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The Prophet's Mantle
Mrs Quaid being now completely occupied with the new arrivals, Petrovitch seized the golden opportunity, and when the room settled down again into repose, Clare found that he occupied the ottoman beside her, where Hirsch had been sitting before. Miss Quaid and young Vernon had gravitated towards the conservatory, for Cora was a great lover of flowers, and Eustace, while he liked the flowers well enough, liked her still better. Hirsch had been set going by one of Mr Quaid's broad-based questions, and Miss Stanley and Petrovitch were virtually alone. And yet, though each had wished often enough to see the other again, now that they were side by side it seemed to be not so easy to talk. It is always so difficult to chatter about trifles when one is anxious to talk seriously, and it is difficult, almost up to the point of impossibility, to plunge into reasonable conversation in a room full of inconsequent prattle. Added to this, Petrovitch felt an unaccustomed and unaccountable shyness, and to Clare it was somehow less easy to ask his advice than she had thought it would have been, and than it had been to ask Count Litvinoff's.
She was the first to speak.
'I find you have not yet converted Mrs Quaid to all your views, Mr Petrovitch,' she said. 'I fear you have not been making good use of your time.'
Petrovitch did not answer; he looked at her and smiled, but it was a smile that conveyed the idea that, even to have succeeded in converting Mrs Quaid, would not have been making the best use of his time.
'I might almost have said our views,' Clare went on, determined not to let slip the opportunity of asking his advice on the great question of her life, 'for I have been thinking a great deal of all you said last time I met you here.'
'I knew you would,' he said simply.
'And I have been reading a little too. I have borrowed some books of Count Litvinoff—one or two of his own. You know Count Litvinoff? You have read his books, of course?'
'Yes, I know them,' he said. 'The writer is happy if he has shown your eyes the truth—more happy, I fear, than you will be in seeing it.'
'Oh, I don't know that it has made me unhappy, quite. I am perplexed and bewildered; but, however that may be, I don't owe it to Count Litvinoff, but to you; and that is why I am going to ask you to help me to see my way a little more clearly. I did ask Count Litvinoff what he thought—but—at any rate, I want to know what you think I ought to do.'
'I do not know that in your position you can do much except spread the light by telling the truth to every one who will receive it.'
'But I think I can do more. Do you know, I am very rich? I have—oh, ever so much a year, and it is all my own now, to do just what I like with.'
His eyes fell on her black dress, then they met her frank gaze, and the two looked straight at each other as she went on.
'The money was made by other people's losses. I know that, and I feel that the money is not my own. The question is, how can I best use it?'
'You asked Count Litvinoff this? May I in turn ask how he answered?'
'He thought—he said—' Clare hesitated a moment—'he declined to give me advice,' she finished.
Clare started at a sudden angry light that came into the eyes of the man beside her. She felt she had been indiscreet and even guilty. For she remembered how Litvinoff had followed his refusal of counsel by telling her how that there were 'men, his friends, who, if they knew that she had asked him for this advice, and he had refused to give it, would say he had become traitor, and kill him like a rat.' Suppose Petrovitch were one of these men! Clare did not wait for him to speak, but answered the look.
'You are angry with him,' she said. 'I had no right to tell you that, but since I have given you my confidence I know you will respect it, and not let it influence your conduct towards him.'
'Your friend is safe as far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch answered, passing his hand over his long beard. 'Do not be alarmed for him. You take a deep interest in his welfare—is it not so?'
The question was asked earnestly, and not impertinently, and Clare felt no inclination to resent it. There was a short silence between them, and it was manifest to them that Mrs Quaid was holding the Philistines enthralled by her views on education. Miss Stanley answered slowly and softly,—
'You know my dear father is dead now. Our acquaintance with Count Litvinoff began with his saving my father's life at the risk of his own, and that is not the only good deed I have known him do, though that alone will make me always interested in him.'
