Part 48 (2/2)

”They did grant him one squint of his old friend, about five minutes, and stood over him like dragons all the time, five of them. Came to him one morning and said, as though they were speaking to a leper through bars, said, sort of holding their noses, 'We have to ask you to come to see Papa. The doctor thinks there is something Papa wishes to say to you.'

”What it was, apparently, was that the old gentleman had some sort of funny old notion that he was put into life for a definite purpose and when Sabre saw him he could just whisper to Sabre that he was agonised because he was dying before he'd done anything that could possibly be it. Poor old Sabre said it was too terrible for him, because what could he say with that pack of grim daughters standing over him to see he didn't contaminate their papa on his death bed? He said he could only hold his old pal's hand, and had the tears running down his face, and couldn't say a word, and they hustled him out, sort of holding their noses again, and sort of disinfecting the place as they went along. He said to me, brokenly, 'Hapgood, I felt I'd touched bottom. My old friend, you know.' He said he went again next morning, like a tradesman, just to beg for news. They told him, 'Papa has pa.s.sed away.' He asked them, 'Did he say anything at the last? Do please tell me just that.'

They said he suddenly almost sat up and called out something they couldn't understand about, 'Ay, ready!' Sabre said he understood and thanked G.o.d for it. He didn't tell me what it meant; it broke him right up even talking about it. There was another thing he mentioned but wouldn't go into. Some other great friend, a woman, whom he said he'd cut right off out of his acquaintance--wouldn't answer her letters: realised how the world was regarding him and felt he couldn't impose himself on any one. He seemed to suffer over that, too.”

II

”Well, that was the morning, old man. That was the first part, and you see how it went. He was pretty badly in the depths but he was holding on. He'd got this great discovery of his, and the idea of writing about it after his History, he said. 'If I'm ever able to take up my History again,' he said. Badly down as he was, at least he'd got that and he'd also got to help him the extraordinary, reasonable, reasoning view he took of the whole business: no bitterness against any one, just understanding their point of view as he always has understood the other point of view, just that and puzzling over it all. On the whole, and considering all things, not too bad. Not too bad. Bad, desperately pathetic, I thought, but not too bad. That was the morning. He wouldn't come to lunch with us. He hadn't liked meeting my wife as it was. And of course I could understand how he felt, poor chap. So I left him.

”I left him. When I saw him again was about three o'clock, and I walked right into the middle of the development that, as I told you, has pretty well let the roof down on him.

”I strolled round to his hotel, a one-horse sort of place off the front.

He was in the lobby. No one else there. Only a man who'd just been speaking to him and who left him and went out as I came in.

”Sabre had two papers in his hands. He was staring at them and you'd ha'

thought from his face he was staring at a ghost. What d'you think they were? Guess. Man alive, the chap I'd seen going out had just served them on him. They were divorce papers. The citation and pet.i.tion papers that have to be served personally. Divorce papers. His wife had inst.i.tuted divorce proceedings against him. Naming the girl, Effie.

”Yes, you can whistle....

”You can whistle. I couldn't. I had too much to do. He was knocked out.

Right out. I got him up to his room. Tried to stuff a drink into him.

Couldn't. Stuffed it into myself. Two. Wanted them pretty badly.

”Well--I tell you. It was pretty awful. He sat on the bed with the papers in his hand, gibbering. Just gibbering. No other word for it. Was his wife mad? Was she crazy? Had she gone out of her mind? He to be guilty of a thing like that? He capable of a beastly thing like that?

She to believe, _she_ to believe he was that? His wife? Mabel? Was it possible? A vile, hideous, sordid intrigue with a girl employed in his own house? Effie! His wife to believe that? An unspeakable, beastly thing like that? He tried to show me with his finger the words on the paper. His finger shaking all over the thing. 'Hapgood, Hapgood, do you see this vile, obscene word here? I guilty of that? My wife, Mabel, think me capable of that? Do you see what they call me, Hapgood? What they call me by implication, what my wife, Mabel, thinks I am, what I am to be pointed at and called? Adulterer! Adulterer! My G.o.d, my G.o.d, adulterer! The word makes me sick. The very word is like poison in my mouth. And I am to swallow it. It is to be me, me, my name, my t.i.tle, my brand. Adulterer! Adulterer!'

