FULFILLMENT
I
"Why do you taunt me?" cried the Sailor after a pause hard to endure.
"I offer neither reason nor excuse for the words I have used," said
Edward Ambrose calmly. "I can only say that she is more than your
friend. You must remember that you have been away eleven months. In
the meantime water still continues to flow under London Bridge."
"I don't follow you."
"Yes, of course--one assumes too much. One forgets that you have been
away so long and that apparently you have not yet seen Mortimer."
"Mortimer!"
"Perhaps I ought to have told you ... yes ... I can see I ought to
have. Mortimer has news."
"News!"
"Now I am going to put you out. Go at once and see him."
Henry Harper presently realized that he was again on the pavement of
Pall Mall, but he was too bewildered to know how he had come there. He
was in a kind of dream. But all he did had a specific purpose. For
instance, he was going to see Mr. Mortimer. Yet he could not
understand what lay behind his friend's desire that he should see the
solicitor at once. The true explanation never occurred to him.
Mr. Mortimer had to tell him that his wife had died two months ago in
the course of one of her bouts of drinking. At first the Sailor could
not grasp the significance of the statement. It hardly seemed to make
any impact upon him. He thanked Mr. Mortimer for all his services in a
trying matter, and went out into the street, apparently giving very
little thought to what had happened.
Here, however, he grew suddenly aware that the aspect of things had
completely changed. Something had occurred which lay beyond his ken,
but he knew already that the whole universe was different.
A new man in brain and heart, he collected his things from Charing
Cross and drove to Brinkworth Street. His room was ready to receive
him in spite of the fact that he had been away eleven months. He had
written to Mr. Paley from time to time inclosing money and telling him
that he hoped to be home presently. And home he was at last.
It was not at once that he could set his thoughts in order. But one
fact was clear. He was free. He was free to enjoy the light of
heaven, to breathe the breath of life.
In the height of the tumult now upon him he took a resolve. The
barrier was down. He would put all to the touch. Somehow he had an
implicit faith. A gulf was fixed, he knew, between Mary and himself.
She belonged to a world far removed from the one in which he had been
born, in which he had passed so much of his life. But he had that
final pledge, "If ever you want help!" Well, there was only one way in
which she could help him, and that she knew as well as he.
Soon after five he set out. If he went leisurely he would reach Queen
Street about six, a propitious hour. She was generally at home at that
time. It was hard to believe that he was the same man who had stood
that morning on the curb at Charing Cross. He had absolutely nothing
now in common with that broken mariner.
In those few brief hours he had suffered one sea change the more. The
genie had relit the lamp. Again he was a forward-looking man. Nay, he
was more. He was a prince of the blood approaching the portals of an
imperial kingdom. Otto, a prince of that other kingdom, issued from
the threshold of No. 50, while Venables, the butler, with polite
surprise, was in the very act of receiving the Sailor.
"Hulloa, Harper," said the Prince. "Turned up again. We had all given
you up for lost."
It might have been possible for a delicate ear to detect something
other than welcome in the voice of his highness. But whether such was
the case or not was a matter of no concern to the returned mariner.
Mary was at home and alone. At first he was a little unnerved by the
sight of her, and she perhaps by the sight of him. The look of sadness
in her face distressed him.
"Not one line," she said. But there was nothing of Edward Ambrose's
half reproach in her voice.
"No."
"I was beginning to think I should never see or hear of you again."
Her simplicity was the exact counterpart of his own.
"I don't think I ever meant you to."
She waited patiently for him to add to his strange words and was slow
to realize that he couldn't.
"That would have been cruel," she said at last.
"It would have been cruel either way. However, it is all done with
now."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," she said, finding that speech had
failed him again.
"I don't know whether I can tell you."
Ought he to tell her? A harrowing doubt arose. She knew that there
had been some grave reason for his going away. But what the hidden
cause had been, hers was not a nature that would ask. She only knew
that if speech and bearing meant anything, he was deeply in love with
her, and yet for some unfathomable reason he had shirked the issue.
