XIII

The gates were standing open. They may have been opened in expectation

of the coming of the specialist who might arrive at any minute, but

even the garden wore a new aspect that morning. It was as if the wide

airs of Sussex were creeping in and subtly perverting the seemly

splendour of that suburban super-garden.

Old Kenyon had been unconscious for twenty-four hours. Both Arthur

and Fergusson knew with almost absolute certainty what was the matter

with him. A cerebral artery had been ruptured and the area of damaged

tissue appeared to be slowly extending. No remedy was possible. The

chances were that within another twenty-four hours he would die without

recovering consciousness. But he had trained nurses in constant

attendance and a specialist had been sent for. Scurr had gone with

Fergusson to fetch him in the big car.

Arthur had been up with the unconscious man all night, and had come out

into the garden now for a breath of fresh air. When he came downstairs

he had found himself a centre of burning interest. All the family,

except the one he most wanted to be with, were drawn towards him as if

he were the newly found vortex of a whirlpool. They tried desperately

hard to be casual and decorous, but they found it impossible to keep

their eyes off him. It seemed to Arthur that they almost gaped.

They were all extraordinarily wide-awake and feverishly inactive.

The women's fancy-work had not been taken out, nor the daily papers

opened. The news they desired to learn that morning was not to be found

in the _Times_. They drifted about the drawing-room and library, and

held brief, useless conversations with one another. But when Arthur

had passed through the suite a little after eleven o'clock looking

for Eleanor, they had suddenly found a focus. He had seen the look of

expectancy on their faces and had thrown them a crumb of news.

"He is still unconscious," he had said, and had understood that they

asked more from him than that. Then, feeling that he could not endure

the greediness of their attention, he had beckoned Joe Kenyon to come

out with him into the garden.

They had come within sight of the open gates before either of them

spoke.

"No hope, I suppose?" his uncle said then, as if released by the sight

of the Sussex lane.

"I should say absolutely none," Arthur replied.

"Not likely to recover consciousness before the end?"

"Extremely unlikely," Arthur said. "In fact, scarcely possible, I

think."

Joe Kenyon began to whistle softly between his teeth and abruptly

checked himself. "If this property comes to me, I shall have that

blasted wall taken down," he remarked, and continued, "You know,

Arthur, I'm not going to play the hypocrite, especially to you. This

isn't an occasion for mourning. It's as if we'd been living in the dark

for half a lifetime and some one had taken the roof off and let the air

and light in. I--I feel as if I can see the sky again for the first

time in thirty years. It'd be loathsome, crawling hypocrisy to pretend

that I'm the least sorry."

"Oh, obviously," Arthur agreed.

"But I say, how did it happen?" his uncle asked. "We haven't the

shakiest notion you know--and...."

"I just murdered him," Arthur said quietly.

"Eh! What's that?" Joe Kenyon ejaculated.

"For all intents and purposes," Arthur explained. "I opposed him, and

he tried to take cover--went into one of his 'trances.' Did you know

they weren't trances, by the way?"

"No. What the devil were they, then?"

"Pretences, pieces of acting, fantasies of his own making. He used

to hide himself in them, as it were. Dream what a great and powerful

being he was, able to keep you all in attendance, keep you waiting for

ten minutes in the middle of dinner if he liked, while he enjoyed the

sense of holding you there. And when he was in danger of losing his

temper with me, he tried to get under that cover, to shelter himself,

rehabilitate his own pride."

"And you? What did you do?"

"Treated him as if he were a case in a clinic. Began to test his

reactions. And--and--well, he couldn't keep it up."

"And then?"

"Couldn't control himself. Lost his temper--frightfully. Whacked at me

with his stick--and collapsed. It was losing his temper did it--first

time he has done it probably for forty years. Had you ever seen him

lose his temper?"

Joe Kenyon considered that question for a moment or two before he said,

"No! That was something he always had in reserve, something we were

afraid of. He was always terrible to us, in a way, and we felt that if

he went one step further he'd be--oh! devastating."

"He wasn't, you know," Arthur said. "He wasn't terrible, I mean. Not

in the least. He was essentially a weak man and not even clever. I

sat up with him all last night, and everything came to me as clearly

as if I'd read it somewhere. He has altered, you see, in face and

expression since he became unconscious. His chin seems to have

retreated and all the lines round his mouth have changed. I couldn't

keep the idea of a _rat_ out of my mind when I looked at him. I got

that effect somehow--something horribly intent and voracious but

essentially weak. I remember looking at a dead rat in the stables

when I was a boy. It was lying on its back with its feeble little

front paws stuck up and the feet dangling.... And he had just the same

expression on his face--ineffectual and yet cruel--as if his one regret

was that he couldn't hurt any one again. I was almost sorry that he

couldn't--especially as I had murdered him."

