CHAPTER VII
THE WALK HOME
Upon a Bank Holiday Sabina took Abel to West Haven for a long day on the beach and pier. He enjoyed himself very thoroughly, ate, drank and played to his heart's content. But his amusements brought more pleasure to the child than his mother, for he found the wonderful old stores and discovered therein far more entertaining occupation than either sea or shore could offer.
The place was deserted to-day, and while Sabina sat outside in a corner of the courtyard and occupied herself with the future, Abel explored the mysteries of the ancient building and found all manner of strange nooks and mysterious passages. He wove dreams and magnified the least incident into an adventure. He inhabited the dark corners and sombre, subterranean places with enemies that wanted to catch him; he most potently believed that hidden treasures awaited him under the hollow-echoing floors. Once he had a rare fright, for a bat hanging asleep in its folded wings, was wakened by him and suddenly flew into his face. He climbed and crawled and crept about, stole a lump of putty and rejoiced at the discovery of some paint pots and a brush. The 'Red Hand' no longer existed; but the opportunity once more to set up its sinister symbol was too good to resist. He painted it on the walls in several places and then called his mother to look at the achievement.
She climbed up a long flight of stone steps that led to the lofts, and suffered a strange experience presently, for the child was playing in the chamber sacred to her surrender. She stood where twelve years before she had come with Raymond Ironsyde after their day at Golden Cap.
Light fell through a window let into the roof. It was broken and fringed with cobwebs. The pile of fishermen's nets had vanished and a carpenter's bench had taken its place. On the walls and timbers were scrawled names and initials of holiday folk, who had explored the old stores through many years.
Sabina, perceiving where she stood, closed her eyes and took an involuntary step backward. Abel called attention to his sign upon the walls.
"The carpenter will shiver when he sees that," he said.
Then he rambled off, whistling, and she sat down and stared round her. She told herself that deep thoughts must surely wake under this sudden experience and the fountains of long sealed emotion bubble upwards, to drown her before them. Instead she merely found herself incapable of thinking. A dull, stale, almost stagnant mood crept over her. Her mind could neither walk nor fly. After the first thrill of recognition, the light went out and she found herself absolutely indifferent. Not anger touched her, nor pain. That the child of that perished passion should play here, and laugh and be merry was poignant, but it did not move her and she felt a sort of surprise that it should not. There was a time when such an experience must have shaken her to the depths, plunged her into some deep pang of soul and left indelible wounds; now, no such thing happened.
She gazed mildly about her and almost smiled. Then she rose from her seat on the carpenter's bench, went out and descended the staircase again.
When she called him to a promised tea at an inn, Abel came at once. He was weary and well content.
"I shall often come here," he said. "It's the best place I know—better than the old kiln on North Hill. I could hide there and nobody find me, and you could bring me food at night."
"What do you want to hide for, pretty?" she asked.
"I might," he answered and looked at her cautiously For a moment he seemed inclined to say more, but did not.
After tea they set out for home, and the fate, which, through the incident of the old store, had subtly prepared and paved a way to something of greater import, sent Raymond Ironsyde. They had passed the point at which the road from West Haven converges into that from Bridport, and a man on horseback overtook them. They were all going in the same direction and Abel, as soon as he saw who approached, left his mother, went over a convenient gate upon their right and hastened up a hedge. Thus he always avoided his father, and when blamed for so doing, would silently endure the blame without explanation or any offer of excuse. Raymond had seen him thus escape on more than one occasion, and the incident, clashing at this moment upon his own thoughts, prompted him to a definite and unusual thing. The opportunity was good; Sabina walked alone, and if she rebuffed him, he could endure the rebuff.
He determined to speak to her and break a silence of many years. The result he could not guess, but since he was actuated by friendly motives alone, he hoped the sudden inspiration might prove fertile of good. At worse she could only decline his advance and refuse to speak with him.
Their thoughts that day, unknown to each, had been upon the other and there was some emotion in the man's voice when he spoke, though none in hers when she answered. For to him that chance meeting came as a surprise and prompted him to a sudden approach he might not have ventured on maturer consideration; to her it seemed to carry on the experience of the day and, unguessed by Raymond, brought less amazement than he imagined. She was a fatalist—perhaps, had always been so, as her mother before her; yet she knew it not. They had passed and repassed many times during the vanished years; but since the moment that she had dismissed him with scorn and hoped her child would live to insult his grave, they had never spoken.
He inquired now if he might address her.
"May I say a few words to you?" he asked.
Not knowing what was in her mind, he felt surprised at her conventional reply.
"I suppose so, if you wish to do so."
Her voice seemed to roll back time. Yet he guessed her to be less indifferent than her words implied.
He dismounted and walked beside her.
"I dare say you can understand a little what I feel, when I see that child run away whenever he sets eyes on me," he began; but she did not help him. His voice to her ear was changed. It had grown deeper and hardened. It was more monotonous and did not rise and fall as swiftly as of old.
"I don't know at all what you feel about him. I didn't know that you felt anything about him."
This was a false note and he felt pained.
"Indeed, Sabina, you know very well I want his friendship—I need it even. Before anything I wish to befriend him."
"You can't help him. He's a very affectionate child and loves me dearly.
You wouldn't understand him. He's all heart."
He marked now the great change in Sabina. Her voice was cold and indifferent. But a cynic fate willed this mood. Had she not spent the day at West Haven and stood in the old store, it is possible she might have listened to him in another spirit.
"I know he's a clever boy, with plenty of charm about him. And I do think, whatever you may feel, Sabina, it is doubtfully wise of you to stand between him and me."
"If you fancy that, it is a good thing you spoke," she answered. "Because nothing further from the truth could be. I don't stand between him and you. I've never influenced him against you. He's heard nothing but the fact that you're his father from me. I've been careful to leave it at that, and I've never answered more than the truth to his many questions."
"It is a very great sorrow to me, and it will largely ruin my life if I cannot win his friendship and plan his future."
