CHAPTER VIII
SINGULAR INSTANCE OF THE UTILITY OF PASS-KEYS
Where he ran at first, John never very clearly knew; nor yet how long atime elapsed ere he found himself in the by-road near the lodge ofRavelston, propped against the wall, his lungs heaving like bellows, hislegs leaden-heavy, his mind possessed by one sole desire--to lie downand be unseen. He remembered the thick coverts round the quarry-holepond, an untrodden corner of the world where he might surely findconcealment till the night should fall. Thither he passed down the lane;and when he came there, behold! he had forgotten the frost, and the pondwas alive with young people skating, and the pond-side coverts werethick with lookers-on. He looked on awhile himself. There was one tall,graceful maiden, skating hand in hand with a youth, on whom she bestowedher bright eyes perhaps too patently; and it was strange with what angerJohn beheld her. He could have broken forth in curses; he could havestood there, like a mortified tramp, and shaken his fist and vented hisgall upon her by the hour--or so he thought; and the next moment hisheart bled for the girl. "Poor creature, it's little she knows!" hesighed. "Let her enjoy herself while she can!" But was it possible, whenFlora used to smile at him on the Braid ponds, she could have looked sofulsome to a sick-hearted bystander?
The thought of one quarry, in his frozen wits, suggested another; and heplodded off towards Craigleith. A wind had sprung up out of thenorth-west; it was cruel keen, it dried him like a fire, and racked hisfinger-joints. It brought clouds, too; pale, swift, hurrying clouds,that blotted heaven and shed gloom upon the earth. He scrambled up amongthe hazelled rubbish-heaps that surround the cauldron of the quarry, andlay flat upon the stones. The wind searched close along the earth, thestones were cutting and icy, the bare hazels wailed about him; and soonthe air of the afternoon began to be vocal with those strange and dismalharpings that herald snow. Pain and misery turned in John's limbs to aharrowing impatience and blind desire of change; now he would roll inhis harsh lair, and when the flints abraded him was almost pleased; nowhe would crawl to the edge of the huge pit and look dizzily down. He sawthe spiral of the descending roadway, the steep crags, the clingingbushes, the peppering of snow-wreaths, and, far down in the bottom, thediminished crane. Here, no doubt, was a way to end it. But it somehowdid not take his fancy.
And suddenly he was aware that he was hungry; ay, even through thetortures of the cold, even through the frosts of despair, a gross,desperate longing after food, no matter what, no matter how, began towake and spur him. Suppose he pawned his watch? But no, on ChristmasDay--this was Christmas Day!--the pawn-shop would be closed. Suppose hewent to the public-house close by at Blackhall, and offered the watch,which was worth ten pounds, in payment for a meal of bread and cheese?The incongruity was too remarkable; the good folks would either put himto the door, or only let him in to send for the police. He turned hispockets out one after another; some San Francisco tram-car checks, onecigar, no lights, the pass-key to his father's house, apocket-handkerchief, with just a touch of scent: no--money could beraised on none of these. There was nothing for it but to starve; andafter all, what mattered it! That also was a door of exit.
He crept close among the bushes, the wind playing round him like a lash;his clothes seemed thin as paper, his joints burned, his skin curdled onhis bones. He had a vision of a high-lying cattle-drive in California,and the bed of a dried stream with one muddy pool, by which the vaqueroshad encamped: splendid sun over all, the big bonfire blazing, the stripsof cow browning and smoking on a skewer of wood; how warm it was, howsavoury the steam of scorching meat! And then again he remembered hismanifold calamities, and burrowed and wallowed in the sense of hisdisgrace and shame. And next he was entering Frank's restaurant inMontgomery Street, San Francisco; he had ordered a pan-stew and venisonchops, of which he was immoderately fond, and as he sat waiting, Munroe,the good attendant, brought him a whisky-punch; he saw the strawberriesfloat on the delectable cup, he heard the ice chink about the straws.And then he woke again to his detested fate, and found himself sitting,humped together, in a windy combe of quarry-refuse--darkness thick abouthim, thin flakes of snow lying here and there like rags of paper, andthe strong shuddering of his body clashing his teeth like a hiccough.
