The Prophet's Mantle

Without a word he obeyed her, and launched into the famous battle song of Liberty. His singing of the other song had been a whisper, but in this he gave his voice full play, and sang it with a fire, a fervour, a splendid earnestness and enthusiasm, that made the air vibrate, and thrilled Clare through and through with an utterly new emotion.

She understood now how this song had been able to stir men to such deeds as she had read of—had nerved ragged, half-starved, untrained battalions to scatter like chaff the veteran armies of Europe. She understood it all as she listened to the mingled pathos, defiance, confidence of victory, vengeance and passionate patriotism, which Rouget de Lisle alone of all men has been able to concentrate and to embody in one immortal song, in every note of which breathes the very soul of Liberty.

As the last note was struck and Litvinoff turned round from the piano, he almost smiled at the contrasts in the picture before him—a girl leaning forward, her face lighted up with sympathetic fire, and her eyes glowing with sympathetic enthusiasm, and an old gentleman standing on the hearthrug, very red in the face, very wide awake, and unutterably astonished. The girl was certainly very lovely, and if the exile thought so, as he glanced somewhat deprecatingly at the old gentleman, who shall blame him?

'How splendid!' said Clare.

'Very fine, very fine,' said her father; 'but—er—for the moment I didn't know where I was.'

This reduced the situation to the absurd—and they all laughed.

'I hope I haven't brought down the suspicions of the waiters upon you, Mr Stanley, by my boisterous singing; but it's almost impossible to sing that song as one would sing a ballad. I evidently have alarmed someone,' he added, as a tap at the door punctuated his remark.

But the waiter, whatever his feelings may have been, gave them no expression. He merely announced—

'Mr Roland Ferrier,' and disappeared.

'I'm very glad to see you, my dear boy,' said Mr Stanley, as Roland came forward; 'though it's about the last thing I expected. Mr Litvinoff—Mr Ferrier.'

Both bowed. Roland did not look particularly delighted.

'We've come to London on business,' said he.

'We? Then where is your brother?' questioned Clare.

'Well,' said Roland, 'it is rather absurd, but I can't tell you where he is; he's lost, stolen, or strayed. We came up together, dined together, and started to come here together. We were walking through a not particularly choice neighbourhood between here and St Pancras, when I suddenly missed him. I waited and looked about for something like a quarter of an hour, but as it wasn't the sort of street where men are garrotted, and as he's about able to take care of himself, I thought I'd better come on. I expect he'll be here presently.'

But the evening wore on, and no Richard Ferrier appeared. Clare felt a little annoyed—and Roland more than a little surprised. Perhaps, in spite of his sang froid, he was a trifle anxious when at eleven o'clock Litvinoff and he rose to go, and still his brother had not come.

CHAPTER V.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

AS a rule, it was not an easy matter to turn Richard Ferrier from any purpose of his, and when his purpose was that of visiting Miss Stanley and at the same time of putting a stop to any chance of a tête-à-tête between his divinity and his brother, no ordinary red herring would have drawn him off the track.

As he walked through the streets with Roland all his thoughts were with the girl he was going to see—all his longing was to hasten as much as might be the moment of their meeting. In his mind just then she was the only woman in the world; and yet it was a woman's face in the crowd that made him start so suddenly—a woman's figure that he turned to follow with so immediate a decision as to give his brother no time to notice his going until he had gone.

The street was one of those long, straight, melancholy streets, the deadly monotony and general seediness of which no amount of traffic can relieve—which bear the same relation to Regent Street and Oxford Street as the seamy side of a stage court suit does to the glitter and gaudiness that charm the pit, and stir the æsthetic emotions of the gallery. There are always plenty of people moving about in these streets whom one never sees anywhere else—and you may pass up and down them a dozen times a day without meeting anyone whose dress does not bear tokens, more or less pronounced, of a hand-to-hand struggle with hard-upness. It is a peculiarity of this struggle that in it those who struggle hardest appear to get least, or at any rate those who get least have to struggle hardest. This Society recognises with unconscious candour—and when it sees a man or woman shabbily dressed and with dirty hands, it at once decides that he or she must belong to the 'working' classes; thus naïvely accepting the fact that those whose work produces the wealth are not usually those who secure it.

