boy. You never knew my father? No, and a good job too. There's no
question he was a brute. But somehow, when I heard that he was dead,
it came to me what it all meant. He'd never had a fair chance, never
had his real share in life, never had enough of anything, except,
maybe, drink, and of that he'd had too much. Well, that day when I
pictured him lying there all white and quiet, I kind of understood what
the drinking meant too. He was in a rage against life, wanted to
forget the way he'd been treated, and that's why he drank. I reckon
that's why most men drink, just to forget. And I said to myself,
'Well, I don't want to forget. I'll remember everything the world did
to him, and I'll pay it back, blow for blow, and bruise for bruise.
I'll get my fingers into the world's throat before I've done, and I'll
get what I want.' And I've done it too. And now the queer thing is,
it doesn't somehow seem worth while. Things you've wanted all your
life don't seem what you thought 'em when once you've got them. Seems
as if you'd paid too dear for them, and been cheated after all. Your
good time is when you want 'em, and can't get them, and, when you've
got them, you wonder what made you want 'em. That's what I meant when
I said it seemed as though God laughed at us. I believe I'd laugh
myself if I could see it far enough off. All the fuss and bother, and
rampaging up and down, and then a quiet old fellow puts his hand on
your shoulder, and says, 'What hath pride profited us?' and goes on to
tell you all you've done don't amount to a row of pins, and you know
it's true, too. That's the thing that hurts--it's true, and you know
it, and feel like the worst kind of fool."
He spoke musingly, in a voice of extraordinary softness and sad
deliberation. His wife listened wonderingly. The passage he had read,
whose sombre wisdom contradicted every purpose of his own conduct, the
impression it produced of the vanity of life, and his own entire
gravity, tenderness, and sincerity, as he read the solemn words,
wrought in her complete amazement. In all her long knowledge of her
husband she had never known him in this mood. A woman whose habitual
thoughts moved on a more earthly level would have found the mood
ominous; she would have shuddered in every fibre of her affection, and
have imagined the slow beating of the wings of death upon the quiet
air. But, for her, all that was ominous in the scene was eclipsed by
an overmastering sense of spiritual gratitude. Through long years she
had prayed for such an hour, and prayed against hope. Had it come at
last, this hour of wisdom, this impartation of a higher light, this
sudden softening and sweetening of a nature whose harsh earthiness had
been to her a cause of unspeakable distress?
"O Archie," she cried, "how glad I am to have you speak like that! Let
the world go, Archie dear, before it lets you go. Let us go from this
hateful life, you and I. If we could only be poor again, and live in
some quiet place, we could be happy yet. You've never got any
happiness yet out of all your money that I can see, and you never will.
Can't we start again, dear, and won't you forgive Arthur, and have him
back?"
She was on her knees beside him, her head bowed, or she would have seen
the swift hardening of his face.
"Don't be a fool!" he said harshly.
"Is it folly?" she cried.
"Yes, the silliest of folly. A man can't turn back if he would, and I
don't really want to. He must go on to the end of things."
"Ah! the end--what will that be, Archie?"
"God knows. But there's one thing I know, and that is, that a man
doesn't fight all his life to get something, just to throw it away upon
a whim. I'd think shame of myself if I didn't fight my battle out to
the last stroke. You and me have never agreed, and we don't agree now."
"If you'd only forgive Arthur," she persisted.
"I never forgive fools. I reckon God doesn't do that either. He
forgives sinners, but not fools. Arthur's a fool!"
He closed the Book with a bang, and rose. His face was dark and
troubled. His wife left the room without another word. From the
church across the road there came the soft music of the evening hymn.
He listened, with dilated eyes, keeping time to the familiar rhythm
with extended finger. He breathed a long sigh as it ceased. "It's a
queer thing to think about, that in fifty years' time not one of those
folk will be alive," he reflected. "All gone like--how did the words
run?--like a ship on the water that leaves no trace. I wonder where
Scales will be? Nowhere near where I am, I hope. Scales is a beast!"
And then once more The Fear returned. He saw it like a dark-winged
phantom, pale-faced, threatening, gliding up the road, standing at his
gate.