We have seen John in nothing but the stormiest conditions; we have seenhim reckless, desperate, tried beyond his moderate powers: of his dailyself, cheerful, regular, not unthrifty, we have seen nothing; and it maythus be a surprise to the reader to learn that he was studiously carefulof his health. This favourite pre-occupation now awoke. If he were tosit there and die of cold, there would be mighty little gained; betterthe police cell and the chances of a jury trial, than the miserablecertainty of death at a dyke-side before the next winter's dawn, ordeath a little later in the gas-lit wards of an infirmary.
He rose on aching legs, and stumbled here and there among therubbish-heaps, still circumvented by the yawning crater of the quarry;or perhaps he only thought so, for the darkness was already dense, thesnow was growing thicker, and he moved like a blind man, and with ablind man's terrors. At last he climbed a fence, thinking to drop intothe road, and found himself staggering, instead, among the iron furrowsof a ploughland, endless, it seemed, as a whole county. And next he wasin a wood, beating among young trees; and then he was aware of a housewith many lighted windows, Christmas carriages waiting at the doors, andChristmas drivers (for Christmas has a double edge) becoming swiftlyhooded with snow. From this glimpse of human cheerfulness he fled likeCain; wandered in the night, unpiloted, careless of whither he went;fell and lay, and then rose again and wandered farther; and at last,like a transformation scene, behold him in the lighted jaws of the city,staring at a lamp which had already donned the tilted night-cap of thesnow. It came thickly now, a "Feeding Storm"; and while he yet stoodblinking at the lamp, his feet were buried. He remembered something likeit in the past, a street lamp crowned and caked upon the windward sidewith snow, the wind uttering its mournful hoot, himself looking on, evenas now; but the cold had struck too sharply on his wits, and memoryfailed him as to the date and sequel of the reminiscence.
His next conscious moment was on the Dean Bridge; but whether he wasJohn Nicholson of a bank in California Street, or some former John, aclerk in his father's office, he had now clean forgotten. Another blank,and he was thrusting his pass-key into the door-lock of his father'shouse.
Hours must have passed. Whether crouched on the cold stones or wanderingin the fields among the snow, was more than he could tell; but hours hadpassed. The finger of the hall clock was close on twelve; a narrow peepof gas in the hall-lamp shed shadows; and the door of the back room--hisfather's room--was open and emitted a warm light. At so late an hour allthis was strange; the lights should have been out, the doors locked, thegood folk safe in bed. He marvelled at the irregularity, leaning on thehall table; and marvelled to himself there; and thawed and grew oncemore hungry in the warmer air of the house.
The clock uttered its premonitory catch; in five minutes Christmas Daywould be among the days of the past--Christmas!--what a Christmas! Well,there was no use waiting; he had come into that house, he scarce knewhow; if they were to thrust him forth again, it had best be done atonce; and he moved to the door of the back room and entered.
O, well--then he was insane, as he had long believed.
There, in his father's room, at midnight, the fire was roaring, and thegas blazing; the papers, the sacred papers--to lay a hand on which wascriminal--had all been taken off and piled along the floor; a cloth wasspread, and a supper laid, upon the business table; and in his father'schair a woman, habited like a nun, sat eating. As he appeared in thedoorway, the nun rose, gave a low cry, and stood staring. She was alarge woman, strong, calm, a little masculine, her features marked withcourage and good sense; and as John blinked back at her, a faintresemblance dodged about his memory, as when a tune haunts us, and yetwill not be recalled.
"Why, it's John!" cried the nun.
"I daresay I'm mad," said John, unconsciously following
King Lear; "but,upon my word, I do believe you're Flora."
"Of course I am," replied she.
And yet it is not Flora at all, thought John; Flora was slender, andtimid, and of changing colour, and dewy-eyed; and had Flora such anEdinburgh accent? But he said none of these things, which was perhaps aswell. What he said was, "Then why are you a nun?"
"Such nonsense!" said Flora. "I'm a sick-nurse; and I am here nursingyour sister, with whom, between you and me, there is precious little thematter. But that is not the question. The point is: How do you comehere? and are you not ashamed to show yourself?"
"Flora," said John sepulchrally, "I haven't eaten anything for threedays. Or, at least, I don't know what day it is; but I guess I'mstarving."
"You unhappy man!" she cried. "Here, sit down and eat my supper; andI'll just run upstairs and see my patient; not but what I doubt she'sfast asleep, for Maria is a _malade imadginaire_."
