The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35
"He has kept faith."
"He is in high place again?"
"He is a good administrator."
"You put him there!"
"Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?"
Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word
spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or death
was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not struck
yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told her of the
vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum's sympathy and help, only deepened
this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave David money from
his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from other sources, while
gaining credit with David for co-operation. Armenian Christian Nahoum
might be, but he was ranged with the East against the West, with the
reactionary and corrupt against advance, against civilisation and freedom
and equality. Nahoum's Christianity was permeated with Orientalism, the
Christian belief obscured by the theism of the Muslim. David was in a
deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it could serve no good end to attempt
to warn him now. He had outlived peril so far; might it not be that,
after all, he would win?
So far she had avoided Nahoum's name in talks with David. She could
scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as
it were; but the restraint had given way at last.
"Thee remembers what I said that night?" David repeated slowly.
"I remember--I understand. You devise your course and you never change.
It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you as bad
as might happen."
"Nothing bad ever happens to me."
"The philosophy of the desert," she commented smiling. "You are living in
the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and Egypt
only are real.
"That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
spirit 'revisiting the scenes of life and time.'" He laughed boyishly.
"Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you
are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of my
Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking,
scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to
each other without words. Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with you,
was it not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you understood
what he meant to say to you? You told me so long ago."
David inclined his head. "I heard him speak as one might speak through a
closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to
me."
"And your grandfather?"
"Never my grandfather--never. It would seem as though, in my thoughts, I
could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay between. Yet
he and I--there is love between us. I don't know why I never hear him."
"Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under
the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you."
"Has not Faith told you?"
"We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask
you. I want to know of your mother and you together."
"We were never together. When I opened my eyes she closed hers. It was so
little to get for the life she gave. See, was it not a good face?" He
drew from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years ago,
and opened it before her.
Hylda looked long. "She was exquisite," she said, "exquisite."
"My father I never knew either. He was a captain of a merchant ship. He
married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth. He
sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her home
here. The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather, after
announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that she
should never see her husband again. She never did, for she died a few
months after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also. I never
saw him, and I do not know if he ever tried to see me. I never had any
feeling about it. My grandfather was the only father I ever knew, and
Faith, who was born a year before me, became like a sister to me, though
she soon made other pretensions!" He laughed again, almost happily. "To
gain an end she exercised authority as my aunt!"
"What was your father's name?"
"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon."
"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon!" Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
after him. Where had she heard the name before--or where had she seen it?
It kept flashing before her eyes. Where had she seen it? For days she had
been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered House,
and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late countess,
who had died suddenly. Was it among them that she had seen the name? She
could not tell. It was all vague, but that she had seen it or heard it
she was sure.
"Your father's people, you never knew them?"
He shook his head. "Nor of them. Here was my home--I had no desire to
discover them. We draw in upon ourselves here."
"There is great force in such a life and such a people," she answered.
"If the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life of
the world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and advance
it, I mean--as you are doing in Egypt."
"I have done nothing in Egypt. I have sounded the bugle--I have not had
my fight."
"That is true in a sense," she replied. "Your real struggle is before
you. I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it. Something
here"--she pressed her hand to her heart--"something here tells me that
your day of battle is yet to come." Her eyes were brimming and full of
excitement. "We must all help you." She gained courage with each word.
"You must not fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have
civilisation behind you." Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
in her throat. "You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall
not be that I will call. You--you will call, and I will help you if I
can. I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
anything I can do. I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do what
I can, always.
"I owe so much--you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the
night I wake with a start and see it all--all!"
The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
her heart.
Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life in
Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit had
been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart and
soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And David and
Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a divine
altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew not,
reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not. This man's career, the
work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which, however
she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in her life
hereafter. Must the penance and the redemption be his only? This life he
lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in Egypt. In a
deep sense her life was linked with his.
In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
future, this being before him--he drew himself up with a start! . . . He
was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
again--would not, no doubt--should not. He had pressed her husband to go
to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must "finish his journey
alone."
He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him. His own
eyes swam. The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond of
fate between them. It was a moment of peril not fully realised by either.
David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all women he
had ever seen--or was he now for the first time really aware of the
beauty of woman? She had an expression, a light of eye and face, finely
alluring beyond mere outline of feature. Yet the features were there,
too, regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her broad,
white forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a classic
distinction. In the quietness of the face there was that strain of the
Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet enlivened by a
mind of impulse and genius.
They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken a
long step forward in life's experience. But presently his eyes looked
beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
"Of what are you thinking? What do you see?" she asked.
"You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,"
he answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
"It is what I saw also," she said breathlessly. "It is what I saw and was
thinking of that instant." When, as though she must break away from the
cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said, with a
little laugh, "Tell me again of my Chicago cousin? I have not had a
letter for a year."
