CHAPTER XLII
A FABLE AT FAULT
Philip took possession of the two rooms which had belonged to thedead Sergeant Dobson. They were furnished sufficiently for everycomfort by the trustees of the hospital. Some little fragments ofornament, some small articles picked up in distant countries, a fewtattered books, remained in the rooms as legacies from their formeroccupant.
At first the repose of the life and the place was inexpressiblygrateful to Philip. He had always shrunk from encounteringstrangers, and displaying his blackened and scarred countenance tothem, even where such disfigurement was most regarded as a mark ofhonour. In St Sepulchre's he met none but the same set day afterday, and when he had once told the tale of how it happened andsubmitted to their gaze, it was over for ever, if he so minded. Theslight employment his garden gave him--there was a kitchen-gardenbehind each house, as well as the flower-plot in front--and thedaily arrangement of his parlour and chamber were, at the beginningof his time of occupation, as much bodily labour as he could manage.There was something stately and utterly removed from all Philip'sprevious existence in the forms observed at every day's dinner, whenthe twelve bedesmen met in the large quaint hall, and the wardencame in his college-cap and gown to say the long Latin grace whichwound up with something very like a prayer for the soul of Sir SimonBray. It took some time to get a reply to ship letters in thosetimes when no one could exactly say where the fleet might be found.
And before Dr Pennington had received the excellent character ofStephen Freeman, which his son gladly sent in answer to his father'sinquiries, Philip had become restless and uneasy in the midst of allthis peace and comfort.
Sitting alone over his fire in the long winter evenings, the scenesof his past life rose before him; his childhood; his aunt Robson'scare of him; his first going to Foster's shop in Monkshaven;Haytersbank Farm, and the spelling lessons in the bright warmkitchen there; Kinraid's appearance; the miserable night of theCorneys' party; the farewell he had witnessed on Monkshaven sands;the press-gang, and all the long consequences of that act ofconcealment; poor Daniel Robson's trial and execution; his ownmarriage; his child's birth; and then he came to that last day atMonkshaven: and he went over and over again the torturing details,the looks of contempt and anger, the words of loathing indignation,till he almost brought himself, out of his extreme sympathy withSylvia, to believe that he was indeed the wretch she had consideredhim to be.
He forgot his own excuses for having acted as he had done; thoughthese excuses had at one time seemed to him to wear the garb ofreasons. After long thought and bitter memory came some wonder. Whatwas Sylvia doing now? Where was she? What was his child like--hischild as well as hers? And then he remembered the poor footsore wifeand the little girl she carried in her arms, that was just the ageof Bella; he wished he had noticed that child more, that a clearvision of it might rise up when he wanted to picture Bella.
One night he had gone round this mill-wheel circle of ideas till hewas weary to the very marrow of his bones. To shake off themonotonous impression he rose to look for a book amongst the oldtattered volumes, hoping that he might find something that wouldsufficiently lay hold of him to change the current of his thoughts.There was an old volume of _Peregrine Pickle_; a book of sermons;half an army list of 1774, and the _Seven Champions of Christendom_.Philip took up this last, which he had never seen before. In it heread how Sir Guy, Earl of Warwick, went to fight the Paynim in hisown country, and was away for seven long years; and when he cameback his own wife Phillis, the countess in her castle, did not knowthe poor travel-worn hermit, who came daily to seek his dole ofbread at her hands along with many beggars and much poor. But atlast, when he lay a-dying in his cave in the rock, he sent for herby a secret sign known but to them twain. And she came with greatspeed, for she knew it was her lord who had sent for her; and theyhad many sweet and holy words together before he gave up the ghost,his head lying on her bosom.
The old story known to most people from their childhood was all newand fresh to Philip. He did not quite believe in the truth of it,because the fictitious nature of the histories of some of the otherChampions of Christendom was too patent. But he could not helpthinking that this one might be true; and that Guy and Phillis mighthave been as real flesh and blood, long, long ago, as he and Sylviahad even been. The old room, the quiet moonlit quadrangle into whichthe cross-barred casement looked, the quaint aspect of everythingthat he had seen for weeks and weeks; all this predisposed Philip todwell upon the story he had just been reading as a faithful legendof two lovers whose bones were long since dust. He thought that ifhe could thus see Sylvia, himself unknown, unseen--could live at hergates, so to speak, and gaze upon her and his child--some day too,when he lay a-dying, he might send for her, and in soft words ofmutual forgiveness breathe his life away in her arms. Or perhaps--andso he lost himself, and from thinking, passed on to dreaming.All night long Guy and Phillis, Sylvia and his child, passed in andout of his visions; it was impossible to make the fragments of hisdreams cohere; but the impression made upon him by them was not theless strong for this. He felt as if he were called to Monkshaven,wanted at Monkshaven, and to Monkshaven he resolved to go; althoughwhen his reason overtook his feeling, he knew perfectly how unwiseit was to leave a home of peace and tranquillity and surroundingfriendliness, to go to a place where nothing but want andwretchedness awaited him unless he made himself known; and if hedid, a deeper want, a more woeful wretchedness, would in allprobability be his portion.
