give them back. Anyway, think it over: and I'll be here on Tuesday night
next at nine to receive them. Good night--”
She looked palely after him, her feet in a net, new to her, woven of
concealments and deceit.
At eleven that night she was sitting in their diminutive
parlour,--Hogarth at a table inscribing the association's names received
by post that evening; and at last, bending low over her sewing, she
said: “Richard, is it true you have been to the Hall?”
He started! “Yes. Who told you?”
“I heard it”.
He looked at her piercingly. “_Answer!_”
“I heard it”, she said with a stubborn nod, quite pallid.
He turned upon her a stare of displeasure; but in that second they heard
a shouting down the village, ran to the front, and saw heaven all like
cancer and cracked window-panes, for from a central plash of passion the
shattered asteroid had shot long-lingering ribbons of lilac light over
the bowl of the sky.
X
ISAAC
On the Tuesday was the inquest on the murdered Mephibosheth; ending in a
verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown.
The same night at nine Frankl had Hogarth's two guns from Margaret on
the towing-path, she now well inveigled into his net, and under his
commands.
“I want you”, he said, “to meet me-here again on Thursday night, at
7.30”.
“But you will tell one why, I suppose!”
“When you come you will hear. And don't let anything keep you away--not
_anything_, mind--if you take my hint”.
She left him with her head hung, praying for deliverance, but
consenting.
The next (Wednesday) morning Frankl was in a high room of the Hall, in a
corner of which cowered the Arab, Isaac, and he said in his strong bass
in Arabic: “Well, Isaac, well”.
A groan broke from the obese heap of grief; down each side of his kefie
streamed waves of trembling; on his square-cut beard of ritual flecks of
foam.
“Isaac, why did you kill Mephibosheth?”
Vigorously sputtered Isaac, spitting out the ill-omened words. He said:
“Your servant did not kill Mephibosheth”.
“Well, there was an inquest to-day, the Court decided that you did, and
has sentenced you to be hanged by the neck like a dog”.
The Arab sprang up, his thick bluish under-lip shivering.
“An eye for an eye”, said Frankl solemnly: “it is written in the Torah”.
“_Mercy_ My father served your father--”
“I have remembered that: that is why I have saved you from hanging like
a dog at the hands of these _Goyim_ vermin: but, Isaac, you must die--”
“God of--!”
“You dare raise your voice! Blood for blood--”
“_Mercy_!--I did not mean to kill--!”
“Blood for blood, you dog! Raise it, and I fell you! Raise it, and the
noose sinks into your fat swine's-throat! Can't you understand?--you
have been tracked by the avengers of blood! and you may swing
lingeringly, with a crowd of Christian boys and girls mocking round you,
or you may shoot yourself in one painless flash. Which shall it be?”
Isaac, again dropping a-heap, covered his face, without answer.
“Well”, said Frankl, walking away, “I can't wait all day. The detectives
are at this moment downstairs--”
Now the Arab leapt up, and, in a movement of great dignity, with an
out-rush of both arms, rent his caftan from the top to its muslin
girdle.
“I will shoot myself”, he said quietly.
Frankl took snuff.
The same night he took his secretary's typewriter, and spelled out the
following note:
“SIR,
“Permit me to ask you as an old friend of your father's if you are
aware that your sister Margaret is the lover of the lord of the manor?
Everybody seems to see it, but yourself. I have reason to know that the
very day you receive this she will be meeting him at about 7.30 P.M.
under the old elm in the beech-wood near the Hall-park.
“ONE WHO SHALL BE NAMELESS”.
Hogarth received it by post the next morning.
He had to think, as he worked, of something to say at the service that
night on the text: “God's way is in the Sea”, but the glare of forge and
heated metal swam vaguely, a fog of red, about his consciousness. And
mixed with those recurring words: “the old elm”, “God's way”, something
with a voice shouted inside him--a name--_Margaret!_ Anon his face
flushed to a dusky turbulence, and he hurled the sledge high to shatter
the earth, like Thor.
Suddenly he had the thought that he would clean his rifle, and, dropping
a hot iron which vanished with a stifled cry into black water, he tossed
his tongs clattering, and almost ran toward the cottage.
