FATHER AND SON.
Ray rose to his feet and bent forward.
"I did not know you expected any visitor," said he in a tone of strong
irritation.
"I do not expect any visitor. I never have any visitor but you," said
Bramwell, looking round him in perplexity, as though in search of an
explanation of the sound. He was beginning to think that his ears must
have deceived him, and that the knock had not been at the door. "Did
you," he asked, "draw back the stage when you got here?"
"Yes, but I did not fasten it. Any one on the tow-path might have
pulled it across again. I hope no one has been eavesdropping."
"Eavesdropping! No. Who would care to eavesdrop at _my_ door?"
"HE!"
"Philip, you are mad? If you trifle with your reason in this way you
will hurt it permanently. I do not believe there was any knock at all.
It may have been a stone thrown by some boy from the tow-path."
"Well, open the door and see. There can be no harm in doing that."
Ray stretched out his hand to recover the revolver which he had placed
on the table. Bramwell snatched it up, saying:
"What folly, Philip! I will have no nonsense with such tools as this.
We are in England--not the West of America." He dropped the revolver
into the pocket of his jacket.
The minds of both men had been so concentrated on the idea of John
Ainsworth during this interview that neither would have felt much
surprise to find him on the threshold. Bramwell had repudiated Ray's
suggestion that Ainsworth was there, but in his heart he was not sure
of his own assertion. Nothing on earth could be more monstrously
improbable than that Ainsworth would come and knock at _that_ door;
but then neither of the men in the room was in full possession of his
reasoning powers. While Bramwell had lived on Boland's Ait no caller
but Philip Ray had ever knocked at that door before, and now--now
there came a knock while Philip Ray was sitting in the room, and as
they had heard of Ainsworth's presence in England, and at the very
moment Philip Ray was swearing to take that reprobate's life. Reason
said it was absurd to suppose Ainsworth could be there. Imagination
said he might; and if he were found there while Philip was in this
fury, what direful things might not happen? Now that Bramwell had the
revolver in his possession he felt more assured.
He moved to the door, opened it, and looked out.
No figure rose between him and the deep dusk of night. The light from
the lamp on the table passed out through the doorway, and shone upon
the wall of the old engine-house opposite.
"There is no one. It must have been a stone," said Bramwell, relieved,
and drawing back.
"A stone cannot hit twice. There were two knocks. I heard two quite
distinctly. Go out and look around. Or stay, I'll go. Give me back my
revolver."
"No, no. Stay where you are. I will see."
He was in the act of stepping forth, when, looking down, he suddenly
perceived the figure of a little child in the doorway. With a cry,
"What is this?" he sprang back into the middle of the room.
Ray shouted, "Is the villain there? I told you it was Ainsworth!"
Ray was about to pass Bramwell at a bound, when the latter seized him
and held him back, and, pointing to the child in the doorway,
whispered, "Look!"
Ray peered into the gloom, and then came forward a pace warily, as
though suspecting danger. "A child!" he cried in a whisper. "A little
child! How did he come here? Do you know anything of him?"
"No." Bramwell shuddered and drew back until he could reach the
support of the table, on which he rested his hand.
Ray advanced still further, and, bending his tall thin figure, asked
in a muffled voice, "Who are you, my little man? and what have you got
in your hand?" The child held something white in a hand which he
extended to Ray.
The child did not answer, but crossed the threshold into the full
light of the lamp, still offering the white object, which now could be
seen to be a letter.
"What is your name, my little man?" repeated Ray, with a look of
something like awe on his face.
"Don't!" whispered Bramwell, backing until he reached his chair.
"Don't! Can't you see his name?"
"No. I am not able to make out what is on the paper at the distance.
Give me the paper, my little lad."
Bramwell knew what the name of the child was, and Ray had a tumultuous
and superstitious feeling that the coming of this child across the
water in the night to the lonely islet and this solitary man had some
portentous significance.
Ray took the letter from the child, and read the superscription with
dull sight. Then he said, turning to Bramwell, "This does not explain
how you know his name. There is nothing on this but,
'Francis Bramwell, Esq.
Boland's Ait,
South London Canal.'
What is your name? Tell me your name, my little man."
"Frank," said the child in a frightened voice.
"Yes. What else?"
"Mellor."
"What!" shouted Ray, catching up the boy from the floor and holding
the little face close to the lamp.
"Did not you see his name on his face? Look! Is it not her face?
Philip, I am suffocating!"
