The Doings of Raffles Haw/Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV: The Spread of the Blight.
It may be that Laura did not look upon the removal of her father as an unmixed misfortune. Nothing was said to her as to the manner of the old man's seizure, but Robert informed her at breakfast that he had thought it best, acting under medical advice, to place him for a time under some restraint. She had herself frequently remarked upon the growing eccentricity of his manner, so that the announcement could have been no great surprise to her. It is certain that it did not diminish her appetite for the coffee and the scrambled eggs, nor prevent her from chatting a good deal about her approaching wedding.

But it was very different with Raffles Haw. The incident had shocked him to his inmost soul. He had often feared lest his money should do indirect evil, but here were crime and madness arising before his very eyes from its influence. In vain he tried to choke down his feelings, and to persuade himself that this attack of old McIntyre's was something which came of itself—something which had no connection with himself or his wealth. He remembered the man as he had first met him, garrulous, foolish, but with no obvious vices. He recalled the change which, week by week, had come over him—his greedy eye, his furtive manner, his hints and innuendoes, ending only the day before in a positive demand for money. It was too certain that there was a chain of events there leading direct to the horrible encounter in the laboratory. His money had cast a blight where he had hoped to shed a blessing.

Mr. Spurling, the vicar, was up shortly after breakfast, some rumour of evil having come to his ears. It was good for Haw to talk with him, for the fresh breezy manner of the old clergyman was a corrective to his own sombre and introspective mood.

"Prut, tut!" said he. "This is very bad—very bad indeed!  Mind unhinged, you say, and not likely to get over it!  Dear, dear!   I have noticed a change in him these last few weeks.  He looked like a man who had something upon his mind.  And how is Mr. Robert McIntyre?"

"He is very well. He was with me this morning when his father had this attack."

"Ha! There is a change in that young man.  I observe an alteration in him.  You will forgive me, Mr. Raffles Haw, if I say a few serious words of advice to you.  Apart from my spiritual functions I am old enough to be your father. You are a very wealthy man, and you have used your wealth nobly—yes, sir, nobly.  I do not think that there is a man in a thousand who would have done as well.  But don't you think sometimes that it has a dangerous influence upon those who are around you?"

"I have sometimes feared so."

"We may pass over old Mr. McIntyre. It would hardly be just, perhaps, to mention him in this connection. But there is Robert. He used to take such an interest in his profession.  He was so keen about art. If you met him, the first words he said were usually some reference to his plans, or the progress he was making in his latest picture.  He was ambitious, pushing, self-reliant. Now he does nothing.  I know for a fact that it is two months since he put brush to canvas.  He has turned from a student into an idler, and, what is worse, I fear into a parasite.  You will forgive me for speaking so plainly?"

Raffles Haw said nothing, but he threw out his hands with a gesture of pain.

"And then there is something to be said about the country folk," said the vicar. "Your kindness has been, perhaps, a little indiscriminate there. They don't seem to be as helpful or as self-reliant as they used.  There was old Blaxton, whose cowhouse roof was blown off the other day.  He used to be a man who was full of energy and resource. Three months ago he would have got a ladder and had that roof on again in two days' work.  But now he must sit down, and wring his hands, and write letters, because he knew that it would come to your ears, and that you would make it good.  There's old Ellary, too!  Well, of course he was always poor, but at least he did something, and so kept himself out of mischief.  Not a stroke will he do now, but smokes and talks scandal from morning to night.  And the worst of it is, that it not only hurts those who have had your help, but it unsettles those who have not. They all have an injured, surly feeling as if other folk were getting what they had an equal right to. It has really come to such a pitch that I thought it was a duty to speak to you about it. Well, it is a new experience to me. I have often had to reprove my parishioners for not being charitable enough, but it is very strange to find one who is too charitable. It is a noble error."

"I thank you very much for letting me know about it," answered Raffles Haw, as he shook the good old clergyman's hand. "I shall certainly reconsider my conduct in that respect."