With this specimen of the French, not of Stratford-atte-Bowe, but of afinishing establishment in Moray Place, she left John alone in hisfather's sanctum. He fell at once upon the food; and it is to besupposed that Flora had found her patient wakeful, and been detainedwith some details of nursing, for he had time to make a full end of allthere was to eat, and not only to empty the teapot, but to fill it againfrom a kettle that was fitfully singing on his father's fire. Then hesat torpid, and pleased, and bewildered; his misfortunes were then halfforgotten; his mind considering, not without regret, this unsentimentalreturn to his old love.
He was thus engaged when that bustling woman noiselessly re-entered.
"Have you eaten?" said she. "Then tell me all about it."
It was a long and (as the reader knows) a pitiful story; but Flora heardit with compressed lips. She was lost in none of those questionings ofhuman destiny that have, from time to time, arrested the flight of myown pen; for women, such as she, are no philosophers, and behold theconcrete only. And women, such as she, are very hard on the imperfectman.
"Very well," said she, when he had done; "then down upon your knees atonce, and beg God's forgiveness."
And the great baby plumped upon his knees, and did as he was bid; andnone the worse for that! But while he was heartily enough requestingforgiveness on general principles, the rational side of himdistinguished, and wondered if, perhaps, the apology were not due uponthe other part. And when he rose again from that becoming exercise, hefirst eyed the face of his old love doubtfully, and then, taking heart,uttered his protest.
"I must say, Flora," said he, "in all this business I can see verylittle fault of mine."
"If you had written home," replied the lady, "there would have been noneof it. If you had even gone to Murrayfield reasonably sober, you wouldnever have slept there, and the worst would not have happened. Besides,the whole thing began years ago. You got into trouble, and when yourfather, honest man, was disappointed, you took the pet, or got afraid,and ran away from punishment. Well, you've had your own way of it, John,and I don't suppose you like it."
"I sometimes fancy I'm not much better than a fool," sighed John.
"My dear John," said she, "not much!"
He looked at her and his eye fell. A certain anger rose within him; herewas a Flora he disowned: she was hard; she was of a set colour; asettled, mature, undecorative manner; plain of speech, plain ofhabit--he had come near saying, plain of face. And this changelingcalled herself by the same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid ofyore; she of the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind,stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper hand with him,which (as John well knew) was not the true relation of the sexes. Hesteeled his heart against this sick-nurse.
"And how do you come to be here?" he asked.
She told him how she had nursed her father in his long illness, and whenhe died, and she was left alone, had taken to nurse others, partly fromhabit, partly to be of some service in the world; partly, it might be,for amusement. "There's no accounting for taste," said she. And she toldhim how she went largely to the houses of old friends, as the needarose; and how she was thus doubly welcome, as an old friend first, andthen as an experienced nurse, to whom doctors would confide the gravestcase.
"And, indeed, it's a mere farce my being here for poor Maria," shecontinued; "but your father takes her ailments to heart, and I cannotalways be refusing him. We are great friends, your father and I; he wasvery kind to me long ago--ten years ago."
A strange stir came in John's heart. All this while had he been thinkingonly of himself? All this while, why had he not written to Flora? Inpenitential tenderness, he took her hand, and, to his awe and trouble,it remained in his, compliant. A voice told him this was Flora, afterall--told him so quietly, yet with a thrill of singing.
"And you never married?" said he.
"No, John; I never married," she replied.
The hall clock striking two recalled them to the sense of time.
"And now," said she, "you have been fed and warmed, and I have heardyour story, and now it's high time to call your brother."
"O!" cried John, chapfallen; "do you think that absolutely necessary?"
"_I_ can't keep you here; I am a stranger," said she. "Do you want torun away again? I thought you had enough of that."
He bowed his head under the reproof. She despised him, he reflected, ashe sat once more alone; a monstrous thing for a woman to despise a man;and, strangest of all, she seemed to like him. Would his brother despisehim, too? And would his brother like him?
And presently the brother appeared, under Flora's escort; and, standingafar off beside the doorway, eyed the hero of this tale.
"So this is you?" he said at length.
"Yes, Alick, it's me--it's John," replied the elder brother feebly.
"And how did you get in here?" inquired the younger.
"O, I had my pass-key," says John.
