A Bottle in the Smoke Part 39

His companion regarded him with astonishment.

"Yes, Rayner's gone, poor fellow! It's very sad! This sudden bad news will be terrible for his wife. I didn't think you knew him though?"

added Mark interrogatively. "I'm just on my way to break the news to her if I can muster up courage. I've been watching by him all night--he pa.s.sed away at dawn."

"G.o.d bless you for that," murmured Mr. Morpeth, his face quivering.

"Cheveril, there's no need to keep the secret any longer. I was wrong to keep it at all. It was the ruin of him. He was my only son--Alfred."

Then in reply to Mark's silent start, he added, "Yes, that was his mother's portrait you and his wife came on that afternoon. The incident struck me at the time. I would I had spoken even then."

"Rayner--your son? It's hardly believable," stammered Mark, suddenly recalling the incident of his first evening in Madras, when Rayner in the mail-phaeton had, it seemed to him, almost deliberately set himself to trample down the old man on whose cheek the tears were now running down in sorrow for his loss. "He did not know this, of course--he never knew it?" burst forth Mark, in an almost pleading tone.

"Yes, Alfred did know he was my son--but not in time--not till lately,"

the father acknowledged in a faltering voice. "I should like to tell you all about it, Cheveril. And from you, who have stood by his dying bed, there is much I want to hear."

Mark a.s.sented, and tightening his arm on Mr. Morpeth's, he led him to a quiet comer of the big station, where they could carry on a conversation without interruption. He would fain have suggested that he should take the old man to the peace of his own library, but he felt his first duty was to her who had been the beloved and sheltered one of Pinkthorpe Rectory, and who was now alone and forlorn in this alien land.

In broken words David Morpeth told his tale of many-sided pain. Mark Cheveril's sympathetic heart read its import even more completely than the speaker guessed, though his words were few. After a little silence, he glanced at the clock, saying:

"I was on my way to Clive's Road to tell her. Do you think----"

"Ah, yes, it is for me to take that duty," said Mr. Morpeth, starting up from the bench where they were sitting. "I've shirked my responsibilities too long. I see it now when it is too late. I shall go to that sweet child whom I have loved for her own sake as my daughter."

The proposal was eagerly hailed by Mark, who now began to consider whether he would share Zynool's communication with the stricken father, but decided that before doing so he would seek fuller information, and arranged to meet Mr. Morpeth at his house an hour or two later. He was desirous of returning to Puranapore as soon as possible, not only on account of his arrears of work, but also that he might through Zynool even in prison ascertain the charge that was brought against Rayner, which, on his own acknowledgment, had made him a fugitive in disguise.

After seeing Mr. Morpeth into his little victoria, Mark drove to the Club, having much food for thought as he pondered over the tragical story to which he had listened; and which, as he linked on certain incidents which sprang to his memory with painful vividness, obliged him to acknowledge the utter baseness of Hester's husband.

When Mr. Morpeth alighted from his carriage at Clive's Road and walked up the broad steps, he caught sight of Hester seated in the verandah, looking like a ghost of her former self.

"The poor child must have heard already," he said to himself, as he went forward. Even the sound of the carriage wheels seemed to have struck terror into Hester's heart. She clung to the arms of her chair as she essayed to rise, and looked at her visitor with scared, questioning eyes.

"You know already, then?" murmured Mr. Morpeth, taking her hand and gazing pitifully into her face.

"Oh, have they caught him? Is he in prison?" she cried, the blood rushing into her pale cheeks. "Oh, I can't bear it!"

"In prison, my dear? What do you mean?" asked Mr. Morpeth in a bewildered tone. "No, Hester, death is not prison! Pray that in spite of all it may be the Gate of Life."

"'Death'! Have you come to tell me that my husband is dead?" she asked with startled air.

Mr. Morpeth briefly narrated to her the events of which Mark Cheveril had put him in possession at the station. Hester listened, dry-eyed, as one spell-bound.

"And Hester," he added slowly, "I prayed that I might bring this news to you because I am Alfred's father----"

"You are? Then it _was_ true!" cried Hester, as if awakening from a dream. "But oh, why did not poor Alfred have all the good a father like you might have been to him? I thought these women who told me were only gossiping, but I even wished that it _were_ true. Why did you ever lose hold of your son?" asked Hester, looking reproachfully on the worn, grey face.

So it happened, that for the second time that morning, David Morpeth, with aching heart, had to take up the tangled skein of the past. And Hester, as she listened, with her quick perception easily filled up the gaps in the narration.

"Oh, the loss to him!" she murmured. "If he had been brought up by one good and true like you he might have been different, instead of being embittered, reckless, mad."

In her turn, she had to unfold to the father the story of his son's crime and the fear of its consequences, which had driven him from his home, a fugitive from justice.

The father's grey head was bowed in grief. He sat in silence for some time, then looking up with a sob he said:

"If he had only come to me--even that night. I was his father--but he would have none of me."

"But how could he go to you--he did not know," faltered Hester.

"Ah, child, that is the worst sorrow of all--Alfred did know," said the truth-loving man, looking at Hester with his earnest eyes.

"Not that evening on the beach when he was so rude--so cruel? Oh, say he did not know then?"

Hester's eyes as well as her tone pleaded for an a.s.surance that at least she could exonerate her husband from the terrible stain such knowledge must shed on his conduct that evening.

