VI
It was the tenth day since the evening when Claude Faversham had beencarried unconscious into Threlfall Tower, and the first one whichanything like clearness of mind had returned to him. Before that therehad been passing gleams and perceptions, soon lost again in the delusionsof fever, or narcotic sleep. A big room--strange faces--pain--a doctorcoming and going--intervals of misery following intervals ofnothingness--helplessness--intolerable oppression--horrible struggleswith food--horrible fear of being touched--gradually, little by little,these ideas had emerged in consciousness.
Then had followed the first moments of relief--incredibly sweet--butfugitive, soon swallowed up in returning discomfort; yet lengthening,deepening, passing by degrees into a new and tremulous sense of securityof a point gained and passed. And at last on this tenth morning--a stilland cloudy morning of early June, he found himself suddenly fully awake,and as it seemed to him once more in possession of himself. A dull, dumbanguish lay behind him, already half effaced; and the words of a psalmfamiliar at school and college ran idly through his mind: "My soul hathescaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler."
"Where am I?" Not in a hospital. Hospital ceilings are not adorned withwreaths and festoons in raised stucco, or with medallion groups of wingedchildren playing with torches, or bows and arrows.
"I have a gem like that one," he thought, sleepily.
"A genius with a torch."
Then for a long time he was only vaguely conscious of more light thanusual in the room--of an open window somewhere--of rustling leavesoutside--and of a chaffinch singing....
Another couple of days passed, and he began to question the kind womanwhom he had come to regard as a sort of strong, protective force betweenhim and anguish, without any desire to give it a name, or realize anindividual. But now he saw that he had been nursed by hands as refined asthey were skilful, and he dimly perceived that he owed his life mainly tothe wholly impersonal yet absorbed devotion of two women--gentle,firm-faced, women--who had fought death for him and won. Just aprofessional service for a professional fee; yet his debt wasmeasureless. These are the things, he feebly understood, that women dofor men; and what had been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had becomeexperience.
Actually a ray of sunshine had been allowed to penetrate the shaded room.He watched it enchanted. Flowers were on the table near him. There was adelicious sense of warmth and summer scents.
"Where am I?" He turned his bandaged head stiffly toward the nurse besidehim.
"In Threlfall Tower--the house of Mr. Edmund Melrose," she said, bendingover him.
The nurse saw him smile.
"That's queer. What happened?"
His companion gave him a short account of the accident and of Undershaw'shandling of it. Then she refused to let her patient talk any more, andleft him with instructions not to tire his head with trying to remember.He lay disconnectedly dreaming. A stream of clear water, running shallowover greenish pebbles and among stones, large and small--and some whitethings floating on it. The recollection teased him, and a slight headachewarned him to put it aside. He tried to go to sleep.
Suddenly, there floated into view a face vaguely seen, a girl's figure,in a blue dress, against a background of mountain. Who was it?--where hadhe come across her?
A few days later, when, for the first time, he was sitting up raised onpillows, and had been allowed to lift a shaking hand to help the nurse'shand as it guided a cup of soup to his lips, she said to him in her low,pleasant voice:
"Several people have been to inquire for you to-day. I'll bring you thecards."
She fetched them from a table near and read the names. "Lord Tatham, andhis mother, Lady Tatham. They've sent you flowers every day. These areDuddon roses." She held up a glass vase before him. "Mrs. Penfold andMiss Penfold."
He shook his head feebly.
"Don't know any of them."
Nurse Aston laughed at him.
"Oh, yes, you do. Lord Tatham was at college with you. He's coming to seeyou one day soon. And Miss Penfold saw you just before the accident. Shewas sketching in St. John's Vale, and you helped her fish somethingout of the water."
"By Jove!--so I did," he said, slowly. "Tatham?" He pondered. "Tell LadyTatham I'm much obliged to her."
And he went to sleep again.
The next time he woke, he saw an unfamiliar figure sitting beside him.His hold upon himself seemed to have grown much stronger. It was evening,and though the windows were still wide open a lamp had been lit.
"Are you Mr. Melrose?" he asked, amazed at the clearness of his ownvoice.
