The suicide of Mr. Bates had a great effect on Dale. The sadness and
regret that he felt at the time continued to tinge his thoughts for a
long while afterward. He could not shake off the horror of that
midnight scene, as he imagined it--the God-fearing man breaking the
divine laws, the man full of years who was so near the grave and yet
could not wait till it received him naturally, the poor feeble old
creature taxing all his remnant of strength to knock out the small
spark of life that already had begun to gleam so dimly. How long did
he take to drag and raise the ladder, pausing to recover breath,
holding his side and coughing, then again toiling?
Another thing that depressed Dale's spirits was the departure of Mr.
Osborn, who had gone to the Midlands to take up the ministry of a
large church in a large town. And never had Dale more felt the want of
priestly support than at this period. The new pastor was a young man
who preached eloquently, but Dale would not be able to talk to him as
he had talked to Osborn.
Mavis observed again what she had not seen for ages, the gloom on her
husband's face when he sat alone, or thought that he was alone. The
dull brooding look that spoiled his aspect at such times was like the
shadow of a dark cloud on a field; but as in the past the shadow went
rapidly, and she fancied she could chase it away as surely as if she
had been the sunshine. She would have been startled and pained if she
could have seen his face now, as he rode from Manninglea after
luncheon at the club.
It was a wet spring day, with dark clouds hanging low over the heath,
a cold wind cheeping, soughing, sighing; and Dale's face was darker
and sadder than the day. Before mounting his horse in the hotel yard
at Manninglea he had gone to the station and bought _The Times_
newspaper; now he drew the paper out of his pocket, and sheltering it
with his rain cloak, read an advertisement on the front page.
The advertisement told him that a London hospital gratefully
acknowledged the receipt of one hundred pounds, being the twenty-first
donation from the same hand, and making two thousand and twenty pounds
as the total received to date. In accordance with the request of their
anonymous benefactor, they inserted this notice, and they offered at
the same time their heartfelt thanks.
Dale tore out the advertisement and threw away the rest of the paper.
To his mind, this money was the payment of a very old debt. The amount
of his first charitable donation sent nearly fifteen years ago, had
been twenty pounds. That, the most urgent part of the debt,
represented the four bank-notes given to the wife by Mr. Barradine in
London. The other twenty instalments made up the amount of the legacy
that came to her at his death. Mavis had lent the money to her
husband, had in due course received a similar sum of money from him,
and she held it now safely invested; but, as Dale told himself, she
did not in truth hold one penny of the dead man's gifts. All that she
had now was the gift of him, Dale; and the money that soiled her hands
in touching it, the money that had burned his brain, the filthy gold
that had made him half-mad to think of, had gone to strangers whom
neither of them had ever seen. He had been slow about it; but, thank
God, he had done at last what he wanted to do at the very beginning.
He folded the scrap of paper that was his receipt or quittance, put it
in his breast pocket, and rode on at a foot-pace. He was absolutely
alone, not a soul in sight wherever he turned his eyes, not a beast,
not a bird moving, the desolate brown heath and the sad gray sky alike
empty of life; straight ahead, about a mile distant, lay the Cross
Roads, the tavern, and the small hamlet of cottages, but as yet they
were hidden by a rise of the intervening ground; only the fringe of
cultivated land at the point where it met the barren waste indicated
the work or proximity of mankind. His face grew still darker as he
approached these fields and saw the cluster of houses on their edge.
He looked at the deep ditch that surrounded the outermost field; then
turning his head looked again at the heath, its bleak contours
mounting gradually till they showed an ugly ridge beyond which the
downs swelled up soft and vague against the hanging curtain of clouds.
And he thought of what lay on the far side of this long grass rampart
of down country--the fat-soiled valley, the other railway line, the
trains from the West of England, full of queer people, running by
night as well as by day.
As he passed the Barradine Arms, he saw three louts leaning against a
dry bit of wall under the eaves of an outhouse. They stared at him
stupidly, not speaking or touching their caps, just loutishly
staring; and he stared at them with black severity. He thought how he
himself had been like one of those oafs, living in a cottage not so
many miles from this spot. No one now seemed to remember his humble
birth, his unhappy youth, his sordid home. Other people forgot
everything; while he could forget nothing.
