Part 8

"Why didn't you tell me at the beginning?" she demanded, staring at him with level eyes. "Why lie about it? It seems so unnecessary and petty. And then--to hit Jake over the head.... You, ... Take it back, please." She laid her engagement ring on the table. "And I think you'd better go--at once. The fault was partially mine; and I wouldn't like them to punish you for my--for my mistake...."

Without another word she turned and left the room. And it was not till the front door banged that Strongley turned his livid face on John Morrison.

"You swine," he muttered. "I believe this was a put-up job."

John Morrison laughed.

"Yes--you told me you were coming, didn't you?"

"No--I didn't tell you," said Strongley, slowly, with a vicious look dawning in his eyes. "Which perhaps accounts for the fact that Miss Frenton was here.... In your bedroom.... How nice.... The gentleman workman and the employer's daughter.... A charming romance.... I should think Mr. Frenton will be delighted to hear it to-morrow...."

Not a muscle on John Morrison's face moved.

"More than delighted, I should imagine.... Except that it will be a little stale. Personally, I am going up to tell him to-night." He smiled slightly. "I don't like you, Strongley; I know far too much about you. But I _did_ pass Miss Frenton a note to-day at the works warning her to get you away...."

"Your solicitude for my welfare is overwhelming," sneered Strongley.

"Good heavens!" laughed John Morrison. "I didn't care a damn about you. I was afraid the men might get into trouble. Steady! Don't get gay with me. I'm not half-witted; and I can hit back...."

*III*

It was in London the following spring that Marjorie Frenton next saw John Morrison. She had not been present at the interview with her father--was in ignorance that it had ever taken place until the next day. And on that next day John Morrison had disappeared, leaving no trace.... For a while she had waited, wondering whether he would write--but no word came. After all, why should he? There was nothing to write about.... It was merely curiosity on her part--nothing more, of course.... A workman in evening clothes.... Enough to make anybody curious....

And now there he was--three tables away, dining with a very pretty woman. He hadn't seen her yet.... Probably wouldn't remember her when he did ... After all, why should he? ... And at that moment their eyes met....

She looked away at once, and started talking to the man next to her: but even as she spoke she knew John Morrison had risen and was coming towards her.

"How are you, Miss Frenton?" She looked up into his face: met the glint of a smile in the lazy blue eyes.

"Quite well, thank you, Mr. Morrison," she answered, coldly.

"Hullo, Joe!" A woman opposite had begun to speak, to stop with a puzzled frown at Marjorie's words. "Morrison! Why Morrison? ... Have you been masquerading, Joe, under an assumed name?"

"I did for a while, Jane," he said, calmly, "to avoid you; you know how you pursued me with eligible girls.... Battalions of 'em, Miss Frenton--ranged in rows. I had to disappear stealthily in the dead of night...."

"Well, when are you going to get married?" demanded the woman, laughing.

"Very soon, I hope.... I do much better than you, Jane, in these things. The girl I've got my eye on is a girl who summoned several hundred factory hands together; and told 'em she was sorry for a mistake she'd made. And she halted a bit, and stumbled a bit--but she got through with it.... And then the men cheered 'emselves sick...."

"Good heavens! Joe ... Factory hands!" gasped the woman. "What sort of a girl is she?"

"A perfect topper, Jane." Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at Marjorie, whose eyes were fixed on her plate. "By the way, Miss Frenton, has your father turned his works into a company yet?"

"Not yet," she answered, very low.

"Ah! that's good." He forced her to meet his eyes, and there was something more than a smile on his face now. "Well, I must go back to my sister.... And I'll come and call to-morrow if I may.... Jane will expose my wicked deceit doubtless...."

"Mad--quite mad," remarked the woman opposite, as he went back to his interrupted dinner. "Morrison, did you say? I knew he wanted to study labour conditions first-hand--why, Heaven knows. He's got works of his own or something.... But all the Carlakes are mad.... And I'd got a splendid American girl up my sleeve for him...."

"Carlake," said Marjorie, a little faintly. "Is that Lord Carlake?"

