THE VOICE OF THE DEAD.
In his lonely garret in the East End, Jean Merle was living in an
isolation more complete even than that of Engelberg. There he had known
at least the names of those about him, and their faces had grown
familiar to him. More than once he had been asked to help when help was
sorely needed, and he had felt, though not quite consciously, that there
was still a link or two binding him to his fellow-men. But here, an unit
among millions, who hustled him at every step, breathed the same air,
and shared the common light with him, he was utterly alone. "Isolation
is the sum total of wretchedness to man," and no man could be more
completely isolated than he.
Strangely enough, his Swiss proclivities seemed to have fallen from him
like a worn-out garment. The narrow, humble existence of his peasant
forefathers, to which he had so readily adapted himself, was no longer
tolerable in his eyes. He felt all the force and energy of the life of
the great city which surrounded him. His birthright as an Englishman
presented itself to his imagination with a splendor and importance that
it had never possessed before, even in those palmy days when it was no
unthought-of honor that he might some day take his place in the House
of Commons. He called himself Jean Merle, for no other name belonged to
him; but he felt himself to be an Englishman again, to whom the life of
a Swiss peasant would be a purgatory.
Other natural instincts were asserting themselves. He had been a man of
genial, social habits, glad to gather round him smiling faces and
friendly voices; and this bias of his was stirring into life and shaking
off its long stupor. He longed, with intense longing, for some mortal
ear into which he could pour the story of his sins and sufferings, and
for some human tongue to utter friendly words of counsel to him. It was
not enough to pour out his confessions before God in agonizing prayer;
that he had done, and was doing daily. But it was not all. The natural
yearning for man's forgiveness, spoken in living human speech, grew
stronger within him. There was no longer a chance for him to make even a
partial reparation of the wrong he had committed; he felt himself
without courage to begin the long conflict again. What his soul hungered
for now was to see his life through another man's eyes.
But his money, economize it as he might, was slowly melting away. Unless
he could get work--and all his efforts to find it failed--it would not
do to remain in England. At Engelberg had secured a position as a wood
carver, and his livelihood was assured. There, too, he possessed a
scanty knowledge of the neighbors, and they of him. It would be his
wisest course to return there, to forget what he had been, and to draw
nearer to him the simple and ignorant people, who might yet be won over
to regard him with good-will. This must be done before he found himself
penniless as well as friendless. He set aside a certain sum, when that
was spent he must once more be an exile.
Until then, it was his life to pace to and fro along the streets of
London. Somewhere in this vast labyrinth there was a home to which he
had a right; a hearth where he could plant himself and claim it for his
own. He was master of it, and of a wife, and children; he, the lonely,
almost penniless man. It would be a small thing to him to pay the
penalty the law could demand of him. A few years more or less in
Dartmoor Prison would be nothing to him, if at the end of them he saw a
home waiting for him to return to it. But he never sought to look at the
exterior even of that spot to which he had a right. He made no effort to
see Felicita.
He stayed till he touched his last shilling. It was already winter, and
the short, dark days, with their thick fogs, made the wintry months
little better than one long night. To-morrow he must leave England,
never to return to it. He strayed aimlessly about the gloomy streets,
letting his feet bear him whither they would, until he found himself
looking down through the iron railings upon the deserted yard in front
of the Houses of Parliament. The dark mass of the building loomed
heavily through the yellow fog, but beyond it came the sound of bells
ringing in the invisible Abbey. It was the hour for morning prayer, and
Jean Merle sauntered listlessly onwards until he reached the northern
entrance and turned into the transept. The dim daylight scarcely lit up
the lofty arches in the roof or the farther end of the long aisles, but
he gave no heed to either. He sank down on a chair and bent his gray
head on the back of the chair before him; the sweet solemn chanting of
the white-robed choristers echoed under the roof, and the sacred and
soothing tones of prayer floated pest him. But he did not move or lift
his head. He sat there absorbed in his own thoughts, and the hours
seemed only as floating minutes to him. Visitors came and went, chatting
close beside him, and the vergers, with their quiet footsteps, came one
by one to look at this motionless, poverty-stricken form, whose face no
man could see, but nobody disturbed him. He had a right to be there, as
still, and as solitary, and as silent as he pleased.
But when Canon Pascal came up the long aisle to evening prayers and saw
again the same gray head bowed down in the same despondent attitude as
he had left it in the morning, he could scarcely refrain himself from
pausing then and there, before the evening service proceeded, to speak
to this man. He had caught a momentary glimpse of his face, and it had
haunted him in his study in the interval, until he had half reproached
himself for not answering to that silent appeal its wretchedness had
made. But he had had no expectation of seeing it again.
It was dark by the time the evening service was over, and Canon Pascal
hastily divested himself of his surplice, that he might not seem to
approach the stranger as a clergyman, but rather as an equal. The Abbey
was being cleared of its visitors, and the lights were being put out one
by one, when he sat down on the seat next to Jean Merle's, and laid his
hand with a gentle pressure on his arm. Jean Merle started and lifted up
his head. It was too dark for them to see each other well; but Canon
Pascal's voice was full of friendly urgency.
"They are going to close the Abbey," he said; "and you've been here all
day, without food, my friend. Is there any special reason why you should
pass a long, dark winter's day in such a manner? I would be glad to
serve you if I can. Perhaps you are a stranger in London?"
"I have been seeking the guidance of God," answered Jean Merle, in a
bewildered yet unutterably sorrowful voice.
"That is good," replied Canon Pascal; "that is the best. But it is good
also at times to seek man's guidance. It is God, doubtless, who has sent
me to you. As His servant, I earnestly desire to serve you."