It stood there a long time, and he wondered if the people coming out of
church could see it too. The wings trailed the ground, and it wore a
black hood. The face beneath the hood he could not see, but he could
hear the words softly uttered, "What hath pride profited us? Or what
good hath riches with our vaunting brought us?" And the evening hymn,
which had ceased, seemed to begin again, attenuated like a whisper from
some organ in the air, a frail, slow, unearthly melody:
Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see...
Just then a door clanged, Helen's light, laughing voice was heard in
the hall, and the whole phantom sunk out of sight. He took hold of
gross reality again, and saw his path, hard and lucid like a line of
burnished gold, leading on to a bright shining ridge, on which arose
the long colonnades of a great house, round which a multitude of people
buzzed, and held out golden wreaths to him.
In the reaction of emotion which ensued there came to him a new
virility of purpose. To come so near those golden heights and miss
them was a thing impossible. Once let him scale them, stand visibly
triumphant--and then? Well, it would be time enough then to meditate
upon the deep sad words of this old philosophic thinker which had so
strangely moved him.
Nevertheless, this softened mood did not wholly leave him all this
Sabbath evening. The memory of his father had evoked also the memory
of his son. For the first time a faint suspicion crossed his mind
that, after all, Arthur might have chosen a form of life which promised
greater happiness than his own. Through all the many months of absence
he had rarely mentioned Arthur's name; if he had done so, it had been
with a frowning brow. Now, to the surprise of both mother and
daughter, he asked for Arthur's letters, took them with him into the
office, and there read them quietly.
"If he only had not gone away!" he said.
And with that thought his sense of injury returned. It was a hard
thing for a father to condone the implied condemnation of that flight.
And the only rehabilitation of his pride lay in some visible success
which even Arthur must respect. There was a lot of good that might be
done with money. It was expected nowadays of rich men that they should
be public benefactors. Here was an untried field which he might
conquer; and what a fine irony it would be if Arthur should return to
England some day to find the name of the father he had despised
mentioned with general respect as a public benefactor! It was strange
that he had not thought of that before. It would afford him a new
interest in life, and be an exquisite revenge.
He rose next morning full of this new plan. He had already done more
than his fair share in subscribing to various charities, but from this
hour he began to develop what appeared a reckless generosity. In
reality it was the entire reverse of reckless; it was governed by the
most deliberate strategy. He had no idea of not letting his left hand
know what his right hand gave. He gave only in such a way as to
attract immediate attention. His greatest act was a subscription of
£10,000 to a patriotic fund for the equipment of army hospitals at the
seat of war. His generosity was much applauded; the example of his
public-spiritedness was quoted far and wide; it was even mentioned in a
sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, and in the "religious press"
there were many pleasing homilies on the wise use of money. From these
new forms of homage his pride drew fresh strength. He moved with a
firmer step, was conscious of increased physical vigour, and became
again the Masterman of the old days, eagle-eyed, daring, despotic.
"You're giving away a lot of money," said one of his friends at the
club to him one day. "I suppose it's part of your policy," he added
ironically.
"A man ought to give in times like this," he answered.
"I suppose so," said his friend. "There never was a time when money
could buy so much. Probably because most of us have so little of it."
He did not appreciate the gibe. But in the bottom of his heart he knew
what men called his generosity was, after all, just what his candid
friend had called it--policy. And it was good policy too. It gave
fresh prestige to the Trust. It was a good investment. To be remarked
for public spirit and generosity led to all sorts of things in England.
England might make pretence to many virtuous and fine ideals, but
there, as in every other country, money could buy anything. It must
not be done openly, of course. But it was done all the same, only a
little less flagrantly than in those franker days when men sold their
votes, and it was said that members of Parliament looked beneath their
dinner-plates for Bank of England notes before they decided what their
views were on questions of disputed legislation.
And at length he had his reward. There came one day to his office a
large official envelope, containing cautious inquiries, whether, under
certain circumstances, which were deftly indicated, he would be
prepared to accept a knighthood. There was, of course, a grave
reference to his public services, especially in his large gifts to
patriotic causes, which had no doubt stimulated the generosity of the
public, and had attracted the attention and gratitude of the Government.
He sat still for a long time with his eyes fixed upon the letter. So
it had come at last, the long-expected, the unavoidable, the supreme
prize of his existence! No: not the supreme; this was but the
beginning. He meant to have more, much more than this.
