GODFREY half rose from his chair, more than puzzled by the mutual
recognition.
“You said you didn’t know Mr. Burden,” he cried.
But neither heeded him. Baltazar made a stride forward and with one hand
gripped Marcelle by the arm and with the other motioned in his imperious
way to the open door. Still looking at him in wonderment, she allowed
him to lead her quickly to the terrace at the head of the steps.
Godfrey’s astonished gaze followed them till they disappeared. Outside,
Baltazar released her.
“Marcelle! What in thunder are you doing here?”
She was too greatly overwhelmed to reply. She could only gasp a few
broken and foolish words.
“You? John Baltazar? Alive?”
“Never been less dead. But you! You of all people. My God! although I
lost you, I could never lose your face. It has been with me all the
time. And there it is, the same as ever. But what are you doing here?”
She made a vague gesture over her costume.
“I’m a professional nurse. Sister-in-charge. I’ve been nursing all my
life.”
“Not when I knew you,” said Baltazar.
“My life began after that.”
“Married?”
The colour came back into her white cheeks. “No,” she said.
“Neither am I.”
He put both hands on her shrinking shoulders and bent on her eyes which
she could not meet.
“You at last, after all these years! Just the same. Just as beautiful.
Much more.”
“This is rather public,” she managed to say, releasing herself. “There
are lots of patients——”
He laughed and, indicating the parapet, invited her to sit.
“You must forgive me,” he said, seating himself by her side. “The sight
of you blotted out the world. Don’t be frightened. I’m quite tame now.
Look at me.”
She obeyed him as she had done in her early girlhood, dominated for the
moment by his tone.
“How do you think I’m looking? Battered by time? A crock to be wrapped
up in flannel and set in the chimney-corner to wheeze the rest of his
life away?”
“You look very little older,” she said with a wan smile. “And you
haven’t a grey hair in your head.”
“That’s good. I’m as young as ever I was. I can sweep away twenty years
and begin where I left off.”
“You’re more fortunate than I am,” said Marcelle.
“Rubbish!” said Baltazar.
She glanced at him wistfully and then out over the trees.
“Nursing isn’t the road to perpetual youth,” she said. Then lest he
should catch up her words, she continued swiftly: “But you must tell me
where you have been, how you’ve come back to life. You disappeared
utterly. You never wrote. If we all thought you dead, was it our fault?
When Godfrey showed me your letter, I never dreamed who James Burden
might be.”
“Godfrey?” Baltazar pounced on the name. “Do you call him Godfrey? Then
you must be old friends. Hence the miracle of finding you together. Have
you been mothering him all his life?”
She shook her head. “How you jump at conclusions! No. I met him for the
first time when I came here—a month ago.”
“So it’s just Chance, Fate, Destiny, the three of us meeting like this?
The hand of God? . . . Wait, though. I can’t see quite clearly. You
learned he was my son?”
She smiled again:
“Do you think we call all young officers here by their Christian names?”
“Does he know that you knew me?”
“If he didn’t,” she replied, “he wouldn’t have consulted me about Mr.
Burden’s letter. I wish I had been mothering him all his life,” she
added after a pause; “but I’ve been doing my best for the last month. I
can’t help loving him.”
“What does he know about you and me?”
“I’ve told him everything,” said Marcelle.
Baltazar started to his feet.
“Then when he saw us gaping at each other just now, he must have
guessed, or he can’t have any Baltazar brains in his head.” He moved
away a pace; then turned on her. “You gave me a good character?”
Her head was bowed. She did not see the rare laughter in his eyes, but
took his question seriously.
“Can you doubt it?” She beckoned him nearer, and said in a low voice: “I
may have been wrong, but I have given him to understand that it was
entirely on my account—you know what I mean——”
“What other reason, in the name of God could I have had?” he exclaimed
with a large gesture.
If there had lingered a doubt in her mind, the note of sincerity in the
man’s cry would have driven it away for ever. It awoke a harmonic chord
of gladness in her heart and her whole being vibrated. Although John
Baltazar’s subsequent career was as yet dark and mysterious, her faith,
at least, was justified. She said without looking at him:
“You’ll find that I’ve been loyal.”
He strode towards her and, disregarding the perils of publicity, again
took her by the shoulders.
“What kind of a cynical beast do you think I’ve turned into?”
He swept away, leaving her physically conscious of the impress of his
fingers in her flesh and her brain reeling.
* * * * *
Baltazar marched into the great hall to Godfrey, still sitting in his
arm-chair, his maimed leg, as usual, supported on the outstretched
crutch.
“No, don’t get up.”
He swung the chair which he had previously occupied dose to Godfrey’s
and sat down.
“By this time you must have guessed who I am,” he said in his direct
fashion.
“I suppose you’re my father,” said the young man.
“I am,” replied Baltazar. “My extraordinary meeting with Miss Baring
gave me away. Didn’t it?”
