Suddenly the bells in the dark tower above him rang out a peal, clanging and clashing noisily together as if to give him a welcome. They had rung so the day he brought Felicita home after their long wedding journey. It was Friday night, the night when the ringers had always been used to practise, in the days when he was churchwarden. The pain of hearing them was intolerable; he could bear no more that night. Not daring to go on and look at the house where he was born, and where his children had been born, but which he could never more enter, he sought out a quiet inn, and shut himself up in a garret there to think, and at last to sleep.
CHAPTER XII.
A GLIMPSE INTO PARADISE.
I cannot tell whether it was fancy merely, but the morning light which streamed into his room seemed more familiar and home-like to him than it had ever done in Switzerland. He was awakened by one of those sounds which dwell longest in the memory--the chiming of the church bells nearest home, which in childhood had so often called to him to shake off his slumbers, and which spoke to him now in sweet and friendly tones, as if he was still an innocent child. The tempest-tossed, sinful man lay listening to them for a minute or two, half asleep yet. He had been dreaming that he was in truth dead, but that the task a.s.signed to him was that of an invisible guardian and defender to those who had lost him. He had been present all these years with his wife, and mother, and children, going out and coming in with them, hearing all their conversation, and sharing their family life, but himself unseen and unheard, felt only by the spiritual influence he could exercise over them. It had been a blissful dream, such as had never visited him in his exile; and as the familiar chiming of the bells, high up in the belfry not far from his attic, fell upon his ear, the dream for a brief moment gathered a stronger sense of reality.
It was with a strange feeling, as if he was himself a phantom mingling with creatures of flesh and blood, that he went out into the streets.
His whole former life lay unrolled before him, but there was no point at which he could touch it. Every object and every spot was commonplace, yet invested with a singular and intense significance. Many a man among the townsfolk he knew by name and history, whose eyes glanced at him as a stranger, with no surprise at his appearance, and no show of suspicion or of welcome. Certainly he was nothing but a ghost revisiting the scenes of a life to which there was no possible return. Yet how he longed to stretch out his hand and grasp those of these old towns-people of his! Even the least interesting of the shopkeepers in the streets, bestirring themselves to meet the business of a new day, seemed to him one of the most desirable of companions.
His heart was drawing him to Whitefriars Road, to that spot on earth of all others most his own, but his resolution failed him whenever he turned his face that way. He rambled into the ancient market square, where stood a statue of his Felicita"s great uncle, the first Baron Riversdale. The long shadow of it fell across him as he lingered to look in at a bookseller"s window. He and the bookseller had been school-fellows together at the grammar-school, and their friendship had lasted after each was started in his own career. Hundreds of times he had crossed this door-sill to have a chat with the studious and quiet bookworm within whose modest life was so great a contrast with his own.
Jean Merle stopped at the well-remembered shop-window.
His eyes glanced aimlessly along the crowded shelves, but suddenly his attention was arrested, and his pulses, which had been beating somewhat fast, throbbed with eager rapidity. A dozen volumes or more, ranged together, were labelled, "Works by Mrs. Roland Sefton." Surprise, and pride, and pleasure were in the rapid beatings of his heart. By Felicita! He read over the t.i.tles with a new sense of delight and admiration; and in the first glow of his astonishment he stepped quickly into the shop, with erect head and firm tread, and found himself face to face with his old school-fellow. The sight of his blank, unrecognizing gaze brought him back to the consciousness of the utter change in himself. He looked down at his coa.r.s.e hands and mechanic"s dress, and remembered that he was no longer Roland Sefton. His tongue was parched; it was difficult to stammer out a word.
"Do you want anything, my good man?" asked the bookseller quietly.
There was something in the words "my good man" that brought home to him at once the complete separation between his former life and the present, and the perfect security that existed for him in the conviction that Roland Sefton was dead. With a great effort he commanded himself, and answered the bookseller"s question collectedly.
"There are some books in the window by Mrs. Roland Sefton," he said, "how much are they?"
"That is the six shilling edition," replied the bookseller.
Jean Merle was on the point of saying he would take them all, but he checked himself. He must possess them all, and read every line that Felicita had ever written, but not now, and not here.
"Which do you think is the best?" he asked.
"They are all good," was the answer; "we are very proud of Mrs. Roland Sefton, who belongs to Riversborough. That is her great uncle yonder, the first Lord Riversdale; and she married a prominent townsman, Roland Sefton, of the Old Bank. I have a soiled copy or two, which I could sell to you for half the price of the new ones."
"She is famous then?" said Jean Merle.
"She has won her rank as an author," replied the bookseller. "I knew her husband well, and he always foretold that she would make her mark; and she has. He died fourteen years ago; and, strange to say, there was something about your step as you came in which reminded me of him. Do you belong to Riversborough?"