He resolved that he would say not a word about it, except by way of
proud hint to his family. He would surprise them with it; and he
pictured himself announcing the news. The final letter which conferred
the dignity would come by the morning mail most probably; he would
distinguish it at once by the large official envelope; but he would be
in no haste to open it. He would do what children do with sweetmeats,
keep the best to the last. And then, just when Helen kissed him as he
left the house, and said "Good-bye, father!" he would turn round with a
grave smile, and say, "Sir Archibold Masterman, if you please." And
she would say, "What new joke is this, father?" And he would answer
with a calm voice, as though he spoke of a matter of the least possible
importance, "It's not a joke ... read that!" And his wife would stand
behind Helen, trembling a little; and, far away in Canada, Arthur would
get the news, and would be sorry he had not valued such a father....
It was a delightful vision, and he thrilled to it with the ardour of a
boy.
He replied at once, expressing his appreciation and his gratitude.
Then he fell to wondering how long it took to get the matter settled.
There were no doubt forms and preliminaries, and all that sort of
thing, but surely a week would be long enough. A week passed, a
month--still no answer came. He tortured himself with fears of what
might have happened. Had he expressed himself foolishly in his reply,
shown himself too eager perhaps, or had his letter miscarried?
He would go to Brighton. This strain of waiting was intolerable. No,
he would go to Paris. The man who was to collect the oak and marbles
for his projected country house lived there, and it would divert his
thoughts to meet him.
He went by the afternoon express from Charing Cross. As he entered his
compartment, he noticed a neatly dressed inconspicuous man who appeared
to be observing him closely. The man looked at him strangely, passed
by him and entered the same train. He saw him again upon the boat.
When he reached the Gare du Nord the same man passed by him again, just
as he was ordering a carriage, and disappeared into the crowd.
"Some pressman, I suppose. Well, he'll know me again," he said to
himself, and thought no more about it.
The next day he met the dealer he had come to see. He proved to be a
most interesting fellow, shrewd, adroit, and a master in the art of
persuasion. One thing led to another, and a couple of days passed in
the inspection of the stock. Each night he came back quite tired out
to the hotel. Each morning he began his quest for art treasures with
renewed ardour. He had no other occupation. He had left no address at
the office, and no mail reached him. It was a new and delightful
method of taking a holiday, and he wondered he had not thought of it
before.
As he left the dealer's one day for lunch, he saw the same neatly
dressed inconspicuous man crossing the street just ahead of him. The
man turned back, stopped at a shop-window, and, as he passed, looked
him squarely in the face. When he reached his hotel that night the
same man was sitting quietly reading in the foyer. This time the man
did not look at him.
On the fourth day he had completed his business with the dealer. The
longed-for letter must have come by this time. He resolved to return
to London by the nine o'clock train next morning.
In the evening, as he was packing his valise, there was a knock at the
bedroom door. He opened it, and found the man standing outside.
"You are Mr. Masterman, I believe?"
"Yes, my name is Masterman."
"I want a word with you, if you please."
"You must be quick then. I'm busy--I leave to-morrow morning for
London."
"I also leave to-morrow morning. We might travel together."
"What do you mean, sir? I don't know you, and I don't in the least
desire your company."
"Very few people do," said the man, with a quiet smile. There was
something in that smile indefinitely stealthy, hostile, menacing; it
sent an icy thrill through the heart and curdled the marrow in the
bones. "Mr. Masterman," the man went on, in a low, firm voice, "I'm
sorry to cause you personal inconvenience. You will understand that I
have a duty to perform. You must go with me, sir."
"Why, what ... what ... do you mean you arrest me?"
"That is my duty, sir. There are grave charges against you, which I
for one shall be glad if you can disprove, for I've heard of lots of
good you've done. Mr. Scales was arrested two days ago. I take it
you'll come quietly."
"Scales arrested? For what, pray?"
"The charge is fraud. I am not at liberty to say more."
"Ah! And so----" But speech failed him. He appeared to be losing his
grip upon reality as he had done on that Sunday evening when he saw The
Fear.... There was a sound of organ music, rolling in soft surges,
faint, solemn, sad--"Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day."
