Masterman and Son Part 10

"Typhoid, the doctor thinks."

"Can I see him?"

"It was he who told me to write you. He wants to see you."

"And you?"

"Yes, I wanted you too."

There was a tender reproach in the words, which he was quick to recognise.

"I should not have asked the question. Forgive me."

"No, you need not have asked it."

They went upstairs together. Vickars lay very straight and quiet in the bed, his face pallid, his eyes closed. He roused instantly at their entrance, and at once began to speak in a weak, eager voice.

"So you see I'm caught at last," he said with difficult cheerfulness.

"I've never had an illness--ailments, but not illness--and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's an experience that makes one humble."

"Don't talk, father. It exhausts you," said Elizabeth.

"On the contrary, it keeps me cheerful," he said, with the old whimsical smile. "Habit, I suppose. And besides, I have certain things to say to Arthur."

Elizabeth took the hint and left the room. Arthur sat beside the bed in awkward silence.

Presently Vickars said abruptly, "You love her?"

"Yes, with all my heart."

"I thought so."

He was silent for some moments. Then he said, "A month ago I suppose I should almost have hated you for that confession. She is all I have; I have always wanted to keep her wholly to myself.... I have dreaded this hour.... But I see now it is the course of nature. I may have to leave her soon--I don't know. But I'm glad now you love her. Yes, I think I'm glad, and I wished to tell you so."

"I hope you'll soon be better."

"Ah! do you? But then, you see, I might not feel the same toward you.

But there--that's irony. You know that. Honestly, I'm glad you love her."

His eyes closed, and Arthur, sitting silently beside the bed, could not but mark the change in Vickars since last he saw him. The bones of the face showed white through the stretched, transparent skin, the eyes were sunken, and new lines had been etched upon the forehead. It came to him, in a rush of pity and of admiration, that he loved this man.

And there came to him also some dim perception of the depth of that sacrifice which Vickars endured in resigning his sole jealous claim upon Elizabeth. It is seldom that young love attains to this vision.

It is all hot eagerness, imperious and intense with the overmastering impulse of s.e.x, and blind to the tendrils of old affection which it tears apart to reach its goal. But to Arthur there was granted a truer vision, a n.o.bler temper, because love in him had always had a sacred meaning, and had never been the more clamorous cry of s.e.x.

It was as though Vickars divined his thoughts. He opened his eyes, and said, "Bring me my notebook. It is lying on the table."

Arthur brought the book.

"I want to read you something. It was written by a wayward man of genius, who made many blunders both in thought and morals, but he understood love, and the one best thing in all his life was that he did know how to love. Listen. 'To love we must render up body and soul, heart and mind, all interests and all desires, all prudences and all ambitions, and identify our being with that of another.... To love is for the soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining when the path is terrible with dangers, mutually exhorting when it is rugged with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing when rich broad plains and sunny slopes make the journey a delight, showing in the quiet distance the resting-place we all seek in this world.'"

The words, beautiful in themselves, had a strange solemnity as Vickars read them. It was as though all the ages spoke in them, as though one overheard in some dim cathedral the low whispering of mult.i.tudes of lovers, confessing the ultimate secret of both life and love.

He put the book down, sank back upon his pillow, and began to talk in a low, intense voice.

"Yes, I loved like that.... A companion of the soul, that was what I found. Women are such delicate and fragile creatures, but oh! so strong--much stronger than we are; and a good woman is the strongest of all. The heavier the load you lay upon them, the happier they are. I know. I should have fallen by the way but for her. She always smiled at difficulty ... such a tender, smiling mouth she had ... like a fresh flower in the sun. Then G.o.d took her. She went smiling--her last word a word of encouragement to me, her eyes signalling courage as they closed. And Elizabeth is like her. She has carried my burdens and borne my sorrows.... Poor child! it may be I have leaned too heavily on her. Well, well. G.o.d forbid I should grudge her her right to joy.

Take her, Arthur, and don't lean too heavily upon her."

Instinctively Arthur knelt beside the bed. His eyes were full of tears. Vickars stretched out his hand, and laid it on his head. There was no need of further words.

When he next spoke, it was with his old manner of whimsical humour.

"If I must needs have a son, I don't want an idle one," he said. "I want you to help me, Arthur."

"I'll do anything I can."

"Well, this is what I want you to do. You will find the proofs of my new book downstairs on my desk. They must be corrected at once, or the book will miss the autumn season. Will you correct them for me?"

"If Elizabeth will let me," he said with a smile.

"I think she will let you. I am sure she would let no one else."

"Then I'll begin at once."

"Well, that's a load off my mind. And don't you think I'm going to die, for I'm not. But I'm in for a hard fight, there's no doubt of that. Now go to Elizabeth--and the proofs. I'm tired out, and will sleep. I've never been lazy in my life before, and it's a new and quite exquisite sensation."

From that hour a strange chapter of life began for Arthur. Eagle House was closed, and he took refuge with Mrs. Bundy. He wrote his father a brief note, saying he was detained in London, and would not return to Brighton. He had not the courage to tell him the whole truth; that revelation would come soon enough, and he did not wish to antagonise his father by an abrupt declaration of his position. To this note his father made no reply.

Most of his hours were spent in the little house in Lonsdale Road.

There he toiled over Vickars's new book. Much of it consisted of rough drafts, which he had to copy and piece together as best he could. In this delicate work he could obtain no counsel from Vickars.

Of Elizabeth he saw much, and yet far less than he would have imagined possible. She was constantly at her father's bedside. And as the days wore on, the fight for life in that shadowed room became intense. A silent pressure of her hand, a silent kiss--and she would glide from him like a ghost, and disappear into the gloom of that upper chamber.

One night it happened that she had gone to rest, worn out with long watching, and Arthur took her place at Vickars' bedside. For a long time Vickars lay in complete stupor. The gray dawn was near, and a milk-cart rattled down the road. The noise roused him for a moment, and he began to speak in half-delirious words.

"The old story," he said. "Rotten work, and human lives to pay for it.

The poor ... the poor pay for everything in this world ... with their blood. And the rich sit in houses splashed with the blood of the poor, and don't even know it.... I always knew the drains were bad. I always said they smelt of death. But that d.a.m.ned builder didn't care--not he. He only laughed ... laughed."

The voice trailed off into an incoherent whisper.

When Vickars began to speak, Arthur listened drowsily; but as he finished, his entire mind sprang into vivid apprehension. It was as though a sudden torch flared through his brain.

What did the sick man mean? And with the question there came back to Arthur's memory a s.n.a.t.c.h of conversation at the deacons' tea, when he had first heard the name of Hilary Vickars. He recalled the suave, purring voice of Scales explaining to his father that the Vickars were inconsiderable people, living in Lonsdale Road--"in one of your houses, sir."

"I always said the drains smelt of death. But that d.a.m.ned builder didn't care. He only laughed."

And the builder was his father.

A blackness of great horror fell upon him. He struggled against it, as against an overwhelming tide. Could it be that Vickars knew this dreadful thing all the time, knew it even when he had laid his hand upon his head, and welcomed him as a son? It seemed hardly possible.

He told himself that after all he had nothing to go upon but a few delirious words. Perhaps Vickars was not thinking of his own case at all. It might have been simply some scene in one of his books which he rehea.r.s.ed--a s.n.a.t.c.h of drama flung out by the toiling, unconscious brain. But in his heart he knew that such an explanation was untrue.