VI

When Arthur had been five weeks at Hartling, he believed that he knew

the other inmates of the house as well as he would ever know them,

although he had to admit to himself that he knew none of them any

better, now, than he had after he had been there three days. His social

relations with some of the Kenyons had lost formality. He was familiar

in his treatment of Hubert, on terms of impudence with Elizabeth, and

of occasional persiflage with Joe Kenyon and Charles Turner. But these

intimacies were only such as he might have developed in a month's

stay with them at the same hotel. On both sides there was an effect

of enforced toleration, of making the best of a casual temporarily

unavoidable proximity. He was still some one who had come in from the

"outside." The Kenyons never snubbed him, but he could not be quite at

his ease with them; he knew that if for any reason he left Hartling,

the whole family would become for him the chance acquaintances of a

prolonged visit. He could see himself, a few months hence, meeting

one of them in the street, pausing to exchange a few conventional

inquiries, and passing on with no more than a whimsical smile at a

recollection of an old adventure.

There was, however, one exception. If the descendants of old Mr

Kenyon had not emerged from the indeterminate background of humanity

in general, the old man himself stood out as a distinctive, even a

slightly impressive figure. Arthur's original inclination, to pity the

head of the house, had been gradually diverted; he was not on closer

acquaintance, a figure that called for pity; and once or twice Arthur

had had a strange sensation that was almost akin to fear. There was,

indeed, something about old Kenyon that was not quite human, something

more than that indescribable appearance of immortal old age. He

appeared so intimidatingly detached from the common cares and interests

of human life. He had boasted of his power to keep in touch with

contemporary movements and affairs, but he was never disturbed by them.

Nearly every morning Arthur spent an hour in the old man's company,

and in that time he usually discussed the morning's news, but never as

yet, had Arthur seen him display the least emotion with regard to any

question of politics or finance. He would speak of the Irish situation,

the starvation of Austria, the threat of labour troubles, the cost of

living, or the burden of the Income Tax as if they were incidents in

the reign of George IV. rather than in that of George V. And if Arthur

himself gave any sign of heat or partisanship the old man would regard

him with the cold speculative eye of one who watches the lives and

furies of infusoria under a microscope. He seemed to have completely

lost the warm-blooded human passion for interference in other people's

affairs.

There was another aspect of him also that was giving Arthur an

occasional qualm of uneasiness. He had found that the old man was not

dependable in such things as the consideration of one's natural needs

in the matter of ready money. In that second interview when Arthur

had put his position quite plainly, acknowledged himself willing to

accept the post offered him for three months on trial, and hinted

more or less indirectly, but as he believed quite plainly, that he

would greatly prefer that there should be no question of any posthumous

gratitude, the essential point of present remuneration in the form of

salary had not been mentioned. Nor had any reference been made to it

since that occasion. And the truth was that Arthur had been spending

quite a lot of money in the last five weeks. His original outfit had

only been intended to carry him over a glorified week-end, and he

had found it necessary to add to it. Also, he had paid his entrance

fee, and a year's subscription to the golf club, bought himself some

new clubs, a croquet-mallet, a new racket, and a billiard cue, and

although he still had a balance at his bank, it had begun to appear

rather inadequate when regarded as capital for starting a new life in

Canada. The thought of his shrinking resources had begun to embarrass

him, but he had felt a strong disinclination to approach the subject

in his conversations with Mr Kenyon, moreover, the very fact that he

was being paid nothing held a kind of implicit promise that he would

be "remembered" later. A man of old Kenyon's wealth and position would

not expect a qualified medical man, who was at best quite a distant

connection to give his services, to say nothing of his immediate

chances, and receive no sort of compensation.

For in the course of those five weeks Arthur had lost some of his

scruples with regard to figuring in Mr Kenyon's will. The atmosphere

of the house may have had its influence on him. Living, as he presumed

he did, among the people who had no other ideal other than that of

inheriting as capital what they now enjoyed as interest, he had come by

unnoticed degrees to think of that way of life as being more or less

normal and reasonable. And when he thought of the future he had already

begun to anticipate the probability of his staying on at Hartling until

old Kenyon died.

It was so easy to find reasons for planning that mode of life, so

difficult to contemplate any other; more particularly when it seemed

probable that only by staying could he hope to be rewarded for his

services. He still fidgeted occasionally at the thought that he was

wasting his time, perhaps his life; but he was steadily accustoming

himself to luxury, and the thought of Peckham grew more and more

repulsive every day. He had not written to Bob Somers for nearly a

month. He had a definite disinclination even to think of Somers. The

life at Hartling was very easy. He was enormously improving his game at

golf, croquet, and billiards; and, take it all round, he got on quite

well with the family--with all the family--except Eleanor.

