IV.
The clock of Bleakridge Church, still imperturbably shining in thenight, showed a quarter to one when he saw it again on his hurried andguilty way home. The pavements were drying in the fresh night wind, andhe had his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was absolutely solitaryin the long, muddy perspective of Trafalgar Road. He walked because thelast tram-car was already housed in its shed at the other end of theworld, and he walked quickly because his conscience drove him onwards.And yet he dreaded to arrive, lest a wound in the child's leg shouldhave maliciously decided to fester in order to put him in the wrong. Hewas now as apprehensive concerning that wound as Nellie herself had beenat tea-time.
But in his mind, above the dark gulf of anxiety, there floated brighterthoughts. Despite his fears and his remorse as a father, he laughedaloud in the deserted street when he remembered Mr. Bryany's visage ofastonishment upon uncreasing the note. Indubitably, he made a terrificand everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was sending Mr. Bryanyout of the Five Towns a different man. He had taught Mr. Bryany a thingor two. To what brilliant use had he turned the purely accidentalpossession of a hundred-pound note! One of his finest inspirations--aninspiration worthy of the great days of his youth! Yes, he had had hishour that evening, and it had been a glorious one. Also, it had cost hima hundred pounds, and he did not care; he would retire to bed with a netgain of two hundred and forty-one pounds instead of three hundred andforty-one pounds, that was all.
For he did not mean to take up the option. The ecstasy was cooled now,and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein wouldnot be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his ownground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would bea provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial.Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and hedreamt agreeably of London as one dreams of the impossible East.
As soon as he opened the gate in the wall of his property, he saw thatthe drawing-room was illuminated and all the other front rooms indarkness. Either his wife or his mother, then, was sitting up in thedrawing-room. He inserted a cautious latch-key into the door, andentered the silent home like a sinner. The dim light in the hallgravely reproached him. All his movements were modest and restrained;no noisy rattling of his stick now.
The drawing-room door was slightly ajar. He hesitated, and then,nerving himself, pushed against it.
Nellie, with lowered head, was seated at a table, mending, the image oftranquillity and soft resignation. A pile of children's garments lay byher side, but the article in her busy hands appeared to be an undershirtof his own. None but she ever reinforced the buttons on his linen.Such was her wifely rule, and he considered that there was no sense init. She was working by the light of a single lamp on the table, thesplendid chandelier being out of action. Her economy in the use ofelectricity was incurable, and he considered that there was no sense inthat either.
She glanced up with a guarded expression that might have meant anything.
He said:
"Aren't you trying your eyes?"
And she replied:
"Oh, no!"
Then, plunging, he came to the point:
"Well, doctor been here?"
She nodded.
"What does he say?"
"It's quite all right. He did nothing but cover up the place with a bitof cyanide gauze."
Instantly, in his own esteem, he regained perfection as a father. Ofcourse the bite was nothing! Had he not said so from the first? Had henot been quite sure throughout that the bite was nothing?
"Then why did you sit up?" he asked, and there was a faint righteouschallenge in his tone.
"I was anxious about you. I was afraid--"
"Didn't Stirling tell you I had some business?"
"I forget--"
"I told him to, anyhow--important business."
"It must have been," said Nellie in an inscrutable voice.
She rose and gathered together her paraphernalia, and he saw that shewas wearing the damnable white apron. The close atmosphere of the homeenveloped and stifled him once more. How different was thisexasperating interior from the large jolly freedom of the Empire MusicHall, and from the whisky, cigarettes, and masculinity of that privateroom at the Turk's Head!
"It was!" he repeated grimly and resentfully. "Very important! And I'lltell you another thing, I shall probably have to go to London."
He said this just to startle her.
"It will do you all the good in the world," she replied angelically, butunstartled. "It's just what you need." And she gazed at him as thoughhis welfare and felicity were her sole preoccupation.
"I meant I might have to stop there quite a while," he insisted.
"If you ask me," she said, "I think it would do us all good."
So saying she retired, having expressed no curiosity whatever as to thenature of the very important business in London.
For a moment, left alone, he was at a loss. Then, snorting, he went tothe table and extinguished the lamp. He was now in darkness. The lightin the hall showed him the position of the door.
He snorted again. "Oh, very well then!" he muttered. "If that's it!I'm hanged if I don't go to London! I'm hanged if I don't go toLondon!"
The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure Page 9
