Chapter XXI Recuperation
Mark went North with David Ross convinced that his months, if not his days, were numbered; but as time passed, this conviction passed with it, and hope once more fluttered into his heart. Stride took extraordinary interest in his case.
“You must become an animal and remain an animal till I give you leave to assume again the man,” he told Mark after Archibald had left Crask. “I don’t know what you and your brother have been up to, but you’ve had a relapse. You must go on all-fours till I tell you to walk upright.”
Mark promised, but he added: “I feel an animal—an ass!”
Stride growled out something about dead lions, and set Mark to work in the garden, bare-legged and bare-headed. The work was light, but it strained every muscle in Mark’s body. Then he was made to lie down in one of the sheds. After such rest came refreshment—easily digested, nourishing food, taken in small quantities, but often. During this month Mark reckoned that he was sleeping fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. At the end of each week Stride weighed him and applied a number of tests to determine what strength he had gained. There was a sort of rivalry between the patients. Dick who had gained two pounds crowed over Tom who had gained one. Into this competition Mark entered with boyish keenness. Stride said he was the star pupil of the class.
By the beginning of October, a radical improvement had taken place. The cold weather set in sharply, but Mark, always susceptible to atmospheric change, braved the frosty nights with impunity, sleeping in the sheds with the winds howling about him. He had the confidence in Stride that a well-trained dog has in his master. Some of Stride’s “animals”—as he called them—proved at first unmanageable. Coming, as most of them did, from the strenuous life of crowded cities, accustomed to and yearning for the stimulus of constant mental action, such stagnation as Stride enforced seemed insupportable. These kittle cattle were yoked for a season with Mark.
Meantime he had received many letters from his friends, but none from Betty, who had returned to Lady Randolph. Jim wrote that he had been rejected, but made no mention of Archibald, who was often seen crossing the downs between Westchester and Birr Wood. As a matter of fact, Jim was not aware of these rides. He remained in London making money. From Pynsent Mark learned of the enthusiasm aroused by Archibald’s Windsor sermon.
“Reading in the paper” (he wrote) “that your brother was preaching in St. George’s Chapel, I went down to Windsor yesterday to hear him. He is quite amazing. What he said and the way he said it took us by storm. The Whitsuntide sermon gave only a taste of his quality. Out of the pulpit he has always struck me as being the typical English parson of means and position; in it he is—apostolic! I can find no other adjective to describe his persuasiveness, sincerity, and power. Lord Randolph tells me that it made a profound impression in the highest quarter. I saw Betty Kirtling and Lady Randolph in the knights’ stalls....”
Mark thrust the letter into his pocket with an exclamation which made the man working next to him raise his brows.
“Anything wrong, Samphire? No bad news, I hope?”
Mark blurted out the truth. His companion, broken down by hard work in Manchester, had sympathetic eyes and lips which dropped compassion upon all infirmities save his own.
“I’ve had good news, Maitland: my brother has preached a great sermon at Windsor, and—and there is something wrong with me. I have the damnable wish that he’d failed—as I failed.” Then he laughed harshly, bending down to pick up his spade.
That afternoon he climbed the mountain, which sloped steeply to the loch. The air, he felt, on the top of Ben Caryll would purge and purify; the panoramic view would enlarge the circle of his sympathies. And so it proved, although a materialist might assign another cause. When Mark reached the highest peak he became aware that he had accomplished a feat of physical endurance beyond such powers as he possessed two months before. He was not aware of undue fatigue; on the contrary, a strange exhilaration permeated mind and body. He could have danced, but he sat down, soberly enough, and reread Pynsent’s letter. When he had done this, he tried to transport himself to Windsor. He wanted to sit with Betty in the knights’ stalls, beneath the gorgeous silken banners, and the emblazoned shields of the princes of the world, under the eye and ægis of a living sovereign. But fancy left him—in Sutherland. He gazed upon moor and mountain whitened here and there by snow. He looked into the pale, luminous skies above, into the frosty opalescent mists to the westward, through which the sun glowed like a red-hot ball, and wherever he looked Betty was not. For the moment he could not recall her face. It seemed as if he were seeking a stranger with a written description of her in his hand.
