and God bless you!”
He took a few steps forward and then stopped. “By the way, I promised you the Life of Pére Lacordaire, and you might come to my room and fetch it.”
The Father’s room was on the ground floor to the left of the staircase, and it was entered from a corridor which cut the house across the middle. The rooms that opened out of this corridor to the front looked on the courtyard, and those to the back looked across the City in the direction of the Thames. The Father’s room opened to the back. It was as bare of ornament as any of the cells, but it had a small fire, and a writing-table on which a lamp was burning.
As they entered the room together the Father hung the key of the gate on one of many hooks above the bed. It was the third hook from the end nearest the window, and the key was an old one with very few wards. John watched all this, and even observed that there were books on the floor, and that a man might stumble if he did not walk warily. The Father picked up one of them.
“This is the book, my son. A most precious document, the very mirror of a living human soul. What touched me most, perhaps, were the Father’s references to his mother. A monk may not have his mother to himself, and if the love of woman is much to him he is miserable indeed until he has fixed his eyes on the most blessed among women. But the religious life does not destroy natural affection. It only kills in order to bring forth new life. The corn of wheat dies that it may live again. That is the true Christian asceticism, my son, and so it is with our vows. Goodnight!”
As John was coming out of the Father’s room, he met Brother Andrew going into it, with clean linen over one arm and a ewer of water in the other hand. He threw on his bed in the alcove the book which the Father had given him, and sat down on the form at the door and tried to strengthen himself in his purpose.
“The man is dying for the sight of his sister. He can save her soul if he can only see her. It can not be displeasing to the Almighty.”
When he lifted his head the house was silent, except for the wind that whistled outside its walls. Presently there was a scarcely perceptible click, as of a door closing, and Brother Andrew came from the direction of the Superior’s room. John called to him and he stepped up on tip-toe, for the monk hates noise as an evil spirit. The sprawling features of the big fellow were all smiles.
“Has the Father gone to bed?” said John.
“Yes.”
“Just gone?”
“No; half an hour ago.”
“Then he will be asleep by this time.”
“He was asleep before I left him.”
“So he doesn’t lock his door on the inside?”
“No, never.”
“Does the Father sleep soundly?”
“Sometimes he does, and sometimes a cat would waken him.”
“Brother Andrew — —”
“Yes.”
“Would you do something for me if I wanted, it very much?”
“You know I would.”
“Even if you had to run some risk?”
“I’m not afraid of that”
“And if I got you into trouble, perhaps?”
“But you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t get anybody into trouble.”
John could go no further. The implicit trust in the simple face was too much for him.
“What is it?” said Brother Andrew.
“Oh, nothing — nothing at all,” said John. “I was only trying you, but you are too good to be tempted, and I am ashamed. You must go to bed now.”
“Can I put out the lights for you?”
“No, I’m not ready yet. Ugh! what a cruel wind! A cold night for Brother Paul in the church.”
“Tell me, Brother Storm, what is the matter with Brother Paul? He makes me think of my mother, I don’t know why.”
John made no answer, and the lay brother began to go upstairs. Two steps up he stopped and whispered:
“Won’t you let me do something for you, then?”
“Not to-night, Brother Andrew.”
“Good-night, Brother Storm.”
“Good-night, my lad.”
John listened to his footsteps until they stopped far overhead, and then all was quiet. Only the whistling of the wind broke the stillness of the peaceful house. He slid back the grating and looked out. All was darkness except for the tiny gleam of coloured light that came from the church, where Brother Paul sat to say his Rosary.
This fortified his courage, and he got up to put out the lamps in the staircase and corridors. He began at the top, and as he came down he listened on every landing and looked carefully around. There was no sound anywhere except the light fall of his own deadened footstep. His superstitious fears came back upon him, and his restless conscience created terrors. The old London mansion, with its mystic cells, seemed full of strange shadows, and the wind howled around it like a fiend. One by one he extinguished the lamps. The last of them hung in the hall under the picture of Christ in his crown of thorns. As he put it out he thought the eyes looked at him, and he shuddered.
It was now half-past ten, and time to carry out his project. The back of his neck was aching and his breath was coming quick. With noiseless steps he walked to the door of the Father’s room and listened again. Hearing nothing, he opened the door wide and stepped into the room.
The fire was slumbering out, but it cast a faint red glow on the ceiling and on the bed. A soft light rested on the Father’s face, and he was sleeping peacefully. There was no sound except the wind in the chimney and a whistle sounding from a steamer in the river.
To reach the key, where it hung above the bed, it was necessary to step between the fire and the sleeping man. As John did so his black shadow fell on the Father’s face. He stretched out his hand for the key and found that a bunch of other keys were now hanging over it. When he removed them they jingled slightly, and then his heart stood still, but the Father did not stir, and he took the key of the gate off the hook, put the other keys back in their place, and turned to go.