And now he had returned after these long months, which to her as well
as to himself had been a time of more than bitterness, there was still
this shadow between them. Yet it surely belonged to the past. There
was no barrier between them now, except the memory of a secret which
somehow he could not believe was vital.
In her immense desire to serve him she was ready to give all that he
might ask. But there was still a reservation in his mind. In the
sudden revelation, as it seemed to him, of the divine clemency, he was
overwhelmed by a desire to confess all.
There may have been no need to do so, yet that was not a question to
ask. She was his, he knew it; she would not be less, she would be
doubly his, if she learned the circumstances of his life. Besides, so
high was the revulsion of feeling now upon him that it seemed the
course of honor. And was it not her right to know all concerning him
before he demanded so great a sacrifice?
In this mood he never for a moment doubted that it would be a further
bond. Let him tell his secret now that his lips had been unsealed.
"Mary," he said, "do you remember your words eleven months ago?"
[Illustration: "'Mary,' he said, 'do you remember your words eleven
months ago?'"]
"I remember them perfectly."
"Well, there was only one way in which you could help me then, and that
was why I went away. And I never intended to return unless I could
claim that which you offered me."
"Was it necessary?"
"Mere friendship is no use to you and me. But I couldn't ask you to
marry me then, although I knew ... at least I thought I knew ... you'll
tell me if I am wrong..."
She couldn't help smiling a little at this rather childlike confusion.
"... that you would marry me if I asked you. But I didn't, because I
couldn't. Do you understand that? Do you still look at things in the
way you did?"
The soul of a poor mariner might be tempest tossed on all the oceans of
the world, but the soul of Mary Pridmore was the fixed star of his
faith. The mere thought seemed to brace his courage for the task that
honor laid upon him.
He took her hand. It was the only manifestation he would allow himself
until he had told her.
"I could not ask you to marry me then," he said, "because I had a wife."
"You had a wife." She repeated the words numbly, incredulously.
"I had a wife," he said, doggedly. "She died two months ago."
"And ... and you never told me!"
"No."
There was an edge to her tone that had struck like a knife.
"Henry!"
"I tried," he said feebly. "God knows I tried."
"You don't mean you deceived me?" Her voice was hardening.
"No." A queer kind of faintness was coming over him. "I don't mean
that. You never asked me and ... and I never told you."
"But you knew I took it for granted that you were not married."
The order and precision of her speech began to frighten him. He could
give no answer.
"You knew that." Her voice was hurting him terribly.
"I don't say I didn't," he said. He had a sick feeling that he was
already in the jaws of a trap. God in heaven, what madness had lured
him to tell her when he had no need to do so!
"Then you deceived me." The voice was pitiless.
He looked at her with scared eyes.
"Don't say that," he said.
He saw there was a cold light blazing in her and he began to grow
miserably afraid.
"I tried very hard not to deceive you," he said. "God knows I tried.
And it was because I couldn't go on with it that I went away and ...
and never meant to see you again."
"I don't quite think that is an excuse."
Somehow the words seemed to goad him on to unknown perils. But he was
in a quicksand, the ground was moving under his feet.
"You don't know what my life has been," he said desperately. "You
don't know what a wife I married, you don't know anything about me,
else you wouldn't be so hard."
She realized while he was speaking, realized with a kind of nausea,
which came suddenly upon her, that all he said was true. There was a
peculiar note creeping into his voice that assailed her fastidious ears
like a sudden descent to a subterranean region which she knew to exist,
but of which she had never had first-hand knowledge. The subtle change
of tone was telling her as nothing else could have done that it was
perfectly true that she knew neither what his life had been nor
anything about him.
"Mary." In spite of an intense feeling for him it was beginning to
make her wince to hear her name on his lips. "If you don't mind I
think I'll tell you one or two things about my life and ... and how I
came ... to get married."
"I think perhaps I would rather not know." It was not she who said
that. Long generations of Pridmores and Colthursts had suddenly taken
charge and had answered for her.
