Bill was away from home, the maid who answered the door told George; Mrs. Wyvern was out; the Professor was in his study.
George found the great biologist warming his chilly old bones in a vast armchair before a fire.
With a twinkling of his sky-blue eyes that spoke to pleasant temper, the Professor greeted George; nodded him into an opposite seat.
“I am reading a letter,” he announced. This man spoke very slowly, never abbreviated; had now an air of child-like happiness. “It is a letter from Bill.”
George said: “Ah, what is Bill doing? I've not seen him for days.”
Professor Wyvern chuckled away and fumbled with clumsy old fingers among the closely-written sheets on his lap. One he selected and inclined towards George. Its upper half was thickly lettered in heavy red type, prominent among which there bawled forth in wavy capitals, thickly underscored:
“THE DAILY.” EVERYBODY'S PAPER. PRICE 1/2d.
“Hot stuff!” George cried. “Is old Bill on the staff of the Daily?”
“Old Bill is on the staff of the Daily,” the Professor returned with more chuckling. “You have heard of it?”
“Well, it's advertised everywhere. You can't get away from it. First number out to-morrow, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is. I think it will be a very terrible production—a very horrible production indeed. But I am an annual subscriber because of Bill, and I have written a short article for the first issue also because of Bill. Bill says” (the Professor fumbled again; ran his nose twice up and down each sheet; finally struck the passage) “Bill says, 'You were a brick, dear old governor, to send that article. It is a most thundering scoop for the Daily, and made the Boss most awfully bucked up with me. You are a brick, dear old Governor.”
A little tear rolled out of Professor Wyvern's silly old eye, and he blew his nose in a series of terrific thunder-claps.
“There!” he said. “You see how pleased Bill is with himself. I am afraid he uses the most terrible expressions in his letters, but he does not use them when he is writing his stories. He is a clever boy, and I am very proud of him. Now let me tell you.” He fell to nosing the sheets again. “All this first part is about his dogs. '... if Abiram and Dathan start scrapping, just hoof Abiram—it's his fault.'”
The Professor looked up at George. “I would more readily kick a police constable than I would kick Abiram,” he said. “I must tell Hocken all this.”
He continued, “'... see that Korah is kept short of meat for a bit ... when they are exercising, for goodness' sake don't let them be taken down Windmill Lane. There is a collie there that they have got a grudge against and will tear to bits if they catch.'”
The Professor paused. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! I must give all this part to Hocken to keep. Ah! Now here is about his work. They have engaged him at four pounds a week. He does not know exactly what he is. Not a sub-editor. Not a reporter. He thinks they will put him on to what he calls 'special jobs,' or he may have to do what he calls 'ferret round' and find jobs for himself. The understanding is that he is only on probation. If he does anything very good they will put him on the permanent staff; if not, he is liable to go at a week's notice. Then he says, 'Tell all this to George, and give him my love. He was up for his exam—'”
Professor Wyvern broke off. “Dear me!” he cried; “oh, dear me, I have forgotten! You have been up for your examination?”
George nodded.
Kindly old Professor Wyvern misinterpreted the lack of enthusiasm. “When I was a medical student,” he said, “I failed dozens of times in my final examination—dozens. It's no criterion of knowledge, you know: it is just luck. Never let examination failure dishearten you. Go along happily, George, and take your chance when it comes.”
“It's come,” George said, beaming; recollection of his splendid success temporarily overshadowed recollection of his tragic failure.
“You have qualified?”
“Yes.”
The Professor's sky-blue eyes danced with glee. He struggled on to his tottery old legs; before George could save him the exertion, had hobbled over the hearth-rug and was wringing his hand in tremendous pleasure.
“Well done, George!” he bubbled. “Well done! Well done! It is the most splendid news. I have not had such a happy day for a long time. Qualified! Well, that is splendid! Splendid!”
He fell back into his chair, panting with his excitement. “Ring that bell, George. We must celebrate this.”
A maid appeared. “Susan,” said the Professor, “bring up a small bottle of champagne and two glasses. Mr. George has passed his examination. Be very quick, Susan.”
Susan was very quick. The cork popped; the glasses foamed and fizzed. “Now we will have one glass each,” the Professor said. “I think, it will kill me at this hour, and if my wife catches me she will send me to bed; so we must be very quick. Now, this is your health, George. God bless you and good luck!”
He drained his glass like the brave old boy that he was; and when his eyes had done streaming, and he had finished gasping and choking, bade Susan hurry away the signs of the dreadful deed before her mistress should catch her.
“And now tell me your plans, George. Which road to Harley Street, eh?”
