IV
On the evening of the following day, Mr. Edmund Melrose arrived inPengarth by train from London, hired a one-horse wagonette, and drove outto the Tower.
His manners were at no time amiable, but the man who had the honour ofdriving him on this occasion, and had driven him occasionally before, hadnever yet seen him in quite so odious a temper. This was already evidentat the time of the start from Pengarth, and thenceforward the cautiousCumbrian preserved an absolute and watchful silence, to the greatannoyance of Melrose, who would have welcomed any excuse for ill-humour.But as nothing beyond the curtest monosyllables were to be got out of hiscompanion, and as the rich beauty of the May landscape was entirely lostupon himself, Melrose was reduced at last in the course of his ten miles'drive to scanning once more the copy of the _Times_ which he had broughtwith him from the south. The news of various strikes and industrialarbitrations which it contained had already enraged him; and enraged himagain as he looked through it. The proletariat, in his opinion, must beput down and kept down; that his own class began to show a lamentablewant of power to do either was the only public matter that ever reallytroubled him. So far as his life was affected by the outside world atall, except as a place where auctions took place, and dealers' shopsabounded, it was through this consciousness of impending social disaster,this terror as of a rapidly approaching darkness bearing the doom of themodern world in its bosom, which intermittently oppressed him, as it hasoppressed and still overshadows innumerable better men of our day.
At this moment, in the month of May, 190--, Edmund Melrose had justpassed his seventieth birthday. But the extraordinary energy and vivacityof his good looks had scarcely abated since the time when, twenty-threeyears before this date, Netta Smeath had first seen him in Florence;although his hair had whitened, and the bronzed skin of the face haddeveloped a multitude of fine wrinkles that did but add to its character.His aspect, even on the threshold of old age, had still something of themagnificence of an Italian captain of the Renaissance, something also ofthe pouncing, peering air that belongs to the type. He seemed indeed tobe always on the point of seizing or appropriating some booty or other.His wandering eyes, his long acquisitive fingers, his rapid movementsshowed him still the hunter on the trail, to whom everything else was intruth indifferent but the satisfaction of an instinct which had grown andflourished on the ruins of a man.
As they drove along, through various portions of the Tower estates, theeyes of the taciturn driver beside him took note of the dilapidated farmbuildings and the broken gates which a miserly landlord could not beinduced to repair, until an exasperated tenant actually gave notice.Melrose meanwhile was absorbed in trying to recover a paragraph in the_Times_ he had caught sight of on a first reading, and had then lost inthe excitement of studying the prices of a sale at Christie's, held theday before, wherein his own ill luck had led to the bad temper from whichhe was suffering. He tracked the passage at last. It ran as follows:
"The late Professor William Mackworth has left the majority of his costlycollections to the nation. To the British Museum will go the marbles andbronzes, to the South Kensington, the china and the tapestries. ProfessorMackworth made no stipulations, and the authorities of both museums arefree to deal with his bequests as they think best."
Melrose folded the newspaper and put it back into his pocket with a shortsudden laugh, which startled the man beside him. "Stipulations! I shouldrather think not! What museum in its senses would accept such pifflingstuff with any _stipulations_ attached? As it is, the greater part willgo into the lumber-rooms; they'll never show them! There's only onecollection that Mackworth ever had that was worth having. Not a wordabout _that_. People don't give their best things to the country--notthey. Hypocrites! What on earth has he done with them? There are severalthings _I want_."
And he fell into a long and greedy meditation, in which, as usual, hisfancy pursued a quarry and brought it down. He took no notice meanwhileof the objects passed as they approached the Tower, although among themwere many that might well have roused the attention of a landlord; as,for instance, the condition of the long drive leading up to the house,with its deep ruts and grass-grown sides; a tree blown down, notapparently by any very recent storm, and now lying half across theroadway, so that the horse and carriage picked their way with difficultyround its withered branches; one of the pillars of the fine gateway,which gave access to the walled enclosure round the house, broken away;and the enclosure within, which had been designed originally as a formalgarden in the Italian style, and was now a mere tangled wilderness ofweeds and coarse grass, backed by dense thickets of laurel and yew whichhad grown up in a close jungle round the house, so that many of the lowerwindows were impenetrably overgrown.
