A Breaker of Laws/Chapter 19

by W. Pett Ridge

 

CHAPTER XIX

Alfred Bateson, older by nearly six years, saw liberty coming slowly in his direction. Six years—long years spent in the prisons of his country, with infrequent interruptions that came with transfers—years in a silent atmosphere that at first almost maddened, but after the first months became a perfectly natural surrounding. Some ability in the work of bookbinding favoured him: in the latter portion of his time at Dover he was engaged in the work of re-covering the books of the prison library. He was fairly well behaved throughout the whole of the long period (one experiment in the character of a malingerer found itself promptly checked by the doctor, who had since forgiven and had recently tended him with care for a real illness), and without obtaining the highest possible remission, he would obtain his ticket before expiration of the time to which he had been sentenced. Towards the later months he had found himself returned to Wormwood Scrubbs, where presently his beard was allowed to grow. This signalled the approach of freedom. He had become a machine in all these long six years, a machine that did its work slowly, and was fed and oiled with precise regularity; the later months reminded him that he was soon again to become a human being, with all a human being's responsibilities.

It was in these days and nights that he began to think again of Caroline and the boy; for years he had not dared to allow himself to do this. The scheme of his return to her had to be planned and arranged, and invented and rejected, and arranged again, in order that the best might be adopted; and when all had been considered, he found, to his surprise, that the only course possible would be to go to her and tell the truth. She would, he hoped, forgive everything after these years. He had some idea of getting money from Finnis—if Finnis were still prosperous—of taking her and the boy abroad at once. He would break his ticket in doing this, but that would not matter so long as they remained abroad. William Finnis had been to see him once at Portland and once at Dover, and had brought good news of her health; from the cage across the space where an official stood to the half-shuttered box to which Alfred was led, William Finnis had told him that Caroline was well and happy down in Devonshire, and that Trafalgar was growing to be a brown-faced schoolboy. Thus he pictured them as he began to give them permission to come again to his memory.

The last day arrived.

'Long time since you've bees in a four-wheeler,' said the man who rode down with him to New Scotland Yard on the morning of his release, 'and I dare say—take care of that cough of yours—I dare say you find it all strange in London.'

'I shall soon find me way about again.' He was dressed in the liberty suit—a gray suit of dittoes and a bowler hat; he spoke in a low, subdued voice, with his head at the window, as one fearful of being reprimanded. 'Seems a bit strange at first.'

'I keep a book,' said the official, 'where I put down what men say when they first come out. What shall I give against your number?'

'Anything you like.'

'Some of 'em make most amusin' remarks.'

'I can't think of anything amusin',' said he, still looking out at the shops and the busy people.

'One man I took down to the Yard swore all the way at the top of his voice.'

'Don't feel like swearin'.'

'Say something,' urged the man.

They stepped out of the four-wheeler on the Embankment and walked into the building. There at an office a sheet of paper was handed to him with warnings. He must have an address; he must keep it; he must report himself at the local police-station once a month; he must on no account leave the neighbourhood on peril of cancelment of the ticket and a return to prison.

'Well, good-bye,' said the official with something of regret as they came out together to the Embankment. 'You're a sharpish-looking chap, and I quite thought you would have given me something good for my book.'

'Sorry!'

'What are you thinkin' of that makes you so quiet?' asked the determined hunter after epigrams, walking with him a few steps Charing Cross way.

'I'm thinkin',' he said soberly; 'I'm thinkin' of my wife and of my boy.'

•••••

He alighted at St. John's Station and walked down the hill, through bran-new rows of villas with sulky young trees on either side. Finnis's Cycle Emporium stood at a corner now, its name in gold letters glistening on a plate-glass window—a double window full of shining specimens of Coventry art. The road had become changed during his absence: private houses had become corpulent by adding to themselves shop-fronts, and public-houses had glorified themselves out of recognition.

'Have you an appointment with Mr. Finnis, sir?' asked the grave clerk who stepped forward.

'Used to 'ave,' he said, sitting down wearily. The walk had made his breath come short.

'What I mean to say is, does he expect you? Because, if not, I would suggest——'

'You tell him that Elf is here and wants to see him.'

