Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

  CHAPTER II.

  A week had gone by, and Margaret was still at Bryanston Square.

  She had lost count of time; she could not have told how long ago she hadleft the preacher on the threshold of the old house in which herchildhood and girlhood had been passed.

  "Ye'll find me when ye want me. Ye'd best stay wi' him till th' end,"Barnabas had said.

  He had caught a glimpse of the grand hall, of the painted walls andceilings; then the door had shut between them, and he had turned awayrather grimly. Those heathen gods and goddesses seemed to the preacherfitting ornaments for the "heathenism" of luxury. But Margaret had goneup the shallow stairs, looking neither to right nor left, straight toher father at last! no one hindering. Mr. Deane was propped up onpillows; his breath was coming short and fast, his eyes were verybright, his whole soul seemed in them. When Meg crossed the room, thestrained look relaxed; when she knelt by his side, he laughed weakly.

  "Ah, I thought you'd do it, Meg!" he said. "Forgive? why, littledaughter, between you and me that's not the word! but you're--you'remine again--and home!"

  He shut his eyes then, like a tired child who goes to sleep when itstreasure is put into its hand; and Meg knelt on motionless, with herhead on the pillow by his side. She had neither sight nor hearing forany one else.

  He dozed, it might be for half an hour; then woke again, and the nurse,who had been sitting at the foot of the bed, got up and moved softlyabout, and brought a cup of arrowroot to him, and Meg fed him inspoonfuls.

  He was too weak to lift his hand to his lips; but he whispered to her toturn to the light, and to take off her bonnet, that he might see herbetter. She laid it on the floor by her side, uncovering the short wavesof hair, that grew, exactly as her father's grew, low on the forehead.

  "Has he cut off your hair, Meg?" said Mr. Deane. The sight seemed todistress, even to make him a little angry. "He had no business to dothat!"

  "He didn't," said Meg. "I cut it off myself long ago. Barnabas was sorrywhen he noticed that it was gone."

  "Well, I'm glad he had the grace to be sorry. Don't go away." And hefell asleep again, with his hand on hers.

  It was like a dream to be sitting in that softly carpeted room, with thescent of roses in the air, and the companions of her girlhood round her.

  Laura came softly in presently, and sat down beside her. The sisterslooked at each other for a moment, not daring to speak, lest they shouldwake him. Laura tried to smile a welcome; then her blue eyes filled withunusual tears.

  "Meg, Meg! Is it you really? Will you vanish, if I kiss you? Is it safeto try?" she asked under her breath.

  Meg leaned forward, without releasing her hand, and they kissed softly.

  "I shall stay--till the end," she whispered in return.

  So, very quietly and gently, Margaret Thorpe stole back to the place MegDeane had left; but knew, even while her heart was filled withthankfulness, that, though the place might be the same, yet the girl whohad left it would return no more.

  Mr. Deane woke with a contented smile on his lips. "I dreamt of you, myMeg," he said. And, from that moment, he seemed to have simply put asideall that had happened since Meg had been his spoilt darling of long ago.

  His mind wandered to her nursery rather than to her girlish days--tothat very far away time, before Mrs. Russelthorpe's reign, when hislittle girl had sat on his knee, and ruled him with sweet baby tyranny.

  Margaret tried once to recall his mind to the present; for her heartached for a few words that she might treasure--words spoken to her realand womanly self; but the attempt distressed him, and she gave it up.

  She slept on the sofa in his room; for he became uneasy when she was outof his sight; but the ebbing away of his life was quiet and gradual asthe ebb of a summer sea.

  Perhaps the faculty he had always possessed of forgetting troublesomematters helped to make his last days happy.

  Apparently he utterly forgot the existence of the preacher. The grown-updaughter had given him more pain than pleasure; but the baby girl hadbeen an unmixed joy. He loved to call her by the old pet names of herchildhood. Laura, who came every day, watched her sister wonderingly.Once, when Meg playfully answered some allusion to an old family joke,Laura felt a sudden longing to thrust aside the veil, to ask Meg aboutall the strange experiences that were surely in the background, to begher to say whether the preacher was kind or cruel to her; but they bothrefrained from bringing any subject into that chamber which was alreadysanctified by the approach of the great healer.

