The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold

      Chapter XII

       Table of Contents

      The little red-armed servant beamed an amiable recognition.

      "Very hot day!" Richard said.

      "Beg pardon, sir."

      "Very hot day," rather louder. They were in the passage.

      The door of the sitting-room opened, and Mr. Aked's niece stood before him, her finger on her lips and her eyebrows raised in a gesture of warning. She suddenly smiled, almost laughed. Richard remembered that smile for a long time afterwards. It transformed not only a girl's face, but the whole of Carteret Street. He had never seen anything like it. Shaking hands in silence, he followed her into the room, and she gently closed the door.

      "Uncle's not well," she explained. "He's asleep now, and I don't want you to wake him. In this house, you know, if any one speaks in the passage, you can hear it even in the attic. Uncle was caught in the rain last night; he has a very weak chest, and gets bronchitis directly."

      "I'm awfully sorry I disturbed you," said Richard. "The fact is I was down this way, and I thought I'd call." It sounded a sufficiently reasonable excuse, he considered. "I hope you weren't asleep too."

      "Yes, I was dozing in this chair." She put her head back, and drummed with her fingers lightly on the arms of the chair. "But I'm glad you've called."

      "Why?"

      "Oh! Because one wants to see some one—some one new, especially after being in a sick-room."

      "You've been sitting up late." His tone was accusing. It seemed to him that somehow they were already intimate.

      "Only till three o'clock, and I slept later this morning. How changeable the sun is to-day!" She moved her chair, and he saw her in profile. Her hands were on her lap. She coaxed a foot stool into position with her toes, and placed her feet on it.

      "You look just like a picture in this week's 'Illustrated London News'—I mean in general pose," he exclaimed.

      "Do I? How nice that sounds! What is it?"

      "Whistler's 'Portrait of his Mother.' But I hope you don't think I think you look old."

      "How old do I look?" She turned her head slightly towards him.

      "About twenty-three, only I imagine you're much younger."

      Although she did not reply, she made no pretence of being annoyed, nor did Richard tax himself with a gaucherie.

      "It took me years to like Whistler's pictures," she said; and in response to Richard's surprised question she was beginning to explain that a large part of her life had been passed in the companionship of works of graphic art, when a slippered step was heard in the hall and some one fumbled with the door-handle. Mr. Aked entered.

      "Uncle! You wicked old man!" She sprang up, flushed, and her eyes sparkled angrily. "Whatever did you get up for? It's enough to kill you."

      "Calm yourself, my child. I got up because I didn't want to stay in bed,—exactly that." Mr. Aked paused to take breath and sank into a chair. "Larch, I heard your voice in the passage. Upon my word, I quite forgot you yesterday. I suppose Adeline's been telling you I'm seriously ill, eh? Ah! I've had many a worse attack than this. Put that antimacassar over my shoulders, child."

      He had given Richard a hot, limp hand, on which the veins formed soft ridges in the smooth, brittle skin. His grey hair was disarranged, and he wore a dirty, torn dressing-gown. His face had lost its customary alert expression; but his sunk, shining eyes glanced with mysterious restlessness first at Richard, then at Adeline, who, uttering no further word, covered him well and put the hassock under his feet.

      "Well, well, well!" he sighed and closed his eyes wearily. The other two sat silent for a time; then Adeline, talking very quietly, and with a composure not quite unaffected, took up their interrupted conversation. Richard gathered that her justifiable vexation would remain in abeyance till he had gone. Soon her tone grew more natural; she leaned forward with hands clasped round one knee, and Richard felt like a receiver of confidences as she roughly outlined her life in the country which had come to an end only two years ago. Were all the girls so simply communicative, he wondered; it pleased him to decide that they were not, and that to any other but himself she would have been more reserved; that there was, in fact, an affinity between them. But the presence of her uncle, which Adeline seemed able to ignore utterly, hindered Richard from being himself.

      "How do you like London, after living so long in the country?" he asked inevitably.

      "I know practically nothing of London, real London," she said; "but I think these suburbs are horrid,—far duller than the dullest village. And the people! They seem so uninteresting, to have no character!"

      The hoarse, fatigued voice of Mr. Aked crept in between them. "Child!" he said—and he used the appellation, not with the proper dignity of age, but rather like an omniscient schoolboy, home for the holiday, addressing a sister—"Child!"—his eyes were still closed,—"the suburbs, even Walham Green and Fulham, are full of interest, for those who can see it. Walk along this very street on such a Sunday afternoon as to-day. The roofs form two horrible, converging straight lines I know, but beneath there is character, individuality, enough to make the greatest book ever written. Note the varying indications supplied by bad furniture seen through curtained windows, like ours" (he grinned, opened his eyes, and sat up); "listen to the melodies issuing lamely from ill-tuned pianos; examine the enervated figures of women reclining amidst flower-pots on narrow balconies. Even in the thin smoke ascending unwillingly from invisible chimney-pots, the flutter of a blind, the bang of a door, the winking of a fox terrier perched on a window-sill, the colour of paint, the lettering of a name,—in all these things there is character and matter of interest,—truth waiting to be expounded. How many houses are there in Carteret Street? Say eighty. Eighty theatres of love, hate, greed, tyranny, endeavour; eighty separate dramas always unfolding, intertwining, ending, beginning,—and every drama a tragedy. No comedies, and especially no farces! Why, child, there is more character within a hundred yards of this chair than a hundred Balzacs could analyse in a hundred years."

      All the old vivacity had returned to his face; he had been rhetorical on a favourite subject, and he was frankly pleased with himself.

      "You will tire yourself, uncle," said Adeline. "Shall we have tea?"

      Richard observed with astonishment that she was cold and unmoved. Surely she could not be blind to the fact that Mr. Aked was a very remarkable man with very remarkable ideas! Why, by the way, had those ideas never presented themselves to him? He would write an article on the character of Raphael Street. Unwillingly he announced that he must go; to remain longer would be to invite himself to tea.

      "Sit still, Larch. You'll have a cup of tea."

      Adeline left the room; and when she had gone, Mr. Aked, throwing a glance after her, said,—

      "Well, what do you think of my notions of the suburb?"

      "They are splendid," Richard replied, glowing.

      "There's something in them, I imagine," he agreed complacently. "I've had an idea lately of beginning to scribble again. I know there's a book waiting to be written on 'The Psychology of the Suburbs,' and I don't like to see copy lying about wasted. The old war-horse scenting the battle, you understand." He smiled grandiosely. "'Psychology of the Suburbs'! Fine title that! See how the silent P takes away all the crudity of the alliteration; that's because one never listens to words with the ears alone, but with the eyes also.... But I should need help. I want a clever chap who can take down from dictation, and assist me in the details of composition. I suppose you wouldn't care to come here two or three evenings a week?"