Mrs. Robinson did not wait for me to give an opinion on her son's
condition. She pressed me to be perfectly frank, and, before I could
open my mouth to reply, poured forth a stream of information on what was
evidently her only theme--Arthur's health.
"I said the day before yesterday--didn't I, Blanche. 'Arthur, you have
got a cold.' And _he_ said, so like him--'No Mother, I haven't.' That is
Arthur all over. Isn't it, Blanche?"
Blanche made no response. She sat motionless, gazing at her
mother-in-law with half absent eyes, as if she were trying--and
failing--to give her whole attention to the matter in hand.
"Then I said in my joking way, 'Arthur, I can't have you starting a
cold, and giving it to me and Blanche.' We don't want any presents of
that kind. Do we, Blanche?"
Blanche made no reply. Perhaps experience had taught her that it was a
waste of energy.
"So I said, 'with your tendency to bronchitis I shall send for Doctor
Giles, and it will be a good opportunity to make his acquaintance now
that our dear Doctor Whittington has retired.'"
It went on a long time, Mrs. Robinson beaming indiscriminately on me and
her daughter-in-law.
At last, when she was deeply involved in Arthur's teething, I murmured a
few words and stood up to go.
"You will promise faithfully, won't you, to look in again to-morrow."
I said that a telephone message would summon me at any moment. As I held
out my hand I heard a loud splash.
"Now, Dr. Giles, you are wondering what _that_ is," said Mrs. Robinson
gleefully.
I looked round and saw at the further end of the immense be-mirrored
double drawing-room a grove of begonias, and heard a faint trickle of
water.
"It's an aquarium," said Mrs. Robinson triumphantly, and she looked
archly at me. "Shall we tell Dr. Giles about it, Blanche?"
"It has a goldfish in it," said Blanche, opening her lips for the first
time.
"That was the splash you heard," continued Mrs. Robinson, as if she were
imparting a secret. "That splash was made by the goldfish."
I gave up any thought I may have had of paying other professional calls
that morning, and allowed Mrs. Robinson to lead me to the aquarium.
As aquariums in back drawing-rooms go it was a very superior aquarium,
designed especially for the house, so Mrs. Robinson informed me, by a
very superior young man at Maple's----quite a gentleman.
The aquarium had gravel upon its shallow bottom, and large pointed
shells strewed upon the gravel. The water trickled in through a narrow
grating on one side, and trickled out through another on the other side.
An array of flowering begonias arranged round the irregularly shaped
basin, gave the whole what Maple's young man had pronounced to be "a
natural aspect," and effectually hid the two gratings while affording an
unimpeded view of the shells, and the inmate.
In the shallow water, motionless, save for his opening and shutting
gills, and a faint movement of his tail, was poised a large obese
goldfish.
I looked at him through the gilt wire-netting stretched across the basin
a few inches above the surface of the water, and it seemed as if he
looked at me.
I wondered with vague repugnance how anyone could regard him as a pet.
To me he was wholly repulsive, swollen, unhealthy looking.
"He knows me," said Mrs. Robinson, with a vain attempt at modesty. "He
has taken a fancy to me. Cupboard love I'm afraid, Dr. Giles. You see I
feed him every day. He just swims about or stays still if I am near,
like I am now, and he can see me. But if I am some way off and he can't
see me he tries to jump out to get to me. He never tries to jump when I
am near him. I call him Goldy, Dr. Giles, and I'm just as fond of him as
he is of me. Isn't it touching that a dumb creature should have such
affection? If it were a dog or a cat of course I could understand it,
and I once heard of a wolf that was loving, but I have always supposed
till now that fishes were cold by nature. I daresay, dear Dr.
Whittington told you about him? No! Well I am surprised, for he took
such an interest in Goldy. It was Dr. Whittington who made me put the
wire-netting over the aquarium. He said 'Some day that poor fellow will
jump out in your absence to try and get to you, and you will find him
dead on the carpet.' So we put the wire-netting across."
