Routledge rides alone

After taking the hand of Jerry Cardinegh at the stairs, Routledge returned to his room, smiling a trifle bitterly.

“That was certainly a fragile underpinning to rear a great lie upon,” he mused. “I couldn’t have made old Jerry swallow that a year ago.... But there’s good humor in the idea—the book of Routledge energized by the dynamos of British hate—a book of wars from a man who rather likes to promote the ranking rottenness of war.... But the name of Cardinegh cannot go down just yet with that of Colonel Hammond, and the Lotus Expedition; with treachery.... Living God, how that sweet girl haunts me!... I must put her away—far back among the cold, closed things. It isn’t fair to use her as a trellis for thought-vines like mine. She is just psychic enough to know, without words——”

He thought presently of what Rawder had told him about returning to India this year; also of Noreen’s amendment—that he was to go very quickly. How far off it had seemed yesterday!... Routledge was standing at the window. Though his active mind was filled with sadder, finer matters, a process of unconscious cerebration was alert for the White Mustache in the street below. This certain secret agent was not in sight, but there was not a single individual of the throng who might not be identified with that silent, fameless department—the men who had kept the secret of Shubar Khan in spite of Colonel Hammond’s regiment, which knew all.... London was running with its sordid morning business—grinding by in the gray morn and the rain.

“London,” he exclaimed softly, marvelling at the great thing which had befallen him, “the keyboard of the planet! How the Excellent Operator hungers to turn the full voltage on me now!”

Routledge was hard-hit, and made no pretenses to himself otherwise. He did not want to go back to India to-day. The thing he had managed to pray for—the Hate of London—was a crippling horror. It tore down the inner life of him. He felt already the encompassing loneliness of an expatriate; worse, he felt against him the gigantic massed soul of the English. It peopled the shadows of the room and the street and his brain, filling him with weakness and faltering. It was not that the idea of death hung to the flanks of his being. He could laugh at death with a sterling principle. Rather, it was that all that had bound him to life was dead—work and play and light. He was chained to a corpse—the hate of London. It was an infectious corrosion which broke his own spirit, as no physical dread had ever done; yet, stricken as he was, he felt himself torn in the counter-attraction of two great passions—between his sweetest woman and his bravest man.... A light rapping at his inner door startled him. It was the Bookstalls boy.

“Kin I come out now, Mister?”

With a gasp of relief, Routledge turned to the door; but, on the way, his eyes fell upon the two worn, fallen-in shoes, set so evenly before the fire.

“Bless you, lad—just a minute,” he said.

He gathered up all the change his pockets had held, big and little pieces of silver, and dropped them softly into the shoes, now stiffly dried,—then opened the door. The small, draggled chap emerged briskly, took in his host from head to foot with a quick, approving look, then glanced out of the window to locate himself. It was all coming back to him apparently.

“I was sleepin’ in yer street-stairs,” he explained, as if to get it straight in his own mind. “Then I didn’t know nothink till I ’eerd woices.”

“What’s your name, little soul?”

“Johnny Brodie.”

“Did the voices bother you, Johnny?” Routledge asked.

“Naw. I was too warm. Nothink like woices never bothers when you’re warm. Is them your stairs? Nobody never come up them stairs late afore.”

“Have you slept there often, Johnny?”

“Not wery,” the boy said nervously.

He had given Routledge a start for a moment. It was not past the White Mustache to have used a lad of this size, but, once used, the lad would never have spoken of “woices.” Besides, he had slept on the stairs before. Johnny was looking about the walls with covert appreciation. Guns, saddles, and soldier-pictures appealed to him. They were proper man-things.

“How long have you been in Bookstalls, and around here?”

“Allus.”

“But haven’t you any place to sleep?”

“Lots.” It wasn’t said with humorous intent. Johnny Brodie was struggling with his shoes.

Routledge regarded him with joy.

“Lor-gordy,” muttered Johnny, in an awed voice. “Wishermay die if you ain’t tipped over a bank in me boots!... Mine?”

Routledge nodded.

“Well, I’m chivvied! I ’ont be safe nowheres wit all this.”

“Johnny, are all your places to sleep like my stairs? I mean, haven’t you any regular place?”

The boy gave him a quick glance and decided that this was not the time for lies.

“Lor-gordy—them stairs ain’t bad—on’y wen it’s wery cold. Naw, I ain’t got nothink reg’lar.”

