Aaron the Jew: A Novel

"I must have an answer to-night, yea or nay."

There was no more to be said. The man who had been wronged and deceived, and who had made an offer so strange, and generous, and cruel, was fixed and implacable.

"I may be absent some time," said Dr. Spenlove. "Where shall I see you upon my return?"

"Here, if you will allow me to stay."

"You are welcome. My landlady will make you a bed on the sofa."

"Thank you; I need no bed. I can employ myself while you are away."

Dr. Spenlove stepped to the door, and turned on the threshold.

"One other question, Mr. Gordon. If I succeed, when will you require her to give up her child?"

"To-morrow evening. I will have a carriage ready at the door. On the following day Mrs. Turner and I will leave Portsmouth, and there is no probability, after that, that you and I will ever meet again."

Dr. Spenlove nodded, and left the house.

CHAPTER IV

FLIGHT

The snow was falling more heavily, and a strong wind blew the flakes into his face as he made his way to Mrs. Turner's garret. He walked as quickly as he could, but his progress was impeded by the force of the wind and by its driving the snow into his eyes. Despite these obstacles he preserved his mental balance, and was observant of all that was passing around him; and it was a proof of his kindly and unselfish nature that, in the light of the vital errand upon which he was engaged, he was oblivious of the sense of physical discomfort. Conflicting questions agitated his mind. No longer under the influence of the cold, cruel logic which distinguished Mr. Gordon's utterances, he once more asked himself whether he would be acting rightly in urging Mrs. Turner to renounce her maternal duties and obligations, and to part for ever with the child of her blood. The human and the Divine law were in conflict. On one side degradation and direst poverty from which there seemed no prospect of escape, and driving the mother perhaps to a course of life condemned alike by God and man; on the other side a life of material comfort and respectability for herself and her child. A fortuitous accident-a chance for which he had prayed earlier in the night-had made him at once the arbiter and the judge; his hand was on the wheel to steer these two helpless beings through the voyage upon which they were embarked, and upon him rested the responsibility of their future. There was no case here of ploughing through unknown waters over hidden rocks; he saw the ocean of life before him, he saw the rocks beneath. Amid those rocks lay the forms of lost abandoned women who in their mortal career would surely have been saved had an offer of rescue come, such as had come to the woman who chiefly occupied his thoughts. They would have been spared the suffering of despairing days, the horrors of a despairing death; they would have been lifted from the gulf of shame and ignominy. New hopes, new joys would have arisen to comfort them. The sacrifice they would have been called upon to make would have been hallowed by the consciousness that they had performed their duty. It was not alone the happiness of the mortal life that had to be considered; if the ministrations of God's ministers on earth were not a mockery and a snare, it was the immortal life that was equally at stake. The soul's reward sprang from the body's suffering.

And still the pitiless snow fell, and the wind howled around him; and through the white whirlwind he beheld the light of heaven and the stars shining upon him.

How should he act? He imagined himself steering the vessel through an ocean of sad waters. On the right lay a haven of rest, on the left lay a dark and desolate shore. Here, salvation; there, destruction. Which way should he turn the wheel? His pity for her had drawn from him during their last interview the exclamation, "God help you!" and she had asked hopelessly, "Will He?" He had turned from her then; he had no answer to make. There is, he said to himself now, no Divine mediation in human affairs; the Divine hand is not stretched forth to give food to the hungry. In so grave an issue as the starvation of a human being, dependence upon Divine aid will not avail. Admitting this, he felt it to be almost a heresy, but at the same time he knew that it was true.

There were but few people in the white streets, and of those few a large proportion tinged his musings with a deeper melancholy. These were ragged shivering children, and women recklessly or despondently gashing the white carpet, so pure and innocent and fair in its sentimental, so hard and bitter and cruel in its material aspect. By a devious process of reasoning he drew a parallel between it and the problem he was engaged in solving. It was poetic, and it freezed the marrow; it had a soul and a body, one a sweet and smiling spirit, the other a harsh and frowning reality. The heart of a poet without boots would have sunk within him as he trod the snow-clad streets.

Dr. Spenlove's meditations were arrested by a sudden tumult. A number of people approached him, gesticulating and talking eagerly and excitedly, the cause of their excitement being a couple of policemen who bore between them the wet limp body of a motionless woman. He was drawn magnetically towards the crowd, and was immediately recognised.

"Here's Dr. Spenlove," they cried; "he knows her."

Yes, he knew her the moment his eyes fell upon her, the people having made way for him. The body borne by the policeman was that of a young girl scarcely out of her teens, an unfortunate who had walked the streets for two or three years past.

