The Fall of the House of Heron (Prologue Science Fiction)

by Eden Phillpotts

  Sir Humphrey Nettleship arrived from London and spent a night at Cliff. The consultant knew all about Sir Hector and understood that a valuable life now demanded his skill. He learned what Winton could tell, found himself faced with a serious challenge and was specially interested in particulars concerning the mental changes in the sick man’s usual conduct; but he held such a breakdown to be a psychological result of the malady and not arising from any cerebral evil.

  “I have seen cases,” he told Greta at dinner that night, “where Europeans travelling, or residing, in the Far East, under unhealthy conditions, have picked up germs that remained dormant for years after their return home and only appeared at a later time to mystify us with something beyond our experience. We know not which isotope to exhibit if the enemy itself is unknown and frankly I am as yet in the dark as to what your father suffers from. Has he at any time travelled in China, Japan or Malaya?”

  “Never, Sir Humphrey,” answered Greta. “That I can say for certain. Only in Europe among the great iron centres of his work — Austria and Sweden, Russia and the Ruhr.”

  “A very wonderful and remarkable man, Miss Heron, and of high value to the nation. We must do all that science can do to restore him to health,” he said and, during the evening, spent another hour with his patient and strove to find some clue to his disease. Sir Hector liked him and enjoyed his company while the eminent man studied every angle from which efforts might be made. His memory could find no parallel to the situation and he took a graver view of the case from the first than he confessed. At Sir Hector’s wish he came down again a fortnight later, to find his suggestions had proved useless and to mark further deterioration. He prescribed again and now suspected mental impairment for the patient’s mind, revealed passing aberrations. They were but clouds that drifted over his conversation and neither Greta nor Dr. Winton reported any real mental failure. The sufferer had become patient and resigned. He seemed to have returned to himself and strove to carry on his life as usual. He rose daily and still spent time in the hot-houses with his gardeners; but his strength was failing and he made no sustained efforts to continue his work, informing the Government that he found bad health interfere with his powers and referring them elsewhere.

  It was at this stage of Sir Hector’s illness that Faraday returned, learned all his sister and Dr. Winton had to tell him and, after deep study of the case, told them that, coming freshly to it, he felt concerned for his father’s mind.

  “The trend of what he says and thinks is not towards unreason or mania,” he said, “but simplicity and childishness. He might be young again. He is desperately ill and I shall telephone to-night to Bentley, an old, personal friend of mine at St. Luke’s. He is brilliant and I would rather he saw father than anybody.”

  Faraday gave it as his opinion that there was a tumour on his father’s brain and surmised that his friend might advocate operation.

  “Trepanation of the skull might throw light,” he said to Dr. Winton, “though it may be too late to hope for any cure as a result of what it could tell us. Bentley will decide. All that I can say is that the brain must be affected. Father hasn’t told you or Greta, but he told me that he is going blind. And he has also told me that he knows he is not going to recover. I’m awfully afraid he is right. You have done everything you knew, Winton, and, no doubt, Nettleship tried the likeliest remedies he could hit upon; but the truth is that he didn’t diagnose what has overtaken the governor, and more did you, or more do I. It probably looked like something superficial at first, but it was working in as well as out. However, Bentley will make a surgical examination. I have had a long talk with him on the telephone and he’s coming down the day after to-morrow. If he decides to operate and father agrees, it had better be here.”

  He was depressed and bewildered at the situation and much regretted that it had been impossible to get home sooner. He feared that the failure to diagnose would now determine the issue.

  “It’s too late now. The brain cells have degenerated obviously since I saw him last,” he said to Greta. “Coming to him freshly after all these weeks and remembering what he was, of course, I recognize that better than you, or anybody here.”

  “You don’t feel much hope?” she asked.

  “Not much. There are bad signs.”

  “If dear father goes, I go I suppose,” said Greta.

