Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The butler ushered them into a dim room on the right.
“How is Mr. Siward?” asked Fleetwood, pausing on the threshold and dropping his voice.
The old man hesitated, looking down, then still looking away from Fleetwood: “Bravely, sir, bravely, Mr. Fleetwood.”
“The Siwards were always that,” said the young man gently.
“Yes, sir.... Thank you. Mr. Stephen — Mr. Siward,” he corrected, quaintly, “is indisposed, sir. It was a — a great shock to us all, sir!” He bowed and turned away, holding his salver stiffly; and they heard him muttering under his breath, “Bravely, sir, bravely. A — a great shock, sir!... Thank you.”
Fleetwood turned to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish.
“This is the real thing,” observed Fleetwood cynically, “all this Fourth Avenue antique business; dingy, cumbersome, depressing. Good God! I see myself standing it.... Look at that old grinny-bags in a pig-tail over there! To the cellar for his, if this were my house.... We’ve got some, too, in several rooms, and I never go into ‘em. They’re like a scene in a bum play, or like one of those Washington Square rat-holes, where artists eat Welsh-rabbits with dirty fingers. Ugh!”
“I like it,” said Plank, under his breath.
Fleetwood stared, then shrugged, and returned to the window to watch a brand-new French motor-car drawn up before a modern mansion across the avenue.
The butler returned presently, saying that Mr. Siward was at home and would receive them in the library above, as he was not yet able to pass up and down stairs.
“I didn’t know he was as ill as that,” muttered Fleetwood, as he and Plank followed the old man up the creaking stairway. But Gumble, the butler, said nothing in reply.
Siward was sitting in an arm-chair by the window, one leg extended, his left foot, stiffly cased in bandages, resting on a footstool.
“Why, Stephen!” exclaimed Fleetwood, hastening forward, “I didn’t know you were laid up like this!”
Siward offered his hand inquiringly; then his eyes turned toward Plank, who stood behind Fleetwood; and, slowly disengaging his hand from Fleetwood’s sympathetic grip, he offered it to Plank.
“It is very kind of you,” he said. “Gumble, Mr. Fleetwood prefers rye, for some inscrutable reason. Mr. Plank?” His smile was a question.
“If you don’t mind,” said Plank, “I should like to have some tea — that is, if—”
“Tea, Gumble, for two. We’ll tipple in company, Mr. Plank,” he added. “And the cigars are at your elbow, Billy,” with another smile at Fleetwood.
“Now,” said the latter, after he had lighted his cigar, “what is the matter, Stephen?”
Siward glanced at his stiffly extended foot. “Nothing much.” He reddened faintly, “I slipped. It’s only a twisted ankle.”
For a moment or two the answer satisfied Fleetwood, then a sudden, curious flash of suspicion came into his eyes; he glanced sharply at Siward, who lowered his eyes, while the red tint in his hollow cheeks deepened.
Neither spoke for a while. Plank sipped the tea which Wands, the second man, brought. Siward brooded over his cup, head bent. Fleetwood made more noise than necessary with his ice.
“I miss you like hell!” said Fleetwood musingly, measuring out the old rye from the quaint decanter. “Why did you drop the Saddle Club, Stephen?”
“I’m not riding; I have no use for it,” replied Siward.
“You’ve cut out the Proscenium Club, too, and the Owl’s Head, and the Trophy. It’s a shame, Stephen.”
“I’m tired of clubs.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“Very well, I won’t,” said Siward, smiling. “Tell me what is happening — out there,” he made a gesture toward the window; “all the gossip the newspapers miss. I’ve talked Dr. Grisby to death; I’ve talked Gumble to death; I’ve read myself stupid. What’s going on, Billy?”
So Fleetwood sketched for him a gay cartoon of events, caricaturing various episodes in the social kaleidoscope which might interest him. He gossiped cynically, but without malice, about people they both knew, about engagements, marriages, and divorces, plans and ambitions; about those absent from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He commented briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the theatres, touched on the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at nearby country clubs conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, gossiping pleasantly in the vernacular about horses and packs and drag-hunts and stables, and what people thought of the new English hounds of the trial pack, and how the new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to break so many bones at Southbury.
