Part 25 (1/2)

”That brute!-he's no blood relative of mine,” Bertram said angrily. ”And two hundred million is at stake, at the very least. Our aunt is sure to die within a few years-”

”No, no-the Sewalls live forever. Like that ghastly race of Struldbruggs of which Jonathan Swift wrote, who never die but only live and live, in total senility. She will outlive us all.”

Lyle said, exasperated, ”The man is Roland, I'd swear to it. I've seen in him the very person we'd pitied and disliked. You want to imagine that that weak, ineffectual, overgrown baby is someone other than our cousin; you're simply too eager, brothers, to want to believe that our cousin is dead.”

Again they fell silent; sucked at their cigars; stared at the floor.

After some minutes Bertram said, with a sly sidelong smile at his brothers, ”If he's died once, y'know-he can die a second time.”

And Willard, the eldest and most responsible, wheeled upon Bertram, giving his upper arm a hard blow, as if they were boys. ”G.o.d d.a.m.n you for a fool, Bertie-you must never say that sort of thing where anyone else, even a servant, might hear.”

Roland Shrikesdale III was recovering his health by degrees, painfully and haltingly. But everyone agreed that he was recovering.

By early winter he was strong enough to dress, and to take most of his meals downstairs at Castlewood; to walk about the grounds unescorted; to attend church with his mother; to sit, nervous, smiling, but for the most part silent, at small social gatherings that did not overtax him. He ate heartily, which delighted Anna Emery; he slept very well indeed-”like a baby”-being capable of staying abed for twelve hours at a stretch, until Anna Emery herself gaily roused him. Despite the frequency with which they received invitations-for Roland Shrikesdale III was one of Philadelphia's most eligible, and wealthy, bachelors-Anna Emery and Roland condescended to accept few invitations to dine out; they much preferred the theater or the concert hall, where, as Roland said, he felt his spirit quicken and vibrate, as of old.

Ah, what joy, what balm, to listen for hours to the music of Mozart, or Wagner, or Beethoven!-to give himself up to the caprices of Rigoletto, as he'd done of old! There, seated close beside his mother in the Shrikesdale family box, leaning forward to drink in, with quivering intensity, every note-that was the pale, stocky, ravaged young Shrikesdale heir, oblivious of the attention he drew on all sides; so immersed in the music, it was as if he'd never left the safety of Philadelphia to suffer his mysterious adventure. (Indeed, it remained mysterious, for Roland was incapable of remembering save in jagged and incoherent fragments; and no trace was found of his companion, who must have died somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico.) ”He's Anna Emery's boy as he has always been,” observers noted, eyeing him covertly, ”-though he is much changed.”

By degrees, the scar tissue on the side of Roland's face acquired a less painful, and a less startling, appearance; where once it had ached violently, Roland now confessed it was numb. And, too, was not something gone now from the corner of his eye, that he dimly recalled was ugly?-a birthmark, a mole?

Anna Emery s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away from his face, squeezing it hard, as one might do with a small child; partly to reprimand and partly to comfort. She told him it had been a mole; but it had not been at all ugly; for there was nothing ugly about him-neither now nor in the past.

Ah, but the warts scattered across his hands!-Roland said with a fastidious shudder. Surely these were ugly-?

At this, Anna Emery flinched; for, it seemed, she too had warts on her hands-they were a family affliction of the Sewalls, vexing but harmless.

”You have had them all your life, dear, and have not often complained,” Anna Emery said, hurt. ”Indeed, I remember you speaking of them as a minor sort of curse, as curses go.”

Roland showed some embarra.s.sment at his rudeness, and tried to make amends. He stooped to embrace his trembling mother; kissed her cheek; and said earnestly, ”Yes, you are right, Mother-I believe I remember now: a minor sort of curse, as curses go.”

IT BEGAN TO happen that, in the presence of marveling witnesses, Roland Shrikesdale was struck by flashes of memory-whole episodes out of his former life resuscitated by way of a stray word or gesture, or an accidental combination thereof. Ah, what an experience, to see the amnesiac waking, as it were, from a part of his eerie trance-!

For instance, in January of 1915, at a small dinner party given by a friend of Anna Emery's, at which Stafford Shrikesdale happened to be a guest, Roland astonished everyone by suddenly clutching at his head, when his hostess happened to speak of Admiral Blackburn. He grimaced, as if he were in fearful pain; and rocked in his chair; saying finally in a hoa.r.s.e, halting, yet elated voice that the name ”Blackburn” stirred such a memory!-if memory it was, and not a child's dream-of a sweet-tempered pony, a Shetland with long s.h.a.ggy mane and tail, liquid-bright eyes, a black hide streaked with gray-his beloved pony Blackburn!

Then, as everyone listened in great excitement, Roland shut his eyes, and, speaking slowly and dreamily, yet deliberately, proceeded to recall not only the Shetland pony, but the green-painted pony cart in which he had ridden at the age of six . . . the ”big farm” out in the country (in fact, in Bucks County) . . . a young black boy, a favored stable hand named Quincy, who had been allowed to supervise little Roland's play . . . and a dignified elderly gentleman with snapping black eyes and white, white hair who must have been . . . must have been . . . Grandfather Shrikesdale himself, dead since 1889.

