Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 3 of 3)
The act itself had been very easy. There had been no more difficulty about it than about hitting the old hat in the shadow of the factory wall. But when the silent shot was sped and the air-gun disposed of by being carefully hung down the inside of a chimney and hooked to a copper-wire tie of the slate chimney-top, and he was safely down the water pipe and in the mews, the aspect of the whole deed changed, or rather it became another thing altogether.
Before pulling the trigger of the air-gun, he was perfectly satisfied that Leigh deserved, richly deserved death. That was as plain as the dome of St. Paul's from London Bridge. It had been equally plain to him that when Leigh was dead, and dead by his hand, he should never because of any compunction be sorry for his act. No sooner was he at the bottom of the water-pipe than he found he had no longer any control over his thoughts, or more correctly that the thoughts in his mind did not belong to him at all, but were, as it might be, thoughts hired in the interest of the dead man, hostile, relentless mercenaries, inside the very walls of the citadel within which he was besieged, and from which there was no escape except by flinging his naked bosom on the bayonets of the besiegers.
It made not the least difference now whether the man merited death a thousand times or not, that man insisted on haunting him. It did not now matter in the least how it pleased him to regard the provoker of that shot, it was how the murdered man regarded him was the real question. He had always told himself that a murdered man was only a dead man after all. Now he had to learn that no man ever born of woman is more awfully alive than a murdered man. He had yet to learn that the blow of the murderer endows the victim with inextinguishable vitality. He had yet to learn that all things which live die to the mind of a murderer except the man who is dead. He had yet to learn that in the mind of a murderer there is a gradually filling in and crowding together of the images of the undamned dead that in the end blind and block up the whole soul in stifling intimacies with the dead, until the murderer in his despair flings himself at the feet of the hangman shrieking for mercy, for mercy, for the mercy of violent and disgraceful death in order to put an end to the fiendish gibes of the dead who is not dead but living, who will not sink into hell, but brings hell into the assassin's brain. The desire to kill is easy, and the means of killing are easy, but the spirit of the murdered man takes immortal form in the brain of the murderer and cleaves to him for evermore.
So that when Stamer descended from the roof and found himself in the yard of the mews, he was not alone. He had seen little of Leigh, but now all he had seen came back upon the eye of his memory with appalling distinctness. He saw each detail of the man's body as though it were cast in rigid bronze and pressed forcibly, painfully, unbearably, upon his perception. He could see, he could feel, the long yellow fingers and the pointed chin hidden in the beard, and the hairs on the neck growing thinner and thinner as the neck descended into the collar. He could see the wrinkles about the eyes, and a peculiar backward motion of the lips before the dwarf spoke. He could see the forehead wrinkled upward in indulgent scorn, or the eyes flashing with insolent self-esteem. He could see. He could see the swift, sharp up-tilt of the chin when a deep respiration became necessary. There was nothing about the dwarf that he could not see, that he did not see, that he could avoid seeing, that was not pressed upon him as by a cold, steel die, that was not pressed and pressed upon him until his mind ached for the vividness, until he turned within himself frantically to avoid the features or actions of the dwarf, and found no space unoccupied, no loop-hole of escape, no resting-place for the eye, no variety for the mind. He was possessed by a devil, and he had made that devil into the likeness of Leigh with his own hands out of the blood of Leigh.
He had run, he did not know how long, or whither, but all the time he was running, he had some relief from the devil which possessed him, for he heard footsteps behind him, the footsteps of the dwarf. But what signified footsteps behind him, or the ordinary ghost one heard of, which could not take shape in day-light, or linger after cockcrow, compared with this internal spirit of the murdered man, this awful presence, this agonizingly minute portraiture at the back of the eye-balls where all the inside of the head could see it, when the eyes were shut, when one was asleep?
At the time Leigh overtook him, he was sure Leigh was dead. But when he found himself exhausted against the wall, and saw the dwarf go by, it was with a feeling of relief. This was the vulgar ghost of which he had heard so much, but which he had always held in contempt. But he had never heard of the other ghost before, and his spirit was goaded with terrors, and frantic with fears.