Politics were touched upon, and they spoke of the possibility of Ferrall going to the Assembly, the sport of boss-baiting having become fashionable among amateurs, and providing a new amusement for the idle rich.
So city, State, and national issues were run through lightly, business conditions noticed, the stock market speculated upon; and presently conversation died out, with a yawn from Fleetwood as he looked into his empty glass at the last bit of ice.
“Don’t do that, Billy,” smiled Siward. “You haven’t discoursed upon art, literature, and science yet, and you can’t go until you’ve adjusted the affairs of the nation for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Art?” yawned Fleetwood. “Oh, pictures? Don’t like ‘em. Nobody ever looks at ’em except débutantes, who do it out of deviltry, to floor a man at a dinner or a dance.”
“How about literature?” inquired Siward gravely. “Anything doing?”
“Nothing in it,” replied Fleetwood more gravely still. “It’s another feminine bluff — like all that music talk they hand you after the opera.”
“I see. And science?”
“Spider Flynn is matched to meet Kid Holloway; is that what you mean, Stephen? Somebody tumbled out of an air-ship the other day; is that what you mean? And they’re selling scientific jewelry on Broadway at a dollar a quart; is that what you want to know?”
Siward rested his head on his hand with a smile. “Yes, that’s about what I wanted to know, Billy — all about the arts and sciences.... Much obliged. You needn’t stay any longer, if you don’t want to.”
“How soon will you be out?” inquired Fleetwood.
“Out? I don’t know. I shall try to drive to the office to-morrow.”
“Why the devil did you resign from all your clubs? How can I see you if I don’t come here?” began Fleetwood impatiently. “I know, of course, that you’re not going anywhere, but a man always goes to his club. You don’t look well, Stephen. You are too much alone.”
Siward did not answer. His face and body had certainly grown thinner since Fleetwood had last seen him. Plank, too, had been shocked at the change in him — the dark, hard lines under the eyes; the pallor, the curious immobility of the man, save for his fingers, which were always restless, now moving in search of some small object to worry and turn over and over, now nervously settling into a grasp on the arm of his chair.
“How is Amalgamated Electric?” asked Fleetwood, abruptly.
“I think it’s all right. Want to buy some?” replied Siward, smiling.
Plank stirred in his chair ponderously. “Somebody is kicking it to pieces,” he said.
“Somebody is trying to,” smiled Siward.
“Harrington,” nodded Fleetwood. Siward nodded back. Plank was silent.
“Of course,” continued Fleetwood, tentatively, “you people need not worry, with Howard Quarrier back of you.”
Nobody said anythin
g for a while. Presently Siward’s restless hands, moving in search of something, encountered a pencil lying on the table beside him, and he picked it up and began drawing initials and scrolls on the margin of a newspaper; and all the scrolls framed initials, and all the initials were the same, twining and twisting into endless variations of the letters S. L.
“Yes, I must go to the office to-morrow,” he repeated absently. “I am better — in fact I am quite well, except for this sprain.” He looked down at his bandaged foot, then his pencil moved listlessly again, continuing the endless variations on the two letters. It was plain that he was tired.
Fleetwood rose and made his adieux almost affectionately. Plank moved forward on tiptoe, bulky and noiseless; and Siward held out his hand, saying something amiably formal.
“Would you like to have me come again?” asked Plank, red with embarrassment, yet so naively that at first Siward found no words to answer him; then —
“Would you care to come, Mr. Plank?”
“Yes.”
Siward looked at him curiously, almost cautiously. His first impressions of the man had been summed up in one contemptuous word. Besides, barring that, what was there in common between himself and such a type as Plank? He had not even troubled himself to avoid him at Shotover; he had merely been aware of him when Plank spoke to him; never otherwise, except that afternoon beside the swimming pool, when he had made one of his rare criticisms on Plank.
