Mr. Fentolin raised to his lips the little gold whistle which hung from
his neck and blew it. He seemed to devote very little effort to the
operation, yet the strength of the note was wonderful. As the echoes
died away, he let it fall by his side and waited with a pleased smile
upon his lips. In a few seconds there was the hurried flutter of skirts
and the sound of footsteps. The girl who had just completed her railway
journey entered, followed by her brother. They were both a little out
of breath, they both approached the chair without a smile, the girl
in advance, with a certain expression of apprehension in her eyes. Mr.
Fentolin sighed. He appeared to notice these things and regret them.
“My child,” he said, holding out his hands, “my dear Esther, welcome
home again! I heard the car outside. I am grieved that you did not at
once hurry to my side.”
“I have not been in the house two minutes,” Esther replied, “and I
haven’t seen mother yet. Forgive me.”
She had come to a standstill a few yards away. She moved now very slowly
towards the chair, with the air of one fulfilling a hateful task. The
fingers which accepted his hands were extended almost hesitatingly. He
drew her closer to him and held her there.
“Your mother, my dear Esther, is, I regret to say, suffering from a
slight indisposition,” he remarked. “She has been confined to her room
for the last few days. Just a trifling affair of the nerves; nothing
more, Doctor Sarson assures me. But my dear child,” he went on, “your
fingers are as cold as ice. You look at me so strangely, too. Alas! you
have not the affectionate disposition of your dear mother. One would
scarcely believe that we have been parted for more than a week.”
“For more than a week,” she repeated, under her breath.
“Stoop down, my dear. I must kiss your forehead--there! Now bring up a
chair to my side. You seem frightened--alarmed. Have you ill news for
me?”
“I have no news,” she answered, gradually recovering herself.
“The gaieties of London, I fear,” he protested gently, “have proved a
little unsettling.”
“There were no gaieties for me,” the girl replied bitterly. “Mrs.
Sargent obeyed your orders very faithfully. I was not allowed to move
out except with her.”
“My dear child, you would not go about London unchaperoned!”
“There is a difference,” she retorted, “between a chaperon and a
jailer.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed. He shook his head slowly. He seemed pained.
“I am not sure that you repay my care as it deserves, Esther,” he
declared. “There is something in your deportment which disappoints me.
Never mind, your brother has made some atonement. I entrusted him with
a little mission in which I am glad to say that he has been brilliantly
successful.”
“I cannot say that I am glad to hear it,” Esther replied quietly.
Mr. Fentolin sat back in his chair. His long fingers played nervously
together, he looked at her gravely.
“My dear child,” he exclaimed, in a tone of pained surprise, “your
attitude distresses me!”
“I cannot help it. I have told you what I think about Gerald and the
life he is compelled to live here. I don’t mind so much for myself, but
for him I think it is abominable.”
“The same as ever,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “I fear that this little change
has done you no good, dear niece.”
“Change!” she echoed. “It was only a change of prisons.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly--a distressful gesture. Yet all the
time he had somehow the air of a man secretly gratified.
“You are beginning to depress me,” he announced. “I think that you can
go away. No, stop for just one moment. Stand there in the light. Dear
me, how unfortunate! Who would have thought that so beautiful a mother
could have so plain a daughter!”
She stood quite still before him, her hands crossed in front of her,
something of the look of the nun from whom the power of suffering has
gone in her still, cold face and steadfast eyes.
“Not a touch of colour,” he continued meditatively, “a figure straight
as my walking-stick. What a pity! And all the taste, nowadays, they tell
me, is in the other direction. The lank damsels have gone completely
out. We buried them with Oscar Wilde. Run along, my dear child. You do
not amuse me. You can take Gerald with you, if you will. I have nothing
to say to Gerald just now. He is in my good books. Is there anything
I can do for you, Gerald? Your allowance, for instance--a trifling
increase or an advance? I am in a generous humour.”
“Then grant me what I begged for the other day,” the boy answered
quickly. “Let me go to Sandhurst. I could enter my name next week for
the examinations, and I could pass to-morrow.”
