“You said you didn’t know Mr. Burden,” he cried.
But neither heeded2 him. Baltazar made a stride forward and with one hand gripped Marcelle by the arm and with the other motioned in his imperious way to the open door. Still looking at him in wonderment, she allowed him to lead her quickly to the terrace at the head of the steps. Godfrey’s astonished gaze followed them till they disappeared. Outside, Baltazar released her.
“Marcelle! What in thunder are you doing here?”
“You? John Baltazar? Alive?”
“Never been less dead. But you! You of all people. My God! although I lost you, I could never lose your face. It has been with me all the time. And there it is, the same as ever. But what are you doing here?”
She made a vague gesture over her costume.
“I’m a professional nurse. Sister-in-charge. I’ve been nursing all my life.”
“Not when I knew you,” said Baltazar.
“My life began after that.”
“Married?”
The colour came back into her white cheeks. “No,” she said.
“Neither am I.”
“You at last, after all these years! Just the same. Just as beautiful. Much more.”
“This is rather public,” she managed to say, releasing herself. “There are lots of patients——”
He laughed and, indicating the parapet, invited her to sit.
“You must forgive me,” he said, seating himself by her side. “The sight of you blotted5 out the world. Don’t be frightened. I’m quite tame now. Look at me.”
She obeyed him as she had done in her early girlhood, dominated for the moment by his tone.
“How do you think I’m looking? Battered6 by time? A crock to be wrapped up in flannel7 and set in the chimney-corner to wheeze8 the rest of his life away?”
“You look very little older,” she said with a wan9 smile. “And you haven’t a grey hair in your head.”
“That’s good. I’m as young as ever I was. I can sweep away twenty years and begin where I left off.”
“You’re more fortunate than I am,” said Marcelle.
“Rubbish!” said Baltazar.
She glanced at him wistfully and then out over the trees.
“Nursing isn’t the road to perpetual youth,” she said. Then lest he should catch up her words, she continued swiftly: “But you must tell me where you have been, how you’ve come back to life. You disappeared utterly10. You never wrote. If we all thought you dead, was it our fault? When Godfrey showed me your letter, I never dreamed who James Burden might be.”
“Godfrey?” Baltazar pounced11 on the name. “Do you call him Godfrey? Then you must be old friends. Hence the miracle of finding you together. Have you been mothering him all his life?”
She shook her head. “How you jump at conclusions! No. I met him for the first time when I came here—a month ago.”
“So it’s just Chance, Fate, Destiny, the three of us meeting like this? The hand of God? . . . Wait, though. I can’t see quite clearly. You learned he was my son?”
She smiled again:
“Does he know that you knew me?”
“If he didn’t,” she replied, “he wouldn’t have consulted me about Mr. Burden’s letter. I wish I had been mothering him all his life,” she added after a pause; “but I’ve been doing my best for the last month. I can’t help loving him.”
“What does he know about you and me?”
“I’ve told him everything,” said Marcelle.
Baltazar started to his feet.
“Then when he saw us gaping13 at each other just now, he must have guessed, or he can’t have any Baltazar brains in his head.” He moved away a pace; then turned on her. “You gave me a good character?”
Her head was bowed. She did not see the rare laughter in his eyes, but took his question seriously.
“Can you doubt it?” She beckoned14 him nearer, and said in a low voice: “I may have been wrong, but I have given him to understand that it was entirely15 on my account—you know what I mean——”
“What other reason, in the name of God could I have had?” he exclaimed with a large gesture.
If there had lingered a doubt in her mind, the note of sincerity16 in the man’s cry would have driven it away for ever. It awoke a harmonic chord of gladness in her heart and her whole being vibrated. Although John Baltazar’s subsequent career was as yet dark and mysterious, her faith, at least, was justified17. She said without looking at him:
“You’ll find that I’ve been loyal.”
He strode towards her and, disregarding the perils18 of publicity19, again took her by the shoulders.
He swept away, leaving her physically21 conscious of the impress of his fingers in her flesh and her brain reeling.
Baltazar marched into the great hall to Godfrey, still sitting in his arm-chair, his maimed leg, as usual, supported on the outstretched crutch22.
“No, don’t get up.”
He swung the chair which he had previously23 occupied dose to Godfrey’s and sat down.
“By this time you must have guessed who I am,” he said in his direct fashion.
“I suppose you’re my father,” said the young man.
“I am,” replied Baltazar. “My extraordinary meeting with Miss Baring gave me away. Didn’t it?”
“I suppose it did. Perhaps I ought to have suspected something when you mentioned China. But I didn’t.”
“The assumed name was the one I was known by for eighteen years—ever since I left England. I thought I’d take it up again for the sake of a reconnaissance, like the rich old uncle in the play, to see what kind of a man you were and how you looked upon your unknown father. Hence the questions you may have thought impertinent.”
