A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time

CHAPTER VII

Hugh Ritson walked to the bare room opposite. The handle of the door did not turn in his hand. Drayton held it at the other side, and with head bent low he crouched there and listened.

"Who is it?" he whispered, when Hugh Ritson unlocked the door and pushed at it.

"Let me in," said Hugh, sullenly.

"Does he suspect?" whispered Drayton, when the door closed again. "Did he follow me? What are you going to do for a fellow? Damme, but I'll be enough for him!"

And Drayton groped in the dark room among the dead cinders on the hearth, and picked up the poker.

"You fool!" said Hugh, in a low voice. "Put that thing down."

"Isn't he after me? D'ye think I'm going to be taken? Let him come here and see!"

Drayton tramped the room, and the floor creaked beneath his heavy tread.

"Speak lower, you poltroon!" Hugh whispered, huskily. "He knows nothing about you. He has never heard of you. Be quiet. Do you hear?"

There was a light, nervous knock at the door.

"Who's there?" said Hugh.

"It's only me, sir," said Mrs. Drayton, from without, breathing audibly, and speaking faintly amid gusts of breath.

Hugh Ritson opened the door, and the landlady entered.

"Lor's a mercy me! whatever ails the gentleman? Oh, is it yourself in the dark, Paul? I'm that fearsome, I declare I shiver and quake at nothing. And the gentleman so like you, too! I never did see nothing like it, I'm sure!"

"Hush! Stop your clatter. What does he say?" said Hugh.

"The gentleman? He says and says and says as nothing and nothing and nothing will make him leave the lady this night."

"He'll think better of that."

"And wherever can I put them? And me on'y one room, forby Paul's. And no cleaning and airing, and nothing. That's what worrits me."

"Hold your tongue! Put the lady in your son's room. Your son won't need it to-night."

"That's where I did put her."

"Very well; leave her there."

"And the gentleman, too, belike?"

"The gentleman will go back with me. Come, get away!"

"Quite right; on'y there's no airing and cleaning; and I declare I'm that fearsome – "

Hugh Ritson had taken the landlady by the shoulders and was pushing her out of the room.

"One moment," he whispered, and drew her back. "Anything doing upstairs?"

"Upstairs? – the bed – airing – "

"The girl? Has she made any noise yet? Is she conscious?"

"Not as I know of. I went up and listened, and never a sound. Deary me, deary me! I'm that fearsome – "

"Go up again, and put your ear to the door."

"I'm afeart she'll never come round, and her in that way, and weak, too, and – "

At that instant there came from the dark road the sound of carriage-wheels approaching. Hugh Ritson thrust the landlady out of the room, slammed the door to, and locked it.

"What's that?" said Drayton, in a husky whisper. "Who do they want? You've not rounded on a fellow, eh?"

"It's the carriage that is to take you and the lady to Kentish Town," said Hugh. "Hush! Listen!"

The driver rapped at the door with the end of his whip, and shouted from his seat: "Heigho, heigho – ready for Kentish Town? Eleven o'clock struck this half hour!" Then he could be heard beating his crossed arms under his armpits to warm his hands.

"The fool!" muttered Hugh, "can't he keep his tongue in his mouth?"

"Quite right," shouted Mrs. Drayton, in a shrill voice, putting her face to the window-pane. "Belike it's for the gentleman," she explained to herself, and then, with candle in hand, she began to mount the stairs.

The door of the room to the left opened, and Paul Ritson came out. His great strength seemed to be gone – he reeled like a drunken man.

"Landlady," he said, "when does your last train go up to London?"

"At half past twelve," said Mrs. Drayton, from two steps up the stairs.

"Can I get a fly, my good woman, at this hour of the night?"

"The fly's at the door, sir – just come, sir."

Paul went back into the room where he had left his wife.

The two men in the dark room opposite listened intently.

"Be quiet," whispered Hugh Ritson. "I knew he must think better of it. He is going. Keep still. Five minutes more, and you start away with the lady for Kentish Town. He shall walk to the station with me. The instant we leave the house, you go to the lady and say, 'I have changed my mind, Greta. We must go together. Come.' Not a word more; hurry her into the fly, and away."

"Easier said nor done, say I."