A gray-haired man moved his chair nearer.
"That's all right. You'll soon be well now. Do you feel much better?"
"I--I feel nearly well. How long have I been here?"
"About three weeks."
"I say--that's a nuisance! I'm very sorry to put you to inconvenience."
"Wasn't your fault. It was the doctor who brought you here." The tone ofthe words was round and masterful. "Are you comfortable? Have you all youwant?"
"Everything. The nurses are A1. I say--has some one written to my uncle?"
"Undershaw wrote to a Mr. George Faversham last week. He was ill withrheumatic gout, couldn't come. Is that the uncle you mean?"
The young man nodded.
"He's the only relation I've got. The other one died. Hullo!"
He made a sudden movement. His hand slipped into his breast and foundnothing. He raised himself in bed, with a frowning brow.
"I say!"--he looked urgently at Melrose. "Where are my gems?--and myring?"
"Don't trouble yourself. They were brought to me. I have them locked up."
Faversham's expression relaxed. He let himself slide down upon hispillows.
"By George!--if I'd lost them."
Melrose studied him closely.
"They're all right. What do you know about gems?"
"Only what Uncle Mackworth taught me. We were great pals. He was myguardian. I lived with him in the holidays after my parents died. I knewall his gems. And now he's left them to me."
"Where are the rest?"
"I left the cabinet in charge of a man I know at the British Museum. Hepromised to lock it up in one of their strong rooms. But those six Ialways carry with me."
Melrose laughed.
"But those are just the six that should have been locked up. They areworth all the rest."
The young man slowly turned his head.
"Did you know my Uncle Mackworth?"
"Certainly. And I too knew all his gems. I could tell you the historiesof those six, anyway, for generations. If it hadn't been for a fool of anagent of mine, your uncle would never have had the Arconati Bacchus."
Faversham was silent--evidently trying to feel his way through someinduction of thought. But he gave it up as too much for him, and merelysaid--nervously--with the sudden flush of weakness:
"I'm afraid you've been put to great expense, sir. But it's all right. Assoon as they'll let me sign a check, I'll pay my debts."
"Good gracious, don't trouble your head about that!" said Melrose rising."This house is at your disposal. Undershaw I daresay will tell you talesof me. Take 'em with a grain of salt. He'll tell you I'm mad, and Idaresay I am. I'm a hermit anyway, and I like my own society. But you'rewelcome here, as long as you've any reason to stay. I should like you toknow that I do not regard Mackworth's nephew as a stranger."
The studied amiability of these remarks struck Faversham as surprising,he hardly knew why. Suddenly, a phrase emerged in memory.
"Every one about here calls him the Ogre."
The girl by the river--was it? He could not remember. Why!--the Ogre wastame enough. But the conversation--the longest he had yet held--hadexhausted him. He turned on his side, and shut his eyes.
* * * * *
Then gradually, day by day, he came to understand the externals, at anyrate, of the situation. Undershaw gave him a guarded, though stillgraph
ic, account of how, as unconscious as the dead Cid strapped on hiswarhorse, he and his bodyguard had stormed the Tower. The jests of thenurse, as to the practical difficulties of living in such a house,enlightened him further. Melrose, it appeared, lived like a peasant, andspent like a peasant. They brought him tales of the locked rooms, of thepassages huddled and obstructed with bric-a-brac, of the standing feudsbetween Melrose and his tenants. None of the ordinary comforts of lifeexisted in the Tower, except indeed a vast warming apparatus which keptit like an oven in winter; the only personal expenditure, beyond barenecessaries, that Melrose allowed himself. Yet it was commonly believedthat he was enormously rich, and that he still spent enormously on hiscollections. Undershaw had attended a London stockbroker staying in oneof the Keswick hotels, who had told him, for instance, that Melrose waswell known to the "House" as one of the largest holders of Argentinestock in the world, and as having made also immense sums out of Canadianland and railways. "The sharpest old fox going," said the Londoner,himself, according to Undershaw, no feeble specimen of the money-makingtribe. "_His_ death duties will be worth raking in!"
