At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Mrs. Oliphant

  CHAPTER XII.

  Helen Drummond had a tedious voyage from Southampton to St Malo. She wasnot a good sailor, nor indeed a good traveller in any way. She was notrich enough to procure for herself those ameliorations of the wearinessof journeys which are within the reach of everybody who has money. Shehad to consult cheapness more than comfort, and when she arrived at lastin the bay, with all its rocky islets rising out of the blue, beautifulsea, and the little fortress city reigning over it, and all thewhite-sailed boats skimming about like so many sea-birds, she would havebeen unable to observe the beauty of the scene from sheer weariness, ifanxiety had not already banished from her every thought but one.

  Where was he? How should she find him? Was it real? Was it possible?Could it be true?

  The boat was late of arriving; it had been delayed, and was notexpected at the moment when the passengers were ready to land. Helenlooked, with a beating heart, upon all the loungers on shore, wonderingcould he be among them; but it was not till almost all herfellow-passengers had left the vessel that a tattered, grinning_Commissionaire_ came up to her, and asked if she were Madame Drummond.When she answered, a voluble explanation followed, which Helen, in heragitation, and with ears unaccustomed to the voluble Breton-French mixedwith scraps of still less comprehensible English, understood with greatdifficulty. Monsieur had been on the pier half the night; he had beenassured by all the officials that the boat could not arrive till noon.Monsieur had charged himself, Fran?ois, to be on the watch, and bringhim news as soon as the steamer was in sight; in place of which he, thedelighted Fran?ois, would have the gratification of leading Madame toMonsieur. Half dead with excitement and fatigue, Helen followed herguide. He led her along the rocky shore to where a little steamferry-boat puffed and snorted. Then she had to embark again for a fiveminutes' passage across the bay. She landed on the other side, sostupified with suspense, and with the accumulated excitement which wasnow coming to a climax, that she felt incapable of uttering a word. Herbody was all one pulse, throbbing wildly; a crimson flush alternatedwith dead pallor in her face; her heart choked her, palpitating in herthroat. Whom was she going to meet? What manner of man was it who saidhe was her Robert, who wrote as Robert wrote, who had called her to him,with the force of absolute right? For was not Robert dead, dead, buriedunder the cold river, seven years ago? She was not happy, she wasfrightened, as Norah said. Her position was incomprehensible to her.She, Robert's spotless wife, his faithful widow--to whom was she going?She did not know what the words meant that were being poured into herears. The figures she met whirled past her like monsters in a dream. Herown weary feet obeyed her mechanically; she moved and breathed, and keptcommand of herself, she knew not how.

  There is a little cottage on the very edge of the cliff, in that villageof Dinard on the Breton coast, which looks across the bay into which theRance rushes impetuously meeting the great sea-tides--and from which StServan opposite, St Malo with its walls and towers, all the lip of thebay lined with houses, with fortifications, with bristling masts andsails, show fair in the sunshine. Coming into it from the dusty road,so small is it, so light, so close to the water, the traveller feelsthat he must have come suddenly into the light poop cabin of some bigship, lifting its breast high from the sea.

  Here it was that Helen came in, her frame all one tremble, breathless,stupified, carried along in the wild whirl of some dream. She saw someone get up with a great cry--and then--she saw nothing more. Theexcitement, the weariness, the strangeness and terror that possessedher, were more than she could bear. She fell down at Robert's feet, asshe had done at the foot of the picture in the exhibition. It wasperhaps the easiest, gentlest way of getting over the great shock andconvulsion of the new life that had now to begin.

  Helen was conscious after a while of a voice, of two voices talkingvaguely over her, one which she did not know, one----At the sound ofthat her brain tried to rally; she tried to recollect. Where wasshe?--in St Mary's Road, in the old days before the studio was built?that was what it felt like. She could not see anything; a whirling,revolving cloud of darkness went round and round, swallowing her up. Shetried to raise her hand to grasp at something. Now she was sinking,sinking into that sea which had gleamed upon her for a moment, throughthe window--a sea full of ships, yet with no saviour for her. If shecould only move her hand, raise her head, see something beside thisblinding blackness. And then again that voice! She had fallen, fallensomewhere, and something buzzed loud in her ears, something coming thatwas about to crush her--on the steps at St Mary's Road.

