Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  “I do not want you to catch cold to-morrow,” said Carlton, as he locked the door behind them when they left.

  “Tut!” said the bishop, “I am not such an old man that you need coddle me.”

  Nor did he look a day older for all these years, as they went out together into the raw red sunset. But Robert Carlton seemed almost to have caught him up: he had come back from London so haggard and hollow-eyed.

  They talked very little until the evening. Carlton had servants now, that very widow who had been the first to desert him being head and chief once more; and she signalised the occasion by serving one of the soundest meals of her career. But it was in the long low study, now a study pure and simple, and an infinitely tidier one than aforetime, that the bishop smoked his after-dinner pipe like any deacon, while Carlton also tasted his first tobacco for five years and a half. And still they were strangely silent, until the occurrence of an incident, little in itself, but great with suggestion.

  There was a tiny patter on the worn carpet, and all at once the bishop beheld a big brown mouse seated upright within a few inches of his companion’s boot. The bishop exclaimed, and the mouse fled with a scuttle and a squeak.

  “I tamed him,” Carlton explained with a slight access of colour. “The house is overrun with them, but this fellow lets none of the others in here.”

  The bishop was slow to follow up his exclamation. He certainly was a man of fewer words than formerly.

  “You ought not to have made yourself such an anchorite,” he said at last. “You might have smoked your pipe — you say that’s your first — and written to me sooner!”

  So that still rankled. Carlton was not altogether surprised.

  “My lord,” said he, “how could I? You had advised me to live anywhere else, and yet here I was!”

  “The circumstances justified you, Mr. Carlton. I could not foresee such circumstances, I assure you. I heard of them, however, at the time.”

  Carlton had never written till the five years were nearly up, when it became a necessary preliminary to the resumption of those offices from which he had been debarred; but, when he did write, he had done so to such effect that certain other preliminaries had been foregone.

  “Though you did not write,” continued the bishop, “Sir Wilton Gleed did. We had some correspondence about you, and we disagreed; that is one reason why I declined his invitation and accepted yours. I would not mention it, only you are now such excellent friends. And I understand that he himself makes no secret of his former attitude towards you.”

  “On the contrary, he has expressed the most generous regret for the line he took.”

  “He may well regret it,” said the bishop.

  But Carlton had accepted his old enemy’s aid, and would not hear ill of him, whatever he might think. “It was natural enough,” he murmured.

  “What! To prevent you from making the one reparation in your power? To have you boycotted right and left? To trump up a criminal charge? To force you, a clergyman, to remain in your own parish, labouring like a convict by the year together? To trample the cloth underfoot in the eyes of all the world?”

  “Oh,” groaned Carlton, “it was I who did that! I alone am to blame for that — I alone!”

  He leant his elbows on the chimney-piece, his face in his hands; for stand he must if he was only to hear harsh words — that night of all nights! Carlton was unprepared for such severity at this stage; and infinitely hurt; for at his worst, when he deserved no sympathy at all, the bishop had shown much more. But behind his back the blazing eyes were quenched, and the long mouth relaxed.

  “No, no,” a softer voice said; “you have done just the opposite — just the opposite. You have been hard enough upon yourself; but the world was harder on you — once.”

  There was kindness in the rasping voice, but no enthusiasm. None other had made so little of the mere physical feat of this man; and to him the tone was unmistakable.

  “I know what you mean,” said Carlton, turning round, his own eye alight. “You think the world is going to the other extreme!”

  “It generally does,” replied the bishop. “I do not mean to be unkind.”

  “You are not, my lord — unless you think I haven’t seen this for myself!”

  The bishop nodded gravely to himself.

  “You would see the danger. I am sure of that. You must want to hear the last of what you have done; superhuman and heroic in itself — I am the first to admit it — it is nevertheless the last chapter of a book which you must want to close once and for all. The last chapter recalls the first. Close the book; put it behind you; start afresh.”

  Robert Carlton stood looking down with a curious smile upon his haggard face.

  “That is exactly what I am going to do,” said he.

  “But the parish must do the same; they must help you. Let them also think no more of the past, either remote or immediate.”

  “They must think of what they will,” rejoined Carlton, queerly. “They cannot help me much longer, nor I them. I am resigning the living, my lord.”

  “Resigning it?” cried the bishop.

  “I intend to do so to-morrow night. It always has been my intention. But you are the first whom I have told.”

  “I’m glad to hear that!” the bishop exclaimed, as he scrambled to his feet another being. “You have taken my breath away! My dear fellow, let me dissuade you from any such course.”

  Carlton shook his head.

  “My work here is done.”

  “It is just beginning!”

  “No, it is done. I have given my parishioners the church I owed them, since they lost their last church through me. I set them once an example for which I shall pray to be forgiven till my life’s end; but now, please God, I have at least shown them that because a man falls it need not be utterly and for ever. He can rise; or, at any rate, he can try. God knows I have tried; and they know it; and it may help them in their own day of bitter trouble. But it was you, my lord, who first helped me, by bidding me never despair. I have tried to teach your lesson; that is all.”

