5
The fit of coughing that followed caused my uncle to examine himself for injuries. The nurse made signs to Violet, who slipped noiselessly from the room; O’Rane came in, and I guided him to the bedside. Bertrand shook hands with difficulty; and his heavy eyes lightened.
“You’re another of them,” he panted. “Always think of your father when I see you. I wonder what he’d have made of it all if he’d lived. . . . George there?”
“I’m here,” I answered, as I pulled a chair to the bedside.
“I’ve been thinking over what you said the other day about our prototypes in history. Triskett’s great-grandfather firing on the Versailles mob just to see what would happen. . . . I’ve known a good few historic figures: O’Connell; Mazzini; Lassalle. The great unspeakables. I believe I went to them for fear of being told by boys like you that I and my spiritual forefathers had been on the wrong side. Dam’ conceit! I hope I’ve outgrown that phase now; but, when that ass Crawleigh spluttered about rounding up conscientious objectors in the war, I felt that his ancestors had burnt heretics. Your friend Maitland sentenced a man to the cat the other day: he said it was the only remedy for crimes of violence. I asked him why he didn’t break the fellow on a wheel, as his forebears had done. Damn it, I gave up shooting for fear of finding myself in the same dock as the old cock-fighters. Conceit, if you like. I’ve been a radical because I couldn’t let posterity charge me with the savagery and intolerance which we throw up against our conservative predecessors. Time was on my side. I recorded my protest. What good it’s done . . .? That’s why you’d better keep the paper on, George. It’ll shew the next generation how superior you were to this.”
The advice was rounded with a cynical, deep chuckle; and he lay long without speaking.
“The world’s a gentler place than when you were a boy, sir,” O’Rane put in.
Bertrand looked at him in silence for a moment and then shook his head slowly:
“You say that, with your experience of the late war? Does human nature change? . . . We shan’t have that dinner, George, but I wasn’t far out in my date. The present government is falling to pieces.”
“And what’s going to take its place?,” I asked.
Bertrand ruminated in silence for some time; then his face lighted for the last time in a reflective smile:
“A restoration government! We’ve given a million men and heaven knows how many thousand million pounds to keep things . . . just as they were. Nurse says we’re shipping troops again to the Straits: to defend the graves we’ve already filled there, I suppose. In ten years the great powers will be balanced as they were ten years ago; there’ll be the same competition in armaments, the same scares, ultimately the same universal war . . . on a vastly different scale. At home we’ve fallen back into our old social and financial grooves.” Bertrand’s eyes turned fixedly to the ceiling in a strained effort of concentration. He was speaking very slowly now and studying his articulation. “We’re . . . going on . . . from 1914 . . . without break of thought . . . or mend of heart.”
As he paused, O’Rane stood up and walked cautiously to the bed.
“I’ll leave you now, sir, unless you want me,” he said. “I expect you’d like to talk to George. I . . . want to thank you.” . . .
“You’ve nothing to thank me for. Don’t go unless I’m depressing you.”
“It’s not encouraging,” O’Rane laughed. “You remember Anatole France’s story of the woman who tried to save her lover in the Terror? She gave herself to one of the judges and was told afterwards that she had . . . rather misunderstood his assurances. On fera le nécessaire, yes; but what then? ‘Je t’ai dit, citoyenne, qu’on ferait le nécessaire, c’est-à-dire qu’on appliquerait la loi, rien de plus, rien de moins.’ Most unfortunate misunderstanding! ‘Elle sentit aussitôt’,” he quoted slowly, “ ‘qu’elle avait fait . . . un sacrifice inutile’.”
As Bertrand looked from O’Rane’s scarred hands to his sightless eyes, I saw that he had no answer ready. I do not know what answer either of us could have given such a man at such a moment.
Until the nurse came in with the doctor, my uncle lay silent and, I think, half-asleep. Towards midnight he roused with a start and seemed at a loss to explain why we were there. Then he remembered that he was dying; and, with the slow effort of failing strength, one hand was dragged painfully from under the bed-clothes. I led O’Rane to him and then shook hands myself.
“That place of yours . . .” he muttered.
“Yes?”
“Lake House. I heard you were selling it. Don’t . . . unless you must. I was brought up there. Your grandfather and I . . . You’re too young to remember the orangery . . . When I was twenty, our nearest neighbour was a girl called Cathleen Nolan . . .” He paused for breath, and I tried to find out if he wanted to send her a message. “She’s been dead for more than sixty years,” said Bertrand with a twisted smile.
If that was his romance, he could tell me no more of it; and the smile gave place to a quick contortion of pain. I sent O’Rane for the nurse; but, before he reached the door, my uncle gave one long sigh and the slight movement of his breathing ended.
O’Rane carried the news to Barbara and with it a note to say that I should stay at Princes Gardens until the funeral. On the heels of the first letter I sent a second to beg her forgiveness for my mad words in the car. She replied that she had forgotten everything.