The Ancient Law Part 52

As he lay there with closed eyes, he had an obscure impression that Banks--Banks, the simple; Banks, the impossible--was in some way operating the forces of destiny. First he heard the bell ring, then the door open and close, and a little later, the bleak room was suffused with a warm rosy light in which the vague shadows melted into a shimmering background. The crackling of the fire annoyed him because it suggested the possibility of physical comfort, and he no longer wanted to be comfortable.

"Smith," said Banks, coming over to the bed and pulling off the overcoat, "I've got a good fire here and a chair. I wish you'd get up.

Good Lord, your hands are as hot as a hornet's nest. When did you eat anything?"

"I had breakfast in Botetourt," replied Ordway, as he rose from the bed and came over to the chair Banks had prepared. "I can't remember when it was, but it must have been since the creation of the world, I suppose."

The fire grew suddenly black before him, "I'd rather lie down," he added, "my head is splitting and I can't see."

"Oh, you'll see all right in a minute. Wait till I light this candle, so the electric light won't hurt your eyes. The boy's gone for a little supper, and as soon as you've swallowed a mouthful you'll begin to feel better."

"But I'm not hungry. I won't eat," returned Ordway, with an irritable feeling that Banks was looming into a responsibility. Anything that pulled one back to life was what he wanted to escape, and even the affection of Banks might prove, he thought, tenaciously clinging. One resolution he had made in the beginning--he would not take up his life again for the sake of Banks.

"Yes, you must, Smith," remonstrated the other, with an angelic patience which gave him, if possible, a more foolish aspect. "It's after six o'clock and you haven't had a bite since yesterday at eight. That's why your head's so light and you're in a raging fever."

"It isn't that, Banks, it's because I've got to die," he answered. "If they don't hush things up with money, I may have to go back to prison."

As he said the words he saw again the prison coat, with the double stripes of a second term, as in the instant of his hallucination.

"I know," said Banks, softly, as he bent over to poke the fire. "There was a line or two about it in a New York paper. But they'll hush it up, and besides they said it was just suspicion."

"You knew all the time and yet you wanted me to go back to Tappahannock?"

"Oh, they don't read the papers much there, except the _Tappahannock Herald_, and it won't get into that. It was just a silly little slip anyway, and not two dozen people will be likely to know what it meant."

"And you, Banks? What do you think?" he asked with a mild curiosity.

Banks shook his head. "Why, what's the use in your asking?" he replied.

"Of course, I know that you didn't do it, and if you had done it, it would have been just because the other man ought to have written his name and wouldn't," he concluded, unblushingly.

For a moment Ordway looked at him in silence. "You're a good chap, Banks," he said at last in a dull voice. Again he felt, with an awakened irritation, that the absurd Banks was pulling him back to life. Was it impossible, after all, that a man should give up, as long as there remained a soul alive who believed in him? It wasn't only the love of women, then, that renewed courage. He had loved both Emily and Alice, and yet they were of less importance in his life at this hour than was Banks, whom he had merely endured. Yet he had thought the love of Emily a great thing and that of Banks a small one.

His gaze went back to the flames, and he did not remove it when a knock came at the door, and supper was brought in and placed on a little table before the fire.

"I ordered a bowl of soup for you, Smith," said Banks, crumbling the bread into it as he spoke, as if he were preparing a meal for a baby, "and a good stout piece of beefsteak for myself. Now drink this whiskey, won't you."

"I'm not hungry," returned Ordway, pushing the gla.s.s away, after it had touched his lips. "I won't eat."

Banks placed the bowl of soup on the fender, and then sat down with his eyes fastened on the tray. "I haven't had a bite myself since breakfast," he remarked, "and I'm pretty faintish, but I tell you, Smith, if it's the last word I speak, that I won't put my knife into that beefsteak until you've eaten your soup--no, not if I die right here of starvation."

"Well, I'm sorry you're such a fool, for I've no intention of eating it.

I left you my whiskey, you can take that."

"I shouldn't dare to on an empty stomach. I get drunk too quick."

For a few minutes he sat in silence regarding the supper with a hungry look; then selecting a thin slice of bread, he stuck it on the end of a fork, and kneeling upon the hearthrug, held it out to the glowing coals.

As it turned gradually to a delicious crisp brown, the appetising smell of it floated to Ordway's nostrils.