As they drew up at the gate, the Pengarth driver looked with furtivecuriosity at the house-front. Melrose, in the words of Lydia to youngFaversham, had "become a legend" to his neighbourhood, and many strangethings were believed about him. It was said that the house contained anumber of locked and shuttered rooms which were never entered; thatMelrose slept by day, and worked or prowled by night; that his onlyservants were the two Dixons, no one else being able to endure hiscompany; that he and the house were protected by savage dogs, and thathis sole visitors were occasional strangers from the south, who arrivedwith black bags, and often departed pursued with objurgations by Melrose,and in terror of the dogs. It was said also that the Tower was full ofprecious and marvellous things, including hordes of gold and silver; thatMelrose, who was detested in the countryside, lived in the constant dreadof burglary or murder; and finally--as a clue to the whole situationwhich the popular mind insisted on supplying--that he had committed somefearful crime, during his years in foreign parts, for which he could notbe brought to justice; but remorse and dread of discovery had affectedhis brain, and turned him into a skulking outcast.
Possessed by these simple but interesting ideas, the Pengarth man sharplynoticed, first that the gate of the enclosure was padlocked, Melrosehimself supplying a key from his pocket; next that most of the windows ofthe front were shuttered; and lastly--strange and unique fact, accordingto his own recollections of the Tower--that two windows on the groundfloor were standing wide open, giving some view of the large room within,so far as two partially drawn curtains allowed. As Melrose unlocked thegate, the house door opened, and three huge dogs came bounding out, infront of a gray-haired man, whom the driver of the wagonette knew to be"owd Dixon," Melrose's butler and factotum. The driver was watching thewhole scene with an absorbed curiosity, when Melrose turned, threw him asudden look, paid him, and peremptorily bade him be off. He had thereforeno time to observe the perturbation of Dixon who was coming with slowsteps to meet his master; nor that a woman in white cap and apron hadappeared behind him on the steps.
* * * * *
Melrose on opening the gate found himself surrounded by his dogs, a finemastiff and two young collies. He was trying to drive them off, after agruff word to Dixon, when he was suddenly brought to a standstill by thesight of the woman on the steps.
"D----n it!--whom have you got here?" he said, fiercely perceiving at thesame moment the open windows on the ground floor.
"Muster Melrose--it's noan o' my doin'," was Dixon's trembling reply, ashe pointed a shaky finger at the windows. "It was t' yoong doctor fromPengarth--yo' ken him--"
A woman's voice interrupted.
"Please, sir, would you stop those dogs barking? They disturb thepatient."
Melrose looked at the speaker in stupefaction.
"What the deuce have you been doing with my house?"--he turned furiouslyto Dixon--"who are these people?"
"Theer's a yoong man lyin' sick i' the drawin'-room," said Dixondesperately. "They do say 'at he's in a varra parlish condition; an' theytell me there's to be no barkin' nor noise whativer."
"Well, upon my word!" Melrose was by this time pale with rage. "A youngman--sick--in my drawing-room!--and a young woman giving orders in myhouse!--you're a prec
ious lot--you are!" He strode on toward the youngwoman, who, as he now saw, was in the dress of a nurse. She had descendedthe steps, and was vainly trying to quiet the dogs.
"I'll uphold yer!" muttered Dixon, following slowly after; "it's thequeerest do-ment that iver I knew!"
"Madam! I should like to know what your business is here. I never invitedyou that I know of, and I am entirely at a loss to understand yourappearance in my house!"
The girl whom Melrose addressed with this fierce mock courtesy turned onhim a perplexed face.
"I know nothing about it, sir, except that I was summoned from Manchesterlast night to an urgent case, and arrived early this morning. Can't you,sir, quiet your dogs? Mr. Faversham is very ill."
"In _my_ house!" cried Melrose, furiously. "I won't have it. He shan'tremain here. I will have him removed."