And a figure with dark wings that trailed the dust, and hooded head,
very silent. The hood slowly lifted, and he saw the face at last--a
face with a quiet smile, authoritative, inscrutable, indefinitely
hostile. He had seen it at Charing Cross; it had followed him through
the streets of Paris; he saw it now, a kind of white patch on the
darkness, the hard whiteness of flame which nothing could quench.
Then the phantasm faded out, as it had done before. The horrible truth
went crashing through his brain. He knew now why his letter had not
been answered.... So they had heard things ... and never, never now
would he be Sir Archibold Masterman. They had heard things ... and,
while he waited for honour, they were plotting his dishonour. God! how
they must have laughed! It was the supreme irony.
A wave of bitter laughter began to rise in his own heart; but something
warned him, if he laughed just then, he would go mad.
He clutched at his leaping nerves as a man might clutch the reins of a
runaway horse. All at once he attained complete sad composure. He was
walking on a bleak high tableland among the stars, from which he looked
down, and saw the world and all that was therein as a very little
thing. Honour, dishonour, wealth, poverty--all were alike trifles, the
blowing up and down of a little dust.... "_As a ship that passeth over
the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof
cannot be found._"
He was quite calm now. He turned toward the man, who still stood with
his inscrutable quiet smile, unavoidable as destiny, watching him
narrowly.
"I will go with you," he said. "I give you my word, I will go quietly."
XX
THE RETURN
Through the soft summer seas the great ship moved into the mouth of the
English Channel. The early dawn had revealed the faint mist-folded
promontories of the Cornish coast well to westward. Red-sailed
fishing-boats hung like a flight of birds upon the lucid floors of
ocean; coasting steamers snorted past with an air of insular
importance; here and there a white-sailed brig glimmered in the early
sunlight; and, coming after the long loneliness of open seas, these
signs of life impressed the mind like the stir and tumult of a city.
Plymouth would be reached by noon.
Letters, telegrams, and papers had already come aboard with the
pilot--the first friendly overtures of a land slowly rising out of the
thinning morning bank. Men and women, with laughing eyes and gladdened
faces, stood in little groups reading their correspondence, exchanging
jests, commenting upon scraps of news which they had gathered from the
papers. It seemed the tide of war had turned at last. It was to a
madly joyous land the great ship made its slow approach. Suddenly upon
the deck the band clashed with the animating music of the National
Anthem. The English stood uncovered as the first familiar bar vibrated
on the quiet air; the Americans watched them with a half-sympathetic
amusement; even the steerage passengers, foreigners for the most part,
without part or lot in British victories, smiled cheerfully. So joyous
was the hour that private grief appeared a contradiction, an
impertinence.
There was neither telegram nor letter for Arthur, and he had been
unable to secure a paper. To him England extended no welcome.
During the long trans-continental journey, and the longer ocean voyage,
he had beaten out all the conditions of his situation with an iteration
that had finally exhausted the possibilities of vehement emotion. It
is happily not within the power of the human organism to feel and
suffer intensely except for short periods; agony begets lethargy. It
is one of the mercies of pain that it thus dies of its own excess, that
in its intensity it becomes coma. Arthur had reached the point of
moral coma. The red-hot iron had ploughed through his soul, but it had
also seared it into brief insensibility.
In his first extremity of consternation it had seemed a thing
impossible to survive the horror that possessed him. The image of his
father rose before him, sad-browed, accusing, spent with mortal
struggle, pale with immortal defeat--it travelled with him like a face
painted in the air. It evoked in him an anguish of commiseration, and
even of remorse. He remembered every slighting thought that he had
cherished, as men recollect wrongs done to the dead, magnifying errors
into cruelties, faults into crimes. With a sudden burning of the blood
he had realised how singular and strong is that bond of flesh which
unites the parent to the child, how sacred and how incapable of all
annulment. At the root of his own life lay a force stronger than
justice, stronger than religion, a thing bare, irrational,
primeval--the awful sanctity of kinship. And he knew in that moment
that, for good or ill, his place was beside his father. There he must
needs stand, even though it were at the gallows' foot. Whatever burden
crushed those strong shoulders he must share, even though the load were
shameful. From that obligation there was no discharge.