Then came that night of wandering, with inexpungeable features of the dwarf sharp limned upon his smarting sight, and after that long night, which was a repetition of the first few minutes after the deed, the visit to Timmons, and the appearance of Leigh in the flesh!
No wonder Stamer was faint.
He was in no immediate fear now. He was merely worn out by the awful night, and prostrated by the final shock. All he wanted was rest, and to know how it came to be that the dwarf was about that morning, seemingly uninjured. As Leigh was not dead, or hurt, he had nothing to fear at present. He would rest somewhere from which he could watch Timmons, and go back to his friend as soon as the clock-maker disappeared. He sat down on the tail-board of an upreared cart to wait.
At length he saw the hunchback issue hastily from the store, and hasten, with pale face and hard-drawn breath, in the direction of London Road. Stamer kept his eyes on the little man until he saw him hail a cab and drive away. Then he rose, and, with weary steps and a heart relieved, hastened to the marine store.
The murdered ghost which had haunted the secret chambers of his spirit had been exorcised, by the sight of Leigh in the flesh, and he was at rest.
He found Timmons pacing up and down the store gloomily. "That's a good job, any way, Mr. Timmons," said the shorter man when he had got behind the shutters. This time he did not stand up with his back against the wall; he sat down on the old fire-grate. He was much bolder. In fact, he sought cover more from habit than from a sense of present insecurity.
"Good job," growled Timmons. "Worse job, you mean, you fool."
"Worse job? Worse job, Mr. Timmons? Worse, after all you said, to see Mr. Leigh here, than to know he was lying on the floor under the window with a broken neck?" cried Stamer, in blank and hopeless amazement.
"Broken neck! Broken neck! It's you deserve the broken neck; and as sure as you're alive, Tom Stamer, you'll get it, get it from Jack Ketch, before long, and you deserve it."
"Deserve it for missing Leigh?" cried Stamer, in a tone of dismay. Nothing could satisfy Timmons this morning. First he was furious because he had killed Leigh, and now he was savage because the bullet had missed him!
"No, you red-handed botch! Worse than even if you killed Leigh, who hasn't been all straight. But you have killed an innocent man. A man you never saw or heard of in all your life until last night. A man that came into Leigh's place, privately, through a third door in the mews, and wound up his clock for him, in the window, and nodded to the Hanover bar people, as Leigh used to do, and who was so like Leigh himself, hump and all, barring that he was taller, that their own mothers would not know one from the other. Leigh hired him, so that he might be able to go to Birmingham and places on _our_ business, and seem to be in London and at his own place, if it became necessary to prove he had not been in Birmingham, if it became necessary to prove an alibi. And you, you blundering-headed fool, go and shoot the very man Leigh had hired to help our business! You're a useful pal, you are! You're a good working mate, you are! Are you proud of yourself? Eh? You not only put your head into the halter of your own free will, and out of the cleverness of your own brains, but you round on a chap who was a pal after all. You go having snap shots, you do, and you bag a comrade, a man who did no one any harm, a man who was in the swim! Oh, you are a nice, useful, tidy working pal, you are! A useful, careful mate! I wonder you didn't shoot me, and say you did it for the good of my health, and out of kindness to me. Anyway, I'm heartily sorry it wasn't yourself you shot, last night. No one would have been sorry for that, and the country would have saved the ten pounds to Jack Ketch for hanging you, and the cost of a new rope!"
"Eh?" cried Stamer, not that he did not hear and understand, but in order that he might get the story re-told.
Timmons went over the principal points again.
The burglar listened quite unmoved.
"You take it coolly enough, anyhow?"
"Why not? It was an accident."
"An accident! An accident!" cried Timmons, drawing up in front of Stamer and looking at him in perplexity.
"Well, what could be plainer, Mr. Timmons? Of course, it was an accident. Why should I hurt a man who never hurt me?"
"But you did."
"They have to prove that. They _can't_ prove _I_ rounded on a pal. I can get a hundred witnesses to character."
"Nice witnesses they would be."
"But the coppers _know_ I'm a straight man."
