RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE
Richard Gessner returned to "Five Gables" as the clock of Hampstead
Parish Church was striking one. A yawning footman met him in the hall
and asked him if he wished for anything. To the man's astonishment, he
was ordered to carry brandy and Vichy water to the bedroom immediately.
"To your room, sir?"
"To my room--are you deaf?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Gessner has returned."
"My daughter--when?"
"After dinner, sir."
"Was there any one with her?"
"I didn't rightly see, sir. Fellows opened the door--he could tell you,
sir."
Gessner cast a searching glance upon the man's face And then mounted the
great staircase with laborious steps. Passing the door of the room in
which Alban slept, he listened intently for a moment as though half of a
mind to enter; but abandoning the intention, went on to his apartment
and there, when the footman had attended to his requirements, he locked
the door and helped himself liberally to the brandy. An observer would
have remarked that drops of sweat stood upon his brow and that his hand
was shaking.
He had dined with a city company; but had dined as a man who knew
little of the dinner or of those who ate it. Ten days ago his energy,
his buoyant spirits, and his amazing vitality had astonished even his
best friends. To-night these qualities were at their lowest ebb--and he
had been so silent, so self-concentrated, so obviously distressed, that
even a casual acquaintance had remarked the change. To say that a just
Nemesis had overtaken him would be less than the truth. He knew that he
stood accused, not by a man, but by a nation. And to a nation he must
answer.
He locked the door of his room and, drawing a chair to a little Buhl
writing-table, set in the window, he opened a drawer and took therefrom
a little bundle of papers, upon which he had spent nine sleepless nights
and, apparently, would spend still another. They were odd scraps--now of
letters, now of legal documents--the _precis_ of a past which could be
recited in no court of justice, but might well be told aloud to an
unsympathetic world. Had an historian been called upon to deal with such
documents, he would have made nothing whatever of them--but Richard
Gessner could rewrite the story in every line, could garnish it with
passions awakened, fears unnamable, regrets that could not save, despair
that would suffer no consolations.
He had stolen Paul Boriskoff's secret from him and thereby had made a
fortune. Let it be admitted that the first conception of the new furnace
for the refining of copper had come from that white-faced whimpering
miner, who could talk of nothing but his nation's wrongs and had no
finer ambition in life than to feed his children. He, Richard Gessner,
had done what such a fellow never could have done. He had made the
furnace commercially possible and had exploited it through the copper
mines of the world. Such had been the first rung of that magnificent
pecuniary ladder he had afterwards climbed so adroitly. Money he had
amassed beneath his grasping hand as at a magician's touch. He
regretted, he had always regretted, that misfortune overtook Paul
Boriskoff's family--he would have helped them had he been in Poland at
the time; but their offences were adjudged to be political; and if the
wretched woman suffered harm at the hands of the police, what share had
he in it? To this point he charged himself lightly--as men will in
justifying themselves before the finger of an hoary accusation. Gessner
cared neither for God nor man. His only daughter had been at once his
divinity and his religion. Let men call him a rogue, despot, or thief,
and he would shrug his shoulders and glance aside at his profit and loss
account. But let them call him "fool" and the end of his days surely was
at hand.
And so this self-examination to-night troubled itself with no thought of
wrongs committed, with no desire to repay, but only with that supreme
act of folly, to which the sleeping lad in the room near by was the
surest witness. What would the threats of such a pauper as Paul
Boriskoff have mattered if the man had stood alone against him? A word
to the police, a hundred pounds to a score of ruffians, and he would
have been troubled no more. But his quarrel was not with a man but a
nation. Perceiving that the friendship of the Russian Government was
necessary to many of his mining schemes in the East, he had changed his
name as lightly as another would have changed his coat, had cast the
garments of a sham patriotism and emerged an enemy to all that he had
hitherto befriended, a foe to Poland, a servant to Russia.
Acting secretly and with a strong man's discretion, no bruit of this odd
conversion had been made public, no whisper of it heard in the camp of
the Revolutionaries. Many knew Maxim Gogol--none had heard of Richard
Gessner. His desire for secrecy was in good accord with the plans of a
police he assisted and the bureaucracy he bribed. He lived for a while
in Vienna, then at Tiflis--he came at length to England where his
daughter had been educated; and there he established himself, ostensibly
as a wealthy banker, in reality as the secret director of one of the
greatest conspiracies against the liberty of a little nation that the
world had ever seen.
