“Very—rotten,” Traherne replied, “and sad.”
“Got anything more to say for Major Crespin?”
“Yes. This. When I was a boy at Harrow, one of the small boys, about the
youngest there, Antony Crespin was my fag-master. He was jolly decent to
me. He wasn’t much at schools, but every one liked him, masters as well
as boys. He was prime at sports; and at everything he had the pluck of a
dozen, and he was absolutely straight, and scrupulously fair always. But
he always had a hunted look in his eyes. I saw it then, shaver though I
was, without understanding it in the least. I understand it now. And I
knew—I don’t know how I knew, but I did—that Crespin was unhappy.”
Colonel Agnew hitched impatiently in his chair. All this did not
interest him in the remotest. But he did not interrupt. Traherne had
listened to his story, he’d listen to Traherne’s. Colonel Agnew too was
scrupulously fair always. But he scowled, and his white eyebrows met in
their ominous beetling.
“And I knew one other thing about him. He almost never spoke of his
people. But I knew, don’t know how again, that he worshiped his mother,
and very much less than worshiped his father. He had a photo of Mrs.
Crespin—his mother—over his bed. I believe he said his prayers to that
picture, and, if he didn’t, he said them about it. It was the photograph
of a very beautiful woman, “Mother”—only that—written across one
corner. He used to write to her all the time—oftener than any other boy
wrote to any one. I used to post his letters often—mostly they were not
thin ones—not those to his mother, and I didn’t often have any others
to post for him. She came to see him two or three times while he and I
were both there—he left long before I did. He was older than I, and
going into the Army, of course—they never stay at public school long,
as you know. I used to think he half lived for those visits. His joy
when he knew that she was coming, and his pride and devotion when she
did come—I remember it! She was as beautiful as her picture, sir—and
she seemed as fond and proud of him as he was of her. He took me home
with him for a week-end once. His people’s place was not very far. They
gave me a ripping time—the Saturday. We got there early Saturday
morning. I didn’t take to Mr. Crespin—couldn’t have said why not: he
was decent to me. But I thought there was an undertone of boorishness in
the way he spoke to his wife, a mean look in his eyes—nothing much,
couldn’t put my finger on it—I was pretty much of a kid—but I seemed
to get it. And I felt sure that Tony and his mother were happier
together when Mr. Crespin was not there. And the half-impression I’d got
at Harrow that Tony had no special love for his father was considerably
deepened, and I gathered too—couldn’t have said how, and couldn’t
now—that the boy did not respect the man. Sunday was all right—till
dinner. Mrs. Crespin looked queer when she came into the drawing-room,
her hair was beautifully done, I remember, kid as I was, wondering how
long it had taken her maid to do it, and her gown was A-1, and she
smelled of some delicious scent as she moved—almost too much of it, and
I thought she had too much powder on, and oughtn’t to have used any, her
skin was so beautiful—just like milk, I’d noticed, out in the sunshine
when we’d played tennis. By the time we’d finished fish her _face_ was
red, and Tony’s was the color of chalk. He talked, how he talked, poor
devil!—and I can see the love in his eyes now when he looked at his
mother. Mr. Crespin scarcely spoke, but made a capital meal, and watched
his wife with a bad smile on his face all the time. Before the poultry
was served, I understood—couldn’t help it. Her voice was thick, her
hand unsteady, and her face flamed. She didn’t eat much, but she
drank—I know now that she couldn’t help it—and her husband twice
reminded the butler to fill her glass! When she pushed back her chair,
and rose to leave us, she lurched. Tony drew his mother’s arm through
his, and led her from the room as if she had been a queen! He didn’t
come back till very late. When he did, he didn’t stay long. And he
didn’t sleep that night, as he had the night before, in the room I did.
We left at an unearthly hour on Monday—had to, of course—and I didn’t
see Mrs. Crespin to say good-by.”
Colonel Agnew cleared his throat. “Do you mean?” he began. “Do you
believe——”
“I believe, sir, that Antony Crespin’s mother was a nice woman who
needed help she didn’t get, or a chance and peace to help herself in, as
I believe that Major Crespin needs help that I can perhaps give him and
help him to help himself—which is the only help that amounts to
anything in such cases——”
“I tell you——” Agnew broke in hotly.
But the physician in his own turn too interrupted. “That you and
Crossland have given him every possible chance, done your best, and done
it generously? I am sure of that, sir. But the thing is very difficult.
No ailment, except insanity, is less understood, or more persistently
bungled—by doctors, the best of them,” he added quickly.
The Colonel smiled grimly. “But you wouldn’t bungle it?”
“God knows,” Dr. Traherne said humbly. “I’d try not.”
“Isn’t it hopeless always?”
“Not always. Even insanity is healed, fairly often, in spite of
criminally wrong treatment.”
“You think he inherited it?”
“I think he inherited a tendency, perhaps, or—more probably a
possibility. I do not believe that it is congenital. I do not for one
moment believe that that poor lady drank until something drove her to
it—after her marriage, and probably after her boy’s birth. And I think
it very likely that Tony Crespin took his first drink too much when he
heard of his mother’s death.”
“And the _women_? Inherited from the other side, I suppose?”
“I can’t say, sir. Alcohol itself fathers that lapse very often. And the
thing itself is rather too common to lay it overconfidently at any one
father’s door.”
“Yes,” Agnew agreed sadly. “Did he say anything?”
“Tony? To me, about what had happened at his home, sir? Not one word—on
the way back to Harrow, or after. But—I saw him suffer—then and after.
Once a lot of fellows were talking—were talking about the thousand and
one things that boys at school do—and got on to what ought to be
forgiven, and what, if anything, ought not—no matter how repented and
all that. Crespin did not join in and, of course, I didn’t. I was
fagging, making their toast and so on. But after they’d gone, he said to
me that there was one thing he’d kill for. And when I said, ‘What?’ he
said he’d _kill_ any one, no matter who it was, that ever said or
thought a rough word of his mother. And there was murder in his eyes,
sir. I thought he meant it as a warning to me. I think it was. He
needn’t have done it. I took an oath to myself that Monday morning on
the train, going back to school, that no word of it’d ever pass me, and
that I’d do my best to forget it. No word ever has before, and I’ve told
it now for him.”
“Ever see her again?” Agnew asked, as he again marched off stiffly to
the open window.
“Twice,” Traherne told him. “She came to Harrow twice after that before
Tony went to Sandhurst. If Tony had treated her like a queen on her
other visits, I can’t describe how he treated her those two times. I
couldn’t help feeling that _he_ was trying to apologize to her—to make
up to her for it. Colonel Agnew, Antony Crespin loved his mother with a
love very few women ever get—a love that ought to make up to a woman
for almost _anything_.”
Colonel Agnew, with his back to Traherne, drew out his handkerchief,
and—sneezed.