Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft(341)

“But look here, Alf, do you mean to say that Georgina, in particular, is so necessary to your work that you must make a slave and martyr of her? Use your sense of proportion, man! If it were a question of Surama or somebody in the utter thick of your experiments it might be different; but after all, Georgina is only a housekeeper to you in the last analysis. She has promised to be my wife and says that she loves me. Have you the right to cut her off from the life that belongs to her? Have you the right—”

“That’ll do, James!” Clarendon’s face was set and white. “Whether or not I have the right to govern my own family is no business of an outsider.”

“Outsider — you can say that to a man who—” Dalton almost choked as the steely voice of the doctor interrupted him again.

“An outsider to my family, and from now on an outsider to my home. Dalton, your presumption goes just a little too far! Good evening, Governor!”

And Clarendon strode from the room without extending his hand.

Dalton hesitated for a moment, almost at a loss what to do, when presently Georgina entered. Her face shewed that she had spoken with her brother, and Dalton took both her hands impetuously.

“Well, Georgie, what do you say? I’m afraid it’s a choice between Alf and me. You know how I feel — you know how I felt before, when it was your father I was up against. What’s your answer this time?”

He paused as she responded slowly.

“James, dear, do you believe that I love you?”

He nodded and pressed her hands expectantly.

“Then, if you love me, you’ll wait a while. Don’t think of Al’s rudeness. He’s to be pitied. I can’t tell you the whole thing now, but you know how worried I am — what with the strain of his work, the criticisms, and the staring and cackling of that horrible creature Surama! I’m afraid he’ll break down — he shews the strain more than anyone outside the family could tell. I can see it, for I’ve watched him all my life. He’s changing — slowly bending under his burdens — and he puts on his extra brusqueness to hide it. You can see what I mean, can’t you, dear?”

She paused, and Dalton nodded again, pressing one of her hands to his breast. Then she concluded.

“So promise me, dear, to be patient. I must stand by him; I must! I must!”

Dalton did not speak for a while, but his head inclined in what was almost a bow of reverence. There was more of Christ in this devoted woman than he had thought any human being possessed; and in the face of such love and loyalty he could do no urging.

Words of sadness and parting were brief; and James, whose blue eyes were misty, scarcely saw the gaunt clinic-man as the gate to the street was at last opened to him. But when it slammed to behind him he heard that blood-curdling chuckle he had come to recognise so well, and knew that Surama was there — Surama, whom Georgina had called her brother’s evil genius. Walking away with a firm step, Dalton resolved to be watchful, and to act at the first sign of trouble.

III.



Meanwhile San Francisco, the epidemic still on the lips of all, seethed with anti-Clarendon feeling. Actually the cases outside the penitentiary were very few, and confined almost wholly to the lower Mexican element whose lack of sanitation was a standing invitation to disease of every kind; but politicians and the people needed no more than this to confirm the attacks made by the doctor’s enemies. Seeing that Dalton was immovable in his championship of Clarendon, the malcontents, medical dogmatists, and ward-heelers turned their attention to the state legislature; lining up the anti-Clarendonists and the governor’s old enemies with great shrewdness, and preparing to launch a law — with a veto-proof majority — transferring the authority for minor institutional appointments from the chief executive to the various boards or commissions concerned.

In the furtherance of this measure no lobbyist was more active than Clarendon’s chief assistant, Dr. Jones. Jealous of his superior from the first, he now saw an opportunity for turning matters to his liking; and he thanked fate for the circumstance — responsible indeed for his present position — of his relationship to the chairman of the prison board. The new law, if passed, would certainly mean the removal of Clarendon and the appointment of himself in his stead; so, mindful of his own interest, he worked hard for it. Jones was all that Clarendon was not — a natural politician and sycophantic opportunist who served his own advancement first and science only incidentally. He was poor, and avid for salaried position, quite in contrast to the wealthy and independent savant he sought to displace. So with a rat-like cunning and persistence he laboured to undermine the great biologist above him, and was one day rewarded by the news that the new law was passed. Thenceforward the governor was powerless to make appointments to the state institutions, and the medical directorship of San Quentin lay at the disposal of the prison board.