"How can I tell her," he thought. "Listen, my child! When Alfred was in Calcutta he learnt that David Morpeth, the old East Indian, was his father. He disowned me and scornfully refused my allowance to him from that day forward. As I have explained to you, it was my own fault for weakly consenting to a foolish promise--for allowing my child to pa.s.s from me as I did. The fact is my own will inclined to it. I had always been too sensitively conscious of the disabilities of Eurasians--perhaps unduly dominated by the aristocracy of colour in the white man. Mr.

Cheveril, now, has turned those very disabilities which were my weakness into strength, but I bent my head before the prejudice, having suffered in many-sided ways from my youth up. To shield my son against it seemed in my mistaken judgment worthy of the sacrifice I had to make. I desired to save him from the cup that had been so bitter to my taste, forgetting that the cup Our Father offers is the only safe one for us. I dreamt too of his having a very different training in England, idealising everything there, as I did in those days. I thought no sacrifice too great to bring about this end; but my wife's sister thwarted my purposes and even deceived me for long. Ignorant as I was of English ways save through literature, I shrank from going there to arrange matters for my son until it was too late. I have long known, however, that it was not only my foolish promise to the dead mother that bound me--it was my own pride and self-will. Long ago, of course, I saw the fatal mistake I had made. But we have to reap as we sow. My reaping time is sore indeed. Oh, the bitterness to think of his being a forger and a felon."

With a groan the old man bent his head and covered his face with his hands. Hester's pity, even at this her own dark hour, was stirred for the forlorn man. She rose and laid her hand on his grey head.

"Try to forgive him," she murmured. "It is terrible to think of, but Alfred is dead. We must try not to judge him hardly any more."

The pathetic ring in her voice caused the old man to look up at her.

"You have suffered too, my child," he said, taking her hand. "Have I not been a silent witness of your trials--haunted by the thought of them even when I went about my daily work? How I longed to spare you, to protect you. Now, at last, in that matter I can have my wish," he added, with a touch of his old energy coming into his face. "As Alfred's father, it is my right to do all I can to help and protect you at this terrible time. The responsibility will be my greatest comfort now.

First, may I go and ask your good friend Mrs. Fellowes to come and be with you?"

"No, no, just for to-day let me be alone. There is such a thing as getting acquainted with grief, you know," returned Hester, with a sad smile.

"As you will, my dear! Then, I should like to tell you that all the offices for the dead will be my care. You will let me have my son just once in his father's house?" he asked, in a pleading tone. "It is my purpose to take him to Calcutta and lay him beside his young mother. And you, Hester, will want to return to your happy home? You have youth and hope still with you. It is no doubt your wish to go back to England?"

"Oh, yes, I shall go home. He needs me no more. I did try to help him--but----" She broke off with a sob.

"Didn't I see you did? Ah, how my heart yearned for you as well as for my poor wayward son! But I was powerless to help either the one or the other. That was my punishment. But now you must allow me to atone for it by giving you all the help I can."

"When he is with you on the sea, I shall go on my voyage too. I cannot stay in this house longer--or anywhere else in this place."

"Nor need you. All can be arranged. Can you be ready to start in a couple of days?"

"Easily. Everything here must be left to pay the debts we owe--that money he took too. I can only give up everything I have. It's not much, I fear, but it's all I can do just now. When I get home, my father----"

"Not a word about that matter," interrupted Mr. Morpeth, rising. "These burdens are all my right now. I must go, but I shall look in again this evening, since you prefer to be alone to-day. Go and lie down, my child, you are overwrought," he added, glancing at Hester's worn face.

Beckoning to the butler, he briefly told him of his master's death, and charged him to see well to his mistress, who would soon have to cross "the black water" again. Then, with his habitual calm taking possession of him once more, Mr. Morpeth hurried away to face a more difficult and trying day than Hester had any idea of.

She too had her hours of storm and stress as the long, hot hours wore on. The terrible tension arising from the suspense was now at an end.

Her weak, erring husband had gone to another Bar than the earthly one she had so dreaded for him. Her brief married life lay in ruins, and though love was dead, its spectre haunted her at every turn. Now it was the beautiful face, the impa.s.sioned eyes of the almost unknown suitor in the Woodglade arbour that rose before her. Again, it was one incident after another disclosing his disordered heart; scenes before which she had learnt to quail in fear--not for herself, she soon learnt to outlive that--but for the restless, unhappy one to whom she had pledged her wedded troth. Sometimes it was the recollection of that morning on which he had spoken such insulting words to his own father that sprang into her mind. And as she vividly recalled the scene, she began to wonder if, all along, Alfred could have had some subconscious glimmering of the close relationship between him and the n.o.ble-hearted man he was spurning which goaded him to a sense of desperation. Then the memory of her happy morning ride with Mark Cheveril came to her mind. How kind, how comforting, how high-toned and self-restrained he had ever proved, and yet, for her sake, he had to endure taunts which, had they been flung at him by any other than her husband, she felt sure would have been dealt with very differently. Yet it had been that friend who had smoothed the dying pillow of her disgraced husband!

Deeply grateful as she was to Mark Cheveril for all that he had been to her, she felt no desire to meet him on this dark day, and was thankful that Mr. Morpeth, and not he, had been the messenger of the evil tidings. Perhaps Mark and she would never meet again in this world; yet between them she felt there would ever be the bond forged during these eventful months when faith and honour and fealty had called her to turn from the true man to him whom she had too late awakened to find deeply false, although he was the husband of her youth.

Even the thought of the home-going--that thought so thrilling to the hearts of Anglo-Indians--brought no lightening to Hester's load of pain that day, nor for many a succeeding one.