the dark in regard to the specific charge against Routledge, she could
have put this and other fragments together into a rough form of truth.
The few who knew all, imparted nothing. To the rest, the name of
Routledge was attached to a certain unspeakable atrocity, and was thus
whispered wherever Englishmen roved and strived. The man’s mysterious
figure had been in the London press for years. England makes much
of her correspondents, and Routledge, the _Review_ man, had aroused
comment from Auckland to Winnipeg--familiar comment, like the record of
a general. A curse had fallen upon the name now, and it was none the
less heinous because the reason, so far as the multitude was concerned,
was a historical mystery. Articles like Finacune’s from the field in
Bhurpal had given Englishmen everywhere an idea of the personality
of this arch-enemy; and the fact that Routledge was still alive, and
miraculously unpunished, was a covert challenge to the British around
the world.... Noreen despaired of learning the truth. The merest
mention of the subject harrowed and discountenanced her father, and
netted no revelation whatsoever.
Hers were stern, hard-checked days, full of heart-hunger. It seemed
to her sometimes as if her individuality must perish in the midst of
this interminable system of agonies. That last hour in the carriage
had left her thrilling, burning. She wished she had said even more to
show her loyalty.... She thought of Routledge out on God’s great windy
seas--always alone, always on deck in storms that drove others below;
she thought of him moving in the hidden slums of India, native of the
natives, eternally shadowed from his kind--alone, wasted, accursed....
Once--it was the same night that he had slipped from a noose in the
house at Madras--she woke with a scream to find that it was only a
dream--that he was being murdered. Yet she was terrified for days, as
only one can be terrified whose brain is fine enough to respond to the
immaterial currents, molding and weaving behind all scenes and things.
Often it came to her, “This is my battle. I must fight it cleanly and
without a cry. It is hard for him and hard for me--as much as we can
bear. Only Routledge-san and I can know how hard--and God, who measures
our strength. But I shall see him again. I shall see him again. _I
shall see him again._”
Beyond this, she could never go in coherent thinking. In calm moments,
and without any warning, there would come to her just a glimpse
_beyond_, but never by deliberately forcing her thoughts. What glimpses
they were, winged, marvelous,--of a bewildering intensity past the
handling of common faculties.... A great, strong-souled woman,
fashioned with the beauty of angels, and inspired with a love of the
kind that only the dreamers can know in spirit.... And she held fast
to what was left of her father, loved him, nor allowed the vision of
crossing the world to her lover to militate against the work of the
hour.... As for Routledge degraded, Routledge-san doing a shameful
thing--this was unthinkable, a masterpiece of evil, one of the world’s
four-dimension errors, which held him outcast in a wilderness where her
soul cried nightly to be.
Autumn of the following year, and still Jerry Cardinegh sat in the
little rooms in Cheer Street, his daughter ministering.... Noreen
made a pilgrimage to Bookstalls. It was a day reserved from summer,
and she had waited until afternoon when her father napped. All things
were made ready for his comfort when he awakened, and she had the
hours. Her carriage turned into the rutty, cobble-paved road, narrow
and eternally jammed. The upper front windows of the old house were
closely curtained.... She had never been up there, though once she had
asked to go.... Her father and others had told her of the wanderer’s
trophy-room, which Routledge kept from year to year and occupied so
seldom. How fared the master in this hour?...
The street boy who had been with Routledge that last morning was
passing swiftly, carrying the wares of a pastry-cook upon a tray. He
had the look of one who was trusted and prospering. She called and he
ran forward, but halted in excitement.
“Why, you are the Boy!” she declared joyfully.
His answer was equally engaging: “Has the Man come back?”
“Won’t you come into the carriage with me--so we can talk about the
Man?” she asked.
Talking about the Man was desirable but forbidden. Another party
had wished to talk about the Man. It was but a moment after the Man
had left him, in the carriage of this woman. A stranger had touched
his arm, asked queer questions in a clumsy, laughing way, stood
treat variously, and bored for information in the most startling
and unexpected fashion, always laughing. Altogether that had been a
forenoon which made him damp to remember. Night after night, in the
little hall-bedroom, he had gone over every word which the stranger
had extracted. He felt that the Man would have been proud of him, but
there had been several narrow squeaks.... As for the Man, Johnny Brodie
had built his future and his God-stuff about Him. It wasn’t altogether
a matter of clothes and grub and a room of his own. There was something
deeper and bigger than that.... And this woman--her chances were slim
about getting anything out of him about the Man.
