"Is that you, Mr. Larch?"
He distinctly made out Adeline's head and bust above him. Her white
apron was pressed against the bannisters, as with extended arms and
hands grasping the stair-rail she leaned over to see who was below.
"It is, Miss Aked," he answered. "The door was open, and so I walked
in. Is anything wrong?"
"I've just sent Lottie out for the doctor. Uncle is very ill. I wish
you'd see that he comes at once. It's in the Fulham Road, a little to
the left--you'll notice the red lamp."
As Richard ran out, he met the doctor, a youngish man with a Scots face
and grey hair, hurrying down the street, the servant-girl breathless in
the rear.
"Master was took ill last night, sir," the latter said, in answer to
Richard's question. "Pneumonia, the doctor says as it is, and something
else, and there's coming a nurse to-night. Master has attacks of it,
sir--he can't get his breath."
He stood in the passage, uncertain what to do; the doctor had already
gone upstairs.
"It must be very serious," he murmured.
"Yes, sir." Lottie began to whimper. Richard said he would call again
later to make inquiries, and presently discovered himself in Fulham
Road, walking slowly towards Putney.
Mr. Aked's case was hopeless; of that Richard felt sure. The man must
be getting on in years, and his frame, not constitutionally vigorous,
had doubtless been fatally weakened by long-continued carelessness.
What a strange creature of whims and enthusiasms he was! Although there
could be no question as to his age, Richard never regarded him as more
than a few years older than himself. He had none of the melancholy,
the circumspection, the fixity of view, the prudent tendency towards
compromise, the serene contented apathy, which usually mark his time of
life. He was still delicately susceptible to new influences, his ideals
were as fluid as Richard's own. Life had taught him scarcely anything,
and least of all sagacity and a dignified carriage. He was the typical
bachelor, whose deeper feelings have never been stirred. Did regrets
for a possibly happier past, shadows of dead faces, the memory of
kisses, ever ruffle his equanimity? Richard thought not. He must
always have lived in the present. But he was an artist: though somehow
the man had descended in his estimation, Richard clung to that. He
possessed imagination and he possessed intellect, and he could fuse
them together. Yet he had been a failure. Viewed in certain lights,
Richard admitted he was a pitiful figure. What was his true history?
Richard felt instinctively that none could answer that question, even
in outline, except Mr. Aked, and suddenly he discerned that the man's
nature, apparently frank to immodesty, had its own reserves, the
existence of which few ever suspected. And when the worst was said, Mr.
Aked possessed originality; in an incongruous way he still retained
the naïve graces of youthfulness; he was inspiring, and had exerted
influences for which Richard could not but be grateful.
"The Psychology of the Suburbs" had receded swiftly into the
background, a beautiful, impossible idea! Richard knew now that it
could never have been carried out. A little progress would have been
made, and then, as difficulties increased, both he and Mr. Aked would
have tacitly abandoned their enterprise. They were very much alike, he
thought, and the fancied similarity pleased him. Perhaps at some future
time he might himself carry the undertaking to completion, in which
case he would dedicate his book to the memory of Mr. Aked. He did not
regret that the dream of the last few days was ended. It had been very
enjoyable, but the awakening, since according to his present wisdom
it must have occurred sooner or later, was less unpleasant now than it
could have been at any more advanced stage. Moreover, it was pleasant
to dream of the dream.
Mr. Aked was dying: he knew it from Adeline's tone. Poor Adeline! To
whom would she turn? She had implied that the only relatives for whom
she cared, these being on her mother's side, were in America. From whom
would she seek assistance? Who would conduct the formalities of the
funeral, and the testamentary business, such as it was? His loathing
for funerals seemed to have vanished, and he was not without hope that
Adeline, though their acquaintance was of the shortest, might engage
his help for her helplessness. And after the funeral, what would she
do? Since she would probably have enough to live upon, she might elect
to remain where she was. In which case he would visit her now and then
of an evening. Her imminent loneliness gave her a pathetic charm, and
he made haste to draw a picture of himself and her on either side the
fireplace talking familiarly while she knitted or sewed.
Yes, he was actually a grown man, and entitled to his romances. He
might eventually fall in love with her, having discovered in her
character rare qualities now unsuspected. It was improbable, but not
impossible, and he had, in fact, already glanced at the contingency
several times before. Oh for a passion, a glorious infatuation, even
if it ended in disaster and ruin! The difficulty was that Adeline fell
short of the ideal lover. That virginal abstraction was to have been an
artist of some sort, absolutely irreligious, broad in social views, the
essence of refinement, with a striking but not necessarily beautiful
face, soft-spoken, and isolated--untrammelled by friends. Adeline was
no artist; he feared she might be a regular attendant at chapel and
painfully orthodox as to the sexual relations. Was she refined? Had
she a striking face? He said Yes, twice. Her voice was low and full of
pretty modulations. Soon, perhaps, she would be alone in the world. If
only she had been an artist.... That deficiency, he was afraid, would
prove fatal to any serious attachment. Still, it would be good to visit
her.