  'Helen! don't you know me? Look at me, if you can, my own love!'

  She gave a long, sobbing cry. She opened her eyes heavily. 'Yes,Robert,' she said. The wonder and the terror had gone away in her faint,with the seven years that created them. When the soul loses the commonthread of time and place it comes back to its primal elements, to thethings in it that are everlasting. She answered out of herunconsciousness as (God send it!) we shall answer our friends in heavenout of the death-trance, not wondering--restored to the unity of lovewhich is for ever and ever, not for a time.

  She was lying on a little sofa, that window on one side of her, with itsglorious sea and sky and sunshine. On the other, a man, with hair aswhite as snow, with Norah's eyes, looking at her in an agony oftenderness, with a face worn and lined by suffering and toil. The sightof him startled her so that she came to herself in a moment. It startledher into the consciousness that she was his wife, and in a mannerresponsible for him, for his well-being and comfort. She started up,wondering how she could think of herself, indignant at herself fortaking up the foreground for a moment. 'Oh, my dear, my dear!' shecried. 'What have they done to you, Robert?' and drew him to her, takinghim into her arms.

  Not frightened now, not wondering, not strange at all. The strangenesswas that he had been kept away from her so long, cruelly kept away, tomake him like this, whitened, worn, old. All at once strength and calmand self-command came back to Helen. Except for his looks, the harm someone had done to him, this interval crumpled away like a burnt paper, anddisappeared, and was as if it had never been. She put her arms roundhim, drew him to her with an indignant love and tenderness. 'My poorRobert! my poor Robert! how you have wanted me,' she said, with thetears in her eyes.

  'Ah! wanted you!' he cried; and he too gave in to this impulse ofnature. He was not an impassioned man claiming his own, but a weary onecome back to his natural rest. He put his white head down upon hers,and in the relief and sudden ease and consolation, wept like a child. Itwas more than joy; terrible fears had come to him at the last, terrorsthat his appeal might be unwelcome--that his recollection might havedied out of her heart. He knew that she was in the sight of the worldfaithful to him; but whether her heart was true, whether the surprisewould be a joy, he did not know.

  Let us leave them to tell their mutual story. The reader knows one sideof it. The other had come about thus. It took a long time to tell it soas to satisfy Helen; but it may be put here into fewer words.

