now."
He put his arm through Arthur's, and moved through the crowd with erect
head. They were scarcely seated in the carriage when the train began
to move.
"And now," said Vickars, "we can talk. In the first place, let me ask
you how much do you know of this unhappy business?"
"Nothing but what the papers tell me. I see the trial is to-day."
"This is the third day. By the time we reach London the verdict may be
expected."
Arthur turned eagerly, with a flushed face, to the pile of papers he
had purchased.
"I wouldn't trouble over those just now, if I were you," said Vickars.
"Suppose you just let me tell you all about it. That is what I came
for, you know."
He spoke with such entire calmness that it might have been supposed
that what he had to say was of no importance. And this note of calm
communicated itself to Arthur, as he meant it should. He knew that the
great thing just now was to invigorate the boy's strength, and this
must be done by the suppression of active sympathy.
"Very well," said Arthur, "I am ready."
And then Vickars told his story, to the soft thudding accompaniment of
the rushing wheels.
The substance of the story was this. The strong point made by the
defence was that Masterman had not been aware of the frauds committed
by Scales. There was no doubt whatever that Scales would be convicted;
but, since the trial began, a great deal of public sympathy had gone
out to Masterman. It was proved that he had been too ill to have any
knowledge of what Scales was doing. This might be called criminal
negligence; it would depend largely on what view the judge took. It
was proved that he had not absconded, as was at first supposed; his
flight to Paris was an accident. From the hour of his arrest, those
who were most inclined to judge him harshly could not but admit a
certain magnanimity in his behaviour. He had sacrificed his entire
private fortune to his creditors, and as for the Brick Trust, it was
very likely indeed that it would weather the gale. The near close of
the war was creating a boom in all business. And then, amid the
general joyousness, there was perhaps a tendency to lenient judgment;
even jurymen were not wholly insensitive to such a tendency.
"Then you don't think father will be convicted?"
"I don't think so. But of course he will be ruined. You know what I
have thought of your father's business methods, and my opinion is
unchanged. But I have learned more charitable judgments than I used to
have. I see now that men may be criminals without the least suspicion
that they are acting criminally. When a man has done wrong for a long
course of years, he gets to believe that his wrong is right--the light
that is in him becomes darkness. He simply steers his life by an
untrue compass, and no one is more amazed than himself when shipwreck
happens. That is your father's case, I honestly believe. He is the
victim of the force that he has helped to create."
"But you say he has not been dishonest in this affair?"
"No, not explicitly--perhaps not implicitly. That is something which
no one will ever know. The fault lies deeper. It lies in greed. A
man wants more than he has a just right to have, is not content with
honest returns for honest work, becomes unscrupulous, comes to believe
that business is warfare, in which the spoils are for the victor, and
by the time he reaches this point his sense of right and wrong is
fatally confused. He does not really know what is his and what is
another's. And the worst of it is that the world in which he moves is
no wiser. He finds himself applauded for acts which in a juster system
of society would cover him with shame. Ah, Arthur! 'beware of
covetousness'--no deeper word than that was ever uttered."
He spoke with a certain sad quietness, very different from his old
clamant vehemence. Arthur could not but notice it, and he found
himself looking with a kind of wonder on the face of his friend. The
face seemed to have taken on a new aspect. It was paler and thinner,
with an increased loftiness of brow; there were new lines round the
mouth, deeper shadows underneath the eyes, and the lock of hair that
fell across the forehead was almost white; but the most striking thing
was that a certain subtle fire that once lit the face had disappeared.
The keen prophetic look was still there, but it was veiled, dulled, no
longer edged with expectancy; a prophet's face, but no more the face of
a prophet who saw the morning. And in the slow, quiet voice there was
an accent of wearied hope, almost of despair.
Vickars caught the look of wonder on Arthur's face, and said, "Ah! I
see you are surprised that I should speak so tolerantly. I used to say
that I could make the world a paradise if I were sole despot of the
world for a single year, didn't I?
"And now?"
"Now I see that I spoke foolishly. The world is not so easily
transformed."
"Is it you that are transformed?"
