SOMETHING HAPPENS
So far a truly enjoyable Sunday. To sit in church beside her angry
mother, both going through the forms of repentance, charity, and
forgiveness: and to dine together, going through the ordinary forms of
kindliness while one at least was devoured with wrath. Waste of good
roast lamb and gooseberry tart!
Elsie spent the afternoon in her studio, where she sat undisturbed.
People called, but her mother received them. Now that the last
resolution had been taken: now that she had promised her lover to brave
everything and to live the simplest possible life for love's sweet sake,
she felt that sinking which falls upon the most courageous when the
boats are burned. Thus Love makes loving hearts to suffer.
The evening, however, made amends. For then, like the housemaid, who
mounted the area stair as Elsie went down the front-door steps, she went
forth to meet her lover, and in his company forgot all her fears. They
went to church together. There they sat side by side, this church not
having adopted the barbarous custom of separating the sexes--a custom
which belongs to the time when women were monkishly considered unclean
creatures, and the cause, to most men, of everlasting suffering, which
they themselves would most justly share. This couple sat hand in hand;
the service was full of praise and hope and trust: the Psalms were
exultant, triumphant, jubilant: the sermon was a ten minutes'
ejaculation of joy and thanks: there was a Procession with banners, to
cheer up the hearts of the faithful--what is Faith without a Procession?
Comfort stole back to Elsie's troubled heart: she felt less like an
outcast: she came out of the church with renewed confidence.
It was still daylight. They walked round and round the nearest square.
Jane the housemaid and her young man were doing the same thing. They
talked with confidence and joy of the future before them. Presently the
rain began to fall, and Elsie's spirits fell too.
'George,' she said, 'are we selfish, each of us? Is it right for me to
drag and keep you down?'
'You will not. You will raise me and keep me up. Never doubt that,
Elsie. I am the selfish one because I make you sacrifice so much.'
'Oh! no--no. It is no sacrifice for me. You must make me brave, George,
because I am told every day by Hilda and my mother the most terrible
things. I have been miserable all day long. I suppose it is the battle I
had with my mother yesterday.'
'Your mother will be all right again as soon as the thing is done. And
Hilda will come round too. She will want to show you her new carriage
and her newest dress. Nobody admires and envies the rich relation so
much as the poor relation. That is the reason why the poor relation is
so much courted and petted in every rich family. We shall be the poor
relations, you know, Elsie.'
'I suppose so. We must accept the part and play it properly.' She spoke
gaily, but with an effort.
'She will give you some of her old dresses. And she will ask us to some
of her crushes; but we won't go. Oh! Hilda will come round. As for your
mother----' He repressed what he was about to say. 'As for your mother,
Elsie, there is no obstinacy so desperate that it cannot be softened by
something or other. The constant dropping, you know. Give her time. If
she refuses to change--why--then'--again he changed the words in
time--'dear child, we must make our own happiness for ourselves without
our own folk to help us.'
'Yes; we will. At the same time, George, though I am so valiant in talk,
I confess that I feel as low as a schoolboy who is going to be
punished.'
'My dear Elsie,' said George, with a little exasperation, 'if they will
not come round, let them stay flat or square, or sulky, or anything. I
can hardly be expected to feel very anxious for a change of temper in
people who have said so many hard things of me. To-morrow, dear, you
shall get through your talk with Mr. Dering. He's as hard as nails; but
he's a just man, and he is sensible. In the evening, I will call for you
at nine, and you shall tell me what he said. In six weeks we can be
married. I will see about the banns. We will find a lodging somewhere,
pack up our things, get married, and move in. We can't afford a
honeymoon, I am afraid. That shall come afterwards when the ship comes
home.'
'Yes. When I am with you I fear nothing. It is when you are gone: when I
sit by myself in my own room, and know that in the next room my mother
is brooding over her wrath and keeping it warm--that I feel so guilty.
To-night, it is not that I feel guilty at all: it is quite the contrary;
but I feel as if something was going to happen.'
'Something is going to happen, dear. I am going to put a wedding ring
round this pretty finger.'
'When one says something in the language of superstition one means
something bad, something dreadful, something that shall stand between us
and force us apart. Something unexpected.'
'My child,' said her lover, 'all the powers of all the devils shall not
force us apart.' A daring and comprehensive boast.
She laughed a little, lightened by words so brave. 'Here we are, dear,'
she said, as they arrived at the house. 'I think the rain means to come
down in earnest. You had better make haste home. To-morrow evening at
nine, I will expect you.'
She ran lightly up the steps and rang the bell: the door was opened: she
turned her head, laughed, waved her hand to her lover, and ran in.
There was standing on the kerb beneath the street lamp a man apparently
engaged in lighting a cigar. When the girl turned, the light of the lamp
fell full upon her face. The man stared at her, forgetting his
cigar-light, which fell burning from his hand into the gutter. When the
door shut upon her, he stared at George, who, for his part, his mistress
having vanished, stared at the door.
All this staring occupied a period of at least half a minute. Then
George turned and walked away: the man struck another light, lit his
cigar, and strode away too, but in the same direction. Presently he
caught up George and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
'Here, you sir,' he said gruffly; 'I want a word with you before we go
any further.'