"Of course it is, my dear. That's Joe Carlake.... Mad as a hatter.... I wonder who the girl is...."

_*VI -- The Unbroken Line*_

*I*

"My dear man, where have you been buried? You don't seem to know anybody. That's Bobby Landon, Lord Fingarton's only son. Just about to pull off _the_ marriage of the season."

I accepted the rebuke meekly: a spell of three years in Africa investigating the question of sleeping sickness does almost count as burial.

"Oh! is that Lord Landon?" I murmured, glancing across the crowded restaurant at a clean-looking youngster dining with a couple of men. "See--who is he engaged to?"

"You win the bag of nuts," laughed my fair informant. "Robert Landon, only son of Earl Fingarton of Fingarton, is about to marry Cecilie, youngest daughter of the Duke of Sussex. A fuller society announcement can be given if required, bringing out the pleasing union of two historic families in these socialistic days...." She laughed again. "But speaking the normal mother tongue, a first-class boy is marrying a topping girl, which is all that matters."

"It's all coming back to me," I said, slowly. "I'm getting warm. There was another son, wasn't there, and he died."

"I believe so," she answered; "in fact I know there was. But he died before I was born. That was the first wife's son. Daddy would be able to tell you all about that."

"What's that, my dear?" My host leaned across the table with a smile.

"Sir Richard was asking me about Lord Fingarton's family history, old man," she remarked, brightly. "I was telling him that I was slightly on the youthful side, and that you would elucidate the matter in your well-known breezy style.

"It doesn't require much elucidation," he said, slowly. "It was a mixture of tragedy and good fortune...."

"I remember that the first son died, Bill, but..." I paused and waited for him to continue.

"He broke his neck in the hunting field the day after he came of age. And the accident broke his mother's heart. They were absolutely wrapped up in that boy--both of 'em.... Six months later she died in Scotland, at Fingarton...." He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar, and unconsciously my eyes wandered to the youngster at the neighbouring table.

"And where exactly does the good-fortune part of it come in?" I asked at length.

"This way," he answered. "They idolized the boy, and he certainly was the first thing in their lives. But when he died, the thing that came only one degree behind their love for him of necessity took first place.... Family.... While he lived, the two things were synonymous: they both centred in the boy himself.... And he was a splendid boy--better even than this one." Again he paused, and smoked for a while in silence. "You see--Betty Fingarton was too old to have another child, when the accident took place ... I think that fact hastened her death. And the man who would have come into the title was an outsider of the purest water--a distant cousin of sorts.... Bob used to move about like a man in a dream--dazed with the tragedy of it all. But I remember that even then, before she died, he realized that her death would--how shall I put it--help matters. Not that he ever said anything: but I knew Bob pretty well those days ... I've lost sight of him a bit since.... It was a horrible position for the poor old chap. The Fingartons have kept their line direct since 1450. Family was his God ... and he idolized Betty. Then she died; and Bob married again.... Quite a nice girl, and she made him a thundering good wife.... But he told me the night before he married, that the price of duty could sometimes be passing high.... It was with him...."

My host paused and sipped his brandy, while the girl at my side whispered a little breathlessly:

"I didn't know all that, daddy. Poor old Uncle Bob!"

I looked at her inquiringly, and she smiled.

"He's always been uncle to me," she explained. "Though lately I've hardly seen him at all.... He buries himself more and more up at Fingarton...."

"And what of the present Lady Fingarton?" I inquired.

"I like her--she's a dear," answered the girl. "Though I think daddy always compares her with the first one." Her father smiled, but said nothing. "She is generally here in Town.... She likes to be near Bobby...."

For a while we were silent, while the soft strains of the orchestra stole through the smoke-laden air above the hum of conversation.... It had gripped me--the picture painted by Bill Lakington, in his short clipped sentences. The tragedy of it--and, as he had said, the good fortune too.... Duty: pride of family--aye, they have their price. Mayhap Betty Fingarton was paying her share in the knowledge that the next of the line was not her son.... Or did she, with clearer vision, understand the workings of the Great Architect, which at first must have seemed so inscrutable?...

"When is the wedding?" I asked.