Occasional gossip of this, or a more damaging kind, enlivenedconvalescence. Undershaw and the nurses had no motives for reticence.Melrose treated them uncivilly throughout; and Undershaw knew very wellthat he should never be forgiven the forcing of the house. And as he, thenurses, and the Dixons were firmly convinced that for every farthing ofthe accommodation supplied him Faversham would ultimately have to payhandsomely, there seemed to be no particular call for gratitude, or fora forbearance based upon it.
Meanwhile Faversham himself did not find the character and intentions ofhis host so easy to understand. Although very weak, and with certainserious symptoms still persisting to worry the minds of doctor and nurse,he was now regularly dressed of an afternoon, and would sit in a largearmchair--which had had to be hired from Keswick--by one of the windowslooking out on the courtyard. Punctually at tea-time Melrose appeared.And there was no denying that in general he proved himself an agreeablecompanion--a surprisingly agreeable companion. He would come slouchingin, wearing the shabbiest clothes, and a black skullcap on his flowinggray hair; looking one moment like the traditional doctor of the Italianpuppet-play, gaunt, long-fingered, long-featured, his thin, pallid face astudy in gray amid its black surroundings; and the next, playing the manof family and cosmopolitan travel, that he actually was. Faversham indeedbegan before long to find a curious attraction in his society. There wasflattery, moreover, in the fact that nobody else in living memory hadMelrose ever been known to pay anything like the attention he was nowdaily devoting to his invalid guest. The few inmates and visitors of theTower, permanent and temporary, became gradually aware of it. They wereastonished, but none the less certain that Melrose had only modified hisattitude for some selfish reason of his own which would appear in duetime.
The curious fact, however, emerged, after a while, that between the twomen, so diverse in age, history, and circumstance, there was a surprisingamount in common. Faversham, in spite of his look of youth, much impairedfor the present by the results of his accident, was not so very young; hehad just passed his thirtieth birthday, and Melrose soon discovered thathe had seen a good deal both of the natural and the human worlds. He wasthe son, it seemed, of an Indian Civil Servant, and had inherited fromhis parents, who were both dead, an income--so Melrose shrewdly gatheredfrom various indications--just sufficient to keep him; whereby a will,ambitious rather than strong, had been able to have its way. He haddabbled in many things, journalism, law, politics; had travelled a gooddeal; and was now apparently tired of miscellaneous living, and lookingout discontentedly for an opening in life--not of the common sort--thatwas somewhat long in presenting itself. He seemed to have a good manyfriends and acquaintances, but not any of overmastering importance tohim; his intellectual powers were evidently considerable, but not workingto any great advantage either for himself or society.
Altogether an attractive, handsome, restless fellow; persuaded that hewas destined to high things, hungry for them, yet not seeing how toachieve them; hungry for money also--probably as the only possible meansof achieving them--and determined, meanwhile, not to accept any secondbest he could help. It was so, at least--from the cynical point of viewof an observer who never wasted time on any other--that Melrose read him.
Incidentally he discovered that Faversham was well acquainted with thegeneral lines and procedure of modern financial speculation, was in factbetter versed in the jargon and gossip of the Stock Exchange than Melrosehimself; and had made use now and then of the large amount of informationand the considerable number of useful acquaintances he possessed tospeculate cautiously on his own account--without much result, but withoutdisaster. Also it was very soon clear that, independently of his specialreasons for knowing something about engraved gems and their value, he hadbeen, through his Oxford uncle, much brought across collectors andcollecting. He could, more or less, talk the language of the tribe, andindeed his mere possession of the famous gems had made him, willy-nilly,a member of it.
So that, for the first time in twenty years, Melrose found himselfprovided with a listener, and a spectator who neither wanted to buy fromhim nor sell to him. When a couple of vases and a statuette, captured inParis from some remains of the Spitzer sale, arrived at the Tower, it wasto Faversham's room that Melrose first conveyed them; and it was fromFaversham's mouth that he also, for the first time, accepted any remarkson his purchases that were not wholly rapturous. Faversham, with thearrogance of the amateur, thought the vases superb, and the statuettedear at the price. Melrose allowed it to be said; and next morning thestatuette started on a return journey to Paris, and the Tower knew it nomore.