Then George poured into those kindly old ears all the tragic story—the girl he was going to marry; the practice he was going to buy; the wrecker who had wrecked his fair ships ere ever he had put to sea.
There were in the Professor's nature no sympathies that enabled him even to comprehend miserliness in any degree. Made aware of the taint in Mr. Marrapit, he became red and furious in his abhorrence of it. With snorts and fumes he punctuated the recital; when it closed, burst out: “Why, but it is yours! the money is yours. It is misappropriation.”
“That's just what I say.”
“Well, he must be made to give it you.” George laughed grimly. “I say that, too. But how?”
“Are you certain of your facts, George?”
“I've been to Somerset house and seen my mother's will.”
“Legally, then—we'll get it out of him by law.”
“I've thought of that,” George said. “I don't think it is possible. Look, the passage runs like this. I have it word for word. 'To my brother Christopher Marrapit 4000 pounds, and I desire him to educate in the medical profession my son George.' Not even 'with which I desire him,' you see. I don't think there's any legal way of getting the money I want—the five hundred.”
For full ten minutes Professor Wyvern made no answer. He stared in the fire, and every now and again one of his little chuckles set his bent old shoulders bobbing. Upon a longer chuckle they waggled for a space; then he turned to George. “Not legally; well, then, what about illegally, George?”
George did not comprehend.
“A very bad notion has come into my head,” the Professor continued. “I ought to be ashamed of it, but I am not. I think it would be very funny. I think your uncle would deserve it. I am sure it would be very funny, and I think it would be proper and justifiable.”
“Go on,” George said. “Tell me.”
The Professor's old shoulders bobbed about again. “No, I will not tell you,” he said. “I will not be a party to it; because if my wife found out she would send me to bed and keep me there. But I will tell you a little story, George. If it sets up a train of action that you like to follow—well, I think it will be very funny. Only, don't tell me.”
“I say, this is mysterious. Tell me the story.”
“Yes, I will. This is the story. When I was a student in Germany we had a professor called Meyer. He wore a wig because he was quite bald. He was very sensitive about his baldness and would have no one know—but we knew. Upon one afternoon there was a great violinist who was coming to play at our town. All the professors announced that for this occasion they would postpone the lectures they should then have given, so that their classes might attend the concert. But this Professor Meyer said that he would not postpone his lecture. It was a link in a series, you understand—not to be missed,—so his class, of which I was one; were very furious. We told him that we were entitled to a holiday this day since all had it, but he would not hear us. We were very angry, for this holiday was our right. Now, also, one week before the concert the burgomaster of our town was to give a great banquet to the celebration of the centenary of a famous citizen. Here our Professor Meyer was to make a speech. Well, when he remained adamant, determined to give us no holiday, we had a great meeting, and thus we arranged to procure the holiday that was ours by right. Our plot was justified by his mulishness. He should lose the thing he most cherished—he should lose his wig two days before his banquet with the burgomaster. One of us would take his wig, seizing him as by night he walked to his rooms. Before his distress we should be most sympathetic, offering every aid. Perchance he would encourage our efforts by offer of the prize we most desired. The plot worked, with no misadventure, to a brilliant triumph. We took the wig. We enveloped him in our sympathy. 'Search out and restore my wig,' said he, 'and you shall have your holiday.' Then we found his wig and we enjoyed the holiday that was our right. That is the story,” Professor Wyvern ended.
Mystification clouded George's face. He pushed out a leg, stared at the toe. He stared at the fire; at the Professor, chuckling and rubbing his hands, he stared. His brain twisted the story this way and that, striving to dovetail it into his own circumstances.
In such a process the eyes are the mouth of the machine whence the completed manufacture sends forth its sparkling. But while the mechanism twists and turns the fabrics there is no sparkle—the eyes are clouded in thought, as we say.
The eyes that George turned upon toe, upon fire, and upon Professor Wyvern, were dull and lack-lustre. The machine worked unproductive; there was a cog that required adjustment, a lever that wanted a pull.
George sought the foreman machinist; said slowly: “But I don't see how the story helps me?”
“Well, you must think over it,” Professor Wyvern told him. “I dare not tell you any more. I must be no party to the inference that can be drawn. But do you not see that the thing our Professor cherished most was his wig? Now, Bill has told me that the thing your uncle cherishes above all price is—”
Click went the machine; round buzzed the wheels; out from George's eyes shot the sparkles. He jumped to his feet, his face red. “Is his cat!” he cried. “His Rose of Sharon! I see it! I see it! By Gad, I'll do it! Look here now—”
“No, I will not,” the Professor said. “I do not wish to know anything about it. I hear my wife's step.”
