"They don't give you much time in anything like this," he said in a whisper. "I've got the truth out of 'em – and God knows it wanted some pulling out; these people have wrong-headed ideas of mercy. It's death, Mrs. Baffall."
He spoke as though the very presence of it were in the room with them then; she glanced at him, but did not speak.
"When I heard it first I – I was afraid. Life seemed so big and strong; it was all about me – throbbing and pulsing and striving – as I came out from where they'd examined me. Men were laughing and striding along, and speaking to each other – men with years of life before them; I stood in a great city, with death hard at my elbow. In quite a little time I was to leave everything behind – I was to go out into the shadows. Oh – I can tell you I was afraid!" He laughed now at that odd recollection – laughed shamefacedly.
"But not now?" It was the first time she had spoken since he began; she spoke in a whisper.
He shook his head. "Not for myself; the fear has gone," he said. "It will only be a sort of falling asleep. If ever I grow afraid again, it will be when I think about it in the sunlight. For I love the sunlight. It isn't for myself – but oh, my God – what of the babies?"
He beat one fist softly into the palm of the other hand, and bit his lips, and looked at her wide-eyed. She felt that she had got to the very heart of the matter now; she was on surer ground. Already she looked upon the man as someone gone beyond her – someone to be spoken of with bated breath; but the children appealed to her practical mind; she probed deep down to the very source of the trouble that oppressed him. Death was a thing to be met full front; but young lives were wrapped up with the failing life of Old Paul, and he did not know what was to happen to them.
"There'll be those who'll give a care to them," she suggested, with her own mind already making up to speak to Baffall about it on the morrow.
"You see, I gathered them about me so light-heartedly," said the man, "there was no thought about the future. I think I'd got an idea that we were going to live in this place for ever – without changing – almost without growing up. Silly – wasn't it?" He laughed feebly, and shook his head at that folly that was done with. "And yet I meant it for the best. Jimmy, now, could look after himself; boys are different. But it's the – the girls."
"Oh – I know, my dear – I know!" whispered the old woman, thrusting back a lock of grey hair from her forehead, and looking perplexedly at the fire. "But you can appoint guardians – people to look after them – and to look after the money?"
"Oh, yes, I shall do all that," he said. "That's the first thing I shall set about doing; I'll leave everything square and straight; trust me for that. It seems strange I should be arranging things like this – doesn't it? I think yesterday – or even this morning, for the matter of that – I wanted to live quite a long time. Now it doesn't seem to matter so much – except – except for the children." He waved his hand indefinitely, and smiled upon her with a wan smile.
"It would have been worse for you, dear – the going would have been worse, I mean – except for the babies," she reminded him gently. "That seems to me the best of it; several of 'em to be sorry – more sorry than most. Now, when it comes to my time – "
He moved towards the door of the room, and came back again; he fingered the brim of his hat, and looked at it as he spoke. "Of course they may have made a mistake – but I don't think so. It seems – seems rather a pity – doesn't it?" And again he spoke as of someone else.
She did not reply; together they went to the outer door, and stood there for a moment looking at the stars. He seemed to indicate the stars as he leaned towards the old woman for a moment, and nodded his head towards the sky.
"It all seems very peaceful," he said whimsically. "I mean – nothing seems to be threatened; no vengeance or punishment for blunders – nothing of that at all. Even God sleeps, perhaps, on such a night as this – and mercifully forgets. Good-night!"
There was that between them that the old hand lay for a moment in the firmer grasp of the younger one before he shook it and let it go. As he reached the gate, he looked back and nodded; and she called to him, holding her candle above her head:
"Good-bye!" Then, as he disappeared, she called out feebly, in a mere whisper – "No – no – I didn't mean 'good-bye'; I meant – 'good-night.' Not 'good-bye'!"
But Paul was gone, and a puff of wind from the garden blew out her candle.
CHAPTER VII
"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY"
Old Paul went home comforted and uplifted, and filled with the thought that the first thing he must do before he slept must be to make provision for the future for his young people. Before he slept! There was that in the thought that gave solemn pause to everything, and gripped his heart for a moment – but only for a moment. The night was coming, in a special sense, to him; but it was to be only a falling asleep.