“There’s a bit of a room just your size, Johnny, in the back-hall,” the man said. “I’m going away again to-day, and these rooms will be locked up for a long time, but I’ll be back, I think. If I were to fix it with the good landlady for you to have that little room—and I’ll give you a regular army blanket like the soldiers have, to curl up in when it’s cold, and a little cot, and all the things you need—would you use it every night?”

“Lor’! Say, Mister, honest?”

He nodded. “Run along then, Johnny, and get a good breakfast, and I’ll have it arranged when you get back.”

Routledge came to an agreement with the woman of the house; carried from his own rooms blankets, soap, towels, pictures, a pair of military brushes, an unused pocket-knife, a package of candles, and many other little things to the wee box of a room in the hall, taking much pleasure in the outfitting.... He had not yet brought his own baggage from Charing Cross, and was glad now. London had become to him like a plague quarantine, a smothering menace. He would leave London to-day, and Noreen Cardinegh, without daring to see her again. His every movement, he realized, was watched. Even to take her hand for a moment would reflect evil upon her. The White Mustache, or one of his kind, would observe, and a lasting record would be made. He paced the floor swiftly, murdering the biggest thing in his life.

... He could go to Rawder. There was healing in that. Perhaps the old Sannyasi would take him for the chela of his chela. He could hide in England’s India, which only a few of the secret service knew so well as he.... Could he put all the wars and illusions of matter away, drink of the ancient wisdom, wander beneficently until the end, with two holy men, in the midst of God’s humblest poor? Could he put behind him all that was supreme and lovely of his life this hour, sink it in the graveyard of his past with other dead desires?

It was just a rush of vague, vain thoughts. Had he been pure as the boy, twelve years ago, and wise as the man now, and if he had never known Noreen Cardinegh, possibly then the old Sannyasi might say, “Be the disciple of my disciple; and, free from all the illusions of the flesh, journey with us up into the silence of the goodly mountains.”...

But this life would never know freedom from that thrilling, beautiful memory. He could sacrifice a union with Noreen Cardinegh, but never renounce her from the high place of his heart. She was wedded to the source and centre of his life, and no asceticism could shrive her from him. He might put half the planet’s curve between, but the bride the world had formed for him would be the eternal crying voice in the wilderness; and until they were mated in this or another life, the Wheel of Births and Deaths would never whirl him free from love, the loftiest of all illusions. Though he sat in a temple upon the roof of the world, holding his thoughts among the stars until the kusa grass beneath him was blown like dust away, and his body petrified upon the naked rock, the last breath from the ruin would stir his lips to the name of the world’s bright gift to him—Noreen.

Johnny Brodie returned. Routledge took him by the hand and led him into the midst of his possessions.... It was quite a happy time, with the old landlady looking on, and a mysterious fund in her pocket for Johnny stockings, and Brodie trousers and even dinners, when old Bookstalls was remiss in her duty. Finally, at the last moment, Routledge dropped his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. The face was turned up clear, the eyes unblinking. The man was no longer afraid.

“Johnny,” he said, “the best fellows in this world are those who are strong enough to hold their tongues at the right time. Nobody must know about this little room—nobody. To you, I’m just a decent stranger who has gone away. If anybody asks who or where or how or why about me—you don’t know. This is all yours. Sleep tight, and say nothing. If you need anything that you can’t get yourself, go to the landlady. Be clean about what you do everywhere—I don’t mean in the room, Johnny, but everywhere, in the street, too. Not clean about your hands and face—that’s good—but mostly about what you think. I may come back some time, and I may not, but you’ll be fixed here as long as you need. Think of it, Johnny Brodie—remember this well: always if something hits you from inside that a thing isn’t good to do, don’t hurry about doing it. Think it over. If you wouldn’t do it when the person you like best in the world is watching, it isn’t a good thing to do alone.”

Routledge locked his lodgings. With the boy attached to one hand and his bag in the other, he went down into the street, and just at that moment a carriage opened at the curb, and Noreen Cardinegh stepped out. Routledge took the outstretched hand, but there was a warm flood of pain widening within him, as blood from an opened wound....

The rain-coat hung about her like a delicate harmony, its hood covering her hair; and its high-rolling collar, bound with scarlet, thin as a thread but vivid as an oriflamme, concealed her throat. That lustrous, perfect oval face in the rain. It was luminous from within like a pearl, and had its scarlet-edging in the curving, exquisite lips, strange with inner vividness. Never had she been so wondrous to him as he felt the superb zest of life beneath the pearl-gray glove that moment in grimy Bookstalls. A conception of womanhood that widened the limitations of any man!... He lifted his glance from the pavement, where it had been held for an instant by the glittering point of her boot, and found the great eyes upon him—pools of splendor which held his temple, white as truth, golden sunlight on its dome; and, far within, a dim, mystic sanctuary where Mother Earth had built a shrine for him.