“I understand. All right. But don't tell a soul—not even Bill.”
“I cannot tell, because I do not know. But I suspect it is something very funny,” and the Professor burst into a very deep “Ho! ho! ho!”
“My dearest,” said Mrs. Wyvern at the door, “whatever can you be laughing at so loudly?”
“Ho! ho! ho! ho!” boomed the Professor, belling like a bloodhound. “It is something very funny.”
Mrs. Wyvern kissed the thin hairs on the top of his mighty head. “Dear William, I do trust it was not one of those painful stories of your young days.”
George stayed to dinner. By nine he left the house. He did not make for home. Striking through lanes he climbed an ascending field, mounted a stile, and here, with an unseeing eye upon Herons' Holt twinkling its bedroom lights in the valley below, he smoked many pipes, brooding upon his scheme.
It was not a melancholy process. Every now and again a crack of laughter jerked him; once he took his pipe from his mouth and put up a ringing peal of mirth that sent a brace of bunnies, flirting near his feet, wildly scampering for safety. Long he brooded....
A church clock gave him eleven. At ten he had been too deeply buried. Now his head was pushed clear from the burrow in which he had been working, and the sound caught his attention. No light now pricked Herons' Holt upon the dusky chart stretched beneath him. Its occupants were abed.
“I'll do it to-night!” cried George. “I'll do it at once!”
He drew on his pipe. A full cloud of smoke came. The pipe was well alight, and caution bidding him that it were well to bide a while so that sleep might more cosily warm the beds of the household, he determined that he would have out his last smoke as plotter: his next would be smoked as doer of the deed.
He rehearsed his plan. A knife would slip back the catch of the window behind which the Rose of Sharon lay. Possessing himself of her person he would speed to that tumbled hut in the copse. There she might lie in safety for the night: neither hut nor copse was in any man's road. Upon the morrow, when the hideous circumstance had been discovered, he would bear himself as events seemed to demand. He would be boundless in his sympathy, a leader in the search. If the idea of reward did not occur to Mr. Marrapit, he must suggest it. Unlikely that in the first moment of loss, when the Rose would still seem to be near, the reward would approach the figure at which he aimed. That was for his cunning to contrive. But obviously it would be impossible permanently to keep the Rose in the hut. To-morrow, when pretending to search for her he could guard the place where she lay; but he could not always be sentinel. The countryside would be scoured; no stone left unturned, no spinney unbeaten.
As he saw the matter, the plan would be to get somewhere down the railway line on pretext of a clue, taking the Rose of Sharon with him; for the success of the whole scheme depended upon his concealing the cat until Mr. Marrapit should be upon his bended knees in his distress, in deepest despair as to the Rose's recovery, and hence would be transported to deepest gratitude when it was restored to his arms. George told himself he must be prepared against the eventuality of his uncle failing to offer in public reward so large a sum as 500 pounds. That did not greatly distress. Best indeed if that sum were offered, but, failing it, it was upon Mr. Marrapit's gratitude that George ultimately reckoned. Surely when he “found” the cat it would be Mr. Marrapit's natural reply to give in exchange the sum he had that afternoon so violently refused. At the least, he could not refuse to lend it.
Early in his brooding George had decided he must not tell his Mary. First, it would be cruel to set her upon the rack of acting a part before Mr. Marrapit, before the household, before every questioner she must encounter; second—second, my ignoble George had doubts as to in what spirit his Mary would regard this plot did he make her partner in it. That it was wholly justifiable he personally would have contended before archangels. This miserly uncle was keeping from him money that was as incontestably his own as the being which also his mother had given him. Before all the angelic host he would thus have protested-without stammer, without blush; with the inspiration of righteousness, with the integrity of innocence. But to protest his cause before his Mary was another matter. There might be no occasion to protest; his Mary might see eye to eye with him in the matter. She might; but it was an eventuality he did not care to try against a test. His Mary was a girl—and girls are in their conduct narrowed by scruples that do not beset men. His Mary—and this it was that would make a test so violent—his Mary was his Mary, and well he knew, and loved, the little heart so delicately white as instantly to discover the finest specks of sootiness—if specks there were—in any breeze that might cross its surface.
No, he would not tell his Mary. When the thing was done—when he, the black-hearted rogue, had the little saint safe in the toils she would find so delicious, then—then he would tell her, would silence her frightened squeals—if she squealed—by his intention to pay back the money, whether won as reward (which was improbable) or earned as token of gratitude (which was highly likely). He had only asked to borrow, and it should only be a loan.