Upon such a man, the blow of discovery fell with, stunning force.
Gessner had grown so accustomed to the security of this suburban life
that he could imagine no circumstance which might disturb it. All that
he did for the satisfaction of the Russian Government had been cleverly
done by agents and deputies. Entitled by his years to leisure, he had
latterly almost abandoned politics for a culture of the arts and the
sciences, in some branches of which he was a master. His leisure he gave
almost entirely to his daughter. To contrive for her an alliance worthy
of his own fortune and of her beauty had become the absorbing passion of
his life. He studied the Peerage as other men study a balance-sheet.
All sorts and conditions of possible husbands appeared at "Five Gables;"
were dined, discussed, and dismissed. The older families despised him
and would not be appeased. To crown his vexation, his daughter named a
lover for herself. He had twice shown Captain Willy Forrest from the
door and twice had the man returned. Anna seemed fascinated by this
showy adventurer as by none other who visited them. Gessner, for his
part, would sooner have lost the half of his fortune than that she
should have married him.
These vexations had been real enough ten days ago; but, to-night, a
greater made light of them and now they were almost forgotten. Detection
had stalked out of the slums to humble this man in an instant and bring
him to his knees. Gessner could have recited to you the most trivial
detail attending the reception of Paul Boriskoff's letter and the claim
it made upon him--how a secretary had passed it to him with a suggestion
that Scotland Yard should know of it; how he had taken up the scrawl
idly enough to flush before them all an instant later and to feel his
heart sink as in an abyss of unutterable dismay. He had crumpled the
dirty paper in his hand, he remembered, and thrown it to the ground--to
pick it up immediately and smooth it out as though it were a precious
document. To his secretary he tried to explain that the writer was an
odd fanatic who must be humored. Determined at the first blush to face
the matter out, to answer and to defy this pauper Pole who had dared to
threaten him, he came ultimately to see that discretion would best serve
him. Paul Boriskoff had named Kensington Gardens as a rendezvous where
matters might be discussed. Gessner was there to the minute--without
idea, without hope, seeking only that pity which he himself had never
bestowed upon any human being.
Paul Boriskoff did not hurry to the Gardens, so sure was he of the
success of his undertaking. The frowsy black coat, in which he made his
bow to the millionaire, had not seen the light for many years--his hat
was a wide-brimmed eccentricity in soft felt which greatly delighted the
nursemaids who passed him by. Gessner would never have recognized, in
the hollow-cheeked, pale-faced, humble creature the sturdy young Pole
who had come to him nearly a generation ago and had said, "Our fortunes
are made; this is my discovery." Believing at the moment that money
would buy such a derelict, body and soul, he opened the negotiations
firmly and in that lofty tone which suited Throgmorton Street so well.
But five minutes had not passed before he understood his mistake and
realized that Boriskoff, the lad who had trusted him, and Boriskoff, the
Pole who now threatened him, were one and the same after all.
"I remember you perfectly," he said; "it would be idle to say that I do
not. You had some claim in the matter of a certain furnace. Yes, I
remember that and would willingly admit it. But, my friend, you fell
into trouble with the Government, and what could I do then? Was not I
also compelled to leave Poland? Did not I change my name for that very
reason? How could I repay the debt? Here in England it is different.
You make your existence known to me and I respond at once. Speak
freely, then, for I shall hear you patiently."
They were seated on a bench beneath a chestnut in full bloom. Distantly,
through a vista of giant trunks, the waters of the Round Pond glimmered
in the evening light. Children, worn out by the day, sat idle in groups
on the benches of the Long Walk or lagged through a fitful game on the
open spaces between the trees. Few observed these two men who thus
earnestly recalled the drama of their lives; none remarked their odd
association, for were not both obviously foreigners, and who shall
dictate a fashion to such as they? Indeed, they conversed without any
animation of gesture; the one convulsed by fears he did not dare to
express, the other by hopes on the threshold of realization.