CHAPTER VIII

Alone with Greta, Paul kissed her fervently, and his head fell on her shoulder. The strong man was as feeble as a child now. He was prostrate. "The black lie is like poison in my veins!" he said.

"What is it?" said Greta, and she tried to soothe him.

"A lie more foul than man ever uttered before – more cruel, more monstrous."

"What is it, dearest?" said Greta again, with her piteous, imploring face close to his.

"I know it's a lie. My heart tells me it is a lie. The very stones cry out that it is a lie!"

"Tell me what it is," said Greta, and she embraced him tenderly.

But even while he was struggling with the poison of one horrible word, it was mastering him. He put his wife from him with a strong shudder, as if her proximity stung him.

Her bosom heaved. She looked appealingly into his face.

"If it is false," she said, "whatever it is, why need it trouble you?"

"That is true, my darling," he said, gulping down his fear and taking Greta in his arms, and trying to laugh lightly. "Why, indeed? Why need it trouble me?"

"Can you not tell me?" she said, with an upward look of entreaty. She was thinking of what Hugh Ritson had said of an impediment to their marriage.

"Why should I tell you what is false?"

"Then let us dismiss the thought of it," she said, soothingly.

"Why, yes, of course, let us dismiss the thought of it, darling," and he laughed a loud, hollow laugh. His forehead was damp. She wiped away the cold sweat. His temples burned. She put her cool hand on them. He was the very wreck of his former self – the ruin of a man. "Would that I could!" he muttered to himself.

"Then tell me," she said. "It is my right to know it. I am your wife now – "

He drew himself away. She clung yet closer. "Paul, there can be no secrets between you and me – nothing can be kept back."

"Heavenly Father!" he cried, uplifting a face distorted with agony.

"If you can not dismiss it, let it not stand between us," said Greta. Could it be true that there had been an impediment?

"My darling, it would do no good to tell you. When I took you to be my wife, I vowed to protect and cherish you. Shall I keep my vow if I burden you with a black lie that will drive the sunshine out of your life? Look at me – look at me!"

Greta's breast heaved heavily, but she smiled with a piteous sweetness as she laid her head on his breast, and said, "No, while I have you, no lie can do that!"

Paul made no answer. An awful burden of speech was on his tongue. In the silence they heard the sound of weeping. It was as if some poor woman were sobbing her heart out in the room above.

"Dearest, when two hearts are made one in marriage they are made one indeed," said Greta, in a soft voice. "Henceforth the thought of the one is the thought of both; the happiness of one is the happiness of both, the sorrow of one is the sorrow of both. Nothing comes between. Joy is twofold when both share it, and only grief is less for being borne by two. Death itself, cruel, relentless death itself, even death knits that union closer. And in sunshine and storm, in this world and in the next, the bond is ever the same. The tie of the purest friendship is weak compared with this tie, and even the bond of blood is less strong!"

"Oh, God of heaven, this is too much!" said Paul.

"Paul, if this union of thought and deed, of joy and grief, begins with marriage and does not end even with death, shall we now, here, at the threshold of our marriage, do it wrong?"

A great sob choked Paul's utterance. "I can not tell you," he cried; "I have sworn an oath."

"An oath! Then, surely, this present trouble was not that which Hugh Ritson has threatened?"

"Greta, if our union means anything, it means trust. Trust me, my darling. I am helpless. My tongue is sealed. I dare not speak. No, not even to you. Scarcely to God Himself!"

There was silence for a moment.

"That is enough," she said, very tenderly, and now the tears coursed down her own cheeks. "I will not ask again. I do not wish to know. You shall forget that I asked you. Come, dearest, kiss me. Think no more of this. Come, now." And she drew his head down to hers.

Paul threw himself into a chair. His prostration was abject.

"Come, dearest," said Greta, soothingly, "be a man."

"There is worse to come," he said.

"What matter," said Greta, and smiled. "I shall not fear if I have you beside me."

"I can bear it no more," said Paul. "The thing is past cure."

"No, dearest, it is not. Only death is that."

"Greta, you said death would bind us closer together, but this thing draws us apart."

"No, dearest, it does not. That it can not do."

"Could nothing part us?" said Paul, lifting his face.

"Nothing. Though the world divided us, yet we should be together."

Again the loud sobs came from overhead.