"You had better come with us, doctor," said one of the policemen, to both of whom he was known. "We have just picked her out of the water."

A middle-aged woman pushed herself close to Dr. Spenlove.

"She said she'd do it a month ago," said this woman, "if luck didn't turn."

Good God! If luck didn't turn! What direction in the unfortunate girl's career was the lucky turn to take to prevent her from courting death?

"You will come with us, sir?" said the policeman.

"Yes," answered Dr. Spenlove, mechanically.

The police station was but a hundred yards away, and thither they walked, Dr. Spenlove making a hasty examination of the body as they proceeded.

"Too late, I'm afraid, sir," said the policeman.

"I fear so," said Dr. Spenlove, gravely.

It proved to be the case. The girl was dead.

The signing of papers and other formalities detained Dr. Spenlove at the police station for nearly an hour, and he departed with a heavy weight at his heart. He had been acquainted with the girl whose life's troubles were over since the commencement of his career in Portsmouth. She was then a child of fourteen, living with her parents, who were respectable working people. Growing into dangerous beauty, she had fallen as others had fallen, and had fled from her home, to find herself after a time deserted by her betrayer. Meanwhile the home in which she had been reared was broken up; the mother died, the father left the town. Thrown upon her own resources, she drifted into the ranks of the "unfortunates," and became a familiar figure in low haunts, one of civilisation's painted, bedizened night-birds of the streets. Dr. Spenlove had befriended her, counselled her, warned her, urged her to reform, and her refrain was, "What can I do? I must live." It was not an uncommon case; the good doctor came in contact with many such, and could have prophesied with unerring accuracy the fate in store for them. The handwriting is ever on the wall, and no special gift is needed to decipher it. Drifting, drifting, drifting, for ever drifting and sinking lower and lower till the end comes. It had come soon to this young girl-mercifully, thought Dr. Spenlove, as he plodded slowly on, for surely the snapping of life's chord in the springtime of her life was better than the sure descent into a premature haggard and sinful old age. Recalling these reminiscences, his doubts with respect to his duty in the mission he had undertaken were solved. There was but one safe course for Mrs. Turner to follow.

He hastened his steps. His interview with Mr. Gordon and the tragic incident in which he had been engaged had occupied a considerable time, and it was now close upon midnight. It was late for an ordinary visit, but he was a medical man, and the doors of his patients were open to him at all hours. In the poor neighbourhood in which Mrs. Turner resided, many of the street doors were left unlocked night and day for the convenience of the lodgers, and her house being one of these, Dr. Spenlove had no difficulty in obtaining admission. He shook the snow from his clothes, and, ascending the stairs, knocked at Mrs. Turner's door; no answer coming he knocked again and again, and at length he turned the handle and entered.

The room was quite dark; there was no fire in the grate, no candle alight. He listened for the sound of breathing, but none reached his ears.

"Mrs. Turner!" he cried.

Receiving no response he struck a match, and looked around. The room was empty. Greatly alarmed he went to the landing, and knocked at an adjoining door. A woman's voice called, -

"Who's there?"

"It is I, Dr. Spenlove."

"Wait a moment, sir."

He heard shuffling steps, and presently the tenant appeared, only partially dressed, with a lighted candle in her hand.

"I didn't send for you, doctor," she said.

"No. I want to ask you about Mrs. Turner. She is not in her room."

"I thought it was strange I didn't hear the baby crying, but I don't know where she is."

"Did you not hear her go out?"

"No, sir; I came home at ten soaked through and through, and I was glad to get to bed. It ain't a night a woman would care to keep out in unless she couldn't help herself."

"Indeed it is not. Did you see anything of her before you went to bed?"

"I didn't see her, I heard her. I was just going off when she knocked at my door, and asked if I could give her a little milk for the baby; but I hadn't any to give. Besides, she ain't got a feeding-bottle that I know of. She's been trying to borrow one, but nobody in the house could oblige her. She's having a hard time of it, doctor."

"She is, poor soul!" said Dr. Spenlove, with a sigh.

"It's the way with all of us, sir; no one ought to know that better than you do. There ain't a lodger in the house that's earning more than twelve shillings a week; not much to keep a family on, is it, sir? And we've got a landlord with a heart of stone. If it hadn't been for her baby, and that it might have got him in hot water, he'd have turned her out weeks ago. He's bound to do it to-morrow if her rent ain't paid. He told me so this morning when he screwed the last penny out of me."

"Do you know whether she succeeded in obtaining milk for the child?"

"It's hardly likely, I should say. Charity begins at home, doctor."

"It is natural and just that it should; but it is terrible, terrible! Where can Mrs. Turner have gone to?"