“Well, I haven't,” he said. “I'm going up to the drawing-room. Perhaps you'll join me.”
He nodded to his father and left the room. Matthew edged his chair further from the fire, and wiped his lips and brow with his handkerchief.
“You are getting too warm,” said Usher.
“The room is hot. When you have finished your wine, we may as well follow Sylvester.”
Usher poured out another glass.
“I am very comfortable,” he said. “I always am here. You must be proud to have a son with such sentiments as Sylvester.”
Matthew rose abruptly from his seat, clenched his hands by his side, and bit a quivering lip. Evidently he was mastering something.
“Drink your wine and come upstairs,” he said.
The other looked at him askance and hesitated. Then yielding, as it were, to compulsion, he gulped down the contents of his glass and rose with watery eyes.
“It was a sin to do that,” he said with a sigh. “You always were an unreasonable fellow, Matthew. I only said I was glad that Sylvester held such opinions. Most young men nowadays are shockingly lax in their principles.” Matthew did not reply, but with cold, imperturbable face opened the door for him to pass out. Usher hung back.
“I must speak to you about my son Roderick. Business before pleasure. It has been my constant rule in life.”
“What has Roderick been doing now?” asked Matthew, closing the door again.
“He is bringing my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave again,” replied Usher. “My son and your son—what a difference, Matthew! 'Tis sharper than—”
“Rubbish! What's the matter, man?”
“A serpents tooth, to have a thankless child. I dislike being interrupted. Matthew, Roderick has gone to the Jews. The bills have fallen due. They won't renew, and if they are not paid, they'll put him in prison. I cannot have my son in prison.”
“Get him out, then,” replied Matthew. “I can't do more for him than I do. I promised, years ago, that what Sylvester had, Roderick should have, and, by Heaven! I've kept my promise. I can't do more. You can't draw blood from a stone.”
“As if any one ever wanted to. Proverbs are foolish. I never make use of proverbs. I think you must take up those bills.”
“And if I don't?”
Usher shrugged his shoulders and, sitting down again, refilled his glass and held it up to the light. Matthew stood on the hearth-rug, his hands behind him, and regarded him impassively.
“I gave you Roderick's quarterly allowance only a short while ago. What has he done with it?”
“I do not know,” said Usher, impressively, turning his dull venerable face towards him. “He has nearly ruined me already.”
“Have you brought his letters with you?”
“I burned his letters. It is imprudent to keep compromising letters. But I have made out a statement of affairs.”
Usher took from his pocket a double sheet of foolscap, smoothed it out and examined it deliberately, then handed it to Matthew. The latter glanced through the statement. His lips quivered for a moment.
“This is practically fraud,” he said. “A magistrate might commit on it, a jury find a verdict of guilty, and then—”
“His dear mother's memory,” said Usher, wagging his head solemnly.
Matthew involuntarily clenched the paper tight in his hand.
“Damn you!” he said. Then he repeated it. “Damn you!”
But Usher stretched out a deprecating hand and spoke in tones of gentle reproach.
“You must be calm, my dear friend. I am always calm. I have never said a word in all my life that I have had cause to regret. Not even this morning, when Olivia with great carelessness destroyed a new book-plate. And it was a very valuable book-plate. It belonged to Hugh, the first Earl of Lawford, of Edward III.'s creation.”
“Are you aware that your own son is in danger of penal servitude?” asked Matthew, sharply.
“Why, of course. Is not that my reason for coming to you? I put the matter into your hands, as lawyer and friend and second father to my erring boy, and I am content. Yes, I am content, for I have trust in you. Shall we go up now and join the ladies?” Matthew bit the end off another cigar and lighted it. Then, as if his guest had made the most natural and relevant proposal in the world, he said with a courtesy not devoid of grimness—“My sister is not feeling very well this evening, and the young folks might be happier alone together, so perhaps we'll not go upstairs. And as this affair of Roderick's will give me some thinking, you'll excuse me if I leave you shortly.”
“You are right,” replied Usher, rising ponderously. “The night air is not good for me. I suffer much from my bronchial tubes. I must have some one fitter than Olivia to nurse me. Servants are never grateful for the bounties one heaps on them. If only Miss Defries would look upon Roderick as favourably as she does upon Sylvester, how happily things could be arranged.”
There was not a spark of cunning or rearward thought in his dim, unspeculative eyes. Yet Matthew felt a sudden pang of suspicion at his last words, and scanned his face intently. Was it the first hint of some scheme long maturing in his dull yet tenacious brain, or the mere surface fancy of the egotist? He could not tell, although he flattered himself that he knew the man's soul as a priest his breviary—every line and phrase, every thumb-mark and dog's ear.
“I think the less said about Roderick for some time, the better,” he remarked, ringing the bell. Then before the servant came, he said suddenly—
“But, by Heaven! this is the last time. Understand that. Once more, and I break down the whole structure though it kill me—carry the war into your quarters and tell Roderick all.”
Usher's face was shadowed by a faint smile.
“My dear friend, Roderick has known all his life. I could never leave my son in ignorance. I gave him the best training.”
The servant appeared. Usher extended his hand, which the other touched mechanically, and in another moment was gone, leaving Matthew staring incredulously, conscious of utter dismay.
“Is he lying?” he asked himself, a short while later, as he paced the library, whither he had betaken himself with the moneylending document. “Can the boy be such a blackguard? He must be lying.” But how base the lie was in reality, even he could not surmise.
The boy was a man of forty now, yet Matthew had watched and paid for every step upward and downward in his career. He remembered him a handsome and wayward child, a wild lad, a young man brilliant in promise, yet unstable as water, excelling in naught. He had seen him by turns poet, painter, journalist, social reformer, musical critic, dramatist, always obtaining successes of estimation, always floating iridescent and futile as froth on the waves of literary and artistic London. What Roderick was doing now, he did not know. For some time past he had heard little of him. Now he had come to light again somewhat luridly. A foolish friend had backed bills under false representations. The Jews were pressing, the friend recalcitrant. It was a criminal matter. If he were guilty of this, why not of that knowledge of which his father boasted so cynically? Matthew's face grew worn and hard. He unlocked a safe, drew therefrom a small padlocked ledger, and sitting down at his desk began to pore over its contents. Roderick must be saved this time at any cost, for his mother's sake, as Usher had remarked. At the reminiscence Matthew reiterated his execration.
After long, anxious thought, he made a rough calculation on a scrap of paper,