Perhaps Plank had changed, perhaps Siward had; for he found nothing offensive in the bulky young man now — nothing particularly attractive, either, except for a certain simplicity, a certain direct candour in the heavy blue eyes which met his squarely.
“Come in for a cigar when you have a few moments idle,” said Siward slowly.
“It will give me great pleasure,” said Plank, bowing.
And that was all. He followed Fleetwood down the stairs; Wands held their coats, and bowed them out into the falling shadows of the winter twilight.
Siward, sitting beside his window, watched them enter their hansom and drive away up the avenue. A dull flush had settled over his cheeks; the aroma of spirits hung in the air, and he looked across the room at the decanter. Presently he drank some of his tea, but it was lukewarm, and he pushed the cup from him.
The clatter of the cup brought the old butler, who toddled hither and thither, removing trays, pulling chairs into place, fussing and pattering about, until a maid came in noiselessly, bearing a lamp. She pulled down the shades, drew the sad-coloured curtains, went to the mantelpiece and peered at the clock, then brought a wineglass and a spoon to Siward, and measured the dose in silence. He swallowed it, shrugged, permitted her to change the position of his chair and footstool, and nodded thanks and dismissal.
“Gumble, are you there?” he asked carelessly.
The butler entered from the hallway. “Yes, sir.”
“You may leave that decanter.”
But the old servant may have misunderstood, for he only bowed and ambled off downstairs with the decanter, either heedless or deaf to his master’s sharp order to return.
For a while Siward sat there, eyes fixed, scowling into vacancy; then the old, listless, careworn expression returned; he rested one elbow on the window-sill, his worn cheek on his hand, and with the other hand fell to weaving initials with his pencil on the margin of the newspaper lying on the table beside him.
Lamplight brought out sharply the physical change in him — the angular shadows flat under the cheek-bones, the hard, slightly swollen flesh in the bluish shadows around the eyes. The mark of the master-vice was there; its stamp in the swollen, worn-out hollows; its imprint in the fine lines at the corners of his mouth; its sign manual in the faintest relaxation of the under lip, which had not yet become a looseness.
For the last of the Siwards had at last stepped into the highway which his doomed forebears had travelled before him.
“Gumble!” he called irritably.
A quavering voice, an unsteady step, and the old man entered again. “Mr. Stephen, sir?”
“Bring that decanter back. Didn’t you hear me tell you just now?”
“Sir?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes, Mr. Stephen, sir.”
There was a silence.
“Gumble!”
“Sir?”
“Are you going to bring that decanter?”
The old butler bowed, and ambled from the room, and for a long while Siward sat sullenly listening and scoring the edges of the paper with his trembling pencil. Then the lead broke short, and he flung it from him and pulled the bell. Wands came this time, a lank, sandy, silent man, grown gray as a rat in the service of the Siwards. He received his master’s orders, and withdrew; and again Siward waited, biting his under lip and tearing bits from the edges of the newspaper with fingers never still; but nobody came with the decanter, and after a while his tense muscles relaxed; something in his very soul seemed to snap, and he sank back in his chair, the hot tears blinding him.
He had got as far as that; moments of self-pity were becoming almost as frequent as scorching intervals of self-contempt.
So they all knew what was the matter with him — they all knew — the doctor, the servants, his friends. Had he not surprised the quick suspicion in Fleetwood’s glance, when he told him he had slipped, and sprained his ankle? What if he had been drunk when he fell — fell on his own doorsteps, carried into the old Siward house by old Siward servants, drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood’s business. It was none of the servants’ business. It was nobody’s business except his own. Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle with him? Of what concern to them were his vices or his virtues?
The tears dried in his hot eyes; he jerked the old-fashioned bell savagely; and after a long while he heard servants whispering together in the passageway outside his door.
