Clayhanger Part 53

THREE.

Edwin was detained a long time in the shop by a sub-manager from Bostocks in Hanbridge who was waiting, and who had come about an estimate for a rather considerable order. This man desired a decrease of the estimate and an increased speed in execution. He was curt. He was one business firm offering an ultimatum to another business firm.

He asked Edwin whether Edwin could decide at once. Edwin said 'Certainly,' using a tone that he had never used before. He decided.

The man departed, and Edwin saw him spring on to the Hanbridge car as it swept down the hill. The man would not have been interested in the news that Darius Clayhanger had been to business for the last time. Edwin was glad of the incident because it had preserved him from embarra.s.sed conversation with Stifford. Two hours earlier he had called for a few moments at the shop, and even then, ere Edwin had spoken, Stifford's face showed that he knew something sinister had occurred. With a few words of instruction to Stifford, he now went through towards the workshops to speak with Big James about the Bostock order.

All the workmen and apprentices were self-conscious. And Edwin could not speak naturally to Big James. When he had come to an agreement with Big James as to the execution of the order, the latter said--

"Would you step below a minute, Mr Edwin?"

Edwin shuffled. But Big James's majestic politeness gave to his expressed wish the force of a command. Edwin preceded Big James down the rough wooden stair to the ground floor, which was still pillared with supporting beams. Big James, with deliberate, careful movements, drew the trap-door horizontal as he descended.

"Might I ask, sir, if Master's in a bad way?" he inquired, with solemn and delicate calm. But he would have inquired about the weather in the same fas.h.i.+on.

"I'm afraid he is," said Edwin, glancing nervously about at the litter, and the cobwebs, and the naked wood, and the naked earth. The vibration of a treadle-machine above them put the place in a throb.

Astounding! Everybody knew or guessed everything! How?

Big James wagged his head and his grandiose beard, now more grey than black, and he fingered his ap.r.o.n.

"I believe in herbs myself," said Big James. "But this here softening of the brain--well--"

That was it! Softening of the brain! What the doctor had not told him he had learned from Big James. How it happened that Big James was in a position to tell him he could not comprehend. But he was ready now to believe that the whole town had acquired by magic the information which fate or original stupidity had kept from him alone... Softening of the brain!

"Perhaps I'm making too bold, sir," Big James went on. "Perhaps it's not so bad as that. But I did hear--"

Edwin nodded confirmingly.

"You needn't talk about it," he murmured, indicating the first floor by an upward movement of the head.

"That I shall not, sir," Big James smoothly replied, and proceeded in the same bland tone: "And what's more, never will I raise my voice in song again! James Yarlett has sung his last song."

There was silence. Edwin, accustomed though he was to the mildness of Big James's deportment, did not on the instant grasp that the man was seriously announcing a solemn resolve made under deep emotion. But as he understood, tears came into Edwin's eyes, and he thrilled at the swift and dramatic revelation of the compositor's feeling for his employer. Its impressiveness was overwhelming and it was humbling. Why this excess of devotion?

"I don't say but what he had his faults like other folk," said Big James. "And far be it from me to say that you, Mr Edwin, will not be a better master than your esteemed father. But for over twenty years I've worked for him, and now he's gone, never will I lift my voice in song again!"

Edwin could not reply.

"I know what it is," said Big James, after a pause.

"What what is?"

"This ce-re-bral softening. You'll have trouble, Mr Edwin."

"The doctor says not."

"You'll have trouble, if you'll excuse me saying so. But it's a good thing he's got you. It's a good thing for Miss Maggie as she isn't alone with him. It's a providence, Mr Edwin, as you're not a married man."

"I very nearly was married once!" Edwin cried, with a sudden uncontrollable outburst of feeling which staggered while it satisfied him. Why should he make such a confidence to Big James? Between his pleasure in the relief, and his extreme astonishment at the confession, he felt as it were lost and desperate, as if he did not care what might occur.

"Were you now!" Big James commented, with an ever intensified blandness. "Well, sir, I thank you."

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOUR.

THE VICTIM OF SYMPATHY.

On the same evening, Edwin, Albert Benbow, and Darius were smoking Albert's cigarettes in the dining-room. Edwin sat at the end of a disordered supper-table, Albert was standing, hat in hand, near the sideboard, and Darius leaned against the mantelpiece. n.o.body could have supposed from his appearance that a doctor had responsibly prophesied this man's death within two years. Except for a shade of sadness upon his face, he looked the same as he had looked for a decade. Though regarded by his children as an old man, he was not old, being in fact still under sixty. His grey hair was spa.r.s.e; his spectacles were set upon his nose with the negligence characteristic of age; but the down-pointing moustache, which, abetted by his irregular teeth, gave him that curious facial resemblance to a seal, showed great force, and the whole of his stiff and st.u.r.dy frame showed force. His voice, if not his mouth, had largely recovered from the weakness of the morning.

Moreover, the fas.h.i.+on in which he smoked a cigarette had somehow the effect of rejuvenating him. It was Albert who had induced him to smoke cigarettes occasionally. He was not an habitual smoker, consuming perhaps half an ounce a week of pipe-tobacco: and a.s.suredly he would never of his own accord have tried a cigarette. For Darius cigarettes were aristocratic and finicking; they were an affectation. He smoked a cigarette with the self-consciousness which usually marks the consumption of champagne in certain strata of society. His gestures, as he examined from time to time the end of the cigarette, or audibly blew forth spreading clouds, seemed to signify that in his opinion he was going the pace, cutting a dash, and seeing life. This naivete had its charm.