"In about a month," said the girl. "Everyone will be there."

"Personally," I murmured, "I shall be one of the forty or fifty odd million who won't. So you can send me an account of it."

"Where are you going, Sir Richard?"

"To a little village way up in the outskirts of Skye," I replied with a smile. "More burial, young lady--and more hard work."

"You ought to take a bit of a rest, Dick," said Bill Lakington. "You deserve it...."

"After I've broken the back of the book, I shall," I answered.

"Are you writing a novel, Sir Richard?" inquired the girl.

"No such claim to immortality," I sighed. "My subject is the mode of life of Glossina palpales--with illustrations."

"And who are they when they're at home?" she asked, dubiously.

"Flies--whose conduct is not above suspicion. Shall I present you with a copy?"

"Rather. As long as you don't expect me to read it.--Hullo! Bob. Going to anything to-night?"

"We're staggering to Daly's, old thing...." With a feeling of mild curiosity I glanced at the boy who had paused by our table on the way out: a clean-cut, good-looking youngster. No outsider, this future seventeenth earl, like the distant cousin.... Yes, one could see where the good fortune came in....

We, too, were going to Daly's, and we all passed out of the restaurant together. I had a word or two with the youngster as we waited for the car: he was keen as mustard on hearing about Africa, and especially Uganda....

"Everybody is tottering out to the country these days, Sir Richard, and 'pon my word, I don't blame 'em..."

"If they can, no more do I. But the head of the family can't go, my dear boy.... That's the drawback to responsibility."

"Do you know Fingarton?" A gleam came into his eyes as he spoke.

"I'm afraid I don't," I answered. "I've never met your father."

"Go and look him up, if you're in those parts," he said, impulsively. "It'll do the dear old governor good.... He's burying himself too much up there, and it's lonely for him.. I've written and written just lately, and I can't get any answer out of him.... I want him to come South--he will for my wedding, of course--but these last few months, if ever I do get a line from him, it's in reply to a letter about three weeks old...."

"Come on, Sir Richard...." Molly Lakington was calling me from the car.... "We mustn't miss the last part of the first act...."

Undoubtedly not, and with a nod to the youngster I stepped into the car.

"A good lad that, Bill," I remarked.

"Aye ... a good lad.... But not _quite_ so good as the other," he answered, thoughtfully.

"He's good enough for Cecilie, anyway, old man, and that's saying a good deal," said Molly....

By the light of a passing lamp I saw Bill Lakington's face. He was smiling quietly to himself, as a man smiles when he has his own opinion, but refuses to argue about it....

"Besides, you scarcely knew the first son," pursued Molly. "I've heard you say so yourself."

"No, my dear, but I knew the first wife," answered her father, still with the same quiet smile. Evidently, on the subject of Betty Fingarton, Bill was adamant.

And at that moment we drew up at Daly's and the conversation ceased. We were in time for the last part of the first act as the girl had demanded--though apparently one priceless song about a Bowwow named Chow-chow had eluded us.... My sorrow at this failure on our part was heightened by the information that it was one of the best Fox Trots you could dance to.... I was very anxious to know what a Fox Trot was: in Uganda, as a form of amusement, it is in but little vogue....

But we'd missed it, and though I endeavoured to bear up under the staggering blow, I found my attention wandering more and more from the stage, and centring round the story or the sixteenth Earl Fingarton and his first wife Betty.

The picture of the old man, shutting himself up more and more in his Highland castle, waiting for the time when he could be relieved of duty, and go once more to the woman he loved, came between me and the stage.... _His_ child to carry on the line, but not _hers_.... But it would be carried on in direct descent--that was the great point--it would remain unbroken. The sacrifice of the father had had its reward....

"There is Lady Fingarton in the box opposite," said Molly Lakington in my ear, as the lights went up at the end of the first act.... "Sitting next to Bobby ... and Cecilie on the other side."

I glanced across the theatre. The youngster was just getting up to go out and smoke, and for a moment or two he bent over a lovely girl, who smiled up into his face. Then he turned to his mother, and she too smiled--a smile of perfect happiness. She was a sweet-looking woman of rising fifty, and on a sudden impulse I spoke my thoughts to Bill Lakington.

