The slender, badly hung gate closed of itself behind him with a
resounding clang, communicating a little thrill to the ground.
In answer to his ring a girl came to the door. She was rather short,
thin, and dressed in black, with a clean white apron. In the half light
of the narrow lobby he made out a mahogany hat-rack of conventional
shape, and on a wooden bracket a small lamp with a tarnished reflector.
"No," Richard heard in a quiet, tranquil voice, "Mr. Aked has just gone
out for a walk. He didn't say what time he should be back. Can I give
him any message?"
"He sent me a card to come down and see him this afternoon, and--I've
come. He said about seven o'clock. It's a quarter past now. But perhaps
he forgot all about it."
"Will you step inside? He may only be away for a minute or two."
"No, thanks. If you'll just tell him I've called--"
"I'm so sorry--" The girl raised her hand and rested it against the
jamb of the doorway; her eyes were set slantwise on the strip of
garden, and she seemed to muse an instant.
"Are you Mr. Larch?" she asked hesitatingly, just as Richard was saying
good-day.
"Yes," answered Richard.
"Uncle was telling me he had had dinner with you. I'm _sure_ he'll be
back soon. Won't you wait a little while?"
"Well--"
She stood aside, and Richard passed into the lobby.
The front room, into which he was ushered, was full of dim shadows,
attributable to the multiplicity of curtains which obscured the
small bay window. Carteret Street and the half-dozen florid, tawny,
tree-lined avenues that run parallel to it contain hundreds of living
rooms almost precisely similar. Its dimensions were thirteen feet by
eleven, and the height of the ceiling appeared to bring the walls,
which were papered in an undecipherable pattern of blue, even closer
together than they really were. Linoleum with a few rugs served for
a carpet. The fireplace was of painted stone, and a fancy screen of
South African grasses hid the grate. Behind a clock and some vases
on the mantelpiece rose a confection of walnut and silvered glass. A
mahogany chiffonier filled the side of the room farthest from the
window; it had a marble top and a large mirror framed in scroll work,
and was littered with salt-cellars, fruit plates, and silver nicknacks.
The table, a square one, was covered by a red cloth of flannel-like
texture patterned in black. The chairs were of mahogany and horsehair,
and matched the sofa, which stretched from the door nearly to the
window. Several prints framed in gilt and oak depended by means of
stout green cord from French nails with great earthenware heads. In the
recess to the left of the hearth stood a piano, open, and a song on the
music-stand. What distinguished the room from others of its type was
a dwarf bookcase filled chiefly with French novels whose vivid yellow
gratefully lightened a dark corner next the door.
"Uncle is very forgetful," the girl began. There was some sewing on the
table, and she had already taken it up. Richard felt shy and ill at
ease, but his companion showed no symptom of discomposure. He smiled
vaguely, not knowing what to reply.
"I suppose he walks a good deal," he said at length.
"Yes, he does." There was a second pause. The girl continued to sew
quietly; she appeared to be indifferent whether they conversed or not.
"I see you are a musician."
"Oh, no!" She laughed, and looked at his eyes. "I sing a very little
bit."
"Do you sing Schubert's songs?"
"Schubert's? No. Are they good?"
"Rather. They're _the_ songs."
"Classical, I suppose." Her tone implied that classical songs were
outside the region of the practical.
"Yes, of course."
"I don't think I care much for classical music."
"But you should."
"Should I? Why?" She laughed gaily, like a child amused. "Hope Temple's
songs are nice, and 'The River of Years,' I'm just learning that. Do
you sing?"
"No--I don't really sing. I haven't got a piano at my place--now."
"What a pity! I suppose you know a great deal about music?"
"I wish I did!" said Richard, trying awkwardly not to seem flattered.
A third pause.
"Mr. Aked seems to have a fine lot of French novels. I wish I had as
many."
"Yes. He's always bringing them in."
"And this is the latest, eh?" He picked up "L'Abbé Tigrane," which lay
on the table by the sewing.
"Yes, I fancy uncle got that last night."
"You read French, of course?"
"I! No, indeed!" Again she laughed. "You mustn't imagine, Mr. Larch,"
she went on, and her small eyes twinkled, "that I am at all like uncle.
I'm not. I've only kept house for him a little while, and we are
really--quite different."
"How do you mean, 'like uncle'?"
"Well," the quiet voice was imperceptibly raised, "I'm not a great
reader, and I know nothing of books. I'm not clever, you know. I can't
bear poetry."
Richard looked indulgent.
"But you do read?"
"Yes, sometimes a novel. I'm reading 'East Lynne.' Uncle bought it for
me the other day."
"And you like it?"
There was a timid tap at the door, and a short, stout servant with red
hands and a red face entered; her rough, chubby forearms were bare, and
she carried a market basket. "Please, 'm," she ejaculated meaningly and
disappeared. Mr. Aked's niece excused herself, and when she returned
Richard looked at his watch and rose.
"I'm very sorry about uncle--but it's just like him."
"Yes, isn't it?" Richard answered, and they exchanged a smile.
He walked down Carteret Street humming a tuneless air and twirling
his stick. Mr. Aked's niece had proved rather disappointing. She was
an ordinary girl, and evidently quite unsusceptible to the artistic
influences which subtly emanated from Mr. Aked. But with the exception
of his landlady and his landlady's daughter, she was the first woman
whom Richard had met in London, and the interview had been somewhat of
an ordeal.
Yes, it was matter for regret. Suppose she had been clever, witty, full
of that "nameless charm" with which youths invest the ideal maidens of
their dreams--with which, indeed, during the past week he had invested
her! He might have married her. Then, guided by the experience of a
sympathetic uncle-in-law, he would have realised all his ambitions. A
vision of Mr. Richard Larch, the well-known editor, and his charming
wife, giving a dinner-party to a carefully selected company of literary
celebrities, flitted before him. Alas! The girl's "East Lynne," her
drawing-room ballads, the mean little serving-maid, the complacent
vulgarity of the room, the house, the street, the neighbourhood,
combined effectually to dispel it.
He felt sure that she had no aspirations.
It was necessary to wait for a train at Parson's Green station. From
the elevated platform grass was visible through a gently falling mist.
The curving rails stole away mysteriously into a general greyness,
and the twilight, assuaging every crudity of the suburban landscape,
gave an impression of vast spaces and perfect serenity. Save for the
porter leisurely lighting the station lamps, he was alone,--alone, as
it seemed to him, in an upper world, above London, and especially above
Fulham and the house where lived the girl who read "East Lynne." How
commonplace must she be! Richard wondered that Mr. Aked could exist
surrounded by all the banalities of Carteret Street. Even his own
lodging was more attractive, for at least Raphael Street was within
sound of the central hum and beat of the city.
A signal suddenly shone out in the distance; it might have been a
lighthouse seen across unnumbered miles of calm ocean. Rain began to
fall.