The New Arcadia/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE FLAG HALF-MAST HIGH.
Thou bringest the sailor to his wife,
And travelled men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanished life,"
In Memoriam.
By his self-sacrifice and death, Larry achieved more than by wisdom and firmness in life. In their sympathy for the young widow, the people forgot imagined wrongs, and contended to assuage her grief and to second the efforts of the sorrow-stricken women upon whom, for a while, control virtually devolved.
Hilda was softened by her great grief. She reproached herself for the self-seeking, and contempt of those beneath her, that hitherto characterized her life. Her first visits were to the cottagers, who had sent loving messages with other tokens of their sympathy. So it came to pass that, as often is the case, strength came by suffering, and a new love arose out of the ashes of the old.
About a month after Larry's death the telephone announced the Mimosa in the lower canal. Ere long the entire community had assembled at the lake to greet the wanderers. A chill struck to the hearts of all as the word passed from lip to lip—"The flag!—it is half-mast high!" The mother whose son, the wife whose husband had sailed a year ago, felt a sickening dread steal over them.
"I sees my Johnnie at any rate!" "There's my old man!" cried one and another, as the vessel drew nearer, and returning ones waved to those they recognized on the shore.
"Where is the doctor?" cried or thought every onlooker. On the bridge beside the captain stood Elms, seemingly in some authority.
"Perhaps he is not quite well," suggested old Dowling to Mrs. Courtenay, who, with face of a ghost, was leaning heavily on his arm.
None on shore dared ask, no one on board dared tell the dreadful news. Upon the hushed multitude a spell lay as though a terrible woe were impending. Slowly, almost solemnly, the ropes were flung, seized and made fast; the very captain giving his orders as though some dread ceremonial were being enacted.
When the blow fell and the truth was told, one long wail of anguish arose from the bereaved community. Women and children wept, while strong men trembled. Mrs. Courtenay's face became like marble. She tottered, then, with sheer force of will recovering herself, strode like a stricken lioness to the deck and confronted Elms. His blood-shot eyes fell before her searching gaze.
"Man," she cried, hardly knowing in the first rush of despair what she said, "where is my husband? Did I not charge you to bring him back? Where is he? I say. What! you do not answer? Before his bereaved people I denounce you as his murderer."
Accused so unexpectedly, the man caught at a rope to steady himself Could she know his terrible secret? The vessel seemed to swim round. He sat on a seat and gasped. The captain in a few words explained the nature of the catastrophe that had befallen the doctor. Mr. Dowling seizing Mrs. Courtenay, as she seemed about to fall, led her away, calm, majestic, and broken-hearted.
"I know not why," she exclaimed, as the good man supported her through the throng, "but I had presentiment of evil. That man, strange to say, was always connected in my mind with it. I never trusted him. When first I saw, I shuddered. Did you mark how he cowed? how the brand of Cain seemed written on his craven countenance? I feel sure there was foul play."
The shadow of death brooded over the once smiling valley. With muffled voice men and women spake of the wise and good—seemingly greater in death—mysteriously snatched. By degrees a terrible rumour, that touched them more acutely still, went abroad. The entire property, upon which for years they had laboured, had devolved unconditionally, it was whispered, upon Elms.
"That could not be!" all exclaimed. Again and again had the doctor assured them that every provision had been made for protection of their interests. Could he, all the while, have intended to hand them over to the tender mercies of this man all instinctively distrusted? Alas! the deed was drawn three years before—was actually in existence when the doctor gave his specious assurances.
More powerfully does loss of property affect many than the death of their dearest friend. Witness so often tears of sorrow suddenly drying on the face, that glows with rage when it is discovered, after the funeral obsequies, that in the will the mourner has been forgotten. Considerations respecting property and gain rule, alas! under a devastating system of competition, the world of grief, as that of action and of joy.
