Part 7

I dreamed that the morning had come, and that I went into grandfather’s room to wish him many happy returns of the day--a thing I should certainly not have done in reality. But I was in the spirit, and never shall I forget the spectacle which greeted me as I stood by the old man’s pillow. Instead of the ruddy, healthy boy I had left over-night--instead of the muscular, deep-chested, deep-voiced young athlete who was that day to row at Henley, there sat up in the bed an uncanny, wrinkled, decrepit mummy of a creature. It was bald, save for a thin tangle of white eyebrow over each bleared eye. Its mouth was a mere slit, its nose and chin nearly met, its cheeks had fallen in. One thin skeleton of a claw held the bedclothes up to its scraggy neck. Its head shook, its under jaw dropped, its back was round as a wheel; the thing manifested indications of profoundest age.

"What--what is this? Who are you?" I gasped, turning faint and clutching at a chair-back for support.

It laughed a little squeaky, wheezy laugh, and a cunning expression came into its dim eyes.

"Keep your nerve," it said. "The show’s bust up; the New Scheme’s broken down!"

"Grandpapa!"

"He--he--he! Yes. A hundred and eight, not twenty. I’ve downed him."

"Downed him, grandpapa?"

"That means bested him, beaten him, scored off him. Lord! Lord! You’d have laughed to see what went on here last night. Nick swore and cussed and stormed and stamped round and perspired brimstone; but it wasn’t any manner of use. He’d given himself away by his own foolishness."

"Tell me, grandfather, tell me all about it. This is a happy day indeed!"

In my dream I gave the old hero an egg-and-milk with a little brandy. Then he sat up, and in a weak, trembling voice, broken with fits of senile chuckling, he told me about his interview.

"Nick came in just for a chat. He always goes to Henley. He mentioned the ’Diamonds,’ and guaranteed I should win ’em. He was friendly as you please, and hoped I’d had a good time, and didn’t regret my bargain.

"Then I told him of my visit to the lawyers, rapped out at him for a blundering, unbusiness-like ass, got the agreement out, went through it with him, and showed him what he’d really done. He was fairly mad, but he couldn’t get away from facts. I said:

"’The point lies in a nutshell. There’ll be nothing of me left to go anywhere; and even you cannot arrange for the eternity of a non-existent being, can you?’

"He had to admit he couldn’t. He was properly cross. He tore the agreement to little pieces, and stamped on it. He argued some time with me, and pointed out a fact that I had fully grasped already. He said:

"’Yes, it’s pretty clear I’ve over-reached myself. My fiendish conceit’s always tripping me up. I ought to have got my lawyers to help me; but I thought I could thrash a simple thing like that out alone.’

"He said that much, and then I made some satirical remark which stung him, for he turned on me, about as short and nasty as they make ’em, and said:

"’Blest if I know what _you_ want to snigger for! You don’t seem to realise what a unique fix you’re in. You _won’t go anywhere_ now! That’s what’s the matter with you. Nothing to chortle about, I should think?’

"’I’m not chortling at that,’ I answered, ’I’m merely smiling a bit to see you getting so warm. You’d better listen to reason and leave the past alone. Is there any way out of this? Of course, I want to go somewhere. I’ve got a strong objection to becoming extinct. How would you like it? I suppose even you would rather hang on where you are than be blotted out altogether.’

"’We can’t get away from a signed agreement,’ he said sulkily.

"Yes we can, if we draw out another, cancelling the first,’ I answered.

"’No more writing for me,’ he said.

"’Well, then, let us have an oral understanding,’ I suggested.

"’I’ll entertain any proposal in reason,’ he replied.

"But, of course, I was unprepared with suggestions. The interview had been sprung upon me, and I had not bestowed a moment’s thought upon preparations.

