From One Generation to Another Part 38

Mrs. Agar was simply stupefied. When G.o.d does mete out punishment here on earth, He does so with an overflowing measure. This devoted mother did not even evince anxiety as to the welfare of her son, for whose sake she had made so many blunders, so many futile plots.

Jem brought Arthur into the room, and led him to an arm-chair. There was that steady masterfulness in his manner which comes to those who have looked on death in many forms and whom nothing can dismay.

He offered no unnecessary a.s.sistance or advice, did not fussily loosen Arthur's necktie, or perform any of those small inappropriate offices which some would have deemed necessary under the circ.u.mstances. He knew quite well that this was no matter of a necktie or a collar.

Mrs. Agar seated herself on a sofa opposite, and slowly swayed her body backwards and forwards. She was one of those persons who can never separate mental anguish from physical pain. They have but one way of expressing both, and possibly of feeling both. Her hands were clasped on her lap, her head on one side, her lips drawn back as if in agony. She even went so far as to breathe laboriously.

Thus they remained; Jem watching Arthur, Dora watching Jem, who seemed to ignore her presence.

It was Mrs. Agar who spoke first, angrily and bitterly.

"What is the good of standing there?" she said to Jem. "Can't you find something more useful to do than that?"

Jem looked at her, first with surprise and then with something very nearly approaching contempt.

"I am waiting," he replied, "for Ruthine. He is a doctor."

"Who wants a doctor now? What is the good of a doctor now--now that Seymour is dead? I don't know what he is doing here, at any rate, meddling."

"Arthur wants a doctor," replied Jem. "Can you not see that he is in a sort of trance? He hears and sees nothing. He is quite unconscious."

Mrs. Agar seemed only half to understand. She stared at her son, swaying backwards and forwards in imbecile misery.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" she whispered, "what have we done to deserve this?"

After a few seconds she repeated the words.

"What have we done to deserve this? What have we done ..."

Her voice died away into a whisper, and when that became inaudible her lips went on moving, still framing the same words over and over again.

In this manner they waited, with that dull senselessness to the flight of time which follows on a great shock.

They all heard the clatter of horses' feet on the gravel of the avenue, and probably they all divined that Mark Ruthine had sent for medical help.

To Dora the sound brought a sudden boundless sense of relief. Amidst this mental confusion it came as a practical common-sense proof that the tension of the last year was over. The burden of her own life was by it lifted from her shoulders; for Jem was here, and nothing could matter very much now.

Presently Ruthine came into the room. As he went towards Arthur he glanced at Dora and then at Mrs. Agar, but the young fellow was evidently his first care.

While he was kneeling by the low chair examining Arthur's eyes and face, Mrs. Agar suddenly rose and crossed the room.

"Is he dead?" she said abruptly.

"Who?" inquired Mark Ruthine, without looking round.

"Seymour Michael."

"Yes."

"Quite?"

"Yes."

"Then Arthur killed him?"

"Yes."

All this while Arthur was lying back in the chair, white and lifeless.

His eyes were open, he breathed regularly, but he heard nothing that was said, nor saw anything before his eyes.

"Then," said Mrs. Agar, "that was a murder?"

She was looking out of the window, towards the stone terrace, already conscious that the scene that she had witnessed there would never be effaced from her memory while she had life.

After a little pause Mark Ruthine spoke.

"No," he answered, "it was not that. Your son was not responsible for his actions when he did it. I think I can prove that. I do not yet know what it was. It was very singular. I think it was some sort of mental aberration--temporary, I hope, and think. We will see when he recovers himself--when the circulation is restored."

While he spoke he continued to examine his patient. He spoke in his natural tone, without attempting to lower his voice, for he knew that Arthur Agar had no comprehension of things terrestrial at that time.

"It was not," he went on, "the action of a sane man. Besides, he could not have done it. In his right mind he could not have killed Seymour Michael, who was a strong man. As it is, I think that there was some sort of paralysis in Seymour Michael--a paralysis of fear. He seemed too frightened to attempt to defend himself. Besides, why should your son do it?"

"He was born hating him."

Mark Ruthine slowly turned, still upon his knees. He rose, and in his dark face there was that strange eagerness again, like the eagerness of a sportsman approaching some unknown quarry in the jungle.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Agar?" he asked.

"I mean that he was born with a hatred for that man stronger than anything that was in him. His soul was given to him full of hate for Seymour Michael. Such things are when a woman bears a child in the midst of great pa.s.sion."

"Yes," said Mark Ruthine, "I know."

"The night he was born," Mrs. Agar went on, "I first saw and spoke to that man after he had come back from India--after I had learnt what he had done."

Ruthine turned round towards Jem and Dora.

"You hear that," he said to them. "This is not the story of a mother trumped up in court to save her son. It is the truth. There are some things which we do not understand even yet. Don't forget what you have heard. It will come in usefully."

He turned to Mrs. Agar again.

"Did he know the story?" he asked.

"He never heard it until you told it just now."

"Can you swear to that, Mrs. Agar?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Ruthine, "he does not know now that you are the woman whom Seymour Michael wronged. He need never know it. The paroxysm had come on before you spoke--that was why I shouted. He was mad with hate, before you opened your lips."