It was a tone he had never heard her use, not even at the dinner party
at which she had discussed the question of divorce. It was almost as
if she had hit him a blow and yet without intending to deal one. By
this time he had grown so dazed and frightened that he had begun to
lose his head.
"The woman I married was not respectable, and that was why I didn't
tell you."
She drew away from him a little. It was quite an involuntary action,
but he felt it like a knife in the flesh. In sick desperation he
floundered on, suddenly losing touch with all the small amenities of
speech and manner he had so painfully imposed upon himself. Moreover,
he realized the fact with pangs that were almost murderous. There were
notes from the Blackhampton gutter beginning to strike through his
voice.
"You don't know what my life has been," he said. "You don't know where
I started from."
Again she made that involuntary movement, almost as if she felt that
the mere tone was defiling her.
"You must let me tell you ... let me tell you all, if you don't mind.
It'll help you understand."
"I would rather you didn't." Again the Pridmores and the Colthursts
were speaking.
He looked at her with a wildness that made her shiver. An intense pity
for this man had suddenly begun to do battle with the Colthursts and
the Pridmores. There was something in those eyes, as there always had
been, that was almost beyond her power to meet.
"I never had a chance," he said, holding her in thrall with the voice
she no longer recognized as his. "I've been handicapped out of the
race. I'm going to tell you, Mary. It's not that I want your pity ...
I ask more than that. It's more than pity will bring a sailorman like
me into port."
A kind of defiance of himself and of her had entered his tone. His
words seemed to open a vein in her heart. She had a great compassion
for this man, but with all her strength of soul, with all her
independence, she knew and felt that voice had already told her that
the facts of his life were going to prove more than she could bear.
In a dogged way, with many of the tricks of speech and manner of former
phases of his life, which he had sloughed as a snake its skin, and had
now reassumed in the stress of overmastering agony, he told her all.
He spared her nothing, not even his comparatively recent knowledge that
his father had been driven to commit a murder, which in Henry Harper's
view accounted for the price the son had had to pay. Nothing was
spared her of Auntie, of the police, of the night on the railway, of
Mr. Thompson and the Old Man, of the _Margaret Carey_ and the Island of
San Pedro, of Ginger and Blackhampton, of the first meeting with
Klondyke, of the first meeting with Edward Ambrose, and, finally, an
account of his fall into the clutches of Cora Dobbs and how he made the
horrible discovery concerning her on the night of their own first
memorable meeting at the dinner party in Bury Street.
Some insane demon seemed to urge him on. In spite of the look of
horror in her eyes, he told her everything. Somehow he felt it was the
only reparation he could make to her for being as he was.
"Klondyke gave me my first start," he said finally. "He knows nearly
as much as you--except about that woman--but he's stood to me all
through. I don't ask your pity. I admit I deceived you, Mary, an' I
done wrong, but it warn't because I didn't want to do right. I got to
pay for it, I can see that. I dare say it's right, but I'll only say
... and this is final ... _Enry Arper, whatever 'is father done, don't
deserve not a half, not a quarter of what's been done to him_."
She had to hold on by the table. Something was stifling her. There
were things in this elemental soul which the Pridmores and the
Colthursts might once have known, but for long generations had
forgotten.
She dare not look at him. An abyss had opened. She simply couldn't
face it.
Somehow he knew that. It needed no words to tell him. Everything was
lost. The mariner could never hope to come into port. Again that
horrible sense of rage came on him, which a few hours ago had
overthrown him in his interview with Edward Ambrose. It maddened him
to think that he had been allowed to get so far along the road and that
a subtle trick had defeated him when the goal was actually in sight.
Yet even at the last there was just one thing, and only one, that stood
to him: if it was still possible he must be a man, a gentleman. He
knew this woman was suffering cruelly, and he owed it to her and to his
friends not to profane the God she worshiped. There was no God in
heaven after all, it seemed, for Henry Harper, but for her, who had not
the stain of a father's crime upon her, it was a different matter.
