Complete works of hall c.., p.328
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 328
At the door of the office some minutes afterward John Storm paused with the officer’s hand in his, and said:
“Perhaps it is needless to ask who is my bail” (he was thinking of Mrs. Callender), “but if you can tell me — —”
“Certainly. It was Sir Francis Drake.”
John Storm bowed gravely and turned away. As he passed out of the yard his eyes were bent on the ground and his step was slow and feeble.
At that moment Drake was on his way to the Corinthian Club. Early in the afternoon he had seen this letter in the columns of an evening paper:
“The Mysterious Disappearances. — Is it not extraordinary that in discussing ‘the epidemic of mystery’ which now fills the air of London it has apparently never occurred to any one that the two mysterious disappearances which are the text of so many sermons may be really one disappearance only, that the ‘man of God’ and the ‘woman of the theatre’ may have acted in collusion, from the same impulse and with the same expectation, and that the rich and beneficent person who (according to the latest report) has come to the rescue of the one, and is an active agent in looking for the other, is in reality the foolish though well-meaning victim of both? — R. U.”
For three hours Drake had searched for Lord Robert with flame in his eyes and fury in his looks. Going first to Belgrave Square, he had found the blinds down and the house shut up. Mrs. Macrae was dead. She had died at a lodging in the country, alone and unattended. Her wealth had not been able to buy the devotion of one faithful servant at the end. She had left nothing to her daughter except a remonstrance against her behaviour, but she had made Lord Robert her chief heir and sole executor.
That amiable mourner had returned to London with all possible despatch as soon as the breath was out of his mother-in-law’s body and arrangements were made for its transit. He was now engaged in relieving the tension of so much unusual emotion by a round of his nightly pleasures. Drake had come up with him at last.
The Corinthian Club was unusually gay that night, “Hello there!” came from every side. The music in the ballroom was louder than ever, and, judging by the numbers of the dancers, the attraction of “Tra-la-la” was even greater than before. There was the note of yet more reckless license everywhere, as if that little world whose life was pleasure had been under the cloud of a temporary terror and was determined to make up for it by the wildest folly. The men chaffed and laughed and shouted comic songs and kicked their legs about; the women drank and giggled.
Lord Robert was in the supper-room with three guests — the “three graces.” The women were in full evening dress. Betty was wearing the ring she had taken from Polly “just to remember her by, pore thing,” and the others were blazing in similar brilliants. The wretched man himself was half drunk. He had been talking of Father Storm and of his own wife in a jaunty tone, behind which there was an intensity of hatred.
“But this panic of his, don’t you know, was the funniest thing ever heard of. Going home that night I counted seventeen people on their knees in the streets— ‘pon my soul I did! Eleven old women of eighty, two or three of seventy, and one or two that might be as young as sixty-nine. Then the epidemic of piety in high life too! Several of our millionaires gave sixpence apiece to beggars — were seen to do it, don’t you know. One old girl gave up playing baccarat and subscribed to ‘Darkest England.’ No end of sweet little women confessed their pretty weaknesses to their husbands, and now that the world is wagging along as merrily as before, they don’t know what the devil they are to do —— But look here!”
Out of his trousers pockets at either side he tugged a torn and crumpled assortment of letters and proceeded to tumble them on to the table.
“These are a few of the applications I had from curates-in-charge and such beauties for the care of the living in Westminster while the other gentleman lay in jail. It’s the Bishop’s right to appoint the creature, don’t you know, but they think a patron’s recommendation —— Oh, they’re a sweet team! Listen to this: ‘May it please your lordship — —’”
And then in mock tones, flourishing one hand, the man read aloud amid the various noises of the place — the pop of champagne bottles and the rumble of the dancing in the room below — the fulsome letters he had received from clergymen. The wretched women in their paint and patches shrieked with laughter.
It was at that moment Drake came up, looking pale and fierce.
“Hello there! Is it you? Sit down and take a glass of fizz.”
“Not at this table,” said Drake. “I prefer to drink with friends.”
Lord Robert’s eyes glistened, and he tried to smile.
“Really? Thought I was counted in that distinguished company, don’t you know.”
“So you were, but I’ve come to see that a friend who is not a friend is always the worst enemy.”
“What do you mean?”
“What does that mean?” said Drake, throwing the paper on to the table.
“Well, what of it?”
“The initials to that letter are yours, and all the men I meet tell me that you have written it.”
“They do, do they? Well?”
“I won’t ask you if you did or if you didn’t.”
“Don’t, dear boy.”
“But I’ll require you to disown it, publicly and at once.”
“And if I won’t — what then?”
“Then I’ll tell the public for myself that it’s a lie, a cowardly and contemptible lie, and that the man who wrote it is a cur!”
“Oho! So it’s like that, is it?” said Lord Robert, rising to his feet as if putting himself on guard.
“Yes, it is like that, Lord Robert Ure, because the woman who is slandered in that letter is as innocent as your own wife, and ten thousand times as pure as those who are your constant company.”