Sitting there, some voice whispered to him that Betty wanted him, that he must descend the mountain and go to her. Then he told himself that he was mad. If he obeyed this beguiling voice in his ears, if he went south—what then? The hope in his eye and heart would kindle like hope in her, and such hope was a will-o’-the-wisp flickering above—a grave!
When he came down from the mountain, he found Stride busy in his laboratory. Stride possessed a magnificent Zeiss microscope and all the accessories—incubating ovens, sterilising apparatus, stains, and reagents—for the highest bacteriological work. Of late, Mark had given the little man some help in staining and mounting preparations.
“We are out of one world,” Stride had said, “but I will introduce you to another through an apochromatic lens. You will find yourself quite at home, my friend. Here, in this drop of water, you will note the same struggle for existence, the same old game as it is played in Whitechapel or Whitehall.”
When Mark began to understand something of the technique of the microscope, when Stride had shown him its uses, for instance, in the analysis of diseased tissue or blood, and revealed its magical powers of diagnosis, Mark asked a question: “How can any doctor work without one?” Stride laughed at such innocence.
“It takes up too much time. No hard-working practitioner ignores the value of it, but he cannot use it. When necessary, he sends preparations to some specialist. A microscope exacts more attention than a wife. That is why I”—he slapped his chest and winked furiously—“have remained single.”
This devotion to his work strengthened the chain which linked patient to doctor. Stride—Mark felt assured—might have secured fame and fortune in London. Yet he chose to remain unknown and poor in Sutherland.
Mark told him that he had climbed Ben Caryll, and felt none the worse for it. Stride shook his big head.
“You oughtn’t to attempt such walks—yet.”
“Then the time is coming. I shall regain my health?”
He had never put the question so directly before. Stride eyed him attentively, hearing a new note in his voice.
“Per—haps.”
“If I asked for leave of absence——”
“It would be refused—peremptorily,” said Stride. “Why, man, you’d douse the glim which I’ve been coaxing into flame all these weeks. What magnet draws you from Crask? A woman?”
“Yes—a woman.”
“Oh, these tempestuous petticoats! Now, Samphire, I’m not a fool, and I guessed, when you came here, that you left a girl behind you. You are not engaged to her?”
“No.”
“Good! Now, listen to wisdom. If everything goes well with you—if fresh air and simple food and freedom from worry make you whole, you may marry some day—but you’ll have to wait a long time, so as to make sure, and even then, after years of comparative health, you may break down again. Will this young lady wait for you—indefinitely?”
“I should never ask her to do that.”
“Um! I daresay she’s flirting with someone at this very minute. Eh? I beg pardon, Samphire. Your goddess, no doubt, is an exception; but few women, if they are women, can get along without a man. And now you must leave me. I’m on the edge of a small discovery. I’ve done some good work to-day.”
“Your good work will tell, Stride.”
“What d’ye mean? Recognition? If it comes, so much the better; if it doesn’t, I’ve had ’the joy of the working’—eh?”
Next day, a letter from Archibald gave many details. He had enjoyed the honour of meeting his Sovereign, who said gracious things; he had dined with a Cabinet Minister; he had been interviewed at length by a reporter. The letter concluded as follows:—
“I cannot doubt that my sphere of influence and activity is about to be enlarged. If so, I shall count upon your help. I am deeply grateful for what you have done already. I recognise in you, my dear, dear brother, an insight into human life and character wider than my own. You have come into contact with what is primal and elemental: an experience lacking as yet to me. I have spoken of this to all our friends, acknowledging frankly my debt to you....”
Mark’s smile, when he read these lines, was not easy to interpret, but the sense that, for a brief hour, he had grudged his own flesh and blood a triumph, made him reply cordially and affectionately. He ended his letter by assuring Archibald that such help as one brother could give another would always be at his disposal.
About this time, feeling stronger day by day, he began to wonder what work he should do in the future. Stride was emphatic that life in the East End would mean a return of his malady. Not being able to preach, a country curacy was unavailable; and in any case Mark told himself that such work would be distasteful. Stride startled him by saying abruptly, “Why don’t you write?”
“Eh?”
“It’s in you, I’ll swear. It would be only a crutch, at first, but you have private means. You can write out-of-doors. You will be your own master. You can take proper care of yourself....” Stride waxed eloquent, and Mark listened with a curious exaltation.