  Mrs. Russelthorpe came in one day, and stood by the bedside.

  Mr. Deane turned his head away from her, as if her presence reminded himof something he preferred to forget; then, apparently with some effort,he recalled his thoughts.

  "You must make friends with your aunt, little Meg. We must bury oldgrudges before--what is it?--before the sun goes down. It is going downfast!"

  Meg held out her hand across the bed--for his sake she would have madefriends with any one; but Mrs. Russelthorpe shook her head. "There is noneed for us to go through that farce; for his thoughts have wanderedagain."

  "Aunt Russelthorpe," said Meg, "let us both watch by him now; we bothcare for him--there is room for us both."

  "No!" said her aunt. "There is room for only one of us two, Margaret;and he has chosen. Let us have no pretences. Stay where you are. Youhave won!" and Meg stayed.

  She used to read to him by the hour, because he loved the sound of hervoice, going on and on in the low monotonous key that soothed him. Itwas doubtful whether he ever followed the sense of what she read, and,as a matter of fact, Meg, though she would sit half the day with herhand in his and her head bent over a book, would have been puzzled ifcalled on to give an account of what her tongue had been mechanicallyrepeating.

  The atmosphere was so peaceful that it seemed as if Time himself stoodstill for a space with folded wings. "You are keeping so close to me,little Meg," her father said once with a dreamy smile,--"so close, thatif you don't take care, when I go through the great gates, you will slipin too by mistake."

  Meg pressed closer to him still; and yet, for all her clinging, she knewthat there was a life's experience, even now, between him and her.

  A thick velvet curtain, curiously embroidered in gold silks, hung acrossthe door. It shut out the whole of the outside world for five days.

  At the end of that time, Laura, pushing it aside, touched Meg's shoulderas she sat in her usual place.

  "Your husband is outside," she said. "I passed him on my way in. He toldme to tell you that he should like a minute's sight of you, but that youneed not hurry--he could wait."

  Meg made a sign that she would come; and presently, taking a shawl fromLaura, slid gently out of the room, while her father's eyes were closed.

  She opened the front door and stood at the top of the steps, shivering alittle, though the evening was hot, for the flower-scented room upstairswas hotter.

  A street musician was playing, and some children were shouting anddancing. After the silence she had left behind that curtain, the merrytune and the unsubdued voices sounded strangely loud and bold.

  "My lass," said the preacher. "Ye are lookin' liker a bit o' moonlightthan ever! Come down to me."

  And Meg, putting the shawl over her head, ran down, and stood beside himon the pavement. They walked down the length of the square together. Thestreet player ceased playing for a moment to stare at the woman who hadstepped out of the front door of No. 35 to keep company with a workingman, and then the tune ground on again.

  "Barnabas," she said in a low voice, "I shall come to you the verymoment that--that he does not need me. I do not think Aunt Russelthorpewould keep me a second."

  "And you'll not need to ask her!" said the preacher quickly. "Come to meany time, lass; though ye'll find it a bit uncomfortable, I'm afear'd!Still, we'll do somehow."

  He frowned, considering the possibilities of Giles' house, then turnedto her with a smile. "Do you feel as if ye'd stepped backwards
a year orso?"

  "No!" said Margaret. "There is no such thing as 'going back,' inreality. Is that Laura making a sign to me? No! it is only the lacecurtain moving. He is still asleep, then. Tell me why you came,Barnabas. Had you anything especial to say to me?"

  But her glance still rested anxiously on the window.

  "Ay, I had some'ut to tell ye," he answered; "though I had nighforgotten it in seeing ye. I've been a bit fashed about--ye'll besurprised, Margaret--about Mr. Cohen. Do you know whereabouts he lives?Happen, it was a delusion; but yet, I'd as lief be sartain that it's_not_ him who is lyin' murdered i' the marshes."

  He paused; but Margaret was too much surprised to speak.

