VIII
THE ACCUSATION
It was a very brief note, simply informing him that Hilary Vickars was ill, and wished to see him.
An hour later he was in the train. Fortunately he had written his report of the Leatham business before he left the village, and this he left upon his father's desk. As he went up to London he read and re-read Elizabeth's brief note, in a conflict of torture and delight. There was but one phrase in it which impressed the personality of the writer. "I am alone with father, and very anxious," she wrote. He felt the throb of her heart in those words, and he realised that she leaned on him for strength. His own heart swelled with tenderness at the thought. There is a kind of pain which is so exquisite that it becomes joy; he realised such a pain now, an immense yearning to take the lonely girl to his bosom, and kiss her wet eyelids, and defend her from the imminent sword of sorrow.
He stood at the door of the little house in Lonsdale Road. The street lay silent in the August heat, the little patch of grass was brown and parched, there was an aspect of forlornness over everything. A sudden terror smote him: what if it were Elizabeth herself who was ill? His hand trembled as he rang the bell. The door opened softly, and there stood Elizabeth, pale and quiet as a spectre.
"Elizabeth!"
Her hand lay in his, her beautiful eyes, swimming in tears, met his; he drew her to him in one long kiss. It was the first time he had kissed her, and how often had he imagined the ecstasy of that kiss! It had come at last, but not with the kind of ecstasy he had imagined, yet with the diviner ecstasy of sorrow. The rose of her heart was yielded to him, but it was wet with tears.
"Elizabeth!"
She withdrew herself from his embrace, saying simply, "I wanted you so much."
And in that brief phrase all was said, and each knew that henceforth an irrevocable vow bound their hearts together.
She took his hand, and together they went into the room where they had so often talked. The desk was littered with papers, half-corrected proofs, unanswered letters, the mute, pathetic witness of an arrested hand.
"How long ago is it?" he whispered
"Four days."
"What is it?"
"Typhoid, the doctor thinks."
"Can I see him?"
"It was he who told me to write you. He wants to see you."
"And you?"
"Yes, I wanted you too."
There was a tender reproach in the words, which he was quick to recognise.
"I should not have asked the question. Forgive me."
"No, you need not have asked it."
They went upstairs together. Vickars lay very straight and quiet in the bed, his face pallid, his eyes closed. He roused instantly at their entrance, and at once began to speak in a weak, eager voice.
"So you see I'm caught at last," he said with difficult cheerfulness. "I've never had an illness—ailments, but not illness—and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's an experience that makes one humble."
"Don't talk, father. It exhausts you," said Elizabeth.
"On the contrary, it keeps me cheerful," he said, with the old whimsical smile. "Habit, I suppose. And besides, I have certain things to say to Arthur."
Elizabeth took the hint and left the room. Arthur sat beside the bed in awkward silence.
Presently Vickars said abruptly, "You love her?"
"Yes, with all my heart."
"I thought so."
He was silent for some moments. Then he said, "A month ago I suppose I should almost have hated you for that confession. She is all I have; I have always wanted to keep her wholly to myself.... I have dreaded this hour.... But I see now it is the course of nature. I may have to leave her soon—I don't know. But I'm glad now you love her. Yes, I think I'm glad, and I wished to tell you so."
"I hope you'll soon be better."
"Ah! do you? But then, you see, I might not feel the same toward you. But there—that's irony. You know that. Honestly, I'm glad you love her."
His eyes closed, and Arthur, sitting silently beside the bed, could not but mark the change in Vickars since last he saw him. The bones of the face showed white through the stretched, transparent skin, the eyes were sunken, and new lines had been etched upon the forehead. It came to him, in a rush of pity and of admiration, that he loved this man. And there came to him also some dim perception of the depth of that sacrifice which Vickars endured in resigning his sole jealous claim upon Elizabeth. It is seldom that young love attains to this vision. It is all hot eagerness, imperious and intense with the overmastering impulse of sex, and blind to the tendrils of old affection which it tears apart to reach its goal. But to Arthur there was granted a truer vision, a nobler temper, because love in him had always had a sacred meaning, and had never been the more clamorous cry of sex.
It was as though Vickars divined his thoughts. He opened his eyes, and said, "Bring me my notebook. It is lying on the table."
Arthur brought the book.
"I want to read you something. It was written by a wayward man of genius, who made many blunders both in thought and morals, but he understood love, and the one best thing in all his life was that he did know how to love. Listen. 'To love we must render up body and soul, heart and mind, all interests and all desires, all prudences and all ambitions, and identify our being with that of another.... To love is for the soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining when the path is terrible with dangers, mutually exhorting when it is rugged with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing when rich broad plains and sunny slopes make the journey a delight, showing in the quiet distance the resting-place we all seek in this world.'"
