Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/460

 “Dear me, I am sorry to hear that.” Mr. Westcott finished the toast and wiped his fingers on a very old and dirty red handkerchief. “Women—bless them—angels for a time, but never to be depended on. Poor boy, I'm sorry. Children?”

“I had a son. He died.”

“Well now, I am indeed sorry, I'd have liked a grandson too. Don't want the old Westcott stock to die out. Dear me, that is a pity.”

It was at this point that Peter was aware, although he could not have given any reasonable explanation of his certainty, that his father had been perfectly assured beforehand of all the answers to these questions. Peter looked at the man, but the eyes were almost closed, and the smile that played about the weak lips—once so stern and strong—told one nothing.

It was dark now. Mr. Westcott got, somewhat unsteadily, to his feet.

“Come,” he said, “I'll show you the house, my boy. Not changed much since you were here, I'm sure. Wanted a woman's care since your dear mother died of course—and your poor old grandfather—”

He whispered over again to himself as he shuffled across the room—“your poor old grandfather—”

It had seemed to grow very suddenly dark. Outside in the hall, under the spluttering lamp, Mr. Westcott found a candle. The house was intensely silent.

As they climbed the stairs, lighted only by the flickering candle-light, Peter's feelings were a curious mixture of uneasiness and a strange unthinking somnolence. Some part of him, somewhere, was urging him to an active unrest—“Norah what does she want interfering? I'll just go and see her and come back No, I won't, I'll just stay here never to bother again  never to bother again”

He was also, in some undefined “way, expecting that at any moment his father would change. The crimson dressing-gown swayed under the flickering candle-light. Let it turn round and what would one see inside it? His father never stopped talking for an instant—his thick wandering voice was the only sound in the deserted house.