The Fixed Period Part 10

"So I have. How could I help it, when you have been so anxious to deposit poor papa in that horrid place?"

"He was equally anxious a few years since."

"Never! He agreed to it because you told him, and because you were a man able to persuade. It was not that he ever had his heart in it, even when it was not near enough to alarm himself. And he is not a man fearful of death in the ordinary way. Papa is a brave man."

"My darling child, it is beautiful to hear you say so of him."

"He is going with you to-morrow simply because he has made you a promise, and does not choose to have it said of him that he broke his word even to save his own life. Is not that courage? It is not with him as it is with you, who have your heart in the matter, because you think of some great thing that you will do, so that your name may be remembered to future generations."

"It is not for that, Eva. I care not at all whether my name be remembered. It is for the good of many that I act."

"He believes in no good, but is willing to go because of his promise.

Is it fair to keep him to such a promise under such circ.u.mstances?"

"But the law--"

"I will hear nothing of the law. The law means you and your influences. Papa is to be sacrificed to the law to suit your pleasure. Papa is to be destroyed, not because the law wishes it, but to suit the taste of Mr Neverbend."

"Oh, Eva!"

"It is true."

"To suit my taste?"

"Well--what else? You have got the idea into your head, and you will not drop it. And you have persuaded him because he is your friend.

Oh, a most fatal friendship! He is to be sacrificed because, when thinking of other things, he did not care to differ with you." Then she paused, as though to see whether I might not yield to her words.

And if the words of any one would have availed to make me yield, I think it would have been hers as now spoken. "Do you know what people will say of you, Mr Neverbend?" she continued.

"What will they say?"

"If I only knew how best I could tell you! Your son has asked me--to be his wife."

"I have long known that he has loved you well."

"But it can never be," she said, "if my father is to be carried away to this fearful place. People would say that you had hurried him off in order that Jack--"

"Would you believe it, Eva?" said I, with indignation.

"It does not matter what I would believe. Mr Grundle is saying it already, and is accusing me too. And Mr Exors, the lawyer, is spreading it about. It has become quite the common report in Gladstonopolis that Jack is to become at once the owner of Little Christchurch."

"Perish Little Christchurch!" I exclaimed. "My son would marry no man's daughter for his money."

"I do not believe it of Jack," she said, "for I know that he is generous and good. There! I do love him better than any one in the world. But as things are, I can never marry him if papa is to be shut up in that wretched City of the Dead."

"Not City of the Dead, my dear."

"Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!--all alone with no one but me with him to watch him as day after day pa.s.ses away, as the ghastly hour comes nearer and still nearer, when he is to be burned in those fearful furnaces!"

"The cremation, my dear, has nothing in truth to do with the Fixed Period."

"To wait till the fatal day shall have arrived, and then to know that at a fixed hour he will be destroyed just because you have said so!

Can you imagine what my feelings will be when that moment shall have come?"

I had not in truth thought of it. But now, when the idea was represented to my mind's eye, I acknowledged to myself that it would be impossible that she should be left there for the occasion. How or when she should be taken away, or whither, I could not at the moment think. These would form questions which it would be very hard to answer. After some score of years, say, when the community would be used to the Fixed Period, I could understand that a daughter or a wife might leave the college, and go away into such solitudes as the occasion required, a week perhaps before the hour arranged for departure had come. Custom would make it comparatively easy; as custom has arranged such a period of mourning for a widow, and such another for a widower, a son, or a daughter. But here, with Eva, there would be no custom. She would have nothing to guide her, and might remain there till the last fatal moment. I had hoped that she might have married Jack, or perhaps Grundle, during the interval,--not having foreseen that the year, which was intended to be one of honour and glory, should become a time of mourning and tribulation. "Yes, my dear, it is very sad."

"Sad! Was there ever a position in life so melancholy, so mournful, so unutterably miserable?" I remained there opposite, gazing into vacancy, but I could say nothing. "What do you intend to do, Mr Neverbend?" she asked. "It is altogether in your bosom. My father's life or death is in your hands. What is your decision?" I could only remain steadfast; but it seemed to be impossible to say so. "Well, Mr Neverbend, will you speak?"

"It is not for me to decide. It is for the country."

"The country!" she exclaimed, rising up; "it is your own pride,--your vanity and cruelty combined. You will not yield in this matter to me, your friend's daughter, because your vanity tells you that when you have once said a thing, that thing shall come to pa.s.s." Then she put the veil down over her face, and went out of the room.