The dog began to howl — somebody was playing music in the street — and the open door made the wind to roar in the chimney. The Father sighed, and John stood with a quivering heart and looked over his shoulder. But it was only a deep human sigh uttered in sleep.
At the next moment John had returned to the corridor and closed the door behind him. His throat was parched, his eyelids were twitching, and his temples were beating like drums. He went gliding along like a thief, and as he passed the picture of Christ in the darkness the wind seemed to be crying “Judas!”
Back in the hall he dropped on to the form, for his knees could support him no longer. Love and conscience, humanity and religion clamoured loud in his heart and tore him in pieces. “Traitor!” cried one. “But the man’s dying!” cried another. “Judas!” “She is hovering on the brink of hell and he may save her soul from death and damnation!” When the struggle was over, conscience and religion were worsted, and he was more cunning than before.
Then the clock chimed the three quarters, and he raised his head. The streets, usually so quiet at that hour, were becoming noisy with traffic. There were the shuffling of many feet on the hard snow and the sharp crack of voices.
He opened the great door of the house with as little noise as possible and stepped out into the courtyard. The bloodhound started from its quarters and began to growl, but he silenced it with a word, and the creature came up and licked his hand. He crossed the court with quick and noiseless footsteps, lifted the latch of the sacristy and pushed through into the church.
There was a low, droning sound in the empty place. It ran a space and was then sucked in like the sound of the sea at the harbour steps. Brother Paul was sitting in the chancel with a lamp on the stall by his side. His head leaned forward, his eyes were closed, and the light on his thin face made it look pallid and lifeless. John called to him in a whisper.
“Paul!”
He rose quickly and followed John into the courtyard, looking wild and weak and lost.
“But the lamp — I’ve forgotten it,” he said. “Shall I go back and put it out?”
“How simple you are!” said John. “Somebody may be lying awake in the house. Do you want him to see that you’ve left your penance an hour too soon?”
“True.”
“Come this way — quietly.”
They passed on tip-toe to the passage leading to the street, where some flickering gleams of the light without fell over them.
“Where’s your hat?” said John.
“I forgot that too — I left it in the church.”
“Take mine,” said John, “and put up your hood and button your cassock — it’s a cruel night.”
“But I’m afraid,” said Paul.
“Afraid of what?”
“Now that the time has come I’m afraid to learn the truth about her. After all uncertainty is hope, you know, and then — —”
“Tut! Be a man! Don’t give way at the last moment. Here, tie my handkerchief about your neck! How helpless you are, though! I’ve half a mind to go myself instead.”
“But you don’t know what I want to say, and if you did you couldn’t say it.”
“Then listen! Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Go to the hospital where your sister used to be a nurse.”
“Martha’s Vineyard?”
“Ask for Nurse Quayle — will you remember?”
“Nurse Quayle.”
“If she is on night duty she will see you at once. But if she is on day duty she may be in bed and asleep, and in that case — —”
“What?”
“Here, take this letter. Have you got it?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to the porter. Tell him it comes from the former chaplain — you remember. Say it concerns a matter of great importance, and ask him to send it up to the dormitories immediately. Then — —”
“Well?”
“Then she must tell you what to do next.”
“But if she is out?”
“She may be-this is New Year’s Eve.”
“Ah!”
“Wait in the porch till she comes in again.”
John’s impetuous will was carrying everything before it, and the helpless creature began to overwhelm him with grateful blessings.
“Pooh! We’ll not talk of that.... Have you any money?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. I brought nothing here except the little in my purse, and I gave that up on entering.”
“I don’t want any — I can walk.”
“It will take you an hour then.”
A clock was striking somewhere. “Hush! One, two, three ... eleven o’clock. It will be midnight when you get there. Now go!”
The key was grating in the lock of the gate. “Remember Lauds at six in the morning.”
“I’ll be back at five.”
“And I’ll open the gate at 5.30. Only six hours to do everything.”
“Good-night, then.”
“Wait!”
“What is it?”
Paul was in the street, but John was in the darkness of the passage.
“Very likely you’ll cross London in a cab with her.”
“My sister?”
“Your sister went to live somewhere in St. John’s Wood, I remember.”
“St. John’s Wood?”
“Tell her” — John was striving to keep his voice firm— “tell her I am happy — and cheerful — and looking strong and well, you know.”
“But you’re not. You’re too good, and you’re wearing away in my — —”
“Tell her I am often thinking of her, and if she has anything to say — anything to send — any word — any message ... it can’t be displeasing to the Almighty.... But no matter! Go, go!”
The key had grated in the lock again, the lay brother was gone, and John was left alone.
“God pity and forgive me!” he muttered, and then he turned away.
