He paused. The millionaire had half risen from his chair, and was gripping its cushioned elbows hard with both hands.
“How dare you!” he muttered in choked accents—” How dare you use the memory of my dead son to urge a beggar’s plea! Why do you presume to probe an old grief — a cureless sorrow — in an attempt to get money out of me! Because it is Christmas Eve? Curse Christmas Eve!”
His voice sank to a hiss of rage, and Mr. Pitt, nervously shrinking within himself, sought for his hat and made towards the door. A terrific gust of rain just then swept against the windows like a shower of small stones, accompanied by the shrieking yowl of the wind.
“Christmas Eve!” repeated McNason, fixing his eyes with cold derision on his abashed overseer—” Peace and goodwill! That sounds like it, doesn’t it?” And he shook one hand with a mocking gesture towards the rattling casements. “Hear the storm? Any angels singing in it, do you think? Any God about? Bah! Christmas is a vulgar superstition born of barbarous idolatry! It serves nowadays as a mere excuse for the lower classes to gorge themselves with food, get drunk, and generally make beasts of themselves! There is no more ‘Peace and good-will’ in it than there is in a public-house beer fight! And as for doing kindnesses to each other, I’ll be bound there’s not a man at my works who isn’t trying to get a bigger round of beef or a fatter goose for himself than his neighbour can afford. That’s charity! It begins at home! You know that, Mr. Pitt! Ha-ha! You know that — you have a large family! Christmas is a humbug, like most ‘religious’ festivals” — here he stretched his thin mouth into that unbecoming slit which suggested smiling, but was nothing like a smile—” I never keep it — and I do my best to forget it! Good-night!”
“Good-night, sir,” — and Mr. Pitt, hat in hand, stood for a moment facing his employer—” I am sorry if I have troubled you — or — or offended you! I did not mean to do so. I hope you will excuse my boldness! I made a mistake — I thought you might be pleased to do something for an old servant of the firm; — I — I — er — Goodnight!”
The door opened and closed softly. He was gone.
McNason looked after him with a frown.
Like his impudence!” he muttered—” Like his damned impudence! Following me up here all the way from the city and begging me to lend two hundred pounds to a man I hardly ever saw — except — except once or twice when my boy was alive. Among the hundreds and hundreds of travellers for the firm, how the devil should I be expected to remember Willie Dove!” He settled himself once more in his elbow chair, and poked the fire vigorously till the bright blaze spread a brilliant glow well over the room, flashing ruddily on the rows of well-bound books, on the marble busts of poets and historians, on the massive desk strewn with letters and papers and ht with electric reading-lamps at either end, and on all the luxurious appurtenances for the study of either Ledgers or Literature which, in these days of superfluous comfort and convenience, assist in furnishing the library of a millionaire. He had dined in town, and there was nothing for him to do except to read, — write, — or sit and meditate. He was alone, — but that was his customary condition when in his own house, unless on those occasions when he chose to invite a select party of persons, often including Royalty itself, to stay with him as guests, and graze on him, as it were, like sheep on a particularly fat pasture. But he never asked people to visit him at all unless for the ulterior purpose of making use of them in business; and just now he had no important object in view that could be served by dining or wining anybody. It was an awkward time of year, — Christmas time, in fact. It is always an awkward time for anyone who is incurably selfish. Those who have homes and love them, go to such homes and stay there with their families, — those who are callous concerning home-ties and home-affections, have been known to start for the Riviera (especially that section of it known as Monte Carlo) with “tourist” tickets or otherwise; — in short, everybody has a way of doing as they like, or, if not quite as they like, as near to what they like as they can, at that so-called “festive” season. One naturally thinks that a multi-millionaire would surely have all the amusements and gaieties of the world at his command, — but it seemed that Josiah McNason could find nothing wherewith to amuse himself, all business being at a standstill for a few days, — while as for gaiety! — dear me, the very word could barely have been uttered by the boldest person after one glance at his face! He sat, or rather huddled himself in the depths of his chair with a kind of dull satisfaction in his mind to think that in a couple of hours or so he would be going to bed. There was a damp and chilly feeling in the air; the cry of the incessant wind was teasing and shrewish — and he drew himself nearer to the fire, finding comfort in its warmth and dancing flame. He began to con over certain imposing figures representing the huge sums realized by his firm during the past half-year, — and, with furrowed brows, — so harshly wrinkled that his grey eyebrows met across a small chasm of yellow sunken flesh, — he calculated that his own personal fortune had accumulated to the colossal height of nearly twelve millions sterling. He moistened his lips with his tongue, drawing that member between his teeth with a sharp smacking sound as of satisfactory nut cracking.