"He jumps," said the young girl gazing intently at the goldfish. "When
we sit playing cards in the evening he jumps again and again. But the
wire always throws him back."
I looked for the first time at Mrs. Robinson's daughter-in-law; her
colourless young face bent over the aquarium with an expression of
horror. And as I looked the luncheon bell rang, and with it arose a
clamour of invitation from Mrs. Robinson that I should stay for the
meal. Pot luck! Quite informal! etc., etc., but I wrenched myself away.
A few days later I called on my predecessor, Dr. Whittington, and
found him sitting in his garden at East Sheen. He was, as always,
communicative and genial, but it was evident that his interest in his
late patients had migrated to his roses.
"Mrs. Robinson is an egregious goose, my dear Giles, as you must have
already perceived, but she is a goose that lays golden eggs. You simply
can't go too often to please them. I went nearly every day, and they
constantly asked me to dinner. They have an excellent cook."
"They adored you," I said.
"They did; and some great writer has said somewhere that we must pay the
penalty for our deepest affections. I--ahem! exacted the penalty; you
see part of the results in my Malmaisons, and I advise you to follow in
my footsteps. They are made of money."
"They look it."
"And they are, if I may say so, a private preserve. They know nobody. I
always thought that everybody knew somebody, at any rate every one who
is wealthy, but they don't seem to know a soul. If you dine there you'll
meet a High Church parson whom they sit under, or the family solicitor,
or a servile female imbecile who was Arthur's governess, and laughs at
everything he says--no one else."
"Didn't he go to school?"
"Never. His mother said it would break his spirit. I've attended him
from his birth. A very costly affair _that_ was to Mrs. Robinson, for I
had to live in the house for weeks, in order to help to usher in young
Robinson, and at the same time usher out old Robinson, noisily dying of
locomotor ataxia, and drink on the ground floor. I've since come to the
conclusion that she never was legally his wife, and that is why they
know no one, and don't seem to make any effort socially. She had all the
money, there's no doubt of that, and she wasn't by any means in her
first youth. I rather think he must have been a bigamist or something
large hearted of that kind. Perhaps like Henry the Eighth he suffered
from a want of concentration of the domestic affections."
"And what is the son like, a malade imaginaire? I've never seen anything
like his dressing gowns except in futurist pictures."
"A malade imaginaire! Good Lord! no. Where are your professional eyes?
Arthur is his father's son, that is what is the matter with him.
Abnormal irritability and inertia, and a tendency to dessimated
sclerosis. He may have talent, I'm no judge of that; but he'll never do
anything. No sticking power. He's doomed. If ever any one was born under
an unlucky star that poor lad was. He began to cause a good deal of
anxiety when he was about twenty, made a determined attempt to go to
the devil: women, drink, drugs. In short, it looked at one moment as if
he would be his father over again without his father's vitality. His
mother was in despair. I said to her, 'My good woman, find him a wife; a
pretty young wife who will exert a good influence over him and keep him
straight.'"
"Apparently she followed your advice."
"She did. It was the only chance for him, and not a chance worth betting
on even then. I've often wondered how she found the girl. She makes no
end of a pet of her. She's a warmhearted old thing. She ought to have
had a dozen children, and a score of grandchildren. Introduce your wife
and family to her, Giles. She'll take to them at once. She's fond of all
young people. She's wrapped up in her son and daughter-in-law and--"
"Her goldfish?" I suggested.
"Her goldfish," assented Dr. Whittington, with a grin. "What an ass she
is. She actually believes the brute tries to jump out of the aquarium to
get to her."
"You encouraged her in that belief."
"My dear Giles," said my predecessor drily, "I have indicated to you the
path your feet should assiduously tread as regards the Robinsons. Now
come and look at my Blush Ramblers."
