Short Fiction

The great public had forgotten him, but the courtliness of his Musings of a Pensioner procured him some circulation among elderly and educated audiences. And he found a new spiritual consolation. Anima naturaliter Anglicana, he had never been hostile to the Established Church; and, when he criticized her worldliness and occasional inhumanity, had spoken as one who was outside her rather than against her. After his wife’s death and the flight of his son he lost any lingering taste for speculation. The experience of years disposed him to accept the experience of centuries, and to merge his feeble personal note in the great voice of tradition. Yes; a serene and dignified old age. Few grudged it to him. Of course, he had enemies, who professed to see through him, and said that Adam had seen through him too; but no impartial observer agreed. No ulterior motive had ever biased Sir Michael. The purity of his record was not due to luck, but to purity within, and his conciliatory manner sprang from a conciliated soul. He could look back on failures and mistakes, and he had not carried out the ideals of his youth. Who has? But he had succeeded better than most men in modifying those ideals to fit the world of facts, and if love had been modified into sympathy and sympathy into compromise, let one of his contemporaries cast the first stone.

One fact remained⁠—the fact of death. Hitherto, Sir Michael had never died, and at times he was bestially afraid. But more often death appeared as a prolongation of his present career. He saw himself quietly and tactfully organizing some corner in infinity with his wife’s assistance; Janet would be greatly improved. He saw himself passing from a sphere in which he had been efficient into a sphere which combined the familiar with the eternal, and in which he would be equally efficient⁠—passing into it with dignity and without pain. This life is a preparation for the next. Those who live longest are consequently the best prepared. Experience is the great teacher; blessed are the experienced, for they need not further modify their ideals.

The manner of his death was as follows. He, too, met with an accident. He was walking from his town house to Catherine’s by a shortcut through a slum; some women were quarrelling about a fish, and as he passed they appealed to him. Always courteous, the old man stopped, said that he had not sufficient data to judge on, and advised them to lay the fish aside for twenty-four hours. This chanced to annoy them, and they grew more angry with him than with one another. They accused him of “doing them,” of “getting round them,” and one, who was the worse for drink, said, “See if he gets round that,” and slapped him with the fish in the face. He fell. When he came to himself he was lying in bed with one of his headaches.

He could hear Catherine’s voice. She annoyed him. If he did not open his eyes, it was only because he did not choose.

“He has been like this for nearly two years,” said Henry’s voice.

It was, at the most, ten minutes since he had fallen in the slum. But he did not choose to argue.

“Yes, he’s pretty well played out,” said a third voice⁠—actually the voice of Adam; how and when had Adam returned? “But, then, he’s been that for the last thirty years.”

“Gently, old boy,” said Henry.

“Well, he has,” said Adam. “I don’t believe in cant. He never did anything since Mother died, and damned little before. They’ve forgotten his books because they aren’t firsthand; they’re rearranging the cases he arranged in the British Museum. That’s the lot. What else has he done except tell people to dress warmly, but not too warm?”

“Adam, you really mustn’t⁠—”

“It’s because nobody speaks up that men of the old man’s type get famous. It’s a sign of your sloppy civilisation. You’re all afraid⁠—afraid of originality, afraid of work, afraid of hurting one another’s feelings. You let anyone come to the top who doesn’t frighten you, and as soon as he dies you forget him and knight some other figurehead instead.”

An unknown voice said, “Shocking, Mr. Adam, shocking. Such a dear old man, and quite celebrated, too.”

“You’ll soon get used to me, nurse.”

The nurse laughed.

“Adam, it is a relief to have you,” said Catherine after a pause. “I want you and your boy to help me with mine.” Her voice sounded dimmer; she had turned from her father without a word of farewell. “One must profit by the mistakes of others⁠ ⁠… after all, more heroism.⁠ ⁠… I am determined to keep in touch with my boy⁠—”

“Larrup him,” said Adam. “That’s the secret.” He followed his sister out of the room.

Then Henry’s delightful laugh sounded for the last time. “You make us all feel twenty years younger,” he said; “more like when⁠—”

The door shut.

Sir Michael grew cold with rage. This was life, this was what the younger generation had been thinking. Adam he ignored, but at the recollection of Henry and Catherine he determined to die. If he chose, he could have risen from bed and driven the whole pack into the street. But he did not choose. He chose rather to leave this shoddy and ungrateful world. The immense and superhuman cynicism that is latent in all of us came at last to the top and transformed him. He saw the absurdity of love, and the vision so tickled him that he began to laugh. The nurse, who had called him a dear old man, bent over him, and at the same moment two boys came into the sickroom.

“How’s grandpapa?” asked one of them⁠—Catherine’s boy.

“Not so well,” the nurse answered.

There was a silence. Then the other boy said, “Come along, let’s cut.”

“But they told us not to.”

“Why should we do what old people tell us! Dad’s pretty well played out, and so’s your mother.”

“Shocking; be off with you both,” said the