"’You’re in a fix, I know,’ he remarked, ’a mere temporal quandary, only involving certain ladies and so forth, but still troublesome so far as it goes. I might do this; I might quash all these earthly suits by the simple expedient of restoring you to your real age. As it is, you will upset a good many of them, because old Bangley-Brown, for instance, is on the look-out for a man of seventy-five; and the publican’s daughter, Marie Rogers, expects a man of five-and-forty or fifty. But, by returning to the ripe old age of one hundred-and-eight, you reduce the whole series of proceedings to a farce, and leave the different police courts and places without a stain on your character. In any case, you can only live one year more, but the difference is this: that if you go on as you’re going, you go out altogether; whereas, if you consent to my alternative, you’ll die in your bed, and have a future.’

"As you may imagine, Martha, I grew very excited.

"’A future--where?’ I enquired, in my dream.

"Exactly. Where? There’s the rub," grandfather answered. "I asked Nick the same question, and he said:

"’I wonder you can inquire. If you’ve got any sense of justice or gratitude, you ought to feel the extent of your debt and not hesitate to pay it. In any case, whatever your private ambitions may be, your past record is such that, if you go anywhere at all, your destination is practically determined.’

"I did not argue upon this point," continued grandfather, "feeling it would be better tact to slur it over, and leave a loop-hole, but he held me to it, and finally got me to promise that I would never attempt to reform or amend my ways during the last year of my life. He insisted all the time that it would not alter the result, but I could see, from his great anxiety upon the point, that he knew there might be plenty of opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf, and make a good end, if I chose to do so. However, I promised him to lead as abandoned and dissolute a life as could be expected from a man of one hundred and eight, so we effected the compromise. He was nervous about it to the last, but felt it to be the only way out of the _cul-de-sac_ his own stupidity had placed him in. Then the change was made. I went to sleep a boy and woke as you find me. I’m all here, but stiff about the legs, and deucedly rheumatic. Go out and get me a tall hat and some black, ready-made clothes, and some easy felt boots and a few walking sticks, and the strongest spectacles you can buy. Then I’ll get up."

So ended my clear grandpapa’s astounding statement, but my dream went on. I made him some bread-and-milk, fed him with it, and then hurried out to purchase necessaries.

The world, had turned upside down for me. I expected the newspaper boys to be yelling out "Failure of the New Scheme!"

*CHAPTER XXII.*

_*THE DWINDLING OF GRANDPAPA.*_

But there was no truth in the vision. I awoke unrested--rose, and, of course, found grandpapa under the New Scheme, as usual. He had arranged to hide somewhere in a backwater, and only paddle out when the race for the Diamond Sculls was beginning. I tried hard to dissuade him from making the attempt. I pointed out that arrest was sure to follow the struggle, and that, once taken, there would be sufficient legal complications all over the country to last him much more than the remainder of his life. I said:

"In a year’s time you will be ten; in two years you will be nothing. Let us hide this tragedy if we can. Publicity now means that the concluding catastrophes of your life will be watched by the whole of England--perhaps by the entire civilised world. Surely that would add another sting to extinction? Let me implore of you, dear one, to give up this aquatic enterprise. We will fly together. I have done up the accounts this morning, and find we have exactly nine hundred and ninety-eight pounds left. This is ample provision for your approaching childhood. Come and dwindle by the sea--at Margate or somewhere. Or let us go abroad, if that idea gives you pleasure."

"Not me," he said. "I shall flicker out in the old country. And as to not rowing, that’s absurd. This race is my last flutter. In six months I shall be a boy of fifteen. I must make my final adult appearance to-day. It’s jolly lucky there’s only one other entry besides myself, as I certainly shall have no chance of appearing more than once. However, this morning I mean to row the course, and then keep on the river and pull quietly into the backwater, and lie low till dark. Meantime you can go to Margate if you like and find new diggings, and I’ll join you to-morrow."

