annual exodus, and Arthur found himself one of five hundred tenants in
a vast hotel at Brighton. Brighton is not precisely a pleasant place
in August--"a sea without a ship, and a shore without a tree"--but
undeniably it has at all seasons a certain strong glitter of life, and
its shipless sea is an inexhaustible reservoir of tonic breezes. But
poetry does not breathe in the air of Brighton, and Arthur's heart was
at the stage when poetry is indispensable to happiness. He could have
been relatively happy in some deep Scotch glen, whipping a stream for
the infrequent trout, and listening unconsciously to the wind-music in
the fir-tops; for though he would still have been separated from
Elizabeth, he would have seen her face mirrored in the stream, and
heard her voice in the wind, and have felt her presence in the wide
peacefulness. But the hard materialism of Brighton jarred upon his
senses. It was London over again, a cleaner and a meaner London. The
same kind of face met him everywhere--the heavy, soulless face of men
who have their portion in this world. In the men it was a
clean-shaved, rubicund face, in the women it was puffed and sometimes
rouged; and this face was reduplicated everywhere--in the hotel, on the
parade, on the pier, till it became a persecution such as one suffers
in dreams. Looking at these faces, Arthur had not only a strong
repulsion, but he knew the cause of it; these faces were the mirror of
unclean souls. There was something dark and turbid in them, a mire of
sin washed up from the abhorred depth of life; these eyes all had the
same expression, something of greed and glassy insolence and vulpine
shrewdness, and the mouths had the same looseness of sensual thirst.
Perhaps he did not see with entire justice, for Elizabeth's face hung
like a picture in his heart, before which he had built a shrine and lit
a lamp of faith; or perhaps he did see with perfect lucidity the souls
of these fellow creatures of his, simply because that lamp of pure love
in his heart gave him light. At all events, he hated Brighton, and
betook himself daily to the green empty Downs, and sometimes as far as
Chantlebury Ring, where the width of the world could be felt once more,
and the shy voice of love might be heard, like a cuckoo-note, in the
great sylvan silences.
Helen had soon found friends, and was now quite reconciled to Brighton;
his mother, more fragile than ever in appearance, was content to sit
still all day, looking at the smooth sea-plain with its gem-like
glitter. More than once he was moved to open all his heart to his
mother, and there were times when her eyes seemed to invite his
confidence; but always between them was that gulf of silence, for which
speech could frame no bridge. He wondered much about this silence of
hers. It was scarcely apathy; no eyes could be as bright as hers if
the heart were apathetic. It seemed rather to be a resolved
incuriousness about things around her, a turning away of the face from
life, as from something dreadful, that had only pain to offer her.
Could one imagine a human creature, with "a bright, sunshiny day after
shipwreck," sitting beside an empty sea, willing to think of nothing
that came before or after, but just to breathe, and watch, and
wait--that was the kind of impression Mrs. Masterman made upon the
mind. Arthur was always delicately tender with her. He hung about her
chair, arranged her shawl or pillows, was quick to perceive her wishes;
but in the very kiss with which she rewarded him there was restraint.
The time was to come when he was to know what it meant, but that time
was not yet. Now, as in all the later years which he could recall, her
one wish seemed to be to efface herself, and to take up as little room
in life and in the thoughts of others as possible.
He was greatly surprised one night, when he came back to the hotel from
a long walk over the Downs, to find his father in conference with
Scales. There was a mass of papers lying on the table, and it was
clear the two men were deeply interested in them.
"Come in," said Masterman. "We're busy, you see, but we'll soon be
through now."
Scales greeted him with his usual smooth civility, and, as usual, it
was a little overdone.
"Shall I wait?" said Arthur.
"No. You'd better dress for dinner. Scales is going to spend the
night here. I have something to say to you later on."
Arthur left the room without remark; but as he was dressing the thought
suddenly took hold on him, What did his father want with Scales?
He knew that his father did not like the man, and that made their
present relation the more unintelligible. He had heard his father
speak with brusque scorn of Scales' plan to punish John Clark, by
getting him off to the Holy Land, and then starting a church revolution
in his absence. That the man was false was beyond doubt. Falsity
looked out of his narrow, deprecating eyes, falsity breathed in his
smooth voice, falsity declared itself in his obsequious manners. Under
no possible circumstances could such a man play fair either as friend
or foe. Judas was such another as Elisha Scales, and Judas was an
apostle as Scales was a deacon.
