But Andrews—for some reason—turned to answer.
“Why—he was well-built . . . very well-built. Handsome. Oh yes! And thoughtful. He was of a thoughtful disposition.”
“Were he like me, then?”
“He was—country bred.” (With a sneer.)
“D’you mean he didn’t run an’ climb an’ play like—like other lads?” went on Smith—who’d done none of these things, save run. “Didn’t he ’ave no favorite places to nip into when the going was ’ot? Didn’t he ’ave no little alley or court he could call his own, Mister Andrews?”
“Smith!” whispered the blind man fiercely.
“For if he didn’t, Mister Andrews, he weren’t a very natural boy!”
Andrews—touched on a raw place—answered almost contemptuously: “Where you, boy, might make a nest in a dirty corner of the wicked Town, Jack, when the secret mood was on him (such as comes to all boys who love to dream), would go—”
“—Where? Where would he go?”
Smith’s excitement was intense. So near—so near!
“Smith—”
But Andrews had already crossed the room. Not even the furious magistrate could prevent him defending the dead Jack’s quality against the urchin.
With wide eyes Smith watched him. He halted by the window. He pointed—and Smith’s blood chilled!
“There was Jack’s nest! In yonder churchyard—by the statue of a carved black angel. There he’d sit and dream his dreams—and, maybe, even watch us all—”
Andrews was gone from the room. Mr. Mansfield had heard him take his leave.
“Smith!” he whispered, urgently. No answer. “Smith! Smith! Where are you?”
Silence and darkness . . . deeper than the blind man had ever known it. The boy was gone!
He rose to his feet and began, with desperate haste, to feel his way towards the last sound he’d heard: the door closing. The empty air mocked at him—offering the feeling of obstacles, then declaring: Nothing here, blind man—as he jerked and staggered until, thankfully, he struck against the wall.
“Smith! Smith! Come back! You’re mad, child! You’ll damn yourself. No one will help you now, Smith!”
He found the door, opened it, and felt cold air blowing in his face. This he knew he must follow. He prayed to God no one would see him as he tottered foolishly, ridiculously after the urchin to whom he seemed uncannily chained.
“Smith . . . Smith!” he kept whispering into what he imagined were corners, in the hope the child was hiding from him—was playing a cruel game—was only pretending to be gone to the damnable churchyard to dig up “the trifle,” to be gone forever into the implacable silence and dark. “Voices in the night” he’d said on a certain terrible day. Did he know the truth of it? And did he know what the dark was like when the voices were gone? Did he know the other voices that plague a blind man?
“Smith—Smith—”
He was now very near the source of the cold air. He heard a chandelier jingling as a draft stirred it. He was in the hall. The front door was open.
“Smith!” he called helplessly and fell out into the snow. Much shaken, he struggled upright.
“Smith!” he cried out, as loudly as he dared, for he was committed too deeply with the invisible, infant criminal to court any other’s knowledge of it. He’d perjured himself for him; he’d given up a dead man’s trust to him; he’d broken the law and compromised his own honor for him; he’d wracked himself for him—and because of what? Wretchedly, he shook his head—and the snow fell away from his hair. “Child! Come back to me! Smith—I’m frightened . . . for you . . . for me! Smith—”
There was no answer—nothing but the restless motion of cold air through unseen shrubs. And then a dog began to bark, then another, and another! A shrill, dreadful sound in the blind man’s ears. For the creatures now sounded ferocious, as if warning of a new crisis in the house’s affairs which they—if they were loosed—could avert. Was it him they would tear and snap at? Or was there someone else on his way?
Suddenly, a hand clutched at his wrist and dragged him furiously to one side. Smith had come back.
“Smith—”
“Quiet! Someone’s on his way! The ignorant beasts have gone mad again!”
Smith’s voice was low and trembling. He sounded frightened half to death. Had he already been to the churchyard?
“Child—”
“Quiet, I tell you!” His grip on the blind man’s wrist was almost vicious in its strength—as if the boy were exacting such small vengeance as he could for having been drawn back. But Smith had conceived with dread that the dogs were barking the approach of the two men in brown!
