Part 56 (1/2)

Dr Heve came out of the house, and Dr Heve too seemed gay with fine resolutions. The two met on the doorstep, each full of a justifiable self-satisfaction. The doctor explained that he had come thus early because Mr Clayhanger was one of those cases upon which he could look in casually at any time. In the suns.h.i.+ne they talked under the porch of early rising, as men who understood the value of that art. Edwin could see that Dr Heve's life was a series of little habits which would never allow themselves to be interfered with by any large interest, and he despised the man's womanish smile. Nevertheless his new respect for him did not weaken; he decided that he was a very decent fellow in his way, and he was more impressed than he would admit by the amount of work that the doctor had for years been doing in the morning before his intellectual superiors had sat up in bed. And he imagined that it might be even more agreeable to read in the fresh stillness of the morning than in the solitary night.

Then they returned to the case of Darius. The doctor was more communicative, and they were both cheerfully matter-of-fact concerning it. There it was, to be made the best of! And that Darius could never handle business again, and that in about two years his doom would be accomplished--these were basic facts, axiomatic. The doctor had seen his patient in the garden, and he suggested that if Darius could be persuaded to interest himself in gardening... They discussed his medicine, his meals, his digestion, and the great, impossible dream of 'taking him away,' 'out of it all.' And every now and then Dr Heve dropped some little hint as to the management of Darius.

The ticking parcel drew the discreet attention of the doctor. The machine was one guaranteed to go in any position, and was much more difficult to stop than to start.

”It's only an alarm,” said Edwin, not without self-consciousness.

The doctor went, tripping neatly and optimistically, off towards his own breakfast. He got up earlier than his horse.

TWO.

Darius was still in the garden when Edwin went to him. He had put on his daily suit, and was leisurely digging in an uncultivated patch of ground. He stuck the spade into the earth perpendicularly and deep, and when he tried to prise it up and it would not yield because of a concealed half-brick, he put his tongue between his teeth and then bit his lower lip, controlling himself, determined to get the better of the spade and the brick by persuasively humouring them. He took no notice whatever of Edwin.

”I see you aren't losing any time,” said Edwin, who felt as though he were engaging in small-talk with a stranger.

”Are you?” Darius replied, without turning his head.

”I've just come up for a bit of breakfast. Everything's all right,” he said. He would have liked to add: ”I was in the shop before seven-thirty,” but he was too proud.

After a pause, he ventured, essaying the casual--

”I say, father, I shall want the keys of the desk, and all that.”

”Keys o' th' desk!” Darius muttered, leaning on the spade, as though demanding in stupefaction, ”What on earth can you want the keys for?”

”Well--” Edwin stammered.

But the proposition was too obvious to be denied. Darius left the spade to stand up by itself, and stared.

”Got 'em in your pocket?” Edwin inquired.

Slowly Darius drew forth a heavy, glittering bunch of keys, one of the chief insignia of his dominion, and began to fumble at it.

”You needn't take any of them off. I expect I know which is which,”

said Edwin, holding out his hand.

Darius hesitated, and then yielded up the bunch.

”Thanks,” said Edwin lightly.

But the old man's reluctance to perform this simple and absolutely necessary act of surrender, the old man's air of having done something tremendous--these signs frightened Edwin and shook his courage for the demand compared to which the demand for the keys was naught. Still, the affair had to be carried through.

”And I say,” he proceeded, jingling the keys, ”about signing and endorsing cheques. They tell me at the Bank that if you sign a general authority to me to do it for you, that will be enough.”

He could not avoid looking guilty. He almost felt guilty, almost felt as if he were plotting against his father's welfare. And as he spoke his words seemed unreal and his suggestion fantastic. At the Bank the plan had been simple, easy, and perfectly natural. But there could be no doubt, that as he had walked up Trafalgar Road, receding from the Bank and approaching his father, the plan had gradually lost those attractive qualities. And now in the garden it was merely monstrous.

Silent, Darius resumed the spade.

”Well,” said Edwin desperately. ”What about it?”