The Happy Warrior Part 58

CHAPTER XIII

THE BIG FIGHT OPENS

I

There had been one years before that had cried, "You are Lord Burdon!"

and one that had received it, first in light mock at its folly, then in bewilderment at its truth. There was one cried the same words at "Post Offic" on this night and one, groaning in torment of spirit, that put it aside as a jest untimely, then, convinced of it, got to his feet and heard as it were the world shattering to pieces in his ears.

The gathering storm had opened and was driving along the Ridge in its first onset of rain when at last Percival turned where Dora had left him, wrenched himself about as though his feet were rooted, and brought to Aunt Maggie the dark and working face that had stared down upon the Old Manor. Ima had told Aunt Maggie of his strange behaviour when he had stopped the cart. When he arrived she was up-stairs in her room, crying a little, wanting to be alone. Aunt Maggie, Ima's fears communicated to her, awaited him alone in the parlour. He opened the door fiercely and came in dripping from the streaming night. She gave a little cry at sight of his face and rose and stretched her hands towards him. The sudden peace in here, exchanged for the buffeting of the night, reacted on the tumult of his mind and forced him to discharge it.

"O Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" he said.

"My Percival! What is it?"

He took both her hands that were extended to him; then was acted upon anew by her loving eyes, and clasped her to him and she felt sobs shaking his strong frame.

"Percival! Percival! What has happened to you?"

He let her go and dropped into a chair against the table, put his hands to his head and while she saw his shoulders heaving she saw the raindrops running through his fingers from his hair. She went before him, and stretching her arms across the table encircled his wrists with her hands. They were burning to her touch. "Percival, it is torturing to me to see you like this. Tell me, tell me!"

He took her hands. "Oh, I am in torture," he said, and she saw the torture burning in his eyes. "Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, I loved Dora.

I never told you. I was to tell you to-night. I had come back for her."

She felt a sense go through her as of a sword turned within her.

"But Rollo!" she said.

His hands crushed hers so that she had pain. "Yes, Rollo!" he said.

"I nearly went to him to-night. I shall go yet. Rollo! Rollo!

Rollo!"

He ground the name between his teeth. The pressure of his hands on hers became almost insufferable. She felt it as nothing to what shook her brain. She was back at the bedside in the Holloway Road. She was spun through the years of her waiting, waiting. She was fronted with the torments when that for which she waited had seemed to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from her. There filled the room and stooped towards her the figure that she envisaged as fate, that had stayed her hand, that she obeyed, that had tried her, that had fought for her, that now was come to prove itself fate indeed.

In one part she was dizzy and overcome with the shaking at her brain; in the other she was listening to Percival and worse beset at every word. "I have seen her," he said, "I have seen her to-night. They are forcing her to this. They have arranged it for years--arranged it!

Bought her and sold her because he is what he is. Aunt Maggie, she loved me for myself. He comes in! he comes in! he comes in! and takes her because he is Lord Burdon."

The shaking at her brain pitched suddenly to a tensest balance like a machine that rattles up to action then tunes to a level spinning.

"He is not Lord Burdon!" she said.

He was silent but he did not heed her.

"He is not Lord Burdon!"

At her repet.i.tion he moved quickly in his seat and relaxed his hands.

"Oh, why say that? Why say that?"

"You are Lord Burdon!"

He let her hands go and pressed his own again to his head. "Can you only talk like that when you see me suffering?"

She rose to her feet. "Percival! Percival, listen to me. It is true.

It is what I have kept for you these years. It is what I have meant when I told you I had something for you. You are Lord Burdon!"

He also stood. "Are you mad, Aunt Maggie? Are you mad?"

She staggered back against the wall. While he stared at her as he questioned her sanity, while she saw the look in his eyes as he asked her, there came to her with a shock of sudden fear, as to one that has released a wild and mighty thing and shudders to have done it, the words j.a.phra had said: "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him!"

He came swiftly to her and roughly caught her. "Are you mad? What is this?"

She recovered herself. "Do you know that box in your room?"

The locked box was an old joke of his. "What has that to do with it?"

"The proofs are there. You shall see."

"Show me," he said, his voice not to be recognised for any he had spoken with. "Show me!"

She steadied herself against a chair, and steadying herself by all her hand came against as she walked, went across the room to the stairs, he following. There came at that moment a loud knock upon the outer door.

He went dazedly to it and stared with unattending eyes at one who stood there, the light shining on his heavy waterproof coat that streamed with rain. It was the strange man whom they had overtaken as the cart came out of Great Letham.

"The convict Hunt's been seen near by," said the man abruptly. "Me and my mates thought it right to tell the village."

Percival closed the door upon him without a word. "Show me," he repeated to Aunt Maggie, and followed her to her room.

