1 §
In the withdrawing-room of a small house near Kew Gardens, Mrs. Philip
Raider was gazing at a piece of pinkish paper in her hand, as if it had
been one of those spiders of which she had so constitutional a horror.
Opposite her chair her son had risen; and against the wall her daughter
had ceased suddenly to play Brahms’ Variations on a theme by Haydn.
“He says to-night!”
The girl dropped her hands from the keys. “To-night? I thought it was
next month. Just like father--without a word of warning!”
The son mechanically took out his pipe, and began polishing its bowl.
He was fresh-faced, fair, with a small head.
“Why didn’t he tell us to meet him in London? He must know we’ve got to
come to an arrangement.”
The daughter, too, got up, leaning against the piano--a slight figure,
with bushy, dark, short hair.
“What are we to do, Mother?”
“Jack must go round, and put Mabel and Roderick off for this evening.”
“Yes, and what then, if he’s going to stay here? Does he know that I’m
engaged, and Beryl too?”
“I think I told him in my last letter.”
“What are _you_ going to do, Mother?”
“It’s come so suddenly--I don’t know.”
“It’s indecent!” said the boy violently.
His sister picked up the dropped telegram. “‘Earl’s Court, five four.’
He may be here any minute. Jack, do hurry up! Doesn’t he _realise_ that
nobody knows, down here?”
Mrs. Raider turned to the fire.
“Your father will only have realised his own feelings.”
“Well, he’s got to begin with others. I’ll have to make him----!”
“Dr. Raider, ma’am.”
Late--299 stood, smiling, in front of the door which the maid had
closed behind him.
“Well, Bertha! Ah, Beryl! Well, Jack!”
His daughter alone replied.
“_Well_, Father, you might have let us know beforehand!”
Late--299 looked from one face to the other.
“Never tell children they’re going to have a powder. How are you all?”
“Perfectly well, thank you. How are you?”
“Never better. Healthy life--prison!”
As if walking in her sleep Mrs. Raider came across the room. She put
out her hand with a groping gesture. Late--299 did not take it.
“Rather nice here,” he said. “Can I have a wash?”
“Jack, show your father the lavatory.”
“The bathroom, please.”
The son crossed from the window, glanced at his father’s smiling face,
and led the way.
Mrs. Raider, thin, pale, dark, spoke first. “Poor Philip!”
“Oh, Mother! It’s impossible to pity father; it always was. Except for
his moustache being gone, I don’t see much change anyway. It’s you I
pity. He simply can’t stay here. Why, everybody thinks you’re a widow.”
“People generally know more than they seem to, Beryl.”
“Nobody’s ever given us a hint. Why couldn’t he have consulted us?”
“We must think of _him_.”
“He didn’t think of us when he did that horrible thing. And it was so
gratuitous, unless----! Mother, sometimes I’ve thought he had to do it;
that he was her--her lover as well as her doctor!”
Mrs. Raider shook her head.
“If it had been that, he’d have told me. Your father is always
justified in his own eyes.”
“What am I to do about Roddy?”
“We must just wait.”
“Here’s Jack! Well?”
“He’s having a bath as hot as he can bear it. All he said was: ‘This
is the first thing you do when you go in, and the first thing you do
when you come out--symmetrical, isn’t it?’ I’ve got to take him a cup
of coffee. It’s really too thick! The servants can’t help knowing that
a Dr. Raider who gets into the bath the moment he comes to call must be
our father.”
“It’s comic.”
“Is it? He doesn’t show a sign of shame. He’ll call it from the
house-tops. I thought, of course, he’d go abroad.”
“We all thought that.”
“If he were down in the mouth, one could feel sorry for him. But he
looks as pleased as Punch with himself. And it’s such a beastly sort of
crime--how am I to put it to Mabel? If I just say he’s been in prison,
she’ll think it’s something even worse. Mother, do insist on his going
at once. We can tell the servants he’s an uncle--who’s been in contact
with smallpox.”