"Oh, nonsense, Arthur; nonsense," his uncle interposed. "Don't say

that."

"True, though, in a way, isn't it?" Arthur said. "Truer than you guess,

because I had known that it might kill him if he had a great shock. I'd

even said so to Hubert, a few days ago--Sunday, I think it was. But

I'd forgotten it. When I was telling him that I meant to go and take

Eleanor with me whatever he did, I never once considered that it might

be too much for him. And that was criminal carelessness in a medical

man. I've been thinking about it more or less ever since."

He paused and looked ahead of him, out through the gate into the Sussex

lane, and it was manifest that he was confessing to himself rather

than to Joe Kenyon as he continued: "Not that I propose to take any

responsibility for his death. That wouldn't help any one. It happened

so, and I shan't forget it, but that's all. Fergusson knows. There's no

need to worry about it. Only--I've grown up. I'm not quite the same man

I was twenty-four hours ago. I came down here to get back some of the

years of youth that I'd lost in the war. Well, they're gone for good

and all. I shall never be able to recover them now."

"Oh, nonsense!" his uncle repeated, taking his arm. "You've got a

thundering good time ahead of you."

Arthur smiled. "I've got the best time any man could have ahead of me,"

he said, "but I shall enjoy it as a man, not as a boy. I didn't say

that I regretted the passing of my youth, uncle."

"No, no, of course not," Joe Kenyon agreed. "And look here, old boy,

we've been talking about you since yesterday morning, about you and

Eleanor, that is; and Turner and I--and Hubert, of course--are quite

agreed that if the old man has, after all, overlooked you in his will,

that we shall take it for granted that it was just an oversight--though

probably Eleanor will be left pretty well off. If he had a favourite,

it was Eleanor."

"Good of you, uncle," Arthur replied warmly. "Awfully good and generous

of you, but you must see that I couldn't take a farthing, even if the

old man left it to me."

"I don't see why not," Joe Kenyon began, but Arthur stopped him by

saying.

"No! Absolutely! In no circumstances whatever! It isn't simply that

I could not bear to profit now by his death--though that counts.

But--well--perhaps it needn't apply to you and the rest of them--but

last night, while I was watching that poor thing on the bed, I realised

so profoundly that his one source of power had been his money. I

assure you that he was a weak man and not clever. If you can't believe

me, go upstairs and look at him. And without his money he would have

had no authority, no power over you of any sort. It was just his money

that gave him the chance to spoil all your lives. Oh, Lord! I'm talking

like a father to you. Honestly, uncle, I feel nearly old enough for

that, this morning. Want of sleep, perhaps. It does clear the head in a

queer way sometimes."

"Hm! I dare say you're right, Arthur, about the money," Joe Kenyon

mumbled. "I--I hope we shall make a better use of it. I don't think any

of us has got the old man's cruelty--he was damned cruel, that's true

enough."

"Not even Miss Kenyon?" Arthur put in.

"Esther? Oh, well! I don't know. Perhaps a little. But she has suffered

like all the rest of us, and learnt her lesson."

There was no time to reply to that; for while Joe Kenyon was still

speaking, the car turned in at the front gates, and they both hurried

forward to meet it. When it stopped at their signal to Scurr, the

specialist was introduced, and then both Arthur and his uncle got into

the car, and they all went on together up to the house.

The conference in the old man's bedroom was a very short one, and the

specialist had nothing to add to what they already knew, save the

prestige of his authority. He was a tired, gray-looking little man of

fifty or so, with an absent-minded manner, but when his anticipated

acceptance of the diagnosis had been given, he looked keenly at

Fergusson and said,--

"Made a lot of money, didn't he? All by his own efforts."

"It's more than half a million I've been told," Fergusson answered.

The specialist faintly shrugged his shoulders. "Wouldn't think it to

look at him now. What?" he commented, and with the indifference of his

profession he carelessly pinched the retreating chin of the little lax

figure in the great bed.

"The predatory type, I presume," he added thoughtfully.

"Ay; he was that," Fergusson agreed. "More cunning than clever, though

he had eyes that made you think of the eyes of a kite when he was

roused. But he has altered greatly since this seizure. Maybe you'd

hardly credit it now, but he has been a rare autocrat with his family."

"You see," Arthur put in, "he had them so absolutely in his power. He

could leave his money as he liked, and they were all dependent upon

him."

"And yet he must have had a certain generosity," Fergusson added, "for

he kept the whole lot of them."

The specialist looked shrewdly at Arthur and slightly pursed his mouth.

"That was his one interest and amusement, perhaps," he said. "The love

of power of a naturally weak man. It's common enough if you care to

look for it. Who succeeds?"

"We don't know yet," Arthur replied. "His lawyer is coming down by

train this afternoon, and will stay here until the end--in case of a

possible return to consciousness. But I suppose he'll tell us nothing

until the old man's dead."