With this arrangement I had to be content. I took a train to London, and managed to escape comfortably in it with my box. I journeyed to Margate, took three fair rooms overlooking the sea, and waited with deepest anxiety for grandfather’s arrival. On the following morning I purchased the _Sportsman_, to find that the dear old man had managed to elude the detectives and win the Diamond Sculls! I felt that this was probably the last piece of real joy he would ever have. But the report in the _Sportsman_ quickly quenched my passing happiness. Satisfaction, indeed, was turned into black despair, when I read what my grandfather had done on the completion of the boat-race.

"Elisha Spratt," said the _Sportsman_, "the mysterious young oarsman who has suddenly burst into fame, won the ’Diamonds’ with ridiculous ease, and simply played with his better-known opponent. The sensation of the race, however, was reserved for the finish. Hardly had Spratt passed the winning-post when a boat, full of police-constables, pulled quickly out from the crowd of craft that thronged the course and made towards him. Spratt, it seems, has been ’wanted’ for some time, being mysteriously connected with what is known as the ’Dolphin Mystery’; and the preservers of law and order believed that by taking him in mid-stream, immediately after the race, they would ensure an easy capture. Their judgment, however, proved faulty. Spratt, who was nearly as fresh as when he began to row, made a vigorous defence, and when he ultimately succeeded in capsizing the boatload of Crown officials and escaping, the enthusiasm of the sightseers knew no bounds. Finally he disappeared up stream, and has not since been heard of. He is certainly a magnificent sculler, but we fear his next appearance in public will not be in a wager boat. The constables were all rescued, though one of them, a well-known detective, is said to lie still insensible, and little hopes are entertained of his recovery."

This was the end of it then--murder! My grandfather had taken a life. Now, if they caught him they would doubtless endeavour to hang him. Even the New Scheme could hardly continue if they succeeded in hanging grandfather. At least, so it struck me. But first they had to catch him. Luckily, he was just at a difficult age to catch. We had arranged I should wait for him at the station, and presently he came down from town, travelling third-class, in the same compartment with part of a Sunday school treat. He had disguised himself, and was wearing a false nose and little imitation whiskers hooked over his ears. He saw me, and followed at a distance as I walked from the station, but he did not join me until I had reached the doorstep of our lodgings. Then he approached and entered. He was very excited, and full of a new idea. He had already quite forgotten the race on the preceding day, and talked of nothing save the nearly-drowned detective.

"You see, if he pops off, they’d hang me," he explained eagerly.

"Grandfather, I implore you not to talk so," I sobbed, quite giving way.

"But I want ’em to. Nothing better could happen. The next two years won’t be much of a catch from my point of view; and if I’m executed, of course, the New Scheme must be upset. I shall have to go somewhere then; I shan’t become extinct anyway."

His hopes in this direction were doomed to disappointment, however. The detective recovered, and we were unmolested. We had, in fact, thrown the Scotland Yard people completely off the trail. But grandpapa still longed to be hanged. He even discussed the feasibility of a capital crime at Margate, and, as it was all one to him in the matter of a victim, he generously offered to put anybody I liked out of the way. He even bought a revolver.

"To be executed it is necessary to take a life," he explained. "The question is, whose life? If you’ve got an enemy, Martha, now’s your time to name him or her. If you’ve no fancy, then I shall pip a prominent member of the Government."

But two months passed by, and my grandfather’s horrid ambition gradually faded. When he was eighteen, and after we left Margate for Ramsgate, which step was taken about this period, he acquired a passing passion for sea-fishing, bought a rod and line, and angled uneventfully for days together off the pier-head or out of an open boat. From Ramsgate we proceeded to Deal, then lurked a week or two at Dover, and continued our tour of the south-coast watering-places, secreting our sorrows in turn at Folkestone, Hastings, St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, Eastbourne, Brighton, and Bognor. I thought we might winter in the Isle of Wight, but grandfather was for Cornwall and conger-fishing, so we pushed onwards to Fowey, and arrived there shortly after Christmas, when my grandparent was about fifteen.

