CHAPTER X.
CHRISTIAN MURDOCH.
As he was turning into the gate of the Works the next morning, a little lad touched him upon the elbow.
"Mester," he said, "sithee, Mester,—stop a bit."
He was out of breath, as if he had been running, and he held in his hand a slip of paper.
"I thowt I should na ketch thee," he said, "tha'rt so long-legged. A woman sent thee that," and he gave him the slip of paper.
Murdoch opened and read the words written upon it.
"If you are Stephen Murdoch's son, I must see you. Come with the child."
There was no signature—only these words, written irregularly and weakly. He had never met with an adventure in his life, and this was like an episode in a romance.
"If you are Stephen Murdoch's son, I must see you."
He could scarcely realize that he was standing in the narrow, up-hill street, jostled by the hands shouting and laughing as they streamed past him through the gates to their work.
And yet, somehow he found himself taking it more coolly than seemed exactly natural. This morning, emotion and event appeared less startling than they would have done even the day before. The strange scene of the past night had, in a manner, prepared him for anything which might happen.
"Who sent it?" he asked of the boy.
"Th' woman as lodges i' our house. She's been theer three days, an' she's getten to th' last, mother says. Con tha coom? She's promist me a shillin' if I browt thee."
"Wait here a minute," said Murdoch.
He passed into the works and went to Floxham.
"I've had a message that calls me away," he said. "If you can spare me for an hour——"
"I'll mak' out," said the engineer.
The lad at the gate looked up with an encouraging grin when he saw his charge returning.
"I'd loike to mak' th' shillin'," he said.
Murdoch followed him in silence. He was thinking of what was going to happen to himself scarcely as much as of the dead man in whose name he was called upon. He was brought near to him again as if it were by a fate. "If you are Stephen Murdoch's son," had moved him strongly.
Their destination was soon reached. It was a house in a narrow but respectable street occupied chiefly by a decent class of workmen and their families. A week before he had seen in the window of this same house a card bearing the legend "Lodgings to Let," and now it was gone. A clean, motherly woman opened the door for them.
"Tha'st earnt thy shillin', has tha, tha young nowt?" she said to the lad, with friendly severity. "Coom in, Mester. I wur feart he'd get off on some of his marlocks an' forget aw about th' paper. She's i' a bad way, poor lady, an' th' lass is na o' mich use. Coom up-stairs."
She led the way to the second floor, and her knock being answered by a voice inside, she opened the door. The room was comfortable and of good size, a fire burned on the grate, and before it sat a girl with her hands clasped upon her knee.
She was a girl of nineteen, dark of face and slight of figure to thinness. When she turned her head slowly to look at him, Murdoch was struck at once with the peculiar steadiness of her large black eyes.
"She is asleep," she said in a low, cold voice.
There was a sound as of movement in the bed.
"I am awake," some one said. "If it is Stephen Murdoch's son, let him come here."
Murdoch went to the bedside and stood looking down at the woman who returned his gaze. She was a woman whose last hours upon earth were passing rapidly. Her beauty was now only something terrible to see; her breath came fast and short; her eyes met his with a look of anguish.
"Send the girl away," she said to him.
Low as her voice was, the girl heard it. She rose without turning to right or left and went out of the room.
Until the door closed the woman still lay looking up into her visitor's face, but as soon as it was shut she spoke laboriously.
"What is your name?" she asked.
He told her.
"You are like your father," she said, and then closed her eyes and lay so for a moment. "It is a mad thing I am doing," she said, knitting her brows with weak fretfulness, and still lying with closed eyes. "I—I do not know—why I should have done it—only that it is the last thing. It is not that I am fond of the girl—or that she is fond of me," she opened her eyes with a start. "Is the door shut?" she said. "Keep her out of the room."
"She is not here," he answered, "and the door is closed."
The sight of his face seemed to help her to recover herself.
"What am I saying?" she said. "I have not told you who I am."
"No," he replied, "not yet."
"My name was Janet Murdoch," she said. "I was your father's cousin. Once he was very fond of me."
She drew from under her pillow a few old letters.
"Look at them," she said; "he wrote them."
But he only glanced at the superscription and laid them down again.
"I did not know," she panted, "that he was dead. I hoped he would be here. I knew that he must have lived a quiet life. I always thought of him as living here in the old way."
