For the Term of His Natural Life

by Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke

  On or about the 8th of December, Mrs. Frere noticed a sudden andunaccountable change in the manner of the chaplain. He came to her oneafternoon, and, after talking for some time, in a vague and unconnectedmanner, about the miseries of the prison and the wretched condition ofsome of the prisoners, began to question her abruptly concerning RufusDawes.

  "I do not wish to think of him," said she, with a shudder. "I have thestrangest, the most horrible dreams about him. He is a bad man. He triedto murder me when a child, and had it not been for my husband, he wouldhave done so. I have only seen him once since then--at Hobart Town, whenhe was taken." "He sometimes speaks to me of you," said North, eyeingher. "He asked me once to give him a rose plucked in your garden."

  Sylvia turned pale. "And you gave it him?"

  "Yes, I gave it him. Why not?"

  "It was valueless, of course, but still--to a convict?"

  "You are not angry?"

  "Oh, no! Why should I be angry?" she laughed constrainedly. "It was astrange fancy for the man to have, that's all."

  "I suppose you would not give me another rose, if I asked you."

  "Why not?" said she, turning away uneasily. "You? You are a gentleman."

  "Not I--you don't know me."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that it would be better for you if you had never seen me."

  "Mr. North!" Terrified at the wild gleam in his eyes, she had risenhastily. "You are talking very strangely."

  "Oh, don't be alarmed, madam. I am not drunk!"--he pronounced the wordwith a fierce energy. "I had better leave you. Indeed, I think the lesswe see of each other the better."

  Deeply wounded and astonished at this extraordinary outburst, Sylviaallowed him to stride away without a word. She saw him pass through thegarden and slam the little gate, but she did not see the agony on hisface, or the passionate gesture with which--when out of eyeshot--helamented the voluntary abasement of himself before her. She thoughtover his conduct with growing fear. It was not possible that he wasintoxicated--such a vice was the last one of which she could havebelieved him guilty. It was more probable that some effects of thefever, which had recently confined him to his house, yet lingered.So she thought; and, thinking, was alarmed to realize of how muchimportance the well-being of this man was to her.

  The next day he met her, and, bowing, passed swiftly. This pained her.Could she have offended him by some unlucky word? She made Maurice askhim to dinner, and, to her astonishment, he pleaded illness as an excusefor not coming. Her pride was hurt, and she sent him back his books andmusic. A curiosity that was unworthy of her compelled her to ask theservant who carried the parcel what the clergyman had said. "He saidnothing--only laughed." Laughed! In scorn of her foolishness! Hisconduct was ungentlemanly and intemperate. She would forget, as speedilyas possible, that such a being had ever existed. This resolution taken,she was unusually patient with her husband.

  So a week passed, and Mr. North did not return. Unluckily for the poorwretch, the very self-sacrifice he had made brought about the precisecondition of things which he was desirous to avoid. It is possible that,had the acquaintance between them continued on the same staid footing,it would have followed the lot of most acquaintanceships of thekind--other circumstances and other scenes might have wiped out thememory of all but common civilities between them, and Sylvia might neverhave discovered that she had for the chaplain any other feeling butthat of esteem. But the very fact of the sudden wrenching away of hersoul-companion, showed her how barren was the solitary life to whichshe had been fated. Her husband, she had long ago admitted, with bitterself-communings, was utterly unsuited to her. She could find inhis society no enjoyment, and for the sympathy which she needed wascompelled to turn elsewhere. She understood that his love for her hadburnt itself out--she confessed, with intensity of self-degradation,that his apparent affection had been born of sensuality, and hadperished in the fires it had itself kindled. Many women have, unhappily,made some such discovery as this, but for most women there is somedistracting occupation. Had it been Sylvia's fate to live in the midstof fashion and society, she would have found relief in the conversationof the witty, or the homage of the distinguished. Had fortune cast herlot in a city, Mrs. Frere might have become one of those charming womenwho collect around their supper-tables whatever of male intellect isobtainable, and who find the husband admirably useful to open his ownchampagne bottles. The celebrated women who have stepped out oftheir domestic circles to enchant or astonish the world, have almostinvariably been cursed with unhappy homes. But poor Sylvia was notdestined to this fortune. Cast back upon herself, she found no surceaseof pain in her own imaginings, and meeting with a man sufficiently herelder to encourage her to talk, and sufficiently clever to induce herto seek his society and his advice, she learnt, for the first time, toforget her own griefs; for the first time she suffered her natureto expand under the sun of a congenial influence. This sun, suddenlywithdrawn, her soul, grown accustomed to the warmth and light, shiveredat the gloom, and she looked about her in dismay at the dull and barrenprospect of life which lay before her. In a word, she found that thesociety of North had become so far necessary to her that to be deprivedof it was a grief--notwithstanding that her husband remained to consoleher.