  “Faraday looked at her reflectively as though she had started some new train of thought. He was bronzed from the southern sun of North Africa and seemed kindly disposed; but when he answered, his words had nothing to do with his family.

  “Like a pack of hunting wolves, or a tribe of Red Indians, man is on the war trail again,” he said. “The senseless, aimless bloody, serial story of our existence is going to open another chapter that may well be more hideous than the last. All rational intellect despairs. The living minority of us is so small, while the mightier, dead majority have left their legacy of wisdom in words and deeds which the living ignore. The past teaches us nothing. The genius and inspiration of the ages moulder in a thousand books that only rot unopened on our shelves. We think we know better than dead men, whose little fingers were thicker than our thighs. A pitiful generation and I doubt sometimes whether to pursue my own researches, rich with promise though they are.”

  “What else could you possibly pursue?” she asked.

  “Live a life of pure culture — self-culture — and deny my gifts to my graceless species. Introspection and the application of my own intelligence might give me peace and enable me to live my life with dignity in the pure domains of scientific thought; while if on the contrary I pursued research and discovered the secret that is in my reach, what should I gain of fame and honour when my revelations were used for a bane and curse? It is always so much easier to cast down than build up. If I hated mankind, I might presently find myself in a mood to offer them a new and wholesale means to suicide. And that might well win me the applause of a watching universe; but if a day comes when I see how to apply atomic energy (as I often assured our father) for precious purposes, then I should have to determine whether to trust my fellow-creatures to build a new world rather than destroy the world we know.”

  “It would be right to take such a risk and trust your fellow-creatures,” declared Greta. “The right and brave thing, Faraday.”

  He laughed.

  “Scientists have in the past invariably informed their Governments concerning any new discovery of military value, and I talk as if I were in a position to do so already,” he said, “whereas I may never be and never wish to be. The knowledge, once I attain it single-handed, will be hidden close enough, but if discovered elsewhere, then another war will doubtless reveal it.”

  “How strange to speak of war as inevitable while you know, and everybody knows, that ninety-nine people out of every hundred hate the thought,” said Greta.

  “The nations stand like poor birds magnetized into futility by the approach of the snake. Kingdoms are driven over the precipice of war as were the Gadarene swine — by devils.”

  Faraday returned to his own interests.

  “Poor father was typical,” he said. “Many great princes of industry take the same line. They are glad enough and willing enough to avail themselves of scientific research and profit by it where they see the chance, yet perfectly willing to let research starve at the same time. They only care for results but won’t risk a farthing of their own wealth to forward them. Religion, when it had the power, persecuted science, so that a man only pursued it at the risk of his life in olden times, and now selfish, purblind States are contented to let research remain a prospect that can tempt no young man of genius. It pays for sordid returns and sordid gain, not for the finding of truth. No living wages are offered to those only concerned with truth; but now I predict an ironical situation, for war will very possibly do what peace could not and, while no nation was prepared to spend untold money on nuclear fissure for peaceful purposes, it may be found that all are ready with their
millions for a destructive agent capable of winning the war.”

  Suddenly he turned to her and answered her original question.

  “As for you,” he said, “one had not looked so far into the future. I find it impossible to imagine Cliff without father, or without you for that matter. Whatever may happen, there can be no reason why you should not stop here as long as you feel disposed to, Greta.”

  Finding him in this amiable spirit and concern for her, she felt suddenly tempted to let him hear of her engagement — a thing she had long desired to do.

  “Everybody looks ahead,” she said, “and I’ve been wanting to tell you what lies ahead for me, Faraday. It sounds callous to be interested in myself for the moment, but since you fear how it is going to be with father, I may speak. I am engaged to Ernest — Ernest Trensham. We have cared for each other a long time now and seen enough of each other to feel the world will be a happier place for us lived in together than apart. We have a great deal in common and know each other’s natures well, for I have seen a good deal of him on my visits to London and it was rather a tower of strength that father liked him and Alfred liked him too. They welcomed him when he could come, and on his last visit you remember, when you saw him, he happened to be here at father’s wish just when the bad news from Africa reached us.”