He let himself into the old house, and went quietly to his room; lit his lamp, and sat down to smoke and to think. Then he got out pens and papers, and set to his task. For the time might be short in which this was to be done.
But the pen dropped from his fingers, and he lay back in his chair, with a smile upon his face, dreaming. Not to-night should this be done; it would seem as though he feared that to-night was the last opportunity. He would wait; some other night, when he was calmer, he might take up the pen, and set out what his wishes were. This was not a night for business; if the Shadows were to claim him so soon, he would have at least this night to himself. It occurred to him, too, that he would not sleep; that was a giving of so much time to an eternity that should claim soon all the time that was his. He would sit up, and dream.
His thoughts, from touching gently on the peaceful life he had led there, and on the children who had been about him in those quiet years, went back further and touched his earlier life; touched gently the woman who had been in her grave so long, and whose child was near Paul's heart that night. Almost it seemed as though he was a mere boy again, flushed and primed with the knowledge that she loved him; with the world stretching fair before him, and the woman beckoning. Mercifully enough, all that had happened since was swept away and forgotten; he loved her, and out of the past she came to him on this night, and stood before him. He rose in the quiet room, and stretched out his arms, and called her name; and it was the glad, joyous call of the youth in love.
"Moira! – my Moira!"
The child in the room above heard dimly in her sleep, and turned, and smiled; she had heard the cry from his lips over and over again in infinite tenderness. And this, was but a beautiful dream, from which she did not desire to wake. She turned and snuggled comfortably into her pillow, and slept with that smile on her lips.
The lonely man stood there with a face transfigured; his youth was coming back to him. The warm kisses of the woman were on his lips; her soft, rounded body was pressed close in his arms; he heard the whisper that he had heard once in reality – "I love you, Paul – I love you!"
Then the dream changed; his arms fell to his sides, and he stared out into the room, seeming to shrink a little into himself. He was striving to remember now what had been said to him that day; striving almost to believe that it was not true. Above all, he was alone; and even now there might be a Presence in the house. He was not afraid; but if he might only know when It was coming. Not yet – oh, God! – not yet!
And then the prayer – the only cowardly cry that had come from him – "Lord, let it be sudden; kill me in my sleep!" – and then a seizing of the paper, and a wild beginning to write.
"To Moira, beloved of my heart now and always, I give – "
At the last, with some growing faintness upon him, and with the pen trailing off illegibly, he must have tried to get to the children. For they found him at the foot of the stairs, lying there with his hands stretched up towards the room, and with a smile upon his face, as though at the last he had striven to call to them. Patience found him like that, early in the morning, before anyone was stirring; and the old woman sat for a long time on the stairs, holding him in her arms, as she had done many and many a time when he had been a child, and whispering to him, and striving to wake him. But he was quite dead.
There is a courage born of love and devotion greater than ever sprang from passion or from hate; and such a courage was given to the woman then. When she knew that her dead was past recall, she determined that no other hand should touch him – no other eyes look upon him, until presently he should lie calm and peaceful as she would have him lie. With a love-given strength that seemed impossible for her withered limbs, she got her arms about him, and got him toilsomely up the stairs; being so gentle with him, and whispering so tenderly, that he might have been a thing alive, and only sick and faint. And so got him to his room, and laid him on his bed; and only then, for the first time, gave way. For when that was done, and the door closed upon her and her dead, she wept her withered heart out; with only his cold hand against her cheek and her tears upon it.
Afterwards, while she gathered her wits, she kept up the amazing pretence that he had not yet come home. Everyone had gone to bed on the previous night before Old Paul had let himself into the house; and the woman told herself that she must seek some advice, before the children or Anthony Ditchburn knew what had happened. She did not quite know to whom to go; for the present she turned the key in the lock, and left him there, and set about her ordinary duties. For those must be done always, she thought, whether men lived or died.
Jimmy and the two girls spoke wonderingly about Old Paul at the breakfast table; Patience silenced them querulously, as she had done any time these ten years over awkward questions. And all the time she wondered what she should do, or to whom she should go; Anthony Ditchburn was impossible, and there seemed no one else. Yet someone must be told, and that soon.