"He was away from here for thirty years," said Murdoch. "He only came back to die."
"He!" she said, "I never thought of that. It—seems very strange. I could not imagine his going from place to place—or living a busy life—or suffering much. He was so simple and so quiet."
"I thought of him," she went on, "because he was a good man—a good man—and there was no one else in the world. As the end came I grew restless—I wanted to—to try——"
But there her eyes closed and she forgot herself again.
"What was it you wanted to try to do?" he asked gently.
She roused herself, as before, with a start.
"To try," she said,—"to try to do something for the girl."
He did not understand what she meant until she had dragged herself up upon the pillow and leaned forward touching him with her hand; she had gathered all her strength for the effort.
"I am an outcast," she said,—"an outcast!"
The simple and bare words were so terrible that he could scarcely bear them, but he controlled himself by a strong effort.
A faint color crept up on her cheek.
"You don't understand," she said.
"Yes," he answered slowly, "I think I do."
She fell back upon her pillows.
"I wont tell you the whole story," she said. "It is an ugly one, and she will be ready enough with it when her turn comes. She has understood all her life. She has never been a child. She seemed to fasten her eyes upon me from the hour of her birth, and I have felt them ever since. Keep her away," with a shudder. "Don't let her come in."
A sudden passion of excitement seized upon her.
"I don't know why I should care," she cried. "There is no reason why she should not live as I have lived—but she will not—she will not. I have reached the end and she knows it. She sits and looks on and says nothing, but her eyes force me to speak. They forced me to come here—to try—to make a last effort. If Stephen Murdoch had lived——"
She stopped a moment.
"You are a poor man," she said.
"Yes," he answered. "I am a mechanic."
"Then—you cannot—do it."
She spoke helplessly, wildly.
"There is nothing to be done. There is no one else. She will be all alone."
Then he comprehended her meaning fully.
"No," he said, "I am not so poor as that. I am not a poorer man than my father was, and I can do what he would have done had he lived. My mother will care for the girl, if that is what you wish."
"What I wish!" she echoed. "I wish for nothing—but I must do something for her—before—before—before——"
She broke off, but began again.
"You are like your father. You make things seem simple. You speak as if you were undertaking nothing."
"It is not much to do," he answered, "and we could not do less. I will go to my mother and tell her that she is needed here. She will come to you."
She turned her eyes on him in terror.
"You think," she whispered, "that I shall die soon—soon!"
He did not answer her. He could not. She wrung her hands and dashed them open upon the bed, panting.
"Oh," she cried, "my God! It is over! I have come to the end of it—the end! To have only one life—and to have done with it—and lie here! To have lived—and loved—and triumphed, and to know it is over! One may defy all the rest, the whole world, but not this. It is done!"
Then she turned to him again, desperately.
"Go to your mother," she said. "Tell her to come. I want some one in the room with me. I wont be left alone with her. I cannot bear it."
On going out he found the girl sitting at the head of the stairs. She rose and stood aside to let him pass, looking at him unflinchingly.
"Are you coming back?" she demanded.
"Yes," he answered, "I am coming back."
In half an hour he re-ascended the staircase, bringing his mother with him. When they entered the room in which the dying woman lay, Mrs. Murdoch went to the bed and bent over her.
"My son has brought me to do what I can for you," she said, "and to tell you that he will keep his promise."
The woman looked up. For a moment it seemed that she had forgotten. A change had come upon her even in the intervening half -hour.
"His promise," she said. "Yes, he will keep it."
At midnight she died. Mother and son were in the room, the girl sat in a chair at the bedside. Her hands were clasped upon her knee; she sat without motion. At a few minutes before the stroke of twelve, the woman awoke from the heavy sleep in which she had lain. She awoke with a start and a cry, and lay staring at the girl, whose steady eyes were fixed upon her. Her lips moved, and at last she spoke.
"Forgive me!" she cried. "Forgive me!"
Murdoch and his mother rose, but the girl did not stir.
"For what?" she asked.
"For—" panted the woman, "for——"
But the sentence remained unfinished. The girl did not utter a word. She sat looking at the dying woman in silence—only looking at her, not once moving her eyes from the face which, a moment later, was merely a mask of stone which lay upon the pillow, gazing back at her with a fixed stare.