"A child's friendship is easily won. If he denies it, you may be sure it is for a natural instinct."
"Such an instinct is most unnatural. He has had nothing but friendly words and friendly challenges from me."
She felt herself growing impatient. It was clear that he had spoken out of interest for the child alone, and any shadowy suspicion that he designed to declare interest in herself departed from Sabina's mind.
"Well, what's that to me? I can't alter him. I can't make him regard you as a hero and a father to be proud of. He's not hard-hearted or anything of that. He's pretty much like other boys of his age—more sensitive, that's all. He can suffer very sharply and bitterly and he did when that cruel, blundering fool at North Hill House had him whipped. He gets the cursed power to suffer from his mother. And, such is his position in the world, that his power to suffer no doubt will be proved to the utmost."
"I don't want him to suffer. At least it is in my reach to save him a great deal of needless suffering."
"That's just what it isn't—not with his nature. He'd rather suffer than be beholden to you for anything. Young as he is, he's told me so in so many words. He knows he's different from other boys—already he knows it—and that breeds bitterness. He's like a dog that's been ill-treated and finds it hard to trust anybody in consequence. Unfortunately for you, he's got brains enough to judge; and the older he grows, the harder he'll judge."
"That's what I want to break down, Sabina. It's awfully sad to feel, that for a prejudice against things that can't be altered, he should stand in his own light and be a needless martyr and make me a greater villain than I am."
"Are you a villain? If you are, it isn't my child that made you one—nor me, either. No doubt it's awkward to see him running about and breathing the same air with you."
He felt an impulse of anger, but easily checked it.
"You're rather hard on me, I think. It's a great deal more than awkward to have my child take this line. It's desperately sad. And you must know—thinking purely and only of him—that nothing can be gained and much lost by it. You say he'll hate me more as he grows older. But isn't that a thing to avoid? What good comes into the world with hate? Can't you see that it's your place, Sabina, to use your influence on my side?"
"My God!" she said, "was there ever such a selfish man as you! Out of your own mouth you condemn yourself, for it's your inconvenience and discomfort that's troubling you—not his fate. He's a living witness against you—a running sore in your side—and that's why you want his friendship, to ease yourself and heal your conscience. Anybody could see that."
He did not answer; but this indictment astonished him. Could she still be so stern after the years that had swept over their quarrel?
"You wrong me there, Sabina. Indeed, it's not for my own comfort only, but much more largely for his that I am so much concerned. Surely we can meet on the common ground of his welfare and leave the rest?"
"What common ground is there? Why must I think your friendship and your money are the best possible things for him? Why should I advise him to take what I refused for myself twelve years and more ago? You offered me your friendship and your money—as a substitute for being your wife. You were so stark ignorant of the girl you'd promised to marry, that you offered her cash and the privilege of your company after your child was born. And now you offer your child cash and the privilege of your company—that's all. You deny him your name, as you denied his mother your name; and why should he pick up the crumbs from your table that his mother would have starved rather than eaten? I've never spoken against you to him and never shall, but I'm not a fool now—whatever I was—and I'm not going to urge my son to seek you and put his little heart into your keeping; because well I know what you do with hearts. I'm outside your life and so is he; and if he likes to come into your life, I shan't prevent it. I couldn't prevent it. He'll do about it as he chooses, when he's old enough to measure it up. But I'm not for you, or against you. I'm only the suffering sort, not the fighting sort. You know whether you deserve the love and worship of that little, nameless boy."
He was struck into silence, not at her bitter words, but at his own thoughts. For he had often speculated on future speech with her and wondered when it would happen and what it would concern. He had hoped that she would let the past go and be his friend again on another plane. He had pictured some sort of amity based on the old romance. He had desired nothing so much in life as a friendly understanding and the permission to contribute to the ease and comfort of Sabina and the prosperity of his son. He hoped that in course of time and faced with the rights of the child, she would come round. He had pictured her coming round. But now it seemed that he was not to plan their future on his own terms. What he offered had not grown sweeter to her senses. No gifts that he could devise would be anything but poor in the light of the unkind past. And that light burned steadfastly still. She was not changed. As he listened to her, it seemed that she was merely picking up the threads where they were dropped. He feared that if he stopped much longer beside her, she would come back to the old anger and wake into the old wrath.
"I'd dearly hoped that you didn't feel like that, any more. You've got right on your side up to a point, though human differences are so involved that it very seldom happens you can get a clean cut between right and wrong. However, the time is past for arguing about that, Sabina. Granted you are right in your personal attitude, don't carry it on into the next generation and assume I cannot even yet, after all these years, be trusted to befriend my own child."
"He's only your child in nature. He's only your child because your blood's in his veins. He's my child, not yours."
"But if I want to make him mine? If I want to lift him up and assure his future? If I want to assume paternity—claim it, adopt him as my son—to succeed me some day?"
"He must decide for himself whether that's the high-water mark for his future life—to be your adopted son. We can't have it all our own way in this world—not even you, I suppose. A child has to have a mother as well as a father, and a mother's got her rights in her child. Even the law allows that."
"Who'd deny them, Sabina? You're possessed, as you always were, with the significance of legal marriage. You don't know that marriage is merely a human contrivance and, nine times out of ten, an infernally clumsy makeshift and a long-drawn pretence. Like every other human shift, it is a thing that gets out-grown by the advance of humanity towards higher ideals and cleaner liberties. We are approaching a time when the edifice will be shaken to its mouldering foundations, and presently, while the Church and the State are wrangling and quibbling, as they soon must be, over the loathsome divorce laws, these mandarins will wake up to find the marriage laws themselves are being threatened by a new generation sick of the archaic tomfoolery that controls them. If you could only take a larger view and not let yourself be bound down by your own experience—"
"You'd better go," she said. "If you'd spoken, so twelve years ago on Golden Cap, and not hid your heart and lied to me and promised what you never meant to perform, I'd not be walking the world a lonely, despised woman to-day. And law, or no law, the law of the natural child is the law of the land—cruel and vile though it may be."
