The Return of the Prodigal Part 38

And there was an entry in his diary that I think beat everything he'd ever done. "May 3, 1905. Lankester died. Finished the last chapter of 'A Son of Thunder.' _Ave Frater, atque vale._"

I thought there was a fine audacity about it, but Burton said there wasn't. Audacity implied a consciousness of danger, and Wrackham had none. Burton was in despair.

"Come," I said, "there must be something in the Letters."

No, the Letters were all about himself, and there wasn't anything in _him_. You couldn't conceive the futility, the fatuity, the vanity--it was a disease with him.

"I couldn't have believed it, Simpson, if I hadn't seen him empty himself."

"But the hinterland?" I said. "How about the hinterland? That was what you were to have opened up."

"There wasn't any hinterland. He's opened himself up. You can see all there was of him. It's lamentable, Simpson, lamentable."

I said it seemed to me to be supremely funny. And he said I wouldn't think it funny if I were responsible for it.

"But you aren't," I said. "You must drop it. You can't be mixed up with _that_. The thing's absurd."

"Absurd? Absurdity isn't in it. It's infernal, Simpson, what this business will mean to me."

"Look here," I said. "This is all rot. You can't go on with it."

He groaned. "I _must_ go on with it. If I don't----"

"Antigone will hang herself?"

"No. She won't hang herself. She'll chuck me. That's how she has me, it's how I'm fixed. Can you conceive a beastlier position?"

I said I couldn't, and that if a girl of mine put me in it, by heaven, I'd chuck _her_.

He smiled. "You can't chuck Antigone," he said.

I said Antigone's att.i.tude was what I didn't understand. It was inconceivable she didn't know what the things were like. "What do you suppose she really thinks of them?"

That was it. She had never committed herself to an opinion. "You know," he said, "she never did."

"But," I argued, "you told me yourself she said they'd represent him. And they do, don't they?"

"Represent him?" He grinned in his agony. "I should think they did."

"But," I persisted, because he seemed to me to be s.h.i.+rking the issue, "it was her idea, wasn't it? that they'd justify him, give him his chance to speak, to put himself straight with _us_?"

"She seems," he said meditatively, "to have taken that for granted."

"Taken it for granted? Skittles!" I said. "She must have seen they were impossible. I'm convinced, Burton, that she's seen it all along; she's merely testing you to see how you'd behave, how far you'd go for her. You needn't worry. You've gone far enough. She'll let you off."

"No," he said, "she's not testing me. I'd have seen through her if it had been that. It's deadly serious. It's a sacred madness with her. She'll never let me off. She'll never let herself off. I've told you a hundred times it's expiation. We can't get round _that_."

"She must be mad, indeed," I said, "not to see."

"See? See?" he cried. "It's my belief, Simpson, that she hasn't seen. She's been hiding her dear little head in the sand."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "she hasn't looked. She's been afraid to."

"Hasn't looked?"

"Hasn't read the d.a.m.ned things. She doesn't know how they expose him."

"Then, my dear fellow," I said, "you've got to tell her."

"Tell her?" he cried. "If I told her she _would_ go and hang herself. No. I'm not to tell her. I'm not to tell anybody. She's got an idea that he's pretty well exposed himself, and, don't you see, I'm to wrap him up."

"Wrap him up----"

"Wrap him up, so that she can't see, so that n.o.body can see.

_That's_ what I'm here for--to edit him, Simpson, edit him out of all recognition. She hasn't put it to herself that way, but that's what she means. I'm to do my best for him. She's left it to me with boundless trust in my--my constructive imagination. Do you see?"

I did. There was no doubt that he had hit it.

"This thing" (he brought his fist down on it), "when I've finished with it, won't be Wrackham: it'll be all me."

"That's to say you'll be identified with him?"

"Identified--crucified--scarified with him. You don't suppose they'd spare me? I shall be every bit as--as impossible as he is."

"You can see all that, and yet you're going through with it?"

"I can see all that, and yet I'm going through with it."

"And they say," I remarked gently, "that the days of chivalry are dead."

"Oh, rot," he said. "It's simply that--she's worth it."

Well, he was at it for weeks. He says he never worked at anything as he worked at his Charles Wrackham. I don't know what he made of him, he wouldn't let me see. There was no need, he said, to antic.i.p.ate d.a.m.nation.

In the meantime, while it pended, publishers, with a dreadful eagerness, were approaching him from every side. For Wrackham (what was left of him) was still a valuable property, and Burton's name, known as it was, had sent him up considerably, so that you can see what they might have done with him. There had been a lot of correspondence, owing to the incredible compet.i.tion, for, as this was the last of him, there was nothing to be said against the open market; still, it was considered that his own publishers, if they "rose" properly, should have the first claim. The sum, if you'll believe me, of five thousand had been mentioned. It was indecently large, but Burton said he meant to screw them up to it. He didn't mind how high he screwed them; _he_ wasn't going to touch a penny of it. That was his att.i.tude. You see the poor fellow couldn't get it out of his head that he was doing something unclean.

It was in a fair way of being made public; but as yet, beyond an obscure paragraph in the _Publishers' Circular_, nothing had appeared about it in print. It remained an open secret.

Then Furnival got hold of it.

Whether it was simply his diabolic humor, or whether he had a subtler and profounder motive (he says himself he was entirely serious; he meant to make Burton drop it); anyhow, he put a paragraph in his paper, in several papers, announcing that Grevill Burton was engaged simultaneously on the "Life and Letters of Ford Lankester" and the "Personal Reminiscences" of Mr. Wrackham.

Furnival did nothing more than that. He left the juxtaposition to speak for itself, and his paragraph was to all appearances most innocent and decorous. But it revived the old irresistible comedy of Charles Wrackham; it let loose the young demons of the press. They were funnier about him than ever (as funny, that is, as decency allowed), having held themselves in so long over the obituary notices.

And Furnival (there I think his fine motive _was_ apparent) took care to bring their ribald remarks under Burton's notice. Furny's idea evidently was to point out to Burton that his position was untenable, that it was not fitting that the same man should deal with Mr. Wrackham and with Ford Lankester. He _had_ to keep himself clean for him. If he didn't see it he must be made to see.

He did see it. It didn't need Furnival to make him. He came to me one evening and told me that it was impossible. He had given it up.