“I got these ’ere torts to carry?” he said. “Has the Man come back?”
“No, but we’ll talk about him--when you are through with your work.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about ’im.”
“Oh, but it’s enough that you know him--and are fond of him. How long
will you be busy?”
“Till dark.”
“Oh, dear! But you will come to my house after that, won’t you, Boy?
I’ll have a good supper for you--and some things to take away. You’ll
be glad if you come.... Won’t you come, Boy?”
Five minutes later, Johnny stared at the receding carriage and at the
money in his hand. He had promised to go to Cheer Street that evening
when his work was done. How it came about, was one of those things
which he must figure out in silence and darkness. Certainly he had not
intended to go. Evidently she was one of the Man’s possessions, and
what a way she had with her!... Everything about the Man was right. He
was all that a man could and should be. More would be superfluous and
distasteful.... It had looked as if the Man had wanted to be alone that
morning, when this woman had borne him away in the carriage. Johnny
had never quite forgiven her for that. Possibly the Man might have had
more to say to him if she hadn’t come.... She wanted to go up into the
Room, but the Man hadn’t allowed that....
“’E took me in, an’ not ’er!” he mused with sudden amazement.
The long-locked lodging--that Superlative Place!... Johnny had a pet
dream. He was back on the stairs, and the Man came and carried him up
into that place of kingliest attraction. Those were rooms like a man
ought to have--shields, guns, knives, saddles, tufts of hair (certainly
scalps), chain-shirts, and shirts with tattoo-marks all over; and
there was one saddle, with mud still on the stirrups, sorrel hair on
the cinch, and a horsy smell.... Johnny jerked himself out of his
delectable memories.
“I’ll go,” he muttered; “but she needn’t think she’ll ’ear anything
about ’im from me.”
* * * * *
Noreen returned to Cheer Street in the twilight, troubled by the
thought that there was to be company in the evening. She had forgotten,
and wanted the whole time with the boy.... He had passed the night in
the lodgings with Routledge--the very hours which had made an outcast
of her lover. What might the boy not have heard? At least he knew the
Man--one soul in London who knew Routledge and did not seek to crush
him.
Her father regarded her hungrily as she entered.
“You’ve been gone long, Noreen,” he said. “’Tis a queer thing that
comes over a man with the years, deere. I was thinking this afternoon
of going away for a year--the thought of it! It’s all gone from me.
Old Jerry is off to the wars no more, unless they furnish portable
pavilions for the women of the correspondents.”
She knew that his liveliness was unnatural, but so much of her work
was mere service for the tragic effacement of a loved one, that she
brightened responsively to his slightest mental activity. Dinner was
nearly over when the door-bell rang. Noreen left her father at the
table and admitted Johnny Brodie, leading him into the sitting-room.
He removed his cap carefully, uncovering a noble achievement of water,
wrought against gritty odds, with a certain treasured pair of military
brushes. The cap was carelessly stuck in his pocket. His shoes--but the
blacking of Bookstalls and many other roads had the start of months
and asserted itself before the drying fire above the recent veneer of
the stranger brand. Johnny Brodie looked captured and uncomfortable,
so that Noreen despaired to win him. Had he been older or younger, she
could not have failed; but there he sat, a male creature all deformed
by years and emotions, precocities and vacuities--a stained and
handicapped little nobleman, all boy, and all to the good.
“We haven’t heard from the Man, either, Johnny,” she said. “We are
terribly worried about him and awfully interested. I know he was very
fond of you, and I hoped you could tell us something about him. Did you
know him long?”
“Nope.” The boy wondered who else was included in the “we.”
“But that morning you seemed to have such a fine and complete
understanding. Did you often spend a night with him?”
“Nope. We was fren’s, though. ’E’s the right sort. Gives me a bloomin’
Tommy’s harmy blanket to sleep in, and wen I goes to get into me
boots--they’re filled wit bobs an’ tanners. I looks up, an’ ’e’s
grinnin’--as if ’e didn’t know as to ’ow they got there.”
It was all replenishment to her veins. “And didn’t he go to sleep that
night, Johnny?” she asked softly.
“’Ow should I know?” he demanded innocently.