"No," he answered; "but my name is Jean Merle, and I am related to Madame Sefton, his mother. I suppose there is some of the same blood in Roland Sefton and me."
"That is it," said the bookseller cordially. "I thought you were a foreigner, though you speak English so well."
"There was some mystery about Roland Sefton"s death?" remarked Jean Merle.
"No, no; at least not much," was the answer. "He went away on a long holiday, unluckily without announcing it, on account of bank business; but Mr. Clifford, the senior partner, was on his way to take charge of affairs. There was but one day between Roland Sefton"s departure and Mr.
Clifford"s arrival, but during that very day, for some reason or other unknown, the head clerk committed suicide, and there was a panic and a run upon the bank. Unfortunately there was no means of communicating with Sefton, who had started at once for the continent. Mr. Clifford did not see any necessity for his return, as the mischief was done; but just as his six months" absence was over--not all holiday, as folks said, for there was foreign business to see after--he died by accident in Switzerland. I knew the truth better than most people; for Mr. Clifford came here often, and dropped many a hint. Some persons still say the police were seeking for Roland; but that is not true. It was an unfortunate concatenation of circ.u.mstances."
"You knew him well?" said Jean Merle.
"Yes; we were school-fellows and friends," answered the bookseller, "and a finer fellow never breathed. He was always eager to get on, and to help other people on. We have not had such a public-spirited man amongst us since he died. It cuts me to the heart when anybody pretends that he absconded. Absconded! Why! there were dozens of us who would have made him welcome to every penny we could command. But I own appearances were against him, and he never came back to clear them up, and prove his innocence."
"And this is his wife"s best book," said Jean Merle, holding it with shaking, nerveless hands. Felicita"s book! The tears burned under his eyelids as he looked down on it.
"I won"t say it is the best; it is my favorite," replied the bookseller.
"Her son, Felix Sefton, a clergyman now, was in here yesterday, asking the same question. If you are related to Madame Sefton, you"ll be very welcome at the Old Bank; and you"ll find both of Madame"s grand-children visiting old Mr. Clifford. I"ll send one of my boys to show you the house."
"Not now," said Jean Merle. If Mr. Clifford was living yet he must be careful what risks he ran. Hatred has eyes as keen as love; and if any one could break through his secret it would be the implacable old man, who had still the power of sending him to a convict prison.
A shudder ran through him at the dread idea of detection. What would it be to Felicita now, when her name was famous, to have it dragged down to ignominy and utter disgrace? The dishonor would be a hundred-fold the greater for the fair reputation she had won, and the popularity she had secured. And her children too! Worse for them past all words would it be than if they were still little creatures, ignorant of the value of the world"s opinion. He bade the bookseller good-morning, and threaded his way through many alleys and by-lanes of the old town until he reached a ferry and a boat-house, where many a boat lay ready for him, as they had always done when he was a boy. He seated himself in one of them, and taking the oars fell down with the current to the willows under the garden-wall of his old home.
He steered his boat aside into a small creek, where the willow-wands grew tall and thick, from which he could see the whole river frontage of the old house. Was there any change in it? His keen, despairing gaze could not detect one. The high tilted gables in the roof stood out clear against the sky, with their spiral wooden rods projecting above them.
The oriel window cast its slowly moving shadow on the half-timber walls; and the many lattice cas.e.m.e.nts, with their small diamond-shaped panes, glistened in the sun as in the days gone by. The garden-plots were unchanged, and the smooth turf on the terraces was as green and soft as when he ran along them at his mother"s side. The old house brought to his mind his mother rather than his wife. It was full of a.s.sociations and memories of her, with her sweet, humble, self-sacrificing nature.
There was repose and healing in the very thought of her, which seemed to touch his anguish with a strong and soothing hand. Was there an echo of her voice still lingering for him about the old spot where he had listened to it so often? Could he hear her calling to him by his name, the name he had buried irrecoverably in a foreign grave? For the first time for many years he bent down his face upon his hands, and wept many tears; not bitter ones, full of grief as they were. His mother was dead; he had not wept for her till now.
Presently there came upon the summer silence the sound of a young, clear, laughing voice, calling "Phebe;" and he lifted up his head to look once more at the house. An old man, with silvery white hair was pacing slowly to and fro on the upper terrace, and a slight girlish figure was beside him. That was old Clifford, his enemy; but could that girl be Hilda? A face looked out of one of the windows, smiling down upon this young girl, which he knew again as Phebe Marlowe"s. By and by she came down to the terrace, with a tall, fine-looking young man walking beside her; and all three, bidding farewell to the old man, descended from terrace to terrace, becoming every minute more distinct to his eyes. Yes, there was Phebe; and these others must be his girl Hilda and his son Felix. They were near to him, every word they spoke reached his ears, and penetrated to his heart. They seemed more beautiful, more perfect than any young creatures he had ever beheld. He listened to them unfastening the chain which secured the boat, and to the creaking of the row-locks as they fitted the oars into them. It was as if one of his own long-lost days was come back again to earth, when he had sat where Felix was now sitting, with Felicita instead of Hilda dipping her little white hand into the water. He had scarcely eyes for Phebe; but he was conscious that she was there, for Hilda was speaking to her in a low voice which just reached him. "See," she said, "that man has one of my mother"s books! And he is quite a common man!"