Poor Anna Emery could contain herself no longer; but began to sob helplessly; and had to be comforted by Stafford Shrikesdale, of all people-who'd begun to tremble himself, hearing Roland's remarkable recitation.

On another occasion, hardly less dramatic, at a reception at the home of Mrs. Eva Clement-Stoddard, Roland lapsed into an extraordinary fugue state, as if he had been hypnotized, when the name ”Maclean” was mentioned-for this triggered a memory of a Scots woman of that name who had been little Roland's nanny at Castlewood; which in turn triggered a memory astonis.h.i.+ng in its visual and tactile detail of the nursery in which Roland had spent his first eight years. The stuffed toys with which he played, and slept . . . the floral print of his bed quilt . . . the view of the old rose garden and the fountain from his window . . . poor Miss Maclean who spent a great deal of her time weeping and sighing, for what reason the child Roland did not know . . . and, most vivid of all, most poignant of all, Mother with her hair loosed on her shoulders, rocking him, crooning to him, kissing him . . . reading to him his favorite fairy tales in her sweet melodic voice . . .

At this halting recitation, made as Roland swayed on his feet, his head thrown back, his eyes shut, and his lips gleaming with spittle, not only Anna Emery Shrikesdale but a number of ladies were reduced to tears; and all the gentlemen close by were powerfully affected. An astonis.h.i.+ng feat of memory, indeed, for anyone at all-let alone a man suffering from amnesia! It seemed that Roland's unconscious mind was stimulated to such a degree by these chance a.s.sociations, the memories came unbidden to his consciousness, and possessed an extraordinary potency. Evidently Roland could not initiate them, nor, once begun, could they be stopped; they must simply run their course; leaving the perspiring young man drained and exhausted, and his skin, already sallow, turned a sickly grayish-yellow hue.

The Philadelphians who witnessed such heartrending trances could hardly doubt that Roland was Roland; and if, now and then, from decidedly queer sources, they heard whisperings that the Shrikesdale heir was not quite the man one supposed him to be . . . such idiotic rumors were irritably dismissed at once, as the speculations of the yellow press.

”He is a remarkable case, is he not?” Dr. Thurman, the Shrikesdales' physician, said proudly. ”When he's fully restored to his health I shall make a name for myself-and, of course, for Roland as well-by writing up his story. The medical world will scarcely believe it.”

In the spring of 1915, when newspapers were filled with stories of the barbarous sinking of the British liner Lusitania by German submarine, and reports of President Wilson's uncompromising response, there was delivered to Mr. Abraham Licht of Muirkirk a most curious telegram, indeed- ALBERT ST. GOAR ESQ. IS HEREBY INVITED TO A CHARITY FTE HE WILL NOT FAIL TO FIND AMUSING CASTLEWOOD HALL PHILADELPHIA SUNDAY MAY 15 2 PM TWO TICKETS RESERVED IN HIS NAME SHOULD HE WISH TO BRING A COMPANION (”COMPLICITY?”) Astonished, Abraham Licht read it several times over, rapidly; and showed it to old Katrina, who could make nothing of it; and even, later-though father and daughter happened not to be on the most cordial of terms at the moment-to Millie, who likewise read it several times, and turned a frightened face toward him. ”But who knows of 'St. Goar' here at Muirkirk!” she whispered. ”It must be a plot of some kind.”

Abraham smiled suddenly, though not, precisely, at Millie; and said as if brooding aloud, ”Yes, it is a plot of some kind-to whose advantage, we must discover.”

So it happened that Abraham Licht drove himself and Millie down to Philadelphia, in his newly acquired Packard touring car (plum-colored, with creamy-white upholstered interior and gleaming chrome trim); and, on that splendidly sunny Sunday, joined a slow procession of carriages and new-model motorcars through the gates of Castlewood Hall, and up along the quarter-mile gravelled drive to the house. As Albert St. Goar and his daughter Matilde, he had acquired at the gate two tickets priced at $300 each-the proceeds of the afternoon's fte to go to the United Hospitals Charity a.s.sociation of Philadelphia.

A double row of plane trees lining the drive . . . a gently sloping lawn, or meadow, of several acres . . . azalea, rhododendron, and lilac in gorgeous blossom . . . Castlewood Hall itself: a mansion of eclectic American design (eighteenth-century Gothic the predominant style) of pale gray stone, with an immense curving portico, and too many windows to be counted. Baring his teeth around his cigar, Abraham Licht exclaimed: ”'This is Heaven, nor can we wish to be out of it!'”-in so ingenuous a tone, it would have been impossible to judge whether he spoke sincerely, or in mockery. Beside him, her gloved hands clasped tightly in her lap, Millie stared at the house-the lawn-the handsomely dressed ladies and gentlemen strolling about-and said nothing at all. She had in fact been silent for much of the drive; it was her conviction that they should not have come.

”I can think of only one person, Father, who might have sent us that telegram,” she had said, after much thought, ”-and he does not wish us well.”

”Of course there is only one person who might have sent the telegram,” Abraham Licht said irritably, ”-and of course he does wish us well.”

St. Goar's automobile was taken from him at the front entrance of the house, and driven off by a liveried servant to be parked elsewhere; leaving father and daughter feeling suddenly exposed, and on their own. Still, as they strolled through the crowd, very few persons glanced their way; they knew no one, and, it seemed, no one knew them. ”How long must we stay, Father?” Millie asked, looking suspiciously about. ”I think it must be a hoax.” To his disappointment Abraham Licht, or, to be precise, Albert St. Goar (formerly of London, England: a gentleman ”retired from business”) soon discovered that there were no beverages stronger than lemonade, iced tea, and cranberry juice to be had at the fte; and, like a fool, he'd left his silver flask behind, locked away in a compartment in his car.

”We will stay, Matilde,” St. Goar said severely, ”-until the scene is played out, and we know its significance.”

They made their questing way through the crowd of chattering strangers on the flagstone terrace; they made their way, Matilde's arm through St. Goar's, into a garden of topiary shrubs, statues in stained white marble, and gently splas.h.i.+ng fountains; they allowed themselves to drift into the nimbus of ladies and gentlemen gathered about one of the refreshment tables, beneath an immense red-and-white striped awning; they exchanged greetings, vague yet animated, animated yet vague, with people who drifted past. St. Goar was fas.h.i.+onably dressed in a dove-gray costume of lightweight wool, with an embroidered silk vest, and a flowing white silk s.h.i.+rt; he wore a straw hat not unlike the hats worn by the majority of the other gentlemen, and a white carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, and gray mohair spats; and looked, on the whole, quite handsome and a.s.sured. His beautiful daughter Matilde (who had attended schools in Switzerland and France, until the outbreak of the War) wore a spring frock of the sheerest cotton, arranged in many layers of robin's-egg blue and pale cerise, with a cerise sash that showed her tiny waist to artful advantage; and a skirt designed to show a surprising amount of ankle, and the silky gleam of transparent stockings. Her blond hair, smartly bobbed, was, for modesty's sake, perhaps, very nearly hidden by a hat with a wide scalloped brim, and a veil of dotted swiss.

Yet something chill and haughty in the young woman's expression discouraged gentlemen from approaching her; and, in any case, there were a number of extremely pretty young women at the fte, known, no doubt, to Society.

”Strange that our host doesn't come forward to identify himself,” Albert St. Goar said, surveying the crowd with a pleasant if abstract smile, ”-for I have the sense that he watches us, perhaps with amus.e.m.e.nt.”

”With no amus.e.m.e.nt,” Matilde said curtly, disengaging her arm from her father's. ”You forget-he is a creature without a sense of humor.”

With this, Matilde drifted off; and St. Goar, following slowly behind her, found himself, within a few minutes, in a curious conversation with a small, bald, irritable gentleman of approximately his own age (although he, St. Goar, looked a full decade younger) on a subject not easily grasped: the political situation? the perfidy of the German-Americans? the price paid by the gentleman's wife for her horoscope? (”You would agree, sir, that $25,000 is too steep a sum, would you not? What is your opinion, sir?”) It was St. Goar's instinctive understanding that this mousey little man, this person of such evident inconsequence, must be in fact a very wealthy man; and an important contact, perhaps, for St. Goar; yet, though St. Goar fell in vehemently with his denunciation of astrology and astrologists, or was it the German-American spies in our midst, his heart wasn't truly in the exchange, and his attention continued to be focused upon his daughter as, in a pose of insouciance, she strolled through the crowd of strangers, twirling her parasol on her shoulder. The filmy layers of her dress rode the breeze, lightly; her step was graceful; her manner, to the casual eye, intensely feminine-in the old-fas.h.i.+oned sense of the word. Yet, how strong her will; and how her father was growing to fear it-!

It was then that St. Goar chanced to see a stocky young man in a Panama hat, pus.h.i.+ng someone in a wheelchair, brush, by accident, close by Matilde; saw how Matilde glanced around, startled; and how, like a small rude child, she knew no better than to stare, and stare-and stare. Even as St. Goar made his way to her, he saw that she was swaying, as if about to faint; she pressed a gloved hand against her throat; and drew away from the young man who, with some clumsiness, yet gallantry, made an effort to take hold of her arm, and steady her. ”Very odd, very very odd,” St. Goar thought angrily, ”-it isn't like a daughter of mine, to be so odd!”

When he hurried to her, however, he saw, through a sudden vertiginous blur, the cause of her incredulity: for the husky young man in the Panama hat, who, smiling and blus.h.i.+ng, was nervously introducing himself as Roland Shrikesdale, and the woman in the wheelchair as his mother, Anna Emery Shrikesdale (”your hostess, you know, for this afternoon”) was no one other than . . . Harwood.

. . . who was also, evidently, unless Abraham Licht had suddenly lost his senses, the son of the squinting old woman in the wheelchair; even as the old woman must be Elias Shrikesdale's widow, and the proprietress of Castlewood Hall.

Precisely how the remarkable scene was managed, and whether, as St. Goar, he acquitted himself respectably, Abraham Licht could not afterward remember: for his brain was adazzle.

Harwood!-his Harwood!

After so many years!