He kept a rigid and unmoved face until his visitor had gone, and then retiring to his own little room, he threw himself upon the bed and burst out sobbing with his face buried in the pillow. Of all men in England, this, the richest, was on that day the most miserable. How could he use this great power which he held? Every blessing which he tried to give turned itself into a curse. His intentions were so good, and yet the results were so terrible. It was as if he had some foul leprosy of the mind which all caught who were exposed to his influence. His charity, so well meant, so carefully bestowed, had yet poisoned the whole countryside. And if in small things his results were so evil, how could he tell that they would be better in the larger plans which he had formed? If he could not pay the debts of a simple yokel without disturbing the great laws of cause and effect which lie at the base of all things, what could he hope for when he came to fill the treasury of nations, to interfere with the complex conditions of trade, or to provide for great masses of the population? He drew back with horror as he dimly saw that vast problems faced him in which he might make errors which all his money could not repair. The way of Providence was the straight way. Yet he, a half-blind creature, must needs push in and strive to alter and correct it. Would he be a benefactor? Might he not rather prove to be the greatest malefactor that the world had seen?

But soon a calmer mood came upon him, and he rose and bathed his flushed face and fevered brow. After all, was not there a field where all were agreed that money might be well spent? It was not the way of nature, but rather the way of man which he would alter. It was not Providence that had ordained that folk should live half-starved and overcrowded in dreary slums. That was the result of artificial conditions, and it might well be healed by artificial means. Why should not his plans be successful after all, and the world better for his discovery? Then again, it was not the truth that he cast a blight on those with whom he was brought in contact. There was Laura; who knew more of him than she did, and yet how good and sweet and true she was! She at least had lost nothing through knowing him. He would go down and see her. It would be soothing to hear her voice, and to turn to her for words of sympathy in this his hour of darkness.

The storm had died away, but a soft wind was blowing, and the smack of the coming spring was in the air. He drew in the aromatic scent of the fir-trees as he passed down the curving drive. Before him lay the long sloping countryside, all dotted over with the farmsteadings and little red cottages, with the morning sun striking slantwise upon their grey roofs and glimmering windows. His heart yearned over all these people with their manifold troubles, their little sordid miseries, their strivings and hopings and petty soul-killing cares. How could he get at them? How could he manage to lift the burden from them, and yet not hinder them in their life aim? For more and more could he see that all refinement is through sorrow, and that the life which does not refine is the life without an aim.

Laura was alone in the sitting-room at Elmdene, for Robert had gone out to make some final arrangements about his father. She sprang up as her lover entered, and ran forward with a pretty girlish gesture to greet him.

"Oh, Raffles!" she cried, "I knew that you would come. Is it not dreadful about papa?"

"You must not fret, dearest," he answered gently. "It may not prove to be so very grave after all."

"But it all happened before I was stirring. I knew nothing about it until breakfast-time.  They must have gone up to the Hall very early."

"Yes, they did come up rather early."

"What is the matter with you, Raffles?" cried Laura, looking up into his face. "You look so sad and weary!"

"I have been a little in the blues. The fact is, Laura, that I have had a long talk with Mr. Spurling this morning."

The girl started, and turned white to the lips. A long talk with Mr. Spurling! Did that mean that he had learned her secret?

"Well?" she gasped.

"He tells me that my charity has done more harm than good, and in fact, that I have had an evil influence upon every one whom I have come near. He said it in the most delicate way, but that was really what it amounted to."

"Oh, is that all?" said Laura, with a long sigh of relief. "You must not think of minding what Mr. Spurling says. Why, it is absurd on the face of it!  Everybody knows that there are dozens of men all over the country who would have been ruined and turned out of their houses if you had not stood their friend.  How could they be the worse for having known you?  I wonder that Mr. Spurling can talk such nonsense!"

"How is Robert's picture getting on?"

"Oh, he has a lazy fit on him. He has not touched it for ever so long. But why do you ask that?  You have that furrow on your brow again. Put it away, sir!"

She smoothed it away with her little white hand.

"Well, at any rate, I don't think that quite everybody is the worse," said he, looking down at her. "There is one, at least, who is beyond taint, one who is good, and pure, and true, and who would love me as well if I were a poor clerk struggling for a livelihood. You would, would you not, Laura?"

"You foolish boy! of course I would."