From New York he had cabled both to his father and to Bundy, but no
reply had come from either. He had had to wait two days for the
sailing of a ship, the first of which was a day of infinite misery,
aimless wandering, languid revisitation of familiar scenes. On the
second day he met Horner. He found the little artist re-established in
his studio, and from him received a boisterous welcome.
"Have you seen my book?" he cried.
"What book?"
"Well, I like that. Didn't you write it for me? And don't you
recollect we were to share profits? Look at those"--and he pushed
toward him an immense bundle of press-cuttings.
From these it appeared that the book had achieved notoriety, if not
fame.
"You didn't let me know where you went, and you've never written me, or
I would have posted these things to you. Ripping, aren't they?"
"They appear excellent."
"And there's something else that's still better. Read that!"
It was a letter bearing the well-known office address of Mr. Wilbur M.
Legion, and enclosing a substantial cheque.
"It only came yesterday. I guess we'll cash it. Half of it is yours,
you know, and if you're going to England it may come in handy."
Arthur looked up at that, fixing his eyes on Horner's cheerful face
with a long, searching gaze.
Did Horner know the miserable truth about his father? But of course he
did. It was being shouted round the world. And this reference to the
money being handy on a voyage to England was no doubt the little
artist's indirect, and indeed delicate, way of communicating his
knowledge.
"O Horner!" he cried. "I am very miserable!" And he bowed his head
upon his hands, and wept the first tears he had shed since the blow had
fallen on him.
There was a kindly arm round his shoulders in a moment. "Why, look
'ere, what's the matter?" And before he knew it he was telling Horner
everything.
"Well," said Horner, when he finished. "I guess things aren't as bad
as you think. They never are, you know."
"They couldn't be much worse."
"Oh yes, they could," he went on philosophically. "The jury hasn't
convicted yet, and perhaps they won't. But that's neither here nor
there. The thing you've got to do is to buck up. And look 'ere, about
this cheque--you take it all. I don't want it. I'm in funds. And,
besides, there's more to come."
"No, I can't do that."
"Yes, you can, and you will. Call the half of it a loan, if you like,
but you've got to take it. You know my motto, 'Englishmen ought to
help each other,' and you've just got to let me help you."
Once before in his extremity Horner had saved him from starvation; now
he saved him from despair. The little artist was not a person of
exacting virtues, he made no pretence to religion, and would have
appeared a strange sheep indeed in the folds of the elect; but he
possessed a simple faith in kindness not always found among persons of
immaculate behaviour, and, what is more, he practised his belief. He
filled the studio with the echoes of his cheerful laughter, waited on
Arthur with a watchful tenderness that was almost womanly, refused
encouragement to grief, and finally insisted on a good dinner at
Delmonico's, in the pious hope which is common to all Englishmen that
the ugliest troubles of the brain are erased by due attention to the
stomach. It was Horner who insisted that this should be no
second-class voyage on a slow boat; it was he who engaged a berth on a
famous liner, drove with Arthur to the dock, and waved a cheerful hand
to him as the great ship swung off upon the gray water. When the true
apocalyptic books, which record the unknown kindnesses of man, are
opened, it is not impossible that the name of this little hare-brained
artist may stand higher than the name of kings and conquerors--perhaps
also than the names of certain saints, who in their earthly days were
less remarkable for warm sympathies than for icy propriety, and a
strict attention to the main chance.
And now the voyage was done; the white shaft of the Eddystone lay
astern, and the exquisite green bosom of Mount Edgecumbe swelled from
the sun-flecked water. The passengers streamed down into the tender,
and a few minutes later he stood in the long Custom House sheds of
Plymouth.
Here at last he got a daily paper, and the first thing that met his eye
was a long account of the Masterman trial.
At the same moment a telegraph-boy went shouting through the crowd,
"Masterman! Any one of the name of Masterman?"
He took the telegram in silence, conscious of many eyes suddenly turned
toward him. It was from Bundy, and read, "Will meet you at
Paddington." He was eager to take immediate refuge in the railway
carriage. He was conscious that even the telegraph-boy was looking at
him curiously. Suddenly he saw moving toward him through the crowd
another figure that he thought he recognized--O joy! it was Vickars!
"Vickars!"
"Yes, I learned from Bundy by what boat you'd come. I've a compartment
reserved for you. Let us get into it at once."
"O Vickars! that we should meet like this!"