"They would hardly come to speak for you. It's someone from Portland would give you a character. But you know you fired the shot."
"At a screech-owl, my lord, at a screech-owl, my lord, that was flying across the street. You don't suppose, my lord, I'd go and round on a pal of Mr. Timmons's and my own?"
Timmons glared at him. "But the man is dead, and someone shot him."
"Well, my lord, except Mr. Timmons-and to save him I risked my own life, and would lay it down, and am ready to lay it down now or any time it may please your lordship-unless Mr. Timmons goes into the box and swears my life away, you can prove nothing against me, my lord."
"After all," said Timmons, looking through half-closed critical eyes at Stamer, "after all, the man has some brains."
"And a straight man for a friend in Mr. John Timmons."
"Yes, Stamer, you have."
Stamer stood up and approached Timmons. "You'll shake hands on that, Mr. Timmons?"
"I will." Timmons gave him his hand. "And now," he added, "I don't think you know the good news."
"What?"
"Why, Forbes's bakery was burned out last night."
"Hurroo!" cried Stamer, with a yell of sudden relief and joy. "My lord, you haven't a single bit of evidence against Tom Stamer. My lord, good-bye. Mr. John Timmons and Tom Stamer against the world!"
CHAPTER XXXV
THE RUINS
The morning following Hanbury's visit to Grimsby Street saw the order of arrival of the ladies in the sitting-room reversed. Mrs. Grace was there first. Edith had been too excited when she went to bed after the young man's disclosures to sleep, and it was not until the small hours were growing big that the girl could close her eyes. As a consequence, she was late.
But when at last she did awake, how different were her feelings from the day before! She could scarcely believe she was the same being, or it was the same world. That letter from Mr. Coutch, of Castleton, had plunged her into a depth of leaden hopelessness she had never known before. Now all was changed. Then she was the last of a race of shopkeepers; now she had for cousin a man whose ancestor had been a king. Whatever fate might do against her in the future, it could never take away that consoling consciousness. At Miss Graham's in Streatham the girls used to say she ought to be a queen. Well, a not very remote relative of hers would have sat on a throne if she had lived and come into her rights! Prodigious.
She found her grandmother waiting for her. The old lady was seated in the window, spectacles on nose, reading the morning paper. All the papers of that morning had not an account of the disaster at Chelsea, because of the late hour at which it occurred. Mrs. Grace's paper was one that did not get the news in time for insertion that morning, so that the old lady and Edith were spared the pain of believing that a man who sat in this room yesterday had met with a sudden and horrible death.
But Mrs. Grace's eye had caught a paragraph headed "The Last of the Poles." Without a word or comment she handed the paper to the girl and said merely, "Read that. It ought to interest you."
Edith looked at the heading, flushed, and then read the paragraph. It ran:
"The last survivor of one of the great historical families of Europe was buried at Chone, near Geneva, four days before Christmas. The venerable Mathilde Poniatowski, the widow of Count Szymanowski, had just passed her ninetieth year. Her family gave to Poland its last king, Stanislaus Augustus, under whose reign the death-struggle of the Polish nation began, and its last hero, Prince Joseph Poniatowski, who fell as one of Napoleon's generals when bravely attempting to cover the retreat of the French at the battle of Leipzig. The Tzar Alexander, with a generosity which did him credit, allowed his corpse to be buried in the church at Cracow amongst the old Kings and heroes of Poland. Count Szymanowski, the husband of the deceased lady, took a prominent part in the rising of the Poles in 1831, since which time she has lived a quiet and uneventful life in the hospitable republic of Geneva."
"And think," said Mrs. Grace, "that she who is just dead represented only the younger branch of Mr. Hanbury's family. It is all more like an Eastern romance than anything which could take place in Europe!"
Edith could not say much. She felt choking, and merely said it was wonderful, and that Mr. Hanbury would no doubt know all about the countess.
"I don't think so. You know he said he did not know much of the family. I must cut out this paragraph and keep it for him."
