DOUBTS
Doctor Hilary was returning from his rounds. His state of mind was nearly
as grey as the atmosphere.
It is one thing to agree to a mad-brained scheme in the first amused
interest of its propounding, even to mould it further, and bring it into
shape. It is quite another to be actually confronted with the finished
scheme, to realize that, though you may not be its veritable parent, you
have at all events foster-fathered it quite considerably, and that,
moreover, you cannot now, in conscience, cast off responsibility in its
behalf.
The fact that you had excellent reasons for adopting the scheme in the
first place, will doubtless be of comfort to your soul, but that
particular species of comfort and ordinary everyday common sense are not
always as closely united as you might desire. In fact they are
occasionally apt to pull in entirely opposite directions, a method of
procedure which is far from consoling.
Doctor Hilary found it far from consoling.
Conscience told him quite plainly that his real and innermost reason for
foster-fathering the scheme was simply and solely for the sake of
snatching at any mortal thing that would, or could, bring interest into
an old man's life. Common sense demanded why on earth he had not
suggested an alternative idea, something a trifle less mad. And it was
mad. There did not now appear one single reasonable point in it, though
very assuredly there were quite a vast number of unreasonable ones.
In the first place, and it seemed to him nearly, if not quite, the most
unreasonable point, Nicholas had known nothing whatever about the young
man he had elected to make his heir,--nothing, that is, beyond the fact
that he had known the young man's father, and had once seen Antony
himself when Antony was a child. There had even been very considerable
difficulty in obtaining knowledge of his whereabouts.
In the second place, it appeared quite absurd to appoint the young man to
the position of under-gardener at the Hall. It was more than probable
that he knew nothing whatever about gardening. It was true that, if he
did not, he could learn. But then Golding, the head gardener, might not
unreasonably find matter for amazement and comment in the fact that a
young and ignorant man, who was paid a pound a week and allowed to rent a
furnished cottage, should be thrust upon him, rather than an experienced
man, or an ignorant boy who would have received at the most eight
shillings a week, and have lived at his own home. Amazement and comment
were to be avoided, that had been Nicholas's idea, and yet, to Doctor
Hilary's mind they ran the risk of being courted from the outset. In the
third place, how was it likely that a man of education--and it had been
ascertained that Antony was a university man--could comport himself like
a labourer in any position,--gardener, farm-hand, or chauffeur? The
conditions had stated that he was to do so. But could he? There was the
point.
The more Doctor Hilary thought about the conditions, the madder they
appeared to him. Yet, having undertaken the job of carrying the mad
scheme through, he could not possibly back out at the eleventh hour. He
could only hope for the best, but it must be confessed that he was not
exceedingly optimistic about that best. And further, he was not
exceedingly optimistic about the young man. He could imagine himself, in
a like situation, consigning Nick and his conditions to the nether
regions; certainly not submitting meekly to a year's effacement of his
personality for the sake of money. Such conditions would have enraged
him.
No; he was not optimistic regarding the man. He pictured him as either a
bit of a fawner, who would cringe through the year, or a keen-headed
business man, who would go through it with a steel-trap mouth, and an eye
to every weakness in his fellow-workers. Certainly neither type he
pictured appealed to him. Yet he felt confident he would find one of the
two, and had already conceived a strong prejudice against Antony Gray.
From which regrettable fact it will be seen that he was committing the
sin of rash judgment.
It was not altogether surprising, therefore, that his mood was nearly as
grey as the atmosphere.
He sighed heavily, and shook his head, somewhat after the fashion of a
big dog. Reasons, partly mental, partly physical were responsible for the
shake. In the first place it was an attempt to dispel mental depression;
in the second place it was to free his eyebrows and eyelashes from the
rain drops clinging to them, since the rain was descending in a grey
misty veil.
With the shake, an idea struck him.
Why not confront the embodied scheme at once? Why not interview this
preposterous young man without delay, and be done with it?
He gave a brief direction to his coachman.
Five minutes later saw him standing at the gate of Copse Cottage, his
dog-cart driving away down the lane. It had been his own doing. He had
said he would walk home. An idiotic idea! What on earth had suggested it
to him?
However, it was done now.
He pushed open the gate, and walked up the little flagged path.