Mr. Fentolin tapped the table thoughtfully with his forefinger.
“A little ungrateful, my dear boy,” he declared, “a little ungrateful
that, I think. Your confidence in yourself pleases me, though. You think
you could pass your examinations?”
“I did a set of papers last week,” the boy replied. “On the given
percentages I came out twelfth or better. Mr. Brown assured me that I
could go in for them at any moment. He promised to write you about it
before he left.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded gently.
“Now I come to think of it, I did have a letter from Mr. Brown,” he
remarked. “Rather an impertinence for a tutor, I thought it. He devoted
three pages towards impressing upon me the necessity of your adopting
some sort of a career.”
“He wrote because he thought it was his duty,” the boy said doggedly.
“So you want to be a soldier,” Mr. Fentolin continued musingly. “Well,
well, why not? Our picture galleries are full of them. There has been a
Fentolin in every great battle for the last five hundred years. Sailors,
too--plenty of them--and just a few diplomatists. Brave fellows! Not
one, I fancy,” he added, “like me--not one condemned to pass their days
in a perambulator. You are a fine fellow, Gerald--a regular Fentolin.
Getting on for six feet, aren’t you?”
“Six feet two, sir.”
“A very fine fellow,” Mr. Fentolin repeated. “I am not so sure about the
army, Gerald. You see, there are some people who say, like your American
friend, that we are even now almost on the brink of war.”
“All the more reason for me to hurry,” the boy begged.
Mr. Fentolin closed his eyes.
“Don’t!” he insisted. “Have you ever stopped to think what war
means--the war you speak of so lightly? The suffering, the misery of
it! All the pageantry and music and heroism in front; and behind, a
blackened world, a trail of writhing corpses, a world of weeping women
for whom the sun shall never rise again. Ugh! An ugly thing war, Gerald.
I am not sure that you are not better at home here. Why not practise
golf a little more assiduously? I see from the local paper that you are
still playing at two handicap. Now with your physique, I should have
thought you would have been a scratch player long before now.”
“I play cricket, sir,” the boy reminded him, a little impatiently, “and,
after all, there are other things in the world besides games.”
Mr. Fentolin’s long finger shot suddenly out. He was leaning a little
from his chair. His expression of gentle immobility had passed away. His
face was stern, almost stony.
“You have spoken the truth, Gerald,” he said. “There are other things in
the world besides games. There is the real, the tragical side of
life, the duties one takes up, the obligations of honour. You have not
forgotten, young man, the burden you carry?”
The boy was paler, but he had drawn himself to his full height.
“I have not forgotten, sir,” he answered bitterly. “Do I show any signs
of forgetting? Haven’t I done your bidding year by year? Aren’t I here
now to do it?”
“Then do it!” Mr. Fentolin retorted sharply. “When I am ready for you
to leave here, you shall leave. Until then, you are mine. Remember that.
Ah! this is Doctor Sarson who comes, I believe. That must mean that it
is five o’clock. Come in, Doctor. I am not engaged. You see, I am alone
with my dear niece and nephew. We have been having a little pleasant
conversation.”
Doctor Sarson bowed to Esther, who scarcely glanced at him. He remained
in the background, quietly waiting.
“A very delightful little conversation,” Mr. Fentolin concluded. “I have
been congratulating my nephew, Doctor, upon his wisdom in preferring the
quiet country life down here to the wearisome routine of a profession.
He escapes the embarrassing choice of a career by preferring to
devote his life to my comfort. I shall not forget it. I shall not be
ungrateful. I may have my faults, but I am not ungrateful. Run away
now, both of you. Dear children you are, but one wearies, you know, of
everything. I am going out. You see, the twilight is coming. The tide is
changing. I am going down to meet the sea.”
His little carriage moved towards the door. The brother and sister
passed out. Esther led Gerald into the great dining-room, and from
there, through the open windows, out on to the terrace. She gripped his
shoulder and pointed down to the Tower.
“Something,” she whispered in his ear, “is going to happen there.”