He had not, however, reached the back door when he heard his name called
from behind.
And now happened to him the most momentous event of his life--though
nothing could have seemed more commonplace.
It was an old fellow named Tom Bates who had called him--father to
that Fred arrested for the murder of his wife--a Yarmouth fisher and
herring-curer.
And when Hogarth twisted round, with that stare of his large and
bloodshot eye, “Here”, said the old man, “take them”--holding out a
basket of herrings.
Hogarth seemed not to understand, but then said: “All those for me?”
“Every bloomin' one!” answered Bates, with the dropped jaw of pantomime,
and a far-away look of blue astonishment which he had.
“It is extremely handsome of you. Can you spare all that--?”
“Spare, _ya'as!_ They're easy enough come by, for that matter. Why, the
day's work of a fisherman gives him enough fish to live on all the week,
and he could lie around idling the other six days, if he chose, only
anybody can't live on nothing but fish “.
These words, destined to produce a horror of great darkness, and a cup
of trembling of which all the nations should drink, hardly affected
Hogarth at the time. He _did_, indeed, shoot an interested glance at the
old man, but the next moment his mind, numb that morning, was left dark.
“Here--take them--they are yours”, said Bates. “But with regard to
that God-forsaken son of mine: you'll be givin' evidence agen him, I'm
told--”
When his sleeve wiped a tear, Hogarth promised to make his evidence
mild, and was left alone.
Now his purpose of cleaning the rifle was turned: he went back to the
forge, and worked till Margaret, at one o'clock, called: “The dinner is
on the table”.
At that table, for a long time, silence reigned, Margaret's eyes fixed
on his face, his on his plate.
Toward the end he said: “Are you going to chapel to-night?”
Her bosom heaved; she cleared her throat: she had to meet Frankl by the
towing-path.
“I don't think I shall...”
_Margaret!_
“Why not?”
“I have something to do”.
“_What?_”
Silence.
“_What?_”
“Something”--with a stubborn nod, and pallor--“if I tell you _something_
that should be enough”.
“You will go to chapel to-night”.
“That I shan't”.
“Yes”
Silence.
A little before seven they left the cottage together for the chapel,
Hogarth taking his hunting-crop--from habit; he had also a little Bible;
in his jacket, tight at the slight waist, unbuttoned at the breast, lay
the anonymous letter, and a little poetry-book, neither moon nor star
lighting the night, bleak winds swooping like the typhoon among the
year's dead leaves.
The chapel was a paltry place, though in the wall to the right of the
preacher was a slab bearing the inscription:
ON THIS STONE
JOHN WESLEY PREACHED
IN THE VILLAGE, ON THE
9TH JULY 1768
And they sang a hymn; Hogarth “prayed”; read a chapter; once more the
harmonium mourned; Hogarth gave the text: “God's way is in the sea...”
Even as he uttered it, he happened to glance toward the “mission-pew”--a
square pew rather behind the pulpit: Margaret no longer there.
A paleness as of very death--then a dreadful wrath reddened his dark
face.
He seized his hunting-crop; and, without a word, sped bent and thievish
down the steps--and was gone.
Upon which Loveday in a middle pew, perceiving here something sinister,
like a still wind flew to a back door, before ever the amazement of the
people had given place to a flutter like leafage; and running fast, he
came up with Hogarth by a stile twenty yards behind the chapel, touched
his shoulder.
“To the devil with you...!” shouted Hogarth, running still, and there
Loveday stood.
Margaret, meantime, was hurrying toward the towing-path, while Richard,
in a direction at right angles to hers, was pelting toward that spot
terrible to him--the elm.
At the moment when he entered the deep darkness of the beeches, he heard
what sounded like a pistol-shot, rain now falling drop by drop, and
through the forest with an uplifting whoop, like batsmen, swooped the
tomboy winds.
Now, approaching the elm, again he felt that thrill which the spot had
for him, and came peering, at slower pace: no sound but the gibbering
rout of the stiff-stark beech-leaves. Some steps more, and now he was
at the mound which surrounds the tree: stood, listened: silence,
sightlessness: Margaret not there.