“_You_ take him the coffee, Mother--oh, you can’t, if he’s to be an
uncle! Jack, tell him nobody here knows, and mother can’t stand it; and
hurry up! It’s half-past six now.”
The son passed his fingers through his brushed-back hair; his face
looked youthful, desperate.
“Shall I?”
Mrs. Raider nodded.
“Tell him, Jack, that I’ll come out to him, wherever he likes to
go; that I always expected him to arrange that; that this is--too
difficult----” She covered her lips with her hand.
“All right, Mother! I’ll jolly well make him understand. But don’t
launch out about it to the servants yet. Suppose it’s we who have to
go? It’s his house!”
“Is it, Mother?”
“Yes; I bought it with his money under the power of attorney he left.”
“Oh, isn’t that dreadful?”
“It’s _all_ dreadful, but we must consider _him_.”
The girl shook back her fuzzy hair.
“It does seem rather a case of ‘coldly received.’ But father’s always
been shut up in himself. He can’t expect us suddenly to slobber over
him. If he’s had a horrible time, so have we.”
“Well, shall I go?”
“Yes, take him the coffee. Be quick, my dear boy; and be nice to him!”
The son said with youthful grimness: “Oh, I’ll be nice!” and went.
“Mother, don’t look like that!”
“How should I look? Smiling?”
“No, don’t smile--it’s like _him_. Cry it off your chest.”
2 §
Late--299 was sitting in the bath, smiling through steam and the smoke
of his cigarette at his big toe. Raised just above the level of the
water, it had a nail blackened by some weight that had dropped on it.
He took the coffee-cup from his son’s hand.
“For two years and nine months I’ve been looking forward to this--but
it beats the band, Jack.”
“Father--I--ought----”
“Good coffee, tobacco, hot water--greatest blessings earth affords.
Half an hour in here, and--spotless, body and soul!”
“Father----!”
“Yes; is there anything you want to add?”
“We’ve--we’ve been here two years.”
“Not so long as I was there. Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t. Are you studying medicine?”
“No. Botany.”
“Good. You won’t have to do with human beings.”
“I’ve got the promise of a job in the Gardens here at the beginning of
next year. And I’m--I’m engaged.”
“Excellent. I believe in marrying young.”
“Beryl’s engaged too.”
“Your mother isn’t, by any chance?”
“Father!”
“My dear fellow, one expects to have been dropped. Why suppose one’s
family superior to other people’s? _Pas si bête!_”
Gazing at that smiling face where prison pallor was yielding to the
heat, above the neck whose sinews seemed unnaturally sharp and visible,
the boy felt a spasm of remorse.
“We’ve never had a proper chance to tell you how frightfully sorry
we’ve been for you. Only, we don’t understand even now why you did such
a thing.”
“Should I have done it if I’d thought it would have been spotted? A
woman going to the devil; a small risk to oneself--and there we were!
Never save anyone, at risk to yourself, Jack. I’m sure you agree.”
The boy’s face went very red. How could he ever get out what he had
come to say?
“I have no intention of putting my tail between my legs. D’you mind
taking this cup?”
“Will you have another, Father?”
“No, thanks. What time do you dine?”
“Half-past seven.”
“You might lend me a razor. I was shaved this morning with a sort of
billhook.”
“I’ll get you one.”
Away from that smiling stranger in the bath, the boy shook himself. He
must and would speak out!
When he came back with the shaving gear, his father was lying flat,
deeply immersed, with closed eyes. And setting his back against the
door, he blurted out: “Nobody knows down here. They think mother’s a
widow.”
The eyes opened, the smile resumed control.
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do; I know that Mabel--the girl I’m engaged to--has no suspicion.
She’s coming to dinner; so is Roddy Blades--Beryl’s _fiancé_.”
“Mabel, and Roddy Blades--glad to know their names. Give me that big
towel, there’s a good fellow. I’m going to wash my head.”
Handing him the towel, the boy turned. But at the door he stopped.
“Father----!”
“Quite. These natural relationships are fixed, beyond redemption.”
The boy turned and fled.
His mother and sister stood waiting at the foot of the stairs.
“Well?”