The notion of cutting a paragraph out of a penny paper and giving it to the head of the house here referred to, was grotesque. Besides, he had not said that he should come again. He said his mother would call, and he expressed a vague hope that they might be better friends. Edith knew no practical importance was to be attached to this man's parentage, as far as honours went; but still it could not be that he would move about as freely now as of yore, or mingle with the people he had formerly considered his equals. He could no more destroy the stream of noble and kingly blood in his veins than a costermonger could carry the arms of a Howard or a Percy.
Edith broke bread that morning, but made little more than a formal meal. Mrs. Hanbury would of course call. When? And what would she be like? The son had been much too condescending and familiar for one in his position. Would his mother make up in stateliness what he left aside? She would drive up between three and five with powdered footmen. The arrival of the carriage, and the footmen, and Mrs. Hanbury, mother of the well-known Mr. Hanbury, would be an event in Grimsby Street. Her old resolution of not knowing rich people must be waived in this case. There was no remedy for it; for he had said his mother would come.
Neither grandmother nor grand-daughter was in humour for talk. Edith was occupied with her own thoughts. They had nothing to do that day, for Edith had made up her mind to do nothing about a new situation until Monday. It being now Saturday, there was no time to take any steps that week.
They had not sat down to breakfast until half-past nine, and by ten they had not finished. As the little clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour the landlady's daughter entered to say a lady was below who desired to see Mrs. and Miss Grace.
Both rose. Whom could it be?
Mrs. Hanbury.
"I have taken the liberty of coming up without permission," said a voice at the door, and a tall, stately lady, with white hair and dressed in black, appeared at the threshold of the door left open by the attendant.
Mrs. Grace invited her to enter and be seated.
"I need not introduce myself further," the visitor said with a smile, as she sat down, after shaking hands with the two, "than to say I am the mother of Mr. Hanbury, who had the pleasure of calling upon you yesterday evening. I am afraid my visit this morning is as inconveniently early as his last night was late. But the discovery of the relationship between us is so extraordinary, and so pleasant to me, that I could not deny myself the happiness of calling at the very earliest moment I could get away. You have not even finished breakfast. I fear you will find it hard to forgive me." Her words, and smile, and manner were so friendly and unassuming, that grandmother and grand-daughter felt at ease immediately.
Mrs. Grace said that if the visitor would forgive the disorder of the table, they should have no reason to feel anything but extremely grateful to Mrs. Hanbury for coming so soon.
Mrs. Hanbury bowed and said, "I saw my son on his return from Derbyshire yesterday and when he came back from you last night. But he had not come down when I was leaving home just now. I am a very positive, self-willed old woman, and I have to ask you as a favour to make allowances for these infirmities. I have made up my mind that the best thing for us to do is to hold a little family council, and I have grown so used to my own room I never can feel equal to discussing family matters anywhere else. I have therefore come to ask you a favour to begin with. Do humour me, please, and come with me to my place. John will be down and done breakfast by the time we get there, and we four can talk over all this wonderful story at our leisure."
There were objections and demurs to this, but Mrs. Hanbury's insistent, good-humoured determination prevailed, and the end was that the three ladies set out together on foot for Chester Square. "And now," said Mrs. Hanbury, as they walked along, "that I have tasted the delights of conquest, I mean to turn from a mild and seemingly reasonable supplicant into a rigid tyrant. Back into that dreadful Grimsby Street neither of you shall ever go again. It is quite enough to destroy one's zest for life merely to look down it!"
The protests and demurs were more vehement than before.
"We shall not argue the point now. In my capacity of tyrant, I decline to argue anything. But we shall see-we shall see."
When they reached Mrs. Hanbury's, they went straight, to her own room. She left word that she was most particularly engaged, and could see no one. On enquiring for her son, she heard with surprise that he had come down shortly after she left and gone out without leaving any message for her.
That morning John Hanbury awoke to the most unpleasant thoughts about Dora. What ought he to do in the matter? Had he not acted badly to her in not writing the next morning after the scene in the drawing-room? – the very night?