As he stood not three paces from her, clenched and incoherent, fighting
not to strike her with the sudden awful blasphemies that were surging
to his lips, he knew nothing of what was passing in her mind. Had he
known she would have had his pity. All that her progenitors had stood
for in the past had suddenly recoiled upon her. All those entries in
Burke it had been her pleasure to deride, all the politicians and the
landed proprietors, all the Lady Sophias and the Lady Carolines, all
that flunkyfied reverence for concrete things of those generations of
the Pridmores and the Colthursts, which had so long affronted her high
good sense, were now having their word to say in the matter.
She had pledged her help to this man if ever he asked it, but now she
found that help was not hers to give. Said the tart voice of her
famous Aunt Caroline, it is not to be expected, my dear, of a sane
Christian gentlewoman. Think of your father, my dear! By some strange
irony, Mary Pridmore suddenly thought of him, that admired and
bewhiskered servant of a generation which allowed his friend Bismarck
to steal Schleswig and to murder France, but paid itself the tribute of
building the Albert Memorial; the distinguished servant of a generation
that had denied reading, writing, and arithmetic to its Henry Harpers
and had turned them barefoot into its Blackhampton gutters.
Many things were coming home to the heart of Mary Pridmore in the awful
silence of that room. She was no more to blame for the long line of
her fathers whose governing abilities were commemorated in the England
of the sixties than was their victim, Henry Harper, in whose bruised
body and tormented soul had been commemorated his mother's murder. She
was numb and dazed now she had heard his story, but she had nothing to
give him.
The truth had come to him already. "Now, Enery, you must be a man and
bear it," said the voice of Auntie, wheezing in the upper air. Well
... if his flesh and blood would only let him he must be a gentleman as
long as he had the honor to converse with a real Hyde Park lady who
believed in God ... that was all he knew at the moment. If there was a
spark of manhood in him he must hold on to that.
"Miss Pridmore." ... He was able to pull himself together in a way that
astonished even himself.... "I see it's all over with me and you.
I'll never be able to get through without your help. I'm fair done in.
But I don't blame you. An' I just want you to say you don't blame me,
an' then I'll quit."
She couldn't speak. Aunt Caroline in a hoop and elastic-sided boots
was simply imploring her to behave with dignity.
"Say you don't blame me, Miss Pridmore, an' then I'll quit. It's not
reelly my fault about my father." He laughed a little, but she didn't
hear him. "I'm sorry, though, about the Mariner. If we could have
brought _him_ into port, you and me, Miss Pridmore, there'd been
nothing like him outside the Russians. However ... say I'm not to
blame ... and then I'll quit."
She was unable to hear what he was saying.
"Won't you, Miss Pridmore? I can't bear you should think I've played
it low down. If I could ha' told you afore I'd ha' done it ... you can
lay to that."
It was not a voice that she knew, and she could not answer it.
"Well, I'm sorry."
Suddenly he took her hand, and its coldness startled him.
"I'll say good-by," he said with a sort of laugh.
Aunt Charlotte primly informed her niece that Mr. Harper was taking
leave.
"Oh," she said. "Good-by."
Without venturing again to touch the hand she offered, he stumbled
headlong out of the room and down the stairs. He took his hat from a
table in the hall and let himself out of the front door before the
butler could get there. He closed the door after him with a sharp
bang--it was a door with a patent catch and could only be closed in
that way--and as he did this and the sound re-echoed along Queen
Street, the lamp in the right-hand corner of his brain suddenly went
out.
By the time he came to the end of the street it had grown very dark.
And as he turned a corner and found himself in a street whose name he
didn't know he was unable to see anything. And then all at once he
realized that Aladdin's lamp was broken in a thousand pieces, and he
gave a little wild shriek of dismay. The savage hunted eyes of Mr.
Thompson were gazing at him from under the helmet of a passing
constable.
The trolls had got him.
Nothing could help him now. It had grown so dark that he couldn't see
anything, although it was hardly seven at present of an evening in
June. He almost shrieked again as he heard the sniggering voice of
Auntie ascend above the gathering noises of the town: "Now, Enery, you
must be a man and bear it."
