The Moving Finger Part 6

"The man had such a shock," she continued, "that he shut up his house, gave up all his schemes for re-entering life, left England, and never set foot in the country again."

Saton rose to his feet.

"I see that my host is beckoning me," he said. "Will you excuse me for a moment?"

Rochester pa.s.sed his arm through the younger man's.

"Come into the gun-room for a few minutes," he said. "I want to show you the salmon flies I was speaking of."

Saton smiled a little curiously, and followed his host across the hall and down the long stone pa.s.sage which led to the back quarters of the house. The gun-room was deserted and empty. Rochester closed the door.

"My young friend," he said, "if you do not object, I should like to have a few minutes of plain speaking with you."

"I should be delighted," Saton answered, seating himself deliberately in a battered old easy-chair.

"Seven years ago," Rochester continued, leaning his elbow against the mantelpiece, "we made a bargain. I sent you out into the world, an egotistical Don Quixote, and I provided you with the means with which you were to turn the windmills into castles. I made one condition--two, in fact. One that you came back. Well, you have kept that. The other was that you told me what it was like to build the castles of bricks and mortar, which in the days when I knew you, you built in fancy only."

"Aren't you a little allegorical?" Saton asked, calmly.

"I admit it," Rochester answered. "I was very nearly, in fact, out of my depth. Tell me, in plain words, what have you done with yourself these seven years?"

"You want me," Saton remarked, "to give an account of my stewardship."

"Put it any way you please," Rochester answered. "The fact remains that though you are a guest in my house, you are a complete stranger to me."

Saton smiled.

"You might have thought of that," he said, "before you asked me here."

Rochester shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps," he said, "I preferred to keep up my reputation as an eccentric person. At any rate, you must remember that it was open to me at any moment to ask you the question I have asked you now."

Saton sat perfectly still in his chair, his eyes apparently fixed upon the ground. All the time Rochester was watching him. Was it seven years ago, seven years only, since he had stood by the side of that boy, whose longing eyes had been fixed with almost pa.s.sionate intensity upon that world of shadows and unseen things? This was a different person. With the swiftness of inspiration itself, he recognised something of the change which had taken place. Saton had fought his battle twice over. He might esteem himself a winner. He might even say that he had proved it. Yet there was another side. This young man with the lined face, and the almost unnatural restraint of manner, might well have taken up the thread of life which the boy had laid down. But there was a difference. The thread might be the same, but it was no longer of gold.

Then Saton raised his eyes, and Rochester, who was watching him intensely, realized with a sudden convincing thrill something which he had felt from the moment when he had stepped into the library and welcomed this unexpected visitor. There was nothing left of grat.i.tude or even kindly feeling in the heart of this young man. There was something else which looked out from his eyes, something else which he did not even trouble to conceal. Rochester knew, from that moment, that he had an enemy.

"There are just two things," Saton said quietly, "of which I should like to remind you. The first is that from the day I left this house with five hundred pounds in bank-notes b.u.t.toned up in my pocket, I regarded that sum as a loan. I have always regarded it as a loan, and I have repaid it."

"I do not consider your obligation to me lessened," Rochester remarked coldly. "If it was a loan, it was a loan such as no sane man would have made. You had not a penny in the world, and I did not even know your name. The chances were fifty to one against my ever seeing a penny of my money again."

"I admit that," Saton answered. "Yet I will remind you of your own words--five hundred pounds were no more to you than a crown piece to me. You gave me the money. You gave me little else. You gave me no encouragement, no word of kindly advice. Go back that seven years, and remember what you said to me when you stood by my side, toying with your gun, and looking at me superciliously, as though I were some sort of curiosity which it amused you to turn inside out.--The one unforgivable thing in life, you said, was failure. Do you remember telling me that if I failed I was to swim out on a sunny day--to swim and swim until the end came? Do you remember telling me that death was sometimes a pleasant thing, but that life after failure was h.e.l.l itself?"

Rochester nodded.

"I always had such a clear insight into life," he murmured. "I was perfectly right."