'Mr. Helf?' questioned the grave clerk.

'You've learnt it.'

'Come this way, old man,' called the voice of Mr. Finnis from a windowed office at the back, where the sitting-room had bees. '’Pon me honour if I hadn't slipped on me frock-coat, thinking it might be someone particular.'

He shook hands in taking off the garment reserved for reception of distinguished visitors, and shook hands again when seated comfortably in his white shirt-sleeves at the table. The room was well set out with office furniture; an air of prosperity and assured income pervaded the entire building. Out at the back a long shed had been built: workmen were going and coming.

'Thought it was someone particular, did you?' asked Alfred, turning his bowler hat round and round awkwardly. 'Well, it ain't'

'You've changed in your appearance,' remarked William Finnis.

'Me appearance ain't the only thing,' he said. 'I feel changed altogether. I've been wonderin', coming down in the train, who I reely am.'

'Upon my word, though,' said William Finnis cheerfully, 'when you come to think of it, what a time it seems since you and I were together and talking like this! Quite takes one back to the old days.'

'I wish,' remarked the other, still intent on his bowler hat, 'that it could.'

'Have a smoke, old chap; it'll cheer you up.'

'I tried one just now and it didn't'

'How many years is it?—James, step out into the shop for a bit—how many years is it since you were here last?'

'I got,' said Alfred Bateson slowly, as the clerk went out—'I got seven years' penal.'

'Don't let's talk about that,' said William Finnis quickly. 'We're all going to make a fresh start.'

'I remembered what you said in the Court, and that's why I come to you first.'

'What I said then I say now. Hang up your hat, Alf, and begin with—what shall we say?—a couple of pounds a week.'

'You've prospered,' remarked Alfred Bateson, lifting his eyes from his bowler hat and glancing round.

'I can't grumble.'

'You'd a done better still if you'd never seen me.'

'How so?'

'I gave away that first patent of yours,' he said stolidly.

'That was rather a whack in the eye.'

'You knew it?'

'I knew it.'

'And yet——'

'Alf,' said William Finnis, resting his two shirt-sleeved elbows on a red blotting-pad and looking across the table; 'I never had but one chum in all me life, and him—him I'd forgive for almost anything,'

Alf Bateson cleared his throat and fingered nervously at his collar. From the shop, voices of the assistants came in growling bass as they discussed and disputed records.

'What I thought,' went on William Finnis, balancing a penholder on his outstretched forefinger, 'was that I should give you a job as a traveller—two pounds a week and your ex's. You won't feel settled down for a bit, and you can knock about round the country, running errands, so to speak, for me, and saving me from being away from here so often. What I mean to say is, you could pay accounts and collect accounts—and——'

'You'd trust me with money?'

'Any amount!' replied the other. 'You won't go wrong again.'

'I don't think I shall.'

'Very well, then.'

'How about Caroline? I've got to see her first.'

'She mustn't come back here,' said William, flushing. 'Somebody would tell the truth about you.'

'Somebody's going to do that as it is,' he said doggedly, intent again on his bowler hat and still speaking in a subdued manner. 'Somebody is me.'

'You're going down to Devonshire, and you're going to break in upon her and burst out with the facts about your——'

'I'm going to tell her everything,' he said with determination. 'I can't tell her a lie. She must take me as I am.'

'She was terr'bly upset when Miss Ladd and me told her you'd gone down off Woolwich, but that's a long time ago.'

'I know. And now?'

'Now, so Dowton's wife tells me, she's very comfortable in the place she's at, and her old mistress has taken a rare fancy to the boy, and pays for his schooling, and talks about sending him to goodness knows where, all to make a man of him.'

'Haven't got such a thing as a photograph of her, I s'pose, knocking about the place?'

'Let me see,' said William Finnis, with a fine pretence of taking thought, 'I rather fancy there was one. Yes, it's upstairs. 'Scuse me, old man, whilst I hop up and fetch it.'

