_ CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR. THE MOUSE AND THE LION
The stay at Scarboro' was short, for a letter came from Aunt Hannah, announcing that Mr Deering was coming down, and adding rather pathetically that she wished he would not.
The doctor tossed the letter over to Vane, who was looking out of the hotel window, making a plan for sliding bathing machines down an inclined plane; and he had mentally contrived a delightful arrangement when he was pulled up short by the thought that the very next north-east gale would send in breakers, and knock his inclined plane all to pieces.
"For me to read, uncle," he said.
The doctor nodded.
"Then you'll want to go back."
"Yes, and you must stay by yourself."
Vane rose and went to the looking-glass, stared at his lips, made a grimace and returned.
"I say, uncle, do I look so very horrid?" he said.
"That eye's not ornamental, my boy."
"No, but shall you mind very much?"
"I? Not at all."
"Then I shall come back with you."
"Won't be ashamed to be seen?"
"Not I," said Vane; "I don't care, and I should like to be at home when Mr Deering comes."
"Why?"
"He may be able to get me engaged somewhere in town."
"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor. "Want to run away from us then, now we are poor."
"Uncle!" shouted Vane, fiercely indignant; but he saw the grim smile on the old man's countenance, and went close up and took his arm. "You didn't mean that," he continued. "It's because I want to get to work so as to help you and aunt now, instead of being a burden to you."
"Don't want to go, then?"
Vane shook his head sadly. "No, uncle, I've been so happy at home, but of course should have to go some day."
"Ah, well, there is no immediate hurry. We'll wait. I don't think that Mr Deering is quite the man I should like to see you with in your first start in life. I'm afraid, Vane, boy, that he is reckless. Yesterday, I thought him unprincipled too, but he is behaving like a man of honour in coming down to see me, and show me how he went wrong. It's a sad business, but I daresay we shall get used to it after a time."
The journey back was made so that they reached home after dark, Vane laughingly saying that it would screen him a little longer, and almost the first person they encountered was Mr Deering himself.
"Hah, Doctor," he said quietly, "I'm glad you're come back. I only reached here by the last train."
The doctor hesitated a moment, and then shook hands.
"Well, youngster," said the visitor, "I suppose you have not set the Thames on fire yet."
"No," said Vane, indignantly, for their visitor's manner nettled him, "and when I try to, I shall set to work without help."
Deering's eyes flashed angrily.
"Vane!" said Aunt Hannah, reproachfully.
"You forget that Mr Deering is our guest, Vane," said the doctor.
"Yes, uncle, I forgot that."
"Don't reprove him," said Deering. "I deserve it, and I invited the taunt by my manner toward your nephew."
"Dinner's ready," said Aunt Hannah, hastily.
"Or supper," said the doctor, and ten minutes later they were all seated at the meal, talking quietly about Scarboro', its great cliffs and the sea, Mr Deering showing a considerable knowledge of the place. No allusion whatever was made to the cause of their guest's visit till they had adjourned to the drawing-room, Mr Deering having stopped in the hall to take up a square tin box, and another which looked like a case made to contain rolled up plans.
The doctor frowned, and seeing that some business matters were imminent, Aunt Hannah rose to leave the room, and Vane followed her example.
"No, no, my dear Mrs Lee," said Deering, "don't leave us, and there is nothing to be said that the lad ought not to hear. It will be a lesson to him, as he is of a sanguine inventive temperament like myself, not to be too eager to place faith in his inventions."
"Look here, Deering," said the doctor, after clearing his voice, "this has been a terrible misfortune for us, and, I believe, for you too."
"Indeed it has," said Deering, bitterly. "I feel ten years older, and in addition to my great hopes being blasted, I know that in your eyes, and those of your wife, I must seem to have been a thoughtless, designing scoundrel, dishonest to a degree."
"No, no, Mr Deering," said Aunt Hannah, warmly, "nobody ever thought that of you."
"Right," said the doctor, smiling.
"I have wept bitterly over it, and grieved that you should ever have come down here to disturb my poor husband in his peaceful life, where he was resting after a long laborious career. It seemed so cruel--such a terrible stroke of fate."
"Yes, madam, terrible and cruel," said Deering, sadly and humbly.
"There now, say no more about it," said the doctor. "It is of no use to cry over spilt milk."
"No," replied Deering, "but I do reserve to myself the right to make some explanations to you both, whom I have injured so in your worldly prospects."
"Better let it go, Deering. There, man, we forgive you, and the worst we think of you is that you were too sanguine and rash."
"Don't say that," cried Deering, "not till you have heard me out and seen what I want to show you; but God bless you for what you have said. Lee, you and I were boys at school together; we fought for and helped each other, and you know that I have never willingly done a dishonest act."
