Tom began to understand, as soon as he left the Terrace, that a
consciousness of his own innocence was not all that was necessary for his
peace of mind. What would other people say? There was a damning chain
of evidence, and what was he to do for a living with no character?
He did not return home nor to the shop. He took the road to Chapel Farm.
He did not go to the house direct, but went round it, and walked about,
and at last found himself on the bridge. It was there that he met
Catharine after her jump into the water; it was there, although he knew
nothing about it, that she parted from Mr. Cardew. It was no thundery,
summer day now, but cold and dark. The wind was north-east, persistent
with unvarying force; the sky was covered with an almost uniform sheet of
heavy grey clouds, with no form or beauty in them; there was nothing in
the heavens or earth which seemed to have any relationship with man or to
show any interest in him. Tom was not a philosopher, but some of his
misery was due to a sense of carelessness and injustice somewhere in the
government of the world. He was religious after his fashion, but the
time had passed when a man could believe, as his forefathers believed,
that the earth is a school of trial, and that after death is the
judgment. What had he done to be visited thus? How was his integrity to
be discovered? He had often thought that it was possible that a man
should be convicted of some dreadful crime; that he should be execrated,
not only by the whole countryside, but by his own wife and children; that
his descendants for ages might curse him as the solitary ancestor who had
brought disgrace into the family, and that he might be innocent. There
might be hundreds of such; doubtless there have been. Perhaps, even
worse, there have been men who have been misinterpreted, traduced,
forsaken, because they have been compelled for a reason sacredly secret
to take a certain course which seemed disreputable, and the word which
would have explained everything they have loyally sworn, for the sake of
a friend, never to speak, and it has remained unspoken for ever. As he
stood leaning over the parapet he saw Catharine coming along the path.
She did not attempt to avoid him, for she wandered what he could be
doing. He told her the whole story. "Miss Catharine, there is just one
thing I want to know: do you believe I am guilty?"
"I know you are not."
"Thank God for that."
Both remained silent for a minute or two. At last Tom spoke.
"Oh, Miss Catharine, this makes it harder to bear. You are the one
person, perhaps, in the world now who has any faith in me; there is,
perhaps, no human being at this moment, excepting yourself, who, after
having heard what you have heard, would at once put it all aside. What
do you suppose I think of you now? If I loved you before, what must my
love now be? Miss Catharine, I could tear out my heart for you, and if
you can trust me so much, why can you not love me too? What is it that
prevents your love? Why cannot I alter it? And yet, what am I saying?
You may think me honest, but how can I expect you to take a discharged
felon?"
Catharine knew what Tom did not know. She was perfectly sure that the
accusation against him was the result of the supposed discovery of their
love for one another. If she had denied it promptly nothing perhaps
would have happened. It was all due to her, then. She gazed up the
stream; the leaden clouds drove on; the leaden water lay rippled; the
willows and the rushes, vexed with the bitter blast, bent themselves
continually. She turned and took her ring off her finger.
"It can never be," she slowly said; "here is my ring; you may keep it,
but while I am alive you must never wear it."
Tom took it mechanically, bent his head over the parapet, and his anguish
broke out in sobs and tears. Catharine took his hand in hers, leaned
over him, and whispered:
"Tom, listen--I shall never be any man's wife."
Before he could say another word she had gone, and he felt that he should
never see her again.
What makes the peculiar pang of parting? The coach comes up; the friend
mounts; there is the wave of a handkerchief. I follow him to the crest
of the hill; he disappears, and I am left to walk down the dusty lane
alone. Am I melancholy simply because I shall not see him for a month or
a year? She whom I have loved for half a life lies dying. I kiss her
and bid her good-bye. Is the bare loss the sole cause of my misery, my
despair, breeding that mad longing that I myself might die? In all
parting there is something infinite. We see in it a symbol of the order
of the universe, and it is because that death-bed farewell stands for so
much that we break down. "If it pleases God," says Swift to Pope, "to
restore me to my health, I shall readily make a third journey; if not, we
must part _as all human creatures have parted_." As all human creatures
have parted! Swift did not say that by way of consolation.