“I thought maybe you’d know. He told me--that is, I know he had a
visitor besides you that night.”
Manifestly this would never do. Noreen felt uncomfortable in her
probing. She must make him see how important anything he might say
would be not only to her, but to the Man.... As for what the boy knew,
an analyst, or, better, an alienist, would be necessary to piece into a
garment of reason his poor little patches of understanding, in regard
to what he had heard that night--names of men and places and deeds
outside of Bookstalls. The fact that Johnny Brodie did not understand,
was no reason why he should uncover his patches to this woman who
understood so much. He was a little afraid of her, and not a little
sorry that he had come. He felt, in spite of himself, that his face was
telling her that he knew a great deal about that night. He squirmed.
Noreen sensed many of his mental operations, arose and knelt before
him, her elbows upon his knees, and looked up into his face.
“Boy,” she whispered, “you are very good and dear to me for trying to
keep his secrets. He is a great and good man, who means very much to
you and to me. He is doing for some one else (who cannot love him as
you and I do) a great thing and a hard thing, which keeps him away from
us. So long as the secret is kept, Boy, he will have to stay away,
but if we knew the secret we could bring him back to us and be very
happy.... I want you to tell me all that you know, all that you heard
that night while the visitor was there--but before you do you must
understand that you are doing only good for him. His good, his welfare,
is life and death to me. I love this man, Johnny Brodie, I think even
better than you do. Won’t you help me to bring him back?”
His eyes were wide with temptation. He longed to consult her about
the laughing stranger who had pumped him. Many things had happened to
him in twelve flying, graceless years, but nothing like this. Never
would come another moment like this--with the woman, whom Bookstalls
had gasped at the sight of, kneeling before him. The fate of a city
might well have wavered in the balance before the pleading of such a
woman. He had a premonitive sense that this moment would become more
significant the older he grew. She overturned half his resistance with
the single fact of sharing with him the possession of the Man and
acknowledging his almost co-equal rights in all that pertained. It
was not her interest, but _their_ interest.... And then--the seething
curiosity for months--this woman could tell him why the Man wanted the
Hate of London! There could be no mistake about this last. The Man had
begged for it in many ways and in such language as was never heard in
Bookstalls, except in the Socialist’s Hall. How could one old man, all
scarred and shot up, give him the Hate of London?
At this instant Jerry Cardinegh opened the door from the dining-room.
Noreen felt the little body turn rigid under her hands and saw the thin
jaw tighten. As she turned hastily to her father, she heard Johnny
Brodie’s voice--the voice of one who has triumphed over temptation:
“Ask ’im! Wot yer askin’ me fer--wen ’e knows?”
She hurried to lead her father back into the dining-room, but he could
not stir. His eyes had fixed themselves upon the boy, and seemed to
be draining from him some deadly poison. His liquor betrayed him, as
it ever betrays the old and the fallen. The tissue it had sustained
collapsed in his veins and the low light left his brain. Only there
remained horror as of a basilisk upon his face. His bright, staring
eyes had a look of isolation in the midst of altered ashen features.
It was too much for Johnny Brodie--this quick formation of havoc on the
face that had been florid and smiling. Moreover, he saw the conspiracy
against him in the woman and the old man. He clapped his hand to his
pocket--the cap was where it belonged--bolted into the hall and down
the stairs.
Noreen’s lips formed to call his name, but the look of her father
forbade. She heard the slam of the front door.
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
JERRY CARDINEGH OFFERS A TOAST TO THE OUTCAST--A TOAST HE IS COMPELLED
TO DRINK ALONE
There was but one face in the world--the face of the boy who had
so startled Jerry Cardinegh in Routledge’s rooms their last night
together--that could have brought to the old man as now the falsity of
his position, the shame of his silence, and the horrid closing of his
life. Routledge himself could not have done this, for he would have
returned with a smile and a grip of the hand. Cardinegh had received in
full voltage the galvanism Routledge had craved as a boon. He tried to
speak, but the sound in his throat was like dice shaking in a leather
box. He tried again unavailingly, and sank into a chair. Noreen brought
the whiskey.
“Why, father, it was just a little boy whom Routledge-san knew,” she
soothed. “I found him on the street to-day, and asked him to come to
see us to-night--because he had known Routledge-san.”