George turned upon him savagely. Nobody likes a heavy hand laid upon the
shoulder. In the old days it generally meant a writ and Whitecross
Street and other unpleasant things.
'Who the devil are you?' he asked.
'That is the question I was going----' He stopped and laughed.--'No--I
see now. I don't want to ask it. You are George Austin, are you not?'
'That is my name. But who are you--and what do you want with me?'
The man was a stranger to him. He was dressed in a velvet coat and a
white waistcoat: he wore a soft felt hat; and with the velvet jacket,
the felt hat, and a full beard, he looked like an artist of some kind.
At the end of June it is still light at half-past nine. George saw that
the man was a gentleman: his features, strongly marked and clear cut,
reminded him of something--but vaguely; they gave him the common feeling
of having been seen or known at some remote period. The man looked about
thirty, the time when the physical man is at his best: he was of good
height, well set up, and robust. Something, no doubt, in the art world:
or something that desired to appear as if belonging to the art world.
Because, you see, the artists themselves are not so picturesque as those
who would be artists if they could. The unsuccessful artist, certainly,
is sometimes a most picturesque creature. So is the model. The rags and
duds and threadbarity too often enter largely into the picturesque. So
with the ploughboy's dinner under the hedge, or the cotter's Saturday
night. And the village beershop may make a very fine picture; but the
artist himself does not partake in those simple joys.
'Well, sir, who are you?' George repeated as the other man made no
reply.
'Do you not remember me? I am waiting to give you a chance.'
'No--certainly not.'
'Consider. That house into which you have just taken my--a young
lady--does it not connect itself with me?'
'No. Why should it?'
'Then I suppose that I am completely forgotten.'
'It is very strange. I seem to recall your voice.'
'I will tell you who I am by another question. George Austin, what in
thunder are you doing with my sister?'
'Your sister?' George jumped up and stared. 'Your sister? Are you--are
you Athelstan come home again? Really and truly--Athelstan?'
'I am really and truly Athelstan. I have been back in England about a
fortnight.'
'You are Athelstan?' George looked at him curiously. When the reputed
black-sheep comes home again, it is generally in rags with a long story
of fortune's persecutions. This man was not in the least ragged. On the
contrary, he looked prosperous. What had he been doing? For, although
Elsie continued passionate in her belief in her brother's innocence,
everybody else believed that he had run away to escape consequences, and
George among the number had accepted that belief.
'Your beard alters you greatly. I should not have known you. To be sure
it is eight years since I saw you last, and I was only just beginning my
articles when you--left us.' He was on the point of saying 'when you ran
away.'
'There is a good deal to talk about. Will you come with me to my rooms?
I am putting up in Half Moon Street.'
Athelstan hailed a passing hansom and they drove off.
'You have been a fortnight in London,' said George, 'and yet you have
not been to see your own people.'
'I have been eight years away, and yet I have not written a single
letter to my own people.'
George asked no more questions. Arrived at the lodging, they went in and
sat down. Athelstan produced soda and whisky and cigars.
'Why have I not called upon my own people?' Athelstan took up the
question again. 'Because, when I left home, I swore that I would never
return until they came to beg forgiveness. That is why. Every evening I
have been walking outside the house, in the hope of seeing some of them
without their seeing me. For, you see, I should like to go home again;
but I will not go as I went away, under a shameful cloud. That has got
to be lifted first. Presently I shall know whether it is lifted. Then I
shall know how to act. To-night, I was rewarded by the sight of my
sister Elsie, walking home with you. I knew her at once. She is taller
than I thought she would become when I went away. Her face hasn't
changed much, though. She always had the gift of sweet looks, which
isn't quite the same thing as beauty. My sister Hilda, for instance, was
always called a handsome girl, but she never had Elsie's sweet looks.'
'She has the sweetest looks in the world.'
'What are you doing with her, George Austin, I ask again?'
'We are engaged to be married.'
'Married? Elsie married? Why--she's--well--I suppose she must be grown
up by this time.'
'Elsie is very nearly one-and-twenty. She will be twenty-one to-morrow.'
'Elsie going to be married. It seems absurd. One-and-twenty to-morrow.
Ah!' He sat up eagerly. 'Tell me, is she any richer? Has she had any
legacies or things?'
'No. How should she? Her _dot_ is her sweet self, which is enough for
any man.'
'And you, Austin. I remember you were an articled clerk of eighteen or
nineteen when I went away--are you rich?'
Austin blushed. 'No,' he said; 'I am not. I am a managing clerk at your
old office. I get two hundred a year, and we are going to marry on
that.'
Athelstan nodded. 'A bold thing to do. However----Twenty-one
to-morrow--we shall see.'
'And I am sorry to say there is the greatest opposition--on the part of
your mother and your other sister. I am not allowed in the house, and
Elsie is treated as a rebel.'
'Oh! well. If you see your way, my boy, get married, and have a happy
life, and leave them to come round at their leisure. Elsie has a heart
of gold. She can believe in a man. She is the only one of my people who
stood up for me when they accused me without a shadow of proof of----
The only one--the only one. It is impossible for me to forget that--and
difficult,' he added, 'to forgive the other thing.--Is my sister Hilda
still at home?'
