A MOTHER’S TROUBLES.
A raw London morning is a terrible foe to romance—visions that have
danced elf-like before the view on the foregoing night tend to lose
their charm or even to merge themselves wholly in the commonplace. So it
was with me. When I came down to breakfast and reviewed the situation
calmly, I was ready to laugh at my faith in what seemed the wild
vagaries of Schwartz and Burnett. The memory of the queer little parlour
and its queerer tenants had lost its over-night vividness and given
place to a suspicion that either I or my hosts had indulged too freely
in whisky. The little plate, however, was still in my possession, and
this very tangible witness sufficed, despite a growing scepticism, to
give me pause. “A striking discovery no doubt,” was my verdict, “but the
dream of Hartmann, as Burnett calls it, is not so easily realized.”
Still I should know all—if anything worth the mention was to be known—on
Saturday night if I showed up at the odd trysting-place named by
Burnett—a trysting-place which at that hour meant a scramble over
palings, and a possible trouble with the police. But these things were
trifles. All things considered, I should do well to present myself with
or without Burnett, for the boasted aëronef apart, the threats of the
anarchists had begun to perplex me mightily, and the wish to meet their
notorious leader, the so terrible son of my old friend Mrs. Hartmann,
was not to be summarily exorcised.
I had passed the morning in study. Luncheon over, I jotted down some
notes for my speech on the following Saturday. Next, I sent Lena a note
promising to look in on Sunday afternoon, sallied out with it to the
post, and then ensconced myself in an omnibus which was plying in the
direction of Islington. Whither was I bound? For the house of my friend
Mrs. Hartmann, whom, as already mentioned, I had not seen for some time,
and whose conversation just now might be fraught with peculiar interest.
Had the son as yet seen the mother? Had any inkling of these vaguely
discussed new plots reached her? Had she any clue to the mystery tapped
over-night? Questions such as these surged up in dozens, and I
determined, if possible, to feel my way to their answers.
It was late in the afternoon when I reached Mrs. Hartmann’s modest villa
in Islington. The maid who admitted me said that she was not at home,
having gone to visit a sick child in the neighbourhood. She expected her
back to tea, and meanwhile perhaps I would like to wait. There was
clearly no resource open to me but to do so, and entering the narrow
hall I was shown into a drawing-room, simply but withal not
uncomfortably furnished. The bay window which lighted the apartment
looked on to a neat grass-plot diversified by some small but well-kept
parterres.
There was little within to catch the eye. Exploring the walls I came
across a shelf full of musty books, mathematical and engineering
text-books, and a variety of treatises on political economy and the
sciences, evidently mementos of the son! While glancing through some and
noting the numerous traces of careful study, the thought struck me that
the photograph of their misguided possessor might also be accessible. I
had been many times in the room before, but had never been favoured with
the old lady’s confidences on the score of her son. The wound caused by
his crime was ever green, and I, at least, was not cruel enough to
disturb it. However, being now left alone I resolved to consult her
albums, which, at any rate, might serve to while away the hour.
Loosening the clasp of one that lay near to hand, I turned over its
leaves rapidly. As a rule, I dislike collections of this sort; there is
a prosiness peculiar to albums which forbids incautious research. But
here the hunt was of interest. True, there were mediocre denizens in
plenty, shoals of cousins, sisters, and aunts, hordes of nonentities
whom Burnett would have dubbed only “fit for fuel,” but there was
discoverable one very satisfactory tenant—a loose photograph marked on
the back, “R. Hartmann, taken when twenty-three years of age,” just
about the time of the celebrated bridge incident.
It was the face of a young man evidently of high capacity and
unflinching resolution. A slight moustache brushed the upper lip, and
set off a clear-cut but somewhat cruel mouth. A more completely
independent expression I never saw. The lineaments obscured by time
defied accurate survey, but the general effect produced was that they
indicated an arbitrary and domineering soul, utterly impatient of
control and loftily contemptuous of its kind.
I was carefully conning the face when I heard the garden-gate creak on
its hinges, a sound followed by the rattle of a latch-key in the lock of
the front door. Mrs. Hartmann had returned. Passing into the room, she
met me with a pleasant smile which showed up in curious contrast to the
look of depression so familiar to me of yore. I interpreted that
brightness in an instant. Hartmann had returned, and had paid her the
visit of one raised from the dead. But of his terrible designs, of his
restless hatred of society, he had clearly told her nothing.
Hers was an expressive face, and the shadows upon it were few enough to
warrant that inference. Probably he had smoothed over the past and
fooled her with some talk of a reformed life and a changed creed. It is
so easy for an only son to persuade a mother—particularly when he rises
after long years from a supposed grave.
