The Side Of The Angels Part 56

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

When Jasper Fay was tried for the murder of Claude Masterman, and acquitted of the charge, it was generally felt that the ends of justice had been served. No human being, whatever his secret opinion, could have desired the further punishment of that little old man whose sufferings might have expiated any possible crime in advance. The jury having found it improbable that at his age, and with his infirmities, he should have been lurking in the village at ten o'clock at night and waiting in the neighborhood of Colcord jail at dawn of the next morning, the verdict was accepted with relief not only in the little court-house of the county town, but by the outside public. To none was this absolution more nearly of the nature of a joy than to the unfortunate young man's family.

That was in the winter of 1912, and in the mean while Lois had been led so successfully by her subst.i.tute for love as to be at times unaware of her lack of the divine original. For she was busy, so it seemed to her, every day of every week and every minute of every day. The first dreadful necessities on that night of the 9th of July having been attended to, her thought flew at once to the father and mother of the dead boy.

"Thor dear, I know exactly what I'm going to do about them, if you'll let me."

It was early morning by the time she said that, and all that was immediately pressing was over. Claude was lying in one of the spare rooms that had been prepared for him, and Dr. Noonan, together with the four or five grave, burly men, Irish-Americans as far as she could judge, who had been in and about the house all night hunting for traces of the crime, had gone away. Those who were still beating the shrubbery and the grounds were not in view from the library windows. Maggs and his wife were in the house, as well as Dearlove and Brightstone, getting it ready for re-occupation, since it was but seemly that the dread guest who had come under its roof should be decently lodged.

Thor, having spent some hours before the stupefied village authorities, was surprised and obscurely disappointed not to be put under arrest.

Public disgrace would have appeased in a measure the clamor of self-accusation. To be treated with respect and taken at his word in his account of what had happened between himself and Claude was like an insult to a martyr's memory. When dismissed to his home he found it hard to go.

Having dragged himself back through the gray morning light, it was to discover strange wonders wrought in the immediate surroundings. Lois and her four a.s.sistants had whisked the coverings from the furniture and restored something like an air of life. Even the library, having been sufficiently noted and described, had been set in what was approximately order, the broken picture taken from its nail and the broken window hidden by a curtain.

On the threshold of the room Thor paused, shrinking from a spot which henceforth he must regard as cursed. But Lois insisted. "Come in, Thor dear; come in." She felt it imperative that he should overcome on the instant anything in the way of terrible a.s.sociation. He must counteract remorse; he must not let himself be haunted. She herself sat still, therefore, with the restrained demeanor of one who has seen nothing in the circ.u.mstances with which she has not been able to cope. Pale, with dark rings under the eyes betraying the inner effect of the night of stress, she nevertheless carried herself as if equal to confronting developments graver still. The strength she inspired came from rising to the facts as to some tremendous matter of course.

Now that there was a lull in the excitement she had been quietly discussing the conditions with Uncle Sim and Dr. Hilary. The latter went forward as Thor, tall, gaunt, red-eyed, the wound in his forehead stanched with plaster, advanced into the room.

"You're face to face with a great moral test, me dear Thor," he said, laying his hands on the young man's shoulders, "but you'll rise to it."

Thor started back, less in indignation than in horror. "Rise? Me?"

"Yes, you, me dear Thor. You'll climb up on it and get it under your feet. The best use we can make of mistake and calamity is to stand on them and be that much higher up. I don't care what your sin has been or what your self-reproach. Now that they're there, you'll utilize them for your spiritual growth. Neither do I say G.o.d help you! for I'm convinced in me soul that He's doing it."

Thor moved uneasily from under the weight of the benedictory hands. It was as part of his rejection of mercy that he muttered, "I don't know anything about Him."

"Don't you, now? Well, that's not so important. He knows all about you.

It's not what we know about G.o.d, but what G.o.d knows about us that tells most in the long run."

He pa.s.sed on into the hall, where he picked up his hat and went out.

Uncle Sim, who, with more of Don Quixote in his face than ever, had been pacing up and down the room, threw over his shoulder, "Always said you were on the side of the angels, Thor--and you are."

Thor found his way wearily to the chimney-piece, where he stood with his face buried in his hands and his back to his two companions. He groaned impatiently. "Ah, don't talk about angels!"

Uncle Sim continued his pacing. "But I will. Now's the time. What, after all, are they but the forces in life that make for the best, and who's ever been on their side more than you?"

Thor groaned again. "What good does that do me now?"

"This good, that when you've been with them they'll be with you, and don't you forget it! Life doesn't forsake the children who've been trying to serve it, not even when they lose control of themselves for a few minutes and do--do what they're sorry for afterward."

Thor writhed. "I killed Claude."

"Oh no, you didn't, Thor dear," Lois said, quietly. "It's wrong for you to keep saying so. We can see perfectly well what has happened, can't we, Uncle Sim? If Claude revived while you were away and went out to get more air, and some one, as you think, was lurking in the shrubbery--"

"But if it hadn't been for me--"

"As far as that goes I might as well say, If it hadn't been for me. I've told you how he came to me two days ago and how I discouraged him. We're all involved--you no more than the rest of us."

