Jonas settled himself gingerly on the edge of the bed. “Father,” he said. “You don’t have to do this any longer.”
Once, Mr. Grantham had owned a regular scrap-metal empire. He’d traded not only in fastenings, but in larger pieces—obsolete machinery from the factories, iron rails from train tracks that had fallen out of use, purchased at cut rates from bankrupted railways. He’d always been scrupulously frugal—one of Jonas’s earliest memories was his father plucking a horseshoe nail from the middle of the street, ignoring the filth it stood in, while Jonas stood three feet away and prayed desperately that none of the other boys would see him. But this…this was different.
“’Course I do,” his father replied. “Always have. Always will. Never too late to save a penny. I’ve got to do it.” He glared at Jonas. “I know what you’re about, boy—want nothing more than to have me dependent on you, dancing to your tune. But this is my livelihood, boy. Nobody’s taking it away.”
“I’d have no objection, if you sold what you took in. But—”
“As soon as I’m feeling well again, I’ll start up once more,” Mr. Grantham replied.
“It’s been over a year. And you’ve enough money in the bank, there’s no need to worry.”
“A year? Faugh,” Mr. Grantham grumbled. “It’s been a few weeks at most, and I’m feeling better already.”
That was one of the things that had begun to go wrong. In the first few days after his father’s heart attack, he’d seemed confused and stricken. But he’d survived, and even if Lucas found himself short of breath most of the time, Jonas had harbored hope. That hope died more everyday. It wasn’t just his father’s body that was failing, but his mind. His sense of time had melted away. He no longer remembered that it had been months since he was able to leave the bed. And he’d focused on bringing in scrap iron, more and more of it. Perhaps some part of him believed that if he could only bring in enough, if he could fill is home with the rubbish that had made up his past, that the future wouldn’t come.
Jonas had tried everything. One time, he’d even hired a pair of men to go in and forcibly clear the house. But his father had shrieked and carried on. He’d called for the police, in fact, and when they had come, they had regretfully informed Jonas that as it was Mr. Grantham’s house, and as he did in fact own the rubbish, it would be theft if Jonas removed it.
That had been a lovely day, his father threatening to have him prosecuted if he continued. Now, he simply tried not to upset the man.
At this point, Jonas could have recited the relevant section in Conolly’s Indications of Insanity from memory. “Where the individual has always been eccentric, the eccentricity will probably be increased by age. For one unacquainted with the previous habits of the patient, he may seem to be mad, although, perhaps, merely a humorist, who has in declining life become a little more childish in his humors.” Mr. Grantham was still the same man he’d always been—a little dour, a little suspicious, and extremely frugal. It was just that those qualities had been refined over and over until he could think only of scrap and scrap metal, until his home had become a veritable midden, with himself appointed as King of Rubbish.
All Jonas had to do to stop this was to have his own father declared incompetent.
“You’d be married by now, I wager,” his father said, “and giving me grandchildren already—if only you still saved fastenings.” This was said with a sad air. “Now you’re all alone.”
Jonas might once have pointed out that he was twenty-six years old—that his father had married far later than he, that he might still have his choice of a dozen women. But there was some truth in what his father said.
Oh, not the folderol about fastenings. As for the rest…
He could have been married last year, but for his fascination with Lydia Charingford.
The mornings when he tipped his hat to her on the street were always the brightest. He smiled when he saw her. He saw so little hope in the world, and she saw far too much. There were days he wanted to sit and watch her, to figure out where all that good cheer came from.
He knew he tended toward gloom. It made him consider blood poisoning and heart attacks when someone else might see a touch of indigestion. Those carefully considered worst-case scenarios made him a good doctor, but they also made him feel like a dark little raincloud.
When Lydia Charingford was around, though, he felt like a smiling dark little raincloud. He liked the way she saw things, even as she baffled him. He liked the way she saw all the world…except the portion of it that contained him.
He was the one person she didn’t like. He should have given up.