Mr. Finnis returned quickly with a cabinet portrait set in a glass frame, on which a busy artist had painted most of the flowers known to Nature, and some that Nature would scarce have recognised. The portrait gave Caroline standing at a stile with Trafalgar on the second rung, so that his bright young head came level with hers. He had grown a round-faced, healthy-looking lad, with his mother's honest eyes; Caroline had altered little, except that her cheeks looked less plump, and that she appeared more serious than she had done in the days preceding the railway accident.

'Can you spare this, William?'

'It's the only one I've got,' urged William Finnis pleadingly. 'You can take most anything else in the place except that.'

'You've never got married all these years?'

'No,' said the other. He glanced at the photograph. 'Nor yet wanted to,' he added.

'What became of Miss Ladd?'

William Finnis laughed.

'Call me names,' he said amusedly, 'if she didn't go and marry that young carman that was mixed up in—well, you know. Perfect slave to her chapel, they tell me. Makes him go, too.'

'I fancy,' said Alfred, also looking at the photograph, 'that if I can raise the money I shall take Carry and the boy right away somewhere.'

'For a holiday?'

'No,' he said; 'for good. I've got that uncle in South America; we might go out to him.'

'Bit rough on the boy,' remarked William Finnis thoughtfully, 'He's got special prospects now with her mistress looking after him, and she——'

What the 'ell do I care about his prospects!' shouted Alfred with sudden energy, starting up. 'Isn't he my boy? Ain't she my wife? Very well, then. Haven't I got a right to do what I like with 'em? Do you think I'm going to be considered as having no more to say in the matter than a cursed outsider? What the——'

'Sit down!' ordered Finnis sharply—'sit down when I tell you!' Alfred Bateson obeyed. 'You're quite right in what you say; you're the person that's got a legal right to decide what shall 'appen to the boy—to say what shall 'appen to her. But there's no need to shout it.'

'Did I shout?' he asked. 'Beg pardon.'

'And I think that as you were always a good 'usband to her in the past, you'll always be a good 'usband to her in the future. I shall be sorry to think she's gone out of England, but——'

'It's a matter of law,' he said obstinately. 'A man can't break the law of the land.'

'Oh!' remarked Finnis. A fit of coughing from Alfred made him hesitate for a moment. 'Still, if you're going to take 'em abroad you'll want money.'

'I shall 'ave to earn it, I s'pose.'

'You needn't trouble about that; I'll lend it to you.' Finnis struck a gong for the clerk and took his cheque-book from a drawer. 'I'll send along to the bank and get notes. There'll be three of you—say two and a half—and you'll want about——'

A sum calculated with the aid of a lead pencil and the blotting-pad, the cheque written. A few minutes later the clerk returned with a sheaf of notes.

'We'll have a bit of lunch together,' said William Finnis, as he handed them over.

'I'd rather get away sharp from Paddington if you don't mind. There's a train at three o'clock.'

They shook hands.

Give her my—my kind regards,' said William Finnis awkwardly; 'and try, Alf, old man, to act for the best.'

'William Finnis,' he said, looking at the carpet, but still holding the other's hand, 'I'll do that if it's only to show—to show——'

'Go on, old chap!'

'To show you that I ain't quite the God-forsaken 'ound you must think me.'

•••••

He walked across the bridge at Barnstaple with more of briskness than he had shown in London. His bag, purchased near Paddington, he left at the cloak-room, and he swung his new walking stick as he strode along into High Street. It was dark now, and the shops were closed; outside an hotel a man in the centre of a reverential crowd sang Cockney coster songs with Devonshire accent:

 

'And you're gwaine to be me donah,
Sarerann, Sarerann;
I'm the one that's gwaine t'own 'e,
I'm your man, I'm your man;
Oh, we'll 'oneymoon to Ippin'
Wi' a donkey-cart that's rippin'.
And some four 'alf we'll be sippin'
In a pail, Sarerann.'

 

It had been market-day. Young farmers in shouting suits of tweed hurried with flushed faces to the station; older farmers, who did not trust railway trains, were cramming themselves into dog-carts, having perfect confidence in the quick-trotting pony between the shafts—'Her knaws her way home alone'—that flew the moment the word was given, as though bored with waiting and tired of the joys of town. A few young shopmen and shop-ladies strolled in the narrow roadway, saluting each other with gravity, feeling that they at any rate were doing their best to elevate the general tone of the place, and speaking when necessity arose with the slightly tired and complaining manner that marks unmistakably those of gentle birth.

