The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset MaughamЧитать онлайн книгу.
had been shown him, and Fred Allerton, in sight of a freedom from which no human laws could bar him, was given up to die among those who loved him.
Lucy went down immediately to the Isle of Wight, and there engaged rooms in the house of a woman who had formerly served her at Hamlyn's Purlieu.
It was midwinter, and a cold drizzle was falling when she waited for him at the prison gates. Three years had passed since they had parted. She took him in her arms and kissed him silently. Her heart was too full for words. A carriage was waiting for them, and she drove to the lodging-house; breakfast was ready, and Lucy had seen that good things which he liked should be ready for him to eat. Fred Allerton looked wistfully at the clean table-cloth, and at the flowers and the dainty scones; but he shook his head. He did not speak, and the tears ran slowly down his cheeks. He sank wearily into a chair. Lucy tried to induce him to eat; she brought him a cup of tea, but he put it away. He looked at her with haggard, bloodshot eyes.
'Give me the flowers,' he muttered.
They were his first words. There was a large bowl of daffodils in the middle of the table, and she took them out of the water, deftly dried their stalks, and gave them to him. He took them with trembling hands and pressed them to his heart, then he buried his face in them, and the tears ran afresh, bedewing the yellow flowers.
Lucy put her arm around her father's neck and placed her cheek against his.
'Don't, father,' she whispered. 'You must try and forget.'
He leaned back, exhausted, and the pretty flowers fell at his feet.
'You know why they've let me out?' he said.
She kissed him, but did not answer.
'I'm so glad that we're together again,' she murmured.
'It's because I'm going to die.'
'No, you mustn't die. In a little while you'll get strong again. You have many years before you, and you'll be very happy.'
He gave her a long, searching look; and when he spoke, his voice had a hollowness in it that was strangely terrifying.
'Do you think I want to live?'
The pain seemed almost greater than Lucy could bear, and for a moment she had to remain silent so that her voice might grow steady.
'You must live for my sake.'
'Don't you hate me?' he asked.
'No, I love you more than I ever did. I shall never cease to love you.'
'I suppose no one would marry you while I was in prison.'
His remark was so inconsequent that Lucy found nothing to say. He gave a bitter, short laugh.
'I ought to have shot myself. Then people would have forgotten all about it, and you might have had a chance. Why didn't you marry Bobbie?'
'I haven't wanted to marry.'
He was so tired that he could only speak a little at a time, and now he closed his eyes. Lucy thought that he was dozing, and began to pick up the fallen flowers. But he noticed what she was doing.
'Let me hold them,' he moaned, with the pleading quaver of a sick child.
As she gave them to him once more, he took her hands and began to caress them.
'The only thing for me is to hurry up and finish with life. I'm in the way. Nobody wants me, and I shall only be a burden. I didn't want them to let me go. I wanted to die there quietly.'
Lucy sighed deeply. She hardly recognised her father in the bent, broken man who was sitting beside her. He had aged very much and seemed now to be an old man, but it was a premature aging, and there was a horror in it as of a process contrary to nature. He was very thin, and his hands trembled constantly. Most of his teeth had gone; his cheeks were sunken, and he mumbled his words so that it was difficult to distinguish them. There was no light in his eyes, and his short hair was quite white. Now and again he was shaken with a racking cough, and this was followed by an attack of such pain in his heart that it was anguish even to watch it. The room was warm, but he shivered with cold and cowered over the roaring fire.
When the doctor whom Lucy had sent for, saw him, he could only shrug his shoulders.
'I'm afraid nothing can be done,' he said. 'His heart is all wrong, and he's thoroughly broken up.'
'Is there no chance of recovery?'
'I'm afraid all we can do is to alleviate the pain.'
'And how long can he live?'
'It's impossible to say. He may die to-morrow, he may last six months.'
The doctor was an old man, and his heart was touched by the sight of Lucy's grief. He had seen more cases than one of this kind.
'He doesn't want to live. It will be a mercy when death releases him.'
Lucy did not answer. When she returned to her father, she could not speak. He was apathetic and did not ask what the doctor had said. Lady Kelsey, hating the thought of Lucy and her father living amid the discomfort of furnished lodgings, had written to offer the use of her house in Charles Street; and Mrs. Crowley, in case they wanted complete solitude, had put Court Leys at their disposal. Lucy waited a few days to see whether her father grew stronger, but no change was apparent in him, and it seemed necessary at last to make some decision. She put before him the alternative plans, but he would have none of them.
'Then would you rather stay here?' she said.
He looked at the fire and did not answer. Lucy thought the sense of her question had escaped him, for often it appeared to her that his mind wandered. She was on the point of repeating it when he spoke.
'I want to go back to the Purlieu.'
Lucy stifled a gasp of dismay. She stared at the wretched man. Had he forgotten? He thought that the house of his fathers was his still; and all that had parted him from it was gone from his memory. How could she tell him?
'I want to die in my own home,' he faltered.
Lucy was in a turmoil of anxiety. She must make some reply. What he asked was impossible, and yet it was cruel to tell him the whole truth.
'There are people living there,' she answered.
'Are there?' he said, indifferently.
He looked at the fire still. The silence was dreadful.
'When can we go?' he said at last. 'I want to get there quickly.'
Lucy hesitated.
'We shall have to go into rooms.'
'I don't mind.'
He seemed to take everything as a matter of course. It was clear that he had forgotten the catastrophe that had parted him from Hamlyn's Purlieu, and yet, strangely, he asked no questions. Lucy was tortured by the thought of revisiting the place she loved so well. She had been able to deaden her passionate regret only by keeping her mind steadfastly averted from all thoughts of it, and now she must actually go there. The old wounds would be opened. But it was impossible to refuse, and she set about making the necessary arrangements. The rector, who had been given the living by Fred Allerton, was an old friend, and Lucy knew that she could trust in his affection. She wrote and told him that her father was dying and had set his heart on seeing once more his old home. She asked him to find rooms in one of the cottages. She did not mind how small nor how humble they were. The rector answered by telegram. He begged Lucy to bring her father to stay with him. She would be more comfortable than in lodgings, and, since he was a bachelor, there was plenty of room in the large rectory. Lucy, immensely touched by his kindness, gratefully accepted