WHEN John rushed away in the manner that has been described, Montressor and the other were left together looking at each other blankly. They said nothing so long as the sound of voices without betrayed that he was still there. They sat listening, looking at each other, in silence, till the sound of his footsteps had died away upon the stony pavement, and the quiet street had relapsed into its usual stillness. The look which they exchanged was like that of two convicted criminals waiting breathless till the steps of the avenger had died away. Montressor, at least, had done the young fellow no wrong, but he felt that he had somehow unconsciously, involuntarily, been the means of bringing trouble upon him. He felt like a culprit whispering to his fellow-conspirator when he said,
‘May,’ in a low voice, as if he might be overheard, ‘what does it all mean?’
May looked up at him from where he sat by the table, leaning his forehead upon his hands. He shook his head, but he did not make any reply.
‘May, we’re old friends. I never turned me back upon ye, though many did. I’ve always felt an interest in where ye were, and how your time was running on. I hadn’t much in me power, but many didn’t do that.’
‘Nobody did it,’ said May. ‘I’m like a martyr, a saint, in that, if in nothing else, Montressor; everyone forsook me. I had not a soul to inquire whether I was living or dead, but you.’
‘Hush, May, me poor fellow!—your wife and family——’
‘Do you know what they did? They disappeared, and left no sign of themselves anywhere. They must have changed their name; they sent a sum of money for me, but not a word. I came out not knowing if anyone belonging to me was living or dead, or where they were, or what had become of them. My wife may be at the end of the world for anything I know.’
‘May be dead,’ said the other, ‘that’s more likely.’
The convict shook his head.
‘It must have been she who sent me the money. I had a mind not to take it at first. Like a bone to a dog to keep him from following you. I thought for half-an-hour I wouldn’t take it: but after all,’ he said, with a low laugh, ‘money’s not a bad thing in itself. It’s a make-up for many things—when you can get nothing else.’
‘Me poor soul! if you’ve sinned you’ve suffered,’ said Montressor, with a sigh of sympathy.
The other laughed again.
‘There’s something to be said on both sides. What’s sin? It’s a thing that takes different aspects according to your point of view. And you may say what’s suffering too? That is a pang to one person which would be the course of nature to another. My friend Joe never expected to have any welcome on the other side of the gates at Portland; not he. He was content to get out of it, to go where he pleased, to get drunk comfortably next night with nobody to interfere. He had no ridiculous expectations. What you call suffering to me was bliss to Joe.’
Montressor did not know what to reply; nothing in his own life, and not all the expedients of the theatre could furnish him with a fit answer. He tried to throw into his face and the solemn shake of his head, something which he ought to feel.
‘All other things are according to your point of view,’ the other went on; ‘but money’s absolute. It’s always a good thing in its way. I took it, and I consoled myself that on the whole—that on the whole—— But children have a droll sort of hold upon you,’ he said, quickly, with a broken laugh. ‘I always felt I’d give a great deal to know what had become of my little boy.’
Montressor stretched out his hand, and took hold of May’s across the table. Both nature and the theatre helped him here.
‘Me poor friend!’ he said.
‘He was a delightful little chap. It might be because I was partial, you know—but I think there never was a finer little chap. I used to go upstairs, when I came in late, and fetch him out of his bed, out of his sleep, his mother said, and looked death and destruction at me—but it never did him any harm. I shouldn’t wonder if he remembered it now. I think I see him in his white nightgown, with his two eyes shining, his hair all ruffled up, his little bare feet.’ His voice ran off in a low, sobbing cough. ‘I never saw such a little chap:—never a bit afraid, though I wasn’t very steady sometimes when I carried him downstairs.’
There was a pause. Montressor had no stage precedent before him to teach him how to act in such an extraordinary crisis: but Nature began to make a hundred confused suggestions, which at first he could scarcely understand. The stillness seemed to throb and thrill around them, when this monologue ceased, demanding something from the actor, he could not tell what; some help which he did not know how to give, scarcely what it was.
‘Me poor friend!’ he said once more. ‘You’ve done wrong, but wrong has been done to you. And this little chap, ye think ye’ve found him? Ye think he’s turned out to be this—this noble young fellow here? If ye have an interest in him one way, I’ve got an interest in him in another, for he saved the life of me chyild—of me Edie,’ the actor added, as in the theatre he would have said these touching words, ‘who is the prop of me old age, and the pillar of me house.’
May, who had been roused out of his musings by the question, fell back into them as Montressor prolonged his speech, and now made no reply. The other continued:
‘Me interest in him is strong. I’d save him any trouble, or disturbance, or distress—anything that was to humble him, or to shame him, or to put a stop to him making his way. I’d do that, whatever it might cost me—that I would, for me chyild’s sake.’