For an hour he sat quietly, and neither spoke.
The bell rang. Noreen steeled herself to meet a party of correspondents
who had promised to drop in upon Jerry that night. The old king was
not forgotten by the princes of the craft, and his daughter was
unforgettable.
“Are you well enough to see the boys, father?”
In the past hour the old man had felt the fear of his daughter’s
presence, a deadly fear of questions. A sort of hopeless idea came
to him--that men in the room would be a defense--until he was himself
again.
“Of course. Bring them in.... The little chap---- ... I was gripped of
a sudden.... It’s an old dog at best, I am, deere!”
Finacune, as handsome as a young rose-vine in his evening wear; the
heavy, panting Trollope, who put on weight prodigiously between wars;
Feeney, with his look of gloom, as if a doom-song were forever chanting
in his brain; and young Benton Day, of slight but very promising
service, the man who was to take Routledge’s place on the _Review_ in
the event of war--these filled the Cheer Street sitting-room with brisk
affairs. Noreen’s heart was in the dark with the little boy fleeing
back to Bookstalls through the noisy October night. Old Jerry was
shaken up and embraced. There was to be a full gathering of war-scribes
at Tetley’s later, to discuss the Russian reply to certain Japanese
proposals received by cable in the afternoon. The dean was invited
to preside. Noreen saw the pained look in the eyes of Finacune as he
relaxed her father’s hand.
“I’ll not go,” said Jerry. “I drink enough at home, sure. Did you say
Russia has been talking back--though it’s little interest I have in
rumors of war? It’s a boy’s work.”
“The Czar says Japan may run Korea, but as for Manchuria it is, ‘Hands
off, Brownie.’” said Finacune.
“Which means----” Trollope began.
“The same old tie-up,” added Finacune. “Only closer to the cutting.
Cable to the _Pan-Anglo_ this afternoon declares that Japan has already
granted the inevitability of war.”
“Russia suggests,” Benton Day observed carefully, “that Japan offer no
military demonstration in Korea from the Yalu down to 40°. Japan says
in reply that she must have a similar zone of gunless activity, then,
north of the Yalu.”
“And the fact is,” said Feeney, “they’ll be shooting at each other from
bank to bank before the ice is out in the spring.”
“It’s a theory of mine,” Trollope offered, “that Japan will sink a
Russian battleship or blow up a Russian troop-train, and then observe
playfully that further negotiations are uncalled-for.”
Jerry was staring at the carpet, apparently in deep thought. Noreen was
close to Finacune.
“Don’t ask him again to go to Tetley’s with you to-night,” she
whispered. “He is far from well.”
“I thought it would cheer him up--to preside over an old-fashioned
session of prayer for action.”
She shook her head. Her father now stared about from face to face and
finally fixed upon her the nervous smile.
“There’s a deere,” he said, “run and see if the dinner things are
cleared away. We must get about the board--for a toast to the work
ahead.... Come, boys, to the dining-room.”
They obeyed with enthusiasm. Glasses and things were brought by Noreen.
Jerry sat rigid at the head, perspiration upon his brow, the struggle
for light to think by in his brain. The men felt the strain, and pitied
the woman.
“And what does England do in all this?” Cardinegh asked huskily, after
a painful pause.
Old Feeney was nearest the dean. He dropped his hand upon the other’s
arm in a quiet way. “England boosts for Japan, Jerry,” he replied.
All were eager to relieve the strain by a detailed discussion on any
subject, but the dean renewed:
“And is all quiet in India?”
“Quiet as the ‘orchard lands of long ago,’” said Finacune.
There was something in the old man’s voice which suggested to Noreen
the long forgotten passion--so out of place here. She trembled lest he
should prove unable to handle himself.
“_England_----” Cardinegh rumbled the name. It was as if he were
fighting for a grasp upon all that the gigantic word had meant to him.
“England ought to be down there fighting the Czar on the British-Indian
border--not on the Yalu.”
It was clear to all why England was not embroiled with Russia--the
Anglo-Japanese alliance--save to the old man who should have known
best. The truth thundered now in the clouds of his brain, but he could
not interpret. Nobody spoke, for the dean’s hand was raised to hold
the attention. The gesture was a pitiful attempt to assist him to
concentrate. He faltered helplessly, and finally uttered the words
nearest his lips:
“Finacune, the florid,--you’re for the _Word_ as usual?”