  “But you have not finished,” the bishop urged, gently. “Go on teaching it — go on.”

  “No. It is no sudden thought. I undertook in the beginning, when Sir Wilton Gleed wanted to turn me out forcibly, to go of my own accord when I had built the church. He may forget it, but I do not.”

  “Then I devoutly hope he will not accept your resignation!”

  “He must. I have made my arrangements. There is need of clergy in the far corners of our empire, greater need than here. There was an Australian at the hotel I have been staying at in London, and he has shown me my field. I am going out to offer my services to the Bishop of Riverina, and I am relying upon a word from you for their acceptance. I hope to sail at the beginning of next month; my passage is already taken.”

  “I suppose you took it when you were in town?” the bishop grumbled. Carlton coloured in an instant.

  “I did — but I had long been thinking of it,” he said, hastily. “Oh, my lord, in my place you would do the same! How could I continue here to be smiled on by these poor people? It was easier when they looked the other way, when I lived in this room alone, doing everything for myself, and not a soul came near me. How can I settle down again to a prosperous life — here of all places — with my child in the parish, and his poor mother . . . That is what they all forget in the generous warmth of their reaction; but the more they forget, the more keenly I remember. Ah! do you think I ever have forgotten — for an hour — for a moment — since I left off working with my hands?”

  One of these was stretched in the direction of the churchyard; and the bishop read its touching testimony for the first time.

  “There,” whispered Carlton, in strange excitement, “there lies one . . . whose ruin and whose death are at my door. I don’t forget — I never have forgotten. I have paid, and I will pay till the end. And there shall be no other woman . . .”

  His tongue failed
him; his face was grief-stricken; the whole man was changed. So then the human being, his bishop, knew that there was another woman in his heart already; recalled the most terrible part of this man’s confession to him, years before; and presently plucked him by the sleeve. And the voice that Robert Carlton heard, as he leaned once more with his elbow on the chimney-piece, and his face between his hands, was the voice of their last interview, at the bishop’s palace, in the blank forenoon of a wet summer’s day.

  “Forgive me,” it said, “for I also have misjudged you in my turn. But now I see — but now I see, and am ashamed . . . Your life has been hard, my brother, but it has been brave! You have been through the depths, but you have also touched the heights, and I think that God must be very near you to-night. I see now that you are right to go; you are both nobler and wiser than I thought; may happiness, and peace, and love itself go with you first or last. Let us kneel together before I leave you, and humbly pray that it may still be so!”

  When the bishop retired, Robert Carlton returned to his study, and prayed by himself until a knock at the outer door brought him to his feet, much startled; for it was eleven at night.

  He was still more startled when he reached the door, for there stood a soldier straight and tall, sunburnt and jaunty; a medal with clasps and the Egyptian star upon his scarlet breast; a smile behind the trim moustache; right hand at the salute. It was only after a prolonged stare that Carlton recognised the smart young man.

  “George Mellis?” he cried. “Come in — come in!”

  “That’s me, sir,” said George, entering like a machine. “But — can it be you, Mr. Carlton?”

  And his smile vanished as the lamplight fell upon the grey hairs and the deep furrows which made the clergyman look nearly twice his years.

  “Yes, George. I have aged a little. But so have you.”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” said the young soldier with his fine eyes on the other’s face; “but I want to kill somebody, that’s all!”

  “I should have thought you’d done enough of that at the wars,” rejoined Carlton, smiling. “Come, George, it’s you I want to hear about. Of course I have heard of you. So you enlisted in the Grenadiers, and you got straight to Tel-el-Kebir; and that’s the clasp, and not the only one! And now you’re a colour-sergeant, and certain of your stripes, they tell me; you’re a great hero in the village, George; and yet I have heard them complain that you never even came back to show yourself after the war.”

  “I haven’t come back to show myself now, Mr. Carlton.”

  And the young fellow looked rather grim above his brass and scarlet.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “Nor have you, sir. But can’t you guess why I’ve come back for the first time to-night?”

  Carlton considered, and suddenly his hollow eyes lit up; but those of the grenadier had lighted first.

  “Was it — was it really to — to be here to-morrow, George?”

  “That was it, sir — and nothing else! I’d heard how you were building it up with your own — —”

  “Never mind that, George.”

  “I heard it from Tom Ivey, who found me out in barracks not long since, and gave me all the Long Stow news. That’s how I came to hear of the consecration to-morrow. He said he was coming down for it, and I said I would too if I could get leave; and I did; and we’ve come down together to-night.”

  Neither of them had dreamt of intruding at that hour; but Mellis had seen the old light in the old window, and felt he must just come up to shake hands. Yes, he would come in gladly after church to-morrow. No, he had seen no one else to speak to as yet, except Mrs. Musk; and the grenadier stood confused.

  “Where did you see her?”

  “Driving away from the Flint House.”

  “That old woman at this time of night?”

  “Musk is bad, and she was going for the doctor herself. I offered to go instead, but she had the girl with her, and there was no stopping them.”