Ray gazed at the child long and eagerly. Bramwell, swaying to and fro
by his chair, kept his eyes on the rosy face of the boy. The boy
blinked at the light, and looked from one man to the other with
wide-open, unconcerned eyes. At length Ray put the little fellow on
the floor. The boy went to the table and began looking at the papers
spread upon it. From his self possessed, unabashed manner, it was
plain he was well accustomed to strangers.
"Who brought you here?" asked Ray again. The other man seemed bereft
of voice and motion, save the long swaying motion, which he
mechanically tried to steady by laying hold of the arm of the chair.
"A man," answered the child, running his chubby young fingers through
some papers.
"Where did you come from?"
"Mother," answered the child.
"Who is mother?"
The boy looked round in smiling surprise.
"Mother _is_ mother," and he laughed at the notion of grown-up people
not knowing so simple a thing as that his mother was mother. He was
thoroughly at his ease--quite a person of the world.
"You had better open the letter," said Ray, holding it out to
Bramwell. "I did not recognise the writing. It is not like what I
remember, and it is in pencil."
Bramwell took the letter. His face worked convulsively as he examined
it. "I should not recognise the writing either, and yet it could be no
other than hers, once you think of her and look at it." He turned the
unopened envelope round and round in his hand. "What is the good of
opening this, Philip? It will make no difference in me. I shall never
look at her of my own free-will again."
"How can you judge the good of opening it unless you know what it
contains? You cannot send it back by this messenger. My little lad,"
he said, turning to the child, who was still moving his dimpled
fingers through the confused mass of papers on the table, "where is
the man that brought you here?"
"Gone away," answered the child, without suspending his occupation.
"He left you at the door and knocked and went away?"
The boy nodded.
"He brought you across the water and set you down and knocked, and
went back across the water?"
"Went back across the water," repeated the boy.
"What did he do then?"
"Ran off."
"You see, Frank," said Ray to the other man, "you cannot send back the
letter by the messenger who brought it."
"Shall I throw it into the canal? I made up my mind never to know
anything about her again in this life," said Bramwell.
Ray put his hand on the child's head and said, "Where did you leave
your mother?"
"At home."
"Where?"
"A long way."
"Do you know where?"
"Yes; in bed."
Bramwell tore open the envelope, read the letter, handed it to Ray,
and flung himself into his chair. The note, written in pencil like the
address on the cover, ran:
"May 28.
"Frank,--I have found out where you are after long search. I ask
nothing for myself--not even forgiveness. But our child, your little
son, will be alone and penniless when I die, which the doctor tells me
must be before morning. I have enough money to pay all expenses. It is
not his money, but money made by myself--by my singing. You may
remember my voice was good. I shall be dead before morning, the doctor
tells me. There will be money enough for my funeral, but none for my
child. He is very young--I forget exactly how old, for my head is
burning hot, and my brain on fire. He is called after you, for you
used to be kind to me when I was at Beechley before I was married to
Frank Mellor. You remember him? This is a question you can never
answer, because I hear in my ears that I shall die before morning. The
money for my funeral is in my box. I am writing this bit by bit, for
my head is on fire, and now and then I cannot even see the paper, but
only a pool of flame, with little Frank--my baby Frank--on the brim,
just falling in, and I cannot save him. I am writing my will. This is
my will. I think I have nothing more to say. I wish I could remember
all I have said, but I am not able; and I cannot read, for when I try,
the paper fills with fire. It is easier to write than to read.... I am
better now. My head is cooler. It may not be cool again between this
and morning, and then it will be cold for ever. [I have money enough
for myself when I am dead.] Take my boy, take our child. Take my only
little one--all that is left to me. I do not ask you to forgive me.
Curse me in my grave, but take the child. You are a good man, and fear
and love God. My child is growing dim before my dying eyes. I could
not leave him behind when I fled your house. I cannot leave him behind
now, and yet I must go without him. I know you are bound in law to
provide for him. That is not what I mean. Take him to your heart as
you took me once. I love him ten thousand times more than I ever loved
myself, or ever loved you. I can give you nothing more, for I am not
fit to bless you. The pool of flame again! But I have said all.
"Kate."
Ray had read the letter standing by the table, and with his back to
the chair into which Bramwell had sunk. When he finished he turned
slowly round and fixed his gaze on the child. A feeling of delicacy
and profound sympathy made him avoid the eyes of the other man. The
dying woman was his sister, but she was this man's wife. A little
while ago he had said that death would well befit her; and yet now,
when, as in answer to his words, he read her own account of the death
sentence passed upon her, he felt a pang of pity for her and remorse
for his words. For a moment his mind went back to their orphaned
childhood, and his love and admiration of his sister Kate's beauty. He
had to banish the pictures ruthlessly from his mind, or he would have
broken down. Silence any longer preserved would only afford a gateway
to such thoughts; so he said, as he placed his hand once more on the
head of the boy:
"She was delirious, or half-delirious, when she wrote this."
