The Scarlet Feather Part 42

"Let him write me a reply, for you to bring back."

Netty took the letter, and then followed her mother to the automobile, which was driven rapidly to St. Botolph's. But, at the church, Mrs.

Swinton had not the courage to enter. Instead, when she had hurried Netty toward the vestry, she approached a side window, where one of the panels stood open, and peered within, stealthily. At once, she perceived her husband by the lectern. He was calm and pale, droning out the service with unusual la.s.situde. The church was crammed. It was a vast edifice, and its ample accommodations were rarely strained; but to-night people were standing up in a black ma.s.s by the door. Pastor and congregation understood each other. An electric thrill pa.s.sed through the expectant crowd. The news of d.i.c.k Swinton's arrest had been spread broadcast, despite the promise to the rector. Ormsby and the clerks of the bank, too, had scattered information. The general question was as to what course the clergyman would now pursue. He was an exceedingly popular preacher, and his services were usually well attended. But, to-night, the people were flocking to St. Botolph's, expecting they knew not what, yet certain that the rector would not go into the pulpit without making some reference to the calamity that had befallen him. The whispered disgrace had become a public record. Would he defend his son against the charges?

All in all, it was a most sensational scandal--one sure to move a congregation more deeply than the richest oratory.

Everybody knew that the rector's heart was not in his words; for he never gabbled the prayers and hurried through the service as he was doing to-night. There was surely something coming. He, like them, was waiting for the moment when he should ascend the pulpit steps.

For a minute, a wild fury against him arose in the guilty woman's heart--a bitter sense of humiliation and injustice. And, when she looked upon the white-robed figure, standing apart from the serried ma.s.s of faces, she understood with a great pang how much he had been alone in the past twenty-five years, fighting his way through life amid alien surroundings, dragged down by the burden of her follies. He was walking to the pulpit now. He had gone out of sight of the congregation, and was near the window--within three yards of her, so near that she could almost touch him.

"John! John!" she cried; but her voice was hoa.r.s.e, and the droning notes of the organ shut out her appeal.

At the bottom of the steps, he held the rail, and steadied himself. Twice he faltered. His face was as white as his surplice. He closed his eyes, and threw back his head, turning his face heavenward; his lips parted, and he seemed to be on the verge of fainting and falling backward.

She cried out again, and pressed her face close to the window. Her cry must have penetrated this time, for he looked around in a dazed fashion, as one who heard a voice from afar. It seemed to stimulate him. With one hand on his heart and the other gripping his Bible, he mounted the steps unsteadily. He spread out the Book on the red cushion, and read the text.

"Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed."

The woman, listening outside the window, could not endure the suspense.

She entered the church by a side door, and listened not far from the pulpit steps. Her husband's voice rang out amid a breathless silence, as he repeated his text.

"Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed."

"Brethren, I stand before you to-night for the last time." A gasp and a murmur ran through the congregation, followed by an awed silence. "I am here to confess my sins, because I am unworthy to hold the sacred office, because for weeks past my life has been a living lie. At each service, I have mounted the steps of this pulpit, and have preached to you of sin and its atonement, and all the while my heart was sore, and my conscience eating into it like a canker.

"I am a husband and a father, like many of you here, with the love of wife and children strong in my breast. Alas! it has been stronger than my love for G.o.d. I have succ.u.mbed to the l.u.s.ts of the flesh, and have listened to the voice of the devil. I come not to cry aloud unto you, 'A woman tempted me and I fell!' I blame no one but myself. The voice of the tempter spoke to me in devious ways, and I listened."

The preacher paused, and rested silent for a long time. But, at last, he spoke again, hesitatingly:

"You have doubtless heard of the terrible charge made against my brave son."

There was a murmur, a shuffling of feet, and a turning of heads; eyes looking into eyes, saying, "Ah, I told you so."

"On the very day that the news of my boy's supposed death reached me,"

John Swinton continued, more firmly, "an infamous charge was made against him. While on all sides praises of his bravery were being noised abroad, I learned that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. A respected member of this congregation, Mr. Barnby, the manager of the bank, was with me in the moment of my sorrow, and, with great consideration for my feelings, made no further reference to the misdemeanor my son was supposed to have committed. Let me tell you at once that my boy was innocent of the forgery of which you have all heard--innocent! Ah! you are surprised. You have heard the story--garbled, no doubt--how he presented to the bank two checks for small amounts which had been altered into large ones--the checks signed by his grandfather, Mr. Herresford. Such an act would have been infamous, and, when I fully understood the charge, I knew it was false. The bank had been defrauded, certainly, but not by my son. There was another culprit; and that culprit was known to me."