And here Arthur laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.
"He'll find it hard to betray father," he said.
But not the less he was uneasy. There was something in the man that
was sinister, supple, diabolically adroit, and he felt instinctively
that his presence in his father's room boded no good for any one.
Suddenly there recurred to his memory his father's statement that there
were persons in Brighton he wanted him to meet, and he felt sure that
it was to Scales he referred. Yes, it must be so, because no one else
who could claim his father's acquaintance had appeared in Brighton;
and, if it were so, it argued some kind of compact or pre-arrangement
with Scales.
That night, however, nothing was said that could illumine the
situation. Scales spent the night in the hotel, was closeted late with
his father, and accompanied him to London on the following day.
Another day passed, and then his father sent for him.
"Arthur," he began, "I'm not going to interfere with our compact. I
gave you till the end of September to make your mind up about the
business, and I don't want you to speak a word until then. But there's
a matter of business on which I want your help now."
"I'm not much good at business, father. I don't think I ever shall be."
Masterman ignored the confession.
"You don't know that until you try."
"Of course, if there's anything in which I can help you, father, I'll
do my best."
"Well, you're old enough to use your eyes, and that's all I want of
you. Sit down, and let me explain."
Thereupon he explained. It seemed that Scales had got wind in the
broker's office where he was managing clerk of a certain amalgamation
of several brick companies which was likely to come off before long.
One of these companies was in Sussex, not far from Brighton. It was in
difficulties, had been a long time, and might be bought cheap.
Masterman proposed to buy it, and then resell to the trust when it
should be formed. Properly handled, there might be a fortune in the
transaction.
"I thought you didn't trust Scales," said Arthur quietly.
"And I don't. Not an inch farther than I can see him. I know very
well he'd sell the shirt off my back if he got a chance."
"Of course he's not working for nothing."
"Certainly not. If he were, I should distrust him still more. You'll
find that in business no one does anything for nothing."
"But I don't see anything I can do, father."
"That's the point I am coming to. I dare not go to look at this Sussex
property. I'm known. If I appeared upon the scene, they'd spring the
price at once. But you can go to see it. It's at Leatham, not more
than twenty miles away. What I want you to do is to go to the village,
stop at the inn for a few days, make all the inquiries you can,
quietly, and then report to me. Will you do it?"
How could he refuse? It was at least a break in the dull monotony of
Brighton. And he was really touched, too, by his father's faith in him.
"But I have no expert knowledge, father, and surely that is what you
need."
"Not at all. They'd suspect an expert. All that is wanted is a pair
of good eyes, and good commonsense. I think you have these."
"Very well, father, I will go. When do you want me to start?"
"At once. You can't be too quick."
"I will start this morning, sir."
"That's the spirit I like," said Master-man. "It will be the first bit
of business you ever did for me, and it won't be the last."
On that pious hope Arthur made no comment. He could not refuse to do
what his father asked, and he did it the more readily because in his
own mind he knew it would be likely to prove both the first and the
last act of the kind he would perform.
"I daresay Scales will turn up at Leatham. Behave to him as civilly as
you can."
"I'll try, sir." But he said it with so wry a smile that his father
laughed.
"He'll be civil enough to you, never fear."
Of course, thought Arthur. Judas was no doubt a pleasant-mannered
gentleman, and the very pattern of civility--until he bared his fangs.
So Arthur went to Leatham, and for the first time found himself in
contact with that mysterious world of business in which his father
lived. At first this contact produced an almost pleasurable sensation,
such as the swimmer feels when the sting of the salt water thrills his
nerves. It was all so new, this contact with rough reality. He found
the owner of the brickfield an old man, as skilled in craft as Ulysses.
The old man came to see him in the village inn, and played the game of
cross-purposes with inimitable subtlety. He supposed the young
gentleman wanted to settle there? No? Well, it was a fine
neighbourhood, few better, and the sport was considered good.
Interested in business? Well, for a safe paying business there was few
things like bricks. People must have bricks, because they must have
houses. He was an old man, and had an idea of retiring. If the young
gentleman was interested in bricks, he'd like him to come over the
works some day. Not that it could be supposed he was interested.
