The Visionists/Chapter 9
IX
Off the King's Road, in Chelsea, between the "Seven Bells" and the Vestry Hall, stands a two-story brick building, decorated in the Georgian style. It is ornate, considering its original use as a brass-foundry. A huge iron gate supported by massive stone posts shuts it off from the street, and passing through this, one goes up a sort of lane, between brick walls, to the imposing front. This approach is vulgarized by rows of terra-cotta chimney-pots, for the storage of which the building is now used, and permits one to get close enough to the facade of the edifice to examine its sadly damaged details. In the cellar of this place, several compartments of which were at this time used for wine-vaults, the Circle met.
There is another less conspicuous entrance to the cellars, however, and to this Nomé was directed. Corrington street leads off the King's Road, and before, in its wanderings, it regains that thoroughfare it turns two right angles, both toward the left. A little bun-shop upon the first part of this passage had been rented by Mangus, and opposite the rear door of the property one found a side entrance to the drain-pipe works.
Nomé, at about seven o'clock, entered the shop and saw a familiar figure sitting behind the counter, one of the women of the Circle. A nod was given and exchanged, and, without a word being spoken, Nomé was directed by a gesture through a tiny bed-sitting-room to the rear door. She opened this, took three or four steps across a paved close, and opened the great door of the works.
She found herself in a square, bare, lofty anteroom, facing a huge pair of double doors. At her left was a wooden hatchway covering a stair leading downward. Upon the solid framework of this Ospovat was waiting.
He came to her and kissed her hand.
"Oh, Nomé, I'm so glad you came!" he said. "I was so afraid you would not be able to get here. Things have gone far, but I know you can make them believe in you."
"I shall try. Have they all come?"
"O'Brien and Mangus and Irma Strieb you may be sure are here early, and about a dozen have come. It is not seven yet."
"What is the need of this extra precaution? Is there any new danger?"
"Mangus has been watched, and O'Brien, too. A week ago Frisk was arrested and has been held, though they have no evidence. We can't be too careful, for there'll be a hue and cry as soon as anything is done. I am terribly afraid that my call on you may have aroused suspicion, but I don't know whether the police have marked me or not."
He lifted the heavy wooden doors and led the way down the steep stairway along a short passage lighted by a single candle set in a saucer. Turning a corner to the right, they found themselves in a wide cellar, two walls of which were lined with rows of casks piled high to the ceiling, festooned with cobwebs. A small table stood on the dirt floor. Upon it was a lamp whose rays shone upon the faces of Mangus and O'Brien seated together in earnest conversation. The old leader's brows were drawn tensely, tracing a web of lines across his forehead and about his deep-set eyes. The Fenian's red countenance, loose lip and watery eyes gave him more the appearance of a bull than usual. Sitting and standing in groups other members were waiting for the rest of the Circle to appear.
Ospovat retraced his steps to stand guard at the head of the stairs, and Nomé walked into the room. Irma Strieb's gaze was fixed upon her, like a waiting bayonet.
O'Brien drew back as Nomé approached him and extended her hand.
"Is it as bad as that, O'Brien?" she asked calmly.
"Faith, that's for you to tell us," he replied.
"I have nothing to tell you that you shouldn't know already. When I give my friendship I do not take it away at the whim, like you!"
"What you gave was a soap-bubble, I fear, girl, and a breath of high life has broke it entirely."
"You do me wrong, O'Brien, and you know it I You have a quick, Irish temper, and it will turn again when you know me better."
"I know too much now. I could stand no more, even if you were my own daughter, as I liked to think you, Nomé!"
Mangus interrupted. "No more of this, now! We're not here to snarl over personal quarrels, like children. God! Was there ever a cause so holy that it did not break up into factions because of jealous bickerings? We'll have you say what you have to say when we are all here, O'Brien, and then Nomé can answer as she likes. Leave us a minute, please, I want to talk to her."
O'Brien turned away to join Irma Strieb and stood with a knot of their friends in one corner of the room, and Nomé sat down at the table wearily.
