Chapter IX

_1-4-2-4-8_

A full fortnight went by, and we seemed to be simply marking time.

Warriner was still away, and I had had no word of importance from him.

Mr. Fielding Thaneford's condition showed little apparent change, but

Miss Davenport told me privately that he was failing steadily. John

Thaneford had called some half a dozen times, but his visits to the sick

room had been brief and entirely devoid of incident. Either Miss

Davenport or Betty and I took care to be present whenever he appeared,

and there had been no repetition of any untoward scene. The younger

Thaneford contented himself with a few perfunctory inquiries, never

addressing his father directly. What would have been the use, since the

line of communication had been broken? Moreover, the patient, on his

part, never manifested the least desire for more definite intercourse;

he seemed to recognize the physical presence of his son, but that was

all. And so John Thaneford would come and seem to fill the room for a

few moments with his great, black bulk, and again depart. As the door

closed behind him, there was never the slightest discernible quiver on

the immobile masque propped and bolstered in that amazing vastness of a

four-poster, but always the glitter would seem to die out of the

watchful eyes, and the slow breathing would become more regular.

Whatever the nature of the tension between father and son there could be

no question of its reality.

I had taken upon myself the delicate task of telling Eunice Trevor that

her volunteer service in the sick room could no longer be accepted. But

she acquiesced in the decision with admirably assumed indifference, and

thereafter never came near the invalid. Indeed, in those days, I hardly

saw her except at luncheon and dinner. Certainly we were not friends,

but neither were we avowed enemies; I even realized that, to some

extent, I was indispensable to the carrying out of her own tortuous

purposes. Once or twice, however, I sensed something in her voice, when

she happened to be speaking to Betty, which filled me with a vague

disquiet. For remember the knowledge I had acquired of the intimate

relations existing between this enigmatic woman and John Thaneford. It

was also certain that the latter's financial ruin was impending, and

that Betty, even without the landed ownership of the "Hundred," was

possessed of no inconsiderable fortune, and therefore a prize worth

acquiring. Not that I believed, for an instant, that a girl like Betty

Graeme would even consider such a suitor, and Eunice Trevor had said as

much to Thaneford himself; had warned him that his hopes in that

direction were assuredly futile. Yet even that certainty could be made

the foundation, in the feminine mind, of a justifiable grudge; Betty

Graeme could be kind or a good deal less than kind to John Thaneford,

and in either case Eunice Trevor would hold it up against her. Any woman

will understand how this can be, and I may as well be honest and confess

that I got my explanation from Betty herself--only that was a long time

afterward.

I can easily comprehend why no one could meet Betty Graeme without

wanting to love her, and most of us ended by actually doing so. But that

even Betty could have worked the miracle of reaching what passed with

Fielding Thaneford for a heart! It does seem incredible. And yet, if she

had not accomplished that impossible thing, I know very surely that I

should not be telling this particular story. It had been ordained that

I should succeed to the seat perilous of "Hildebrand Hundred," and

sooner or later must I have paid the predestined price of my great

possession. Truly love is the master-key to every door, but few of us

think it worth while to try it, or are even willing to make the attempt.

I have spoken of the gulf which seemed to open between Fielding

Thaneford and me from the very moment of our first meeting--unbridgable,

impassable. But Betty crossed it as easily and as surely as a bird on

the wing.

"It seems so unnatural and horrible," she said one afternoon as we were

sitting in the sick room. "There he lies within hand reach, and yet

immeasurably removed. Silence and darkness--oh, I can't bear it!"

"I think he understands what is said to him," I ventured.

"All the worse if he can't break through from his side of the wall. But

there must be a way, and I am going to find it."

She left the room, returning a few minutes later with a large square of

cardboard on which she had printed the letters of the alphabet. Now I

should have made it plain that the sole physical function remaining to

Fielding Thaneford was a limited control of the right hand; we had

learned to distinguish in its movements the two elementary expressions

of assent and dissent.

Betty went to the bedside, and gently slipped the sheet of cardboard

under the sick man's right hand. "You see what I mean, Mr. Thaneford,"

she said, with an infinite note of sympathy in her voice. "If you would

point out the letters one by one, no matter how slowly. We will both be

very patient--please now."

Fielding Thaneford's hand--the hand of a very old man, with its

thickened knuckles and swollen blue veins--quivered slightly, but

remained motionless. Yet I fancied that his glance consciously sought

the girl's face and rested there; ordinarily you felt that his gaze

merely passed over you, and then travelled inimitably onward and

outward. It was certain that he understood the proposal, even while

unwilling to act upon it. Twice she repeated the suggestion; and then,

too tactful to force the point, she smiled and withdrew the square of

cardboard. "Perhaps to-morrow," she said with exceeding gentleness,

while I marvelled that any human being could have withstood her. But

then what quality of our common humanity could inhere in that huge,

inert mass of flesh, animated, as it was, by a mere spark of conscious

intelligence.