“By Jove!” he said, drawing a deep breath, “I believe I can write.”
“Everybody writes nowadays,” said Stride, “but I have the feeling that you can write what a lot of us will want to read. Think it over!”
Mark thought it over for a week. Ideas inundated his brain, clamouring for expression. He begged permission to try his hand at a short story: four thousand words. Stride gave a grudging consent.
“Mind you,” said he, “you’re not fit for any sustained mental exertion, but go ahead—full steam, if you like, and we’ll see what will happen.”
Mark wrote his story, and submitted both it and himself to the autocrat. This was a week later, and the scales proclaimed a loss of two pounds. Stride pursed up his lips and waggled his big head.
“Back you go to the garden to-morrow,” he growled. “I’ll read your stuff to-night, and tell you what I think of it. It’s almost certain to be rubbish.”
In the morning, however, he had nothing but praise for the author, whose mind was by no means as familiar to him as his body. He beamed and gesticulated as if he had discovered a new bacillus. The story was despatched to an editor, Arthur Conquest, whom Stride knew, and Mark was enjoined to think no more about it. Think about it he did, naturally. The possibility of doing good work in a new field filled him once more with the ardours of youth. He told Stride there was a certain inevitableness about his failures. What had gone before—all trials and disappointments—were part of a writer’s equipment. He could not doubt that he had found at last a strong-box, so to speak, for such talents as he possessed. Action had been denied him, articulate speech was not his, the power of putting a noble conception on to canvas he lacked; but he could, he would, he should write according to the truth that was in him, so help him God!
Stride warned him that the odds were greatly against his manuscript being accepted. The editor, however, read the story himself, and promised to publish it. His letter contained a message to Mark.
“Will you tell Mr. Samphire” (wrote Conquest) “that I am going to red-pencil his story, which I take to be a first attempt. He must serve his apprenticeship, which in his case needn’t be a long one. I can see that he sets for himself a high standard. If he means business I should advise him to write a novel and burn it. When he comes to town, I hope to make his acquaintance.”
“Conquest is cold-blooded,” said Stride, “but he has a prescient eye. All the same, if you have business dealings with him—look out! And now—go back to your cabbages.”
Mark told Maitland what had passed. Maitland entered with sympathy into his plans, confessing that he had tried writing as a trade.
“Grub Street is a long lane with no turning in it for nine-tenths of the foot passengers. I hope you’ll gallop down it, Samphire, not crawl as I did.”
Maitland looked, so Mark reflected, as if he had gone afoot down many paths. Failure was branded upon his pale, too narrow face, his stooping shoulders, his large, clumsy hands: all thumbs, and crudely fashioned at that! But Ross, who was no longer at Crask, had told Mark that Maitland filled a very large place in his huge Manchester parish.
“What made you go into the Church?” Mark asked abruptly.
“I had to earn my bread and—scrape; but afterwards——”
“Yes?”
Maitland’s dull, sallow complexion seemed to be suffused with a glow. It struck Mark that between his face as he was accustomed to see it and as he saw it now lay the difference between a stage-scene lighted and unlighted.
“Afterwards,” said Maitland, “I knew that the choice of my profession had been determined by a Power infinitely greater than my own will. I became a parson from ignoble motives. I was soured, bitter, sick in mind and body, unfit for the duties I undertook. And then suddenly—one hardly likes to talk about it—my eyes were opened. I came into contact with hundreds worse off than myself. Some of them bore their burdens with a patience, a serenity, an unselfishness that were a revelation—to me. And then I realised that no life is a failure which brightens however faintly the lives of others. Napoleon is the colossal failure of history, because he darkened a continent. I would sooner be a beggar sharing a crust with a child than such as he.”
“If you were offered preferment——?”
“I hope to live and die in Manchester.”
“You nearly did die. Suppose you were not strong enough to go back? You wince, Maitland. That would try your faith. You have been frank with me; I shall be frank with you. I have always wanted one thing, and because I wanted it so much, I tried to bargain with Heaven. I said, ‘You shall do what you like with me, only give me, give me the woman I love!’ Well, Heaven seemed to take up the challenge. You know my story. I was defeated again and again. And I said to myself I’ll grin and bear it, because she is mine. Ah, if you could see her, Maitland, as I see her, if you knew what I have f-f-felt, when I saw her image f-f-fa—fading——” He paused, overcome by his stammer, controlled it, and continued quietly, “I was told that I must die. Ross found me in despair. I—I do not know, but the river was close at hand, and—perhaps—at any rate he rescued me, brought me here, and now, now, I am beginning to live again. I see God in His Heaven. And I see my angel in mine.”