I sat for some time motionless, trying to turn over in my mind all that she had said to me; but it seemed as though my faculties were utterly obliterated in despair. Eva had been to me almost as a daughter, and yet I was compelled to refuse her request for her father's life. And when she had told me that it was my pride and vanity which had made me do so, I could not explain to her that they were not the cause. And, indeed, was I sure of myself that it was not so? I had flattered myself that I did it for the public good; but was I sure that obduracy did not come from my anxiety to be counted with Columbus and Galileo? or if not that, was there not something personal to myself in my desire that I should be known as one who had benefited my species? In considering such matters, it is so hard to separate the motives,--to say how much springs from some glorious longing to a.s.sist others in their struggle upwards in humanity, and how much again from mean personal ambition. I had thought that I had done it all in order that the failing strength of old age might be relieved, and that the race might from age to age be improved. But I now doubted myself, and feared lest that vanity of which Eva had spoken to me had overcome me. With my wife and son I could still be brave,--even with Crasweller I could be constant and hard; but to be obdurate with Eva was indeed a struggle. And when she told me that I did so through pride, I found it very hard to bear. And yet it was not that I was angry with the child. I became more and more attached to her the more loudly she spoke on behalf of her father. Her very indignation endeared me to her, and made me feel how excellent she was, how n.o.ble a wife she would be for my son. But was I to give way after all? Having brought the matter to such a pitch, was I to give up everything to the prayers of a girl? I was well aware even then that my theory was true. The old and effete should go, in order that the strong and manlike might rise in their places and do the work of the world with the wealth of the world at their command. Take the average of mankind all round, and there would be but the lessening of a year or two from the life of them all. Even taking those men who had arrived at twenty-five, to how few are allotted more than forty years of life! But yet how large a proportion of the wealth of the world remains in the hands of those who have pa.s.sed that age, and are unable from senile imbecility to employ that wealth as it should be used! As I thought of this, I said to myself that Eva's prayers might not avail, and I did take some comfort to myself in thinking that all was done for the sake of posterity. And then, again, when I thought of her prayers, and of those stern words which had followed her prayers,--of that charge of pride and vanity,--I did tell myself that pride and vanity were not absent.

She was gone now, and I felt that she must say and think evil things of me through all my future life. The time might perhaps come, when I too should have been taken away, and when her father should long since have been at rest, that softer thoughts would come across her mind. If it were only possible that I might go, so that Jack might be married to the girl he loved, that might be well. Then I wiped my eyes, and went forth to make arrangements for the morrow.

The morning came,--the 30th of June,--a bright, clear, winter morning, cold but still genial and pleasant as I got into the barouche and had myself driven to Little Christchurch. To say that my heart was sad within me would give no fair record of my condition.

I was so crushed by grief, so obliterated by the agony of the hour, that I hardly saw what pa.s.sed before my eyes. I only knew that the day had come, the terrible day for which in my ignorance I had yearned, and that I was totally unable to go through its ceremonies with dignity, or even with composure. But I observed as I was driven down the street, lying out at sea many miles to the left, a small spot of smoke on the horizon, as though it might be of some pa.s.sing vessel. It did not in the least awaken my attention; but there it was, and I remembered to have thought as I pa.s.sed on how blessed were they who steamed by unconscious of that terrible ordeal of the Fixed Period which I was bound to encounter.

I went to Little Christchurch, and there I found Mr Crasweller waiting for me in the hall. I came in and took his limp hand in mine, and congratulated him. Oh how vain, how wretched, sounded that congratulation in my own ears!

And it was spoken, I was aware, in a piteous tone of voice, and with meagre, bated breath. He merely shook his head, and attempted to pa.s.s on. "Will you not take your greatcoat?" said I, seeing that he was going out into the open air without protection.

"No; why should I? It will not be wanted up there."

"You do not know the place," I replied. "There are twenty acres of pleasure-ground for you to wander over." Then he turned upon me a look,--oh, such a look!--and went on and took his place in the carriage. But Eva followed him, and spread a rug across his knees, and threw a cloak over his shoulders.

"Will not Eva come with us?" I said.

"No; my daughter will hide her face on such a day as this. It is for you and me to be carried through the city,--you because you are proud of the pageant, and me because I do not fear it." This, too, added something to my sorrow. Then I looked and saw that Eva got into a small closed carriage in the rear, and was driven off by a circuitous route, to meet us, no doubt, at the college.