The girl looked at him with amazement.
"That, sir, would be quite impossible. It would kill him to move him._Please_, Mr. Dixon, help me with the dogs."
She turned imploringly to Dixon, who obediently administered variouskicks and cuffs to the noisy trio which at last procured silence.
Her expression lightened, and with the professional alertness of one whohas no time to spend in gossiping, she turned and went quickly back intothe house.
Dixon approached his master.
"That's yan o' them," he said, gloomily. "T'other's inside."
"T'other who?--what? Tell me, you old fool, at once what the whole cursedbusiness is! Are you mad or am I?"
Dixon eyed him calmly. He had by this time summoned to his aid thesemi-mystical courage given him occasionally by his evangelical faith. Ifit was the Lord's will that such a thing should happen, why it was theLord's will; and it was no use whatever for Mr. Melrose or any one elseto kick against the pricks. So with much teasing deliberation, andconstantly interrupted by his angry master, he told the story of theaccident on the evening before, of Doctor Undershaw's appearance on thescene, and of the storming of the Tower.
"Well, of all the presuming rascals!" said Melrose with slow fury, underhis breath, when the tale was done. "But we'll be even with him! Send aman from the farm, at once, to the cottage hospital at Whitebeck. They'vegot an ambulance--I commission it. It's a hospital case. They shall seeto it. Be quick! March!--do you hear?--I intended to quit of them--bagand baggage!"
Dixon did not move.
"Doctor said if we were to move un now, it 'ud be manslaughter," he saidstolidly, "an' he'd have us 'op."
"Oh, he would, would he!" roared Melrose, "I'll see to that. Go along,and do what you're told. D----n it! am I not to be obeyed, sir?"
Wherewith he hurried toward the house. Dixon looked after him, shook hishead, and instead of going toward the farm, quietly retreated round thefarther corner of the house to the kitchen. He was the only person at theTower who had ever dared to cross Melrose. He attempted it but rarely;but when he did, Melrose was each time freshly amazed to discover that,in becoming his factotum, Dixon had not altogether ceased to be a man.
Melrose entered the house by the front door. As he walked into the hall,making not the slightest effort to moderate the noise of his approach,another woman--also in white cap and apron--ran toward him, with quicknoiseless steps from the corridor, her finger on her lip.
"Please, sir!--it is most important for the patient that the house shouldbe absolutely quiet."
"I tell you the house is mine!" said Melrose, positively stamping. "Whatbusiness have you--or the other one--to give orders in it? I'll turn youall out!--you shall march, I tell you!"
The nurse--an older woman than the first who had spoken to himoutside--drew back with dignity.
"I am sorry if I offended you, sir. I was summoned from Carlisle thismorning as night nurse to an urgent case. I have been helping the othernurse all day, for Mr. Faversham has wanted a great deal of attention. Iam now just going on duty, while the day nurse takes some rest."
"Show me where he is," said Melrose peremptorily. "I wish to see him."
The nurse hesitated. But if this was really the master of the house, itwas difficult to ignore him entirely. She looked at his feet.
"You'll come in quietly, sir? I am afraid--your boots--"
"Oh, go on! Order me about! What's wrong with my boots?" The pale grinwas meant for sarcasm.
"They're rather heavy, sir, for a sick-room. Would you--would youmind--taking them off?"
"Upon my word, you're a cool one!"
But there was something in the quiet self-possession of the woman whichcoerced, while it exasperated him. He perceived plainly that she took himfor a madman to be managed. Yet, after glaring at her for a moment, hesat down fuming, and removed his boots. She smiled.
"That'll do nicely, sir. Now if you don't mind coming _very_ quietly--"
She glided to the door of the drawing-room, opened it noiselessly andbeckoned to Melrose. He went in, and, against his will, he went ontiptoe, and holding his breath.
Inside, he looked round the darkened room in angry amazement. It had beenwholly transformed. The open windows had been cleaned and curtained; theoak floor shone as though it had been recently washed; there was a tableon which were medicine bottles and glasses, with a chair or two; while inthe centre of the room, carefully screened from light, was a white bed.Upon it, a motionless form.
