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Septimus

<h2>[85]CHAPTER VII</h2> "Are you going to have your bath first, or your breakfast?" asked Wiggleswick, putting his untidy gray head inside the sitting-room door. Septimus ran his ivory rule nervously through his hair. "I don't know. Which would you advise?" "What?" bawled Wiggleswick. Septimus repeated his remark in a louder voice. "If I had to wash myself in cold water," said Wiggleswick contemptuously, "I'd do it on an empty stomach." "But if the water were warm?" "Well, the water ain't warm, so it's no good speculating." "Dear me," said Septimus. "Now that's just what I enjoy doing." Wiggleswick grunted. "I'll turn on the tap and leave it." The door having closed behind his body servant, Septimus laid his ivory rule on the portion of the complicated diagram of machinery which he had been measuring off, and soon became absorbed in his task. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. He had but lately risen, and sat in pyjamas and dressing-gown over his drawing. A bundle of proofs and a jam-pot containing a dissipated looking rosebud lay on that space of the table not occupied by the double-elephant sheet of paper. By his side was a manuscript covered with calculations to which he referred or added from time to time. A bleak November light came in through the window, and Septimus's chair was on the [86]right-hand side of the table. It was characteristic of him to sit unnecessarily in his own light. Presently a more than normal darkening of the room caused him to look at the window. Clem Sypher stood outside, gazing at him with amused curiosity. Hospitably, Septimus rose and flung the casement window open. "Do come in." As the aperture was two feet square, all of Clem Sypher that could respond to the invitation was his head and shoulders. "Is it good morning, good afternoon, or good night?" he asked, surveying Septimus's attire. "Morning," said Septimus. "I've just got up. Have some breakfast." He moved to a bell-pull by the fireplace, and the tug was immediately followed by a loud report. "What the devil's that?" asked Sypher, startled. "That," said Septimus mildly, "is an invention. I pull the rope and a pistol is fired off in the kitchen. Wiggleswick says he can't hear bells. What's for breakfast?" he asked, as Wiggleswick entered. "Haddock. And the bath's running over." Septimus waved him away. "Let it run." He turned to Sypher. "Have a haddock?" "At four o'clock in the afternoon? Do you want me to be sick?" "Good heavens, no!" cried Septimus. "Do come in and I'll give you anything you like." He put his hand again on the bell-pull. A hasty exclamation from Sypher checked his impulse. "I say, don't do that again. If you'll open the front door for me," he added, "I may be able to get inside." [87]A moment or two later Sypher was admitted, by the orthodox avenues, into the room. He looked around him, his hands on his hips. "I wonder what on earth this would have been like if our dear lady hadn't had a hand in it." As Septimus's imagination was entirely scientific he could furnish no solution to the problem. He drew a chair to the fire and bade his guest sit down, and handed him a box of cigars which also housed a pair of compasses, some stamps, and a collar stud. Sypher selected and lit a cigar, but declined the chair for the moment. "You don't mind my looking you up? I told you yesterday I would do it, but you're such a curious creature there's no knowing at what hour you can receive visitors. Mrs. Middlemist told me you were generally in to lunch at half-past four in the morning. Hello, an invention?" "Yes," said Septimus. Sypher pored over the diagram. "What on earth is it all about?" "It's to prevent people getting killed in railway collisions," replied Septimus. "You see, the idea is that every compartment should consist of an outer shell and an inner case in which passengers sit. The roof is like a lid. When there's a collision this series of levers is set in motion, and at once the inner case is lifted through the roof and the people are out of the direct concussion. I haven't quite worked it out yet," he added, passing his hand through his hair. "You see, the same thing might happen when they're just coupling some more carriages on to a train at rest, which would be irritating to the passengers." "Very," said Sypher, drily. "It would also come rather expensive, wouldn't it?" "[88]How could expense be an object when there are human lives to be saved?" "I think, my friend Dix," said Sypher, "you took the wrong turning in the Milky Way before you were born. You were destined for a more enlightened planet. If they won't pay thirteen pence halfpenny for Sypher's Cure, how can you expect them to pay millions for your