The Light That Failed Part 40

There was a sound of chanting from d.i.c.k's room.

'We'll never come back any more, boys, We'll never come back no more; We'll go to the deuce on any excuse, And never come back no more!

Oh say we're afloat or ash.o.r.e, boys, Oh say we're afloat or ash.o.r.e; But we'll never come back any more, boys, We'll never come back no more!'

'Mr. Beeton! Mr. Beeton! Where the deuce is my pistol?'

'Quick, he's going to shoot himself--'avin' gone mad!' said Mrs. Beeton.

Mr. Beeton addressed d.i.c.k soothingly, but it was some time before the latter, thres.h.i.+ng up and down his bedroom, could realise the intention of the promises to 'find everything to-morrow, sir.'

'Oh, you copper-nosed old fool--you impotent Academician!' he shouted at last. 'Do you suppose I want to shoot myself? Take the pistol in your silly shaking hand then. If you touch it, it will go off, because it's loaded.

It's among my campaign-kit somewhere--in the parcel at the bottom of the trunk.'

Long ago d.i.c.k had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was this put-away treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr.

Beeton whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and d.i.c.k drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth leg-bands, and the heavy flannel s.h.i.+rts doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin case of stationery.

'These we don't want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else I'll keep. Pack 'em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you've done that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute; get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper.'

It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and d.i.c.k had particular reasons for wis.h.i.+ng that his work should be clear. So he began, following his right hand with his left: '"The badness of this writing is because I am blind and cannot see my pen." H'mph!--even a lawyer can't mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn't be witnessed. Now an inch lower--why did I never learn to use a type-writer?--"This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Heldar. I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous will to revoke."--That's all right. d.a.m.n the pen! Whereabouts on the paper was I?--"I leave everything that I possess in the world, including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight pounds held for me"--oh, I can't get this straight.' He tore off half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting.

Then: 'I leave all the money I possess in the world to'--here followed Maisie's name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.

'It mayn't be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to dispute it, and I've given Maisie's address. Come in, Mr. Beeton.

This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks.

To-morrow you must take me to the landlord and I'll pay forfeit for leaving without notice, and I'll lodge this paper with him in case anything happens while I'm away. Now we're going to light up the studio stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want 'em.'

No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year's acc.u.mulation of bills, letters, and dockets can make. d.i.c.k stuffed into the stove every doc.u.ment in the studio--saving only three unopened letters; destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases alike.

'What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough in one place, to be sure,' said Mr. Beeton, at last.

'He does. Is there anything more left?' d.i.c.k felt round the walls.

'Not a thing, and the stove's nigh red-hot.'

'Excellent, and you've lost about a thousand pounds' worth of sketches.

Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds' worth, if I can remember what I used to be.'

'Yes, sir,' politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that d.i.c.k had gone mad, otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of the way.

There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could not be accomplished till to-morrow. d.i.c.k groped about the floor picking up the last pieces of paper, a.s.sured himself again and again that there remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk, and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting iron cracked in the silence of the night.

CHAPTER XV

With a heart of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander; With a burning spear and a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander.

With a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney-- Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end, Methinks it is no journey.

--Tom a' Bedlam's Song.

'GOOD-BYE, Bess; I promised you fifty. Here's a hundred--all that I got for my furniture from Beeton. That will keep you in pretty frocks for some time. You've been a good little girl, all things considered, but you've given me and Torpenhow a fair amount of trouble.'

'Give Mr. Torpenhow my love if you see him, won't you?'

'Of course I will, dear. Now take me up the gang-plank and into the cabin. Once aboard the lugger and the maid is--and I am free, I mean.'

'Who'll look after you on this s.h.i.+p?'

'The head-steward, if there's any use in money. The doctor when we come to Port Said, if I know anything of P. and O. doctors. After that, the Lord will provide, as He used to do.'

Bess found d.i.c.k his cabin in the wild turmoil of a s.h.i.+p full of leavetakers and weeping relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid himself down in his bunk until the decks should be clear. He who had taken so long to move about his own darkened rooms well understood the geography of a s.h.i.+p, and the necessity of seeing to his own comforts was as wine to him.