The difficulty grew with Anthony Ditchburn. The going of Paul to London had always spelt for Ditchburn tobacco; and in this case it happened that, seeing fresh tobacco near at hand, the man had smoked more than usual, and his supply was exhausted. He came piteously to Patience, after she had dismissed the children to the rectory, and held out a ragged, empty pouch.
"He should have been back before this, Patience," he whimpered. "Even if he couldn't get back, he might have sent it. My work at a standstill – and my nerves shattered; it isn't fair. It's so little I ask – "
She turned a stony face to him. "There's no tobacco for you – and I know nothing about it," she said. "Did he ever forget any one of you?"
"He was never as careful as he might have been," retorted Anthony; and was staggered when she turned upon him fiercely, and drove him from the room.
She went up more than once during the day to that room; she was a little proud of the fact that she alone knew what had happened, and that she had him there to herself. Coming down on the last occasion, she heard someone moving about quietly in the room Old Paul had used as his study; with a raging heart against Anthony Ditchburn, she went straight in, with set teeth, to face him. And faced instead, the girl Moira – looking at her with eyes before the light of which her own fell.
The girl held a paper in her hand; she held it out towards the woman. "He's been here – last night," she said, in a whisper.
"Why, dearie, whatever are you talking about?" asked Patience, fearfully. "And what brings you back now?"
"I couldn't stay; I knew that he had come back," whispered Moira, watching the woman. "I knew it this morning; in a dream I had he called to me last night. And look at this; see what he's written!"
Patience went tremblingly towards the child; but in an instant Moira had snatched back the paper, and was rapidly folding it. "No – not for you to see – not for anyone to see," she said. "It was written for me – meant only for me. Where is he?"
Patience broke down at once; spread out tremulous hands towards the child, to soothe and silence her. "Now, my dear, there's nothing for you to ask about – nothing for you to know. And even if he did come back last night – "
The girl had raced out of the room, and was half-way up the stairs before the old woman had reached the door. Patience stood there, trembling and cowering against the wall; she heard the rattling of the handle of the door above. And that roused her as nothing else could have done; she stumbled up the stairs, whispering entreaties as she went.
"For the love of God, child, don't make a noise there!" she breathed. "He lies so quiet; tread soft, my dear – tread very soft!"
So they faced each other outside the door of the locked room – the white-faced child and the woman who wept and wrung her hands. And for a long moment, nothing was said.
"He's in there; I know it," whispered Moira. "You needn't think I'm afraid; and I shan't cry out. Let me go in!"
"No – no – dearie – "
"I will! I'll beat down the door if you don't let me in!" came the tense whisper.
She had not looked on death before; and this was not what she had expected. For this was the Old Paul that she had loved, lying asleep, with a smile on his lips, and that smile for her. He was gone; but sorrow was too mean a thing, in the ordinary sense, for him now. Child though she was, she knew that at the last he had written of her; that one little phrase, "beloved of my heart – now and always," lay warm against her heart even now, and comforted her. He had gone to that last sleep thinking of her; and nothing in that sleep was terrible. It had been his creed always to teach her to be brave; he had not taught that in vain. The old woman, standing fearfully within the door watching her, understood for the first time what this child was; seemed to look for the first time upon a new being that surprised and held her silent and dried her tears. She saw the slim figure of the girl, with hands clasped at her breast, bend forward; wonderingly heard her speak.
"Old Paul – it was kind of you," whispered the child. "I knew it always – that I was beloved of your heart; but it was sweet of you to remember to tell me."
She came out quite firmly, and locked the door, and took the key; the amazed woman followed her downstairs; ventured at the foot of them to touch her on the arm. "You – you weren't afraid?" she breathed.
Moira looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Afraid? – of Old Paul?" She turned away and went into his room.
Nor did she break down when presently Mrs. Baffall came in, with raised hands and streaming eyes, to comfort her. This was no question of callousness. Old Paul had been everything to her in life, and he must, therefore, be everything to her in death, and always. Nor was it affectation; it was only what Old Paul would have wished – part of that fine, strong, smiling philosophy that had been the very fibre of the man himself. Truth to tell, the child was a little impatient of what she regarded as a mere parading of grief. Old Paul would never speak to her again, and in that only did her grief lay; but he had spoken to her at the last – to her specially; and in that was her exquisite comfort.
