Clayhanger

"By Jove!" said Edwin to himself, "I shall have to treat this man like a blooming child!" He was rather startled, and interested. He picked up the hat.

"Better not sit there," he advised. "Come into the dining-room a bit."

"What?" Darius asked feebly.

"Is he deaf?" Edwin thought, and half shouted: "Better not sit there.

It's chilly. Come into the dining-room a bit. Come on."

Darius held out a hand, with a gesture inexpressibly sad; and Edwin, almost before he realised what he was doing, took it and a.s.sisted his father to his feet and helped him to the twilit dining-room, where Darius fell into a chair. Some bread and cheese had been laid for him on a napkin, and there was a gleam of red in the grate. Edwin turned up the gas, and Darius blinked. His coa.r.s.e cheeks were all wet.

"Better have your overcoat off, hadn't you?"

Darius shook his head.

"Well, will you eat something?"

Darius shook his head again; then hid his face and violently sobbed.

Edwin was not equal to this situation. It alarmed him, and yet he did not see why it should alarm him. He left the room very quietly, went upstairs, and knocked at Maggie's door. He had to knock several times.

"Who's there?"

"I say, Mag!"

"What is it?"

"Open the door," he said.

"You can come in."

He opened the door, and within the darkness of the room he could vaguely distinguish a white bed.

"Father's come. He's in a funny state."

"How?"

"Well, he's crying all over the place, and he won't eat, or do anything!"

"All right," said Maggie--and a figure sat up in the bed. "Perhaps I'd better come down."

She descended immediately in an ulster and loose slippers. Edwin waited for her in the hall.

"Now, father," she said brusquely, entering the dining-room, "what's amiss?"

Darius gazed at her stupidly. "Nothing," he muttered.

"You're very late, I think. When did you have your last meal?"

He shook his head.

"Shall I make you some nice hot tea?"

He nodded.

"Very well," she said comfortingly.

Soon with her hair hanging about her face and hiding it, she was

"Seen Gladstone's speech, I suppose?" Edwin said, daring a fearful topic in the extraordinary circ.u.mstances.

Darius paid no heed. Edwin and Maggie exchanged a glance. Maggie made the tea direct into a large cup, which she had previously warmed by putting it upside down on the saucepan lid. When it was infused and sweetened, she tasted it, as for a baby, and blew on it, and gave the cup to her father, who, by degrees, emptied it, though not exclusively into his mouth.

"Will you eat something now?" she suggested.

He would not.

"Very well, then, Edwin will help you upstairs."

From her manner Darius might have been a helpless and half-daft invalid for years.

The ascent to bed was processional; Maggie hovered behind. But at the dining-room door Darius, giving no explanation, insisted on turning back: apparently he tried to speak but could not. He had forgotten his "Signal." s.n.a.t.c.hing at it, he held it like a treasure. All three of them went into the father's bedroom. Maggie turned up the gas. Darius sat on the bed, looking dully at the carpet.

"Better see him into bed," Maggie murmured quickly to Edwin, and Edwin nodded--the nod of capability--as who should say, "Leave all that to me!" But in fact he was exceedingly diffident about seeing his father into bed.

Maggie departed.

"Now then," Edwin began the business. "Let's get that overcoat off, eh?" To his surprise Darius was most pliant. When the great clumsy figure, with its wet cheeks, stood in trousers, s.h.i.+rt, and socks, Edwin said, "You're all right now, aren't you?" And the figure nodded.

"Well, good-night."

Edwin came out on to the landing, shut the door, and walked about a little in his own room. Then he went back to his father's room.

Maggie's door was closed. Darius was already in bed, but the gas was blazing at full.

"You've forgotten the gas," he said lightly and pleasantly, and turned it down to a blue point.

"I say, lad," the old man stopped him, as he was finally leaving.

"Yes?"

"What about that Home Rule?"

The voice was weak, infantile. Edwin hesitated. The "Signal" made a patch of white on the ottoman.

"Oh!" he answered soothingly, and yet with condescension, "it's much about what everybody expected. Better leave that till to-morrow."

He shut the door. The landing received light through the open door of his bedroom and from the hall below. He went downstairs, bolted the front door, and extinguished the hall gas. Then he came softly up, and listened at his father's door. Not a sound! He entered his own room and began to undress, and then, half clothed, crept back to his father's door. Now he could hear a heavy, irregular snoring.

"Devilish odd, all this!" he reflected, as he got into bed. a.s.suredly he had disconcerting thoughts, not all unpleasant. His excitement had even an agreeable, zestful quality.