"I must say it. There are hundreds of people saying it. And I am his son--the son of a scoundrel."
If Arthur had not been blinded by his anger he would have known why Mrs. Bundy sought to stop the torrent of his words. For, while he was speaking, young Scales had entered the house, and stood in the doorway watching this unusual scene. The Scales family had returned that evening from their holiday, and it had occurred to young Benjamin Scales to call at Mrs. Bundy"s, where he would be sure to find some of his acquaintance. Young Benjamin was not a pleasant youth; he had a mean, narrow face, like his father, and wore eye-gla.s.ses, not from any defect of vision, but because he imagined that they gave him an air of cleverness, and among his strong antipathies was jealousy of Arthur.
So what more natural than that he should seize avidly on Arthur"s angry words, and duly report them to his father, who in turn waited his opportunity of reporting them to Archibold Masterman.
The opportunity came a few days later, when Scales went to Brighton to see Masterman upon the Leatham business, which was still undecided.
Scales knew very well why it was undecided, and his grudge against Arthur had grown by careful nursing. And now, thanks to Arthur"s angry words, he had the means of avenging himself.
Masterman had, of course, read Arthur"s report, and was secretly delighted with it. It was an admirable piece of writing, plain and convincing, and it was expressed with a lucidity to which he was not accustomed in similar doc.u.ments. "The boy has brains," he said, as he read it; "he will go far." It was the first time he had tested those brains on any practical affair, and his pride in his son was great.
"I"m not at all sure Arthur isn"t right," he said to Scales, and so he had postponed decision from day to day.
But the time had now come when the decision must be made, and Scales was fully resolved that that decision should be favourable to his own interests.
"I don"t deny," he said, "that your son"s report is admirably done, but you must recollect that he has no real experience of business. And besides----"
"Besides what?"
"I don"t think he will ever understand business."
"Why not?"
"From words he said to me. From words he has said to others."
"What words? Tell me plainly what you mean?"
"I had rather not."
"Now look here, Scales," said Masterman, "either you have said too much or not enough. In a few weeks Arthur will be my partner, and the sooner you begin to think of him in that way the better for our future relations."
"I don"t think he will ever be your partner," said Scales quietly.
"Why not?"
"Because he is a wild, impracticable boy," said Scales, throwing away his caution. "Because he told me that business--your business and mine--was, in his opinion, organised theft. Because he has been going about saying that you are a scoundrel----"
"What"s that?" cried Masterman, rising to his feet. His face was pale and terrible, and his att.i.tude so menacing that Scales was afraid. But in that mean heart hate was stronger than fear, and it supplied a certain desperate courage.
"I didn"t mean to tell you, sir. But you ought to know it. Ask what he has been doing in London this last fortnight. Ask him where he has been. I can tell you. He has been living with Hilary Vickars, he has been making love to his daughter. Vickars is a Socialist. And your son shares his views, and he has said publicly that your methods of business prove you a scoundrel."
"Is that true?" said Masterman.
"It is G.o.d"s truth. Do you think I would have come between father and son with a lie that was bound to be found out."
"No; I believe if you lied, you"d choose a safe lie, Scales," he said bitterly.
"You are unjust to me, sir. I have never lied to you. I don"t lie now."
"That will do," said Masterman.
"But what will you do?"
"That"s my affair," he retorted grimly.
"But it"s my affair too, sir. I want to know whether your son"s report is to go against my experience and yours? whether you will complete this Leatham purchase or not?"
"Ah! I wasn"t thinking of that." He turned away, and stood for some moments looking out of the window in silence. Then he walked rapidly to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out Arthur"s report. "This is my reply," he said. He tore it in pieces, slowly, almost methodically, and trampled it beneath his feet. "Come in an hour," he added. "I will sign the purchase papers. Now go."
"I hope you"ll forgive me, sir----"
"What"s that?" he roared in sudden rage. ""Go!" I said. Man, can"t you see I"m dangerous? Go----"
The door banged behind the retreating Scales, and Archibold Masterman was alone.
So this was the end of all his hopes, his dreams, his ambitious purposes for Arthur! For he did not think of doubting the story Scales had told him. He knew very well that Scales would never have dared to tell the story if it were not true. In a swift moment of agonised apprehension he knew also that there had always been an element of insecurity in those very hopes and purposes on which he had set his heart so eagerly. His son had always stood aloof from him, there had always been some impalpable barrier between them. Yet of late he had been much less conscious of this barrier than he had ever been. Arthur had shown himself willing to meet his father"s wishes, and in the Leatham business he had displayed practical faculties for which he had not given him credit. Instinctively Masterman knew that something had happened of which even Scales had not the clue.