"O'Brien is in an ugly mood," Mangus said in a low tone. "You may have a hard time winning him over, but I trust you to do it. Irma Strieb is more dangerous. She's capable of anything. I shall have her watched after tonight. When I think of the trouble they are making now when all should go smoothly, I think I'd not hesitate to use force, if necessary. But I can't show my hand to anyone but you yet. God! if I had but tools to work with, I could start a revolution tomorrow!"
"Have you any news?"
"Things are going well. Berne is only waiting for word from Vienna and Madrid. The train is all set, and the match ready. That's why this trouble exasperates me. We must win this time! I'll make any sacrifice in order not to fail. I'll not hesitate to sacrifice you, if necessary!"
There were still many of the Circle who were willing to welcome Nomé, for the disaffection, centering in O'Brien and Irma Strieb, weakened as it radiated through the group. Half a dozen or more shook her hand, called her "comrade" and fell again under the spell of her personal magnetism and earnestness. These had not known, when she was selected for the hazard of the dice, just what the business in hand was—for all that had been left to Mangus—but, as the event had turned out, the work she had had to do was, of course, discovered. It was no longer a secret that Lord Felvex had been marked for death, and that the deed was still to be done. The consciousness of this fatal mission now with them made the talk more open, for they all shared a common risk. Their eagerness for immediate action was the result of this nervous strain, and the long delay imposed by Mangus had aroused great dissatisfaction.
The numbers increased till, at a quarter-past seven, some twenty persons were present, the women being greatly in the minority. The meetings were always informal, controlled by Mangus's peremptory influence, the definite business of detail being managed by a small committee selected by him. He now called the assembly to order in form.
There was but the single lamp on the table in the centre of the room, and this shone full on the leader's face. The members sat or stood in front of him and at the sides of the cellar. From the entrance at the end of the passage the scene was as if set upon a stage, the back wall of which was formed of the tiers of wine casks, like an enormous honeycomb. Away from the light all was shadowy and ill defined, where arched openings in the walls led to dark caves to the right and left.
Mangus rose and began:
"We have come here tonight, comrades, for but one purpose, and that must be settled as quickly as possible. It should not take long. I have sent for Comrade Nomé Destin, that she may speak for herself in answer to any charge that may be formally brought against her. I must warn you all that we are approaching a crisis in the affairs of the Movement, and we are one and all in serious danger. To increase that peril by petty strife and revenge may be fatal to the Cause. Comrades have, before this, been taken from us, and we are waging a war that must claim its victims from our side as well as from our enemies.
"So far, in our meetings, we have avoided mentioning any specific objects, and you have left to me the planning and execution of them. Tonight that object must be named. Our present purpose is murder. So men call it, and, though we believe we are using it to noble ends, the one crime binds us together with the same guilt. Our last attempt was frustrated by chance"
"By cowardice, why don't ye say!" O'Brien burst in.
"But the same chance will render a second attempt, if successful, more useful to the Cause than if the first had succeeded. I cannot and will not explain the precise causes of my delay in ordering a second trial. You must trust me there, implicitly. It is enough to say that it is necessary to wait a certain time, and when that time has come, everything you have grumbled at will be made clear. Nomé Destin was chosen for the assassination, and, by your rule, she should still stand ready to carry out the mission. Has anyone any objection to this?"
O'Brien arose, wiping the sweat from his brow. Nomé, sitting beside Mangus, watched the Irishman, with her hand on her heart.
"I protest!" said O'Brien, and laid a ponderous fist upon the table. "Nomé Destin is proven a traitor to this Cause. She was reared in the lap of luxury, and she has returned to her kind. She is no more one of us in spirit or in deed. She has fallen into the trap set by scheming and effete aristocrats, and she has accepted the pomp and extravagance of the privileged leisure classes as the station to which her birth entitled her—she has made friends with the Philistines and the Amorites"
Mangus leaned forward past the lamp and pointed a bony finger at the loud-mouthed Fenian.
"Drop that hackneyed whine, for God's sake, O'Brien! Do you think you are addressing a public-house audience of drunken loafers and cab-drivers? Are you on the tail of a cart contesting a bye-election for a demagogue like yourself? Man, we're talking of red, bloody murder, and we're hunted by the police at this moment! And you slaver cheap rhetoric at us like a board-school graduate! Come out with what you have to say, and don't gabble at the gallery like a fool!"