"Poor young fellow!" whispered the nurse, standing beside Melrose, herkind face softening. "He has been conscious a little to-day--the doctoris hopeful. But he has been very badly hurt."
Melrose surveyed him--the interloper!--who represented to him at thatmoment one of those unexpected checks and annoyances in life, whichselfish men with strong wills cannot and do not attempt to bear. Hisprivacy, his habits, his freedom--all at the mercy of this white-facedboy, these two intolerable women, and the still more intolerable doctor,on whom he intended to inflect a stinging lesson! No doubt the wholething had been done by the wretched pill-man with a view to his own fees.It was a plant!--an infamous conspiracy.
He came closer. Not a boy, after all. A young man of thirty--perhapsmore. The brow and head were covered with bandages; the eyes were closed;the bloodless mouth hung slightly open, with a look of pain. Thecomeliness of the dark, slightly bearded face was not entirely disguisedby the dressings in which the head was swathed; and the chest and arms,from which the bedclothes had been folded back, were finely, thoughsparely, moulded. Melrose, whose life was spent among artistic objectswas not insensible to the young man's good looks, as they were visibleeven under his bandages and in the dim light, and for the first time hefelt a slight stir of pity.
He left the room, beckoning to the night nurse.
"What's his name?"
"We took some cards from his pocket. I think, sir, the doctor put themhere for you to see."
The nurse went to the hall table and brought one.
"Claude Faversham, 5 Temple Buildings, E.C."
"Some young loafer, pretending to be a barrister," said Melrosecontemptuously. "What's he doing here--in May? This is not the touristseason. What business had he to be here at all? I have no doubt whateverthat he was drunk, otherwise why should he have had an accident? Nobodyelse ever had an accident on that hill. Why should he, eh? Why should he?And how the deuce are we to get at his relations?"
The nurse could only reply that she had no ideas on the subject, and hadhardly spoken when the sound of wheels outside brought a look of reliefto her face.
"That's the ice," she said, rejoicingly. "We sent for it to Pengarth thisafternoon."
And she fled on light steps to the front door.
"Sent whom? _My_ man--_My_ cart!" growled Melrose, following her, toverify the outrage with his own eyes. And there indeed at the steps stoodthe light cart, the only vehicle which the master of the Tower possessed,driven by his only outdoor servant, Joe Backhouse, who had succeededDixon as gardener. It was full of packages, which the nurse was eagerlytaking out, comparing them with a list she held in her hand.
"And of course I'm to p
ay for them!" thought Melrose furiously. No doubthis credit has been pledged up to the hilt already for this intruder,this beggar at his gates by these impertinent women. He stood therewatching every packet and bundle with which the nurse was loading herstrong arms, feeling himself the while an utterly persecuted and injuredbeing, the sport of gods and men; when the sight of a motor turning thecorner of the grass-grown drive, diverted his thoughts.
The doctor--the arch-villain of the plot!
Melrose bethought himself a moment. Then he went along the corridor tohis library, half expecting to see some other invader ensconced in hisown chair. He rang the bell and Dixon hurriedly appeared.
"Show Doctor Undershaw in here."
And standing on the rug, every muscle in his tall and still vigorousframe tightening in expectation of the foe, he looked frowning round thechaos of his room. Pictures, with or without frames, and frames withoutpictures; books in packing-cases with hinged sides, standing piled oneupon another, some closed and some with the sides open and showing thebooks within; portfolios of engravings and drawings; inlaid or ivoryboxes, containing a medley of objects--miniatures, snuff-boxes, buttons,combs, seals; vases and plates of blue and white Nankin; an Italianstucco or two; a Renaissance bust in painted wood; fragments of stuff,cabinets, chairs, and tables of various dates and styles--all weregathered together in one vast and ugly confusion. It might have been a_salone_ in one of the big curiosity shops of Rome or Venice, where thewrecks and sports of centuries are heaped into the _piano nobile_ ofsome great building, once a palazzo, now a chain of lumber rooms. Forhere also, the large and stately library, with its nobly designedbookcases--still empty of books--its classical panelling, and embossedceiling, made a setting of which the miscellaneous plunder within it wasnot worthy. A man of taste would have conceived the beautiful room itselfas suffering from the disorderly uses to which it was put.