Lord Robert’s angular and ugly face glistened with a hateful smile. “Innocent!” he cried hoarsely, and then he laughed out aloud. “Go on! It’s rippin’ to hear you, dear boy! Innocent, by God! Just as innocent as any other ballet girl who is dragged through the stews of London, and then picked up at last by the born fool who keeps her for another man.”
“You liar!” cried Drake, and like a flash of light he had shot his fist across the table and struck the man full in the face. Then laying hold of the table itself, he swept it away with all that was on it, and sprang at Lord Robert and took him by the throat.
“Take that back, will you? Take it back!”
“I won’t!” cried Lord Robert, writhing and struggling in his grip.
“Then take that — and that — and that — damn you!” cried Drake, showering blow after blow, and finally flinging the man into the débris of what had fallen from the table with a crash.
The women were screaming by this time and all the house was in alarm. But Drake went out with long strides and a ferocious face, and no one attempted to stop him.
XIII.
Returning to St. James’s Street, Drake found John Storm waiting in his rooms. The men had changed a good deal since they last met, and the faces of both showed suffering.
“Forgive me for this visit,” said Storm. “It was my first duty to call and thank you for what you’ve done.”
“That’s nothing — nothing at all,” said Drake.
“I had also another object. You’ll know what that is.”
Drake bowed his head.
“She is gone, it seems, and there is no trace left of her.”
“None?”
“Then you know nothing?”
“Nothing! And you?”
“Nothing whatever!”
Drake bowed his head again. “I knew it was a lie — that she had gone after you — I never believed that story.”
“Would to God she had!” said Storm fervently, and Drake flinched, but bore himself bravely. “When did she go?”
“Two days ago, apparently.”
“Has anybody looked for her?”
“I have — everywhere — everywhere I can think of. But this London — —”
“Yes, yes; I know — I know!”
“For two days I have never rested, and all last night.”
Storm’s eyes were watching the twitchings of Drake’s face. He had been sitting uneasily on his chair, and now he rose from it.
“Are you going already?” said Drake.
“Yes,” said Storm. Then in a husky voice he added: “I don’t know if we shall ever meet again, you and I. When death breaks the link that binds people — —”
“For God’s sake don’t say that!”
“But it is so, isn’t it?”
“Heaven knows! Certainly the letter she left behind — the letter to Rosa —— Poor child, she was such a creature of joy — so bright, so brilliant! And then to think of her —— I was much to blame — I came between you. But if I had once realized — —”
Drake stopped, and the men fixed their eyes on each other for a moment, and then turned their heads away.
“I’m afraid I’ve done you a great injustice, sir,” said Storm.
“Me?”
“I thought she was only your toy, your plaything. But perhaps” (his voice was breaking)— “perhaps you loved her too.”
Drake answered, almost inaudibly, “With all my heart and soul!”
“Then — then we have both lost her!”
“Both!”
There was silence for a moment. The hands of the two men met and clasped and parted.
“I must go,” said Storm, and he moved across the room with a look of utter weariness.
“But where are you going to?”
“I don’t know — anywhere — nowhere — it doesn’t matter now.”
“Well — —”
“Good-night!”
“Good-night!”
Drake stood at the door below until the slow, uncertain footsteps had turned the corner of the street and died away.
John Storm was sure now. Overwhelmed by his own disgrace, ashamed of his downfall, and perhaps with a sense of her own share in it, Glory had destroyed herself.
Strange contradiction! Much as he had hated Glory’s way of life, there came to him at the moment a deep remorse at the thought that he had been the means of putting an end to it. And then her gay and happy spirit clouded by his own disasters! Her good name stained by association with his evil one! Her pure soul imperilled by his sin and fall!
But it was now very late and he began to ask himself where he was to sleep. At first he thought of his old quarters under the church, and then he told himself that Brother Andrew would be gone by this time, and that everything connected with the parish must be transferred to other keeping. Going by a hotel in Trafalgar Square he stepped in and asked for a bed.
“Certainly, sir,” said the clerk, who was polite and deferential.
“Can I have something to eat, too?”
“Coffee-room to the left, sir. Luggage coming, sir?”
“I have no luggage to-night,” he answered, and then he saw that the clerk looked at him doubtfully.
The coffee-room was empty and only half lit up, for dinner was long over and the business of the day was done. John was sitting at his meal, eating his food with his eyes down and hardly conscious of what was going on around, when he became aware that from time to time people opened the room door and looked across at him, then whispered together and passed out. At length the clerk came up to him with awkward manners and a look of constraint.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but — are you Father Storm?”
John bent his head.
“Then I’m sorry to say we can not accommodate you — we dare not — we must request you to leave.”
John rose without a word, paid his bill, and left the place.
But where was he to go to? What house would receive him? If one hotel refused him, all other hotels in London would do the same. Then he remembered the shelter which he had himself established for the undeserving poor. The humiliation of that moment was terrible. But no matter! He would drink the cup of God’s anger to the dregs.
The lamp was burning in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, and as John passed by the corner of Palace Yard two Bishops came out in earnest conversation, and walked on in front of him.
“The State and the Church are as the body and soul,” said one, “and to separate them would be death to both.”