Meanwhile the old collector would appear at odd moments with a lacqueredbox, or a drawer from a cabinet, and Faversham would find a languidamusement in turning over the contents, while Melrose strolled smoking upand down the room, telling endless stories of "finds" and bargains. Ofthe store, indeed, of precious or curious objects lying heaped togetherin the confusion of Melrose's den, the only treasures of a portable kindthat Faversham found any difficulty in handling were his own gems.Melrose would bring them sometimes, when the young man specially askedfor them, would keep a jealous eye on them the whole time they were intheir owner's hands, and hurry them back to their drawer in the Riesenertable as soon as Faversham could be induced to give them up.
One night the invalid made a show of slipping them back into thebreast-pocket from which they had been taken while he lay unconscious.
"I'm well enough now to look after them," he had said, smiling, to hishost. "Nurse and I will mount guard."
Whereupon Melrose protested so vehemently that the young man, in hisweakness, did not resist. Rather sulkily, he handed the case back to thegreedy hand held out for it.
Then Melrose smiled; if so pleasant a word may be applied to the queerglitter that for a moment passed over the cavernous lines of his face.
"Let me make you an offer for them," he said abruptly.
"Thank you--I don't wish to sell them."
"I mean a good offer--an offer you are not likely to getelsewhere--simply because they happen to fit into my own collection."
"It is very kind of you. But I have a sentiment about them. I have hadmany offers. But I don't intend to sell them."
Melrose was silent a moment, looking down on the patient, in whose palecheeks two spots of feverish red had appeared. Then he turned away.
"All right. Don't excite yourself, pray."
"I thought he'd try and get them out of me," thought Faversham irritably,when he was left alone. "But I shan't sell them--whatever he offers."
And vaguely there ran through his mind the phrases of a letter handed tohim by his old uncle's solicitor, together with the will: "Keep them formy sake, my dear boy; enjoy them, as I have done. You will be tempted tosell them; but don't, if you can help it. The money would be soon spent;whereas the beauty of these things, the associations connected with th
em,the thoughts they arouse--would give you pleasure for a lifetime. I haveloved you like a father, and I have left you all the little cash Ipossess. Use that as you will. But that you should keep and treasure thegems which have been so much to me, for my sake--and beauty's--would giveme pleasure in the shades--'quo dives Tullus et Ancus'--you know therest. You are ambitious, Claude. That's well. But keep you heart green."
What precisely the old fellow might have meant by those last words,Faversham had often rather sorely wondered, though not without guesses atthe answer. But anyway he had loved his adopted father; he protested it;and he would not sell the gems. They might represent his "luck"--such asthere was of it--who knew?
* * * * *
The question of removing his patient to a convalescent home at Keswickwas raised by Undershaw at the end of the third week from the accident.He demanded to see Melrose one morning, and quietly communicated the factthat he had advised Faversham to transfer himself to Keswick as soon aspossible. The one nurse now remaining would accompany him, and he,Undershaw, would personally superintend the removal.
Melrose looked at him with angry surprise.
"And pray what is the reason for such an extraordinary and unnecessaryproceeding?"
"I understood," said Undershaw, smiling, "that you were anxious to haveyour house to yourself again as soon as possible."
"I defended my house against your attack. But that's done with. And whyyou should hurry this poor fellow now into new quarters, in his presentstate, when he might stay quietly here till he is strong enough for arailway journey, I cannot conceive!"
Undershaw, remembering the first encounter between them, could notprevent his smile becoming a grin.
"I am delighted Mr. Faversham has made such a good impression on you,sir. But I understand that he himself feels a delicacy in trespassingupon you any longer. I know the house at Keswick to which I propose totake him. It is excellently managed. We can get a hospital motor fromCarlisle, and of course I shall go with him."
"Do you suggest that he has had any lack of attention here from me or myservants?" said Melrose, hotly.
