A few minutes later Roger was shown into his father's room. His first
sight of the old man, lying flat on his back, his emaciated arms limp
on the smooth white coverlet, his face drawn and the colour of old
parchment, gave him a distinct shock. It was but a momentary one,
however. The room, filled with sunlight, was calm and cheerful, the
fresh fragrance of violets scented the air, the whole atmosphere tended
to allay his fears. The young nurse he had seen in the hall came
forward as he entered, greeting him with a frank smile.
"The doctor says you may stay half an hour," she told him with friendly
simplicity of manner. "Only you must promise not to talk very much,
and not to excite him. You'll be careful, won't you?"
"You can trust me," he assured her.
Their glances met. He liked her naturalness, as transparent as the
lucid brown-amber of her eyes. She seemed to him so straightforward,
like an extremely nice child. He was sorry when she slipped quietly
out and left him alone with the invalid.
"Well, father! This is very wrong of you."
The dull eyes brightened, one big bony hand stretched out to grasp the
young man's firm one.
"Roger! I'm glad to see you. A welcome surprise! I never thought
you'd be free for another couple of months. How did you manage it?"
"Oh, I succeeded sooner than I expected, that's all. I'm particularly
pleased it happened, since you took it into your head to get laid up.
Whatever do you mean by it?"
At his tone of cheerful banter his father's grim face relaxed into a
smile.
"God knows. I seem to get everything that's going, and it isn't for
want of taking care of myself, either. Never mind about me; draw up
that chair and sit down."
Roger obeyed.
"Now let's hear all about America. You realise you have written me
precious few details. I've no idea what you've been up to."
"I didn't want to say much until I had it all definitely fixed up. It
was no good crowing too soon. I can set your mind at rest now, though,
everything's O. K."
The old eyes riveted themselves on his face intently.
"You mean you've landed some good orders?"
"Some! A lot, all over the place. I tell you, we've done the trick at
last; you can accept it for an absolute fact that our American market
is established."
The gaunt face on the pillow glowed with triumph. Sir Charles would
have hated to admit in words just how great was the satisfaction given
him by this news, but his expression betrayed the truth. In his secret
heart he had sometimes felt that the principal thing he lived for now
was the firm establishment of a market in the United States for the
output of Seabrook & Clifford. Until now the buyers across the
Atlantic had shown little interest in their well-known materials,
although salesman after salesman had been sent out, and money sunk in
advertising to an extent that made him shudder to contemplate.
Bitterly he had begun to fear that the wish of his heart would never be
realised in his lifetime, yet now, behold! It had come about, and
through the agency and judgment of his son. He felt a burning desire
to know all details.
"What about those new patterns you took out with you?" he inquired,
with an effort to appear casual.
Roger stared at him in astonishment, then laughed.
"Why, of course, it was the new patterns that did it! The old stuff
was out of date, no one would look at it. Didn't I always say so? If
there's any place in the world that wants modern ideas, it is America.
And let me tell you something else: before you know where you are, the
colonies are going to wake up and want them too!"
His father gulped. It may have been that he was swallowing his pride.
Still, he managed to nod, as if this were what he'd been expecting.
"Henry Seabrook will hate to admit he's been wrong all these years,"
was his game comment. "You recollect how he raved and carried on when
you showed him those futurist designs?"
"Do I not? You'd have thought there was something positively immoral
in them, evil enough to rot the very yarns!"
He refrained from alluding to the fact that his father had displayed an
almost equal distaste and scepticism. Let old Seabrook shoulder the
blame!
"As soon as you've pulled out of this, I'll go over the whole thing
with you and show you the figures. For the moment, though, I don't
want to tax your strength."
"I suppose you're right," admitted his father with a sigh. "I'm
getting on pretty well, I believe, but the slightest effort does me up.
This wretched fever leaves me as limp as a rag. Never mind--what
you've told me is the best tonic I could hope for."