"I speak freely," said Boriskoff with unaffected candor, "for to do that
I have come here. And first I must set your memory right in a matter
that concerns us both. You did not leave Poland to serve your country;
you left it to betray us. Spare your words, for the story has been told
many times in Warsaw and in London. Shall I give you the list of those
who are tortured to-day at Saghalien because of what you did? It would
be vain, for if you have any feeling, even that of a dog, they are
remembered by you. You betrayed the man who trusted you; you betrayed
your country--for what? Shall I say that it was for this asylum in a
strange land; for power, for the temptations which all must suffer? No,
no. You have had but one desire in all your life, and that is money. So
much even I understand. You are ready now to part with a little of that
money--so little that it would be as a few grains from the sands of the
sea--to save your neck from the rope, to escape the just punishment
which is about to fall upon you. Do not believe that you can do so. I
hold your secret, but at any hour, at any minute, others may share it
with me. Maxim Gogol--for I shall call you by your true name--if one
word of this were spoken to the Committee at Warsaw, how long would you
have to live? You know the answer to that question. Do not compel me to
dwell upon it."
He spoke in a soft purring tone, an echo of a voice, as it were, beneath
the rustling leaves; but, none the less, Richard Gessner caught every
word as though it had been the voice of an oracle. A very shrewd man, he
had feared this knowledge, and fear had brought him to this covert
interview. The Pole could betray him and betrayal must mean death--and
what a death, reluctant, procrastinating, the hour of it unknown, the
manner of it beyond any words terrible. Such had been the end of many
who had left Poland as he had done. He had read their story and
shuddered even in his imagined security. And now this accusation was
spoken, not as a whisper of a voice in the hours of the night, but as
the truth of an inevitable day.
And what should he answer? Would it profit him to speak of law; to
retort with a threat; to utter the commonplaces concerning Scotland Yard
and a vigilant police? He was far too wise even to contemplate such
folly. Let him have this man arrested, and what then? Would any country
thereafter shelter the informer from the vengeance of the thousands
whom no law could arrest? Would any house harbor him against the dagger
of the assassin, the swift blow, it might even be the lingering justice
of such fanatics as sought to rule Poland. He knew that there was none.
Abject assent could be the only reply. He must yield to any humiliation,
suffer any extortion rather than speak the word which would be as
irrevocable as the penalty it invited.
"I shall not dispute with you, Paul Boriskoff," he said, with a last
attempt to save his dignity; "yes, it would be in your power to do me a
great injury even in this country which gives you liberty. It is your
own affair. You did not come here to threaten me, but to seek a favor.
Name it to me and I shall be prepared to answer you. I am not an
ungenerous man as some of our countrymen know. Tell me what you wish and
I shall know how to act."
Boriskoff's answer astonished him by its impetuosity.
"For myself nothing," he exclaimed contemptuously--and these brief words
echoed in Gessner's ears almost as a message of salvation--"for myself
nothing, but for my children much. Yes, your money can make even Paul
Boriskoff despise himself--but it is for the children's sake. I sell my
honor that they may profit by it. I ask for them that which is due to
me, but which I have sworn to forego. Maxim Gogol, it is for the
children that I ask it. You have done me a great wrong, but they shall
profit by it. That is what I am come here to say to-day--that you shall
repay, not to me but to my children."
The words appeared to cost him much, as though he had deliberately
sacrificed a great vengeance that those he loved might profit. Leaping
to the hope of it, and telling himself that this after all was but a
question of pounds, shillings, and pence, Gessner answered with an
eagerness beyond all bounds ridiculous.
"There could be nothing I would do more willingly. Yes, I remember--you
left a daughter in Warsaw and she was not to be discovered by those of
us who would have befriended her. Believe me when I say that I will help
her very gladly. Anything, my friend, anything that is humbly
reasonable--"
Boriskoff did not permit him to finish.
"My daughter will be educated in Germany at your cost," he said curtly.
"I would speak first of one who is as a son to me because of her
affection for him. There is a young Englishman living in Union Street,
the son of a poor clergyman who died in the service of the poor. This
lad you will take into your own house and treat as your own son. It is
my desire and must be gratified. Remember that he is the son of a
gentleman and treat him as such. There will be time enough afterwards to
tell you how you must act in the interests of our people at Warsaw. This
affair is our own and not of politics at all. As God is in heaven, but
for my daughter you, Maxim Gogol, would not be alive this night."