"I'll go, Sabina; but I must say what I want to say, first. I must stand up for Abel—even against you. Childish impressions and dislikes can be rooted out if taken in time; if left to grow, they get beyond reach. So I ask you to think of him. And don't pretend to yourself that my friendship is dangerous, or can do him anything but good. I'm very different from what I was. Life hasn't gone over me for nothing. I know what's right well enough, and I know what I owe your son and my son, and I want to make up to him and more than make up to him for his disadvantages. Don't prevent me from doing that. Give me a chance, Sabina. Give me a chance to be a good father to him. Your word is law with him, and if you left Bridetown and took him away from all the rumours and unkind things he may hear here, it would let his mind grow empty of me for a few years; and then, when he's older and more sensible, I think I could win him."
"You want us away from this place."
"I do. I never should have spoken to you until I knew you wished it, but for this complication; but since the boy is growing up prejudiced against me, I do feel that some strong effort should be taken to nip his young hatred in the bud—for his sake, Sabina."
"Are you sure it's all for his sake? Because I'm not. They say you think of nothing on God's earth but machinery nowadays, and look to machines to do the work of hands, and speak of 'hands' when you ought to speak of 'souls.' They say if you could, you'd turn out all the people and let everything be done by steam and steel. There's not much humanity in you, I reckon. And why should you care for one little, unwanted boy? Perhaps, if you looked deeper into yourself, you'd find it was your own peace, rather than his, that's making you wish us away from Bridetown. At any rate, that's how one or two have seen and said it, when they heard how everybody was at me to go. I've had to live down the past for long, slow, heart-breaking years and seen the fingers pointed at me; and now, with the child growing up, it's your turn I daresay, and you—so strong and masterful—have had enough of pointing fingers and mean to pack us out of our home—for your comfort."
He stared at her in the gathering dusk and stood and uttered a great sigh from deep in his lungs.
"I'm sorry for you, Sabina—sorrier than I am for myself. This is cruel.
I didn't know, or dream, that time had stood still for you like this."
"Time ended for me—then."
"For me it had to go on. I must think about this. I didn't guess it was like this with you. Don't think I want you away; don't think you're the only thorn in my pillow and that I'm not used to pain and anxiety, or impatient of all the implicit meaning of your lonely life. Stop, if you want to stop. I'll see you again, Sabina, please. Now I'll be gone."
When he had mounted his horse and ridden away without more words from her, Abel, who had been lurking along on the other side of the hedge, crept through it and rejoined his mother.
They walked on in silence for some time. Then the child spoke.
"Fancy your talking to Mister Ironsyde, mother!"
"He talked to me."
"I lay you dressed him down then?"
"I told him the truth, Abel. He wants everything for nothing, Mister
Ironsyde does. He wants you—for nothing."
"He's a beast, and I hate him, and he'll know I hate him some day."
"Don't hate him. He's not worth hating."
"I will hate him, I tell you. But for him I'd be the great man in
Bridetown when he dies. Mister Baggs told me that."
"You mustn't give heed to what people say. You've got mother to look after you."
The boy was tired and spoke no more. He padded silently along beside her and presently she heard him laugh to himself. His thoughts had wandered back to the joy of the old store.
And she was thinking of what had happened. She, too, even as Raymond, had imagined what speech would fall out between them after the long years and wondered concerning the form it would take. She had imagined no such conversation as this. Half of her regretted it; but the other half was glad. He had gone on, but it was well that he should know she had stood still. Could there be any more terrible news for him than to hear that she had stood still—to feel that he had turned a living woman into a pillar of stone?
CHAPTER VIII
EPITAPH
It cannot be determined by what train of reasoning Abel proceeded from one unfortunate experience to create another, or why the grief incidental on a loss should now have nerved him to an evil project long hidden in his thoughts. But so it was; he suffered a sorrow and, under the influence of it, found himself strong enough to attempt a crime.
There was no sort of connection between the two, for nothing could bear less upon his evil project than the death of Mr. Churchouse's old cat; yet thus it fell out and the spirit of Abel reacted to his own tears.
He came home one day from school to learn how the sick cat prospered and was told to go into the study. His mother knew the child to be much wrapped up in Peter Grim, and dreading to break the news, begged Mr. Churchouse to do so.
"Your old playfellow has left us, daddy," said Ernest. "I am glad to say he died peacefully while you were at school. I think he only had a very little bit of his ninth and last life left, for he was fifteen years old and had suffered some harsh shocks."
"Dead?" asked Abel with a quivering mouth.
"And I think that we ought to give him a nice grave and put up a little stone to his memory."
Thus he tried to distract the boy from his loss.
"We will go at once," he said, "and choose a beautiful spot in the garden for his grave. You can take one of those pears and eat it while we search."
But Abel shook his head.
"Couldn't eat and him lying dead," he answered. He was crying.
They went through the French window from the study.
"Do you know any particular place that he liked?"
Slowly the child's sorrow lessened in the passing interest of finding the grave.
"You must dig it, please, when you come back from afternoon school."
Abel suggested spots not practical in the other's opinion.
"A more secluded site would be better," he declared. "He was very fond of shade. In fact, rather a shady customer himself in his young days. But not a word against the dead. His old age was dignified and blameless. You don't remember the time when he used to steal chickens, do you?"
"He never did anything wrong that I know of," said Abel. "And he always came and padded on my bed of a morning, like as if he was riding a bicycle—and—and—"
He wept again.
"If I thought anybody had poisoned him, I'd poison them," he said.
"Think no such thing. He simply died because he couldn't go on living.
You shall have another cat, and it shall be your own."
"I don't want another cat. I hate all other cats but him."
They found a spot in a side walk, where lily of the valley grew, and later in the day Abel dug a grave.