“I suppose it did. Perhaps I ought to have suspected something when you
mentioned China. But I didn’t.”
“The assumed name was the one I was known by for eighteen years—ever
since I left England. I thought I’d take it up again for the sake of a
reconnaissance, like the rich old uncle in the play, to see what kind of
a man you were and how you looked upon your unknown father. Hence the
questions you may have thought impertinent.”
“I quite see,” said Godfrey, pulling at his short-cropped moustache.
Baltazar threw himself back in his chair. “Well, there it is. We’re
father and son. Miss Baring has told you, from her point of view, why I
threw over everything and disappeared. Her conjecture is absolutely
correct. I must, however, say one thing to you, once and for all. I
hadn’t the remotest idea that you were coming into the world. If I had,
I should have remained and done my duty. I only heard of your existence
a week ago—at Cambridge.”
“Yes?” said Godfrey.
“Let us come straight to the point then. You either believe me or
disbelieve me. If you don’t believe me, nothing I can ever say or do
will make you. If you do believe me, we can go ahead. It’s the vital
point in our future relations. Speak out straight. Which is it?”
Godfrey looked for a few seconds into the luminous grey eyes—his own
were somewhat hard—and then he said very deliberately:
“I certainly believe you. My conversations with Sister Baring made me
take that particular point for granted.”
Baltazar drew a long breath.
“That’s all right, then. I think I also ought to assure you that beyond
giving Cambridge a nine days’ wonder, I have done nothing to discredit
the name of Baltazar. In China I had a position which no European to my
knowledge has attained since Marco Polo. I left on account of the
warring between two ideals—the Old China and the New. I belonged to the
Old. I found I couldn’t find orientation unless I came West for it. I
returned to England two years ago.”
“And you only went up to Cambridge last week?”
“Precisely. The intervening time I spent in a remarkable manner, which
I’ll tell you about on another occasion. In the meanwhile we’re face to
face with the overwhelming fact that I’ve discovered an unsuspected son,
and you a legendary father. I’m fairly well off. So, I presume, are you.
If you’re not, my means are yours. It’s well to clear the air, from the
very beginning of any possible sordid bogies.”
“I never dreamed of such a thing,” said Godfrey.
“All right. That’s settled. We come now to the main point. We’re father
and son. What are we going to do about it?”
“It’s a peculiar situation, sir,” said Godfrey.
Baltazar, who in the impatient interval between Sheepshanks’s staggering
news and the present interview, had pictured many a _dénouement_ of the
inevitable drama, had never pictured one so cold and unemotional as
this. The Chinese filial ideal he knew to be non-existent in the West;
but in his uncompromising way he had imagined extremes. Either scornful
enmity and repudiation, or a gush of human sentiment. A scene in a silly
old French melodrama, a memory of boyhood, had haunted him. “_Mon
fils!_”—“_Mon père!_” And the twain had thrown themselves into each
other’s arms. But neither of these dramatic situations had arisen. The
situation, indeed, was characterized by the cool and thoughtful young
man merely as “peculiar.” Well, it was an intelligent view. The boy had
heard the arguments of the advocates of the devil and the advocates of
the angels, and he had formed a sound and favourable judgment. On the
angels’ advocacy he had never reckoned. So much was there to the good.
He was not condemned. On the other hand, he saw no signs of filial
emotion. He himself, with his expansive temperament, would have rejoiced
at being able to cry “_Mon fils!_” and clasp to his breast this son of
his loins, this splendid continuance of his blood and his brain. But in
the calm, collected young soldier he could discover no germ of
reciprocated sentiment. He felt disappointed, almost rebuffed. All the
pent-up emotion of the lonely man was ready to burst the lock-gates; it
had to surge back on itself.
After a long silence, he said: “Yes, you’re right. It is a peculiar
situation. Perhaps circumstances make me take it more—what shall we
say—more emotionally than you. After all, I’m a perfect stranger. I’ve
never done a hand’s turn for you. I may be a complication in your
life—to put it brutally—a damned nuisance. I don’t want to be one, I
assure you.”
“Of course not,” Godfrey answered, with wrinkled forehead. “I quite
understand. You must forgive me, sir, if I don’t say much; but you’ll
agree that this revelation, or whatever we like to call it, is a bit
sudden. If your mind, as you said just now, is in process of adjustment,
what do you think mine must be?”
“All right,” said Baltazar. “Let us leave it at that for the present.”
He rose and marched to the door in search of Marcelle. But she had
disappeared from the terrace and was nowhere visible to his eye scanning
the garden. When he returned to the hall, Godfrey was standing.
“I suppose I must give the two of you time to recover from the shock of
me. I can quite understand that bouncing in from the dead like this is
disconcerting to one’s friends.” He looked at his watch. “I must be
catching my train. I shall see you soon again, I hope.”
“I was wondering, sir, whether you would lunch with me in town
to-morrow,” said Godfrey.
