THE bustle, the hurry, the excitement were again here; the grievance that
a day contained, only twenty-four hours reconstituted itself; the feeling
came once more that one was a person of some importance. But Erb, spite
the old environments, found himself wanting in enthusiasm. He could not
deny this, although for a time he tried to do so. Face to face with a
situation that a month earlier would have aroused all his most aggressive
instincts, he found he was quite unable to feel any excitement in the
matter. The rebuff the men had given him he could not forget; the empty
space that the dispute had made could not be easily bridged. Moreover,
there were other matters which seemed larger and much more important than
this to occupy his consideration. Rosalind brought Louisa back to town,
the vacation being over, and Camberwell desiring to go on with its
lessons in voice production, and Lady Frances, hearing of this from
Alice, antedated her trip to the Continent, and, in her generous way,
prepared to fly off with Louisa and Jessie, the maid; Louisa, dazed by
the rapidity of events, said goodbye with apparent calm to her brother
and her three most recent _fiances_.
"Likely as not," said Louisa casually, "I shall marry one of you when I
come back!"
"Which?" inquired the three youths eagerly.
"The one that's got the most money."
"Ah!" said the young baker from Rotherhithe New Road contentedly.
"And the most sense."
"Good!" remarked the assistant from the Free Library.
"And the best temper."
"Right-o!" said the booking clerk from Walworth Road station.
Lady Frances asked Erb to get an evening paper, and he went to the small
bookstall on the platform. The train was on the point of starting, and
he took up a Conservative evening paper. As he did so, he glanced at the
placard that was being pinned to the stall, and observed a line "Massacre
of English Commission in Morocco." He quickly bought another journal of
an earlier edition. Later, when the train had gone, he found in the
"fudge" of the first journal a brief message, printed unevenly, with a
similar heading:--
"The Foreign Office has received news of the massacre of the English
Commission recently sent out to Morocco. No particulars are to hand, but
the Commission included the Lieutenant the Hon.--"
"Her young man!" cried Erb distressedly. "Thought as much! This'll be a
fearful upset for her."
He had some idea of going at once to Eaton Square, but this seemed of
little use, and he had become so much accustomed to consulting Rosalind
that he decided instead to go down to Southampton Street. Arrived there,
he found commotion of such importance that this trouble concerning Lady
Frances took a second place.
An ambulance stood inside the gate, near to the specimens of graveyard
statuary, and on the steps of the house, a constable.
"Are you," asks C 243, barring the way, "any relation to the deceased?
By deceased," explains the constable, giving additional information with
great wariness, "he doesn't, of course, mean deceased exactly, but nearly
as good as that; he means old gentleman--white-haired old gentleman--that
was knocked down by a cab in the Strand not half an hour ago, as he
stooped down in the middle of the roadway to pick up a halfpenny he
dropped. Happened just at the corner of Wellington Street, it did. Knew
the old chap by sight. One of what C 243 ventures to call the regulars.
See them every day between Bedford Street and Wellington Street. You
don't know their names, of course," says constable argumentatively, "but,
bless your soul, you know their faces so well that, when one of them
drops out, it makes you feel as though you've lost a personal friend.
Every one of them on the cadge, so C 243 understands, and apparently
manage to live on by borrowing from each other. A rum life, if ever
there was one; no two ways about that."
"Is he still able to recognise--?"
"Old chap's first words were 'Not a hospital; take me home.' Constable
inquired where was home, and old chap managed to give the address.
Whereupon constable, after deliberation with a colleague, decided to take
four-wheeler and see old chap home as desired. Thought, perhaps, he was
only a bit stunned. Or, perhaps, dazed. Instead of which, coming past
the Obelisk, old chap suddenly lurched forward, and--"
The small servant came out and beckoned. The voice of Rosalind called
gently.
"I am here," replies Erb.
"Want you just one moment."
A boy doctor who stood inside the room, endeavouring to wear a look of
uncountable years, nodded curtly, and went to the foot of the sofa. On
the sofa lay the Professor, with a rug thrown over him, the rug close up
to his chin, one hand free, and travelling restlessly over the pattern.
"That bourne," whispered the Professor, "from which no traveller-- You
are a good lad, and you will look after her."
"If she'll let me," says Erb. "How are you feeling, sir, by this time?"
"Look after her better than I have done. See that when you arrive at my
state, laddie, you--you can glance back on your life with content."
Erb, with a kindly touch, pushed the Professor's hair from his eyes, and
the old man looked up gratefully. Erb touched his hand, and the hand
gripped his as though with desire to attach itself to something reliable.