Estelle happened to visit Mr. Churchouse and he explained the tragedy.
"If you attend the funeral, the boy might tolerate you," he said. "Once break down his suspicion and get to his wayward heart, good would come of it He is feeling this very much and in a melting mood."
"I'll stop, if he won't be vexed."
Mr. Churchouse went into the garden and praised Abel's energies.
"A beautiful grave; and it is right and proper that Peter Grim should lie here, because he often hunted here."
"He caught the mice that live in holes at the bottom of the wall," said
Abel.
"If you are ready, we will now bury him. Mother must come to the funeral, and Estelle must come, because she was very, very fond of poor Peter and she would think it most unkind of us if we buried him while she was not there. She will bring some flowers for the grave, and you must get some flowers, too, Abel. We must, in fact, each put a flower on him."
The boy frowned at mention of Estelle, but forgot her in considering the further problem.
"He liked the mint bed. I'll put mint on him," he said.
"An excellent thought. And I shall pluck one of the big magnolias myself."
Returning, Ernest informed Estelle that she must be at the funeral and she went home for a bunch of blossoms to grace the tomb. She picked hot-house flowers, hoping to propitiate Abel. There woke a great hope in her to win him. But she failed.
He glowered at her when she appeared walking beside his mother, while before them marched Mr. Churchouse carrying the departed. When the funeral was ended and Abel left alone, he sat down by the grave, cried, worked himself into a very mournful mood and finally exhibited anger. Why he was angry he did not know, or against whom his temper grew; but his great loss woke resentment. When he felt miserable, somebody was always blamed by him for making him feel so. No immediate cause for quarrel with anything smaller than fate challenged his unsettled mind; then his eyes fixed upon Estelle's flowers, and since Estelle was always linked in his thoughts with his father, and his father represented an enemy, he began to hate the flowers and wish them away. He heard his mother calling him, but hid from her and when she was silent, came back to the grave again.
Meantime Estelle and Ernest drank tea and spoke of Abel.
"When grief has relaxed the emotions, we may often get in a kindly word and give an enemy something to think about afterwards," he said. "But the boy was obdurate. He is the victim of confused thinking—precocious to a degree in some directions, but very childish in others. At times he alarms me. Poor boy. You must try again to win him. The general sentiment is that the young should be patient with the old; but for my part I think it is quite as difficult sometimes for the old to be patient with the young."
He turned to his desk.
"When I found my dear cat was not, I composed an epitaph for him, Estelle. I design to have it scratched on a stone and set above his sleeping place."
"Do let me hear it," she said, and Ernest, fired with the joy of composition, read his memorial verse.
"Criticise freely," he said. "I value your criticism and you understand poetry. Not that this is a poem—merely an epitaph; but it may easily be improved, I doubt not."
He put on his glasses and read:
"'Ended his mingled joy and strife,
Here lies the dust of Peter Grim.
Though life was very kind to him,
He proved not very kind to life.'"
Estelle applauded.
"Perfect," she said. "You must have it carved on his tombstone."
"I think it meets the case. I may have been prejudiced in my affection for him, owing to his affection for me. He came to me at the age of five weeks, and his attitude to me from the first was devoted."
"Cats have such cajoling ways."
"He was not himself honest, yet, I think, saw the value of honesty in others. Plain dealers are a temptation to rogues and none, as a rule, is a better judge of an honest man than a dishonest cat."
"He wasn't quite a rogue, was he?"
"He knew that I am respected, and he traded on my reputation. His life has been spared on more than one occasion for my sake."
"On the whole he was not a very model cat, I'm afraid," said Estelle.
"Yes, that is just what he was: a model—cat."
They went out to look at the grave again, and something hurried away through the bushes as they did so.
"Friends, or possibly enemies," suggested Mr. Churchouse, but Estelle, sharper-eyed, saw Abel disappear. She also noted that her bouquet of flowers had gone from Peter's mound.
"Oh dear, he's taken away my offering," she said.
"What a hard-hearted boy! Are there no means of winning him?"
They spoke of Abel and his mother.
"We all regretted her decision to stop. It would have been better if she had gone away."
"Raymond saw her some time ago."
"So she told me; and so did he. Misfortune seems to dog the situation, for I believe Sabina was half in a mind to take our advice until that meeting. Then she changed. Apparently she misunderstood him."
"Ray was very troubled. Somehow he made Sabina angry—the last thing he meant to do. He's sorry now that he spoke. She thought he was considering himself, and he really was thinking for Abel."
"We must go on being patient. Next year I shall urge her to let Abel be sent to a boarding-school. That will be a great advantage every way."
So they talked and meantime Abel's sorrow ran into the channels of evil. It may be that the presence of Estelle had determined this misfortune; but he was ripe for it and his feeling prompted him to let his misery run over, that others might drink of the cup. He had long contemplated a definite deed and planned a stroke against Raymond Ironsyde; but he had postponed the act, partly from fear, partly because the thought of it was a pleasure. Inverted instincts and a mind fouled by promptings from without, led him to understand that Ironsyde was his mother's enemy and therefore his own. Baggs had told him so in a malignant moment and Abel believed it. To injure his enemy was to honour his mother. And the time had come to do so. He was ripe for it to-night. He told himself that Peter Grim would have approved the blow, and with his mind a chaos of mistaken opinions, at once ludicrous and mournful, he set himself to his task. He ate his supper as usual and went to bed; but when the house was silent in sleep, he rose, put on his clothes and hastened out of doors. He departed by a window on the ground floor and slipped into a night of light and shade, for the moon was full and rode through flying clouds.
The boy felt a youthful malefactor's desire to get his task done as swiftly as possible. He was impatient to feel the deed behind him. He ran through the deserted village, crossed a little bridge over the river, and then approached the Mill by a meadow below them. Thus he always came to see Mr. Baggs, or anybody who was friendly.