"Yes. I used to hate men for being evil; and the only weapon I had to
attack them with was hatred. I have come to see that hatred is the
wrong weapon. You must love men, if you are to change them. You must
love even the vile, and those most bitterly opposed to you. You cannot
even understand them unless you love them. I hated your father once,
because I did not understand the kind of temptations he endured. Now I
have come to understand these temptations, and I find it in my heart to
pity him."
"O Vickars!" cried Arthur. "You are teaching me a hard lesson. I also
have hated.... I have never made allowances. I have indulged
contempt, I have behaved like the worst kind of prig. But do you know,
since this happened ... well, how can I put it? ... I have seen my
father in a new light. And now it seems to me a wonderful thing that
he is as good as he is."
"Yes, that is precisely true, and not only of your father, but of all
men. The truly divine thing about man is that he is always better than
you might expect him to be. It is not the depravity of human nature
that is its outstanding feature--it is the goodness. And you find the
goodness in the very heart of the depravity, like the pearl in the
oyster. But I'm preaching--it's an old habit of mine: forgive me."
"It's a sermon I much needed," said Arthur humbly.
"We all need it, and those who think themselves the best need it most."
And then, with a touch of the old whimsical humour, he added, "Whenever
you hear a man preaching very earnestly against a vice, you may be sure
he has it. I am a case in point."
After that there was little said for a long time. Arthur sat gazing
from the window at the flying scroll of country, the dear desirable
green land, with its ancient parks, clear shallow streams, trim
cottages, level lawns, and wealth of flowers--all so different from
that majestic, half-barbaric vastness which he had left. The tears
filled his eyes, as they have filled the eyes of many a returning
exile. Why did men ever leave it, this land which in every detail was
a finished picture, created by the art of centuries? Where else could
they expect to find such "haunts of ancient peace," dreamy nooks, gray
towers and spires, leisurely, modest happiness, infinite, calm
security? And, as he looked, there came to him again the old thought
that the only life worth living was one remote from cities. Had his
father lived here, earning modest competence, how different the story!
It was the city that had snared him, killed the best in him, infected
him with its fierce, unnatural greed. O damnable, dreadful London! how
many hast thou slain, thou Harlot of the Nations, with thy skirts full
of blood! And yet men went on building new and even worse Londons,
undeterred by past warnings--New York, with its roaring tides of greed
and clang of gold; Chicago, with its naked barbarism, the pure seas
evermore polluted, the fair landscapes blackened, the skies stained
with pestilence. O! it was horrible! If he could but save his father
from this--it might not yet be too late. And there sprang up in his
mind that pathetic fallacy, so often asserted by religion, but so
seldom true, that all suffering purifies; that from wounded pride and
overthrown ambition there must needs come the nobler heart: whereas
every one knows that suffering more often has its issue in bitter
stoicism, and injured pride clamours for revenge, and there is no more
deadly force than defeated ambition, which draws a new strength from
rage.
It was a hard problem for a youth of twenty-three to grapple: no wonder
that he failed.
But that desirable green land spoke its message all the same. "_Man
walketh in a vain show and disquieteth himself in vain_"--so ran the
message. Even Vickars had found that message true. He had beaten
himself weary against the strong bastions of the world, and in vain.
Had he also learned the difficult lesson that the most one man can do
is to live his own life the best way he can, satisfied that nothing
really perishes in the vast sum of things, content if he can add his
insignificant unit of effort to a growing righteousness? Perhaps he
had. Perhaps also that was the only real lesson life had to teach us.
He was aroused from his reverie by the hand of Vickars on his shoulder.
"My dear fellow," he said, "there's something else I have to say to
you, something I find it very difficult to say."
"About my father?"
"No; I have told you all there is to tell. Believe me, I have kept
nothing back."
"What then?"
"Have you thought of what this calamity has meant for others beside
your father? Have you thought what effect it might have upon your
mother?"
"She is not ill?"
"No," said Vickars solemnly, "she is not ill. She is ill no longer.
She is at rest."
"O Vickars!--not dead?"
"Let us use a better word--at rest. She is where she has wished to be
these many weary years."
"And I did not know it. O mother!--mother!"
Vickars turned his face away from that sacred grief. After a few
moments he said, "Can you bear that I should tell you about it?"
