Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers Part 13

What is it which chokes me? O Robert, Robert!"

But Robert, usually docile and tender, was hard and obdurate. The image of Susan rose before his eyes with her head on his shoulder, and he thought to himself that it was necessary at once to make matters quite plain and stop all further trespa.s.s on his prerogative. So it is, and so it ever has been. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife. There comes a time when the father and mother find that they must withdraw; but it is the order of the world, and has to be accepted, like sickness or death.

"Father," said Robert, "I am not a boy, and you must allow me in these matters to judge for myself." As he spoke his spirit rose; the image of the head on his shoulder, defenceless against attack save for him, became clearer and clearer, and words escaped him which he never afterwards forgot, nor did his father forget. "And it is a shame--I say it is a shame to speak against her. You know nothing about her. Worldly! her children children of wrath, just because she is not of your way of thinking, and isn't--and isn't a humbug, as some of them are. From anybody else I wouldn't stand it," and Robert turned sharply away and went home.

Michael leant against a groyne to support himself, and looked over the water, seeing nothing. At first he was angry, and if his son had been there, he could have struck him; but presently his anger gave way to pity, to hatred of the girl who had thus seduced him, and to a fixed determination to save him, whatever it might cost. He pondered again and again over that verse of Paul's. He did not believe that he should be excused if he did evil that good might come. He knew that if he did evil, no matter what the result might be, the penalty to the uttermost farthing would be exacted. If Christ's purpose to save mankind could not prevent the Divine anger being poured out on perfect innocence, how much greater would not that anger have been if it had been necessary for Him to sin in order to make the world's salvation sure! Michael firmly believed, too, in the dreadful doctrine that a single lapse from the strait path is enough to d.a.m.n a man for ever; that there is no finiteness in a crime which can be counterbalanced by finite expiation, but that sin is infinite. Monstrous, we say; and yet it is difficult to find in the strictest Calvinism anything which is not an obvious dogmatic reflection of a natural fact, a mere transference to theology of what had been pressed upon the mind of the creator of the creed as an everyday law of the world. A crime is infinite in its penalties, and the account is never really balanced, as many of us know too well, the lash being laid on us day after day, even to death, for the failings of fifty years ago.

Michael, with his slow ways, remained many weeks undecided. During these weeks he said nothing more to his son, nor did his son say anything to him upon the one subject. Robert was more than ever deferent, and even more than ever affectionate, but there were no signs of any conversion on his part, and to his deference and affection his father paid no regard.

He walked in a world by himself, shut up in it, and incessantly repeated the one question, how could he save his son's soul? He pictured himself as a second Christ. If the Christ, the mighty Saviour, felt His Father's wrath on that one dreadful night, it was only fitting that he, Michael, a man who was of so much less worth, should feel it for ever to accomplish a similar end. He was a little exalted by his resolve, and spiritual pride began to show itself; so utterly impossible is it that the purest self-devotion should be, if we may use the word, chemically pure. It is very doubtful if he ever fully realised what he was doing, just as it is doubtful whether in the time of liveliest conviction there has been a perfect realisation of the world to come. Had he really appreciated the words "torment" and "infinite;" had he really put into "torment" the pangs of a cancer or a death through thirst; had he really put twenty years into "infinity," he would perhaps have recoiled. Nevertheless, the fact remains that this man by some means or other had educated himself into complete self-obliteration for the sake of his child. The present time is disposed to over-rate the intellectual virtues. No matter how unselfish a woman may be, if she cannot discuss the new music or the new metaphysical poetry, she is nothing and n.o.body cares for her. Centuries ago our standard was different, and it will have to be different again.

We shall, it is to be hoped, spend ourselves not in criticism of the record of the saints who sat by the sepulchre, but we shall love as they loved.

Michael comforted himself by a piece of sophistry. He had made up his mind to attempt a stratagem, a wicked lie, if we choose to call it so, for his son's sake, and he was prepared to suffer the penalty for it. If he had thought that in thus sinning he was sinning as an ordinary sinner, he perhaps could not have dared to commit the crime; he could not have faced the Almighty's displeasure. But he thought that, although bound by the Divine justice to mete out to him all the punishment which the sin merited, G.o.d would, nevertheless, consider him as a sinner for His glory.

One evening--the summer had not yet departed--father and son walked out to the house on the cliff.

"Robert," said Michael suddenly, and with the strength of a man who gathers himself up to do what for a long time he has been afraid to do, and is even bolder apparently than if he had known no fear, "I have spoken my mind to you as G.o.d in heaven bade me about Miss s.h.i.+pton, and this is the last word I shall say. He knows that I have prayed for you from your childhood up--that I have prayed that, above everything, he would grant that you should have one of His own for your wife, who should bring up your children in the fear of the Lord. He alone knows how I have wrestled for you day and night, ay, in the dark hours of the night; for you are my only son, and I looked that you and she whom G.o.d might choose for you should be the delight and support of my old age. But it is not to be. G.o.d has, for His own good purposes, not blessed me as He has blessed others, and the home for which I hoped I am not to have. Oh, my son, my son!" He had meant to say more, but at the moment he could not.

