Violet, who had further illuminated the shop as she passed out, was rather long in returning, partly because she had had to hunt for the steps, and partly because she had popped into the bedroom to see that it was in order. Dr. Raste gallantly took the volumes from her as she stood halfway up the steps.
“Fifteen volumes—that’s right,” said Mr. Earlforward. “I told you there were eight, didn’t I?”
“Did you?” said Dr. Raste, wondering at the bookseller’s memory.
“Yes. I was mixing it up with another edition. Easy to make a mistake of that kind. Well, just look at it. Biography. Notes. Beautiful clear type. Nice, modest binding, in very good taste. Light and handy to hold. Clean as a pin. Nearly two hundred illustrations—from the Boydell edition. I told you Flaxman’s illustrations, didn’t I? Yes, I did. That was wrong. I somehow got the idea they were Flaxman’s because they’re in outline. But I see there’s quite a selection of artists.” He peered at the names engraved in microscopic characters under the illustrations, and passed on volume after volume to the prospective customer. “Pretty edition.”
A silence. Violet stood attendant—an acolyte, submissive, watchful—while Henry did business.
“I’m afraid it’ll be too dear for my purse,” said the doctor, affrighted by the thought of nearly two hundred illustrations from Boydell.
“Twenty-five shillings.”
“I’d better take it,” said the doctor, looking up from the books into Mr. Earlforward’s little eyes; he was startled at the lowness of the price, and immediately counted out the money—two notes and two new half-crowns, which Mr. Earlforward gazed at passionately, and in a bravura of self-control left lying on the desk.
“Make them up into two parcels, will you?” said the doctor. “I’ll carry them home myself. I suppose you wouldn’t be able to deliver tonight? Too late?”
“Yes. Too late tonight, I’m afraid,” answered Mr. Earlforward calmly, well aware that he had long since ceased to deliver any goods under any circumstances. “My dear, some nice brown paper and string. Oh! The string’s here, isn’t it?” He bent down to a drawer of the desk, and drew out a tangle of all manner of pieces of string.
Violet now became important in the episode, and took charge of the wrapping; her mien showed a conviction that she could make up a parcel as well as her husband.
“Hospitals are getting in a bad way,” said Dr. Raste, and Mr. Earlforward thought to himself that the doctor was one of those distressing persons who from nervousness could not endure a silence.
“Yes?”
“Yes. Haven’t you read about it in the papers?”
“Well, I may have seen something about it,” said Mr. Earlforward. But he had not seen anything about it, nor did he care anything about it. He held the common view that hospitals were maintained by magic, or if not by magic, then by the cheques of millionaires in great houses in the West End who paid subscriptions as they paid their rates and taxes.
“Yes. The London Hospital—our largest hospital—unparalleled work in the East End, you know—the London’s thinking of closing a hundred beds. A calamity, but there seems to be no alternative. My wife’s interesting herself in Lord Knutsford’s special effort to save the beds; she used to be on the staff. I was just wondering whether you’d care to give me something for her list. … I thought I might mention it—as I’m not here professionally. Here as a customer, you see.” He gave one of his little, nervous laughs.
Mr. Earlforward perceived that the doctor had not been merely breaking a silence. He perceived also that Violet, mysteriously excited by the name of the legendary subscription-collecting peer who directed the London Hospital, was “willing” him to practise charity on this occasion. He keenly regretted, as the doctor developed his subject, that he had left the price of the Shakespeare on the desk. There it lay, waiting to be given, asking to be given! There it lay and could not be ignored. The doctor was, of course, being impudent again; but there the money lay. Half a crown? Too little. Two half-crowns, those bright and lovely objects? Too little—or at any rate too little so long as the notes lay beside them. A note? Impossible! Fantastic! The situation was desperate, and Mr. Earlforward in agony. He could not in decency refuse—he a Londoner, fond of London and its institutions—he an established tradesman; neither could he part with his money. He was about to martyrize himself; his hand, each finger separately suffering, hovered over one of the notes, when deliverance occurred to him.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said he, and picked up a thin, tattered, quarto volume that was lying on the desk. “I’ll make you a sporting offer. Here’s one of the earliest collected editions of Gray’s Poems.”
“Gray? Gray?” reflected the doctor, and aloud: “ ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’ sort of thing?”
“Yes. This is the Glasgow edition, and I can’t remember now whether it or the London edition was the first—the first collected edition, I mean. They are both dated 1768. I’ll give you this for your hospital. You take it to Sotherans or Bain, and see what it’ll fetch.”
The doctor opened the book.
“ ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desart air.’ ”
he read. “Funny way of spelling ‘desert,’ a, r, t. But this is very interesting. ‘Full many a flower—’ So that’s Gray, is it? Very interesting.” He was quite uplifted by the sight of familiar words in an old book. “It’s very clean inside. Suppose it’s worth a lot of money. I’m sure you’re very generous, very generous indeed.” Violet paused in making up the second parcel.
“Well,” said Mr. Earlforward, uplifted in his turn by reason of the epithet “generous” applied to him. “I don’t know without inquiring just what it is worth. That’s the sporting offer.”
“I wouldn’t mind giving a couple of pounds for it