“I quite see,” said Godfrey, pulling at his short-cropped moustache.
Baltazar threw himself back in his chair. “Well, there it is. We’re father and son. Miss Baring has told you, from her point of view, why I threw over everything and disappeared. Her conjecture24 is absolutely correct. I must, however, say one thing to you, once and for all. I hadn’t the remotest idea that you were coming into the world. If I had, I should have remained and done my duty. I only heard of your existence a week ago—at Cambridge.”
“Yes?” said Godfrey.
“Let us come straight to the point then. You either believe me or disbelieve me. If you don’t believe me, nothing I can ever say or do will make you. If you do believe me, we can go ahead. It’s the vital point in our future relations. Speak out straight. Which is it?”
Godfrey looked for a few seconds into the luminous25 grey eyes—his own were somewhat hard—and then he said very deliberately26:
“I certainly believe you. My conversations with Sister Baring made me take that particular point for granted.”
Baltazar drew a long breath.
“That’s all right, then. I think I also ought to assure you that beyond giving Cambridge a nine days’ wonder, I have done nothing to discredit27 the name of Baltazar. In China I had a position which no European to my knowledge has attained28 since Marco Polo. I left on account of the warring between two ideals—the Old China and the New. I belonged to the Old. I found I couldn’t find orientation29 unless I came West for it. I returned to England two years ago.”
“And you only went up to Cambridge last week?”
“Precisely. The intervening time I spent in a remarkable30 manner, which I’ll tell you about on another occasion. In the meanwhile we’re face to face with the overwhelming fact that I’ve discovered an unsuspected son, and you a legendary31 father. I’m fairly well off. So, I presume, are you. If you’re not, my means are yours. It’s well to clear the air, from the very beginning of any possible sordid32 bogies.”
“I never dreamed of such a thing,” said Godfrey.
“All right. That’s settled. We come now to the main point. We’re father and son. What are we going to do about it?”
Baltazar, who in the impatient interval34 between Sheepshanks’s staggering news and the present interview, had pictured many a dénouement of the inevitable35 drama, had never pictured one so cold and unemotional as this. The Chinese filial ideal he knew to be non-existent in the West; but in his uncompromising way he had imagined extremes. Either scornful enmity and repudiation36, or a gush37 of human sentiment. A scene in a silly old French melodrama38, a memory of boyhood, had haunted him. “Mon fils!”—“Mon père!” And the twain had thrown themselves into each other’s arms. But neither of these dramatic situations had arisen. The situation, indeed, was characterized by the cool and thoughtful young man merely as “peculiar.” Well, it was an intelligent view. The boy had heard the arguments of the advocates of the devil and the advocates of the angels, and he had formed a sound and favourable39 judgment40. On the angels’ advocacy he had never reckoned. So much was there to the good. He was not condemned41. On the other hand, he saw no signs of filial emotion. He himself, with his expansive temperament42, would have rejoiced at being able to cry “Mon fils!” and clasp to his breast this son of his loins, this splendid continuance of his blood and his brain. But in the calm, collected young soldier he could discover no germ of reciprocated43 sentiment. He felt disappointed, almost rebuffed. All the pent-up emotion of the lonely man was ready to burst the lock-gates; it had to surge back on itself.
After a long silence, he said: “Yes, you’re right. It is a peculiar situation. Perhaps circumstances make me take it more—what shall we say—more emotionally than you. After all, I’m a perfect stranger. I’ve never done a hand’s turn for you. I may be a complication in your life—to put it brutally—a damned nuisance. I don’t want to be one, I assure you.”
“Of course not,” Godfrey answered, with wrinkled forehead. “I quite understand. You must forgive me, sir, if I don’t say much; but you’ll agree that this revelation, or whatever we like to call it, is a bit sudden. If your mind, as you said just now, is in process of adjustment, what do you think mine must be?”
“All right,” said Baltazar. “Let us leave it at that for the present.”
He rose and marched to the door in search of Marcelle. But she had disappeared from the terrace and was nowhere visible to his eye scanning the garden. When he returned to the hall, Godfrey was standing44.
“I suppose I must give the two of you time to recover from the shock of me. I can quite understand that bouncing in from the dead like this is disconcerting to one’s friends.” He looked at his watch. “I must be catching45 my train. I shall see you soon again, I hope.”
“I was wondering, sir, whether you would lunch with me in town to-morrow,” said Godfrey.
“Can you travel about like that?”
“Oh, Lord! yes. I’m going up to London in any case.”
“Then we’ll fix it. Only you’ll lunch with me. It seems more fitting. When? Where? I have no club. My membership of the Athen?um lapsed46 twenty years ago. And, even if it hadn’t, the Megatherium—Thackeray’s name for it—is no good for hospitable47 purposes. Shall we say the Savoy at one-thirty?”
“That will suit me admirably,” said the young man.
“Good-bye.”
They shook hands. Godfrey accompanied him to the terrace.
