The Secret Places of the Heart

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profiteering of private owners and traders, to a view of a general human welfare. They form an important link in a series of private and public documents that are slowly opening out a prospect of new economic methods, methods conceived in the generous spirit of scientific work, that may yet arrest the drift of our western civilization towards financial and commercial squalor and the social collapse that must

interests sought to save themselves in whole or in part from the common duty of sacrifice. But toward the end he fell ill. He had worked to the pitch of exhaustion. He neglected a cold that settled on his chest. He began to cough persistently and betray an increasingly irritable temper. In the last fights in the Committee his face was bright with fever and he spoke in a voiceless whisper, often a vast a

of the Majority Report. The Minority Report, his own especial cre

ned frequent allusions to the Committee. Someone told him that Sir Richmond had been staying at Ruan in Cornwall where Martin Leeds had a cotta

son indeed. She talked to him freely and simply of her husband and of the journey the two men had taken together. Either she knew nothing of the circumstances of their par

ichmond's work in any way. He believed in him thoroughly.

im," said Lady Hardy. "I wish I could fee

sted. "I know very

urthen of toil," she said. "I try to smooth his p

tinized the d

shed to meet the requirements of this lady if he could. "He is one of those men,"

nius.... A great irresponsible genius.... Diffic

great regret that the doctor found the time

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and Sir Richmond was already seriously ill. But he was still going about his business as though he was perfectly well.

I must be bolstered up. I can't last out unless I am. I'm at the end of my energy. I come to you because you will understand

hand, "I must order you to bed. You won't go. But I order you. You must know that what you are doing is risking your life. Your lungs are congested, the bronchial tubes already. That may spread a

all reaso

r wife

eople. But the household is

ke a mummy. I wish the Committee room wasn't down

th an affectio

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nged timbre of the wheezy notes in his throat. He rose later each day and with ebbing vigour, jotted down notes and corrections upon the proofs of the Minority Report. He found it increasingly difficult to make decisions; he would correct and alter back and then repeat the correction, perhaps half a dozen times. On the evening of the second day his lungs became painful and his breathing difficult

r line. I know.... My wife's G.P.--an exasperat

doctor replaced by one from Lady Hardy's room. He had twisted th

p for night work near the fireplace, an electric kettle for making tea at night, a silver biscuit tin; all the apparatus for the lonely intent industry of the small hours. There was a bookcase of bluebooks, books of reference and suchlike material, and some files. Over the mantelpiece was an enlarged photograph of Lady Hardy and a plain office calendar. The desk was littered with the galley proofs of the M

while he cast about for anything that would give this large industrious apartment a little more of the restfulness and comf

de. "This is not, as you say, my sort of work. Will you let me

aid Sir Richmond. I w

get the right sort of nurse

hard on his heels. Sir Richmond submitted almost silently to hi

then encouragingly to Sir Richmon

think what a decent chap Dr. Martineau was, how helpful and fine and forgiving his professional training had made him, how completely he had ignored the smothered incivilities of their parting at Salisbury. All men ought to have some such training, Not a bad idea to put e

eyebrows conveyed that

Hardy ought to

k his head with u

said, and after a pause,

nything h

d th

Sir Richmond's face. He seemed to regard

the impassive figure on the bed. Did Sir Richmond fully understand? He made a step to

s eyes and regarded hi

"after great exertion and fatigue, may

eek on pillow, s

in--... If you don't want to take risks about that--... One

e stuck to his point. His voice was faint but firm. "Coul

for a little while. Then he s

Sir Richmond, with hi

to

puckered like a peevish child's. "They'd want things sai

spered Dr. Martineau

ful. "Give them my love," he said

ort. "I can't see them, Martineau, until I've something to say. It's like that. Perhaps I shall think of some kind things to say--after a sleep. But if the

ed Dr. Martineau. "

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stirred and muttered. "Second rate... P

aid Dr. Martineau, and was not

. lost my grip... Alwa

Put their backs

ver done anyt

Done. Well

on

t whisper. "Done for ever and

seemed

Richmond cared, should come and say good-bye to him, and for Sir Richmond to say good-bye to someone. He hated this lonely launching from the shores of life of one who had sought intimacy

his eyes. What had happened? Was there not perhaps some word for her? He turned about as if to enquire of the dying man and found Sir Richmond's eye

d turned away. He went to the wind

le dimly at the doctor's back

y that for some time the night nurse did not observe what had happened. She was indeed