"My friend is gone," may be a sad thought. "How does that affect me? "is, inevitably, the first question asked. Oh, self, self! prominent in our prayers and pains, cherished in the "business and bosoms" of all, underlying our charities, affecting our friendships, raising its horrid head in the very hour of sorrow and of death.
Wonder not, that in the breasts of these simple ones, whose homes were about to be snatched from them, and the hopes of years blasted, a terrible revulsion of feeling took place. There was no escape from the inevitable conclusion that the doctor had deliberately sacrificed them.
"Did we not say," some, wise after the event, would urge, "never trust a capitalist? They cannot help theirselves. Seem they good, and mean they well, they cannot escape from the traditions and customs of their class."
A further explanation Malduke took pains to offer and enlarge upon. When this will was drawn, the doctor's son was engaged to Elms's daughter. He dared not devise the property direct to his son. He had so left it that, in the ordinary course, it would pass to him and his. So the cruel, silly tattle passed along. The name of him who had devoted fortune and life to their cause was, as is so often the case, execrated and defamed.
Some there were—Alec and the Smiths, Sandbach and Bastion—unreasoning enough to believe in the doctor still, to cling to the hope that all would be cleared up yet. There was some dreadful mistake.
"How do you make that out? Facts is stubborn things," urged those who laughed them to scorn. "There's not one blessed thing you can rake up that looks like fair dealing."
"If all the world riz up and told me as Jinnie was bad," argued honest Alec, with animation, "would I believe them? If every darned thing seemed suddent agen her, would I 'spect th' old woman? When the Lord seemed to 'a forgotten me, as when He took our only child—God rest his soul!—would I hold from believin' on Him? All can stick when all is spic and spankin'. Love wants no lamin' and logic. It sticks to its man, and its God, coz, in its in'ard heart, it knows Him and trusts Him. To my dying day," continued Alec, with energy, "I'll believe in the doctor, whatever fair-weather friends may say. And look ye here, Dick Malduke, don't you be tellin' none on your wicked lies in my hearin', or, sure's my name's McDowl, I'll see if there ben't enow strength left in this 'ere arm of mine to ram the lie down your wicked throat."
The law took another view. Probate was granted, and Elms assumed entire control. Kokiana and the allied estates, together with the remainder of the Station, were adjudged not to be included in the property assigned to Elms under the name of "Courtenay's Village."
The Sergeant called a meeting, and delivered what he considered a rallying speech. He was a friend of theirs, he said; had suggested the undertaking to the doctor.
"Curses on you for it!" interjected one of the company. "Were there no workhouses in town, that you must bring us out here to be starved and robbed in the wilderness?"
"Hitherto," continued the Sergeant, "you have pursued a wrong course. You have merely modified Individualism. I propose to sweep it all away, to set up a pure Communism. But I shall act fairly by all if they are worthy."
"Who's to decide that?" asked one.
"I shall," replied. Elms, his blood rising. "I'm a soldier. I believe in discipline, I can tell you. So no nonsense, or, mind, you walk! That's plain."
Poor creatures. The iron was entering into their soul. Inwardly they cursed the dead man for devoting them to such a tyrant.
"We are agin private property," continued Elms. "No playing at individual allotments and 'private accounts' with us. We're all equal in the sight of God, and mean to remain so."
"I hope you will," growled one, stooping behind a friendly back.
"Three cheers for Pure Democracy and Socialism Undefiled!" called out Malduke.
No one responded.
Forthwith committees and boards were abolished. The books that contained records of each man's standing were ordered to be burnt. Happily Frank Brown managed to secure and to hide them.
"Individualism, Familism, must be killed," decreed the dictator.
At every cross-road, great kitchens and eating-rooms were run up in weather-board. All were compelled to eat in common.
"It means a great saving in time and food," claimed Elms, "instead of every busy-body of a woman pottering about with her own provisioning."