"And yet how strange it is that it should be so. That you, who are the only woman whom I have ever loved, should be the only one in whom I also have raised an affection which is free from greed or interest.  I wonder whether you may not have been sent by Providence simply to restore my confidence in the world.  How barren a place would it not be if it were not for woman's love!  When all seemed black around me this morning, I tell you, Laura, that I seemed to turn to you and to your love as the one thing on earth upon which I could rely.  All else seemed shifting, unstable, influenced by this or that base consideration.  In you, and you only, could I trust."

"And I in you, dear Raffles! I never knew what love was until I met you."

She took a step towards him, her hands advanced, love shining in her features, when in an instant Raffles saw the colour struck from her face, and a staring horror spring into her eyes. Her blanched and rigid face was turned towards the open door, while he, standing partly behind it, could not see what it was that had so moved her.

"Hector!" she gasped, with dry lips.

A quick step in the hall, and a slim, weather-tanned young man sprang forward into the room, and caught her up in his arms as if she had been a feather.

"You darling!" he said; "I knew that I would surprise you. I came right up from Plymouth by the night train.  And I have long leave, and plenty of time to get married.  Isn't it jolly, dear Laura?"

He pirouetted round with her in the exuberance of his delight. As he spun round, however, his eyes fell suddenly upon the pale and silent stranger who stood by the door. Hector blushed furiously, and made an awkward sailor bow, standing with Laura's cold and unresponsive hand still clasped in his.

"Very sorry, sir—didn't see you," he said. "You'll excuse my going on in this mad sort of way, but if you had served you would know what it is to get away from quarter-deck manners, and to be a free man. Miss McIntyre will tell you that we have known each other since we were children, and as we are to be married in, I hope, a month at the latest, we understand each other pretty well."

Raffles Haw still stood cold and motionless. He was stunned, benumbed, by what he saw and heard. Laura drew away from Hector, and tried to free her hand from his grasp.

"Didn't you get my letter at Gibraltar?" she asked.

"Never went to Gibraltar. Were ordered home by wire from Madeira. Those chaps at the Admiralty never know their own minds for two hours together.  But what matter about a letter, Laura, so long as I can see you and speak with you?  You have not introduced me to your friend here."

"One word, sir," cried Raffles Haw in a quivering voice. "Do I entirely understand you?  Let me be sure that there is no mistake.  You say that you are engaged to be married to Miss McIntyre?"

"Of course I am. I've just come back from a four months' cruise, and I am going to be married before I drag my anchor again."

"Four months!" gasped Haw. "Why, it is just four months since I came here. And one last question, sir.  Does Robert McIntyre know of your engagement?"

"Does Bob know? Of course he knows.  Why, it was to his care I left Laura when I started.  But what is the meaning of all this?  What is the matter with you, Laura?  Why are you so white and silent?  And—hallo! Hold up, sir!  The man is fainting!"

"It is all right!" gasped Haw, steadying himself against the edge of the door.

He was as white as paper, and his hand was pressed close to his side as though some sudden pain had shot through him. For a moment he tottered there like a stricken man, and then, with a hoarse cry, he turned and fled out through the open door.

"Poor devil!" said Hector, gazing in amazement after him. "He seems hard hit anyhow. But what is the meaning of all this, Laura?"

His face had darkened, and his mouth had set.

She had not said a word, but had stood with a face like a mask looking blankly in front of her. Now she tore herself away from him, and, casting herself down with her face buried in the cushion of the sofa, she burst into a passion of sobbing.

"It means that you have ruined me," she cried. "That you have ruined-ruined—ruined me! Could you not leave us alone?   Why must you come at the last moment?  A few more days, and we were safe.  And you never had my letter."

"And what was in your letter, then?" he asked coldly, standing with his arms folded, looking down at her.

"It was to tell you that I released you. I love Raffles Haw, and I was to have been his wife.  And now it is all gone.  Oh, Hector, I hate you, and I shall always hate you as long as I live, for you have stepped between me and the only good fortune that ever came to me.  Leave me alone, and I hope that you will never cross our threshold again."

"Is that your last word, Laura?"

"The last that I shall ever speak to you."

"Then, good-bye. I shall see the Dad, and go straight back to Plymouth." He waited an instant, in hopes of an answer, and then walked sadly from the room.