‘Really, Mr Sloane,’ I said, ‘if you think my purpose is to exert any pressure upon your testamentary inclinations –’
‘I will tear it in pieces,’ he cried; ‘I will burn it up! I shall be as sick as a dog to-morrow; but I will do it. A-a-h!’
He clapped his hand to his side, as if in sudden, overwhelming pain, and sank back fainting into his chair. A single glance assured me that he was unconscious. I possessed myself of the paper, opened it, and perceived that he had left everything to his saintly secretary. For an instant a savage, puerile feeling of hate popped up in my bosom, and I came within a hair’s-breadth of obeying my foremost impulse – that of stuffing the document into the fire. Fortunately, my reason overtook my passion, though for a moment it was an even race. I put the paper back into the bureau, closed it, and rang the bell for Robert (the old man’s servant). Before he came I stood watching the poor, pale remnant of mortality before me, and wondering whether those feeble life-gasps were numbered. He was as white as a sheet, grimacing with pain – horribly ugly. Suddenly he opened his eyes; they met my own; I fell on my knees and took his hands. They closed on mine with a grasp strangely akin to the rigidity of death. Nevertheless, since then he has revived, and has relapsed again into a comparatively healthy sleep. Robert seems to know how to deal with him.
22nd. – Mr Sloane is seriously ill – out of his mind and unconscious of people’s identity. The doctor has been here, off and on, all day, but this evening reports improvement. I have kept out of the old man’s room, and confined myself to my own, reflecting largely upon the chance of his immediate death. Does Theodore know of the will? Would it occur to him to divide the property? Would it occur to me, in his place? We met at dinner, and talked in a grave, desultory, friendly fashion. After all, he’s an excellent fellow. I don’t hate him. I don’t even dislike him. He jars on me, il m’agace; but that’s no reason why I should do him an evil turn. Nor shall I. The property is a fixed idea, that’s all. I shall get it if I can. We are fairly matched. Before heaven, no, we are not fairly matched! Theodore has a conscience.
23rd. – I am restless and nervous – and for good reasons. Scribbling here keeps me quiet. This morning Mr Sloane is better; feeble and uncertain in mind, but unmistakably on the rise. I may confess now that I feel relieved of a horrid burden. Last night I hardly slept a wink. I lay awake listening to the pendulum of my clock. It seemed to say, ‘He lives – he dies.’ I fully expected to hear it stop suddenly at dies. But it kept going all the morning, and to a decidedly more lively tune. In the afternoon the old man sent for me. I found him in his great muffled bed, with his face the colour of damp chalk, and his eyes glowing faintly, like torches half stamped out. I was forcibly struck with the utter loneliness of his lot. For all human attendance, my villainous self grinning at his bedside and old Robert without, listening, doubtless, at the keyhole. The bonhomme stared at me stupidly; then seemed to know me, and greeted me with a sickly smile. It was some moments before he was able to speak. At last he faintly bade me to descend into the library, open the secret drawer of the secretary (which he contrived to direct me how to do), possess myself of his will, and burn it up. He appears to have forgotten his having taken it out the night before last. I told him that I had an insurmountable aversion to any personal dealings with the document. He smiled, patted the back of my hand, and requested me, in that case, to get it, at least, and bring it to him. I couldn’t deny him that favour? No, I couldn’t, indeed. I went down to the library, therefore, and on entering the room found Theodore standing by the fireplace with a bundle of papers. The secretary was open. I stood still, looking from the violated cabinet to the documents in his hand. Among them I recognised, by its shape and size, the paper of which I had intended to possess myself. Without delay I walked straight up to him. He looked surprised, but not confused. ‘I am afraid I shall have to trouble you to surrender one of those papers,’ I said.
‘Surrender, Maximus? To anything of your own you are perfectly welcome. I didn’t know that you made use of Mr Sloane’s secretary. I was looking for some pages of notes which I have made myself and in which I conceive I have a property.’
‘This is what I want, Theodore,’ I said; and I drew the will, unfolded, from between his hands. As I did so his eyes fell upon the superscription, ‘Last Will and Testament. March. F.S.’ He flushed an extraordinary crimson. Our eyes met. Somehow – I don’t know how or why, or for that matter why not – I burst into a violent peal of laughter. Theodore stood staring, with two hot, bitter tears in his eyes.
‘Of course you think I came to ferret out that thing,’ he said.
I shrugged my shoulders – those of my body only. I confess, morally, I was on my knees with contrition, but there was a fascination in it – a fatality. I remembered that in the hurry of my movements the other evening I had slipped the will simply into one of the outer drawers of the cabinet, among Theodore’s own papers. ‘Mr Sloane sent me for it,’ I remarked.
‘Very good; I am glad to hear he’s well enough to think of such things.’
‘He means to destroy it.’
‘I hope, then, he has another made.’
‘Mentally, I suppose he has.’
‘Unfortunately, his weakness isn’t mental – or exclusively so.’
‘Oh, he will live to make a dozen more,’ I said. ‘Do you know the purport of this one?’
