This affection extended itself now to Lady Hardy.Hers was a type that had always appealed to him.He could understand so well the perplexed loyalty with which she was now setting herself to gather together some preservative and reassuring evidences of this man who had always been; as she put it, "never quite here." It was as if she felt that now it was at last possible to make a definite reality of him.He could be fixed.And as he was fixed he would stay.Never more would he be able to come in and with an almost expressionless glance wither the interpretation she had imposed upon him.She was finding much comfort in this task of reconstruction.She had gathered together in the drawingroom every presentable portrait she had been able to find of him.He had never, she said, sat to a painter, but there was an early pencil sketch done within a couple of years of their marriage; there was a number of photographs, several of which--she wanted the doctor's advice upon this point--she thought might be enlarged; there was a statuette done by some woman artist who had once beguiled him into a sitting.There was also a painting she had had worked up from a photograph and some notes.She flitted among these memorials, going from one to the other, undecided which to make the standard portrait."That painting, I think, is most like," she said: "as he was before the war.But the war and the Commission changed him,--worried him and aged him....I grudged him to that Commission.He let it worry him frightfully.""It meant very much to him," said Dr.Martineau.
"It meant too much to him.But of course his ideas were splendid.You know it is one of my hopes to get some sort of book done, explaining his ideas.He would never write.He despised it--unreasonably.A real thing done, he said, was better than a thousand books.Nobody read books, he said, but women, parsons and idle people.But there must be books.And I want one.Something a little more real than the ordinary official biography....I have thought of young Leighton, the secretary of the Commission.He seems thoroughly intelligent and sympathetic and really anxious to reconcile Richmond's views with those of the big business men on the Committee.He might do....Or perhaps I might be able to persuade two or three people to write down their impressions of him.A sort of memorial volume....But he was shy of friends.There was no man he talked to very intimately about his ideas unless it was to you...I wish I had the writer's gift, doctor."Section 7
It was on the second afternoon that Lady Hardy summoned Dr.
Martineau by telephone."Something rather disagreeable," she said."If you could spare the time.If you could come round.
"It is frightfully distressing," she said when he got round to her, and for a time she could tell him nothing more.She was having tea and she gave him some.She fussed about with cream and cakes and biscuits.He noted a crumpled letter thrust under the edge of the silver tray.
"He talked, I know, very intimately with you," she said, coming to it at last."He probably went into things with you that he never talked about with anyone else.Usually he was very reserved, Even with me there were things about which he said nothing.""We did," said Dr.Martineau with discretion, "deal a little with his private life.
"There was someone--"
Dr.Martineau nodded and then, not to be too portentous, took and bit a biscuit.
"Did he by any chance ever mention someone called Martin Leeds?"Dr.Martineau seemed to reflect.Then realizing that this was a mistake, he said: "He told me the essential facts."The poor lady breathed a sigh of relief."I'm glad," she said simply.She repeated, "Yes, I'm glad.It makes things easier now."Dr.Martineau looked his enquiry.
"She wants to come and see him."
"Here?"
"Here! And Helen here! And the servants noticing everything!
I've never met her.Never set eyes on her.For all I know she may want to make a scene." There was infinite dismay in her voice.
Dr.Martineau was grave."You would rather not receive her?""I don't want to refuse her.I don't want even to seem heartless.I understand, of course, she has a sort of claim.
" She sobbed her reluctant admission."I know it.Iknow....There was much between them."Dr.Martineau pressed the limp hand upon the little tea table."I understand, dear lady," he said."I understand.Now...suppose _I_ were to write to her and arrange--I do not see that you need be put to the pain of meeting her.Suppose I were to meet her here myself?
"If you COULD!"
The doctor was quite prepared to save the lady any further distresses, no matter at what trouble to himself."You are so good to me," she said, letting the tears have their way with her.
"I am silly to cry," she said, dabbing her eyes.