“Thank God you have not gone, Routledge-san!” she said in a low way. “Tell me—ah, but I know—you would have gone without a word to me.... You think it is right?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you punish me this way, Routledge-san?... Do you think I mind what London cares or thinks? Do you think London could force me to believe ill of you?... I must talk with you! May we not go up into your rooms, out of the crowd and the rain? The little boy may come.”

There was not a window commanding the street which might not have held the White Mustache that moment; not a single passer-by who might not have been one of his kind.

“I have turned in my—that is, I have given up my room,” he faltered.

“I must talk with you. Come into my carriage. That will be the better way. The little boy——”

She caught the look of hostility in the street-waif’s eyes. She was taking the man away. There was another look, the meaning of which she did not miss. Routledge bent down to him.

“Good-by, little soul,” he said. “I’ll find you in some doorway again some time—maybe in the doorway to fame. Be a good little fellow always. Don’t get tired of being clean, and some time you’ll be mighty glad.”

The boy watched the carriage move slowly away among the truckage—until a stranger put a hand upon his shoulder.

For many seconds neither spoke; then it was Noreen.

“What is this big thing you are doing, Routledge-san?”

“I cannot tell—even you.”

“Yes, but you need not have hurt me so. You were going away without a word to me—and I am so proud to have been for you—against the others.”

“Noreen, you must believe that it is not good for you to be seen with me now. Every movement I make is known; everyone in the slightest communication with me is under suspicion. Your loyalty—I cannot even speak of steadily, it is so big and dear—and because it is so, I shudder to drag you into these forlorn fortunes of mine. It is in the power of these people to make you very miserable while I am gone—and that is anguish to me, nothing less.”

“You think of me—think of me always, and a little social matter which concerns me!” she exclaimed. “I care nothing for it—oh, please believe that. Last night you left the Armory, not knowing what had befallen you. This morning you know all. Could you have done unconsciously—anything to turn the Hate of London upon you?... It is not in reason. I believe it is just and right for me to know what my father told you in the night—but you will not tell me——”

“This thing is mine to carry—to carry alone. Last night I laughed. To-day I find that it is not a thing to laugh at. The Hate of London,”—Routledge carved out the words slowly and clearly, in spite of the resistance of his whole humanity—“I have brought upon myself.”

“Not with dishonor!”

He was silent.

“Not with dishonor, Routledge-san!” she whispered triumphantly, peering into his eyes. “You could not convey a falsehood to me, not even to shield another—not even if you uttered the words of the lie. Your eyes would tell the truth to me!”

Rain splashed upon the windows of the carriage. The face so near him in the gloom was like the vision of a master-artist, too perfect for the poor human hand. The pressure of her shoulder; the fragrance of her presence; the voice of her which stirred within him the primal mystery of other lives—against such he fought for strength.... It was not passion in the red meaning of the word, but a love that made the railway gates at Charing Cross his portals to living death.

“Think what you will,” he commanded, after a moment. “God knows, I do not want you to think me devilish, but you must be silent to others about me.... You will make me suffer more than you know—if you stand against London for me—when I am gone. It was a magnificent life labor of your father’s which purchased for you—your place in London.... Noreen Cardinegh, I shall leave the carriage as we approach Charing Cross; and in the name of God, do nothing to further attract my infamy to your name!”

“We will say no more about that,” she answered quietly. “I shall avoid every man and woman in London who would dare to speak of infamy and Routledge-san in one breath, but if they seek me out!... But I have other things to say. You must go, and I must stay. Before you go, I shall tell you what you have done for Noreen Cardinegh, and what you mean to her—to me.... You are my bravest man, Routledge-san.... When I was but a little girl my father told me of you. I have heard all the men speak of you. Yours would have been the greatest of all welcomes at the Armory last night—save for this terrible mystery. I saw the way that little boy looked up at you this morning. I know what he thought—for the same thoughts were mine in Japan when I was but a little older. And your work has been deep and important to me—a personal, illuminating service. It has made me see the vanity of piled stones, the futility of possessions. In looking the way you pointed—I have found that real life is not food and metal——”

The tension was eased for a moment. Routledge laughed softly. “Why, I am but a dealer in war-stuff—the most godless of all matter, Noreen,” he said.