One more forward step: and now his foot struck a body.
As he stooped, his hand touched a revolver--which was his own; another
moment, and he saw running lanterns borne by two park-keepers, and by
their light saw the body of Isaac, who but now had shot himself with the
weapon that was in Hogarth's hand.
The park-keepers had just been urged by their master to the spot, he
having, he told them, heard a pistol-shot; and before anyone could speak
Frankl himself was there, defiled with the presence of the dead.
He looked from Hogarth to the corpse, and from the corpse to Hogarth,
then, snatching the weapon from Hogarth's hand, exclaimed: “Why, bless
my heart, you've _murdered_ the man....”
XI
WROXHAM BROAD
In a cottage in Thring Street, marked “E. Norfolk, E. 58, Constabulary”,
Hogarth passed the night, having been arrested the moment he returned
home from the elm.
A few minutes afterwards Margaret, who had found no Frankl at the
towing-path, came home to the ghastliest amazement throughout Thring, so
that sleep overcame the village only toward morning.
At 7.30 A.M. Hogarth was marched to Beccles, then after an
inquest-verdict appeared before the magistrates' court, and was
committed.
One of the witnesses in the summary-jurisdiction court had been Loveday,
who had deposed that Hogarth, on leaving the chapel, was, beyond doubt,
in a passion; and mixed with the crowd was Margaret, who, standing
thickly veiled, heard that evidence. And thought she: “Is it possible
that he can be giving evidence against Richard like that? And smiling,
the mean, false thing--”
She had disappeared on the morning after the arrest: and Loveday was now
racked by disquiet, wondering how she was living, though she and he were
in the same train, unconscious of each other, when he followed Hogarth
to Norwich; and, as Margaret stepped upon the Thorpe platform there, a
Jew, who was watching the arrival of every train, spied and shadowed
her to the old Maid's Head, this intricate city being now crowded, the
Assizes all in the air, mixed with the Saturday cattle-market.
At ten the next morning Margaret learned at the Guildhall the address
of her brother's defending solicitor, and set out to find him, the
wretchedest woman on earth now.
But as she passed by the archway in the tower of St. Peter Mancroft,
Loveday stood before her; and she started like a shying horse.
“Good morning”--she went on past him.
He took two steps after her. “Are you in a hurry? Can I come with you?”
“It is quite near. Thank you--I'd liefer go alone”.
He, a delicate being, all nerves, was repelled; lifted the old cloth
hat; but then again stepped after her, saying: “But are you angry with
me for something?”
“Why should I be? I have no right to expect anything from you, Mr.
Loveday”.
“No right? You _have_, a little, I fancy!”
He said it at her ear with such a lowering of the eyelids, that it
pierced to her fond heart, and she smiled with a “H'm!” uncertain, half
turned to him; but said: “I must be getting on--”
“But it is most important that I should talk to you about everything.
Where are you staying?”
“It is some distance from here”, she answered, undecided whether or not
to give her address.
“Ah--in that case--but still--will you meet me? Say here--this evening?”
“I will see if I can”.
“At seven?”
“I will see”.
So they parted, she to tread that intricacy of streets round the Market,
with stoppages for enquiries, till she found the office, where she
presently sat in an inner room, veil at nose-tip, and before her at a
grate stood Hogarth's solicitor.
What, till now, for shame, she had concealed, she revealed: showing how
Richard could not possibly have taken the revolver with him to the elm,
since she, two days previously, had secretly given it to--someone.
Mr. Carr, the solicitor, frowned, elaborating his nails.
“This is very extraordinary”, he said. “Whyever did you keep us in
the dark as to all this before? And to whom was it that you gave the
revolver? and why?”
“Am I bound to tell that?”
“No, but you may be sure that the truth will be got from you. Stay--I
must ask you to excuse me now. But tomorrow morning at this hour--will
you? As for your brother, have no fears at all: he is now absolutely
safe”.
Margaret went rapidly away, not knowing whither, only returning toward
late afternoon to her inn. As she entered, a letter was handed her from
Frankl.