Gessner's heart sank again at the hint of further requests subsequently
to come. The suggestion that he should adopt into his own house a youth
of whom he knew nothing seemed in keeping with the circumstances of this
dread encounter and the penalty that must be paid for it. After all, it
was but a small price to pay for comparative security and the silence of
a tongue which could work such ill. Accustomed to deal with men of all
natures, honest and simple, clever and foolish, secretive and
loquacious, there ran in his mind the desperate idea that he would
temporize with Paul Boriskoff and ultimately destroy him. Let the
Russian Government be informed of the activity of this Pole and of his
intention to visit the Continent of Europe again, and what were
Boriskoff's chances? Such were the treacherous thoughts which stood in
Gessner's mind while he framed an answer which should avert the final
hour of reckoning and give him that opportunity for the counter-stroke
which might yet save all.
"Your youth will profit little in my house," he said with some pretense
of earnestness. "Had you asked an education abroad for him, that would
have been a wiser thing in these days. Frankly, I do not understand your
motive, but I am none the less willing to humor it. Let me know
something more of the lad, let me have his history and then I shall be
able to say what is the best course. I live a very quiet life and my
daughter is much away. There is the possibility also that the boy, if he
be the son of a clergyman, would do much better at Oxford or at
Cambridge than at Hampstead, as you yourself must see. Let us speak of
it afterwards. There will be time enough."
"The time is to-day," rejoined Boriskoff, firmly, "Alban Kennedy will
live under your roof as your own son. I have considered the matter and
am determined upon it. When the time comes for him to marry my
daughter, I will inform you of it. Understand, he knows nothing of your
story or of mine. He will not hear of me in my absence from England. I
leave the burden of this to you. He is a proud lad and will accept no
charity. It must be your task to convince him that he has a title to
your benevolence. Be wise and act discreetly. Our future requisitions
will depend upon your conduct of this affair--and God help you, Maxim
Gogol, if you fail in it."
Something of the fanatic, almost of the madman, spoke in this vehement
utterance. If Gessner had been utterly at a loss as yet to account for a
request so unusual, he now began to perceive in it the instrument of his
own humiliation. Would not this stranger be a perpetual witness to the
hazard of his life, a son who stood also as a hostage, the living voice
of Paul Boriskoff's authority? And what of his own daughter Anna and of
the story he must tell her? These facts he realized clearly but had no
answer to them. The reluctant assent, wrung from his unwilling lips, was
the promise of a man who stood upon the brink of ruin and must answer as
his accusers wished or pay the ultimate penalty. All his common
masterfulness, the habit of autocracy, the anger of the bully and the
tyrant, trembled before the clear cold eyes of this man he had wronged.
He must answer or pay the price, humiliate himself or suffer.
* * * * *
And to-night Alban Kennedy slept beneath his roof; the bargain had been
clinched, the word spoken. Twenty thousand pounds had he paid to Paul
Boriskoff that morning for the education of his daughter and in part
satisfaction of the ancient claim. But the witness of his degradation
had come to him and must remain.
Aye, and there the strife of it began. When he put detectives upon the
lad's path, had him followed from Union Street to the caves and from the
caves to his place of employment, the report came to him that he was
interesting himself in a callous ne'er-do-well, the friend of rogues and
vagabonds, the companion of sluts, the despair of the firm which
employed him. He had expected something of the kind, but the seeming
truth dismayed him. In a second interview with Boriskoff he used all his
best powers of argument and entreaty to effect a compromise. He would
send the lad to the University, have him educated abroad, establish him
in chambers--do anything, in fact, but that which the inexorable Pole
demanded of him. This he protested with a humility quite foreign to him
and an earnestness which revealed the depth of the indignity he
suffered; but Boriskoff remained inflexible.
"I am determined upon it," was the harsh retort; "the boy shall be as a
link between us. Keep him from this hell in which he has lived and I
will set so much to your credit. I warn you that you have a difficult
task. Do not fail in it as you value your own safety."
The manner of this reply left Gessner no alternative, and he sent Silas
Geary to Whitechapel as we have seen. A less clever man, perhaps, would
have fenced alike with the proposal and the threat; but he knew his own
countrymen too well for that. Perhaps a hope remained that any kindness
shown to this vagrant lad would win back ultimately his ancient
freedom. Alone in his room this night, a single light rebutting the
darkness, he understood into what an abyss of discovery he had fallen,
the price that must be paid, the debt that he owed to forgotten years.
"This man is a devil," he said, "he will rob me shilling by shilling
until I am a beggar. Good God! that it should have come to this after
twenty years; twenty years which have achieved so much; twenty years of
such slavery as few men have known. And I am helpless; and this beggar
is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and
that their eyes are following me."