As we were driven away,--Crasweller and I,--I had not a word to say to him. And he seemed to collect himself in his fierceness, and to remain obdurately silent in his anger. In this way we drove on, till, coming to a turn of the road, the expanse of the sea appeared before us. Here again I observed a small cloud of smoke which had grown out of the spot I had before seen, and I was aware that some large ship was making its way into the harbour of Gladstonopolis. I turned my face towards it and gazed, and then a sudden thought struck me. How would it be with me if this were some great English vessel coming into our harbour on the very day of Crasweller's deposition? A year since I would have rejoiced on such an occasion, and would have a.s.sured myself that I would show to the strangers the grandeur of this ceremony, which must have been new to them. But now a creeping terror took possession of me, and I felt my heart give way within me.

I wanted no Englishman, nor American, to come and see the first day of our Fixed Period.

It was evident that Crasweller did not see the smoke; but to my eyes, as we progressed, it became nearer, till at last the hull of the vast vessel became manifest. Then as the carriage pa.s.sed on into the street of Gladstonopolis at the spot where one side of the street forms the quay, the vessel with extreme rapidity steamed in, and I could see across the harbour that she was a ship of war. A certain sense of relief came upon my mind just then, because I felt sure that she had come to interfere with the work which I had in hand; but how base must be my condition when I could take delight in thinking that it had been interrupted!

By this time we had been joined by some eight or ten carriages, which formed, as it were, a funeral _cortege_ behind us. But I could perceive that these carriages were filled for the most part by young men, and that there was no contemporary of Crasweller to be seen at all. As we went up the town hill, I could espy Barnes gibbering on the doorstep of his house, and Tallowax brandishing a large knife in his hand, and Exors waving a paper over his head, which I well knew to be a copy of the Act of our a.s.sembly; but I could only pretend not to see them as our carriage pa.s.sed on.

The chief street of Gladstonopolis, running through the centre of the city, descends a hill to the level of the harbour. As the vessel came in we began to ascend the hill, but the horses progressed very slowly. Crasweller sat perfectly speechless by my side. I went on with a forced smile upon my face, speaking occasionally to this or the other neighbour as we met them. I was forced to be in a certain degree cheerful, but grave and solemn in my cheerfulness. I was taking this man home for that last glorious year which he was about to pa.s.s in joyful antic.i.p.ation of a happier life; and therefore I must be cheerful. But this was only the thing to be acted, the play to be played, by me the player. I must be solemn too,--silent as the churchyard, mournful as the grave,--because of the truth. Why was I thus driven to act a part that was false? On the brow of the hill we met a concourse of people both young and old, and I was glad to see that the latter had come out to greet us. But by degrees the crowd became so numerous that the carriage was stopped in its progress; and rising up, I motioned to those around us to let us pa.s.s. We became, however, more firmly enveloped in the ma.s.ses, and at last I had to ask aloud that they would open and let us go on. "Mr President," said one old gentleman to me, a tanner in the city, "there's an English ship of war come into the harbour. I think they've got something to say to you."

"Something to say to me! What can they have to say to me?" I replied, with all the dignity I could command.

"We'll just stay and see;--we'll just wait a few minutes," said another elder. He was a bar-keeper with a red nose, and as he spoke he took up a place in front of the horses. It was in vain for me to press the coachman. It would have been indecent to do so at such a moment, and something at any rate was due to the position of Crasweller. He remained speechless in the carriage; but I thought that I could see, as I glanced at his face, that he took a strong interest in the proceedings. "They're going to begin to come up the hill, Mr Bunnit," said the bar-keeper to the tanner, "as soon as ever they're out of their boats."

"G.o.d bless the old flag for ever and ever!" said Mr Bunnit. "I knew they wouldn't let us deposit any one."

Thus their secret was declared. These old men,--the tanner and whisky-dealer, and the like,--had sent home to England to get a.s.sistance against their own Government! There had always been a sc.u.m of the population,--the dirty, frothy, meaningless foam at the top,--men like the drunken old bar-keeper, who had still clung submissive to the old country,--men who knew nothing of progress and civilisation,--who were content with what they ate and drank, and chiefly with the latter. "Here they come. G.o.d bless their gold bands!" said he of the red nose. Yes;--up the hill they came, three gilded British naval officers surrounded by a crowd of Britannulans.

Crasweller heard it all, but did not move from his place. But he leaned forward, and he bit his lip, and I saw that his right hand shook as it grasped the arm of the carriage. There was nothing for me but to throw myself back and remain tranquil. I was, however, well aware that an hour of despair and opposition, and of defeat, was coming upon me. Up they came, and were received with three deafening cheers by the crowd immediately round the carriage. "I beg your pardon, sir," said one of the three, whom I afterwards learned to be the second lieutenant; "are you the President of this Republic?"