"By no means. But--well, sir, I will be open with you. Mr. Faversham inmy opinion wants a change of scene. He has been in that room for threeweeks, and--he understands there is no other to which he can be moved.It would be a great advantage, too, to be able to carry him into agarden. In fact"--the little doctor spoke with the same cool frankness hehad used in his first interview with Melrose--"your house, Mr. Melrose,is a museum; but it is not exactly the best place for an invalid who isbeginning to get about again."
Melrose frowned upon him.
"What does he want, eh? More space? Another room? How many rooms do yousuppose there are in this house, eh?" he asked in a voice half hectoring,half scornful.
"Scores, I daresay," said Undershaw, quietly. "But when I inquired ofDixon the other day whether it would be impossible to move Mr. Favershaminto another room he told me that every hole and corner in the house wasoccupied by your collections, except two on the ground floor that you hadnever furnished. We can't put Mr. Faversham into an unfurnished room.That which he occupies at present is, if I may speak plainly, ratherbarer of comforts than I like."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Well, when an invalid's out of bed a pleasant and comfortable room is ahelp to him--a few things to look at on the walls--a change of chairs--abookcase or two--and so on. Mr. Faversham's present room is--I meanno offence--as bare as a hospital ward, and not so cheerful. Then as tothe garden"--Undershaw moved to a side window and pointed to theovergrown and gloomy wilderness outside--"nurse and I have tried in vainto find a spot to which we could carry him. I am afraid I must say thatan ordinary lodging-house, with a bit of sunny lawn on which he could liein his long chair, would suit him better, at his present stage, than thisfine old house."
"Luxury!" growled Melrose, "useless luxury and expense! that's what everyone's after nowadays. A man must be as _cossu_ as a pea in a pod! I'll goand speak to him myself!"
And catching up round him the sort of Tennysonian cloak he habituallywore, even in the house and on a summer day, Melrose moved imperiouslytoward the door.
Undershaw stood in his way.
"Mr. Faversham is really not fit yet to discuss his own plans, exceptwith his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise and kind of you toleave the decision of the matter to myself."
Melrose stared at him.
"Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the door of the library, heturned down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followedunwillingly. He was due at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time towaste with this old madman.
Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of keys out of hispocket, and fitted one to the last door in the passage. It opened withdifficulty. Undershaw saw dimly a large room, into which the light of arainy June day penetrated through a few chinks in the barred shutters.Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazedhis companion unshuttered and opened them all, helped by Undershaw. Oneof them was a glass door leading down by steps to the garden outside.Melrose dragged the heavy iron shutter which closed it open, and then,panting, looked round at his companion.
"Will this do for you?"
"Wonderful!" said Undershaw heartily, staring in amazement at the lovelytracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at thestately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinesewall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas, and itsbranching trees. "I never saw such a place. But what is my patient to dowith an unfurnished room?"
"Furniture!" snorted Melrose. "Have you any idea, sir, what this housecontains?"
Undershaw shook his head.
Melrose pondered a moment, and took breath. Then he turned to Undershaw.
"You are going back to Pengarth? You pass that shop, Barclay's--theupholsterer's. Tell him to send me over four men here to-morrow, to dowhat they're told. Stop also at the nurseryman's--Johnson's. No--I'llwrite. Give me three days--and you'll see."
He studied the doctor's face with his hawk's eyes.
Undershaw felt considerable embarrassment. The owner of the Towerappeared to him more of a lunatic than ever.
"Well, really, Mr. Melrose--I appreciate your kindness--as I am sure mypatient will. But--why should you put yourself out to this extent? Itwould be much simpler for everybody concerned that I should find himthe quarters I propose."
"You put it to Mr. Faversham that I am quite prepared to move him intoother quarters--and quarters infinitely more comfortable than he can getin any infernal 'home' you talk of--or I shall put it to him myself,"said Melrose, in his most determined voice.
"Of course, if you persist in asking him to stay, I suppose he mustultimately decide." Undershaw's tone betrayed his annoyance. "But I warnyou, I reserve my own right of advice. And moreover--supposing you dofurnish this room for him, allow me to point out that he will soon wantsomething else, and something more, even, than a better room. He willwant cheerful society."
