FATHER AND SON

Daylight was now dying, although it was only a little after three o'clock. The sky was murky and smoke-laden, the air was utterly still.

All round the centre of the city the people still discussed the events of the morning. Outside the Town Hall, in the Square, outside the Hospital, all down Market Street, along Corporation Street, the people stood in excited groups; and although the intense feeling which had been aroused in the morning had somewhat subsided, there was only one subject which was of paramount interest. Strange as it may seem, however, the district round Strangeways Gaol was comparatively deserted. The a.s.size Courts were no longer the centre of interest, even although they were the source from which everything emanated.

By this time Paul Stepaside had become almost in a state of torpor. He was suffering a reaction from the intense feeling which had possessed him that morning. When he had at first returned to his cell his mind was intensely alive, and a thousand plans were flashing through his brain, a thousand questions occurred to him which demanded an answer.

Now, however, that numb, dull feeling which ever follows such experiences possessed him. After all, what mattered? Mary Bolitho could never be his wife, and if Fate had decided upon his death, die he must. Indeed, he did not seem to care very much. It seemed as if, for the time being, his nature had become almost paralysed. Of course, the experiences through which he was pa.s.sing were only transitory.

Presently his strength would a.s.sert itself again, and everything would become vivid and vital. And so he lay in a semi-comatose condition on the comfortless couch which had been provided for him, and the realities of the situation seemed far away. He had been lying thus for perhaps an hour, and was on the point of falling asleep, when there were footsteps in the corridor outside, and the door of his cell opened.

At first he felt almost annoyed at the intrusion. Why could they not let him rest? After all, everything was hopeless, and he did not very much care. Still, he turned his eyes towards the door, and when he saw that it was Judge Bolitho who entered, he started to his feet. His nerves grew tense again, and his mind active. The judge waited while the door was closed, and then turned to Paul. The older man looked around the little room like one trying to take in the situation, noted the light of the dying day as it penetrated the prison window, let his eyes rest upon the little couch where Paul had been lying, and made a survey of the items of the room as though it were his business to care for the prisoner's comfort.

Neither of them spoke for some seconds. Paul was silent because, in spite of everything, there seemed an insurmountable barrier between him and the man who had come to visit him; the judge, because he almost feared the son whom he had come to see.

Presently their eyes fastened upon each other's faces, and each scrutinised every feature as if trying to read the other's mind. It was Paul who spoke first.

"Why have you come here?" he asked.

"Surely you can guess?" was the reply. "I could not stay away. There was but one place to which I could go."

"You must know that I have nothing to say to you, even as you have nothing to say to me."

"You are wrong," replied the judge. "I have a great deal to say to you. How can it be otherwise? Have you no pity, my boy?"

Paul looked at him angrily. "Pity!" he replied, and there was a world of scorn in his voice.

The judge stood with bowed head. "Yes, I understand," and he spoke almost in a whisper. "I understand, and I deserve your scorn. I deserve it a thousand times over. But do not think I have not suffered, Paul."

Paul gave an impatient shrug and took two steps across his little cell.

"I am afraid I cannot give you a welcome befitting your lordship's position," he said. "As you will see, my _menage_ does not suggest very great luxury, and I think my servants are in a state of revolution. But will you not be seated?"

"You see," he went on, "when a man is being tried for murder, even although the English law says that every man must be regarded as innocent until he has been proved to be guilty, it does not provide any luxuries!"

"Paul, my boy, do you not know? Do you not understand?" said the judge. "Yes, I have been guilty of all those things of which you are thinking. I deserve all the contempt and all the anger you feel for me, but I come to you as a suppliant."

"For what?"

"For your forgiveness, your love. I am no longer your judge. If I were I could not be here. That's over now. Another will take my place. If I can do anything to atone, my boy, I will do it, if you will let me know what it is. Do you not see? Do you not understand?"

There was a world of pleading in his voice, while in his tired eyes was a look of yearning and longing that Paul could not understand.

"If you will tell me what you wish," said the younger man, "if you will explain to me your desires, perhaps--although, as you see, I am so curiously situated--I will do what I can to meet your wishes."

His voice was still hard, and there was no look in his eyes which suggested yielding or pity.

"I deserve nothing from you," replied the judge. "How can I? And yet I could not help coming. After all, you are my son!"

"How did you learn it?" asked Paul.

"Last night I went to see your mother," he replied. "She is staying at a little house not far from here. I received a letter asking me to go to a certain number in Dixon Street. It was couched in such language that I could not refuse. I went there, and I saw your mother. I had thought she was dead--at least, I had no reason to believe her alive.

There I learnt everything. Since then there's been only one thought in my mind, only one longing in my heart----"

"And that?" said Paul.