'Oh, I think Barnstaple's a horrid dull place!' one young woman said in a high voice. 'There's no society, same as there is in Bideford.'

He found himself out of the town, and away from its lamplights in the dark, still road. He whistled the Sarerann song, but it did not seem to help him; his mouth and throat were parched with frequent fits of coughing; moreover, he had almost forgotten the art. A small-windowed public-house gave him cider from a stout, overgrown cask, and this cheered him. As he went along the green-grassed side of the road, he rehearsed once more the scene of reappearance. He had arranged it in the train on his six hours' journey; the result was not satisfactory, but nothing under the circumstances could be entirely satisfactory.

He would ask to see the mistress first. She was a purblind owl, and would not identify him now with the old Blackheath affair; the breaking of the news would be a task fitted to her philanthropic mind. Then he would see Caroline—the thought of this made him dazed, and he stopped for a moment to lean against a humming telegraph-post—and when they were alone he would tell her all frankly. She might never be quite the same to him that she had been in the days when she had reverenced him for an honest man, but she would recognise that she was still his wife, and that it was her duty to go with him, whether to South America or anywhere else. Trafalgy should go with them, too. He was determined and definite about this; the boy should not be left behind to be brought up in a superior manner, and eventually, perhaps, taught to look down upon his own father. Fine thing, upon his word, if father and son were to be separated just to please well-meaning——

Here was the gate of the house. The moon, a shy young moon, hid coyly behind a cloud, but he could see the white house at the end of the drive. Odd that he had difficulty in persuading himself that he was not about to do a bit of burglary; odd, too, that he could not avoid creeping along in the shade of the trees in a furtive way. There was the pond over there in which he drowned his old set of tools, and here was the closely-shaved lawn in front of the house. The long windows were open; two figures, in dresses of light texture, with capes over their shoulders, sat in low basket-chairs at the top of the slope. A sound of music came from within the lighted drawing-room, and by looking determinedly he could see a round faced boy seated on a music-stool and playing the pianoforte. Playing rather well.

'Falgy.'

'Yes, mother.'

'Say good-night now.'

'Can't I stay up just for——'

There never was a boy in this world yet who in such a situation failed to make this remark.

'No, no, dear boy. Go to bed now.' With decision.

'Do as your mother tells you, dear,' urged the other.

The boy kissed them both, and as he went through the drawing-room he ran his fingers over the keys of the pianoforte. Evidently a privileged youth, but one well under control.

'We shall make a splendid man of him, Caroline,' said the elder woman, waving her pince-nez in his direction.

'Yes, miss. I want him——' She stopped and collected her work, and then rose.

'Go on, Caroline.'

'I want him,' she said quietly, 'to be as good as his dear father was.'

'Was he good?'

'He,' said Caroline proudly, as she assisted her mistress into the drawing-room, 'was perfect.'

The glass windows closed after them, and were bolted. Caroline stood on tiptoe (she was neatly dressed, with no suggestion of the attire of a servant) and drew each of the four blinds slowly one after the other. Alfred Bateson, his breath coming quickly, stayed until the last had been pulled down, then turned and ran with great swiftness to Barnstaple. Arrived at Barnstaple, he had to rest, coughing exhaustedly; when he recovered at the inn he wrote a letter to William Finnis. This he read through carefully before leaving for Cardiff the following morning. He registered it at the post-office.

 

'Dear William,

'I am sending back all the money except two pound. I cannot spoil her life by letting her know I am still alive. She must never know it, and you and the others must never tell her. I shall work my passage out to Uncle Ben's place, and stay there until it is all over with me. You shall know when that happens. I am acting for the best, as you told me to, but it has taken a bit of doing. I shall not last long, and what I want you to know is that I am not all bad.

'Your friend,
'Alfred Bateson.

'P.S.—Be good to her.'

 

THE END.

 

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.