Others had, of course, to be told, and they took the news in varying fashion. Alice became wide-eyed and tearful; she was a very appeal in herself. For the blue eyes, half obscured in a mist of tears, and the beautiful drooping mouth, quivering and pitiful, demanded sympathy and secured it. Jimmy wore a frightened aspect; for this was something he did not understand, and something that touched him unexpectedly. Curiously enough, only Mrs. Baffall seemed to know what was in the mind of Moira.
"It's quite uncanny," she said to Baffall, with a shake of the head. "It isn't as though the man had died at all; he lives in that very house with her and for her; he's always lived like that for her. She doesn't seem to know what death means – at least, not in his case. You see, Daniel, it makes me feel younger than she is – and ignorant, in a way. When I spoke to her this morning – and I was crying at the time – she didn't seem to understand that there was anything to cry for. 'You don't know Old Paul,' she keeps on saying; and she smiles at me in that queer way I want to hug her – and yet I dare not."
Mrs. Baffall, feeling it incumbent upon her to tell her friends what had happened, searched her mind for the names of friends; and discovered that not many were left outside that business that had been left behind in London. And, therefore, it happened that she thought, with the pens and paper actually before her, of Honora Jackman, with something of gratitude for the inspiration; and wrote to her, to that obscure address in London. And so evoked a black whirlwind.
For Honora came down as the whirlwind, preceded by a tempestuous telegram. Arriving in the evening, she was welcomed sombrely by Mrs. Baffall; and thereafter sat in a dejected attitude, sipping tea and saying little. She heard in whispers from Mrs. Baffall, and in low growls from Baffall, all that had taken place; she learned that the funeral was to be on the morrow. She nodded gloomily once or twice; strove to fix her eyeglass, and failed; and listened to a whispered account of the bravery of Old Paul, and of how the end had come. Then she sat up and spoke her mind, and Mrs. Baffall, though amazed, had a sneaking feeling that Honora had got to the truth of things.
"Oh, it's a damned rough world!" said Honora, viciously. "Here was a man that ought, in the proper course of things, to have been in armour, with a face turned towards the sun – going out to do noble things, and to fight for women – and all that sort of thing. You knew him – and you'd seen him. Instead of that, he comes down here among the woods and the flowers; and he walks steadfastly – before his God, I verily believe – and any feeble little child that raises a cry out of a hideous world is snatched up by him and glorified. And then they cut him off – all in a minute – and leave all sorts of other whelps to live, and do harm, and prosper."
"It's hard on the children," said Mrs. Baffall, after a pause in which she had striven to digest Honora's vehement statement.
Miss Jackman sat up, and smote her hands together. "The children! I'd forgotten the children," she said, breathlessly. "What's going to become of them?"
Mr. Baffall coughed, and stroked the grey beard on his chin; Mrs. Baffall smiled at him, and drew herself up a little proudly.
"We're taking Alice," she said softly. "I think we took her because there's something lady-like about her, and we seem to have understood her best," she added apologetically. "Then Baffall's got the idea that something might be done for the boy in London – in a matter of business; but we haven't quite had time to think about it yet."
"I remember the boy – Jimmy, didn't they call him?" said Honora thoughtfully. "A nice boy. And wasn't there another girl – dark-haired – bit of a spitfire?"
"Moira," said Mrs. Baffall. "We don't quite know what is going to be done with Moira; no one seems to know how to begin about her. We shall know better after to-morrow."
"After to-morrow?" Honora Jackman nodded and pursed up her lips. "What are the children going to do to-morrow?" she demanded suddenly.
"Well, my dear," began Mrs. Baffall, "in a little place like this, where everybody knows everybody – I suppose they'll go to the funeral; it's what might be expected – "
Honora suddenly brought down a fist smartly on the table beside her. "No – and no again – a thousand times over!" she exclaimed, with what seemed quite unnecessary violence. "You're wrong. The man is done with – so far as the mere flesh of him is concerned; what have children to do with that? Don't I know myself what I've suffered as a child; don't I know and remember how I've been dragged into dark rooms by the hand, and shown people in coffins; can I ever forget it? It isn't fair – it isn't right. Death comes soon enough to us all; never should a child see it or brood about it. I'll see to the children to-morrow," she added, with sudden alacrity. "I'll take them away, and let them know about it only afterwards. It's a hard world, but we might let the children sometimes see the best side of it; the worst comes soon enough."