"He ought to come down, Bill: he oughtn't to bury himself. He'd like it--once he'd broken away. It's not fair to them--or himself. Why doesn't he?"

"I can't tell you, old man..." he answered, slowly. "I know no more than you. He's happy up North: when he does come he's always hankering to get back again."

"But they go up there, I suppose?"

"Sometimes," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Sometimes. But never for long.... When shooting starts, and he has guests."

"I agree with Sir Richard," said Molly, decidedly. "It's not fair. He's got the son he wanted, and now he sees as little of the woman who gave it him as he can.... He ought at any rate to pretend...."

The orchestra was filing back: the smokers were returning to their seats. And as the safety-curtain rolled slowly up, I glanced once more across the theatre at Lady Fingarton. Did she feel that too? And it seemed to me that her eyes were weary.... He ought at any rate to pretend....

*II*

And so, but for a strange turn in the wheel of fate, the matter would have rested as far as I was concerned. For an evening the story of the sixteenth Earl Fingarton and his wife Betty had appealed to my imagination, then stress of work drove it from my mind. In Scotland, especially in the Highlands, the fierce pride of family and clan seems natural and right: from time immemorial that pride has been a dominant trait of those who live there.

And up in Skye, where I wandered for a while before settling down to work, the old Earl's action seemed easier to understand.... As a man, his heart had died with his wife Betty; as the sixteenth of his line, he had gone forth into the world, which had ceased to interest him, and taking unto himself another wife, had waited until she gave him a son. Then, his duty over, he had come back to his dead and his memories.... Callous, perhaps, to the living; primitive in his treatment of his second wife, as men of old were primitive in their treatment of women, regarding them as merely the bearers of their children--yet understandable.... Look on the glory of Glen Sligachan, and it is understandable. Country such as that in another part of the Highlands belonged to the Fingartons, and the breathless marvel of it is not to be lightly parted with. It must remain for a man's son, and his son's son ... a sacred heritage. There must be no outsider to break the line.

Thus did it strike me as I settled down to work in the island that I loved. And then, as I have said, it gradually faded from my mind. Vast tracts of territory at present infested with sleeping sickness could, I felt convinced, be rendered immune from that dreadful scourge if my proposals were adopted. Starting from the point at which the German Commission under Professor Koch had left off, years before the war, I had carried his investigations several steps further. And I knew that I had been successful. So I found an undisturbed place to write, and quickly became absorbed in my task. Without undue conceit, I knew it was an important one....

And then, one evening, after I had been working for about a fortnight, occurred the strange turn of the wheel which was to bring my attention back from the dark interior of Africa to things much nearer at hand. I had finished for the day, and was sitting by the open window watching the sun sink in a blaze of golden glory over the Coolin Hills, when a small urchin obtruded himself into my line of vision, and stared at me fixedly in the intervals of sucking his thumb. The inspection apparently proved satisfactory, and after a while the small urchin spoke. His language required interpretation by my landlady, but finally I gathered that the attentions of a medical man were wanted. And since the local doctor was away, he wanted to know whether I would come.

"It's for Mrs. MacDerry, sir," explained my landlady. "She's old and ailing fast."

No doctor can disregard a call of such a sort, and though I had certainly not come to Skye with the idea of attending to the local man's practice during his absence, I followed my small guide to a little house some half a mile away. He left me at the door, and after a moment's hesitation I knocked. It was opened almost at once by a somewhat stern and forbidding-looking woman, who stared at me suspiciously, and then curtly inquired what I wanted.

"Nothing," I answered a little nettled by her tone. "But from the boy who led me here I gathered you wanted a doctor."

"It was Doctor Lee I sent him for," she snapped.

"Well, Doctor Lee is out," I replied. "But doubtless he will be back soon, so I'll go away."

I turned away distinctly annoyed at my reception, and was on the point of passing through the little gate when the woman overtook me.

"Are you a clever doctor?" she demanded.

"I have been told so," I remarked, suppressing a smile.