He lay very still in his chair; his hearing had become abnormally acute, but he could not make out what they were saying; and as the dull, intestinal aching grew sharper, parching, searing every strained muscle in throat and chest, he struck the table beside him, and clenched his teeth in the fierce rush of agony that swept him from head to foot, crying out an inarticulate menace on his household. And Dr. Grisby came into the room from the outer shadows of the hall.
He was very small, very meagre, very bald, and clean-shaven, with a face like a nut-cracker; and the brown wig he wore was atrocious, and curled forward over his colourless ears. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, each glass divided into two lenses; and he stood on tiptoe to look out through the upper lenses on the world, and always bent almost double to use the lower or reading lenses.
Besides that, he affected frilled shirts, and string ties, which nobody had ever seen snugly tied. His loose string tie was the first thing Siward could remember about the doctor; and that the doctor had permitted him to pull it when he had the measles, at the age of six.
“What’s all this racket?” said the little old doctor harshly. “Got colic? Got the toothache? I’m ashamed of you, Stephen, cutting capers and pounding the furniture! Look up! Look at me! Out with your tongue! Well, now, what the devil’s the trouble?”
“You — know,” muttered Siward, abandoning his wrist to the little man, who seated himself beside him. Dr. Grisby scarcely noted the pulse; the delicate pressure had become a strong caress.
“Know what?” he grunted. “How do I know what’s the matter with you? Hey? Now, now, don’t try to explain, Steve; don’t fly off the handle! All right; grant that I do know what’s bothering you; I want to see that ankle first. Here, somebody! Light that gas. Why the mischief don’t you have the house wired for electricity, Stephen? It’s wholesome. Gas isn’t. Lamps are worse, sir. Do as I tell you!” And he went on loquaciously, grumbling and muttering, and never ceasing his talk, while Siwar
d, wincing as the dressing was removed, lay back and closed his eyes.
Half an hour later Gumble appeared, to announce dinner.
“I don’t want any,” said Siward.
“Eat!” said Dr. Grisby harshly.
“I — don’t care to.”
“Eat, I tell you! Do you think I don’t mean what I say?”
So he ate his broth and toast, the doctor curtly declining to join him. He ate hurriedly, closing his eyes in aversion. Even the iced tea was flat and distasteful to him.
And at last he lay back, white and unstrung, the momentarily deadened desperation glimmering under his half-closed eyes. And for a long while Dr. Grisby sat, doubled almost in two, cuddling his bony little knees and studying the patterns in the faded carpet.
“I guess you’d better go, Stephen,” he said at length.
“Up the river — to Mulqueen’s?”
“Yes. Let’s try it, Steve. You’ll be on your feet in two weeks. Then you’d better go — up the river — to Mulqueen’s.”
“I — I’ll go, if you say so. But I can’t go now.”
“I didn’t say go now. I said in two weeks.”
“Perhaps.”
“Will you give me your word?” demanded the doctor sharply.
“No, doctor.”
“Why not?”
“Because I may have to be here on business. There seems to be some sort of crisis coming which I don’t understand.”
“There’s a crisis right here, Steve, which I understand!” snapped Dr. Grisby. “Face it like a man! Face it like a man! You’re sick — to your bones, boy — sick! sick! Fight the fight, Steve! Fight a good fight. There’s a fighting chance; on my soul of honour, there is, Steve, a fighting chance for you! Now! now, boy! Buckle up tight! Tuck up your sword-sleeve! At ‘em, Steve! Give ’em hell! Oh, my boy, my boy, I know; I know!” The little man’s voice broke, but he steadied it instantly with a snap of his nut-cracker jaws, and scowled on his patient and shook his little withered fist at him.
His patient lay very still in the shadow.
“I want you to go,” said the doctor harshly, “before your self-control goes. Do you understand? I want you to go before your decision is undermined; before you begin to do devious things, sly things, cheating things, slinking things — anything and everything to get at the thing you crave. I’ve given you something to fight with, and you won’t take it faithfully. I’ve given you free rein in tobacco and tea and coffee. I’ve helped you as much as I dare to weather the nights. Now, you help me — do you hear?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 300