of course it was not to be thought of that he should give up his lankester, and the first thing to be done was to muzzle furnival's young men. i went to furny the next day and told him plainly that his joke had gone too far, that he knew what burton was and that it wasn't a bit of good trying to force his hand.
and then that evening i went on to antigone.
she said i was just in time; and when i asked her "for what?" she said—to give them my advice about her father's "memoirs."
i told her that was precisely what i'd come for; and she asked if grevill had sent me.
i said no, he hadn't. i'd come for myself.
"because," she said, "he's sent them back." [pg 213]
i stared at her. for one moment i thought that he had done the only sane thing he could do, that he had made my horrible task unnecessary.
she explained. "he wants mamma and me to go over them again and see if there aren't some things we'd better leave out."
"oh," i said, "is that all?"
i must have struck her as looking rather queer, for she said, "all? why, whatever did you think it was?"
with a desperate courage i dashed into it there where i saw my opening.
"i thought he'd given it up."
"given it up?"
her dismay showed me what i had yet to go through. but i staved it off a bit. i tried half-measures.
"well, yes," i said, "you see, he's frightfully driven with his lankester book."
"but—we said—we wouldn't have him driven for the world. papa can wait. he has waited."
i ignored it and the tragic implication.
"you see," i said, "lankester's book's awfully important. it means no end to him. if he makes the fine thing of it we think he will, it'll place him. what's more, it'll place lankester. he's still—as far as the big outside public is concerned—waiting to be placed."
"he mustn't wait," she said. "it's all right. grevill knows. we told him he was to do lankester first."
i groaned. "it doesn't matter," i said, "which he does first."
"you mean he'll be driven anyway?"
it was so far from what i meant that i could only stare at her and at her frightful failure to perceive.
i went at it again, as i thought, with a directness [pg 214] that left nothing to her intelligence. i told her what i meant was that he couldn't do them both.
but she didn't see it. she just looked at me with her terrible innocence.
"you mean it's too much for him?"
and i tried to begin again with no, it wasn't exactly that—but she went on over me.
it wouldn't be too much for him if he didn't go at it so hard. he was giving himself more to do than was necessary. he'd marked so many things for omission; and, of course, the more he left out of "papa," the more he had to put in of his own.
"and he needn't," she said. "there's such a lot of papa."
i knew. i scowled miserably at that. how was i going to tell her it was the whole trouble, that there was "such a lot of papa"?
i said there was; but, on the other hand, he needed such a lot of editing.
she said that was just what they had to think about. did he?
i remembered burton's theory, and i put it to her point-blank. had she read all of him?
she flushed slightly. no, she said, not all. but mamma had.
"then" (i skirmished), "you don't really know?"
she parried it with "mamma knows."
and i thrust. "but," i said, "does your mother really understand?"
i saw her wince.
"do you mean," she said, "there are things—things in it that had better be kept out?"
"no," i said, "there weren't any 'things' in it——"
"there couldn't be," she said superbly. "not things we'd want to hide." [pg 215]
i said there weren't. it wasn't "things" at all. i shut my eyes and went at it head downward.
it was, somehow, the whole thing.
"the whole thing?" she said, and i saw that i had hit her hard.
"the whole thing," i said.
she looked scared for a moment. then she rallied.
"but it's the whole thing we want. he wanted it. i know he did. he wanted to be represented completely or not at all. as he stood. as he stood," she reiterated.
she had given me the word i wanted. i could do it gently now.
"that's it," i said. "these 'memoirs' won't represent him."
subtlety, diabolic or divine, was given me. i went at it like a man inspired.
"they won't do him justice. they'll do him harm."
"harm?" she breathed it with an audible fright.
"very great harm. they give a wrong impression, an impression of—of——"
i left it to her. it sank in. she pondered it.
"you mean," she said at last, "the things he says about himself?"
"precisely. the things he says about himself. i doubt if he really intended them all for publication."
"it's not the things he says about himself so much," she said. "we could leave some of them out. it's what grevill might have said about him."
that was awful; but it helped me; it showed me where to plant the blow that would do for her, poor lamb.
"my dear child," i said (i was very gentle, now that i had come to it, to my butcher's work), "that's what i want you to realize. he'll—he'll say what he [pg 216] can, of course; but he can't say very much. there—there isn't really very much to say."
she took it in silence. she was too much hurt, i thought, to see. i softened it and at the same time made it luminous.
"i mean," i said, "for grevill to say."
she saw.
"you mean," she said simply, "he isn't great enough?"
i amended it. "for grevill."
"grevill," she repeated. i shall never forget how she said it. it was as if her voice reached out and touched him tenderly.
"lankester is more in his line," i said. "it's a question of temperament, of fitness."
she said she knew that.
"and," i said, "of proportion. if he says what you want him to say about your father, what can he say about lankester?"
"but if he does lankester first?"
"then—if he says what you want him to say—he undoes everything he has done for lankester. and," i added, "he's done for."
she hadn't seen that aspect of it, for she said: "grevill is?"
i said he was, of course. i said we all felt that strongly; grevill felt it himself. it would finish him.
dear antigone, i saw her take it. she pressed the sword into her heart. "if—if he did papa? is it—is it as bad as all that?"
i said we were afraid it was—for grevill.
"and is he," she said, "afraid?"
"not for himself," i said, and she asked me: "for whom, then?" and i said: "for lankester." i told her that was what i'd meant when i said just now that [pg 217] he couldn't do them both. and, as a matter of fact, he wasn't going to do them both. he had given up one of them.
"which?" she asked; and i said she might guess which.
but she said nothing. she sat there with her eyes fixed on me and her lips parted slightly. it struck me that she was waiting for me, in her dreadful silence, as if her life hung on what i should say.
"he has given up lankester," i said.
i heard her breath go through her parted lips in a long sigh, and she looked away from me.
"he cared," she said, "as much as that."
"he cared for you as much," i said. i was a little doubtful as to what she meant. but i know now.
she asked me if i had come to tell her that.
i said i thought it was as well she should realize it. but i'd come to ask her—if she cared for him—to let him off. to—to——
she stopped me with it as i fumbled.
"to give papa up?"
i said, to give him up as far as grevill was concerned.
she reminded me that it was to be grevill or nobody.
then, i said, it had much better be nobody. if she didn't want to do her father harm.
she did not answer. she was looking steadily at the fire burning in the grate. at last she spoke.
"mamma," she said, "will never give him up."
i suggested that i had better speak to mrs. wrackham.
"no," she said. "don't. she won't understand." she rose. "i am not going to leave it to mamma."
she went to the fire and stirred it to a furious flame. [pg 218]
"grevill will be here," she said, "in half an hour."
she walked across the room—i can see her going now—holding her beautiful head high. she locked the door (i was locked in with antigone). she went to a writing-table where the "memoirs" lay spread out in parts; she took them and gathered them into a pile. i was standing by the hearth and she came toward me; i can see her; she was splendid, carrying them in her arms sacrificially. and she laid them on the fire.
it took us half an hour to burn them. we did it in a sort of sacred silence.
when it was all over and i saw her stand there, staring at a bit of wrackham's handwriting that had resisted to the last the purifying flame, i tried to comfort her.
"angelette," i said, "don't be unhappy. that was the kindest thing you could do—and the best thing, believe me—to your father's memory."
"i'm afraid," she said, "i wasn't thinking—altogether—of papa."
i may add that her mother did not understand, and that—when we at last unlocked the door—we had a terrible scene. the dear lady has not yet forgiven antigone; she detests her son-in-law; and i'm afraid she isn't very fond of me.