Then she told of the part he had played in the unfortunate scene at the mill, and his conduct lost nothing in the telling. Insensibly led on by Petrovitch's well-managed prompting in monosyllables she went on to what had come after, and how she had been made the means of changing Roland Ferrier's determination to prosecute and punish the 'hands.'
'Yes,' said Petrovitch, when she had finished, 'I know right well that he is no coward and no fool; and as for his not advising you, I am not sure that he was not right. I, too, will not advise you. There is only one thing I could tell you to do, and that I will not tell you now. Wait, wait, and be patient, and study; and if after a while you still ask me for advice I will give it to you.'
'I know what you think,' she said impulsively. 'You think I'm young and foolish, and that I shall be changeable. You think I have taken up these beliefs without enough thought or understanding. If I could only tell you … how altered everything seems, what a splendid new light seems to be breaking over everything. Do you think, what you said just now, that knowing the truth could make me unhappy? Oh no. It is knowledge without action that makes me sad.'
'No, no; that is not my thought,' he answered, in a voice that seemed to have caught a thrill from her own. 'Think a little longer. Whatever action you take will not lose strength because it is well thought, well considered. If you ever ask me again, I promise you I will not hesitate a moment to answer; but I would rather the answer came from you than from me.'
'That's one of your leading principles, isn't it? Independent thought.'
'Yes. How can people ever hope to act rightly, if they will persist in delegating other people to think for them?'
'But ordinary people can't thoroughly think out all subjects. One is obliged to take a great many of one's opinions at second-hand.'
'Well, but neither can one act in all directions—and where one has to act one should think first. As for taking opinions at second-hand, that is a thing you should never dare to do. If you are not able to think for yourself, you should have no opinions. Your English Clifford has told you that if you have no time to think you have no time to believe.'
'I am sure you are right. But I am sure, too, that to think for one's self means in most circles social ostracism; and it wants very strong convictions to make one face that.'
'Social ostracism,' answered the Socialist, with unutterable contempt in the gesture which accompanied his words; 'social ostracism, and by whom imposed? Look at the people around you.' Clare glanced nervously at Mrs Quaid. 'See how small are their aims, how trivial their interests, how great their love of ease, how small their love of truth; see what narrow minds they have, what blinded eyes; see all the good that would be in them crushed out by the very conventionalities which they uphold. How can we think it of any value, the opinion of such as these? Or if their condemnation should pain us, what a little thing is such a pain compared with the lifelong consciousness of having, from the fear of it, crushed out the spark of truth in our own souls? What a little thing compared with eternal truth is even life itself! We come out of the darkness, and into that darkness must return. Is it not better, seeing the little time that is ours, to know that we at least have listened to the wail of agony that ever goes up to the deaf heavens?—that we have done what we could in our little day to help forward a better time for those who shall come after us, than to know that we have had the good opinion of "respectable people"?'
'If one could only hope that one could help it forward!' sighed Clare.
'Hope? We know it. These things will be. It is a question of the little sooner or the little later. There is no standing still. He that is not with us is against us. But we shall triumph in the end. We know that all this misery, all this sin, all this selfishness, all this stupidity even, are the direct result of the social milieu. It is this knowledge that makes us the deadly enemies of the Capitalist system, and that is why we are hated by those who profit by it.'
He spoke in a low voice, full of suppressed excitement. When he ended the girl drew a long breath. He saw the white violets on her bosom rise and fall slowly twice before he spoke again. Then he said, with a smile,—
'If I have not given you advice, I have at least given you a sermon. You see I already look upon you as one of us, or I should not have dared to outrage conventionalities by speaking in earnest in a drawing-room.'
'Oh, my dear Mr Petrovitch,' exclaimed Mrs Quaid, who pausing out of breath from her exertions in the cause of education, had caught the last dozen words, 'you are really too severe! I hope all of us, at anyrate, always speak in earnest, though of course, some of us are more earnest than others. That delightful Count Litvinoff, now—so devoted, and yet so cheerful; I'm so sorry he has not come to-night.'
