To any, save philosophers, reputation may be threatened almost as much
by disgrace to name and family as by the disgrace of self. Keith's
instinct was always to deal actively with danger. But this blow, whether
it fell on him by discovery or by confession, could not be countered. As
blight falls on a rose from who knows where, the scandalous murk would
light on him. No repulse possible! Not even a wriggling from under!
Brother of a murderer hung or sent to penal servitude! His daughter
niece to a murderer! His dead mother-a murderer's mother! And to wait
day after day, week after week, not knowing whether the blow would fall,
was an extraordinarily atrocious penance, the injustice of which, to a
man of rectitude, seemed daily the more monstrous.
The remand had produced evidence that the murdered man had been drinking
heavily on the night of his death, and further evidence of the accused's
professional vagabondage and destitution; it was shown, too, that for
some time the archway in Glove Lane had been his favourite night
haunt. He had been committed for trial in January. This time, despite
misgivings, Keith had attended the police court. To his great relief
Larry was not there. But the policeman who had come up while he was
looking at the archway, and given him afterwards that scare in the
girl's rooms, was chief witness to the way the accused man haunted
Glove Lane. Though Keith held his silk hat high, he still had the
uncomfortable feeling that the man had recognised him.
His conscience suffered few, if any, twinges for letting this man rest
under the shadow of the murder. He genuinely believed that there was not
evidence enough to convict; nor was it in him to appreciate the tortures
of a vagabond shut up. The scamp deserved what he had got, for robbing
a dead body; and in any case such a scarecrow was better off in prison
than sleeping out under archways in December. Sentiment was foreign to
Keith's character, and his justice that of those who subordinate the
fates of the weak and shiftless to the needful paramountcy of the strong
and well established.
His daughter came back from school for the Christmas holidays. It was
hard to look up from her bright eyes and rosy cheeks and see this shadow
hanging above his calm and ordered life, as in a glowing room one's
eye may catch an impending patch of darkness drawn like a spider's web
across a corner of the ceiling.
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve they went, by her desire, to a church
in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away
passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street. Ugh! How that
startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself against him in the
dark, and her terror-stricken whisper: “Oh! Who is it?” leaped out
before him! Always that business--that ghastly business! After the trial
he would have another try to get them both away. And he thrust his arm
within his young daughter's, hurrying her on, out of this street where
shadows filled all the winter air.
But that evening when she had gone to bed he felt uncontrollably
restless. He had not seen Larry for weeks. What was he about? What
desperations were hatching in his disorderly brain? Was he very
miserable; had he perhaps sunk into a stupor of debauchery? And the
old feeling of protectiveness rose up in him; a warmth born of long ago
Christmas Eves, when they had stockings hung out in the night stuffed by
a Santa Claus, whose hand never failed to tuck them up, whose kiss was
their nightly waft into sleep.
Stars were sparkling out there over the river; the sky frosty-clear, and
black. Bells had not begun to ring as yet. And obeying an obscure, deep
impulse, Keith wrapped himself once more into his fur coat, pulled a
motoring cap over his eyes, and sallied forth. In the Strand he took a
cab to Fitzroy Street. There was no light in Larry's windows, and on a
card he saw the words “To Let.” Gone! Had he after all cleared out for
good? But how-without money? And the girl? Bells were ringing now in
the silent frostiness. Christmas Eve! And Keith thought: 'If only this
wretched business were off my mind! Monstrous that one should suffer for
the faults of others!' He took a route which led him past Borrow Street.
Solitude brooded there, and he walked resolutely down on the far side,
looking hard at the girl's window. There was a light. The curtains just
failed to meet, so that a thin gleam shone through. He crossed; and
after glancing swiftly up and down, deliberately peered in.
He only stood there perhaps twenty seconds, but visual records gleaned
in a moment sometimes outlast the visions of hours and days. The
electric light was not burning; but, in the centre of the room the girl
was kneeling in her nightgown before a little table on which were four
lighted candles. Her arms were crossed on her breast; the candle-light
shone on her fair cropped hair, on the profile of cheek and chin, on her
bowed white neck. For a moment he thought her alone; then behind her
saw his brother in a sleeping suit, leaning against the wall, with arms
crossed, watching. It was the expression on his face which burned the
whole thing in, so that always afterwards he was able to see that little
scene--such an expression as could never have been on the face of one
even faintly conscious that he was watched by any living thing on earth.
The whole of Larry's heart and feeling seemed to have come up out of
him. Yearning, mockery, love, despair! The depth of his feeling for this
girl, his stress of mind, fears, hopes; the flotsam good and evil of
his soul, all transfigured there, exposed and unforgettable. The
candle-light shone upward on to his face, twisted by the strangest
smile; his eyes, darker and more wistful than mortal eyes should be,
seemed to beseech and mock the white-clad girl, who, all unconscious,
knelt without movement, like a carved figure of devotion. The words
seemed coming from his lips: “Pray for us! Bravo! Yes! Pray for us!” And
suddenly Keith saw her stretch out her arms, and lift her face with a
look of ecstasy, and Laurence starting forward. What had she seen beyond
the candle flames? It is the unexpected which invests visions with
poignancy. Nothing more strange could Keith have seen in this nest of
the murky and illicit. But in sheer panic lest he might be caught thus
spying he drew back and hurried on. So Larry was living there with her!
When the moment came he could still find him.
Before going in, he stood full five minutes leaning on the terrace
parapet before his house, gazing at the star-frosted sky, and the
river cut by the trees into black pools, oiled over by gleams from
the Embankment lamps. And, deep down, behind his mere thoughts, he
ached-somehow, somewhere ached. Beyond the cage of all that he saw and
heard and thought, he had perceived something he could not reach. But
the night was cold, the bells silent, for it had struck twelve. Entering
his house, he stole upstairs.