“Dear Miss Hogarth:
“It is only due to you that I should see you at once to explain the
mystery of this affair, so as to clear your brother, and as it would not
do for me to call upon you for obvious reasons, the only thing for us to
do is to meet to-night on Mousehold Heath at 7 P.M. without fail...”
What now was she to do? At “7 P.M.” she had half promised Loveday to
meet him.
And what had her meetings with Baruch Frankl, innocent as they were,
brought upon her and hers!
Yet Frankl _must_ be kindly intentioned, she reasoned--since he had sent
them the £50; and she thought of that agony of humiliation when she had
asked Loveday for £2, and he had refused.
And he had given evidence against Richard with his down-turned smile.
But he had said a word at her ear--and her crushed heart had leapt. She
did not know what to do, fell by her bedside and prayed to be taught
which of the two was Richard's best friend.
As she passed over the inn-threshold, she decided in favour of Frankl:
and a few minutes past seven was on Mousehold Heath.
Frankl hurried to meet her, and the hand which he held out was rather
cold; but she did not take it.
“No, Mr. Frankl”, said she, “before I give my hand, it is only what
is due to me to hear how Richard's pistol, which I trusted to you, was
found where it was--”
“Well, that is only fair”, answered Frankl; “that is only fair. But I
have a carriage there, let us get into it, and sit as we talk”.
She could see no carriage in that dark, yet it stood only some yards
away--Frankl's own.
“I think I prefer to stand...” said she.
“As you like. But with regard to the gun, I should have thought that
you could have guessed how it was--but no, you always mistrust me
instead--the Jew. Don't you know that the dead man was a servant in my
house? Well, I left the two guns in my study, and he, wanting to shoot
himself, stole one, that's all”.
“It was _he_ shot himself?”
“Why, who else? You don't suppose Richard shot him! You are as cool as
they make them”.
“Well, that was how it was! But couldn't you say that at the
police-court--?”
“I am _going_ to at the big trial, of course. But I was ill, am ill now,
and here have I been running about all day on your brother's behalf, and
dead tired--and ill, and all--and you won't let me have a rest in the
carriage--”
“Well, as you put it in that way...” she said.
So they walked to a motor-brougham, sat within, and as they commenced to
talk again, the brougham moved.
“Tell me”, said Frankl, “have you mentioned to anyone that you had given
the guns to me?”
“I told Richard's solicitor this morning--”
“That was horribly imprudent, without consulting me!”
“I think I have been silent long enough, don't you? I didn't mention
your name, but--”
“Oh, you didn't mention my name! That's all right, then! Look here, do
you know--?”
“Well?”
“I believe you love me in your heart. Can't help yourself”.
“Oh, Mr. Frankl, do I look as if I was in the mood for that kind of fun
to-night, a poor wretch like me, steeped in misery, my God knows”.
“_I_ love _you_!”
He suddenly grasped her wrist, his eyes blazing.
“Stop--let me get out of this--” she said.
“Wait!--I give you your chance!--Listen: I am not a man whose mind you
can read right off like a book, I twist like an eel, I am deep, I am
tricky, and I never yet met the man that I didn't hoodwink. Ninety-nine
per cent of what I say is a lie; even when it is the truth, it is a
lie just the same. But at this particular moment I am talking the God's
truth: I want you! You shall be my little girl! Chuck Richard!--chuck
the swine's-flesh!--I'll take you right away--to Paris--this very
night--”
She had arisen, alarmed by his hissed fury. “But, you are stark,
staring, raving mad”, she said proudly, “that is what you are”.
Frankl struck the side of the brougham, it flew, and Margaret tottered
backward with an exclamation. The next moment she sent forth a scream,
the grip of Frankl on her wrist agonizing her bones.
“Where are we going?” she cried out.
“I gave you your chance!” was Frankl's fierce answer.
“Let me get out!--you must be a wretch--to take advantage--”
He put his mouth to her ear till it touched. “Your nice Richard flogged
me like a dog! I felt the cuts to the marrow of my damned soul! Now I've
got him in the hollow of this hand! Why, you helped me! you helped me!
That's good! And I've got you, too”.