The three men, left alone by their women, were discussing politics, which then meant nothing but the subject of Home Rule. Darius agreed almost eagerly with everything that Albert Benbow said. Albert was a calm and utterly sound Conservative. He was one of those politicians whose conviction of rightness is so strong that they cannot help condescending towards an opponent. Albert would say persuasively to Liberal acquaintances: "Now just think a moment!" apparently sure that the only explanation of their misguided views was that they never had thought for a moment. Or he would say: "Surely all patriotic Liberals--" But one day when Edwin had said to him with a peculiar accent: "Surely all patriotic Conservatives--" he had been politely offended for the rest of the evening, and Edwin and he had not mentioned politics to each other for a long time. Albert had had much influence over his father-in-law. And now Albert said, after Darius had concurred and concurred--

"You're one of the right sort, after all, old gentleman."

Throughout the evening he had spoken to Darius in an unusually loud voice, as though it was necessary to shout to a man who had only two years to live.

"All I say is," said Darius, "country before party!"

"Why, of course!" Albert smiled, confident and superior. "Haven't I been telling you for years you're one of us?"

Edwin, too, smiled, as superiorly as he could, but unhappily not with sufficient superiority to wither Albert's smile. He said nothing, partly from timid discretion, but partly because he was preoccupied with the thought of the malignant and subtle power working secretly in his father's brain. How could the doctor tell? What was the process of softening? Did his father know, in that sick brain of his, that he was condemned; or did he hope to recover? Now, as he leaned against the mantelpiece, protruding his body in an easy posture, he might have been any ordinary man, and not a victim; he might have been a man of business relaxing after a long day of hard and successful cerebral activity.

It seemed strange to Edwin that Albert could talk as he did to one whom destiny had set apart, to one whose being was the theatre of a drama so mysterious and tragic. Yet it was the proper thing for Albert to do, and Albert did it perfectly, better than anybody, except possibly Maggie.

"Those women take a deuce of a time putting their bonnets on!" Albert exclaimed.

TWO.

The women came downstairs at last. At last, to Edwin's intense relief, every one was going. Albert went into the hall to meet the women.

Edwin rose and followed him. And Darius came as far as the door of the dining-room. Less than twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed since Edwin had begun even to suspect any sort of disaster to his father. But the previous night seemed an age away. The day had been interminable, and the evening exasperating in the highest degree. What an evening! Why had Albert and Clara and Auntie Hamps all of them come up just at supper-time? At first they would not be persuaded! No! They had just called--sheer accident!--nothing abnormal! And yet the whole of the demeanour of Auntie Hamps and Clara was abnormal. Maggie herself, catching the infection, had transformed the meal into a kind of abnormal horrible feast by serving cold beef and pickles--flesh-meat being unknown to the suppers of the Clayhangers save occasionally on Sundays.

Edwin could not comprehend why the visitors had come. That is to say, he understood the reason quite well, but hated to admit it. They had come from a mere gluttony of curiosity. They knew all that could be known--but still they must come and gaze and indulge their lamentable hearts, and repeat the same things again and again, ten million times!

Auntie Hamps, indeed, probably knew more than Edwin did, for she had thought fit to summon Dr Heve that very afternoon for an ailment of her own, and Clara, with an infant or so, had by a remarkable coincidence called at Mrs Hamps's house just after the doctor left. "Odious,"

thought Edwin.

These two had openly treated Darius as a martyr, speaking to him in soft and pitiful voices, urging him to eat, urging him to drink, caressing him, soothing him, humouring him; pretending to be brave and cheerful and optimistic, but with a pretence so poor, so wilfully poor, that it became an insult. When they said fulsomely, "You'll be perfectly all right soon if only you'll take care and do as the doctor says," Edwin could have risen and killed them both with hearty pleasure. They might just as well have said, "You're practically in your grave." And a.s.suredly they were not without influence on Maggie's deportment. The curious thing was that it was impossible to decide whether Darius loathed, or whether he liked, to be so treated. His face was an enigma.

However, he was less gloomy.

Then also the evening had necessarily been full of secret conferences.

What would you? Each had to relate privately the things that he or she knew or had heard or had imagined. And there were questions of urgency to be discussed. For example the question of the specialist. They were all positively agreed, Edwin found, that a specialist was unnecessary.

Darius was condemned beyond hope or argument. There he sat, eating and talking, in the large, fine house that he had created out of naught, looking not at all like a corpse; but he was condemned. The doctor had convinced them. Besides, did not everybody know what softening of the brain was? "Of course, if he thinks he would prefer to have a specialist, if he has the slightest wish--" This from Auntie Hamps.

There was the question, further, of domestic service. Mrs Nixon's niece had committed the folly of marriage, and for many months Maggie and the old servant had been 'managing;' but with a crotchety invalid always in the house, more help would be indispensable. And still further--should Darius be taken away for a period to the sea, or Buxton, or somewhere? Maggie said that nothing would make him go, and Clara agreed with her. All these matters, and others, had to be kept away from the central figure; they were all full of pa.s.sionate interest, and they had to be debated, in tones hushed but excited, in the hall, in the kitchen, upstairs, or anywhere except in the dining-room. The excuses invented by the conspiring women for quitting and entering the dining-room, their fatuous air of innocent simplicity, disgusted Edwin.

And he became curter and curter, as he noticed the new deference which even Clara practised towards him.