The words, beautiful in themselves, had a strange solemnity as Vickars read them. It was as though all the ages spoke in them, as though one overheard in some dim cathedral the low whispering of multitudes of lovers, confessing the ultimate secret of both life and love.
He put the book down, sank back upon his pillow, and began to talk in a low, intense voice.
"Yes, I loved like that.... A companion of the soul, that was what I found. Women are such delicate and fragile creatures, but oh! so strong—much stronger than we are; and a good woman is the strongest of all. The heavier the load you lay upon them, the happier they are. I know. I should have fallen by the way but for her. She always smiled at difficulty ... such a tender, smiling mouth she had ... like a fresh flower in the sun. Then God took her. She went smiling—her last word a word of encouragement to me, her eyes signalling courage as they closed. And Elizabeth is like her. She has carried my burdens and borne my sorrows.... Poor child! it may be I have leaned too heavily on her. Well, well. God forbid I should grudge her her right to joy. Take her, Arthur, and don't lean too heavily upon her."
Instinctively Arthur knelt beside the bed. His eyes were full of tears. Vickars stretched out his hand, and laid it on his head. There was no need of further words.
When he next spoke, it was with his old manner of whimsical humour.
"If I must needs have a son, I don't want an idle one," he said. "I want you to help me, Arthur."
"I'll do anything I can."
"Well, this is what I want you to do. You will find the proofs of my new book downstairs on my desk. They must be corrected at once, or the book will miss the autumn season. Will you correct them for me?"
"If Elizabeth will let me," he said with a smile.
"I think she will let you. I am sure she would let no one else."
"Then I'll begin at once."
"Well, that's a load off my mind. And don't you think I'm going to die, for I'm not. But I'm in for a hard fight, there's no doubt of that. Now go to Elizabeth—and the proofs. I'm tired out, and will sleep. I've never been lazy in my life before, and it's a new and quite exquisite sensation."
From that hour a strange chapter of life began for Arthur. Eagle House was closed, and he took refuge with Mrs. Bundy. He wrote his father a brief note, saying he was detained in London, and would not return to Brighton. He had not the courage to tell him the whole truth; that revelation would come soon enough, and he did not wish to antagonise his father by an abrupt declaration of his position. To this note his father made no reply.
Most of his hours were spent in the little house in Lonsdale Road. There he toiled over Vickars's new book. Much of it consisted of rough drafts, which he had to copy and piece together as best he could. In this delicate work he could obtain no counsel from Vickars.
Of Elizabeth he saw much, and yet far less than he would have imagined possible. She was constantly at her father's bedside. And as the days wore on, the fight for life in that shadowed room became intense. A silent pressure of her hand, a silent kiss—and she would glide from him like a ghost, and disappear into the gloom of that upper chamber.
One night it happened that she had gone to rest, worn out with long watching, and Arthur took her place at Vickars' bedside. For a long time Vickars lay in complete stupor. The gray dawn was near, and a milk-cart rattled down the road. The noise roused him for a moment, and he began to speak in half-delirious words.
"The old story," he said. "Rotten work, and human lives to pay for it. The poor ... the poor pay for everything in this world ... with their blood. And the rich sit in houses splashed with the blood of the poor, and don't even know it.... I always knew the drains were bad. I always said they smelt of death. But that damned builder didn't care—not he. He only laughed ... laughed."
The voice trailed off into an incoherent whisper.
When Vickars began to speak, Arthur listened drowsily; but as he finished, his entire mind sprang into vivid apprehension. It was as though a sudden torch flared through his brain.
What did the sick man mean? And with the question there came back to Arthur's memory a snatch of conversation at the deacons' tea, when he had first heard the name of Hilary Vickars. He recalled the suave, purring voice of Scales explaining to his father that the Vickars were inconsiderable people, living in Lonsdale Road—"in one of your houses, sir."
"I always said the drains smelt of death. But that damned builder didn't care. He only laughed."
And the builder was his father.
A blackness of great horror fell upon him. He struggled against it, as against an overwhelming tide. Could it be that Vickars knew this dreadful thing all the time, knew it even when he had laid his hand upon his head, and welcomed him as a son? It seemed hardly possible. He told himself that after all he had nothing to go upon but a few delirious words. Perhaps Vickars was not thinking of his own case at all. It might have been simply some scene in one of his books which he rehearsed—a snatch of drama flung out by the toiling, unconscious brain. But in his heart he knew that such an explanation was untrue. An inner force of conviction, stronger than reason, affirmed the reality of Vickars' words. The delirious mind had uttered a tragic truth which the conscious mind had concealed.
The dawn had now come. He heard Elizabeth going down the stairs silently. How could he meet her? Perhaps she also knew the truth, had known it all the time. He hastily wrote a note, saying that he had gone for a walk, and would return in an hour. Vickars still slept. He knew that in a few minutes Elizabeth would be with him. He went softly down the stairs, and let himself out into the Lonsdale Road.