  “Bad!” echoed Carlton. “He has been bad for weeks; he may be dying — and all alone!” He dashed from the room, but was back next moment in his wideawake. “I must go to him, George! He will hate it, but I must go. Open the door, and I’ll put out the light; if he’s dying I shall stay.”

  It was a clear keen night with a worn moon curling in the west; and the hard road rang like a drum as red-coat and black ran elbow to elbow down the village, jerking a word here and there as they went.

  “Been bad long, sir?”

  “Sciatica for years; only just taken to his bed.”

  “Sciatica shouldn’t kill.”

  “This must be something else. The man is old — and the one enemy I have left!”

  They ran on. Before the Flint House came first its meadow and then its garden wall, with the gate left open, and a rude drive twisting through trees to the side of the house. “This way,” said Carlton; and in half a minute they were at the side door. This also had been left open. Carlton lowered his voice, his hand upon the latch.

  “You wait here, like a good fellow. If he will not let me say one word — if he orders me out — then you must come up instead. If he is so ill that his wife goes herself at midnight for the doctor, then he is too ill to be left with no one in the house but a child of five!”

  Carlton’s concern was not a little for the child. Suppose he had awakened to call and call in vain — perhaps to run for succour to a corpse! The thought made Carlton shudder as he found his way through passages with which he had been permitted to become familiar after Georgie’s accident. At the head of the stairs there was Georgie’s room; the father had to pass it; and could not, without peeping in.

  For this door was ajar, and a night-light burning on the chest of drawers. Georgie was breathing gently in his cot. Carlton approached on tip-toe, and stood gazing downward with clasped hands. Boisterous and robust upon his feet, the boy looked still a baby in his sleep; his face was so round and innocent; his hands seemed such toys; and the light hair, too seldom cut, was lightest at the roots, and still curly at the ends, as it lay upon the pillow where his last movement had tossed it. It was a sweet face, even with the great eyes closed; the eyelashes looked so much longer and darker against the pure skin; they were many shades darker than the hair; and the eyebrows were assuming a very delicate definition of their own. The mouth was beautiful. That brown little hand was perfectly shaped. Carlton bent over, and kissed the warm smooth cheek with infinite tenderness; then went upon his knees, and prayed over the child, and for him, and for his future, out of the fulness of a brimming heart. He forgot that Musk’s death would make a difference to the child and to himself; for the moment he forgot that Musk was in any danger of dying, and that this was his house. He and his child were alone together once more, it might be for the last time, one never knew.

  “God keep you, my own poor boy, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil, for ever and ever, Amen.”

  He stooped once more over the cot, pushed the long hair back, running his fingers through it gently, and kissed the pure forehead again and again. And it seemed to Robert Carlton — but the night-light was very dim — that at the last his son had smiled upon him in his sleep.

  XXXII

  THE SECOND TIME

  In Musk’s room there was more light. It lay under the closed door like a yellow rod. Carlton knocked gently. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Not a sound from within. Then the chill fell on him, and he entered ready for any discovery but the one he was to make.

  Neither the quick nor the dead lay within.

  A fire was burning as well as the lamp; the very bed looked warm, but was not; the sick man must have left it some minutes at least.

  The lame man, the man who could not walk, had left his bed if not the house! Carlton caught up the lamp to go in search. And even on the landing a voice came hailing him from the region below.

  “Mr. Carlton! Mr. Carlton! Quick, sir, quick!”

 
George Mellis was still at the side door, and in the lamplight the other could not see an inch beyond.

  “Have you found him, George? He’s not in bed!”

  “Who — Musk? No, sir, no!”

  “Then what have you seen?”

  The grenadier had a wet skin, a quivering lip, a starting eye.

  “Oh, I can’t tell you, sir! I may be wrong. God grant it! But give me the lamp, and go outside and look for yourself!”

  In sheer perplexity Carlton complied; and for an instant imagined some outrageous freak of nature; for the trees of the Flint House drive, black as night a few minutes before, now stood etched against the reddest dawn that he had ever seen — at midnight in December! Then a flame shot upwards, and another, and another; and Mellis was left standing, lamp in hand, a brilliant patch of light and colour, yet less brilliant every instant in the face of that unearthly glare in the east. Swift feet were pattering down the drive; and had such a start, before the soldier found his senses, that it was only in the churchyard he caught them up.

  Long Stow church was on fire for the second time, and burning faster than it had burnt between five and six years before. The crackle of the pitch pine was loud as musketry already. The roof was already burning; its destruction had been the climax of the former fire.

  Robert Carlton stood with folded arms heaving on his chest. The bishop was there already, in his overcoat and rug, with the whiter and the sterner face. The servants had called him: they also were there, in pitiful case, but no more had arrived as yet.

  “It is no use their coming. The roof’s on fire in three or four different places. He has done his work better this time; more oil for him, with those stoves!”

  The voice was Carlton’s, because his lips moved, and those of the bishop were compressed out of sight. Otherwise Mellis, for one, would never have recognised so sad a discord of heartbreak and devil-may-care.