“No, they didn’t tell your parents. In fact, your mother never knew what was up there in the attic all those years. But your grandfather knew, of course, and he and Dr. J.A.—well, it’d be hard to say exactly what happened. They were both relieved, but it wouldn’t have done to let that show. I knew some money changed hands, to make sure Zadok kept his mouth shut. And in an awful way I suppose it was gratitude.
“The money was the end of him. Drank worse and worse, and his work at Devinney’s suffered; he did some jobs that scared the bereaved when they looked into the coffins—all swollen around the face, and a kind of boiled colour. So Devinney had to get rid of him. And the upshot of that was that he fell down drunk one winter night in the lane behind Devinney’s—because he had a sort of unnatural pull toward the place—and nearly froze, and they had to take both his legs off, and even at that they don’t seem to have been able to stop the gangrene. He’s up in the hospital now. It would be kind of you to go and see him. Yes, I go, once a week, and take a few tarts and things. That hospital food is worse than Anna Lemenchick’s.
“After poor Frankie was buried for the second time I didn’t last a week at St. Kilda. One morning the old Aunt and I went right to the mat, there in the kitchen, and she told me to go. Go, I said! It’s you that’ll go if I leave this kitchen! You and the Missus cramming yourselves at every meal worse than Zadok and his beer! Don’t think you’re firing me! I’m the one that’s doing the firing! Just see how you get along without me! You pair of old stuff-puddings! That was common of me, Francis, but I was worked up. Not even your grandfather could persuade me to stay after that. How could I stay in a place where I’d showed myself common?”
Francis knew that something had to be said, and though it is not easy for young people to say such things, he said it.
“Victoria, I don’t suppose anybody will ever know what you did for that fellow—Francis the First, I call him—but you were wonderful, and I thank you for him, and for everybody. You were an angel.”
“Well, I don’t see any need to get soft about it, Francis. I did what had to be done. As for thanks, your grandfather was very generous when the parting came. Your grandfather sees farther than most people. Who do you suppose is paying for Zadok in the hospital? And the money that allowed me to set up this place was a gift from him.”
“I’m glad. And you can play the tough Presbyterian all you please, Victoria, but I’ll go right on thinking of you as an angel.” And Francis kissed her soundly.
“Frank—for Heaven’s sake! Not in the shop! Suppose somebody saw!”
“They’d think there were more tarts in here than the ones in the showcase,” said Francis, and dodged through the door as the outraged Victoria called after him.
“That’s quite enough of that sort of talk. You’re worse than Zadok.”
Was it possible to be worse than Zadok? When Francis visited him in the hospital later that day it seemed that Zadok’s decline could not be equalled. The ward was hot and stuffy; there were no patients in the other two beds, so Francis could talk freely to the wasted trunk that lay in the bed nearest the window, with a kind of cage under the sheet to lift it from where the legs had once been. The stench of disinfectant was oppressive, and from Zadok’s bed there came, from time to time, a whiff of something disgusting, a scent of evil omen.
“It’s this gang-green, they call it, Frankie. I can feel it all through me. B’God I can taste it. Can’t seem to stop it, though they’ve taken my legs. It’s an eating sore, y’know. Dr. J.A. says he’s never seen it so bad, though he’s seen some bad cases in the lumber camps. Says he doesn’t know why I’m not dead, because I’m a mass of corruption. He can talk like that to me because I’m an old soldier, me dear, and I can bear the worst. He’s not unkind; it’s just that he sees the world as a huge disease, and we’re all part of it.”
“It’s very, very bad luck, Zadok.”
“I’ve known very bad luck in my time, me dear. I’ve looked it right in its ugly mug, and it’s a terror. Yes, it’s a rum start what can happen to a man. I’ve never told you about South Africa, have I?”
“I knew you’d fought there.”
“I fought well there. I did some good work. I was up for promotion and a decoration. Then it all fell to pieces because of love. You wouldn’t think of that, would you? But love it was, and I’m not ashamed of it now.
“I was in a regiment raised in Cornwall, you see, and I went under the lead of a young man who was the son of the great family in my part. His father was an Earl, so he was a Lord. The Captain, he was. God, he was a handsome man, Frankie! We’d grown up together, almost, because I’d followed him all my life, hunting, fishing, roving, everything boys do. So of course I joined the regiment under him, and I was his batman—his personal servant, like. Before I joined I’d been two or three years in his father’s house as an under-servant, a footman that was, so it seemed a very natural thing that I should go on looking after his clothes, and even trimming his hair, like. We were friends, great friends, the way a master and a servant can be. And I swear to God he never laid a finger on me nor I on him in a way that would bring shame on either of us. It wasn’t like that; I’ve seen some o’ that, in the Army and out of it, and I swear it wasn’t like that. But I loved the Captain, the way you’d love a hero. And he was a hero. A very brave, fine man.
“Like many a hero, he was killed. Stopped a Boer sniper’s bullet. So we buried him, and I did my best for him right to the end. Dressed him, and saw his hair was washed, and he looked very fine in the cheap coffin that was all there was, of course. ‘Yes, let me like a soldier fall.’ Remember that song?
“I thought I’d die, too. At night I used to sneak out after Lights Out, and sit by his grave. One night a picket noticed me, lying on the grave and crying my heart out, and he reported me, and there was an awful fuss. I was charged, and the Colonel had a lot to say about how such behaviour was unworthy of a soldier and could be harmful to morale, and how such immoral relationships must be sharply discouraged, and I was discharged without honour and sent back home, and bang went my medal, and a big part of my life. The Colonel wasn’t one of our lot. Not a Cornishman, and he didn’t understand me. I wonder if he ever loved anything or anybody in his life. So that was very bad luck.”
“Terrible bad luck, Zadok. But I understand. It was like the love that held the Grail knights together, and the people who served them in innocent love.”
“Ah, well, I don’t know anything about that. But of course you’re part Cornish, aren’t you, Frankie? Not that I’d say they were a very loving lot, on the whole. But they’re a loyal lot.”
“What did you do in England?”
“Whatever I could. Servant, mostly, and some jobs for undertakers. But there was one thing that seemed almost as if it was meant to make up for the other, and it was love too, in a funny way.
“It was like a dream, really. That’s the way it seems to me now.
“There was one regimental sergeant-major—good bloke—that I’d known, and he was kind to me now and then. He had a funny sideline. Used to supply men—soldiers mostly—to places that wanted servants for big dos, just to dress the place up, you know; not really do much except wear the livery and look tall and trustworthy. Well, I’d been a footman, hadn’t I? Get a few bob for an easy night’s work.
“One night was a big night in one of the big hotels, and I was on the job, all gussied up in breeches and a velvet clawhammer and white wig. No moustache then, of course. A servant must shave clean. We’d done our job and I was just about to take off the fancy clobber when some fellow—one of the upper waiters—rushed up to me and said, ‘Here, we’re short-handed; just take this up to number two-four-two will you, and give it in before you leave.’ And he handed me a tray with a bottle of champagne and some glasses on it, and dashed away. So up I went, knocked on the door, very soft as I’d been taught in the castle, and went in.