"You interested?" the specialist asked.

"No," Arthur said. "Not even to the extent of a five-pound note."

"You know that much, then?"

"I know that for certain," Arthur affirmed.

Fergusson whistled softly under his breath, but made no other comment.

They were quite a large party at dinner that night. Ken Turner had been

telephoned for, and had come down by the same train as Mr Fleet, the

solicitor. Joe Kenyon had taken his father's place at the head of the

table, but occupied it as deputy only, for his sister and not his wife

faced him from the other end.

They had nearly finished, when one of the trained nurses entered the

room and made a sign across the table to Arthur. He jumped up at once

and followed her. He knew even before she spoke to him just outside the

dining-room door why she had fetched him.

There was nothing more to be done, but he sat for a few minutes beside

the dead, remembering that he had promised some kind of autopsy to

insure the body against premature burial. He would keep that promise,

although he knew that the precaution was quite unnecessary. Also he

thought again of the dead rat in the stable at home. The likeness was

more pronounced than ever.

He found them all collected in the drawing-room when he returned to

make his expected announcement.

"Yes! It's all over. He is dead," he said gravely, in answer to the

look of inquiry they thrust at him.

And with that statement his function in the household ceased. They had

eyes for him no longer. The centre of interest had shifted from the

doctor to the lawyer....

His head drooped, he was very tired, and he went over and sat down by

Eleanor. They had made no new plans, but he did not want to discuss

their future just then. He wanted nothing but to be near her, to rest

in his confidence of her love for him. She alone could give him peace

and quietness, and he felt worn out.

They sat close together in silence, happy in each other's company, and

attentive to nothing that was going on around them until their interest

was aroused by the voice of Mr Fleet, speaking in a raised tone

that was evidently meant to carry. He was a tall, spare man, almost

completely bald, with a long thin nose and an expression of careworn

good nature. He looked, Arthur thought, rather like a benevolent old

stork, and he kept clearing his throat as he spoke with a queer little

croak that was curiously birdlike.

It seemed that he was painfully aware at this moment of the importance

of what he had to say and that the knowledge embarrassed him. Whether

by accident or design, a certain grouping had been effected that gave

him the centre of the stage. He was standing with his back to the great

carved stone mantelpiece that was one of the features of the Hartling

drawing-room, with a clear space between him and the eight people who

in their characteristic ways were exhibiting the various indications of

the intense excitement that was stirring them. After all those years of

waiting and uncertainty they were about to learn the truth, at last.

They had awakened from their long nightmare of impalpable, inoppugnable

resistances to the grateful sanity of everyday life. And they hoped.

They had good cause for hope. After all, it could not be so bad for

them now. The old man had never had any spite against them. He had

been generous in his own quiet way. He would have done the right thing

by them.

Only Miss Kenyon, Arthur thought, looked doubtful and uneasy. She sat a

little apart from the others and something of her habitual resolution

and confidence had gone from her. For the first time since he had known

her, Arthur saw her truly as her father's daughter. She too, perhaps,

suffered from some intrinsic weakness of character, a weakness that had

been hidden by the commanding office she had held in the household....

"No need in this case," the embarrassed lawyer was saying, "to await

any formal occasion. I have, as a matter of fact, the will in my bag

upstairs. But it is so unusually simple and--and I might almost say

drastic, that no direct reference to it is necessary."

Arthur and Eleanor looked at each other with a little start of

surprise. They had never before doubted the legend of that untidy will.

"Er--er--er--in short," Mr Fleet continued, wiping his forehead, "the

will could, in this case, certainly have been written on a half-sheet

of note-paper. Er--er--it was made in '84, thirty-six years ago, soon

after Mrs Kenyon's death. And--er--er--" his hesitation and distress

became positively painful--"er--in short--he--he left everything

absolutely to Miss Kenyon--to Miss Esther Kenyon--at her absolute

disposal--er--there were no legacies of any other kind, and Miss Kenyon

is the sole executrix."

Eleanor's hand had crept into Arthur's and at this announcement clasped

his with such a sudden grip of anguish that he almost cried out. Then

his heart seemed to miss a beat as realisation burst on him, and his

eyes turned as the eyes of every other person in the room inevitably

turned, to stare at Miss Kenyon.

She was sitting very upright in her chair, gazing out before her with

a look of rapt contemplation. Her right hand was lightly clenched as

if she grasped a sceptre, and her widely opened eyes had the cruel,

predatory stare of a hawk.

And clear and bright, a text from the Old Testament leapt into Arthur's

mind. How did it go? "Whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke,

I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I

will chastise you with scorpions."

Eleanor had suddenly leaned upon him and the grasp of her hand was

relaxed.

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|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |

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