  "I'd ha' liked," he went on, more to himself than her, "I'd ha' liked toha' had it out betwixt him and me, in a fair fight wi' no quarterasked--only I was sworn, and I'm glad I didn't. But that's one thing;and to think o' him bein' struck down from behind, lyin' there alone fordays an' nights, helpless i' the sunlight an' the moonlight; cut offwi'out the chance of givin' a free blow; that's different. Where doeshe live? I must make my mind easy."

  Meg was thoroughly roused this time, even to a momentary forgetting ofthat room upstairs.

  "Mr. Sauls murdered!" she said. "It can't be true. What makes you fancythat? It is too horrible; it can't be true!"

  She looked at his troubled face anxiously. Had his violent feelingagainst Mr. Sauls, and his equally strong remorse and efforts to subdueit, given rise to a morbid imagination on the subject? She knew (sheunderstood the preacher better than of old) how violent both his hateand his horror of himself for so hating could be.

  "Ay, it's horrible," he answered. "Margaret! when the lust for a man'sblood has been strong, and then one hears of a sudden that, mayhap, theman's been killed, one feels as if one's own thought had gotten shapeand killed him!"

  There was a thrill in the preacher's voice that made Meg draw closer tohim. They had reached the end of the square, but she turned again.

  "Will you not tell me more?" she asked.

  He hesitated. "If I tell ye, do ye hold that I tell ye as countin' yeone wi' mysel'? An' will 'ee feel bound, as I hold myself bound, to keepit secret?"

  "Yes," said Meg.

  "Some one confessed to me that he'd killed a man as was walking aloneacross the marshes, an' robbed him. And it came to my mind as it wereMr. Sauls. There aren't many about us as are worth the robbing, an' veryfew but labourers as takes that way to th' farm. The man as told me wasin a sort o' fever; I didn't think he was goin' to live, and no more didhe; he was terrible scared o' dying, or I fancy he'd never ha' let itout. All one night he was very bad; then he quieted down an' slept, an'awoke up a bit better, eatin' as if he'd been clemmed, but not takin'notice o' what I said to him, nor seemingly understandin' a word. Itried to persuade him to gi'e himsel' up to justice, but it seemed justwaste o' breath. I went down to get him some'ut more to eat, an' when Icame back he were gone! he must ha' got his clothes on and just slippedthrough the window; happen, he understood a bit more nor I thought!"

  "Who is the man?" asked Meg, in a horrified whisper.

  "I'd as lief not tell ye that," said Barnabas; "for ye'd better notknow."

  "If--if it is true--what shall you do?"

  "Nothing!" he answered decidedly. "What is told i' that way must be assafe as if it hadn't been breathed. I'd ha' tried to make the murdererconfess and be hung, for the savin' o' his soul; but I'd not tell on himmysel', I'd sooner go to the gallows; an', mind, ye ha' sworn it shallbe th' same wi' you, Margaret."

  "Yes," she said; "it shall be the same with me--as if I were yourself."She spoke solemnly, though little guessing all that that promise wouldmean.

  "And after all," she added more lightly, for, indeed, this idea was toostartling to realise, "after all, Mr. Sauls is, probably, perfectly welland comfortable. I cannot remember his address, but my sister may knowit. I will ask her for it, and send it down to you. Ah, she is wavingher hand to me at the window. Father must be awake."

  "I must e'en let ye go, I suppose," said Barnabas; "for, an' I hold ye,your soul 'ull slip through my fingers, an' go an' watch by him all thesame. God be with ye, my dear!"

  He released her unwillingly, and Margaret ran back to her father. Mr.Deane was wide awake and slightly flushed.

  "Meg! Meg! I dreamed I had lost you, that you had leaped over aprecipice," he cried.

  He was excited, and not quite himself. He recognised her on her returnto his room; but, as the day wore on, he became more feverish, and inthe evening he was delirious.

  All through the night he talked eagerly to his dead wife, evidentlybelieving her to be present; but in the small hours the fever left him,and, in the collapse that followed it, he died. He died with Meg's handclasped in his, with his head on his sister's shoulder; but unconsciousof the presence of either of the women, each of whom had, in her way,loved him better than all else in the world.

