Maximilian Foster - Rich Man, Poor Man

"Come!" she said, and the next instant, the street door opening from within, Bab stood gazing about her with breathless interest at the house which once had been her father's home.

If the place outside had seemed huge, within she felt engulfed by it. A drawing-room, now a vast vault of darkness, lay on one hand, while on the other was a reception room, itself cavernous in its immensity. Beyond, other rooms opened too. Bab glimpsed a library, then a dining-room, its sideboard and serving table glittering with silver. But of all this she had no more than a glance. A footman had opened the door for them, and in addition to him the butler stood in the hall. To him Miss Elvira turned abruptly.

"Well, Crabbe?" she demanded.

The man, a white-haired, pink-cheeked old fellow who had been staring round-eyed at Bab, got himself hastily together.

"The doctor's still upstairs – the assistant, that is, madam. The master's stronger, 'e says."

Miss Elvira did not tarry. With a sign to Bab the energetic lady went bustling up the stairs, the others trooping after her. Not more than half a minute later Bab found herself standing at her grandfather's bedside.

What happened upon that was swift, inexpressibly confusing. The room in which old Peter Beeston lay was huge, like all the rest of that house. It was a crypt-like impressive chamber, and was furnished darkly in the same massive way. And like his surroundings, the room and its furniture – the big dressing table, the vast writing desk, the massive four-poster that held him – the man himself was huge, a bulk of a man whose fierce, brooding face glowered about him as threatening as a thunder-cloud.

Bab gazed at him in awe. He lay outstretched, his limbs crossed like a Crusader's beneath the sheets; and though both age and illness had ravaged him the impression he gave was still of giant force, of giant fierceness too. His face, framed among the pillows, gazed up at her with a quick, inquiring look; and then, as he seemed to comprehend, Bab felt his eye drill through and through her with piercing intensity. His lips moved, his mouth worked momentarily, and he seemed about to speak. But when he did speak it was not to Bab.

Lloyd as well as Miss Elvira had accompanied Bab into the room, and of this Beeston instantly was aware. One gnarled, knotted hand raised itself from the coverlid, and, turning his eyes from Bab, he spoke. The speech came fiercely rumbling.

"Get out!" he said.

Lloyd's air thus far had been singularly curious, and now Bab saw him start.

"Do you mean me, sir?" he asked awkwardly. His manner, Bab thought, was uncomfortable, strangely uncertain for one heretofore so cocksure, so condescending; and she looked at him surprised.

Again Beeston spoke. The hand he had raised struck the coverlid a sudden blow, and the room rumbled with the echo of his voice.

"Get out, I say!" he repeated; and Lloyd, after a quick look at Bab, a glance the resentment of which she did not miss, withdrew abruptly.

Then old Beeston raised his hand, his forefinger beckoning.

"Vira," he said. "Vira!" And when his sister bent over him old Beeston growled thickly, his voice, if rough, still friendly: "Vira, you go too, old girl!"

So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there – her grandfather.

"Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"

A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.

The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly.

"They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"

His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too.

"Yes," she said.

Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly.

"Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.

Bab looked at him hesitantly. It was this that she had dreaded.

"What shall I tell you?" she asked.

Beeston's eyes still were on the ceiling.

"Dead, isn't he?" he demanded.

Yes, he was dead, as the man lying there long must have known; and her trouble growing, Bab stared silently at him. But the grim eyes gave no sign.

"You don't look like him!" said her grandfather suddenly, so abruptly that she started. "You must look like that woman, eh!"

Bab gazed at him steadily.

"You mean my mother, don't you?" she inquired. She had been prepared for this, and in her voice was a tone of quiet decisiveness she meant him clearly to see. "You mustn't speak like that," she said clearly. "My mother did you no wrong!"

She saw his eyes leap from the ceiling to her and back again. Then a smile, a grim effigy of merriment, dawned in his somber face. A growl followed it.

"So you're self-willed, eh?" he rumbled. "You're all Beeston, I see!" Then a grunt, a sneer escaped him. "I'd be careful, young woman! I'm all Beeston too, and I've seen what comes to us self-willed folk! Your own father, because of it, ruined himself. That's not all either. Because of it, too, my daughter is married to a fool! Oh, I've seen enough of it!" he rumbled.

Bab was startled. She knew, she thought, the fool he meant, but to that she gave but momentary heed. Struggling up, his face dark, convulsed, no doubt, with the thoughts rioting in his mind, Beeston turned and shook roughly into place the pillows that supported him. And this was the man they had thought dying! Grumbling, growling thickly, he lay back then, the growls subsiding presently like thunder muttering away among the depths of distant hills.

She was still gazing at him, absorbed, startled, when she saw a change steal upon the man's distorted face. It was as if that instant's rage, flaming hotly, must have lighted in the dim recesses of his mind some forgotten cell; for of a sudden the smoldering anger of his eyes passed and he sat staring at the wall.

"Well, won't you tell me?" he asked heavily. "I want to know about my son."

But Bab knew nothing to tell. That was why the ordeal she had faced that night had filled her so with dread. The little she knew of either of her parents was what they had told her at Mrs. Tilney's. Vaguely they'd had the impression that the mother had come from somewhere upstate; where, they did not know. But scant as this information was and shadowy, what they'd learned of the father was even less. Of his history they had gathered nothing, not even an impression. As for herself, she remembered nothing of him. Nor did she know when he had died or how. She could not, in fact, even tell where her father's grave was; and, sunken among the pillows, Beeston lay staring at the ceiling. Then suddenly he stirred.

"You mean you can't tell me anything? Answer me!" he said, his voice breaking thickly. "He was my son; I drove him from me! Don't you understand? I want to know! I've got to; he was my boy!"

Bab strove to free her hand from his.

"You're hurting me," she said, and at that he abruptly recovered himself.

"Eh?" he said, as if awakening.

He dropped her hand then, and, his eyes closing, he lay back among the pillows, his breast heaving with the tumult of emotions that had tortured him. But now that the struggle had passed the man's face changed anew with one of those astonishing transformations that so often marked his character. He smiled wanly. The fierceness waned from his face. And as Bab, pitying anew, sat gazing down at him, Beeston's hand again crept out and softly closed on hers. Drawing her toward him, he laid his cheek to hers.