"The one thought in my mind," said the judge, "has been that you are my son; the one longing in my heart has been that you would forgive me and love me. It took some time to shape itself, but there it is, and I have come. I cannot put my feelings into words properly. Words seem so poor, so inadequate! Can't you understand?"

The picture of his mother's face rose up before Paul's eyes as his father spoke, and with it the remembrance of the long years of pain, sorrow, and loneliness.

"Do you not understand?" asked the judge again.

"I understand my mother's sufferings," said Paul. "I understand how, when she was a young girl, forsaken, disgraced, she suffered agonies which cannot be put into words. I understand how she tramped all the way from Scotland to Cornwall, the home of her mother's people. I understand what she felt towards the man who betrayed her, especially when her only child was born in a workhouse, a nameless pauper! I understand that!"

The judge stood with bowed head. He might have been stunned by some heavy blow. He rocked to and fro, and for a moment Paul thought he was going to fall.

"Yes," he said presently, "I deserve it all. Even the circ.u.mstances which I might plead do not extenuate me."

"What were they?" asked Paul.

For a moment he had become interested in the past. He wanted to know what this man had to tell him, what excuses he had to make.

"You won my mother as Douglas Graham. Whence the change of name? I suppose you masqueraded in Scotland as Douglas Graham because you did not wish your true name to be known? You're a villain, and you thought if you called yourself Bolitho that villainy could not be traced. I am not one who quotes rag-tags of religious sentiment as a rule, but there are two sayings which occur to my mind just now. One is, 'Be sure your sin will find you out,' and another, 'Though the mills of G.o.d grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.' It may be all nonsense in most cases, but just for the moment it seems as though there were something in it!"

"Paul," said the judge, "as I have said, I know I deserve nothing at your hands save the scorn and contempt which you evidently feel for me, but is there no means whatever of bridging over this awful gulf? I would give my life to do so!"

"No," said Paul. "I am no theologian, and yet I cannot close my eyes to the fact that sin and penalty go together--only, the injustice of it is that the penalty not only falls on the head of the one who sins but on the head of the innocent."

"Then you can never forgive me?" said the judge, and there was a world of pleading in his voice.

"If your lordship will just think a moment," said Paul. "You have asked me to try and understand you; will you try and understand me? I am here in a prison cell, accused of murder. Possibly I shall be hanged--although I mean to fight for my life," this he added grimly, with set teeth and flashing eyes. "I am twenty-five years of age, and it is not pleasant to think that one's life shall end in such a way!

Let me remind you of something, Mr. Justice Bolitho, and, in reminding you of it, perhaps you will see that I have no reason to play the part of the yielding and affectionate son. I was born in a workhouse. My only name has been the name given to me because my mother was found lying near a little hamlet called Stepaside. I was educated a pauper.

The parish paid the expenses of my learning a trade. When I was seventeen my mother told me the story of her life, told me of my father's villainy. What such a story would do for most men I don't know, but this it did for me: it robbed me of everything most dear. It killed in me all faith. It destroyed in me all belief in G.o.d and Providence. When I went out into the world it seemed to me that the only legacy I had was a legacy of hatred for the man who had robbed my mother of her youth and of her honour, and me of my boyhood and of all the things that make youth beautiful. I need not tell you my story since. You know it too well. But, if I am hard and bitter, you have made me what I am. Consciously or unconsciously, yours has been the hand that has moulded me. Do you wonder, then, that I cannot respond to this appeal for filial affection--that I cannot clasp my arms round your neck like a hero in a fourth-rate melodrama? When you rob a man of his faith in human nature and G.o.d, you rob him of everything, you dry up the fountains of tenderness."

For a moment there was a silence between them, and then Paul went on: "But where's my mother now? You say you saw her last night. What did she tell you? What did you tell her? Do you know what has become of her?"

"I scarcely know what I did tell her," replied the judge. "I was so overwhelmed when she told me that you were my son that I was scarcely capable of thinking. Besides, she seemed in no humour for asking questions. She felt very bitterly towards me, naturally, and my mind was numbed; I could not think."

"Perhaps you will tell _me_?" said Paul presently.

"I will tell you everything that you ask, my boy."

"Then tell me why you masqueraded in Scotland under a false name? Tell me why you left my mother on the day you married her."

"Douglas Graham was my name," he replied. "I had no thought of masquerading."

"Then why have you become Bolitho?" asked Paul. "My mother told me that on the night of your wedding day you read a letter which had been given to you which seemed to surprise you very much. Tell me the meaning of it."

The judge gave no answer, and again he rocked to and fro in his misery.

"Paul, my son," he said. "I cannot!"