“You don’t know a Doctor Baker?”
“Doctor Davidson. I know Doctor Davidson.”
“No, it’s Doctor Baker we want.”
I glanced up at Maxim. He was looking very tired. His mouth was set hard. Behind us crawled Favell, his green car covered in dust.
It was a postman who pointed out the house in the end. A square house, ivy covered, with no name on the gate, which we had already passed twice. Mechanically I reached for my bag and dabbed my face with the end of the powder puff. Maxim drew up outside at the side of the road. He did not take the car into the short drive. We sat silently for a few minutes.
“Well, here we are,” said Colonel Julyan, “and it’s exactly twelve minutes past five. We shall catch them in the middle of their tea. Better wait for a bit.”
Maxim lit a cigarette, and then stretched out his hand to me. He did not speak. I heard Colonel Julyan crinkling his map.
“We could have come right across without touching London,” he said, “saved us forty minutes I dare say. We made good time the first two hundred miles. It was from Chiswick on we took the time.”
An errand-boy passed us whistling on his bicycle. A motor-coach stopped at the corner and two women got out. Somewhere a church clock chimed the quarter. I could see Favell leaning back in his car behind us and smoking a cigarette. I seemed to have no feeling in me at all. I just sat and watched the little things that did not matter. The two women from the bus walk along the road. The errand-boy disappears round the corner. A sparrow hops about in the middle of the road pecking at dirt.
“This fellow Baker can’t be much of a gardener,” said Colonel Julyan. “Look at those shrubs tumbling over his wall. They ought to have been pruned right back.” He folded up the map and put it back in his pocket. “Funny sort of place to choose to retire in,” he said. “Close to the main road and overlooked by other houses. Shouldn’t care about it myself. I dare say it was quite pretty once before they started building. No doubt there’s a good golf course somewhere handy.”
He was silent for a while, then he opened the door and stood out in the road. “Well, de Winter,” he said, “what do you think about it?”
“I’m ready,” said Maxim.
We got out of the car. Favell strolled up to meet us.
“What were you all waiting for, cold feet?” he said.
Nobody answered him. We walked up the drive to the front door, a strange incongruous little party. I caught sight of a tennis lawn beyond the house, and I heard the thud of balls. A boy’s voice shouted “Forty-fifteen, not thirty all. Don’t you remember hitting it out, you silly ass?”
“They must have finished tea,” said Colonel Julyan.
He hesitated a moment, glancing at Maxim. Then he rang the bell.
It tinkled somewhere in the back premises. There was a long pause. A very young maid opened the door to us. She looked startled at the sight of so many of us.
“Doctor Baker?” said Colonel Julyan.
“Yes, sir, will you come in?”
She opened the door on the left of the hall as we went in. It would be the drawing room, not used much in the summer. There was a portrait of a very plain dark woman on the wall. I wondered if it was Mrs. Baker. The chintz covers on the chairs and on the sofa were new and shiny. On the mantelpiece were photographs of two schoolboys with round, smiling faces. There was a very large wireless in the corner of the room by the window. Cords trailed from it, and bits of aerial. Favell examined the portrait on the wall. Colonel Julyan went and stood by the empty fireplace. Maxim and I looked out of the window. I could see a deck chair under a tree, and the back of a woman’s head. The tennis court must be round the corner. I could hear the boys shouting to each other. A very old Scotch terrier was scratching himself in the middle of the path. We waited there for about five minutes. It was as though I was living the life of some other person and had come to this house to call for a subscription to a charity. It was unlike anything I had ever known. I had no feeling, no pain.
Then the door opened and a man came into the room. He was medium height, rather long in the face, with a keen chin. His hair was sandy, turning gray. He wore flannels, and a dark blue blazer.
“Forgive me for keeping you waiting,” he said, looking a little surprised, as the maid had done, to see so many of us. “I had to run up and wash. I was playing tennis when the bell rang. Won’t you sit down?” He turned to me. I sat down in the nearest chair and waited.
“You must think this a very unorthodox invasion, Doctor Baker,” said Colonel Julyan, “and I apologize very humbly for disturbing you like this. My name is Julyan. This is Mr. de Winter, Mrs. de Winter, and Mr. Favell. You may have seen Mr. de Winter’s name in the papers recently.”