Betty was not one to be easily discouraged. On the morrow she tried

again, and again without definite result. The third day the miracle

seemed on the point of fulfillment. Fielding Thaneford's forefinger

actually moved to the letter B, and rested there. No amount of feminine

cajolery could bring about any further compliance, but surely the first

step had been taken. "I really believe," said Betty to me, between a

smile and a tear, "that he had my name in mind." "How could he help it,"

I retorted; whereat she blushed so divinely that I could barely resist

taking her bodily in my arms--then and there, for once and for all. "You

will see to-morrow," she predicted with gay confidence.

But to-morrow brought an unexpected turn. Some subtle change had come

upon the sick man in the night, and Doctor Marcy, after the usual

examination, looked grave. "I can't be positive," he said, "but I think

he has had another slight stroke. Probably a question now of a few

hours."

Nevertheless at noon he appeared to revive, and was able to take some

gruel and the white of an egg whipped up in sherry. Miss Davenport went

for her usual constitutional, and we decided that it would not be

necessary to notify John Thaneford. The latter had not been near the

house for two days, and had not even troubled himself to telephone. But,

considered from any point of view, his absence was preferable to his

presence.

It was very quiet in the sick room. The day was warm, but not

uncomfortably so, and a cooling breeze, heavy with the fragrance of

summer flowers, drifted in at the casement windows.

Suddenly Betty seized her square of cardboard. "He wants to say

something?" she whispered, as she passed me. "Don't you see it in his

face?" But I, being a man, and so dull of understanding, could only nod

and wonder dumbly.

Too late it seemed, for the stiffening fingers had lost even the small

powers of functioning that they had hitherto preserved. Even I could now

see that Fielding Thaneford was desirous of speaking some last word, of

voicing some final message. But, apparently, coordination between brain

and muscle had ceased entirely. Absorbed and intent, Betty leaned over

him. "Is it John?" she asked. The hand achieved an almost imperceptible

motion, but both of us recognized the emphatic quality of its dissent.

"Oh!" cried Betty, with an overwhelming rush of sympathy, and took the

almost nerveless member into the intimate fellowship of her two warm,

exquisitely sensitive palms. Do you remember my speaking of the supreme

distinction of her handclasp; how it seemed to fit so perfectly?

Yes, it was undeniably evident that the spirit of Fielding Thaneford was

striving desperately to rend its clayey envelope, and deliver its

message in terms intelligible to mortal senses. But surely the vehicle

was wanting; it could not be. And then, quite certainly, I knew that

something had been transmitted through the mediumship of that intimate

handclasp. Betty's eyes grew luminous as stars; she whispered some words

too low for me to hear. "Is that it?" she concluded. The fast glazing

eyes said yes, as plainly as lips could have uttered the word.

What had happened? Suddenly the spark of life behind the monstrous

masque that had been Fielding Thaneford's face had disappeared; quite as

when the wind extinguishes the candle in a paper lantern. Betty turned

to me in a rain of tears. "He is gone," she murmured.

* * * * *

Strange! that I of all men should be the one to compose Fielding

Thaneford's hands upon his breast and close his sightless eyes. But

life's obligations are none the less imperative that they are

unforeseen. The man lying dead upon the bed had never spoken a single

word to me; indeed our glances had met but once, and then had instantly

fallen away. How could we be other than eternally alien, and yet these

final offices to our common mortality had fallen to my hand. And it was

still short of a month since the messenger of fate had brought me the

invitation to attend the funeral services of my kinsman, Francis Graeme.

* * * * *

Miss Davenport came back from her walk, and assumed charge of affairs

with her accustomed efficiency. I offered to do the telephoning to John

Thaneford, but Betty determined that the announcement ought to come from

her. Just before dinner he drove over, and remained in the room for

perhaps a quarter of an hour. None of us saw him, but he had the grace

to leave a brief word of thanks to Betty for the profusion of white

carnations that she had insisted on cutting and arranging with her own

hands.

Late that evening Betty came to me on the library terrace where I sat

smoking innumerable cigarettes. "You know he tried to tell me something

at the end," she said.

"Yes."

"All he could manage was just the slightest possible pressure of the

hand. A succession of numbers then."

"Do you want to tell me what the numbers were?"

"Of course. They were 1-4-2-4-8. I am sure I got them correctly."

"Not much to be made out of that," I commented.

"No, but I feel certain that he meant something by the message,

something of importance."

"To whom?"

"How can anyone say? Will you write the figures down, so that there can

be no possibility of my forgetting."

I pulled out my note-book, and inscribed the unintelligible formula:

1-4-2-4-8. The resolution of the problem naturally intrigued me, and the

obvious first line of approach was the application of the old Russian

"knock" system in which each letter is identified with its numerical

position in the alphabetical sequence. I explained the theory to Betty,

and she was all eagerness for me to try it out. It took but a moment or

two to replace the numbers by their corresponding letters; for example,

the figure 1 stands for A, the first letter of the alphabet, and the

figure 4 represents the fourth letter or D. The complete series read:

A-D-B-D-H.

"Not even a vowel to juggle with," I said ruefully. "Blinder than ever,

I should say."

"But it does mean something," returned Betty stoutly. "And some day we

shall know."