Tales and Fantasies

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson >> Tales and Fantasies

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

His next conscious moment was on the Dean Bridge; but whether
he was John Nicholson of a bank in a California street, or
some former John, a clerk in his father's office, he had now
clean forgotten. Another blank, and he was thrusting his
pass-key into the door-lock of his father's house.

Hours must have passed. Whether crouched on the cold stones
or wandering in the fields among the snow, was more than he
could tell; but hours had passed. The finger of the hall
clock was close on twelve; a narrow peep of gas in the hall-
lamp shed shadows; and the door of the back room - his
father's room - was open and emitted a warm light. At so
late an hour, all this was strange; the lights should have
been out, the doors locked, the good folk safe in bed. He
marvelled at the irregularity, leaning on the hall-table; and
marvelled to himself there; and thawed and grew once more
hungry, in the warmer air of the house.

The clock uttered its premonitory catch; in five minutes
Christmas-day would be among the days of the past -
Christmas! - what a Christmas! Well, there was no use
waiting; he had come into that house, he scarce knew how; if
they were to thrust him forth again, it had best be done at
once; and he moved to the door of the back room and entered.

Oh, well, then he was insane, as he had long believed.

There, in his father's room, at midnight, the fire was
roaring and the gas blazing; the papers, the sacred papers -
to lay a hand on which was criminal - had all been taken off
and piled along the floor; a cloth was spread, and a supper
laid, upon the business table; and in his father's chair a
woman, habited like a nun, sat eating. As he appeared in the
doorway, the nun rose, gave a low cry, and stood staring.
She was a large woman, strong, calm, a little masculine, her
features marked with courage and good sense; and as John
blinked back at her, a faint resemblance dodged about his
memory, as when a tune haunts us, and yet will not be
recalled.

'Why, it's John!' cried the nun.

'I dare say I'm mad,' said John, unconsciously following King
Lear; 'but, upon my word, I do believe you're Flora.'

'Of course I am,' replied she.

And yet it is not Flora at all, thought John; Flora was
slender, and timid, and of changing colour, and dewy-eyed;
and had Flora such an Edinburgh accent? But he said none of
these things, which was perhaps as well. What he said was,
'Then why are you a nun?'

'Such nonsense!' said Flora. 'I'm a sick-nurse; and I am
here nursing your sister, with whom, between you and me,
there is precious little the matter. But that is not the
question. The point is: How do you come here? and are you
not ashamed to show yourself?'

'Flora,' said John, sepulchrally, 'I haven't eaten anything
for three days. Or, at least, I don't know what day it is;
but I guess I'm starving.'

'You unhappy man!' she cried. 'Here, sit down and eat my
supper; and I'll just run upstairs and see my patient; not
but what I doubt she's fast asleep, for Maria is a MALADE
IMAGINAIRE.'

With this specimen of the French, not of Stratford-atte-Bowe,
but of a finishing establishment in Moray Place, she left
John alone in his father's sanctum. He fell at once upon the
food; and it is to be supposed that Flora had found her
patient wakeful, and been detained with some details of
nursing, for he had time to make a full end of all there was
to eat, and not only to empty the teapot, but to fill it
again from a kettle that was fitfully singing on his father's
fire. Then he sat torpid, and pleased, and bewildered; his
misfortunes were then half forgotten; his mind considering,
not without regret, this unsentimental return to his old
love.

He was thus engaged, when that bustling woman noiselessly re-
entered.

'Have you eaten?' said she. 'Then tell me all about it.'

It was a long and (as the reader knows) a pitiful story; but
Flora heard it with compressed lips. She was lost in none of
those questionings of human destiny that have, from time to
time, arrested the flight of my own pen; for women, such as
she, are no philosophers, and behold the concrete only. And
women, such as she, are very hard on the imperfect man.

'Very well,' said she, when he had done; 'then down upon your
knees at once, and beg God's forgiveness.'

And the great baby plumped upon his knees, and did as he was
bid; and none the worse for that! But while he was heartily
enough requesting forgiveness on general principles, the
rational side of him distinguished, and wondered if, perhaps,
the apology were not due upon the other part. And when he
rose again from that becoming exercise, he first eyed the
face of his old love doubtfully, and then, taking heart,
uttered his protest.

'I must say, Flora,' said he, 'in all this business, I can
see very little fault of mine.'