inventions? That Cure—but I'm not going to talk about it. Mrs. Middlemist's orders. I'm here for a rest. What are these? Proofs? Writing a novel?" He held up the bundle with one of his kindly smiles and one of his swift glances at Septimus. "It's my book on guns." "Can I look?" "Certainly." Sypher straightened out the bundle—it was in page-proof—and read the title: "A Theoretical Treatise on the Construction of Guns of Large Caliber. By Septimus Dix, M.A." He looked through the pages. "This seems like sense, but there are text-books, aren't there, giving all this information?" "No," said Septimus modestly. "It begins where the text-books leave off. The guns I describe have never been cast." "Where on earth do you get your knowledge of artillery?" Septimus dreamed through the mists of memory. "A nurse I once had married a bombardier," said he. Wiggleswick entered with the haddock and other breakfast appurtenances, and while Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and looked through the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains [89]drawn, the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himself comfortably before the fire. "I'm not in the way, am I?" "Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant it was. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge—and then they didn't come often, except to rag." "What did they do?" Septimus narrated the burnt umbrella episode and other social experiences. "So that when a man comes to see me who does not throw my things about, he is doubly welcome," he explained. "Besides," he added, after a drink of coffee, "we said something in Monte Carlo about being friends." "We did," said Sypher, "and I'm glad you've not forgotten it. I'm so much the Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as to the individual." "Have a drink," said Septimus, filling his after-breakfast pipe. The pistol shot brought Wiggleswick, who, in his turn, brought whiskey and soda, and the two friends finished the afternoon in great amity. Before taking his departure Sypher asked whether he might read through the proofs of the gun book at home. "I think I know enough of machinery and mathematics to understand what you're driving at, and I should like to examine these guns of yours. You think they are going to whip creation?" "They'll make warfare too dangerous to be carried on. At present, however, I'm more interested in my railway carriages." "[90]Which will make railway traveling too dangerous to be carried on!" laughed Sypher, extending his hand. "Good-by." When he had gone, Septimus mused for some time in happy contentment over his pipe. He asked very little of the world, and oddly enough the world rewarded his modesty by giving him more than he asked for. To-day he had seen Sypher in a new mood, sympathetic, unegotistical, non-robustious, and he felt gratified at having won a man's friendship. It was an addition to his few anchorages in life. Then, in a couple of hours he would sun himself in the smiles of his adored mistress, and listen to the prattle of his other friend, Emmy. Mrs. Oldrieve would be knitting by the lamp, and probably he would hold her wool, drop it, and be scolded as if he were a member of the family; all of which was a very gracious thing to the sensitive, lonely man, warming his heart and expanding his nature. It filled his head with dreams: of a woman dwelling by right in this house of his, and making the air fragrant by her presence. But as the woman—although he tried his utmost to prevent it and to conjure up the form of a totally different type—took the shape of Zora Middlemist, he discouraged such dreams as making more for mild unhappiness than for joy, and bent his thoughts to his guns and railway carriages and other world-upheaving inventions. The only thing that caused him any uneasiness was an overdraft at his bank due to cover which he had to pay on shares purchased for him by a circularizing bucket-shop keeper. It had seemed so simple to write Messrs. Shark & Co., or whatever alias the philanthropic financier assumed, a check for a couple of hundred pounds, and receive Messrs. Shark's check for two thousand in a fortnight, that he had won[91]dered why other people did not follow this easy road to fortune. Perhaps they did, he reflected: that was how they managed to keep a large family of daughters and a motor car. But when the shark conveyed to him in unintelligible terms the fact that unless he wrote a check for two or three hundred pounds more his original stake would be lost, and when these also fell through the bottomless bucket of Messrs. Shark & Co. and his bankers called his attention to an overdrawn account, it began to dawn upon him that these were not the methods whereby a large family of daughters and a