O'Brien, who was working himself up to the proper pitch, was for a moment disconcerted. Then he broke out afresh, in full brogue:
"And did yez see her a-ridin' forth in a foine chariot with his bloody lordship, if ye plaze? Did yez see her at dinner atin' off thim gold plates wid the man she was sint for to kill?"
"My orders!" snapped Mangus. "My orders were for her to wait, and to wait, and always to wait, and to watch while she waited. What would you have her do?—sulk and brood, or talk of the Movement to its sworn enemy, as no doubt you would have done with your waggling Irish tongue that can't sit still in your mouth, and lose all in an afternoon? She has no need to answer such gammon!"
"And how about the shootin', thin?" O'Brien growled. "Was she sint forth to do a minister of police to death, or to pot-hunt for men who have been forced by that same blackguard out of the chance to make an honest livin'? And was it to save his wretched pifflin' life she was sint out for—him who has jailed her own comrades of the Cause, and will have half of us swingin' on the gallows yet, by God? Did yez order that, too, you who are secret chief, and give your orders and have your own favorites?"
"She shot at him and missed. Ospovat saw her—you heard his story!" Mangus hazarded, hoping that, to save the point, Nomé would keep silent on this detail. But she would not. She sprang to her feet.
"It's a lie! I did not. I shot at the robbers deliberately! Do you think I would shelter myself behind an excuse like that? I saw Lord Felvex being beaten to death by thugs, and how could the Cause profit by a massacre like that! Have we no dignity? Was it merely his death we wanted? The deed was to ring out like a trumpet call in solemn warning, not squeak out its little message like a penny whistle! My hands were to be steeped in blood, but not soiled by mud and filth!"
"Then have in Ospovat, too!" O'Brien shouted. "What did he lie to us for? I say there's a nest of treachery here, and we might as well clean it out now. Have him in!"
Mangus tried his best to quell the rising tumult, but O'Brien's backing encouraged him. Mangus turned to Irma Strieb.
"Irma, take Ospovat's place at the door!" he commanded.
"I shall not," she answered, "not till I have spoken, too. I can tell you something of Ospovat, and of Nomé Destin as well, and of the two together and Lord Felvex thrown into the bargain!"
"Tell it out! Tell it out, thin; faith, it's high time for a few words of truth!" cried O'Brien.
The storm broke on Irma's face as she pointed to Nomé. "You have done the fine lady long enough!" she barked in her rage. "I was only fit to be your servant, was I? You have worn the jewels and the kid gloves ever since you came into the Movement to bedevil this Circle with your sheep's eyes, and ever since you came in I've had all the scrapings and the sour swill! You are the queen and I am the drudge. But what work there is for me to do, I do it, while you sit in silks and satins in the drawing-room and make love to your Lord Felvex, under her ladyship's own eyes! Yes, and boast of it! I heard it from your own lips, and Ospovat won't dare say I lie."
She turned from Nomé to the members, who listened breathlessly. "What do you think of this, comrades? Will you intrust the work of the Cause to a hussy who lives in idleness and luxury while we are hunted from pillar to post by the police? And meanwhile, she sweetens her time with the love and kisses of our worst enemy! Ask her, and see if she denies it! She will never kill that man!"
She sat down and watched for Nomé to answer, her strong yellow teeth showing through the rift between her lips, her red brows lowered, and her coarse hands clenched.
Nomé's breath was coming and going in anger, and her eyes blazed. She rose now, and faced the little assembly. Even in that moment, however, she could not forbear to place herself so that the lamplight should strike her to advantage.