"Never," said the doctor, reaching out his hand, to which the other clung. "You had proof of my faith in you when I became your bondman."
"Exactly."
"Then, now, let's talk about something else."
"No," said Deering, firmly. "I must show you first that I was not so rash and foolish as you think. Mrs Lee, may I clear this table?"
"Oh, certainly," said Aunt Hannah, rather stiffly. "Vane, my dear, will you move the lamp to the chimney."
Vane lifted it and placed it on the mantelpiece, while Mr Deering moved a book or two and the cloth from the round low table, and then opening a padlock at the end of the long round tin case, he drew out a great roll of plans and spread them on the table, placing books at each corner, to keep them open.
"Here," he said, growing excited, "is my invention. I want you all to look--you, in particular, Vane, for it will interest you from its similarity to a plan you had for heating your conservatory."
Vane's attention was centred at once on the carefully drawn and coloured plans, before which, with growing eagerness, their visitor began to explain, in his usual lucid manner, so that even Aunt Hannah became interested.
The idea was for warming purposes, and certainly, at first sight, complicated, but they soon grasped all the details, and understood how, by the use of a small furnace, water was to be heated, and to circulate by the law of convection, so as to supply warmth all through public buildings, or even in houses where people were ready to dispense with the ruddy glow of fire.
"Yes," said the doctor, after an hour's examination of the drawings; "that all seems to be quite right."
"But the idea is not new," said Vane.
"Exactly. You are quite right," said Deering; "it is only a new adaptation in which I saw fortune, for it could be used in hundreds of ways where hot-water is not applicable now. I saw large works springing up, and an engineering business in which I hoped you, Vane, would share; for with your brains, my boy, I foresaw that you would be invaluable to me, and would be making a great future for yourself. There, now, you see my plans, Lee. Do I seem so mad and reckless to you both? Have I not gone on step by step, and was I not justified in trying to get monetary help to carry out my preparations for what promised so clearly to be a grand success?"
"Well, really, Deering, I can't help saying yes," said the doctor. "It does look right, doesn't it, my dear?"
"Yes," said Aunt Hannah, with a sigh; "it does certainly look right."
"I would not go far till, as I thought, I had tested my plans in every way."
"That was right," said the doctor. "Well, what's the matter--why hasn't it succeeded?"
"Ah, why, indeed?" replied Deering. "Some law of nature, which, in spite of incessant study, I cannot grasp, has been against me."
Vane was poring over the plans, with his forehead full of lines and his mouth pursed up, and, after bringing sheet after sheet to the top, he ended by laying the fullest drawing with all its colourings and references out straight, and, lifting the lamp back upon it in the centre of the table to give a better light; and while his aunt and untie were right and left, Mr Deering was facing him, and he had his back to the fire:
"But you should have made models, and tested it all thoroughly."
"I did, Lee, I did," cried Mr Deering, passionately. "I made model after model, improving one upon the other, till I had reached, as I thought, perfection. They worked admirably, and when I was, as I thought, safe, and had obtained my details, I threw in the capital, for which you were security, started my works, and began making on a large scale. Orders came in, and I saw, as I told you, fortune in my grasp."
"Well, and what then?"
"Failure. That which worked so well on a small scale was useless on a large."
Vane was the only one standing, and leaning his elbows on the great drawing, his chin upon his hands, deeply interested in the pipes, elbows, taps, furnace, and various arrangements.
"But that seems strange," said the doctor. "I should have thought you were right."
"Exactly," said Deering, eagerly. "You would have thought I was right. I felt sure that I was right. I would have staked my life upon it. If I had had a doubt, Lee, believe me I would not have risked that money, and dragged you down as I have."
"I believe you, Deering," said the doctor, more warmly than he had yet spoken; "but, hang it, man, I wouldn't give up. Try again."
"I have tried again, till I feel that if I do more my brain will give way--I shall go mad. No: nature is against me, and I have made a terrible failure."
Aunt Hannah sighed.
"There is nothing for me but to try and recover my shattered health, get my nerves right again, and then start at something else."
"Why not have another try at this?" said the doctor.
"I cannot," said Deering. "I have tried, and had disastrous explosions. In one moment the work of months has been shattered, and now, if I want men to work for me again, they shake their heads, and refuse. It is of no use to fence, Lee. I have staked my all, and almost my life, on that contrivance, and I have failed."
"It can't be a failure," said Vane, suddenly. "It must go."
Deering looked at him pityingly.
"You see," he said to Aunt Hannah, "your nephew is attracted by it, and believes in it."
"Yes," said Aunt Hannah, with a shudder. "Roll up the plans now, my dear," she added, huskily; "it's getting late."