"If he _is_ involved more than the rest of us," Uncle Sim declared, "it's all the more reason why the good forces by which he's stood should now stand by him. It's a matter of common experience to all who've ever made the test that they do." He turned more directly to Thor. "There's a verse in one of those old songs I'm fond of quoting at you--I'll never trouble you with another," he promised, hurriedly, in answer to a movement of protest on his nephew's part, "if you'll only listen to this. It's right to the point, and runs this way: 'The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.' They're camping round about you now, Thor, as I've always told you they would."

Thor raised his head just enough to say savagely over his shoulder, "But when I never _have_ feared Him, in the way you mean--and don't."

"Oh, but you have--and do. There's two types for that sort of thing, both sketched in graphic style by the Master. There's the two sons sent to work in the vineyard, of whom one said to his father, 'I go, sir,'

and went not. The other said, 'I will not,' but went. 'Whether of them twain,' the Master asks, 'did the will of his father?' I leave it to yourself, Thor."

Unable to escape from this ingenious pardon that caught and blessed him whether he would or no, Thor remained silent, while the uncle addressed himself to the niece. "I'll be off now, Lois, but I'll come back before long and bring Amy. We'll stay here. The house'll need to have people in it, to make it look as if it was lived in, till Archie and Ena can be got at and brought home."

Thor turned and looked from the one to the other distressfully. "Poor father and mother! What about them?"

It was then that Lois showed that the matter had already received her attention. "Thor, dear, I know exactly what I'm going to do, if you'll let me."

She had been so efficient throughout the night that both men listened expectantly while she sketched her plan. She would cable the facts as succinctly as she could put them to her own father and mother, who were in their _pet.i.t trou pas cher_ on the north coast of France. They would then cross to England and break the news to Mr. and Mrs. Masterman. The very fact of the breach between her parents on the one side and the bereaved couple on the other was an additional reason for charging the former with the errand of mercy. Where so much had been taken it was the more necessary to rally what remained.

Having expressed his approval of these suggestions, Uncle Sim took his departure.

"Where is he?" Thor asked at once.

"Come."

Though she rose, she lingered to say, with a manner purposely kept down to the simplest and most matter-of-fact plane: "You'll come up to the house and have breakfast, won't you, Thor? It will be ready about eight." As he began to demur on the ground that he couldn't eat, she insisted. "Oh, but you must. You know that yourself. You'll feel better, too, when you've had a bath. You can't take one here, because Mrs. Maggs hasn't put the towels out. Cousin Amy will attend to that when she comes down."

These and similar maternal counsels having been given and received, she led the way into the hall, only to pause again at the foot of the stairs. "I shall go out now to send my cablegram to mamma. The sooner I get it off the better it will be, so that they can cross from Havre to Southampton to-night. I've got it all thought out and condensed, and I shall write it in French so as to keep it from the people in our own office here. I suppose that everything will be in the papers by the afternoon, and we shall have to accept the publicity." Seeing the pain in his face, she took the opportunity to say: "Oh, we can do that well enough, Thor dear. We mustn't be afraid of it. We mustn't flinch at anything. Whatever has to come out will get its significance only from the way we bear it; and we can bear it well."

Having advanced a few steps up the stairs, she turned again on the first landing, speaking down toward him as he mounted. "If possible, I should like to tell Rosie myself. It will be a shock to her, of course; but I want to be with her when she has to meet it. Don't you think I ought to be?" On his expressing some form of mute agreement, she continued: "Then, if you approve, I shall telephone to Jim Breen, asking him to bring her to see me. Rosie will guess, by my sending for her, that something strange has happened. I shall word my message to her in that way."

Her last appeal was made to him as she stood with one hand on the k.n.o.b of the door beyond which Claude was lying. "Thor dear, I hope you get at the truth of the things Uncle Sim and Dr. Hilary have been saying.

There's a great message to you there. You _are_ on the side of the good things, you know. You always have been, and always will be."

He shook his head. "It's too late to say that to me now."

"Oh no, it isn't! And what's also not too late to say is that you mustn't let yourself be ridden by remorse." His haggard eyes seeming to ask her how he could help it, she continued: "Remorse is one of the most futile things we know anything about. It can't undo the past, while it destroys the present and poisons the future."

He was almost indignant. "But when you've--?"

"When you've given way as you say you gave way last night? You brace yourself against doing it again. You make it a new starting-point. Isn't that it?"

"Yes, but if you're like me!"

With her free hand she brushed back the shock of dark hair from his forehead. It was the first touch of personal contact between them since his sudden reappearance. "If one is like you, Thor, of course it's harder. You're a terrific creature. I begin to see that now. I never took it in before, because in general you're so restrained. I know it's the people who are most restrained who can be swept most terribly by pa.s.sion--but I hadn't expected it of you. Even so, it's the sort of thing which only goes with something big in the soul--"

He put up a hand protestingly. "Don't!"

"But I must. It ought to be said. You should understand it.