In the freshness of the morning air his tragic suppositions seemed incredible. Life lay round him in its wide security of joy; birds sang, flowers bloomed, men were astir; everything breathed of honest industry, honest kindness, and it seemed a thing impossible that behind this fair show of things there lay unimaginable depths of cruelty. He passed Eagle House, shuttered and silent, and he fell to thinking of his father. Stern, inscrutable, resolute he knew his father to be, but he had never known him cruel. Yet if he had done this thing he was a monster. He had made a compact with death for money. Over the porch of Eagle House there hung a Virginia creeper, already touched with the first rusty crimson of autumn, and to the boy's wild imagination it was a stain of blood. "Splashed with blood of the poor," Vickars had said.... Yet, at that moment, every memory of his father that he could summon up was kind and gracious. He remembered his generosities to him during his university career, his patience with him while he waited for a decision on which his heart was set in burning eagerness, his trust in him over the Leatham business, and all that pride and love which had a thousand times met him in his father's glance. But he knew also that in the scales of justice even such memories as these were worthless. They could not outweigh deliberate fraud. He must know the truth; he was merciless in his appetite for truth; until that hunger was satisfied there was no place for kinder thoughts.
It struck him all at once that there was an easy way to satisfy his doubts. The doctor would know the exact truth, and to the doctor he would go.
Ten minutes later he stood in the doctor's waiting-room. Dr. Leet was not yet up. He would be down in half an hour.
Presently the doctor entered, a somewhat formal, gray, middle-aged man, with a hesitating manner which had grown upon him in the constant effort to avoid hurting the susceptibilities of patients who asked awkward questions which he was unwilling to answer.
"Ah, you come from Mr. Vickars? Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"No, doctor. I left him asleep."
The doctor nodded and waited.
"I came to ask you a question, doctor."
"Yes."
"It's about Vickars. I want to know the cause of his illness. I have a good reason for asking."
"The cause? Well, you see, Vickars had been run down for a long time before he became ill. He had probably worked too hard for years. That meant a certain devitalisation, which made him susceptible to fever."
"And is that all?"
"Well, not altogether, of course. There is still the question of the fever itself."
"That is what I want to know, doctor. I shall be very glad if you tell me plainly what you think."
"Oh, there's not much room for conjectures. Drains, of course. Lonsdale Road had been a perfect nest of typhoid germs for years. I don't know who built the street, but I do know that, whoever he was, he was a scoundrel. The drains run under the kitchen floors, and I'll be bound that there isn't one that is not a death-trap. I've seen some of these drains exposed, and I give you my word for it that the pipes are not so much as cemented together."
Arthur turned sick and pale. Then he said quietly, "My father built those houses."
"Oh, my dear sir," began the doctor, "I'm sorry I spoke. I had no idea."
"You need not apologise," said Arthur. "I asked a plain question and expected a plain answer. I understand that Vickars is the victim of bad drains?"
"Well, yes, primarily. Of course, run down as he was, he might have fallen ill, any way. But honestly I can't say that I believe this. The real cause is only too clear."
"Then Eliz—Miss Vickars is in danger too?"
"Any one is in danger who lives in those houses," said the doctor hotly, forgetting his usual caution. "They are mere death-traps, I tell you. And though I don't want to hurt your feelings, yet I am bound to say that in my opinion a highway robber who takes your purse upon a public road is a respectable person compared with the rascal who condemns scores of decent people to certain suffering, and some to certain death, for the sake of a few pounds of illicit gain."
"Thank you, doctor. I think I'll go now."
He groped for his hat, like a blind man.
"You'd better wait a little while," said the doctor. "Stop, and have some breakfast with me."
And then Arthur's self-control broke. He leant against the library shelves, covering his face with his hands.
"O my father," he cried, "how could you do it?"
"Don't take it too hardly," said the doctor. "Perhaps he didn't know ... surely he didn't think."
"Yes, he knew," said Arthur, turning on the doctor a pair of flaming, tear-wet eyes. "He's done it before. He once put oyster-shells and road-gravel into the foundations of a church instead of concrete. I heard him say so. He must have done it many times. And he doesn't care. People die, and he doesn't care. And I'm his son ... the son of a man who is a scoundrel."
He pushed the astonished doctor aside, and somehow found his way into the open air. There lay the world, even as he had left it, but its aspect was wholly changed. In the fresh morning light it had smiled upon him, it had seemed honest, it had breathed security of joy; now the mask of hypocrisy was gone, and it was an old, evil, wrinkled face that leered at him. It was the stage of tragic passions, it was full of the habitations of cruelty.
"Splashed with blood of the poor"—so he saw the world at that moment, a red grotesque, a grim crimson horror. And he saw his father, too, clothed in the same blood-red livery of crime.