The Spinners Part 69

"But Abel," she said.

"I have tried to establish his character and we may find, after all, I did more than we think. Providence is ever ready to water and tend the good seed that we sow. But he must be made to abandon this fatal att.i.tude to his father. It is uncomfortable and inconvenient and helps n.o.body. I shall talk to him, I hope, before I die. He is coming home in a day or two."

But Abel delayed a week, at his master's request, that he might help pull a field of mangels, and Mr. Churchouse never saw him again.

During his last days Estelle spent much time with him. He seldom mentioned any other person but himself. He wandered in a disjointed fas.h.i.+on over the past and mixed his recollections with his dreams. He remembered jests and sometimes uttered them, then laughed; but often he laughed to himself without giving any reason for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

He was thoughtful and apologetic. Indeed, when he looked up into any face, he always said, "I mourn to give you so much trouble." Latterly he confused his visitors, but kept Estelle and Sabina clear in his mind. He fancied that they had quarrelled and was always seeking to reconcile them. Every morning he appeared anxious and distressed until they stood by him together and declared that they were the best of friends. Then he became tranquil.

"That being so," he said, "I shall depart in peace."

Estelle relieved the professional nurse and would read, talk, or listen, as he wished. He spoke disjointedly one day and wove reality and imagination together.

"Much good marble is wasted on graves," he declared. "But it doesn't bring the dead to life. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body, Estelle? I hope you find it easy. That is one of the things I never was honestly able to say I had grasped. Reason will fight against the n.o.bler tyranny of faith. The old soul in a glorified body--yet the same body, you understand. We shan't all be in one pattern in heaven. We shall preserve our individuality; and yet I deprecate pa.s.sing eternity in this tabernacle. Improvements may be counted upon, I think. The art of the Divine Potter can doubtless make beautiful the humblest and the most homely vessel."

"n.o.body who loves you would have you changed," she a.s.sured him.

Then his mind wandered away and he smiled.

"I listened to a street preacher once--long, long ago when I was young--and he said that the road to everlasting destruction was lined with women and gin shops. Upon which a sailor-man, who listened to him, shouted out, 'Oh death, where is thy sting?' The meeting dissolved in a very tornado of laughter. Sailors have a great sense of humour. It can take the place of a fire on a cold day. One touch of humour makes the whole world kin. If you have a baby, teach it to laugh as well as to walk. But I think your baby will do that readily enough."

On another occasion he laughed suddenly to himself and explained his amus.e.m.e.nt to Sabina, who sat by him.

"Eunominus, the heretic, boasted that he knew the nature of G.o.d; whereupon St. Basil instantly puzzled him with twenty-one questions about the body of the ant!"

Estelle also tried to make Mr. Churchouse discuss Abel Dinnett. She told him of an interesting fact.

"I have got Ray to promise a big thing," she said. "He hesitated, but he loved me too well to deny me. Besides, feeling as I do, I couldn't take any denial. You see Nature is so much greater than all else to me, and contrasted with her, our little man-made laws, often so mean and hateful in their cowardly caution and cruel injustice, look pitiful and beneath contempt. And I don't want to come between Raymond and his eldest son. I won't--I won't do it. Abel is his first-born, and it may be cold-blooded of me--Ray said it was at first--but I insist on that. I've made him see, and I've made father see. I feel so much about it, that I wouldn't marry him if he didn't recognize Abel first and treat him as the first-born ought to be treated."

"Abel--Abel Dinnett," said the other, who had not followed her speech.

"A good-looking boy, but lawless. He wants the world to bend to him; and yet, if you'll believe me, there is a vein of fine sentiment in his nature. With tears in his eyes he once told me that he had seen a fellow pupil at school cruelly killing insects with a burning gla.s.s; and he had beaten the cruel lad and broken his gla.s.s. That is all to the good. The difficulty for him is that he was born out of wedlock. This great disability could have been surmounted in America, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, or, in fact, anywhere but in England. The law of the natural child in this country would bring a blush to the cheek of a gorilla.

But neither Church nor State will lift a finger to right the infamy."

"We are always wanting to pluck the mote out of our neighbour's eyes, and never see the beam in our own," she answered. "Women will alter that some day--and the disgusting divorce laws, too. Perhaps these are the first things they will alter, when they have the power."

"Who is going into Parliament?" he asked. "Somebody told me, but I forget. He was a friend of mine. I remember that much."

"Ray hopes to get in. I am going to help him, if I can."

"It is a great responsibility. Tell him, if he is elected, to fight for the natural child. It would well become him to do so. Let him rise to it. Our Saviour said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me.' The State, on the contrary, says, 'Suffer the little children to be done to death and put out of the way.'"