“Have you a taxi or cab waiting?”
“I came on the feet which I unworthily possess,” replied Baltazar with a smile. “Tell Sister Baring I looked for her and she was gone.”
“I’ll send an orderly to find her, if you like.”
Baltazar hesitated for a moment. A quick tenderness checked impetuous impulse.
“No, no!” he answered with a smile. “I’ve worried her sufficiently48 for to-day. She’ll hear from me soon enough.”
They shook hands again and he ran down the marble stairs, and, waving a farewell, strode away with the elastic49 tread of youth. After a while Godfrey hobbled down, and, passing by the tennis courts and through the Japanese garden, arrived at the beech50-wood, scene of their first and so many subsequent intimate talks, where he felt sure he should find Marcelle. He saw her, before she realized his approach, sitting on a bench; staring in front of her, her hands listless by her side. On the palm of one of them lay a crumpled51 ball of a handkerchief. She had been crying. As soon as she heard him she started and, looking round, greeted him with a smile.
“I knew I’d get you here,” he said, sitting down by her side. “The long-lost parent has gone. He sent you a message.”
He gave its substance. She nodded.
“He’s quite right. I need a little time to get used to it.”
Godfrey said: “Shall I clear out and leave you alone? Do tell me.”
“No, no!” she said quickly. “I want you. I was just feeling dreadfully alone.”
“Defenceless?”
“What makes you say that?” she asked, alarm in her eyes. For she had been frightened, absurdly frightened, by the swift, sudden force that had impinged on her well-ordered way of life. It had set her wits wandering, her nerves jangling, her emotions dancing a grotesque52 and unintelligible53 saraband. Her shoulders still felt the clutch of irresistible54 fingers. She was sure they would bear black and blue marks for days. The virginal in her shrank from the possible contemplation of them in her mirror. Defenceless was the very word. What uncanny insight had suggested it to Godfrey?
“That’s how I feel, anyway. And if you want me, I want you. That’s why I’ve ferreted you out. It strikes me we’re more or less in the same boat. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she replied absently.
The beech foliage56 was just beginning to turn faint golden. Here and there a leaf fell. A brown squirrel scampering57 up a branch of a tree close in front of them, suddenly halted and watched them, as though wondering why the two humans sat so still and depressed58 on that mellow59 autumn afternoon. The sun was slanting60 warmly through the leaves. The beech-mast, young and tender, provided infinity61 of food beyond the dreams of gluttony. Never an enemy menaced the exquisite62 demesne63. God was in His heaven, and all was right with the world. What in the name of Nature was there to worry these two humans? Well, it was no business of his, and he had enough business of his own to attend to. He glanced aside, and his quick eyes spotting a field-mouse at the base of a neighbouring tree, he darted64 off, a streak65 of brown lightning, in pursuit.
“To be interested in a legendary sort of father is one thing. There’s imagination and romance and atmosphere about it. But it’s another thing to have this same father burst on one in flesh and blood—and such a lot of flesh and blood! Now a venerable, white-haired old sinner, with a pathetic, intellectual face, might appeal to one’s sentiment. But this new father of mine doesn’t. I may be unnatural67, Marcelle, but he doesn’t. Mind you, I’ve no grouch68 against him. Not a bit. I’m convinced he thought he was doing right to everybody. When he learned that I existed, he was struck all of a heap. He lost no time in tracking me down. He’s actuated by the best motives69. . . . All the same, I can’t rise to it. The more he tried to make an appeal, the more antagonistic70 I grew. It’s beyond explanation.”
“You’ll learn to love him,” said Marcelle loyally, yet without conviction. “He’s a splendid man.”
“He’ll want to run me. Now I’ve run myself all my life. So I’ll not stand for it. He’ll want to run you too. You know it, Marcelle. That’s why you’ve been sitting here feeling lonely and defenceless.”
She laughed ruefully. “I suppose it is.”
“The way he clawed hold of you and dragged you out——”
“That’s the way he clawed hold of himself and dragged himself out, remember,” replied Marcelle.
“A queer devil!” said Godfrey. “Do you know what he suggests to me? A disconnected dynamo.” He laughed. “He ought to be hitched71 on to the war. He’d buck72 it up.”
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1
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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5
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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8
wheeze
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| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
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9
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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10
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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12
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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13
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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14
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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20
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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21
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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orientation
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| n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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repudiation
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| n.拒绝；否认；断绝关系；抛弃 | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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reciprocated
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| v.报答，酬答( reciprocate的过去式和过去分词 )；（机器的部件）直线往复运动 | |
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44
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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46
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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47
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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48
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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50
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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51
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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52
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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55
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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57
scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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61
infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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demesne
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| n.领域，私有土地 | |
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64
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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68
grouch
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| n.牢骚，不满；v.抱怨 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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antagonistic
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| adj.敌对的 | |
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71
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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