Across the dark fields in spirit he kissed his little saint. ... Of course—of course—one must admit these brutal things—of course the scheme might fail. Anything might happen to crash it about his ears. That was a deadly, dismal thought, but he flattened it from sight with that lusty hammer that gay youth uses—“I shan't be any worse off if it does fail.”
The smoke came through his pipe in burning whiffs. He shook it bowl downwards. Ashes and sparks fell in a shower. The pipe was done.
Whoop! forrard! The game was afoot.
A moon as clear as that which shone when Bill stole to Herons' Holt to woo his blessed damosel, gave a clear light to George as now he approached the house. He took his way across the fields, and his progression was that of no stealthy-footed conspirator. Two miles of downward-sloping land lay between the stile whereon he had brooded and the home that his plottings were to disturb. In buoyant spirits—for this was action, and action makes lusty appeal to youth—he trotted or galloped as the descent was easy or sharply inclined; the low hedges he took in great sprawling jumps, the ditches in vast giant strides—arms working as balance-pole, humming as he ran.
Upon the lawn he became more cautious. But the moon showed Herons' Holt sleepy-eyed-blinds drawn.
The cats' parlour, back of the house, gave upon a little strip of turf that kept away the kitchen garden. George drew his knife; approached the window. Now he was a criminal indeed.
To slip the catch was easy work; between upper and lower sash there was clear space. George inserted his pen-knife. Tip of blade grated against catch; a little pressure—an answering movement; a little more—and, click, the trick was done!
Now he raised the sash, and now he is in the room. Glimmer of a match shows him the sleeping-baskets; its steadier flame discloses the Rose, snugly curled, a little free of her silken coverlet.
Wake, now, Rose—as an older school of novelists would have addressed you. Wake, Rose! Wake, pretty Rose! Queenly Rose, awake! Wake precious, virgin Rose! Squeal! scratch! bite! Claw those wicked hands descending into your pure bed! Spring like spotless maiden aroused to find ravisher at her couch! Spring, Rose, spring! Squawking news of outrage to all the house, bound wildly, Rose, about this room that else you shall not see until through searing perils you have passed! Spring! Rose, spring!
Not Rose!
The ravisher's hands descended upon her person—she only purred. They passed about her warm and exquisite form—she purred the more. They tickled her as they laid hold—she stretched a leg; purred with fuller note. Perchance this virgin cat dreamed of some gallant young Tom wooing her bed; perchance these ticklings had their deliciously transfigured place in her visions; perchance—she only purred.
Now George tucked her beneath his arm. Legs dangled wretchedly; gallant young Tom leapt from her dreams and she awoke. She stirred. George had a foot upon the window-sill, and the night air ruffled her downy coat. She was pressed against bony ribs; a rough arm squeezed her wretchedly; long, poky fingers tortured her flank; her legs draggled dismally. She voiced protest in a plaintive, piercing, long-drawn “Mi-aow!”
Clout!
Ah, Rose! Pretty, foolish Rose—as our older school again would have written—why did you entertain sensuous dreams when you should have been stirring?
“Mi-aow!”
Clout!
Too late, Rose! Too late! That beauteous head—that prize-winning head which from kittenhood upwards has known none other than caress, is now a mark for battering bumps if you do but open those perfect jaws—those prize-winning jaws. Too late, Rose! Too late! Do not cry now, Rose! The ravisher has you. His blood congeals in terror at your plaintive cry. In his brutish panic he will answer it with thuds. Too late, Rose! Too late!
“Mi-aow!”
Clout!
Ah, Rose, Rose!
He is outside now. “Shut up, you fat idiot!” he hisses. Squeezing her yet more villainously with one arm, with the other he draws down the sash. Through the gate, into the lane, over the stream, down the ride, into the copse—up to the hut.
The outer door hangs grinningly upon its hinges. The door going to the inner room has a working latch; George kicks it open; elbows it to behind him; drops the Rose with jarring plump; strikes a match. There is the dusty pile of Old Tom bottles, there the little heap of bracken upon which Mrs. Major doubtless had reclined while with Old Tom she talked. Excellent!
The match goes out. He lights another. The Rose is standing forlornly at his feet. While the match lasts he lifts her to the bracken bed; presses her down; backs out; closes the door.
His watch, put beneath the moon, tells him it is upon one o'clock. He pulls to the outer door; wedges beneath it a stump of wood that keeps it firmly shut; makes for home.
In an hour he is sleeping the dreamless, childlike slumber that comes to day's work.
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