Bookish, wasn't he? Been to college? Well, lots of college men went
into business now, and even titled ladies kept bonnet-shops. So he'd
heard. He was really an amusing old man, and Arthur enjoyed his
company more than could have been supposed of a young Sir Galahad.
His father had not been mistaken when he had credited him with a pair
of good eyes and cool commonsense, and the more he used his eyes the
less he thought of the possibilities of the Leatham brick-works. It
was clearly a bankrupt concern. It was handicapped by being four miles
from the rail. It had been able to do a small local trade for several
years, and that was about all it was ever likely to do. If there was a
fortune in it, it was of such microscopic proportions that it needed
keener eyes than Arthur's to discover it.
On the Saturday night Scales came down, deferential and obsequious as
usual, but clearly a little ill at ease. Arthur dined with him in the
old-fashioned inn-parlour, and after dinner came at once to the point.
He said bluntly that he believed the Leatham Brick Manufacturing Co.
was a worthless property.
Scales smiled enigmatically.
"You appear to dissent," said Arthur.
"No, not altogether. I never thought much of it myself."
"Then why do you want my father to buy it?"
"Why, to resell it, of course."
"If it's worthless, you can't resell it."
"It won't be worthless if your father gets it. If it's worthless now,
it's because it hasn't been developed. The present owner hasn't had
the money to put into it. Your father will develop it."
"And then?
"Make it a company."
"And then?"
"Resell it to the Amalgamated Brick Trust."
"And if the Amalgamated doesn't want it?"
"But they will. It's my business to look after that."
"Then why not let the present owner sell it to the Amalgamated? He's
worked it all his life. If there's a fortune to be made out of it, as
my father seemed to think, it's that poor old man who ought to get
it--not my father."
"That's not the way business is done."
"It seems to me the way it should be done. It's the only honest way."
Thereupon Scales entered on an exposition of the methods of modern
business, according to which it seemed that fortunes were only made by
snatching advantages from the weak who could not hold them. Arthur
listened in silence, and as Scales proceeded the boy's face had a
curious likeness to his father's in his grimmest mood.
"It's no good," he broke out at length. "If that is what business
means, it seems to me to be nothing better than organised theft. I'm
sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Scales--for no doubt you hope to make
something yourself out of this fine scheme--but my father expects me to
report honestly what I think, and I shall report against the purchase."
"You'll regret it if you do."
"I should regret it all my life if I didn't."
"Think over it. Don't act hastily."
And as he spoke there was something like a tremor of anger in the suave
voice.
"I've done my thinking already," said Arthur. "There's only one thing
more I want to say. If the transaction were never so honest, there's a
weak place in your scheme which I think my father will appreciate. It
is that he has only your word for it, Mr. Scales, that the Amalgamated
will, buy the property, and, to be quite frank, I don't trust your
word."
He left the room and went to bed. The next morning he returned to
Brighton. The first thing that met his eyes as he entered his room was
a letter from Elizabeth.
VIII
THE ACCUSATION
It was a very brief note, simply informing him that Hilary Vickars was
ill, and wished to see him.
An hour later he was in the train. Fortunately he had written his
report of the Leatham business before he left the village, and this he
left upon his father's desk. As he went up to London he read and
re-read Elizabeth's brief note, in a conflict of torture and delight.
There was but one phrase in it which impressed the personality of the
writer. "I am alone with father, and very anxious," she wrote. He
felt the throb of her heart in those words, and he realised that she
leaned on him for strength. His own heart swelled with tenderness at
the thought. There is a kind of pain which is so exquisite that it
becomes joy; he realised such a pain now, an immense yearning to take
the lonely girl to his bosom, and kiss her wet eyelids, and defend her
from the imminent sword of sorrow.
He stood at the door of the little house in Lonsdale Road. The street
lay silent in the August heat, the little patch of grass was brown and
parched, there was an aspect of forlornness over everything. A sudden
terror smote him: what if it were Elizabeth herself who was ill? His
hand trembled as he rang the bell. The door opened softly, and there
stood Elizabeth, pale and quiet as a spectre.
"Elizabeth!"
Her hand lay in his, her beautiful eyes, swimming in tears, met his; he
drew her to him in one long kiss. It was the first time he had kissed
her, and how often had he imagined the ecstasy of that kiss! It had
come at last, but not with the kind of ecstasy he had imagined, yet
with the diviner ecstasy of sorrow. The rose of her heart was yielded
to him, but it was wet with tears.
"Elizabeth!"
She withdrew herself from his embrace, saying simply, "I wanted you so
much."
And in that brief phrase all was said, and each knew that henceforth an
irrevocable vow bound their hearts together.
She took his hand, and together they went into the room where they had
so often talked. The desk was littered with papers, half-corrected
proofs, unanswered letters, the mute, pathetic witness of an arrested
hand.
"How long ago is it?" he whispered
"Four days."
"What is it?"
"Typhoid, the doctor thinks."
"Can I see him?"
"It was he who told me to write you. He wants to see you."
"And you?"
"Yes, I wanted you too."
There was a tender reproach in the words, which he was quick to
recognise.
"I should not have asked the question. Forgive me."
"No, you need not have asked it."
They went upstairs together. Vickars lay very straight and quiet in
the bed, his face pallid, his eyes closed. He roused instantly at
their entrance, and at once began to speak in a weak, eager voice.
"So you see I'm caught at last," he said with difficult cheerfulness.
"I've never had an illness--ailments, but not illness--and I don't
quite know what to make of it. It's an experience that makes one
humble."
"Don't talk, father. It exhausts you," said Elizabeth.
"On the contrary, it keeps me cheerful," he said, with the old
whimsical smile. "Habit, I suppose. And besides, I have certain
things to say to Arthur."
Elizabeth took the hint and left the room. Arthur sat beside the bed
in awkward silence.
Presently Vickars said abruptly, "You love her?"
"Yes, with all my heart."
"I thought so."
He was silent for some moments. Then he said, "A month ago I suppose I
should almost have hated you for that confession. She is all I have; I
have always wanted to keep her wholly to myself.... I have dreaded
this hour.... But I see now it is the course of nature. I may have to
leave her soon--I don't know. But I'm glad now you love her. Yes, I
think I'm glad, and I wished to tell you so."
"I hope you'll soon be better."
"Ah! do you? But then, you see, I might not feel the same toward you.
But there--that's irony. You know that. Honestly, I'm glad you love
her."
His eyes closed, and Arthur, sitting silently beside the bed, could not
but mark the change in Vickars since last he saw him. The bones of the
face showed white through the stretched, transparent skin, the eyes
were sunken, and new lines had been etched upon the forehead. It came
to him, in a rush of pity and of admiration, that he loved this man.
And there came to him also some dim perception of the depth of that
sacrifice which Vickars endured in resigning his sole jealous claim
upon Elizabeth. It is seldom that young love attains to this vision.
It is all hot eagerness, imperious and intense with the overmastering
impulse of sex, and blind to the tendrils of old affection which it
tears apart to reach its goal. But to Arthur there was granted a truer
vision, a nobler temper, because love in him had always had a sacred
meaning, and had never been the more clamorous cry of sex.
It was as though Vickars divined his thoughts. He opened his eyes, and
said, "Bring me my notebook. It is lying on the table."
Arthur brought the book.
"I want to read you something. It was written by a wayward man of
genius, who made many blunders both in thought and morals, but he
understood love, and the one best thing in all his life was that he did
know how to love. Listen. 'To love we must render up body and soul,
heart and mind, all interests and all desires, all prudences and all
ambitions, and identify our being with that of another.... To love is
for the soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the
perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining when the
path is terrible with dangers, mutually exhorting when it is rugged
with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing when rich broad plains and
sunny slopes make the journey a delight, showing in the quiet distance
the resting-place we all seek in this world.'"
The words, beautiful in themselves, had a strange solemnity as Vickars
read them. It was as though all the ages spoke in them, as though one
overheard in some dim cathedral the low whispering of multitudes of
lovers, confessing the ultimate secret of both life and love.
He put the book down, sank back upon his pillow, and began to talk in a
low, intense voice.
