That evening, conscious of responsibility and of virtue, Edwin walked up
Trafalgar Road with a less gawky and more dignified mien than ever he
had managed to assume before. He had not only dismissed programmes of
culture, he had forgotten them. After twelve hours as head of a
business, they had temporarily ceased to interest him. And when he
passed, or was overtaken by, other men of affairs, he thought to himself
naively in the dark, "I am the equal of these men." And the image of
Florence Simcox, the clog-dancer, floated through his mind.
He found Darius alone in the drawing-room, in front of an uncustomary
fire, garden-clay still on his boots, and "The Christian News" under his
spectacles. The Sunday before the funeral of Mr Shushions had been so
unusual and so distressing that Darius had fallen into arrear with his
perusals. True, he had never been known to read "The Christian News" on
any day but Sunday, but now every day was Sunday.
Edwin nodded to him and approached the fire, rubbing his hands.
"What's this as I hear?" Darius began, with melancholy softness.
"Eh?"
"About Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds?" Darius gazed at him
over his spectacles.
"Albert wanting to borrow a thousand pounds!" Edwin repeated,
astounded.
"Aye! Have they said naught to you?"
"No," said Edwin. "What is it?"
"Clara and your aunt have both been at me since tea. Some tale as
Albert can amalgamate into partnership with Hope and Carters if he can
put down a thousand. Then Albert's said naught to ye?"
"No, he hasn't!" Edwin exclaimed, emphasising each word with a peculiar
fierceness. It was as if he had said, "I should like to catch him
saying anything to me about it!"
He was extremely indignant. It seemed to him monstrous that those two
women should thus try to snatch an advantage from his father's weakness,
pitifully mean and base. He could not understand how people could bring
themselves to do such things, nor how, having done them, they could ever
look their fellows in the face again. Had they no shame? They would
not let a day pass; but they must settle on the old man instantly, like
flies on a carcass! He could imagine the plottings, the hushed
chatterings; the acting-for-the-best demeanour of that cursed woman
Auntie Hamps (yes, he now cursed her), and the candid greed of his
sister.
"You wouldn't do it, would ye?" Darius asked, in a tone that expected a
negative answer; but also with a rather plaintive appeal, as though he
were depending on Edwin for moral support against the formidable forces
of attack.
"I should not," said Edwin stoutly, touched by the strange wistful note
and by the glance. "Unless of course you really want to."
He did not care in the least whether the money would or would not be
really useful and reasonably safe. He did not care whose enmity he was
risking. His sense of fair play was outraged, and he would salve it at
any cost. He knew that had his father not been struck down and
defenceless, these despicable people would never have dared to demand
money from him. That was the only point that mattered.
The relief of Darius at Edwin's attitude in the affair was painful.
Hoping for sympathy from Edwin, he yet had feared in him another enemy.
Now he was reassured, and he could hide his feelings no better than a
child.
"Seemingly they can't wait till my will's opened!" he murmured, with a
scarcely successful affectation of grimness.
"Made a will, have you?" Edwin remarked, with an elaborate casualness
to imply that he had never till then given a thought to his father's
will, but that, having thought of the question, he was perhaps a very
little surprised that his father had indeed made a will.
Darius nodded, quite benevolently. He seemed to have forgotten his deep
grievance against Edwin in the matter of cheque-signing.
"Duncalf's got it," he murmured after a moment. Duncalf was the town
clerk and a solicitor.
So the will was made! And he had submissively signed away all control
over all monetary transactions. What more could he do, except expire
with the minimum of fuss? Truly Darius, in the local phrase, was now
`laid aside'! And of all the symptoms of his decay the most striking
and the most tragic, to Edwin, was that he showed no curiosity whatever
about business. Not one single word of inquiry had he uttered.
"You'll want shaving," said Edwin, in a friendly way.
Darius passed a hand over his face. He had ceased years ago to shave
himself, and had a subscription at Dick Jones's in Aboukir Street, close
by the shop.
"Aye!"
"Shall I send the barber up, or shall you let it grow?"
"What do you think?"
"Oh!" Edwin drawled, characteristically hesitating. Then he remembered
that he was the responsible head of the family of Clayhanger. "I think
you might let it grow," he decided.
And when he had issued the verdict, it seemed to him like a sentence of
sequestration and death on his father... `Let it grow! What does it
matter?' Such was the innuendo.
"You used to grow a full beard once, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yes," said Darius.
That made the situation less cruel.