'He seems to be a universal favourite,' answered Petrovitch, who had risen on his hostess's approach, and now stood with his hand on the back of Clare's chair.
'Yes, and you who know him, of course know how well he deserves all our good opinions.' She glanced almost imperceptibly at Clare. Petrovitch noted the glance, and he fancied that Clare noted it too, and that it called up a faint blush into her face. But Mrs Quaid's drawing-room was discreetly lighted, and perhaps he was mistaken.
'I should never forgive myself,' the good lady went on, 'if I missed this beautiful opportunity of performing such a delightful task—bringing two such distinguished fellow-workers together. We must fix an early evening for you both to dine here. It will be charming.'
Petrovitch bowed.
As Hirsch and Petrovitch went away together, the Austrian said,—
'So, the lady who is always charmed will charm herself with making you meet him, bon grè, mal grè.'
'I will meet him,' the other answered, 'and that shortly. But not in that house.'
'Good,' grunted Hirsch; and the two men fell to smoking silently.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ALL A MISTAKE
IT took Richard Ferrier just three months to decide what course his future life should take. He was too old for the Army or Civil Service. The Church was equally out of the question, for a reason equally potent. Need we say that his first idea had been to earn his living by literature? In these days of extended education and cheap stationery, it always is the very first idea of any one whose ordinary source of income is suddenly cut short. Richard had always felt at college that he had a decided faculty for writing; but an uninterrupted stream of returned MS., 'declined, with thanks' by all sorts and conditions of editors, convinced him in less than three months that, if writing indeed were his vocation, it was one that he must forego until he could pay for the publishing of his own works, which was not exactly the view he had in wishing to adopt it.
He had no interest in the law, and he knew well enough that he had not talent to enable him to dispense with interest. Besides, his leanings had never been that way. The medical profession inspired him with far more interest. His favourite study had always been biology. He had enough money to live on sparingly till the necessary four years should have expired, and it seemed to him better to adopt a profession than to go in for trade in any form or shape. He had had enough of trade. He made a round of visits among special chums of his own, and during the time so occupied had thought long and seriously about his future, and, of all the ideas that came to him, that of being a doctor was the one with most attractions and fewest drawbacks. So early in March he entered himself as a student at Guy's, determined to throw himself heart and soul into his new career, and to let the dead past be. No return to the conditions of that past seemed possible to him, and, though he determined to think of it as little as he could, there were some things about it that haunted him disturbingly. But he hoped, among new friends and with new ambitions, to forget successfully. A man has his life to live, and life is not over at twenty-five, even when one has lost father, fortune, and heart's desire.
One windy, wild, bright March morning he was walking up to the hospital as usual from his lodgings in Kennington. He looked as cheerful as the morning itself as he strode along with an oak stick in his hand, and under his arm two or three shiny black note-books with red edges. Opposite St Thomas's Street he paused to watch for a favourable moment in which to effect a crossing; and before he had time to plunge into the chaos of vans, omnibuses, cabs, carriages, trucks, barrows and blasphemy, the touch of a hand on his arm made him turn sharply round. It was his foster-mother, with a basket on her arm, her attire several shades shabbier than he had been used to see it, and her worn face lighted up with pleasure at meeting him.
'Eh, but Ah'm glad to see thi face, my lad,' she said earnestly, as he turned and shook her hand heartily. 'I thowt as there was na more nor two pair o' shoulders like these, and I know'd it was thee or Rowley the minute Ah seed thee.'
The familiar North-country sing-song accent sent a momentary pain through the young man's heart as he answered,—
'I'm awfully glad to see you again; but what in the name of fortune are you doing here?'
'There's na fortune in't but bad fortune, lad,' she answered; 'tha know'd well enough when thee and Rowley fell out as Thornsett wouldn't be a home for any o' us for long.'
There was no reproach in her tone. Her speech was only a plain statement of fact.
'But what made you come to London?'