He threw himself upon his bed dressed as he was and tried to sleep. The
stillness of the house gave fruitful visions, magnifying all his fears
and bringing him to an unspeakable terror of the days which must come
after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained
ideas, masterly projects which must bring him both fame and riches, but
he would have abandoned them all this night if freedom had been offered
him. Years ago, he remembered, Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned
his hatred, he knew not why unless it were a truth that men best hate
those who have served them best. To-night found that old hatred
increased a thousand fold and shaping itself in schemes which he would
not even whisper aloud. He had always been looked upon as a man of good
courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions--to swift
assassination or to slow intrigue--last of all to self destruction
should his aims miscarry. He would kill himself and cheat them after
all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than
suffer those years of torture which discovery brought. He knew that he
would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.
A man may take such a resolution as this and yet a great desire of life
may remain to thwart it. Gessner found himself debating the issues more
calmly as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of
a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He
had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's
disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if
the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his
favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such
favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any
time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the
lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms
of the compact were not so very unreasonable, surely, he argued. Let
this young Kennedy consent to remain at "Five Gables" and he, Richard
Gessner, would answer for the rest. But would he consent to
remain--would that wild life of the slums call him back to its freedom
and its friendships? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to
him, not that the lad would remain but that he would go. Had it been at
a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the
hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. He must see
Kennedy and convince him. In the end, unable to support the doubt, he
quitted his own room, and crossed the landing, irresolute, trembling,
hardly knowing what he did.
* * * * *
It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered
Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy
breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he
knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no
reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon
another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should
have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy
curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light
of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone
of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a
handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these
the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the
light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.
Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be
thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired
that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British
boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type.
Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas
Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief
encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again
if the detective's reports were true. Was this the friend of vagabonds,
the companion of sluts--this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair
face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge
of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he
remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to
serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth
by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to
combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would
have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet
of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad
be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work
together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could
prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm
the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was
the supreme consolation--that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would
so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself
against all the world.
But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself
and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he
remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the
boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house
his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began
to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no"
to-morrow--and while "yes" would save him, the courage of a hundred men
would not have faced the utmost possibilities of "no."
This simple truth kept the man to the room as though therein lay all his
hopes of salvation. At one time he was upon the point of waking Alban
and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the
landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the
hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the
window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a
stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time
and all the landscape stood revealed in its morning beams. Not yet had
London stirred to the murmur of the coming day--no smoke rose from her
forest of chimneys, no haze drifted above the labyrinth. Far below she
lay, a maze of empty streets, of shuttered shops, of vast silent
buildings--a city of silence, hiding her cares from the glory of the
dawn, veiling her sorrow and her suffering, hushing her children to
rest, deaf to the morning voices; rich and poor alike turning from the
eyes of the day to Mother Sleep upon whose heart is eternal rest. Such a
city Gessner beheld while he looked from the window, and the golden
beams lighted his pallid face and the sweet air of day called him to
deed and resolution. What victories he had won upon that grimy field;
what triumphs he had known; what hours of pomp and vanity--what bitter
anguish! And now he might rule there no longer. Detection had stalked
out of the unknown and touched him upon the shoulder. Somewhere in that
labyrinth his enemies were sleeping. But one human being could shield
him from them, and he a lad--without home or friends, penniless and a
wanderer.
He drew back from the window, saying that the hours of suspense must be
brief and that his will should prevail with this lad, at whatever
sacrifice. Believing that his old shrewdness would help him, and that in
Alban not only the instrument of his salvation but of his vengeance
should be found, he would have quitted the room immediately, had not his
eye lighted at hazard upon a rough paper, lying upon the floor by the
bed, and a pencil which had tumbled from Alban's tired hand. Perceiving
that the lad had been drawing, and curious beyond ordinary to know the
subject of his picture, he picked the paper up to discover thereon a
rude portrait which he recognized instantly for that of his daughter,
Anna. Such a discovery, thrusting into his schemes as it did an idea
which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with
wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the
complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him
utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.
He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection--"to marry the
daughter. And this--this--good God, the man would never forgive me
this!"
The paper tumbled from his hands. Alban, turning upon his pillow, sighed
in his sleep. A neighboring church clock struck six; there were workmen
going down to the city which must now awake to the labors of the day.