  Laura stood at the foot of the bed during the last terrible hour, withher arm round Kate, who had come just in time. Kate kept turning herbeautiful head away,--she could hardly bear to see this death struggle.

  Margaret's eyes never moved from her father's face. When Mr. Deane'shead fell forward on his breast, the last sobbing breath drawn, theawful involuntary fight for life over, Meg's expression relaxed, as ifshe, too, were relieved.

  "It is over!" she said.

  Only when some one tried to unclasp the living hand from his she fell onher knees with a smothered cry--after all, she had not gone with him.

  Laura led Kate away, crying bitterly; if Mr. Deane had been the best andmost dependable father on earth, instead of merely the most charminglyaffectionate when he happened to be at home, they would not have lovedhim more, possibly they would have loved him less; for a woman's lovewill fill up the measure wherein a man falls short of what he might havebeen.

  Mrs. Russelthorpe closed his eyes--eyes that had looked their last on aworld which had generally treated him very well; then went to her roomwith lips pressed closely together.

  Meg knelt on till the grey dawn crept in, and some one enteringdisturbed her.

  "You can do no more for him now. Come away; indeed, Meg, you _must_come," said Laura.

  Laura looked pale, and even a little nervous. She dreaded Meg's grief,remembering how "hard" the little sister, whom they had ratherneglected, had always taken everything.

  But this Meg was not the "little sister" of old; or rather, perhaps, heridentity was hidden under a new garb.

  She rose from her knees dry-eyed and composed.

  "I am going back to my husband," she said. "Father does not want me now,as you say. Barnabas has been very good. He has waited all these days. Ishould like to stay till after the funeral, but----"

  "Come home with me!" said Laura.

  She put her hand on her sister's arm and grasped her tightly.

  "Don't disappear, Meg! I don't want to lose you; you--you are so like_him_," she whispered, with a glance at the bed, where that quiet figurelay in the deep peace that neither grief nor love should ever moveagain.

  "I promised Barnabas that I would not stay," said Margaret; but a quiverpassed over her face. Laura drew her gently out of the room and shut thedoor.

  "I could not tell you in there," she said, with the sentiment that weall have against talking of mundane matters in the chamber of death,"but I have a message for you from your husband. I went down to give himthe address you asked me for yesterday, because I wished to speak tohim, to see for myself what sort of a man he is. While I was speaking tohim he"--Laura hesitated a second--"he was summoned away. He bid me tellyou that he may be absent several days, but that you were not to 'fash'about him, but just bide quiet; if he were not here when the end came, Itold him I would take you back with me. He said you would know that hewould come for you so soon as ever he could."

  "Yes, I know," said Meg simply. "What was the call?"

  "He said he was called to a place where he could not have you by him."

 
Laura coloured, wondering what the next question would be; but Meg wasapparently satisfied.

  The preacher's movements were apt to be erratic, and his decisions wereoften arbitrary. The "call" might probably be to some abode of vice andmisery into which he shrank from taking her.

  "Are you sure you want me, Laura?"

  "Quite sure," said Laura emphatically.

  She put her arm round her sister while she spoke, and the two left thehouse together. Barnabas Thorpe had been arrested on Mrs. Russelthorpe'sdoorstep before Laura's eyes; but there was, she assured herself, noneed to tell Meg that, just now.

  If he were innocent he would be set free again, and would come to claimhis wife quite soon enough; if he were guilty--but no! oddly enough,Laura found it simply impossible to believe him guilty. The big gauntman with the deeply furrowed face and the eager eyes, that had the lookof the enthusiast and potential martyr in them, had impressed hercuriously. Laura had felt no name too bad for the canting rascal who hadstolen Margaret; but the reality and intense personality of the preacherhad at least momentarily pierced through her prejudice.

  Barnabas Thorpe was no hypocrite; her womanly instinct spoke for him,though her pride and reason were against him. The last-named qualitieswoke up only when the spell of his presence was removed.

  "I am glad he has gone; after all, you belong to us, Meg," she said.