Chapter XXI My Nightmare
I did not sleep that night for many hours, and when I finally slumbered there came to me a nightmare, involving grandpapa, which took ten years off my life.
I dreamed that the morning had come, and that I went into grandfather’s room to wish him many happy returns of the day—a thing I should certainly not have done in reality. But I was in the spirit, and never shall I forget the spectacle which greeted me as I stood by the old man’s pillow. Instead of the ruddy, healthy boy I had left over-night—instead of the muscular, deep-chested, deep-voiced young athlete who was that day to row at Henley, there sat up in the bed an uncanny, wrinkled, decrepit mummy of a creature. It was bald, save for a thin tangle of white eyebrow over each bleared eye. Its mouth was a mere slit, its nose and chin nearly met, its cheeks had fallen in. One thin skeleton of a claw held the bedclothes up to its scraggy neck. Its head shook, its under jaw dropped, its back was round as a wheel; the thing manifested indications of profoundest age.
“What—what is this? Who are you?” I gasped, turning faint and clutching at a chair-back for support.
It laughed a little squeaky, wheezy laugh, and a cunning expression came into its dim eyes.
“Keep your nerve,” it said. “The show’s bust up; the New Scheme’s broken down!”
“Grandpapa!”
“He—he—he! Yes. A hundred and eight, not twenty. I’ve downed him.”
“Downed him, grandpapa?”
“That means bested him, beaten him, scored off him. Lord! Lord! You’d have laughed to see what went on here last night. Nick swore and cussed and stormed and stamped round and perspired brimstone; but it wasn’t any manner of use. He’d given himself away by his own foolishness.”
“Tell me, grandfather, tell me all about it. This is a happy day indeed!”
In my dream I gave the old hero an egg-and-milk with a little brandy. Then he sat up, and in a weak, trembling voice, broken with fits of senile chuckling, he told me about his interview.
“Nick came in just for a chat. He always goes to Henley. He mentioned the ‘Diamonds,’ and guaranteed I should win ’em. He was friendly as you please, and hoped I’d had a good time, and didn’t regret my bargain.
“Then I told him of my visit to the lawyers, rapped out at him for a blundering, unbusiness-like ass, got the agreement out, went through it with him, and showed him what he’d really done. He was fairly mad, but he couldn’t get away from facts. I said:
“‘The point lies in a nutshell. There’ll be nothing of me left to go anywhere; and even you cannot arrange for the eternity of a non-existent being, can you?’
“He had to admit he couldn’t. He was properly cross. He tore the agreement to little pieces, and stamped on it. He argued some time with me, and pointed out a fact that I had fully grasped already. He said:
“‘Yes, it’s pretty clear I’ve over-reached myself. My fiendish conceit’s always tripping me up. I ought to have got my lawyers to help me; but I thought I could thrash a simple thing like that out alone.’
“He said that much, and then I made some satirical remark which stung him, for he turned on me, about as short and nasty as they make ’em, and said:
“‘Blest if I know what you want to snigger for! You don’t seem to realise what a unique fix you’re in. You won’t go anywhere now! That’s what’s the matter with you. Nothing to chortle about, I should think?’
“‘I’m not chortling at that,’ I answered, ‘I’m merely smiling a bit to see you getting so warm. You’d better listen to reason and leave the past alone. Is there any way out of this? Of course, I want to go somewhere. I’ve got a strong objection to becoming extinct. How would you like it? I suppose even you would rather hang on where you are than be blotted out altogether.’
“‘We can’t get away from a signed agreement,’ he said sulkily.
“Yes we can, if we draw out another, cancelling the first,’ I answered.
“‘No more writing for me,’ he said.
“‘Well, then, let us have an oral understanding,’ I suggested.
“‘I’ll entertain any proposal in reason,’ he replied.
“But, of course, I was unprepared with suggestions. The interview had been sprung upon me, and I had not bestowed a moment’s thought upon preparations.
“‘You’re in a fix, I know,’ he remarked, ‘a mere temporal quandary, only involving certain ladies and so forth, but still troublesome so far as it goes. I might do this; I might quash all these earthly suits by the simple expedient of restoring you to your real age. As it is, you will upset a good many of them, because old Bangley-Brown, for instance, is on the look-out for a man of seventy-five; and the publican’s daughter, Marie Rogers, expects a man of five-and-forty or fifty. But, by returning to the ripe old age of one hundred-and-eight, you reduce the whole series of proceedings to a farce, and leave the different police courts and places without a stain on your character. In any case, you can only live one year more, but the difference is this: that if you go on as you’re going, you go out altogether; whereas, if you consent to my alternative, you’ll die in your bed, and have a future.’
“As you may imagine, Martha, I grew very excited.
“‘A future—where?’ I enquired, in my dream.
“Exactly. Where? There’s the rub,” grandfather answered. “I asked Nick the same question, and he said:
“‘I wonder you can inquire. If you’ve got any sense of justice or gratitude, you ought to feel the extent of your debt and not hesitate to pay it. In any case, whatever your private ambitions may be, your past record is such that, if you go anywhere at all, your destination is practically determined.’
“I did not argue upon this point,” continued grandfather, “feeling it would be better tact to slur it over, and leave a loop-hole, but he held me to it, and finally got me to promise that I would never attempt to reform or amend my ways during the last year of my life. He insisted all the time that it would not alter the result, but I could see, from his great anxiety upon the point, that he knew there might be plenty of opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf, and make a good end, if I chose to do so. However, I promised him to lead as abandoned and dissolute a life as could be expected from a man of one hundred and eight, so we effected the compromise. He was nervous about it to the last, but felt it to be the only way out of the cul-de-sac his own stupidity had placed him in. Then the change was made. I went to sleep a boy and woke as you find me. I’m all here, but stiff about the legs, and deucedly rheumatic. Go out and get me a tall hat and some black, ready-made clothes, and some easy felt boots and a few walking sticks, and the strongest spectacles you can buy. Then I’ll get up.”
So ended my clear grandpapa’s astounding statement, but my dream went on. I made him some bread-and-milk, fed him with it, and then hurried out to purchase necessaries.
The world, had turned upside down for me. I expected the newspaper boys to be yelling out “Failure of the New Scheme!”