He closed his eyes with a look of contentment and lay quiet, the
outline of his head sharp against the pillow. Roger leaned back in his
chair, well pleased with his father's reception of his report, and
realising more than ever before what his achievement meant to the old
man. Up till now he had been chiefly concerned with his own
satisfaction over a great personal triumph, the biggest thing he had
accomplished in his entire career. To begin with, hampered as he had
been by the two hard, conservative old men above him, Henry Seabrook
and his father, this represented the only time he had been allowed to
strike out a line for himself. Ever since he came down from the
University and went to work to "learn the business," he had violently
disagreed with certain details in the policy of the firm. Not that he
was not proud of Seabrook & Clifford. No factories were run on better
lines; there was nothing in their administration to hide up or
apologise for, while "Seacliff Fabrics" were of an excellence
recognised throughout England and the colonies. Only their designs
were old-fashioned, the honoured firm had not moved with the times, as
others and often less worthy competitors had done.
In Roger's opinion, the sign of this was their failure to capture the
American market. He had tried hard to convince the old partners of
this, but for several years his efforts had met with no success. In
the end he had on his own initiative sought out young artists of a
modern school of design in London and in Paris, wherever he could find
them, and from them had obtained a whole collection of new drawings for
printed cottons. Then, after a hard-fought campaign, he finally
secured a grudging consent to put his idea to the test and, armed with
his batch of Seacliff Fabrics brought up to date, he had set out four
months ago for the United States--with the happy result just related.
Well! They would have to believe in him now, those two stubborn old
men; they could no longer regard him as a hare-brained youngster full
of mad theories. He wished suddenly that his mother could know of his
good fortune. She, he was sure, would have had confidence in him from
the start. He raised his eyes to the mantelpiece, where there was a
photograph of her, taken in the dress of eighteen years back. The face
was pleasing without being beautiful, the eyes seemed to look at him
with humorous understanding, just as they had so often done in life.
He had been a schoolboy when she died, yet even then he had realised
her imagination and love of beauty, coupled with the ability for
bringing out those same qualities in himself.
On the other end of the shelf was a large, shadowy photograph of his
father's present wife, one of the sort known as a "camera study," the
pose exquisite, hair and draperies fading into a dim background, the
eyes wistful and dreamy. Without moving, he examined it
appreciatively. There was no denying that Thérèse was a lovely woman.
Yet as he looked his face hardened, and he felt the blood slowly mount
until his cheeks burned as though on fire. He was recalling an
incident known to no one but himself, a thing which never failed to
rouse in him sensations of shame and resentment. It belonged to the
early days of his father's second marriage, and before relating it, it
may be as well to explain how the cotton manufacturer came to meet the
present Lady Clifford.
Some years back the old man had made the acquaintance of a Baron and
Baroness de Rummel through the organisation of a musical festival in
Manchester. The de Rummels collected about them at their London house
a varied circle of smart, semi-artistic people. Sir Charles, first and
last a simple business man, having only one point of contact with their
world, enjoyed--perhaps a trifle guiltily--his excursions into so
sophisticated a set, feeling, no doubt, that in some new way for him he
was "seeing life." The men and women he met were ornamental and
amusing, possessed expensive habits, spoke in thousands, and told you
in the same breath that they hadn't a bean. Many might have been
somewhat hazy as to antecedents, but all were well-provided with a
certain stock-in-trade--personal charm. There were young men who
composed music, others who designed everything from a lampshade to the
_décors_ of a ballet, young women who sang or danced, actresses who had
not got on because managers would make love to them--or wouldn't, as
the case might be. All types and many classes were represented, but a
common object bound them together, namely, the hope that in the de
Rummels' drawing-room they might chance upon a "backer," someone
trusting enough to invest money in their enterprises.
In the winter of 1919, the particular star in this artistic zodiac was
Thérèse Romain, dazzling chiefly on account of her ethereal beauty.