He was crossing Putney Bridge. Night had fallen, and the full brilliant
moon showed a narrow stream crawling between two broad flats of mud.
Just below the bridge a barge lay at anchor; the silhouette of a man
moved leisurely about on it, and then a boat detached itself from the
stem of the barge and dropped down river into darkness. On the bridge
busses and waggons rattled noisily. Young men with straw hats and
girls in white blouses and black skirts passed to and fro in pairs,
some chattering, some silent. The sight of these couples gave Richard
an idea for the abandoned "Psychology of the Suburbs." What if Mr. Aked
recovered? He remembered his sister telling him that their grandfather
had survived after having been three times surrendered to death by the
doctors. "The Psychology of the Suburbs" began to attract him. It might
come to completion, if Mr. Aked lived, and then.... But what about
those evenings with the lonely Adeline? The two vistas of the future
clashed with and obscured each other, and he was overcome by vague
foreboding. He saw Mr. Aked struggling for breath in the mean suburban
bedroom, and Adeline powerless at his side. The pathos of her position
became intolerable.
* * * * *
When he got back to Carteret Street, it was she who came to the door.
"How is he?"
"About the same. The nurse has come. She told me to go to bed at once,
but I don't feel as if I wanted to sleep. You will sit down a little?"
She took the rocking-chair, and leaning back with a gesture of
lassitude rocked gently; her white face, with the red eyes and
drooping eyelids, gave sign of excessive fatigue, and on her lips there
was a gloomy pout. After she had described Mr. Aked's condition in some
detail and told what the doctor had said, they sat silent for a while
in that tense atmosphere which seems to stifle vitality in a house of
dangerous sickness. Overhead the nurse moved about, making the window
rattle softly now and then.
"You have known uncle a long time, haven't you?"
"Not at all," Richard answered. "It's a very funny thing, but though I
seem to know him quite well, I've not met him half a dozen times in my
life. I saw him first about a year ago, and then I met him again the
other day at the British Museum, and after we'd had dinner together we
were just like old friends."
"I certainly thought from what he said that you _were_ old friends.
Uncle has so few friends. Except one or two neighbours I do believe you
are the first person that has ever called at this house since I came to
live here."
"At any rate, we have soon got to know each other," said Richard,
smiling. "It isn't a week since you asked me if my name was Larch." She
returned the smile, though rather mechanically.
"Perhaps my mistake about your being an old friend of Uncle Aked's
explains that," she said.
"Well, we won't bother about explaining it; there it is, and if I can
help you in any way just now, you must tell me."
"Thank you, I will." She said it with perfect simplicity. Richard was
conscious of a scarcely perceptible thrill.
"You must have had an awful time last night, all alone," he said.
"Yes, but I was too annoyed to feel upset."
"Annoyed?"
"Because uncle has brought it all on himself by carelessness. I do
think it's a shame!" She stopped rocking, and sat up, her face full of
serious protest.
"He's not the sort of man to take care of himself. He never thought--"
"That's just it. He should have thought, at his age. If he dies, he
will practically have killed himself, yes, killed himself. There's no
excuse, going out as he did, in spite of all I said. Fancy him coming
downstairs last Sunday in the state he was, and then going out on
Monday, though it _was_ warm!"
"Well, we'll hope he will get better, and it may be a lesson to him."
"Hark! What was that?" She sprang to her feet apprehensively and
listened, her breast pulsing beneath the tight black bodice and her
startled inquiring eyes fixed on Richard's. A very faint tinkle came
from the rear of the house.
"Perhaps the front-door bell," he suggested.
"Of course. How silly of me! I fancied.... Who can it be at this time?"
She went softly into the passage. Richard heard the door open, and then
a woman's voice, which somehow seemed familiar,--
"How is Mr. Aked to-night? Your servant told our servant that he was
ill, and I felt anxious."
"Oh!" Adeline exclaimed, discomposed for a moment, as it seemed to
Richard; then she went on coldly, "Uncle is about the same, thank you,"
and almost immediately closed the door.
"A person to inquire about uncle," she said to Richard, with a peculiar
intonation, on re-entering the room. Then, just as he was saying that
he must go, there was a knock on the ceiling and she flew away again.
Richard waited in the passage till she came downstairs.
"It's nothing. I thought he was dying! Oh!" and she began to cry freely
and openly, without attempting to wipe her eyes.
Richard gazed hard at the apron string loosely encircling her waist;
from that white line her trembling bust rose like a bud from its calyx,
and below it the black dress flowed over her broad hips in gathered
folds; he had never seen a figure so exquisite, and the beauty of it
took a keener poignancy from their solitude in the still, anxious
night--the nurse and the sick man were in another sphere.
"Hadn't you better go to bed?" he said. "You must be tired out and
over-excited." How awkward and conventional the words sounded!