XXV.—THE PRODIGAL
IT was Christmas-eve, and the vicar paid, as he always did on that day, a visit to Mrs. Gray. She was the widow of a brother clergyman and lived on an annuity of rather less than £50 a year. She was so cheerful and contented that the vicar, who was much better off and had endured no great sorrow in his life, used to go away from her time after time greatly ashamed of his own habit of grumbling about minor troubles. His conversation with Mrs. Gray always turned on the same subject. They might begin with items of local gossip, touch on the character of the curate, the way in which the latest mother in the parish managed or mismanaged the latest babe, the eccentricities of other people's maid-servants—Mrs. Gray, because of her poverty, escaped the curse of servants—and kindred other topics. But they passed from these very soon and settled down to the one really interesting subject, the doings, rising fortunes, and splendid character of Leonard Gray. He was old Mrs. Gray's only son. The vicar had known him as a boy; but it was ten years since he saw him, ten years since his mother saw him. Leonard used to write occasionally from Canada. He was in a different part of the great Dominion every time he wrote. He was always doing well and always on the verge of doing better. Every letter held out hopes—indeed, certainties rather than hopes—of a golden fortune in the near future.
Mrs. Gray pulled a chair up to the fire and patted into rotundity a cushion in the seat of it. She poked the fire into a blaze, and did it with an air of hearty willingness, though, as the vicar knew, Mrs. Gray's fires were not poked unnecessarily, coal being exorbitantly dear. Then they settled down to talk. The church organist had lately composed a new tune to a familiar hymn, and insisted on having it sung; but even this appalling iniquity did not hold them long. They passed to Leonard's latest letter. It was two months old, and came from Montreal. The vicar had seen it before, and half hoped there might have been one of later date. It appeared that there was not. He betrayed neither surprise nor disappointment, but fell eagerly to the discussion of Leonard's plan of going into partnership with a friend who owned a fruit farm in British Columbia. It was a very good plan, so they agreed, and old Mrs. Gray flushed with pleasure as she reminded the vicar that Leonard had always enjoyed a country life and found happiness in simple, innocent pursuits.
"It's much better for him," she said, "than railway engineering. I'm glad he's given that up."
Leonard, in his last letter but one, had represented himself as employed in making a new railway. It was Mrs. Gray who had promoted him to the post of engineer, for which the vicar privately doubted his qualification. Mrs. Gray's knowledge of the details of a fruit farmer's life was small, the vicar's hardly greater; but between them they sketched a most attractive picture. There were groves of golden-fruited orange trees, bright sunshine, a pleasant homestead of the bungalow type in the background, and Leonard, bronzed and superlatively healthy, riding on a grey cob, giving orders to a contented band of fruit-pickers—Chinese, the vicar thought them,—Mrs. Gray inclined to the negro as more picturesque. It took them an hour to complete their survey of Leonard's estate and their reckoning of Leonard's happiness. Then they parted with the usual banal Christmas greeting on the vicar's lips and a gentle reply from Mrs. Gray.
"When God has given me a son like Leonard," she said; "I should be an ungrateful woman if my Christmas were not happy."
The vicar struggled home through the rain along a muddy road, taking half an hour to make the journey; for Mrs. Gray's cottage is at some distance from the Vicarage, and the night falls early and dark on Christmas Eve. He was in a chastened mood, for he was wishing that he, who was supposed to be helping others to be good, were himself half as good as old Mrs. Gray, who preached from no pulpit. He recovered a proper spirit of Christmas self-satisfaction over a cup of tea, and cut, with a sense that he deserved it, a fine and sugary cake. Then he was told that a man was standing in the hall and wanted to see him. He looked, so the servant said, like a tramp. The vicar rose, fumbled for a sixpence in his pocket. Sixpences ought not to be given to tramps, so the vicar had been assured on the authority of all the wisest people; but it was Christmas Eve, and then somehow the rules of scientific charity seem thin.
The man was a tramp unmistakably, drink-sodden, helpless, according to all probabilities, hopeless. The sixpence would go to the purchase of whisky—straight to that. The vicar held it out without a word. What use were any words? Instead of taking it the man put his hands behind him, dragging as he did so at the pitifully soaked jacket which he wore. The vicar started. The top button of the miserable garment lost its hold of the worn buttonhole. The man's naked chest was exposed. He owned no shirt.
"You don't know me," he said. "Of course you don't; but I'm Leonard Gray."
The vicar opened his mouth to question him.
"You needn't go into it all," said the tramp wearily. "It's just the usual thing."
There was no need to ask what thing.
"But your letters" stammered the vicar.
"Lies," he said, "every damned word of them."
Then he laughed. "I'd have written oftener only for the price of stamps. The lies themselves were cheap enough."
"But," said the vicar, "why have you come home? How did you get here?"
"In a cattle steamer," he said. "I earned my passage to Liverpool by feeding and beating the wretched beasts—my passage and ten shillings. I got drunk on the ten shillings, and then I tramped it here."
The vicar hardened. The pity went out of him. The story was too disgraceful.
"You should have stayed where you were," he said.
The man pulled up the leg of his trousers without a word, and the vicar turned suddenly sick at the sight of a ghastly sore.
Leonard smiled grimly and laid his hand upon his chest.
"I'm worse inside, I expect," he said. "I knew I was done before I started. This week has pretty well finished me. But I had a fancy to see her again. That's why I came."
The look of hardness did not leave the vicar's face at once. He could not help remembering old Mrs. Gray's happiness. Leonard spoke again defiantly.
"After all," he said, "I've some right to see her. I might have told the truth and cadged. You and she would both have helped me if I had, but I didn't cadge. I lied right on to the bitter end. And I don't ask her to see me. All I want is to see her. I'll clear out to-morrow and get far enough off for her not to hear about it when I chuck it altogether. You can manage that for me, I suppose."
"Leonard," said the vicar, "God forgive me if I'm doing wrong, though I don't think I am. I'll lie too. I've a decent suit of clothes upstairs, and if the thing's humanly possible I'll groom you into some semblance of respectability before to-morrow morning. You shall see her, and she you, and we'll tell lies for her together. If it has to be a gold mine you've come home to sell, we'll swear to it. Afterwards"
"It won't be long. A week at the outside will do the trick."
"Leonard," said the vicar, "I'm not sure that it's not blasphemy, but I am sure, or pretty nearly sure, that it's Christianity. To-morrow's Christmas Day"
"Is it? I'd forgotten."
"She'll be there, in church, at the Sacrament. If you could—beside her, Leonard."
"You're the parson," he said. "You run that show. If you let me"
"I'll take the risk," said the vicar. "After all you did lie to her. That's something to the good."
So old Mrs. Gray had a happy Christmas, excitedly happy. The sorrow came afterwards, ten days later. But her heart cherishes the memory of a good son.