"Oh, I know what you're going to say--why doesn't he wait? I'll tell you
why if you'll promise not to whisper a word to any one. Your father is a
sick man, my dear. Let him say what he likes when Conrad talks about
cancer, he knows Death's hand is over him. And thinking it may fall
before your time has come, he wants to take time by the forelock and see
a sort of fulfilment of the hope of his life--and you know what that
is."
It was terrible. The position in which I stood towards my father was now
so tragic that (wicked as it was) I prayed with all my heart that I
might never look upon his face again.
I was compelled to do so. Three days after Aunt Bridget's visit my
father came to see me. The day was fine and I was walking on the lawn
when his big car came rolling up the drive.
I was shocked to see the change in him. His face was ghastly white, his
lips were blue, his massive and powerful head seemed to have sunk into
his shoulders, and his limbs were so thin that his clothes seemed to
hang on them; but the stern mouth was there still, and so was the
masterful lift of the eyebrows.
Coming over to meet me with an uncertain step, he said:
"Old Conrad was for keeping me in bed, but I couldn't take rest without
putting a sight on you."
After that, and some plain speech out of the primitive man he always was
and will be (about it's being good for a woman to have children because
it saved her from "losing her stomach" over imaginary grievances), he
led me, with the same half-contemptuous tenderness which he used to show
to my mother, back to the house and into the drawing-room.
Alma and her mother were there, the one writing at a desk, the other
knitting on the sofa, and they rose as my father entered, but he waved
them back to their places.
"Set down, ma'am. Take your seat, mother. I'm only here for a minute to
talk to my gel about her great reception."
"Reception?" said Alma.
"Hasn't she told you about it?" he said, and being answered that I had
not, he gave a rough outline of his project, whereupon Alma, whose
former attitude towards my father had changed to one of flattery and
subservience, lifted her hands and cried:
"How splendid! Such an inspiration! Only think, my love, you were to be
kept bright and cheerful, and what could be better for that purpose?"
In the torment of my soul I urged one objection after another--it would
be expensive, we could not afford it.
"Who asks you to afford it? It's my affair, isn't it?" said my father.
I was unwell, and therefore unable to undertake the hard work of such an
entertainment--but that was the worst of excuses, for Alma jumped in
with an offer of assistance.
"My dearest child," she said, "you know how happy I shall be to help
you. In fact, I'll do all the work and you shall have all the glory."
"There you are, then," cried my father, slapping me on the shoulder, and
then, turning to Alma, he told her to set to work without a day's delay.
"Let everything be done correct even if it costs me a bit of money."
"Yes, sir."
"A rael big thing, ma'am, such as nobody has ever seen before."
"Yes indeed, sir."
"Ask all the big people on the island--Nessy MacLeod shall send you a
list of them."
"I will, sir."
"That'll do for the present--I guess I must be going now, or old Conrad
will be agate of me. So long, gel, so long."