'If you had written home,' replied the lady, 'there would
have been none of it. If you had even gone to Murrayfield
reasonably sober, you would never have slept there, and the
worst would not have happened. Besides, the whole thing
began years ago. You got into trouble, and when your father,
honest man, was disappointed, you took the pet, or got
afraid, and ran away from punishment. Well, you've had your
own way of it, John, and I don't suppose you like it.'

'I sometimes fancy I'm not much better than a fool,' sighed
John.

'My dear John,' said she, 'not much!'

He looked at her, and his eye fell. A certain anger rose
within him; here was a Flora he disowned; she was hard; she
was of a set colour; a settled, mature, undecorative manner;
plain of speech, plain of habit - he had come near saying,
plain of face. And this changeling called herself by the
same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid of yore; she of
the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind,
stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper
hand with him, which (as John well knew) was not the true
relation of the sexes. He steeled his heart against this
sick-nurse.

'And how do you come to be here?' he asked.

She told him how she had nursed her father in his long
illness, and when he died, and she was left alone, had taken
to nurse others, partly from habit, partly to be of some
service in the world; partly, it might be, for amusement.
'There's no accounting for taste,' said she. And she told
him how she went largely to the houses of old friends, as the
need arose; and how she was thus doubly welcome as an old
friend first, and then as an experienced nurse, to whom
doctors would confide the gravest cases.

'And, indeed, it's a mere farce my being here for poor
Maria,' she continued; 'but your father takes her ailments to
heart, and I cannot always be refusing him. We are great
friends, your father and I; he was very kind to me long ago -
ten years ago.

A strange stir came in John's heart. All this while had he
been thinking only of himself? All this while, why had he
not written to Flora? In penitential tenderness, he took her
hand, and, to his awe and trouble, it remained in his,
compliant. A voice told him this was Flora, after all - told
him so quietly, yet with a thrill of singing.

'And you never married?' said he.

'No, John; I never married,' she replied.

The hall clock striking two recalled them to the sense of
time.

'And now,' said she, 'you have been fed and warmed, and I
have heard your story, and now it's high time to call your
brother.'

'Oh!' cried John, chap-fallen; 'do you think that absolutely
necessary?'

'I can't keep you here; I am a stranger,' said she. 'Do you
want to run away again? I thought you had enough of that.'

He bowed his head under the reproof. She despised him, he
reflected, as he sat once more alone; a monstrous thing for a
woman to despise a man; and strangest of all, she seemed to
like him. Would his brother despise him, too? And would his
brother like him?

And presently the brother appeared, under Flora's escort;
and, standing afar off beside the doorway, eyed the hero of
this tale.

'So this is you?' he said, at length.

'Yes, Alick, it's me - it's John,' replied the elder brother,
feebly.

'And how did you get in here?' inquired the younger.

'Oh, I had my pass-key,' says John.

'The deuce you had!' said Alexander. 'Ah, you lived in a
better world! There are no pass-keys going now.'

'Well, father was always averse to them,' sighed John. And
the conversation then broke down, and the brothers looked
askance at one another in silence.

'Well, and what the devil are we to do?' said Alexander. 'I
suppose if the authorities got wind of you, you would be
taken up?'

'It depends on whether they've found the body or not,'
returned John. 'And then there's that cabman, to be sure!'

'Oh, bother the body!' said Alexander. 'I mean about the
other thing. That's serious.'

'Is that what my father spoke about?' asked John. 'I don't
even know what it is.'

'About your robbing your bank in California, of course,'
replied Alexander.

It was plain, from Flora's face, that this was the first she
had heard of it; it was plainer still, from John's, that he
was innocent.

'I!' he exclaimed. 'I rob my bank! My God! Flora, this is
too much; even you must allow that.'

'Meaning you didn't?' asked Alexander.

'I never robbed a soul in all my days,' cried John: 'except
my father, if you call that robbery; and I brought him back
the money in this room, and he wouldn't even take it!'

'Look here, John,' said his brother, 'let us have no
misunderstanding upon this. Macewen saw my father; he told
him a bank you had worked for in San Francisco was wiring
over the habitable globe to have you collared - that it was
supposed you had nailed thousands; and it was dead certain
you had nailed three hundred. So Macewen said, and I wish
you would be careful how you answer. I may tell you also,
that your father paid the three hundred on the spot.'