"I'm slipping," said the Professor simply. He closed his eyes, and
presently reopened them as with difficulty. "We few, we happy few, we
band of brothers. Give me the word, sir, give me the word. What in
Heaven's name," with sudden indignation, "is the use of having a prompter
if--"
Rosalind, keeping her tears back, came with the heavy volume, opening it
quickly at the place where a ringletted youth in a steel engraving was
addressing soldiers.
Erb discovering the lines with the aid of Rosalind's finger, gave the
cue. "For he to-day--" The old Professor goes on.
"'For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my be-rother! be he
ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition, And gentlemen in
England, And gentlemen in England.' No use," said the Professor weakly,
"my study's gone."
"Don't bother about it, sir."
"Laddie," said the Professor, "you--you think me a thriftless, miserable
wastrel."
"No, no," answered Erb. "Not that exactly. But we're none of us
perfect."
"I've reached me last hour, and the time has come for plain speech. I've
been--" a smile dared to creep halfway across the Professor's face.
"I've been a fraud."
"Father," said Rosalind brokenly. "You've always been the dearest,
dearest--"
The boy doctor, snatching the opportunity to whisper to Erb, who could
not lose the Professor's hand, said that he had administered a sleeping
draught: if the Professor desired to say anything it would be better to
allow him to speak without interruption.
"I have been a fraud," repeated the Professor, with something of relish.
"I have been a--'Neither a borrower or a lender be. For borrowing
oft--'"
"You've always been welcome, sir."
"I have been the most fraudulent of all frauds. There is a note in my
desk to send to the 'Era.' I have often, in my salad days, advertised in
the 'Era.' I think they will put it in."
"I'll pay them to, if necessary."
The Professor gave a faint echo of a chuckle. "How they will talk about
it in the Strand! I'd give the remainder of my life to hear them."
The old, old mouth, twisted in the effort to display amusement, and
remained twisted; one eyelid nearly closed. The boy doctor looked
anxiously from the foot of the sofa: Rosalind knelt.
"You're going to have a nice long sleep, sir," said Erb, bending down.
"And you'll wake up a different man, bless you."
"I shall wake up," repeated the Professor slowly, "wake up a different
man."
Both eyelids closing now, he turned his white head a little towards the
wall. Presently his grip of Erb's hand relaxed, and Erb, disengaging
himself, went with the others to the window, where the three spoke in an
undertone, Erb holding Rosalind's elbows supportingly. A slight groan
from the sofa called the doctor.
"All over," announced the boy doctor, with a desperate effort to assume
the air of one used to making such announcements, and rendered callous by
long centuries of habit. "I'll let the Coroner's officer know. Don't
mind my running off, do you? Fearfully busy, just now."
The Professor's words were counted as the mere wandering of speech, and
dismissed from memory until, when the inquest was over, and some days
later the journey to Honor Oak cemetery and back at an end, Erb took upon
himself the duty of examining the locked drawers of the desk. Then it
was found that tardily in his life, the Professor had hinted at truth,
for books entitled Post Office Savings Bank were discovered there, and it
was realised that this old spendthrift, this most careless member of a
careless profession, had hoarded carefully throughout his life, engaging
stray half-crowns, only to add them instantly to his store, and the five
brown covered books announced that to his credit stood what seemed to Erb
and to Rosalind the extravagant fortune of nearly four hundred pounds. A
will, drawn up in commendable order, directed that all this was left to
"my dear daughter Rosalind, and may she forgive her father for many
shortcomings, and think of him if she can, with affection and regard."
"This," said Erb, when he had reckoned up the amounts on a slip of paper,
"this is very satisfactory for you, but it makes all the difference to
me."
"It's going to make no sort of difference whatever," said Rosalind
emphatically.
"Money matters always do."
"Depends on the people who have the money. Money in itself doesn't bring
happiness, but it doesn't follow that it destroys it. Your Lady Frances,
for instance--"
"What makes you call her my Lady Frances?"
"She looks upon you as her property," said Rosalind, turning away.
"If I hadn't got such a stiff collar on I'd laugh," declared Erb. "By
the bye, I'm very glad to see by to-day's papers that her sweetheart was
on his way back before that nasty affair took place out near Tetuan;
mysterious thing, rather. Been telegraphed for apparently, by somebody."
"I know."
"You saw about it in the paper?"
"No," said Rosalind.
"Well, but how--"
"_I_ sent the telegram," she said quietly. "I thought it better he
should be back here. I didn't want her to get you."
Erb took her hands. She tried to keep her lips from his, but she tried
for a moment only.
"This simplifies matters," he said. "I never could tell whether you
liked me or not."
"You never asked!"
"People will say I married you for your money," he said half jokingly.
"And I shall know," replied Rosalind, patting his face, "that you married
me because--because you liked me."