  Faraday showed no particular interest.

  “What did father think of the match?” he asked.

  “He has yet to hear of it,” she answered. “We were just on the brink of telling him, for we didn’t know it ourselves until the morning of that dreadful news about Alfred. Ernest was going to tell father that night after dinner; but the telegram came at tea-time and that was the end of it, of course. I decided that he must not be told for a long while and it was impossible for Ernest to come down for ages after that last visit. And then, just as I had meant to get him down to see father, began this dreadful illness. Now he actually knows nothing.”

  “Too late to tell him now,” said her brother. “I should not attempt to do so. In fact, it’s rather doubtful if he could take it in. His talk is all of Alfred still — as if they were boys together. Alfred will be the last thing he thinks of. As to Trensham, you’re old enough to know your own mind. He struck me as a pleasant, intelligent and educated man. One doesn’t see you a policeman’s wife perhaps, though that wouldn’t trouble me in the least; but possibly you have considered the future. He may feel himself that if he marries you he should turn to something more exalted. But he must work if he wants to cut a respectable figure in my eyes. I take it he would not be content to live on you.”

  “Not for a moment, Faraday. He is an ambitious man. I’m glad, my dear, you feel no objection. When you know him better you will learn to like him.”

  “We shall meet, no doubt, before long,” he said. “I hope you will be happy with him whatever you may decide to do.”

  They went together to see Sir Hector, but Horn informed them that he was gone to bed.

  Dr. Bentley arrived upon the following night and talked over his case; but he did not see the patient until morning. He was an eminent man rapidly reaching fame, and he entertained a very high opinion of Faraday Heron with whom he had worked at St. Luke’s Hospital. If the younger scientist ever cultivated a fellow-creature or claimed a friendship, it was with Nicholas Bentley, though the surgeon always declared that he had never forgiven Faraday for deserting medicine. They were glad to meet and discuss their varied interests and not until one o’clock did they retire.

  “If there is a sick man I should like to serve, it is the sportsman who gave St. Luke’s our radium,” said Bentley. “It would be in keeping with the radical rightness of things if his radium now served to save his life.”

  “Fairy stories seldom happen in science,” replied the other. “I’m afraid you are going to draw nothing but a very melancholy blank to-morrow, Nicholas.”

  Sir Hector, who had learned of the approaching examination, welcomed Bentley amiably enough and bade him do what he could.

  “Fear not to hurt me if you feel the need, young man,” he said. “It was kind of you to come so far on our account.”

  He submitted to the necessary examination conducted with infinite care and skill; but, as it advanced, pain was occasioned and the time came when the sufferer showed signs of exhaustion and called for stimulant. Bentley ceased then. He spoke very little while he worked and studied Sir Hector carefully before he began to do so. Dr. Winton and Faraday both waited upon him, but for the most part few words were uttered and the examination proceeded silently. After they had finished and applied the dressings, they left Sir Hector with Horn and presently Greta came into the sick-room and sat beside her father. He praised Bentley.

  “An able fellow,” he said. “But I am seeing very badly to-day and had no vision of him. He hurt me though his hands were tender.”

  In conference the surgeon spoke with authority and had no hope to offer.

  “Whether the trouble could have been stemmed at an earlier time one cannot say,” he told them, “but it is too late now. I can perform an operation, but it would be to no purpose. The brain is deeply affected and the sight done for. What caused the illness one cannot say, but it is past any chance of cure. A major operation would only shorten what life remains to your father. That would not matter and only serve to lessen his extreme misery, but to trepan can only increase it.”

  “His mind remains amazingly clear considering, but the clear intervals are shorter than they were,” said Dr. Winton.

  “You will have observed the strong indications of anæmia,” pointed out Bentley. “He is losing strength very fast.”