The roof of the works shone in answer to fitful moonlight, and they presented to his imagination a strange and unfamiliar appearance. Under the sleight of the hour they were changed and towered majestically above him. The Mill slept and in the creepy stillness, the river's voice, which he had hardly heard till now, was magnified to a considerable murmur. From far away down the valley came the song of the sea, where a brisk, westerly wind threw the waves on the shingle.
A feeling of awe numbed him, but it was not powerful enough to arrest his purpose. His plans had been matured for many days.
He meant to burn down the Mill.
Nothing was easier and a match in the inflammable material, of which the hackler's shop was usually full, must quickly involve the mass of the buildings.
It was fitting that where he had been impregnated by Mr. Baggs with much lawless opinion, Abel should give expression to his evil purpose. From the tar-pitched work-room of the hackler, fire would very quickly leap to the main building against which it stood, and might, indeed, under the strong wind, involve the stores also and John Best's dwelling between them. But it was fated otherwise. A very small incident served to prevent a considerable catastrophe, and when Abel broke the window of the hackling room, turned the hasp, raised it, and got in, a man lay awake in pain not thirty yards distant. The lad lighted a candle, which he had brought with him, and it was then, while he collected a heap of long hemp and prepared to set it on fire, that John Best, in torture from toothache, went downstairs for a mouthful of brandy.
Upon the staircase he passed a window and, glancing through it, he saw a light in the hackling shop. It was not the moon and meant a presence there that needed instant explanation. Mr. Best forgot his toothache, called his sailor son, who happened to be holiday-making at home, and hastened as swiftly and silently as possible over the bridge to the Mill. John Best the younger, an agile man of thirty, may be said to have saved the situation, for he was far quicker than his father could be and managed to anticipate the disaster by moments. Half a minute more might have made all the difference, for the heap of loose hemp and stricks once ignited, no power on earth could have saved a considerable conflagration; but the culprit had his back turned to the window and was still busily piling the tow when Best and his son looked in upon him, and the sailor was already half through the window before Abel perceived him. The youngster dashed for his candle, but he was too late, a pair of strong hands gripped his neck roughly enough, and he fainted from the shock.
They took him out as he had gone in, for the door was locked and Levi
Baggs had the key. Then the sailor went back to his home, dressed
himself and started for a policeman, while Mr. Best kept guard over
Abel.
When he came to his senses, the boy found himself in the moonlight with a dozen turns of stout fisherman's twine round his hands and ankles The foreman stood over him, and now that the house was roused, his wife had brought John a pair of trousers and a great coat, for he was in his night shirt.
"You'll catch your death," she said.
"It's only by God's mercy we didn't all catch our death," he answered. "Here's Sabina Dinnett's boy plotted to destroy the works, and we've yet to find whether he's the tool of others, or has done the deed on his own."
"On my own I did it," declared Abel; "and I'll do it yet."
"You shut your mouth, you imp of Satan!" cried the exasperated man. "Not a word, you scamp. You've done for yourself now, and everybody knew you'd come to it, sooner or later."
In half an hour Abel was locked up, and when Mr. Baggs heard next morning concerning the events of the night, he expressed the utmost surprise and indignation.
"Young dog! And after the friend I've been to him. Blood will tell.
That's his lawless father coming out in the wretch," he said.
CHAPTER IX
THE FUTURE OF ABEL
Issues beyond human sight or calculation lay involved in the thing that Abel Dinnett had done. He had cast down a challenge to society, and everything depended on how society answered that challenge. Not only did the child's own future turn on what must follow, but vital matters for those who were called to act hung on their line of action. That, however, they could not know. The tremendous significance of the sinner's future training and the result of what must now happen to him lay far beyond their prescience.
It became an immediate question whether Abel might, or might not, be saved from the punishment he had deserved. Beyond that rose another problem, not less important, and his father doubted whether, for the child's own sake, it would be well to intervene. Waldron strongly agreed with him; but Estelle did not, and she used her great influence on the side of intervention. Miss Ironsyde and Ernest Churchouse were also of her opinion. Indeed, all concerned, save his mother and Arthur Waldron, begged Raymond to interfere, if possible.
He did not decide immediately.
"The boy will be sent to a reformatory for five years if I do nothing," he told Estelle, "and that's probably the very best thing on earth that can happen to him. It will put the fear of God into him and possibly obliterate his hate of me. He's bad all through, I'm afraid."
"No he isn't—far from it. That's the point," she argued. "These things are a legacy—a hateful legacy from his grandmother. Mister Churchouse knows him far better than anybody else, and he says there is great sensibility and power of feeling in him. He's tender to animals."
"That's not much good if he's going to be tough to me. Tell me why his mother doesn't come to me about him."
"Mister Churchouse says she's in a strange state and doesn't seem to care. She told him the sins of the fathers were being visited on the children."
"The sins of the fathers are being visited on the fathers, I should think."
"That's fair at any rate," she said. "I know just how you must feel. You've been so patient, Ray, and taken such a lot of trouble. But I believe it's all part of the fate that links you to the child. His future is made your business now, whether you will or no. It is thrust upon you. Nobody but you would be listened to by the law; but you can give an undertaking and do something to save him from the horror of a reformatory."
Estelle and Raymond were having tea together at 'The Seven Stars' during this conversation. Her father was returning home to Bridport by an evening train and she had driven to meet him. Nelly Legg waited upon them, and knowing the matter occupied many tongues, Raymond spoke to her.
"You can guess this is a puzzler, Nelly," he said. "What would you do? Miss Waldron says it's up to me to try and get the boy off; but the question is shall I be serving him best that way?"
"My husband and me have gone over it," she confessed; "of course, everybody has done so. You can't pretend the people aren't interested, and if one has asked Job his opinion, a hundred have. People bring him their puzzles and troubles as a sort of habit. From a finger ache to the loss of a fortune they pour their difficulties into his wise head, and for patience he's a very good second to the first of the name. And I may tell you a curious thing, Mister Raymond, for I've seen it happen. As the folks talk and talk to Legg, they get more and more cheerful and he gets more and more depressed. Then, after they've let off all their woes on the man, sometimes they'll have the grace to apologise and say it's too bad to give him such a dose. And they always wind up by assuring him he's done them a world of good; but they never stop to think what they have done to him."