Unquestionably it would have been much better if he had written at once. But then at the time he reached home, he was in no state of mind to write to any one, and when he read his father's letter, the contents of it drove all other matters into the background, and made it seem that they could easily wait. Now he had been to Derbyshire, and knew all that was to be learned at Castleton, and had seen Mrs. Grace and Miss Grace and told them of the discovery he had made. His mother had undertaken to go see them, and for the present there was nothing to press in front of his thought of Dora.
He had behaved very badly indeed to her. At the interview he had acted more like a lunatic brute than a sane gentleman, and afterwards his conduct had been-yes, cowardly. Curse it! was he always to behave like a coward in her eyes? She had reproached him with cowardice the other day, and he fully deserved her reproach. That is, he fully deserved the reproach of an impartial and passionless judge. But was the attitude of an impartial and passionless judge exactly the one a man expected from his sweetheart? Surely the ways of life would be very dusty and dreary if a man found his severest critics always closest to his side, if any deficiencies in the public indictment of his character or conduct were to be supplied by a voice from his own hearth, by his other self, by his wife?
John Hanbury had from his first thinking of Dora more than of any other girl he had met, looked on her as a possible wife. When he went further and made up his mind to ask her to marry him, he had regarded her as a future wife more than a present sweetheart. He had felt that she would be a credit and an ornament to him and that they should get on well together. He had never for an hour been carried away by his feelings towards her. He had never lost his head. He told himself he had lost his heart, because he was more happy in her society than in the society of any other young woman he had met.
He was an imaginative man, of good education, strong impulse, and skilful in the use of words. Yet he had not addressed a single piece of verse to her. She had not moved him to adopt that unfamiliar form of expression. He had nothing in his mind about her that he could not express in prose. This alone was a suspicious circumstance. He knew he was not a poet, and he felt it would be absurd to try to be a poet, because he was going to marry a woman he liked very much.
This was ample evidence she had not touched the inner springs of love in him. The young man who keeps his reason always about him, and won't make a fool of himself for the woman he wants to marry, isn't in love at all. There may be fifty words describing beautifully the excellence of his intentions towards the young woman, but love is not one of those words. He had felt all along that they were about to enter into a delicious partnership; not that he was going to drink the wine of a heavenly dream.
This morning he was wrestling and groaning in spirit when the servant brought the letters to his door. He recognised her writing at once, and tore the envelope open hastily.
He read the letter slowly and with decaying spirit. When he had finished he folded it up deliberately and put it back into the envelope. His face was pale, his lips were apart, his eyes dull, expressionless.
"Be it so," he said at length. "She is right," he added bitterly. "She is always right. She would always be right, and I when I differed from her always wrong. That is not the position a husband should occupy in a wife's esteem."
Then he sat down in the easy chair he had occupied two nights before, and fell into a reverie. He did not heed how time went. When he roused himself he learned that his mother had gone out. He did not want to meet her now. He did not want to meet anyone. He wished to be alone with his thoughts. Where can man be more alone than in the streets of a great city?
He went out with no definite object except to be free of interruption. His mind ran on Dora. Now he thought of her with anger, now with affection, now with sorrow. He had no thought of trying to undo her resolve. He acquiesced in it. He was glad it came from her and not from him.
Now that all was over between them, and they were by-and-by to be good friends, and no more, he became sentimental.
He passed in review the pleasant hours they had spent together. He took a melancholy delight in conjuring up the things they had said, the places they had gone to, the balls, and theatres, and galleries and meetings they had been at with one another. He thought of the last walk they took, the walk which led to the present breach between them. It was in this neighbourhood somewhere. Ah, he remembered. He would go and see the place once more.
Once more! Why it was only two days since they had come this way, she leaning on his arm. What a wonderful lot of things had been crowded into those two days!
This was the street. What was the meaning of the crowd? When she and he were here last, there had been a crowd too. Was there always a crowd here? By Jove! there had been a fire. And, by Jove! the house burned was the one against the end wall of which she and he had stood to watch the nigger.
Policemen were keeping people back from the front of Forbes's bakery, which was completely gutted, standing a mere shell, with its bare, roofless walls open to the light of Heaven. All the floors had fallen, and a fireman with a hose was playing on the smoking rubbish within.