“Can you travel about like that?”
“Oh, Lord! yes. I’m going up to London in any case.”
“Then we’ll fix it. Only you’ll lunch with me. It seems more fitting.
When? Where? I have no club. My membership of the Athenæum lapsed twenty
years ago. And, even if it hadn’t, the Megatherium—Thackeray’s name for
it—is no good for hospitable purposes. Shall we say the Savoy at
one-thirty?”
“That will suit me admirably,” said the young man.
“Good-bye.”
They shook hands. Godfrey accompanied him to the terrace.
“Have you a taxi or cab waiting?”
“I came on the feet which I unworthily possess,” replied Baltazar with a
smile. “Tell Sister Baring I looked for her and she was gone.”
“I’ll send an orderly to find her, if you like.”
Baltazar hesitated for a moment. A quick tenderness checked impetuous
impulse.
“No, no!” he answered with a smile. “I’ve worried her sufficiently for
to-day. She’ll hear from me soon enough.”
They shook hands again and he ran down the marble stairs, and, waving a
farewell, strode away with the elastic tread of youth. After a while
Godfrey hobbled down, and, passing by the tennis courts and through the
Japanese garden, arrived at the beech-wood, scene of their first and so
many subsequent intimate talks, where he felt sure he should find
Marcelle. He saw her, before she realized his approach, sitting on a
bench; staring in front of her, her hands listless by her side. On the
palm of one of them lay a crumpled ball of a handkerchief. She had been
crying. As soon as she heard him she started and, looking round, greeted
him with a smile.
“I knew I’d get you here,” he said, sitting down by her side. “The
long-lost parent has gone. He sent you a message.”
He gave its substance. She nodded.
“He’s quite right. I need a little time to get used to it.”
Godfrey said: “Shall I clear out and leave you alone? Do tell me.”
“No, no!” she said quickly. “I want you. I was just feeling dreadfully
alone.”
“Defenceless?”
“What makes you say that?” she asked, alarm in her eyes. For she had
been frightened, absurdly frightened, by the swift, sudden force that
had impinged on her well-ordered way of life. It had set her wits
wandering, her nerves jangling, her emotions dancing a grotesque and
unintelligible saraband. Her shoulders still felt the clutch of
irresistible fingers. She was sure they would bear black and blue marks
for days. The virginal in her shrank from the possible contemplation of
them in her mirror. Defenceless was the very word. What uncanny insight
had suggested it to Godfrey?
In reply, he shrugged his shoulders. Then he said:
“That’s how I feel, anyway. And if you want me, I want you. That’s why
I’ve ferreted you out. It strikes me we’re more or less in the same
boat. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she replied absently.
The beech foliage was just beginning to turn faint golden. Here and
there a leaf fell. A brown squirrel scampering up a branch of a tree
close in front of them, suddenly halted and watched them, as though
wondering why the two humans sat so still and depressed on that mellow
autumn afternoon. The sun was slanting warmly through the leaves. The
beech-mast, young and tender, provided infinity of food beyond the
dreams of gluttony. Never an enemy menaced the exquisite demesne. God
was in His heaven, and all was right with the world. What in the name of
Nature was there to worry these two humans? Well, it was no business of
his, and he had enough business of his own to attend to. He glanced
aside, and his quick eyes spotting a field-mouse at the base of a
neighbouring tree, he darted off, a streak of brown lightning, in
pursuit.
Presently Godfrey spoke, digging in front of him with his rubber-shod
crutch.
“To be interested in a legendary sort of father is one thing. There’s
imagination and romance and atmosphere about it. But it’s another thing
to have this same father burst on one in flesh and blood—and such a lot
of flesh and blood! Now a venerable, white-haired old sinner, with a
pathetic, intellectual face, might appeal to one’s sentiment. But this
new father of mine doesn’t. I may be unnatural, Marcelle, but he
doesn’t. Mind you, I’ve no grouch against him. Not a bit. I’m convinced
he thought he was doing right to everybody. When he learned that I
existed, he was struck all of a heap. He lost no time in tracking me
down. He’s actuated by the best motives. . . . All the same, I can’t
rise to it. The more he tried to make an appeal, the more antagonistic I
grew. It’s beyond explanation.”
“You’ll learn to love him,” said Marcelle loyally, yet without
conviction. “He’s a splendid man.”
“He’ll want to run me. Now I’ve run myself all my life. So I’ll not
stand for it. He’ll want to run you too. You know it, Marcelle. That’s
why you’ve been sitting here feeling lonely and defenceless.”
She laughed ruefully. “I suppose it is.”
“The way he clawed hold of you and dragged you out——”
“That’s the way he clawed hold of himself and dragged himself out,
remember,” replied Marcelle.
“A queer devil!” said Godfrey. “Do you know what he suggests to me? A
disconnected dynamo.” He laughed. “He ought to be hitched on to the war.
He’d buck it up.”