Before the screw began to thrash the s.h.i.+p along the Docks he had been introduced to the head-steward, had royally tipped him, secured a good place at table, opened out his baggage, and settled himself down with joy in the cabin. It was scarcely necessary to feel his way as he moved about, for he knew everything so well. Then G.o.d was very kind: a deep sleep of weariness came upon him just as he would have thought of Maisie, and he slept till the steamer had cleared the mouth of the Thames and was lifting to the pulse of the Channel.

The rattle of the engines, the reek of oil and paint, and a very familiar sound in the next cabin roused him to his new inheritance.

'Oh, it's good to be alive again!' He yawned, stretched himself vigorously, and went on deck to be told that they were almost abreast of the lights of Brighton. This is no more open water than Trafalgar Square is a common; the free levels begin at Ushant; but none the less d.i.c.k could feel the healing of the sea at work upon him already. A boisterous little cross-swell swung the steamer disrespectfully by the nose; and one wave breaking far aft spattered the quarterdeck and the pile of new deck-chairs. He heard the foam fall with the clash of broken gla.s.s, was stung in the face by a cupful, and sniffing luxuriously, felt his way to the smoking-room by the wheel. There a strong breeze found him, blew his cap off and left him bareheaded in the doorway, and the smoking-room steward, understanding that he was a voyager of experience, said that the weather would be stiff in the chops off the Channel and more than half a gale in the Bay. These things fell as they were foretold, and d.i.c.k enjoyed himself to the utmost. It is allowable and even necessary at sea to lay firm hold upon tables, stanchions, and ropes in moving from place to place. On land the man who feels with his hands is patently blind. At sea even a blind man who is not sea-sick can jest with the doctor over the weakness of his fellows. d.i.c.k told the doctor many tales--and these are coin of more value than silver if properly handled--smoked with him till unholy hours of the night, and so won his short-lived regard that he promised d.i.c.k a few hours of his time when they came to Port Said.

And the sea roared or was still as the winds blew, and the engines sang their song day and night, and the sun grew stronger day by day, and Tom the Lascar barber shaved d.i.c.k of a morning under the opened hatch-grating where the cool winds blew, and the awnings were spread and the pa.s.sengers made merry, and at last they came to Port Said.

'Take me,' said d.i.c.k, to the doctor, 'to Madame Binat's--if you know where that is.'

'Whew!' said the doctor, 'I do. There's not much to choose between 'em; but I suppose you're aware that that's one of the worst houses in the place. They'll rob you to begin with, and knife you later.'

'Not they. Take me there, and I can look after myself.'

So he was brought to Madame Binat's and filled his nostrils with the well-remembered smell of the East, that runs without a change from the Ca.n.a.l head to Hong-Kong, and his mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca of the Levant. The heat smote him between the shoulder-blades with the buffet of an old friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his coat-sleeve was warm as new-baked bread when he lifted it to his nose.

Madame Binat smiled with the smile that knows no astonishment when d.i.c.k entered the drinking-shop which was one source of her gains. But for a little accident of complete darkness he could hardly realise that he had ever quitted the old life that hummed in his ears. Somebody opened a bottle of peculiarly strong Schiedam. The smell reminded d.i.c.k of Monsieur Binat, who, by the way, had spoken of art and degradation.

Binat was dead; Madame said as much when the doctor departed, scandalised, so far as a s.h.i.+p's doctor can be, at the warmth of d.i.c.k's reception. d.i.c.k was delighted at it. 'They remember me here after a year. They have forgotten me across the water by this time. Madame, I want a long talk with you when you're at liberty. It is good to be back again.'

In the evening she set an iron-topped cafe-table out on the sands, and d.i.c.k and she sat by it, while the house behind them filled with riot, merriment, oaths, and threats. The stars came out and the lights of the s.h.i.+pping in the harbour twinkled by the head of the Ca.n.a.l.

'Yes. The war is good for trade, my friend; but what dost thou do here?

We have not forgotten thee.'

'I was over there in England and I went blind.'

'But there was the glory first. We heard of it here, even here--I and Binat; and thou hast used the head of Yellow 'Tina--she is still alive--so often and so well that 'Tina laughed when the papers arrived by the mail-boats. It was always something that we here could recognise in the paintings. And then there was always the glory and the money for thee.'

'I am not poor--I shall pay you well.'

'Not to me. Thou hast paid for everything.' Under her breath, 'Mon Dieu, to be blind and so young! What horror!'

d.i.c.k could not see her face with the pity on it, or his own with the discoloured hair at the temples. He did not feel the need of pity; he was too anxious to get to the front once more, and explained his desire.