For some reason, he and she were still strangers to one another. If

there was a barrier between him and the rest of the Kenyons, there was

a gulf between him and Eleanor; although, in the first instance, she

had seemed to be the only one of them who was prepared to come out and

greet him as a friend. But, since he had made his decision to stay on

at Hartling for a trial period of three months, there had been little

intercourse between them, and never once had he been alone with her.

She treated him with a calm aloofness, and he on his side had made no

overtures. He supposed that, for some reason she disliked him, and had

decided that he, also, disliked her.

The first break in the general stagnation in the Hartling mode of life

came with the intrusion of another member of the family, young Kenyon

Turner, the budding stockbroker. He came down for a week-end, and

Arthur detested him from the outset.

He had been playing golf with Hubert until six o'clock, and his first

sight of the new arrival was in the garden. He was walking up and down

the middle of the terrace with Eleanor, deep in what appeared to be a

very engrossing conversation. He was an almost deliberately handsome

young man, just too well-dressed in Arthur's estimation. His own

Conduit Street tailor had never been able to produce that, perhaps too

noticeable effect of absolute correctitude. It was probably not the

tailor's fault, he was too careless, or the wrong figure or something.

And in any case, he despised a man who took too much trouble with his

clothes.

He decided on the spur of the moment to interrupt the _tête-à-tête_; an

intrusion that young Turner quite obviously resented.

"Been playin' golf?" he asked, with a supercilious air when Eleanor had

made the introduction. "Not my game. Don't get enough time for it."

Arthur noted that Turner's eyes were those of a man who was making too

great demands on his vitality; tired eyes, shadowed with dark lines,

and already thinly creased at the outer corners.

"Good, healthy game," he commented, staring rather contemptuously.

"Keeps you in the open air."

"Oh! do you play for medical reasons?" Turner replied. "'Fraid I

haven't the determination for that." And as he spoke he turned back to

Eleanor intimating as plainly as he could that he had no further use

for Arthur's company.

Eleanor's tone had a faint note of apology as she said: "Kenyon was

asking my advice about something."

Arthur could not resist that chance. "You're rather great on giving

advice, aren't you?" he asked, and was surprised to see that she winced

as if he had hurt her.

"Am I?" was all she said, and Arthur instantly regretted his rudeness.

"I only meant," he began, "that you.... I'm sorry. I didn't mean it

that way."

She smiled sadly. "It's an ungrateful task in any case," she said, "and

I'm afraid that in this case, too, my advice will not be taken."

Arthur excused himself and went on towards the house, wondering if she

were advising young Turner, as she had advised himself, to fly the

temptation of Hartling. Why had she done that? He was still unable

to find any satisfactory reason for her recommendation of so drastic

a course. He could not now believe that she had been jealous of his

influence with her grandfather, and the theory that she had conceived

so strong an aversion for his personality that she had desired to scare

him away, was foolishly improbable. Eleanor was not like that. In some

ways he rather admired her. Even Elizabeth always spoke nicely about

her.

He was surprised to find an air of disturbance up at the house. Most

of the Kenyons were in the drawing-room, but instead of sitting about

their familiar occupations, they were gathered together in a group,

engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat anxious conference. Their

talk ceased abruptly as he came in, and both Mr and Mrs Turner faced

round with an expression that was at once expectant and apprehensive.

Arthur would have gone out again at once, but Turner hailed him by

saying:--

"Hallo! Arthur. Seen my son anywhere?"

"Yes, he's on the middle terrace with Eleanor," Arthur said. "I was

just introduced to him, but as they obviously did not want me, I came

on up."

Turner looked at his brother-in-law, Kenyon, who shrugged his

shoulders, but made no further comment; and they had returned to their

discussion with an effect of rather desperate resignation before Arthur

was fairly out of the room.

He wondered if there were some sort of affair, perhaps an engagement,

between Eleanor and young Turner; and if the family as a whole objected

on account of the nearness of the relationship? He decided that if

they consulted him, as they generally did on any matter presumed to be

within his province as a medical man, he would make it clear that a

marriage of first cousins was not necessarily dangerous. Nevertheless,

he despised Eleanor for her choice.