II

He sat on the edge of her bed while she told him his story. He sat motionless and with his face immobile. There was only one action that betrayed he was under any emotion. His chin was forward on his hand, elbow on knee. His fingers came across his mouth, and in the knuckle of one he set his teeth. Blood was there when he drew his hand away.

She finished: "It is all here, letters, certificates. Your mother's letters, Percival, and your father's. They are all in order from the first. There is one here to his grandmother and one to his lawyer telling them of his marriage. He left those with her when he went away. Then the letters from India."

He drew his hand from his mouth, the blood on his fist. "Leave me alone," he said. "Go away, Aunt Maggie, and leave me to look at them alone."

There was that in his voice which smote terribly across her spinning brain and caused her to obey him.

III

An hour he was occupied in reading the yellowed sheets whose heritage he was; for long thereafter sat and stared upon them. These devoted lines in that round hand were his mother's: his father's those ardent pa.s.sions in those bold characters; he their son. He felt himself a shameless listener to penetrate these tender secrets; he felt himself a little child that hears his parents' voices. Sometimes, in that first mood, the blood ran hotly to his cheeks; sometimes, in that second, there came sobs to his throat and great trembling. Memories of thoughts, impulses, happenings that had been strange, returned to him, crowding upon him; here was their meaning, their interpretation here.

In the library with Mr. Amber, "thinking without thinking as if I was in some one else who was thinking," shadows about the room and a moth thudding the window-pane--here the secret of it! In the library with Mr. Amber and the old man's cry: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my lord?"--here the answer! In presence of death with Mr. Amber, and "Hold my hand, my lord"--here what had opened Mr. Amber's eyes. In dreams in Burdon House, and searching, searching, and all the rooms familiar, and a voice that had cried, "My son, my son! Oh, we have waited for you!"--here, here, the key to it--here that voice in those yellowed sheets--here, here, what he had searched, streaming from those papers, tingling his skin, filling his throat as though from the faded lines strong essences rushed and pressed about him. His mother!--he spoke the word aloud, "Mother!" His father!--"Father!" Their son, "I am your son!..."

Of a sudden he was returned to the present. Of a sudden he was s.n.a.t.c.hed up from realisation of what had been, and what was, and pitched into battle of what was now to be. Out of a churchyard, out of a graveside where gentle thoughts arise, into the street, into the business where the din goes up! So he was hurled, and as one that gasps on sudden immersion in icy water, as one gripped in panic's hold that comes out of sleep to sudden peril, so, as he faced the thing that was come to him, he cried out hoa.r.s.ely, knew horror upon him, and shut his eyes and pressed his hands against them as though his lids alone could not blind what picture was before him. In one instant fierce, fierce, exultant triumph; in the next torment that reeled him where he stood. In one instant himself that an hour before had stood looking balefully down upon Burdon Old Manor; that had cried to Aunt Maggie: "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" and knew it for a thrice-repeated curse; that had cried: "I was going to him! I shall go to him yet!" and knew his hands tingle and his brain leap at the thought; in the next, nay, immediate with the flash and flame of it, Rollo that from childhood's days had leant upon him; that he had brothered, fathered, loved; that had cried to him--ah, G.o.d, G.o.d! how the words came back!--"Everything I've got is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?" That had cried, "I'm never really happy except when I'm with you;" that had said, "I want some one to look after me--the kind of chap I am; a shy a.s.s and delicate."

He dropped on the bed in the tumult of his torment. He writhed to his knees and flung himself against the bed, his fingers twisting in the quilt, his face between his outstretched arms. He had burned with fury to face Rollo and crush him down. The weapon was in his hands. Ah, ah, too strong, too sharp, too cruel! New thoughts brought him to his feet. Strongly he arose and shook himself. What, was he weakening toward a sentiment? "Everything I've got is yours"--but Dora taken from him! "Everything I've got is yours!"--it was! it was! and Dora with it! Always arranged because he was Lord Burdon! His darling sold to Rollo and bought by Rollo because Rollo was what he was! And he was not it! He was not it! This night, this hour he should know it!

This night? There came to him the vision of Rollo he had had when they told him Rollo could not come to the station to meet him but begged he would go up to him directly he arrived. He had pictured old Rollo coming to him with eager, outstretched hands. Rollo was waiting for him now, expecting him every moment, would so come to him if he went, would so come to him if he waited till to-morrow; and how would look when he spoke and told? The years ran back and answered him. There came to him clearly as yesterday that first visit to Mr. Hannaford's when he had been flushed with excitement and praise at riding the little black horse and had turned to see Rollo shrinking as he stood away, distress and tears working in his face. So he would look now.