‘Your chyild?’ said May, with an imitation of the actor’s pronunciation, which Montressor scarcely perceived, but which tickled the speaker in the extraordinary lightness of his heart or temper. He laughed, and then took up the conversation, changing his tone.
‘A child’s a strange thing. It’s yourself in a kind of way, and yet it’s nicer than yourself. The naughtier it is, the nicer it is. It’s endless fun. I don’t know,’ he said, with a wave of his hand, ‘what the relationship is when it exists between you and somebody that, so to speak, is as old as yourself.’
‘Me poor May! but that’s a thing that can’t be.’
‘Myself, for instance,’ continued the philosopher. ‘I’m father to a child, not to a man. My little chap, if he had lived, would be—— I don’t know,’ he added, after a pause, ‘that I’d be very sorry to hear he had died.’
‘Hush, May!’ said the other, with an outcry of dismay. ‘I wouldn’t believe ye. Ye can’t mean it, whatever ye may say.’
‘Why can’t I mean it? My little chap belongs to me, whatever happens. He had always a smile and a kiss for his father; he was never afraid of me; he never looked at me stern, like his mother. Now, if he should happen to have grown into—something like this young fellow here——’
‘Ye would be a lucky man, not a luckier man in all England: a brave boy of whom any father might be proud.’
‘Ah!’ said the vagrant, with a long-drawn breath, which ended in a faint laugh, ‘and would he, do you think, be proud of me?’
There was another silence, for Montressor was daunted, and felt once more that even the resources of his profession failed him; and May went on, after the telling interval of that pause.
‘A young fellow that is the pink of respectability, that never took a drop too much, nor went an inch out of the way in all his life! Lord, Montressor, think what it would be to be set down for life, to be overlooked by a fellow like that! to see in his eyes what he thought of you! I’m a poor wretch that can’t live without a laugh. I couldn’t, you know, if I were, as people used to say, within the ribs of death. I’ve made the best of things, and reasoned them out, and got a little fun out of them wherever I was. I know what would happen well enough. When I talked to him the other day, I was a sort of a strange beast to him that he was very sorry for. It nearly brought the tears into his eyes to hear me talk. I could almost tell you what he was thinking. “Poor beggar!” he was thinking, “it’s all wrong and horrible, but if it gives him a little consolation in his misery——” He was awfully kind.’
‘He’s the kindest heart I ever came across,’ cried the actor, with an exaggeration which was very allowable in the circumstances, ‘and liberal as the day, and never forgets a friend.’
This May dismissed again with a wave of his hand as something outside of the question.
‘He was awfully kind. It looked like what you call the voice of nature on the stage, Montressor. One doesn’t often come across it anywhere else. Do you know he picked me up dr—— well, as the policemen say, a little the worse for liquor—in the street? Think of it, a young man that is the flower of respectability—that never consorted with the wicked. And after seeing me unadorned like that, and knowing where I came from, which Joe did his best to publish, taking me in, establishing me here, and giving me his papers to copy! By the way, I’m a little sorry about these papers,’ he went on. ‘Perhaps it was stretching a point to take them away—convey the wise it call—though they weren’t his, strictly speaking, you know; he hadn’t paid for them or made any bargain; but still a Puritanical person might say—— It was all that sophist Joe, a casuist born, though he doesn’t know a rule of logic. And then the ridiculous name of those engineer people caught my fancy. Spender & Diggs, don’t you know; it’s grotesque. That tempted me. But, perhaps, after all, it was stretching a point—the jury might say it was a breach of trust. I think I’ll go and get them back.’
‘Me friend!’ cried Montressor, ‘there I see ye as I always liked to see ye—generous, whatever else.’
‘Yes,’ said May, with some complacency, ‘I flatter myself I always was that; but few people knew the line to take with me. The talk has always been about justice. As if justice was a thing to be defined! If every man had his deserts, which of us would be uppermost, I wonder? Not those fellows in scarlet that sentence other men, or the pettifogging shopkeepers on a jury that know about as much of justice—— I think I’ll go and get those papers back.’
‘Come on; I’ll go with ye—I’ll stand by ye in a righteous cause!’ cried Montressor, starting to his feet.
‘Gently,’ said May, looking at him with mild eyes, leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s too late to-day. I’ll go to-morrow as soon as I’m up; and as for that old casuist Joe——’
‘What’s Joe, or any other man,’ said Montressor, ‘in comparison with what’s generous, me friend, and kind? Here’s a young man, and as fine a young man as ye’ll see, that’s been good to ye—even if there’s nothing more in it.’