motor car were unprecariously maintained. The loss did not distress him to the point of sleeplessness; his ideas as to the value of money were as vague as his notions on the rearing of babies; but he was publishing his book at his own expense, and was concerned at not being in a position to pay the poor publisher immediately. At Mrs. Oldrieve's he found his previsions nearly all fulfilled. Zora, with a sofa-ful of railway time-tables and ocean-steamer handbooks, sought his counsel as to a voyage round the world which she had in contemplation; Mrs. Oldrieve impressed on his memory a recipe for an omelette which he was to convey verbally to Wiggleswick, although he confessed that the only omelette that Wiggleswick had tried to make they had used for months afterwards as a kettle-holder; but Emmy did not prattle. She sat in a corner, listlessly turning over the leaves of a novel and taking an extraordinary lack of interest in the general conversation. The usual headache and neuralgia supplied her excuse. She looked pale, ill, and worried; and worry on a baby face is a lugubrious and pitiful spectacle. After Mrs. Oldrieve had retired for the night, and while[92] Zora happened to be absent from the room in search of an atlas, Septimus and Emmy were left alone for a moment. "I'm so sorry you have a headache," said Septimus sympathetically. "Why don't you go to bed?" "I hate bed. I can't sleep," she replied, with an impatient shake of the body. "You mustn't mind me. I'm sorry I'm so rotten—ah! well then—such an uninspiring companion, if you like," she added, seeing that the word had jarred on him. Then she rose. "I suppose I bore you. I had better go, as you suggest, and get out of the way." He intercepted her petulant march to the door. "I wish you'd tell me what's the matter. It isn't only a headache." "It's Hell and the Devil and all his angels," said Emmy, "and I'd like to murder somebody." "You can murder me, if it would do you any good," said Septimus. "I believe you'd let me," she said, yielding. "You're a good sort." She turned, with a short laugh, her novel held in both hands behind her back, one finger holding the place. A letter dropped from it. Septimus picked it up and handed it to her. It bore an Italian stamp and the Naples postmark. "Yes. That's from him," she said resentfully. "I've not had a letter for a week, and now he writes to say he has gone to Naples on account of his health. You had better let me go, my good Septimus; if I stay here much longer I'll be talking slush and batter. I've got things on my nerves." "Why don't you talk to Zora?" he suggested. "She is so wonderful." "[93]She's the last person in the world that must know anything. Do you understand? The very last." "I'm afraid I don't understand," he replied ruefully. "She doesn't know anything about Mordaunt Prince. She must never know. Neither must mother. They don't often talk much about the family; but they're awfully proud of it. Mother's people date from before Noah, and they look down on the Oldrieves because they sprang up like mushrooms just after the Flood. Prince's real name is Huzzle, and his father kept a boot shop. I don't care a hang, because he's a gentleman, but they would." "But yet you're going to marry him. They must know sooner or later. They ought to know." "Time enough when I'm married. Then nothing can be done and nothing can be said." "Have you ever thought whether it wouldn't be well to give him up?" said Septimus, in his hesitating way. "I can't, I can't!" she cried. Then she burst into tears, and, afraid lest Zora should surprise her, left the room without another word. On such occasions the most experienced man is helpless. He shrugs his shoulders, says "Whew!" and lights a cigarette. Septimus, with an infant's knowledge of the ways of young women, felt terribly distressed by the tragedy of her tears. Something must be done to stop them. He might start at once for Naples, and, by the help of strong gendarmes whom he might suborn, bring back Mordaunt Prince presently to London. Then he remembered his overdrawn banking account, and sighfully gave up the idea. If only he were not bound to secrecy and could confide in Zora. This a sensitive honor forbade. What could he do? As the fire was getting low he mechanically put on a [94]lump of coal with the pincers. When Zora returned with the atlas she found him rubbing them through his hair, and staring at vacancy. "If I do go round the world," said Zora, a little while later, when they had settled on which side of South America Valparaiso was situated—and how many nice and clever people could tell you positively, offhand?