His wardrobe became a greater difficulty daily. The poor old sufferer shrank in a heartbreaking way. I had always to be taking in and turning up and reducing his different articles of apparel. He was now mercifully allowed to lose intelligence very rapidly. He lived more and more in the passing hour, and began to develop simple boyish ambitions and hopes and complaints. As he gradually fell completely under my control, a certain peace of mind, to which I had long been a stranger, returned. The position was harrowing enough, heaven knows, but whereas throughout grandfather’s career under the New Scheme, he had played his own game, so to speak, and never paid much attention to the faithful woman always at his elbow, now the position was rapidly changing. He had to look to me and rely upon me more and more. Indeed, he did so as a matter of course. I held the purse, and took good care to keep it. The dear old man never wanted for anything, but I had to think of my own future. When he was gone, there would only be a few hundred pounds between me and starvation. However, I denied him nothing in reason, allowed him gradually decreasing pocket-money, and, as he grew younger, exercised entire authority. To this he submitted humbly enough now. He was a bad boy, as boys go--a sly, calculating, cruel boy; but a circumstance happened soon after we left Fowey which practically made grandfather helpless, and placed him under my complete control. It was this. With dwindling intellect his memory also waned, and ultimately broke down altogether. He forgot the past, he forgot his own extraordinary situation and destination, he quite forgot our relationship, and soon simply believed that things were as they seemed. One day he electrified me by talking with bright, boyish confidence of "growing up" and marrying a bonny bride, and becoming a smuggler. "Growing up"! Poor little darling, he was growing down at the rate of a year every six weeks. But now the old man’s mental troubles were practically at an end, and I thanked heaven for it. Literally he was twice a child. He gave up cigarettes and took to chocolate, and stupid little toys. At rare intervals, inspired by the friends he picked up in our wanderings, he showed flashes of ambition, and pestered me to know when I was going to send him to school like other boys. He grumbled and said he believed he was backward. I denied it and temporised. I told him he was more than clever. Of course, to send him to school would have been frank and senseless waste of money. Besides, the New Scheme must have been discovered in a fortnight. He travelled half price now, for he was not more than ten years old when I took him to Dawlish. Before we had been at that small but delightful sea-side resort six weeks, grandfather openly bought a little iron spade and bucket, thereby proving that childhood had set in. I had him well in hand in Devonshire, and I may state that my own peace of mind was comparatively such that I had almost cured myself of a weakness I have not hidden here--a weakness brought on by the terrors of the past. And dear grandfather’s own favourite beverage, subject to my sanction, was sherbet now. Indeed, taking one thing with another, that last summer in the West of England with my grandparent, proved the happiest time I spent from the beginning of the New Scheme to its close. He was quite happy too. He made sand castles, and tormented the shrimps which he caught from time to time, and otherwise conducted himself like a simple, healthy little lad of eight years old.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

_*"FINE BY DEGREES, AND BEAUTIFULLY LESS."*_

I would willingly draw a veil over the last year of my grandfather’s life, but I have set my hand to the pen and will not turn back, though nothing but grief and horror and the ghosts of dead miseries haunt me as I write.

When the old man was about eight years old, I put him into a blue sailor suit, bought him a wooden hoop, and took him to a new locality. We left Dawlish and went up to Tavybridge--a pretty spot on Dartmoor. Here I proposed staying for at least a month. It now became necessary to regulate his hours, see that he had fairly wholesome food, and keep him clean. His memory had long grown an absolute blank. He put his little hand in mine, trotted about over the moors and through the country, and clamoured first for a pony, secondly to be allowed to sing in the choir at a quaint old country place of worship. I did not see my way to gratifying either ambition. At Tavybridge grandpapa speedily waned. He called me "Granny" now, and quite believed it was so; I addressed him both in public and private as "Daniel," and let people believe that his parents were in India. Though I lacked the comfort and support of having a man in the house, to whom I could go with all my sorrows and anxieties, yet the loss was more than compensated by the relief of knowing that my ancient grandparent was now powerless to do further ill, either to himself or other people. But, strange to say, though absolute infancy now threatened him, his love for the sex was not even yet wholly dead. I well remember grandfather coming to me, hand in hand with a little village maid of some six summers, and acquainting me with the fact that they were engaged.