Blackness and swiftness bound her; a dizziness overcame her. Soon they
were by a great pool of gloomy water--Wroxham Broad--where hern, wild
duck, and the mast of the darkling boat brooded among bulrush; and
now in three minutes more the brougham was sweeping over the lawn of a
lonely building, surrounded by walls.
She, peering, saw with joy both lights and a well-dressed man and woman;
and, as the carriage stopped, she sprang out with alacrity, Frankl with
her, still grasping her wrist.
“Sir”, she blurted out at once, “you will help me, I know. I am a poor
unfortunate woman--my name is Margaret Hogarth--”
“We know!” said the gentleman, and, approaching Frankl's ear, asked in
Yiddish: “How long has she had her delusion?”
“Only about a week, I think. She may be violent at first, but--”
“Come in, Miss--Hogarth”, said the gentleman.
Margaret passed the threshold; the doors closed upon her...
XII
THE ROSE
On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was hurried
into the hall of justice and the witness-box--in the dock Fred Bates.
Bates had denied--with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife
had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own hand
also burned by the poker with which, _red-hot_, he was presumed to have
beaten her.
The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had
sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.
And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock
clang behind himself.
The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found
on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely
informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a
certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, had hurried
from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his sister had left the
chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under
that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental
dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl,
himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him
for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which
he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain of
inference was not assailable.
“Not assailable” found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel for
Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of Margaret
with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name was changed
to Rachel.
Now was the régime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The usher
called: “Baruch Frankl!”
A voice in the gallery shouted: “Caps and tassels!” while Frankl, in the
witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his palms on
the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught up, put them;
and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave to his beard a
downward waving.
“Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the prisoner's
feelings toward you”.
“For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his rent;
for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little bit weak
on my account--”
“A little bit _what_?” asked his lordship.
“Just a little bit weak, my lord”.
“A _reciprocal_ weakness?”
“Well, my lord, you know the world--so do the gentlemen of the jury--”
“And of the Jewry!” screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the merry
wigs.
As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold as
a ghost: “Rebekah Frankl”.
And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with that
retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her throat
and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the gaudy heat
of the Orient, Baal and Astarté, orgies of Hindoo women in temples of
Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not tall, she was
lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the stare of the bent
form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like paddle-wheels that
thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife of his wild youth....
At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed.
She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the
West--sharp--a bass almost like her father's.
“You recognize the prisoner?”
“Yes”. She smiled.
“You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner
entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?”
“Did strike him”.
“He did?”
“Yes”.
“Did he seem in a passion?”
“Seemed severe”.
“Severe! But was he not highly excited?”
“He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged”.
“By whom was he ejected?”
“Went of his own accord”.
“But--try to remember. What made him go?”
“He suddenly saw _me_, and fled”.
Laughter droned through the court, in which she naïvely joined, while
Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously, and
dropped....
That was all. Counsel bowed.
The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat.
But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished
examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court,
and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the jury
trooped away, the crowd buzzed.
The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon to
grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The King of
Terrors was here.
When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the
clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.
The foreman said: “We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend him
to the mercy of the Crown”.
“On what grounds?” asked his lordship.
“On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation”.
The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the
sentence of the Court.
During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's
ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on the
arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of Rebekah,
who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing her mass of
cloak about her throat.
XIII
OUT OF THE WORLD
A week later a governor and a chaplain together entered Hogarth's cell
with news of his reprieve.
Eight months later he was being trundled in “Black Maria” to Paddington
Station amid a Babel of escaped tongues, when, sitting in his
pigeonhole, he heard the unknown voice before him cry: “Well, Jim, we're
away to the mountain's brow!”
Jim, nothing but a voice, was heard: “Worse luck! I knows Colmoor, and
I knows the Scrubs, and I knows Portland; and of the five I say--give me
Jedwood. Who's the guy in front o' you?”
“Hi, you in front there, who _are_ yer?” cried the first, pounding.
He was answered by a deep voice, which said:
“I AM WHO I AM”.
“All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd Chief
Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!”
“'Old on! _I_ knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he was
once a priest--”