“I think,” — he said, half aloud, “I think the time is ripe for a Peerage! I can spare — now, let me see! — yes! — I can spare the money! Twenty thousand pounds to a hospital will almost do it! And perhaps another twenty thousand in some more private quarter, and, — a little diplomacy!” He sniggered softly and rubbed his hands. “Lord McNason will sound well, — very well! If my son had lived—”
Here the heavy frown again made an abyss of his brow. He stared into the fire with a kind of melancholy sullenness, and began to think. His thinking was half involuntary, for he was not a man who cared to dwell on memories of the past or possibilities of the present. Yet, despite himself, he found his mind wandering through various byways of reminiscence back to the time when he was young, with all the world before him, — when, through the crafty instruction of an over-moneyed American capitalist he had learned by heart that celebrated paraphrase of a well-known divine text—”’Do’ others as you would not be ‘done.’” He saw himself practically adopting this rule of life and conduct with brilliant results. He traced the beginning of the great inflow of gold which now encrusted him and rolled him up as it were in a yellow metallic shroud, a singular and separate creature, apart from other men. He recalled against his own will an incident in his career which he would fain have forgotten, when at about thirty-seven years of age he had won the first affections of a sweet and beautiful girl of seventeen whom afterwards he had heartlessly jilted, for no fault of her own, but merely because her father had through sad mischance suddenly lost his fortune. Then, — his mind persisting in its abnormal humour of harking back like a hunted hare to old covers, — he reviewed the circumstances of his loveless marriage with the daughter of a millionaire who was at that time half as rich again as himself, — and even now, though she was dead, it was not without a sense of angry pique and nervous irritation that he remembered her utter callousness and indifference to his personality, — her fight regard for his wealth, which she scattered recklessly on every sort of foolish extravagance and dissipation, — and her want of natural care and affection for the one child which she gave him, — a promising boy on whom he lavished what infinitesimal vestiges of love still remained in his rapidly fossilizing moral composition. He thought of all the anxiety and cost which the education of this, his sole heir, had entailed upon him, — anxiety which was futile, and cost which was wasted. For Death cannot be bribed off by bullion. Typhoid fever in its most virulent form had snatched away the boy when he was barely eleven years old, and though the piles of gold still continued to accumulate and ever accumulate with the workings of the great McNason firm, there was no one to inherit the monster millions that came to birth with every fresh turn of the business wheel. And with his disappointment, Josiah had adopted an opposition front towards Deity. The “ways of Providence” were to
him subject for the bitterest acrimony; and though, as has been said, he went to Church regularly on Sundays, and was, indeed, exceptionally careful to make a public show of himself as a man vitally interested in all Church matters, his action in this regard may be truly represented as having been taken on the foundations of unbelief and godless mockery. It tickled his particular vein of humour to think that all the people in the parish where he had his country seat thought him a really religious man. It had been so easy to get this reputation! A few subscriptions to the rector’s pet charities; occasional assistance in taking round the collection-plate on Sundays; and a solemn demeanour during the sermon, had done it. But beneath that solemn demeanour what acrid depths of diabolical atheism lurked, only the diabolical agencies knew! He had worked his way through the world by a judicious use of the world’s follies, obstinacies and credulities, — he had over-reached his neighbours by making capital out of their confidences, — and now, as much as concerned the world’s chief god, Cash, he was at the top of the tree. True, he was getting on for seventy, but in these days when “the microbe of old age” is on the point of being discovered and exterminated, that was nothing. And the toiling engine of his brain having shunted its way thus far into the Long-Ago on a side line of its own, now came rushing swiftly back again into the present brilliant terminus of Wealth and Power which he had so successfully attained. And again the idea of a Peerage commended itself to him.