"There is nothing I need to answer, except Irma's last words," she said. "She said that I would never kill Lord Felvex, and she spoke falsely. It is too late for me to mask myself and conceal the things that I hoped with all modesty to keep from you. Since I must think no more of my pride, let me say that it is true that I do love Lord Felvex—I have loved him for four years! I did not know that it was he whom I was appointed to kill—but it would not have mattered, as it does not matter now. I will not answer as to my life at Lady Felvex's house—Irma's insinuations are beneath contempt, and you, who know what I am, will only be sorry for her, that she has sunk so low as to accuse me. But now I claim my privilege of carrying out my appointed errand. I have had my Calvary, let me win my resurrection, my Easter! I have had enough of this pitiful thing called Life—give me that precious, mysterious gift called Death! I am sworn to the Cause—there can be no life left for me, if I am convicted of treason. Do you think that I, who stood ready to sacrifice my life, cannot sacrifice my love also? I will give his life with mine—there is no other way! It is my right—I was appointed by Fate. What if another victim were chosen to die in my place? Still my lover must die, and if he must go, let me at least go with him. Why not? Are we not all pledged to sacrifice and agony? Would not any one of you do it, were you in my place? We claim no personal feelings here, in this Circle, and I believe that each one of us here is true. O'Brien, Irma, I bear no malice toward you. I believe your attack was caused only by your desire for the good of our Cause. I have nothing to forgive. Only, let me do this thing—let me give myself and all I possess to the Cause! The balm of Time, the wrappings of Distance, all have been torn from my heart's wound. I bleed, and the old familiar love-pain and mortal anguish have returned. I, who have been so long dead, am alive again, and I pray to be sent back into forgetfulness. But, if I am perishable, let me perish resisting—if the void awaits me, do not let me act so as to deserve it! I have a giant in me that is stronger than this pigmy of Love who so torments me. Though I thrill as the sap to spring, I would think, not feel. There is another Order, greater than this disorder in my heart, and I would bear it witness. Believe in me, comrades, as you have believed before, trust me, and let me go to eternal peace!"
She sat down, quivering with the passion of her grief, and let her face fall in her hands. O'Brien, mercurial, susceptible as ever to her fascinating, intense temperament, pushed up to her and laid his great hairy hand upon her shoulder.
"Mavourneen," he whispered, sobbing, "forgive me, and let me love you again!"
Others swarmed up to her and protested their allegiance. She had carried the Circle with her, as she had always carried it, with her silvery tongue and the picturesque abandon of her emotion. But Irma Strieb held herself still aloof, with a sneer curling her face.
"How about Ospovat, then, who tried to fool us with his cock-and-bull story?" she said, in a raucous tone.
"Go and send him down!" said Mangus. "Take his place at the door and wait there. You have done enough mischief here!"
She left, sullenly, and all breathed freer with the withdrawal of her spite.
For awhile Nomé was the centre of a group of comrades, each one of which was anxious of having a farewell word with her. She gave ail the color there was to the Circle, for the others were, compared with her, uninspired. Nevertheless, they were all in solemn earnest, determined, tragic, desperate. Upon the dull red heat of their convictions Nomé's emotional fervor danced like a lambent flame, lighting their assemblies with flickering poetic lights. All eyes followed her, all ears listened, she was illumination to their dull, starved hearts, embittered with the wrongs they sought to remedy.
She feasted on this new, last banquet of admiration, and drank deep of the wine of praise so loyally held to her lips, till Mangus, drawing her apart for his last instructions, left the members grouped about the table.
"Nomé," he said in a low voice, "all's not right yet! Irma has set me thinking. I'm not sure of her. She must be watched. If anything should go wrong now, God help the Cause—for we can't. Now I daren't trust you with her again—I'm afraid of her jealousy. Don't go up the stairway you came in by; there's a door out of that cellar over there, that leads up to the front of the building. Here's a key to the outside door. Take it and, when you can slip out unobserved, make haste. I'll talk to them so they won't notice you. And remember the word, 'It is only one of many'—and shoot to kill! No fumbling! Everything is staked on your nerve. Good-bye, girl, and Heaven bless you!"
He turned to the group about the table, leaving Nomé in the shadow of the wall.
Irma Strieb made her way to the passage, up the steep wooden stairs, and knocked upon the double doors that ceiled the opening above her head. Ospovat lifted them, and gave a hand to help her up.
"Go down to your bread-and-butter-faced mistress," she said. "She's bewitched them again. I'm glad to be out of sight of the fools down there. They're led about by the nose like cattle. I'm to stay at the door here."
He was in no mood to talk to her. He was burning for a sight of Nomé, again triumphant, and eager to rejoice in her victory. He handed Irma the padlock and key, and ran down. At the second step he tripped, lost his balance, and, without a cry, fell over the side of the steps, striking his head upon the paved floor below. As he dropped he threw himself toward the wall. This carried him to the left of the foot of the stair, where he lay unconscious.