In the small oblong of looking-glass hung against the wall, Philipcaught the reflection of his own face, and laughed scornfully at thesight. The thin hair lay upon his temples in the flakes that betokenlong ill-health; his eyes were the same as ever, and they had alwaysbeen considered the best feature in his face; but they were sunk intheir orbits, and looked hollow and gloomy. As for the lower part ofhis face, blackened, contracted, drawn away from his teeth, theoutline entirely changed by the breakage of his jaw-bone, he wasindeed a fool if he thought himself fit to go forth to win back thatlove which Sylvia had forsworn. As a hermit and a beggar, he mustreturn to Monkshaven, and fall perforce into the same position whichGuy of Warwick had only assumed. But still he should see hisPhillis, and might feast his sad hopeless eyes from time to timewith the sight of his child. His small pension of sixpence a daywould keep him from absolute want of necessaries.
So that very day he went to the warden and told him he thought ofgiving up his share in the bequest of Sir Simon Bray. Such arelinquishment had never occurred before in all the warden'sexperience; and he was very much inclined to be offended.
'I must say that for a man not to be satisfied as a bedesman of StSepulchre's argues a very wrong state of mind, and a very ungratefulheart.'
'I'm sure, sir, it's not from any ingratitude, for I can hardly feelthankful to you and to Sir Simon, and to madam, and the youngladies, and all my comrades in the hospital, and I niver expect tobe either so comfortable or so peaceful again, but----'
'But? What can you have to say against the place, then? Not but whatthere are always plenty of applicants for every vacancy; only Ithought I was doing a kindness to a man out of Harry's company. Andyou'll not see Harry either; he's got his leave in March!'
'I'm very sorry. I should like to have seen the lieutenant again.But I cannot rest any longer so far away from--people I once knew.'
'Ten to one they're dead, or removed, or something or other by thistime; and it'll serve you right if they are. Mind! no one can bechosen twice to be a bedesman of St Sepulchre's.'
The warden turned away; and Philip, uneasy at staying, disheartenedat leaving, went to make his few preparations for setting out oncemore on his journey northwards. He had to give notice of his changeof residence to the local distributor of pensions; and one or twofarewells had to be taken, with more than usual sadness at thenecessity; for Philip, under his name of Stephen Freeman, hadattached some of the older bedesmen a good deal to him, from hisunselfishness, his willingness to read to them, and to
render themmany little services, and, perhaps, as much as anything, by hishabitual silence, which made him a convenient recipient of all theirgarrulousness. So before the time for his departure came, he had theopportunity of one more interview with the warden, of a morefriendly character than that in which he gave up his bedesmanship.And so far it was well; and Philip turned his back upon StSepulchre's with his sore heart partly healed by his four months'residence there.
He was stronger, too, in body, more capable of the day-after-daywalks that were required of him. He had saved some money from hisallowance as bedesman and from his pension, and might occasionallyhave taken an outside place on a coach, had it not been that heshrank from the first look of every stranger upon his disfiguredface. Yet the gentle, wistful eyes, and the white and faultlessteeth always did away with the first impression as soon as peoplebecame a little acquainted with his appearance.
It was February when Philip left St Sepulchre's. It was the firstweek in April when he began to recognize the familiar objectsbetween York and Monkshaven. And now he began to hang back, and toquestion the wisdom of what he had done--just as the warden hadprophesied that he would. The last night of his two hundred milewalk he slept at the little inn at which he had been enlisted nearlytwo years before. It was by no intention of his that he rested atthat identical place. Night was drawing on; and, in making, as hethought, a short cut, he had missed his way, and was fain to seekshelter where he might find it. But it brought him very straightface to face with his life at that time, and ever since. His mad,wild hopes--half the result of intoxication, as he now knew--alldead and gone; the career then freshly opening shut up against himnow; his youthful strength and health changed into prematureinfirmity, and the home and the love that should have opened wideits doors to console him for all, why in two years Death might havebeen busy, and taken away from him his last feeble chance of thefaint happiness of seeing his beloved without being seen or known ofher. All that night and all the next day, the fear of Sylvia'spossible death overclouded his heart. It was strange that he hadhardly ever thought of this before; so strange, that now, when theterror came, it took possession of him, and he could almost havesworn that she must be lying dead in Monkshaven churchyard. Or wasit little Bella, that blooming, lovely babe, whom he was never tosee again? There was the tolling of mournful bells in the distantair to his disturbed fancy, and the cry of the happy birds, theplaintive bleating of the new-dropped lambs, were all omens of evilimport to him.