'T' master thowt as there'd be a big lot o' work to be gotten here, seeing as London be such a big place. Oh, but it is big, Master Dick. Ah'm getting a bit used to it now, but when first we came here the bigness and the din of it used to get into my head like, till times Ah felt a'most daft wi' it.'
By this time he had piloted her across, and they were walking side by side towards London Bridge, whither she told him she was bound.
'I'm afraid Hatfield found himself mistaken about the work; there are no mills in London,' said Richard.
'No, or if there be we never found them; but the master's had a bit o' luck, and he's getten took on at a place they call Dartford; m'appen you've heerd on it?'
'Well, I am glad to hear that. I hope all the hands have done as well.'
'No one's gladder nor me. Ah can't say for the lump o' the hands; but him, ever since he heerd as t' mill was to stop, he's not been t' say the same man as wor so fond of you and Rowley, and as used to go to chapel regular, and was allus the best o' husbands.'
'I hope he's not unkind to you?' said the young man anxiously.
'Nay; he's steady enow, and kind enow, but he's changed like. He willn't go to chapel no more, an' he says as he don't believe as our trouble's t' visitings o' a kind Providence.'
No more did Richard, but he forbore to say so; and she went on, the pent-up anxiety and sorrow of the last few weeks finding vent at last,—
'An' he's bitter set against Rowley. I wonder by hours and hours whether there's summat atween 'em as I don't know of. Sithee, Dick, if tha'll tell me one thing it'll do no harm nor no good to no one but me, and it'll set my mind at rest. Was there owt i' what folks set down i' Thornsett? Was it Rowley as stole our Alice?'
This point-blank question caught the young man right off his guard. His face gave the answer; his lips only stammered, 'How should I know? Besides, it can do no one any good now to know that.'
'Thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' Mrs Hatfield said, with a face full of trouble. 'Make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me what tha knows. Tell me wheer shoo is.'
'If I had known you would have known too, long ago,' Richard answered.
'But tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.'
'I don't know anything,' Richard was beginning, when Mrs Hatfield clasped both her hands on his arm.
'Dick, Dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. I've allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. What has tha heard? I see i' thi face 'twas Rowley. Eh, but I never thought the boy I nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.'
The tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student.
'Come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room of the London Bridge Station, which was fortunately empty. She sat down and began to cry bitterly, while Richard stood helplessly looking at her.
'Don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to herself.
'Couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her tear-stained face. 'Tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a sinful, cruel thing as that.'
'Good God, no!' cried Dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden implication of himself in these charges; 'what could I do? I knew nothing of it till last October, and then I did the best I could.'
'And tha found out for sure. Tell me a' abaat it.'
'I'm not sure enough to tell any one anything,' he answered: 'but I was sure enough to throw away all my chances, because I felt I couldn't have anything more to do with a fellow who'd do such a beastly mean thing as that.'
He had no idea that he was not speaking the truth. He had by this time really convinced himself that he had been prompted in his quarrel by the highest moral considerations, and had taught himself to forget how other motives and influences had been at work, and how he had been forced to acknowledge this at the time.
'How did tha find it out?' Mrs Hatfield persisted: and Richard in desperation told her the whole story. It seemed to her as convincing as it had done to him.
The mother asked him innumerable questions about Alice—how had she looked, how had she spoken? It grieved him not to be able to give her pleasanter answers, but, rather to his surprise, her mind seemed to dwell less with sorrow on Alice's want and hard work, than with pleasure on the thought that her daughter had given up her lover, or, as she called it, returned to the narrow path. But why had she not returned to her mother? And that question Dick could not answer. All these questions and replies had taken some time, and the Dartford train had gone. Dick found out the time of the next train, and then came and sat down beside her, and did his best to cheer her, in which attempt his real affection for her assured him a measure of success. By the time the Dartford train was due she was calm again and reasonably cheerful. He led her to tell him of their life since they had come to London; how nearly everything had been turned into money; how the basket on her arm contained all that she had been able to keep; and how she was going down to join her husband, and to try to take root with him in a fresh soil. From her he heard for the first time of Count Litvinoff's visit to Thornsett, of the rioting of the mill hands, and, though she did not say so in so many words, he could see that she placed the two events in the relation of cause and effect. She told him, too, of Litvinoff's bravery, and of the fate of the luckless Isaac Potts; and Dick, though he couldn't help feeling interest and admiration at this recital, did not like the way in which Miss Stanley's name and Litvinoff's were coupled in Mrs Hatfield's account of the help, advice, and kindness shown to the hands before they dispersed from Thornsett. Her words suggested to him vague suspicions; but he couldn't think much just then, for it was time to take Mrs Hatfield's ticket and to see her off. This he did, and when he had seen her comfortably seated in a corner of a second-class carriage, he said good-bye to her, giving her at parting a very hearty hand-shake, and a sovereign, which he could ill afford.