"Well?" The word was challenging.
"You are most kind and indefatigable in coming to see him. But,after all, a man at his point of convalescence, and inclined to bedepressed--the natural result of such an accident--wants change,intellectual as well as physical, and society of his own age."
"What's to prevent his getting it?" asked Melrose, shortly. "When theroom is in order, he will use it exactly as he likes."
Undershaw shrugged his shoulders, anxious to escape to his consultation.
"Let us discuss it again to-morrow. I have told you what I think best."He turned to go.
"Will you give that order to Barclay?"
Undershaw laughed.
"If I do, I mustn't be taken as aiding and abetting you. But ofcourse--if you wish it."
"Ten o'clock to-morrow," said Melrose, accompanying him to the door. "Teno'clock, sharp." He stood, with raised forefinger, on the threshold ofthe newly opened
room, bowing a stiff farewell.
Undershaw escaped. But as he turned into the pillared hall, Nurse Astonhurriedly emerged from Faversham's room. She reported some fresh troublein one of the wounds on the leg caused by the accident, which had neveryet properly healed. There was some pain, and a rise in temperature.
* * * * *
The unfavourable symptoms soon subsided. But as the fear ofblood-poisoning had been in Undershaw's mind from the beginning, they ledhim to postpone, in any case, the arrangements that had been set on footfor Faversham's departure. During three or four days afterward he sawlittle or nothing of Melrose. But he and Nurse Aston were well aware thatunusual things were going on in the house. Owing to the great thicknessof the walls, the distance of Faversham's room from the scene of action,and the vigilance of his nurse, who would allow no traffic whateverthrough the front hall, the patient was protected from the noise ofworkmen in the house, and practically knew nothing of the operationsgoing on. Melrose appeared every evening as usual, and gave no hint.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Melrose met Undershaw in the hall, ashe entered the house.
"How is he?"
"All right again, I think, and doing well. I hope we shall have nofurther drawbacks."
"Be good enough to give me ten minutes--before you see Mr. Faversham?"
The invitation could not have been more _grand-seigneur_ish. Undershaw,consumed with curiosity, accepted. Melrose led the way.
But no sooner had they passed a huge lacquer screen, newly placed inposition, and turned into the great corridor, than Undershaw exclaimed inamazement. Melrose was striding along toward the south wing. Behind them,screened off, lay regions no longer visible to any one coming from thehall. In front, stretched a beautiful and stately gallery, terminating ina pillared window, through which streamed a light to which both it andthe gallery had been strangers for nearly a score of years. A mass ofthick shrubbery outside, which had grown up close to the house, and hadbeen allowed for years to block this window, together with many others onthe ground floor, had been cut sheer away. The effect was startling, andthrough the panes, freed from the dust and cobwebs of a generation, theblue distant line of the Pennines could be distinctly seen far away tothe southeast. The floor of the gallery was spread with a fine matting ofa faint golden brown, on which at intervals lay a few old Persian orIndian rugs. The white panelling of the walls was broken here and thereby a mirror, or a girandole, delicate work of the same date as theRiesener table; while halfway down two Rose du Barri tapestries facedeach other, glowing in the June sun. It was all spacious--a littleempty--the whole conception singularly refined--the colour lovely.
Melrose stalked on, silently, pulling at his beard. He made no reply toUndershaw's admiring comments; and the doctor wondered whether he wasalready ashamed of the impulse which had made him do so strange a thing.
Presently, he threw open the door he had unlocked the week before,Undershaw stepped into a room no less attractive than the galleryoutside. A carpet of old Persian, of a faded blue--a few cabinets spacedalong the walls--a few bookcases full of books old and new--a pillaredFrench clock on the mantelpiece--a comfortable modern sofa, and somearmchairs--branches of white rhododendron in a great enamelled vase--andtwo oval portraits on the walls, a gentleman in red, and a gentleman inblue, both pastels by Latour--in some such way one might have cataloguedthe contents of the room. But no catalogue could have rendered its effecton Undershaw, who was not without artistic leanings of a mild kindhimself--an effect as of an old debt paid, an injustice remedied, abeautiful creation long abused and desecrated, restored to itself. Theroom was at last what it had been meant to be; and after a hundred andfifty years the thought of its dead architect had found fruition.