"Lacey, he is with me always. I should have done little had it not been
for him. He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down. He has but
one fault."
"What is that?"
"He is no respecter of persons. His humour cuts deep. He has a wide heart
for your sex. When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he said to
his Majesty: 'Well, good-bye, King. Give my love to the girls.'"
She laughed again. "How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and
able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. They
did little else but sing your praises. One might have thought that you
had invented the world-or Hamley."
"Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these." He
glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards
the broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
"It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all," she
remarked, smiling. "Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work for
others and never for yourself? All I envy you is your friends. You make
them and keep them so."
She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly. She was thinking of
Eglington. Did he make friends--true friends? In London--was there one
she knew who would cleave to him for love of him? In England--had she
ever seen one? In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
generations, had she found one?
Herself? Yes, she was his true friend. She would do what would she not do
to help him, to serve his interests? What had she not done since she
married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
with something devised to help him on his way. Had he ever said to her:
"Hylda, you are a help to me"? He had admired her--but was he singular in
that? Before she married there were many--since, there had been many--who
had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others with a crudeness making
her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they might, would have given
their admiration another name with other manifestations. Had she repelled
it all? She had been too sure of herself to draw her skirts about her;
she was too proud to let any man put her at any disadvantage. She had
been safe, because her heart had been untouched. The Duchess of Snowdon,
once beautiful, but now with a face like a mask, enamelled and rouged and
lifeless, had said to her once: "My dear, I ought to have died at thirty.
When I was twenty-three I wanted to squeeze the orange dry in a handful
of years, and then go out suddenly, and let the dust of forgetfulness
cover my bones. I had one child, a boy, and would have no more; and I
squeezed the orange! But I didn't go at thirty, and yet the orange was
dry. My boy died; and you see what I am--a fright, I know it; and I dress
like a child of twenty; and I can't help it."
There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back. She
had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
"Tell me how to make friends--and keep them," she added gaily.
"If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how," he answered, "for
thee made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson."
She smiled. "Thee has learnt another lesson too well," she answered
brightly. "Thee must not flatter. It is not that which makes thee keep
friends. Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley--am I not
bold? I love the grammarless speech."
"Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell," he answered, not
looking at her.
"This--is--farewell," she said slowly, vaguely. Why should it startle her
so? "You are going so soon--where?"
"To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt."
She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently. "Thee
is not fair to give no warning--there is so much to say," she said, in so
low a tone that he could scarcely hear her. "There is the future, your
work, what we are to do here to help. What I am to do.
"Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know," he answered. "She needs
friends. Thee has a place where thee can help."
"Will not right be done without my voice?" she asked, her eyes half
closing. "There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
ministers, and--and Eglington. What need of me?"
He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
husband. "Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
policy easier to frame," he rejoined.
Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her. He whose life had been flung
into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
herself?
But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her. She was not free to help as
she wished. Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
tribute to the uttermost farthing. She was blinded by the thought. Yet
she must speak. "I will come to Egypt--we will come to Egypt," she said
quickly. "Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand. You shall have
his help. You shall not work alone."
"Thee can work here," he said. "It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
come."
"You pressed it on him."
Their eyes met. She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
"You know best what will help you most," she added gently.
"You will not come?" he asked.
"I will not say I will not come--not ever," she answered firmly. "It may
be I should have to come." Resolution was in her eyes. She was thinking
of Nahoum. "I may have to come," she added after a pause, "to do right by
you."
He read her meaning. "Thee will never come," he continued confidently. He
held out his hand. "Perhaps I shall see you in town," she rejoined, as
her hand rested in his, and she looked away. "When do you start for
Egypt?"
"To-morrow week, I think," he answered. "There is much to do."
"Perhaps we shall meet in town," she repeated. But they both knew they
would not.
"Farewell," he said, and picked up his hat.
As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
then it became pale. A new force had come into his life.
"God be good to thee," he said, and turned away.
She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
"David! David!" she said softly after him.
At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
her. He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
"Come, Hylda, and have some music," he said brusquely.
She scrutinised him calmly. His face showed nothing. His look was
enigmatical.
"Chopin is the thing for me," he said, and opened the piano.
CHAPTER XXII
AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle of a
bird, or the even tread of horses' hoofs as they journeyed on the London
road. The place was full. For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
voiceless. They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak. As
they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat. Few saw, and these
gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used to
strangers, and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the
building for many years. It was Hylda.
At last the silence was broken. The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees. He prayed for all
who wandered "into by and forbidden paths." He prayed for one whose work
was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
divers heresies--"'For there must also be heresies, that they which are
approved may be made manifest among the weak.'" A moment more, and then
he added: "He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his hands.
Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he was among
us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great haste. O put
Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon Thy business."