None were permitted to claim ownership in cattle, poultry, or other stock. All was to be regulated. And so it was. Men and women worked as little and as ineffectively as they could. Cows were dried off; vegetables ran to seed; crops were spoiled; machinery was smashed; bad work performed. None felt interest in the duty he was called upon mechanically to discharge.
Elms and his lieutenant were hated. The doctor's good memory was defamed.
"It seems to me," remarked Mike Milligan to Joe Smith, over the fence that now parted them, "we had one extreme in town, now we've got the other here, and atween the two, the frying and the fire, we seems pretty like to be cooked."
"At Kokiana," replied Joe Smith, "Sandbach says things goes smooth enough. They've just had another five shillings a share dividend, and half-a-crown carried for'ard in the books."
"Ah, they've got the right thing," replied Mike; "what the doctor intended here, if that scheming lunatic Elms hadn't got hold on him. At Kokiana each helps t'other, and all gets the bringin'-ins of his own labour."
The Bowlings and Frank Brown often dropped in during the long summer evenings, to cheer the desolate party at the White House. Mrs. Courtenay would have left the place for ever, but that her daughters were now more than ever wrapped up in the interests of the suffering people. They tried to comfort them; submitted to many a door being slammed in their face, and many a vicious word uttered as they passed.
"Poor folk!" they said apologetically, "they have been terribly disappointed. Of course we know that dear father never intended this—but how can they know that? All appearances are against him in their eyes."
It was strange to hear Hilda taking the people's part as against Tom Lord's denunciations.
"Did I not always say," he would remark with more feeling than he ordinarily exhibited, "that these folk who raised their 'Hosannas' so high, would cry 'Crucify Him'? 'Not this man, but Barabbas'—the robber. The same old story over again."
"But, Tom, they have much seeming provocation."
"See again," he would say, "the tender love of democracy; the tyranny of the precious pair, and the handful that self-interest has already gathered about them. Any one would sell the other and their whole cause for a song. The possession of money or power transforms your most exemplary democrat into a demon of oppression, the moment he gets his chance."
"That is only another way of saying," replied Hilda, "that human nature is a monopoly of no one class. To improve the social state it is not sufficient to shift the balance of power. You must elevate the moral nature and touch the heart."
On the evening in question, Mrs. Courtenay asked Mr. Dowling to accept, in memory of her late husband, the walking-stick, almost sole memento of him who was gone. Dowling showed it to his wife, who was putting the finishing touches on her patchwork quilt. As moonlight flooded the room, Maud sang softly Blockley's setting of 'Enoch Arden's Dream.' Hilda and Tom continued their conversation beside the open window. Mrs. Courtenay lay on the sofa lost in thought, listening to the words her husband had loved—
It was my dream in lonely beauteous land,
To tread once more each old familiar scene.
And she was there! Oh, could each dream remain!
But when I woke, my heart was yearning still,
If I might look upon her face again."
"Richard," whispered Mrs. Dowling, in a strange, soft voice, as if her thoughts were far away, while nervously, as one blind, she returned the walking-stick to her husband, "I suppose it is the music, or the moonlight, or all the sad memories influencing me; but I see so clearly the doctor clinging to his cane for life, and a savage-looking man, like Elms, but different, looking down on the poor soul. Ah, the creature has treacherously let go the stick. He's lost." So saying, the doting dame raised her hand to her brow as if in pain.
The song proceeded, and Mrs. Dowling continued—
"It is so strange! He is walking on the beach, up and down, alone—long-bearded and grey. He's looking out across the sea, like poor Larry from Hillside. He's shading his eyes. Now sitting down with elbows on his knees and face buried in his hands."
"Thank you," murmured the company, as Maud finished the song, that seemed to come from the depth of an aching heart.
"Thanks, Rachel, you may light the lamps," said Mrs. Courtenay to the maid who entered. Under their unwelcome glare the elder ladies appeared pale—the one who had heard and pondered the strange words of her friend, the other whose fancies had been set roving by touch of the dead man's cane.