"'Ear! 'ear!" exclaimed Mr. Baffall, in a hoarse whisper.
Honora Jackman kept her word in that matter valiantly. Whether as a tribute to the man who had stirred her careless time-beaten heart as few others had done, or whether simply on an impulse of generosity, it is impossible to say; but she determined to take charge of the young people for that day. She put in an appearance at the house quite early in the morning; was greeted by Jimmy somewhat shyly, and with but small recollection of past days. Alice, for her part, lifted a face which seemed all brimming eyes and quivering mouth, as she had done to everyone about her for days past; Moira was not to be discovered. Patience, appealed to, had not seen the girl that day; she had apparently slipped out of the house before anyone was stirring.
Honora Jackman drew Patience aside; spoke to her in her usual energetic and impetuous way.
"I'm going to take them away – just for the day – I'm going to get them out of it. He'd have wished that," she added, lowering her voice, "and I feel I ought to do something – for his sake – to-day. They don't know that it's to be to-day – do they?"
"I don't think so, Miss," replied the old woman. "There's been so much to see to, one way and another, that I don't know that it's been actually spoken of. But perhaps they guess, Miss."
"And perhaps they don't," exclaimed Honora sharply. "I'll bring 'em back when it's all over. Can you manage some sandwiches? – we'll picnic somewhere."
Thus it happened that, after a fruitless search for Moira, Honora Jackman started off with Jimmy and the younger girl into the woods; and Jimmy carried a parcel. They were rather an incongruous trio in their black garments (for Honora had "dodged up" something, as she expressed it to Mrs. Baffall), but no one thought of that. Jimmy, still stunned a little by the blow that had fallen, was glad to escape from the house; Alice was always willing to do anything she was told. The woods swallowed them up, and Honora Jackman had a warm feeling about her heart that perhaps at this late hour she might be doing something that would have pleased Old Paul after all.
It is not necessary to touch in detail the events of a saddened day; the only point that needs to be dwelt upon is the coming of the man in black, and what his coming meant to everyone concerned.
The man in black appeared first in the garden of the house, what time Mr. Baffall was pulling on stiff black gloves, and looking appropriately solemn and melancholy. The man in black had opened the gate, and had stepped quietly in; he looked all about him, almost as though he were making a valuation of the property generally. He was not a nice-looking man; he had a long thin cadaverous face, and his eyes were too near together, and his step was not a firm nor manly one. Indeed, he walked with something of a mincing gait, as though he apologised to the very ground for treading upon it.
Mr. Baffall stopped in the act of pulling on a glove, and stared out of the window at the stranger. He called in a whisper to Patience, and nodded towards the man, and looked inquiringly at the old woman. She shook her head.
"Don't know, I'm sure," she whispered. Then, in lingering tones of half remembrance, she added slowly: "And yet I seem to know the face – seem to remember – "
The man in black made no attempt to come into the house; he waited until the melancholy little procession was formed, and then fell in behind Mr. Baffall. Mrs. Baffall had gone to the churchyard, and Patience went by the way across the fields, and met her there. So that it came about that Mr. Baffall and the man in black were the only people who followed. Someone had knocked softly at the door of Anthony Ditchburn's room; but he had cried out in a frightened, whimpering voice that he was not well, and that they were to go away. Mr. Baffall did not care to say anything, or to question the man in black; he had known so little of Paul himself that he thought it possible this might be an old friend or acquaintance.
The Rev. Temple Purdue must have been thinking of something else at one part of the service, for he began a line from quite another place.
"Forasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these – "
Then he checked himself hurriedly, and went on with the proper words; but Baffall glanced at Mrs. Baffall, and thought perhaps the little slip not so wrong after all.
