CHAPTER IV.
HIDDEN IN LONDON.
I was sorry to leave Mr. Murdoch, Mrs. Hopkins, and other kind friends at Ealing; but, as I always said, I did not mind changing residences, for No. 114, Windsor Road, was an old-fashioned dwelling house without a bathroom, which is a great drawback.
Grandpapa's hair began to come back now, in little silvery tufts over his ears. He also lost something of his old stoop, and took to using one walking-stick instead of a couple.
He grew terribly sensitive and bad-tempered as his powers increased; and with access of mental strength the agony and horror of his position naturally became more and more keen.
We had a long conversation as to where we should take ourselves and our secret. Grandpapa first changed his mind about London, and wanted to leave England. He had an unpractical yearning to sail away and hide his approaching manhood on some desert island; and for my part I wish now I had fallen in with this project, and taken the old man off to the heart of the tropics, or the point of the Poles, or anywhere away from civilization; but in a weak moment I urged him to abide by his original opinion, that the metropolis was a place where he might best hide his approaching transformation. I forgot my grandfather's different weaknesses, when I made this suggestion. I should, of course, have recollected that the ruling passions of his life would reassert themselves.
However, he consented to come to town, and away we went--suddenly, mysteriously, without leaving any address, though not before I had settled every outstanding account. Our means were fortunately ample for all moderate comforts. We took a little house at West Kensington--No. 18, Wharton Terrace--and there, having engaged a cook and housemaid, we settled down to face what problems the future might have in store for us.
Grandpapa continued to hug his hideous secret, nor would he suffer me to seek spiritual, legal, or medical aid. For the present he had abandoned his design of consulting the Bishop of London, and the other celebrities he had mentioned in the first agony of his discovery. In fact, as time passed, I could see he was trying to banish his position from his mind. He fought against his growing strength, and attempted excesses in the matter of eating and drinking with a view to impair his constitution.
"Don't be chattering about the matter, for heaven's sake!" he said to me on the occasion of his hundred-and-second birthday. "You're always whining and making stupid suggestions. Do try and look cheerful, even if you don't feel so. It's bad enough to be the sport of fiends without having a wet blanket like you crying and sighing about from morning till night. You make every room in the house damp and draughty with your groans and tears."
"You are now eighty," I said, "eighty, according to the New Scheme, and you look less. Are you going on without making any effort to throw off this abominable curse? Are you content to let matters take their backward course? Do something--anything, I implore you. Take some steps; try to stem the tide; be a man, grandpapa!"