“It could easily be managed — quite easily!” he mused; “And then — perhaps — I might marry again — and marry well! Some young woman of aristocratic birth and high connections, who wants money. There are scores of them to be had for the asking!”
Just then the clock on the mantelpiece struck a sharp ting!-ting!-ting! Josiah glanced at its enamelled dial and saw that it had chimed the quarter-past eleven. The fire was burning beautifully bright and clear, — and the warmth thrown out by the glowing coals was grateful to his shrunken legs, loosely cased in their too ample trousers. He decided that he would wait a little while longer before retiring to rest. Stretching out one hand he touched the button of an electric bell within his reach. Almost instantaneously his major-domo, the majestic Towler, appeared.
“Towler!”
“Yessir!”
“I shall want nothing more to-night. You can go to bed.”
“Very good, sir!”
“Wake me at seven to-morrow morning.”
“Yessir! To-morrow’s Christmas Day, sir.”
“Well, what’s that to me?”
“Beg pardon, sir! Thought you might like to sleep a little later, sir.”
Josiah gazed at him grimly.
“Sleep a little later! What do you take me for, eh? D’ye think I’m such a fool and sluggard as to want to stay in bed longer on Christmas Day than on any other day?
You ought to know me better than that! I have plenty of work to do just the same, Christmas Day or no Christmas Day, and I mean to do it!”
“Certainly, sir. Yessir. Seven o’clock, sir!”
“Seven o’clock, sharp!” And McNason’s thin lips closed upon the word “sharp” like the lid of a spring matchbox.
Thereupon Towler backed deferentially towards the door.
“Good-night, sir. Merry Christmas, sir!”
And with this salutation, — which, offered to a person so distinctly removed from merriment as was his master, seemed almost a satire, — he disappeared.
McNason, uttering a sound between a grunt and a curse, poked the fire again viciously, and flung on two logs from a wood-basket beside him, — chumpy resinous logs which began to splutter and crackle directly the heat touched them, and soon started flaring flames up the chimney with quite a lurid torchlight glow. The storm outside had increased in fury, — and hailstones were now mingled with the rain which dashed threateningly against the windows with every wild circling rush of the wind.
“Glad I’m not going to a Christmas Eve party!” thought Josiah, as he listened to the hurrying roar of the gale—” A great many young fools will probably catch their deaths of cold to-night, — a wise dispensation of Nature for getting rid of surplus population!”
He stretched each end of his mouth as far as it would go, and showed his crooked yellow teeth to the fire, this effort being his way of laughing. The clock struck half past eleven, — and scarcely had its final chime died away on the air when another and unexpected sound startled him. Ring-ting-ting-ting! — ting-ring-ting-ting-ting! — Ring-ting-TING-TING!
“Someone at the telephone!” he said, getting out of his comfortable chair, and hurrying to that doubtfully useful modern instrument, which, if once fixed in a private house puts the owner of it at the disposal of all his friends and business acquaintances who may be inclined to “call him up” on the most trivial excuses for wasting his time—” Who wants me at this hour, I wonder!”
He soon had his ear to the receiver, and a small, shrill and quite unfamiliar voice came sharply across the wire.
“Hello!”
“Hello!” he rejoined.
“Hell-oh! McNason! Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here. Who are you?”
“That’s telling!” And the shrill piping accents broke into fragments of falsetto laughter that ran vibratingly into McNason’s ear and gave him cold shivers down his back—” Are you at home?”
“Of course I am! Going to bed.”
“Oh! Don’t go to bed! Hell-oh! McNason, don’t go to bed! I want you!”
“Want me? What for?”
Again the broken laughter quavered along the wire in uncanny snatches.
“On business! Very important! Government loan! No delay! Great chance for you! Peerage! Christmas Eve! Don’t go to bed!”
Josiah’s temper rose. He put his mouth to the transmitter and spoke softly, deliberately and with concentrated viciousness.
“You’re a humbug! You’re some fool playing with the telephone because it’s Christmas Eve, and you don’t know what else to do with yourself! Probably you’re drunk! I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know you. Get off my private wire!”
“Oh!” And then came a curious exclamation that sounded like “Hoo-roo!”
“Don’t say you don’t want to know me! You’ve got to know me! I’m coming to you now! Be with you directly!”