  On the night when Robert, as he said, died, he had been picked up by atug steamboat, which was on its way down stream to take a vessel goingto America down to the sea. He had been all but dead, and with theaddition of the care, distress, and anxiety through which he had passedbefore, partial drowning was no joke to him. How it was that he managedto get transferred from the little steamer into the ship, he had neververy clearly discovered. Whether he had passionately entreated to betaken on board, or whether he had dashed himself once more into theriver and been rescued this time by the sea-going vessel, he could nottell. But, anyhow, he had been taken on board the American; and there,amid all the discomforts of a merchant ship, where there was no room forpassengers, and where his presence was most unwelcome, he had anillness, which made his slow passage across the Atlantic look like afeverish dream to him. He knew nothing about it, except as a horror andmisery which had been. When the ship arrived, he had been transferred toan hospital, where he lingered until all hope of life had gone o
ut ofhim, if indeed any ever existed. And then, all at once, andunaccountably, he had got well again, as people do over whom no anxiousnurses watch, who are of importance to no one. When he came to lifeagain he was one of the poorest of the poor, unknown, penniless, anobject of charity. In that position he could never go home, never makehimself known to those whom (he felt) he had ruined, whom he had alreadymade up his mind to leave free at the cost of his life. Forlorn,hopeless, and miserable, poor Robert had still the necessity upon him ofmaintaining the worthless life which Providence had, as it were, thrustback upon his hands. He went to the studio of a painter in NewYork--that same John Sinclair whose name had been attached to the'Dives.' He had told his story fully and truly. When a man asserts in apainter's studio that he is himself a painter, the means are at hand forthe verification of his assertion; and when Robert took the palette inhis hand, Mr Sinclair believed his story. He had begun humbly, underthis kind stranger's help; he had become a portrait-painter, a branch ofart which, in his youth, he had followed for the sake of bread andbutter, as so many do. But Robert, friendless and hopeless, driven outof everything but art, had, by a mere instinct of self-preservation, tokeep himself alive, taken to his work in a way which made it a verydifferent thing from the paint which is done for bread and butter. Avery little bread and butter sufficed him. But man does not live bybread alone; and all the better aliment, the food of his soul, he had toget somehow out of his portraits. The consequence of this was, thatgradually these portraits became things to talk of, things that peoplewent far to see, and competed to have. He cared so little for it--wasthat why the stream of fortune came to him? But when his languid soulawoke after a while to a sense of the work he was doing, Robert ceasedto care little for it. He began to care much; and as his portraits kepttheir popularity his gains increased. He became hungry for gain; he grewa miser, and over-worked himself, thinking of his wife, thinking of thechild to whom he was dead, he managed to get some news of themincidentally through his friend and former patron Sinclair; he heardwhere they were, and that they were well. At length, when he had scrapedso much money together that he thought he might venture upon somecommunication, his heart went back to the agony of his parting, and thesubject of his last sketch returned to him. Ah! was he not Dives now,stretching out vain hands, not daring to cry! He could not summoncourage enough to write, but he could paint--he could put all hisdespairing soul, which yet had a faint hope in it, into that imploringface, those beseeching hands. He worked at it night and day, throwinghis whole heart and soul into the canvas. And, with a heart trembling athis own temerity, after he sent his picture to England he himself hadcome back, but not to England--he had not courage for that; he was noteven sufficiently instructed to know whether it would be safe for him togo back--whether he might bring the law upon him with fresh bugbears andtroubles in its train--but he went to France. He had come to Brest, andhe had wandered to this the nearest point from which communication withEngland was easy. He had arrived at St Malo in May, at the very timewhen Helen saw the picture in the Exhibition, and received its messageinto her very heart. But he had not ventured to send his letter tillmonths after--not till now.

  'Helen!' he said, trembling; 'will you stay with me here? will you gowith me, back to New York? What shall we do?'

  'Robert, let us go home.'

  'Can I go home? I do not think so. I have a little money, for the childand you. I made it hardly--after I died. I should not like to give itonce again to satisfy people who suffered no more than we did.'

  'Oh, Robert,' she said. 'I have my story to tell you too.' And her storytook as long in telling as his did; for it was difficult to her toremember that he knew nothing--that he did not know what he had beenaccused of; as difficult as it was for him to understand the allusionsshe made to the lost books and the censure which had been passed uponhis name. He would stop her and say, 'What does that mean?' a dozentimes in a single sentence. And then, as the story advanced to itsclimax, impatience seized him, and a growing excitement. He got up fromhis seat beside her, and paced about the little room. Then she saw, forthe first time, that he was lame. How he had suffered! The seven yearshad not made much difference to her; her peaceful life had smoothed outthe lines which sorrow had made in her face. There was not a whitethread in her brown hair; she had almost grown younger instead of older,having upon her wherever she went a reflection of Norah's youth, whichsomehow she shared. But Robert was lame, and walked with difficulty, aconsequence of his almost suicide; he was old, thin, white-haired, withfurrows of anxiety and longing and heart-hunger in his face. All thishad been done by the man who had beguiled him into the doomed bank, whohad looked on calmly at his ruin, who had willingly countenanced thedestruction of his good name. Mrs Drummond had lived through it all, hadgot over her hot fits of rage and indignation, and at this moment hadher heart softened towards Reginald Burton, whom she had saved. She wasnot prepared for the excitement, the suppressed fury, the passionateindignation of her husband, to whom all this was new. She told him ofthe paper she had extorted from her cousin that last night, 'whichclears you entirely--' she said.

