The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold

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СКАЧАТЬ eyes were still closed,—"the suburbs, even Walham Green and Fulham, are full of interest, for those who can see it. Walk along this very street on such a Sunday afternoon as to-day. The roofs form two horrible, converging straight lines I know, but beneath there is character, individuality, enough to make the greatest book ever written. Note the varying indications supplied by bad furniture seen through curtained windows, like ours" (he grinned, opened his eyes, and sat up); "listen to the melodies issuing lamely from ill-tuned pianos; examine the enervated figures of women reclining amidst flower-pots on narrow balconies. Even in the thin smoke ascending unwillingly from invisible chimney-pots, the flutter of a blind, the bang of a door, the winking of a fox terrier perched on a window-sill, the colour of paint, the lettering of a name,—in all these things there is character and matter of interest,—truth waiting to be expounded. How many houses are there in Carteret Street? Say eighty. Eighty theatres of love, hate, greed, tyranny, endeavour; eighty separate dramas always unfolding, intertwining, ending, beginning,—and every drama a tragedy. No comedies, and especially no farces! Why, child, there is more character within a hundred yards of this chair than a hundred Balzacs could analyse in a hundred years."

      All the old vivacity had returned to his face; he had been rhetorical on a favourite subject, and he was frankly pleased with himself.

      "You will tire yourself, uncle," said Adeline. "Shall we have tea?"

      Richard observed with astonishment that she was cold and unmoved. Surely she could not be blind to the fact that Mr. Aked was a very remarkable man with very remarkable ideas! Why, by the way, had those ideas never presented themselves to him? He would write an article on the character of Raphael Street. Unwillingly he announced that he must go; to remain longer would be to invite himself to tea.

      "Sit still, Larch. You'll have a cup of tea."

      Adeline left the room; and when she had gone, Mr. Aked, throwing a glance after her, said,—

      "Well, what do you think of my notions of the suburb?"

      "They are splendid," Richard replied, glowing.

      "There's something in them, I imagine," he agreed complacently. "I've had an idea lately of beginning to scribble again. I know there's a book waiting to be written on 'The Psychology of the Suburbs,' and I don't like to see copy lying about wasted. The old war-horse scenting the battle, you understand." He smiled grandiosely. "'Psychology of the Suburbs'! Fine title that! See how the silent P takes away all the crudity of the alliteration; that's because one never listens to words with the ears alone, but with the eyes also.... But I should need help. I want a clever chap who can take down from dictation, and assist me in the details of composition. I suppose you wouldn't care to come here two or three evenings a week?"

      Richard answered sincerely that nothing would suit him better.

      "I should make you joint author, of course. 'Psychology of the Suburbs,' by Richard Aked and Richard Larch. It sounds rather catchy, and I think it ought to sell. About four hundred octavo pages, say a hundred thousand words. Six shillings—must be popular in price. We might get a royalty of ninepence a copy if we went to the right publisher. Sixpence for me and threepence for you. Would that do?"

      "Oh, perfectly!" But was not Mr. Aked running on rather fast?

      "Perhaps we'd better say fivepence halfpenny for me and threepence halfpenny for you; that would be fairer. Because you'll have to furnish ideas, you know. 'Psychology of the Suburbs, Psychology of the Suburbs'! Fine title! We ought to do it in six months."

      "I hope you'll be quite well again soon. Then we—"

      "Quite well!" he repeated sharply. "I shall be as right as a trivet to-morrow. You don't suppose that I can't take care of myself! We'll start at once."

      "You're not forgetting, Mr. Aked, that you've never seen any of my stuff yet? Are you sure I shall be able to do what you want?"

      "Oh, you'll do. I've not seen your stuff, but I guess you've got the literary habit. The literary habit, that's the thing! I'll soon put you up to the wrinkles, the trade secrets."

      "What is your general plan of the book?" Richard asked with some timidity, fearing to be deemed either stupid or inquisitive at the wrong moment. He had tried to say something meet for a great occasion, and failed.

      "Oh, I'll go into that at our first formal conference, say next Friday night. Speaking roughly, each of the great suburban divisions has, for me at any rate, its own characteristics, its peculiar moral physiognomy." Richard nodded appreciatively. "Take me blindfold to any street in London, and I'll discover instantly, from a thousand hints, where I am. Well, each of these divisions must be described in turn, not topographically of course, but the inner spirit, the soul of it. See? People have got into a way of sneering at the suburbs. Why, the suburbs are London! It is alone the—the concussion of meeting suburbs in the centre of London that makes the city and West End interesting. We could show how the special characteristics of the different suburbs exert a subtle influence on the great central spots. Take Fulham; no one thinks anything of Fulham, but suppose it were swept off the face of the earth the effect would be to alter, for the seeing eye, the character of Piccadilly and the Strand and Cheapside. The play of one suburb on another and on the central haunts is as regular, as orderly, as calculable, as the law of gravity itself."

      They continued the discussion until Adeline came in again with a tray in her hands, followed by the little red-armed servant. The two began to lay the cloth, and the cheerful rattle of crockery filled the room....

      "Sugar, Mr. Larch?" Adeline was saying, when Mr. Aked, looking meaningly at Richard, ejaculated,—

      "Friday then?"

      Richard nodded. Adeline eyed her uncle distrustfully.

      For some reason, unguessed by Richard, Adeline left them alone during most of the evening, and in her absence Mr. Aked continued to discourse, in vague generalities not without a specious poetical charm, on the subject upon which they were to collaborate, until Richard was wholly intoxicated with its fascinating possibilities. When he left, Adeline would not allow Mr. Aked to go to the door, and went herself.

      "If I hadn't been very firm," she laughed as they were shaking hands in the passage, "uncle would have stood talking to you in the street for goodness knows how long, and forgotten all about his bronchitis. Oh, you authors, I believe you are every one like babies." Richard smiled his gratification.

      "Mr. Larch, Mr. Larch!" The roguish summons came after him when he was half-way up the street. He ran back and found her at the gate with her hands behind her.

      "What have you forgotten?" she questioned. He could see her face but dimly in the twilight of the gas-lamps.

      "I know—my umbrella," he answered.

      "Didn't I say you were all like—little children!" she said, as she whipped out the umbrella and gave it to him over the gate.

      * * * * *

      Anxious at once to add something original to the sum of Mr. Aked's observations, he purposely chose a round-about route home, through the western parts of Fulham and past the Salisbury hotel. It seemed to him that the latent poetry of the suburbs arose like a beautiful vapour and filled these monotonous and squalid vistas with the scent and the colour of violets, leaving nothing common, nothing ignoble. In the upturned eyes of a shop-girl who went by on the arm of her lover he divined a passion as pure as that of Eugénie Grandet; on the wrinkled countenance of an older woman he beheld only the nobility of suffering; a youth who walked alone, smoking a cigarette, was a СКАЧАТЬ