“Very well,” Elsie heard the doctor say, “you can give Jack his bath, but you must change your frock first, and if there’s any mess of any sort I shan’t take your part when mummy comes home.”
The dog stood still, listening, and the doctor turned to him and ejaculated loudly and mischievously:
“Bath! Bath!”
Jack’s tail dropped, and in deep sulks he walked off towards the railings in the middle of the square.
“Come here, sir!” commanded the doctor firmly.
“Come here, sir!” shrieked the little girl in imitation.
Jack obeyed, totally disillusioned about the interestingness of dead leaves, and slipped in a flash down the area steps, the child after him. Dr. Raste moved towards the surgery, and saw Elsie in his path.
“No! No!” he said to her, kindly, humanly, for he had not yet had time to lose his fatherhood. “This won’t do, you know. You must take your turn with the rest.” He raised his hand in protest. He was acquainted with all the wiles of patients who wanted illicitly to forestall other patients.
“It isn’t for myself, sir,” said Elsie, with puckered brow, very nervous. “It’s for Mr. Earlforward—at least, Mrs. Earlforward.”
“Oh!” The doctor halted.
“You don’t remember me, sir. Mrs. Sprickett, sir. Elsie, sir.”
“Yes, of course.” He ought to have proceeded: “By the way, Elsie, Joe’s come back today.” It would have been too wonderful if he had said that. But he didn’t. He merely said: “Well, what’s it all about?” somewhat impatiently, for at that moment the clock struck.
“Mr. Earlforward’s that bad, sir. Can’t fancy his food. And Mrs. Earlforward’s bad too—”
“Mrs. Earlforward? Is he married, then?”
“Oh, yes, sir. He married Mrs. Arb, as was; she kept that confectioner’s shop opposite in the Steps. But she sold it. And I’m the servant, sir, now. It’ll soon be a year ago, sir.”
“Really, really! All right. I’ll look in—some time before six. Tell them I’ll look in.”
“Well, sir,” said Elsie, hesitating and blushing very red, “missis didn’t exactly send me, in a manner of speaking. She says master won’t have a doctor, she says. But I was thinking if you could—”
“Do you mean to say you’ve come up here to tell me about your master and mistress without orders?”
“Well, sir—”
“But—but—but—but—but,” Dr. Raste spluttered with the utmost rapidity, startled for once out of his inhuman imperturbability by this monstrous act of Elsie’s. He had no child nor dog now. He was the medico chemically pure. “Did you suppose that I can come like that without being called in? I never heard of such a thing. What next, I wonder?”
“He’s very bad, sir, master is.”
The slim little man stood up threateningly against Elsie’s mighty figure.
“What do I care? If people need a doctor, they must send for him.”
Dr. Raste walked off down New River Street, but after a few steps turned again.
“Haven’t they got any friends you could speak to?” he asked in a tone still hard, but with a touch of comprehending friendliness in it. This touch brought tears to Elsie’s silly eyes.
“No, sir.”
“No friends?”
“No, sir.”
“Nobody ever calls?”
“No, sir.”
“And they never go out?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even to the cinema, and so on?”
“Oh, never, sir.”
“Well, I’m very sorry, but I can’t do anything.” He left her and leapt up his surgery steps.
Not a word about Joe. Not a word, even, of inquiry! And yet he knew that Joe and she had been keeping company! And he had been so fond of Joe. He had thought the world of Joe. He might, at least, have said: “Seen anything of poor Joe lately?” But nothing! Nothing! Joe might never have existed for all the interest the doctor showed in him. It was desolating. She was a fool. She was a fool to try to get the doctor to call without a proper summons, and she was thrice a fool to have hoped or fancied that Joe would turn up again, on either the anniversary of his vanishing or any other day. The reaction from foolish hope to despair was terrible. She had known that it would be. The whole sky fell down on her and overwhelmed her in choking folds of night, and there was not a gleam anywhere. No glimmer for T. T. Riceyman’s. No glimmer for herself. … And then she did detect a pinpoint of light. The day was not yet finished. Joe might still … Renewal of utter foolishness!
III
Charity
A dramatic event occurred that same afternoon at the shop. Violet and Henry were together in the office, where the electricity had just been turned on; the shop itself was still depending on nature for light, and lay somewhat obscure in the dusk. Husband and wife were in an affectionate mood, for Violet as usual had been beaten by the man’s extraordinary soft obstinacy. She had had more than one scene of desperation with him about his health and his treatment of himself, but nobody can keep on fighting a cushion forever. Henry had worn her down into a good temper, into a condition of reassurance and even optimism. He had, in fact, by patience convinced her that his indisposition was temporary and such as none can hope to escape; and that he undoubtedly possessed a constitution of iron. The absence of Elsie helped the intimacy of the pair; they enjoyed being alone, unobserved, free from the constraint of the eyes of a third person who was here, there