"As much a common man, perhaps, as I am a common woman," answered Phebe, in a gentle though half-reproving tone.
As long as his eyes could see them they were fastened upon the receding boat; and long after, he gazed in the direction in which they had gone.
He had had the pa.s.sing glimpse he longed for into the Paradise he had forfeited. This had been his place, appointed to him by G.o.d, where he could have served G.o.d best, and served Him in as perfect gladness and freedom as the earth gives to any of her children. What lot could have been more blessed? The lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places; he had had a goodly heritage, and he had lost it through grasping dishonestly at a larger share of what this world called success. The madness and the folly of his sin smote him with unutterable bitterness.
He could bear to look at it no longer. The yearning he had felt to see his old home was satisfied; but the satisfaction seemed an increase of sorrow. He would not wait to witness the return of his children. The old man was gone into the house, and the garden was quiet and deserted. With weary strokes he rowed back again up the river; and with a heavier weight of sorrow and a keener consciousness of sin he made his way through the streets so familiar to his tread. It was as if no eye saw him, and no heart warmed to him in his native town. He was a stranger in a strange place; there was none to say to him, here or elsewhere on earth, "You are one of us."
CHAPTER XIII.
A LONDON GARRET.
There was one other place he must see before he went out again from this region of many memories, to which all that he could call life was linked--the little farmstead on the hills, which, of all places, had been his favorite haunt when a boy, and which had been the last spot he had visited before fleeing from England. Phebe Marlowe he had seen; if he went away at once he could see her home before her return to it. Next to his mother and his wife, he knew that Phebe was most likely to recognize him, if recognition by any one was possible. Most likely old Marlowe was dead; but if not, his senses would surely be too dull to detect him.
The long, hot, white highway, dusty with a week"s drought, carried back his thoughts so fully to old times that he walked on unconscious of the noontide heat and the sultriness of the road. Yet when he came to the lanes, green overhead and underfoot, and as silent as the mountain-heights round Engelberg, he felt the solace of the change. All the recollections treasured up in the secret cells of memory were springing into light at every step; and these were remembrances less bitter than those the sight of his lost home had called to mind. He felt himself less of a phantom here, where no one met him or crossed his path, than in the streets where many faces looking blankly at him wore the well-known features of old comrades. By the time he gained the moorlands, and looked across its purple heather and yellow gorse, his mind was in a healthier mood than it had been for years. The low thatched roof of the small homestead, and the stunted and twisted trees surrounding it, seemed like a possible refuge to him, where for a little while he might find shelter from the storm of life. He pressed on with eagerness, and found himself quickly at the door, which he had never met with fastened.
But it was locked now. After knocking twice he tried the latch, but it did not open. He went to the little window, uncurtained as usual and peered in, but all was still and dark; there was not a glimmer of light on the hearth, where he had always seen some glimmering embers. There was no sign of life about the place; no dog barking, no sheep bleating, or fowls fluttering about the little farm-yard. All the innocent, joyous gayety of the place had vanished; yet he could see that it was not falling into decay; the thatch was in repair, the dark interior, dimly visible through the window, was as it used to be. It was not a ruin, but it was not a home. A home might have received him with its hospitable walls, or a ruin might have given him an hour"s shelter. But Phebe"s door was shut against him, though it would have done him good to stand within it once more, a penitent man.
He was turning away sadly, when a loud rustic voice called to him; and Simon Nixey, almost hidden under a huge load of dried ferns, came into sight. Jean Merle stepped down the stone causeway of the farm-yard to open the gate for him.
"What are you doing here?" he inquired suspiciously.
"A wood-carver, called old Marlowe, used to live here," he answered, "what has become of him?"
"Dead!" said Simon; "dead this many a year. Why, if you know anything you ought to know that."
"What did he die of?" asked Jean Merle.
"A broken heart, if ever man did," answered Simon; "he"d saved a mint o"
money by sc.r.a.ping and moiling; and he lost it all when there was a run on the Old Bank over thirteen years ago. He couldn"t talk about it like other folks, poor old Dummy! and it struck inwards, as you may say. It killed him as certain as if they"d shot a bullet into him."