II

The nice young nurse came in. She closed the door gently, and, with her

smile, calm before accustomed death, and always, as it were, a little

proud of him,--that was because they were both English,--she took his

wrist and felt his pulse, holding her watch in the other hand, and asked

him, presently, how he felt. Only after that did she say, contemplating

him for a moment,--Marmaduke wondered how many hours--or was it perhaps

days?--she was giving him to live,--

“A gentleman has come to see you. You may see him if you like. But I’ve

told him that he is only to stay for half an hour.”

The blood flowed up to Marmaduke’s forehead. He felt it beating hard in

his neck and behind his ears, and his heart thumped down there under the

neatly drawn bed-clothes.

“A gentleman? What’s his name?”

Was it Robert?

“Here is his card,” said the nurse.

She drew it from her pocket and gave it to him. It couldn’t have been

Robert, of course. Robert would only have had to come up. Yet he was

dizzy with the disappointment. It was as if he saw Robert strolling away

for the last time. He would never see Robert again.

Mr. Guy Thorpe was the name. The address was a London club that

Marmaduke placed at once as second-rate, and “The Beeches, Arlington

Road,” in a London suburb. On the card was written in a neat scholarly

hand: “May I see you? We are friends.”

It was difficult for a moment to feel anything but the receding tide of

his hope. The next thing that came was a sense of dislike for Mr. Guy

Thorpe and for the words that he had written. Friends? By what right

since he did not know his name?

“Is he a soldier?” he asked. “How did he come? I don’t know him.”

“You needn’t see him unless you want to,” said the nurse. “No; he’s not

a soldier. An elderly man. He’s driving a motor for the French Wounded

Emergency Fund, and came on from the Alliance because he heard that you

were here. Perhaps he’s some old family friend. He spoke as if he were.”

Marmaduke smiled a little. “That’s hardly likely. But I’ll see him, yes;

since he came for that.”

When she had gone, he lay looking again at the blue bands across the

window. A flock of sea-gulls flew past--proud, swift, and leisurely,

glittering in the sun. They seemed to embody the splendour and

exultation of his thoughts, and, when they had disappeared, he was

sorry, almost desolate.

Mr. Guy Thorpe. He took up the card again in his feeble hand and looked

at it. And now, dimly, it seemed to remind him of something.

Steps approached along the passage, the nurse’s light footfall and the

heavier, careful tread of a man. An oddly polite, almost a deprecating

tread. He had gone about a great many hospitals and was cautious not to

disturb wounded men. Yet Marmaduke felt again that he did not like Mr.

Guy Thorpe, and, as they came in, he was conscious of feeling a little

frightened.

There was nothing to frighten one in Mr. Thorpe’s appearance. He was a

tall, thin, ageing man, travel-worn, in civilian clothes, with a dingy

Red-Cross badge on the sleeve of his waterproof overcoat. Baldish and

apparently near-sighted, he seemed to blink towards the bed, and, as if

with motoring in the wind, his eyelids were moist and reddened. He sat

down, murmuring some words of thanks to the nurse.

A very insignificant man, for all his height and his big forehead.

Altogether of The Beeches, Arlington Road. Had he turned grey, he might

have looked less shabby, but dark thin locks still clustered above his

high crown and behind his long-lobed ears. His eyes were dark, his

moustache drooped, and he had a small, straight nose. Marmaduke saw that

he was the sort of man who, in youth, might have been considered very

handsome. He looked like a seedy poet and some sort of minor civil

servant mingled, the civil servant having got the better of the poet.

Marmaduke also imagined that he would have a large family and a harassed

but ambitious wife, with a genteel accent--a wife a little below

himself. His tie was of a dull red silk. Marmaduke did not like him.

Mr. Thorpe glanced round, as if cautiously, to see if the nurse had

closed the door, and then, it was really as if more cautiously still,

looked at Marmaduke, slightly moving back his chair.

“I’m very grateful to you, very grateful indeed,” he said in a low

voice, “for seeing me.”

“You’ve come a long way,” said Marmaduke.

“Yes. A long way. I had heard of your being here. I hoped to get here. I

felt that I must see you. We are all proud of you; more proud than I can

say.”

He looked down now at the motoring-cap he held, and Marmaduke became

aware that the reddened eyes were still more suffused and that the mouth

under the drooping moustache twitched and trembled. He could think of

nothing to say, except to murmur something about being very glad--though

he didn’t want to say that; and he supposed, to account for Mr. Thorpe’s

emotion, that he must be a moving sight, lying there, wasted, bandaged,

and dying.