At this declaration, there was a louder murmur, and more shuffling of feet, as people leaned forward in the pews, and the old men put their hands to their ears for fear of missing a single word.

"While it was believed that my son was dead, no action could be taken.

But tongues were busy circulating the slander, and the n.o.ble heroism of my boy was put into the shade, and forgotten. His name became a byword, his memory odious, and we, his parents, dared not mention him. Yet, all the time, I knew him to be innocent, and I held my peace. That was the sin of which I desire to purge myself by public confession. I allowed my boy's name to be dragged in the mire, in order to shield another dearer to me than my dead son. My life was a lie--a daily treachery. For the sake of the living, I consented to dishonor the dead, and live in wedlock with the woman who was afraid to speak, afraid to suffer and to atone. I can't explain to you all the circ.u.mstances, and make you realize the crying need for money which led my unhappy wife--G.o.d bless her, and forgive her, sinner though she be--to take that one false step in the hope of lightening the burdens that were pressing upon me and my son. My financial embarra.s.sments have been well known to you for some time past.

There was no secret about them. Much of my own indebtedness was due to foolish ventures for the good of the poor of this town. Money, for its own sake has never had any value to me; and I have been a bad steward of my own fortunes. I now have to confess to you that my dear wife thought to ease the family burden by an act of sin, lightly regarding the fraud as merely a family matter. The money she secured by unlawful means was, from her point of view, mere surplus wealth belonging to her father--wealth in which she had a reversionary interest. Indeed, we now know that she had more than reversionary interest--that Mr. Herresford, who died to-day--"

The murmuring and whispering and hoa.r.s.e exclamations of astonishment at this announcement interrupted the preacher's discourse for a moment.

"--that Mr. Herresford unlawfully withheld from her a very large income, left by his wife. He is dead--G.o.d rest his soul!--and in this hour, when his clay is scarcely cold, it behooves us to be charitable, and to speak no ill of him; but that much I must tell you.

"My son, as you know, escaped from his captors, and reached the United States, only to find that the police were waiting for him, with a warrant for his arrest. His bravery was forgotten. His supposed crime was now branded on his reputation in letters deeper by far than those that told the other tale as to his heroism. He came home, ill and broken, to me, his father, and demanded an explanation of the foul slander that had shattered his honor. I told him the truth, that his erring mother was the culprit. And the boy was merciful, and ready to bear disgrace for his mother's sake. Even now, he would have me close my lips. But there is a duty to One on High."

The rector paused, and put his hand to his breast. He was silent for a few moments, with closed eyes, and his face, which a few moments before had been flushed with excitement, paled to an ashen gray. He was silent so long that the congregation became uneasy. One or two arose to their feet. The clergyman put forth a hand blindly for support, as though about to faint; but he recovered slowly, and, after resting for a few moments on both hands, continued his discourse in a lower key.

"There are many among you here, loyal husbands and wives, who will think that, under the circ.u.mstances, I ought to have remained silent, cherishing the wife of my bosom and protecting her from the rough usage of the world. Alas! in heaven, where there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage, no distinctions are allowed. Sin is sin; right is right; and justice is justice. No young man at the outset of his life should be blasted and accursed among men because his father and mother, into whose hands G.o.d has given the care of his soul, are too weak to stand by the consequences of their wickedness and folly. The sin of the woman in the beginning was a small thing--evil done that good might come of it. The sin of the father--my sin--was ten times greater. I consented to, and acted, the lie: I, who lived in an atmosphere of sanct.i.ty--a hypocrite, a cheat, a fraud, admonishing sinners and backsliders--I, the greatest of them all.

"I will not enter into particulars of the inevitable prosecution for forgery, which must follow this declaration. Jealousy and spite have been imported into a plain issue; but the matter is now out of my hands.

I--have--confessed! The rest is with the Lord."

The rector raised his arms, and flung them outward, as though casting off the mantle of deceit under which he had shielded himself--the heavy cloak that had bowed his shoulders till he looked like an old man. The arms that were flung upward did not descend for many seconds. His head was thrown back, looking upward, and he swayed.