“Just that,” said the other, “and therefore we must fight for the Church’s temporal possessions as we should contend for her spiritual rights; and so these Benefice Bills — —”
The shelter was at the point of closing, and Jupe was putting out the lamp over the door as John stepped up to him.
“Who is it?” said Jupe in the dark.
“Don’t you know me, Jupe?” said John.
“Father Jawn Storm!” cried the man in a whisper of fear.
“I want shelter for the night, Jupe. Can you put me up anywhere?”
“You, sir?”
The man was staggered and the long rod in his hand shook like a reed. Then he began to stammer something about the Bishop and the Archdeacon and his new orders and instructions — how the shelter had been taken over by other authorities, and he was now ——
“But d — it all!” he said, stopping suddenly, putting his foot down firmly, and wagging his head to right and left like a man making a brave resolution, “I’ll tyke ye in, sir, and heng it!”
It was the bitterest pill of all, but John swallowed it, and stepped into the house. As he did so he was partly aware of some tumult in a neighbouring street, with the screaming of men and women and the barking of dogs.
The blankets had been served out for the night and the men in the shelter were clambering up to their bunks. In addition to the main apartment there was a little room with a glass front which hung like a cage near to the ceiling at one end and was entered by a circular iron stair. This was the keeper’s own sleeping place, and Jupe was making it ready for John, while John himself sat waiting with the look of a crushed and humiliated man, when the tumult in the street came nearer and at last drew up in front of the house.
“Wot’s thet?” the men asked each other, lifting their heads, and Jupe came down and went to the door. When he returned his face was white, the sweat hung on his forehead, and a trembling shook his whole body.
“For Gawd’s sake, Father, leave the house at onct!” he whispered in great agitation. “There’s a gang outside as’ll pull the place dahn if I keep you.”
There was silence for a moment, save for the shouting outside, and then John said, with a sigh and a look of resignation, “Very well, let me out, then,” and he turned to the door.
“Not that wy, sir — this wy,” said Jupe, and at the next moment they were stepping into a dark and narrow lane at the back. “Turn to the left when ye get ter the bottom, Father — mind ye turn ter the left.”
But John Storm had scarcely heard him. His heart had failed him at last. He saw the baseness and ingratitude of the people whom he had spent himself to relieve and uplift and succour and comfort, and he repented himself of the hopes and aims and efforts which had come to this bankruptcy in the end.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Yes, yes, that was it! It was not this poor vile race merely, this stupid and ungrateful humanity — it was God! God used one man’s ignorance, and another man’s anger, and another man’s hatred, and another man’s spite, and worked out his own ends through it all. And God had rejected him, refused him, turned a deaf ear to his prayer and his repentance, robbed him of friends, of affection, of love, and cast him out of the family of man!
Very well! So be it! What should he do? He would go back to prison and say: “Take me in again — there is no room left for me in the world. I am alone, and my heart is dead within me!”
He was at the end of the dark lane by this time, and forgetting Jupe’s warning, and seeing a brightly lighted street running off to his right, he swung round to it and walked boldly along. This was Old Pye Street, and he had come to the corner at which it opens into Brown’s Square when his absent mind became conscious of the loud baying of a dog. At the next moment the dog was at his feet, bounding about him with frantic delight, leaping up to him as if trying to kiss him, and uttering meanwhile the most tender, the most true, the most pitiful cries of love.
It was his own dog, the bloodhound Don!
His unworthy thoughts were, chased away at the sight of this one faithful friend remaining, and he was stooping to fondle the great creature, to pull at the long drapery of its ears and the pendulous folds of its glorious forehead, when a short, sharp cry caused him to lift his head.
“Thet’s ‘im!” said somebody, and then he was aware that a group of men with evil faces had gathered round. He knew them in a moment: the publican with his bandaged head, Sharkey, who had served his time and been released from prison, and Pincher and Hawkins, who were out on bail. They had all been drinking. The publican, who carried a stick, was drunk, and the “knocker-up” was staggering on a crutch.
Then came a hideous scene. The four men began to taunt John Storm, to take off their hats and bow to him in mock honour. “His Lordship, I believe ‘“ said one. “His Reverend Lordship, if you please!” said another.
“Leave me; for God’s sake, leave me!” said John.
But their taunts became more and more menacing. “Wot abart the end uv the world, Father?” “Didn’t ye tell me to sell my bit uv biziness?” “And didn’t ye say you’d cured me? and look at me now!”
“Don’t, I tell you, don’t!” cried John, and he moved away.
They followed and began to push him. Then he stopped and cried in a loud voice of struggle and agony: “Do you want to raise the devil in me? Go home! Go home!”
But they only laughed and renewed their torment. His hat fell off and he snatched at it to recover it. In doing so his hand struck somebody in the face. “Strike a cripple, will ye?” said the publican, and he raised his stick and struck a heavy blow on John’s shoulder. At the next moment the dog had leaped upon the man, and he was shrieking on the ground. The “knocker-up” lifted his crutch and with the upper end of it he battered at the dog’s brains.