“You don’t remember my name, I suppose,” said Mr. Thorpe after a moment,

in which he frankly got out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Marmaduke very politely. He was glad to

say this. It was the sort of thing he did want to say.

“Yet I know yours very, very well,” said Mr. Thorpe, with a curious

watery smile. “I lived at Channerley once. I was tutor there for some

time--to Robert, your brother, and Griselda. Yes,” Mr. Thorpe nodded, “I

know the Folletts well; and Channerley, the dear old place.”

Now the dim something in memory pressed forward, almost with a physical

advance, and revealed itself as sundry words scratched on the schoolroom

window-panes and sundry succinct drawings in battered old Greek and

Latin grammars. Robert had always been very clever at drawing, catching

with equal facility and accuracy the swiftness of a galloping horse and

the absurdities of a human profile. What returned to Marmaduke now, and

as clearly as if he had the fly-leaf before him, was a tiny thumb-nail

sketch of such a galloping horse unseating a lank, crouching figure, of

whom the main indications were the angles of acute uncertainty taken by

the knees and elbows; and a more elaborate portrait, dashed and dotted

as if with a ruthless boyish grin--such an erect and melancholy head it

was, so dark the tossed-back locks, so classical the nose and

unclassical the moustache, and a brooding eye indicated in a triangular

sweep of shadow. Beneath was written in Robert’s clear, boyish hand,

“Mr. Guy Thorpe, Poet, Philosopher, and Friend. Vale.” Even the date

flashed before him, 1880; and with it--strange, inappropriate

association--the daffodils running out upon the lawn, as no doubt he had

seen them as he leaned from the schoolroom window, with the Greek

grammar under his elbow on the sill.

So that was it. Mr. Guy Thorpe, placed, explained, disposed of--poor

dear! He felt suddenly quite kindly towards him, quite touched by his

act of loyalty to the old allegiance in coming; and flattered,

too,--yes, even by Mr. Thorpe,--that he should be recognized as a

Follett who had done something for the name; and smiling very

benevolently upon him, he said:--

“Oh, of course; I remember perfectly now--your name, and drawings of you

in old schoolbooks, you know. All tutors and governesses get those

tributes from their pupils, don’t they? But I myself couldn’t remember,

could I? for it was before I was born that you were at Channerley.”

There was a moment of silence after this, and in it Marmaduke felt that

Mr. Thorpe did not like being so placed. He had no doubt imagined that

there would be less ambiguous tributes, and that his old pupils would

have talked of him to the younger generation.

And something of this chagrin certainly came out in his next words as,

nodding and looking round at the daffodils, he said:--

"Yes, yes. Quite true. No, of course you couldn’t yourself remember. I

was more though, I think I may fairly say, than the usual tutor or

governess. I came, rather, at Sir Robert’s instance."--Sir Robert was

Marmaduke’s father.--“We had met, made friends, at Oxford; his former

tutor there was an uncle of mine, and Sir Robert, in my undergraduate

days, used to visit him sometimes. He was very keen on getting me to

come. Young Robert wanted something of a firm hand. I was the friend

rather than the mere man of books in the family.”

"Poet, Philosopher and Friend"--Marmaduke had it almost on his lips, and

almost with a laugh, his benevolence deepened for poor Mr. Thorpe, so

self-revealed, so entirely Robert’s portrait of him. Amusing to think

that even the quite immature first-rate can so relegate the third. But

perhaps it was a little unfair to call poor Mr. Thorpe third. The

Folletts would not be likely to choose a third-rate man for a tutor;

second was kinder, and truer. He had, obviously, come down in the world.

“I see. It’s natural I never heard, though: there’s such a chasm between

the elders and the youngers in a big family, isn’t there?” he said.

“Griselda is twelve years older than I am, and Robert ten, you remember.

She was married by the time I began my Greek. You never came back to

Channerley, did you? I hope things have gone well with you since those

days?”

He questioned, wanting to be very kind; wanting to give something of the

genial impression of his father smiling, with his “And how goes the

world with you to-day?” But he saw that, while Mr. Thorpe’s evident

emotion deepened, it was with a sense of present grief as well as of

retrospective pathos.

“No; I never came,--that is--. No; I passed by: I never came to stay. I

went abroad; I travelled, with a pupil, for some years before my

marriage.” Grief and confusion were oddly mingled in his drooping face.