“A dealer in war-stuff—to make the world see the horrible farce of it! Oh, don’t think I have failed to see the import of your work, or failed to contrast it with the ponderous egotism of certain other English war-correspondents, who build their careers upon wars—with their dull studies of tactics, their heavy handling of strategies—so comically like a child panting with heavy stones. Do you think that I did not see, in spite of your brilliant description how the Japanese caught and held the van at Tientsin, the real picture of your whole story—that of a cruel, ruthless nation of insensate boys—running to jaw instead of mind?”

Routledge was startled by the expression of a thought which the Review would not intentionally have published, less obviously than in a charade. There was nothing of vanity in the matter, but her words became dear to memory—rifts in that dreadful parting hour. Certainly there was deep gladness for the woman in the telling:

“They speak of you losing yourself in India for months and months. Do you think I have missed all that you have found, Routledge-san, when you were lost to men? I know something of what India means to you, her submission and her famines, and the hundreds of little Warren Hastings’ trooping over her, from Lahore to Pondicherry, brooding of pounds and power! Why, to me you have placed it clear as Carlyle with his reverberating thunders of fifty years ago. Here is England, sitting dull-eyed among her flesh-pots, and yonder is India—drained. You did not say it in direct words, Routledge-san, but you made me see the provinces of India scattered about like the shells of insects in a spider’s web, and this London—the darkened lair of the watching eyes.... Oh, I have seen all that you mean, Routledge-san, but more—the bigger, finer things than national relations.... You have gone into the silent places to meditate, and to me you have brought back the images of the silence—big, chaste things, like our bravest man. There is good and there is hope in the world which holds such men and such things—and because of you I have kept my optimism. I seem to have a perfect torrent of talk, but I have been so much alone to think—and you are going away. I want you to know that you and the things you have brought to me are bigger—than London and the world.... When I speak with you—I seem to have known you always.... And then you are going away—with a burden in your heart, which no act of yours put there.... Why is it, Routledge-san, that one’s bravest man must suffer such deluges of evil?”

“Noreen, you are resistless,” he murmured. “It is life——”

She pressed her face to the pane, tried thoughtlessly to brush away the blurring rain on the outside. With a quick, savage return of pain, she realized how near they were to Charing Cross.

“I haven’t told you—all that I mean yet, Routledge-san!” she whispered feverishly. “You met some adversary last night and conquered. You are weak and hurt—but you have won.... I cannot quite understand, but the sentence ringing in my brain is this: ‘The young grain is springing on the field of Waterloo.’... I met my adversary in the night—and I have won, too. When I think of you—it rushes over me like a tidal wave—to fight London and the world for you; but I have my work here. It must be done cleanly and without a cry. My father needs me. The best is gone from him already—and I must treasure the rest; but it will not be always.... And when my work is finished in Cheer Street, Routledge-san, I shall cross the world to find you!”

He felt it hard to breathe in the desolation. A desire full-formed and upstanding, in spite of the mockery of it, vanquished him for a moment. It was to keep on with her—riding, journeying, sailing—with her, through the gates of Charing Cross, to Southampton, New York, San Francisco, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta—up the Ganges to its source in the Hills, and there among the mystic people of his heart, to dwell with her, adoring in the stillness of starlight, in the morning glow.

“I shall be nameless, and a wanderer——”

“And my bravest man!... This is not unwomanly, Routledge-san. This is farewell. The girl is torn from me—and the woman speaks her heart.... No one but you could understand. Always I have been strange.... I cannot leave it unsaid. I shall come to find you when I am free! It is not—not that I shall ask you to marry me. It is not that—but to be with you! I think—I think that you are so noble that my being a woman would not complicate.... Routledge-san! It is Charing Cross!”

Swiftly she drew tiny scissors from a pocket-case, snipped from her temple a lock of hair, tied it with a strand of its own, and thrust it into his hand.

It was light, living, warm like a bird in his palm. Her last words intoned through his dreams for many days:

“Remember, I am Noreen Cardinegh—who believes in you always—before all men—for all time. And I, too, must be brave and enduring until my work is done—and I may cross the world to find you!”

... He was standing at the curb before the great station. The carriage had turned away. There came to him out of the throng—a cry, not to his ears, but straight to his breast, a cry wild with desolation, which his heart answered....

He purchased his ticket, and rechecked his baggage, and then passed through the gates to the gray, smoky yards. From the deck of his steamer at Southampton that night he caught a last glimpse of the White Mustache, a satisfied smile on the keen, hard face. In a cold, distant fashion, Routledge marvelled that he was allowed to leave England alive.