  “And weight,” added Faraday. Then he turned to Winton.

  “Did Nettleship ever mention radium?” he asked.

  “He mentioned it as a tentative consideration, but dismissed the idea.”

  “Useless in this connection,” agreed Bentley. “We are already looking ahead: in the event of war, all our national stock will be buried fifty feet underground.”

  They debated the case from every angle.

  “How long would you give him?” asked Faraday.

  “Impossible to say. He may live for a month or two, though I doubt it. His mind must soon break down and life without a mind for such a man would be horrible. But he won’t know it. One can only wish him a quick and painless end.”

  “He would probably choose euthanasia thankfully if he could,” said Faraday.

  “We shall come to that some day,” declared Bentley.

  “Shall we? I wonder. Rationalism doesn’t gain much ground,” his friend reminded him.

  Hearing that an operation was negatived, Sir Hector declared his satisfaction.

  “You fellows know I’m done for and so do I,” he told them. “A man of my age understands when the grey dustman is round the corner and generally finds himself not too deaf to hear the first tinkle of his bell. Do what you may to spare me needless suffering: I ask no more from science than that. You must not expedite an inevitable end, because our laws forbid; but you should know how to allay pain.”

  Dr. Bentley praised the old man after he had taken leave of him and promised to help Faraday as far as lay in his power.

  “Obviously you cannot do anything definite,” he said, “and quite certainly Winton, who is one of the old brigade, won’t do anything. But I will send you something from London for your father.”

  He took his leave ere long, but Faraday remained at Cliff and spent time with Sir Hector. During lucid intervals he would seek to cheer him, listen to his admonitions and promise to respect the various directions for the future impressed upon him. Greta was seldom long absent and the sick man liked to have both of them with him. He kept his rooms henceforth but rose, with Roger Horn’s aid, until in a few weeks his strength was spent and his anæmia gained ground. Drugs saved him much pain.

  The sick man’s daughter suffered more than his son. Such physical changes were familiar to a physician; but Greta dwelt on the ch
anges and declared her grief.

  “All his splendid high colour gone,” she said when talking to Faraday. “This ghastly pallor, as though his dear face had been turned into white marble and the light banished from his eyes for ever. A man who loved Nature as he did to be treated like this by her! I feel it’s so cruel and unfair. So difficult to imagine in connection with him. Who could dream of such an end for father?”

  “His wonderful constitution prolongs the struggle,” explained her brother. “The blood-forming mechanism is fighting to the last. But don’t start talking nonsense, or attributing reason and purpose and personality to Nature. Leave that to art. To teach children to love Nature is as idiotic as to teach them to hate her. From certain angles the ways of Nature are loathsome to a human mind and many of her operations would beggar the dreams of a devil, while, conversely, she is responsible for the perfections of beauty our eyes and brains confront and our taste approves. But beauty is created by the beholder. Nature knows nothing of beauty or ugliness. In my classes I am very careful to show neither admiration nor dislike, applause nor censure of proceedings. I demand only steady search for truth. Some natural virus is about to destroy our father; but it is idle to call this unconscious activity a cruel virus — just as idle as to call a spring shower benignant. Science has failed to recognize or combat this virus: that’s all we can say.”

  With the passage of another month Sir Hector’s mind succumbed and he ceased to recognize those about him He talked sometimes but wthout coherence and then he refused food, yet still lingered. He suffered no physical pain, thanks to his son’s successful ministrations, but became mercifully unconscious and ultimately died in his sleep. Roger Horn was watching over him with the night nurse, but he did not inform Faraday or Greta until the morning, so that, when they came to their father, the battlefield of litter that may surround a death-bed was cleared up, the chamber sweet and empty, the windows open, dawn breaking and the body of Sir Hector composed upon his bed in an alcove of the great room where it stood. His children found the dignity of death yet upon his face, the misery lifted, peace brooding there for a little while.