The face which had attracted Dick's notice was as careworn as any other in that crowd—the figure as shabbily clad as the majority. But the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment—an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt.

Yet it was a young woman he was following—more than that, a pretty young women; and the very evident fact that this handsome, well-dressed young man was openly following this shabby girl with a parcel inspired some of the loafers whom they passed to the utterance of comments, the simple directness of which would perhaps not have pleased the young man had he heard them. He heard nothing. He was too intent on keeping her in sight. Presently she passed into a quieter street, and Dick at once ranged alongside of her, and, raising his hat said, 'Why, Alice, have you forgotten old friends already?'

The girl turned a very white face towards him.

'Oh, Mr Richard! I never thought I should see you again, of all people.'

'Why, everybody is sure to meet everyone else sooner or later. How far are you going? Let me carry your parcel.'

'Oh, no, it's not heavy,' she said; but she let him take the brown-paper burden all the same.

'Not heavy!' he returned. 'It's too heavy for you.'

'I'm used to it,' she answered, with a little sigh.

'So much the worse. I'm awfully glad I've met you, my dear girl. Why did you leave us like that? What have you been doing with yourself?'

'Oh, Mr Richard, what does it matter now? And don't stand there holding that parcel, but say good-bye, and let me go home.'

'And where is home?'

'Not a long way off.'

'Well, I'll walk with you. Come along.'

They walked side by side silently for some yards. Then he said,—

'Alice, I want you to tell me truly how it was you left home.'

A burning blush swept over her face, from forehead to throat, and that was the only answer she gave him.

'Come, tell me,' he persisted.

'Can't you guess?' she asked in a low voice, looking straight before her.

'Perhaps I can.'

'Perhaps? Of course you can. Why do girls ever leave good homes, and come to such a home as mine is now?'

'Then he has left you?'

'No,' she said, hurriedly; 'no, no, I've left him. But I can't talk about it to you.'

'Why not to me, if you can to anyone?' he asked.

'Because—because— Don't ask me anything else;' and she burst into tears.

'There, there,' he said, 'don't cry, for heaven's sake. I didn't mean to worry you; but you will tell me all about it by-and-by, won't you? What are you doing now?'

'Working.'

'What sort of work? Come, don't cry, Alice. I hate to think I have been adding to your distress.'

She dried her eyes obediently, and answered:

'I do tailoring work. It seems to be the only thing I'm good for.'

'That's paid very badly, isn't it?' he asked, some vague reminiscences of "Alton Locke" prompting the question.

'Oh, I manage to get along pretty well,' she replied, with an effort at a smile, which was more pathetic in Dick's eyes than her tears had been. He thought gloomily of the time, not so very long ago either, when her face had been the brightest as well as the fairest in Thornsett village, and his heart was sore with indignant protest against him who had so changed her face, her life, her surroundings. He looked at her tired thin face, still so pretty, in spite of the grief that had aged and the want that had pinched it, and found it hard to believe that this was indeed the Alice with whom he had raced through the pastures at Firth Vale—the Alice who had taken the place in his boyish heart of a very dear little sister. Ah, if she had only been his sister really, then their friendship would not have grown less and less during his school and college days, and his protection would have saved her, perhaps, from this. These foster-relationships are uncomfortable things. They inflict the sufferings of a real blood tie, and give none of the rights which might mitigate or avert such suffering.

'How's mother and father?' she said, breaking in among his sad thoughts.

'They were well when I saw them, but I've not seen them lately. We've been in great trouble.'

'Yes. I saw in the papers. I was so sorry.'

'Then you read the papers?'

'I always try to see a weekly paper,' she said a little confusedly. 'Then you don't know how they are at home?'

'I only know they're grieving after you still.'

'They know I'm not dead. I let them know that, and I should think that's all they care to know.'

'You know better than that. My dear child, why not go home to them? I believe the misery you have cost them—forgive me for saying it—will shorten their lives unless you do go back.'

'Go back? No! I've sowed and I must reap. I must go through with it. I live just down here. Good-night.'

