Part 29 (1/2)
He sat on the bed and tried to compose himself. Yes, Brother Paul was an object for pity. In all the moral universe there was no spectacle more pitiable than that of a man who had left the world while his heart was still in it. What was he doing here? What had brought him? What business had such a one in such a place? And then his pitiful helplessness for all the uses of life and duty! Could it be right, could it be necessary, could it be G.o.d's wish and will?
Here was a man whose sister was in the world. She was young and vain, and the world was gay and seductive. Without a hand to guide and guard her, what evils might not befall? She was sunk already in shame and degradation, and he had put it out of his power to save her. Whatever had happened in the past, whatever might happen in the future, he was lost to her forever. The captured eagle with the broken wing was now chained to the wall as well. But prayer! Prayer was the bulwark of chast.i.ty, and G.o.d was in need of no man's efforts.
John fell on his knees before the crucifix. With the broken logic of reverie he was thinking of Glory, and Brother Paul, and Polly and Drake.
They crossed his brain and weighed upon it and went out and returned.
The night was cold, but the sweat stood on his brow in beads. In the depths of his soul something was speaking to him, and he was trying not to listen. He was like a blind man who had stumbled to the edge of a precipice, and could hear the waves breaking on the rocks beneath.
When he said his last prayer that night he omitted the pet.i.tion for Glory (as duty seemed to require of him), and then found that all life and soul and strength had gone out of it. In the middle of the night he awoke with a sense of fright. Was it only a dream that he was dead and buried? He raised his head in the darkness and stretched out his hand.
No, it was true. Little by little he pieced together the incidents of the previous day. Yes, it had really happened.
”After all, I am not like Paul--I am not bound for life,” he told himself, and then he lay back like a child and was comforted.
He was ashamed, but he could not help it; he was feeling already as if he were a prisoner in a dungeon looking forward to his release.
III.
”5a Little Turnstile, High Holborn, London, W. C., November 9, 18--.
”Oh yiz, oh yiz, oh yiz! This is to announce to you with due pomp and circ.u.mstance that I, Glory Quayle, am no longer at the hospital--for the present. Did I never tell you? Have you never noticed it in the regulations? Every half-year a nurse is ent.i.tled to a week's holiday, and as I have been exactly six months to-day at Martha's Vineyard, and as a week is too short a time for a trip to the 'oilan,' [* Island.]
and as a good lady whose acquaintance I have made here had given me a pressing invitation to visit her---- See?
”Being the first day since I came up to London that I have been sole mistress of my will and pleasure, I have been letting myself loose, like Caesar does the moment his mad hoofies touch the gra.s.s. I must tell you all about it. The day began beautifully. After a spell of laughing and crying weather, and all the world sneezing and blowing its nose, there came a frosty morning with the sun s.h.i.+ning and the air as bright as diamonds. I left the hospital between, eleven and twelve o'clock, and crossing the park by Birdcage Walk I noticed that flags were flying on Buckingham Palace and church bells ringing everywhere. It turned out to be the birthday of the Prince of Wales, and the Lord Mayor's Day as well, and by the time I got to Storey's Gate bands of music were playing and people were scampering toward the Houses of Parliament. So I ran, too, and from the gardens in front of Palace Yard I saw the Lord Mayor's Show.
”Do you know what that is, good people? It is a civic pageant. Once a year the City King makes a royal procession through the streets with his soldiers and servants and keepers and pipers and retainers, bewigged and bepowdered and bestockinged pretty much as they used to be in the days before the flood. There have been seven hundred of him in succession, and his particular vanity is to show that he is wearing the same clothes still. But it was beautiful altogether, and I could have cried with delight to see those grave-looking signiors forgetting themselves for once and pretending they were big boys over again.
”Such a sight! Flags were flying everywhere and festoons were stretched across the streets with mottoes and texts, such as 'Unity is strength'
and 'G.o.d save the Queen,' and other amiable if not original ideas.
Traffic was stopped in the main thoroughfares, and the 'buses were sent by devious courses, much to the astonishment of the narrow streets.
Then the crowds, the dense layers of potted people with white, upturned faces, for all the world like the pictures of the round stones standing upright at the Giant's Causeway--it was wonderful!