At the Cross Roads he drew rein for a moment, as if undecided as to
which way to turn. Before going home he had to pay a business call,
and his destination was straight ahead of him, about four miles off as
the crow flies. The quickest way to get there, the line nearest to the
crow's line, would be to leave the road here and ride through Hadleigh
Wood, under the bare beeches, among the somber pines, along the gloomy
rides; and the alternative route would be to turn to the right, hold
to the open road, and follow its deflected course past the Abbey gates
and park, and all round the wild forest. That way would be three miles
longer than the other way. He turned his horse's head to the right;
and as he went on by the road, he was thinking of the terrible chapter
in his life that closed with the death of Mr. Barradine.
Nearly fifteen years ago; yet in all that time, although dwelling so
near to the tragic fateful wood, he had been into it only once--and
then he had gone there with the hounds and jolly loud-voiced riders,
cub-hunting, on a bright September morning. The wood symbolized
everything that he wished to forget. And he thought that if he were
really a rich man--not a poor little well-to-do trader, but a fabulous
millionaire--he'd buy all this woodland, cut down every tree, chase
away every shadow, and grow corn in the sunlight. He would buy
woodland and parkland too--he would burn Aunt Petherick's hidden
cottage, the Abbey with its inner, outer and middle courtyards, yes,
and its church also; he would burn and fell, and grub and plough, and
then plant the seeds of corn that symbolize the resurrection of life;
and the sun should shine on a wide yellow sea, with waves of hope
rippling across it as the ripened ears bowed and rose; and there
should be no trace or stain to mark the submerged slime that had held
corruption and death. Then, if he could do that, he would have nothing
to remind him of all he had gone through in the past.
Nothing to remind him?
It made no difference whether the Abbey towers and the North Ride
chimneys were visible or invisible; no screen of trees, whether
leafless as now or carrying the full weight of foliage, could really
screen them from him; they were inside him, together with all that
they had once signified, a part of himself. If he did not look at them
with introspective eyes, if he ignored their existence, if he
succeeded in not thinking of them, there was always something else,
inside him or outside him, to carry his thoughts back into the black
bad time.
At this moment it was the Orphanage, with its wet red roofs and
dripping white verandas. His road took him close in front of it--a
lengthy stretch of building composed of a central block that contained
the hall and schoolrooms, and two lesser and lower blocks connected by
cloisters. He glanced at these blocks--long and low, only a ground
floor and an upper story--and noticed the veranda and broad balconies.
The girls slept here, as Mavis had told him; the younger in one block
and the older in the other block. The whole institution had an air of
old-established order and unceasing care; all the paint was new and
clean; the gardens and terraces, with hedges and shrubs that had grown
high and thick, were beautifully kept; not a weed showed in borders or
paths; the copper bell in the belfry turret was so well polished that
it seemed to shine, even though no glint of sunlight touched it. As he
rode by he heard the sound of children's voices, and, raising himself
in his stirrups, looked over the clipped yew hedge that guarded the
lower garden from the roadway. A dozen or fifteen small blue-cloaks
were romping joyously under one of the verandas, and perhaps twenty of
the bigger blue-cloaks were soberly parading two by two in a cloister.
Nothing carried him back so promptly and surely as the sight of these
blue-cloaked girls, and scarcely a day ever passed without his seeing
them. Two by two they were incessantly tramping the roads for miles
round. He could not walk, ride, or drive without meeting them. When he
heard their footsteps and knew that they were coming marching by
Vine-Pits, he turned his back to the office window, or went into the
depths of granary or stable. He had hated that day when Mavis brought
them off the road and into the heart of his home.
With the sound of their shrill cries and merry laughter lingering in
his ears he rode on.
What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that
good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of
white paint, every square inch of clean gravel, gave substance and
solidity to the lasting fame of that dear sweet gentleman. Visitors
to the neighborhood always stopped their carriages or motor cars
outside the Orphanage gates, questioned and gaped, sent in their
cards, begged for permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they
admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots,
others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood
with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his
bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty
inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the
name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops
came, there to hiccough and weep over his blessed memory. Great lords
and ladies praised him, newspaper writers praised him, ignorant fools
in cottages praised him; and to high and low the crowning grace of his
glorious charity was the selection of the softer, gentler, and too
often downtrodden sex as the object of such tender care. That was what
set the sentimental rivers flowing. It proved the innate gentleness
and sweetness of him who was now an angel in Heaven. When it came to
choosing the guests for the lovely home he had built in his mind, he
had said: "I will not fill it with a lot of hulking boys. Boys are
naturally rough and coarse animals, and can generally fight their way
out on top, no matter how stiff the struggle. Give me so many graceful
delicate girls; pretty helpless things, dainty little innocent
fascinating creatures; not necessarily fatherless girls, but
unprotected girls--girls that grievously need protection."