He didn't know where he was now amid the maze of the little-frequented
streets of Mayfair. He had lost his way and he couldn't see. He was
blind already with an ever growing darkness. He was losing all sense
of time and place. But the voice of Auntie was ever in his ears,
exhorting him, with that shrill and peculiar snigger of which she never
seemed to grow weary, to be a man and bear it, as he stumbled on and on
into the night.
II
One afternoon about a week later, Edward Ambrose rang up No. 50, Queen
Street, on the telephone to ask if Mary was at home. In reply he was
told by Silvia that Mary had gone for a few days to Greylands to the
Ellises, but her mother would be very glad if Edward would come and see
her as she wished particularly to have a little talk with him. Edward
certainly did not wish particularly to have a little talk with Lady
Pridmore at that moment, but there was no way out of it. Thus in no
very amiable frame of mind he drove to Queen Street.
Lady Pridmore was alone in the drawing-room. She received Edward with
the grave cordiality that she reserved for favorites.
"It is very nice of you to come, Edward. Ring for some tea."
That was like her, when she knew quite well he never took tea.
"We are dreadfully worried about Mary."
That was like her again. She was always dreadfully worried about
something, although nothing in wide earth or high heaven had the power
really to upset her. But Edward for some reason was not feeling very
sympathetic towards the Lady Pridmores of the world just now.
"And we blame you."
"Me?"
"Yes, we blame you. It was you who first brought that young man, Mr.
Harper, to the house."
This was not quite in accordance with the facts. Still, there would be
no point in saying so. Ambrose, therefore, contented himself with
asking, "Well, what of him?" with as much politeness as he could muster
in order to cover a growing impatience.
"It is not well, Edward, it is very far from well," said Lady Pridmore
aggrievedly. "As I say, we are all dreadfully worried. Mr. Harper
turned up here again one day last week, the first time for a year. And
he saw Mary alone. Silvia and I were out--at--dear me!--but it doesn't
matter----"
"Quite so," murmured the courteous Edward.
"Otto met him coming in as he went out."
"Well?"
"Well, as I say, Mary and Mr. Harper were together a long time and
somehow--I'm sorry to tell you this--she has seemed quite ill ever
since."
Edward expressed regret.
"And Dr. Claughton strongly advised a change."
"I am very sorry," he said gravely.
"She is so overstrung that she has had to have sleeping drafts. It is
by Dr. Claughton's advice she has gone down to Woking."
"But what reason have you to connect all this with Mr. Harper?"
"The evening he saw her she didn't come down to dinner. Now I would
like you to tell me a little more about--about Mr. Harper. You brought
him here, you know. Otto says he is not altogether ... Do you think
that?"
"Had I thought for a moment that he was not a desirable acquaintance I
should not have brought him here." This was a shameless begging of the
question; it was not he who had brought the young man there.
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Lady Pridmore with feeling.
"That is exactly what I said to Otto. I wish you would tell me all you
know about this Mr. Harper."
"I am afraid I can only tell you one thing about him."
"Yes," said Lady Pridmore encouragingly!
"At the present moment he is very dangerously ill. The doctors take a
very grave view of his case."
Lady Pridmore was grieved to hear that, but it fully confirmed what she
had surmised.
What had she surmised?
"I am quite sure that something rather dreadful took place here a week
ago."
Ambrose felt that was most probable.
"I wish you would tell me, Edward," said Lady Pridmore, "what in your
opinion it was that happened."
The retort on the tip of Edward's tongue was, "How the devil should I
know!" but fortunately he didn't allow it to pass. He contented
himself with silence.
"I want to see Mary most particularly," he said, after a pause. "I
think I'll send her a telegram to say that I am coming by the first
train tomorrow."
"Do," said Lady Pridmore. "That will cheer her up."
III
He sent a telegram as he returned sadly to his rooms. He was in a
miserable frame of mind. Somehow he was hating life, but he was now
fully bent upon one thing, and no peace could be his until he had done
it.
After dinner came an answer to say Mary would be very glad to see him.
He sat smoking endless pipes, until he realized that it would soon be
too late to go to bed if he was to catch an early train.