"I always had a particular taste for toast," remarked Banks as he b.u.t.tered the slice and laid it on a hot plate on the fender. When he took up a second one, Ordway watched him with an attention of which he was almost unconscious, and he did not remove his gaze from the fire, until the last slice, brown and freshly b.u.t.tered, was laid carefully upon the others. As he finished Banks threw down his fork, and rising to his feet, looked wistfully at the beefsteak, keeping hot before the cheerful flames.

"It's kind of rare, just as I like it," he observed, "thick and juicy, with little brown streaks from the broiler, and a few mushrooms scattered gracefully on top. Tappahannock is a mighty poor place for a steak," he concluded resignedly, "it ain't often I have a chance at one, but I thought to-night being Christmas----"

"Then, for G.o.d's sake, eat it!" thundered Ordway, while he made a dash for his soup.

But an hour after he had taken it, his fever rose so high that Banks helped him into bed and rushed out in alarm for the doctor.

CHAPTER IX

THE LIGHT BEYOND

Out of the obscurity of the next few weeks, he brought, with the memory of Banks hovering about his bed, the vague impression of a woman's step across his floor and a woman's touch on his brow and hands. When he returned to consciousness the woman's step and touch had vanished, but Banks was still nursing him with his infinite patience and his silly, good-humoured smile. The rest was a dream, he said to himself, resignedly, as he turned his face to the wall and slept.

On a mild January morning, when he came downstairs for the first time, and went with Banks out into the open square in front of the hotel, he put almost timidly the question which had been throbbing in his brain for weeks.

"Was there anybody else with me, Banks? I thought--I dreamed--I couldn't get rid of it----"

"Who else could there have been?" asked Banks, and he stared straight before him, at the slender spire of the big, gray church in the next block. So the mystery would remain unsolved, Ordway understood, and he would go back to life cherishing either a divine memory or a phantasy of delirium.

After a little while Banks went off to the chemists' with a prescription, and Ordway sat alone on a bench in the warm sunshine, which was rapidly melting the snow. It was Sunday morning, and presently the congregation streamed slowly past him on its way to the big gray church just beyond. A bright blue sky was overhead, the sound of bells was in the air, and under the melting snow he saw that the gra.s.s was still fresh and green. As he sat there in the wonderful Sabbath stillness, he felt, with a new sense of security, of reconciliation, that his life had again been taken out of his hands and adjusted without his knowledge. This time it had been Banks--Banks, the impossible--who had swayed his destiny, and lacking all other attributes, Banks had accomplished it through the simple power of the human touch. In the hour of his need it had been neither religion nor philosophy, but the outstretched hand, that had helped. Then his vision broadened and he saw that though the body of love is one, the members of it are infinite; and it was made plain to him at last, that the love of Emily, the love of Alice, and the love of Banks, were but different revelations of the same immortality. He had gone down into the deep places, and out of them he had brought this light, this message. As the people streamed past him to the big gray church, he felt that if they would only stop and listen, he could tell them in the open, not in walls, of the thing that they were seeking. Yet the time had not come, though in the hope of it he could sit there patiently under the blue sky, with the snow melting over the gra.s.s at his feet.

At the end of an hour Banks returned, and stood over him with affectionate anxiety. "In a few days you'll be well enough to travel, Smith, and I'll take you back with me to Tappahannock."

Ordway glanced up, smiling, and Banks saw in his face, so thin that the flesh seemed almost transparent, the rapt and luminous look with which he had stood over his Bible in the green field or in the little grove of pines.

"You will go back to Tappahannock and Baxter will take you in until you grow strong and well, and then you can start your schools, or your library, and look after the mills instead of letting Baxter do it."

"Yes," said Ordway, "yes," but he had hardly heard Banks's words, for his gaze was on the blue sky, against which the spire of the church rose like a pointing finger. His face shone as if from an inward flame, and this flame, burning clearly in his blue eyes, transfigured his look. Ah, Smith was always a dreamer, thought Banks, with the uncomprehending simplicity of a child.

But Ordway was looking beyond Banks, beyond the church spire, beyond the blue sky. He saw himself, not as Banks pictured him, living quietly in Tappahannock, but still struggling, still fighting, still falling to rise and go on again. His message was not for Tappahannock alone, but for all places where there were men and women working and suffering and going into prison and coming out. He heard his voice speaking to them in the square of this town; then in many squares and in many towns----

"Come," said Banks softly, "the wind is changing. It is time to go in."

With an effort Ordway withdrew his gaze from the church spire. Then leaning upon Banks's arm, he slowly crossed the square to the door of the hotel. But before going inside, he turned and stood for a moment looking back at the gra.s.s which showed fresh and green under the melting snow.