In this moment of dismay Carrie’s heart had turned to her father, as the
needle turns to the north, with a tenacity of trustfulness that a
thousand quarrels would never shake. Here, if anywhere, lay her help,
her comfort. She alighted at the door of her old home and passed in
without waiting to inquire of Patty whether her father was at home or
no. Her trouble would be her passport; she made sure of welcome now, if
it had been refused to her in her prosperity.
The dusk had fallen, but firelight lit up the room as Carrie entered; it
shone brightly on the polished panelling of the walls with rosy
reflection.
Sebastian had just come in; he stood beside the fire; his great figure
in the half light seemed to fill the little room. Carrie ran towards him
with her arms outstretched and a cry of joy; the sight of him came to
her in her distress like the very peace of heaven.
‘Save him! save him, dada!’ she cried, turning back in her extremity to
her childish speech.
‘Eh, my poor Carrie!—so trouble hath come to you,’ said Sebastian, ‘and
so you are come to me.’ He paused, and looked curiously at his daughter
as he spoke. Carrie had changed so much since they parted; in her
splendid raiment, her jewels and her laces, she looked such a great lady
that Sebastian scarcely recognised her. But Carrie was oblivious of
everything, save the one thing at her heart. She caught both Sebastian’s
hands in hers, and cried again and again, ‘Save him, dada! Oh, sir,
they’re going to hang him—to hang my Philip; he’ll hang ere the month
is out if you do not save him.’
Sebastian sat down and Carrie knelt beside him; there was no word of
dispute between them now; she gazed up into his face in an agony of
entreaty, an ecstasy of confidence.
‘I feared ’twould go badly from the first,’ said Sebastian. ‘Have you
seen your husband, Carrie, since the sentence?’
‘Yes, this afternoon. Oh, sir, ’tis impossible that Phil can die.’
‘And what doth he say—how explain this murder to you—to his wife?’
asked Sebastian curiously.
‘He says Simon Prior—(a man, sir, that I always hated, a man I made
Phil quarrel with not long ago)—he says Simon Prior must have done it,
else he can offer no explanation.’
‘And you—do you not think your husband did it, Carrie?’
Carrie drew back from her father for a moment in horror.
‘Sir!’ she began—but added a moment later—‘but that is because you do
not know Phil.’
‘Carrie,’ said Sebastian, leaning forward to take her hand in his, ‘tell
me, my child, my joy, the better part of life for me—tell me, are you
as happy with Philip as you thought to be? do you love him as first you
did? for youthful passions are hot, and many a time burn themselves
out.’
‘I love him more a thousand times than when first I loved.’
‘And you believe no ill of him?’
‘As soon I would believe it of you, sir.’
Sebastian rose and began to pace up and down the room.
‘Have they tried for a reprieve, Carrie?’
‘Vainly, sir.’
Carrie sank down, burying her face in the cushions of her father’s
chair, and Sebastian paced through the room in silence.
A scheme was already in his mind which would easily enough gain Philip’s
release; but whether to do it? Even the sight of Carrie kneeling there
in such an abandonment of grief could not move him. Willingly he would
see Philip Meadowes die: an offence to him in the very circumstances of
his birth; the son of his bitter enemy; himself the man who had stolen
Carrie from him—how was it possible that he should work for Philip’s
release? Moreover, Philip was a murderer; Carrie might dotingly believe
in his innocence—to the world he stood accused; it would be plainly
wrong and unprincipled to assist at the reprieve of such a man. No, he
would not do it, would never suggest the possibility to Carrie, to any
one. Philip should die, and Carrie would return to her father’s house,
and they would bury the past in the grave that closed over Richard
Meadowes and his son.
So argued Sebastian, as he paced up and down the quiet fire-lit room;
then the silence became full of voices—the past sung and whispered to
his heart; he was young again, and Annie was with him. Annie seemed now
to speak so clearly that she might have been pacing beside him—she
spoke always the same words, pleading with him for something with all
her soul:—‘_If ever you can help my Phil . . . for my sake . . . and
forgettin’ Dick Sundon and all his lies._’ She urged again and yet
again. The time had come in truth; if ever Phil wanted a helper, he
wanted one now, and yet Sebastian held back.
‘Don’t ask it of me, Annie!’ he cried out aloud, forgetful of Carrie’s
presence in the fierceness of the mental struggle he was going through.
Carrie sat up in surprise at the sound of his voice, and hearing a name
she did not know.
‘Did you speak, sir?’ she asked. Her voice woke him to the present, to
the realities of things, and his decision was taken in a moment. How had
he ever questioned?—he had promised Annie once and for ever to help her
son if it ever lay in his power to do so; worthy or unworthy, as Phil
might be, that promise must be kept for the sake of the woman who had
trusted him. Sebastian flung out his arms with a gesture of relief—like
a man who has been long cramped. In the sudden rebound from the tense
feeling of the last few minutes, he fairly laughed aloud, then bending
over Carrie he raised her face to his, and kissed her wet blue eyes.
‘Come, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Take courage, mayhap we shall save him
yet.’
Carrie held her breath, and Sebastian continued:—
‘My Lady Y—— suffers from an obscure disease of the finger-joints.’
. . . He paused and looked at Carrie for a moment.
‘I scarce see how my Lady Y——’s finger-joints affect my husband’s
release, sir,’ pouted Carrie, who thought that her father had taken a
sudden and rather unfeeling divergence into his own affairs at this
point; but her tears were dried none the less; she listened breathlessly
for what Sebastian was going to say next.
‘I have an idea the cure would be simple enough,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’ve
seen more of what can be done with cutting than most men, and I’m not
afraid of the knife.—Come, Carrie, mayhap we can cut this knot yet.’
‘How? what?’ queried Carrie, mystified.
‘Plainly, I’ll operate on your husband if he hath a mind to give a hand
for his life, and an hour of agony.’
Carrie had heard—as what surgeon’s daughter of that day had not
heard?—of many a criminal who owed his life to her father’s lancet. It
was not an uncommon means of escape from the gallows, though the horror
of it made it in every case a last resort. The difficulty of obtaining
subjects for operation in those days was such that the surgeons
considered themselves lucky when they could get some hapless prisoner to
buy his life at their hands. As I say, many a tale of the kind Carrie
had heard, yet she whitened now as she realised all that the plan
involved.
‘Tush, Carrie,’ laughed her father, patting her white cheek. ‘Many’s the
man hath gone through worse at my hands. Ask your old friend Cartwright
how I took off his arm, and he’s here still to tell the tale.’
‘Ugh,’ shuddered Carrie.
‘Come, I had not thought to see my daughter a coward,’ urged Sebastian.
‘Will—will you arrange about it, sir?’ said Carrie faintly.
‘I shall see the authorities—then Philip; I have no fear of his
refusing: all that a man hath will he give for his life, Carrie.’
‘Will it be very bad, sir?’ asked Carrie.
‘Well, I’ll scarce guarantee him a pleasant hour,’ laughed Sebastian.
‘The last I had under my hands from Newgate made noise enough to deafen
one; the one before that had made himself as drunk as a lord, which was
wiser in him for certain.’ Poor Carrie, treated to these details—for it
was a robust age,—shivered and felt sick with horror.
‘Sir, sir, be quiet!’ she cried, with her fingers in her ears, and
Sebastian laughed.
‘Send your coach home, Carrie, and stay with me,’ he said; ‘where else
would you stay, now you are in trouble?’
‘Will you have me, sir?’
‘Till brighter days return, my daughter.’