Tom turned homewards. Catharine's last words were incessantly in his
mind. What they meant he knew not and could not imagine, but in the
midst of his trouble rose up something not worth calling joy, a little
thread of water in the waste: it was a little relief that nobody was
preferred before him, and that nobody would possess what to him was
denied. He told his father, and found his faith unshakable. There was a
letter for him in a handwriting he thought he knew, but he was not quite
sure. It was as follows:--
"DEAR MR. CATCHPOLE,--I hope you will excuse the liberty I have taken
in writing to you. I have left my place at the Terrace. I cannot
help sending these few lines to say that Orkid Jim has been causing
mischief here, and if he's had anything to do with your going he's a
liar. It was all because I wouldn't go to the door and let him in,
and gave missus a bit of my mind about him that I had notice. I
wasn't sorry, however, for my cough is bad, and I couldn't stand
running up and down those Terrace stairs. It was different at the
shop. I thought I should just like to let you know that whatever
missus and master may say, _I'm_ sure you have done nothing but what
is quite straight.
"Yours truly,
"PHOEBE CROWHURST."
Tom was grateful to Phoebe, and he put her letter in his pocket: it
remained there for some time: it then came out with one or two other
papers, was accidentally burnt with them, and was never answered. Day
after day poor Phoebe watched the postman, but nothing came. She
wondered if she had made any mistake in the address, but she had not the
courage to write again. "He may be very much taken up," thought she,
"but he might have sent me just a line;" and then she felt ashamed, and
wished she had not written, and would have given the world to have her
letter back again. She had been betrayed into a little tenderness which
met with no response. She was only a housemaid, and yet when she said to
herself that maybe she had been too forward, the blood came to her
cheeks; beautifully, too beautifully white they were. Poor Phoebe!
Tom met Mr. Cardew in Eastthorpe the evening after the interview with
Catharine, and told him his story.
"I am ruined," he said: "I have no character."
"Wait a minute; come with me into the Bell where my horse is."
They went into the coffee-room, and Mr. Cardew took a sheet of note-paper
and wrote:--
"MY DEAR ROBERT,--The bearer of this note, Mr. Thomas Catchpole, is
well known to me as a perfectly honest man, and he thoroughly
understands his business. He is coming to London, and I hope you will
consider it your duty to obtain remunerative employment for him. He
has been wickedly accused of a crime of which he is as innocent as I
am, and this is an additional reason why you should exert yourself on
his behalf.
"Your affectionate cousin,
"THEOPHILUS CARDEW.
"TO ROBERT BERDOE, Esq.,
"Clapham Common."
Mr. Cardew married a Berdoe, it will be remembered, and this Robert
Berdoe was a wealthy wholesale ironmonger, who carried on business in
Southwark.
"You had better leave Eastthorpe, Mr. Catchpole, and take your father
with you. Are you in want of any money?"
"No, sir, thank you; I have saved a little. I cannot speak very well,
Mr. Cardew; you know I cannot; I cannot say to you what I ought."
"I want no thanks, my dear friend. What I do is a simple duty. I am a
minister of God's Word, and I know no obligation more pressing which He
has laid upon me than that of bearing witness to the truth."
Mr. Cardew went off as usual away from what was before him.
"The duty of Christ's minister is, generally speaking, _to take the other
side_--that is to say, to resist the verdicts passed by the world upon
men and things. Preaching mere abstractions, too, is not by itself of
much use. What we are bound to do is not only to preserve the eternal
standard, but to measure actual human beings and human deeds by it. I
sometimes think, too, it is of more importance to say _this is right_
than to say _this is wrong_, to save that which is true than to assist
into perdition that which is false. Especially ought we to defend
character unjustly assailed. A character is something alive, a soul; to
rescue it is the salvation of a soul!"