  'Clears me!' he cried, gnashing his teeth. 'My God! _clears_ me! I whohave done nothing but suffer by him. Clears _me_!'

  'I do not quite mean that, Robert. You were cleared before. No onebelieved it. But we thought Golden only was to blame. Now this paper isformal, and explains everything. It makes it all easy for you.'

  He did not stop, as if this was anything consolatory; he kept moving upand down, painfully, with his lameness. 'And that scoundrel has gotoff,' he cried between his teeth--'got off! and has the audacity toclear me.'

  Poor Helen was disconcerted. She had forgotten her own fury ofindignation when she first saw the accusation against him. She had long,long grown used to all that, and used to the reflection that nobodybelieved it whose opinion was worth anything. She had insisted uponBurton's confession and explanation, she scarcely knew why--more as apunishment to him than as a vindication of Robert. She was confusedabout it altogether, not quite knowing what she meant. And now, in thelight of his indignation, she felt almost as if she had done her husbandan injury--insulted him. She faltered, and looked at him wistfully, anddid not know what to say. She had not lost the habit of love, but shehad lost the habit of companionship; she had told her story wrongly; shedid not know how to bring him to her state of feeling, or to transportherself into his. And this too was the fault of the man who had drivenRobert to despair--the man whom she had saved.

  'He has got off,' she said humbly, 'by my means. Robert, I tried revengeonce, but I will never try it again. I could not give him up, howeverbad he had been, when he was in my power.'

  The sound of trembling in her voice went to his heart. 'My poor Helen!my sweet Helen!' he cried, coming to her. 'Do you think I blame you? Youcould not have done otherwise. For you there was but one course--but ifI had the chance now----'

  Just then there was a commotion at the door, and sounds of many voices.A great many exclamations in French, with one or two broken questions inEnglish, came to their ears. 'You has you papiers. Domm you papiers. Yousay you is Jean--Jean Smiff, et pas----'

  'Je me fie ? monsieur ici. Monsieur est-il chez lui? C'est un Anglais.Il nous expliquera tout ?a,' said another voice. It was the voice of themaire, whom Robert had made friends with in his hunger for humancompanionship. The parley at the door went on for a few minutes longer,and then there entered a band of excited Frenchmen. One, a gendarme fromSt Malo, carried an open telegram in his hand; another, in a blouse,kept his hand upon the shoulder of a burly Englishman in a light coat.The maire brought up the rear. They seemed such a crowd of people asthey entered the little, light room, that it was some moments before thethree English people thus brought face to face recognised each other.Helen with difficulty suppressed a cry. Robert stood confronting theparty with the flush of his indignation not yet subsided, with a wonderbeyond words in his eyes. As for the other, he showed no sign ofsurprise. He was driven back to his last st
ronghold, forced to use allhis strength to keep himself up and maintain his courage. His eyedilated and gave a flutter of wonder at the sight of Helen. It wasevident that he did not recognise her companion. He kept his armsfolded, as if for self-preservation, to keep within him all the warmth,all the courage possible, physically to keep up and support himself.

  The three men rushed into explanation all at once. A telegram had beenreceived at St Malo, describing an Englishman who was supposed to havegone there, and whose description, which the gendarme held out, in thetelegram, corresponded exactly with that of the prisoner. The prisoner,however, called himself Smith. Smiff--or Smitt, as his pursuerspronounced it--and produced papers which were _en r?gle_; but he couldnot explain what he was doing here; he showed no inclination to be takento the English consul. On the contrary, he had crossed to Dinard as soonas he heard that inquiries had been made about him at his hotel. Whileall this was being told the stranger stood immovable, with his armsfolded; he did not understand half of it. His French was as deficient asthe French of untravelled Englishmen usually is, and the tumult aroundhim, at the same time, confused his mind and quickened his outwardsenses. He could not make out what his chances of liberation were; buthis eyes were open to any possibility of escape. They were bloodshot andstrained those eyes; now and then that flutter of wonder, of excitement,of watchfulness, came into them, but he showed no other sign of emotion.At such a terrible crisis all secondary sensations perish; he had notime to wonder what Helen, whom he had left behind him in England,should be doing here. Rather it was natural that everybody connectedwith his fate should be here, gathering round him silently to see theend.

