He and the Spirit were still battling darkly when he went upstairs.
His wife coughed and woke up.
“You are very late, Abner,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
“The hand of the Lord is very heavy upon me,” he said. “He has—I can’t tell you. But a great darkness has come upon my soul.”
He divested himself of his upper garments in silence, assumed his long grey-green flannel nightshirt and then in all modesty removed his shoes and trousers. That, by the way, was as much as she had ever seen of him, and he had seen even less of her.
“I have sinned. I have been presumptuous and God has punished my pride. That boy Tewler....”
He paused.
“I always thought there was something a little sneakish about him.”
“I pray God that some day I may be able to forgive him,” he said.
Terrible words to say.
And in the night he tossed and worried and talked in his sleep. Sometimes he was praying. He was praying that he might be humble, that God would temper this cup to his lips, that he might be comforted and restored to God’s favour. And sometimes he seemed to be doing sums. And anon he seemed to be addressing himself to Edward Albert in language which, though generally scriptural, was invariably unpleasant. Towards morning he seemed to come to a definite conclusion. He spoke as if he was wide awake. “As the Scotch say, I must ‘dree my weird’,” he said in an exceedingly loud voice, and became quite still.
And presently he fell asleep with his mouth wide open, and snored.
“He giveth his beloved sleep,” whispered his devoted wife. She had followed all these distressful phenomena with sympathetic interest. It seemed he had fought a good fight and won. She stifled a fit of coughing for his sake. Presently she also sank into slumber.
Such was the deep spiritual conflict through which Mr Myame passed, because these two worldlings in their so-called Reform Club made a net for his feet and compassed him about, and, understanding nothing of the matter, called him “Chadband.” Would a Chadband, a deliberate hypocrite, have achieved the stern self-abandonment with which he now set himself to readjust Edward Albert’s affairs? That strains the Chadband theory. And would a mere self-regarding Chadband have displayed the same intensity of indignation at the wickedness as he conceived it, of Edward Albert’s behaviour? His wrath was not after the manner of a Chadband, or a Chadband-Squeers; his wrath and anger were the wrath and anger of David King of Israel—in humbler circumstances, of course.
I do not know precisely what they mean, but the only words that occur to me to round off this description are
“Chadband forsooth!”
So let it rest at that.
Beyond all question Mr Myame was of the stuff that Saints are made of. This is before all things a truthful novel, and that is the truth about him—and about them.
X. Faith and Hope
So it was that at last Edward Albert entered the presence of Jim Whittaker. He was ushered through long aisles of shining and glittering glass ware and china and porcelain into a large comfortable office where Mr James Whittaker was dictating letters to a bright-haired young stenographer.
“That’s Tewler,” he said, looking round for an instant.
“Glad to see you, my boy. Sit down on that sofa there. I’ll be done with these letters in a brace of shakes and then we’ll have a talk.”
Dreams of being the missing heir or the long-lost son or half brother vanished beyond recall. Edward Albert reverted to the feudal system. He had been preparing for this encounter for four days, chiefly in the Public Library and with the librarian’s assistance, and his meditations and enquiries had not been without result.
“That’s all for the present, Miss Scoresby,” said Mr Whittaker and rotated startlingly in his chair as the bright-haired secretary gathered up her pads and pencils. Edward Albert had never seen a rotating armchair before. “Let’s have a look at you, young Tewler. What sort of hands have you got?”
Edward Albert hesitated, but under encouragement held out his hands.
“Not like your father’s. His were broader. You don’t happen to draw or paint or do anything like that?”
“No, I don’t, Sir,” said Edward Albert.
“H’m. No fretwork or anything of that sort?”
“I’m not much use with my ’ands, Sir. No.”
“You can put ’em down. H’m, So you don’t take after your father in that sort of thing. That’s a pity. What we are going to do about you, Mr Edward Albert Tewler, I don’t quite know. Old Myame has blown up like a powder magazine. He doesn’t seem to like you a bit. You’ve just put him out something awful....”
“I reely didn’t mean to ’urt Mr Myame, Sir. I reely didn’t. ’E’s a good man, ’E really is a good man, but I did think I’d a right to see you. After you sent that wreath and everything. He’s Narrer, Sir. That’s the fact about ’im. ’E’-s Narrer. ’Ess got it into his head you’re not a Believing Christian and that you’re worldly and that seeing you won’t do me anything but serious harm. So he don’t seem to mind what he said or did so long as I didn’t see you. He’s called me perfectly dreadful things. Sir, perfectly dreadful things. Serpents. Poison, Sir. Coals of Jupiter, ’e says, got to be ’eaped on my head. What are coals of Jupiter, Sir? He’s sent me to Coventry. None of the boys must speak to me or me say anything to them. He says he can’t bear the sight of me. Spawn of the devil he says I am. He’s turned me out of the classes and I’ve had to go and sit all day in the Public Library. It isn’t fair to me, Sir; it isn’t fair. I never meant to ’urt ’im like that.”
He sat forward on the sofa, hands on knees, a mean and meagre little creature, under-nourished and crazily taught, doing his best to exist and make something of a world of which his fundamental idea was that you cannot be too careful. He sensed rather than apprehended the feudal link that put Mr James Whittaker under an obligation to him.
“He did ask you not to talk to me; didn’t he”?”
“But how was I to know, Sir, that he’d take it so serious?”
“Right up to the time he found out, he was all right with you?”
“He was strict, Sir. But then he’s naturally strict. He’s such an upright man, Sir. He don’t seem to understand disobedience.”
“Quite like his Old Man,” said Jim Whittaker, but his impiety was happily over the head of his hearer. “And then you became an adder and so forth and so on.”
“Yessir.”
“What are these coals of Jupiter you keep talking about?” asked Jim Whittaker. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“I don’t know rightly what they are, Sir, but they’re sure to be something very disagreeable, Sir, if ’e got ’em out of the Bible. They’re ’eaped on your ’ed, you see, Sir.”
“What, when you go to hell?”
“Before that, I think. Sir. I thought you might know, Sir.”
“No. I must look it up. And so you’re not a Believing Christian, Jo—I mean Edward. You’re beginning Doubt very young.”
“Oo! No, Sir,” protested Edward Albert, much alarmed. “Don’t imagine that. I ’ope I’m one of the Saved. I know that my Redeemer liveth. But what I feel, Sir, is that it isn’t anything to get so Narrer about. That’s where I seem to ’ave ’urt Mr Myame.”
“There’s something in that. Tell me some more about what you believe? If you don’t mind.”
Edward Albert made a great effort. “Well, Christianity! Sir. What everybody knows in England. Chrise died for me and all that. I suppose he knew what he was doing, ’E shed his precious blood or us, and I hope I’m truly thankful, Sir. It’s in the creed, Sir. It’s nothing to get angry about and be unpleasant to other people, calling them nasty names out of the Bible and carrying on just as though they was cheating somehow....”