"If you would listen to me under a solemn seal of secrecy!" cried Jean
Merle.
"Are you a Catholic?" asked Canon Pascal. "Is it a confessor you want?"
"I am not a Catholic," he answered; "but there is a strong desire in my
soul to confess. My burden would be lighter if any man would share it,
so far as to keep my secret."
"Does it touch the life of any fellow-creature?" inquired Canon Pascal;
"is there any great crime in it?"
"No; not what you are thinking," he said; "there is sin in it; ay, and
crime; but not a crime like that."
"Then I will listen to it under a solemn promise of secrecy, whatever it
may be," replied Canon Pascal. "But the vergers are waiting to close the
Abbey. Come with me; my home is close by, within the precincts."
Jean Merle had risen obediently as he spoke, but, exhausted and weary,
he staggered as he stood upon his feet. Canon Pascal drew his arm within
his own. This simple action was to him full of a friendliness to which
he had been long a stranger. To clasp another man's hand, to walk
arm-in-arm with him, he felt keenly how much of implied brotherhood was
in them. He was ready to go anywhere with Canon Pascal, almost as a
child guided and cared for by an older and wiser brother.
They passed out of the Abbey into the cloisters, dimly lighted by the
lamps, which had been lit in good time this dark November evening. The
low, black-browed arches, which had echoed to the footsteps of
sorrow-stricken men for more than eight hundred years, resounded to
their tread as they walked beneath them in silence. Jean Merle suffered
himself to be led without a question, like one in a dream. There seemed
some faint reminiscence from the past of this man, with his harsh
features, and kindly, genial expression, the deep-set eyes, beaming with
a benign light from under the rugged eyebrows, and the firm yet friendly
pressure of his guiding arm; and his mind was groping about the dark
labyrinth of memory to seize his former knowledge of him, if there had
ever been any. There was a vague apprehension about him lest he should
discover that this friend was no stranger, and his tongue must be tied,
even though what he was about to say would be under the inviolable seal
of secrecy.
They had not far to go, for Canon Pascal turned aside into a little
square, open to the black November sky, and stopping at a door in the
gray, old walls, opened it with a latch-key. They entered a narrow
passage, and Canon Pascal turned at once to his study, which was close
by. As he pushed open the door, he said, "Go in, my friend; I will be
with you in a moment."
Jean Merle saw before him an old-fashioned room with a low ceiling.
There was no light besides the warm, red glow of a fire, which was no
longer burning with yellow flame, but which lit up sufficiently the
figure of a woman seated on a low stool on the hearth, with her head
resting on the hand that shaded her eyes. It was a figure familiar to
him in his old life--that life which lay on the other side of Roland
Sefton's grave. He had seen the same well-shaped head, with its soft
brown hair, and the round outline of the averted cheek and chin, a
thousand times in old Marlowe's cottage on the uplands, sitting in the
red firelight as she was sitting now. All the intervening years were
swept away in an instant--his bitter anguish and unavailing
repentance--the long solitude and gnawing remorse--all was swept clean
away from his mind. He felt the strength and freshness of his boyhood
come back to him, as if the breeze of the uplands was blowing softly yet
keenly across his throbbing and fevered temples. Even his voice caught
back for the moment the ring of his early youth as he stood on the
threshold, forgetting all else but the sight that filled his eyes.
"Phebe!" he cried; "little Phebe Marlowe!"
The cry startled Phebe, but she did not move. It was the voice of one
long since dead that rang in her ears--dead, and faithfully mourned
over; and every nerve tingled, and her heart seemed to stay its
beating. Roland Sefton's voice! She did not doubt it or mistake it. The
call had been too real. She had answered to it too many times to be
mistaken now. In those days of utter silence, when dumb signs only had
passed between her and her father, Roland's pleasant voice had sounded
too gladly in her ears ever to be forgotten or confounded with another.
But how could she hear it now? The voice of the dead! how could it reach
her? A strange pang of mingled joy and terror paralyzed her. She sat
motionless and bewildered, with a thrill of passionate expectation
quivering through her. Let Roland speak again; she could not answer his
first call!
"Phebe!" She heard the cry again; but this time the voice was low, and
lamentable, and despairing. For in the few seconds he had been standing,
arrested on the threshold, the whole past had flitted through his brain
in dismal procession. She lifted herself up slowly and mechanically from
her low seat, and turned her face reluctantly towards the spot from
which the startling call had come. In the dusky, red light stood the
form of the one friend to whom she had been faithful with the utter
faithfulness of her nature. Whence he came she knew not--she was afraid
of knowing. But he was there, himself, and not another like him. There
was a change, she could see that dimly; but not such a change as could
disguise him from her. Of late, whilst she had been painting his
portrait from memory, every recollection of him had been revived with
keener vividness. Yet the terror of beholding him again on this side of
death struck her dumb. She stretched out her hands towards him, but she
could not speak.
"I must speak to Phebe Marlowe alone," said Jean Merle to Canon Pascal,
and speaking in a tone of irresistible earnestness. "I have that to say
to her which no one else can hear. She is God's messenger to me."
"Shall I leave you with this stranger, Phebe?" asked Canon Pascal.
She made a gesture simply; her lips were too parched to open.
"My dear girl, I will stay, if you please," he said again.
"No," she breathed, in a voice scarcely audible.
"There is a bell close at your hand," he went on, "and I shall be within
hearing of it. I will come myself if you ring it however faintly. You
know this man?"
"Yes," she answered.
She saw him look across at her with an encouraging smile; and then the
door was shut, and she was alone with her mysterious visitor.