"This is Bessie Wiggles, grandma," said the venerable sufferer; "I met her down by the bridge over the river, and I gave her sweeties and a kite, and she gived me a kiss for them, and we’s going to be married, Bessie Wiggles and me, when we’s grown up."

I promised them they should be. This was an attachment which really mattered nothing. It kept grandfather out of mischief, and made him part with at least a proportion of the deleterious rubbish he bought with his weekly sixpence of pocket-money. I felt that two small stomachs might carry a load of toffee and other horrid stuffs, which must certainly upset one. It was an idyllic engagement. Bessie Wiggles came to tea constantly, and grandpapa would talk with confidence of his future and the great things he should do when he was a man. The children walked about the village hand in hand. The villagers smiled and said it was pretty to see them. Then one day a herd of cows, going to be milked, knocked grandfather down accidentally and bruised him, and terrified him to such an extent that he prayed I would take him away from Tavybridge instantly, to some remote spot where there were no more cows. He abandoned Bessie Wiggles without a murmur, and I took him away to Exeter. He was rapidly approaching the age of five years or one hundred and nine and a half, according from which Scheme you looked at him.

My stay at the old cathedral city was even shorter than I had intended, for grandfather got damp on a bleak December day, and abstracted some almonds and raisins out of a cupboard when I was not by. This combination of circumstances resulted for him in a bad attack of croup. Very foolishly, and forgetting that in such a case appearances must be much against me, I did not send for a doctor, but contented myself with patting the old man on the back and giving him repeated drinks of Eno’s Fruit Salt. This I knew was not the right treatment for croup, but what did it matter? Grandfather would certainly be perfectly well again in the morning. After all his adventures, this paltry childish ailment was not going to destroy him now. I felt very certain of that. But, unfortunately, the landlady heard grandfather making a great deal of noise about two in the morning, and, being a mother, she recognised the sound, and was instantly up in arms to help me. When she found I did not intend sending for a medical man, she became both vulgar and offensive. She accused me of fooling a helpless child’s life away. She said:

"I know what it is to be a mother, though you’ve forgotten, it seems. Eno’s salts for croup! Lord! You be daft, I should think. What would that poor lamb’s ma say if she knowed?"

I said:

"Its ma’s in heaven long ago; probably she does know. I venture to think she would be quite satisfied with my treatment."

"Shame on ’e!" she answered. "A horphan--that makes it wus and wus. I guess you be no better ’n a baby-farmer--now then!"

Thereupon I declined further conversation, and gave her notice that I should leave that day week. She replied that it would be impossible for me to leave too soon for her, though her heart bled for the ill-used child, meaning my grandparent. Stung to anger, I was almost tempted to hint at the New Scheme, but bitter experience and my better judgment told me such an action, taking into consideration the mental calibre of the woman, must be worse than futile. So I bid her go to her room; she departed with the word "murderess" on her lips, and the incident terminated.

Of course, grandfather was pretty right the next day, but disorders now gained upon him rapidly, and I know I was to blame for adding a good deal of unnecessary suffering to those last fleeting years of his life. His stomach-aches, his rashes, his mumps, might all have been avoided had I understood better the care of the extremely youthful. Everywhere I went I heard expressions of open surprise that I, a woman of seventy-five apparently, and a grandmother, should know so precious little about babies. And, of course, the old man was shrivelling with such cruel rapidity now that my knowledge could not keep pace with him. When I understood the nature and requirements of a child of five he was already four; by the time I grasped his needs at this age he had sunk to three.