On arrival at Woking, Mary was at the station with her friend's car.
She looked ill, he thought, but she seemed very glad to see him. At
first they found little to say. Indeed, it was not until they had
decided to use a fine morning in walking to Greylands, had sent on the
car and taken to the road, that they were able to talk in the way they
wished.
"I suppose you don't quite know why I've come?" said Ambrose.
"No, I frankly don't," said Mary, "but at least, Edward, it is always
very, very good to see you."
Ever since she could remember, he had ranked as the chief of her
friends, and that accounted, perhaps, for a certain attitude of mind
towards him. But in all the years they had known each other, in all
the hours they had spent in each other's company, never had they seemed
so intimate as in this walk together. And there was a very clear
reason why this should be so. Never had each felt such a need of the
other's perceptiveness.
It was not for him to ask what had happened a week ago at that last
interview in Queen Street. But she told him voluntarily.
"I had promised to help him," she said, growing pale at the
recollection. "And he came to me and told me all ... all the facts and
the circumstances ... things that not I and not you, Edward ... could
ever have guessed."
"You were not able to do what he asked?"
"No, I simply was not. I simply couldn't. I meant to help him. I
wanted to. Perhaps ... perhaps I ought to have ... but ... but it was
an abyss he showed me ... you don't know..."
They walked on in silence a little way.
"... A year ago, I made a pledge. And he counted on it. I think that
is why he told me the whole dreadful story. Had I not been a coward, I
should never have..."
"You judge yourself too hardly. He asked too much."
"It should not have been too much. I ought to have been able to help
him. At least ... I ought not to have sent him away as I did."
"Assuming it were not too late, do you think you could help him now?"
"But it _is_ too late." She was evading the question.
"It is not the view I take myself. I saw both doctors yesterday, and
they have very little hope of a recovery. But you and I are not bound
to agree with them."
"What can we do ... in the face of such an opinion?"
"We can have faith."
"But the doctors?"
"It is a purely mental case. The mind is the key of the whole matter."
"Yes, I know ... I know."
"No doctor, however expert, can ever say anything positively in regard
to the mind, provided the brain is not damaged."
"Isn't it bound to be?"
"They do not say that ... and there is our hope. It is a special case.
We must always remember this man is different from other people. It is
my firm belief that it is in your power to save him. The view may be
entirely mistaken, but it is my own personal conviction."
A new Edward Ambrose was speaking. Here were a strength and a force
which until that moment he had not known how to show her. It may have
been that the occasion had never arisen, or perhaps the conventional
timidity of his kind had never permitted it.
"I--I don't altogether understand," she said, faintly.
"You took away his belief. And I ask you to give it him back again."
She walked dully by his side, striving as well as she could to
represent to herself the strange words he had used in a form she could
accept.
"You do understand, Mary?"
"Isn't it too late?"
Tormenting fears were again upon her.
"It may be. Certainly the doctors think the balance of probability
against it. But I firmly hold that such a view is not for those who
know this poor sailorman. I cannot help thinking that no one is
allowed to get so far along the road in the face of such paralyzing
odds without there being still some hope of putting the thing through."
They stood in the middle of the road, looking at each other.
"I ... I think you are right. You understand him so much better than
I."
"That we can neither of us believe." He spoke with a queer laugh.
"But if I am asking you to give too much, you mustn't blame me. You
have always taught me to ask too much." His voice tailed off in the
oddest way. "But this time I don't ask for myself."
She was crying. "I was never the woman that you thought me. Or that I
thought myself."
She stood a moment, the tears running down her cheeks.
"You must go to that poor mariner," he said, with odd suddenness,
trying now for the first time in all the long years to impose his will
upon hers. "He has a very wonderful cargo on board. You and I--we owe
it to each other and perhaps to future generations--to see that it
comes into port."
Such a tone was startling. She had never heard it before. A new and
very potent voice was speaking.
"There is no time to lose." This was Edward Ambrose raised to a higher
power. "Every hour is going to count. If it is still possible, go and
offer him a refuge from the storm."