He stopped and seemed to wake up suddenly.
"Good-bye! God's blessing on you." He shook Tom's hand and was going
out of the yard.
"There is just one thing more, sir: I do not want to leave Eastthorpe
with such a character behind me--to leave in the dark, one may say, and
not defend myself. It looks as if it were an admission I was wrong. I
should, above everything, like to get to the bottom of it, and see who is
the liar or what the mistake is."
"Nobody would listen to you, and if you were to make a noise Mr. Furze
might prosecute, and with the evidence he has we do not know what the end
might be; I will do my part, as I am bound to do, to set you right. But,
above everything, Mr. Catchpole, endeavour to put yourself where the
condemnation of the world and even crucifixion by it are of no
consequence." Mr. Cardew gave Tom one more shake of the hand, mounted
his horse, and rode off. He had asked Tom for no proofs: he had merely
heard the tale and had given his certificate.
Mr Furze distinctly enjoined Orkid Jim to hold his tongue. Neither Mr.
nor Mrs. Furze wished to appear in court, and they were uncertain what
Catharine might do if they went any further. Mr. Orkid Jim had the best
of reasons for silence, but Mr. Humphries, the builder, of course
repeated what he himself knew, and so it went about that Tom was wrong in
his accounts, and all Eastthorpe affirmed him to be little better than a
rascal. Mr. Cardew, with every tittle of much stronger and apparently
irresistible testimony before him, never for a moment considered it as a
feather's weight in the balance.
"But the facts, my good sir, the facts; the facts--there they are: the
receipt to the bill; Jim's declaration; his brother's declaration; the
marked coin; the absolute proof that Catchpole gave it to Butterfield,
and he could not, as some may think, have changed silver of his own for
it, for Mr. Furze paid him in gold, and there was not twenty shillings
worth of silver in the till; what _have_ you got to say? Do you tell me
all this may be accident and coincidence? If you do, we may just as well
give up reasoning and the whole of our criminal procedure."
Mr. Cardew did know the facts, _the_ facts, and relying on them he
delivered his judgment. Catharine, Phoebe, and Tom's father agreed with
him--four jurors out of one thousand of full age; but the four were right
and the nine hundred odd were wrong. In the four dwelt what aforetime
would have been called faith, nothing magical, nothing superstitious, but
really the noblest form of reason, for it is the ability to rest upon the
one reality which is of value, neglecting all delusive appearances which
may apparently contradict it.
Tom left Eastthorpe the next morning, and on that day Catharine received
the following letter from her mother:
"MY DEAR CATHARINE,--I write to tell you that we have made an awful
discovery. Catchpole has appropriated money belonging to your father,
and the evidence against him is complete. (Mrs. Furze then told the
story.) You will now, my dear Catharine, be able, I hope, to do
justice to your father and mother, and to understand their anxiety
that you should form no connection with a man like this. It is true
that on the morning when we spoke to you we did not know the extent of
his guilt, but we had suspected him for some time. It is quite
providential that the disclosure comes--at the present moment, and I
hope it will detach you from him for ever. Your father and I send our
love, and please assure Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy of our regard.
"Your affectionate mother,
"AMELIA FURZE."
On the same morning Mr. Furze received the following note from Mr.
Cardew:--
"DEAR SIR,--I regret to hear that a false charge has been preferred
against my friend Mr. Catchpole. By my advice he has left Eastthorpe
without any attempt to defend himself, but I consider it my duty to
tell you he is innocent; that you have lost a faithful servant, and,
what is worse, you have done him harm, not only in body, but in soul,
for there are not many men who can be wrongfully accused and remain
calm and resigned. You ask me on what evidence I acquit him. I know
the whole story, but I also know him, and I know that he cannot lie. I
beg you to consider what you do in branding as foul that which God has
made good. I offer no apology for thus addressing you, for I am a
minister of God's Word, and I have to do all that He bids. I should
consider I was but a poor servant of the Most High if I did not
protest against wrong-doing face to face with the doer of it.