Only, in the centre, the great French table, the masterpiece of Riesener,still stood respected and unencumbered. It held nothing but a Sevresinkstand and pair of candle-sticks that had once belonged to MadameElisabeth. Mrs. Dixon dusted it every morning, with a feather brush,generally under the eyes of Melrose. He himself regarded it with afanatical veneration; and one of the chief pleasures of his life was tobeguile some passing dealer into making an offer for it, and thencontemptuously show him the door.
"Doctor Undershaw, Muster Melrose."
Melrose stood to arms.
A young man entered, his step quick and decided. He was squarely built,with spectacled gray eyes, and a slight brown moustache on an otherwisesmooth face. He looked what he was--competent, sincere, and unafraid.
Melrose did not move from his position as the doctor approached, andbarely acknowledged his bow. Behind the sarcasm of his voice the innerfury could be felt.
"I presume, sir, you have come to offer me your apologies?"
Undershaw looked up.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Melrose, to have inconvenienced you and yourhousehold. But really after such an accident there was nothing else to bedone. I am certain you would have done the same yourself. When I firstsaw him, the poor fellow was in a dreadful state. The only thing to dowas to carry him into the nearest shelter and look after him. It was--Iassure you--a case of life and death."
Melrose made an effort to control himself, but the situation was too muchfor him.
He burst out, storming:
"I wonder, sir, that you have the audacity to present yourself to me atall. Who or what authorized you, I should like to know, to takepossession of my house, and install this young man here? What have I todo with him? He has no claim on me--not the hundredth part of a farthing!My servant tells me he offered to help you carry him to the farm, whichis only a quarter of a mile distant. That of course would have been thereasonable, the gentlemanly thing to do, but just in order to insult me,to break into the privacy of a man who, you know, has always endeavouredto protect himself and his life from vulgar tongues and eyes, you mustneeds browbeat my servants, and break open my house. I tell you, sir,this is a matter for the lawyers! It shan't end here. I've sent for anambulance, and I'll thank you to make arrangements at once to remove thisyoung man to some neighbouring hospital, where, I understand, he willhave every attention."
Melrose, even at seventy, was over six feet, and as he stood toweringabove the little doctor, his fine gray hair flowing back from strongaquiline features, inflamed with a passion of wrath, he made asufficiently magnificent appearance. Undershaw grew a little pale, but hefronted his accuser quietly.
"If you wish him removed, Mr. Melrose, you must take the responsibilityyourself, I shall have nothing to do with it--nor will the nurses."
"What do you mean, sir? You get yourself and me into this d----d hobble,and then you refuse to take the only decent way out of it! I requestyou--I command you--as soon as the Whitebeck ambulance comes, to removeyour patient _at once_, and the two women who are looking after him."
Undershaw slipped his hands into his pockets. The coolness of the gesturewas not lost on Melrose.
"I regret that for a few days to come I cannot sanction anything of thekind. My business, Mr. Melrose, as a doctor, is not to kill people, but,if I can, to cure them."
"Don't talk such nonsense to me, sir! Every one knows that any seriouscase can be safely removed in a proper ambulance. The whole thing ismonstrous! By G--d, sir, what law obliges me to give up my house to a manI know nothing about, and a whole tribe of hangers-on, besides?"
And, fairly beside himself, Melrose struck a carved chest, standingwithin reach, a blow which made the china and glass objects huddled uponit ring again.
"Well," said Undershaw slowly, "there is such a thing as--a law ofhumanity. But I imagine if you turn out that man against my advice, andhe dies on the road to hospital, that some other kind of law might havesomething to say to it."
"You refuse!"
The shout made the little doctor, always mindful of his patient, lookbehind him, to see that the door was closed.