  Thus this encounter had but little effect upon Burton; but it would beimpossible to describe the effect it had upon the man who stood oppositeto him, whom he had not recognised. Robert Drummond had suffered as fewmen ever suffered. He had died--he had come alive again--he had livedtwo separate lives. For some years up to this day his existence had beenthat of a man deprived of all the hopes and consolations of life--a manmiserably alone, dead to every one belonging to him. Even the return tolife which he had tried to realise this morning was no more than anexperiment. He might never be able to conquer, to forget those sevenghosts which stood between him and his wife and child. He could not takeup his life again where he left it--that was impossible. And all thishad been done by the influence of the man before him, who was in hispower, whom he might if he would give over to prison and trial andpunishment. A gleam of fierce joy shot through Drummond's heart, andthen----

  They stood facing each other, with the Frenchmen grouped about them. ButBurton had not, beyond the first glance, looked at his judge. His faceconfronted him, but his eyes did not; he had escaped as yet theknowledge who it was.

  A thousand and a thousand thoughts whirled through Drummond's mind; hehad only a moment to decide in; he had the past to satisfy, and theburning, fiery indignation of the present moment, in which for the firsttime he had identified and comprehended the past. Give him up! punishhim! Should such a scoundrel get off, when innocent men had so bitterlysuffered? Let him fall, and bring down in his train all who wereconcerned--all who made a prey of the ignorant and the poor! This waveof thought possessed him with a whirl and sweep like the rushingtide--and then there came the interval of silence, the moment when thewaters fell back and all was still.

  Revenge! 'I tried revenge, once, but I will never try it again!' Who wasit that had said this close to him, so that the very air repeated andrepeated it, whispering it in his ear? He had himself been dead, and hehad come alive again. His new life, which had commenced this morning,was spotless as yet. He had to decide, decide, decide in a moment how itshould be inaugurated, by mercy or by judgment--by the sin (was it nota sin?) of helping the escape of a criminal, or by the righteous deed(where was it said that this might be a sin too?) of handing him over topunishment. How his soul was tossed upon these waves! He stood as in themidst of a great battle, which raged round him. Fierce arrows tore hisheart, coming from one side and another, he could not tell how. Give upthe accursed thing--punish the unworthy soul--be just! be just! But thenthat other, 'Neither have I condemned thee; go, and sin no more.' Andall had to be done in a minute, while those voluble explanationsinterlaced each other, and each man expounded his case. Drummond glancedat his wife for help, but she dared not look at him. She sat on the sofaagainst the light, with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Was shepraying? For so long, out of the depths of his hell, Dives, poor Dives,had not dared to pray.

  He did not know what he said when at length he spoke; it was somecommonplace, some nothing. But it attracted at once the attention of theprisoner. Burton turned round, and gazed at the man whom he thoughtdead. He did not recognise the voice, except that it was a voice heknew; he did not even recognise the face, which had grown prematurelyold, framed in its white hair, at the first glance; but there creptover him a shudder of enlightenment, a gleam of perception. His senseswere quickened by his own position. He shook where he stood as if withcold or palsy. He looked at Helen, he looked at the man by her side.Then an inarticulate cry came from him; terror of he knew not whatdeprived him, fortunately, of all power of speech. He fell back in hisfear, and his attendants thought he meant to escape. They threwthemselves between him and the door. It was then that Drummond spoke inhis haste, scarcely knowing what he said.