Paul rose to his feet, a shattered man no more. His abject mien fell from him like a garment. "Did I not say it was a lie?" he muttered, fiercely. "Greta, I am ashamed," he said; "your courage disgraces me. See what a pitiful coward you have taken for your husband. You have witnessed a strange weakness. But it has been for the last time. Thank God, I am now the man of yesterday!"

Her tears were rolling down her cheeks, but her eyes were very bright. "What do you wish me to do?" she whispered. "Is it not something for me to do?"

"It is, darling. You said rightly that the thought of one is the thought of both."

"What is it?"

"A terrible thing!"

"No matter. I am here to do it. What?"

"It is to part from me to-night – only for to-night – only until to-morrow."

Greta's face broke into a perfect sunshine of beauty. "Is that all?" she asked.

"My darling!" said Paul, and embraced her fervently and kissed the quivering lips, "I am leading you through dark vaults, where you can see no single step before you."

"But I am holding your hand, my husband," Greta whispered.

Speech was too weak for that great moment. Again the heart-breaking sobs fell on the silence. Then Paul drew a cloak over Greta's shoulders and buttoned up his ulster. "It is a little after midnight," he said with composure. "There is a fly at the door. We may catch the last train up to London. I have a nest for you there, my darling."

Then he went out into the bar. "Landlady," he said, "I will come back to-morrow for our luggage. Meantime, let it lie here, if it won't be in your way. We've kept you up late, old lady. Here, take this – and thank you."

"Thankee! and the boxes are quite safe, sir – thankee!"

He threw open the door to the road, and hailed the driver of the fly, cheerily. "Cold, sleety night, my good fellow. You'll have a sharp drive."

"Yes, sir; it air cold waiting, very, specially inside, sir, just for want of summat short."

"Well, come in quick and get it, my lad."

"Right, sir."

When Paul returned to the room to call Greta, he found her examining papers. She had picked them up off the table. They were the copies of certificates which Hugh Ritson had left there. Paul had forgotten them during the painful interview. He tried to recover them unread, but he was too late.

"This," she said, holding out one of them, "is not the certificate of your birth. This person, Paul Lowther, is no doubt my father's lost son."

"No doubt," said Paul, dropping his head.

"But he is thirty years of age – see! You are no more than twenty-eight."

"If I could but prove that, it would be enough," he said.

"I can prove it, and I will!" she said.

"You! How?"

"Wait until to-morrow, and see," she said.

He had put one arm about her waist, and was taking her to the door.

She stopped. "I can guess what the black lie has been," she whispered.

"Now, driver, up and away."

"Right, sir. Kentish Town Junction?"

"The station, to catch the 12:30."

The carriage door was opened and closed. Then the bitter weeping from the upper room came out to them in the night.

"Poor girl! whatever ails her? I seem to remember her voice," said Greta.

"We can't wait," Paul answered.

CHAPTER IX

The clocks of London were striking one when Paul and Greta descended the steps in front of St. Pancras Station. The night was dark and bitterly cold. Dense fog hung in the air, and an unaccustomed silence brooded over the city. A solitary four-wheeled cab stood in the open square. The driver was inside, huddled up in his great-coat, and asleep. A porter awakened him, and he made way for Greta and Paul. He took his apron from the back of his horse, wrapped it about his waist, and snuffed the wicks of his lamps – they burned low and red, and crackled in the damp atmosphere.

"What hotel, sir?"

"The convent, Westminster."

"Convent, sir? Did you say the convent, sir? St. Margaret's, Westminster, sir?"

"The Catholic convent."

Greta's hand pressed Paul's arm.

The cabman got on to his box, muttering something that was inaudible. As he passed the gate lodge he drew up while the porter on duty came out with a lamp, and took the number of the cab.

The fog grew more dense at every step, and the pace at which they traveled was slow. To avoid the maze of streets that would have helped them to a shorter cut on a clearer night, the driver struck along Euston Road to Tottenham Court Road, and thence south toward Oxford Street. This straighter and plainer course had the disadvantage of being more frequented. Many a collision became imminent in the uncertain light.

The cabman bought a torch from a passer-by, and stuck it in his whip-barrel. As they reached the busier thoroughfares he got down from his box, took the torch in one hand and the reins in the other, and walked at his horse's head.

