“You have only just come?” he ventured then.
“I’ve been here about an hour,” I replied—“a quiet hour.”
“I had your sister’s letter,” he said apologetically, if a little awkwardly, as he advanced into the room.
“She wrote you, then?”
“Oh yes! I’ve got the letter somewhere.” He felt in his pocket and failed to find it.
“Won’t you sit down?”
There was no chair near the writing-table save the one upon which I sat. A further reason why I knew my predecessor here had been a writer! Dr. Kennedy had to fetch one, and I took shallow stock of him meanwhile. A tall and not ill-looking man in the late thirties or early forties, he had on the worst suit of country tweeds I had ever seen and incongruously well-made boots. Now he sprawled silently in the selected chair, and I waited for his opening. Already I was nauseated with doctors and their methods. In town I had seen everybody’s favourite nostrum-dispenser, and none of them had relieved me of anything but my hardly earned cash. I mean to present a study of them one day, to get something back from what I have given. Dr. Kennedy did not accord with the black-coated London brigade, and his opening was certainly different.
“How long have you been feeling unwell?” That was what I expected, this was the common gambit. Dr. Kennedy sat a few minutes without speaking at all. Then he asked me abruptly:
“Did you know Mrs. Capel?”
“Who?”
“Margaret Capel. You knew she lived here, didn’t you? That it was here it all happened?”
“What happened?”
“Then you don’t know?” He got up from his chair in a fidgetty sort of way and went over to the other window. “I hoped you knew her, that she had been a friend of yours. I hoped so ever since I had your sister’s letter. Carbies! It seemed so strange to be coming here again. I can’t believe it is ten years ago; it is all so vivid!” He came back and sat down again. “I ought not to talk about her, but the whole room and house are so full of memories. She used to sit, just as you are sitting now, for hours at a time, dreaming. Sometimes she would not speak to me at all. I had to go away; I could see I was intruding.”
The cynical words on my lips remained unuttered. He was tall, and if his clothes had fitted him he might have presented a better figure. I hate a morning coat in tweed material. The adjective “uncouth” stuck. I saw it was a clever head under the thick mane of black hair, and wondered at his tactlessness and provincial garrulity. I nevertheless found myself not entirely uninterested in him.
“Do you mind my talking about her? Incandescent! I think that word describes her best. She burned from the inside, was strung on wires, and they were all alight. She was always sitting just where you are now, or upstairs at the piano. She was a wonderful pianist. Have you been upstairs, into the room she turned into a music room?”
“As I told you, I have only been here an hour. This is the only room I have seen.”
My tone must have struck him as wanting in cordiality, or interest.
“You didn’t want me to come up tonight?” He looked through his pocketbook for Ella’s letter, found it, and began to read, half aloud. How well I knew what Ella would have said to him.
“She has taken ‘Carbies’; call upon her at once … let me know what you think … don’t be misled by her high spirits. …” He read it half aloud and half to himself. He seemed to expect my sympathy. “I used to come here so often, two or three times a day sometimes.”
“Was she ill?” The question was involuntary. Margaret Capel was nothing to me.
“Part of the time. Most of the time.”
“Did you do her any good?”
Apparently he had no great sense or sensitiveness of professional dignity. There was a strange light in his eyes, brilliant yet fitful, conjured up by the question. It was the first time he seemed to recognize my existence as a separate entity. He looked directly at me, instead of gazing about him reminiscently.
“I don’t know. I did my best. When she was in pain I stopped it … sometimes. She did not always like the medicines I prescribed. And you? You are suffering from neuritis, your sister says. That may mean anything. Where is it?”
“In my legs.”
I did not mean him to attend me; I had come away to rid myself of doctors. And anyway I liked an older man in a professional capacity. But his eccentricity of manner or deportment, his want of interest in me and absorption in his former patient, his ill-cut clothes and unlikeness to his brother professionals, were a little variety, and I found myself answering his questions.
“Have you tried Kasemol? It is a Japanese cure very efficacious; or any other paint?”
“I am no artist.”
He smiled. He had a good set of teeth, and his smile was pleasant.
“You’ve got a nurse, or a maid?”
“A maid. I’m not ill enough for nurses.”
“Good. Did you know this was once a nursing-home? After she found that out she could never bear the place. …”
He was talking again about the former occupant of the house. My ailment had not held his attention long.
“She said she smelt ether and heard groaning in the night. I suppose it seems strange to you I should talk so much about her? But Carbies without Margaret Capel. … You do mind?”
“No, I don’t. I daresay I shall be glad to hear all about her one day, and the story. I see you have a story to tell. Of course I remember her now. She wrote a play or two, and some novels that had quite a little vogue at one time. But I’m tired tonight.”
“So short a journey ought not to tire you.” He was observing me more closely. “You look overdriven, too fine-drawn. We must find out all about it. Not tonight of course. You must not look upon this as a professional visit at all, but I could not resist coming. You would understand, if you had known her. And then to see you sitting at her table, and in the same attitude. …” He left off abruptly. So the regard I had flattered myself to be personal was merely reminiscent. “You don’t write too, by any chance, do you? That would be an extraordinary coincidence.”
He might as well have asked Melba if she sang. Blundering fool! I was better known than Margaret Capel had ever been. Not proud of my position because I have always known my limitations, but irritated nevertheless by his ignorance, and wishful now to get rid of him.
“Oh, yes! I write a little sometimes. Sorry my position at the table annoys you. But I don’t play the piano.” He seemed a little surprised or hurt at my tone, as he well might, and rose to go. I rose, too, and held out my hand. After all I did not write under my own name, so how could he have known unless Ella had told him? When he shook hands with me he made no pretence of feeling my pulse, a trick of the trade which I particularly dislike. So I smiled at him. “I am a little irritable.”
“Irritability is characteristic of the complaint. And I have bored you horribly, I fear. But it was such an excitement coming up here again. May I come in the morning and overhaul you? My partner, Dr. Lansdowne, for whom your sister’s letter was really intended, is away. Does that matter?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“He is a very able man,” he said seriously.
“And are you not?” By this time my legs were aching badly and I wanted to get rid of him.
“In the morning, then.”
He