"Yes," she answered, "suffer fifty thousand little children to be lost every year, because it is kinder to let them perish, than help them to live under the wicked laws we have planned to govern them."

But his mind collapsed and when she strove to bring it back again, she could not.

Two days before he died, Estelle found him in deep distress. He begged to see her alone, and explained that he had to confess a great sin.

"I ought to tell a priest," he said, "but I dare think that you will do as well. If you absolve me, I shall know I may hope to be forgiven. I have lived a double life, Estelle. I have pretended what was not true--not merely once or twice, but systematically, deliberately, callously."

"I don't believe it, dear Mister Churchouse. You couldn't."

"I should never have believed it myself. But even the old can surprise themselves, painfully sometimes. I have lived with this perfidy for many years; but I can't die with it. There's always an inclination to confess our sins to a fellow creature. To confess them to our Maker is quite needless, because He knows them; but it's a quality of human nature to feel better after imparting its errors to another ear."

He broke off.

"What was I saying? I forget."

"That you'd done something ever so wicked and n.o.body knew it."

"Yes, yes. The books--the books I used to receive from unknown admirers by post. My child, there were no unknown admirers! n.o.body ever admired me, either secretly or openly. Why should they? I used to send the books to myself--G.o.d forgive me."

"If I'd only known, I'd have sent you hundreds of books," she said. "I did send you one or two."

"I know it--they are my most precious possessions. They served in some mysterious way to soothe my bad conscience. It would be interesting to examine and find out how they did. But my brain can't look into anything subtle now. I knew you sent the books. My good angel has recorded my thanks. You always increased my vitality, Estelle. You are keeping me alive at present. You have risen in the autumn of my life as a gracious dawn; you have been the sun of my Indian summer. You will be a good wife to Raymond. It seems only yesterday that he was a little thing in short frocks, and Henry so proud of him. Now Henry is dead, and Raymond wife-old and in Parliament. A sound Liberal, like his father before him."

"The election isn't till next year. But I hope he'll get in. They say at Bridport he has a very good chance."

The day before he died, Mr. Churchouse seemed better and talked to Estelle of another visit from her father.

"I always esteem his great good humour and fine British instinct to live and let live. That is where our secret lies. We ride Empire with such a loose rein, Estelle--the only way. You cannot dare to put a curb on proud people. A paradox that--that those who fast bind don't fast find.

The instinct of England's greatness is in your father; he is an epitome of our virtues. He has no imagination, however. Nor has England. If she had, doubtless she would not do the great deeds that beggar imagination.

That reminds me. There is one little gift that you must have from my own hand. A work of imagination--a work of art. n.o.body in the world would care about it but you. A poem, in fact. I have written one or two others, but I tore them up. I sent them to newspapers, hoping to astonish you with them; but when they were rejected I destroyed them.

This poem I did not send. n.o.body has seen it but myself. Now I give it to you, and I want you to read it aloud to me, that I may hear how it sounds."

"How clever of you! There's nothing you can't do. I know I shall love it."

He pointed to a sheaf of papers on a table.

"The top one. It is a mournful subject, yet I hope treated cheerfully. I wrote it before death was in sight; but I feel no more alarmed or concerned about death now than I did then. You may think it is too simple. But simplicity, though boring to the complex mind, is really quite worth while. The childlike spirit--there is much to be said for it. No doubt I have missed a great deal by limiting my interests; but I have gained too--in directness."

"There is a greatness about simplicity," she said.

"To be simple in my life and subtle in my thought was my ambition at one time; but I never could rise to subtlety. The native bent was against it. The poem--I do not err in calling it a poem--is called 'Afterwards'--unless you can think of a better t.i.tle. If any obvious and glaring faults strike you, tell me. No doubt there are many."

She read the two pages written in his little, careful and almost feminine hand.

"When I am dead, the storm and stress Of many-coloured consciousness Like blossom petals fall away And drops the calyx back to clay; A man, not woman, makes the bed When our night comes and we are dead.

"When I am dead, the ebb and flow Of folk where I was wont to go, Will never stay a moment's pace, Or miss along the street my face.

Yet thoughts may wake and things be said By one or two when I am dead.

"When I am dead, the sunset light Will fill the gap upon the height In summer time, but on the plain Sink down as winter comes again And none who sees the evening red Will know I loved it, who am dead.

"When I am dead, upon my mound Exotic flow'rs may first be found, And not until they've blown away Will other blossoms come to stay.

A daisy growing overhead Brings gentle pleasure to the dead.

"When I am dead, I'd love to see An amber thrush hop over me And bend his ear, as he would know What I am whispering down below.

May many a song-bird find his bread Upon my grave when I am dead.