"Vampires of sympathy—blood-suckers," declared Raymond. "Such kindly men as your husband must pay for their virtues, Nelly."
"Sympathetic people have to work hard," added Estelle.
"Not that he wants the lesser people's gratitude, so long as he has my admiration," explained Mrs. Legg. "And that he always will have, for he's more than human in some particulars. And only I know the full extent of his wonders. A master of stratagems too—the iron hand in the velvet glove—though if you was to tell half the people in Bridport he's got an iron hand, they never would believe it. And as to this sad affair, he's given his opinion and won't change it. You may think him right or wrong, but so it is."
"And what does he say, Nelly?"
"He says the child may be saved as a brand from the burning if the law takes its course. He thinks that if you, or anybody, was to go bail for the child and save him from the consequences of his wicked deed, that a great mistake would be made. In justice to you I should say that they don't all agree. Some hope you'll interfere—mostly women."
"What do you think?" asked Raymond.
"As Missis Legg, I think the same as him; and I'll tell you another thing you may not know. The young boy's mother is by no means sure if she don't feel the same. My married niece is her friend, and last time she saw her, Sabina spoke about it. From what Sarah says I think she feels it might be better for the boy to put him away. I can't say as to her motives. Naturally she's only concerned as to the welfare of the child and knows he'll never be trained to any good where he is."
That Sabina had expressed so strong an opinion interested Raymond. But
Estelle refused to believe it.
"I'm sure Sarah misunderstood," she said. "Sabina couldn't mean that."
They went to the station presently, met Arthur Waldron and drove him home. Estelle urged Raymond to see Sabina before he decided what to do; and since little time was left before he must act, he went to 'The Magnolias' that evening and begged for an interview.
Sabina had a small sitting-room of her own in which evidence of Abel did not lack. Drawings that he had made at school were hung on the walls, and a steam-engine—a present from Mr. Churchouse on his twelfth birthday—stood upon the mantel-shelf.
"It's just this, Sabina," he said; "I won't keep you; but I feel the future of the boy is in the balance and I can't do anything without hearing your opinion. And first I want you to understand I have quite forgiven him. He's not all to blame. Certain fixed, false ideas he has got. They were driven into him at his most impressionable age; and until his reason asserts itself no doubt he'll go on hating me. But that'll all come right. I don't blame you for it."
"You should blame me all the same," she said. "It's as much me in his blood as his grandmother at his ear, that turned him to hate you. I don't hate you now—or anybody, or anything. I've not got strength and fight in me now to hate, or love either. But I did hate you and I was full of hate before he was born, and the milk was curdled with hate that fed him. Now I don't care what happens. I can't prevent the future of my child from shaping itself. The time for preventing things and doing things and fixing character and getting self-respect is over and past. What he's done is the natural result of what was done to him. And who'll blame him? Who'll blame me for being bad and indifferent—wicked if you like? Life's made me so—hard—cold to others. But I should have been different if I'd had love and common justice. So would he. It's natural in him to hate you; and now the poor little wretch will get what he deserves—same as his mother did before him, and so all's said. What we deserved, that's all."
"I don't think so. I'm very willing to fight for him if I can do him good by fighting. The situation is unusual. You probably do not realise what this means to me. Is there to be no finality in your resentment? Honestly I get rather tired of it."
"I got rather tired of it twelve years ago."
"You're not prepared to help me, then, or make any suggestion—for the child's sake?"
"I'll not help, or hinder. I've been looking on so long now that I'm only fit to look on. My child has everything against him, and he knows it; and you can't save him from his fate any more than I can. So what's the good of wasting time talking as though you could? Fate's fate—beyond us."
"We make our own fate. I may tell you that I should have been largely influenced by you, Sabina. The question admits of different answers and I recognise my responsibility. Some say that I must intervene now and some say that I should not."
"And the only one not asked to give an opinion is Abel himself. A child is never asked about his own hopes and fears."
"We know what his hopes were—to burn down the Mill. So we may take it for the present he's not the best judge of what's good for him."
"I've done my duty to him," she said, "and that's all I could do. I'm very sorry for him, and what love I've got for him is the sort that's akin to pity. It's contrary to reason that I should take any deep joy in him, or worship the ground he walks on, like other mothers do towards their children. For he stands there before me for ever as the sign and mark of my own failure in life. But I don't think any less of him for trying to destroy the works. I'd decided about him long ago."
Raymond found nothing to the purpose in this illusive talk. It argued curious impassivity in Sabina he thought, and he felt jarred to find the conventional attitude of mother to son was not acknowledged by her. Estelle had showed far more feeling, had taken a much more active part in the troubles of Abel. Estelle had spared no pains in arguing for the child and imploring Ironsyde to exhaust his credit on Abel's behalf.
He told Sabina this and she explained it.
"I dare say she has. A woman can see why, though doubtless you cannot. It isn't because he's himself that she's active for him; and it isn't because he's my child, either. It's because he's your child. Your blood's sacred in her eyes you may be sure. She was a child herself when you ruined me; she forgets all that. Why? Because ever since she's grown to womanhood and intelligence to note what happens, you have been a saint of virtue and the friend of the weak and the champion of the poor. So, of course, she feels that such a great and good man's son only wants his father's care to make him great and good too."
"To think you can talk so after all these years, Sabina," he said.
