CHAPTER XXX
As time went on Society began to surmise that Philip Meadowes and his father were not upon the best of terms. The elder man seldom came to town, and when he did, never stayed at his own house, then tenanted by Philip; and this of itself was eloquent of differences. But as against this was the very fact of Philip’s tenancy of the house—an arrangement which seemed to point to amiable relationship. The world wondered, but could do no more.
The feud between Meadowes and Simon Prior had, owing to peculiar caution on Prior’s part, never got abroad either; he preferred to be still considered everywhere as Meadowes’ friend.
One night (it was the night of the 9th of January, as Philip had afterwards reason enough to remember) fortune drew together in her net at a certain gaming-house, not a thousand miles from Pall Mall, Richard Meadowes, Philip, and Simon Prior. Phil and his father met quite easily; their quarrel had not been so serious as to make this the least difficult for them; but the rest of the men there watched the meeting with great curiosity. If they had only known, they had better have turned their scrutiny upon Meadowes’ meeting with Prior; the cordiality with which these gentlemen met might perhaps, to the observant and cynically-minded, have given a key to their relations. But there probably was no cynic in the company; so Phil was the object of interest.
‘My dear sir,’ said Phil, as he stood beside his father, laying his hand on his shoulder, ‘you have surely come to town unexpectedly? And but just in time to see me lose some money, or I am mistaken. Yesterday I won it—to-night (to make odds even) I am come to lose to the same man. Come, you shall watch our play, ’twill be fairish sport, I don’t doubt.’
They set them down—Phil and his opponent—and a circle gathered round them to watch their play. Philip played out of the sheerest love of excitement, like a schoolboy, laughing and jesting as he threw down his money, the other man more gravely, pondering his cards. The play ran high; Philip had staked and lost all the money he had with him, and yet he played on. It grew late.
‘Come, sir,’ he said, and he leant across the table towards his father, with his sunny smile, ‘I must play schoolboy again and have my father pay my debts.’ Meadowes, bewitched like every one else, handed him over all the gold pieces he carried, and thought himself well paid by Phil’s smile.
‘Now I’ve cleared out my father,’ he said, ‘and myself, I’ll play you for my lace ruffles, good ones they are; come on, sir,’ and he tore off the ruffles carelessly enough, and flung them on the table.
‘Now you’ll have my coat, ’tis a new silk one—there it goes,’ he cried, flinging off the fine garment in question, as he leant forward with sparkling eyes to cut the cards.
‘Lost again! My diamond shoe-buckles now—there—you have them also? Gad! I’ll be stripped before I’m done—well, the shoes themselves. Lost them too!’ and with a shout of laughter Phil flung down his cards and rose from the table.
‘I must get home without my shoes and without my coat!—I thank you; no, sir, I’d like the sensation. We’ll taste the sweets of poverty on a chill winter’s night for once—to walk home with empty pockets, without a coat or shoes. By George, that’s something new!’
‘Phil, put on your coat; for all the world you act like a child,’ laughed his father. And Phil certainly looked babyish enough as he stood there shoeless, in his ruffled cambric shirt, laughing and careless.
But Phil would not be persuaded. The coat was his no longer, said he, nor the shoes.
‘Come, sir, if you are going my way,’ he said, bowing to his father, and they stepped out into the passage together.
‘We may go so far in company,’ said Meadowes, as they passed out.
The other men who had been in the room waited to exchange comments on the father and son, only Simon Prior, after a few minutes, found that it was growing late, and he must make his way homewards.
He went through the passage and looked out into the inky darkness of the moonless January night; the sky was of a bluish blackness, only a shade less dense than the earth it canopied, and unpierced by any star. Prior listened intently for a moment, but no footsteps echoed down the street. Great London was asleep in these early morning hours, for it was nearing three o’clock. Once and again as he walked along Prior stopped to listen, then he bent down and slipped off his shoes, crammed one into each of the huge pockets of his long-skirted coat, and with noiseless flying footsteps sped down the street: the darkness received him.
Meantime Phil and his father were walking together in the direction of St. James’ Square; Phil, gay as was his wont when excited, was pressing Meadowes to come home with him.