"Yes. Tell me."
"I think she was never the same after you left, Arthur. I told you she
came to see us, didn't I? After that first visit she came often. She
honoured us with her confidence. Little by little we learned her
story--the story of a saintly heart at war with circumstance. I
believe the one supreme force that enabled her to live was the purpose
to redeem you from the kind of life that threatened you. She summed
herself up in that purpose. When it was once achieved, her hold on
life gradually relaxed. She had no wish to live longer, composed
herself for the grave, and spoke cheerfully of her departure. Let this
be your great comfort, my dear boy--she was absolutely sure of you, of
your ability, I mean, to live the high life she had always coveted for
you. Her joy in dying was that you were safe."
"When ... when did it happen?"
"On the day your father was arrested. She never knew that, God be
thanked. She went quite quietly, without pain. She simply slept, and
woke--somewhere else."
"O my poor father!"
"Yes. It is right you should think of him. All his life fell at one
blow. There is a sweetness in your grief--you had been the one
happiness of her closing years; but think of the bitterness that was in
his."
"Why was I not told?" he cried fiercely.
"You had enough to bear. We knew you would come home, and we waited."
"But you terrify me. How much more are you keeping back? Is Elizabeth
safe? Is there any other cup that I must drink?"
"Hush! hush! I give you my word I have told you everything. Don't
make it hard for me, Arthur. It sounds a poor thing to say that I have
acted for the best, but it is the only thing left to say."
"Forgive me. I know you have."
So that inner voice which had told him that he would see his mother's
face no more had spoken truly. How vividly he recalled that night of
moonlight, that earnest pleading voice, that solemn farewell! But, as
the anguish of the shock subsided, he found nothing left but softened
thought, and the beginnings of a sad pathetic gratitude. She had never
known the worst, for which he, too, could say, "God be thanked!" One
significant phrase of Vickars vibrated through his mind like a chord of
music--"she composed herself for the grave." He could see the tired
hands meekly folded, the threads of life dropping one by one from the
weary fingers, a holy softness on her face, the first wave of the
Eternal peace rippling round the heart. That was not death--no, mere
rest. And there came to him, too, like a sudden revelation, a thought
which he was never to forget, the divine essential sacrifice in the
lives of all good women. To live not only for others but in others, to
toil and be forgotten, to be content that something fashioned from her
own mind and flesh by prayer and tears and humble renunciation would
live when she was gone, a flower drawing strength and loveliness from
her own buried life--that was woman's lot, a thing divine as the Cross
itself, and like the Cross, the expression of the eternal sacrifice of
self.
"God help me to be worthy of such a sacrifice," he prayed. "But there
never yet lived a man who was worthy of what a mother does for him.
God help me to remember, and to see in all women something holy, for
her dear sake."
The train was rapidly nearing Paddington. The blue sky was tinged with
smoky grayness, the green fields were discoloured, and long rows of
mean, shabby houses took the place of white cottages under hanging
woods.
"And now, pull yourself together," Vickars said. "God help you in the
next few hours."
"I think He will," said Arthur simply.
"I forgot to tell you, Bundy expects you to stay with him. He has a
kind of palace somewhere in Kensington, I believe."
"I don't think I can do that."
"No, I don't think I would. You should be with your father to-night."
"If..." and the rest he dared not utter.
"You mustn't think of that. I feel morally sure that he will be
acquitted. And then he will want you badly. You understand?"
"Yes. I understand."
The train glided into Paddington. Bundy saw him at once as he stepped
from the train. His honest face was flushed, his eyes bright with
excitement.
"I have a carriage ready!" he cried. "Be quick!"
"Where are we going?"
"To the Old Bailey. The jury are now considering their verdict. If we
drive fast, we shall be just in time."
XXI
THE VERDICT
The carriage rolled out of Paddington into the familiar London streets.
The gaiety of summer clothed the city. High white clouds sailed in a
sea of blue, houses were gay with window flowers, women in bright
clothing, themselves like flowers, gave colour to the streets. In
Oxford Street flags were flying, the signals of a recent victory in
Africa. There was an indescribable sense of resurrection in the air,
as if not alone the earth, but the hearts of men and women had won
release from some deep grave of fear. Arthur watched the scene with
dull, unseeing eyes; and to his morbid sensitiveness it seemed as
though London laughed in mockery of his grief.