The pace was now slower than before. It was like a toilsome passage through the workings of an iron mine. Volumes of noisome vapor rolled slowly past them. The air hung close over their heads like an unseen, vaulted roof. Red lights gleamed like vanishing stars down the elastic vista. One light would turn out to be a coffee-stall, round which a group of people gathered – cabmen muffled to the throat, women draggled and dirty, boys with faces that were old. Another would be a potato-engine, with its own volumes of white vapor, and the clank of its oven door like the metallic echo of the miner's pick. The line of regular lamps was like the line of candles stuck to the rock, the cross streets were like the cross-workings, the damp air settling down into streaks of moisture on the glass of the cab window was like the ceasless drip, drip of the oozing water from overhead.

And to the two laden souls sitting within in silence and with clasped hands, the great city, nay, the world itself, was like a colossal mine, which human earthworms had burrowed underground, while the light and the free air were both above.

At one point, where a patch of dry pavement indicated a bake-house under the street, three or four squalid creatures crouched together and slept. The streets were all but noiseless. It would be two hours yet before the giant of traffic would awake. The few cabmen hailed each other as they passed unrecognized, and their voices sounded hoarse. When the many clocks struck two, the many tones came muffled through the dense air.

The journey was long and wearisome, but Paul and Greta scarcely felt it. They were soon to part; they knew not when they were to meet again. Perhaps soon, perhaps late; perhaps not until a darkness deeper than this should cover the land.

Turning into Oxford Street, the cabman struck away to the west, in order to come upon Westminster by the main artery of Regent Street. The great thoroughfare was quiet enough now. Fashion was at rest, but even here, and in its own mocking guise, misery had its haunt. A light laugh broke the silence of the street, and a girl, so young as to be little more than a child, dressed in soiled finery, and reeling with unsteady step on the pavement, came up to the cab window and peered in.

At the open door of a hotel, from whence a shaft of light came out into the fog, the cabman drew up. "Comfortable hotel, sir; think you'd like to put up, sir?"

Paul dropped the window. "We want the Catholic convent at Westminster, my man."

The cabman had put up his torch and was flapping his arms under his armpits. "Cold job, sir. Think I've had enough of it. Ha'past two, and a mile from St. Margaret's yet, sir. Got a long step home, sir, and the missis looking out for me this hour and more."

The night porter of the hotel had opened the cab door, but not for an instant did Paul's purpose waver. "I'm sorry, my good fellow, but we must reach the convent, as I tell you."

"Won't to-morrow do, sir? Comfortable quarters, sir. Can recommend 'em," with a tip of his hand over his shoulder.

"We must get to the convent to-night, my man."

The cabman returned to his horse's head with a grunt of dissatisfaction. "Porter, can you keep a bed for me here? I shall be back in an hour," said Paul. The porter signified assent, and once again the cab moved off on its slow journey.

As it passed out of Trafalgar Square by way of Charing Cross, the air suddenly lightened. It was as if waves of white mist rolled over the yellow vapor. The cabman threw away his torch, mounted his box, and set off at a trot. When he reached Parliament Square the fog was gone. The great clock of Westminster was striking three; the sky was a dun gray behind the clocktower, and the dark mass of the abbey could be dimly seen.

The cab drew up on the south-west of Abbey Gardens and before a portico railed in by an iron gate. The lamp burning on the sidewalk in front cast a hazy light on what seemed to be a large brick house plain in every feature.

"This is Saint Margaret's, sir. Eight shillings, sir, if you please."

Paul dismissed the cabman and rang the bell; the hollow tongue sent out a startling reverberation into the night. The sky to the east was breaking; thin streaks of a lighter gray foretold the dawn.

The door opened and the iron gate swung back. A sister carrying an open oil lamp motioned them to enter.

"Can I see the superior?" said Paul.

"She is newly risen," said the sister, and she fixed the lamp to a bracket in the wall and went away. They were left in a bare, chill, echoing hall.

The next moment a line of nuns in their coifs passed close by them with quick and silent steps. At that gray hour they had risen for matins. Some of them were pale and emaciated, and one that was palest and most worn went by with drooping head and hands that inlaced her rosary. Paul stepped back a pace. The nun moved steadily onward with the rest. Never a sign of recognition, never an upward glance, only the quivering of a lip – but it was his mother!