‘You have scarce seen me for months, sir, and Carrie is a stranger to you,’ he said.
‘I cannot come to-night, Phil, mayhap to-morrow,’ said Meadowes, as they paused at the corner where their ways parted.
‘Carrie will think me lost; ’tis three of the clock at the least,’ said Phil, and his father laughed.
‘You have not yet acquired that fine indifference which comes with practice, Phil,’ he said. ‘You mention your wife with too palpable interest.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ laughed Phil, whose heart indeed beat quicker at the sound of Carrie’s name. He held out his hand then and bade Meadowes good-night.
‘Ah, Philip, Philip, if only you loved me!’ thought Meadowes, as he turned and walked away down the dark street. Phil was going home to the wife he adored, while he—how bleak a loveless life like his was, to be sure! There was not a human being that would mourn his death—even Phil would not think twice of it—more than that, ‘I believe he would welcome it,’ he thought bitterly; ‘for all his frankness and his charm he cares nothing for me: I sometimes think he doth veritably hate me.’
Sad thoughts these on a winter’s night. ‘Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, thou dost not bite so nigh,’ he said, feeling the chill at his heart. A moment later he heard a step behind him, a light, unshod step, surely Phil returned. Could it be? Think if Phil were to come beside him in the darkness, touch his arm, speak one kind word, say that now all would be right between them! Surely even now the wilderness would rejoice—would blossom as the rose—at the coming of love. Surely he would leave his old crooked ways, live even yet a white, clean, straight year or two before all was ended, return, if he might do no more, to the attitude of heart that has at least a desire for good!
These, and half a hundred more, thoughts crowded through his fancy in that silly moment of expectancy. But it was a moment so dear—like the sudden thawing of a long frost—that he dared scarcely break it. His voice was thick with feeling when he spoke.
‘Why are you returned, Phil?’ he asked. It was too dark to make out more than the outline of the man’s head against the sky, but the sound of his shoeless feet, as he walked alongside, convinced Meadowes that Phil was there.
‘Why are you returned?’ he questioned again. There was no reply, then the man, with a sudden, quick movement, drew his sword and turned upon Meadowes, pinning him against the wall. He fell almost without a groan. The man knelt with one knee pressed down on Meadowes’ chest, as if to squeeze his shortening breaths out of him, and spoke loudly in his ear.
‘I am Philip,’ he said.
Meadowes heard even through his clouding senses the high bell-clear voice. ‘Is it—— Merciful Lord! doth my Phil torment me for my sins? . . . his voice. . . . Ah, surely not Phil,’ he thought.
‘I am Philip,’ repeated the man, rising hastily; he dared not tarry even for the sweetness of revenge.
‘Philip, Philip!—Ah, undone, undone!’ murmured the dying man. He writhed over on the pavement as the weight of his adversary’s knee was lifted off him; pressed his hand against his side as the last agony seized him, and the spirit, driven so roughly from its dwelling, lingered for a second on the threshold and looked back. In that second fifty years were reviewed like one day: childhood at sweet Fairmeadowes among the fields, youth and manhood, war and love and treachery, and all the busyness of life, passed before him in a flash. One remembrance stood out with extraordinary clearness:—the memory of a prayer offered long ago in one of the old City churches—a strange, seemingly unanswered prayer. Here, late in time, was its bitter answer. And then this memory passed also, and one only thought remained—Philip.
All this in a second’s time. In that second, as the murderer rose to his feet, the glimmer of a lantern fell into the pressing darkness, and a hand appeared out of the gloom, clutched, and held him.
Meadowes did not see the light. His eyes were closed, but the one thought of Philip held possession of his brain.
‘Run, Phil, run, lest this bring you to trouble,’ he cried with his latest breath; the two struggling men could not choose but hear. The watchman let fall his lantern and they wrestled in the darkness, then with one great wrench the other freed himself, and flung aside his adversary, who fell heavily. It took him a moment to rise, and then he stood stupidly for a brief space to listen in what direction the murderer ran. But even the silent street scarcely echoed back the light footsteps of the man wearing no shoes, as he scudded away into the darkness.