"Father, father!" said Robert, much moved--the anger he usually felt at his father's references to Susan s.h.i.+pton melting into pity--"why not?

why not? You don't know Susan; you condemn her just because she don't go to our meeting. She shall love you like your own child."

Another man would, perhaps, have relented, but his system was wrought into his very marrow--a part of himself in a manner incomprehensible.

The distinction between the world and the Church is now nothing to us.

We are on the best of terms with people who every Sunday are expressly a.s.signed to everlasting fire. But to Michael the distinction was what it was to Ephraim MacBriar. The Spirit descended on him--whose spirit, it is not for us to say.

"Are you sure of Miss s.h.i.+pton, Robert?"

"Sure of her, father! What do you mean?"

"Do you know what she has been in time past?"

"I don't understand you."

"Do you know why Cadman left the s.h.i.+ptons?"

Robert stopped suddenly as if struck by a blow, and then his behaviour instantly changed. He completely forgot himself and was furious.

"Father, I say it is a wicked, cruel shame--a wicked, cruel lie. I do not care if I tell you so. I will not listen to it," and he tore himself away.

He believed it was a lie--believed it with the same distinctness as he believed in the existence of the hedge by his side which lacerated his hand as he turned round; and yet the lie struck him like a poisoned barbed arrow, and he could not drag himself loose from it. No man could have loved Desdemona better than Oth.e.l.lo, and yet, before there was any evidence, did he not say of Iago--

"This honest creature doubtless Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds."

He went home, and on his way to his room upstairs he pa.s.sed through the little office in which he and his father made out their bills and kept their accounts. On the desk lay half a sheet of a letter. He looked at it at first mechanically, and then began to read with the most intense interest. It was only half a sheet, and the other half was nowhere to be found. It ran as follows:--

"and I can a.s.sure you I cannot afford to marry. Besides, I don't know that she cares anything for me now. It was very wrong; but, sir, when you remember that I am a young man and that Susan was so attractive, I think I may be forgiven. I hope some day to make her amends if she still loves me, but, sir, I must wait.--Yours truly,

"WALTER CADMAN.

"MR. MICHAEL TREVANION."

This was the plot. The s.h.i.+ptons some short time ago had an a.s.sistant in their employ, who was dismissed for improper intimacy with a servant-girl named Susan Coleman, who lived next door. As was the case with most servant-girls in those days, n.o.body ever heard her surname, and she was known by the name of Susan only. The affair was kept a profound secret, for she was a member of the congregation to which Michael belonged; and Mr. s.h.i.+pton, for trade reasons, was anxious that it should not be made public. Michael, as one of the deacons, knew all about it, but Robert knew nothing. The girl left her place before the consequences of her crime became public; and Michael had written to the man Cadman, telling him he ought to support the child of which he was the father. When he received the answer, a sudden thought struck him. The last page might be used for a purpose, and so he hatched his monstrous scheme, and left the paper where he knew that, sooner or later, Robert would see it.

When Michael came home, Robert was not there; a bill-head lay near Cadman's note with the brief announcement--

"I have left for ever.--Your affectionate son,

"ROBERT."

Michael's first emotion, strange to say, was something like joy. He had succeeded, and Robert was removed from the wiles of the tempter. But when the morning came, he looked again, and he saw the words "for ever,"

and he realised that his son had gone; that he would never see him any more; that perhaps he might have committed self-murder. His human nature got the better of every other nature in him, divine or diabolic, and he was distracted. He could not pray after his wont; he tried, but he had no utterance; he felt himself rebellious, blasphemous, impious, and he rose from his bedside without a word. He went out into the street and down to the sh.o.r.e, trembling lest he should hear from the first man he saw that his son's body had been thrown up on the sand; and then he remembered how Robert could swim, and that he would probably hang a stone round his neck and be at the bottom of some deep pool. He could not go back; people would ask where his son was, and what could he say? He had murdered him. He had thought to save him, and he was dead. He walked and walked till he could walk no more, and a great horror came on him--a horror of great darkness. The Eternal Arms were unclasped, and he felt himself sinking--into what he knew not. He could not describe his terror to himself. It was nameless, shapeless, awful, infinite; and all he could do was to cry out in agony; the words of the Book, even in this his most desperate moment, serving to voice the experience for him--"My G.o.d!