"The deuce you had!" said Alexander. "Ah, you lived in a better world!There are no pass-keys going now."
"Well, father was always averse to them," sighed John. And theconversation then broke down, and the brothers looked askance at oneanother in silence.
"Well, and what the devil are we to do?" said Alexander. "I suppose ifthe authorities got wind of you, you would be taken up?"
"It depends on whether they've found the body or not," returned John."And then there's that cabman, to be sure!"
"O, bother the body!" said Alexander. "I mean about the other thing.That's serious."
"Is that what my father spoke about?" asked John. "I don't even knowwhat it is."
"About your robbing your bank in California, of course," repliedAlexander.
It was plain, from Flora's face, that this was the first she had heardof it; it was plainer still, from John's, that he was innocent.
"I!" he exclaimed. "I rob my bank! My God! Flora, this is too much; evenyou must allow that."
"Meaning you didn't?" asked Alexander.
"I never robbed a soul in all my days," cried John: "except my father,if you call that robbery; and I brought him back the money in this room,and he wouldn't even take it!"
"Look here, John," said his brother; "let us have no misunderstandingupon this. MacEwen saw my father; he told him a bank you had worked forin San Francisco was wiring over the habitable globe to have youcollared--that it was supposed you had nailed thousands; and it was deadcertain you had nailed three hundred. So MacEwen said, and I wish youwould be careful how you answer. I may tell you also, that your fatherpaid the three hundred on the spot."
"Three hundred?" repeated John. "Three hundred pounds, you mean? That'sfifteen hundred dollars. Why, then, it's Kirkman!" he broke out. "ThankHeaven! I can explain all that. I gave them to Kirkman to pay for methe night before I left--fifteen hundred dollars, and a letter to themanager. What do they suppose I would steal fifteen hundred dollars for?I'm rich; I struck it rich in stocks. It's the silliest stuff I everheard of. All that's needful is to cable to the manager: Kirkman has thefifteen hundred--find Kirkman. He was
a fellow-clerk of mine, and a hardcase; but to do him justice I didn't think he was as hard as this."
"And what do you say to that, Alick?" asked Flora.
"I say the cablegram shall go to-night!" cried Alexander, with energy."Answer prepaid, too. If this can be cleared away--and upon my word I dobelieve it can--we shall all be able to hold up our heads again. Here,you John, you stick down the address of your bank manager. You, Flora,you can pack John into my bed, for which I have no further use to-night.As for me, I am off to the post-office, and thence to the High Streetabout the dead body. The police ought to know, you see, and they oughtto know through John; and I can tell them some rigmarole about mybrother being a man of a highly nervous organisation, and the rest ofit. And then; I'll tell you what, John--did you notice the name upon thecab?"
John gave the name of the driver, which, as I have not been able tocommend the vehicle, I here suppress.
"Well," resumed Alexander, "I'll call round at their place before I comeback, and pay your shot for you. In that way, before breakfast-time,you'll be as good as new."
John murmured inarticulate thanks. To see his brother thus energetic inhis service moved him beyond expression; if he could not utter what hefelt, he showed it legibly in his face; and Alexander read it there, andliked it the better in that dumb delivery.
"But there's one thing," said the latter, "cablegrams are dear; and Idaresay you remember enough of the governor to guess the state of myfinances."
"The trouble is," said John, "that all my stamps are in that beastlyhouse."
"All your what?" asked Alexander.
"Stamps--money," explained John. "It's an American expression; I'mafraid I contracted one or two."
"I have some," said Flora. "I have a pound-note upstairs."
"My dear Flora," returned Alexander, "a pound-note won't see us veryfar; and besides, this is my father's business, and I shall be very muchsurprised if it isn't my father who pays for it."
"I would not apply to him yet; I do not think that can be wise,"objected Flora.
"You have a very imperfect idea of my resources, and none at all of myeffrontery," replied Alexander. "Please observe."
He put John from his way, chose a stout knife among the supper things,and with surprising quickness broke into his father's drawer.
"There's nothing easier when you come to try," he observed, pocketingthe money.
"I wish you had not done that," said Flora. "You will never hear thelast of it."
"O, I don't know," returned the young man; "the governor is human, afterall. And now, John, let me see your famous pass-key. Get into bed, anddon't move for any one till I come back. They won't mind you notanswering when they knock; I generally don't myself."