“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!