my G.o.d! why hast Thou forsaken me?" It became intolerable, and his brain began to turn. He reflected though, even then, upon the disgrace of suicide. For himself he did not care; for had not G.o.d abandoned him? and what worse thing could befall him? But then his good name, and the brand of infamy which would be affixed to Robert should he still live! Could he not die so that it might be set down as an accident? He could swim; and although he had not been often in the water of late years, it would not be thought extraordinary if on a blazing morning he should bathe. He took off his clothes, and in a moment was in the sea, striking out for the river channel and the ebbing tide, which he knew would bear him away to the ocean. He saw nothing, heard nothing, till just as he neared the buoy and the fatal eddy was before him, when there escaped from him a cry--a scream--a prayer of commitment to Him whom he believed he had so loyally served--served with such d.a.m.nable, such treasonable fidelity--the G.o.d who had now turned away from him.

But the buoy was not reached. A hand was on him, firm but soft, grasping him by the hair at the back of his neck, which he wore long in Puritanic fas.h.i.+on, and the hand held him and he knew no more. Susan s.h.i.+pton, bathing that morning, had seen a human being in the water nearing the point where she herself so nearly lost her life. Without a moment's hesitation she made after him, and was fortunate enough to attract the attention of two men in a punt, who followed her. She came up just in time, and with their help Michael was saved. He was senseless, but after a few hours he recovered, and asked his wife, who was standing by his bedside, who rescued him.

"Why, it was Susan s.h.i.+pton. She was in the water and came after you, and then, luckily, there was a boat near at hand."

Susan was on the other side of the bed, and he did not see her. She bent over him and kissed him.

He turned round, and thoughts rushed through his brain with a rapidity sufficient to make one short moment a thousand years; but he said nothing, and presently, almost for the first time in his life, he broke down into sobbing. He turned away from her and could not look at her.

"You see, Mr. Trevanion," she said smilingly, "just about that very place I was nearly drowned myself--I don't know whether you ever heard of it--and I hardly ever keep my eyes off it now when I am anywhere near it, although I am not afraid of going pretty near after what Robert told me.

When you want a wash again.--I knew you could swim well, by the way, but I didn't know you ever went into the water now--you must give the buoy a wider berth." She stooped down and whispered to him--"I never told a soul before, but it was Robert who saved me. We are quits now. Robert saved me, and I have done something to save you, though not so much as Robert, because he had no boat." Then she kissed his forehead again, delighted at the thought that she could put something into the balance against her lover's heroism. How proud he would be of her! She would be able, moreover, to stand up a little bit against him. It was very pleasant to her to think she owed so much to him, but she liked also to think that she had something of her own.

Michael caught hold of her round the neck, embracing her with a pa.s.sionate fervour which she supposed to be grat.i.tude, but it was not altogether that.

"Do you know where Robert has gone?" she said. "He was not at home last night."

"He has gone on--on--some business. I must go too."

"You cannot go just yet; not till you have got over the shock."

"I can--I can. Leave me, and I will dress myself. It is important business, and I must see him. But, Susan, here--I want you."

It was the first time he had ever called her Susan. She came back to him. "Listen!" he cried. She bent her head down, but he was silent. At last, with his arms again around her, he said, "My child, my child, my child!"

"Me!" she answered innocently. "Do you mean me? do you really? I couldn't think what you wanted to say, but that's enough. My dearest, dearest father! Oh, how happy Robert will be! and so am I. We thought you didn't care for me; and I know I am a poor, foolish girl, not half good enough for Robert; but I _do_ love him, and I never loved anybody else; and I _do_ love you."

When she had left, Michael rose from his bed. His faith remained unchanged, but it presented itself to him in a different shape. A new and hitherto unnoticed article in his creed forced itself before him.

G.o.d's hand--for it _was_ G.o.d's hand--had plucked him out of the sea and brought him back to life. What did that mean? Ah! what was he?--a worm of the earth! How dare he lift himself up against the Almighty's designs? The Almighty asked him the question eternally repeated to us, which He had asked thousands of years ago, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. . . .

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings forward to the south?" "The hawk flies not by my wisdom," murmured Michael to himself, "nor doth the eagle at my command make her nest on high. Ah, it is by His wisdom and at His command; how should I dare to interfere? I see it--I see it all now. 'I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.'" After his fas.h.i.+on and through his religion he had said to himself the last word which can be uttered by man. He knelt down and prayed, and although he was much given to extempore prayer, he did not, in this his most intense moment, go beyond the prayer of our Lord, which, moreover, expressed what he wanted better than any words of his own. "_Thy will_," he repeated, "_Thy_ will." His one thought now was his son, but he knew not where to find him. He went out and he saw his man, David Trevenna.

"He was off in a hurry; only just caught the coach," said David.

"Who? What coach?"