The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained
Soames on the inner mat.
"The master's poorly, sir," he murmured. "He wouldn't go to bed till you
came in. He's still in the diningroom."
Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.
"What's the matter with him, Warmson?"
"Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs. Dartie's
comin' round this afternoon. I think he overheard something. I've took
him in a negus. The mistress has just gone up."
Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.
"All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I'll take him up myself." And he
passed into the dining-room.
James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a camel-hair
shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated shoulders, on to which
his long white whiskers drooped. His white hair, still fairly thick,
glistened in the lamplight; a little moisture from his fixed, light-grey
eyes stained the cheeks, still quite well coloured, and the long deep
furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved
as if mumbling thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow's, in shepherd's
plaid trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and glistening
tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass
of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with
intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically
sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him
anything. It is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was
being buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a grudge
against his wife's youth. He felt sometimes that he would never have
married her if he had known that she would have so many years before
her, when he had so few. It was not natural. She would live fifteen or
twenty years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of money; she had
always had extravagant tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy
one of these motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
people--they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness knew
where. And now Roger was gone. He didn't know--couldn't tell! The
family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle had left.
Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames' uncle not as his own brother.
Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world.
Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one to leave
his money to. There it was! He didn't know! And there was that fellow
Chamberlain! For James' political principles had been fixed between '70
and '85 when 'that rascally Radical' had been the chief thorn in the
side of property and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his
conversion; he would get the country into a mess and make money go down
before he had done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames?
He had gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from
him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son's trousers. Roger!
Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up from school
together from the West, on the box seat of the old Slowflyer in 1824,
Roger had got into the 'boot' and gone to sleep. James uttered a thin
cackle. A funny fellow--Roger--an original! He didn't know! Younger than
himself, and in his coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val
going to the university; he never came to see him now. He would cost
a pretty penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty
pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before James'
eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged terribly the risk
which the spending of that money might bring on them; he grudged the
diminution of security. And now that Cicely had married, she might be
having children too. He didn't know--couldn't tell! Nobody thought of
anything but spending money in these days, and racing about, and having
what they called 'a good time.' A motor-car went past the window. Ugly
great lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the
country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they couldn't
even care for style--a neat turnout like his barouche and bays was worth
all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116! There must be a lot of
money in the country. And now there was this old Kruger! They had tried
to keep old Kruger from him. But he knew better; there would be a pretty
kettle of fish out there! He had known how it would be when that fellow
Gladstone--dead now, thank God! made such a mess of it after that
dreadful business at Majuba. He shouldn't wonder if the Empire split
up and went to pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled
a full quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He
had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch that the
real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing when he
became aware of voices--low voices. Ah! they never told him anything!
Winifred's and her mother's. "Monty!" That fellow Dartie--always that
fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and James had been left alone,
with his ears standing up like a hare's, and fear creeping about his
inwards. Why did they leave him alone? Why didn't they come and tell
him? And an awful thought, which through long years had haunted
him, concreted again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone
bankrupt--fraudulently bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children,
he--James--would have to pay! Could he--could Soames turn him into a
limited company? No, he couldn't! There it was! With every minute before
Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery! With
eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall, James
suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his grandchildren in the
gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the doubted Turner being sold at
Jobson's, and all the majestic edifice of property in rags. He saw in
fancy Winifred unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily's voice
saying: "Now, don't fuss, James!" She was always saying: "Don't fuss!"
She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman eighteen years
younger than himself. Then Emily's real voice said: