The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 7
VII
Something was pressing on my shoulder, thrusting me slowly into consciousness. Half awake, I wrenched myself free, snatching for my sword as I did so. It was a chill and cloudy morning, and Brutus was standing by my bed, holding a bowl of chocolate between a thumb and forefinger, that made the piece of china look as delicately fragile as a flower.
"Eleven o'clock," he said. "You sleep late."
I looked at him blankly, still trying to shake off the drowsiness that crowded upon me. It seemed only a few minutes back that he had lighted me to that room. He must have detected a shade of suspicion in the look I gave him.
"Too much wine," said Brutus quickly.
But when he spoke, I knew it was not wine that made me sleep the whole night through. He thrust the bowl he was holding nearer to me.
"And now you poison me," I remarked, but he shook his head in emphatic negation.
"Hah!" he grunted, and emitted a curious chuckle that caused me to give him my full attention.
"You find the morning amusing, Brutus?" I asked.
He gulped and nodded in assent.
"Last night you kill me. Now I give you chocolate. He! He!"
I glanced at him over the edge of the chocolate bowl. It was the first time I had heard anyone laugh at so truly a Christian doctrine.
"Monsieur sends compliments," he said.
"Brutus," came my father's voice across. the hall, "tell him I will see him as soon as he has finished dressing."
He was sitting before his fire, wrapped in a dressing gown of Chinese silk, embroidered with flowers. By the tongs and shovel lay a pair of riding boots, still so wet and mud-spattered that he must have pulled them off within the hour. A decanter of rum was near him on a stand. On his knee was a volume of Rabelais, which was affording him decorous amusement.
Brutus was busy gathering up the gray satin small clothes of the previous day, which had been tossed in a careless heap on the floor, and I perceived that they also bore the marks an travel. Careful mentors, who had taken a lively pleasure in their teaching, had been at pains to tell me that he was a man of irregular habits. Yet with indulgent politeness he remained blandly reticent. For him the day seemed to have started afresh, independent and unrelated to other days. It had awakened in him a genial spirit, far brighter than the morning. He greeted me with a gay wave of the hand and a nod of invitation towards the rum. My refusal served only to increase his courteous good nature.
"A very good morning to you, my son," he said. "So you have slept. Gad, how I envy you! It is hard to be a man of affairs and still rest with any regularity."
He waved me to a chair in a slow, sweeping gesture, timed and directed so that it ended at the rum decanter.
"You will pardon my addressing you through Brutus," he continued confidentially, "but it is a habit of mine which I find it hard to break. I am eccentric, my son. I never speak to anyone of a morning till I have finished my cup of chocolate. I have seen too many quarrels flare up over an empty stomach."
He stretched a foot nearer the blaze, and smiled comfortably at the hissing back log.
"And it would be a pity to have a falling out on such a morning as this, a very great pity, to be sure."
The very thought of it seemed to give him pause for pleased, though thoughtful contemplation, for he sipped his rum in silence until the tumbler was half empty.
"Once in Bordeaux," he volunteered at last, "there was a man whom I fear I provoked quite needlessly—all because I was walking in the garden with a headache, and my chocolate was late—Lay out the other shirt, Brutus, I must be well dressed today. What was it I was saying?"
"That you were walking in the garden with a headache," I reminded him. "Surely you had something better to walk with near at hand?"
He shrugged his shoulders, drained his glass, and wiped his fingers carefully on a cambric handkerchief.
"Either that or my conscience," he replied, "and oddly enough, I preferred the headache. He might have been alive today if I had had my chocolate. Poor man!" he sighed.
"You wanted to see me?" I asked, "or simply to impress me?"
He raised a hand in shocked denial.
"Pray do not believe I am so vulgar," he replied. "Yes, I wished to see you, Henry, for two reasons. First, I was absent-minded last evening. I find I do not know the name of the gentleman with whom you had the falling out. If you tell me—who knows—the world is small."
He waited expectantly, and I smiled at him. I had hoped he would ask me.
"You really care to know his name?"
"I might be useful," he confessed. "As I said—who knows? Perhaps we may have something in common—some little mutual interest."
"I am sure you have," I told him. "The man I fought with was Mr. Lawton—at my uncle's country house."
For a fraction of a second I thought he was astonished. I thought that the look he gave was almost one of respect, but it was hard to tell.
"And you wounded him?" he asked quickly.
"I hardly think Mr. Lawton expected it," I acknowledged.
"I fear," he mused, "that the years are telling on Mr. Lawton—and your Uncle Jason knew of this unpleasantness?"
"Not until afterwards."
"Of course he was shocked?"
I nodded. "You had another reason for seeing me?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "a simple one. I did not want you to go downstairs till I went with you. Another cup of chocolate, Brutus. This morning, my son, I am consuming two cups of chocolate instead of one."
"You expect to find me irritable?" I suggested.
He shook his head in smiling contradiction.
"It is because I have a surprise in store for you. Who do you think has come to see me?"
"I am utterly at a loss," I said, bowing, "unless it is the constable."
"On the contrary," he replied, "it is the man I hate more than anyone else in the world."
Only his words, however, hinted that the contingency was unpleasant. His tone was one of pleased anticipation. He hummed a little tune, as Brutus knelt before him to help him on with a new pair of top boots, spotless and shining.
A few minutes later he stood before his mirror critically examining a coat of blue broadcloth. It evidently satisfied him, for he smiled back indulgently at his image in the glass, and watched complacently while Brutus smoothed its folds.
"A gentleman should always have twenty coats,"" he remarked, turning toward me. "Personally, I never travel with less than twenty-five—a point in my favor, is it not, my son?"
"And when we remember the lady who accompanies the coats" I bowed, and he turned slowly back to the mirror.
"Let us trust," he replied coldly, "you will not be obliged to remind yourself often that she is a lady, and that she shall be treated as one both by you and by me as long as she remains beneath this roof."
I felt a pleasing sense of triumph at the success of my remark, and abruptly determined to drive it home.
"Sir," I said, "You astound me."
"Astound you?" He left his neckcloth half undone, and stepped toward me, alertly courteous. "You mean you take exception to what I have just said?"
"Indeed not," I replied, with another bow. "I find you changed this morning—into a good example instead of a bad one."
And then before he could reply, I leaned over the chair he had quitted. Lying in the corner of the faded upholstery was an oval of gold. Before he perceived my intention, I had picked it up, and almost at the same moment his hand fell on my arm. I looked up quickly. His face was close to mine, closer than I had ever seen it, placid still, but somehow changed, somehow so subtly different that I wrenched myself free, and stepped a pace away. Brutus dropped the coat he was folding, and shuffled forward hastily.
"How careless of me to have left it there," said my father gently. "Hand me the locket, if you please, my son, and many thanks for picking it up."
The jewelled clasp was under my thumb I pressed it, and the gold locket I was holding flew open, but before I could look further, he had struck a sharp blow at my wrist, and the locket fell from my hand.
"Pick it up, Brutus," he said, his eyes never leaving mine, and we watched each other for a second in silence.
"Come," he said, "let us go down stairs. You may find it instructive to see how I treat my enemies."
"I am afraid," I said slowly, "that you' will do better without me."
Slowly the thin line of his lips relaxed, and he raised his hands to adjust his neckcloth.
"Your episode with Mr. Lawton makes me quite sure of it," he answered, in a tone he might have used to an ambitious school boy. "But you forget. You are still pursuing part of your education. Never, never neglect an opportunity to learn, my son. Something tells me even now you will be repaid for your trouble. Come, we are late already."
So I followed him down the creaking stairs to the morning room. I could not suppress a start as I passed over the threshold. In front of our heavy mahogany table, attentively examining some maps and charts that had been scattered there, was my Uncle Jason.