"Then come inside and see what you can do for my mistress."

"Is your mistress Mrs. MacDerry?"

"Aye," she nodded. "It's herself." Without another word she turned and led the way up the narrow path, apparently taking it for granted that I would follow.

"What's the matter with your mistress?" I asked as I reached the door.

"If you're clever you'll find out for yourself," she remarked tersely, and again I suppressed a smile. An uncompromising handmaiden this....

She left me alone in the room which in such houses is generally alluded to as the parlour, and while I waited I stared about me idly. And as I stared my vague curiosity gave way to acute surprise. Generally the furniture in such rooms must be seen to be believed: stuffed birds in glass domes, and beaded ornaments of incredible design meet one at every step. And should one lift one's eyes in a moment of panic to the walls, innumerable photographs of wedding groups leap at you in mute protest. But there was nothing of that sort in this room....

Everything was in the most exquisite taste, from the bric-a-brac on a beautiful inlaid table, to the baby Grand standing in the corner. I glanced at some of the pictures, and my surprise changed to amazement. Three at least were genuine Corots.... And the next thing that caught my eye were half a dozen pieces of Sevres....

"Will you come this way, please?" The woman's harsh voice from the door interrupted my inspection, and I followed her slowly up the stairs.

I found Mrs. MacDerry propped up in bed awaiting me. The bedroom, in the quick glance I took around it, seemed in keeping with the room below; then my attention centred on my patient. She was an old lady--sweet and fragile-looking as her own Sevres china--and it needed but a glance to see that the fires were burning low. For Mrs. MacDerry the harbour was almost reached.

"It is good of you to come, Doctor----" She paused inquiringly.

"Morton is my name," I answered gently, drawing up a chair beside the bed.

"Doctor Lee seems to be out," she continued, "and--and..."

Her voice died away, and she lay back on her pillows, while the harsh-voiced woman bent over her with a look of such infinite love on her weather-beaten face that I inwardly marvelled at the transformation.

"You see"--the invalid opened her eyes again as my fingers closed round the weak, fluttering pulse--"it's very important, Doctor Morton, that I should see my husband.... He has been up in London, and came down by the mail from Euston last night.... So he should be here in a few hours, shouldn't he?"

"He should," I answered, taking out a notebook and pencil. "Don't talk, Mrs. MacDerry ... just rest."

I scribbled a few lines and handed the paper to the maid. I knew only the simplest drugs would be available, and it was going to be a stiff fight to keep the feeble flame alight even for a few hours.

"Either go yourself, or send the boy at once to the nearest chemist for those drugs," I whispered. "There's no time to be lost...."

She left the room without a word, and once more the weak voice came from the bed.

"Can you do it, doctor; can you keep me ... till my husband comes?"

"Of course, Mrs. MacDerry, and long after he's come," I said, cheerfully; but she only shook her head with a faint smile.

"You can't deceive me," she whispered.... "Besides, I don't want to stay on.... It's finished--now; only I just want to hear from his own lips that it went off well.... That it's not all been in vain...."

And then for a while she lay very still--so still that once I thought she had gone. But she stirred again, and said a few words which I could not catch. Faintly through the open window came the ceaseless murmur of the distant sea, while from a dozen cottages on the hillside opposite little yellow beams of light shone out serenely into the darkening night. And after a while I rose and lit the lamp, shading it from the face of the woman in the bed. One swift glance I stole at her, and she was sleeping with a look of ineffable peace on her face.... Then once more I sat down to wait....

It was an hour before the maid returned with the drugs, and the slight noise she made as she entered the room roused the sleeper....

"Has he come?" she cried, eagerly, only to sink back again with a tired sigh as the maid shook her head.

"He couldn't be here yet, Mrs. MacDerry," I said, reassuringly. "Not for an hour or two.... And now I want you to drink this, please...."

Without a word she did as I told her, and once again closed her eyes.

I beckoned to the maid. "Get a hot bottle. And a little brandy...."

"Can you do it, doctor?" she said, gripping my arm tight. "Can you let him see her alive?"

"Yes--I think so.... But he will have to come to-night."