'Good-bye, dear,' he said; 'you must write and tell me how you get on. Here's my address, and I hope with all my heart you will have good fortune.'
He drew back from the train as it began to move, and waved a farewell. She in turn waved her damp cotton handkerchief, and was borne out of sight.
As she disappeared Dick began to wonder what he should do with himself. The lecture he had been about to attend was hopelessly lost and there was nothing particular to be done till after lunch. Obedient to what would have been the instinct of most young men under such circumstances, his first thought was to take a ticket to Charing Cross, that being a more cheerful place for the consideration of any problem than the station where he found himself. In common with every other traveller on the South-Eastern Railway, he had long since arrived at the conclusion that London Bridge was the most unreasonably comfortless and altogether objectionable station in England—which is saying a good deal. He was just turning to go down to the booking office when—
'Great heavens, how wonderful!' he said. As he turned he found himself face to face with the girl whose mother had just left him. She was close to him, and had instinctively held out her hand, which he had clasped in greeting before he noticed that she was not alone. Her companion was evidently a gentleman. Her dress was much better than had been that of the girl for whom he had carried the brown-paper parcel five months ago. Richard noticed this with a pang of uneasiness as he said,—
'Why, Alice, I am very glad to see you; you're looking much better. Where are you off to? What are you doing?'
'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, Mr Richard; I'm just going by this train to stay at Chislehurst with some friends of this gentleman's. Mr Petrovitch, Mr Ferrier.'
The men bowed—Petrovitch with easy courtesy, and Ferrier with a frigid reserve which would only allow him to raise his hat about an eighth of an inch—and as they did so the train steamed in.
'You must not miss this train,' said Petrovitch; 'there is not another for so long a time.'
'Good-bye, Mr Richard,' she said. 'When you see father or mother, tell them I'm well and happier, and have good friends.'
Ferrier had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her how he had just seen her mother, but Petrovitch, with an air of authority, cut short their farewells by hurrying her into the train.
'Good-bye,' said Richard, rather at a loss in this unexpected and bewilderingly brief meeting; 'couldn't you write to me? I'm at Guy's—Guy's Hospital, you know.'
'Stand back, sir,' said the guard, slamming the door with one hand and putting his whistle to his lips with the other, as the train gave a lurch and began to move off.
'Bon voyage, Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, bringing a startled look and a vivid blush into Alice's face, and giving Richard the biggest surprise of his life. His blank astonishment was too evident for Petrovitch to ignore it. He looked at Richard inquiringly.
'Er—er, I beg your pardon,' stammered Ferrier, as soon as he could find words. 'You called that—a—lady Mrs Litvinoff?'
'I did, sir,' answered the other, with a rather angry flash of his deep-set eyes. 'I might have called her Countess Litvinoff, if you attach any importance to titles.'
'Good God!' said Richard, very slowly. He sat down on the wooden seat without another word.
'I wish you good-morning, sir,' said Petrovitch, making for the incline which leads off the platform.
Before he had made three paces young Ferrier had pulled himself together, and had overtaken him and laid a hand on his arm.