He’d seen the blind man swaying in the drive. He’d heard him calling. But he had not moved till the dogs barked. So where had he been, so still and quiet and unbreathing, even? By the lych-gate of the churchyard . . . staring into the snow. Certain footprints had appalled him, frozen him body and soul—till he’d heard the warning dogs; which sound had awoken him.
“Where are you dragging me, child?”
“To the churchyard.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
“Have you forgotten—I’m blind?”
“Not that blind, Mister Mansfield.”
The dogs were still barking. Whoever was coming was not yet near enough to disappoint them. Smith fancied he heard a carriage door . . . but still he dragged Mr. Mansfield through the concealing bushes, enjoining him to absolute quiet; there was yet more to fear than whatever the dogs barked at and yet more to discover than ever those creatures would learn.
Down, down to the churchyard—with the snow flurrying secretly about them—hurried the boy and the blind man, till they were at the lych-gate. The blind man felt the boy halt a moment: he felt his fingers tremble and grip tighter than ever before; he heard him draw in his breath. Then they went inside . . .
Still and silent was the little garden where the dead were planted and bloomed in stone. Very prettily did the headstones wear their widows’ caps of snow and stand respectfully in groups and rows.
But even in death there’s ambition, and a carved black angel knelt upon one tomb as if to say: What a special one lies here.
Now this angel knelt upon a flat stone to which mounted three steps. Upon these steps was a second figure, still enough to be likewise carved. A figure with an easy, familiar air—as if he was come back at last to a place much loved in childhood—the figure of a man with a wooden leg . . .
19
STILL KNOWING NOTHING for certain but the need for extreme secrecy, the blind man suffered himself to be pulled and dragged down till he felt the stone of the church at his back and heard Smith’s voice breathe close in his ear: “He’s there, by the statue! Peg-top! Old Hop-an’-Scrape! Whispering Jack! Jack o’ the alley! Little Jackie Field—and the spitting image of his done-for Pa! It’s my Mister Black!”
“The son! Alive?”
“Yes. More’s the pity! It was him what done the old man in. Little, limping, whispering Jack!”
“Horrible, horrible!”
“He’s not of your opinion! For he’s a-smiling, there. He’s of a thoughtful disposition, he is. Country bred. Who’d have thought the Devil was born among the green fields out Barnet way? Yes—he’s a-smiling very thoughtful. You got no eyes, friend, and you should be thankful. For you ain’t missing much!”
So now they knew—beyond all doubt—what discovery the old man had made and sought to take with him to the grave. He had discovered his son was still alive—and would have been better dead. That the hope, the dream, the golden place in his life was as wicked and monstrous a morsel of man and wood as stalked and whispered and hid anywhere in the world.
To this dreadful thing, the document had at last led Smith and Mr. Mansfield . . . to this one-legged gentleman, squatting in the shadow of a carved angel’s wing, smiling broodily, with the air of having come by appointment . . . Fearfully, Smith’s mind went back to
his one-time hopes that the document would raise him up in the world. Instead, it had given him a sight of depths past even his darkest dreams.
But the one-legged gentleman was looking up. Someone was coming—keeping the appointment. Who’d arranged to meet with the Devil?
“Here he comes!” breathed Smith, with bitter triumph. “Yore friend and mine.”
For into the churchyard, skipping across the snow with his black coattails flapping—like a prosperous bird of prey—came the neat Mr. Billing!
“Jack!” he called gently.
“Billing!”
Mr. Mansfield stiffened as if to rise. Grimly, Smith held him back. He would have the magistrate hear all there was to be heard.
“The document. Have you got it?” This, from Mr. Billing who was come to “Mr. Black’s” side.
“No. Our brown friends are not yet come.”
“Ah well, it won’t be long now, dear Jack!” Mr. Billing laid his hand round the other’s shoulder. The one-legged man seemed to shiver slightly—as if submitting with an ill-grace.
“As you say—not long, dear Billing . . . and we’ll be rid of each other!”
“Why, Jack! We’re friends! Have been so for years. Why the bitterness—now?”
“You made me kill him, Billing.”
“I made you? Jack, Jack, it’s not so.”
“You planned! You urged! You tempted!”
