"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," a.s.sented Dr. Whittington, with a grin. "What an a.s.s 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 a.s.siduously 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 compa.s.sion 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 pract.i.tioner 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-Wilc.o.x.

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 a.s.sure 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 rea.s.sured 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 pa.s.s 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.

I turned and followed her rapt gaze.

There were half-a-dozen yellow chrysanthemums in a dull green jar on a Buhl chiffonier. The slanting November sunshine fell on them, and threw against the white wall a shadow of them. It was a shadow transfigured, intricate yet vague, mysterious, beautiful exceedingly.

I should never have noticed it if she had not looked at it with such intentness. For a moment I saw it with her eyes. I was touched; I hardly knew why. All the apathy was gone from her face. There was pa.s.sion in it. She looked entirely exhausted, and yet it was the first time I had seen her really alive.

The sunshine went out suddenly, and she sighed.

"You may get up to-morrow, and go downstairs," I said. "It is dull for you alone up here."

"I like being here," she said.

Was she, like so many women, "contrary?" Always opposing the suggestions of others, never willing to fall in with family arrangements.

"Don't you want to see the goldfish?" I hazarded, speaking as if to a child. "He must be lonely now Mrs. Robinson is laid up. And who will give him his crumbs?"

"No, I don't want to see him," she said pa.s.sionately. "I never look at him if I can help it. Oh Dr. Giles, everyone seems to shut their eyes who comes into this house--everyone--but don't you see how dreadful it is to be a prisoner?"

She looked at me with timid despairing eyes, which yet had a flicker of hope in them. I patted her hand gently, and found she still had a little fever.

"But he gets plenty of crumbs," I said soothingly, "and it is a nice aquarium with fresh water running through all the time. I think he is a very lucky goldfish."

She looked fixedly at me, and the faint colour in her cheeks faded, the imploring look vanished from her eyes.

She leaned back among her lace pillows.

"That is what Mrs. Robinson says," she said with a quivering lip, and I perceived that I was relegated to the same category in her mind as her mother-in-law.

She withdrew her thin hand and retreated once more behind the frail bastion of silence from which she had looked out at me for all these months; from which she had for one moment emerged, only to creep back to its forlorn shelter.

A few days later Mrs. Robinson was convalescent, sitting up in bed in a garish cap festooned with cherry-coloured ribbons, and a silk wadded jacket to match. I questioned her about her daughter-in-law, in whom for the first time I felt interested. It needed no ac.u.men on my part to draw forth the whole of Blanche's short history. One slight question was all that was necessary to turn on the c.o.c.k of Mrs. Robinson's confidences.

The stream gushed forth at once, it overflowed, it could hardly be turned off again. I was drenched.

"How long has Blanche been married? Two years, Dr. Giles. She's just nineteen. That's her age--nineteen. Seventeen and three days when she married. Such a romance. _She_ was seventeen and Arthur was twenty-two.

Five years difference. Just right, and you never saw two young people so much in love with each other. And such a beautiful couple. It was a love match. Made in heaven. Just like his father and me over again. That is what I said to them. I said on their wedding day: 'Well, I hope you will be as happy as your father and I were.'"

There was not much information to be retrieved from Mrs. Robinson's gushings, but in the course of the next few days I hooked up out of a flood of extraneous matter a few facts which had apparently escaped her notice.

Blanche it seemed was the niece of a former Senior Curate of St.

Botolph's. "A splendid preacher, Dr. Giles, and a real churchman, high ma.s.s and confession, and incense, just the priest for St. Botolph's, a dedicated celibate and vegetarian--such a saintly example to us all."

It appeared obvious to me, though not to Mrs. Robinson, that the vegetarian celebate had been embarra.s.sed as to what to do with his niece, when at the age of seventeen she had been suddenly left on his hands owing to the inconvenient death of her widowed mother. Evidently Blanche had not had a farthing.

"But he was such a wide-minded man. Of course he wanted dear Blanche to lead the highest life, and to dedicate herself as he had done, and to go into a sisterhood. But she cried all the time when he explained it to her, and said she could not paint in a sisterhood. And she didn't seem to fancy illuminating missals, or church embroidery, just what he had thought she would like. He was always thinking what would make her happy. And then it turned out there was some question of expense as well which he had not foreseen, so he gave up the idea. And just at that time I had a lot of trouble with Arthur--with drink--between you and me. It was such a hot summer. I am convinced it was the heat that started it; too much whiskey in the soda water--and other things as well. Arthur was got hold of and led away. And Dr. Whittington advised me to find a nice young wife for him. And I told Mr. Copton--that was the priest's name, all about it--I always told him everything, and he was _most_ kind, and interested, and so understanding, and he agreed a good wife was just what Arthur wanted, and marriage was an honourable estate, those were his very words. And Arthur was fond of painting, and Blanche was fond of painting too, simply devoted to it, and they had lessons together in a private studio and--"