She had a voice, which did not amount to much, and she had done a
little acting on the stage and for the screen, but without conspicuous
success. She had devoted years to war-work, and there were tears in
her beautiful eyes when she spoke of her husband, killed in action.
She refrained from mentioning the fact that when he fell he had been in
the midst of divorce proceedings against her, nor was she explicit as
to the nature of her war-work, though there were those, Roger among the
number, who assumed that it must have paid pretty well. At any rate,
the Baron took an interest in her referring to her as his ward--a
sufficiently elastic term. Finding Sir Charles attracted, he took him
aside and besought him to do something for Thérèse. Exactly what the
Baron had in mind may have been shadowy; but what Sir Charles did was
definite. He married her.
This action was as much a bombshell to the Baron as it was to the
neighbours in Cheshire, perhaps even more than Thérèse herself had
bargained for. It was a piece of amazing good fortune, but it entailed
restrictions which soon grew tedious. Country life in the North
Midlands proved a crushing bore. Tennis she cared little for once she
had finished dressing for the part, and hunting she gave up after her
third venture, when a fall strained a ligament in her back and laid her
up for weeks. Altogether she loathed England and the English more
every day. London she could have borne, but this life of the rural
provinces spelled extinction, beginning with the climate and ending
with the vicar for tea. At last she could not even be amused by the
sensation she was causing, and, casting about for something to mitigate
her boredom, she hit upon Roger as a possible distraction.
Roger, for his part, had seen trouble in the offing, though he was
unprepared for it to take this form. He did not dislike the young
woman, half French, half Belgian, with the qualities of both races,
though secretly he thought his father a fool to have offered her
marriage when something less permanent would have served the purpose.
Still, for all his private convictions, he behaved to his stepmother
with perfect courtesy, determined to make the best of things.
While Thérèse was recovering from her accident, Roger sat with her
nearly every evening. His father went off to bed at ten o'clock, while
Thérèse found herself with several hours on her hands. It was during
this period that Roger became aware that his stepmother was using every
means to make him fall in love with her. He tried to ignore the fact,
he sought excuses to take him away, but this led to reproaches which
made him still more uncomfortable. Beyond a certain point one cannot
pretend denseness, and he was in an agony of dread lest his father
would see what Thérèse was up to. She had begun kissing him
good-night, and now more and more warmth crept into the embrace until
he found himself trying to avoid it. He was no prig, and Thérèse was
attractive, yet the distaste he felt for the situation neutralised her
power to lure him. Moreover, she showed him a side which convinced him
of what he had hitherto suspected--that Thérèse had all the instincts
of a _cocotte_. Whether she actually was one or not was a matter of
opportunity.
The climax came one night during an absence of his father in London.
Thérèse deliberately came into his room when she knew he was in bed.
It was a painful thing, and even after six years it embarrassed him to
think of it. It was her bad taste that revolted him, the calm
assumption that he was ready to enter light-heartedly into a liaison
with his father's wife! He was filled with disgust. She had placed
him in a position where whatever he did would be wrong; consequently he
let his temper get the better of him and, taking her by the shoulders,
put her out of the room. Naturally, she never forgave him.
Since that night he had seen little of her. He had moved into
Manchester, on the excuse of being nearer the factory, while she, in
turn, took to spending more and more time abroad. Three years ago his
father had been persuaded to give up work and try the South of France
for his health. That had made things easier.
"I'm afraid I shall have to turn you out now. We have to be strict."
He glanced up quickly, then jumped to his feet. The screen which
guarded the door had kept him ignorant of the nurse's quiet entrance
until she was beside him.
"Have I stayed too long?"
"Oh, no, and I'm glad to see he's resting quietly. You can come in
again for a little while this afternoon, if he's going on well."
Roger took leave of the invalid, who opened his sunken eyes for a
moment, then closed them again.
"Come outside a moment," he whispered to the nurse when he reached the
door.
She followed him into the hall, looking up inquiringly.
"Do you consider he's very ill?" asked Roger.
She looked at him earnestly and shook her head.