“Ah, but you acted, Jack! Never forget that!”
“How can I? Not till I die! And, maybe, not even then.” He looked up at the black angel—then back to the attorney with a harsh groan. “And d’you remember, you even swore it would be Andrews coming—”
“A murder’s a murder, Jack—no matter who perishes. But don’t blame yourself, dear. It’s not you—or me. It’s this world we live in, Jack! What can we do? We’ve got to live. Take the rough with the smooth, Jack. It’ll all come out in the wash! If there’s a God in heaven—He knows the difficulties we’re up against down here. He’ll understand. He’ll forgive us. And—if there’s no such Judge—well, Jack, what have we got to lose? It’s all in the mind, my dear! Well, well—we’d all like to be saints through and through. Nothing nicer. But we can’t. It’s the world, Jack, not us. And we can’t change that. No, sir!”
In the quiet, cold air, the voices carried intimately, so’s no inflection, even, was lost on the listeners. It was not Mr. Black, then, but Mr. Billing who was the Devil! Mr. Black was but the outward image of evil—its eyes, teeth, hands, skin and hair—but Mr. Billing was its inward, horrible, cajoling, obliging soul!
They continued murmuring, in a like vein, for a while longer, and it became plain it was not for the first time. There was a weariness in Mr. Black’s bitterness and a boredom in the attorney’s evasions that bespoke much repetition. Over and above them, the black angel brooded thoughtfully . . . and somewhere beneath them lay whatever it was they’d murdered for: the buried trifle.
But now, a slight breeze sprang up, lifting little tufts of snow from the stones, as if there were a restlessness below—a stirring . . .
“Oh God for Judgment!” groaned Mr. Mansfield. “But what sort of Judgment can there be?”
“At last!” exclaimed the terrible Mr. Black. “They’ve come!”
And the yet more terrible Mr. Billing smiled and waved.
From the far end of the churchyard, through the quiet yews, came the two men in brown. Very dark-faced and frozen they were, as they approached their employers. But the breeze quickened, and their exchanges were partly lost.
“. . . the document?”
“. . . not got it!”
“. . . not? Why not? Not killed the blind man, then?”
They shook their wicked heads. Mr. Black—gray with terror and rage—raised his hand to strike at them. But Mr. Billing—everyone’s friend—stayed his hand, and did not free it. Instead, he forced it down . . . and made it point—(Would Mr. Billing have used even his own finger? Not if another was to hand!)—to the snow. What was so remarkable about the snow? Footmarks. There were his own. There—so curious that they’d chilled Smith’s blood when he’d first spied them—were the one-legged man’s. And . . . two sets more—not to be accounted for—leading through the gate.
Through the gate, close by the church wall, to a certain old tree.
“They’ve found us!” whispered Smith. “We ain’t got a chance, Mister Mansfield. Judgment’s come all right—but it’s come for us!”
Slowly, the two men in brown turned to peer at the tree. Then a single grin spread over their faces. They began to walk.
The breeze grew into a wind and the snow about their feet shuddered and shifted as if there was a creeping turmoil below.
“Kill them!” screamed Mr. Billing abruptly. “No help for it! You’ve got to do it!”
Could Smith have escaped? In all certainty, yes! He’d the agility, the quickness, the wit and the terror to vanish from the abominable churchyard before the men had covered half the distance. But not so Mr. Mansfield. The old “mole-in-the-hole” could never have got further than the gate without a sharp knife in his broad back. So Smith, with all his quickness, wit and terror, lacked the last ingredient for flight: the will. He was not capable of leaving the blind man behind.
“They’re a-coming, Mister Mansfield.”
“Then for God’s sake, go!”
“For God’s sake? That’s a queer thing!”
The men were now very close. They carried short, glittering knives. Already they could see Smith and were grinning widely—even encouragingly—at him.
Now Smith, in spite of all his knowledge of the worst of the Town—its rogues and vagrants, its thieves and slinking byways—was really no more than a child . . . and he turned to childish weapons for his last defense. With small, trembling fingers he made a snowball, stood up and, with a loud, defiant shriek, flung it at the nearer of the advancing pair.