It did not look a very inviting residence—a narrow street, leading into a court which was too dark and too distant to be seen into from the corner where she had stopped.

'I sha'n't say good-night till you say when I shall see you again.'

'What's the use? It only makes me more miserable to see you, though I can't help being glad I have seen you this once.'

'But I must try to do something for you. I think I've some sort of right to help you, Alice.'

'But I've no right to be helped by you. Besides, I really don't need help. I have all I want. I'd much better not see you again.'

'Well, I mean to see you again, anyway. I shall be in London for some time. When shall I see you?'

'Not at all.'

'Nonsense!' he said, authoritatively. 'You must promise to write, at any rate, or I shall come down here and wait from eight to eleven every evening till I see you.'

'Very well. I'll write, then. Good-bye!'

'But how can you write? You don't know my address. Here's my card;' and he scribbled the address in pencil. 'It's a promise, Alice. You'll write and you'll see me again?'

'Yes, yes; good-bye;' and she turned to leave him.

'Why, you're forgetting your parcel.'

'So I am. Thank you!' As she took it from him, he said suddenly, watching her keenly the while,—

'Roland is in town now. Shall I bring him to see you?'

'No, no; for God's sake, don't tell him you've seen me!'

And she left him so quickly as to give no time for another word. As she sped down the street a loitering policeman turned to look sharply at her, and two tidy-looking women who were standing at the opposite corner exchanged significant glances.

'I never thought she was one of that sort!' said one.

'Ah!' said the other, 'bad times drives some that way as 'ud keep straight enough with fair-paid work.'

CHAPTER VI.

BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS

DICK did not feel inclined to go to Morley's after this rencontre, so he turned back towards his hotel. The problem was not actually solved, certainly; but he was disposed to take all that had passed as a confirmation of his worst suspicions—so much so, that he felt he could not meet his brother just then, as if nothing had happened. He took two or three turns up and down that festive promenade, the Euston Road, thinking indignantly that his position ought to have been Roland's, and Roland's his—that he was suffering for his brother's misdeeds, while his brother was enjoying bright glances from eyes that would hardly look so kindly on him could their owner have known how Dick was spending the evening. For the first time, too, he saw, though only dimly, a few of the difficulties that would lie in his way. It would be harder than ever to keep on any sort of terms with his brother now that he could no longer respect him, and to respect a man who had brought misery into a family which he was bound by every law of honour to protect was not possible to Dick. As his rival he had almost hated Roland; as the man who had ruined Alice Hatfield he both hated and despised him, and he knew well enough that between partners in business these sort of feelings do not lead to commercial success. He did not care to follow out all the train of thought that this suggested; but the remembrance of his father's strange will was very present with him as he went to bed.

In the morning things looked different. It is a way things have.

Colours seen by candle lightWill not look the same by day.

After all, was it proved? When he came to think over what the girl had said there seemed to be nothing positively conclusive in it all. It was a strange contradiction—he had been very eager to trace the matter out—to prove to himself that Roland was utterly unworthy to win Clare Stanley; and yet now he felt that he would give a good deal to believe that Roland had not done this thing. And this was not only because of the grave pecuniary dilemma in which he must involve himself by any quarrel with Roland. Perhaps it was partly because blood is, after all, thicker than water.

It did not seem to Dick that his knowledge was much increased by his conversation with Alice. The blackest point was still that mysterious holiday trip, taken at such an unusual time, and about which his brother had been so strangely reticent. And that might be accounted for in plenty of other ways. Alice's disappearance at that particular time was very likely only a rather queer coincidence.

Dick had thought all this, and more, before he had finished dressing, and he was ready to meet his brother at breakfast with a manner a shade more cordial than usual—the reaction perhaps from his recent suspicions. Roland was in particularly high spirits.

'Wherever did you get to last night?' he asked. 'I was quite uneasy till I heard you were safe in your bed.'

'What time did you get home?'

It seemed that Roland's uneasiness had been shown by his not turning in till about two.

'Good heavens!—you didn't stay there till that time?' asked Dick, with an air of outraged propriety that would have amused him very much in anyone else. 'How old Stanley must have cursed you!'

'Oh, no; we left there at eleven.'