Vickars sat beside him in silence; Bundy watched the two anxiously, his
eyes full of tears. He wished to say something comforting; and from
time to time made some casual remark, but uttered it hesitatingly, with
an apologetic smile. It was precisely like the action of a good
friendly dog, who lays his warm head on his master's unresponsive hand,
and watches him with wistful eyes, delicately fearful of intrusion on a
grief he cannot comprehend. It was evident, however, that Bundy had
something which he really wished to say, and at last it came.
"You'll be wondering, after what I said to you in New York, why I
haven't helped your father?"
"No. I've never thought about it, except to know you would be as good
as your word."
"And so I would have been. But----"
"You needn't explain. There is too much love between us for that."
"But I must. And I would rather do it at once and get it over. Your
father refused all help. You, know his pride, and he's prouder now
than ever he was. One might almost suppose it pleased him to stand
alone, to fight with his back to the wall, to defy the world to do its
worst on him. And I believe that is what he really does feel."
"I think I can understand."
"Then you'll understand why I could not help him, why no one could. I
offered him anything he liked to ask, and this is what he said: 'No,
Bundy; I've brewed the cup, and I'll drink it. I don't want any sugar
in it. No one shall ever say that Archibold Masterman was a coward.'
That was what he said to me, and he said it like a fallen emperor. It
was foolish, but there was something great in it too. I felt that it
was great."
"I think so too."
"It was great." The phrase was a portrait--vital, indubitable,
convincing. During all these miserable days and nights Arthur had
laboured to fashion some portrait of his father. He had seen him bent,
shame-stricken, prematurely aged; had imagined him leaning on his young
strength for succour, acknowledging his errors, voluble in explanation,
perhaps fierce in accusation of those who had failed him or betrayed
him; had, in fact, seen him in every attitude but the real one; and
now, as though a curtain lifted, he saw his father painted at a touch,
with an instinctive penetration, an absolute veracity. He was a
fighter, and would fight to the last. His pride fed upon defeat.
Calamity had given him nerves of steel. He would drink the cup that he
had brewed, and drink it with a smile. "No sugar"--that phrase said
everything. Pity, sympathy, help, consolation--he was above them,
beyond them, indifferent to them; a man who bared his breast to the
flight of arrows, thrust his hand in the flame without a shudder,
challenged the thunderbolt, upheld while the flame consumed him by a
scorn more potent than his anguish. Yes, it was great--a Promethean
greatness, which defies the heart-eating vulture. He might have known
so much, if he had thought about it. In a sense, he had always known
it, for he had always, even as a boy, felt the element of greatness in
his father. But now, for the first time, he really measured it, and
his heart quailed before it, foreseeing elements in this imminent
meeting with his father which he had not so much as guessed.
They had driven fast. The carriage passed rapidly by the old Church of
St. Sepulchre, and under the walls of Newgate, stopping at last at the
mean, insignificant doors of the Old Bailey.
The pavements were thronged. From the court a great crowd was pouring
out. And already, from the neighbouring newspaper offices, men and
boys were racing breathlessly, shouting "Verdict!" Above the clamour
of the street the shrill cry rose, "_Verdict! Verdict!_"
Bundy leapt from the carriage, and plunged into the throng. He came
back a moment later, waving an evening paper.
"What is it?"
"Scales five years; Masterman acquitted!"
"Thank God!"
And then the tension broke. Arthur found himself sobbing, with the arm
of Vickars round his neck.
"Take me to my father at once," he said. "I wish to go home with him."
"Very well," said Bundy. "Wait here till I find him."
The crowd rapidly thinned, till, in a few moments, where a roaring
torrent of life had run, but an insignificant ripple flowed and eddied.
The tragic bubble, so long watched by thousands of eager eyes, had
burst; it was a thing of the past, to be speedily forgotten. The
carriage moved unimpeded now to the doors of the court. A few
stragglers still hung around, in the hope of seeing once more the
protagonists in the finished drama.
