Part 18 (2/2)

Yelling at the top of her voice she raced across the yard : ”Da ! Da ! ” Then coming to a halt at the ladder leading to the loft, she stared up into Mike's questioning face and answered his abrupt ”What is it?” with ”You're wanted.”

”Who wants me?”

”Mr. Lord.”

She saw him turn his face away, and she knew he was looking at Tony. Then through the aperture she saw Tony's legs. They had turned away from her da. The next minute Mike was standing by her side, and he looked down at her and said abruptly, ”What did he say?”

”That's all. I just got into the room and he said, 'Go and get your da.' That's all.”

Mike turned from her, saying sharply, ”You stay where you are.” He dusted down his trousers, lifted his coat from a nail, gave it a brief shake and put it on while crossing the yard. His mouth was grim and his body tight, as he showed himself to Ben and briefly explained his presence there.

Without any questioning, for he had a respect for this big, onehanded fellow, Ben led the way upstairs. But before they reached the landing their glances met sharply as Mr. Lord's voice came to them, crying, ”Get out woman and leave me alone ! I'll see who I like, and when I like. Get out!”

The door opened before they reached it and the nurse flounced out, no longer smiling. She paused for a moment to say something to Mike, then, changing her mind, pa.s.sed him with only a jerk of her head.

Mike entered the room and slowly closed the door, his eye on the k.n.o.b as he did so. Then he turned, and across the room looked straight at Mr. Lord.

Mr. Lord said nothing, but with a gesture indicated that he take a seat. Heavily, Mike covered the distance to the bed, then swivelling a chair round he sat down and faced the old man and waited for him to speak.

”Well, Shaughnessy?”

”Well, Sir?” Mike's voice was not harsh, for in spite of himself he was touched by the frailty of the old man. He saw that he was much changed, better of course than when he had last beheld him, but he could not see him ever again being as he was once, a virile, steely, strong old man. He had a sapped look that touched Mike and forced him to say, ”I hope you are feeling better, Sir.”

”I'm well enough.” Mr. Lord examined his hands now as they lay palms down on the cover, as if he was looking at them for confirmation of his own remark. Then he surprised Mike utterly with his next words. ”Loneliness is a dreadful thing, Shaughnessy. I don't suppose you've ever experienced loneliness?”

After a moment of staring at the white, downcast head, Mike moved his hand hard down one side of his face, then said, ”I've had me share, Sir. I was brought up in a workhouse. Perhaps you didn't know that.”

Mr. Lord raised his eyes without moving his head. ”No, I didn't know. I'm sorry. And yet because of that I feel you'll understand me a little now. You may not have done so before. You thought I would like to take the child, didn't you, to estrange her from you? Well”-his eyes dropped again, and now both his hands began to move in a sliding movement back and forward over the cover-”perhaps you were right, perhaps I was doing just that, but she was the only person I ever met who wasn't afraid of me. She talked to me.” He made a little sound in his throat that could have been the shadow of a laugh, as he added, ”At times I found her more than my equal, even my superior. But I am beating about the bush, I'm misleading you. I didn't bring you here to talk about her. She's yours, and she'll always remain yours-money and possessions cannot buy her. I've always envied you, I suppose I always will, but that's finished. I want your advice about another matter.”

Into Mike's heart had come a great feeling of eas.e.m.e.nt. He did not speak, but waited for the old man to go on. He watched him lie back, join his hands together, the fingers linked tightly; he watched his thin, blue lips move in and out with the mobility of the aged; but when his eyes came up there was no weakness in their penetrating stare, and his voice, too, was strong as he asked, ”Do you believe he is my grandson?”

Without hesitation Mike replied, ”Yes, Sir, I do.” '”'Give me a reason.”

Mike now gave a little quirk of a smile, as he replied, ”Well, his temper for one thing.”

Mr. Lord's eyelids drooped and he asked, ”Is that the only thing?”