'No. She is married to Sir Samuel, brother of your Mr. Dering. He is a
great deal older than his wife; but he is very rich.'
'Oh!--and my mother?'
'I believe she continues in good health. I am not allowed the privilege
of calling upon her.'
'And my old chief?'
'He also continues well.'
'And now, since we have cleared the ground so far, let us come to
business. How about that robbery?'
'What robbery?' The old business had taken place when George was a lad
just entering upon his articles. He had ceased to think of it.
'What robbery? Man alive!'--Athelstan sprang to his feet--'there is only
one robbery to me in the whole history of the world since men and
robberies began. What robbery? Look here, Master George Austin, when a
man is murdered, there is for that man only one murder in the whole
history of the world. All the other murders, even that of Abel himself,
are of no concern at all--not one bit. He isn't interested in them. They
don't matter to him a red cent. That's my case. The robbery of eight
years ago, which took a few hundred pounds from a rich man, changed my
whole life; it drove me out into the world; it forced me for a time to
live among the prodigals and the swine and the husks. It handed me over
to a thousand devils; and you ask me what robbery?'
'I am very sorry. It is now a forgotten thing. Nobody remembers it any
more. I doubt whether Mr. Dering himself ever thinks of it.'
'Well, what was discovered after all? Who did it?'
'Nothing at all has been discovered. No one knows to this day who did
it.'
'Nothing at all?--I am disappointed. Hasn't old Checkley done time for
it? Nothing found out?'
'Nothing. The notes were stopped in time, and were never presented.
After five or six years the Bank of England gave Mr. Dering notes in the
place of those stolen. And that is all there is to tell.'
'Nothing discovered! And the notes never presented? What good did the
fellow get by it, then?'
'I don't know. But nothing was discovered.'
'Nothing discovered!' Athelstan repeated. 'Why, I took it for granted
that the truth had come out long since. I was making up my mind to call
upon old Dering. I don't think I shall go now.--And my sister Hilda will
not be coming here to express her contrition. I am disappointed.'
'You can see Elsie if you like.'
'Yes--I can see her,' he repeated.--'George'--he returned to the old
subject--'do you know the exact particulars of that robbery?'
'There was a forged cheque, and the Bank paid it across the counter.'
'The cheque,' Athelstan explained, 'was made payable to the order of a
certain unknown person named Edmund Gray. It was endorsed by that name.
To prove that forgery, they should have got the cheque and examined the
endorsement. That was the first thing, certainly. I wonder how they
began.'
'I do not know. It was while I was in my articles, and all we heard was
a vague report. You ought not to have gone away. You should have stayed
to fight it out.'
'I was right to give up my berth after what the chief said. How could I
remain drawing his pay and doing his work, when he had calmly given me
to understand that the forgery lay between two hands, and that he
strongly suspected mine?'
'Did Mr. Dering really say so? Did he go so far as that?'
'So I walked out of the place. I should have stayed at home and waited
for the clearing up of the thing, but for my own people--who--well--you
know---- So I went away in a rage.'
'And have you come back--as you went--in a rage?'
'Well--you see, that is the kind of fire that keeps alight of its own
accord.'
'I believe that some sort of a search was made for this Edmund Gray; but
I do not know how long it lasted or who was employed.'
'Detectives are no good. Perhaps the chief didn't care to press the
business. Perhaps he learned enough to be satisfied that Checkley was
the man. Perhaps he was unwilling to lose an old servant. Perhaps the
villain confessed the thing. It all comes back to me fresh and clear,
though for eight long years I have not talked with a soul about it.'
'Tell me,' said George, a little out of sympathy with this dead and
buried forgery--'tell me where you have been--what you have done--and
what you are doing now.'
'Presently--presently,' he replied with impatience. 'I am sure now that
I was wrong. I should not have left the country. I should have taken a
lodging openly, and waited and looked on. Yes; that would have been
better. Then I should have seen that old villain, Checkley, in the dock.
Perhaps it is not yet too late. Still--eight years. Who can expect a
commissionaire to remember a single message after eight years?'
'Well--and now tell me,' George asked again, 'what you have been doing.'
'The black-sheep always turns up, doesn't he? You learn at home that he
has got a berth in the Rocky Mountains; but he jacks it up and goes to
Melbourne, where he falls on his feet; but gets tired, and moves on to
New Zealand, and so home again. It's a regular round.'
'You are apparently the black-sheep whose wool is dyed white. There are
threads of gold in it. You look prosperous.'
'A few years ago I was actually in the possession of money. Then I
became poor again. After a good many adventures I became a journalist.
The profession is in America the refuge of the educated unsuccessful,
and the hope of the uneducated unsuccessful. I am doing as well as
journalists in America generally do: I am over here as the
representative of a Francisco paper. And I expect to stay for some
time--so long as I can be of service to my people. That's all.'
'Well--it might be a great deal worse. And won't you come to Pembridge
Crescent with me?'
'When the cloud is lifted: not before. And--George--not a word about me.
Don't tell--yet--even Elsie.'