"All right, aunt. Soon," said Vane, quietly; and then, with some show of excitement, "I tell you it must go. Why, it's as simple as simple. Look here, uncle, the water's heated here and runs up there and there, and out and all about, and comes back along those pipes, and gradually gets down to the coil here, and is heated again. Why, if that was properly made by good workmen, it couldn't help answering."
Deering smiled sadly.
"You didn't have one made like that, did you?"
"Yes. Six times over, and of the best material."
"Well?"
"No, my boy, ill. There was a disastrous explosion each time."
Vane looked searchingly in the inventor's face.
"Why, it couldn't explode," cried Vane.
"My dear Vane, pray do not be so stubborn," said Aunt Hannah.
"I don't want to be, aunt, but I've done lots of things of this kind, and I know well enough that if you fill a kettle with water, solder down the lid, and stop up the spout, and then set it on the fire, it will burst, just as our boiler did; but this can't. Look, uncle, here is a place where the steam and air can escape, so that it can't go off."
"But it did, my boy, it did."
"What, made from that plan?"
"No, not from that, but from the one I had down here," said Mr Deering; and he took out his keys, opened the square tin box, and drew out a carefully folded plan, drawn on tracing linen, and finished in the most perfect way.
"There," said the inventor, as Vane lifted the lamp, and this was laid over the plan from which it had been traced; "that was the work-people's reference--it is getting dirty now. You see it was traced from the paper."
"Yes, I see, and the men have followed every tracing mark. Well, I say that the engine or machine, or whatever you call it, could not burst."
The inventor smiled sadly, but said no more, and Vane went on poring over the coloured drawing, with all its reference letters, and sections and shadings, while the doctor began conversing in a low tone.
"Then you really feel that it is hopeless?" he said.
"Quite. My energies are broken. I have not the spirit to run any more risks, even if I could arrange with my creditors," replied Deering, sadly. "Another such month as I have passed, and I should have been in a lunatic asylum."
The doctor looked at him keenly from beneath his brows, and involuntarily stretched out a hand, and took hold of his visitor's wrist.
"Yes," he said, "you are terribly pulled down, Deering."
"Now, Vane, my dear," said Aunt Hannah, softly; "do put away those dreadful plans."
"All right, aunt," said the boy; "just lift up the lamp, will you?"
Aunt Hannah raised the lamp, and Vane drew the soiled tracing linen from beneath, while, as the lamp was heavy, the lady replaced it directly on the spread-out papers.
Vane's face was a study, so puckered up and intent it had grown, as he stood there with the linen folded over so that he could hold it beneath the lamp-shade, and gaze at some detail, which he compared with the drawing on the paper again and again.
"My dear!" whispered Aunt Hannah; "do pray put those things away now; they give me quite a cold shudder."
Vane did not answer, but drew a long breath, and fixed his eyes on one particular spot of the pencilled linen, then referred to the paper beneath the lamp, which he shifted a little, so that the bright circle of light shed by the shade was on one spot from which the tracing had been made.
"Vane," said Aunt Hannah, more loudly, "put them away now."
"Yes," said Deering, starting; "it is quite time. They have done their work, and to-morrow they shall be burned."
"No," yelled Vane, starting up and swinging the linen tracing round his head as he danced about the room. "Hip, hip, hip, hurray, hurray, hurray!"
"Has the boy gone mad?" cried the doctor.
"Vane, my dear child!" cried Aunt Hannah.
"Hip, hip, hip, hurray," roared Vane again, leaping on the couch, and waving the plan so vigorously, that a vase was swept from a bracket and was shivered to atoms.
"Oh, I didn't mean that," he cried. "But of course it burst."
"What do you mean?" cried Deering, excitedly.
"Look there, look here!" cried Vane, springing down, doubling the linen tracing quickly, so that he could get his left thumb on one particular spot, and then placing his right forefinger on the plan beneath the lamp. "See that?"
"That?" cried Deering, leaning over the table a little, as he sat facing the place lately occupied by Vane. "That?" he said again, excitedly, and then changing his tone, "Oh, nonsense, boy, only a fly-spot in the plan, or a tiny speck of ink."
"Yes, smudged," cried Vane; "but, look here," and he doubled the tracing down on the table; "but they've made it into a little stop-cock here."
"What?" roared Deering.
"And if that wasn't in your machine, of course it blew up same as my waterpipes did in the conservatory, and wrecked the kitch--"
Vane did not finish his sentence, for the inventor sprang up with the edge of the table in his hands, throwing up the top and sending the lamp off on to the floor with a crash, while he fell backward heavily into his chair, as if seized by a fit. _