Josiah began to feel desperate.
“Hello!” he called.
“Hell-oh!” was the prompt response.
“What’s your name?”
“Tell you when I see you! Hand you my card!”
“Hello! Can you hear what I say?”
“As plain as a penny whistle!”
“Well then, whoever you are, please understand that it’s no use your coming all the way here to see me to-night. It’s too late! This place is twenty miles from town and there are no trains. The house is shut up, and I’m going to bed. Your business must wait till to-morrow!”
“To-morrow is Christmas Day!” replied the shrill voice;— “To-morrow will be here in half-an-hour! But I shall be with you before then! My business won’t wait! It can’t! Don’t worry about getting supper for me, — I never take any! Ta!”
Utterly mystified, McNason fell back from the telephone affected by that strange and disagreeable sensation commonly called “nerves.” He was not, constitutionally, a nervous man, — his mental and moral fibres were exceptionally tough and sinewy, and though he was distinctly snarley and irritable on the rare occasions when he could not altogether get his own way, his temperament was neither “highly strung” nor over-sensitive. Nevertheless, he was just now conscious of a vague uneasiness, — the sort of physical discomfort which usually precedes a severe chill.
“I’ve caught cold in the motor, — that’s what it is,” — he said, with a slight shudder, “Such a beastly night as this is enough to freeze a man’s blood! And I’m not so young as I was” — here the ugly frown deepened on his brow—” not so young — no! — but young enough — young enough! I’ll get into
the blankets as quickly as possible.” He glanced furtively at the telephone. “Some impudent idiot has been tampering with my wire, that’s pretty certain! I’ll find out who it is to-morrow! And I’ll make him pay for his fooling!”
He turned his eyes towards the fire. It was brighter than ever. Slowly returning to the deep easy chair placed so cosily opposite the sparkling flames, he sat down again.
“I’ll get myself thoroughly warmed through before going to bed,” — he decided, spreading out his hands to the red glow — I’m actually shivering! There must be snow in the air as well as rain!”
His teeth chattered, and though the blaze from the fire was already so strong and vivid, he used the poker again to break asunder a half-consumed lump of coal, which on being split emitted a leaping tongue of gaseous blue flame.
That’s better!” he remarked approvingly, half aloud, “That looks cheerful!”
“So it does!” said a shrill voice at his ear, — the same voice precisely that had just called to him along his “private wire”—” Quite cheerful! And Christmassy! As cheerful and Christmassy as yourself, McNason!”
With a violent start Josiah looked sharply round — and looking, uttered an involuntary cry of terror. On the cushioned arm of his elbow-chair sat, or rather squatted, an Object — a Creature — a kind of nondescript semi-human thing such as drunkards might possibly see in delirious dreams. It was small as regarded its Head, but large as regarded its Paunch. It had tiny legs, thin as a chicken’s wish-bone. It had long spidery arms with which it reached down and embraced its turned-up toes. At a first glance it appeared to have a smooth doll-like countenance, but with the least movement such a variety of odd expressions came into play as to make each feature seem a different face. Its eyes were large, and abnormally brilliant. Its hair, jet black and very oily, was rolled back from its narrow brows in the “all-round frame” style of the present-day coiffeur’s art, while on the top of this inverted nest, or soup plate, it wore a conical red cap adorned at the extreme point with a glittering fiery tassel. Its attire — or rather that part of its body which seemed to be clothed — was red; its attenuated arms and legs were naked, yellow, and extremely hairy. It was more like an unpleasantly huge spider with a human head than anything else, and though small enough to curl itself up on the arm of an easy chair, it was yet large enough to create fear and repulsion in the mind of even so important and powerful a personage as a multi-millionaire. Josiah McNason was distinctly afraid of it. And that he was so, is no discredit to him. He had never seen anything like it before. And he had no particular wish to see anything like it again. Yet he could not take his eyes off it. Its eyes were fixed on him with equal pertinacity. With a mighty effort at rallying his wits he stealthily sought for the poker, — if he could get hold of that useful instrument with his right hand, he thought, and give that queer Shape squatting so close at his left a heavy WHACK! — why then it would surely break to pieces, — crumble — smash — disappear — !
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 931
