Chapter 8: A Museum Idyll

Whether it was that practice revived a forgotten skill on my part, or that Miss Bellingham had over-estimated the amount of work to be done, I am unable to say. But whichever may have been the explanation, the fact is that the fourth afternoon saw our task so nearly completed that I was fain to plead that a small remainder might be left over to form an excuse for yet one more visit to the reading-room.

Short, however, as had been the period of our collaboration, it had been long enough to produce a great change in our relations to one another. For there is no friendship so intimate and satisfying as that engendered by community of work, and none—between man and woman, at any rate—so frank and wholesome.

Every day I had arrived to find a pile of books with the places duly marked and the blue covered quarto note-books in readiness. Every day we had worked steadily at the allotted task, had then handed in the books and gone forth together to enjoy a most companionable tea in the milk-shop; thereafter to walk home by way of Queen Square, talking over the day’s work and discussing the state of the world in the far-off days when Ahkhenaten was king and the Tell el Amarna tablets were a-writing.

It had been a pleasant time, so pleasant, that as I handed in the books for the last time, I sighed to think that it was over; that not only was the task finished, but that the recovery of my fair patient’s hand, from which I had that morning removed the splint, had put an end to the need of my help.

“What shall we do?” I asked, as we came out into the central hall; “it is too early for tea. Shall we go and look at some of the galleries?”

“Why not?” she answered. “We might look over some of the things connected with what we have been doing. For instance, there is a relief of Ahkhenaten upstairs in the Third Egyptian Room; we might go and look at that.”

I fell in eagerly with the suggestion, placing myself under her experienced guidance, and we started by way of the Roman Gallery, past the long row of extremely commonplace and modern-looking Roman Emperors.

“I don’t know,” she said, pausing for a moment opposite a bust labelled “Trajan” (but obviously a portrait of Phil May), “how I am ever even to thank you for all that you have done? to say nothing of repayment.”

“There is no need to do either,” I replied. “I have enjoyed working with you, so I have had my reward. But still,” I added, “if you want to do me a great kindness, you have it in your power.”

“How?”

“In connection with my friend Doctor Thorndyke. I told you he was an enthusiast. Now he is, for some reason, most keenly interested in everything relating to your uncle, and I happen to know that, if any legal proceedings should take place, he would very much like to keep a friendly eye on the case.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

“I want you, if an opportunity should occur for him to give your father advice or help of any kind, to use your influence with your father in favour of, rather than in opposition to, his accepting it—always assuming that you have no real feeling against his doing so.”

Miss Bellingham looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, and then laughed softly.

“So the great kindness that I am to do you is to let you do me a further kindness through your friend!”

“No,” I protested; “that is where you are quite mistaken. It isn’t benevolence on Doctor Thorndyke’s part; it is professional enthusiasm.”

She smiled sceptically.

“You don’t believe in it,” I said; “but consider other cases. Why does a surgeon get out of bed on a winter’s night to do an emergency operation at a hospital? He doesn’t get paid for it. Do you think it is altruism?”

“Yes, of course. Isn’t it?”

“Certainly not. He does it because it is his job, because it is his business to fight with disease—and win.”

“I don’t see much difference,” she said. “It is work done for love instead of for payment. However, I will do what you ask if the opportunity arises; but I shan’t suppose that I am repaying your kindness to me.”

“I don’t mind, so long as you do it,” I said, and we walked on for some time in silence.

“Isn’t it odd,” she said presently, “how our talk always seems to come back to my uncle? Oh, and that reminds me that the things he gave to the Museum are in the same room as the Ahkhenaten relief. Would you like to see them?”

“Of course I should.”

“Then we will go and look at them first.” She paused, and then, rather shyly and with a rising colour, she continued: “And I think I should like to introduce you to a very dear friend of mine—with your permission, of course.”

This last addition she made hastily, seeing, I suppose, that I looked rather glum at the suggestion. Inwardly I consigned her friend to the devil, especially if of the masculine gender; outwardly I expressed my felicity at making the acquaintance of any person whom she should honour with her friendship. Whereat, to my discomfiture, she laughed enigmatically; a very soft laugh, low-pitched and musical, like the cooing of a glorified pigeon.

I strolled on by her side, speculating a little anxiously on the coming introduction. Was I being conducted to the lair of one of the savants attached to the establishment? and would he add a superfluous third to our little party of two, so complete and companionable, solus cum sola, in this populated wilderness? Above all, would he turn out to be a comely young man, and bring my aerial castles tumbling about my ears? The shy look and the blush with which she had suggested the introduction were ominous indications, upon which I mused gloomily as we ascended the stairs and passed through the wide doorway. I glanced apprehensively at my companion, and met a quiet, inscrutable smile; and at that moment she halted outside a wall-case and faced me.