”And then the fun! Until the procession arrived the policemen were really obliging in that way. The one nearest me was as fat as Falstaff, and a slim young c.o.c.kney in front kept addressing intimate remarks to him and calling him Robert. The young impudence himself was just as ridiculous, for he wore a fringe which was supported by hair-oil and soap, and rolled carefully down the right side of his forehead so that he could always keep his left eye on it. And he did, too.
”But the pageant itself! My gracious! how we laughed at it! There were Epping Forest verderers, and beef-eaters from the Tower, and pipers of the Scots Guards, and ladies of the ballet s.h.i.+vering on shaky stools and pretending to be 'Freedom' and 'Commerce,' and last of all the City King himself, smiling and bowing to all his subjects, and with his liegemen behind him in yellow coats and red silk stockings. Perhaps the most popular character was a Highlander in pink tights, where his legs ought to have been, walking along as solemnly as if he thought it was a sort of religious ceremony and he was an idol out for an airing.
”And then the bands! There must have been twenty of them, both bra.s.s and fife, and they all played the Was.h.i.+ngton Post, but no two had the luck to fall on the same bar at the same moment. It was a medley of all the tunes in music, an absolute kaleidoscope of sounds, and meantime there was the clash of bells from the neighbouring belfries in honour of the Prince's birthday, and the rattle of musketry from the Guards, so that when the double event was over I felt like the man whose wife presented him with twins--I wouldn't have lost either of them for a million of money, but I couldn't have found it in my heart to give a bawbee for another one.
”The procession took half an hour to pa.s.s, and when it was gone, remembering the ladies in lovely dresses who had rolled by in their gorgeous carriages, looking not a bit cleverer or handsomer than other people, I turned away with a little hard lump at my heart and a limp in my left foot--the young c.o.c.kney with the fringe had backed on to my toe.
I suppose they are feasting with the lords and all the n.o.bility at the Guildhall to-night, and no doubt the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table will go in pies and cakes to the alleys and courts where hunger walks, and I dare say little Lazarus in the Mile End Road is dreaming at this very moment of d.i.c.k Whittington and the Lord Mayor of London.
”It must have been some waking dream of that sort which took possession of me also, for what do you suppose I did? Shall I tell you? Yes, I will. I said to myself: 'Glory, my child, suppose you were nearly as poor as he was in this great, glorious, splendid London; suppose--only suppose--you had no home and no friends, and had left the hospital, or perhaps even been turned away from it, and hadn't a good lady's door standing open to receive you, what would you do first, my dear?' To all which I replied promptly, 'You would first get yourself lodgings, my child, and then you would just go to work to show this great, glorious London what a woman can do to bring it to her little feet.'
”I know grandfather is saying, 'Gough bless me, girl! you didn't try it, though?' Well, yes, I did--just for fun, you know, and out of the spirit of mischief that's born in every daughter of Eve. Do you remember that Manx cat that wouldn't live in the house, notwithstanding all the bribes and corruption of Aunt Rachel's new milk and softened bread, but went off by the backyard wall to join the tribe of pariah p.u.s.s.ies that s.n.a.t.c.h a living how they may? Well, I felt like Rumpy for once, having three 'goolden sovereigns' in my pocket and a mind superior to fate.
”It was glorious fun altogether, and the world is so amusing that I can't imagine why anybody should go out of it before he must. I hadn't gone a dozen yards in my new character as d.i.c.k Whittington _fille_ before a coachman as fat as an elephant was shouting, 'Where d'ye think yer going ter?' and I was nearly run down in the Broad Sanctuary by a carriage containing two brazen women in sealskin jackets, with faces so thick with powder and paint that you would have thought they had been quarrelling on was.h.i.+ng day and thrown the blue bag at each other's eyes.
I recognised one of them as a former nurse who had left the hospital in disgrace, but happily she didn't see me, for the little hard lump at my heart was turning as bitter as gall at that moment, so I made some philosophical observations to myself and pa.s.sed on.
”Oh, my gracious, these London landladies! They must be female Shylocks, for the pound of flesh is the badge of all their tribe. The first one I boarded asked two guineas for two rooms, and lights and fires extra.