“Following from Lane Lashmar Hampshire England for you care of me despatched fourteenth your father seriously ill think you should return as soon as possible.”
Eric studied the time of despatch and retransmission with stupid deliberation, giving himself time to recover from the shock. This meant, of course, that his father was dying, was perhaps already dead; and it was his duty to be shocked. Lashmar on the fourteenth, New York on the sixteenth, Tokio on the eighteenth;—the war had made cabling a slow business... He was a selfish brute not to have told his mother where he was going instead of leaving her to track him through his American agent and, before that, through his London agent. His father had never been ill since he was a child, but he had overworked for years; this probably meant a stroke....
Eric discovered that he was quite dispassionate; perhaps he was too much numbed to feel. He must of course return immediately; if anything happened, the eldest son must be at hand. Once in England, he must let the future take care of itself.
Three weeks later he landed at San Francisco and arrived in New York two days before the armistice was signed. “Mother’s Son” was still running at the Grafton; he was met unexpectedly at the station, and, before the day was out, two reporters had called at the Majestic and sought an interview. He tried to dine by himself and was instantly caught up by a group of friends who set about organizing a banquet in his honour. A private party of twelve swept within twenty-four hours far beyond the organizer’s control. Half New York had been to one or other of the plays; scores of people had already met him, hundreds more wanted to meet him.
“Look at it this way,” said his agent, Justus Grant, defensively. “Every one knows you’re here. Well, if it gets out that we’ve given you a dinner and cornered you, they’ll all ask why in Hell they weren’t invited. I’ve got to live in New York, and you haven’t. It’s only one speech, whether we’re twelve or twelve hundred. And you’ve only to stand and shake a few more hands.”
“I’ll do my best,” Eric promised with ebbing patience. “It’s a tremendous honour....”
Then he began reading the letters which he had brought from his agent’s. Lady Lane wrote to confirm her cable and to say that his father had indeed had a stroke. His life was no longer in danger, though for some days his speech had been affected and many months must go by before he could resume work. There was no immediate urgency for Eric to return; he must decide for himself. Of course, he had been terribly missed, and every one was looking forward to seeing him.
After resolving never to go back to England, Eric felt that nothing would now keep him away. There was almost everything to be said against it, and, in its favour, only that he had secured a cabin where others had tried and failed. The reason was frivolous, his mind was aimless; and he accepted the reason, because it chimed with his mood of aimlessness. Moreover—a reason yet more frivolous!—Justus Grant was arranging a farewell dinner for him, and, after being bidden God-speed, he could not decently loiter in New York any longer. Of such stuff were made the cardinal decisions of a man’s life. Three years earlier, on the night of his first meeting with Barbara Neave, she had asked him to wait till the end of her rubber and to take her home.
The crowd in the winter garden was thinning, and Eric could study in peace the notes which he had jotted down for his speech. Though Carstairs’ chatter had set his nerves jangling, he must face a graver ordeal when he was welcomed to the midst of Barbara’s friends in London; if for the moment he could not abdicate, he must sit his throne worthily; but he felt contempt for this servile herd which abased itself before him. For two years he had lived in isolation; and, if he was now flung face to face with his public, he would shew that he could preserve his isolation in their midst.
He roused from moody reverie to find his host standing, watch in hand, before him.