A long black van with a grated door at the back drew up against the
curb. Two policemen came out of the court-house, looked warily up and
down the street, and disappeared again. The man who drove the van
nodded to them, and went on reading his evening paper.
The policemen reappeared, with a man walking between them. The man's
head was bowed, his coat-collar turned up, his hat drawn down over his
eyes.
Arthur had a brief glimpse of a face yellow as wax, a pair of shifty,
bloodshot eyes, and he shuddered. It was Scales. The door of the van
closed, and, through the barred window, that yellow, awful face looked
out, in a last glimpse at liberty. A long, terrible look, gathering up
and flashing to the memory things that would be seen no more,
unforgetable things that would become the torture of sleep and dreams,
little things, such as sunlight flashing on a pool of water, sparrows
in the gutter, a broken flower lying in the road, a girl's languorous
face turned toward her lover, a beggar gazing into the window of a
cook-shop--and then the lids fell upon the bloodshot eyes, and the van
rolled away.
"And that might have been my father," thought Arthur. And with the
thought came a pang of pity for the man in the black van. Not a good
man, not even a lovable man; without grace, without charm, inherently
mean-natured--yet, were he a thousandfold worse than he was, to be
pitied as a creature going to the torture. And, after all, who should
judge even a Scales with justice, who declare how far he was a victim
of the evil system which had inflamed his avarice--the victim, too,
perhaps of some potency of evil in his own blood, some ghostly hand
stretched out of the illimitable past, from whose predestined clutch he
could not escape? Ah, God! who should judge?
And now at last he saw him--his father. Archibold Masterman stood in
the doorway of the court-house. He came down the steps with a firm
tread, looking up and down the street with a calm, defiant glance, his
lips compressed in scornful challenge. Yet scorn could not conceal the
ravage wrought in him by his misfortunes. The face had lost its
colour, it was drawn and haggard, and the hair was nearly white. He
was talking with Bundy, and he smiled as he talked. He drew near the
waiting carriage, opened the door, and stepped in.
"Father!"
"Ah, Arthur!"--no other word.
There was a hard grip of the hand, a sudden heat that flushed the
haggard face, and then iron-cold composure.
"Won't you come to my house, Masterman? If only for to-night," pleaded
Bundy.
"No; I want to go home.... To such a home as I've got," he added
bitterly.
"Well, God bless you, my friend!" said Bundy softly.
"I'm not asking anything of God that I know of, and you needn't ask
anything for me. I reckon I can look after myself. Tell the driver,
Eagle House, Highbourne Gardens."
And the carriage moved off.
They reached the house, and entered it in silence. Masterman went at
once to his room--the room in which his wife had died--and remained
there. What memories, what remorses met him there, who can say?
Arthur, passing that closed door at midnight, could hear his father
walking up and down like a caged lion. He stood listening to that
slow, continuous footfall; but he dared not knock upon the door. He
went downstairs again, knowing sleep impossible, and sat in the
deserted dining-room, still pursued by that inevitable footfall. A
dreadful thought possessed his mind--his father might be contemplating
suicide. When, for an instant, the footfall ceased the sweat of fear
stood upon his forehead and his flesh crept. When it commenced again
he drew a long breath of relief. So the brief summer night passed,
sleepless for both father and son, and at last, through the unshuttered
window, the first ray of dawn stole in.
The house appeared both deserted and dismantled. The pictures and much
of the furniture had disappeared. Instead of the array of smiling
servants, a single sour old woman occupied the kitchen. From her,
Arthur learned that the pictures and the more valuable furniture had
been sold at some auction rooms in the city; and that Helen had left
the house upon the day of her mother's funeral, and had not returned.
Did she know where she had gone? To some friend--so she said. But no
one knew.
The father and son met at breakfast next morning. It was a miserable
meal, ill-cooked and coarsely served--very different from the generous
luxury of other days. The cloth was stained and torn, the china
broken, the food wretched. Masterman appeared to notice none of these
things. He drank the straw-coloured tea and ate the burned toast with
complete indifference. He seemed indifferent even to the presence of
his son.
When the meal was over, he said, with a mocking abruptness, "So you've
come home to pity me, I suppose? Well, you and me have got to have an
explanation. As well now as later."
"I came home to help you, father--if I could."