I GO TO LONDON.
I walked home that night in a dream. The white road lay a long,
luminous ribbon before me; the wet hedges were fragrant with scented
mist; there was only the sound in my ears of my own quick breathing,
but in my heart the echo of the sweet wild voice that had but now so
thrilled and tortured me.
I thought of her swerving presently from her dreary road southward, to
sleep under some bush or briar, fearless in her beauty--fearless in
her confidence of the rich nature about her that was so much her own.
She seemed a thing apart from the world’s evil; a queenliest queen of
fancy, that had but to summon her good fellows if threatened.
“Sweet safety go with you, my fairy!” I cried, and, crying, stumbled
over a poor doe rabbit sitting in the road, with glazing eyes and the
stab of the ferret tooth behind her ear.
“Zyp! Zyp!” I muttered, gazing sorrowfully on the dying bunny, “are
you as much earth, after all, as this poor hunted brute? Ah, never,
never let your kinsfolk strike you through your motherhood.”
I found my father sitting up for me amid the gusty lights and shadows
of the old mill sitting-room. He welcomed me with a joy that filled my
heart with remorse at having left him so long alone.
“Dad,” I said, “I have seen Zyp!”
He only looked at me in wonder.
“She was coming to implore my help to enable her and--and her husband
to escape--to get away abroad somewhere.”
“Escape? From what?”
“That man--my one-time friend--that I told you about. He has pursued
them all the year with deadly hatred. Jason is half-mad with terror of
him, it seems.”
My father’s face darkened.
“He summoned his own Nemesis,” he said. “What do they want--money?”
“Yes. I promised her what I could afford. To-morrow I must run up to
London to raise it.”
“On what security?”
“A mortgage, I suppose. I have some small investments in house
property.”
He mused a little while.
“It is better,” he said, by and by, “to leave all that intact. We must
part with another coin or so, Renalt.”
“If you think it best, father. I wouldn’t for my soul go back from my
promise.”
“Will you take them up and negotiate the business? I grow feeble for
these journeys.”
“Of course I will, if you’ll give me the necessary instructions.”
He nodded.
“I’ll have them ready for you to-morrow,” he said.
Then for a long time he sat gazing gloomily on the floor.
“Where are they?” he said, suddenly.
“Zyp and Jason? At Southampton. She walked from there, and I met her
in the woods, she would come no further, but started on her way back
again.”
“How are you going to get the stuff to them, then?”
“Jason is coming here to fetch it.”
He rose from his chair, with startled eyes.
“Here? Coming here?” he cried. “Renalt! Don’t bring him--don’t let
him!”
“Father!”
“He’s a bad fellow--a wicked son! He’ll drain us of all! What the
doctor’s left he’ll take! Don’t let him come!”
He spoke wildly--imploringly. He held out his hands, kneading the
fingers together in an agony of emotion.
“Dad!” I said. “Don’t go on so! You’re overwrought with fancies. How
can he possibly help himself to more than we decide to give him? Try
to pull yourself together--to be your old strong self.”
“Oh!” he moaned, “I do try, but you know so little. He’s a brazen,
heartless wretch! We shall die paupers.”
His voice rose into a sort of shriek.
“Come!” I said, firmly, “you must command yourself. This is weak to a
degree. Remember, I am with you, to look after your interests--your
peace--to defend you if necessary.”
He only moaned again: “You don’t know.”
“I know this,” I said, “that by Zyp’s showing my brother is a broken
man--helpless, demoralized--in a pitiable state altogether.”
He seemed to prick his ears somewhat at that.
“If he must come,” he said, “if he must come, watch him--grind him
under--never let him think for an instant that he keeps the mastery.”
“He shall never have cause to claim that, father.”
He spoke no more, but crept to his room presently and left me
pondering his words far into the night.
Later on, as I lay awake in bed, I heard his room door open softly and
the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. This, however, being no
unfamiliar experience with us, disturbed me not at all.
In the morning at breakfast he handed me a couple of ancient gold
coins.
“Take these,” he said; “they should bring £5 apiece.”
His instructions as to the disposal of the relics I need not dwell
upon. Their consignee, a highly respectable tradesman in his line,
would no doubt consider any mention of his name a considerable breach
of confidence. I had my own opinion as to the laws of treasure-trove,
and he may have had his as to my father. When, armed with my father’s
warranty, I visited this amiable “receiver,” I found him to be an
austere-looking but pleasant gentleman, with an evident enthusiasm for
the scholarly side of his business. He gave me the price my father had
mentioned, and bowed me to the door, with a faint blush.
It was so early in the day by the time I had finished my business
that, deeming it not possible that Jason could reach the mill before
the evening at earliest, I determined upon returning by an afternoon
train, that I might make a visit that had been in my mind since I
first knew I was to revisit London. It was to a dull and lonely
cemetery out Battersea way, where a poor working girl lay at rest.
It was late in the afternoon when I came to the lodge gate of the
burial-place and inquired there as to the position of the grave.
Indeed, in the quarter where I found her the graves lay so close that
it seemed almost as if the coffins must touch underground.
My eyes filled with humble tears as I stood looking down on the thin
green mound. A little cross of stone stood at the head and on it “D.
M.” and the date of her death. The grave had been carefully
tended--lovingly trimmed and weeded and coaxed to the greenest growth
in those nine short months. A little bush rose stood at the foot, and
on the breast of the hillock, a bunch of rich, fading flowers lay.
They must have been placed there within the last two or three days
only--by the same hands that had gardened the sprouting turf--that had
raised the simple cross and written thereon the date of a great
heart’s breaking.
I placed my own sad token of autumn flowers nearer the foot of the
mound, and, going to the cross, bent and kissed it. My eyes were so
blinded, my throat so strangled, that for the moment I felt as if, as
I did so, it put its arms about my neck and that Dolly’s soft cheek
was laid against mine. I know that I rose peaceful with the assurance
of pardon; and that, by and by, that gentle, unresting spirit was to
extend to me once more, in the passing of a dreadful peril, the saving
beneficence of its presence.