The man swore—but stopped. His companion—instead of dispatching the boy—laughed. A very costly laugh, that. The seconds thus spent were important.
Momentarily, the wind puffed up a little storm of snow and out of it—as if resurrected from under the white ground itself—staggered a formidable figure.
“Stop! Hold! Stand, there!”
Cloaked, large, pistoled, stood Lord Tom!
“You dirty great bag of wind! Be off with you!” snarled the man with snow in his face.
“Spare the boy! I’ll—I’ll not have him harmed!”
“You’ll not? And who’s you, Lord piddling Tom? Be off—or we’ll slit you in tiny pieces, friend!”
Lord Tom’s frostily bristling face grew pitifully angry.
“Smut!” he called, waving vaguely. “Never fear! Lord Tom’s beside you! I’ll save you, lad! I’ll blow blue daylight through ’em!”
“Be off, Lord Tom!” answered Smith bitterly. “You’d best save your own lousy skin. I’m done with you now! I know you, Lord Tom. And I don’t like what I know!”
The huge highwayman flinched. He screwed up his little eyes. Whether or not he really loved the boy was hard to say. Maybe he did, maybe the sharp wound he’d just received was all but mortal. And so, maybe from this moment on, he was fighting for more than his life; he was fighting for his soul.
“Back! Back!” shouted Lord Tom, with the utmost valor and rage.
“And if we don’t?” sneered the two men.
“Then you’re dead as mutton!”
For a second time, the smaller of the two men in brown laughed. He steadied his knife. Took a pace forward—
“Blue daylight!” roared Lord Tom and fired.
A terrible, double roar; a terrible, double shout and the man who laughed—laughed no more. He was dead. And Lord Tom—Lord Tom, much astonished—was capering foolishly in the snow, opening and shutting his mouth in defiant shouts that emerged as silent puffs of scarlet air.
There was a ball inside of him. Mr. Black had shot him even as he’d discharged his own pistol. Lord
Tom was as good as dead, but he seemed not to know it yet. Instead, with the meager remains of his life, he threatened the second of the two men with a pistol that was suddenly grown marvelously heavy. And this second fellow, seeing his companion dead, waited no longer. Wildly, he rushed away.
Lord Tom’s dance grew slower and most comically clumsy as he strove to lift his great boots out of the clinging snow. Even as the amazed and suddenly heartbroken Smith watched, all the fire and fury and daring rage drained out of his old hero’s face. He halted, tottering, then sank upon his knees, curiously crossing his pistols upon his chest, where there was a warm, gushing pain.
“Ha—ha! Blue daylight, eh, lad?”
They were alone in the graveyard now. Mr. Black had hopped crazily in the wake of his adviser and friend Mr. Billing. They’d heard sounds from the house and escaped. The shots had set up an alarm. The dogs were howling wretchedly.
Lord Tom lay with his head on the lowest of the steps where Mr. Black had sat and waited. Above him brooded the stone angel. If he knew he was done for, the sight must have frightened him. Yet he showed none of it. Sadly, Smith approached him, leading blind Mr. Mansfield.
“Glad to make your—acquaintance, sir! Never—never thought to! Ha-ha! Shake hands? Really, an honor—”
“And for me, Lord Tom. And for me!”
Solemnly, their hands, guided by Smith, met and grasped: the dying highwayman’s and the blind magistrate’s. And both were glad of it, for both had reached the end of a journey: for Lord Tom it was the last, but for Mr. Mansfield it was, maybe, his first. A very strange journey—from justice to compassion.
Now Lord Tom closed his eyes and from out of his side a red patch blossomed in the snow, spread and gently melted into tiny scarlet needles and caves . . . then filled up.
“Nights on the Common, Smut!” he whispered. “Duval . . . Turpin . . . Robinson . . . and—and—”
“—And Lord Tom!” wept Smith, for his friend was dead.
And so was Mr. Black. Andrews had followed him, as he leapt and hopped away. He’d taken a fowling-piece, caught him this side of Whetstone, and shot him dead.
Mr. Black lay like a malformed dark star in the snow—a giant child’s star, with a wooden stick to hold it by—that shadowy, formidable ruin of a good man’s son.
Smith Page 15