"Yes, I loved like that.... A companion of the soul, that was what I
found. Women are such delicate and fragile creatures, but oh! so
strong--much stronger than we are; and a good woman is the strongest of
all. The heavier the load you lay upon them, the happier they are. I
know. I should have fallen by the way but for her. She always smiled
at difficulty ... such a tender, smiling mouth she had ... like a fresh
flower in the sun. Then God took her. She went smiling--her last word
a word of encouragement to me, her eyes signalling courage as they
closed. And Elizabeth is like her. She has carried my burdens and
borne my sorrows.... Poor child! it may be I have leaned too heavily
on her. Well, well. God forbid I should grudge her her right to joy.
Take her, Arthur, and don't lean too heavily upon her."
Instinctively Arthur knelt beside the bed. His eyes were full of
tears. Vickars stretched out his hand, and laid it on his head. There
was no need of further words.
When he next spoke, it was with his old manner of whimsical humour.
"If I must needs have a son, I don't want an idle one," he said. "I
want you to help me, Arthur."
"I'll do anything I can."
"Well, this is what I want you to do. You will find the proofs of my
new book downstairs on my desk. They must be corrected at once, or the
book will miss the autumn season. Will you correct them for me?"
"If Elizabeth will let me," he said with a smile.
"I think she will let you. I am sure she would let no one else."
"Then I'll begin at once."
"Well, that's a load off my mind. And don't you think I'm going to
die, for I'm not. But I'm in for a hard fight, there's no doubt of
that. Now go to Elizabeth--and the proofs. I'm tired out, and will
sleep. I've never been lazy in my life before, and it's a new and
quite exquisite sensation."
From that hour a strange chapter of life began for Arthur. Eagle House
was closed, and he took refuge with Mrs. Bundy. He wrote his father a
brief note, saying he was detained in London, and would not return to
Brighton. He had not the courage to tell him the whole truth; that
revelation would come soon enough, and he did not wish to antagonise
his father by an abrupt declaration of his position. To this note his
father made no reply.
Most of his hours were spent in the little house in Lonsdale Road.
There he toiled over Vickars's new book. Much of it consisted of rough
drafts, which he had to copy and piece together as best he could. In
this delicate work he could obtain no counsel from Vickars.
Of Elizabeth he saw much, and yet far less than he would have imagined
possible. She was constantly at her father's bedside. And as the days
wore on, the fight for life in that shadowed room became intense. A
silent pressure of her hand, a silent kiss--and she would glide from
him like a ghost, and disappear into the gloom of that upper chamber.
One night it happened that she had gone to rest, worn out with long
watching, and Arthur took her place at Vickars' bedside. For a long
time Vickars lay in complete stupor. The gray dawn was near, and a
milk-cart rattled down the road. The noise roused him for a moment,
and he began to speak in half-delirious words.
"The old story," he said. "Rotten work, and human lives to pay for it.
The poor ... the poor pay for everything in this world ... with their
blood. And the rich sit in houses splashed with the blood of the poor,
and don't even know it.... I always knew the drains were bad. I
always said they smelt of death. But that damned builder didn't
care--not he. He only laughed ... laughed."
The voice trailed off into an incoherent whisper.
When Vickars began to speak, Arthur listened drowsily; but as he
finished, his entire mind sprang into vivid apprehension. It was as
though a sudden torch flared through his brain.
What did the sick man mean? And with the question there came back to
Arthur's memory a snatch of conversation at the deacons' tea, when he
had first heard the name of Hilary Vickars. He recalled the suave,
purring voice of Scales explaining to his father that the Vickars were
inconsiderable people, living in Lonsdale Road--"in one of your houses,
sir."
"I always said the drains smelt of death. But that damned builder
didn't care. He only laughed."
And the builder was his father.
A blackness of great horror fell upon him. He struggled against it, as
against an overwhelming tide. Could it be that Vickars knew this
dreadful thing all the time, knew it even when he had laid his hand
upon his head, and welcomed him as a son? It seemed hardly possible.
He told himself that after all he had nothing to go upon but a few
delirious words. Perhaps Vickars was not thinking of his own case at
all. It might have been simply some scene in one of his books which he
rehearsed--a snatch of drama flung out by the toiling, unconscious
brain. But in his heart he knew that such an explanation was untrue.
An inner force of conviction, stronger than reason, affirmed the
reality of Vickars' words. The delirious mind had uttered a tragic
truth which the conscious mind had concealed.