“And after that--life had changed too much. My dear old friend Sir

Robert had died. I could not have faced it all. No, no; when some

chapters are read, it is better to close the book; better to close the

book. But I have never forgotten Channerley, nor the Folletts of

Channerley; that will always remain for me the golden page; the page,”

said Mr. Thorpe, glancing round again at the daffodils, “of friendship,

of youth, of daffodils in springtime. I saw you there,” he added

suddenly, “once, when you were a very little lad. I saw you. I was

passing by; bicycling; no time to stop. You remember the high road

skirts the woods to the north. I came and looked over the wall; and

there you were--in your holland pinafore and white socks--digging up the

daffodils and putting them into your little red-and-yellow cart. A

beautiful spring morning. The woods full of sunshine. You wouldn’t

remember.”

But he did remember--perfectly. Not having been seen; but the day; the

woods; the daffodils. He had dug them up to plant in his own little

garden, down below. He had always been stupid with his garden; had

always failed where the other succeeded. And he had wanted to be sure of

daffodils. And they had all laughed at him for wanting the wild

daffodils like that for himself, and for going to get them in the wood.

And why had Mr. Thorpe looked over the wall and not come in? He hated to

think that he had been watched on that spring morning--hated it. And,

curiously, that sense of fear with which he had heard the approaching

footsteps returned to him. It frightened him that Mr. Thorpe had watched

him over the wall.

His distaste and shrinking were perhaps apparent in his face, for it was

with a change of tone and hastiness of utterance, as though hurrying

away from something, that Mr. Thorpe went on:--

“You see,--it’s been my romance, always, Channerley--and all of you.

I’ve always followed your lives--always--from a distance--known what you

were up to. I’ve made excuses to myself--in the days when I used to go a

good deal about the country--to pass by Channerley and just have a

glimpse of you. And when I heard that you had done this noble

deed,--when I heard what you had done for England, for Channerley, for

us all,--I felt I had to come and see you. You must forgive me if I seem

a mere intruder. I can’t seem that to myself. I’ve cared too much. And

what I came for, really, was to thank you,--to thank you, my dear

boy,--and to tell you that because of you, life must be nobler, always,

for all of us.”

His words had effaced the silly, groping fear. It was indeed, since his

colonel’s visit, the first congratulation he had had from the outer

world. The nurses, of course, had congratulated him, and the surgeons;

but no one who knew him outside; the kindly telegrams from Robert and

Sylvia did not count as congratulations. And in a way poor Mr. Thorpe

did know him, and though it was only from him, it had its sweetness. He

felt himself flush as he answered, “That’s very kind of you.”

“Oh, no!” said Mr. Thorpe, shaking his head and swinging his

foot--Marmaduke knew that from the queer movement of his body as he sat

with very tightly folded arms. “Not kind! That’s not the word--from us

to you! Not the word at all!”

“I’m very happy, as you may imagine,” said Marmaduke. And he was happy

again, and glad to share his happiness with poor Mr. Thorpe. “It makes

everything worth while, doesn’t it, to have brought it off at all?”

“Everything, everything--it would; it would, to you. So heroes feel,”

said Mr. Thorpe. “To give your life for England. I know it all--in every

detail. Yes, you are happy in dying that England may live. Brave boy!

Splendid boy!”

Now he was weeping. He had out his handkerchief and his shoulders

shook. It made Marmaduke want to cry, too, and he wondered confusedly if

the nurse would soon come back. Had not the half hour passed?

“Really--it’s too good of you. You mustn’t, you know; you mustn’t,” he

murmured, while the word, “boy--boy,” repeated, made tangled images in

his mind, and he saw himself in the white socks and with the little

red-and-yellow cart, and then as he had been the other day, leading his

men, his revolver in his hand and the bullets flying about him. “And I’m

not a boy,” he said; "I’m thirty-four; absurdly old to be only a second

lieutenant. And there are so many of us. Why,"--the thought came

fantastically, but he seized it, because Mr. Thorpe was crying so and he

must seize something,--“we’re as common as daffodils!”

“Ah! not for me! not for me!” Mr. Thorpe gulped quickly. Something had

given way in him--as if the word “daffodils” had pressed a spring. He

was sobbing aloud, and he had fallen on his knees by the bed and put up

his hand for Marmaduke’s. “I cannot keep it from you! Not at this last

hour! Not when you are leaving me forever!--My son! My brave son! I am

your father, Marmaduke! I am your father, my dear, dear boy!”