Masterman and Son Part 36

At times a strange religious vein showed itself in his conversation.

He never went to church now, and, indeed, entertained a strong rancour against what he called "church-folk." Scales had been an officer in the church, and was a rascal. The church-folk had all deserted him in his downfall. Clark, indeed, had called upon him, but had nothing to say. It was all a kind of play-acting, very pleasant if you'd nothing better to do, and that was all. "Churches are meant for comfortable people. All very well while you've money in your pocket, and a good coat upon your back, but they aren't for the like of me," was one of his sayings. "The Church don't know anything about real life," he would remark, "and it doesn't want to. If it once saw things as they are, it would be frightened out of its wits. So it draws the blind down, and won't look. It's like folk sitting round a good fire on a winter night, and when the rain's coming down and a gale's blowing.

The more the gale blows, the more comfortable you are. What's the good of looking out of the window? Why, they might see some poor wretch like me, and that would make them unhappy. Better not look. Stir the fire up, and forget all about it."

"I don't believe the church-folk think like that, father."

"Oh yes, they do. I've done it myself, and I know."

And then, amid these bitter criticisms and confessions, that curious authentic religious vein would struggle into light. He would often sit up late reading those portions of the Scripture most characterised by melancholy wisdom.

"Listen to this," he said on one of those occasions: "_'He that buildeth his house with other men's money is like one that gathereth himself stones for the tomb of his burial.... Weep for the dead, for he hath lost the light; and weep for the fool, for he wanteth understanding; make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest; but the life of the fool is worse than death.'_ The man who wrote that knew something about life now, if you like. Couldn't pay his mortgage, as like as not; been a bankrupt, I guess. Just wanted to die, and be done with it all--like me. Yet G.o.d let him have a hand in writing the Bible--queer thing that, isn't it? And G.o.d must have known the kind of fool he was. That's what I like about the Bible; it don't shirk things--tells you the truth every time. It's a big thing is the Bible--big as a rock; and the Church is just a little limpet sticking on it. Don't see how big it is; probably can't see it." And then, with a sudden pale illumination on the strong worn face, "Well, I guess G.o.d's got to put up wi' me. He's big enough to understand the sort I am. And I'm not for apologising to Him. I reckon He don't want me to."

Gradually there seemed to settle on him a languor, which expressed itself in a kind of patience which Arthur found infinitely pathetic.

He went to his work before daylight, came home weary, and often wet through, ate his coa.r.s.ely cooked meal in silence, but made no complaint. He had ceased to take interest in the outer world. He received the news of Helen's marriage without remark, and displayed no curiosity. Once only he was roused to any interest in her. Bundy, in one of his numerous journeys to Paris, insisted on taking Arthur with him, and Arthur told his father that he would no doubt see Helen.

"Paris, did you say? Ah! I was there once. It was there they took me. So she's living in Paris, is she?"

He left the room and went upstairs. Arthur could hear him moving to and fro for a long time. When he came down, he held a little parcel in his hand.

"I suppose my creditors ought to have had this," he said. "Only they didn't get it."

"What is it, father?"

He slowly undid the parcel, and put upon the table a small gold watch.

"It didn't rightly belong to the creditors, either," he said in a low voice. "It was hers."

"Whose, father?"

"Your mother's. The first thing I gave her after we'd begun to get on a bit. I can mind how pleased she was. Lord! it seems like yesterday.

And then her face kind of clouded over, and she said, 'But can you afford it?' That was just like your mother--always afraid I couldn't afford things."

He became silent, and stood with wide intent eyes, as if he saw that far distant past limned upon the air. He had never spoken of his dead wife before. The mention of her name invoked G.o.d knows what sweet and painful memories.

"Thought I couldn't afford it," he repeated softly. "Put it away in a drawer, didn't like to wear it, thought it too good for her. Some women are like that--not many, though. I guess Helen isn't like that...." And then, with a sudden lifting of the head, as though he emerged from a sea of dreams, "Well, I want you to give the watch to Helen. I haven't given her a wedding-present. That's about all I have to give. I hope she'll value it."

In due course Arthur gave the watch to Helen. She glanced at it with an air of insolent depreciation. "It isn't likely I'm going to wear an old thing like that!" was her sole remark. She also put it in a drawer, where it was forgotten. When she left the Hotel Continental, a year later, it was lost. She never missed it.

It was on his return from this journey to Paris that Arthur noticed for the first time a distinct physical change in his father. The big frame remained, but the flesh was shrunken.

"Aren't you well, father?" he asked.

"Oh yes, I'm well--a bit thinner, that's all. I'd begun to run to fat, you know, sitting about in offices. There's nothing like hard work to take your flesh down."

That night, as they sat beside the fire, he talked with an interest he had never shown before about Arthur's prospects in life. He drew from him a particular account of his work upon the ranch, the scenery, the business possibilities in fruit-growing, and so forth.