If Arthur had been guilty of any of the common indiscretions of youth, he could have forgiven him readily; he would indeed have almost welcomed the opportunity, since it would have destroyed the barrier between them. But this was a different matter. He caught a galling vision of his son as his judge and critic publicly condemning him; no father could condone that. He had been too lenient with him, too generous. He had as good as admitted his superiority, he had even been humble before him. And this was the result--his son forgot all grat.i.tude, all decency even, and denounced him as a scoundrel. The word stung him like a gadfly. His heart began to harden into cold, pitiless anger towards his son.
Yet he must give him a hearing. That was only fair. And he was too proud to seek it. His first instinct was to wire Arthur to come to Brighton at once, but this would be to admit an importance in the situation which he was resolved to ignore. In a day or two the family would be back in London, and then the opportunity would come.
The opportunity came a few days later.
Eagle House was reopened, and the common forms of life were re-established. Dinner was just over. Helen was chattering about the new friends she had made at Brighton, but no one else had anything to say. A heavy restraint rested like a cloud over the family. Mrs.
Masterman sat silent as usual, Arthur had not said a word during the meal, Masterman had replied to Helen"s ceaseless small talk in curt monosyllables.
Arthur rose quietly to leave the room, when his father"s voice arrested him.
"Arthur."
"Yes, father."
"I want to see you."
"Very well, sir."
The words were colourless in themselves, but to one ear in that room they rang like a clash of swords. Mrs. Masterman looked up, her face quivering and eager. Her eyes sought Arthur, and as he pa.s.sed her chair she pressed his hand. Arthur understood that silent overture, and was grateful for it.
"Come into the office," said Masterman, rising from the table.
Arthur followed obediently. The hour long foreseen had come, and upon the whole he was glad. He was sick of suspense, sick of the deceit of eating his father"s bread with bitter resentment in his heart, but not the less he trembled. There was a strangling pressure in his throat, his heart swelled, a vein in his temple throbbed painfully. He had long rehea.r.s.ed the hour; he had shaped every phrase that he would use to sharpest meaning; but now he felt unaccountably dumb. And, as if memory herself turned traitor, a sudden picture flashed before him of how, years ago, in some childish illness, his father had sat beside his bed, had taken him upon his knee, and had hushed him to sleep upon his bosom. It pa.s.sed through his thoughts like a strain of music, like the fragrance of incense from an altar, subtly suggestive of a forgotten sacredness in old affections and of their inalienable claim upon his heart. And with it came that old sense of bigness in his father.
Strange how that persisted, but it did. This rough ma.s.s of man, this big fighting figure, this man of many combats, did he really understand him? And he replied with the sadness of a great pity that he understood him too well, and he saw the gulf between them.
But there was no such touch of grace or tenderness in the father"s mind. He also had rehea.r.s.ed this hour, but with an extraordinary vehemence of rage, which grew by what it fed on. He had come to conceive himself a too generous and indulgent parent wronged by an ungrateful child. And worse still, he had come to conceive of Arthur as a weakling, who refused the battle of life; a fool, who wanted life arranged on a plan of his own; an att.i.tudinising Pharisee, who held himself aloof from realities, and said to the man who grappled them, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou." Well, he would teach him! He would give him a lesson which he would never forget. His only mistake had been that he had not done it long ago.
The moment the door was closed he wheeled round upon him with a formidable gesture.
"I want a word with you," he said, "and I"ll thank you not to interrupt till I"m done. It seems I"ve got a son that doesn"t approve me. Well, I could bear that, but what I can"t bear is to have a son that is fool enough to go about saying so. It seems I"m not good enough to be the father of this son. I"m a scoundrel, so he says, and he says it with my meat in his belly and my clothes on his back. My father was a hard man, and beat me, but I never told other folk what I thought of him. I never went whining to other folk and called my father names. I bore what I had to bear, and kept my mouth shut. But it seems I"ve got a son that must be talking. Well, I"m going to take care that he talks where I can"t hear him. I thought to take him into my business--the more fool I. Business! Let me tell you business needs commonsense, which it seems you haven"t got. And business needs a still tongue, which you"ll never get, to say nothing of some kind of decent faith between partners, which you haven"t a notion of. Partners! Why, let me tell you, I"d sooner take the most ignorant boy in my office and make him my partner than you! He"d at least have commonsense enough to know which side his bread"s b.u.t.tered, which you"ll never know. So that"s at an end, and you know my mind."
"But, father, you are unjust to me. You don"t understand."