She stood irresolute. But already she had begun to waver. A masculine
nature in its new and full expression was turning the scale.
"If we go back at once," he said, "there will be time to catch the
twelve o'clock train from Woking. You can telegraph to your maid. And
Catherine Ellis will understand. Or you can write and explain."
Either the call was stronger than her weakness, or she had underrated
the forces within herself. For suddenly she turned round and they
began to retrace their steps along the road they had come.
Good walking gave them time for the midday train to Waterloo. Upon
arrival at that terminus, shortly before one, they drove to a nursing
home in Fitzroy Square.
Permission had already been obtained by Ambrose for Mary Pridmore to
see Henry Harper. It was felt that her presence at his bedside could
do no harm, although there was very little hope that it could do good.
At any rate, the nurse who received them made no difficulties about
admitting her. Ambrose took leave of Mary on the doorstep in the
casual rather whimsical way he affected in all his dealings with her,
and then drove heroically to his club.
IV
The Sailor lay breathing heavily. He was still just able to keep on
keeping on. But in spite of the darkened room and the blindness of his
eyes, he knew at once that she had come to him ... the incarnation of
the good, the beautiful, and the true ... gray-eyed Athena, with the
plumes in her helmet.
His prayer had been heard, his faith had been answered. He knew she
had come to him, this emanation of the divine justice and the divine
mercy, even before her lips had breathed his name ... that name which
through eons of time, as it seemed, he had been striving to fix in the
chaos that once had been his brain.
V
It was rather less than a year later that Edward Ambrose, seated in his
favorite chair in his rooms in Bury Street, knocked out the ashes of a
last pipe before turning in. He had already given a startled glance at
the clock on the chimney piece, and had found it was a quarter past
three in the morning.
The truth was he had been oblivious of the flight of time for a good
many hours. And the cause of this lapse was a bulky bundle of
manuscript which was still on his knees. It had come to him from
abroad with a letter the previous day. And having read the last page
and having cleared the debris from his pipe, he yet returned the pipe,
empty as it was, to his mouth and then read the letter again.
It said:
MY DEAR EDWARD,
In praying you to accept the dedication of what to you and none other I
venture to call an epic of that strange and terrible thing, the
unsubduable soul of Man, I make one more demand on your patience. I
feel that only a very brave man could father such a thing as this poor
mariner. It is not that he has not proved to be a stouter fellow than
could ever have been hoped. To say otherwise would be black
ingratitude to those who sought him out on the open sea and brought him
safely into port. If his book is more than was to have been expected,
it is yet less than the future promises now that other new, or shall we
say _recovered_ worlds, are continually opening to the gaze of the
astonished sailorman as with Athena by his side he roams the shores of
his native Ithaca.
Drink deep, O muse, of the Pierian spring,
Unlock the doors of memory.
If this prayer is heard, on a day Ulysses may proclaim in native
wood-notes wild the goodness of the living God, and hymn the glories of
a universe that man, ill-starred as he may be, is powerless to defile.
Even if such power is not granted to the mariner, he will yet have a
happiness he had not thought possible for mortal men to know. And she
who had Wisdom for her godmother, I hope and pray she is also happy in
self-fulfillment. If this is a fatal egotism, I am not afraid to
expose it to you. The mariner is not so blind that he does not see
that it is a more developed, a far higher form of our species who sits
with his old pipe in his favorite chair in Bury Street, St. James',
frowning over this ridiculous letter. You and she begin where he
leaves off. What virtue both must have inherited! And who shall dare
to say how terribly a man may be punished for lack of virtue in his
ancestors.
We send you our blessing and our affection.
H.H.
Having reread this letter, Edward Ambrose turned again to the
concluding pages of the manuscript still lying upon his knees. The
clock on the chimney piece struck four, but no heed was paid to it.
The empty pipe was still between his teeth when finally he exclaimed:
"Yes, it's wonderful ... very wonderful. It is even more wonderful
than I had hoped."
He then took the pipe from his mouth and found the stem was bitten
right through.