And Dale thought how the man, when he was alive, dealt with any
innocent unprotected girl who chanced to fall into his power. In
imagination he saw him taking care of Mavis, when she was young and
tender, and scarcely knew right from wrong. In imagination he saw it
all again--the pattings and pawings, the scheming and devising, the
luring and ensnaring--Barradine and Mavis--the man of many years and
the girl of few years, the serpent and the dove, the destroyer and the
destroyed. Those torturing mental pictures glowed and took form, and
were as vivid now as when, in the hour of his grief and despair, he
first made them and saw them.
This departed saint, whose memory had become as a fragrance of myrrh,
whose name sounded like the clinking of an incense-pot swung by devout
hands, whose monument stood firm as a temple built upon the rock, was
simply a dirty old beast for whom no excuse could be possible. What
worse crime can there be than that of befouling youth? Who is a worse
enemy to the commonweal than he who snatches and steals for his
transient gratification treasures that are accumulating to make some
honest man's life-long joy? Such wanton abuse of society's law and
nature's plan is the unpardonable sin; it is sin as monstrous as the
enormities that brought down fire upon the dwellers in the cities of
the plain.
To Dale the idea of an offense so gross that its perpetrator deserved
neither pity nor mercy was if anything stronger now than when it had
first entered and filled his mind.
Yet it seemed to him that now, after all the years that had gone by,
he could for the first time perfectly understand the dark and shameful
tangle of emotions through which the sinner moved onward to his sin.
It seemed that with luminous clearness he could look right into the
corrupt heart of the dead man. He could understand all, though he
could forgive nothing. He could measure the force of every thought and
sensation that had pushed the dead man on and on.
After middle-age the blood grows stagnant, habit dulls the edge of
appetite, a weariness of the mind and of the body makes one cease to
taste well-used delights; a strong new stimulus is required to revive
the emotional life that is sinking to decay. Such a stimulus must not
only be strong and new, it must be light, delicate, altogether
strange. The effect it produces is due to charm and spell as much as
to substance and form.
To people who are elderly, youth itself, merely because it is youth,
exercises a tremendous fascination. It sheds an atmosphere that is
pleasant to breathe. It seems like a fountain of life in which, if we
might bathe, we should take some rejuvenating virtue as well as a
soothing bliss. There is a common saying that it makes one feel young
just to consort with young people.
Then imagine the selfish unprincipled wretch who at the same time
feels the new stimulus, experiences the mysterious fascination, and
craves for the revivifying delight. Putting himself in the sinner's
place, Dale could realize the pressure that drove him to his sin. He
could estimate the fearful temptation offered by the mere presence of
the fresh young innocent creature that one has begun to think about in
this improper manner. She comes and she goes before one's eyes,
piercing them with her beauty; she fills one with desire as wine fills
a cup; she absorbs one, whether she knows it or not, dominates,
overwhelms, makes one her sick and fainting slave. And suppose that
while one becomes her slave one remains her master. To what a gigantic
growth the temptation must rush up each time that one thinks she is
utterly in one's power! How irresistible it must seem if she herself
does not aid one to resist it, if through her ignorance or childish
faith she invites the disaster one is struggling to avoid, if instead
of flying from her danger she draws nearer and nearer to it.
But to yield to such temptation, however tremendous it may be, is
abominable, disgusting, and inexpressibly base. No explanation can
palliate or apology prevail--the crime remains the same crime, and he
who commits it is not fit to live with decent upright men. That was
what Dale had felt fifteen years ago, and he felt it with increased
conviction now because of the religious faith that had become his
guide and comfort. To a believing Baptist there is a peculiar
sacredness, in unsullied innocence.
Two hours afterward, when he had transacted his business and drew near
to home, he was still thinking of Mr. Barradine and the Orphanage for
unguarded innocent girls. He shook himself in the saddle, squared his
shoulders, and held up his head as he rode into the yard.
"Here, take my horse," he said sternly, as he swung his foot out of
the stirrup.
Then, at the sound of a voice behind him, he felt a little shiver run
down his spine, like the cold touch of superstitious fear.
It was only Norah calling to him. She had come out into the rain to
tell him that Mavis Dale had gone to Rodchurch and could not be back
to tea.