"She saw ... Dercksz; she saw ... your father!..."
In the kitchen the cat sat mewing with fright.
[CHAPTER XXII]
Aunt Adèle Takma, with her key-basket on her arm, came fussing quietly from the dining-room into the passage, for she had seen the postman and was hoping for a letter from Elly. Lot and Elly were at Florence, both of them working busily at the Laurentiana and the Archives, where Lot was collecting materials for an historical work on the Medicis. They had been as far as Naples and, on the homeward journey, tired of so much sightseeing—Italy was quite new to Elly—they had stopped at Florence, settled down in a pension and were now working together. Elly seemed happy and wrote enthusiastic letters.
Aunt Adèle looked in the letter-box. Yes, there was a letter from Elly, a letter for Grandpapa. Aunt Adèle always read the letters out to Grandpapa: that was so nice; and after all the letter was for her too. Yes, the children were sure to be away three months longer—it was the beginning of January now—and then the plan was that they would quietly take up their quarters with Steyn and Mamma, for a little while, to see if it answered; and, if it did not answer, they would quietly turn out again and go their own way: they were still keen on travelling and were not yet anxious for a settled home. Ottilie was in London, where she had her two boys, John and Hugh Trevelley: Mary was in India and married. Mamma had been quite unable to stand it by herself; and there was certainly no harm in her going to look up her two sons ... if only those two sons had not been such sharks. They were always wanting money: Aunt Adèle knew that from Elly and Lot.
Aunt Adèle finished what she had to do downstairs, spoke to the cook, locked the store-cupboard, smoothed a tablecloth here, put a chair straight there, so that she need not come down again and might have time to read Elly's letter to the old gentleman at her ease. He always liked hearing Elly's letters, because she wrote in a clever and sprightly style; they always gave him a pleasant morning; and he often read them over and over again after Aunt Adèle had read them out to him.
Aunt Adèle now went upstairs, glad at having the letter, and knocked at the door of the old gentleman's study. He did not answer and, thinking that he had gone to his bedroom, she moved on there. The door was open and she walked in. The door between the bedroom and the study was open and she walked in. The old man was sitting in his usual chair, in front of the writing-table.
He was asleep. He sat limply in his chair; and it struck her how very small he looked, as though he had shrunk in his sleep. His eyes appeared to be closed and his hand lay on an open drawer of his desk. A waste-paper-basket stood beside him; other papers and letters lay scattered over the table.
"He's asleep," she said to herself.