Theodore’s colour, by this time, had died away into plain white. He shook his head. The doggedness of the movement provoked me, and I wished to arouse his curiosity. ‘I have his commission to destroy it.’
Theodore smiled very grandly. ‘It’s not a task I envy you,’ he said.
‘I should think not – especially if you knew the import of the will.’ He stood with folded arms, regarding me with his cold, detached eyes. I couldn’t stand it. ‘Come, it’s your property! You are sole legatee. I give it to you.’ And I thrust the paper into his hand.
He received it mechanically; but after a pause, bethinking himself, he unfolded it and cast his eyes over the contents. Then he slowly smoothed it together and held it a moment with a tremulous hand. ‘You say that Mr Sloane directed you to destroy it?’ he finally inquired.
‘I say so.’
‘And that you know the contents?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And that you were about to do what he asked you?’
‘On the contrary, I declined.’
Theodore fixed his eyes for a moment on the superscription and then raised them again to my face. ‘Thank you, Max,’ he said. ‘You have left me a real satisfaction.’ He tore the sheet across and threw the bits into the fire. We stood watching them burn. ‘Now he can make another,’ said Theodore.
‘Twenty others,’ I replied.
‘No,’ said Theodore, ‘you will take care of that.’
‘You are very bitter,’ I said, sharply enough.
‘No, I am perfectly indifferent. Farewell.’ And he put out his hand.
‘Are you going away?’
‘Of course I am. Good-by.’
‘Good-by, then. But isn’t your departure rather sudden?’
‘I ought to have gone three weeks ago – three weeks ago.’ I had taken his hand, he pulled it away; his voice was trembling – there were tears in it.
‘Is that indifference?’ I asked.
‘It’s something you will never know!’ he cried. ‘It’s shame! I am not sorry you should see what I feel. It will suggest to you, perhaps, that my heart had never been in this filthy contest. Let me assure you, at any rate, that it hasn’t; that it has had nothing but scorn for the base perversion of my pride and my ambition. I could easily shed tears of joy at their return – the return of the prodigals! Tears of sorrow – sorrow –’
He was unable to go on. He sank into a chair, covering his face with his hands.
‘For God’s sake, stick to the joy!’ I exclaimed.
He rose to his feet again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was for your sake tha
t I parted with my self-respect; with your assistance I recover it.’
‘How for my sake?’
‘For whom but you would I have gone as far as I did? For what other purpose than that of keeping our friendship whole would I have borne your company into this narrow pass? A man whom I cared for less I would long since have parted with. You were needed – you and something you have about you that always takes me so – to bring me to this. You ennobled, exalted, enchanted the struggle. I did value my prospect of coming into Mr Sloane’s property. I valued it for my poor sister’s sake as well as for my own, so long as it was the natural reward of conscientious service, and not the prize of hypocrisy and cunning. With another man than you I never would have contested such a prize. But you fascinated me, even as my rival. You played with me, deceived me, betrayed me. I held my ground, hoping you would see that what you were doing was not fair. But if you have seen it, it has made no difference with you. For Mr Sloane, from the moment that, under your magical influence, he revealed his nasty little nature, I had nothing but contempt.’
‘And for me now?’
‘Don’t ask me. I don’t trust myself.’
‘Hate, I suppose.’
‘Is that the best you can imagine? Farewell.’
‘Is it a serious farewell – farewell for ever?’
‘How can there be any other?’
‘I am sorry this should be your point of view. It’s characteristic. All the more reason then that I should say a word in self-defence. You accuse me of having “played with you, deceived you, betrayed you”. It seems to me that you are quite beside the mark. You say you were such a friend of mine; if so, you ought to be one still. It was not to my fine sentiments you attached yourself, for I never had any or pretended to any. In anything I have done recently, therefore, there has been no inconsistency. I never pretended to take one’s friendship so seriously. I don’t understand the word in the sense you attach to it. I don’t understand the feeling of affection between men. To me it means quite another thing. You give it a meaning of your own; you enjoy the profit of your invention; it’s no more than just that you should pay the penalty. Only it seems to me rather hard that I should pay it.’ Theodore remained silent, but he looked quite sick. ‘Is it still a “serious farewell”?’ I went on. ‘It seems a pity. After this clearing up, it appears to me that I shall be on better terms with you. No man can have a deeper appreciation of your excellent parts, a keener enjoyment of your society. I should very much regret the loss of it.’
‘Have we, then, all this while understood each other so little?’ said Theodore.
‘Don’t say “we” and “each other”. I think I have understood you.’
‘Very likely. It’s not for my having kept anything back.’
‘Well, I do you justice. To me you have always been overgenerous. Try now and be just.’
Still he stood silent, with his cold, hard frown. It was plain that, if he was to come back to me, it would be from the other world – if there be one! What he was going to answer I know not. The door opened, and Robert appeared, pale, trembling, his eyes starting in his head.
‘I verily believe that poor Mr Sloane is dead in his bed!’ he cried.
There was a moment’s perfect silence. ‘Amen,’ said I. ‘Yes, old boy, try and be just.’ Mr Sloane had quietly died in my absence.