"How should I talk? What are the years to me? You never knew, or understood, or respected the stuff I was made of; and you'll never understand your child, either, or the stuff he's made of; and you can tell the young woman that loves you so much, that she's wrong—as wrong as can be. Nothing's gained by your having any hand in Abel's future. You won't win him with sugarplums now, any more than you will with money later on. He's made of different stuff from you—and better stuff and rarer stuff. There's very little of you in him and very little of me, either. He's himself, and the fineness that might have made him a useful man under fair conditions, is turned to foulness now. Your child was ruined in the making—not by me, but by you yourself. And such is his mind that he knows it already. So be warned and let him alone."
"If anything could make me agree with Miss Waldron, Sabina, it would be what you tell me," he answered. "And if I can live to show you that you are terribly wrong I shall be glad."
"That you never will."
"At least you'll do nothing to come between us?"
"I never have. I was very careful not to do that. If he can look at you as a friend presently, I shan't prevent it. I shan't warn him against you—though I've warned you against him. The weak use poisonous weapons, because they haven't got the strength to use weapons of might. That's why he tried to burn down the Mill. He'll be stronger some day."
"He's clever, I'm told, and if we can only interest him in some intelligent business and find what his bent is, we may fill his mind to good purpose. At any rate, I thank you for leaving me free to act. Now I can decide what course to take. It was impossible until I heard what you felt."
She said no more and he left her to make up his mind. Doubt persisted there, for he still suspected, that five years in a reformatory might be better for Abel than anything else. Such an experience he felt would develop his character, crush his malignant instincts and leave him only too ready to accept his father as his friend; but against such a fate for Abel, was his own relationship to the culprit, and the question whether Raymond would not suffer very far-reaching censure if he made no effort to come to the boy's rescue. Truest wisdom might hold a severe course of correction very desirable; but sentiment and public opinion would be likely to condemn him if he did nothing. People would say that he had taken a harsh revenge on his own, erring child.
He fumed at a situation intolerable and was finally moved to accept Estelle's advice. From no considerations for Bridport, or Bridetown, did she urge his active intervention. For Abel's sake she begged it and was more insistent than before, when she heard of Sabina's indifference.
"He's yours," she said. "You've been so splendidly patient. So do go on being patient, and the result will be a fine character and a reward for you. It isn't what people would say; but if he goes to a reformatory, far from wanting you and your help when he comes out again, he'll know in the future that you might have saved him from it and given him a first-rate education among good, upright boys. But if he went to a reformatory, he must meet all sorts of difficult boys, like himself, and they wouldn't help him, and he'd come out harder than he went in."
His heart yielded to her at last, even though his head still doubted, for Raymond's attitude to Estelle had begun insensibly to change since his accident in the cricket field. From that time he won a glimpse of things that apparently others already knew. Sabina, in their recorded conversation, had bluntly told him that Estelle loved him; and while the man dismissed the idea as an absurdity, it was certain that from this period he began to grow somewhat more sentimentally interested in her. The interest developed very slowly, but this business of Abel brought them closer together, for she haunted him during the days before the child came to his trial, and when, perhaps for her sake as much as any other reason, Raymond decided to undertake his son's defence, her gratitude was great.
He made it clear to her that she was responsible for his determination.
"I've let you over-rule me, Estelle," he told her. "Don't forget it, Chicky. And now that the boy will, I hope, be in my hands, you must strengthen my hands all you can and help me to make him my friend."
She promised thankfully.
"Be sure I shall never, never forget," she said, "and I shall never be happy till he knows what you really are, and what you wish him. You must win him now. It's surely contrary to all natural instinct if you can't. The mere fact that you can forgive him for what he tried to do, ought to soften his heart."
"I trust more to you than myself," he answered.
CHAPTER X
THE ADVERTISEMENT
Raymond Ironsyde had his way, and local justices, familiar with the situation, were content not to commit Abel, but leave the boy in his father's hands. He took all responsibility and, when the time came, sent his son to a good boarding-school at Yeovil. Sabina so far met him that the operation was conducted in her name, and since the case of Abel had been kept out of local papers, his fellow scholars knew nothing of his errors. But his difficulties of character were explained to those now set over him, and they were warned that his moral education, while attempted, had not so far been successful.
Perhaps only one of those concerned much sympathised with Ironsyde in his painful ordeal. Those who did not openly assert that he was reaping what he had sown, were indifferent. Some, like Mr. Motyer, held the incident a joke; one only possessed imagination sufficient to guess what these public events must mean to the father of Abel. Indeed, Estelle certainly suffered more for Raymond than he suffered for himself. She pictured poignantly his secret thoughts and sorrows at this challenge, and she could guess what it must be to have a child who hated you. In her maiden mind, however, the man's emotions were exaggerated, and she made the mistake of supposing that this grievous thing must be dominating Raymond's existence, instead of merely vexing it. In truth he suffered, but he was juster than Estelle, and, looking back, measured his liabilities pretty accurately. He had none but himself to thank for these inconveniences, and when he weighed them against the alternative of marriage with Sabina, he counted them as bearable. Abel tried him sorely, but he did not try him as permanent union with Abel's mother must have tried him. Since he had renewed speech with her, his conviction was increased that supreme disaster must have followed marriage. Moreover, there began to rise a first glimmer of the new situation already indicated. It had grown gradually and developed more intensely during his days of enforced idleness in his aunt's house. From that time, at any rate, he marked the change and saw his old regard and respect for Estelle wakening into something greater. Her sympathy quickened the new sentiments. He thought she was saner over Abel than anybody, for she never became sentimental, or pretended that nothing had happened which might not have been predicted. Her support was both human and practical. It satisfied him and showed him her good sense.
Miss Ironsyde had often reminded her nephew that he was the last of his line, and urged him to take a wife and found a family. That Raymond should marry seemed desirable to her; but she had not considered Estelle as a wife for him. Had she done so, Jenny must have feared the girl too young and too doubtful in opinions to promise complete success and safety for the master of the Mill. He would marry a mature woman and a steadfast Christian—so hoped Miss Ironsyde then.
There came a day when Raymond called on Mr. Churchouse. Business brought him and first he discussed the matter of an advertisement.