  After a week of such reflections, the barrenness of life grewinsupportable to her, and one day she came to Maurice and begged to besent back to Hobart Town. "I cannot live in this horrible island,"she said. "I am getting ill. Let me go to my father for a few months,Maurice." Maurice consented. His wife was looking ill, and Major Vickerswas an old man--a rich old man--who loved his only daughter. It was notundesirable that Mrs. Frere should visit her father; indeed, so littlesympathy was there between the pair that, the first astonishment over,Maurice felt rather glad to get rid of her for a while. "You can go backin the Lady Franklin if you like, my dear," he said. "I expect her everyday." At this decision--much to his surprise--she kissed him with moreshow of affection than she had manifested since the death of her child.

  The news of the approaching departure became known, but still North didnot make his appearance. Had it not been a step beneath the dignity ofa woman, Mrs. Frere would have gone herself and asked him the meaning ofhis unaccountable rudeness, but there was just sufficient morbidity inthe sympathy she had for him to restrain her from an act which a younggirl--though not more innocent--would have dared without hesitation.Calling one day upon the wife of the surgeon, however, she met thechaplain face to face, and with the consummate art of acting whichmost women possess, rallied him upon his absence from her house. Thebehaviour of the poor devil, thus stabbed to the heart, was curious. Heforgot gentlemanly behaviour and the respect due to a woman, flung onedespairingly angry glance at her and abruptly retired. Sylvia flushedcrimson, and endeavoured to excuse North on account of his recentillness. The surgeon's wife looked askance, and turned the conversation.The next time Sylvia bowed to this lady, she got a chilling salute inreturn that made her blood boil. "I wonder how I have offended Mrs.Field?" she asked Maurice. "She almost cut me to-day." "Oh, the oldcat!" returned Maurice. "What does it matter if she did?" However, a fewdays afterwards, it seemed that it did matter, for Maurice called uponField and conversed seriously with him. The issue of the conversationbeing reported to Mrs. Frere, the lady wept indignant tears of woundedpride and shame. It appeared that North had watched her out of thehouse, returned, and related--in a "stumbling, hesitating way", Mrs.Field said--how he disliked Mrs. Frere, how he did not want to visither, and how flighty and reprehensible such conduct was in a marriedwoman of her rank and station. This act of baseness--or profoundnobleness--achieved its purpose. Sylvia noticed the unhappy priest nomore. Between the Commandant and the chaplain now arose a coolness, andFrere set himself, by various petty tyrannies, to disgust North, andcompel him to a resignation of his office. The convict-gaolers speedilymarked the difference in the treatment of the chaplain, and theirdemeanour changed. For respect was substituted insolence; for alacrity,sullenness; for prom
pt obedience, impertinent intrusion. The men whomNorth favoured were selected as special subjects for harshness, and fora prisoner to be seen talking to the clergyman was sufficient to ensurefor him a series of tyrannies. The result of this was that North saw thesouls he laboured to save slipping back into the gulf; beheld the men hehad half won to love him meet him with averted faces; discovered thatto show interest in a prisoner was to injure him, not to serve him. Theunhappy man grew thinner and paler under this ingenious torment. He haddeprived himself of that love which, guilty though it might be, was,nevertheless, the only true love he had known; and he found that, havingwon this victory, he had gained the hatred of all living creatures withwhom he came in contact. The authority of the Commandant was so supremethat men lived but by the breath of his nostrils. To offend him was toperish and the man whom the Commandant hated must be hated also by allthose who wished to exist in peace. There was but one being who was notto be turned from his allegiance--the convict murderer, Rufus Dawes, whoawaited death. For many days he had remained mute, broken down beneathhis weight of sorrow or of sullenness; but North, bereft of other loveand sympathy, strove with that fighting soul, if haply he might winit back to peace. It seemed to the fancy of the priest--a fancydistempered, perhaps, by excess, or superhumanly exalted by mentalagony--that this convict, over whom he had wept, was given to him as ahostage for his own salvation. "I must save him or perish," he said. "Imust save him, though I redeem him with my own blood."

  Frere, unable to comprehend the reason of the calmness with which thedoomed felon met his taunts and torments, thought that he was shammingpiety to gain some indulgence of meat and drink, and redoubled hisseverity. He ordered Dawes to be taken out to work just before the hourat which the chaplain was accustomed to visit him. He pretended thatthe man was "dangerous", and directed a gaoler to be present at allinterviews, "lest the chaplain might be murdered". He issued an orderthat all civil officers should obey the challenges of convicts acting aswatchmen; and North, coming to pray with his penitent, would be stoppedten times by grinning felons, who, putting their faces within a footof his, would roar out, "Who goes there?" and burst out laughing at thereply. Under pretence of watching more carefully over the property ofthe chaplain, he directed that any convict, acting as constable, mightat any time "search everywhere and anywhere" for property supposed to bein the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain's servant was a prisoner,of course; and North's drawers were ransacked twice in one week byTroke. North met these impertinences with unruffled brow, and Frerecould in no way account for his obstinacy, until the arrival of the LadyFranklin explained the chaplain's apparent coolness. He had sent in hisresignation two months before, and the saintly Meekin had been appointedin his stead. Frere, unable to attack the clergyman, and indignant atthe manner in which he had been defeated, revenged himself upon RufusDawes.

  CHAPTER XIII. MR. NORTH SPEAKS.