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liness produced by the nocturnal desk and by the evident dread felt by Sir Richmond of any death-bed partings. He realized how much this man, who had once sought so feverishly for intimacies, had shrunken bac

d of the rage of life in a young baby, how we drove into life in a sort of fury, how that rage impelled us to do this and that, how we fought and struggled until the rage spent itself and

e him and below. He was going along this path without looking back, without a thought for those he left behind, without a single word to cheer him on his way, walking as Dr. Martineau had sometimes watched him walking, without haste or avidity, walking as a man mig

ness hide the beginnings of some strange long journe

indeed

in immortality. Dimmer and dimmer grew the figure but still it remained visible. As one can

ook of the Dead, at a copy of which the doctor had been looking a day or so before. Sir Richmond became a brown naked figure, crossing a bridge of danger, passing between terrific monsters, ferrying a dark and dreadful stream. He came to the scales of judgment before the very throne of Osiris and stood waiting while dogheaded Anubis weighed his conscience and that evil monster, the Devourer of the Dead, crouched ready if the

become a little painted figure and he was bearing a book in his hand. He wanted to show that the laws of the new world

n of waking troubles.... You have been six months on Chapter Ten; wil

his time it was not Sir Richmond.... Who was it? Surely it was Everyman. Everyman had to travel at last along that selfsame road, leaving love, leaving every task and every desire. But was it Everyman?... A great fear and

o wrench hi

certain. He switched on his electric light, mutely interrogated his round face reflected in the looking glass, got out of bed, shuffled on his slippers and went along

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tears, met his very wistfully; her little body seemed very small and pathetic in its simple black dress. And yet there was a sort of bravery about her. When he came into the drawing-ro

ast night," he said, taking both her hands in

it had been possible you w

elieve it yet. I don't realize it

can under

. It is as if he were a little more not qui

s. "My daughter Helen comes home to-morrow afternoon," she explained. "She is in Paris. But our son

ite 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 pho

uch to him," sai

e 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 me

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Martineau by telephone. "Something rather disagreeable," she

tell him nothing more. She was having tea and she gave him some. She fussed about with crea

robably went into things with you that he never talked about with anyone else. Usual

u with discretion, "deal a

was som

hen, not to be too portent

ever mention someone

realizing that this was a mistake, he

I'm glad," she said simply. She repeated,

au looked h

to come a

er

ve never met her. Never set eyes on her. For all I know she may

ave. "You would rath

understand, of course, she has a sort of claim." She sobbed her relu

he said. "I understand. Now ... suppose _I_ were to write to her and arrange--I do not s

ou CO

tresses, no matter at what trouble to himself. "You are so goo

ry," she said, d

ow," he reassured her. "You

e house at mid-day on the morrow, and to ask not for Lady Hardy but for him. He would stay by her while she was in the house, and it would be quite easy for Lady Hardy to keep herself

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e face of a sensitive youth rather than the face of a woman. She had fine grey eyes under very fine brows; they were eyes that at other times might have laughed very agreeably, but which were now full of an unrestrained sadness. Her brown hair was very untid

pictures that stood about the room. She walked up to the painting and stood in front of it with her

tor very much. "You mean Lady Har

id she get all the

," said Dr

ette!... He was extraordinarily difficult to get. I have burnt every photograph I had of him. For fear that this would happen; that he would go stif

e had to say these things which burthened her mind to someone. "I have done hundreds of sketches. My room is l

beyond her power. "It is as if someo

pstairs. "This was his st

came here on

t of Aliss Grammont had disappeared. Miss Leeds walked straight across to the coffin and stood looking down on the waxen inexpressive dignity of the dead. Sir Richmond's brows and nose

metimes I think he loved me. But it is hard to tell. He was kind. He could be intensely kind and yet he didn't seem to care for you. He could be intens

d at the dead man with her head a little on

ess. He would not let you have the bitter tr

it is. He took it seriously because it takes itself serious

taken seriously. It is a joke--a bad joke--made by some cruel little god who has caught a neglecte

ess. But he never seemed happy. This work of his came before it. He overwo

What am I to do now with the rest of my life

. I don't blame him. He

I shall mourn for him

y vestige of self-control. She sank down on her knees

arling! Speak to me, I

and dreadful. She beat her hands upon the coffin

drifted feebly

was all about. Always he had feared love for the cruel thing it was, but no

The End<