  'I know him,' he said in French. 'It is a long time since we have met,and he has just recognised me, you perceive. We are not friends, so youmay trust me. His papers are quite right, and it is a mistake about thetelegram. Look here; this is not his description. ”Nez ordinaire;” why,he has a long nose. ”Teint brun;” he is quite fresh-coloured, and hishair is grey. This is a great mistake. Monsieur le Maire, I know theman, and I will be responsible for him. You must let him go.'

  'I thought so,' said the maire, pleased with his own discrimination. 'Jel'ai dit. Monsieur nous expliquera tout ?a. Voil? que j'ai dit.'

  'Mais, monsieur----' began the gendarme.

  Helen sat against the light, seeing nothing, and closed her eyes, andclasped her hands in her lap. Burton, bewildered and terror-stricken,looked on without showing any emotion. Perhaps the passiveness of hisface was his best safeguard. Five minutes of expostulation andexplanation followed, and then gradually the Frenchmen edged themselvesout of the room. Fortunately Monsieur le Maire had taken this view fromthe beginning; he had been sure it was a mistake. When they were got ridof at last, the three who were left behind looked at each other in asilence which was more significant than words. Burton dropped into achair; he was not able to stand nor to speak, but kept gazing atDrummond with a pitiful wonder and terror. At last--

  'Are you Robert Drummond?' he asked hoarsely. 'Have you come back fromyour grave----'

  'I am Robert Drummond,' said the other; 'and you are--John Smith, whomust be got out of here as soon as possible. Have you money?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then I advise you to go away at once. Go up to Dinan by the river-side,or walk to St Brieuc to get the train. In the one case you are on yourway to Brest, where there are ships always sailing; by the other youcan get to Paris or wherever you please. You may wait here till theevening, if you choose; but then go.'

  'I will go to Brest,' he said humbly.

  'I would rather not know where you went; but go you must. My wife and Imet to-day for the first time for seven years; we do not wish forcompany, you may suppose.'

  Drummond's voice was very stern. He had no compassion for the man whostood thus humbled and miserable before him; not for him had he donethis. And Burton was too much stupefied, too much bewildered, to makeany direct reply. He looked at Helen with dull wonder, and asked underhis breath--'

  'Did you know?'

  'No,' she said. 'It came upon me almost as suddenly as upon you.'

  Then he pulled some papers out of his pocket.

  'These are English papers. I don't know if it is long since you haveleft. But you might like to see them.' When
he had done this, he made afew steps towards the door, where the old French bonne was waiting toshow him where to go. Then he paused, and turned round again, facingthem. 'What a man says in my position is very little to anybody,' hesaid; 'but--I want to say to you, Forgive me. I have helped to do youdreadful harm; but I--I did not mean it. I never meant it. I meant toget gain myself; but I never wished to harm you.'

  And then he disappeared, saved again, saved at his uttermostneed--surely this time finally saved--and by those whom he had injuredthe most. When he reached the clean little room where he was to stay allday, it appeared to Reginald Burton that he must be in a dream. The samefeeling had been in his mind ever since he escaped from England. All wasstrange to him; and strangest of all was the fact that he could nolonger command or regulate matters by his own will, but was the sport ofcircumstances, driven about he knew not how. His bewilderment was sogreat that he was not able to think. Saved first by a helpless woman,whose powers he would have laughed at a month ago; saved now by a ghostout of the grave!

  That night he left Dinard under cover of the darkness, and walked to StBrieuc, where he got the train for Brest. He arrived there in time toget on board of a vessel about to sail for America. And thus ReginaldBurton escaped from the immediate penal consequences of his sins. Fromthe other consequences no man ever escapes. The prison, the trial, theweary round of punishment he had eluded; but his life was over andended, and everything that was worth having in the world had abandonedhim. Love was not his to carry away with him; reputation, honour,wealth, even comfort were gone. He had to make a miserable newbeginning, to shrink into poverty, obscurity, and dependence. It wouldbe hard to say whether these were more or less easy to bear than theprison work, prison life, prison garb from which he had escaped.