As Mr. Baffall, at the end of everything, was replacing his hat and turning towards his home, the man in black touched him on the elbow, and tendered a card. Baffall, in some surprise, mechanically took it, but did not look at it; instead, he looked at the man in black, and decided that he did not like him. Then his eyes travelled to the card, and he read the name upon it – "Mr. Matthew Shandler."
Baffall looked up at the man, and back again at the card. The man cleared his throat, and sighed, and ventured an explanation.
"A – a second cousin – on his father's side," he murmured. "So far as I am aware, his sole living relative; and I have made every inquiry. But perhaps he left a will."
Mr. Baffall felt his heart sink; as he expressed it afterwards to Mrs. Baffall, he "knew directly it was all up with the children." Being a man of business, however, he invited Mr. Matthew Shandler to come home with him and discuss the situation.
The shadows lengthened into evening in the little churchyard, and over the woods and fields. Honora Jackman and the two children came presently tailing homewards to that changed house; afterwards Honora took her own way back to the house of the Baffalls. In the churchyard a slim white-faced girl stole out from among the shadows of the trees, looking about her carefully in all directions, and went to the grave; and there for the first time broke down and wept as she had never wept before. For this was the parting, and only her memories were to be left to her for the future. It was, perhaps, characteristic of her that she should have watched and waited until the darkness had fallen before she went to him; characteristic of her, too, that she felt she was never again to visit the grave. This was to be final – and this was between the dead man and herself only.
"Good-bye, Old Paul – for ever and ever," she whispered, kneeling there, and touching the earth softly with her palms, as in benediction. "Sleep very quietly – rest lightly – my dear – my dear! I shall never forget; I shall think of you, dear, sleeping here, with the trees whispering above you, and the birds – and all about you that you loved. Old Paul! – oh – my Old Paul!"
By the time she got back to the house she was calm and self-contained; she offered no explanation of her absence to anyone. When, in the big room upstairs, Alice begged that she might be allowed to drag her bed across, so that she could be near Moira in the night, Moira scornfully regarded her for a moment, and then dragged the bed across herself.
"What are you afraid of?" she demanded.
"I feel as if I should die," whimpered the other girl. "It's so awful. He's dead – and I feel that perhaps in the dark he might come in – as he used to do – "
"I wish he would," broke in Moira quickly. "Go to sleep; you can hold my hand, if you feel frightened."
The younger girl presently fell asleep, with the undried tears still upon her pink cheeks; a smile grew about her mouth as she lay there. The smile was answered by one in the face of Moira, but it was a scornful one. For her part she lay wakeful, with the tears gathering in her eyes quietly now and then, as old memories came back to her.
Meanwhile, Mr. Baffall was stubbornly fighting a battle. As he went on fighting it, he discovered that he hated the man in black more and more every moment, with a growing hatred; for Matthew Shandler was not to be moved in any way. They had been together to the house, but no will had been found; they had the testimony of Mrs. Baffall that Old Paul had declared his intention of doing it that very night of his death; which looked hopeless enough, on the face of it.
Mrs. Baffall had been early turned out of the room by the shoulders, gently enough, by her husband; because she persisted in bursting into tears, and in imploring Matthew Shandler to remember the children. Which, as Baffall put it afterwards, wasn't business.
Shandler, for his part, spoke with perfect justice, as the world knows it. The children were nothing to him, and were not related in any way to the late Paul Nannock. Right was right; and although Mr. Shandler was an exceedingly well-to-do man, as he admitted with some pride, the property belonging to Old Paul was most certainly his, unless someone with a better right put in a claim to it. And he referred Mr. Baffall, with a smile, to his solicitors.
Mr. Baffall waited until such time as he discovered that the battle was a hopeless one; then he closed the door, lest Mrs. Baffall be shocked; and he remembered, with sudden vehemence, certain language long since left behind with the sordid business that had made him rich. He gave vent to some home-truths and expressions of opinion that hurt no one; for the man in black was made of stronger stuff than Baffall supposed, and merely smiled in reply. When, finally, he left, with the knowledge that he had come conveniently enough into a very snug property, he wished Mr. Baffall "Good-night!" gently, and desired that that gentleman would make Matthew Shandler's farewells to his good wife.