The Mating of Lydia Part 19

So that, for the first time in twenty years, Melrose found himself provided with a listener, and a spectator who neither wanted to buy from him nor sell to him. When a couple of vases and a statuette, captured in Paris from some remains of the Spitzer sale, arrived at the Tower, it was to Faversham's room that Melrose first conveyed them; and it was from Faversham's mouth that he also, for the first time, accepted any remarks on his purchases that were not wholly rapturous. Faversham, with the arrogance of the amateur, thought the vases superb, and the statuette dear at the price. Melrose allowed it to be said; and next morning the statuette started on a return journey to Paris, and the Tower knew it no more.

Meanwhile the old collector would appear at odd moments with a lacquered box, or a drawer from a cabinet, and Faversham would find a languid amus.e.m.e.nt in turning over the contents, while Melrose strolled smoking up and down the room, telling endless stories of "finds" and bargains. Of the store, indeed, of precious or curious objects lying heaped together in the confusion of Melrose's den, the only treasures of a portable kind that Faversham found any difficulty in handling were his own gems.

Melrose would bring them sometimes, when the young man specially asked for them, would keep a jealous eye on them the whole time they were in their owner's hands, and hurry them back to their drawer in the Riesener table as soon as Faversham could be induced to give them up.

One night the invalid made a show of slipping them back into the breast-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 his host. "Nurse and I will mount guard."

Whereupon Melrose protested so vehemently that the young man, in his weakness, did not resist. Rather sulkily, he handed the case back to the greedy hand held out for it.

Then Melrose smiled; if so pleasant a word may be applied to the queer glitter that for a moment pa.s.sed 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 get elsewhere--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 had many offers. But I don't intend to sell them."

Melrose was silent a moment, looking down on the patient, in whose pale cheeks 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 to him by his old uncle's solicitor, together with the will: "Keep them for my sake, my dear boy; enjoy them, as I have done. You will be tempted to sell them; but don't, if you can help it. The money would be soon spent; whereas the beauty of these things, the a.s.sociations connected with them, the thoughts they arouse--would give you pleasure for a lifetime. I have loved you like a father, and I have left you all the little cash I possess. Use that as you will. But that you should keep and treasure the gems which have been so much to me, for my sake--and beauty's--would give me pleasure in the shades--'quo dives Tullus et Ancus'--you know the rest. 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 at the 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 as there was of it--who knew?

The question of removing his patient to a convalescent home at Keswick was raised by Undershaw at the end of the third week from the accident.

He demanded to see Melrose one morning, and quietly communicated the fact that he had advised Faversham to transfer himself to Keswick as soon as possible. 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 unnecessary proceeding?"

"I understood," said Undershaw, smiling, "that you were anxious to have your house to yourself again as soon as possible."

"I defended my house against your attack. But that's done with. And why you should hurry this poor fellow now into new quarters, in his present state, when he might stay quietly here till he is strong enough for a railway journey, I cannot conceive!"

Undershaw, remembering the first encounter between them, could not prevent 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 trespa.s.sing upon you any longer. I know the house at Keswick to which I propose to take him. It is excellently managed. We can get a hospital motor from Carlisle, and of course I shall go with him."

"Do you suggest that he has had any lack of attention here from me or my servants?" said Melrose, hotly.

"By no means. But--well, sir, I will be open with you. Mr. Faversham in my opinion wants a change of scene. He has been in that room for three weeks, 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 a garden. In fact"--the little doctor spoke with the same cool frankness he had 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 is beginning to get about again."

Melrose frowned upon him.

"What does he want, eh? More s.p.a.ce? Another room? How many rooms do you suppose 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 of Dixon the other day whether it would be impossible to move Mr. Faversham into another room he told me that every hole and corner in the house was occupied by your collections, except two on the ground floor that you had never furnished. We can't put Mr. Faversham into an unfurnished room.

That which he occupies at present is, if I may speak plainly, rather barer 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 a help to him--a few things to look at on the walls--a change of chairs--a bookcase or two--and so on. Mr. Faversham's present room is--I mean no offence--as bare as a hospital ward, and not so cheerful. Then as to the garden"--Undershaw moved to a side window and pointed to the overgrown and gloomy wilderness outside--"nurse and I have tried in vain to find a spot to which we could carry him. I am afraid I must say that an ordinary lodging-house, with a bit of sunny lawn on which he could lie in his long chair, would suit him better, at his present stage, than this fine old house."

"Luxury!" growled Melrose, "useless luxury and expense! that's what every one's after nowadays. A man must be as _cossu_ as a pea in a pod! I'll go and speak to him myself!"

And catching up round him the sort of Tennysonian cloak he habitually wore, even in the house and on a summer day, Melrose moved imperiously toward the door.

Undershaw stood in his way.

"Mr. Faversham is really not fit yet to discuss his own plans, except with his doctor, Mr. Melrose. It would be both wise and kind of you to leave the decision of the matter to myself."

Melrose stared at him.

"Come along here!" he said, roughly. Opening the door of the library, he turned down the broad corridor to the right. Undershaw followed unwillingly. He was due at a consultation at Keswick, and had no time to waste with this old madman.

Melrose, still grumbling to himself, took a bunch of keys out of his pocket, and fitted one to the last door in the pa.s.sage. It opened with difficulty. Undershaw saw dimly a large room, into which the light of a rainy June day penetrated through a few c.h.i.n.ks in the barred shutters.

Melrose went to the windows, and with a physical strength which amazed his companion unshuttered and opened them all, helped by Undershaw. One of them was a gla.s.s 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 lovely tracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at the stately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese wall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and paG.o.das, and its branching trees. "I never saw such a place. But what is my patient to do with an unfurnished room?"

"Furniture!" snorted Melrose. "Have you any idea, sir, what this house contains?"

Undershaw shook his head.

Melrose pondered a moment, and took breath. Then he turned to Undershaw.

"You are going back to Pengarth? You pa.s.s that shop, Barclay's--the upholsterer's. Tell him to send me over four men here to-morrow, to do what they're told. Stop also at the nurseryman's--Johnson's. No--I'll write. Give me three days--and you'll see."

He studied the doctor's face with his hawk's eyes.

Undershaw felt considerable embarra.s.sment. The owner of the Tower appeared to him more of a lunatic than ever.

"Well, really, Mr. Melrose--I appreciate your kindness--as I am sure my patient will. But--why should you put yourself out to this extent? It would be much simpler for everybody concerned that I should find him the quarters I propose."

"You put it to Mr. Faversham that I am quite prepared to move him into other quarters--and quarters infinitely more comfortable than he can get in any infernal 'home' you talk of--or I shall put it to him myself,"