'Three hundred?' repeated John. 'Three hundred pounds, you
mean? That's fifteen hundred dollars. Why, then, it's
Kirkman!' he broke out. 'Thank Heaven! I can explain all
that. I gave them to Kirkman to pay for me the night before
I left - fifteen hundred dollars, and a letter to the
manager. What do they suppose I would steal fifteen hundred
dollars for? I'm rich; I struck it rich in stocks. It's the
silliest stuff I ever heard of. All that's needful is to
cable to the manager: Kirkman has the fifteen hundred - find
Kirkman. He was a fellow-clerk of mine, and a hard case; but
to do him justice, I didn't think he was as hard as this.'

'And what do you say to that, Alick?' asked Flora.

'I say the cablegram shall go to-night!' cried Alexander,
with energy. 'Answer prepaid, too. If this can be cleared
away - and upon my word I do believe it can - we shall all be
able to hold up our heads again. Here, you John, you stick
down the address of your bank manager. You, Flora, you can
pack John into my bed, for which I have no further use to-
night. As for me, I am off to the post-office, and thence to
the High Street about the dead body. The police ought to
know, you see, and they ought to know through John; and I can
tell them some rigmarole about my brother being a man of
highly nervous organisation, and the rest of it. And then,
I'll tell you what, John - did you notice the name upon the
cab?'

John gave the name of the driver, which, as I have not been
able to command the vehicle, I here suppress.

'Well,' resumed Alexander, 'I'll call round at their place
before I come back, and pay your shot for you. In that way,
before breakfast-time, you'll be as good as new.'

John murmured inarticulate thanks. To see his brother thus
energetic in his service moved him beyond expression; if he
could not utter what he felt, he showed it legibly in his
face; and Alexander read it there, and liked it the better in
that dumb delivery.

'But there's one thing,' said the latter, 'cablegrams are
dear; and I dare say you remember enough of the governor to
guess the state of my finances.'

'The trouble is,' said John, 'that all my stamps are in that
beastly house.'

'All your what?' asked Alexander.

'Stamps - money,' explained John. 'It's an American
expression; I'm afraid I contracted one or two.'

'I have some,' said Flora. 'I have a pound note upstairs.'

'My dear Flora,' returned Alexander, 'a pound note won't see
us very far; and besides, this is my father's business, and I
shall be very much surprised if it isn't my father who pays
for it.'

'I would not apply to him yet; I do not think that can be
wise,' objected Flora.

'You have a very imperfect idea of my resources, and not at
all of my effrontery,' replied Alexander. 'Please observe.'

He put John from his way, chose a stout knife among the
supper things, and with surprising quickness broke into his
father's drawer.

'There's nothing easier when you come to try,' he observed,
pocketing the money.

'I wish you had not done that,' said Flora. 'You will never
hear the last of it.'

'Oh, I don't know,' returned the young man; 'the governor is
human after all. And now, John, let me see your famous pass-
key. Get into bed, and don't move for any one till I come
back. They won't mind you not answering when they knock; I
generally don't myself.'

CHAPTER IX - IN WHICH MR. NICHOLSON ACCEPTS THE PRINCIPLE OF
AN ALLOWANCE

IN spite of the horrors of the day and the tea-drinking of
the night, John slept the sleep of infancy. He was awakened
by the maid, as it might have been ten years ago, tapping at
the door. The winter sunrise was painting the east; and as
the window was to the back of the house, it shone into the
room with many strange colours of refracted light. Without,
the houses were all cleanly roofed with snow; the garden
walls were coped with it a foot in height; the greens lay
glittering. Yet strange as snow had grown to John during his
years upon the Bay of San Francisco, it was what he saw
within that most affected him. For it was to his own room
that Alexander had been promoted; there was the old paper
with the device of flowers, in which a cunning fancy might
yet detect the face of Skinny Jim, of the Academy, John's
former dominie; there was the old chest of drawers; there
were the chairs - one, two, three - three as before. Only
the carpet was new, and the litter of Alexander's clothes and
books and drawing materials, and a pencil-drawing on the
wall, which (in John's eyes) appeared a marvel of
proficiency.

He was thus lying, and looking, and dreaming, hanging, as it
were, between two epochs of his life, when Alexander came to
the door, and made his presence known in a loud whisper.
John let him in, and jumped back into the warm bed.

