The Prodigal Father Part 47

"Look out," he muttered. "Some of the servants may be coming."

"Did you?"

"Would you marry a man that's off his head?"

"He isn't; he was only pretending!"

"That's not what Dr. Downie thought."

"Dr. Downie! What did he know!"

"He certified him."

He was backed against the front door now.

"Did you offer Heriot that alternative?"

He paused for a moment. Heriot must be at the station by now, and he had not many spare minutes before the train started.

"No, I did not," he answered.

The sympathetic widow's hand shot out; there was a smack and then a thud. The smack was caused by a momentary encounter between the hand and his spherical cheek, the thud by a meeting of his head and the door.

"You miserable creature!" she hissed.

With a look such as only the righteous can ever hope to wear, and that in the moment of martyrdom, he watched her rush upstairs sobbing.

And thus the coalition, having served its beneficent purpose, came abruptly to an end. A great deal might be written in this connection, adducing this instance to ill.u.s.trate the wider fields of statecraft, but unfortunately the present narrative is a simple record of facts, and not a philosophical treatise. The immediate consequence of the episode was that on the following morning Mrs. Dunbar set out for the west of Ross-s.h.i.+re to pay a long-promised visit to a third cousin who possessed several thousand acres of moorland in that vicinity.

CHAPTER IX

It was on the following morning that Jean and Frank returned, their faces glowing with country suns.h.i.+ne and spring wind, their hearts quickened with antic.i.p.ation. In the train coming home they had exchanged many confidences. Could he possibly manage to get married before he went out to India? Frank wondered. Would Lucas have to wait till he had sold a few more pictures? wondered Jean. He ran whistling up the steps and rang the bell. She burst radiantly into the somber hall. And then, at twelve o'clock in the morning of an ordinary working week-day, they found the junior partner at home to receive them. Such a portent had never before been seen.

"Where's father?" asked Jean.

Andrew's cheeks twitched nervously; yet on the whole he maintained a compa.s.sionate expression highly honorable to his fraternal instincts.

In a hushed voice he addressed his sister.

"I want to have a word with you," said he.

He took her apart from her brother and shut the library door securely.

Frank was such a hot-tempered young fellow; and he had suffered one physical outrage already. In a voice as appropriate as his face he gently broke the news--

"Our father has been removed to an asylum."

"Removed--to an asylum!" gasped Jean.

She did not strike him, but on the whole he was even more glad when that interview came to an end than when he saw the widow's muscular back at last turn from the front door.

A few days afterwards a tall man in a sportsmanlike ulster walked up the gangway of a steams.h.i.+p bound for a port in South America. He was followed on board by a friend with very blue eyes and a cavalier mustache. They talked for a few minutes and then shook hands affectionately.

"Well, Lucas, good-by, old fellow," said the pa.s.senger. "And remember now what you're to tell them. They're not to drop a hint--not a whisper of what they know. Just keep your tails up all of you, as best you can.

Handy thing, this revolver we chose. I must practise shooting from the hip pocket. I say, take special care of Jean. Tell her I know how plucky she is--she'll be staunch--she'll wait. Tell her I'll often be thinking--Hullo, last bell; you'd better get on sh.o.r.e."

A little later the steamer was in the middle of the gray Thames, bearing Heriot, his fortunes, and his six-shooter far, far from the office of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower. The protagonist of virtuous respectability sat there triumphantly enshrined. He had done everything a good man could reasonably be expected to do; only he had not imagined Lucas Vernon waving a farewell to his late partner.

PART V

CHAPTER I

Even in the heyday of Mr. Walkingshaw's career, when he was most conspicuously an example to his fellow-citizens, revered by the young and applauded by the old, there were to be found certain austere critics who held that, for themselves, the character of Andrew presented the more chaste ideal. Exemplary though his father's life had been (up to that fatal illness), there was always a latent vein of geniality in his character, a reminiscence of good living in his ruddy countenance, a brightness in his eye, that suggested possibilities; and even a possibility might conceivably, under certain circ.u.mstances, given this and that--well, it might be safer away. Whereas Andrew's pale round cheeks and solemn aspect were as rea.s.suring as a plate of porridge.

These pioneers of criticism were thought extremists six months ago; now, they had all respectable society at their back. Of course it was never a point in a man's favor that his father (or indeed any relative) could run amuck as Andrew's had done. On the other hand, he had so promptly and fearlessly plucked out the parent who offended him, and behaved, moreover, through all this tribulation with such becoming solemnity, that he very soon began rather to gain than to lose by his martyrdom.

Each step he took was discretion itself. His father, people learnt, had been quietly removed to a retreat for the mentally infirm, situated, some said in Devons.h.i.+re, and others in North Wales. The very ambiguity on this point was highly approved. It argued the perfection of prudence.

As for the ungrateful girl who had jilted him, he had talked at considerable length to his friends on that subject, and they reported that, though naturally grieved, and even offended, by her conduct, he was nevertheless able to express in a calm voice many Christian sentiments; frequently, for instance, a.s.suring his audience that he forgave her, and that if she preferred to stew in her own juice he was too much of a gentleman to interfere with her pleasure. At this rate, it was recognized that very soon nothing the G.o.ddess of Mediocrity could offer would be beyond his reach. She had many wors.h.i.+pers, but unquestionably Andrew Walkingshaw looked like her favorite.

He himself was modestly disposed to agree with this opinion. Really, the success of his prompt procedure had been remarkable. From his two sensible married sisters he had never antic.i.p.ated trouble, and they had loyally fulfilled his expectations. With both he held private consultations, and each accepted his version of the facts without a single unnecessary or disquieting question. They knew they could trust Andrew. But what did surprise him was the calmness into which the impotent indignation of Frank and Jean subsided. Within three days they were converted from volcanoes to icebergs. It was a condition too frigid to give him unalloyed delight, yet all things considered he could not but think it exceedingly encouraging.

"I presume you don't intend to give either of us a marrying allowance?"

said Frank, interrupting with this practical inquiry the guarded narrative of his elder brother.

"If I could feel it in any way to be my duty--"

Frank interrupted him again.

"But you don't; what?"

"No, Frank, I may tell you candidly--"

For the third time the soldier cut in--

"And I may tell _you_ candidly that of all contemptible hounds I've ever had the misfortune to meet, you're the most despicable."

That concluded the conference; and judging from Jean's pointed neglect of any opportunities for consultation with which Andrew provided her, he gathered that Frank had sufficiently expressed her opinion also. It was, no doubt, painful to see oneself thus misjudged, but at the same time he could not feel too thankful for their abstinence from any further inquiry regarding their father's fate. At first this lack of curiosity struck him as almost suspicious, but he was rea.s.sured by his conviction of their depravity. While their father was favoring them, they made a fuss about him: now that he could favor them no more, their feigned affection for him disappeared, and all they thought of was reviling the one member of the family who knew what was best for them. Each time he recalled those monstrous epithets of Frank's, this conviction deepened, till he became positively ashamed of them for their indifference. They might at least have gone through the form of asking for some news of their father now and then, even if they had not the hearts to sympathize with his malady. But they had no sense of decency, those two.