‘Even if there’s nothing more in it,’ said May, in his mellow, melting voice. ‘And there may be more in it, Montressor. There may be little Johnnie in it, God bless him, my nice little chap!’
‘Me friend,’ said Montressor, with enthusiasm, ‘there may be little Johnnie in it, grown up to be a credit to all that belongs to him, to be the prop of your old age and the blessin’ of your life, like me own Edie—to thank ye for saving him from ruin, to bless ye——’
‘Hold hard!’ said the other. ‘Montressor, my good fellow, your eloquence is carrying you away. Thank me for saving him from ruin! It was hauling me up for stealing his papers that he was thinking of——’
‘But not,’ cried John’s advocate, ‘not since he knew—not since it began to dawn upon him, poor boy——’
The convict put out his hand—and the actor stopped short in his appeal. They sat silent once more, looking at each other with thoughts that were too deep for speech. It was May who took up the broken sentence at last.
‘Ay,’ he said, ‘when it began to dawn upon him, poor boy, that the man he had picked up out of the streets, the man he had been so charitable to, the man he had trusted and that had betrayed him, the convict from Portland, was his father! Good Lord! Think of this happening to a proud, virtuous, self-conceited, right-minded, well-behaved young prig like that!’ He burst into something that sounded like a laugh, and yet was more miserable than any outcry of despair. ‘Think of that, Montressor,’ he said again, after a moment. ‘That’s stranger than any of your stage effects. Poor young beggar! all made up of pride and honour and rectitude, and all that, and as ambitious as Alexander to boot.’ He got up for a moment and stood by the table and looked round him. ‘I think I’ll go away. I think I’ll go right away and take myself out of the boy’s road. What would be the good of torturing him, and making him try to be respectful to his father? He’d be respectful—and awfully disagreeable,’ he added, with a lighter laugh. ‘I’ll not wait for him any longer. I’ll go right away.’
‘Me noble friend! it’s your true heart that speaks!’ cried Montressor, seizing him by the arm. ‘Me house is open to you, May, and me heart—come with me.’
May looked round upon the room, the fire of his sentiment dying out, the habitual twinkle coming back to his eye.
‘It’s a dreadfully respectable little place,’ he said. ‘Tidy—not a thing out of order. Could you imagine a comfortable pipe and glass here? And I know how he would look at me. It makes a difference when it’s a relation. A poor man off the streets is the sort of thing you can be kind to without derogation—but not a—father. I’m not the sort of father for a man. A little boy like my little chap wouldn’t mind; but a fine, respectable young man! And women don’t mind so much—that is, some women. How old is your Edie, Montressor, and what sort of a girl?’
‘Sixteen, and an angel,’ said the actor, ‘and dances like one: and she’s the prop of me house.’
‘Sixteen—you must take me to Edie. Sixteen’s too young to ask many questions: and when it dances besides! But you’ve got a wife?’
‘She’s an angel too, May.’
‘It’s you that are lucky, Montressor. I wonder if I’ve still got a wife? She was a sort of an arch-angel, don’t you know, too high-minded, too grand for the like of me. I wonder if she’s alive. Yes, she must be alive. Nobody but she would have sent me that money without a word. Perhaps, Montressor, it’s her he’s gone to consult.’
‘Never mind, me friend. Let’s think no more of them. Let’s go away.’
‘It will be so,’ said May, as if speaking to himself; ‘his mother—that master of his said. Confound all jealous masters, he will cause me a deal of trouble getting those things back. Ay, the mother! she’ll tell him everything, she’ll not spare the old riotous good-for-nothing—his father!’ Here the voice changed. ‘A father like me,’ he added, ‘isn’t for a young man, Montressor; you’re right in what you say. I’d do for a boy, a little fellow like my own little chap. He and I could go away together where nobody ever heard of us. Get a little farm in the country, perhaps, and a spade, and—that sort of thing: and the poor little beggar would never know. But for a man that is respectability itself, and all that—— No, no, you’re right, Montressor. Take me to your angel that dances, and the other one—what does she do?—perhaps she sings.’ He burst forth into a tremulous, broken laugh. ‘Two angels—instead of my own little chap. You’re right, Montressor. Don’t let us wait for the poor boy that’s coming back broken-hearted. Who knows, if I weren’t such a good-for-nothing, if I weren’t such a reckless fool, I might be broken-hearted too.’
‘Me poor friend!’ the actor cried, ‘as long as I have a roof over me head, come; it’s but a poor place, but ye’ll be welcome. Montressor’s door is never shut against trouble and sorrow. And when ye see me Edie dance—and she’ll dance to ye as if ye were a crowned head—ye’ll forget everything.’
‘Ah, I’ll forget everything,’ said the other; he added, musing, ‘I’ll do that easy, whether or no.’