"In these days," he said, "the competition grows keener than ever. And I rather revel in it—as I do in the east wind. It's not pleasant at the time, but, if you're healthy, it's a tonic."
"And if you're not, it finds the weak places," added Mr. Churchouse. "No man over sixty has much good to say of the east wind."
"Well, the works are healthy enough and competition is merely a tonic to us. We hold our own from year to year, and I've reached a conviction that my policy of ruthlessly scrapping machinery the moment it's even on the down grade, is the only sound principle and pays in the long run. And now I want something new in the advertisement line—something not mechanical at all, but human and interesting—calculated to attract, not middlemen and retailers, but the person who buys our string and rope to use it. In fact I want a little book about the romance of spinning, so that people may look at a ball of string, or shoe-thread, or fishing-line, intelligently, and realise about one hundredth part of all that goes to its creation. Now you could do a thing like that to perfection, Uncle Ernest, because you know the business inside out."
Mr. Churchouse was much pleased.
"An excellent idea—a brilliant idea, Raymond! We must insist on the romance of spinning—the poetry."
"I don't want it to be too flowery, but just interesting and direct. A glimpse of the raw material growing, then the history of its manufacture."
Ernest's eyes sparkled.
"From the beginning—from the very beginning," he said. "Pliny tells us how the Romans used hemp for their sails at the end of the first century. Is not the English word 'canvas' only 'cannabis' over again? Herodotus speaks of the hempen robes of the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness. And as for cordage, the ships of Syracuse in 200 B.C.—"
He was interrupted.
"That's all right, but what I rather fancy is the development of the modern industry—here in Dorset."
"Good—that would follow with all manner of modern instances."
Mr. Churchouse drew a book from one of his shelves.
"In Tudor times it was ordered by Act of Parliament that ropes should be twisted and made nowhere else than here. Leland, that industrious chronicler, came to grief in this matter, for he calls Bridport 'a fair, large town,' where 'be made good daggers.' He shows the danger of taking words too literally, since a 'Bridport dagger' is only another name for the hangman's rope."
"That's the sort of thing," said Raymond. "An article we can illustrate, showing the hemp and flax growing in Russia and Italy, then all the business of pulling, steeping and retting, drying and scutching. That would be one chapter."
"It shall be done. I see it—I see the whole thing—an elegant brochure and well within my power. I am fired with the thought. There is only one objection, however."
"None in the world. I see you know just what I'm after—a little pamphlet well illustrated."
"The objection is that Estelle Waldron would do it a thousand times better than I can. She has a more modern outlook and a more modern touch. I feel confident that with me to supply the matter, she would produce a much more attractive and readable work."
Raymond considered.
"I suppose she would. I hadn't thought of her."
"Believe me, she would succeed to admiration. For your sake as well as mine, she would produce a little masterpiece."
"She'd do anything to please you, we all know; but I've no right to bother her with details of business. Of course, if you do it, it is a commission and you would name your honorarium, Uncle Ernest."
The old man laughed.
"We'll see—we'll see. Perhaps I should ask too high a price. But Estelle will not be so grasping. And as to your right to bother her with the details of business, anything she can do for you is a very great privilege to her."
"I believe I owe her more than a man can ever pay a woman, already."
"Most men are insolvent to the other sex. Woman's noble tradition is to give more than she gets, and let us off the reckoning, quite well knowing it beyond our feeble powers to cry quits with her."
Raymond was moved at this challenge, for in the light that Estelle threw upon them, women interested him more to-day than they had for ten years.
"One takes old Arthur's daughter for granted rather too much," he said; "we always take good women for granted too much, I suppose. It's the other sort who look out we shan't take them for granted, but at their own valuation. Estelle—she's so many-sided—difficult, too, in some things."
"She is," admitted Ernest. "And just for this reason. She always argues on her own basis of perfect ingenuous honesty. She assumes certain rational foundations for all human relations; and if such bases really existed, then it would be the best possible world, no doubt, and we should all do to our neighbour as we would have him do to us. But the Golden Rule doesn't actuate the bulk of mankind, unfortunately. Men and women are not as good as Estelle thinks them."
Raymond agreed eagerly.
"You've hit it," he said. "It is just that. She's right in theory every time; and if people were all as straight and altruistic and high-principled as she is, there'd really be no more bother about morals in the world. Native good sense would decide. Even as it is, the native good sense of mankind is deciding certain questions and will presently push the lawyers into codifying their mouldy laws, and then give reason a chance to cleanse the whole archaic lump of them; but as it is, Estelle—Take Marriage, for example. I agree with her all the way—in theory. But when you come to view the situation in practice—you're up against things as they are, and you never want people you love to be martyrs, however noble the cause. Estelle says the law of sex relationships is barbaric, and that marriage is being submitted to increasing rational criticism, which the law and the Church both conspire to ignore. She thinks that these barriers to progress ought to be swept away, because they have a vicious effect on the institution and degrade men and women. She's always got her eye on the future, and the result is sometimes that she doesn't focus the present too exactly. It's noble, but not practical."
"The institution of marriage will last Estelle's time, I think," declared Mr. Churchouse.
"One hopes so heartily—for her own sake. One knows very well it's an obsolescent sort of state, and can't bear the light of reason, and must be reformed, so that intelligent people can enter it in a self-respecting spirit; but if there is one institution that defies the pioneers, it is marriage. The law's far too strong for us there. And I don't want to see her misunderstood."
They parted soon after this speech, and the older man, who had long suspected the fact, now perceived that Raymond was beginning to think of Estelle in new terms and elevating her to another place in his thoughts.
It was the personal standpoint that challenged Ironsyde's mind. His old sentiments and opinions respecting the marriage bond took a very different colour before the vision of an Estelle united to himself. Thus circumstances alter opinions, and the theories he had preached to Sabina went down the wind when he thought of Estelle. The touchstone of love vitiates as well as purifies thinking.