"Philip, she was dying."
"Yes. What do you propose to do?"
"Nothing. The boy said he came a long way, and that whoever brought
him ran away. It is plain she has taken precautions to conceal her
hiding-place. Let things be as they are. They are best so."
He spoke like a man in a dream. He was half stunned. It seemed to him
that all this had passed in some dreary long ago, and that he was only
faintly recalling old experiences, not living among words and facts
and surroundings subsisting to-day.
"And what about----?" Ray finished the sentence by pointing with his
free hand at the boy.
"Eh? About what?"
Bramwell's eyes were looking straight before him far away.
"About our young friend here?"
"She has been careful to remind me of my legal responsibility. I have
no choice. Besides, putting the question of legality aside, I have no
desire to escape from the charge, though I am ill-suited to undertake
it, and do not know how I shall manage. He is, of course, a stranger
to me. He was a mere baby when last I saw him. I cannot think of this
matter now. I am thick-blooded and stupid with memories and sorrows."
Ray groaned, and began pacing up and down the room. The child, always
self-possessed, had now gathered courage and was slowly making the
circuit of the table, holding on by the rim, and now and then turning
over some of the papers: plainly a child accustomed to amuse himself.
Neither of the men spoke. Bramwell sat stupefied in his chair. Ray
strode up and down the room with hasty steps.
The child pursued his course round the table. On the table was nothing
but papers, and the lamp inaccessible in the middle, the pens and an
ink-bottle unattainable near the lamp. When the circuit of the table
was completed, and was found to afford nothing but dull papers, with
not even one picture among them, the little feet ceased to move. One
hand laid hold of the leaf, the white blue-veined temple was rested on
the soft pad made by the plump tiny hand, and the young voice said
with a weary yawn, "Frank's tired. Frank wants to go to mother." As
the boy spoke he sank down to the floor, overcome by drowsiness and
fatigue.
Ray hastened to the child and raised him from the ground, and held him
tenderly in his arms. "Poor little man! Poor tired little motherless
man!"
"Mother!" murmured the boy, "I want to go to mother!" The child
smiled, and nestled into the breast of the tall powerful man. "Frank
wants mother and wants to go to bed."
"Hush, my boy: Frank has no mother."
Then a sudden impulse seized Ray. He crossed the room with the little
lad in his arms, and placed him in the arms of Bramwell, saying to the
child:
"You cannot go to your mother: you have no mother any longer. But you
have a father. Take him, Frank; he is not to blame."
Bramwell caught the boy to his breast, and stooped and kissed his
round soft young cheek, and pressed him again to his bosom, and then
all at once handed him back to Ray, saying, in a choking voice:
"I am distracted, overwhelmed. I cannot stand this. What do I want
here--alive?"
He rose and began stumbling about the room as if on the point of
falling. Suddenly something heavy in his coat struck the table and
shook it. A gleam of joy shot over his face, illumining it as though
he stood within the light of deliverance.
Swift as thought he drew the revolver from his pocket and placed it
against his forehead. With a cry of horror, Ray struck his arm up,
dropped the child, and seizing Bramwell's wrist, wrenched the weapon
from his grasp.
"It is _you_ who are mad now!" he cried angrily. "What do you mean?
Does all your fine morality vanish at the contact with pain and
disgrace? For shame, Frank! for shame! You were always a man. What
unmans you now? This," he added, dropping the revolver into his own
pocket, "is safer in my keeping than in yours. I intended to do only
justice with it; you would commit a crime."
"I am calmer now," said Bramwell; "it was only the impulse of a
moment. Forgive me, Philip! forgive me, Heaven! I was frenzied. I
hardly remember what passed since--since the boy came and I read that
letter, and saw her ruin and death, and tasted the ashes of my own
life upon my lips. I am calm--quite calm now. I will do my duty by the
child. Trust me, I will not give way again; although I am not much
safer without the revolver than with it. I have as deadly a weapon
always at hand."
"What is that? I did not know you kept any weapon in the place."
"I keep no weapon in the place; but," he went to the window looking
south along the canal, "all around me is--the water."
Shortly after this Philip Ray left, promising to call next evening. It
was after this interview that Layard and Crawford saw him emerge from
the gloom of the arch of Welford Bridge, the night that Crawford
entered upon the tenancy of his rooms in Crawford's House, on
Crawford's Bay, opposite Boland's Ait, and hard by the flooded
ice-house, Mrs. Crawford's property.