24th. – Theodore went up to town this morning, having shaken hands with me in silence before he started. Doctor Jones, and Brooks the attorney, have been very officious, and, by their advice, I have telegraphed to a certain Miss Meredith, a maiden lady, by their account the nearest of kin; or, in other words, simply a discarded niece of the defunct. She telegraphs back that she will arrive in person for the funeral. I shall remain till she comes. I have lost a fortune, but have I irretrievably lost a friend? I am sure I can’t say. Yes, I shall wait for Miss Meredith.
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM
I
INTENDING to sail for America in the early part of June, I determined to spend the interval of six weeks in England, of which I had dreamed much but as yet knew nothing. I had formed in Italy and France a resolute preference for old inns, deeming that what they sometimes cost the ungratified body they repay the delighted mind. On my arrival in London, therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry far to the east of Temple Bar, deep in what I used to denominate the Johnsonian city. Here, on the first evening of my stay, I descended to the little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of the genius of decorum, in the person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of this apartment than I felt I had mown the first swath in my golden-ripe crop of British ‘impressions’. The coffee-room of the Red-Lion, like so many other places and things I was destined to see in England, seemed to have been waiting for long years, with just that sturdy sufferance of time written on its visage, for me to come and gaze, ravished but unamazed.
The latent preparedness of the American mind for even the most delectable features of English life is a fact which I never fairly probed to its depths. The roots of it are so deeply buried in the virgin soil of our primary culture, that, without some great upheaval of experience, it would be hard to say exactly when and where and how it begins. It makes an American’s enjoyment of England an emotion more fatal and sacred than his enjoyment, say, of Italy or Spain. I had seen the coffee-room of the Red-Lion years ago, at home, – at Saragossa, Illinois, – in books, in visions, in dreams, in Dickens, in Smollett, and Boswell. It was small, and subdivided into six small compartments by a series of perpendicular screens of mahogany, something higher than a man’s stature, furnished on either side with a narrow uncushioned ledge, denominated in ancient Britain a seat. In each of the little dining-boxes thus immutably constituted was a small table, which in crowded seasons was expected to accommodate the several agents of a fourfold British hungriness. But crowded seasons had passed away from the Red-Lion for ever. It was crowded only with memories and ghosts and atmosphere. Round the room there marched, breast-high, a magnificent panelling of mahogany, so dark with time and so polished with unremitted friction, that by gazing awhile into its lucid blackness I fancied I could discern the lingering images of a party of gentlemen in periwigs and short-clothes, just arrived from York by the coach. On the dark yellow walls, coated by the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, of Scotch whisky, were a dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age, – the Derby favourite of the year 1807, the Bank of England, her Majesty the Queen. On the floor was a Turkey carpet – as old as the mahogany, almost, as the Bank of England, as the Queen, – into which the waiter in his lonely revolutions had trodden so many massive soot-flakes and drops of overflowing beer, that the glowing looms of Smyrna would certainly not have recognised it. To say that I ordered my dinner of this superior being would be altogether to misrepresent the process, owing to which, having dreamed of lamb and spinach, and a charlotte-russe, I sat down in penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet against the cross-beam of my little oaken table, I opposed to the mahogany partition behind me that vigorous dorsal resistance which expresses the old-English idea of repose. The sturdy screen refused even to creak; but my poor Yankee joints made up the deficiency. While I was waiting for my chop there came into the room a person whom I took to be my sole fellow-lodger. He seemed, like myself, to have submitted to proposals for dinner; the table on the other side of my partition had been prepared to receive him. He walked up to the fire, exposed his back to it, consulted his watch, and looked apparently out of the window, but really at me. He was a man of something less than middle age and more than middle stature, though indeed you would have called him neither young nor tall. He was chiefly remarkable for his exaggerated leanness. His hair, very thin on the summit of his head, was dark, short, and fine. His eye was of a pale, turbid grey, unsuited, perhaps, to his dark hair and brow, but not altogether out of harmony with his colourless, bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline and delicate; beneath it hung a thin, comely, dark moustach
e. His mouth and chin were meagre and uncertain of outline; not vulgar, perhaps, but weak. A cold, fatal, gentlemanly weakness, indeed, seemed expressed in his attentuated person. His eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head, told of exhausted purpose, of a will relaxed. His dress was neat and careful, with an air of half-mourning. I made up my mind on three points: he was unmarried, he was ill, he was not an Englishman. The waiter approached him, and they murmured momentarily in barely audible tones. I heard the words ‘claret’, ‘sherry’, with a tentative inflection, and finally ‘beer’, with a gentle affirmative. Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me of a certain type of Russian which I had met on the Continent. While I was weighing this hypothesis, – for you see I was interested, – there appeared a short, brisk man with reddish-brown hair, a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye, and a red beard, confined to his lower jaw and chin. My impecunious Russian was still standing on the rug, with his mild gaze bent on vacancy; the other marched up to him, and with his umbrella gave him a playful poke in the concave frontage of his melancholy waistcoat. ‘A penny-ha’penny for your thoughts!’ said the new-comer.