But this was not all. The garden door stood open, and outside, as hewalked up to it, Undershaw saw a stretch of smooth grass, with groups oftrees--the survivors of a ragged army--encircling it; a blaze of flowers;and beyond the low parapet wall of lichened stone, from which also adense thicket of yew and laurel had been removed, the winding course ofthe river, seventy feet below the Tower, showed blue under a clear sky. Adeck chair stood on the grass and a garden table beside it, holding anash-tray and cigarettes.
Undershaw, after a pause of wonder, warmly expressed his admiration.Melrose received it ungraciously.
"Why, the things were all in the house. Clumsy brutes!--Barclay's menwould have broken the half of them, if I hadn't been here," he said,morosely. "Now will you tell Mr. Faversham this room is at his disposal,or shall I?"
* * * * *
Half an hour later Faversham, assisted by his nurse, had limped along thecorridor, and was sitting beside the glass door in an utter yet notunpleasant bewilderment. What on earth had made the strange old fellowtake such an odd fancy to him? He had had singularly little "spoiling" inhis orphaned life so far, except occasionally from "Uncle Mackworth." Theexperience was disturbing, yet certainly not disagreeable.
He must of course stay on for a while, now that such extraordinary painshad been taken for his comfort. It would be nothing less than sheeringratitude were he not to do so. At the same time, his temperament wascautious; he was no green youngster; and he could not but ask himself,given Melrose's character and reputation, what ulterior motive theremight be behind a generosity so eccentric.
Meanwhile Melrose, in high spirits, and full of complaisance, now thatthe hated Undershaw had departed, walked up and down as usual, talkingand smoking. It was evident that the whole process of unpacking histreasures had put him in a glow of excitement. The sudden interruption ofhabit had acted with stimulating power, his mind, like his home, hadshaken off some of its dust. He talked about the pictures and furniturehe had unearthed; the Latour pastels, the Gobelins in the gallery;rambling through scenes and incidents of the past, in a vivacious,egotistical monologue, which kept Faversham amused.
In the middle of it, however, he stopped abruptly, eying his guest.
"Can you write yet?"
"Pretty well. My arm's rather stiff."
"Make your nurse write some notes for you. That man--Undershaw--says youmust have some society--invite some people."
Faversham laughed.
"I don't know a soul, either at Keswick or Pengarth."
"There have been some people inquiring after you."
"Oh, young Tatham? Yes, I knew him at Oxford."
"And the women--who are they?"
Faversham explained.
"Miss Penfold seems to have recognized me from Undershaw's account. Theyare your nearest neighbours, aren't they?" He looked smiling at his host.
"I don't know my neighbours!" said Melrose, emphatically. "But as forthat young ass, Tatham--ask him to come and see you."
"By all means--if you suggest it."
Melrose chuckled.
"But he won't come, unless he knows I am safely out of the way. He and Iare not on terms, though his mother and I are cousins. I dare sayUndershaw's told you--he's thick with them. The young man has beeninsolent to me on one or two occasions. I shall have to take him down.He's one of your popularity-hunting fools. However you ask him by allmeans if you want him. He'll come to see you. Ask him Thursday. I shallbe at Carlisle for the day. Tell him so."
He paused, his dark eyeballs, over which the whites had a trick ofshowing disagreeably, fixing his visitor; then added:
"And ask the women too. I shan't bite 'em. I saw them from the windowthe day they came to inquire. The mother looked perfectly scared. Thedaughter's good looking."
Manner and tone produced a vague irritation in Faversham. But he merelysaid that he would write to Mrs. Penfold.
Two notes were accordingly despatched that evening from the Tower; one toDuddon Castle, the other to Green Cottage. Faversham had succeeded inwriting them himself; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him amuch-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the following morningto part with his nurse within a few days. "Do as you like
, inmoderation," said Undershaw, "no railway journey for a week or two."