JAMES SEES VISIONS
The butler himself opened the door,and closing it softly,detained Soames on the inner mat.
"The master's poorly,sir,"he murmured."He wouldn't go to bed till you came in.He's still in the diningroom.
Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now accustomed.
"What's the matter with him,Warmson?"
"Nervous,sir,I think.Might be the funeral;might be Mrs.
Dartie's comin'round this afternoon.I think he overheard something.I've took him in a negus.The mistress has just gone up."Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.
"All right,Warmson,you can go to bed;I'll take him up myself."And he passed into the dining-room.
James was sitting before the fire,in a big armchair,with a camel-hair shawl,very light and warm,over his frock-coated shoulders,on to which his long white whiskers drooped.His white hair,still fairly thick,glistened in the lamplight;a little moisture from his fixed,light-grey eyes stained the cheeks,still quite well coloured,and the long deep furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips,which moved as if mumbling thoughts.His long legs,thin as a crow's,in shepherd's plaid trousers,were bent at less than a right angle,and on one knee a spindly hand moved continually,with fingers wide apart and glistening tapered nails.Beside him,on a low stool,stood a half-finished glass of negus,bedewed with beads of heat.There he had been sitting,with intervals for meals,all day.At eighty-eight he was still organically sound,but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything.It is,indeed,doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being buried that day,for Emily had kept it from him.She was always keeping things from him.Emily was only seventy!James had a grudge against his wife's youth.He felt sometimes that he would never have married her if he had known that she would have so many years before her,when he had so few.It was not natural.She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone,and might spend a lot of money;she had always had extravagant tastes.For all he knew she might want to buy one of these motor-cars.Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young people--they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness knew where.And now Roger was gone.He didn't know--couldn't tell!The family was breaking up.Soames would know how much his uncle had left.Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames'uncle not as his own brother.Soames!It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world.Soames was careful;he was a warm man;but he had no one to leave his money to.There it was!