As well as he could, he found his way back to Monkshaven, over thewild heights and moors he had crossed on that black day of misery;why he should have chosen that path he could not tell--it was as ifhe were led, and had no free will of his own.
The soft clear evening was drawing on, and his heart beat thick, andthen stopped, only to start again with fresh violence. There he was,at the top of the long, steep lane that was in some parts a literalstaircase leading down from the hill-top into the High Street,through the very entry up which he had passed when he shrank awayfrom his former and his then present life. There he stood, lookingdown once more at the numerous irregular roofs, the many stacks ofchimneys below him, seeking out that which had once been his owndwelling--who dwelt there now?
The yellower gleams grew narrower; the evening shadows broader, andPhilip crept down the lane a weary, woeful man. At every gap in theclose-packed buildings he heard the merry music of a band, thecheerful sound of excited voices. Still he descended slowly,scarcely wondering what it could be, for it was not associated inhis mind with the one pervading thought of Sylvia.
When he came to the angle of junction between the lane and the HighStreet, he seemed plunged all at once into the very centre of thebustle, and he drew himself up into a corner of deep shadow, fromwhence he could look out upon the street.
A circus was making its grand entry into Monkshaven, with all thepomp of colour and of noise that it could muster. Trumpeters inparti-coloured clothes rode first, blaring out triumphant discord.Next came a gold-and-scarlet chariot drawn by six piebald horses,and the windings of this team through the tortuous narrow streetwere pretty enough to look upon. In the chariot sate kings andqueens, heroes and heroines, or what were meant for such; all thelittle boys and girls running alongside of the chariot envied them;but they themselves were very much tired, and shivering with cold intheir heroic pomp of classic clothing. All this Philip might haveseen; did see, in fact; but heeded not one jot. Almost opposite tohim, not ten yards apart, standing on the raised step at thewell-known shop door, was Sylvia, holding a child, a merry dancingchild, up in her arms to see the show. She too, Sylvia, was laughingfor pleasure, and for sympathy with pleasure. She held the littleBella aloft that the child might see the gaudy procession the betterand the longer, looking at it herself with red lips apart and whiteteeth glancing through; then she turned to speak to some one behindher--Coulson, as Philip saw the moment afterwards; his answer madeher laugh once again. Philip saw it all; her bonny careless looks,her pretty matronly form, her evident ease of mind and prosperousoutward circumstances. The years that he had spent in gloomy sorrow,amongst wild scenes, on land or by sea, his life in frequent perilof a bloody end, had gone by with her like sunny days; all the moresunny because he was not there. So bitterly thought the poordisabled marine, as, weary and despairing, he stood in the coldshadow and looked upon the home that should have been his haven, thewife that should have welcomed him, the child that should have beenhis comfort. He had banished himself from his home; his wife hadforsworn him; his child was blossoming into intelligence unwittingof any father. Wife, and child, and home, were all doing wellwithout him; what madness had tempted him thither? an hour ago, likea fanciful fool, he had thought she might be dead--dead with sadpenitence for her cruel words at her heart--with mournful wonder atthe unaccounted-for absence of her child's father preying on herspirits, and in some measure causing the death he had apprehended.But to look at her there where she stood, it did not seem as if shehad had an hour's painful thought in all her blooming life.
Ay! go in to the warm hearth, mother and child, now the gaycavalcade has gone out of sight, and the chill of night hassucceeded to the sun's setting. Husband and father, steal out intothe cold dark street, and seek some poor cheap lodging where you mayrest your weary bones, and cheat your more weary heart intoforgetfulness in sleep. The pretty story of the Countess Phillis,who mourned for her husband's absence so long, is a fable of oldtimes; or rather say Earl Guy never wedded his wife, knowing thatone she loved better than him was alive all the time she hadbelieved him to be dead.