"Why, no, Mr. Clifford, since you ask me, I can honestly say that it
seems to both the night-nurse and me an unusually light case of
typhoid--about the lightest I've ever nursed, I should say. It
certainly _is_ typhoid, yet he has never run as high a temperature as
one expects."
"Considering his age, that's lucky, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course, oh, yes!"
He thought she seemed a little puzzled.
"Has the doctor's treatment of the case anything to do with it, do you
think?"
She smiled and shook her head.
"No, there isn't much one can do in typhoid, it's mainly a question of
what not to do. I only hesitated because we--the other nurse and
I--both think it a little odd that Sir Charles, who's an old man,
should have such a mild case, when the type that's going around is
rather severe."
"Oh, I see. Well, I suppose there's no accounting for these things, is
there?"
"No, and in any case we can't complain, can we?"
He liked her laugh and the frank way she looked at him. Her eyes were
as clear as a sunny pool that mirrored brown leaves. He liked, too,
the freshness of her skin, and her rather square white teeth, with a
tiny space separating the middle two. They made her look so honest.
It was a friendly, fearless face, yet there was sensitiveness about it,
evident from the way the colour mounted into the cheeks at the
closeness of his scrutiny.
"Where do you come from?" he asked suddenly.
"Manitoba," was the prompt reply, "the western part."
"Oh--the plains?"
"Yes, but I'm astonished at your knowing."
"Do I look so ignorant?"
"Everyone over here is ignorant about American geography. I never
expect them to know anything. When I mentioned Manitoba to one man, he
said at once, 'Oh, yes, Central America!'"
Roger laughed.
"I shouldn't like to be cross-examined myself, but I know a little
about Canada. I think, too, that you have the look of the plains."
"What sort of look is that?"
He hesitated, and his eyes twinkled.
"An extremely nice look."
They both laughed at this.
"To be definite, it is a certain breadth across here"--he indicated the
cheek-bones--"and then your eyes, the way they are set, and a sort of
shining brightness about them. I should think you are very
far-sighted. Are you?"
"Well, do you know, I am. I grew up in a country where one could see
for miles and miles. When I first went into hospital training, my eyes
began to trouble me. The doctors said it was only because I wasn't
used to looking at objects at close range."
"You ought to be out of doors. Why, may I ask, did you take up
nursing?"
She shrugged her shoulders and flashed a frank smile at him.
"I had to do something--there were such crowds of us at home. And I
haven't any talents."
"It strikes me as remarkably plucky."
"Why?" she demanded promptly. "Thousands of girls are doing the same
thing every day."
"I suppose they are, but that's quite another thing.
"I fail to see it," she retorted with an ironical sparkle in her eye.
"You wouldn't, of course, and I can't altogether explain. But perhaps
when I've had time to think it over..."
Again they laughed. It was the sort of stupid little conversation to
which enormous point is given solely by mutual attraction. However
slight and evanescent that affinity may be, it yet hints at the
possibility of other things, surrounding the most trivial remarks with
a kind of roseate glow.
In this instance the glow lasted during what might have been an awkward
interval, while the two stood looking at each other with nothing to
say. Esther was the first to return to a matter-of-fact world.
"I mustn't stay here talking. I have things to do for my patient."
"I'm glad he's got you to look after him," said Roger impulsively. "It
can't be so bad to be..."
But she did not wait to hear more. With a quizzical smile over her
shoulder she vanished into the bedroom, leaving him to descend the
stairs whistling, conscious of an agreeable warmth he did not seek to
analyse.
Esther also felt oddly elated, but she did not neglect to enter very
softly, in case her patient should be dozing. Her hand still on the
door-knob, she peered cautiously around the edge of the screen.
Someone was in the room, she felt it instinctively even before she
discovered who it was. A woman's figure was bending over the table at
the other side of the room, her back turned, and something eager and
tense in her attitude. It was Lady Clifford. But what was she doing?
Of, of course! She was examining the chart.