"From your point of view you doubtless were," Saton answered. "You were a cynic and a pessimist, and I find you now unchanged. I went away with your words ringing in my brain. It was the first poisonous thought which had ever entered there, and I never lost it. I said to myself that whatever price I paid for success, success of some sort I would gain. When things went against me, I seemed to hear always those bitter, supercilious words. I could even see the curl of your lips as you looked down upon me, and figured to yourself the only possible result of trusting me, an unfledged, imaginative boy, with the means to carve his way a little further into the world. Failure! I wrote the word out of the dictionary of my life. Sin, crime, ill-doing of any sort if they became necessary--I kept them there. But failure--no! And this was your doing. Now you come to ask me questions. You want to know if I am a fit and proper person to receive in your house. Perhaps I have sinned. Perhaps I have robbed. Perhaps I have proved myself a master in every form of ill-doing. But I have not failed! I have paid you back your five hundred pounds."

"The question of ethics," Rochester remarked, "interests me very little if at all. The only point is that whereas on the hillside you were simply a stray unit of humanity, and the things which we said to one another concerned ourselves only, here matters are a little different. In a thoughtless moment, I asked you to become a guest under my roof. It was, I frankly admit, a mistake. I trust that I need not say more."

"If you will have my things removed to the Inn," Saton said slowly--

"No such extreme measures are necessary," Rochester answered. "You will stay with us until to-morrow morning. After luncheon you will probably find it convenient to terminate your visit as soon as possible."

"I shall be gone," Saton answered, "before any of your guests are up.

In case I do not see you again alone, let me ask you a question, or rather a favor."

Rochester bowed slightly.

"There is a house below the Convalescent Home--Blackbird's Nest, they call it," Saton said. "It is empty now--too large for your keepers, too small for a country seat. Will you let it to me?"

Rochester looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.

"Let it to you?" he repeated. "Do you mean to say that after an adventurous career such as I imagine you have had, you think of settling down, at your age, in a neighborhood like this?"

"Scarcely that," Saton answered. "I shall be here only for a few days at a time, at different periods in the year. The one taste which I share in common with the boy whom you knew, is a love for the country, especially this part of it."

"You wish to live there alone?" Rochester asked.

"There is one--other person," Saton answered with some hesitation.

Rochester sighed gently.

"Alas!" he said. "Instinct tells me that that person will turn out to be of the other s.e.x. If only you knew, my young friend, what the morals of this neighborhood are, you would understand how fatal your proposal is."

Something that was almost malign gleamed for a moment in Saton's eyes.

"It is true," he said, "that the person I spoke of is a woman, but as she is at least sixty years old, and can only walk with the help of a stick, I do not think that she would be apt to disturb the moral prejudices of your friends."

"What has she to do with you?" Rochester asked, a little shortly.

"Have you found relatives out in the world, or are you married?"

Saton smiled.

"I am not married," he answered, "and as the lady in question is a foreigner, there is no question of any relationship between us. I am, as a matter of fact, her adopted son."

"You can go and see my agent," Rochester answered. "Personally, I shall not interfere. I am to take it for granted, then, I presume, that you have nothing more to tell me concerning yourself?"

"At present, nothing," Saton answered. "Some day, perhaps," he added, rising, "I may tell you everything. You see," he added, "I feel that my life, such as it is, is in some respects dedicated to you, and that you therefore have a certain right to know something of it. But that time has not come yet."

Once more there was a short and somewhat inexplicable pause, and once more Rochester knew that he was in the presence of an enemy. He shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the door.

"Well," he said, "we had better be getting off. Guerdon is a decent fellow, but he always needs looking after. If he is bored for five minutes, he gets sulky. If he is bored for a quarter of an hour, he goes home. You never met Lord Guerdon before, I suppose?" he asked, as he threw open the door.

They were men of nerve, both of them. Neither flinched. Rochester's question had been asked in an absolutely matter-of-fact tone, and Saton's reply was entirely casual. Yet he knew very well that it was only since the coming of the great judge that Rochester had suddenly realized that amongst the guests staying in his house, there was one who might have been any sort of criminal.

"I have seen him in court," Saton remarked, with a slight smile, "and of course I have seen pictures of him everywhere. Do not let me keep you, please. I have some letters to write in my room."