'We? You didn't take Miss Stanley for a walk on the Embankment, I presume?'

'No such luck. Didn't I tell you? I met an awfully jolly fellow there—a Russian beggar—a real Nihilist and a count, and we went and had a smoke together.'

'My dear fellow, all exiled Russians are Nihilists, and most of them are counts.'

'Oh, no; he really is. I only found out he was a count quite by chance.'

'What's made old Stanley take up with him? Not community of political sentiments, I guess?'

'Oh, no; he saved the old boy from being smashed by some runaway horses, and of course he's earned his everlasting gratitude. I didn't like him much at first, but when you come to talk to him you find he's got a lot in him. I'm sure you'll like him when you see him.'

'Am I sure to have that honour?' asked Dick, helping himself to another kidney. 'Is he tame cat about the Stanleys already.'

'Why, he'd never been there before; what a fellow you are! I've asked him to come and have dinner with us to-night. I want you to see him. I'm sure you'll get on together. He seems to have met with all sorts of adventures.'

'A veritable Baron Munchausen, in fact?'

'I never met such a suspicious fellow as you are, Dick,' said Roland, a little huffily; 'you never seem to believe in any body.'

This smote Dick with some compunction, and he resolved not to dislike this soi-disant count until he had cause to do so, which cause he did not doubt that their first meeting would furnish forth abundantly. But he was wrong.

Litvinoff came, and Dick found his prejudices melting away. The count seemed a standing proof of the correctness of the parallels which have been drawn between Russian and English character. He was English in his frankness, his modesty, his off-hand way of telling his own adventures without making himself the hero of his stories. Before the evening was over Dick began to realise that Nihilists were not quite so black as they are sometimes painted, and that there are other countries besides England where progressive measures are desirable. The brothers were both interested, and tried very hard to get more particulars of Nihilist doctrines, but as they grew more curious Litvinoff became more reticent. As he rose to go he said,—

'Well, if you want to hear a more explicit statement of our wrongs, our principles, and our hopes, and you don't mind rubbing shoulders with English workmen for an hour or two—and if you're not too strict Sabbatarians, by-the-way—you might come down to a Radical club in Soho. I am going to speak there at eight on Sunday evening. I shall be very glad if you'll come; but don't come if you think it will bore you.'

'I shall like it awfully,' said Dick. 'You'll go, won't you, Roland?'

'Of course I will.'

'We might have dinner together,' said Litvinoff. 'Come down to Morley's; we'll dine at six.'

This offer was too tempting to be refused. It presented an admirable opportunity for making an afternoon call on the Stanleys, and the brothers closed with it with avidity, and their new acquaintance took his leave.

When Dick was alone he opened a letter which had been brought to him during the evening. He read:—

'15 Spray's Buildings,Porson Street, W.C.

'Dear Mr Richard,—I promised to write to you but I did not mean to see you again. But it was a great comfort to meet a face I knew, and I feel I must see you again, if it's only to ask you so many questions about them all at home. I do not seem to have said half I ought to have said the other night. If you really care to see me again, I shall be in on Monday afternoon. Go straight up the stairs until you get to the very top—it's the right-hand door. I beg you not to say you have seen me—to Mr Roland or to anyone else.—Yours respectfully,

'Alice Hatfield.'

This letter revived his doubts, but he was very glad of the chance of seeing her again, and he determined not to be deterred from pressing the question which he had at heart by any pain which it might cause her or himself. Jealousy, curiosity, regard for the girl—all these urged him to learn the truth, and besides them all a certain sense of duty. If her sorrow had come to her through his brother it surely was all the more incumbent on him to see that her material sufferings, at any rate, were speedily ended. If not....

Men almost always move from very mixed motives, and of these motives they only acknowledge one to be their spring of action. This sense of duty was the one motive which Dick now admitted to himself. At any rate he did not mean to think any more about it till Monday came, so he thrust the letter into his pocket, and let his fancy busy itself with Clare Stanley after its wonted fashion. It found plenty of occupation in the anticipation of that Sunday afternoon call.

When the call was made Mr Stanley was asleep, and though he roused himself to welcome them he soon relapsed into the condition which is peculiar to the respectable Briton on Sunday afternoons.