The function of dinner was even more formal than usual that night, and

old Mr Kenyon had a prolonged lapse of consciousness that kept them all

waiting for more than five minutes. These solemn intervals of suspense

always produced in Arthur an effect of being present at some religious

observance, and to-night he was more aware of it than usual. He

remembered how, as a youth, he had been half-awed and half-exasperated

when he attended the Sacrament at home by the ceremonial deliberation

of his father. He had had an evangelical tendency, but in this service

he had favoured quite an elaborate ritual of his own, and his bearing

of the chalice and the paten from the ambry to the altar, and the

subsequent presentation consecration, and personal acceptance of the

elements had been conducted in a low, scarcely audible voice, and

with an air of almost exaggerated reverence. Once or twice Arthur had

sacrilegiously wondered if his father had found an unusual satisfaction

in being the sole human instrument and representative of this mystery

of the consecration, and had unduly prolonged the periods of silence

involved? And to-night, the same thought crossed his mind with regard

to old Kenyon. Was he, perhaps, extending the interval of waiting after

he had recovered consciousness, exulting in the exercise of his power?

Instinctively Arthur glanced across the table at Eleanor. She was

sitting very still, her hands in her lap, her eyes downcast, but he

fancied that her expression conveyed something of impatience and

revolt. Did she know? he asked himself. Was she inclined to be critical

of her grandfather's whims? Was she, perhaps, desperately ready to

marry young Turner in order to escape from Hartling?

As soon as the service was released again, he turned for information to

Elizabeth.

"Is anything up?" he asked in an undertone. "Anything out of the

ordinary?"

She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes and softly blew her

relief. "We got a good dose to-night," she whispered, and continued,

"That means there's going to be a fuss."

"About young Turner and Eleanor?" he tried.

"Eleanor? Where does Eleanor come in?" was her surprised response.

"I don't know. I thought possibly...." He hesitated, finding an

unexpected difficulty in putting his guess into words.

"Nothing whatever to do with Eleanor," Elizabeth said, without waiting

for him to finish his sentence.

"What is it, then?" he insisted.

"About him," she said, indicating Kenyon Turner. "I can't possibly tell

you now."

But after dinner he received enlightenment as to the cause of the

impending "fuss" from the prime disturber of the peace himself.

"Care to have a game of pills?" he asked, coming over to Arthur as they

were leaving the dining-room.

His first instinct was to refuse. The conceit of the fellow annoyed

him--he had two lines of braid down his dress trousers--but Arthur

was on the top of his form just then, and was spurred by a desire to

beat him at what was, no doubt, his own game. He had been so cursedly

supercilious about playing golf for "medical reasons."

"Don't mind," he said in the true Hartling manner of one condescending

to a casual visitor from the outside.

But although he did, in fact, beat young Turner, he realised that his

victory was due to the fact that his opponent was "off his game," and

could probably give him twenty in a hundred on ordinary occasions.

Young Turner's touch was almost as delicate as his father's.

"I'm no earthly good to-night," he said, putting down his cue at the

conclusion of the game. "All this business is such an infernal worry."

As he spoke he looked at Hubert--who had been exercising his

predestinate function of marker--rather than at Arthur.

"You're not the only one," Hubert commented morosely.

Arthur, who had been continuing a break that had not been completed

when he reached game, straightened his back and faced his cousin. "What

is this business?" he asked.

Hubert, who had got into that uneasy-looking pose of his, looked down

at his crossed ankles.

"The old man's so infernally difficult," he said.

"So cursedly tight with the money-bags," Turner explained.

"Have you been trying to milk him, then?" Arthur asked.

"Oh, well! the fact is I'm in a hole, on the rocks," Turner admitted.

"I've put it off as long as I can, but something has cursedly well

_got_ to be done now."

Hubert smiled contemptuously. "_Got_ to be done," he repeated. "Who's

going to make him? What it'll end in 'll be your coming to live down

here!"

"I'm damned if it will," Turner declared vehemently, but there was a

note of fear in his voice as he continued: "It's out of the question.

I mean I'm not doing so badly at the office and all that. If only the

old man allowed me a decent screw, I should be all right. In an office

like ours you simply have to be in everything that's going. Sometimes

one of the partners 'll put you in to what he thinks is a good thing,

for instance, and you're practically bound to have a fiver on. There's

a lot of that sort of thing anyhow you can't keep out of."

"And how much notice d'you think the old man'll take of that?" Hubert

asked, without looking up.

Turner almost whimpered. "He's _got_ to put me right," he protested,

"absolutely _got_ to."

Hubert rocked silently from foot to foot. "He hasn't," he said quietly,

"and you can't make him. You know that well enough. What did Eleanor

say?"

"She promised to do all she could," Turner replied unhopefully, and

added: "I'd sooner emigrate than come to live down here."

"Got the money for your passage?" Hubert inquired.

"I suppose I could get that somehow," Turner said. "Trouble'd be to

dodge my creditors. Besides, some of the money must be paid--fellows in

the office and so on. I couldn't let them down."