He was so excited that Maitland entreated him to be calm, introducing, as an anticlimax, the cabbages to be cut and carried in.
Shortly after this Stride allowed him to begin his novel. After the first distress of beginning it became plain that this work agreed with him. Weight and appetite increased as the manuscript grew fat. He was out all weathers, and his face became tanned like that of a North Sea fisherman. Stride rubbed his hands chuckling, whenever he saw him.
During these months Mark told himself that it was impossible for Betty to write to him till he broke the silence which he had imposed. Meanwhile, he heard that Archibald had accepted a London living: St. Anne’s in Sloane Street. Mrs. Samphire sent Mark a long cutting from the Slowshire Chronicle, a synopsis of his brother’s labours in and about Westchester. As secretary, and member of many committees, as a lecturer on Temperance, as a pillar of the Charity Organisation Society, as the first tenor of the Westchester Choral Association, Archibald Samphire had honestly earned the gratitude of the community and the very handsome salver, which embalmed that gratitude in a Latin sentence composed by the Dean. Archibald had been asked to preach four Advent sermons in Westminster Cathedral. Mark suggested a theme, revised the sermons, interpolated a hundred passages, cut and slashed his brother’s beautiful MSS., and when the sermons were preached and attracted the attention of London, wrote a letter of warm congratulation to his “dearest old fellow.” He had taken greater pains with these sermons than with his own novel, because—as he put it to himself—he had grudged his brother a triumph which Betty Kirtling had witnessed.
One week after the New Year, he was writing the last lines of his book, when Stride came into the room and flung down a letter in Archibald’s handwriting. Mark glanced at it, and at the pile of MS. beside it.
“Is the magnum opus done?” said Stride.
“Very nearly,” Mark replied.
“Are you going to take Conquest’s advice and—burn it?”
“I shall let Conquest see it first,” said Mark. He rose from his chair, crossed the room to where Stride was warming his hands at the fire, and laid his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “It’s not bad,” he said slowly; “I know it’s not bad; and I owe it all to you, Stride.”
“What is it about?” said Stride, repudiating the debt with a shake of his head. Mark had not shown him any portion of the MS., nor discussed the theme.
“It’s the story of a faith that was lost and found,” said Mark. “I can say to you that it is part of my own life, red-hot from my heart, the sort of story that is written once, you understand, and I have the feeling that it could have been written only here, in these solitudes.”
“I hope it ends happily,” said Stride.
“It ends happily,” said Mark, staring at his MS.
Stride filled his pipe and then moved to the door.
“It’s going to snow,” he said. “We shall have a heavy fall, unless I’m mistaken. It was just such a night as this, last year, when we lost our shepherd on Ben Caryll.”
He went out, whistling. The door slammed behind him, and the draught from it fluttered the pages of foolscap lying loose on the table. Mark stared at them, smiling, with such a look on his face as a mother bestows on her first-born, when she is alone with him. Then, still smiling, he picked up his brother’s letter and broke the seal, the seal of many quarterings, which Archibald habitually used.
“My dear Mark” (he wrote): “I am the happiest as well as the luckiest of men. Betty Kirtling has promised to become my wife. We shall be married as soon as possible, before I settle down to my new work in London....”
The letter fell from Mark’s hands. He bent down, trembling, picked it up, and reread its message. Then, crushing the letter into a ball, he flung it into the fire, and watched it crumble and dissolve into ashes. As the flame licked the white paper, the face that stared into the fire shrivelled into a caricature of what it had been a few moments before. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarling grin; colour left the cheeks and flared in purple patches upon the brow. The slender limbs shook as with a palsy....
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a laugh: the derisive laugh of the man who knows that his heavens have fallen. The sound of his own laughter seemed to move Mark to action. He seized the manuscript, and thrust it into the flames. When it was destroyed, he laughed again, crossed to the door, opened it, and passed out—still laughing—into the driving wind and rain.