"I suppose now men get rich out there pretty quick, don't they?"

"A few."

"But there's gold and copper in those hills, isn't there?"

"So they say. There are old men who have been looking for it all their lives, though, and they haven't found it."

"But you might find it, eh? You've education, and that counts for a lot anywhere. And you've brains--you could organise things. I wouldn't wonder if you were rich some day."

"I don't want to be rich, father. The rich people appear to me the unhappiest people in the world."

"Ah, that's true, too! It's the same everywhere. You see, if a man's _born_ rich, he grows up to it, and knows how to behave. But when he _gets_ rich, he generally makes a mess of things. Isn't used to it, and it goes to his head like wine." A long pause--and then, "What's the verse about choosing the better part? Well, I reckon you've chosen the better part. I didn't think so once, but I've begun to see a lot of new things of late, and that's one of them."

"Then you forgive me for going away, father?"

"Oh! I don't know about that. Isn't it enough if I say that I think you did the wise thing? It's pretty hard for me to say that, and you must be content with it."

He talked on for an hour or so, in a quiet, musing voice, recalling the histories of men he had known, most of them dead. He recalled their struggles, their ambitions, their infrequent victories, their frequent defeats, their occasional rise into social eminence, and the domestic infelicities that poisoned their success. It was a sorry record, a kind of epitome of modern covetousness, through which wailed the sombre note of the Hebrew moralist, _Vanitas Vanitatum_! Arthur could not but notice that he spoke no longer as a partic.i.p.ant in the strife, but as a mere spectator. He saw the frantic whirl of men in pursuit of gold as something far off, unimportant, inherently mean and despicable. And he himself spoke as a man completely disillusioned, a derider and a mocker, whose dominant temper was ironic pity.

"Poor Sandy Macphail--I knew him when he earned a pound a week." And then would come a caustic sketch of Sandy, lying for his life in some crisis of his fortunes, "eating dirt," as he put it, to creep into a big man's favour, dragging with him into social light a wife who was the laughing-stock of unfamiliar drawing-rooms, and his cubs of boys, who took to drink or gambling--ending with the grim comment, "Spent his last years wheeled about in a chair, did Sandy--paralysed, you know."

Or it would be, "There's Steiner, South African millionaire, you know.

I met him once in my great days. Poor wreck of a man, nerves all gone, took drugs, so they said. Committed suicide, did Steiner."

It was a long, almost involuntary unfolding of the filaments of memory.

Man after man appeared in that phantasmagoric vision, foolish, pitiable, misguided, and sank out of sight pierced by the shaft of some ironic phrase.

"Well, I'm out of it all, and a good job, too," he concluded. "They'll be saying the same things about me when I'm dead. My! it's twelve o'clock! An old bankrupt fellow that works for Grimes ought to ha'

been a-bed long ago. These are no hours for the British working man."

The next day was Sunday. To Arthur's surprise his father appeared after breakfast clothed in the fashion of his former life. The worn serge suit and low hat were laid aside; they were replaced by a black frock coat, a white waistcoat, and a top hat. He looked once more the city magnate--rather faded. And in some subtle way the better clothes had affected the physical aspect of the man. He no longer stooped; he stood erect, held himself well, had something of his former air of command.

"I've a fancy for a walk," he said. "Do you care to come?"

It was one of those mild and exquisite days which are the stars in the dreary firmament of winter. A soft wind blew out of the south-west, soft clouds moved across a blue-gray sky, and the air was pure and sparkling. Even Tottenham was touched with the spirit of a brief vivacity. The normal cloud of dinginess was miraculously dissolved, the sunlight glittered on the rain-pools, and a Sabbath calm lay upon the streets. It was the kind of day which the country-man calls "a weather-breeder"; which the less wise Londoner hails as the first pledge of returning summer.

They wandered forth, apparently without aim, but steadily moving westward. They reached Hyde Park, where they sat for some time watching the gaily dressed people who flowed past like a coloured river. Here and there Masterman discerned a known face, and made brief comments on it. From Hyde Park they turned toward the city. Through the mitigated clamour of the Strand, and the almost total silence of Cheapside, they pa.s.sed, till they came to the network of lanes and alleys round the Mansion House. They were strangely hushed. Where, day by day, so many thousands pa.s.sed, driven by eagerness and haste, in an unnoticeable throng, a single footfall now roused clamant echoes.

"It's a queer thing, but I've never been in the city on a Sunday before," Masterman remarked. "I couldn't have believed it was so silent. It's like going to sleep in a thunderstorm, and waking up in a vault, with the coffin-lid nailed over you."

He paused at last before the high narrow building where he had had his offices.

"Wonder whether the caretaker's here. Let us see."

A little dark man answered the door.

"Why, it's Mr. Masterman!" he cried in astonishment. "Come in, sir!"

"So you remember me, Perkins?"

"Of course, sir. And there's no one sorrier than me for what has happened."