“It’s no good. I simply can’t tell him we want him to go.”
“No, my dear. I understand.”
“Oh! but, Mother----! Jack, you must.”
“I can’t; I’m going to put them off.” Seizing his hat, he ran. He ran
among small houses in the evening mist, trying to invent. At the corner
of the long row of little villas he rang a bell.
“Can I see Miss Mabel?”
“She’s dressing, sir. Will you come in?”
“No. I’ll wait here.”
In the small dark porch he tried to rehearse himself. ‘Awfully sorry!
Somebody had come--unexpectedly--on business!’ Yes! On what business?
“Hallo, Jack!”
A vision in the doorway--a fair head, a rosy, round, blue-eyed face
above a swansdown collar.
“Look here, darling--shut the door.”
“Why? What is it? Anything up?”
“Yes; something pretty badly up. You can’t come to-night, Mabel.”
“Don’t squeeze so hard! Why not?”
“Oh! well--there--there’s a reason.”
“I know. Your father’s come out!”
“What? How----?”
“But of course. We all know about him. We must be awfully nice to him.”
“D’you mean to say that Roddy and everybody---- We thought nobody knew.”
“Bless you, yes! Some people feel one way and some the other. I feel
the other.”
“Do you know what he did?”
“Yes; I got hold of the paper. I read the whole trial.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t _you_?”
“It was too beastly. Well?”
“I think it was a shame.”
“But you can’t have that sort of thing allowed.”
“Why not?”
“Where would the population be?”
“Well, we’re over-populated. Everybody says so.”
“That’s quite another thing. This is the Law.”
“Look here! If you want to argue, come in. It’s jolly cold.”
“I don’t want to argue; I must go and tell Roddy. It’s an awful relief
about you, darling. Only--you don’t know my father.”
“Then I can’t come?”
“Not to-night. Mother----”
“Yes; I expect she’s frightfully glad.”
“Oh! yes--yes! She--yes!”
“Well, good-night. And look here--you go back. _I’ll_ tell Roddy. No!
Don’t rumple me!”
Running back between small houses, the boy thought: ‘Good God! How
queer! How upside-down! She--she----! It’s awfully modern!’
3 §
Late--299 sat in the firelight, a glass beside him, a cigarette between
his smiling lips. The cinders clicked, a clock struck. Eleven! He
pitched the stump of his cigarette into the ashes, stretched himself,
and rose. He went upstairs and opened the first door. The room was
dark. A faint voice said:
“Philip?”
“Yes.”
The light sprang out under his thumb. His wife was sitting up in bed,
her face pale, her lips moving:
“To-night--must you?”
Late--299 moved to the foot of the bed; his lips still smiled, his eyes
gazed hungrily.
“Not at all. We learn to contain ourselves in prison. No vile contacts?
Quite so. Good-night!”
The voice from the bed said faintly:
“Philip, I’m so sorry; it’s the suddenness--I’m----”
“Don’t mention it.” The light failed under his thumb. The door fell
to....
Three people lay awake, one sleeping. The three who lay awake were
thinking: ‘If only he made one feel sorry for him! If only one could
love him! His self-control is forbidding--it’s not human! He ought to
want our sympathy. He ought to sympathise with us. He doesn’t seem
to feel--for himself, for us, for anything. And to-morrow--what will
happen? Is life possible here, now? Can we stand him in the house,
about the place? He’s frightening!’
The sleeper, in his first bed of one thousand and one nights, lay, his
eyes pinched up between brows and bony cheeks of a face as if carved
from ivory, and his lips still smiling at the softness under him.
Past dawn the wakeful slept, the sleeper awoke. His eyes sought the
familiar little pyramid of gear on the shelf in the corner, the bright
tins below, the round porthole, the line of distemper running along
the walls, the closed and solid smallness of a cell. And the blood
left his heart. They weren’t there! His whole being struggled with such
unreality. He was in a room staring at light coming through chintz
curtains. His arms were not naked. This was a sheet! For a moment he
shivered, uncertain of everything; then lay back, smiling at a papered
ceiling.