Dr. Whittington was right. The Robinson family was a gold mine. It is
not for me to say whether I resorted to a pick and shovel as he had
done, or whether, resisting temptation, I held the balance even between
my duty, and the natural cupidity of a man with an imperceptible income,
and three small children. At any rate I saw a great deal of the
Robinsons.
Arthur was a most interesting case, to which I brought a deep
professional interest. Perhaps also I was touched by his youth and good
looks, and felt compassion for the heavy handicap which life had laid
upon him. I strained every nerve to help him. Dr. Whittington had been
an old-fashioned somewhat narrow-minded practitioner close on seventy. I
was a young man, fresh from walking the hospitals. I used modern
methods, and they were at first attended with marked success. Mrs.
Robinson was at my feet. She regarded me, as did Arthur, as a
heaven-born genius. She openly blessed the day that had seen the
retirement of Dr. Whittington. She transferred her adoration from him to
me as easily as a book is transferred from one table to another. She
called on my wife; and instantly enfolded her and the children in her
capacious affections, and showered on us cream-cheeses, perambulators,
rocking-chairs, special brands of marmalade, "The Souls' Awakening" in a
plush and gilt frame, chocolate horses and dogs, eiderdown quilts and
her favourite selection from the works of Marie Corelli and Ella
Wheeler-Wilcox.
I began to think that Dr. Whittington had not put such an exorbitant
price on the practise as I had at first surmised.
I fought with all my strength for Arthur, and it was many months before
I allowed myself to realise that I was waging a losing battle. I had
unlimited funds at my disposal, the Robinson purse had apparently no
bottom to it. My word was law. What I ordered Mrs. Robinson obsequiously
carried out. Nevertheless, at last I had to own to myself that I was
vanquished. Arthur was doomed, as Dr. Whittington had said, and certain
sinister symptoms were making themselves more and more apparent. His
temper always moody and irritable, was becoming morose, vindictive, with
sudden outbursts of foolish mirth. The outposts were being driven in one
after another. I saw with profound discouragement that in time--perhaps
not for a long time if I could fend it off--his malady would reach the
brain.
I encouraged him to be much in the open air. I planned expeditions by
motor to Epping Forest, to Virginia Water, on which his young wife
accompanied him. She was constantly with him, walked with him, drove
with him, played patience with him, painted with him, or rather watched
him paint until the trembling of his hand obliged him to lay down his
brush. I hardly exchanged a word with her from one week's end to
another. She seemed a dutiful, docile, lifeless sort of person, without
any of the spontaneity and gaiety of youth. Mrs. Robinson owned to me
that fond as she was of her daughter-in-law, her companionship had not
done all she hoped for her son.
"So absent-minded, Dr. Giles, so silent, never keeps the ball rolling at
meals; the very reverse of chatty, I do assure you. I don't know what's
coming to young people now-a-days. In my youth," etc., etc.
Gradually I conceived a slight dislike to Blanche. She seemed
colourless, lethargic, one of those people who without vitality
themselves, sap that of others, and expect to be dragged through life by
the energy of those with whom they live. It was perfectly obvious that
fat and foolish Mrs. Robinson was the only person in the house with any
energy whatever.
Presently the whole family had influenza. Then for the first time I saw
Blanche alone. She was laid up with the malady at the same time as her
husband and mother-in-law. I went to her room, to see how she did, and
found her in bed.
She looked very small and young and wan, in an immense gilt four poster
with a magnificent satin quilt.
I reassured her as to her husband's condition, and then asked her a few
questions about herself, and told her that she would soon be well
again.
She gave polite answers, but again I had that first impression of her
that she was making an effort to keep her attention from wandering, that
she felt no interest in what I was saying.
"Have you an amusing book to pass the time?" I asked.
She looked at a pile on the table near her.
"Perhaps your eyes are too tired to read?"
"No," she said, "I had forgotten they were there. I don't care for
reading."
Her eyes left the books and travelled back to the other end of the large
ornate room, overfilled with richly gilt Empire furniture.