There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
Claridge.
"Father of the fatherless," he said, "my days are as the sands in the
hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He
goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that
strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring
a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul
of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is to
me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou
gatherest for Thy vineyard!"
"And if a viper fasten on his hand--" David passed his hand across his
forehead and closed his eyes. The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and he
would fight them again--there was fighting enough to do in the land of
Egypt. And the viper would fasten on his hand--it had fastened on his
hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again, the dark thing
against which he had fought in the desert.
Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet. For a moment he was
shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: "Friends, I
go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness. I know not if I ever
shall return. Howsoe'er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step
because of all ye do for me."
He closed his eyes and prayed: "O God, I go into the land of ancient
plagues and present pestilence. If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
good land, when my task is done. If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
beast and from the viper. 'Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us to
be tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also make
a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!'"
He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and, getting
up, hastened towards the door.
It was Faith. David heard, and came quickly after her. As he took her arm
gently, his eyes met those of Hylda. She rose and came out also.
"Will thee take her home?" he said huskily. "I can bear no more."
Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and
into the wood. As they went, Faith looked back.
"Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy," she said softly.
Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby's hut upon the hill. In the Red
Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white hair
tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat listening,
as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written from the East
many years before. One letter, written from Bagdad, he made her read
twice. The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of the East; it was
like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell in it like the
waves of the sea. Once the old man interrupted Faith.
"Davy--it is as though Davy spoke. It is like Davy--both Claridge, both
Claridge," he said. "But is it not like Davy? Davy is doing what it was
in Benn's heart to do. Benn showed the way; Benn called, and Davy came."
He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. "O Lord, I have
sought to do according to Thy will," he whispered. He was thinking of a
thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked in
him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her
grave--a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never
shown a note of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning
David. Upon it, like some prophetess, she had flamed out. With the
insight which only women have where children are concerned, she had told
him that he would live to repent of what he had done. She had died soon
after, and was laid beside the deserted young mother, whose days had
budded and blossomed, and fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it
was the spring.
Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
"Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke," nor his dying daughter
Mercy, whose last words had been: "With love and sorrow I have sowed; he
shall reap rejoicing--my babe. Thee will set him in the garden in the
sun, where God may find him--God will not pass him by. He will take him
by the hand and lead him home." The old man had thought her touched by
delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by the
poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical
spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through the
filter of a woman's sad soul. It had come to David a pure force, a
constructive and practical idealism.
Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man's ears the words
which David's mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed away:
"Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him--God will not
pass him by." They seemed to weave themselves into the symbolism of Benn
Claridge's letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
"But," the letter continued, "the Governor passed by with his suite, the
buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining
with inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones. When he had
passed, I said to a shepherd standing by, 'If thou hadst all his wealth,
shepherd, what wouldst thou do?' and he answered, 'If I had his wealth, I
would sit on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every
day.' To a messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day
to run at his master's order, I asked the same. He replied, 'If I had all
the Effendina's wealth, I would sleep till I died.' To a blind beggar,
shaking the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly to those
who passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied 'If the wealth of
the exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the bake-house,
and eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would bless Allah the
compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with the flesh of a
kid and a dish of dates.' To a woman at the door of a tomb hung with
relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought the buried saint
to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same catechism, and she
answered, 'Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine, I would give my son what
he has lost.' 'What has he lost, woman?' said I; and she answered: 'A
little house with a garden, and a flock of ten goats, a cow and a
dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been despoiled by one who
carried a false debt 'gainst his dead father.' And I said to her: 'But if
thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city, thy son would have no
need of the little house and garden and the flock of goats, and a cow and
a dovecote.' Whereupon she turned upon me in bitterness, and said: 'Were
they not his own as the seed of his father? Shall not one cherish that
which is his own, which cometh from seed to seed? Is it not the law?'
'But,' said I, 'if his wealth were thine, there would be herds of cattle,
and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread, and the banquet-tables, and
great orchards.' But she stubbornly shook her head. 'Where the eagle
built shall not the young eagle nest? How should God meet me in the way
and bless him who stood not by his birth right? The plot of ground was
the lad's, and all that is thereon. I pray thee, mock me not.' God knows
I did not mock her, for her words were wisdom. So did it work upon me
that, after many days, I got for the lad his own again, and there he is
happier, and his mother happier, than the Governor in his palace. Later I
did learn some truths from the shepherd, the messenger, and the beggar,
and the woman with the child; but chiefly from the woman and the child.
The material value has no relation to the value each sets upon that which
is his own. Behind this feeling lies the strength of the world. Here on
this hill of Bagdad I am thinking these things. And, Luke, I would have
thee also think on my story of the woman and the child. There is in it a
lesson for thee."