Several women, overwrought and terrified by the misery written on the man's face, arose to their feet, and cried out loudly:

"He'll fall!"

The pulpit steps were behind him, and he balanced just a second, but regained his equilibrium, resting his left hand on the stone pillar around which the pulpit was built.

"And now to G.o.d the Father, G.o.d the Son, and G.o.d the Holy Ghost be ascribed all honor, might, majesty, dominion, and power henceforth and for ever. Amen."

Like an aged, feeble man, he turned to descend the pulpit steps. His left hand grasped the rail, which was too wide to give him much support. He took one step downward; then, his white head and shoulders suddenly disappeared from the view of the congregation. There was a scuffling sound, and a thud. The congregation stood up; many rushed from their pews. The guilty wife had heard every word. She had seen him descend the steps, and had turned to fly, dreading to meet him, afraid to look him in the face, now that she knew what he really thought of her. But the sound of his fall awakened all her wifely instincts, and she rushed into the sight of all.

"John! John!" she cried, as she bent over the huddled ma.s.s of humanity on the stairs. She was too weak to help him. He had fainted, but was reviving slowly.

The men who reached the pulpit thrust her to one side roughly, and carried the rector into the vestry. Fortunately, there were medical men in the congregation, and he was transferred to their charge, Mary standing by, wringing her hands and weeping. Her face was distorted with pain; for her grief was blended with rage and humiliation. How contemptuously all these people treated her--Smith, the church-warden, a grocer, and Harris, the coal-merchant. Their cringing respect to her had always been amusing in its servility; but now she was as dust beneath their feet. They turned their backs, and ignored her existence.

The physicians took pity on her, and sent her to the rectory to make preparations to receive her husband, whose consciousness did not return completely. In falling, he had struck his head against a jagged piece of carving on the pulpit rails, and there was an ugly wound in his temple.

Netty had already fled home from the church, and d.i.c.k, quite unconscious of the progress of affairs, was upstairs, quietly reading in s.n.a.t.c.hes, and dreaming of Dora--dreams that were interspersed with misgivings and a shuddering fear of the future. In his present state of health, the prospect of jail did not seem so amusing as he had pretended to Dora.

Netty came rushing up to him with the news of what had happened in the church. He was deeply agitated, though not so astonished as his sister.

The awakening of his father's conscience had always been an eventuality to be reckoned with; and the awakening had come.

They carried the rector into his home, and he was put to bed by the physicians. Mary, feeling that she was banned and shunned, shut herself up in her room, a prey to a hundred different emotions. Terror was the dominant one. Those dreadful, rough-spoken men, who had come to arrest d.i.c.k, would soon be arriving to take her away.

She commenced to pack a trunk. Flight was the only thing possible under the circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER x.x.x

FLIGHT

Everybody supposed Mrs. Swinton to be locked in her room. The rector was attended by his daughter and the physicians, and lay in a state of collapse for many hours, causing considerable anxiety to the household; but, toward midnight, he rallied and asked for his wife.

Visitors were forbidden. The presence of Mrs. Swinton was not likely to have a soothing effect, and all emotion must be avoided. Nevertheless, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances, the physicians decided that she should be told of his asking for her, although she was not to be allowed to enter the sickroom.

Netty, in tears, crept upstairs to her mother's room, and knocked softly.

There was no answer. Examination showed that the place was empty. The erring wife had fled, and no one knew whither--except d.i.c.k.

The young man's position was extremely painful. Unable to do anything, with scarcely strength enough to rise from his couch, he lay in torment.

His mother had rushed into his room in a highly hysterical state, and announced her intention of fleeing before the consequences of her husband's public confession could culminate in arrest. In vain, the young man implored her to remain and face it out, and comfort the rector. It was impossible to reason with her, her terror and humiliation were too great. She could not, she declared, live another day in this atmosphere.

He pointed out that, since the miser had acknowledged the checks, a prosecution was out of the question, and that she was as safe at home as a thousand miles away. It was, however, useless and painful to argue with her. Her double crime had been laid bare, and shame--all the more acute because it humbled a woman who had borne herself proudly all her life--as much as fright prompted her flight. Moreover, she believed that Ormsby might act upon the rector's confession, despite Herresford's dying acknowledgment.