"You'll be living here before you're a week older," Hubert decided.

"Safe as houses."

Turner began to pace up and down the billiard room. There was possibly

a touch of the histrionic in his manner of doing it, but he was without

question genuinely distressed.

"Oh, I'll be double damned if I do!" he repeated. "It's all very well

for you--you seem to like this sort of life--but I'd be a raving

lunatic in a month. I simply couldn't stand it. I--oh! God! I'll make

the old man pay. Why the devil shouldn't he? He's got more money than

he knows what to do with."

Hubert was quite unmoved by his cousin's emotion; indeed he seemed to

take a melancholy pleasure in watching him. "When are you going to see

him?" he asked.

"To-morrow morning," Turner said. "And, by the Lord, if he refuses I'll

give him a piece of my mind."

Hubert smiled sadly. "Not you," he commented.

Arthur had not attempted to interrupt this conversation. Once more he

had a sense of some curious mystery behind the commonplace situation.

Both Hubert's dismal resignation and young Turner's too violent

asseverations hinted at some quality in their grandfather's treatment

of them that Arthur found it difficult to associate with the old man

himself. It was true, certainly, that he had overlooked or forgotten

to offer his medical attendant a salary, but he had none of the signs

of the miser. Arthur knew that he gave freely to charities, and spent

money without stint on the upkeep of Hartling. And did he not keep his

whole family in idleness from one year's end to another?

"Why are you so sure that your grandfather will refuse?" Arthur now

broke in, looking at Hubert.

Hubert exchanged a glance with young Turner, and it was the latter who

answered.

"He's not sure," he protested. "Anyway, I'm not."

Hubert pursed his mouth and stared thoughtfully at the billiard table.

"Do you think he'll have a down on you for gambling?" Arthur asked.

Turner laughed brusquely. "Well, hardly," he said. "Been a pretty good

gambler himself in his day. That was the way he made most of his money.

Jolly shady some of his business was too, I've heard. He happened to

bring it off, so it was all right. If he hadn't he'd have found himself

on the wrong side of the big door."

"You _are_ a pretty damned fool, Ken, to talk like that," Hubert put in

softly.

"Oh, well! it makes me so _wild_," Turner protested. "You know the

whole amount's under fifteen hundred, and what's that to a man worth

over half a million? The pater told me this evening that the old chap's

worth _all_ that. Quite likely a heap more."

Hubert solemnly closed his left eye, and continued to stare at the

billiard table with the other. "If you come to live down here, he'll

put you in the will," he remarked.

Turner snorted impatiently. "It isn't _good_ enough," he said crossly.

"Besides, it's a rotten game waiting for dead men's shoes."

"Specially if you can't damned well help yourself," Hubert agreed,

without the least sign of being offended.

Arthur's general perplexity was not enlightened by this conversation,

although he had now no further doubts as to the reason for Kenyon

Turner's visit. There still remained that old suggestion of something

taken for granted, something that was hidden from Arthur himself. The

two men had apparently spoken quite frankly before him, and Turner, at

least, had verged upon the indiscreet until Hubert had pulled him up.

But behind all their talk lay the hint of an assumption that violated

Arthur's feeling for common sense. This particular refusal of money

could be accounted for. Old Mr Kenyon, if he had been a successful

gambler himself, might feel a contempt for the failure, or he might,

very reasonably, dislike young Turner. But why should he, in either

case, want him to come and live at Hartling? Unless that alternative

was being held over him as a kind of threat?

Nor did the temporary solution of the immediate problem elucidate the

general situation. Kenyon Turner had his interview with his grandfather

on Sunday morning, and left for town half an hour later in the Vauxhall.

Arthur, burning with curiosity, made an opportunity to get Hubert alone

after lunch.

"Well, what happened this morning?" he asked.

"Given him a month," Hubert replied.

"How do you mean?" Arthur said.

"Month to think it over," Hubert elaborated. "If he'll chuck the city

and come to live down here, the old man'll put him straight."

"And if he won't?"

"Then he can jolly well look out for himself."

"But, good Lord, why does Mr Kenyon want him to come and live here?"

Arthur broke out.

"Thinks he'll be company for you and me, perhaps?" Hubert suggested.

"Oh! rot! He must have some reason," Arthur protested.

Hubert scratched his eyebrow.

"Don't you know what it is?" Arthur persisted.

Hubert seemed to purse not only his mouth but his whole face. "Can't

say I do," he said, paused, and then continued in another voice: "I'm

up against it too. You know Miss Martin, don't you? Didn't you meet her

up at the club-house? Well--it's a case with her and me. And what the

devil I'm going to do about it, I don't know."