'Well, John,' said Alexander, 'the cablegram is sent in your
name, and twenty words of answer paid. I have been to the
cab office and paid your cab, even saw the old gentleman
himself, and properly apologised. He was mighty placable,
and indicated his belief you had been drinking. Then I
knocked up old Macewen out of bed, and explained affairs to
him as he sat and shivered in a dressing-gown. And before
that I had been to the High Street, where they have heard
nothing of your dead body, so that I incline to the idea that
you dreamed it.'

'Catch me!' said John.

'Well, the police never do know anything,' assented
Alexander; 'and at any rate, they have despatched a man to
inquire and to recover your trousers and your money, so that
really your bill is now fairly clean; and I see but one lion
in your path - the governor.'

'I'll be turned out again, you'll see,' said John, dismally.

'I don't imagine so,' returned the other; 'not if you do what
Flora and I have arranged; and your business now is to dress,
and lose no time about it. Is your watch right? Well, you
have a quarter of an hour. By five minutes before the half-
hour you must be at table, in your old seat, under Uncle
Duthie's picture. Flora will be there to keep you
countenance; and we shall see what we shall see.'

'Wouldn't it be wiser for me to stay in bed?' said John.

'If you mean to manage your own concerns, you can do
precisely what you like,' replied Alexander; 'but if you are
not in your place five minutes before the half-hour I wash my
hands of you, for one.'

And thereupon he departed. He had spoken warmly, but the
truth is, his heart was somewhat troubled. And as he hung
over the balusters, watching for his father to appear, he had
hard ado to keep himself braced for the encounter that must
follow.

'If he takes it well, I shall be lucky,' he reflected.

'If he takes it ill, why it'll be a herring across John's
tracks, and perhaps all for the best. He's a confounded
muff, this brother of mine, but he seems a decent soul.'

At that stage a door opened below with a certain emphasis,
and Mr. Nicholson was seen solemnly to descend the stairs,
and pass into his own apartment. Alexander followed, quaking
inwardly, but with a steady face. He knocked, was bidden to
enter, and found his father standing in front of the forced
drawer, to which he pointed as he spoke.

'This is a most extraordinary thing,' said he; 'I have been
robbed!'

'I was afraid you would notice it,' observed his son; 'it
made such a beastly hash of the table.'

'You were afraid I would notice it?' repeated Mr. Nicholson.
'And, pray, what may that mean?'

'That I was a thief, sir,' returned Alexander. 'I took all
the money in case the servants should get hold of it; and
here is the change, and a note of my expenditure. You were
gone to bed, you see, and I did not feel at liberty to knock
you up; but I think when you have heard the circumstances,
you will do me justice. The fact is, I have reason to
believe there has been some dreadful error about my brother
John; the sooner it can be cleared up the better for all
parties; it was a piece of business, sir - and so I took it,
and decided, on my own responsibility, to send a telegram to
San Francisco. Thanks to my quickness we may hear to-night.
There appears to be no doubt, sir, that John has been
abominably used.'

'When did this take place?' asked the father.

'Last night, sir, after you were asleep,' was the reply.

'It's most extraordinary,' said Mr. Nicholson. 'Do you mean
to say you have been out all night?'

'All night, as you say, sir. I have been to the telegraph
and the police office, and Mr. Macewen's. Oh, I had my hands
full,' said Alexander.

'Very irregular,' said the father. 'You think of no one but
yourself.'

'I do not see that I have much to gain in bringing back my
elder brother,' returned Alexander, shrewdly.

The answer pleased the old man; he smiled. 'Well, well, I
will go into this after breakfast,' said he.

'I'm sorry about the table,' said the son.

'The table is a small matter; I think nothing of that,' said
the father.

'It's another example,' continued the son, 'of the
awkwardness of a man having no money of his own. If I had a
proper allowance, like other fellows of my age, this would
have been quite unnecessary.'

'A proper allowance!' repeated his father, in tones of
blighting sarcasm, for the expression was not new to him. 'I
have never grudged you money for any proper purpose.'

'No doubt, no doubt,' said Alexander, 'but then you see you
aren't always on the spot to have the thing explained to you.
Last night, for instance - '

'You could have wakened me last night,' interrupted his
father.

'Was it not some similar affair that first got John into a
mess?' asked the son, skilfully evading the point.

But the father was not less adroit. 'And pray, sir, how did
you come and go out of the house?' he asked.

'I forgot to lock the door, it seems,' replied Alexander.

'I have had cause to complain of that too often,' said Mr.
Nicholson. 'But still I do not understand. Did you keep the
servants up?'