Irma, meanwhile, had gone to the outer door, looking down the little lane. For a moment she waited, filled with black thoughts, and the jeering expression on her face changed to something more sinister. She hesitated, took a step toward the hatchway and stood undecided. Then, raising the doors part way, she bent her head down to listen. A subdued babble of voices came to her, and through it she heard Nomé speaking. She pressed her lips together and nodded her head. Then, dropping the door, she went out of the building, into the lane, and walked down the King's Road toward Sloane street.
In ten minutes she was back, and the thing was done. She had enough to think of now to make her brain reel, but in her agony she tried to keep her mind upon Nomé-Nomé, who had beaten her at every point—who had hoodwinked and fascinated her way to the position of a heroine, never paying for her promises in real endeavor. She listened again at the crack of the doors, and fed her jealous rage upon the ring of Nomé's voice, as it came to her, clear and deep as a bell. How she hated it, and Nomé's beauty! Then the voice stopped. There was a buzzing chorus, then O'Brien spoke and laughed his peal of burly noise. Her lip writhed to think how weak he was, and how easily cajoled.
Then the great side doors swung open, and a police captain entered to her.
"Are they still there?" he whispered.
Irma nodded. Her breath came faster now.
He put his head outside and beckoned. A file of policemen came in, and with them several men in citizen's clothes. The doors were silently lifted, and one after another they crept down into the passage below, and formed for the rush. The captain put out the solitary candle. Then they were lost to Irma's sight, like rats in a hole, and she waited for the attack, her eyes staring into the dark, her breast heaving convulsively.
She heard a muttered command, and the force moved down toward the cellar where a dim glow illuminated them, making them as shadowy and unreal as ghosts. Then, a single cry echoed along the passage and rose to her ears. It was O'Brien's voice ringing with terror—then a shot rang out, the glow faded. A babel of fierce shouts filled the dark.
Irma stepped from the stair, threw the doors down with a bang and snapped the padlock into the hasp, locking in friends and foes. Then she threw herself upon the closed hatchway and put her ear to the crack.
For a long time she listened, and her wonder increased. All, now, was as still as death. She could not understand it. There should be ch a fight below as would make her shudder at her double revenge. She cared not who fell, all was lost for her. Her mind was cast loose from reason and struggled with blind spite and rage. They should all die, comrade and enemy, the Circle with the police, battling to the end.
It was strange, though, that everything was so quiet! She had expected and feared to hear the horrible discord of carnage, shrieks for help, blows and pistol-shots, and, at least, an attempt to batter open the doors. Instead—nothing. It was as if the wine-cellar were empty and all her treachery a hideous nightmare.
Her first fury had abated to a dazed perplexity; she could not think. She could neither escape, nor go for help, nor wait. How could forty men and women be swallowed up and disappear into the dark without a sound? She thought she would go mad unless she found out—if, indeed, she were not mad already.
She wearily unlocked the padlock and heaved open the doors. Her feet seemed to be of lead as she stepped down, stair by stair, like a somnambulist. She had no fear or horror, no terror—only a stupefied wonder at the perversity of her brain. Halfway along the passage she stumbled upon a body that lay across her path and heard it move stealthily, away, without a word or moan. Near the entrance to the cellar she groped about for the candle, struck a match and held the light over her head.
She had one glance—cowering, terrified men everywhere, flattened against the walls, behind, chairs and table, crouching in corners, lying prone and supine upon the dirt floor, friend and foe mingled, shuddering away from one another, doubting horribly, in that darkness, the least sound, the slightest movement. Every man was afraid of every other, fearing to strike lest he should hit a friend, fearing to speak lest he should betray his presence to an enemy. It was a deadlock of horror. The flaring light of her candle picked out the whites of eyes and policemen's buttons and hands held fearfully over shocked faces—all this in one flash she saw.
Then the men started, with a common impulse, breaking for the passage, to escape from the pen. Before she was hurtled aside a violent bolt of fire darted from a corner—there was a deafening report and a sharp sting of pain in her breast.
Irma Strieb fell to the floor, and a crazed, panic-stricken crowd of men rushed over her.