”No, Sir; he's got the look of you. I knew there was something about him from the first, and I couldn't

place it. It puzzled me. I suppose I would have noticed it if you both hadn't ”

He stopped.

Mr. Lord's eyes were on him again, tight, and he demanded, ”Yes, if we both hadn't what?”

Mike moved restlessly on the chair before saying, ”Well, you know how things were, Sir, you both went

for each other, from the start.”

”Yes, we did.” It was a softly-spoken admission. ”What's your opinion of him? Now don't make

excuses for him in any way. This is a private conversation, nothing that you say will be referred to again. I want your honest opinion of him.” ”He's a good boy.” Mike said this without any hesitation. ”I liked him from the start. But he was brought up by a woman and it's twisted his outlook. It'll take some changing.”

”Why did he come here in the first place?”

”I think you'd better ask him that yourself, Sir; he can give you better answers than I can.”

The old man moved from side to side in the bed. He pulled at the cover, tugged at the b.u.t.tons of his nights.h.i.+rt, then reached to a side-table and took a drink from a gla.s.s. When he had replaced the gla.s.s he said, ”It's my money he's after, not the farm. That's small fry-it's the s.h.i.+pyard.”

Mike's lips pursed and he shook his head. ”I don't think so, Sir. He can fend for himself all right, and he's as independent as they come. No, I don't think it's that. Perhaps he's got your own complaint, perhaps that's what brought him here-loneliness, wanting to belong to somebody. He won't admit it, who would? but I think that's the real reason, I do.”

”What am I going to do, Shaughnessy?”

Perhaps for the first time in his life Mike was at a loss. The old man, the old devil, was appealing to him, Mike Shaughnessy, asking him what he should do, waiting for his advice. He found himself leaning forward, and his feeling came over in his voice as he said, ”Do what you want to do, Sir, in your heart. Recognize him.”

This suggestion seemed to agitate the old man, and he muttered, ”But it could all be a fluke, this resemblance. He could have belonged to ” He shook his head. ”Don't you think that she would have told me if she knew she was bearing my child?”

Before Mike could answer the old man pressed himself back amongst the pillows, and, raising his hand as if to check any comment, went on, ”No, no, she wouldn't. She would have done it to spite me. She did it to spite me. Yes. Yes, she was capable of that.” His eyes looked into Mike's now. ”Women are cruel-cruel.”

The room was quiet. Mr. Lord was lying now as if he was dozing, and Mike did nothing to disturb him. He felt that the old man had momentarily gone back into the past, and as the silence went on he thought: ”G.o.d! what a life he's had. Give me mine any day, workhouse an' all. And I had Liz, I've got Liz, and the other one.” It was strange, but he knew that in his mind he did not think of Michael, he did not think of his son, yet the old man before him had craved, he knew, all his life for a son.

He was startled by Mr. Lord's voice, and his sudden change in X”

manner, almost an alertness, as he sat up and said, ”What's he paying you?”

”Paying me?” Mike was puzzled.

”For board?” r Now Mike did smile. ”I think he pays Lizzie three pounds a week.”

”Three pounds! Not enough-not enough these days. I'll charge him four, perhaps five, he's got to know the value of money.”

It was all Mike could do not to give vent to a roar. He wanted to put out his hand and touch the old man's shoulder. He had come into this room thinking that it was his job that would be the topic of conversation and feeling already a dismissed man, not, he had tpld himself, that he cared a d.a.m.n, for he had already applied for two other jobs. And now the matter of his work had not been mentioned, the matter of his lapse had not been mentioned and he couldn't see even a heart attack blotting that out from the old man's mind. He stood up and said, softly, ”Would you like to see him, Sir?”

”No, no!” Mr. Lord became agitated. ”I don't want to see him. I don't want him here. I was only thinking, that's all, just thinking. You're to say nothing, nothing about this whatever, ”do you hear? I wouldn't have brought you here. . . .”

<script>