They all breathed again. The old man had found a lead.
“Always for the _Word_, Jerry--I write war for the skirt-departments of
London.”
“And you, Blue Boar--for the _Examiner_?” he demanded of Trollope.
“The same.”
“And Benton Day--you----” Cardinegh’s expression suddenly became
single-pointed. Here were breakers again.
“It’s not rightly settled, sir. I’ve got lines out severally. I really
do want to go.”
“Then Dartmore didn’t call you to the _Review_ yet?”
“I did speak with Dartmore,” said Day. “Things are not altogether
settled, though.”
Jerry regarded him for a second, as if to say, “I’ll get back to you,
young man, when I am through with this peroration.”
“And, Bingley, the ‘Horse-killer’?” he resumed.
“Goes out for the _Thames_, as usual. There’s a lad that means to make
us all sweat,” Finacune said thoughtfully.
“Feeney--you old were-wolf--you’ve been scratching old Mother Earth in
the raw places--almost as long as I have. What are you out for this
time?”
Feeney hesitated, and Trollope dragged out the answer: “All kinds of
berths for Feeney. The _Thames_ will put out a dispatch-boat which he
can command if he likes. The _Pan-Anglo_ wants him for the Russian end.
Also he’s got an offer to follow the Japanese. Feeney told me more
about the Yalu country, and that new cartridge-belt of creation, while
we were walking over here to-night--red-beard bandits, Russian grand
dukes, Japanese spies, _with queues_, who have been mapping Manchuria
for ten years--than any white man has a right to know.”
The fact was that old Feeney had about closed to go out for the
_Witness_, which Jerry had left open.
“There’s no need of asking about Talliaferro,” Cardinegh said
impatiently.
“No, Talliaferro is Peter Pellen’s ‘Excalibur,’ as usual; and will set
out on schedule for the Yalu or the Gugger--wherever the fronts meet.”
“And the _Witness_?” Jerry said, clearing his throat. His thoughts were
like birds starting up in the dusk, clots of night without name and
form.
Finacune arose and filled the breech. “The _Witness_ awaits the word
of the greatest of us all--our dean, Jerry Cardinegh. I propose now a
drink to him standing--to the greatest of our kind!”
Personal vanity had never fallen into the senility of the Irishman,
but he arose with the others, and his face caught up an old wild look
familiar to everyone in the room, as he raised his hand to speak:
“Let us drink to the greatest of us all, as you say,--not to the
decayed correspondent which the _Witness_ does _not_ wait for.” His
eyes flashed with a sudden memory of the windy night in Bhurpal. “Let
us drink to the greatest of us all--‘the man whom the gods formed for a
war-correspondent--or a spy, as you like--whom they tempered in hell’s
fire and holy water’--drink to Cosmo Routledge, already afield!”
The old man did not note the suppressed disorder, nor the dawn of joy
on the face of his daughter.
“I remember he called me the ‘damaged archangel’ that night,” he added
softly, and turned to Benton Day: “God be with him this night--and with
you, too, lad--for you’ll need Him--to take his place.”
Jerry drank ceremoniously and alone, but there was a fuller tribute
than any emptied glass ever tokened--in the brimming eyes of Noreen....
The boys were in the hall.
“I’m going--not to war, lads--but to bed,” Cardinegh said, and
presently called after them at the door: “May the patchwork for peace
fail to cover the knees of the nations!”
Noreen was alone. Her brain, sensitive from weariness and wounds,
moved swiftly, restlessly. She knew at this moment the correspondents
would be discussing the phases of her father’s madness--whispering at
Tetley’s of the fall of the chieftain. Later, at the banquet-table,
when the wines swept away all lesser regards, they would no longer
whisper.... These men were her friends all. Not one would have
hesitated to serve her well in any need. She did not want to do them an
injustice; and yet there was something in their minds that was stinging
and foreign now. The cause was in her own mind, and she realized it.
They were big among men, big among their kind, honorable and genuine,
but it was not in human reason for them to share her immutable trust,
any more than they could share the feminine outpouring of her heart
for the man afield. Also she knew that there were few things in this
world that Routledge could have done wicked enough to shake these men
so utterly from allegiance to him. He had been to them a mystical
attraction of virtue, as he was now in their eyes the imperator among
criminals.