”I tell you, old man ... I tell you....

”I managed to get him talking about the practical side of it. That is I managed to make him listen while I talked. I told him the shop of the business. Told him that these papers had to be served on him personally, as they had been, and on the girl, too. I said I guessed that the solicitor's clerk I'd seen going out had been down to Penny Green the previous day or the day before and served them on Effie and got his address from her. I told him the first step was that within eight days he had to put in an appearance at the Probate and Divorce Registry and enter a defence--just intimate that he intended to defend the action, d'you see? And that the girl would have to too. After that no doubt he'd instruct solicitors, and that of course I'd be glad to take on the job for him.

”Well, of all this jargon--me being mighty glad to have anything to keep talking about, you understand--of all this jargon there were only two bits he froze on to, and froze on hard, I can tell you. I thought he was going mad the way he went on. I still think he may. That's why I'm frightened about him. He just sat there on the bed while I talked and kept saying to himself, 'Adulterer! Adulterer! Me. Adulterer!' It was awful.

”What he caught on to was what I told him about appearing at the Divorce Registry within eight days and about instructing a solicitor afterwards.

He said he'd go to the Registry at once--at once, at once, at once! and he said, very impolitely, poor chap, that he'd instruct no infernal solicitors; he'd do the whole thing himself. He had the feeling, I could see, that he must be spurning this horrible thing, and spurning it at once, and spurning it himself. He was like a chap with his clothes on fire, crazy only to rush into water and get rid of it. The stigma of the thing was so intolerable to him that his feeling was that he couldn't sit by and let other people defend him and do the business for him; he must do it himself, hurl it back with his own hands, shout it back with his own throat. He'll calm down and get more reasonable in time, no doubt, and then I'll have another go at him about running the case for him; but anyway, there was the one thing he could do pretty well there and then, and that was enter his defence at the registry. So I took charge of him to help him ease his mind that much.

”I took charge of him. He wasn't capable of thinking of anything for himself. I packed his bag and paid his bill and took him round to our hotel and it wasn't far off then to the train my wife and I had fixed to get back on. I told my wife what had happened and she played the brick.

You see, the chap was like as if he was dazed. Like as if he was walking in a trance. Just did what he was told and said nothing. So we played it up on that, my missus and I; we just sort of took him along without consulting him or seeming to take any notice of him. It was too late to do anything that night when we got up to town. He made a bit of a fuss, lost his temper and swore I was trying to hinder him; but my wife managed him a treat; by Jove, she was marvellous with him, and we got him round to our flat and put him up for the night. I pushed him off to bed early, but I heard him walking up and down his room hours after and talking to himself--talking in tones of horror--'Me! Me! Adulterer!'

”It was rather dreadful, hearing the poor chap. You see, what was the matter with him was, being the frightfully clean, intensely refined sort of chap he is, appalling horror at being thought, by his wife who knew him so well, capable of what was so repulsive to his mind. He loathed the very sound of the word that was used against him. Obscene, he kept on calling it. He was like a man fallen in a mire and plucking at the filthy stuff all over him and reeking of it and not able to eat or sleep or think or do anything but go mad with it. That was how it got him.

Like that.

”Next morning--that's this morning, you understand--he was a little more normal, able to realise things a bit, I mean: thanked my wife for putting him up and hoped he hadn't been horribly rude or anything last night. More normal, you see: still in a panic fever to be off and state at the Registrar's that he was going to defend the action; but normal enough for me to see it was all right for him to go straight on home immediately after and tell the girl what she had to do and all that. I told him, by the way, that it would pretty well have to come out now, ultimately, who the child's father was: the girl would practically have to give that up in the end to clear him. You know, I told him that in the cab going along down. He ground his teeth over it. It was horrible to hear him. He said he'd kill the chap if he could ever discover him; ground his teeth and said he'd kill him, now--after this.

”Well, he got through his business about twelve--just a formality, you know, declaring his intention to defend. Then a thing happened. Can't think now what it meant. We were waiting for a cab near the Law Courts.

I had his bag. He was going straight on to the station. A cab was just pulling in when a man came up, an ordinary enough looking cove, tall chap, and touched Sabre and said, 'Mr. Sabre?' Sabre said, 'Yes' and the chap said very civilly, 'Might I speak to you a minute, sir?'

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