"He cannot be moved for three or four days," was the firm reply. "Thechances are that he would collapse on the road. But as soon as ever thething is possible you shall be relieved of him. I can easily findaccommodation for him at Pengarth. At present he is suffering from verysevere concussion. I hope there is not actual brain lesion--but there maybe. And, if so, to move him now would be simply to destroy his chance ofrecovery."
The two men confronted each other, the unreasonable fury of the one metby the scientific conscience of the other. Melrose was dumfounded by themingled steadiness and audacity of the little doctor. His mad self-will,his pride of class and wealth, surviving through all his eccentricities,found it unbearable that Undershaw should show no real compunctionwhatever for what he had done, nay, rather, a quiet conviction that, rageas he might, the owner of Threlfall Tower would have to submit. It wasindeed the suggestion in the doctor's manner, of an unexplainedcompulsion behind--ethical or humanitarian--not to be explained, butsimply to be taken for granted, which perhaps infuriated Melrose morethan anything else.
Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose suddenly realizedthat the man was right. He would have to submit. For many reasons, hecould not--at this moment in particular--excite any fresh hue and crywhich might bring the whole countryside on his back. Unless the doctorwere lying, and he could get another of the craft to certify it, he wouldhave to put up--for the very minimum of time--with the intolerable plagueof this invasion.
He turned away abruptly, took a turn up and down the only free space theroom contained, and returned.
"Perhaps you will kindly inform me, sir--since you have been goodenough to take this philanthropic business on yourself--or rather toshovel it on to me"--each sarcastic word was flung like a javelin atthe doctor--"whether you know anything whatever of this youth you arethrusting upon me? I don't imagine that he has dropped from the skies! Ifyou don't know, and haven't troubled yourself to find out, I shall setthe police on at once, track his friends, and hand hi
m over!"
Undershaw was at once all civility and alacrity.
"I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. Melrose, where I wasthis morning. He was staying, it appears, with some friends at theVictoria Hotel--a Mr. and Mrs. Ransom, Americans. The hotel peoplethought that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken themthrough the Lakes, and had then seen them off for the south. He himselfwas on his way to Scotland to fish. He had sent his luggage to Pengarthby rail, and chose to bicycle, himself, through the Vale of St. John,because the weather was so fine. He intended to catch a night train onthe main line."
"Just as I supposed! Idle scapegrace!--with nothing in the world to dobut to get himself and other people into trouble!"
"You saw the card that I left for you on the hall table? But there issomething else that we found upon him in undressing him which I shouldgreatly prefer, if I might, to hand over to your care. You, I have nodoubt, understand such things. They seem to be valuable, and neitherthe nurses nor I at all wish to have charge of them. There is aring"--Undershaw searched his pockets--"and this case."
He held out two small objects. Melrose--still breathing quick withanger--took them unwillingly. With the instinctive gesture of thecollector, however, he put up his eyeglass to look at the ring. Undershawsaw him start.
"Good heavens!"
The voice was that of another man. He looked frowning at Undershaw.
"Where did you get this?"
"He wore it on his left hand. It is sharp as you see, and rather large,and the nurse was afraid, while he is still restless and sometimesdelirious, he might do himself some hurt with it."
Melrose opened the case--a small flat case of worn green leather some sixinches long; and looked at its contents in a speechless amazement. Thering was a Greek gem of the best period--an Artemis with the toweredcrown, cut in amethyst. The case contained six pieces,--two cameos, andfour engraved gems--amethyst, cornelian, sardonyx, and rock crystal;which Melrose recognized at once as among the most precious things ofthis kind in the world! He turned abruptly, walked to his writing-table,took out the gems, weighed them in his hand, examined them with amagnifying glass, or held them to the light, muttering to himself, andapparently no longer conscious of the presence of Undershaw.Recollections ran about his brain: "Mackworth showed me that Medusahimself last year in London. He bought that Mars at the Castellani sale.And that's the Muse which that stupid brute Vincent had my commissionfor, and let slip through his fingers at the Arconati sale!"