Miss Stanley was particularly cheerful, but as soon as she heard where they intended to spend the evening, the conversation took a turn so distinctly Russian, as to be almost a forestalment of the coming evening's entertainment. Nihilism in general and Nihilist counts in particular seemed to be the only theme on which she would converse for two minutes at a time. Roland made a vigorous effort to lead the conversation to things English, but it was a dead failure. Dick sought to elicit Miss Stanley's opinion of the reigning actress, but this, as he might have foreseen, only led to a detailed account of that adventure in which the principal part of hero had been played by a Russian, a Nihilist, or a count, and there were all the favoured subjects at once over again.

The young men felt that the visit had not been a distinct success, and when Clare woke her father up to beg him to take her to that Radical club in Soho, even his explosive refusal and anathematising of Radicals as pests of society failed to reconcile the Ferriers to their lady's new enthusiasm.

The conversation at dinner, however, was a complete change. Count Litvinoff appeared to feel no interest in life, save in the question of athletics at the English universities; but on this topic he managed to be so entertaining that his guests quite forgot, in his charm as talker, the irritation he had caused them to feel when he was merely the subject of someone else's talk. When dinner was over, and the three started to walk to Soho, they were all on the very best of terms with themselves and each other.

Would one of them have been quite so much at ease if he had known that the announcement of the coming lecture had been seen in the paper by Alice Hatfield, and that she—not being much by way of going to church—had made up her mind to be there?

CHAPTER VII.

SUNDAY EVENING IN SOHO

THE average English citizen and his wife have a certain method of spending Sunday which admits of no variation, and is as essential to their religion as any doctrine which that religion inculcates. Indeed, it is very often the only tribute which they pay to those supernatural powers who are supposed to smile upon virtue and to frown upon vice.

When church and chapel—St Waltheof's and Little Bethel—unite in teaching that ceremonial observance is at least as important as moral practice, is it to be wondered at that their congregations, feeling that it would be more than human to combine the two, choose to move along the line of least resistance? It is comparatively easy, though perhaps somewhat tiresome, especially in hot weather, to get up only a little late on Sunday mornings, instead of a good deal late, as the 'natural man' would prefer to do; to assume a more or less solemn aspect at the breakfast-table; to wear garments of unusual splendour, which do not see daylight during the week, and in assuming them to feel tremors of uneasiness lest they should be outshone by Mr Jones' wife, Mr Smith's daughter, Mr Brown's sister, or Mr Robinson's maiden aunt. It is not quite so easy, but still possible, to sit for two hours on a narrow seat, evidently made by someone who knew he would never have to sit on it, and to keep awake (in the old pews this was not imperative), while a preacher, whom one does not care for, talks, in language one does not understand, on subjects in which one takes not the slightest interest. And then, as a compensation, one has the heavy early dinner and the afternoon sleep, in itself almost a religious exercise. Perhaps one's ungodly neighbours curse the day they were born as they hear one, after tea, playing long-drawn hymn tunes on a harmonium, till the bells begin to go for evening 'worship'; then one's wife goes to put on her bonnet (which has been lying in state all day on the best bed, covered with a white handkerchief), and one goes to one's 'sitting' again with a delicious sense that the worse of it is over. All this is not so difficult, and an eternity of bliss is cheap at the price—distinctly.

But to refrain from sanding the sugar or watering the milk—especially for a 'family man,' who has 'others to think of besides himself'—to keep one's hand from this, and one's tongue from evil-speaking, lying and slandering, to keep one's body in temperance and soberness, to be true and just in all one's dealings—this would be not only difficult but absurd, nowadays.

There are a good many who try to carry out the moral teachings and let the ceremonial observances alone, and there are far more who disregard the one and the other; and for both these classes there are ways of spending Sunday evening of which the strict Sabbatarian has no conception. Among others are the entertainments provided by working men's clubs. These are not the wildest form of dissipation; but, as a rule, they have some practical bearing on this world and its affairs and, though rather solid pudding, are appreciated by the audiences, mostly working men, who have a strong and increasing taste for solids, and no small discernment in the matter of flavours.