"Faithfully yours,
"THEOPHILUS CARDEW."
Both Mr. and Mrs. Furze Were greatly incensed, and Mr. Cardew received
the following reply, due rather to Mrs. than to Mr. Furze--
"SIR,--I am greatly surprised at the receipt of your letter. You have
taken up the cause of a servant against his master, and a dishonest
servant, too: you have taken it up with only an imperfect acquaintance
with the case, and knowing nothing of it except from his
representation. If you were the clergyman of this parish I might,
perhaps, recognise your right to address me, although I am inclined to
believe that the clergy do far more harm than good by meddling with
matters outside their own sphere. How can we listen with respect to a
minister who is occupied with worldly affairs rather than with those
matters which befit his calling and concern our salvation? Sir, I
must decline any discussion with you as to Mr. Catchpole's innocence
or guilt, and respectfully deny your right to interfere.
"I am, sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"J. FURZE."
Catharine's first impulse was to go home instantly and vindicate Tom, but
she did not move, and the letter remained unanswered. What could she say
to her own parents which would meet the case or would be worthy of such a
conspiracy? She would not be believed, and no good would be done. A
stronger reason for not speaking was a certain pride and a determination
to retaliate by silence, but the strongest of all reasons was a kind of
collapse after she arrived at Chapel Farm, and the disappearance of all
desire to fight. Her old cheerfulness began to depart, and a cloud to
creep over her like the shadow of an eclipse. Young as she was, strange
thoughts possessed her. The interval between the present moment and
death appeared annihilated; life was a mere span; a day would go by and
then a week, and in a few months, which could easily be counted, would
come the end; nay, it was already out there, visible, approaching, and
when she came to think what death really meant, the difference between
right and wrong was worth nothing. Terrors, vague and misty possessed
her, all the worse because they were not substantial. She could not put
into words what ailed her, and she wrestled with shapeless clinging forms
which she could hardly discern, and could not distangle from her, much
less overthrow. They wound themselves about her, and although they were
but shadows, they made her shriek, and at times she fainted under their
grasp, and thought she could not survive. She had no peace. If soldiers
lie dead upon a battle-field there is an end of them; new armies may be
raised, but the enemy is at any rate weaker by those who are killed. It
is not quite the same with our ghostly foes, for they rise into life
after we think they are buried, and often with greater strength than
ever. There is something awful in the obstinacy of the assaults upon us.
Day after day, night after night, and perhaps year after year, the
wretched citadel is environed, and the pressure of the attack is
unremitting, while the force which resists has to be summoned by a direct
effort of the will, and the moment that effort relaxes the force fails,
and the besiegers swarm upon the fortifications. That which makes for
our destruction, everything that is horrible, seems spontaneously active,
and the opposition is an everlasting struggle.
At last the effect upon Catharine's health was so obvious that Mrs.
Bellamy was alarmed, and went over to Eastthorpe to see Mrs. Furze. Mrs.
Furze in her own mind instantly concluded that Tom was the cause of her
daughter's trouble, but she did not mean to admit it to her. In a sense
Tom was the cause; not that she loved him, but because her refusal of him
brought it vividly before her that her life would be spent without love,
or, at least, without a love which could be acknowledged. It was a
crisis, for the pattern of her existence was henceforth settled, and she
was to live not only without that which is sweetest for woman, but with
no definite object before her. The force in woman is so great that
something with which it can grapple, on which it can expend itself, is a
necessity, and Catharine felt that her strength would have to occupy
itself in twisting straws. It is really this which is the root of many a
poor girl's suffering. As the world is arranged at present, there is too
much power for the mills which have to be turned by it.
Mrs. Furze requested Mrs. Bellamy to send back Catharine at once in order
that a doctor might be consulted. She returned; she did not really much
care where she was; and to the doctor she went. Dr. Turnbull was the
gentleman selected.