Undershaw observed him, with an amusement carefully concealed. He hadsuspected from the beginning that in these possessions of the poorstricken youth means might be found for taming the formidable master ofthe Tower. For himself he scorned "la curiosite," and its devotees, asmere triflers and shell-gatherers on shores bathed by the great ocean ofscience. But like all natural rulers of men he was quick to seize on anyweakness that suited his own ends; and he said to himself that Favershamwas safe.
"They are valuable?" he asked, as Melrose still sat absorbed.
"They are," was the curt reply.
"I am glad they have fallen into such good hands. They show I think"--thespeaker smiled amicably--"that we have not to do with any mere pennilessadventurer. His friends are probably at this moment extremely anxiousabout him. I hope we may soon get some clue to them. Now"--the voicesharpened to the practical note--"may I appeal to you, Mr. Melrose, tomake arrangements for the nurses as soon as is convenient to you. Theirwants are very simple--two beds--plain food--small amount ofattendance--and some means of communicating without too much delay withmyself, or the chemist. I promise they shall give as little trouble aspossible!"
Melrose rose slowly without replying. He took a bunch of keys from ispocket, and opened one of the drawers in the Riesener table. As he didso, the drawer, under a stream of sunset light from the window beyond it,seemed to give out a many-coloured flash--a rapid Irislike effect, lostin a moment. The impression made on Undershaw was that the drawer alreadycontained gems like those in the case--or jewels--or both.
Melrose seemed to have opened the drawer in a fit of abstraction duringwhich he had forgotten Undershaw's presence. But, if so, the act rousedhim, and he looked round half angrily, half furtively at his visitor, ashe hastily relocked the drawer.
Then speaking with renewed arrogance, he said:
"Well, sir, I will see to these things. For to-night, I consent--forto-night only, mind you--reserving entirely my liberty of action forto-morrow."
Undershaw nodded, and they left the room together.
Dixon and Mrs. Dixon were both waiting in the passage outside, watchingfor Melrose, and hanging on his aspect. To their amazement they were toldthat a room was to be got ready for the nurses, a girl was to be fetchedto wait on them from the farm, and food was to be cooked.
The faces of both the old servants showed instant relief. Dixon wentoff to the farm, and Mrs. Dixon flew to her kitchen. She was gettingold, and the thought of the extra work to be done oppressed her.Nevertheless after these years of solitude, passed as it were in abesieged camp--Threlfall and its inmates against the world--this new andtardy contact with humanity, this momentary return to neighbourly, kindlyways brought with it a strange sweetness. And when night fell, and asubdued, scarcely perceptible murmur of life began to creep about thepassages of the old house, in general so dead and silent, Mrs. Dixonmight have been heard hoarsely crooning an old song to herself as shewent to and fro in the kitchen. All the evening she and Dixon wererestless, inventing work, when work was finished, running from yard tohouse and house to yard, calling to each other without reason, andlooking at each other with bewildered eyes. They were like beetles undera stone, when the stone is suddenly lifted.
Gradually the house sank to rest. Dixon creeping past the door of thesick-room, on his stockinged feet, could hear the moaning, the hoarseindeterminate sounds, now loud, now plaintive, made by the sufferer. Theday nurse came out with an anxious face, on her way to bed. Mr. Favershamshe said was very ill--what could be done if it did become necessary tosummon the doctor? Dixon assured her the gardener who was also the groomwas sleeping in the house, and the horse was in the stable. She had onlyto wake Mrs. Dixon--he showed her where and how. In the dark corridor,amid all its obstructive lumber, these two people who had never seen eachother before, man and woman, took anxious counsel for the help of anunconscious third, a complete stranger to both of them.
The night nurse gave a dose of morphia according to directions, and satdown on a low chair at the foot of the bed watching her patient.
About two o'clock in the morning, just as the darkness was beginning tothin, she was startled by a sound outside. She half rose, and saw thedoor open to admit a tall and gaunt figure, whom she recognized as themaster of the house.