He, too, dropped his head, and his own lips trembled. The mother superior was standing with them before he was aware. For an instant his voice was suspended, but he told her at length that a great calamity had befallen them, and begged her to take his wife for a time into her care.

"Charity is our office," said the mother, when she had heard his story. "Come, my sister, the Church is peace. Your poor laden soul may put off its load while you are here."

Paul begged to be allowed a moment to say farewell, and the good mother left them together.

Then from an inner chamber came the solemn tones of an organ and the full voices of a choir. The softened harmonies seemed to float into their torn hearts, and they wept. The gray dawn was creeping in. It blurred the red light of the lamp.

"Good-bye, darling, good-bye!" Paul whispered; but even while he spoke he clung the closer.

"Good-bye for the present, dear husband," said Greta, and smiled.

"Who would have thought that this calamity could wait for you at the very steps of God's altar?"

"A day will turn all this evil into good."

"At the threshold of our life together to be torn apart!"

"Think of it no more, dearest. Our lives will yet be the brighter for this calamity. Do you remember what Parson Christian used to say? The happiest life is not that which is always in the sunlight, but rather that over which a dark cloud has once lowered and passed away."

Paul shook his head. "My lips are sealed. You do not know all. It is a cruel lie that separates us. But what if it can not be disproved?"

Greta's eyes were full of a radiant hopefulness. "It can, and shall!"

Paul bent his head and touched her forehead with his lips. "The past is a silence that gives back no answer," he said. "My mother alone could disprove it, and she is dead to the world."

"Not alone, dearest. I can disprove it. Wait and see!"

Paul smiled coldly, and once more shook his head. "You don't know all," he said again, and kissed her reverently. "What if to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow brings no light to unravel this mystery?"

"Never fear it. The finger of Heaven is in this," said Greta.

"Say, rather, the hand of destiny. And how little we are in the presence of that pitiless power!"

"God sees all," said Greta. "He has led me in here, and He will guide me out again."

"What if I brought you for a day, and you remain for a year, for life?"

"Then think that God Himself has taken your wife at your hands."

Paul's face, that had worn a look of deep dejection, became distorted with pain. "Oh, it is horrible! And this cloister is to be your marriage-bed!"

"Hush! All is peace here. Good-bye, dearest Paul. Be brave, my husband."

"Brave? Before death a man may be brave; but in the face of a calamity like this, what man could be brave?"

"God will turn it away."

"God grant it. But I tremble to ask for the truth. The future is not more awful to me now than the past."

"Keep up heart, dear Paul. You know how pleasant it is to fall asleep amid storms that shake the trees, and to awake in the stillness and the sunshine, and amid the songs of the birds. To-morrow the falsehood will be outfaced, and you will return to fetch me."

"Yes," said Paul, "or else drag out my days as an outcast in the world."

"No, no, no. Good-bye, dearest." Then the voice of the comforter failed her, and she dropped her head on his breast.

The choir within chanted the matin service. Paul removed the iron bar that crossed the door, and opened it. The opposite side of the street was a blank wall, with gaunt boughs of leafless trees behind it and above it, and beyond all was the dim sanctuary. Traffic's deep buzz flowed in the distance. The dawn had reddened the eastern sky, and the towers of the abbey were black against the glory of the coming day.

"It may be that there is never a sunrise on this old city but it awakens some one to some new calamity," said Paul; "yet surely this is the heaviest stroke of all Good-bye, my darling!"

"Good-bye, my husband!"

"Yonder gray old fabric has looked on the scarred ruins of many a life, but never a funeral that has passed down its aisles was so sad as this parting. Good-bye, dearest wife, good-bye!"

"Good-bye, Paul!"

He struck his breast and drew his breath audibly, "I must go. The thing is not to be thought of and endured!"

"Good-bye, Paul!" Her face was buried in his breast, to hide it from his eyes.

"They say that the day a dear friend is lost to us is purer and calmer in remembrance than the day before. May it be so with us!"

"Hush! You will soon be back to take me away." And Greta nestled closer to his breast.

"If not – if not" – his hot breathing beat fast on her drooping head – "if not, then – as the world is dead to both without the other's love – remain here – in this house – forever. Good-bye! Good-bye!"

He disengaged her clinging arms. He pressed her cold brow with his quivering lips. Her fears conquered her brave heart at last. A mist was fast hiding her from him.