“Well, Mr. Stanley, you are the last person I expected to see. I heard
you were to be in Paris to-day.”
“So, my dear Mrs. Hartmann, I was, but the Northertons, you see, have
returned, and I had hoped to have done some touring with the old
gentleman.”
“Or perhaps with Miss Lena. No, don’t look so innocent, for she tells me
more than you think. But what of this return? I had a note from her when
she was in Paris, but she said nothing about it?”
“Some will business,” I explained. “You will be glad to hear she comes
in for £5000 by it.”
“A nice little nest-egg to begin house-keeping upon. I think, Mr.
Stanley, you two young people ought to do very well.”
“I hope so,” I said, foregoing useless secrecy—what a chatterbox Lena
could be! “At any rate I see no very dangerous rocks ahead at present.”
[Illustration: THE PHOTOGRAPH.]
The conversation wandered for some time among various topics, when I
mentioned that I had been looking over the album.
“And very stupid work you must have found it,” she said.
“Oh, it kept me busy while waiting. By the way, one of the photographs
is loose,” and I handed her that of her son, this time with the face
upwards. The ruse was effective, and the conversation took the desired
course.
“Have you never seen that face before? It is that of Rudolf, my
misguided son, of whom you must have heard. Poor boy! Ten years have
rolled by since his death.”
Admirably cool this mother; she at least was not to be “squeezed”
offhand. But my watched-for chance had come.
“My dear Mrs. Hartmann, he is alive, and you know it. Two days ago he
was in this very house.” I had drawn my bow at a venture, but the shaft
served me well. The _coup_ was decisive. The old lady’s face betrayed
complete discomfiture mingled with obvious signs of alarm. She made no
attempt to contradict me. “What!” she stammered out at length. “Are you
also in the secret? Are you, too, one of——”
“No,” I replied bluntly, anticipating her meaning. “I have never met
your son, though I know something perhaps of his movements. But believe
me you may trust me as you would yourself. He was a dynamitard, but he
is your son, and that is enough for me. Rest assured of my silence.”
Her distress visibly abated.
“Thanks, many thanks. I feel I can rely on you—even to lend him a
helping hand should the time ever come. Ah! he is a changed man, an
entirely changed man. A bright future may await him even now across the
sea. But this visit to me—so sudden, so brief—I fear lest it may cost
him dear. You, a private man, have found it out; why may not the
lynx-eyed police also? It is terrible, this suspense. How can I be sure
that he is safe at this moment?”
“Oh, as to that, happily I can reassure you. Your son is safe
enough—nay, as safe as the most anxious mother could desire. How or
where I cannot say, but I have it on the best possible authority. In
fact, only last night I heard as much from the lips of one who should
surely know—Michael Schwartz himself!”
“That evil genius! Is he too in London? Ah! if he is content, all is
well. No tigress ever watched better over her cub than Schwartz over my
son. Would his likings had blown elsewhere! That man was my son’s tutor
in vice. But for him Rudolf might have been an honour to his country.
And what is he now? An outlaw, in the shadow of the gallows,”—and she
hid her face in her handkerchief and wept bitterly. I waited patiently
till the tempest was over, putting in a soothing phrase here and there
and painting black white with the zeal of a skilful casuist. One need
not be too scrupulous when sufferers such as this are concerned.
“He has told you nothing of his movements?” I remarked cautiously.
“Nothing, except that he was leaving shortly for Hamburg, whence he was
to proceed immediately to New York. Some months later on I may join him
there, but for the present all is uncertain.” One more deception of
Hartmann’s, but a kindly one; obviously it was better not to disturb the
illusions which the old lady thus fondly cherished—her reformed son, his
prospective honourable life, the vision of a lasting reunion abroad.
Were she to suspect that mischief was again being plotted by the
anarchist, what a cruel scattering of her hopes would follow!
I assured her that the chances were all in her son’s favour, and that
once in America he could set at naught all possibilities of discovery.
Meanwhile, I had become aware that nothing of importance to my quest was
to be drawn from Mrs. Hartmann. Her son's meteoric visit, prompted by
some gleam of noble sentiment, had evidently left her ignorant of his
new inhuman plottings. Ere long I rose to leave, not, however, without
having promised that, should Hartmann ever cross my path, I would stand
by him for her sake in a possible hour of danger. Under what
circumstances I was to meet this extraordinary man—how absurd then my
poor well-meant promise of assistance was to appear—will be manifest
from the ensuing narrative.