She held up an anxious finger, but Melrose advanced in spite of it. Hisold flowered dressing-gown and gray head came within the range of thenight-light, and the nurse saw his shadow projected, grotesque andthreatening, on the white traceries of the ceiling. But he made no sound,and never looked at the nurse. He stood surveying young Faversham forsome time, as he lay hot and haggard with fever, yet sleeping under thepower of morphia. And at last, without a word, the nurse saw herformidable visitor depart.
Melrose returned to his own quarters. The window of his room was open,and outside the great mountains, in a dewy dawn, were beginning to showpurple through dim veils of silvery cloud. He stood still, looking out.His mind was churning like a yeasty sea. Old facts came to the surface;faces once familiar; the form and countenance of a brother drowned attwenty in Sandford lasher on the Oxford Thames; friends of his earlymanhood, riding beside him to hounds, or over the rolling green of theCampagna. Old instincts long suppressed, yet earlier and more primitivein him than those of the huckster and the curio-hunter, stirred uneasily.It was true that he was getting old, and had been too long alone. Hethought with vindictive bitterness of Netta, who had robbed and desertedhim. And then, again, of his involuntary guest.
&n
bsp; The strangest medley of ideas ran through his mind. Self-pity;recollections connected with habits on which he had deliberately turnedhis back some thirty years before--the normal pleasures, friendships,occupations of English society; fanatical hatred and resentment--againsttwo women in particular, the first of whom had, in his opinion,deliberately spoilt his life by a double cruelty, while the second--hiswife--whom he had plucked up out of poverty, and the dust-heap of herdisreputable relations, had ungratefully and wickedly rebelled againstand deserted him.
Also--creeping through all his thoughts, like a wandering breeze in thedark, stole again and again the chilling consciousness of old age--and ofthe end, waiting. He was fiercely tenacious of life, and his seventiethbirthday had rung a knell in his ears that still sounded. So defiantwas he of death, that he had never yet brought himself to make a will. Hewould not admit to himself that he was mortal; or make arrangements thatseemed to admit the grim fact--weakly accepted--into the citadel of astill warm life.
Yet the physical warnings of old age had not been absent. Some day hewould feel, perhaps suddenly--the thought of it sent through him a shiverof impotent revolt against the human destiny--the clutch of the masterwhom none escapes.
Vague feelings, and shapeless terrors!--only subterraneously connectedwith the wounded man lying in his house.
And yet they were connected. The advent of the unconscious youth belowhad acted on the ugly stagnation of the Threlfall life with a touch ofcrystallizing force. Melrose felt it in his own way no less than theDixons. Something seemed to have ended; and the mere change suggestedthat something might begin.
The sudden shock, indeed, of the new event, the mere interruption ofhabit, were serious matters in the psychology of a man, with whom neitherbrain nor nerves were normally attuned. Melrose moved restlessly abouthis room for a great part of the night. He could not get the haggardimage of Faversham out of his mind; and he was actually, in the end,tormented by the thought that, in spite of nurses and doctors, he mightdie.
Nonsense! One could get a specialist from Edinburgh--from London ifnecessary.
And always, by whatever road, his thoughts came back--as it wereleaping--to the gems. Amethyst, sardonyx, crystal--they twinkled andflashed through all the byways of the brain. So long as the house heldtheir owner, it held them also. Two of them he had coveted for years.They must not--they should not--be lost to him again. By what ridiculouschance had this lad got hold of them?
With the morning came a letter from a crony of Melrose's in London, anold Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, with whom he had had not a fewdealings in the past.
"Have you heard that that queer fish Mackworth has left his whole cabinetof gems to a young nephew--his sister's son, to whom they say he has beenmuch attached? Everything else goes to the British Museum and SouthKensington, and it is a queer business to have left the most preciousthing of all to a youth who in all probability has neither knowledge nortaste, and may be trusted to turn them into cash as soon as possible. Doyou remember the amethyst Medusa? I could shout with joy when I think ofit! You will be wanting to run the nephew to earth. Make haste!--orGermany or America will grab them."
But the amethyst Medusa lay safe in her green case in the drawer of theRiesener table.