'Forgive me, sir—I am afraid you think me very strange and unmannerly—but I have a deeper interest in this matter than you can possibly imagine. I must beg you to allow me a few moments for explanation.'
'Certainly, sir; I shall be happy to walk your way,' answered the Russian, less stiffly.
No more was said till they got outside the station. It was not easy for Richard to know how to begin. He did not know how much this man knew of Alice, and he felt it would be unfair to tell her story, as far as he knew it, to one who seemed to know her only as a married woman. But, on the other hand, how much did he himself know of her story? He walked along beside Petrovitch for at least ten minutes before he could make up his mind how to begin. At length the other half-stopped and looked at him in a way that compelled speech of some kind.
'The reason I was so surprised when I heard you call that—lady Mrs Litvinoff, was that I have known her from a child, and did not know that she was married. I—I—also knew a Count Litvinoff in London a few months ago, and certainly did not know that he was married. The connection of the two names startled me. I must also tell you that it did more than startle me; it relieved me.'
'You are, then, very much interested in my friend?' said Petrovitch.
'Well,' said Richard, finding it desperately hard to break through his English reserve, and yet feeling that he could not in common fairness expect to get any information from one who called himself a 'friend' of Alice's without showing good reasons for asking for such information. 'Well, I am interested, very much interested, but not quite in the way that men generally are when they talk about being interested in a woman. Look here,' he said, stopping, and finding his powers of diplomacy absolutely failing him, falling back on the naked truth, 'that young woman has been the cause—the innocent cause, mind—of a complete separation between my brother and myself. I thought my brother had done her a great wrong. Can you tell me whether he did or not? His name is Roland Ferrier.'
'So far as I know Mrs Litvinoff's story,' said Petrovitch, speaking very deliberately, 'no wrong of any sort has ever been done her by any one of that name.'
'Ay, but,' said Richard, 'so far as you know; but do you know all? Do you know with whom she did go when she left her home?'
'I do.'
'It was not my brother?'
'It was not your brother.'
Richard had just said that he felt greatly relieved. If that statement was true, his looks certainly belied him.
'One question more,' he said. 'I want to know exactly how far wrong I have been. Do you know if my brother has had any communication at all with her since she left her home?—did he know where she was?'
'I believe that he has had no communication with her, and that he did not know where she was.'
'Can you tell me who this Litvinoff is, then? Is he the Count Michael Litvinoff that I know, or knew? If so, did he marry, and when did he marry her? and why did she leave him?—for she did leave some man; she told me so.'
'Ah,' said Petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question I answered because I thought you were really concerned in knowing the answer. Forgive me, these other matters I think do not concern you.'
'Well,' Richard answered, 'I knew that girl when she was a baby, and I've always been fond of her, and I should naturally be glad to hear anything about her. I am glad to see her looking so much better, and better cared for than when I met her last.'
Petrovitch bent his head silently.
They had stopped by this time just opposite the Borough Market.
'I am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, I don't know that I have any right to ask you more. I must thank you for telling me what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.'
Petrovitch bowed; young Ferrier did the same, and they parted—Petrovitch turned across the bridge, while Richard retraced his steps towards the station. He made his way to the telegraph office, and sent off this message:—'Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital, London, to Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale.—Please wire me my brother's address at once if you know it.'
Then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he felt more wretched than he had ever been before. He had always believed in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment. He had been so utterly mistaken—so wrong all round. Everything had seemed to point to his brother's guilt. Now everything seemed to have pointed to his innocence. If Richard's eyes had not been so blinded by—what? It was a moment for seeing things clearly, and Richard saw that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that had taken place in the autumn. That meeting in Spray's Buildings—of course it was the likeliest thing in the world that Roland really had seen Litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the young man ground his teeth. How completely he had been fooled! It must be the same Litvinoff—for had not Alice been present at his lecture in Soho? How had Alice met such a man? Oh, that might have happened in a thousand ways. Had Litvinoff really married her? Richard thought he had not. He remembered Litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had not. Felt sure? How could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong?