'I propose to go into all that at length after breakfast,'
returned Alexander. 'There is the half-hour going; we must
not keep Miss Mackenzie waiting.'

And greatly daring, he opened the door.

Even Alexander, who, it must have been perceived was on terms
of comparative freedom with his parent - even Alexander had
never before dared to cut short an interview in this high-
handed fashion. But the truth is, the very mass of his son's
delinquencies daunted the old gentleman. He was like the man
with the cart of apples - this was beyond him! That
Alexander should have spoiled his table, taken his money,
stayed out all night, and then coolly acknowledged all, was
something undreamed of in the Nicholsonian philosophy, and
transcended comment. The return of the change, which the old
gentleman still carried in his hand, had been a feature of
imposing impudence; it had dealt him a staggering blow. Then
there was the reference to John's original flight - a subject
which he always kept resolutely curtained in his own mind;
for he was a man who loved to have made no mistakes, and when
he feared he might have made one kept the papers sealed. In
view of all these surprises and reminders, and of his son's
composed and masterful demeanour, there began to creep on Mr.
Nicholson a sickly misgiving. He seemed beyond his depth; if
he did or said anything, he might come to regret it. The
young man, besides, as he had pointed out himself, was
playing a generous part. And if wrong had been done - and
done to one who was, after, and in spite of, all, a Nicholson
- it should certainly be righted.

All things considered, monstrous as it was to be cut short in
his inquiries, the old gentleman submitted, pocketed the
change, and followed his son into the dining-room. During
these few steps he once more mentally revolted, and once
more, and this time finally, laid down his arms: a still,
small voice in his bosom having informed him authentically of
a piece of news; that he was afraid of Alexander. The
strange thing was that he was pleased to be afraid of him.
He was proud of his son; he might be proud of him; the boy
had character and grit, and knew what he was doing.

These were his reflections as he turned the corner of the
dining-room door. Miss Mackenzie was in the place of honour,
conjuring with a tea-pot and a cosy; and, behold! there was
another person present, a large, portly, whiskered man of a
very comfortable and respectable air, who now rose from his
seat and came forward, holding out his hand.

'Good-morning, father,' said he.

Of the contention of feeling that ran high in Mr. Nicholson's
starched bosom, no outward sign was visible; nor did he delay
long to make a choice of conduct. Yet in that interval he
had reviewed a great field of possibilities both past and
future; whether it was possible he had not been perfectly
wise in his treatment of John; whether it was possible that
John was innocent; whether, if he turned John out a second
time, as his outraged authority suggested, it was possible to
avoid a scandal; and whether, if he went to that extremity,
it was possible that Alexander might rebel.

'Hum!' said Mr. Nicholson, and put his hand, limp and dead,
into John's.

And then, in an embarrassed silence, all took their places;
and even the paper - from which it was the old gentleman's
habit to suck mortification daily, as he marked the decline
of our institutions - even the paper lay furled by his side.

But presently Flora came to the rescue. She slid into the
silence with a technicality, asking if John still took his
old inordinate amount of sugar. Thence it was but a step to
the burning question of the day; and in tones a little
shaken, she commented on the interval since she had last made
tea for the prodigal, and congratulated him on his return.
And then addressing Mr. Nicholson, she congratulated him also
in a manner that defied his ill-humour; and from that
launched into the tale of John's misadventures, not without
some suitable suppressions.

Gradually Alexander joined; between them, whether he would or
no, they forced a word or two from John; and these fell so
tremulously, and spoke so eloquently of a mind oppressed with
dread, that Mr. Nicholson relented. At length even he
contributed a question: and before the meal was at an end all
four were talking even freely.

Prayers followed, with the servants gaping at this new-comer
whom no one had admitted; and after prayers there came that
moment on the clock which was the signal for Mr. Nicholson's
departure.

'John,' said he, 'of course you will stay here. Be very
careful not to excite Maria, if Miss Mackenzie thinks it
desirable that you should see her. Alexander, I wish to
speak with you alone.' And then, when they were both in the
back room: 'You need not come to the office to-day,' said he;
'you can stay and amuse your brother, and I think it would be
respectful to call on Uncle Greig. And by the bye' (this
spoken with a certain- dare we say? - bashfulness), 'I agree
to concede the principle of an allowance; and I will consult
with Doctor Durie, who is quite a man of the world and has
sons of his own, as to the amount. And, my fine fellow, you
may consider yourself in luck!' he added, with a smile.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12