—"if I go round the world, you and Emmy will have to come too. It would do her good. She has not been looking well lately." "It would be the very thing for her," said he. "And for you too, Septimus," she remarked, with a quizzical glance and smile. "It's always good for me to be where you are." "I was thinking of Emmy and not of myself," she laughed. "If you could take care of her, it would be an excellent thing for you." "She wouldn't even trust me with her luggage," said Septimus, miles away from Zora's meaning. "Would you?" She laughed again. "I'm different. I should really have to look after the two of you. But you could pretend to be taking care of Emmy." "I would do anything that gave you pleasure." "Would you?" she asked. They were sitting by the table—the atlas between them. She moved her hand and touched his. The light of the lamp shone through her hair, turning it to luminous gold. Her arm was bare to the elbow, and the warm fragrance of her nearness overspread him. The touch thrilled him to the depths, and he flushed to his upstanding Struwel Peter hair. He tried to say something—he knew not what; but his throat was smitten with sudden dryness. It seemed to him that he had sat there, for the best part of an hour, tongue-[95]tied, looking stupidly at the confluence of the blue veins on her arm, longing to tell her that his senses swam with the temptation of her touch and the rise and fall of her bosom, through the great love he had for her, and yet terror-stricken lest she might discover his secret, and punish his audacity according to the summary methods of Juno, Diana, and other offended goddesses whom mortals dared to love. It could only have been a few seconds, for he heard her voice in his ears, at first faint and then gathering distinctness, continuing in almost the same breath as her question. "Would you? Do you know the greatest pleasure you could give me? It would be to become my brother—my real brother." He turned bewildered eyes upon her. "Your brother?" She laughed, half impatiently, half gaily, gave his hand a final tap and rose. He stood, too, mechanically. "I think you're the obtusest man I've ever met. Anyone else would have guessed long ago. Don't you see, you dear, foolish thing"—she laid her hands on his shoulders and looked with agonizing deliciousness into his face—"don't you see that you want a wife to save you from omelettes that you have to use as kettle-holders, and to give you a sense of responsibility? And don't you see that Emmy, who is never happier than when—oh!" she broke off impatiently, "don't you see?" He had built for himself no card house of illusion, so it did not come toppling down with dismaying clatter. But all the same he felt as if her kind hands had turned death cold and were wringing his heart. He took them from his shoulders, and, not unpicturesquely, kissed her finger-tips. Then he dropped them and walked to the fire and, with his [96]back to the room, leaned on the mantelpiece. A little china dog fell with a crash into the fender. "Oh, I'm so sorry—" he began piteously. "Never mind," said Zora, helping him to pick up the pieces. "A man who can kiss a woman's hands like that is at liberty to clear the whole house of gimcrackery." "You are a very gracious lady. I said so long ago," replied Septimus. "I think I'm a fool," said Zora. His face assumed a look of horror. His goddess a fool? She laughed gaily. "You look as if you were about to remark, 'If any man had said that, the word would have been his last'! But I am, really. I thought there might be something between you and Emmy and that a little encouragement might help you. Forgive me. You see," she went on, a trace of dewiness in her frank eyes, "I love Emmy dearly, and in a sort of way I love you, too. And need I give any more explanation?" It was an honorable amends, royally made. Zora had a magnificent style in doing such things: an indiscreet, venturesome, meddlesome princess she might be, if you will; somewhat unreserved, somewhat too conscious of her own Zoraesque sufficiency to possess the true womanly intuition and sympathy; but still a princess who had the grand manner in her scorn of trivialities. Septimus's hand shook a little as he fitted the tail to the hollow bit of china dog-end. It was sweet to be loved, although it was bitter to be loved in a sort of way. Even a man like Septimus Dix has his feelings. He had to hide them. "You make me very happy," he said. "Your caring so much for me as to wish me to marry your sister, I shall [97]never forget it. You see, I've never thought of her in that way. I suppose I don't think of women at all in that way," he went on, with a certain splendid mendacity. "It's a case of cog-wheels instead of corpuscles. I'm just a heathen bit of machinery, with my head full of diagrams." "You're a tender-hearted baby," said Zora. "Give me those bits of dog." She took them from his hand and threw the mutilated body into the fire. "See," she said, "let us keep tokens. I'll keep the head and you the tail. If ever you want me badly send me the tail, and I'll come to you from any distance—and if I want you I'll send you the head." "I'll come to you from the ends of the earth," said Septimus. So he went home a happy man, with his tail in his pocket. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> The next morning, about eight o'clock, just as he was sinking into his first sleep, he was awakened through a sudden dream of battle by a series of revolver shots. Wondering whether Wiggleswick had gone mad or was attempting an elaborate and painful mode of suicide, he leaped out of bed and rushed to the landing. "What's the matter?" "Hello! You're up at last!" cried Clem Sypher, appearing at the bottom of the stairs, sprucely attired for the city, and wearing a flower in the buttonhole of his overcoat. "I've had to break open the front door in order to get in at all, and then I tried shooting the bell for your valet. Can I come up?" "Do," said Septimus, shivering. "Do you mind if I go back to bed?" "[98]Do anything, except go to sleep," said Sypher. "Look here. I'm sorry if I disturbed you, but I couldn't wait. I'm off to the office and heaven knows when I shall be back. I want to talk to you about this." He sat on the foot of the bed and threw the proofs of the gun book on to Septimus's body, vaguely outlined beneath the clothes. In the gray November light—Zora's carefully chosen curtains and blinds had not been drawn—Sypher, pink and shiny, his silk hat (which he wore) a resplendent miracle of valetry, looked an urban yet roseate personification of Dawn. He seemed as eager as Septimus was supine. "I've sat up half the night over this thing," said he, "and I really believe you've got it." "Got what?" asked Septimus. "It. The biggest thing on earth, bar Sypher's Cure." "Wait till I've worked out my railway carriages," said Septimus. "Your railway carriages! Good gracious! Haven't you any sense of what you're doing? Here you've worked out a scheme that may revolutionize naval gunnery, and you talk rot about railway carriages." "I'm glad you like the book," said Septimus. "Are you going to publish it?" "Of course." "Ask your publisher how much he'll take to let you off your bargain." "I'm publishing it at my own expense," said Septimus, in the middle of a yawn. "And presenting it gratis to the governments of the world?" "Yes. I might send them copies," said Septimus. "It's a good idea." [99]Clem Sypher thrust his hat to the back of his head, and paced the room from the wash-stand past the dressing-table to the wardrobe and back again. "Well, I'm hanged!" said he. Septimus asked why. "I thought I was a philanthropist," said Sypher, "but by the side of you I'm a vulture. Has it not struck you that, if the big gun is what I think, any government on earth would give you what you like to ask for the specification?" "Really? Do you think they would give me a couple of hundred pounds?" asked Septimus, thinking vaguely of Mordaunt Prince in Naples and his overdrawn banking account. The anxiety of his expression was not lost on Sypher. "Are you in need of a couple of hundred pounds?" he asked. "Until my dividends are due. I've been speculating, and I'm afraid I haven't a head for business." "I'm afraid you haven't," grinned Sypher, leaning over the footrail of the bed. "Next time you speculate come to me first for advice. Let me be your agent for these guns, will you?" "I should be delighted," said Septimus, "and for the railway carriages too. There's also a motor car I've invented which goes by clockwork. You've got to wind it by means of a donkey engine. It's quite simple." "I should think it would be," said Sypher drily. "But I'll only take on the guns just for the present." He drew a check book from one pocket and a fountain pen from another. "I'll advance you two hundred pounds for the sole right [100]to deal with the thing on your behalf. My solicitors will send you a document full of verbiage which you had better send off to your solicitor to look through before you sign it. It will be all right. I'm going to take the proofs. Of course this stops publishing," he remarked, looking round from the dressing-table where he was writing the check. Septimus assented and took the check wonderingly, remarking that he didn't in the least know what it was for. "For the privilege of making your fortune. Good-by," said he. "Don't get up." "Good night," said Septimus, and the door having closed behind Clem Sypher, he thrust the check beneath the bedclothes, curled himself up and went to sleep like a dormouse. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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